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December 23, 2002   
Where the customer is always... riiiiight.
homecommune news20,000 Seats Beneath the League with Stan AbernathieOr So You Thought with Red BagelBook RevoltBoris is Gay with Boris UtzovMy Friend Polio with Omar BricksMy Dearest Deidrebane with Carlisle P. ChesterfeldChild Star with Clarissa ColemanThe Best of Joel DickmanNo Shit? with Griswald DreckOne Sane Man with Raoul DunkinEditorial CartoonsFanmail from Some Flounders: Letters to the EditorGiving You the Finger with Rok FingerThe Hanes Identity with Mickey HanesSampson L. Hartwig RemembersShort ‘N’ Sweet with Stan HooperPoop of the Century with Ramrod HurleyAmerican Jesus with Mitch KroegerYou Can’t Win with Alamo CruiseFortune 500 Cookies with Mazie the ChickenManifestos of FunMe Chinese with Ned NedmillerSittin’ Around the Pickle Barrel with Shorty and JeterPoetry CoronerEntertainment Police: Movie and Television ReviewsThis Space for Rent: Guest ColumnistsGlass Ceiling Fan with Thelma ReynoldsClarise Sickhead’s Bedtime StoriesGoddammit! with Ted TedReflections of a Goocher with Stu UmbrageThe World Vs. Homer Vanslykecommune Club with Emil Zender

Sales of Crappy Christmas Gifts Reach Record High

If it's lame and cheap, you're getting it for Christmas
December 23, 2002
U.S.A.
Snapper McGee
Actually, the Grandpa shirt is starting to look pretty good in comparison.
A
collective Charlie Brown-style "Auuuuugh!" sounded around the world upon the release of the newest economy figures Friday. In addition to the disappointing early returns for the Christmas season, and spending figures falling below already-low projections, initial reports suggest that one industry not suffering this year is lousy Christmas gifts.

Lousy Christmas gifts, a sub-industry all its own, is notorious for maintaining steady sales from year to year, apparently never suffering from the effects of recession. However, 2003 marks the first year, if early indicators are correct, that crappy Christmas gifts will actually be on the uprise.

"The old adage about the recession," said some hobo who claimed to have a background in economics as we fed him a can of cre...Read more...

Red Bagel: You the Man of the Year

commune Editor receives not-at-all-staged award for fourth time
December 23, 2002
New York City, New York
Bagel's Mom
It's a shame he's never been photographed more than once.
I
n a tearful ceremony held in his apartment, Red Bagel accepted his fourth consecutive "You the Man of the Year" Award for all of his efforts in whatever it is that he does.

"It's a great honor, and a welcome surprise that I receive this award," said Bagel, in a speech possibly plagiarized from one of this three previous speeches. "As the creator of the Yitmotty, I understand what it truly means to everyone, especially me. And that makes it mean all the more to receive this for the fourth time."

The YTMOTY (or "Yitmotty," as has never caught on with anyone but Bagel) ceremony doubled as a going-away party for departing Editor Bagel, who goes on to do whatever a sick person with delusions of grandeur does on his sabbatical, taking possible mummy Sampson L. Hartwig...Read more...

Study finds low I.Q. causes lead paint eating, not other way around



December 23, 2002
Click for Biography

'Tis the Season for Gifts with No Pleasin'

the commune's Rok Finger is wrapped up and under your tree
Rok Finger's shopping list is full to bursting this year, like my bladder. This time last year I was a different man, though both of us the same height and with the same hideous facial features, and I bought only a few gifts, for my wife, Arvelyn, my cat, Makeshift, and the handful of bastard children I have spread across America like Jenna Jameson.

This year is a different story, though the similarities to the plays of Neil Simon are strong enough to invoke copyright-infringement issues; this year I've had to fall back on my friends, both at my new apartment home and here at the commune offices, so it's safe to say I have a long Christmas list this year.

I've never been good at Christmas shopping. In fact, a dispute over whether or not I owed my first wife of 3...Read more...

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Milestones
2002: Poet Violet Tiara turns 16 and is a little disappointed by her gift of a Saturn when she had been hoping for a hammock of moonbeams or a tumor full of love.
Now Hiring
Director of Office Security. Traditional ideas of increasing manpower and investigating odd events not necessary. Must be able to design colorful charts and randomly pick levels of security intensity.
Least Effective SARS Protective Efforts
1.Stop breathing
2.Fire handgun blindly at coughs
3.Smoking deceased SARS victims
4.Wave hand, say "Don't go in Toronto! Whew!"
5.Drinking imported Hong Kong bathwater
Last IssueLast Issue’s Lead News Story

Records Indicate Strom Thurmond Died in 1982

View Past Columns
BY roland mcshyster
12/9/2002
Hello, Young America! Time to saddle up and get on the Entertainment Train one more time, and this time we're going to ride it all the way to Not Wasting Your Money City. I hope you brought plenty of trail mix and travel Yahtzee and stuff, because… have you ever ridden on a train before? Talk about slow. I mean the director's cut of a DOGME film slow. You'd think in this day and age they could kick it in the ass with some rocket boosters or wings or likewise for the trains, but train people are like some weird branch of the Amish or something—totally resistant to change. So you can thank your lucky ass we're not actually getting on a real train and I'm just being colorful in my language. Let's get on to the movies:


In TheatersRead more...