ccompanied with shock and outrage expressed by nampy-pamby New Age P.C. thugs across the country, the world learned last week of a group of ambitious and driven Northbrook, Illinois high school girls who take a genuine interest in school spirit and extra-curricular activities.

The "powderpuff football" game held Sunday, May 4, took on a decidedly un-powderpuff nature when the senior girls corralled the juniors into a group and began to splatter them with mud and human feces as part of a friendly hazing tradition. How they knew it was human feces and who identified it was not available information and asking the question only brought angry scowls from Cook County officials.

All girls involved reportedly knew the game would involve a hazing of the future seniors, but crybaby juniors alleged they had no idea the level of cruelty would be so high. Apparently kids today only know about initiation what they see on family-friendly high school shows like Seventh Heaven or something. This reporter would suggest girls on their way to a future initiation view fine hazing films like Full Metal Jacket or A Few Good Men. All in all, a typical end-of-school ritual gets a few more bruises and broken bones than planned, but anyone worried about our teens being slackers who let the future of America dribble down their legs while they watch Seventh Heaven found the news of the harsh initiation quite refreshing.

But the reaction of the PTA-whipped local school board and county officials? Criminal charges have been promised for the outgoing seniors involved in the incident. One group, however, has not lost perspective on the incident: Former Glenbrook North High School alumni.

"Sure, everybody knew what happened the last week of school," said Mitzi Burbank, class of 1993 and president of the Glenbrook North High reunion committee. "But everyone looked forward to it, like a rite of passage. Well, the juniors didn't. But they looked forward to it when they were seniors, the year after. It was tradition, and it was just so incredibly important to the students. Well, the seniors."

Class of 1995 Glenbrook North graduate Cindy DeSousa agreed.

"Oh, yeah, it was hell getting through it. I don't think we had any feces involved when I went through 'the gauntlet'… l'see, eggs, whipped cream, silly string—no, I think they missed the feces. But it sounds like a real sharp idea. Those girls really wanted to stand out from past classes!"

Other graduates, while admiring the girls' severe hazing, aren't admiring the incident's severity. Like Sue Gorton, class of 1955.

"I suppose it was bad, by today's standards," said Gorton, "but we had real wars and bloodshed back then, too. Hell, I know three or four juniors who didn't make it to senior year after their initiation—two went missing and one had a severe head injury that kept her in a coma until Woodstock. And we didn't just limit it to incoming senior girls either. We would haze some of the black students as well. They didn't go to our school, but that didn't mean we couldn't haze them."

Current Glenbrook North student and Class Treasurer Taylor Wick expressed support for the hazing as well.

"It's important to the social order to keep the hazing alive. If we don't have traditions to mark the change from underclass to ruling class, then it all starts to fall apart. Pretty soon people wouldn't even care what part of town you live in or what kind of clothes you're wearing. You know what they call that? Anarchy."

ollowing Tuesday's announcement by Elton John that he and Bernie Taupin would collaborate on a Broadway musical based on Anne Rice's Interview with a Vampire books, it was universally realized that a Broadway musical could be based on anything, no matter how stupid the idea. The notion, first proposed by the Broadway versions of Beauty & the Beast and The Lion King, inspired longtime commune reporter Ted Ted to announce Saturday he would create a musical based on the 1999 film The Blair Witch Project.

The Blair Witch Project, a documentary-style horror film featuring three Burkittsville, Maryland students' frightening encounter with a terrifying local legend, did not seem like an especially good musical show to Ted Ted, who was insistent on proving his point that people going to Broadway will sit through anything. Though not yet completed or started, the musical is in what Ted Ted describes as the "brainstorming" pre-production period, where he thinks of how to break up the movie into a two-act show and comes up with some dumb songs based on incidents in the movie.

Early work points to inclusion of a title song, sung by the Blair Witch character who does not appear in the original film, tentatively titled, "I'm the Blair Witch!" The song will be in the vein of the "You're a Mean One, Mr. Grinch" song from the good cartoon version of the Dr. Seuss How the Grinch Stole Christmas and not the pitiful Ron Howard/Jim Carrey movie version.

Also being considered for the Blair Witch Broadway play is a song for the scene where two of the young filmmakers are searching for their friend, which will probably be called simply, "Josh!" and be very much in the tradition of South Pacific or something really gay like that. Plans are also being developed for a long, sonorous ballad titled something like, "I'm So Scared" to be belted out by the lead female character.

The musical will probably not be very good, promised Ted Ted, but it will sell out instantly and run for a very long time on Broadway due to Ted Ted's plan to cast has-beens or one-hit musical wonders in the lead roles. Initially being considered for the three roles are Debbie Gibson, Jordan Knight, and Jesse Camp. Not being ruled out is the idea of inviting the three has-beens from the original film to reprise their roles in the Broadway show.

"The idea stems," explained Ted Ted, "from my deep, unrelenting contempt for Broadway and the shallow shells of human beings who put any trendy piece of garbage on the stage because idiots who think it makes them hip to be seen going to Broadway or who jump on big Broadway bandwagons will pay to see it. I utterly loathe and despise Broadway people, the lowest of the already-low grade of showbiz people."

Broadway people could not be reached for comment, given that Ted Ted did not bother to try.

That's the fact, jack. Given my recent falling out with Camembert and Lee's eternally-disappeared status as of late, I decided it's better to have my pride than a roof over my head. And if I can have neither, what with the extreme damage I did to the roof with my New Year's Eve fireworks show and my complete shame at being me, I'll at least not live under the roof with a card-carrying communist like Camembert. Actually, the card said Brown County Public Library, but if the free loaning of books to disabled people isn't an early sign of communism, I don't know what is.

"But Rok," you ignorantly begin, "if you're so anti-communist, why do you work for a place called the commune (lowercase intentional)?"

Christ, I never thought about it before. You confound me, wise imaginary talking-aloud reader. Oh, that's right, I have thought about it before. The rationale I came to was that I am the voice of dissent for this politically peculiar powwow of pundits. Any fool can see, as I easily do, that the commune is not strictly communist, though that Bludney Plud always seems to be going through everybody's desk like he believes in state ownership, him being the state. In practice the commune is merely a source of left-wing propaganda and seldom-reported news and fun conspiracy theories. What role does a mook like me have in a place like this? Simple. I provide the voice of the counter-culture, which is to say the Establishment, which is counter to this counter-culture, which makes me counter-culture here.

What happened? Oh, yes, I was discussing being homeless. I certainly know what those without homes are complaining about now. It is quite a scary experience for a guy like me, short, unattractive, but unquestioningly sexually alluring, to be out amongst the dregs of society without any walls separating them from me. Not to mention the experience of being pelted by water when it rains—or worse, when it doesn't.

Things are more difficult than in the past, the other times I've been unceremoniously thrown out of wherever I was living. Acting-Asshole Ramrod Hurley has instituted a ridiculous new policy of locking the doors when everyone leaves at night, so now I can't sleep in my desk anymore. I'm really, honest-to-God out on the streets again. For the first time.

Now, I'm a huge fan of Dickens like every other ancient person. But like railroad work, homelessness is only fun for spectators, not for participants. The sooner I can get into a place for living, a what do you call it, house or apartment, the better. Much like prison, I'm too delicate to survive on the streets. I would never consider something drastic like, say, prostitution, but I have been considering it lately. Still, I don't think it will come to that. No one in the world is mentally ill enough to pay me for sex.

I have asked Ramrod Hurley for an advance on my next paycheck, which is to say I've told him I need to be paid with money instead of Raleigh cigarette coupons from now on. When I have enough in the bank, the bank being my ragged slacks pockets, I will find an apartment and begin living there. It will be nice to be out on my own, inside again. No one but the desperately poor should be forced to live like this.

º Last Column: Lord of The Lord of the Rings
º more columns