espite sounding like a hilarious urban legend, a recently published biography of American actor John Wayne has revealed compelling evidence that Russian dictator and mustache enthusiast Joseph Stalin attempted to have Wayne killed on several occasions in the 1940's. Evidence suggests that Wayne's passionate anti-communist stance infuriated the dictator, whose commitment to going totally batshit in the later years of his reign found him at odds with the American icon.

Several unorthodox attempts were made on Wayne's life during the 1940's and early 1950's, when Stalin ordered Russian spies dressed as FBI agents to kill Wayne by serving him a blueberry sandwich.

"Stalin was terrified of blueberries," commune research editor Griswald Dreck explains. "The KGB wanted to off Wayne by strangling him with piano wire or planting an explosive belt buckle in his wardrobe, but Stalin considered blueberries to be far more deadly. Needless to say, it both angered and terrified him when Wayne thought the sandwich was delicious and sent his agents out to get another one. That's when Stalin started turning to voodoo, since Wayne was obviously some kind of supernatural deity."

Unfortunately for fans of espionage humor, Stalin's various attempts to kill Wayne, including incidents involving a large safe dropped from a high-rise building and enough chili powder put in Wayne's food to cause him to butt-scoot all the way to Mexico while swearing in Spanish, came to an end with the dictator's death in 1953. Stalin was succeeded by Nikita Krushchev, a Wayne fan who bonded with the Duke (born Marion Morrison in 1907) over both of them having to act tough in spite of having really girly names.

Krushchev even met with Wayne in 1958 to reassure the star that Russia's bumbling attempts to kill him had been called off, though he did advise Wayne to be wary of Stalin loyalists who might still attempt to pillow-fight him to death. He also warned the star not to use any toothpaste that smelled like hemorrhoid cream, another common Stalin-era assassination tactic. Wayne was reportedly a little disappointed by the news, since dodging inept Russian assassins over the years had replaced golf as his favorite hobby.

Previously unpublished excerpts from Stalin's diaries indicate the many and varied fantasies the Russian leader indulged concerning Wayne's death. One of the most memorable involves a quick-draw shootout on the streets of Dodge City, where an impeccably dressed Stalin out-draws the Duke and Wayne's gun fails to fire, instead spitting out a little flag that says "ÂÄ�ÓÃ!"

For more on Joseph Stalin, Griswald Dreck recommends reading the biography "Stalin: The 'Crazier Than a Pope Streaking Through Harlem' Years" once it has been written and published.

merican forces and the new Iraqi regime took another blow this week when Saddam loyalists hidden on the outskirts of Baghdad took responsibility for the disastrous Ben Affleck-Jennifer Lopez film, Gigli. The film, a reputedly putrid and cloying pairing of America's hottest celebrity couple under the helm of Scent of a Woman director Martin Brest, has been universally blasted as one of the worst movies in recent history. Which is saying quite a lot.

In a short statement on a video tape released to Al Jazeera, a ventriloquil figure purported to be Saddam Hussein credited the bomb, detrimental to the careers of Affleck, Lopez, Brest, and anyone else who touched it, to the movement of Saddam Hussein loyalists.

"The capitalist pig culture has been punished by Allah for its excesses in the most fitting fashion imaginable. We of the Iraqi regime loyalists claim full responsibility for this catastrophe. A strike to the heart of America in the name of Allah! The next time imperialists seek to meddle in the affairs of the Middle East, watch the critically impaired dialogue and undigestable chemistry forced upon your citizens."

Spokesmen for the U.S. government and Hollywood alike allege Saddam loyalists are trying to put the American public to fear, taking credit for a natural disaster they had nothing to do with, and assure the populace that Middle Eastern terrorist groups do not have the capability to sign big stars into bombs and weaken scripts or mis-edit major productions. Others defend the movie as "not that bad."

Despite the assurances of the government and celebrity authorities that Gigli is a misfire of a few studio producers and not the work of anti-American fanatics, the media has latched onto the claim and begun to question other recent disasters. While reasonably convinced Al-Qaeda or other anti-American groups are not responsible for northeastern power outages, leading media outlets are asking if Osama bin Laden may have been responsible for failed Julia Roberts-Brad Pitt vehicle The Mexican. Some postulate the film was much better and ruined by bin Laden or associates, who then refused to take responsibility for it when it turned out too atrocious.

Hollywood watchdog website www.stargaze.com has taken the bold step of suggesting Saddam loyalists, linked to Al-Qaeda, have carried out the most disastrous summer box office bombing of all time in the summer of 2003. From digital debacle The Hulk, all the way back to the underwhelming The Matrix Reloaded, the onslaught of movies that have failed to hold the number one slot or in any way live up to audience expectations has been too perfectly a Hollywood failure to be chalked up to poor studio executives and directors too apt to insult the intelligence of mainstream America. According to the website, Gigli is merely the capper designed to forever disillusion American movie-goers after the disappointing blitz of Charlie's Angels Full Throttle, Terminator 3, American Wedding, and Hollywood Homicide.

"Celebrity mismatches, cul-de-sac scripts, sequels we never asked for to movies that weren't that good to begin with," the website claimed, "this is nothing like the Hollywood we've come to know and love. They have either thrown in with the America haters in the Middle East or are the dupes of spies and con-men trying to unravel the fabric of our celluloid culture."

The investigators at www.stargaze.com stated they would reward any evidence providing a link between Al-Qaeda and the AOL-Time-Warner, and planned a three-part study next to examine the role of terrorists in the music industry since 1997.

Dear commune:

Maybe you can settle a bet for my buddy Steve and me. Say two guys are shocking each other in the nutsack with a cattle prod, with the agreement that whoever passes out first loses the bet and has to buy the other guy some chili fries, right? Okay, now if you shock Steve in the nuts and he screams like a girl so loud that you pass out from surprise, do you still lose the bet even though you never got your nuts shocked? Steve thinks you do, but I think he’s full of shit and has been sitting on a bag of ice too long. Is the commune a bunch of lesbo-bangers from the Steve camp or do you see my point?

Sincerely,
Artie Duchamp
Flatskull, NJ



Dear Artie:

Cattle prods? What are you guys, a couple of seven-year-old girls in floral-patterned dresses at a tea party? You sure you guys aren’t pulling our legs? Because we doubt you really have the nuts to shock, nice try ladies. Any two guys who were really serious about a snack-bar wager like that would take turns stuffing their nuts into a power outlet, and the first one who’s blown out the window loses. "Passing out" is pussyese for feinting, as any southern debutante knows. Quit wasting the commune’s time and write us back when you have some local press clippings to enter as evidence.

the commune

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Editor’s Note: the commune is not responsible for any property or nutsack damage caused by the commune’s own brand of dubious advice. By reading this website you have agreed to the legal release that is encoded, Beautiful Mind-style, randomly throughout the site’s text and images. And just try to disprove that, brainiac.

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