Comic Relief Sends 10,000 Tons of Onions to Africa

November 24, 2003

Addis Abeba, Ethiopia

COMIC RELIEF

Comic Relief hosts Billy Crystal, Whoopi Goldberg and Robin Williams are busy planning the organizationâ€™s next benefit: Guns for Seniors

fter years of providing fart-powder-drenched meals for the homeless, the humanitarian organization Comic Relief completed its latest drive this month by sending huge quantities of useless onions and garnish to starving families in Africa, in what is believed to be the largest-ever gag gift in the history of charitable donations.

Comic Reliefâ€™s gift is thought to be the funniest aid Africa has received since the USA for Africa fundraiser in 1985 collected over $60 million to pay for mayonnaise and other highly-perishable foodstuffs to taunt the hungry of that famine-plagued continent.

â€œI remember seeing USA for Africa on the news back in 1985 and thinking â€˜Thatâ€™s fucking hilarious! Why didnâ€™t we think of that?â€™â€ remembers comedian and Comic Relief host Robin Williams. â€œThey got all these people to call in and pledge money, did the song and everything, and then they spent it all on shit that went bad in like twenty minutes! Then the real stroke of genius is when they put it trucks with bald tires and set them loose all over Africa to get stuck in the mud and capsize, and then the drivers ate most of the food. Too funny! I only hope weâ€™re remembered as well.â€

Comic Relief, founded in 1986 by comedian Bob Zmuda as a gut-busting way to help the homeless, sought in its 17th year to make a new splash by taking their â€œleave â€˜em laughingâ€ credo to an international level. Early indications are that this giving spirit is spreading, as Comedy Central has already pledged to match Comic Reliefâ€™s donations dollar-for-dollar, providing impoverished Africans with ketchup and A-1 sauce to go with their hilariously inedible feast of onions and garnish.

â€œAt first we were thinking of sending them some really nasty food, like liver or something, but then we realized that would just be mean,â€ explained comedian and Comic Relief regular Billy Crystal, whose humanitarian work has been funnier than his movies for years. â€œThey could actually eat that crap, and that wouldnâ€™t be funny, just sad. I mean, how would you like it if you were starving to death and some wiseass acts like heâ€™s being all generous, then gives you something gross your mom used to make you eat? Blech.â€

â€œIt was way funnier to just give them a shitload of onions, because what are they going to do with those? Theyâ€™re pretty good for seasoning other food, but what other food?â€ Crystal chuckled, shrugging his shoulders in a â€œWho knows?â€ gesture. â€œYou should have seen those guys when the trucks pulled up and all those onions came tumbling out the back! They kept waiting expectantly as each new truck pulled up, thinking one of them had to be the steak or French fries truck, but then each one would open up and it was â€˜Nope! More onions!â€™ Ha ha. Ahâ€¦ well, maybe you had to be there.â€

The presidents of Ethiopia, Zimbabwe and Nigeria issued a public thank you to Comic Relief last Thursday, praising the group for their giving hearts and strong sense of starvation-themed humor. The statement was followed by an expectant pause, as if the African leaders were each expecting Comic Relief to recognize their ability to appreciate a good joke and in turn reveal where the actual food was. All three were still waiting on stage when the Comic Relief representative in attendace sounded off an electric fart box, then in the ensuing commotion ducked out a back fire escape, leaving the building.

the commune news knows what its like to be hungry, which is why we keep starving people out of our staff pantry, since weâ€™ve learned the hard way that you canâ€™t trust a dying man around your Cheetos. Ivan Nacutchacokov has been sensitive to the plight of the hungry ever since his exposure to the game Hungry Hungry Hippos as a child, and as a result he always carries giant gumballs with him whenever heâ€™s on safari.

Experts Fear Extinction for Thousands of Bullshit Species

Useless animals clogging up earth, stealing resources from man

November 24, 2003

Geneva, Switzerland

Alton Onus

An anonymous nature freak makes a big fuss over one of the last remaining Sumatran drooling rhinos in existence

he Bornean junk monkey, Stevensons' slug, Malaysian sitting bird and the world's largest species of blind sea trout are in grave danger of extinction, the World Conservation Union warned an assemblage of world leaders on Tuesday to the sound of one tiny violin playing sarcastically. Also among the newly-threatened species nobody has ever heard of are the shovelnosed arctic frog, the smoke weasel, the Andean left-handed dolphin and the three-toed nervous elephant of lower Peru.

All are among 13,279 varieties critically endangered and possibly-imaginary animal, plant and water life precious to bleeding-heart liberals the world over. Many are new to this year's edition of the group's list, a yearly "wake-up call to the world" that unless serious changes are made to environmental policy, the earth's biodiversity might one day shrink to comprehensible levels.

This year's list, like all that came before it, has drawn a collective boo-hoo from the planet's human inhabitants.

"Excuse me, but what has the Columbian rice shrew ever done for me or my family?" questioned an indignant Don Cloyd from Williamsburg, Virginia. "My uncle lost a logging job because of some stupid owl that didn't want to live at a box at the zoo or something, so sorry if that ruined it for all the other creatures out there, but I still say animals that don't taste good can kiss my ass."

Various world leaders questioned about the organization's list issued similar mock-sincere statements, vowing to halt all future economic progress in order to make the world safe for such hilariously improbable creatures as the Chilean trouser trout and the loud Spanish jackass.

Over 762 animals have gone extinct worldwide since various governments and the NRA began keeping records in the 1600's. Among the beautiful creatures the earth will never again know are the Tittleosen snot sloth, the North American windshield sparrow and the sickly cave bear of Nepal.

Perhaps the most stirring symbol for lost species is the majestic dodo, a once-useless bird that wobbled off into the history books in the early 17th century when Dutch sailors visiting islands in the Indian Ocean discovered the birds, whose strange compulsion to hop into cooking pots and offer themselves up for soups and other entrees led quickly to their extinction.

According to the WCU, thousands more creatures will join these ranks shortly if steps are not taken to slow the destruction of their native habitats in industrialized and developing nations. Saddest of all may be the possible fate of the Scottish brownie hound, once numbering in the thousands but now thought to be down to the last one and a half specimens in existence. Even that shocking number is sinking fast as scientists are unsure of how long you can keep half a dog alive in a cooler full of ice.

In delivering the study to world leaders, WCU Director General Achim Steiner also pointed out the success of recent efforts to save formerly endangered species such as Arabian oryx and the white rhino, news which inspired several unimpressed heads of state to mouth the word "super" while mimicking the jerk-off motion with their hands.

the commune news is personally responsible for eradicating three species of roadside badgers, but if nature didn't see fit to outfit them with reflective pelts we don't see fit to mourn their fender-denting passing. Ted Ted is officially considered an endangered species whenever he wanders into a lesbian bar, a dangerous clash of habitats conservation experts are working hard around the clock to prevent.

Mark Buckles Some Sort of Cockwad

Everyone kind of a little relieved Bob Hope finally dead

Yale bombed, Harvard too drunk to walk home

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

November 24, 2003

Libel Maker

Hold onto your asses, 'cause this is craziness in peak: I'm being sued.

Right, me. I thought as a legal requirement to be sued you have to have money. Apparently something has changed in the Constitution. Let this be a lesson to everyone, you got to read the Constitution once every few years to see if it's been altered or replaced. Not all of us individually, that would be outrageous. We should all just select one person a year to read it, starting in reverse alphabetical order. Then that guy gets on the internet and tells us what's been taken out and revised. And hopefully no one will figure out by the time it rolls around to me I'll be a hundred-something or dead.

None of this helps. But it helps to complain about the Constitution when you're pissed off.

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Milestones

1961: Cuban immigrant Lazlo Homales buries a small change purse in a remote section of upstate New York. Over 40 years later, commune reporter Ivan Nacutchacokov finds the purse with a metal detector, andâ€”what the crap, two dollars?? Lousy poor immigrants!

Now Hiring

Hall Monitor. Duties include asking to see hall passes, looking like an authority figure and keeping the unpopular commune staff members out of the staff lounge. Good grades a plus.

Top Eric Rudolph Hiding Places

1.	Rabbit's house.
2.	Worked at an Arby's for a while.
3.	Inside Laura Bush's vagina.
4.	Star of an ABC sitcom.
5.	North Carolina. Nobody ever looks there.

Jackson Alleges Reverse Racism

BY french hammond blister

11/24/2003

How to Write a Contrived Novel
Verbs. Nouns. Direct objects. Pro-Nouns. Indirect objects. These are friend to the aspiring contrived novelist.

But writing is more than a mish-mash of words formed into sentences, then into paragraphs, then back into sentences for dialogue. All culminating in "The End." It is more than an exploration of language, of culture, of self, a fascinating journey through your own self-conscience meant to make you a better person. More than all this, even more than an intriguing story and fresh characters. Writing is a short ride to a big fat check.

For centuries authors existed entirely by the good graces of the wealthyâ€”patrons of the rich, writing exactly what they wanted for one particular audience. Writing was an act of compromise to satisfy the whim of a deman...

Verbs. Nouns. Direct objects. Pro-Nouns. Indirect objects. These are friend to the aspiring contrived novelist.

But writing is more than a mish-mash of words formed into sentences, then into paragraphs, then back into sentences for dialogue. All culminating in "The End." It is more than an exploration of language, of culture, of self, a fascinating journey through your own self-conscience meant to make you a better person. More than all this, even more than an intriguing story and fresh characters. Writing is a short ride to a big fat check.

For centuries authors existed entirely by the good graces of the wealthyâ€”patrons of the rich, writing exactly what they wanted for one particular audience. Writing was an act of compromise to satisfy the whim of a demanding and imbecilic blueblood. That was a sweet deal. But that time has gone by, and to make a fortune in the modern age the modern novelist mustn't compromise himself for any single individual, but bunches of them. The book-buying public.

The beginning to every good book is a winning idea. An idea someone thinks is worth publishing. People ask us all the time, "Where do you get ideas?" Screw you, hobo, we're not telling you the source of our goldmine. Get a job already. But if you have a place to get ideas from, especially ideas you could turn into a book, even better a bestselling book idea, jump on it!

It's not as hard as you might think. You see authors all the time who are struck by the muse, punched in the balls and thrown by the stairs by inspiration, and they come up with a brilliant can't-miss idea people find genuinely interesting. We hate these people. Luckily, people also by books with lame, repetitive stories and paper-thin characters you can toss out in ten seconds. In fact, most of the publishing world exists entirely on these books. And you can easily be one of their authors.

One good way of finding the perfect idea for your trite novel is to take your favorite book and re-write it with your own disappointing characters. Love Jane Eyre? Write your own historical romance and diatribe on the role of women in Victorian England! Make her an exciting well-read debutante instead of a frumpy governess, and turn that subtle discourse on feminism into modern catchphrases and moralizing. People will eat it up. Or maybe you're a fan of 1984, but you find it horribly depressing. What would happen if Winston Smith got tired of taking orders from Big Brother and started kicking some major butt? Hmm? Now you've got a bestseller!

It doesn't have to be stealing someone else's creative idea, if that's not your style. It doesn't have to be creative at all. Take a familiar literary situation, like a neurotic thinly-disguised version of yourself returning home to your dysfunctional family. Not only is it a critical favorite, but you can delude yourself into thinking it's therapeutic. Save on shrink bills and throw in some psycho-babble you found on the web and you've written one smartâ€”if triteâ€”book!

Don't think it's easy to write a novel just because it's crap, though. It's still hard work. You have to write hundreds of sentences, one after the other, and when you think you've written enough you still have to write the easiest ending you can think of, or borrow it from someone else. Then we get into the next part of it allâ€”publishing! That'll take up the remaining 287 pages of this book.

For more of this great non-fiction, buy French Hammond and Teddy Eddie Blister's
How to Write a Contrived Novel