merica awoke this week to find itself trapped in a shitty Groundhog Day nightmare, thanks to a recent AP poll showing that if the election were held today, President Bush and Democratic candidate John Kerry would tie, with human Muppet Ralph Nader playing the spoiler once again by garnering 6 percent of the vote. These results were eerily and shittily similar to the 2000 Presidential election, when Bush won despite losing the popular vote, thanks in part to Nader siphoning off liberal voters and Bush’s brother Jeb taking a big, wet crap on the Constitution to ensure his brother would carry the crucial state of Florida.

Within moments of the Associated Press poll results being made public, Americans everywhere were comparing their feelings of nauseating year-2000 déjà vu to the 1993 Harold Ramis film Groundhog Day, in which Bill Murray plays a news weatherman doomed to repeat the same day over and over again until he gets it right. How this phenomenon might be possible for an entire nation on a four-year scale is not yet understood, though faerie magic has yet to be completely disproved. Regardless of the cause, non-Republicans everywhere agree that America needs to make some kind of major soul-searching change to prevent waking up in 2005 to hear “I Got You Babe� playing on clock radios across the country.

“Fuck! FUCK! FUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK!!� fumed an epileptically frustrated Democratic National Committee Chairman Terry McAuliffe upon hearing the results of the poll, a replay of the 2000 election searing his brain stem like a cattle brand. Similar sentiments echoed across the nation this week as Democrats and the non-rich envisioned a bizarre replay of the last presidential election, with Gore being swapped out for Democratic nominee John Kerry like some kind of bad Hollywood script for a time-traveling comedy.

“I don’t know if Kerry will be able to pull off what Gore did,� mused confident-sounding political pundit Prance Nancley. “Al Gore could have won that election in his sleep, after all he was running against a Mr. Potato Head doll. But Gore still somehow managed to drop the ball and kick it all the way down the street, allowing so-called adult George W. to sneak into the White House while the door was ajar and Gore was off looking for his ball. I don’t think Kerry has that kind of comedy in him. He is rather dull.�

Still, the possible scenario of an election repeat has haunted more than a few Democrat dreams this week, with Kerry taking the place of Gore as the respectable, though thoroughly boring democratic hopeful who somehow loses to Bush on a technicality, after Florida’s governor declares that blacks don’t have the right to vote in his state any more.

The lone encouraging note in all this is that according to the same AP poll, politics aren’t the only area in which America is trapped in a loop of déjà vu, as the AP cites “current� top-grossing films The Grinch, Cast Away and Mission Impossible 2, and has ‘N Sync, Santana and Eminem topping the album charts, which clearly isn’t true.

Is it?

ccording to director Mel Gibson, film critics from across the nation have proven their fealty with the dark lord Satan by panning his latest film The Passion of the Christ, a gruesome religious horror flick released to overwhelmingly negative critical response last week. This novel reaction to film criticism has raised questions nationwide over whether the 48-year-old actor and filmmaker is merely berserkly fanatical, or just completely insane. Not helping Gibson's cause is the director's non-figurative conviction that Satan tried to keep his film from being made, and might have succeeded if not for the intervention of the Holy Ghost. Unfortunately for Gibson, the Holy Ghost was unable to prevent Satan from pointing out to film critics the film's turgid tone, plodding pacing, uneven characterization and excessively pointless violence.

"They are the forces of Satan or the dupes of Satan," Gibson offered charitably, giving non-fans the choice of being either evil or stupid.

"Holy shit was that a bad movie," disagreed Satan's minion Elvis Mitchell of the New York Times, who must've been typing his review while drenched in lamb's blood. "That piece of shit was worse than We Were Soldiers."

The film opened to sellout crowds after months of speculation that it was going to be really offensive to Jews, generated by Gibson cashing in on his "Jews Killed Jesus" Catholic offshoot faith and his father's reputation as a notorious Holocaust denier to market the film with the catchy tagline "The Jews Hate It," despite the fact that no religious groups had seen or commented on the film at that point.

In interviews, Gibson has explained that his Traditionalist Catholic faith, which rejects the Vatican's exoneration of the Jewish race for the death of Christ, grows from his bond with his father Hutton Gibson. In either a brilliant marketing ploy or disturbing evidence of inner turmoil, Gibson's answers to requests to clarify his own stance on the Holocaust have been rambling and evasive.

Unable to go five whole minutes without saying something unnervingly kooky, however, Gibson's response to New York Times writer Frank Rich's article pointing out that the director was inventing nonexistent Jewish outrage to market his film was like something straight out of The Passion itself. "I wanted to kill him. I want his intestines on a stick. I want to kill his dog." Luckily for Gibson, from all reports Rich's dog is one of those "turn the other cheek" sorts who is unlikely to accuse the director of speaking for Satan.

The relentlessly masochistic tone of Gibson's film has caused some to ponder the director's obsession with torture, as evidenced by the mandatory torture sequences contained in nearly every film in which Gibson has appeared. From being electrocuted in Lethal Weapon and drawn and quartered in Braveheart, Gibson even went so far as to insist on adding an unscripted toe-smashing scene to Brian Helgeland's Payback. Though he was unsuccessful in similar attempts to add a testicular electrocution scene to the chickflick hit What Women Want, it was not for lack of trying.

Meanwhile, The Passion's large opening box office is sure to inspire imitators, and early word that such knock-offs as The Passion of the Weekend at Bernie's and Friday the 13th XI: Run, Jesus, Run are already in the works. Additional reports hint at an upcoming franchise of movies where Belgian marshal arts expert Jean-Claude Van Damme will beat the shit out of Jesus for two hours in various exotic locales. Whether the makers of those films will be able to pull off Gibson's brass-balled bluster, claiming that critics of The Passion's blitzkrieg of violence are merely deficient in character and unable to handle the power of his flawless cinema, may well depend on how closely they can duplicate that crazy look in his eyes.

Good morning world, I am the one and only Mickey Hanes. Who the hell is Mickey Hanes, you ask?

Well, that's a question for the ages, but it's not important right now. What is important is how I came to learn of the commune.

I was quietly sleeping in front of an old laundry mat one night when I awoke to the sound of screeching tires and shattered glass. I wasn't sure if I was having an acid flashback or not, but either way some asshole had driven his car right into the laundry mat. But the thing that really got my attention was that this crazy bastard had parked right next to one of the standup arcade games, and he was playing it from the driver's seat.

At this point I really wanted to just go back to sleep and pretend that nothing happened, but fat chance of that. The sirens in the background told me it would be in my best interest to stick around and watch this terrible first act play out.

In a flash the fuzz was on that place like Haitians on a suckling pig. One of the cops was yelling through a megaphone, shouting some insane jabber about what the "hijacker" wanted. The front seat gamer replied that he wanted to be left the fuck alone so that he could beat the high score, and that they were breaking his goddamned concentration. That was all the cops needed to hear, and in a heartbeat that place was full of more tear gas that the Columbine senior prom. I quickly discovered I'd been ripped off: my sleeping bag made for a shitty force field. Word to the wise, never trust the claims of a guy named Denny who sells sleeping bags out of the back of his truck.

Anyways, to make a long story shorter, the dude in the car was Omar Bricks, a supposed columnist for "the commune." Whatever the hell that is. While the cops were writing up his traffic fine, he jumped up on the hood of his car and started pissing in one of the open dryers nearby. Moved by his obvious disregard for public safety and defiance of authority, I seized the opportunity to take a shit on the front seat of an abandonded cop car, which turned out later not to have been abandoned. I was trying to force myself to vomit into the gas tank when the cops finally noticed me, and before I could say "I plead the fifth," I had the handcuffs on as well.

The car ride to "the big house" wasn't as bad as I had pictured it. Omar and I laughed about better days, especially after we ate the small bag of mushrooms I had stashed in my sock, fucking pigs. I laughed the hardest, knowing my personal midget manservant, Nevil, who I'd left behind in my backpack at the crime scene, was in hot pursuit and coming to our rescue. At least… I think he was… Jesus those mushrooms were strong.

Long story short about the midget, I found Nevil one day while rummaging through a garbage can behind a Chinese restaurant downtown. I saved him, not in the religious sense but more like how you stuff a midget into a duffel bag for later use, that kind of saving. And from that day on I fed him, trained him, and I taught Nevil to follow my every order without question, upon pain of death. Oh yeah, and to come save me from trouble when I blow on this dog whistle.

So back to the car ride. Where was that fucking midget anyway? "Fuck him if he thinks he's getting any crackers for this rescue," I thought out loud. Then suddenly, like a bolt of miniature lightning, Nevil was on the windshield of the cop car and was giving it everything he had. The cop never knew what brand of midget fury hit him, that little fireball performed like a monkey at an orgy. He was hooting and hollering, making obscene finger gestures... I've never felt so proud. I turned to Omar to let him know the midget was with me, but he was laughing so hard he threw up all over the cop.

Coincidentally, around that time we swerved off the road and hit a telephone pole. The pig was unconscious, and moments later Nevil had chewed through our restraints. Freedom! Omar thanked me as he hopped on the next pickup truck out of there, off to hotwire his car from the impound lot. For such a daring escape, Nevil seemed quite composed, and for his bravery I decided to award him with the pack of crackers that I had in my pocket. Good work, midget.

You would really be surprised at how handy it is to have a midget sidekick. There's only one real downside: you'd never believe how hard it is to keep a pair of socks on one of those fucking things. It's like they don't want to be comfortable!

So that's my story. Well, one of them anyways, but that's for another time.

I always like to go out with a toast, so grab your glass of whatever it is you squares drink.

Here's to you, and here's to me
Hoping that we all agree
That if ever we should disagree
To hell with you, and here's to me!
GOODNIGHT!

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