amn, sweetie, if that run-of-the-mill tropical storm named Frances wasn't put in her place by muy caliente meteorologist Brittany Vance. The hurricane, which had been labeled an up-and-coming "Category 1" before the brutal telling-off, shrunk to a Category 2 and skittered up the east coast of the United States, humiliated and told.

It was a sensational victory for Hollywood Channel 5 weather woman and atmospheric wonder Brittany Vance, who made headlines in July, 2003 when she intimidated the hell out of Hurricane Claudette, and frightened the crazy bitch-storm out of even coming to Florida. Vance, however, couldn't save the Texas coastline, but—what the hell. It was Texas, it should have been tough enough to take a little roughing up.

Vance failed to come to the rescue of Florida in previous weeks, during the advent of Hurricane Charley, as the meteorologist was taking some "me time" in Costa Rica. Upon returning to the states, she made a pledge to help cover Florida against the most recent oncoming tropical storm. Other meteorologists hauled ass out of the panhandle state, along with 2.5 million of the population, when they learned a second hurricane was already bearing down on them. Two hurricanes within the same month might suggest Florida should think more carefully about who they elect president this year, if they want the Almighty to lay off them.

Despite the massive evacuation, and Governor Jeb's declaration of a state of emergency, Vance interceded early enough to put the verbal snap to the emotionally-fragile hurricane and take the wind most literally out of it.

"You think you're all that," Vance told the hurricane via live broadcast Friday night. "More like all pap—you heard what I said, Ms. Thang. Take that pitiful breeze of yours and blow on out of here already."

The hurricane showed immediate response, gusting vehemently in defiance, but barely disguising a shrill whistle that sounded much like crying.

"Oh, you're something alright," continued Vance, snapping her fingers. "Something I'd scrape off my shoe—mm-hmm! I told you once, you worn-out bitch, come around here with that tacky hundred-mile-an-hour wind, you so much as muss up my hair and I'll make you sorry. I've had farts that have done more damage, you ten-cent hurricane ho."

Satellites monitoring the storm detected an instantaneous change in direction, as well as a "settling down" of the played-out hurricane as it attempted to discreetly make its way for the Carolina coasts, like it had been planning to go there the whole time, yeah, sure.

Characteristically, Vance showed no signs of modesty in her handling of the pathetic "draft."

"Hmph. I ain't even referring to that bitch by her name, she ain't worth drawling that name out. I did her like I do any trumped-up light rain slut who thinks she's all that. Sit down, skank, Brittany's talking now. That's like I told her."

Floridians reluctantly returned to the state Monday morning, although a shopping spree by Vance had actually done $8.3 million in damages, qualifying the state for disaster aid.

mboldened by the recent broad-daylight swiping of legendary Norwegian artist Edvard Munch’s famous paintings The Scream and Madonnas from Oslo, Norway’s Munch Museum (which is a terrible place to wander into stoned, but a hilarious name for a museum regardless of whether you pronounce it “Munch� or “Munk�), thieves in New York this week made off with The Turd, a controversial piece of conceptual art that was until very recently housed in the Museum of Modern Art in downtown Manhattan.

Upon hearing that there had been a daring daylight heist at the MoMA, terrified museum officials initially feared the worst.

“I almost shit my pants,� admitted curator Vaughn Cammels. “They could have made off with a Van Gogh, Monet or Picasso, priceless artworks which never could have been replaced. Those first few seconds were like a mini-nightmare.�

The missing piece, valued by museum officials as “impossible to sell,� consisted of a white porcelain turd on a dinner plate. Some museum employees were relieved to find out that R.H. Hiddelstein’s obscure piece of protest art from 1982 had been stolen, rather than one of the museum’s many easier-to-appreciate masterworks. Though understandably distraught over the theft, many have been looking at the bright side, pointing out that they can finally clean that spot on the wall. For years, few had dared to move The Turd, because none could tell if it was really porcelain or just a real turd painted white.

When asked what police were doing to catch the crooks, police chief Harold Almney insisted that the case had been given appropriate priority and that the police would start at nothing to bring these crooks to justice.

“The Turd is a crucial piece in understanding the development of modern sculpture,� explained art historian Checky Brazelton. “Without it, we would never have been blessed with any of the several related masterpieces that followed, including Bradnell’s Lung Chunk or Dolenski’s Snot on Toast. This is a major loss for the art community.�

“The what?� queried a surprised Lindsay Sommers, an intern at the MoMA. “Somebody stole that thing? I was using it as an ashtray on my breaks.�

Irregardless of the opinion of some part-time art critics, the artist Hiddelstein has been distraught since learning of the theft, vowing not to rest and planning to leave work on his latest sculpture-in-progress, the man-sized Shithead, on hiatus until the bandits can be brought to justice.

“You cannot understand my pain unless you have ever lost a child,� explained Hiddelstein after this reporter suggested he could knock out another piece comparable to The Turd if given twenty minutes and a plate of bran muffins. When asked if he wasn’t just being pretentious, Hiddelstein answered with a piece of interpretive dance that was way over the commune’s head.

When asked why the thieves left numerous priceless works of art hanging on the walls while making off with Hiddelstein’s obscure piece, authorities speculate that the thieves may have been either huge Hiddelstein fans, complete art novices, or just absolute morons. Others have speculated that the thieves came for a Van Gogh or Monet, but panicked when the non-silent alarms went off and grabbed The Turd in a hurry on their way out the door, so as not to leave empty-handed. However, a thorough inspection of the dumpsters outside surrounding buildings failed to lend credence to this theory.

“This is the new face of modern art theft,� explained face of modern art theft expert Carson Faulkner. “It’s brash, in-your-face, and usually pretty stupid. No longer are we living in the days of your father’s art thief, a suave motherfucker squeezing in through some high window with suction cups sewn into his gloves, limboing his way through a maze of laser tripwires and slipping a priceless masterpiece out if its frame using a high-tech black-market silica spray. Now it’s just a couple of retards barging in with a shotgun and making off with whatever’s easiest to carry, even if it’s a worthless piece of modern shwag or the trashcan over by the men’s room. It’s sad, really.�

Until new leads materialize, local authorities are scanning art auction listings for mention of the sculpture, and keeping an eye on eBay in case the thieves get really desperate. While there are several turds currently for sale on the auction site, and liberal examples of bad modern art, none yet appear to be the missing piece.

It's always heartbreaking when somebody you care about goes missing. Like your kid gets eaten by gypsies or your husband falls off a boat or some shit, I don't know, all that Lifetime movie of the week noise probably blows hard. But hard as that may eat it, what really pokes a stink finger into the plum pie is when a band you're really into disappears with no explanation, without even the courtesy to go down in a spectacular plane wreck that's easy to remember when you're wondering about when their next album is going to be coming out.

Now that the story's been appropriately set-up and all, I can slap the beef on the bun: my friend Jake bet me ten bucks last week that I couldn't bring Guns N' Roses out of hiding to make another album. It was a tall order, sure, since the band is likely trapped in a series of cages somewhere, decorating the home of some Panamanian drug lord by now. But ten bucks is ten bucks, and more importantly, there was the Bricks pride on the line. The last time that happened, I ended up getting busted at customs with a mouth full of endangered condor eggs and a recipe book for omelettes in my back pocket. So you just know I wasn't going to just let this slide over some hair band that got lost on their way to a string of career-ending drug overdoses.

Before I even start to tell the story, let me make it clear that I'm not some desperate, obsessed GNR fan who was willing to risk it all because I can't sleep at night wondering what could have come after The Spaghetti Incident. That's Jake to a tee, but he's got allergies that prevent him from going on any kind of band-reuniting adventure. Me? Would I piss on the band if I found them on fire? Probably. If I had to go. But I wouldn't stand there chugging apple juice just to make it happen. I thought the band was fine, and I'll admit that "Welcome to the Jungle" single-handedly made the few hockey games I've been to tolerable. But Omar Bricks prefers a bit less cock in his rock, and regardless, these last few years I've been leaning toward less-predictable musical enjoyments, like bootleg tapes of shootouts at jazz clubs or insane people playing the Autoharp. Hey, like they say, whatever floats your boat, and I'm courteous enough not to point out the fact that your boat's floating in shit.

Once the bet was made, I headed straight out the door of Jake's house, which I think weirded him out a little since we were supposed to hang out. But Omar Bricks wastes no time when it comes to winning bets. If Slash or Duff or that blonde drummer dude were tied up in the trunk of a car at that very moment as it crept across the Mexican border under the cover of night, then every second could count. Plus, Jake's kind of a dork and it was a good excuse to get out of spending the rest of the night drinking lukewarm beer and playing Cock Rock Trivial Pursuit. When that's the alternative, every second really does count.

I started my search at the most likely place: the morgue. You know you need an appointment at that place? No shit, you can't just walk in and start opening drawers like they do in the movies. Fuck that bullshit. I decided you only really need an appointment if you're too fat to wriggle in through the window in the bathroom. I guess that's a disincentive to keep out the necrophiliacs, since I don't think anybody could fit through that little window with a hard-on.

In case you were ever wondering, you can see some shit at the morgue. You ever seen that movie Stand by Me? Well fuck that, this place is like the McDonalds of dead bodies. They've got them lying all over the place. And you don't have to walk half a day or bond with any little kids to make it happen, which is a bonus.

Lesson learned on this whole adventure: I pulled a boner by trying to go the legal route the first time around, signing in and all that, and completely ruined what would have been an awesome recreation of the Nuremberg trials using cadavers dressed in outfits from the janitor's closet. Even though I'd gone to the car for a ballcap disguise before wriggling through the shithouse window (brilliant, since everyone knows Omar Bricks never wears ballcaps), the jig was up pretty quick when the security guards came in and found all those dead bodies sitting at desks in the back office and Heil-Hitlering and all that, since they recognized me from the scene at the check-in desk and it didn't matter how still I stood or if my cadaver impression was like vintage Pacino.

I did finally escape after hiding in a drawer for about an hour until the coast was clear, which was about five minutes too long since those things don't vent farts very well at all. And my flight from the pseudo-law came at a high cost: I'm pretty sure I left my prized "Nagasaki" baseball cap in that corpse drawer. I've thought about going back to check the lost and found, but I figure they're just waiting to throw a net over the first guy who shows up at the morgue asking about a lost and found. Pretty much any reasoning you'd have would be net-worthy, I'm thinking.

The other day I ran into Jake and he asked me how the hunt for GNR was going. What a dick.

Bricks out.

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