n a congressional hearing reminiscent of the McCarthy hearings, only filled with really beefy guys, baseball record-setter Mark McGwire clumsily deflected questions about his own history with steroids while damning the drugs on one side and on the other warning about the failure of those involved with the sport to stop it. Sweetie McGwire, standing at a hulking 8 feet tall and nearly 4 feet wide, refused to directly deny using artificial means to induce the strength to hit his then record-setting 70 homeruns.

“I’m not here to talk about the past,� said the monstrous humanoid homerun-hitter, “I’m here to be positive.� McGwire did not invoke his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination, and congressmen involved appeared unwilling to play hardball with a beloved American athlete while all the cameras were running.

Offering more information was another baseball heavyweight, retired player and former superhunk Jose Canseco, firmly off steroids and now shrunken to a 5-foot-1 imitation of a pale raisin. Canseco confessed to having used performance-enhancing substances to improve his game, also naming names in his hot new book Juicied, available for sale at Amazon.com or Barnes & Noble Online.

“Steroids were part of the game, and I don’t think anybody really wanted to take a stance on it,� said the small, hideous man, pointing with a frantic gesture. “If Congress does nothing about this issue, it will go on forever.� In his haste to make a point, Canseco’s finger then snapped off and flew into the face of Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Maryland). Sister, that thing was so funny he should’ve charged money!

“We don’t blame the players,� said ranking Committee Democrat Henry Waxman (California). “We blame the countless faceless officials of the baseball union, reserving some blame for the rich owners who the people already hate. No, the players are innocent pawns in all this. And we most definitely do not blame the many millions of baseball fans who turn out in record numbers to watch mysteriously large and beefy men knock baseballs out of the park in numbers unheard of in the early days of the game. We are all shocked and outraged by the claims in Mr. Canseco’s book, and not at all one little bit were expecting someone to admit such a thing sooner or later. Once this congressional probe has thoroughly asked inane questions about the matter, we hope America will be able to go back to its blind faith in its inhuman athletic stars.�

Sidestepping inquiries about his own steroid use has already fanned the hulking monster controversy around McGwire, who in 1998 won out a season-spanning homerun race between himself and Sammy Sosa by hitting 70 dingers, breaking Roger Maris’ old record of 61. The record didn’t last too long, child, as another beefy uberman named Barry Bonds, also frequently mentioned in the same sentence with the s-word, broke McGwire’s record in 2001. The record was most recently broken by Seattle Mariners third-stringer Mitcho Klursky, who batted 78 homeruns out of the park during all this season’s practice sessions. The record is expected to be broken again before the end of the season, and possibly before this article concludes.

The hearings are expected to end sometime this week with some ever-popular backpatting and glorious nostalgic reflection on how great baseball is, with possible inclusion of apple pie, mothers, and America itself. This reporter, for one, would like to make it known that even as Jose Canseco’s nuts continue to shrink into BB rifle stock, she’d still do him. Mm-mmm, hon.

he sound of big, scary men whining grew louder this week with the news that the Missouri House (similar to the Ronald McDonald House, only more Missoury) has upheld state governor Matt Blunt's decision to ban all video games from the state's prisons. While the public's reaction has been mostly along the lines of "They have video games in prison? Is there anything those assholes don't have?" the reaction from inmates statewide has been much bitchier.

"Man, this shit is whack," complained Tyrell Doogins, convicted three-time murder and NBA LIVE fanatic. "If I can't get my GTA on, I gonna be killin' some suckers for real."

The move by Blunt came after months of criticism by victim's-rights groups disturbed by the prospect of prisoners reliving their real-life criminal exploits, and earning gaudy high scores for doing so, through such violent games as Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas and Hitman: Contracts.

But not all inmates agree with that line of reasoning.

"Man, that shit is so fake," bitched lifer Tug Borrows. "That gun doesn't recoil anything like that, this game is for pussies."

Prison officials have also accused some popular titles, like Acclaim's Prison Riot and Rockstar's Shower Shiv 2 of instigating real-life violence within the state's correctional facilities.

"It's the age-old question of art imitating life, or life imitating art," explained cultural critic and perpetual college student Justin Blake. "Just because two inmates drop their controllers and get into a knife fight in the middle of playing Eidos' Prison Rec Room Knife Fight Gold Edition, it's impossible to say if the game caused that behavior, or if Eidos just did a good job getting the details right. After all, that kind of stuff went on long before they had video games in prisons. They used to blame that old Gregory Peck movie, Change That Channel and I Break Your Face for the same kind of things."

While highly violent games like Grand Theft Auto and Max Payne are by far the most popular in America's prisons, there do remain small pockets of gaming inmates dedicated to non-violent titles, who feel like they're being unfairly punished by the total ban of all video game types.

"Sure, not a lot of guys in the joint are as into Roller Coaster Tycoon as I am," admitted Dolmer Grays, a diminutive and heavily-bruised inmate in Jefferson City. "But there are enough of us. And any time we're not running away from the bigger and tougher inmates, you can find us playing RCT, baby."

Dolmer had to cut the interview short to escape retribution from a GTA fan, but his point was well-taken. However, it remains this reporter's position that Dolmer and other fans of pussy video games should spend a little more time in the gym and a little less time on the Xbox if they hope to outrun a beatdown more successfully than Dolmer did.

This reporter also received word of a small but dedicated pocket of Dance Dance Revolution fans in the Jefferson City facility, but was advised by the warden to stay out of that cell block if I valued my anus, which this reporter does.

I don't write this column to alarm people, but anyone planning on a sleepover at my new neighbor's place might do well to catch up on a little of this CNN breaking news: bring a titanium neck wrap and your Visa card, unlucky campers. I have it on very good authority from my dog that this dude is a vampire.

Granted, I haven't known the man long enough to make a definitive call on the whole vampire identification, but Foghat is rarely wrong in such matters. True, he did think the mailman was a body-snatched pod-clone copy of our old mailman for about six months last year, but that was only because the guy had started going to one of those fake-and-bake tanning salons that's half tanning beds and half a video store. And you don't have to be the exorcist to know that shit just don't look right.

Astute readers might pick up a little inherent Bricks bias in that statement, owing to the failure of my "Omar Bricks' Tan-o-Mat" a few years back, and that's true enough. I still think buying out an old Laundromat and replacing all the fluorescent ceiling lights with tanning bulbs was a great idea. Where else can you get a luxurious, Caribbean tan while getting something productive done at the same time? And who wants to waste hours sitting in one of those giant George Foreman grills wearing speed-swimming goggles like some kind of creepy-ass Matrix baby?

Not me, nor my investors. But it turned out in the end that I should have invested a little more into the science end of the whole dealio, since it turned out spending too much time under those tanning lights can bleach the pigment out of your skin fast enough to turn Bernie Mac into an albino. At least that's what happened to the dude I hired to run the place, I don't remember what color he was when he started there, but by the end he could do that disappearing Preadator shit in white rooms and snowstorms. Plus, somebody on the city council said something about the Tan-o-Mat causing low-level cancer in anyone who even walked by the sidewalk out front. So it's probably a good thing that the business wasn't very popular for the three weeks that it was open, and in the end our "bring your own water" policy was really a business-killing hidden blessing.

But none of this has anything to do with my new neighbor, who's about as tan as an Irish spelunking enthusiast. I haven't seen too much of him, to be sure, but he has been popping in lately as they've been putting the finishing touches on his new house, like the roof and an exterior wall to close in the room where I've been throwing all my garbage. It's a pretty nice house; I have to say, though it's a little cold at night since they still haven't got the furnace fixed from when I was using the water heater to ferment homebrew. But it's definitely a big improvement on Dale's old house, which had a security system and smelled like burnt oatmeal all the time.

Ever since I got the undead tip from Foghat I've been trying to confirm the dog's suspicions, which is a project in and of itself. I considered quitting my gig at the commune to dedicate more time to spying on my neighbor, but in the end I realized that vampire identification just doesn't pay like it used to. So I've had to rearrange my home schedule to allow time for scouting runs around the vampire house with the huge mirror I found in the Goodwill donation bin tied to the roof of my new Panamobile.

It's a pretty sweet set-up, actually, I've got my side-view mirror angled up at the mirror bungee-corded to the roof, which is pointed at the guy's house, so if he ever comes outside while I'm making a pass and the mirror doesn't snap off and kill the guy, I'll get a pretty convincing visual confirmation. That is, if the weight of the giant oak bureau that the mirror's a part of doesn't collapse the roof of my car first.

But like they say in birth control class, timing is everything. Bricks Out.

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