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 May 16, 2011 |
Washington, D.C. Courtesy Orion Pictures Breaking news suggests that bin Laden may not have been blown to shit by Burt Reynolds in a hail of glorious retribution, as originally reported.
"I may have gotten carried away in my initial statements about the raid," explained White House counterterrorism head John Brennan, source of many of the erroneous stories. "It turns out that bin Laden wasn’t actually killed by Matt Damon and Christian Bale, as I originally indicated, although that would have been awesome, but rather by faceless Special Forces goons you wouldn’t know if you were drinking right next to them in a bar. Sorry. ...
fter thrilling America with exciting, action-packed tales in the hours after the May 1st raid that took Osama bin Laden’s life, White House officials have issued a series of statements gradually correcting and de-awesomeing their story as additional details have arisen from talking to people who actually know what the fuck happened.
"I may have gotten carried away in my initial statements about the raid," explained White House counterterrorism head John Brennan, source of many of the erroneous stories. "It turns out that bin Laden wasn’t actually killed by Matt Damon and Christian Bale, as I originally indicated, although that would have been awesome, but rather by faceless Special Forces goons you wouldn’t know if you were drinking right next to them in a bar. Sorry. Also, the Black Hawk helicopter that crashed during the raid was not brought down by an awe-inspiring salvo of RPG rockets as I first stated, I think I was thinking of that Ridley Scott movie on that one, but anyway, a five cent nut snapped and that piece of shit came down like a Chevy the day after your warranty expires. I know, I know. Reality is boring."
Brennan’s corrections were accompanied by noticeably fewer sound effects and animated hand gestures than his initial statements had been.
"I know I also said bin Laden was holed up in a mansion on a million-dollar compound like the drug kingpin in Commando, but yeah, it was actually a shithole. That place had like two windows and there were stray dogs all over the place. C’mon, it’s Pakistan, you guys should have called bullshit on that one yourselves. If I’d known you were all writing down everything I said I might have dialed back the pizazz a bit, you know? But whatever. Anyway, what else? Hold on, I’ve got a whole list here. Whooboy."
"Uhm, yeah we shot bin Laden’s son and his wife, but there was a guy down the street with a machine gun… pretty sure on that part… President Obama did not watch the raid live on TV, that photo I referenced was actually the president and his cabinet watching The Human Centipede and I think you’ll all agree that’s some sick shit… And no, we didn’t bury bin Laden at sea to prevent his gravesite from becoming a shrine for terrorists, actually this is kind of funny, but apparently when they were flying back over the sea, the guys in the chopper got in an argument about Lost and they wanted to re-create the scene in season 4 where the chopper’s running out of gas and Sawyer jumps out into the ocean to save everyone else… anyway, they said it was pretty awesome… uhm… Look, did you guys hear bin Laden had like 100 gigs of porn on his laptop? Holy shit, right? Let’s talk about that."
After original reports from White House officials indicated that bin Laden was shot while charging Navy SEALs with a blazing Uzi sub-machinegun in each hand, using his own wife as a human shield, this story was later amended to remove the wife and arm Bin Laden with a sack of poisonous vipers instead. After several subsequent corrections, the sack of vipers became a little girly derringer pistol, then stack of tax audit paperwork, and finally a really snotty Kleenex. Later in the week, the story was further amended when White House officials admitted that bin Laden was actually unarmed and in his pajamas at the time of the killing, and may or may not have been playing with a newborn kitten. Just before press time, the story was again corrected to indicate that bin Laden died of a head cold in 2003. the commune news is proud to point out that we never reported that bullshit story about bin Laden bringing down the U.S. chopper single-handedly, after dropping his Zippo lighter on a trail of leaking gasoline that led up to the crippled warbird, but admittedly this was partially because nobody told us the story until like five minutes ago. Raoul Dunkin is the commune’s best reporter, and will continue to be so until we hire a second.
 |  May 2, 2011 |
Washington, D.C. Courtesy Arista Records The formerly-alive bin Laden, seen here on the cover of his debut album, 1974's She's Having My Baby
Early accounts of the raid are sketchy and entertainingly contradictory. Indications that bin Laden used his wife as a human shield while firing at Navy Seals and spitting out delicious badass puns were countered by later reports that bin Laden only cried like a woman when captured, and the shaky helmet-cam footage of the raid just reminded White House staf...
resident Obama issued a press conference Sunday night announcing that U.S. public enemy number one and Beard Club for Men Founder Osama bin Laden had been killed during a daring pre-dawn raid on his secret Pakistani lair. Paranoid assholes are awaiting confirmation of this story from a more-reliable source than our nation's leader, who they still claim was born into a family of birth certificate forging criminals in Manila. Early accounts of the raid are sketchy and entertainingly contradictory. Indications that bin Laden used his wife as a human shield while firing at Navy Seals and spitting out delicious badass puns were countered by later reports that bin Laden only cried like a woman when captured, and the shaky helmet-cam footage of the raid just reminded White House staffers of the FX police drama The Shield. The White House's early leaks that bin Laden was killed by Matt Damon and Christian Bale were also contradicted by later news that the two Hollywood stars only assisted in the top-secret mission. Early indications are that bin Laden had spent the last several years keeping it real in his million-dollar compound outside the Pakistani city of… look, like you know any cities in Pakistan. We could just make up a name and you'd have no idea. Anyway, acting on tips received from watching a re-run of 24, CIA operatives located bin Laden's most trusted courier in Pakistan and shadowed him to bin Laden's shadowy compound. Accounts differ on how trusted this courier, a local DHL employee, actually was. Some paint him as bin Laden's bro, a Muslim term denoting a sidekick or wingman, while others claim bin Laden just held a grudge against UPS ever since they lost a package of desperately-needed beard dye he was having delivered to Tora Bora in 2001. Former President Bush, upon hearing the news of bin Laden's capture, reportedly destroyed his West Texas bedroom in a fit of rage and kicked the Bush family cat, Snickers, a record distance of eleven meters. The conversion of meters to feet was not available as of press time. Records indicate Bush had spent most of this two terms of presidency preparing for that moment, and sources close to the former president claim he had practiced his speech for the event in the bathroom mirror literally hundreds of times. The speech, known to those close to Bush as the "Gotcha, Sucka!" speech, was reportedly heavy on gloating and peppered with Bush's favorite quotes from the Clint Eastwood western Unforgiven. Those close to the former president also claim the speech included a quote from Bye Bye Birdie but that no one understood why Bush threw that in. News of bin Laden's death was greeted by throngs of Americans chanting "U-S-H! U-S-H!" in front of the White House, until corrected by a nearby tour guide. The amended chants of "U-S-A! U-S-A!" were allegedly so vigorous as to knock down the fence in front of the White House. Skeptics, however, counter that an obese family of tourists visiting from Indiana had taken a break from chanting and leaned against the fence moments before it collapsed. The nation's four liberals were more circumspect about bin Laden's death, but their comments were drowned out by impromptu chants of "U-N-A! U-N-A!" and the incessant bleating of air horns. the commune news knew where bin Laden was the entire time, we just didn't realize we were the only ones watching MTV's Cribs. Raoul Dunkin is a man's man in a hyperintelligent ape's world.
|  High Gas Prices Threaten Tradition of Setting Homeless People on Fire  Duke Prosecutor Disbarred, Accepts New Position as National Scapegoat  Tree Bark Face Turns Out to Be Likeness of Jesus Lookalike Vance Waxman  Bob Barker Ceases to Exist After Retiring From Television |
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 April 29, 2011 Return to Zender (Week 2)First off, I wanted to apologize to our newly loyal readers about the comments form not working, I know some people have been trying to use it but something is messed up the code, so all that comes through is nonsense about Viagra and oatmeal cookies.
But more importantly: Orgasmic news, everyone! I’ve found Raoul Dunkin! I know, that phrase has never before in the world been uttered. I kid, Raoul, just a little old-school commune humor. But seriously, you could peel me off the ceiling when I got an anonymous tip on our commune reunition hotline (1-800-COM-MMIE) the other day saying that Raoul had been running a political news and commentary site called www.spankrag.com until it recently folded, and since then he’s been bagging groce...
º Last Column: Return to Zender
º more columns
First off, I wanted to apologize to our newly loyal readers about the comments form not working, I know some people have been trying to use it but something is messed up the code, so all that comes through is nonsense about Viagra and oatmeal cookies.
But more importantly: Orgasmic news, everyone! I’ve found Raoul Dunkin! I know, that phrase has never before in the world been uttered. I kid, Raoul, just a little old-school commune humor. But seriously, you could peel me off the ceiling when I got an anonymous tip on our commune reunition hotline (1-800-COM-MMIE) the other day saying that Raoul had been running a political news and commentary site called www.spankrag.com until it recently folded, and since then he’s been bagging groceries at a Pamida in Scottsdale. Before you could say "Spankwhat?" I was down at the library digging up a Scottsdale phonebook and within hours I had Dunkin himself on the line. After seventeen minutes of explaining who I was, Mr Dunkin’s memory was violently jogged. And better yet, he agreed to join forces with me at the commune redux! On the condition that I get the word out about the Spankrag saga. And so I’ll waste no time doing that, here in Raoul Dunkin’s own words:
"Although the website did fail, I disagree wholeheartedly with those who claim it was because of the name. Some insist that Spankrag.com was an inappropriate name for a cutting-edge political news site, but that’s only because they didn’t understand the name’s many clever layers of meaning. I chose the word "spank" because I wanted my site to spank the forces of ignorance and oppression with the big, meaty palm of information. And I chose the "rag" part to express my rage at the status quo and the complacency of everyday Americans in the face of having their rights stripped away one by one. To answer the obvious question, yes, I did originally want to name the site www.spankrage.com, but this was already taken by a pornography website."
Welcome back, Raoul! I have it on good authority Mr Dunkin will be providing us with cutting-edge news content for the commune in the exceedingly near future. Which is a good thing, because I had tried my hand at penning some news pieces myself to fill the gap and they were so terrible my neighbor’s dog broke into my bedroom and ate them. So I guess the world will never know about the disturbing goings-on down at the Shanesly Senior Center’s shuffleboard courts. Perhaps it’s all for the best, some news is so dark it serves no useful purpose other than to turn one’s soul away from the light.
In lighter news, I also found Roland McShyster! Sort of. I was buying some milk down at the Safeway when I realized there was a wet sheet of paper stuck to the carton. It wasn’t even glued on or anything, just stuck on because the milk carton was wet. All the milks had them. And as I squinted to make out the waterlogged type, I suddenly realized I was reading Mr. McShyster’s inimitable take on the art of modern cinema. Holy moley! (Seriously, spellcheck? You’ve never heard of moley?) I instantly bought three cartons of milk and raced home to upload Roland’s column to the website. After I got home I realized all three were the same, so now I have a shitload of milk for nothing, but it was still worth it to see the Safeway manager’s face when I casually name-dropped that I know the guy who’s been sticking movie reviews to their milk. You can imagine he was impressed. He was less thrilled that I didn’t know where Roland could be located, and my memory was too poor to provide an accurate sketch they could give to the store’s security guards, but I still think my stock has gone way up at the local Safeway.
If you have a tip about where more ex-commune staffers might be hiding, and for some reason have something against telephones (not that I blame you), I encourage you to let your fingers do the talking. Email me at Emil_Zender_remove the space, add the year Spain achieved independence times three, apologies if I don’t get back to you right away, sometimes I mix up that date in my mind, for like a month I thought it was 1847, I don’t know why I thought that, it was just weird, but anyway I couldn’t get into my gmail for a whole month until I realized that wasn’t the date at all… wait, isn’t that the date? Shit, now I’m confused again@gmail.com. Sorry for all the subterfuge but you have to be careful about Spam these days, Hormel will send entire cases of that nasty crap to anyone who isn’t careful with their info online.
This is really happening, folks! Get in on the ground floor so you can say you were here when the commune rose from the ashes like a crack fiend who had fallen asleep on the couch!
Zincerely,
Emil Zender º Last Column: Return to Zenderº more columns | 
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Milestones1990: Red Bagel's dark vision of the future presented in lecture form at a local college predicts a war in Iraq, though he incorrectly predicts the date as 2002. Unless… well, we'll wait and see, won't we?Now HiringBartender. Mix all variety of drinks, serve beers with a quick smile and friendly expression. Listening a must, flipping bottles and spinning like in Cocktail a plus. Must know when to cut off Ramrod Hurley—immediately—and when to cut off Red Bagel—never, if you like your job.Least Successful David Bowie Incarnations| 1. | Wacky Far-Out Space Nut | | 2. | Lithe, Quirky, Effeminate Heterosexual | | 3. | Gold-Suited Game Show Host Mutt Smalley | | 4. | Evil Twin Brother Donald Bowie | | 5. | Lou Bega | |
|   The Simple Life: Century Regional Detention Center Resumes Production BY orson welch 6/18/2007 Good day and good-bye, at least according to the rumors around here at the commune rubble. It matters not to me that we may not publish again, since I’m focusing my time and energy on a very lucrative weight loss research project starting up next week, and wouldn’t have time to continue reviewing movies anyway. And since my dwarf mage Welchy reached level 10 last week on World of Warcraft, I haven’t had much time to review new movies either. So I thought I would say sayonara with a different kind of column, Orson’s favorite movies of all time. What’s that? Movies I like? That’s correct. They are few, but they exist. Let’s see the “they” to which I’m referring.
The Great Muppet Caper
There has never been a wiser move in all of Hollywood than...
Good day and good-bye, at least according to the rumors around here at the commune rubble. It matters not to me that we may not publish again, since I’m focusing my time and energy on a very lucrative weight loss research project starting up next week, and wouldn’t have time to continue reviewing movies anyway. And since my dwarf mage Welchy reached level 10 last week on World of Warcraft, I haven’t had much time to review new movies either. So I thought I would say sayonara with a different kind of column, Orson’s favorite movies of all time. What’s that? Movies I like? That’s correct. They are few, but they exist. Let’s see the “they” to which I’m referring. The Great Muppet CaperThere has never been a wiser move in all of Hollywood than to team up Charles Grodin with felt-headed puppets. Never. I challenge you to find one. Grodin is a daring jewel thief who attempts to manipulate Miss Piggy with a romantic relationship. Yes, you read that right. Simply for the tantalizing daydreams I’ve had about how Charles Grodin would get busy with a pig puppet, if that involves Frank Oz’s hand at all or not, this movie ranks very highly in my list. And like all Muppet movies, the human are not at all curious why these somewhat inarticulate animal puppets are welcomed rather than scorned by society, a great commentary on the generation gap of the 1960s and 1970s, though a bit dark for the taste of most. YojimboAkira Kurosawa’s samurai epic has been remade many times, but too many remakes miss the exceptional subtlety and style of Kurosawa. This movie is not as excellent as it is because it is a tightly-plotted story of a samurai in feudal Japan playing two greedy sides against each other; it’s brilliant because without telling us, Kurosawa has staged the timeless story of a collection of insane Japanese men who have taken up residence in the old west. When Sergio Leone remade this tale as A Fistful of Dollars, he unwittingly sapped all the brilliance out of it by staging it in the old west where it was originally set in Kurosawa’s version. The fact the main character has no name is a subtle testament to the fact everyone is completely out of their minds in this movie and that’s why they think they’re samurai. A searing and subversive indictment of everyone who goes to see a movie and expects the characters to be in full possession of their faculties. Toshiro Mifune was a god among actors with hyperactive attention deficit disorder. THX-1138Before George Lucas decided it was more fun to make money than cutting social commentary films, he made THX-1138, and we’re all the better for it. Contrary to Lucas’ opinion he was making a sharp attack on the drug-abusing rule-following fascism of pre-1960s culture, he was actually making a critical symphony that mocked white America’s subtle hatred of itself. Not only are very few of the actors in the movie black at all, but the lead actor, Robert Duvall, can only escape the dirty world of which he’s part and the dull silver automatons who enforce the law by crossing the longest expanse of pure white ever seen on screen. Fascinating. So only by running toward something even whiter can we at least be safe from our basic whiteness? No wonder people complained so loudly about the low-key racism in the Star Wars prequels. Lucas definitely has issues. Paris on FireThere is no better film alive than Paris on Fire. No, this has nothing to do with Hilton heiresses. Quite simply, Paris on Fire is the most damning fire safety film ever made in the French New Wave vein. The acting is excellent as Marie Chevalier plays “Woman Woken By Fire Alarm,” trying for the entire length of the film to find a way out of her burning house only to find fire behind every door. She tries each door several times, and while some audiences might find these repeated scenes fairly boring, they’re actually morons because it makes a pointed statement about the repetitive nature of trying to avoid burning to death in general. Paris on Fire makes the bold statement that, no matter how any of us might die, we are truly burning to death, slowly but surely, and we should probably enjoy it. Fucking genius. Is that all there is? Possibly. I know it’s not for me, as I have that research thing starting next week. I will miss these little chats we’ve had, but I suppose it’s all for naught, as we’re but burning to death slowly over along period of time. So enjoy.   |
