n an unprecedented display of brazen honesty, during a recent press junket for Transformers: Dark of the Moon, Optimus Prime, leader of the Autobots referred to three-time director Michael Bay as "the universe’s most incompetent filmmaker" and co-star Shia LaBeouf as "the world destroyer of beloved 80’s icons".

"My strongest belief above all is that freedom is the right of all sentient beings," the 12-foot commander began, "but Mike should be thrown into a kangaroo court of Quinetessons, found guilty without a shred of proof, and dumped unceremoniously into a pit of Sharkticons."

When asked why he felt so strongly, Optimus’s eyes, normally a cool florescent blue suddenly changed to a sunflower yellow. "Have you seen Pearl Harbor? This is a man who earned his directing chops on Bad Boys. I’m beyond shocked Sean Connery didn’t go into early retirement after The Rock."

When asked to compare Bay with fellow director Uwe Boll, notorious for cinematic turns on little-known video game franchises such as Bloodrayne, Postal and Alone in the Dark, Prime had a bit more respect. "At least Boll was a prizefighter, and he’d kick anyone’s keester who dared criticize his work. Frankly, that’s one tough cookie I’d rather not speak out against. Mike just cowers behind his lawyers about criticism when he’s not clinging to the turned-out pockets of Stephen" (Spielberg, the film’s executive producer).

As for his costar LaBeouf, he seemed thrilled the young star had announced he wouldn’t be back for a fourth installment. "Having to listen to his incessant nasally voice screaming every single line nearly blew out my audio receptors. By the second film I realized he was actually causing some minor damage to occur in my memory banks. Fortunately I have the ability to turn them off and scanned his mouth to lip-read instead when it came to doing a line. This isn’t Othello we’re performing here after all—hell, it’s not even BioDome."

When asked to elaborate on his comments about Shia destroying a generation’s worth of entertainment icons, he had this to say: "Think about it. First it was Indiana Jones. The one you call ’Harrison Ford’ called him a ’fucking idiot’, which I assume is some sort of derogatory label in your language—either that or he’s quite promiscuous, and very bad at it. Then you have our films—enough said there—and then he even got into a sequel of Wall Street. As if anyone could believe he could take on Gordon Gecko! I’ll have to check my files, but was Mike behind that film too?"

Asked if there was anything he would change about the films, he did have a few ideas: "Maybe introducing a Decepticon that transforms into a bus that runs over Shia’s character Sam in the first five minutes. That’d be a start. Getting rid of Megan Fox was about the only thing we did right—she was fun to look at—and how many guys can say they had Fox inside of them?—in the end she was like a set of dub tires—sure, they make your rims look sweet, but they’re goddamn useless for everyday use."

he Global Commission on Drug Policy declared this week that the international War on Drugs has been a complete failure, filling jails and costing taxpayers millions while actually increasing drug use and bolstering organized crime. The commission, made up of the former presidents of Brazil, Columbia, Mexico and Switzerland, and a guy who tried meth once at a party, reached this conclusion after months of study and forty-five seconds spent in Rio de Janeiro. The commission’s official recommendation was to end the war by decriminalizing drugs and focusing on treatment options, but many feel the damage has already been done, as indicated by the simultaneously-breaking story that drugs spokesperson Willie Nelson and his band of pro-drug commandos have taken control of the entire U.S. state of West Virginia.

"We should have never started this war," admitted national Drug Czar Gil Kerlikowske. "We clearly underestimated the resourcefulness of the drug users and their tactical expertise."

When asked how to spell his last name, Kerlikowske grew sullen and withdrawn, not unlike a drug commando after surviving a harrowing battle and pulling a full tube of reefer.

"Fuuuuuuck, maaaaaan," agreed drug user Tyler Bannister, from a guerilla base camp nestled in the Appalachian Mountains, high as shit.

Nelson’s forces reportedly met little resistance in commandeering the U.S. state, which had fallen into disuse and neglect over the years due to being completely awful.

"Wait, there’s a West Virginia?" responded former Drug Czar John P. Walters when asked for his take on the matter. "Are you sure on that? They must not have a Six Flags. If a state doesn’t have a Six Flags, I don’t want to hear about it."

Nelson has been a polarizing figure on the national stage ever since the war was declared, drawing grassroots support from drug fans around the world and confusing non-country music fans who thought he sang "All My Exes Live in Texas." His drug commando boot camps have been compared to Al Qaeda training camps, only more laid-back and with a lot more weed.

The invasion of West Virginia reportedly occurred overnight Tuesday, the only reported casualties being a Rite Aid security guard who shot himself in the scrotum trying to be a hero and a Nelson lieutenant who burnt his thumb on a bong stem.

"Hey man, you gonna eat all them chips?" pro-drug rebel Max Tulley asked when presented with a question about the skirmish by a reporter holding a bag of chips.

Nelson refused to comment on the coup directly, offering this reporter only a glazed grin and a mumbled "Later, man," while wandering away, which turned out not to mean he’d give a quote later.

Some Americans have argued that the commission’s findings are obvious and long-overdue, especially those still smarting from the Bush Administration’s "Take No Prisoners" approach to the war on drugs, which resulted in many family members shooting each other during small-scale living room skirmishes. The Obama Administration’s "We’re Not the Bush Administration" approach has proved only marginally more successful.

There was no news as of press time regarding whether or not the U.S. would attempt to retake West Virginia, or if the government would instead try to trade it for forgiveness of Nelson’s legendarily unpaid back taxes.

In a side-note, The Global Commission on Drug Policy also declared that word on the street is that Ricky Martin is probably gay, not that it matters.

Good news, commune fans: You exist! I know, I’d had my doubts as well. But the successful relaunch of the commune proves it: I can barely walk down the street now without being mobbed by commune fans. Maybe "mobbed" is the wrong word, commune fans tend to be of the solitary sort, ungroomed and not always masters of the social arts or their own bodily functions. But boy are they out there, and boy do they want me to pay them to wash my windshield. Which is indeed a strange request when I’m traveling to my destination on foot, but that’s commune fans for you. Irreverent to the last.

These are the salad days, my friends, and not just because I’ve been eating a lot of salads to be able to afford sending Raoul Dunkin jet setting around the country to cover the latest and greatest in the world of news. Thankfully that hasn’t been quite as expensive as you might imagine, since during his last two years in the employ of the original commune, Raoul was paid exclusively in frequent flier miles. Apparently this was a common practice back then, as I’m told Omar Bricks was paid entirely in Camel cash and Boris Utzov was paid in camel shit. I shudder to think of what Boris was doing with all that camel shit, though I’ve heard rumors he used most of it to erect a camel shit statue of Saddam Hussein in the middle of Central Park. As the story goes, this understandably upset the natives, but Boris claimed it was actually a likeness of his cousin Boguslaw Sadowski, which no one could argue with because they couldn’t understand what he was saying.

But back to why these are the salad days. Running the commune out of my mother’s house is like a dream come true. It’s an impressive scene I assure you… I wish you could see it. I mean that literally, I wish I had a camera so I could take pictures and post them to the site. That’s a subtle hint for any of you commune fans doing some early Christmas shopping. We could also use a computer, because running down to Kinko’s to upload new articles to the site is becoming a serious pain in both of my balls. News doesn’t always break during Kinko’s business hours, as the old journalism saying goes.

But I assure you it’s quite a scene. When Raoul isn’t globetrotting to bring you the poop most in need of scooping, he’s here, bitching that I don’t even have a computer. But I’m not even here myself, because I’m down at the Safeway checking for new Roland McShyster reviews or down at the library scouring back issues of old porno mags for new-to-us Rok Finger columns. In a side note, I am truly surprised at just how well stocked our local library is when it comes to pornography. If more people knew this I think libraries would be a lot more popular.

But that’s not all! the commune family is expanding like Paris Hilton’s belly after she eats a paperclip. I’m proud to announce that commune favorites Griswald Dreck and Ivan Nacutchacokov have both rejoined the flock, and not a moment too soon! I mean, it’s not the kind of operation someone could join too soon. I suppose they could have joined us before the original commune building burnt to the ground, that would have been kind of strange and maybe too soon, but any point after that was pretty much ideal for us.

Anyway, you’ll never guess where I found Mr. Dreck. A few weeks ago I was eating some garlic ice cream and let me tell you, it left a pretty funky taste in my mouth. So I reached for a delicious hunk of Bazooka bubble gum to tame that garlicy tongue beast and as I was happily chewing away, eager to lose myself in the adventures of Bazooka Joe and his dog, Walkie Talkie, I was instead treated to a byzantine comic about the history of penile implants. Gobsmacked as I was, I still had enough blood flowing to my brain to instantly recognize this as the work of none other than commune answerman Griswald Dreck. I dialed the Bazooka bubble gum emergency hotline just as fast as my fingers would carry me, and after navigating through a bewildering forest of options (If you’re choking on bubble gum right now, press or say "I’m choking on bubble gum right now") I was eventually put in touch with a Human Resources guru. He informed me that Dreck had been fired from his post for drawing comics that weren’t about Bazooka Joe at all, or that covered the origins of things like pencil sharpeners or democracy, or that were too densely packed onto the wrapper to be legible, or, usually, all of the above. Thankfully, they had Dreck’s home address due to him sending them regular letters explaining how their "New Adventures of Bazooka Joe" wrappers weren’t canon and contained factual errors about eye patches. Before long I was in touch with Mr. Dreck himself, and it didn’t take much convincing to get him to travel to Vermont and rejoin the team, since he’d been scraping together a living on the brutal underground bar trivia circuit and was ready for a change.

It was some time shortly after that when I discovered that Ivan Nacutchacokov had been living in my basement the entire time since the original commune folded. This was awkward at first to discover, but it worked out fine since it meant Ivan had to make less of a transition to living in my basement than the others. I’m not sure how he feels about Dunkin and Dreck invading his turf, but there haven’t been any knife fights or anything yet. Ivan agreed to rejoin the commune on the condition that we don’t tell his ex-wife Ivana Folger-Balzac where he is. The truth is she’d already been here looking for him, months ago, but at the time I had no idea he was in the basement so I imagine I provided pretty good ignorant cover. Truth be told I might have cracked when she started hitting me with her car door if I’d actually known he was down there.

And so we’re off. Keep those tips coming, commune fans and assorted law enforcement personnel nationwide. You’ve made my wish come true, and I didn’t even have to get cancer to make it happen. Emil Zender: 1, Make a Wish Kids: 0, for those keeping score at home.

Zincerely,
Emil Zender

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