Beverly Hills Demands $47 Billion in Federal Aid

Blighted neighborhoods in need of renewal

May 6, 2001

Beverly Hills, CA

Chuck Aduk

Beverly Hills residents rooting in their own filth

n an impassioned plea to Washington legislators today, spokespeople for the commonwealth of Beverly Hills announced the need for federal aid to help rejuvenate their blighted neighborhoods. Spokesperson Corkey Wells commented:

"It's really sad what's become of our once-prestigious community. Hardly a day goes by that I don't see scores of former child stars sitting on their lawns, drinking 40 oz wine spritzers while daydreaming about the time Solest Moon Frye came to their pool party in the eighth grade. And it's getting awfully hard to keep Scott Baio from stealing the emeralds out of my pool filter! Our neighborhoods are truly in decline. Why, just the other day I saw Tom Berringer driving an American car! Yes I did!"

Washington legislators could not be reached ...

Local Crackpot Lobbies For Unisex Restrooms

Dozens entertained for minutes

April 25, 2001

New Orleans, LA

Shakie Stairs

Abenheimer Sludd galvanizes passersby

owing to take his crusade all the way to the Michigan Militia if necessary, local crackpot Abenheimer Sludd announced his plans today for a countrywide switch to unisex restrooms in all public buildings. Lavatory reformers from all points along the political spectrum were galvanized by Sludd's proposal, and his lighted trousers which flashed in sequence, apparently powered by a large car battery strapped to his hip.

"The time has come for America to lead the Europeans out of the dark ages of puritanical shithouse politics," said Sludd, wiping his brow with a rubber snake.

"In an age where your neighbor in the next stall over could be..." Sludd paused as a crow worked its way out of his coat pocket and flew away. "Anyone from Maryann Manson to Hillary Rodman Clinton, it's time to let arbitrary distinctions such as 'sex' fall by the wayside. The uncounted abundance of different sexual orientations making themselves known in society today, in addition to the unprecedented fashion sense of our young people, makes it nearly impossible for restroom segregation to fulfill its intended purpose!"

Sludd grabbed his leg like a machine gun and farted before continuing.

"In the days of our four fathers, one could be reasonably sure that the gent standing at the next urinal over wasn't contemplating asking you out on a date while casting a sly glance at your Ben Johnson. Or that the 'lass' in the next stall down wouldn't mosey on in and take a drippey-doo standing up! We live in some baffling times, and it's time to acknowledge this in the area by which any civilization is judged, its water closets. It's time to tell the world that America knows what's up! Therefore I propose simple, unisex restrooms uniformly placed across the land. Restroom construction, which hampered America's growth in the last fiscal year and caused much of the deficit, will be cut in half.

"Now I'm no restroom architect, not by far. Or at least the state licensing board doesn't think so. But I don't see how we could go wrong with a classic restroom design consisting of a simple round trough in the middle of the room, where everybody can just get it all out in the open and say 'This is who I am! Live with it!' I'd even go so far as to say this might solve some of our greater social ills, you never can tell. Vote Gypsy!" Sludd shouted as a finale, before climbing onto a tricycle with an enormous front wheel and very slowly and unsteadily riding away.

Ted Ted lives in the cabinet where we keep the xerox paper and will do most anything for a Wheat Thin.

May 15, 2001

Some People Call Me the Space Cowboy

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Good people, the most wondrous of wonderful, funderful, magical things has happened to me! I was hit in the side by a dirty van while crossing the street and gravely injured. That's not the good part, but I'm getting to thatâ€”let's take the long way, shall we?

Of course, you may know that we at the commune traded our insurance benefits options for Red Bagel's home-built soap box derby cars, so the shattered bones in my pelvis, my broken arm, multiple lacerations, bruised face, and bent pinky toe couldn't seek professional care. It turns out the man who hit me with his filthy van had no insurance either, but he's making it up to me in another wayâ€”again, more later. I did the only thing I could do, seek out an Indian friend to nurse me back to health, ala the legend of the Lone Ranger. So I asked Batu, a guy who works in the commune building on a different floor, to help me, and he agreed, even though he said he's an East Indian not a Native American, which I could give two cents about. Batu loaned me his Canadian Prescriptions card for all the free Vicodin I could ever want and his home body cast kit. Needless to say, I'm doing much better now, still some internal bleeding, but that may have been there before. Let's get on to the van-smashing wonderful thing.

The man with the van is Dan Lopez, or "Space Dan" to his friends, a legion amongst which I now count myself. And they call him Space Dan for a very sound reason, not simply because he's frequently stoned out of his gourd, although that's why some of his lesser friends think they call him that. No, the fact is, my friends, Space Dan is building himself an actual rocketship. You didn't read me wrongâ€”an actual rocketship. Space Dan has circumvented the bloated government beast and the bureaucratic red-tape nonsense and created his own private company for space exploration.

I profess I was a little skeptical myself when I heard, but when I drove to his home in Littleton, a neighboring community of freaks and weirdoes to Flatbush, New Jersey, I saw quite the impressive sign hanging over his garage. He dissuaded me from seeing his state-of-the-art rocketship within, not because he didn't trust me, but the main stockholders in Space Dan's Rocket Travel Ltd.â€”Mom and Dad Lopezâ€”refused to let him show anyone due to the possibility of industrial espionage. I can understand that completely, ever since I got blitzed on Southern Comfort that one night last February and offered to sell Crotchet! Magazine all of the commune's trade secrets. Lucky for us they weren't interested in buying.

Oh, in my excitement, I haven't even told you the best partâ€”I myself am going into space, and I'm going there for a price that's practically nothing! $350, a price which my wife describes as practically insane, but she's got a mouth on her that, that one. I have been given that special price because of my great injuries sustained when he hit meâ€”and he wasn't drunk, he was just trying to grab some candy bars from the back of the van when I was struck, so he technically wasn't even at the wheel. Space Dan waived the greater fees of space gas, gantry-fixin', reupholstering the space vehicle, and the comeback fee. All that was left was the $350 local space license, which of course he couldn't do anything about. It's a price I'll gladly pay, as soon as my wife goes to sleep later this evening and leaves her purse unguarded.

Just thinkâ€”as soon as I'm fully recovered from my crippling injuries, I, Rok Finger, will be blasted into the cosmos by a professional private sector space-faring company. It's a dream I've had since I was a small child, but hopefully everyone at Mission Control won't be talking chipmunks. Come to think of it, what was that dream about? Maybe I'll be hit by an analyst next week and can get that worked out for free, too.

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Milestones

1969: Rok Finger is deeply offended by the sights at Woodstock, which has little if anything to do with his favorite Peanuts character.

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Groundhobo's Day

BY roland mcshyster

1/1/2001

Good to see you, America! How have you been? Come to think of it, where have you been? If I had to judge by my recent trips to see such blockbusters as Lost Souls and Battlefield: Earth, I'd think moviegoers had gone on strike or something! Let's see a little hussle out there, folks! They can't keep bringing us the magic if we're just going to sit at home watching "Sex in the Cindy" or MASH, now can they?

In Theaters Now:

Almost Fabulous

The hit British TV show hits the big screen with this story of an aspiring young SNL writer who follows Chris Farley on a cross-country expedition. Along the way he learns the true meaning of love, and also how to fall down a lot. Meanwhile, his mom a...