ongtime commune political correspondent Raoul Dunkin has unexpectedly left his post at the commune in favor of hosting MTV's South Beach Jigglefest this spring break in Southern Florida. Confidential sources have it that MTV is just jerking Dunkin's chain, and that he's an asshole for believing them. Only time will tell, but once Dunkin is a washed-up Miami hobo begging for mustard packets on the streets, the commune will be there to cover this important news story.

In order to fulfill Dunkin's contractual obligations and ruin his credibility as a reporter in his absence, in the coming weeks the commune will be publishing the fragments of news stories and personal items that we found in his desk. We feel that this is in the best public and journalistic interest.

ith the Tuesday release of actress Claire Danes' book, My So-Called Sex Life a new wave of attention has been focused on the damage young actor and possible space creature Leonardo DiCaprio is doing to the lives of Hollywood's young actresses. When this reporter spoke recently with Danes, she was in a near-catatonic state.

 "I just want everybody to know that Leo and I didn't DO anything on the set of Romeo and Juliet. We were just in the same movie together. Hell, most of our scenes were filmed separately, it was all camera tricks that made it seem like we were in bed together, I swear! Somebody, please sleep with me!" said Danes, bursting into tears.

This pitiful scene is being repeated all across Tinseltown as young actresses who've shared the screen with DiCaprio find that men now fear to touch them. Some even cross the street to avoid them, sometimes against swift traffic. This reaction seems to be genetically ingrained in the male sex, an unspoken knowledge that something is not quite right with the young actor, and that even the slightest contact with him leaves a woman strictly undateable. This Curse has extended even to girls who sat in the same classroom with DiCaprio in grade school and singer Alanis Morissette, who once stated in an interview that her astrological sign was Leo.

Most women seem to be strangely immune to DiCaprio's nauseating effects. Some even claim to find him attractive, a tendency that baffles psychologists and medical doctors alike.

"It is my professional opinion that DiCaprio exudes toxic pheromones from tiny ducts behind his ears," noted neurologist P. William Clydesdale commented on the phenomenon. "These pheromones act to confuse the female's neurological systems, resulting in a dizzy sense of confusion and impaired reasoning. As to why these pheromones do not effect the males of the species, my educated guess is that the average male's desire to pop DiCaprio's head like a blister results in increased levels of endorphins in the blood stream, which counteracts the pheromones."

An accurate assessment of how many young careers have been ruined by the Curse of DiCaprio cannot be made, since County health officials have been unable to find any male subjects who can name any films other than Titanic in which DiCaprio has appeared.

DiCaprio's co-star in Titanic, actress Kate Winslet, was very direct when asked how the Curse has effected her career: "No talk. Eat now."

There is a bright hope on the horizon, however. Recent reports have indicated that actress Chloe Svengali is the first documented female to be immune to DiCaprio's insidious pheromones. She has vowed publicly to track down all actresses in upcoming DiCaprio projects, in an effort to warn them before they make any terrible mistakes.

This week's Nedmiller Column is excerpted from "Spastic Diaper: The Ned Nedmiller Story" by Rolando Burf. Continued from last week.

And it might still be that way today if it weren't for one Nedriff Nipplebelt Nedmiller. When Ned heard of the buffalo problem, he locked himself in his laboratory, pronouncing that he would not appear again until he had the solution. Neighbors wondered at the strange noises coming from Ned's lab at all hours of the day and night: the singing of saws, the burping of crows and the vague smell of a swimming pool on fire. Someone called for a constable when a rumor circulated that Ned was melting down school children into paraffin wax, but just as the fuzz was about to knock on Ned's door, the man himself flung open his doors and announced to the world that their problems were over.

The device that Ned presented to the world looked like a cross between a smallish piano and a largish dentistry utensil, on wheels. It had a crank on one side and a flared cone on the other. And on top there was a mannequin head wearing a hat. On the side, hand-lettered in on it's black surface in black paint (or so he told the people), it said "Ned Nedmiller's Framjambulous Laughing Machine".

Refusing the spectators' pleas for a demonstration, Ned hopped aboard the Laughing Machine and rode it west, toward the Plains. It was a four-week journey, but thanks to the help of a flock of pelicans, and Ned's invention of a land-sail, it only took him a month and a half. He arrived to find the Chinamen, sitting about and scratching their heads, as a stoic buffalo stood, motionless, at the eastern termination of the Walking Rail.

Without saying a word, Ned positioned his Laughing Machine in front of the buffalo, wet his thumb to check wind direction, and gave the crank a furious crank. Laughter of every size and denomination, every type and at all points along the spectrum of sanity, poured forth from the laughing machine's cone. Chortles, titters, guffaws and even silent shaking filled the air. Three times the laughter produced by a fart in Congress spilled out of the Laughing Machine. Laughter so contagious that all of the Chinamen began to laugh along, and those who had yet to drop their tools and daydream now dropped their tools and doubled over in laughter.

The buffalo first looked at Ned (who nodded) in a confused fashion for a moment before it began to laugh. For those who have never heard a buffalo laugh, I suggest climbing inside an industrial textiles washing machine, starting up the cycle, and then letting loose the warthogs you've been hiding in your pants. Then you'll have bigger fish to fry than wondering what a buffalo sounds like when it laughs.

The buffalo laughed and laughed until finally it collapsed onto it's side and shook with buffalo laughter. Ned promptly shut off his laughing machine and when the Chinamen had recovered, they went about their merry task, building their Walking Rail all the way to New England. Ned accompanied them the rest of the way, providing laughing machine support whenever they came across buffalo, brown bears or hillbillies.

When they finally arrived in New York, Ned and the Chinamen were given a tickertape parade, and a recording contract with Capitol Records. In a show of gratitude, the Mayor of New York gave them all complimentary tickets for the maiden voyage of the first luxury liner built entirely by the blind, the Titanic.

The problem was, the Titanic was sailing to New York, not from it, so Ned and the Chinamen quickly hitched a ride on a grand blimp called the "Hindenberg 2: NO SMOKING" all the way over to England, where they were just in time to ride the Titanic back to New York.

Ned and the Titanic were like peas in a pod, and he entertained the guests and crew day and night with his inflatable pacemaker and a metal box that he claimed to contain Spain. He was voted "Best Grandmother" on the Titanic and was given a commemorative kick in the head. Unfortunately, these blissful days were not to last.

Out of nowhere the "biggest skeeter this side of the Rio Grande" latched onto the ship and started "jimmyin' open the fuselage with his tremendous skeeter-beak". Ned knew that time was short and heroism was in high demand, so he leapt into the fray with only a freakishly large Q-tip and a loincloth on his side. When all was said and done, "them skeeter" had been swabbed into submission and nine months later Ned would unexpectedly give birth to a small Laotian boy named Ring-rong, who would go to work in the diamond mines, and was years later buried under a landslide of engagement rings. Unfortunately for all aboard though, at that moment some joker pulled the plug on the Atlantic and "them Titanic" went down the drain, never to be seen again. Ned survived only by holing up in the belly of a whale named Tim, who later washed up on the shores of Costa Rica, proving his long-standing claim that he was allergic to Danes.

Over a hundred years later, the Walking Rails are still the mode of trans-continental transport preferred by most 10 year-old runaways. None of this would be possible without Nedrum Nightynight Nedmiller, and it's truly time that the city of Pasadena, California erects a gigantic knee brace in his name.

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