the commune, 5/21/07: You'll learn to love it or die trying

East Heaven, Afterlife

Assad the Unseen

The recently deceased Rev. Falwell, seen here contemplating a hasty inner conversion to atheism

eports from the afterlife indicate the Reverend Jerry Falwell, who died last Tuesday after smelling one of his own farts, has indeed gone on to meet his maker, validating his lifetime of religious conviction. The reverend was, however, shocked and dismayed to discover this creator is, in fact, a large, friendly purple creature with a head ornament shaped like an inverted triangle, rather than the cloud-surfing white dude Falwell had been expecting.

Upon spying the return of his beloved son, whom God had not seen in over 73 years, the deity shouted an excited greeting of “Eh-Oh, Falwell!” before attempting to embrace the reverend, who recoiled in horror.

Eyewitness accounts indicate a stunned Falwell then began to shout Bible verse and incoherent, mouth-foaming nonsense. God immediately became frightened and confused, scurrying away while shouting “Run away! Run away!” Only after Falwell left could God be coaxed out for snack time.

Meanwhile on Earth, medical examiners attributed Falwell’s death to the reverend taking the holy vessel God had given him and crapping it all up with fatty foods and prescription medication.

One of America’s best-known religious figures, Falwell was famous for his amazingly untarnished record for being on the historically wrong side of every issue he ever addressed over the course of his long career. From segregation to civil rights, women’s rights, gay rights, and the rights of anyone who wasn’t exactly like Jerry Falwell, the reverend demonstrated an almost eerie ability to choose stances that would make him look ridiculously backward to future generations.

Falwell also set the bar unthinkably high with the sheer number of absurd public statements he made, and then later retracted, during his years as a spokesperson for America’s evangelical Christians. Decrying Archbishop Desmond Tutu as a phony, claiming that 9/11 was caused by feminists and lesbians, stating that AIDS was God’s punishment against homosexuals, questioning the sincerity of Martin Luther King, Jr., and claiming that the Teletubby Tinky Winky was gay because he had an inverted triangle on his head, carried a purse and was purple, all signs of homosexuality in the reverend’s feverish, confused nightmares.

In 1994, Falwell released a videotape called The Clinton Chronicles: An Investigation into the Alleged Criminal Activities of Bill Clinton, which inaugurated the “crockumentary” genre of filmmaking. Among other things, the film accused the president of smuggling cocaine, murdering journalists who got too close to the story, and being the devil. The film was voted 1994’s Worst Episode of Unsolved Mysteries.

Afterlife pundits suggest it may take years for Falwell to accept the truth of his origin, preferring in the meantime to blame his plight on the machinations of liberal angels or a Jewish afterlife conspiracy. Experts stress, however, that God will not hold Falwell’s convictions against him, and when the reverend is ready, he will know where to find God, sitting in the grass, playing and looking at bugs and stuff.

the commune news doesn’t usually concern ourselves with religious matters, but come on, a real chunk died this week. Mordecai “Three Finger” Brown was not the commune’s first choice to report this story, in spite of his already-dead status, but the responsibility fell to him after we were unsuccessful at killing Ivana Folger-Balzac or interesting Boner Cunningham in auto-erotic asphyxiation.

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Don't Drop the Elf

There was a midget named Fidget and a carcass named Marcus and when it rained the two would sluice through the juice that ran down from the hills and take all the pills they found on windowsills. They would tell each other stories of Reginald Voorhees and the liquor he’d sick up when the moon’s in full bloom. And in a rented room they’d zoom zoom zoom around the bed on bicycles and tricycles and roller skates that were Michael’s. But since they were two and their feet were few they had to switch off and swap off and top off and trip off to keep it all in motion like a Laotian promotion. Sometimes they would crash and from his bubble bath a doctor named Proctor would shout all about it. He’d bang on the wall and make the Velcro balls fall and threaten to wet them with disappearing solution that would make them go away like a bay on the day the ocean turned to lotion.

But he never did.

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On the twelfth day of May, which was May eleventh because of a quirk in the work of the calendar constructor and the fickle heart of a tart the day after he’d… uhm, plucked her. But on the twelfth day an elf may or may not have got sick with elf rot and feeling all hot and brimming with snot stumbled and bumbled and flopped in their room, spelling the doom of their womb of zoom zoom. So, forgetting to groom in the gloom like a tomb, Fidget and Marcus packed up their belongings with no wish of prolonging this awkward encounter, Fidget’s Geiger counter going off like sentient meat at the meat counter, because it was broken, just a token from Hoboken. But in their rush and bluster and fluster, they packed up the elf and an old feather duster from up on the shelf that had been sitting there for twelve years all by itself.

And they were off like a shot, but a shot shot quite slowly, all tumbling and rolling like the gun was too oily, like watched water boiling or temp workers toiling or a sloth bent on soiling your favorite bandana. And man, Marcus ate a banana like Princess Diana driving to Montana—it took forever, so you know he didn’t do anything quickly. So sickly as the elf may have been, and prickly as Fidget was when wearing all tin (and forget that side-note, it’s too long a story and hoary and the end’s much to gory and it cribs half of Glory, so just accept he’s dressed in tin), they still got going like throwing a Boeing: Way slow.

But once they got moving the UV rays worked in their favor and they savored the flavor of a kiwi Life Saver they passed all around the car and the trunk, but the taste was all sunk after the elf got his chunk. So they pulled right straight over and kicked the elf to the curb, thinking a blurb in the paper better than this Elvin bedwetter, but he bounced! Not just once, and not twice, he bounced like rubber dice or like mice on dry ice, up the street, up the block and off of the clock and the dock and a rock and a Varsity jock as he tried to talk to a girl named Burl and the world began to unfurl as the elf binged and bopped off the top of a cop and a chop shop and a mop and a sign that said STOP but the elf did not stop. He dinged off the wing of a bird and a spring and a turd and a smear of milk curd that had spelled the word nerd.

The elf continued to zip and volley off the side of a trolley and the tip of a collie and your sister Molly. He bounced and he smashed off six tons of trash and an ounce of pounce decanted from a cat. And a hat and a rat were smashed just like that as the elf let out a yelph that he couldn’t help himself. And yonder and way by the end of the day the whole damned world was broken and curled and beat-up and crimped and neutered and wimped and a high-flying blimp was the only thing skipped.

And that’s where I sit as I write about it on the scraps of a strap that used to wrap maps. But our gas it has passed and our blimp is wrinkled and limp so won’t you give us a hand or a small scrap of land or a righteous ska band? On second though, skip the ska band, we should probably just land.

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Boy, Does All Your Favorite Music Suck

Thanks for offering to let me borrow anything from your CD collection, Joey, but I really have to decline. It’s nothing personal, it’s just that all your music sucks major wank.

I know most people get all offended when I say that, but c’mon: It’s not like it’s your fault you don’t know good music from the sound of a rhino fart. You were just raised by a torturously dull family and surrounded all your life by automatons who eat what they’re served without asking any questions. Some of us manage to break out of that mold and question the mundane garbage surrounding us, but if the most people don’t, that’s hardly something they’re to blame for. But don’t worry, because you happened to have hit on a music whiz, and I’m going to spot you while you flex your non-mainstream muscles.

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We should start with the easy stuff, of course. Everybody’s heard of Pirate’s Cove, so let’s just go back that far—please tell me you’ve heard of Pirate’s Cove? I mean, I don’t see how you could call yourself a fan of ‘90s grunge rock, as I know you do, and not know it all started with Pirate’s Cove in 1985, and their top 100 hit “Chest Pains.” Of course you do. I mean, if Cobain had never heard that—well, fuck, I don’t need to tell you that Nevermind is a direct song-for-song answer to that third Pirates album. But maybe that’s starting too simple. Not trying to insult you or anything.

You can’t really fully understand what Pirate’s Cove is all about until you know about Sheen and Glue Galaxy. But that goes without saying. A lot of people will tell you that Sheen sold out when they let Ivan Parkichov use that song in his movie Badgrarov, but in their defense, that movie was only supposed to play in the Soviet Union, so they kind of got tricked when it was released to Finland and Norway, too. Yeah, they’re not as pure as a band like Bruntshot, but they’re a guilty pleasure. Anyway, if it wasn’t for their electric pop and the high tenor of lead singer Justin Vincent, Pirate’s Cove would probably have sounded like a complete Glue Galaxy knockoff. Like the world needed that!

What’s that other band you like? Green Day? Yeah, I suppose they’re alright. I mean, alright if you’ve never heard Hot Chalk. Can you say Green Day completely stole every fucking thing from them? I mean, Chalk even has a song called “Church on Sunday,” you telling me that’s a coincidence? If that Green Day guy isn’t totally copping Chalk lead singer Eddie Ward’s singing style, I’ll eat my entire 8-track collection. Oh, I suppose you listen to CDs? Vinyl? That’s even worse. It’s been proven that 8-tracks can carry up to 15% more ambient room sound in any recording. I can’t even hear a fucking vinyl record anymore without wanting to jam my fingers right through my ear drums, it’s fucking blasphemy when you can hear all that room sound missing. I guess my ears are just more sensitive than yours.

Oh, I remember now—you like the Strokes, right? I like the Strokes, too. Well, I should say I liked the Strokes. Back in 2000, before they sold out and released that album and shit. Don’t get me wrong, I’m just saying they’re the kind of band who sounds fucking awful when you commit them to a pressed recording. But I still like all those original bootleg live recordings I heard before anyone had heard of them. Now they’re just a pale imitation of their former selves.

If you really like the Strokes, you’ve got to hear this new band I’ve been listening to—Carnal Rule. They’re like the Strokes if they had never given up and just decided to play that shit they play now. Believe me, in six months, nobody but me will have heard of this band. That’s the purest proof I need that a band is better than anything anyone else is listening to.

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Quote of the Day

“Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal. They have to, because let’s face it—you’re never going to support yourself as a fucking poet, cheech.”
—B.S. Eliode

Fortune 500 Cookie

Expect a big upturn in your finances when a bag of silver dollars dropped from a skyscraper nearly kills you. People flock to your show when The New York Times calls you “Stomp for people who wish Stomp would just fucking die already.” The court case is decided this week and you now legally have bragging rights. Lucky meat substitutes: Soy, tofu, tofurkey, a McDonald’s hamburger.

Try again later.

Top Reasons for Increased U.S. Ladder-Associated Deaths

1.	“Up/Down” directions never specified
2.	Reckless Generation Y refuses to wear protective equipment
3.	Ladder-deaths portrayed so glamorously in the movies
4.	Frequent union strikes by staircases leaving human helpless to descend to higher landings except by already overcrowded ladders
5.	Direct correlation to 50% increase in all-blind-cast productions of Our Town

NATO Celebrates Record 34th Taliban Commander Killed

BY v.d. whistling

Harvey Potluck and the Cana- dian Mystery Dollar

Things had come to an abrupt end the previous year for Harvey Potluck, when he failed to complete his third year at Hogwash Military Academy and Magic Technical School when early sales projections failed to help motivate the book’s completion. But since it was published and made a substantial windfall for its publishing house, Harvey decided to return to Hogwash for his fourth year.

He was excited to find himself in the company of his best friends Phil and Persephone as soon as he entered school grounds. The girl threw her arms around him as Phil gave him a very boy-friendly “high five.”