abernathie='Stan Abernathie is the commune’s resident sports expert, which is no great shakes considering most of the staff flunked out of gym class and thinks hockey is a cute way of saying you had to pawn the TV. An avid baseball fan for over 50 years, 18 of which he enjoyed, Abernathie brings a biting yet irrelevant perspective to the commune. Which we already had pretty much ass-deep, but he sneaks us all into the buffet on his AARP discount so nobody’s complaining just yet. Look for Stan at your local minor league baseball facility, or wherever cotton candy is sold.';
bagel='Red Bagel was born in a small grass hut on the tiny island of Pangkor Laut off the coast of Malaysia. Red was a genial boy, given to flights of fancy and fond of running along the beach on his hands, sucking up shellfish with his mouth like a vacuum cleaner. Red grew up learning the traditions of his people, from scaling trees to collect cocoanuts to making anatomically correct dolls out of sea shells for Health class. One day when Red was shimmying his way up a cocoanut tree to collect cocoanuts for the celebration of his transition into manhood, he was sucked up and whisked away by passing aliens, just like a vacuum cleaner, and the next thing he knew he was a middle-aged curmudgeon slinging adverbs for the commune, with no memory of the intervening years. ';
book='<script language="JavaScript">location.href=\'bio_book.html\';</script>';
boris='Boris is born in little hole in wall in Homeland. Uncle say “Boris, out of hole!” and Boris is coming out, ha ha. Joking, Boris is not really borning in hole. For real Boris born at home during gameshow when mother is not wanting to miss show but Boris born anyway. Mother never forgive Boris for missing big spin, but father love Boris. Okay, ha ha, now Boris joke with two times. You are sucker for Boris. Father big man never speak but to singing songs from Disney movie. Some persons says father is crazy, but they isn’t knowing father just sing songs, not really think he is flying elephants. Boris grow up big and strong and is hero of school hockey team in picture Boris draw one time. In for reals, Boris just like wander around and look at things, like “Okay, you are tree.” Also, Boris like anchovy. Goodbye.';
chesterfeld='Carlisle P. Chesterfeld would be happy to tell you his life story, just as soon as you provide proper references, certificates of breeding, and a friendly quantity of methamphetamines.';
childstar='Clarissa Coleman brings her distinct voice and female perspective to the commune from the world of entertainment. Coleman was the breakout child star from ABC’s <i>Who’s Your Daddy?</i> and such films as <i>Li’l Poachers</i> and <i>Return to Skank Mountain</i>. After her screen career faded, Coleman’s life was filled with ups and downs, though she’s found success in infomercials and as an author of such tell-all books as <i>You’ll Never Eat Paste in This Town Again</i>. She was born in Bellmont, California and will die in Los Angeles, California, though we’re not saying when. ';
dickman='We’ll tell you all about Joel Dickman’s life once he gets one, we promise.';
dreck='Griswald Dreck was born in Bible times, appearing naked in a giant ball of light that freaked the shit out of everybody who happened to be there. Dreck invented the Camaro when he was six, and is personally responsible for tacos.  Though he doesn’t believe in the concept middle names, if you must use one he likes to be called “Griswald THE Dreck,” kind of like Winnie the Pooh, only cooler. One interesting tidbit that not everyone knows is that Griswald has two souls: his own, naturally, and another spare soul that he keeps in a fanny pack, which he won playing accordion with the devil. Though it’s not clear when he says that if he’s referring to the soul or the fanny pack.';
dunkin='Office dickcheese and resident gaywad extraordinaire Raoul “Humbly Hung” Dunkin is a true American role model for succeeding successfully in spite of having nothing going for you whatsoever. After overcoming a bedwetting affliction at the age of 26, Dunkin finally found a home away from homelessness at the commune in 1999, as one of the “Gas House Gang” of founding commune reporters at the site’s web launch. Wasting no opportunities to piss away a good thing, Dunkin put on an epic display of back-stabbing by leaving the commune for a job at M-TV later that year. Ever since failing in the wider world and coming crawling back to the commune in 2002, Dunkin has been on the commune fast track, being promoted from beat reporter to “Head of Second-Day Underwear Smelling,” then “Hobo Fluffer,” and finally “King Wiener” all in his first week back. Honored by <i>Magazine Magazine</i> in 2003 as “The Most-Promoted Man in America,” Dunkin received an astonishing 867 promotions in that year alone, a testament to his drive and dedication to the commune ideal.<br /><br />So, what’s the future hold in store for Raoul Dunkin? After being arrested on kiddie-porn charges late next year, Dunkin will choke on the cock of an overweight inmate in a federal penitentiary in Oklahoma some time in 2007.<br /><br />Hey, you asked.';
finger='Varying reports on the biography of Rokwell T. Finger come to us from the varying sources of Rokwell T. Finger himself under the influence of different socially-acceptable drugs, ala pixie sticks and Deep Woods Off.<p>The first possible biography states that Rokwell T. Finger was born in Rhode Island before it was settled and grew up, very slowly over a couple centuries, living as average and dull an American life as could spawn the likes of him. Though he is only 60 years old clinically, respected doctors say he has no beginning and no end, not that you can prove, smart guy.<p>The second possible biography is that Rokwell T. Finger was assembled from a pre-fab kit and talks of “childhood” are mannish boasting rituals with no ground in reality. Whoever purchased him then collected the entire set of wife, house, cat, and various kids who he sometimes recalls. <p>Rok’s history in journalism dates back to writing the game description on the back of Mystery Date by Parker Brothers. He has worked for Time, The Los Angeles Times, the New York Times, “Good Times,” and Morris Day and the Time, all coincidentally as a hatrack. He studied journalism during lunch a few years ago and has been writing for the commune since its web inception in 1999, though Rok is convinced it goes back further than that. He has never read his own words in print for he fears it will steal his soul, as well as his pocket watch.';
fortune='Mazie the Chicken was born in a nest of shredded newspapers on a farm just outside of Tulsa, Oklahoma. She spent her early years clucking and pecking at nothing on the ground. She might still be doing the same thing today if it weren’t for an entrepreneurial birthday party magician named Slocum Brooder, who liberated Mazie from her pen one day with the intention of having chicken fingers for dinner but ended up being taken with her seemingly random pecking. Instead, Slocum sold Mazie to the local county Fair as a “Magic Genius Chicken” who could tell the future, guess a person’s weight and pick stocks better than 4/5ths of Wall Street tycoons.<p> The incredibly gullible Fair promoter bought the story and built Mazie a special box where she sat and pecked at buttons all day. For a small fee, Fairgoers could ask Mazie questions and get their answers on small white cards that said “Made in Hungary” on the back. After a string of amazing predictions, such as “You will smoke until you die. Try again later.” and “You will cut off some tails with a carving knife. Try again later.”, word of Mazie’s abilities spread far and wide.<p>Before long, word spread to commune editor Red Bagel, who was at a nearby booth ordering a pepperoni hoagie on a stick. Red was so impressed that he liberated Mazie from her box, and took her home to make chicken & dumplings. But once he got home and saw the way she pecked at a copy of the New York Times that he’d left on the floor, Red got a better idea. He remembered that he never got his pepperoni hoagie and decided to order in pizza instead.<p> Red forgot all about the chicken and weeks passed, until one evening Lil Duncan was over at Bagel’s New York apartment doing research for an article she was writing about the female condom. She asked Red why he had a chicken nesting in his bathroom sink. Red went straight for the butcher block in his kitchen, his hunger for dumplings rekindled. But by the time he had returned, Lil and Mazie had bonded over Mazie’s endearing random pecking behavior. Lil suggested that Red could save some money by firing one of the commune’s writers and hiring Mazie (literally for chicken feed) as an astrologer/advice columnist/fortune-teller. Red stopped listening after the “firing a writer” part as he got excited and immediately picked up the phone and called to have longtime commune columnist Dusty Tickle fired, tarred, feathered and put on a bus to Toledo. Mazie, meanwhile, was snuck into the commune offices by Lil and was given an office, a stack of magazines and newspapers, and a personal assistant named Molly Thatch who writes down whatever words Mazie is pecking at and transcribes them into a new Fortune 500 Cookies every month.<p> Mazie the Chicken was the winner of the 2000 Goldem-Holden award for excellence in prognosticative journalism and she holds a P.H.D. in being finger-lickin’ good.<p> You will read a biography. Try again later.';
goocher='Stuart Umbrage hails from the small town of Okaidoke, Wisconsin, which is very tough to spin off as a cool place to be from. And believe us, he has tried. Stu had his first taste of fame as a 16 year-old when he appeared on the local evening news after waxing his entire body. The catch is that he didn’t wax it for the purpose of hair removal, but rather to give it a glossy finish and to protect his skin from oxidation. What started out as a dream come true quickly turned into a nightmare when local residents began avoiding Stu on sunny days when the light reflecting off of his skin was nearly blinding. The experience gave Stu a valuable outsider’s perspective, however, and contributed to his formidable personality. Stu nearly received a Master’s Degree in Botany from the University of Wisconsin, but never got around to turning in his final paper and still has it kicking around in a drawer somewhere.  Stu’s hobbies include procrastination, pissing, moaning and admiring Faberge eggs.';
hanes='Mickey Hanes on Mickey Hanes:<br /><br />“Mickey Hanes is the broken potato chip crumbs in the bedsheets of the known universe. I never met a drug I couldn’t handle and I’ve never met a midget that I couldn’t beat within an inch of its life. People are always asking me what I do for a living and I always tell them ‘Mickey Hanes’ is what I do for a living, do you have any idea how goddamn hard it is to be this good looking all the time? Never count on the homeless to follow through with anything you ask them for, I don’t care how much change you give  ‘em. If you ever have the opportunity to escape being gang fucked in a dark alley by several large members of Hell’s Angels hopped up on PCP, take it. I don’t care what you’re claimin’, you can’t lick your own balls without assistance. Never do today what you can put off for forever. It’s only illegal if you get caught, same with masturbation. Despite what everyone tells you, drugs are the greatest invention since water, fuck the man. Finally, when I see you out on the streets and I hock one right in your face, thats just my way of saying ‘Stay the fuck away from me.’ God bless.”<br /><br /><center><a href="http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.ListAll&friendID=28289365&Mytoken=8B34AA1E-7605-4BD6-BEFEA296D341255017777407ML" target="_blank">Read Mickey Hanes’ Blog</a></center>';
hartwig='Sampson L. Hartwig was born the sweet-talking son of a preacher man in Shingles Mountain, Nevada long long ago. Not much is known about Sampson’s early years, other than what he’ll tell you, but that’s always a little suspect since he’s been known to say just about anything to get into a girl’s pants. Sampson’s father, Jack Hartwig, was known all over the county as the man who stood up to, shot and killed the big black monster that had been terrorizing the town and stealing everyone’s cigarette butts. Jack later did 15 years in Nevada’s infamous Colonial Penn Penn prison for shooting the driver of the street sweeper. Those close to Sampson suggest that this tragic turn of events deeply influenced his development as a young man, and anyone who’s seen him eat his own cigarette butts can attest to this. Sampson himself once spent 36 hours in county lock-down for squirting mustard on local wiener dogs, but the cot made his arm fall asleep and Sampson found that hard time did not suit his waterbed lifestyle. He paid the $3 fine and has been a law-abiding citizen ever since.';
hooper='Vernon Hooper has galvanized the abortion debate with his work as the living example of an abortion gone wrong. Though none can say for sure which side of the fight he has boosted by his existence.';
hurley='Ramrod Hurley came to the commune from the fascinating world of unemployment. Hurley’s previous position at the short-lived gossip column website www.poopoftheday.com apparently taught him nothing about avoiding failure, as immediately after his dot-com went in the toilet he hooked up with Red Bagel as a commune reporter. Hurley’s pomposity and inappropriate pronunciation of Latin impressed Bagel enough to make him Deputy Editor, a position scorned by everyone else. In addition to proofreading the news articles and keeping the columnists happy, Hurley does every editorial duty Bagel doesn’t want to do, and also warms up his car on cold winter mornings. Stories of an evil Ramrod Hurley who exacts revenge on Ramrod’s enemies cannot be confirmed, but come talk to us about it sometime, we’ve got some scary shit to tell.';
kroeger='Mitch Kroeger is the proud owner of the “Nicest Man in Florida” Award, which he acquired after hitting the nicest man in Florida with his Suburban.';
loser='Alamo Cruise comes to us from New Mexico, a wondrous land to the west of Texas. At ten months old, Cruise won a baby pageant in the “roundest and hairiest” category, and has been receiving unwanted rewards ever since. Cruise started at the commune as a “toilet brush,” which is a nickname for the person who does the custodial duties, and is only rarely actually used as the brush. commune Editor Red Bagel and Cruise shared a common love of getting irresponsibly drunk, and that bond led to the creation of You Just Can’t Win, a column where Cruise shares his stories of being the dog’s ass the sun has yet to shine on. He still manages to keep up his custodial duties. ';
ned='Ned Nedmiller was born in Waughkipseah, Pennsylvania in 1847. At the age of seven, he was hit by an ice cream truck while playing in his back yard and was killed. Sixty years later, it was discovered that this was a clerical error and that the ice cream truck had actually died that terrible day. Ned spent the rest of his childhood in the 1910’s, spending most of his time in a homemade submarine that he had constructed out of a discarded refrigerator and a box of lead. On his eleventh birthday, Ned took his submarine (“The Dolly Pardon”) out for its maiden voyage in the Atlantic. Scuba divers found him 50 years later, still exploring the silt on the floor of the Atlantic. Thanks to the strict diet of Easter Peeps and orange soda Ned had adhered to as a child, his body had not aged during his deep-sea hibernation, and after being hoisted to the surface, Ned rounded out his childhood years in the 1960’s. After earning a Bachelor’s degree in vacuum cleaner repair from Max Stiger’s Fly-by-Night Correspondence University in 1974, Ned went on to work as a free-lance inventor, earning extra income on the side as a DJ for funerals and wakes. Ned never lost his love for the sea, earning international acclaim as a master fisherman and widespread controversy for his plan to chlorinate the Atlantic Ocean. In addition, Ned is a founding member of the AAA and is revered as a deity by a small cult in southern Colorado.';
pickle='Smilin’ Jack Costello is known and reviled all over the American South for the creation of his beloved characters, the “humpin’ bumpkins,” Shorty and Jeeter. A modest man who never left his hometown of Bangor, Maine, Costello’s vivid imaginings of what the South must be like have inspired a generation of stereotypical redneck jokes that are loved by all.';
poet='<script language="JavaScript">location.href=\'bio_poet.html\';</script>';
police='<script language="JavaScript">location.href=\'bio_police.html\';</script>';
polio='Omar Bricks hails from one of the richest families in all of New Jersey. His father worked in the coal mines, scraping bats off the mule’s asses, and his mother worked there too, scraping ticks off the bats’ asses. At a young age Omar knew he was different and he dreamed of a bigger life, as a trunk deodorizer at the big car wash in neighboring Dumluk, NJ. The fates were not on Omar’s side however, as he was sent to the University of South Carolina on a Connect-Four scholarship instead. Omar took to University life as a wave takes to water, earning a Masters of Journalism in record time. That’s what he says anyway, all school records were lost when the entire school burnt down during a double-dare gone bad when Omar attempted to jump a dog sled full of freshman biology majors and a harp seal over 20 oil drums stacked end-to-end in front of the dean’s residence. After the grand jury hearing, Omar opted to study abroad. Not much is known about Omar’s years outside the country, the only thing that’s for certain is that he came back with a wicked tattoo of a wicker chair on the back of one of his calves. After trying his hand as a door-to-door asbestos salesman, Omar started sneaking into the commune offices dressed in a suit he found discarded on a rack in a locked coat closet at a country club. Everyone assumed he worked here, and before long, Omar was collecting a paycheck. He probably would have been found out eventually if it weren’t for the fact that most of the commune staff got their jobs the same way. ';
rent='“This Space for Rent” is the commune’s opportunity to explore new editorial talent and to bring our readers a fresh new voice that’s slightly different from our other fresh voices. This is the everyman’s chance to make his voice heard, and to get paid non-union rates in the process. God Bless America!';
reynolds='Thelma Reynolds puts the “Major” in “Sociology Major,” and she’ll explain what that means if you ask or nod at her in the elevator. A product of bisexual parents (her father said goodbye to sex the day he proposed to her mother) and public broadcasting, Reynolds came of age in a Northern California daycare community crackling with new ideas about sitting Indian-style and napping on cots. She prides herself on reading a Nancy Drew mystery every month, though one month she had to make do with a ghostwritten Nancy Reagan bio in a pinch. You didn’t hear that from us.';
sampson='Sampson L. Hartwig was born the sweet-talking son of a preacher man in Shingles Mountain, Nevada long long ago. Not much is known about Sampson’s early years, other than what he’ll tell you, but that’s always a little suspect since he’s been known to say just about anything to get into a girl’s pants. Sampson’s father, Jack Hartwig, was known all over the county as the man who stood up to, shot and killed the big black monster that had been terrorizing the town and stealing everyone’s cigarette butts. Jack later did 15 years in Nevada’s infamous Colonial Penn Penn prison for shooting the driver of the street sweeper. Those close to Sampson suggest that this tragic turn of events deeply influenced his development as a young man, and anyone who’s seen him eat his own cigarette butts can attest to this. Sampson himself once spent 36 hours in county lock-down for squirting mustard on local wiener dogs, but the cot made his arm fall asleep and Sampson found that hard time did not suit his waterbed lifestyle. He paid the $3 fine and has been a law-abiding citizen ever since.';
sickhead='Clarise Sickhead is the kind of intentional mystery where your curiousity is far outweighed by the certainty that you really, really don’t want to know the answer.';
staff='<script language="JavaScript">location.href=\'staff2.html\';</script>';
ted='Ted Ted lives in the cabinet where we keep the xerox paper and will do most anything for a Wheat Thin.';
vanslyke='Homer VanSlyke was born in The Land Before Time, but not the cartoon movie or actual prehistoric times. It was a dinosaur-themed amusement park built in the 1890’s that featured park employees wearing tee-shirts with pictures of dinosaurs on them. That’s it. Needless to say, people were hard pressed for entertainment back then. VanSlyke’s mother went into labor when a man “dressed” as a Tyrannosaurus Rex popped out from behind a park bench and coughed. Since then, Homer’s life has been pretty anticlimactic, a fact that he has always blamed on that damned theme park.';
zender='Emil Zender is the Founder, President, and Acting-Motivational Speaker of the commune Enthusiasts Club, a distinction best kept to oneself while visiting your tougher biker bars and GOP rallies.';