ast Wednesday’s final presidential debate left many questions unanswered in the minds of American voters, but not among them was the cockwad status of U.S. citizen Mark Buckles. Despite their numerous policy differences, both President Bush and Democratic challenger John Kerry saw squarely eye to eye on the Buckles issue, presenting a unified vision for a future America where Buckles is clearly a total cockwad.

According to political pundits analyzing the debates for the major networks, Kerry looks kind of like an alien and Bush makes a lot of stupid faces.

Seeking to differentiate his Buckles position from that of his challenger, Bush accused Kerry of changing his mind about whether or not Mark Buckles was a cockwad, citing Kerry’s infamous “I called Buckles a cockwad before I didn’t� quote from last year.

“Unlike that Belgian motherfucker over there,� Bush said with his trademark uninformed bravado. “I knew Mark Buckles was a cockwad from the start. And America needs strong leaders who know a Buckles when they see one.�

Meanwhile, Kerry accused Bush of refusing to admit his mistake in branding Buckles a cockwad before all available evidence had been collected, and merely going on the word of Secretary of State Colin Powell, who has personal reasons for his feelings about Buckles.

“Mark Buckles is not the cockwad that George Bush promised America,� explained Kerry. “We were sold a bill of goods. Yes, Mark is definitely a cockwad. But not the king-sized cockwad that this administration painted him to be, when they needed your support to go public about this young man.�

“And as for my cockwad stance,� Kerry elaborated. “At first I gave Buckles the benefit of the doubt, as I’d like to think any strong leader would. But once all the available evidence had been collected, it became clear that Mark is indeed a cockwad.�

Kerry seemed to struggle with his usual problem of talking out of both sides of his mouth during the debate Wednesday, attempting to appease liberals who think Buckles got a raw deal as well as centrist Democrats and undecideds who believe that Buckles is a cockwad, but still think Bush rushed to judgment too quickly in the matter.

Partisans on both sides shared their hysterical reactions with anyone who would listen, even before the debates had ended.

“Kerry is a God among men and his penis is lovely,� explained breathless Democratic partisan Dane Philsley when asked about his candidate’s debate performance.

“George Bush proved once and for all that he farts wisdom into a can for the world to huff,� disagreed Republican partisan Carla Dennis, apparently believing this to be a compliment.

Regardless of who came out ahead in the debates, both candidates have likely lost the vote of Buckles, who could not be reached for comment. Some pundits have argued that Buckles was the real loser of Wednesday’s debate, since whoever wins the November election, Mark Buckles will spend the next four years known as an unmistakable cockwad. What is unknown as of yet is how much of a boost Buckles’ supporters will give third-party candidate Ralph Nader, who has gone on record as saying he’s sure Buckles has his redeeming qualities.

According to a CNN.com instant poll taken immediately following the debates, Mark Buckles sucks balls.

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"I remember the first poem I ever read. I was maybe six or seven, possibly twelve or thirty-two, sometimes numbers blur together in my head.

It started out something like, 'I think that I shall never see, a poem as lovely as a tree.' Well, needless to say, that turned me off to poetry right away. I have enough nasty thoughts a-tumblin' round in my head without opening my mind to the possibility of sexual congress with a tree. I'm not sure what kind of liberal hoo-hah forced my teachers to include the perverse interest in forestry among my poetic education, but I wanted no part of it.

It was only later, in my college career, that I had a differing point of view put to me. I stopped my English teacher, Gadfly Harpskull, in the hallway and told him I was going to drop out of his class if he kept reading poetry to us, I wanted no part of it. He demanded I explain my disdain for poetry. I did, and he laughed.

'Hartwig, young man,'—he frequently called me Hartwig— 'I'm afraid your understanding of the poem is a little skewed from that of others. Most people interpret Kilmer's poem to be about the loveliness of nature, the inability of creations by man to match the sheer beauty of nature.'

'Most, you say,' I asked him. 'Not all?'

'Well, naturally, any poem is up for a different interpretation. Some of it requires stretching. In fact, it's possible for any poem to be about sex with a tree if your imagination reaches toward that inclination all the time.'

That was indeed what I had suspected all the time. I dropped the class and never looked back."

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Long about this time every year, the days just get too nice to be wasted sitting around the commune offices, modifying my wrist rocket or flinging boomerangs out the window in the hope that they'll hook back into Raoul Dunkin's window for an Aussie Good Morning. When it gets this nice, it becomes imperative to take the day off, but not the kind of weak-assed "authorized" days off that normal chumps take. Nope, Monday I decided it was time for an Omar Bricks Day Off, the kind where everybody thinks you're still at work but you're actually far away, pushing a greased pig in through the back door of a titty bar somewhere.

Now, though it may sound like all fun and panicked strippers to the novice, an Omar Bricks Day Off is actually a complicated undertaking. If word got to Bagel that I was going to fuck off for the day I'd be in some serious shit, because he'd definitely want to tag along and there's no way I was going to have that big sack of weird following me around all day. I somehow ended up at a boat show with Bagel one time and that Zagnut actually tried to buy the convention center, so he could lock the doors and claim ownership of all the boats and people in attendance. How embarrassing. So needless to say, I needed to bust open a big can of covertness, and fast, unless I wanted to spend the day listening to Bagel talk about how he was suing the television show Method and Red for stealing his character.

At first I tried to set up a mannequin at my desk, to fool people into thinking I was actually here but just really bored, but that idea quickly went over like a fat man in a hot air balloon. Every time I left my office to get more stealthing supplies, I came back to find that somebody had mistaken the mannequin for Raoul Dunkin and knocked its head off. After the third time I thought about trying to bolt the head on better, but with my luck somebody would set the damned thing on fire while I was gone, and then my ruse would be up and somebody else would have their whole day ruined when they found out Dunkin was still alive.

So instead I tethered a monkey to my desk and put a Jane Fonda workout tape in the VCR, which sadly was enough to convince most of the staff that I'd made it in to work for the day. It probably would have fooled Bagel too, except the ape went monkeyshit when the tape ended and it couldn't find the rewind button on the remote. I've heard conflicting accounts about the kind of mayhem that ensued, the only constant being that at some point, the monkey definitely ate Lil Duncan's brassiere.

So from what I hear, from that moment the hunt was on, with Bagel stopping at nothing convenient to find out where I'd gone and why I hadn't invited him. That's what I hear anyway, I was at the discus factory by that time, still under the impression that the goddamned monkey was doing his job.

At some point Bagel stopped by my house, jimmied the lock with the key that got melted in there during a hot-doorknob prank last year, and questioned Foghat as to my whereabouts. At which time Foghat passively resisted by pissing out an open window. Great dog.

From what I understand Bagel made his way to the uniform store from there, thinking that was a place I'd go, which was a plain stupid move on his part. I'd already been there earlier in the morning, and that trail was colder than a passed-out hooker on a winter morning. By then I was borrowing Bob Dylan's Jesus jacket from the Hard Rock Café on the other side of town, a move Bagel wouldn't intuit until hours later, when he caught wind of that afternoon's surprise Dylan concert in the park.

I finally gave Bagel the shake later in the afternoon by listing the lost frames of the Zapruder film on eBay; I hear the bidding got up to a quarter-million before somebody realized I had just scanned in the negatives from my trip to the Ferrari museum. Sure, it screwed my eBay rating, but it got Bagel off my ass long enough for me to ride in the Black Power parade, and that was well worth a couple of death threats in my feedback listing.

Even though I never got to the Louvre as planned, the day still ranked as a stellar Bricks fuck-off, and convinced me that I should really do this kind of thing more often. The question is: Would every day be too often? There's only one way to find out.

Bricks off.

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