n the wake of the pope’s alleged death last week, the Vatican has released John Paul II’s will and personal diary to the media. Among the juicy tidbits revealed with the publication of the papal diary was the 84-year-old man’s dying wish that the bloodthirsty media would please, please, please keep their grubby mitts off his motherloving diary.

Published in newspapers, and on websites and Happy Meal boxes around the globe in over 90 languages, Catholics and heathens alike thrilled to the pope’s private inner thoughts and the great man’s eloquent musings this week, drinking in the pope’s thoughts on the nature of privacy and his joy at having this one small respite from a life lived on such a public stage.

Hounded all his life by an overzealous media desperate to know what made the pope tick, John Paul II poured his thoughts into the small, leather-bound volume in a scrawl that some have called “Pope-script.� Among the nuggets revealed with the diary’s publication are the details of the pope’s third-grade crush on Margo Holzarian from the Ukraine, and his strange, life-long fascination with American actress Mariel Hemmingway.

“Thank God no one is ever going to read this diary,� the Pope wrote in one of his last entries, dated March 2005. “It is only through this precious cove of privacy that I cling to my very humanity.� According to various sources, the pope misspelled “humanity� in the original text, but newspaper editors have universally agreed that it is highly unlikely the pope was clinging to a humanatee.

Many readers have been especially touched by the earliest entries in the diary, which date back to the pope’s youth.

“Dear diary: Man, being the pope is hard. I miss my mom and dad, and sometimes I just want to go home. Everybody says I’ll get over it though, once I make some new friends. Well, gotta go. Love, The Pope.�

Some less-scholarly Catholics have been equally surprised to learn that John Paul II was referred to as “the pope� even as a small boy, which made for several humorous anecdotes about grade school roll-call.

Garnering somewhat less attention has been the publication of John Paul II’s last will and testament, which some Catholics awaited with great suspense over who would inherit the pope’s collection of pointy hats. In the end, however, it turned out that the pope’s will was written in Polish, so the Vatican instead handed out his belongings on a “first come, first serve� basis to the assembled masses.

“This is fucking awesome,� raved German tourist Himmel Blaus. “I got the pope’s toenail clippers and a pair of boxers with the dude’s initials on them!�

“I got the pope’s soap! The pope’s soap on a rope is dope!� shouted another ecstatic inheritor, dashing out of the room, apparently in a hurry to bathe.

Publishers worldwide are currently in negotiations for the hardcover publishing rights to the pope’s diary, though as of yet, none have thought to tap the gold mine that is the commune’s recent “Pope’s Diary Mad Libs� feature.

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The tension in this office, sir, has become a big pussy boil. If that sounds gross, be clear I do not mean a boil on a lady's parts. I mean a boil filled with pus, which is quite gross in itself, but I'm not going too far with it. This boil has popped all over us. Watch out where you step in the commune offices—pus is everywhere.

I've just been informed by my sage counsel Sully to cut out the pus references. We can actually see the number of visitors deteriorating before our eyes. Very well—on with the story the metaphor supported.

Things came to a head (non-pussy) a couple of months ago when we noticed, despite all the promises from my brother Gay Bagel that we would be up to our necks in new advertisers, we had not a single one who had presented anything to the commune. I became curious, hoping like hell a conspiracy was involved, and it was a doozy, sir: Gay Bagel got all his advertising contracts from the shadiest, shittiest, most fly-by-night-non-batmen product people around. All this talk about raising the respectability of the commune, and this is what he had done—lined us up a bunch of cheaters and hoodlums I wouldn't have gone to myself. And I have extremely low standards where money is concerned.

When we settled our battle over the commune out of court, as you surely won't remember unless you were there, my part of the deal was the raise commune readership by a hundred percent. Well, I gave him 300%—we have easily four readers, at least, because I've met them at the commune Enthusiasts Club meeting. That's not counting all the other thousands of readers I see on the weekly ratings section—I'm not sure those are all that legitimate. Something else Gay was in charge of. But for his part, Gay gave us nothing back. Deal broken, in my book.

I told him our agreement had come to an end, in the most dramatic fashion possible—from atop Omar Bricks' mechanical bull desk. I nearly made my way entirely through my declaration, thirteen seconds, when I was bucked. That's an office record! But it was enough so Gay got the point anyway. He threatened to take me back to court. I suggested, however, than we settle this like men—nineteenth century men. Rapier fighting. He gasped in order, and I had to repeat myself, a little slower, and then he agreed to it.

I'm no slouch as a rapier wielder. I can carve my initials into an opponent in one swift motion, no big deal. But I can also leave my full mark, "Redward Bagel, Esquire." That's nothing to scoff at, although come to think of it, putting my favorite magazine after my full name may be just a little obnoxious. As for Gay's skills with a sword… they're passable.

So we met early in the morning, at the break of noon, just the two of us since none of the staff wanted to get up that early. We started the duel when the cock crowed, and since neither of us had brought a chicken, there was considerable waiting around. I kid you not, it was the rapier battle to end them all, one blade narrowly missing the other tubby body, swishes and fwips in the air like you've never heard. Both of us are now completely shaven, in all areas—that's how close it all was. I nearly died of excitement, and a deep stab just above my heart which I made with my own sword.

The ending was climactic, at least I climaxed. In the end, I blocked one of Gay's strikes with a foot and disarmed him, throwing his sword aside, useless as a eunuch's tool. I put the blade to his throat and spared his life on two conditions: One, that he relinquish all control to the commune, two, that he never tell dad. He's dead, but I don't want him hearing about it anyway.

So… the war of the Bagels is at an end. The victor: Me, Red "Victor" Bagel. And you must call me Victor.

So keep a close eye on everything here. Things are about to forever change—back to the way we used to run it all.

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There is a new show on the Fox television network featuring puppets acting like real people once again. This is nothing new, it beckons back to the old days of vaudeville where wood-and-cloth dolls would make innuendos about getting laid frequently when they weren't performing. Much like Andrew "Dice" Clay during his fifteen minutes of popularity, before Ford Fairlaine.

Puppets are welcome to their shows and Church performances and whatever else they want, I just want them to stop perpetuating the myth they started long ago. It's ironic, if not embryonic, that these puppets pretend to be real during the program and then so much is made of human performers manipulating the puppets and doing its voice off-camera, when the real truth is in the program.

Yes, I say what you have all long suspected when I tell you: Puppets are real.

Once again the government and a close-knit Hollywood enclave have taken the truth and wrapped an entertainment ribbon around it, then perpetuate a lie because they feel America isn't ready for the truth. You'd be shocked and fall out of your seat, bumping your ass on your well-swept floor, if you knew how many movies in Hollywood are true stories disguised as fiction. The Truman Show? True, man. Show. Fight Club? True. Armageddon? True, except for the ridiculous dialogue. Apollo 13? Hang on to your ass, folks—it's true.

More devastating to the population as a whole may be the secret that all of the Muppet movies are real. The de facto Muppet movie, The Muppet Movie is the real story of how puppets became a large workforce in Hollywood. The frog, bear, etc. traveling to Hollywood to star in pictures, encountering several celebrities working mundane jobs along the way, it's all the true story with a few jokes dropped in, as well as a lot of talk of puppet unions and contract points left out. And the most important point: The American public must never find out puppets are human beings reincarnated in felt dolls.

The details escape me, I have misplaced the cocktail napkin I wrote them on, but suffice to say puppets are a major hidden force in Hollywood. Not only do they star in movies and television shows, they also hold powerful positions on the MPAA board and work as agents. When I visited two years ago I'm reasonably sure a puppet even parked my car when I visited Spago.

I'm not denouncing puppets, mind you; if anything, I'm encouraging them. Even if they are the dead brought back to life in the hideous form of a cloth toy creation, they deserve the same rights as anyone else. I'm not sure how they reproduce without visible sex organs, but maybe if there are puppets out there who are fans of the commune, they could e-mail me and let me know because I'm extremely curious. Just informative curious, not wanting to explore or anything.

This issue means a lot to me, if you haven't guessed by now. In fact, after looking through some old photo albums it may be possible I myself, Red Bagel, have some puppet blood running through me. It's a troublesome prospect, especially picturing some Bagel ancestor of mine engaging in sexual intercourse with a puppet. I'm not judging, I've had sex with dolls before myself, but they've never been animated in any sense and didn't seem to enjoy it as much as I did.

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