merican forces and the new Iraqi regime took another blow this week when Saddam loyalists hidden on the outskirts of Baghdad took responsibility for the disastrous Ben Affleck-Jennifer Lopez film, Gigli. The film, a reputedly putrid and cloying pairing of America's hottest celebrity couple under the helm of Scent of a Woman director Martin Brest, has been universally blasted as one of the worst movies in recent history. Which is saying quite a lot.

In a short statement on a video tape released to Al Jazeera, a ventriloquil figure purported to be Saddam Hussein credited the bomb, detrimental to the careers of Affleck, Lopez, Brest, and anyone else who touched it, to the movement of Saddam Hussein loyalists.

"The capitalist pig culture has been punished by Allah for its excesses in the most fitting fashion imaginable. We of the Iraqi regime loyalists claim full responsibility for this catastrophe. A strike to the heart of America in the name of Allah! The next time imperialists seek to meddle in the affairs of the Middle East, watch the critically impaired dialogue and undigestable chemistry forced upon your citizens."

Spokesmen for the U.S. government and Hollywood alike allege Saddam loyalists are trying to put the American public to fear, taking credit for a natural disaster they had nothing to do with, and assure the populace that Middle Eastern terrorist groups do not have the capability to sign big stars into bombs and weaken scripts or mis-edit major productions. Others defend the movie as "not that bad."

Despite the assurances of the government and celebrity authorities that Gigli is a misfire of a few studio producers and not the work of anti-American fanatics, the media has latched onto the claim and begun to question other recent disasters. While reasonably convinced Al-Qaeda or other anti-American groups are not responsible for northeastern power outages, leading media outlets are asking if Osama bin Laden may have been responsible for failed Julia Roberts-Brad Pitt vehicle The Mexican. Some postulate the film was much better and ruined by bin Laden or associates, who then refused to take responsibility for it when it turned out too atrocious.

Hollywood watchdog website www.stargaze.com has taken the bold step of suggesting Saddam loyalists, linked to Al-Qaeda, have carried out the most disastrous summer box office bombing of all time in the summer of 2003. From digital debacle The Hulk, all the way back to the underwhelming The Matrix Reloaded, the onslaught of movies that have failed to hold the number one slot or in any way live up to audience expectations has been too perfectly a Hollywood failure to be chalked up to poor studio executives and directors too apt to insult the intelligence of mainstream America. According to the website, Gigli is merely the capper designed to forever disillusion American movie-goers after the disappointing blitz of Charlie's Angels Full Throttle, Terminator 3, American Wedding, and Hollywood Homicide.

"Celebrity mismatches, cul-de-sac scripts, sequels we never asked for to movies that weren't that good to begin with," the website claimed, "this is nothing like the Hollywood we've come to know and love. They have either thrown in with the America haters in the Middle East or are the dupes of spies and con-men trying to unravel the fabric of our celluloid culture."

The investigators at www.stargaze.com stated they would reward any evidence providing a link between Al-Qaeda and the AOL-Time-Warner, and planned a three-part study next to examine the role of terrorists in the music industry since 1997.

he anemic field of Democratic candidates, described by political pundits as “what the A-team would be like if it was really gay,� has inspired many Democrats to push for another Al Gore candidacy in 2004. Perhaps not grasping the ramifications of four more years with Boy George at the helm, thus far the former vice-president has steadfastly refused.

“I wouldn’t run for president again for a million, trillion dollars,� Gore told reporters last December. “Nor for all the tea in China.�

�Not even for true love?� a reporter questioned.

“No,� answered Gore. “Not even for that.�

However, Gore did concede later that if this reporter was holding a gun to the head of an innocent newborn baby, he might consider it. Though he did seem a little weirded out by the question.

Recent polls in New Hampshire show that if Gore were to enter the race for the Democratic Party nomination, he would immediately become the front-runner in that state. These polls showed that the same also holds true for Hillary Rodham Clinton, George Clinton, and Kool-Aid Man, the gigantic pitcher of powdered beverage famous for busting through walls and responding in the affirmative. Various Democratic candidates have denounced the poll as mean, but true.

Speaking with the commune this week, Gore’s position on his potential candidacy remained unchanged.

“Would you, could you, if it rained?� this reporter asked the non-candidate.

“I would not, could not if it rained,� responded Gore. “Nor if my brain had gone insane. I meant what I said and I said what I meant: I will not run for president! Now leave me be!�

Other scenarios that would fail to entice Gore to run include learning the secrets behind various Carly Simon songs, a blimp full of naked cheerleaders landing in his backyard, or having a southern state renamed Goregia.

Several political commentators have suggested that Gore would prefer to go down in history as the man who was denied the presidency by an antiquated electoral system and corrupt election officials in Florida, rather than risk losing a second election to a man who has been amply exposed as one of the less-memorable bit characters on Dukes of Hazzard. Those who know Gore dismiss this idea as absurd, though they could totally see Bush giving the Duke boys the what-for.

Gore supporters suggest instead that the former vice-president simply doesn’t wish to subject the public to a Gore v. Bush rematch, or spend the next year of his life debating with a man who moves his lips when he reads.

So I'm sitting there, explaining to the sheriff about how if a pizza delivery dude leaves his car running in front of your house while he jets in to bring your gaywad neighbor a pizza, it's totally kosher to sprint out and take his car for a spin for a few days or whatever, when I shit you not, that Eric Clapton reggae song comes on the radio. Right there, in the car, while the cop is leaning in my window and his breath is stank like Thai food and I'm trying to remember if Grand Theft Auto is a felony or just some shit they made up for the video game.

I'm sitting there, explaining to this dude about civil disobedience and Johnny Tremaine and all that, and about the legal precedent of Roper vs. Furley in 1968 and whatever else I can skewer onto the bullshit-kabob I'm cooking up for the guy, when I start to think I may have broken on through to the other side because there's no way this song comes on right then. I didn't even know the radio station had that record, as far as I can tell all they've got is one each from AC/DC and Pink Floyd that they picked up at a yard sale somewhere and they keep playing them again and again like your annoying ten year-old neighbor kid.

But sure as that cop's breath smelled like a loose Chinaman's ass they were playing the goddamned Clapton song. I think I may have screamed, quietly, when it came on, though I'm not sure if the cop looked uncomfortable because of that or just because he doesn't like Clapton. Not that I'd blame him, you hear all about the police backlash when shit like "Fuck Tha Police" or "Cop Killer" comes out but nobody said a word when it was "I Shot the Sheriff," even though that's about as specific as you can get. I guess they don't take it seriously when it's a white guy singing the song. Or maybe most sheriffs are just pricks and the rest of the cops are just like "Right on."

Well, just my luck this guy actually is the sheriff, and I don't think he's a Clapton fan either. Not even when Clapton jammed with the Beatles and porked George Harrison's wife, and that's some pretty cold shit. I don't know what kind of music you're into if that doesn't do it for you; maybe he was a big fan of that Mexican polka shit that's always playing in the kitchen at restaurants. I guess somebody else has got to like that stuff, since it's not like a bunch of dishwashers own radio stations.

So I'm sitting there thinking this goddamned station just sank my battleship outright, since after I hit the water fountain I really only had the cop's good graces to bank on to avoid some kind of harsh retribution. I'm not sure what the penalty is for borrowing some random pizza guy's car and using it to practice your stunt driving, but I'm sure they'd at least make you walk home, which I wasn't too excited about.

All I can say is thank God I spent my childhood on up honing the ability to lie through my teeth. They had the pizza guy's license and registration, so I started going off about how I didn't look like the picture anymore because I'd had a sex change to become a woman, you know, because I thought it would be fun to have tits and stuff. But that hadn't worked out since then I couldn't sit out on my lawn with my shirt off anymore, so I got a sex change back, but they kind of fucked it up so when I shot out of the tube I didn't look the same as I had before. You think it's like the Sneetches in that one book, but it's actually much more complicated than that, yadda yadda yadda. Yeah, maybe it wasn't Shakespeare but it wasn't too bad considering the circumstances.

Actually I'm not sure if they believed my story at all, they might have just let me go because the deputy had to pee really bad. The way he was dancing around I thought he was excited to see how the story ended, which at the time I thought was pretty stupid since all he had to do was look around to see that it ended with a Fiesta covered in piñata fragments, half-submerged in a public fountain. So in retrospect I bet I was saved mainly by the length of my story and the size of the Big Gulp weighing down on the dude's bladder.

Which you know, isn't the most badass way to get away from the cops, since it didn't involve any Panamanian gun-runners or anything, but I'll take it. Bricks out.

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