January 2003 Archives

Things a Groundhog Does When He Leaves His Hole and What They Mean

If he sees his shadow, it means we will have six more weeks of winter.

If he doesn't see his shadow, it means we will have an early spring.

If he sees more than three inches of snow on the ground, it means we will get a major blizzard by President's Day.

If he nibbles on the bark of a neighboring tree, it means we have to be better about attending our jazzercise class.

If he stands up on his hind legs, it means we will have to sit through another season of "Frasier."

If he looks us directly in the eye, it means we have to get on with our lives and accept that Ben and J-Lo really are in love.

If he scratches his side, it means that the movie “Final Destination 2” isn’t nearly as Oscar-worthy as its previews suggest.

If he playfully rolls around on the ground like a cute, little puppy dog, it means we all have scabies. Except Jimmy, he has syphilis.

If he mounts us, it means we need to change our cologne because attracting groundhogs wasn't the idea we had in mind when we decided to wear it.

If he thinks we're frontin' and pops a cap in our asses, it means he knows we've been with his woman.

If he starts to sing a medley of Night Ranger songs, it means he is not a real groundhog; it's just those mean teenagers playing a trick on us again.

Happy Friday, readers. It's been a busy, fun-filled week, and one I won't soon forgot. The hustle and bustle of big-time guest-blogging is overwhelming and can make one lose perspective on things, like how completely awesome and great-smelling I am. Okay, yes, I admit that my head has gotten a little big, and though much of it is due to a childhood bout with hydrocephalus, it's high-time I come back down to Earth and reconnect with the people. The people who've been behind me the whole way, and who've helped me achieve this position as guest-blogger on the blog of all blogs. My success is just as much a tribute to them as it is to my keen sense of fashion and manly, yet oddly feminine features. So here are some shout-outs to my homies and homettes that have been my rock from the very start.

To Kyle, my exotic dance coach:

Thanks Coach for all those times when you stayed late with me after practice and helped me work on my hip movements, jazz-hands, and French kissing.

To Beatrice, my first-love:

Thank you for the joy and the laughter. Don't worry, I'm completely over you. I still stare at you from your lawn every Flag Day only because I've grown accustomed to the smell of your grass fertilizer. Honest.

To Claire, second-baseperson on my kickball team:

I thank you for getting your rich aunt to provide uniforms for the team. Although pink and orange would not have been my first choice for team colors, the jerseys provide great safety during hunting season, and they won't hurt my dream to be a crossing guard either.

To Dennis, my stable buddy at the rodeo:

You are like gold to me. Never change. Stay Gold. Stay Gold!

To my neighbor's mean teenage sons:

You may think you have broken me, but you haven't. Pelt me with all the haggis jerky you want, shout at me from your porch all the mean epithets that you want, but understand this: you have not broken me, rather you've made me work harder to be the best me I can be. Suck an egg.

To my wife of the last 23 years, former US Ambassador to the UN, Jeane Kirkpatrick:

You are my lady

You're everything I need and more

Whoa...oh...ho...whoa...ho!

You are MYYYY lady

You're all I'm living for...

Really. No lie.

Thanks for putting up with my sideshow this week. Neal will return on Monday. Please stop by my site, utter wonder, as often as you can. I'm trying hard to up my average hits from the current 2.74 a day, so bookmark or permalink it if you’re feeling especially philanthropic. Have a safe and pleasant Groundhog's Day.

Hiya readers, it's me Christoper Monks again. Only a few more days and Uncle Neal comes back, so bear with my ranting and a raving until then. You've all been very patient with me, watching me grow from a little, nervous guest-blogger into a bigger, more nervous guest-blogger. Fortunately, I've received some highly erotic poems inspired by President Bush's State of the Union address that have both steadied and aroused my nerves. The talent among Neal's readership is striking, effortless really, it's as if these poets wrote their pieces on the fly, in a matter of mere seconds. Oh, to be touched by genius!

Speaking of genius, I cannot leave my guest-blogging stint here without commenting on the brilliance of the recent entries in reality television. We live in a lucky time, my peeps, a time where talented, high school-educated, and, for the most part, hot people can make their mark on television history. Here then are a few of my favorite reality stars of the day...

Sarah from "Joe Millionaire"

When I initally saw that Sarah was going to be a contestant on this Fox reality show, I was a little surprised. Why anyone would want to jeopardize their successful career in bondage and foot fetish films to take part in a trashy rip-off of "The Bachelor" was beyond me. Yet, as she did in her breakout performance for "Dirty Soled Dolls," Sarah rose to the occasion and proved that she is most definitely reality-tv-star worthy. Kudos!

Dan from "High School Reunion"

Oh, it isn't easy to have once been a high school heartthrob. I don't speak from experience, of course, as my days in high school were spent mostly hiding from my school's mean-but-oh-so-handsome high school heartthrob (think Andrew McCarthy, but with a bipolar disorder), but I can't imagine how hard it must be to live an adult life with the knowledge that every chick in high school thought you were superfine. To top it off, Dan grew himself a gut and another chin in his 20s, yet he still is confident enough to strut around like he's God's gift to women. Mad props to you Dan.

The Corey from "This Surreal Life"

The Corey himself said he was doing the show for some "serious image repair." Well, not only is The Corey a five-tool entertainer (acting, signing, rapping, dancing, archery), he is a self-image fixing mechanic as well. I think I first noticed this when The Corey came down hard on Gabrielle Carteris about her meat-eating ways. Who does she think she is, Jennie Garth? I don't think so, Gabs. The world has to see that The Corey knows all, for The Corey is all-knowing and knows a lot more than anybody, Corey Haim excluded. I also have to mention The Corey's performance during the "This Surreal Life Backyard Talent Show." He dazzled me with his self-penned song "I Believe Again (In Love)" and god damnit, I believe in The Corey!

John from "The Department of Justice"

Man, has this guy taken some hits lately. The producers of "The Department of Justice" clearly are manipulating the footage through tricky editing to make John the show's "villain." Hey, I know we all need a bad guy: "One Day at a Time" would have been only watchable for signs of Mackenzie Phillips' drug abuse and glimpses of Valerie Bertinelli's killer hips if that annoying, treacherous Schneider character wasn't around, so yes, I understand the need for a successful show to have a foil. However, John is a regular person (who made a great audition tape, mind you, and just wanted to be famous like the other 50,000 people who applied for the show) who will have to return to a normal life after the program ends. Cut him some slack! So what if he doesn't like nude statues, civil liberties, or godless people? Who cares if he has led iffy-legal interrogations of every falafel stand operator on the eastern seaboard? The guy is just trying to do his job and get his fifteen minutes of fame. Is that so wrong? Plus, I think the episode where he befriended Clarence, the lonely, timid Supreme Court Justice, was touching and displayed just how much John's admittedly antiquated racial views have evolved over the course of the show. Way to go, John!

As always, feel free to share with me your ideas about today's topic. I'm also still accepting erotic poetry inspired by the State of the Union or any other current event. Apparently Neal has a new book out and it's available for purchase; follow this link if you'd like to put your money to good use. See you tomorrow for my fond farewell.

Hello Americans and other people not from America, I'm Christopher Monks and I'm with you once again while Neal is away. I'm still coming down from last night’s brilliant display of Patriotism and topnotch teleprompter reading. President Bush outlined his vision for America last night, and I was incredibly revved up afterwards. I never get tired of hearing how much better we are than everybody. Why that was what was so great about high school, when the cool, but mean kids let me hang out with them every so often in the cafeteria. We’d sit around in our Member’s Only jackets and multiple layers of Oxford shirts, making fun of all the ugly and retarded kids. Oh, the power I felt! Yes, some of the glory wore off after I finished helping them with their homework and they stuffed me in a gym locker, but it was simply a show of their tough love for me. And from the eighteenth time on I stopped crying, thus earning their respect. But enough about my sordid past, I want to display my admiration for our President’s leadership in the best way I know how to: through my gift for writing erotic poetry. Here then is some fresh, sexy, and scintillating erotic poetry ("poésie érotique," if you will) inspired by President Bush’s State of the Union Speech.

The Course of Our Lovemaking

The course of our lovemaking

Does not depend

On the decisions of

Others

So I shall

Tap, Tap

Tap that ass

You can be confident

That in a whirlwind of change

And hope

And peril

Our faith is sure

Our resolve is firm

And my need to go downtown on you is strong

God Bless America

Let's go have some hot sex

I Want to Bang You Hard and Pump My Money Back Into the Economy

Lover. Friend. Soul mate. Landlady.

Wink-wink.

You say: NOT NOW

I say: WHEN?

You say: Maybe NEVER, maybe after "Celebrity Mole: Hawaii"

I say: But I want to BANG YOU HARD

You say: Go buy a SEX TOY

I say: You know, that’s NOT A BAD IDEA

You say: nothing

I say: Thanks to the tax cut I can buy a really good sex toy.

My Burn for You is Hot, Wet, and Faith-Based

Ooooooooh

Ooooooooh

Ooooooooh, I burn for you

I want to feel you from the inside, baby

I want to smack my skin against yours

And feel our pleasure intertwine

Ooooooooh, I love it when you want the kinky style

Pull up to my bumper, baby

What’s that?

You’re not into that anymore?

What counselor at the St. Catherine of the Virgin Mother Health Clinic?

She told you what?

No more bumper-to-bumper traffic action?

Ooooooooh

Ooooooooh

Ooooooooh that sucks

Wait a second—

I was baptized as a child

So I’m down with JC too

Can we take our pants off now?

Your Smell Makes Me Want to Bone You and Help Protect the Environment

Sniff-sniff

Mmm-mmm

Sniff-sniff

Mmm-mmm

Oooo, that smell

Ohhh, that smell

Can you smell that smell?

That smell that surrounds you?

So pure

So fresh

As clean as a hydrogen powered-automobile will be

You not only are full of energy and independence, but you improve the air

Sniff-sniff

Mmm-mmm

Sniff-sniff

Mmm-mmm

I want to bone you

Sex Song to Your Body, or How We Are Winning the War

Breasts heaving

Private parts tingling

The War goes on

And we are winning

Skin is glistening

Fluids are flowing

The War goes on

And we are winning

So close to climax

You shout out "Woo-hoo!"

You Believe in America

And America Believes in You

If you have some or your own erotic poetry based on the State of the Union address or any other current events, feel free to send it to me. If it’s erotic enough I’ll post it on the letters page. If you need inspiration, buy Neal’s book, or check out some other erotic poetry.

Hi again. Christopher Monks here, continuing my week long stay filling in for Neal. Hope you’re well. I’m good. Strong, even. Alrighty, let’s cut right to the chase: Hans Blix updated the UN security counsel yesterday on what the inspection team has discovered thus far in Iraq. Here are the significant excerpts from his statement:

From paragraph two:
“Iraq has on the whole cooperated rather well so far…the most important point to make is that access has been provided to all sites we have wanted to inspect and with one exception it has been prompt.”

From paragraph three:
“I am obliged to note some recent disturbing incidents and harassment. For instance, for some time farfetched allegations have been made publicly that questions posed by inspectors were of intelligence character. While I might not defend every question that inspectors might have asked, Iraq knows that they do not serve intelligence purposes and Iraq should not say so.”

From paragraph six:
“I am disappointed to announce that the old saying is true: you really can’t get good Iraqi food in Iraq.”

From paragraph nine:
“Iraq has declared that it only produced VX chemicals on a pilot scale, just a few tonnes and that the quality was poor and the product unstable….UNMOVIC, however, has information that conflicts with this account.”

From paragraph ten:
“Before I continue, I’d like to send a shout out with much love to Billy Joel. You will always be the UN inspection team’s 'Piano Man.'"

From paragraph twelve:
“There are strong indications that Iraq produced more anthrax than it declared, and that at least some of this was retained after the declared destruction date. It might still exist.”

From paragraph fourteen:
“The discovery of a number of 122 mm chemical rocket warheads in a bunker at a storage depot 170 km southwest of Baghdad was much publicized. This was a relatively new bunker and therefore the rockets must have been moved there in the past few years, at a time when Iraq should not have had such munitions.”

From paragraph fifteen:
“Yes, this is digging up old dirt, but it cannot be left unsaid: most of this trouble could have been avoided had simply Justin been declared the rightful winner of ‘American Idol.’”

From paragraph seventeen:
“Any further sign of the concealment of documents would be serious. The Iraqi side committed itself at our recent talks to encourage persons to accept access also to private sites. There can be no sanctuaries for proscribed items, activities or documents. A denial of prompt access to any site would be a very serious matter.”

From paragraph eighteen:
“Don't be fooled by the rocks that I got. I'm still, I'm still Hans from the block. Used to have a little, now I have a lot. No matter where I go, I know where I came from (from Uppsala, Sweden!)”

From paragraph nineteen:
“Wherever you are Max von Sydow, all is forgiven. Come home to Daddy Blix.”

From paragraph twenty:
“Giraffes enchant me.”

From paragraph twenty-three:
“Whenever I feel Kofi’s gaze upon me my nipples tingle.”

From paragraph twenty-four:
“For the record, myself and the many eager members of the UN inspection team would like to inspect Kirstin Dunst. We think she’s the bomb.”

My blog. My email. Neal’s book.

Hi. My name is Christopher Monks and I’ll be here the whole week filling in for Neal. I have a blog of my own that chances are you’ve never heard of or seen. That’s okay. I’m cool with that. Really. (Okay, maybe I'm not completely cool with that. I'm just humbled, and in all honesty, a little confused. What did I do wrong? Why haven't you visited my blog? Is it because I brought that bad broccoli dish to your potluck dinner? I'm sorry for that. I am. I was feeling adventurous and decided to try something different with broccoli. It was a bad move, but come on, let it go. Oh well…I'll try to regain your confidence as best I can.) When not writing for my own site I spend my free time watching “The View,” writing semi-autographical erotic poetry, and playing Twister with yo’ mama.

I have to admit to being a tad nervous about guest-blogging on this site. I feel like those small-town basketball players from “Hoosiers” did when they had to play the state championship game in a big arena, except I don’t have Gene Hackman to calm my nerves. Oh, how I forever long to be held by Gene Hackman and to feel his Golden Globe Cecil B. DeMille Lifetime Achievement Award winning touch! Wouldn’t he make a wonderful granddad? He just has that tender, yet firm way about him. Plus, think of the discounts you’d get at Lowes. Yes, his wife, who’s half his age, would make sort of an awkward step-grandma, but I think in the end they balance each other out. She’s Asian too, thus your family would get mad props for diversity, and you can’t beat that. Besides, Chinese New Year is right around corner: extra holiday, extra gift-getting!...So, yes, I’m a little intimidated by this task. Everything seems so much bigger here on this blog, and I worry that I will never adjust to the different font, but I will trod on and do the best I can. Think happy thoughts, think happy thoughts! Star Jones. There, I feel a bit better now. I love happy thoughts.

I spent my Sunday evening as you surely did: trying not to masturbate to Shania Twain during the halftime show of the Super Bowl. It’s not like a like her or anything, it’s just that whenever I see her I feel compelled to. You know what I mean? Sure you do. I don’t even find her songs that catchy. I mean, okay, maybe every so often I might get “Man! I Feel Like a Woman!” stuck in my head, but that’s only because the radio station they play in the cardio-vascular room at the Y has a commercial-free Shania hour every afternoon. I hate that radio station. They screwed me out of two tickets to "Disney on Ice" last week. Not the 14th caller my ass. Anyway, Shania Twain, she puts on quite a show. It’s just that I haven’t come to terms with this whole having to masturbate thing whenever I see her. Voices in my head tell me that it’s okay, go for it, Shania would want you to. But then other voices say, no way man, not cool, half your family is in the room, and sure, Second Cousin Rhonda is hot, but she’d take it the wrong way, so leave it alone.

As for the game itself, the red and copper pirates beat the black and silver pirates handily. The red and copper pirates made the black and silver pirates walk the plank. They said “Arrgh, matey” and “Shiver me timbers” to the silver and black pirates. They made the black and silver pirates seasick something fierce with their intense pass rush and mean pirate banter. Then the red and copper pirates taunted the black and silver pirates with their extra-strength Dramamine prescriptions they got on special from the coach’s great aunt who lives in Maine. By the end of the game the black and silver pirates vomited in fear and pain all over the field, and the red and copper pirates laughed and laughed and laughed. Ah, the sweet smell of victory and good health care coverage for the elderly!

But you’re not here for mindless pop culture and sports talk or to get a glimpse inside my sexually sordid mind, you’re here for in-depth analysis of breaking news. This week is a big week with Hans Blix and company’s report, our President’s State Of the Union address, and Hammer at Fatburger on “This Surreal Life,” so I promise to have my finger on the pulse of the news and to deliver timely, thought-provoking, and well-dressed reporting of the events that will change our lives as they occur. I’ll spend the rest of the day combing through Mr. Blix’s report, searching for only the juiciest of tidbits, all the while trying not to get distracted by his constant misuse of semi-colons. When I’m ready to give my take on his report, I’ll return here and break it all down for you C Monkey style. Until then, buy Neal’s book, check out my blog, and send me an email.

Next week will be an important one in the history of the world, with the Blix report, the State of the Union address, and the Super Bowl going down in three consecutive days. Obviously, my blogging services will be needed by all, but as I stated yesterday, I must go to Amsterdam on emergency business and won't have access to a computer at my hotel, Pieter's Groovy Hash Hut. So I leave you in the trustworthy male hands of Christopher Monks. He'd better not screw up his big chance. Even if he does, I'll be back Monday, February 3.

Fortunately, before I go, I can uncork a whopper. I've received an advance copy of President Bush's State Of the Union Address, and I see no reason not to print it here even though federal law prohibits me from doing so. A lot of the speech is boring, as speeches tend to be, and some of it, like our declaration of war on Germany, is 100 percent super top secret.

The evening begins with President Bush introducing his special guests: British prime minister Tony Blair and a black virgin who got into the University of Michigan law school on her own merit. Then, after 35 minutes of sustained applause, the speech:

"My fellow Americans. Since the horrors of September 11, 2001, we have faced many difficult new challenges as a nation. And we have risen to every occasion, as Americans tend to do. Since that terrible day, our country has more resolve than ever before not to let anything like it happen again. This is a nation of great people, and as people, we have committed ourselves anew to making our nation great. My administration, which my father chose for me after I seized power in a bloodless coup, has led the way. Our accomplishments have been many.

We have brought the world to the edge of a horrific conflict that may kill us all, and in the process alienated some of our closest allies.

We have arrested hundreds of innocent people and held them in prison for indefinite periods of time without access to their lawyers or family.

We have created a climate of low-level paranoia in which ordinary citizens are empowered to call police after overhearing suspicious conversations in restaurants.

We have subjected airline passengers to insulting and useless security screenings.

We have arrested few significant terrorist leaders while allowing acts of terror against American citizens to regularly occur in countries all over the world.

We have decided, in the face of all known scientific evidence, that the best way to prevent the spread of the HIV virus is to promote sexual abstinence among teenagers.

We have rolled back decades of environmental laws, allowing millions of tons of pollutants to be dumped into an already-collapsing ecosystem.

We have badly bungled diplomatic relations with North Korea, the world's most unstable nuclear state.

We have done nothing to smooth over the admittedly intractable Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

We have advocated clear-cutting in our last remaining pristine national forests.

We have spoken out against affirmative action and nominated judges with a history of lenient sentencing for white supremacists while paying lip service to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s "legacy" and the need for increased racial tolerance.

We have caused the world to quake before the might of our amassed armies, all so we can knock out a basically powerless straw tinpot dictator who we installed in the first place.

We have made, and will continue to make, egregious daily misjudgements that will set back social and economic progress in this country by decades.

Even with all our hard work, this is still the greatest country in the history of the world. When the bells of war ring sometime next week or the week after and the pansy French are weeping over the scorched earth of their once-precious Loire valley, our lord Jesus Christ will gaze upon our handiwork and say, I have returned to take you all up to heaven. Hallelujah! The Rapture has begun!

Good night. And may God bless the United States Of America!"

I haven't been able to join the maddened cry over George W. Bush's support of abstinence education for teenagers. After all, I deeply regret that I lost my virginity when I was 12. If I'd just waited two years, it would have been Candice Bergen popping my cherry, not that prostitute in Montreal. Now I'm a father. As I rock Peggy, my clone baby, to dreamland, I often say to her, "Don't sleep with a boy unless you really really like him and he buys you candy."

It's far more disturbing that Bush nominated to his HIV advisory panel a man who in the past has referred to AIDS as a "gay plague." Poison like that seemed somewhat acceptable in the 1980s, when hating gay people was all the vogue among my set, but these days, it's just gauche. Still, I'll give Bush a pass on this one, because he's never before produced nominees with lunatic ideology, and he certainly won't again.

However, I cannot, in good conscience, stand idle and watch as Bush nominates Mr. Walter Senseney, of Iowa City, Iowa, to head the President's Commission On Teabagging. Those of us in the Teabagging-American community are all too familiar with Mr. Senseney's work. Supposedly a professor of "political science" at "The University of Iowa," Mr. Senseney has long used his classroom as a bully pulpit against what he calls "a disgrace practiced in secret by despicables." He once said, in a roundtable conducted by the editors of Sanity magazine, that he would not be concerned if "all teabaggers were wiped from the face of this earth, or at least castrated."

I urge President Bush to reconsider this poisonous appointment. Those of us who love dipping our balls in the mouths of other men and women cannot watch as our sexual rights are abrogated by cloistered Midwest prudes. In fact, I demand a personal call from the President. He called those anti-choice people, so why not me?

This outrage must not endure.

Meanwhile, I'm getting ready for another week off, this time to visit the doctor who produced the nucleotides that later gave birth to my darling Peggy. He's having cosmetic surgery in Amsterdam, but I must see him immediately. Peggy is growing far too quickly, and has recently developed stubble on her chin. Starting next Monday, and all next week, this blog will be the property of Christopher Monks. Be nice to him.

My rock-n-roll diary continues today on Slate. Update around noon Eastern.

There goes Norman Mailer again, that dessicated old crow, still cackling high up in his imaginary tree of ideas. I take no offense at not being invited to his 80th birthday party. The royal whacking I gave him after his 75th, which ended with him face-down in the shrimp bowl at the Rainbow Room, more or less disintegrated my association with the Mailer family. Still, if I had another shot at that withered fart, I would certainly take it, and this time unto the death. It's just like him to say that writers are "probably more talented now than they ever were in America, but they're doing less and less." I totally agree. I made that exact statement on this blog two months ago. You're lurking out there, Norman, stealing my best lines. I know it. Reveal yourself!

Still, as much as one despises the Pontiff of Provincetown, one must agree that little nuggets of truth often squeeze through the sphincter of his mind. I, too, am depressed that writers of talent ignore the grand themes. I, too, long for the days before the moving-picture poisoned the mind and reduced the novel to a flickering sideshow for beachgoing soccer moms. Whither the Village, circa 1952? Where have you gone, Anatole Broyard?

It depresses me that no one is writing a novel about the fact that the French and German people are clearly attempting to pull an end-around. They only oppose a war with Iraq because they dream of forming a Franco-Prussian Empire that will leave us all sucking diesel fumes. It's an important topic worthy of Tolstoy, and he wouldn't make the narrator a 14-year-old girl in heaven.

I also can't understand the lack of books about how simpleminded middle-class liberals are being manipulated by ANSWER, a group of pygmy Stalinists whose agenda is nothing less than a workers' revolution followed by purges and a half-century of prison camps for intellectuals, nightmarish bureaucracy, and alcoholism. Where are the Balzacs now? What would Zola do?

Regardless, Mailer's death is imminent. I, for one, will do a silent tap-dance when the Bells Of St. Mary's ring for him one final time. In those ancient evenings, I think of Oswald's tale and sing the executioner's last song. Why are we in Vietnam with the armies of the night and the naked and the dead, producing advertisements for ourselves?

What a load.

Meanwhile, my rock-n-roll diary continues to run on Slate, updated every day through Saturday at approximately noon Eastern. Again, I urge you not to think too hard on the disparities between that "Neal Pollack" and the one you encounter here. It doesn't even make sense to me.

One more thought. When we're done mopping up in Iraq, we should declare war on France and Germany. We'd win easily, because all they ever do is talk, talk, talk, never proposing action, always drinking their coffee or wine or beer, reading the newspaper, going on with their cosseted little European lives. They need an ass-whuppin!

My clone baby is crying. Time for her to watch her Baby Ayn Rand Meets Jesus video. We'll resume tomorrow.

It appears that the cowardly French are once again doing everything they possibly can to make the world habitable for murderous dictators everywhere. These are the people who bent over for Hitler and let Pol Pot step up to the buffet. Do we really want them telling us what to do? Frenchy, go home! As my mentor at Oxbridge, the late political philosopher Francis Crapshoot, said, "the French are pseudo-intellectual weaklings who stink like dogs." Or, to quote Orwell, "I'd rather be down and out in London than Paris." I say let the French cry into their bone-marrow soup as the coalition of the willing saves the world.

Meanwhile, Slate has given me free reign this week over their diary . I intend to chronicle my efforts to find a drummer for this Friday's Bookhouse Rock show. Entries appear today through Saturday. If you notice disparities between me and the "Neal Pollack" of the diary, keep in mind that I'm a complicated man with many personalities.

Also, I would like to humbly announce that The Neal Pollack Invasion has received an invitation to appear in this year's South By Southwest festival in Austin. Click here for a partial list of bands. I'm beyond flattered by the selection. I just hope that they don't book me at the same time as Pretty Girls Make Graves, my personal band of the moment. Reserve your wristbands now!

Most days on this blog, I tell people the truth, such as the fact that the Stalinist anti-war group ANSWER once boasted 50 million people until its leadership subjected nearly all of them to a fatal purge at sea. The fact that the largest genocide in human history has gone completely unreported by mainstream media is further proof that sympathizers of all persuasions have penetrated the highest levels of our society.

Sometimes, however, my endless commitment to veracity makes me tired, and I enjoy interviewing other bright lights of the blogosphere. Today, I bring you a home run, an exclusive talk with Glenn Reynolds, otherwise known to you as Instapundit. Glenn, a law professor at the University of Tennessee (in Tennessee) was the first blogger other than myself to catch the eye of The New York Times, an unscrupulous left-wing newspaper. He's often been called an ectomorph, or polymath. He's a shape-shifter with a wide range of intellectual interests, and he tends toward the side of good. You never know what that wacky Instapundit is going to blog about next! It could be politics, or maybe karate. Sometimes he even makes funny jokes about himself, and I laugh and laugh. Hey. Fifty-thousand readers a day, including me, can't be wrong. Ladies and gentlemen. I bring you The Instapundit.

NP: Glenn, as a law professor, what do you think about the recent Supreme Court decision to extend the copyright on all works of art for 20 years?

GR: Girls are pretty.

NP: Yes, I agree, Glenn. Girls are pretty. But what about the copyright ruling?

GR: I like to eat French fries.

NP: You've come down on President Bush's side in the University of Michigan affirmative-action controversy. Do you think that affirmative action is an idea whose time is past?

GR: I also like to eat boogers.

NP: Excuse me?

GR: My boogers taste like banana bread.

NP: OK. Doesn't it seem to you that the North Korean government is near collapse? You've certainly commented before on the limited shelf-life of dictators.

GR: My Mister gets a little bigger when I see a pretty girl, but my mommy says it's OK.

At that point, I stopped the tape. As you can see, Glenn Reynolds, the Instapundit, is completely different on his blog than in person. I found him a little simple, but good-hearted. He drew me a picture of the house where he lives with his mommy and daddy and his dog, Hinky. He told me he wants to be a fireman, or maybe a Power Ranger, and that he's afraid of "octupusses" and "bad men with knives." Visit his blog. Tell him that the government has killed all the bad men with knives. And that Neal sent you.

This weekend's anti-war protests, if you want to call them that, were organized by a repulsive group of anti-capitialists who go by the name ANSWER. If you translate their acronym, you'll know who they really are. ANSWER stands for Alcoholic Nihilists Supporting Wild, Evil Rapists. Do the so-called "ordinary middle-class people" who turned out for the demonstrations in Washington, D.C and San Francisco really want to be associated with these evil bastard descendants of Jerry Rubin and Charles Manson?

Yet the mainstream media, as evidenced by Aaron Brown's Friday-night live on CNN rendition of Rage Against the Machine's "The Battle Of Los Angeles," have bought into the anti-war propaganda. Well, this is war, after all, and there are two sides. I place myself on the side of good. Do you?

With funding from the Council Of Conservative Citizen Councils, I've produced an advertisement that will run on every broadcast channel except ABC at 7 PM Eastern next Sunday night. My darling Peggy, clone baby of my heart, will star. Here's the script:

A LITTLE GIRL SKIPS THROUGH A MEADOW, PICKING FLOWERS

GIRL: Ring around a rosie, a pocket full of posies....

ANNOUNCER: Our beautiful blond children are threatened by a dark force from abroad.

CUT TO A SHOT OF AN ARAB MOB BURNING A U.S. FLAG.

CUT BACK TO THE LITTLE GIRL, WHO IS NOW RIDING A PONY.

GIRL: Twinkle, twinkle little star, how I wonder what you are...

ANNOUNCER: But even more dangerous are enemies on our own soil.

CUT TO AMERICAN ANTI-WAR PROTESTERS BURNING A U.S. FLAG. CUT TO SO-CALLED AMERICAN CITIZENS CHANTING ANTI-AMERICAN SLOGANS. CUT TO THE WHITE HOUSE EXPLODING.

ANNOUNCER: Every time you protest, somewhere in the world, a terrorist is created.

CUT TO A TERRORIST BEING CREATED.

ANNOUNCER: Don't let the Fifth Column fool you. This is America. We won't win unless we're all in this together.

CUT TO THE LITTLE GIRL SCREAMING AS SHE'S DEVOURED BY WOLVES.

THE SCREEN GOES BLACK. IN WHITE LETTERING APPEAR THE WORDS:

PROTESTING KILLS CHILDREN

THE SCREEN GOES BLACK AGAIN. IN WHITE LETTERING APPEAR THE WORDS:

HANS BLIX IS A PUSSY.

Subtle, but effective, and completely true. But don't worry. I substituted a different little girl for Peggy during the wolves scene. That girl's family was poor before we filmed the commercial. Now, they'll never have financial troubles again.

I have conducted another self-aggrandizing interview, this one with myself, in Chunklet, the best indie-rock magazine in creation. Also, I point you toward March Magazine, a new publication from Portland. I contributed a very short item and they spelled my name wrong in the byline. Finally, I reintroduce you to Topic, a magazine far too sophisticated for the likes of me.

Now continue reading down the page for today's hottest opinions.

One need to look no further for evidence of the decline of intellectual standards among British daily newspapers than this repulsive piece of terrorist propaganda by John LeCarre, a disgraced former spy and possible follower of The World Church of Satanic Bestiality. For those of you too busy to click on the previous link, let me give you the gist of LeCarre's "research". He claims that the Bush Administration has terrified a "misled" and "browbeated" American populace into believing that Saddam Hussein perpetrated the Sept. 11 attacks. Furthermore, he repeats the Berkeley-based canard that the Administration uses canned religious rhetoric to carefully cloak its massive oil interests in the Middle East.

Every regular reader of this blog understands that these are poisonous lies. We're about to fight a war with an unscrupulous enemy who, we now know, has at least a dozen missiles and possibly more. Yes, many of the Administration's key members have been employed by the oil industry within the last ten years. But hey, you've got to work, and when all other options fail there are always executive jobs available in oil management. As for linking America with God, well, I see no harm in that. God created America a very long time ago, and He watches over us, his iron thunderbolt ready to strike down those who oppose our peaceful, democratic way of life. In the immortal words of George Orwell, "our enemies are a bunch of fucking pussies."

What would LeCarre, the author of hack spy melodramas like The Spy Who Caught A Cold, Russians In The House, and Gorky Park, know about Middle East policy? He's anti-American, anti-Semitic, and a Fifth Columnist collaborator. Oh, how I long for Attorney General Ashcroft to take my advice and build a Dissenters' Prison in the Nevada desert! Then LeCarre and his kind could rot in a fetid cauldron of discarded ideas while the rest of us go about our patriotic business.

As far as I'm concerned, he can room next to Susan Sontag, whose sad decline has only been worsened by this war. She was once such a sweet piece of ass. I remember in the 1970s you could go into any coffee shop in Manhattan and pick up a hot lay just by opening a copy of "Illness As Metaphor." One day in 1973, I was approached by a woman with a glow so luminous, so intelligent, think Katie Holmes with character, that my erection literally ripped through my pants.

"I see you're reading my book," said Susan Sontag. "Now we should go into the park across the street so I can give you a blowjob. But first, let me put on my peppermint lipgloss."

That was a long time ago.

Something very exciting happened to me today. I received an email from a Hollywood producer. Apparently, he reads this blog regularly and is a fan of my work. When I reached the sentence, "I think your life would make a brilliant feature," I scrolled down to the end of the letter, found his phone number, and called him.

I don't want to jinx myself, as I did when I thought I'd won the role of the professor in With Honors, the 1994 Joe Pesci star vehicle. When my agent called to tell me that Gore Vidal, the strongest pillar in the temple of the Fifth Column, had once again stolen big-screen stardom from me, I picked up a cutting board and pounded a three-inch gash in my head.

It looks like it will be different this time. If my plans unfold properly, Gore Vidal will receive a mysterious visitor at his estate in Ravenna, a man bearing such horrific prophecy that Vidal will burn his passport, renounce his citizenry, and pitch himself into the sea. Then, at last, Hollywood will be mine.

I talked with the producer for nearly five minutes, and we came up with an excellent idea. The only way to capture my complexities would be to have several actors portray me at once. John C. Reilly would play the "good" Neal, a devoted citizen of the United States and a strong soldier of the mind in our War On Terror. Phillip Seymour Hoffman would play the bloated, greedy, power-hungry "bad" Neal. Sometimes, they will be visited in their heads by scenes from the life of the "young" Neal, played by dreamy Jake Gyllenhall. To play "old" Neal, we'll get some washed-up stooge who works cheap.

Even though the producer says he's 85 percent sure that this movie might get made, I don't want to become the arrogant, "bad" Neal. I really don't. Because sometimes, ladies, I can be so, so, bad.

My blog got me this far, and I'm not going to let it slip now that fame pays a holiday. So in the spirit of blogging, which is the greatest evolution in the English language since the novel, or at least the dictionary, I invite you all, my readers, to come up with a pitch for my movie. I will print them on the letters page. If they're really good, I may turn them into a special post. Go for it, people. Best pitch wins a copy of my new book Beneath the Axis Of Evil, having to pay only the $10 it will cost me to FedEx it to you from California. Go to it.

Meanwhile, let's do The Skinny, running down the AP wire story by story. It was that kind of day.

ITEM: President Bush declares that that a program of racial preferences for minority applicants at the University of Michigan is "divisive, unfair and impossible to square with the Constitution."

THE SKINNY: He's right, you know. There's nothing in the Constitution that says blacks should be lawyers. And if you've read Charles Murray's essential phrenological text "The Bell Curve," you'd know that blacks have teeny-tiny little brains and should only work in rooms where we can't see them.

ITEM: A Texas Tech university professor was arrested Wednesday night for allegedly telling authorities that 30 vials of plague were missing from a laboratory after he had destroyed them.

THE SKINNY: He's an enemy combatant in wartime and should be held in a secret prison without access to a lawyer. His mangled corpse will rot in an unmarked mass grave alongside those of the other enemies of freedom .

ITEM: Iraq has complained to the United Nations about a plan to use American spy planes to aid inspectors' search for illicit weapons, the top U.S. military officer said Wednesday.

THE SKINNY: What are we supposed to do with our spy planes? Not use them? Oh, just you wait, Saddam. An unholy carpet of fire is about to evaporate the Tigris. We will churn your desert and lay waste to your mountains. For we are the liberators, and we're coming for you.

ITEM: North Korea rejected as "pie in the sky" U.S. offers of talks and possible aid in exchange for abandoning its nuclear ambitions, accusing Washington on Wednesday of staging a "deceptive drama" to mislead world opinion.

THE SKINNY: We're all gonna die.

The eagle's nest is silent above Mount Winchester, and the freezing winds seem to bury sound itself with their incessant howl. As this winter, the cruelest in 20, continues to hurl its ice thunderbolts toward the skylight in the great room of my stately mansion, I sit in my study, the cry of my clone baby a distant murmur from another wing. When have I ever been consumed by a loneliness this great? There were the two days of silence from my peers when I decided to quit The Nation, yes, and I definitely felt a little hush in 1990 when I told Martin Peretz to go fuck a Christmas ham. But nothing like this. The 1,000 emails I receive a day are some solace, but after a time, one grows tired of receiving come-on photos from divorced poetry professors. I haven't had a real blowjob in months, and Roger doesn't give freebies anymore.

Plus, I'm way behind in the race for Best Political Opinion Blog 2003. The pace of world events has lapped me since my three-week vacation, leaving me a pathetic neuter panting in the dust. Let me then, in the spirit of catch-up, run the first installment of a new occasional post-hiatus feature. It's called The Skinny, and it's very much modeled on Bill O'Reilly's penetrating opening to his show, the only program on television that tells the truth: If gays and blacks just kept their mouths shut and stopped asking for special favors, the world would be just fine. Thanks, Bill.

Now, The Skinny:

ITEM: Joseph Lieberman declares his candidacy for President.

THE SKINNY: America isn't ready for a Jewish President, particularly one who's short and boring. On the other hand, John Edwards might have a shot at the nomination if he converted. You heard it here first. Edwards will be Bar Mitzvahed in Iowa.

ITEM: Pete Townshend, of The Who, arrested in England on child pornography charges.

THE SKINNY: This blog has long advocated the death penalty for people who commit crimes against children. However, Townshend provided the soundtrack for my youth, and his arrest fills me with infinite sadness at the innocence I, no, we, have lost. Community service will be fine.

ITEM: Steven Case resigns as the chairman of AOL.

THE SKINNY: As a longtime AOL subscriber, I'm sad about his departure. After all, when I sign online, I love it that the first thing I see is a picture of Trista Rehm and the headline, "No Hunk Is Safe: The Bachelorette dumps more hotties. Click here to see Trista's rules for dating." Only on AOL can I immediately get a pop-up offer for the "Ultimate Ski Vacation" and see exclusive clips from "24" at the same time. It's the final realization of the dream hatched when I helped invent the Internet nearly eight years ago.

ITEM: Illinois Governor George Ryan commutes 155 death sentences, and pardons four men wrongly convicted of murder.

THE SKINNY: It costs nearly $6,000 a year to feed, clothe and shelter a human being in prison, and only $3,000 to kill them once. Who's going to pay for all those inmates? Not me. I don't live in Illinois. George Ryan obviously had something to gain, possibly something sexual, from this cowardly act. As soon as I find out what, I'll let you know, loudly.

ITEM: North Korea threatens nuclear war, angrily pulls out of nonproliferation treaty.

THE SKINNY: We're all gonna die.

I realize that I was gone for a long time during the holidays, an absence that may have cost me hundreds of book sales and thousands of readers, but I don't regret one minute of my hiatus, because now I am a dad.

What? You say. Why, that's impossible!

Let me explain. I spent the past three weeks in France. This particular visit was unlike my last French sojourn, which ended when Jean-Marie LePen discovered I was Jewish and dismissed me from my chief speechwriter position. No. This time, my beleaguered manservant Roger and I boarded our pets, Hercules and Mr. Hitchens, and traveled overseas together, I in business class and he in steerage. We were met at the airport by a representative of the fine French company, Clonaid.

She took us to her secret headquarters, high in the French Alps, near the Swiss border. Roger and I each drank a glass of wine. We grew dizzy, then passed out. When we awoke, we were on a beach in the French Riveria. We drank another glass of wine. Again, we fell unconscious, and awoke again in the Alps.

"Please stop knocking us out," I said.

"Sorry," our host said. "But I really am attempting to keep this location secret."

She pressed a button and a panel opened in the steel wall. We beheld a nursery full of babies. Roger and I began walking the aisles. All the babies were completely identical!

"Welcome to Clonaid," said our host. "As seen in our classified brochure."

"You mean to tell me," I said, "that all these babies are genetically programmed to combat anti-Americanism in the Western left?"

"Oh, yes," she said. "They fully support the War On Terror, which is a just war for the future of civilization."

"And they're predisposed to infiltrate and destroy pro-Palestinian groups on college campuses?"

"It's in their genetic makeup," she said.

"I'll take one!" I said.

"That will be two million dollars," she said.

"Roger," said I. "Write this woman a check."

Now Roger and I have a charming little baby girl, who we've named Peggy. She's blond and beautiful and coos whenever I show her a picture of Ronald Reagan. Her little lips trill whenever I say the words "dividend tax cut" to her, and she blows the cutest bubbles when O'Reilly is on.

It's strange to share a house with a genetically-enhanced metahuman, but I think I'll enjoy watching her grow up at twice the speed of a normal girl. My heart is warmed by the thought that throughout the world, she has thousands of identical brothers and sisters who will grow up strong and pure and eventually team up to wipe the darker races from the face of the earth!

But I'm getting slightly ahead of myself. Honestly, I haven't seen Peggy in three days. I'm often on deadline, and Roger handles most of her care. Still, as the years pass on this blog, Peggy will become a regular character in my life, and yours. This will be a fatherhood journal of sorts. Peggy, my clone baby, my sweet daughter, flower of my heart, I dedicate this space to you.

Much has occurred in the world since I began my needed hiatus on December 19. Over the next week or so, this blog will address all significant global events in chronlogical order. I've been watching back tapes of Lou Dobbs Moneyline all weekend, and feel like I've got a pretty good handle.

To begin, Bill Frist, a senator from the state of Tennessee (home of the World Champion Titans), seized control of the Senate with a surgical precision that only a surgeon could pull off. Not since Jocelyn Elders has there been such a doctor in public life, and this one is good-looking, white, and against condom use. As I've often said in this space, abstinence is the only answer. That or teabagging.

I, like all right-thinking people, am glad that the Senate leadership has purged itself of the creeping poison that is Trent Lott. Now the Republicans can pursue their traditional agenda of massive tax cuts for the wealthy, removal of old-growth clearcutting restrictions, and anti-sodomy laws. Still, something troubles me about handsome Doctor Frist, who sends his three sons Mike, Robbie, and Chip, not to mention Chip's cute little orphan friend Ernie, to St. Albans, my alma mater. It seems to me that Senator Frist is actually an evil doctor, much like Ian Holm in From Hell, a movie that I saw but no one else did.

Take, for instance, Frist's impromptu speech upon accepting the post of Senate Majority Leader. He said, "I had to hold in my hands the human heart, recognizing all its glory and all its potential, and then technically seating it into the chest of a dying woman to give her life and a future she would not otherwise have."

Fair enough. But the media didn't report that then the lights in the Senate chamber then went dim. From the floor rose an operating table. On that table lay an unconscious woman. Frist snapped on a pair of surgical gloves, crossed himself, and began sawing into her chest.

"You see, gentlemen," Frist said. "The heart is a muscle. A beautiful muscle."

As the Senate watched in horror, Frist's scapel plunged deep and true. He pulled the heart from the woman's chest, detaching it with a powerful snap. His eyes gleamed with lust and power. Peter Fitzgerald of Illinois, a known wuss, fainted.

"And it's also delicious," Frist said.

Senator Bill Frist took a bite out of the still-beating heart. An audible gasp filled the room. Blood spurted all over the sergeant-at-arms. Frist licked his lips and cackled.

"Join, me, fellow Senators!" he said. "Join me in a holy communion of blood."

"You're mad!" shouted Zell Miller of Georgia.

"Am I, Zell?" said First. "Or am I just your mirror image? The darkness that you cannot see because you are blind? Do I lurk in the shadows and transmute your darkest desires into glorious reality? Yes! I am Bill Frist of Tennessee! And I hunger!"

Disturbing. Frist still may be able to get his house in order. But his actions on that first day indicates that we should be watching him. For updates, check here, as always, every day.

Meanwhile, I must engage in housekeeping. Thanks to Matthew Tobey and Lizz Westman for filling in for me while I was away, though Matt, I know you tried to put sugar in the tailpipe of my Hummer, and you will be dead by the end of the month. They both did a great job, and you should love them forever.

In other news, the first copies of Beneath the Axis Of Evil: One Man's Journey Into the Horrors Of War, came back from the printer today, and it looks great. I'm going over to Ben Brown's house tonight and will sign copies until my hand falls off. They'll mail Tuesday and hopefully arrive by the end of the week. If you want a copy and haven't yet purchased one, click on these words.

Also, Ben and I are throwing a party in Austin, Texas on Friday, January 24, to celebrate the book's publication. Bookhouse Rock will be hosted by The Escapist Bookstore, 2209 S. First Street. I'll read and perform a rock n roll show with The Neal Pollack Invasion. By the way, if you're a drummer and live in Austin, we need a drummer for this particular show. Other musical acts include Jim Roll of Ann Arbor, Michigan, and Austin's own The Yuppie Pricks. In addition, there will be readings by Ben Brown, Jaime Allen, and Claire Zulkey. For more information, or at least for cool graphics, go here.

That's all for today. Come back tomorrow. I have two words for you: Clone Baby.

It seems like just last Thursday that I, Matthew Tobey of Haypenny, had begun my stint as a guest-blogger, and now it’s suddenly time for me to say goodbye. And while our time together has been short, I am confident that I have opened the eyes, ears and throats of this blog’s readership to the truth behind the dastardly deeds our government and media like to call terrorism.

Before I go, my newfound friends, I feel that I would be an unbalanced truth crier if I were to not detail those who, contrary to popular belief, are not involved in the terror business and are not in possession of weapons of mass destruction. Just like there are countless others who have their hands up the asses of the puppets of international wickedness and worldwide foul play, this is an incomplete list. Nonetheless, I hope to clear at least a few names before I bid you all adieu.

Blue Man Group:
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again; Blue Man Group was nowhere near the U.S. Embassy in Kenya in 1998. While their stage show is packed wall-to-wall with less-than-subtle anti-capitalist propaganda, and they contributed a song to the charity album Now That's What I Call Death to the Infidels, the strange paint-faced musicians are all bark and no bite.

Elm Trees:
Despite a convincing 1996 report by the New York Times, trees, let alone elm trees, cannot hijack planes or commit suicide bombings on Israeli cafés. However, if a tree were somehow able to commit acts of terror, there isn’t an ounce of uncertainty in my mind, body or brain that it would be the angry, militant and devoutly Wahhabist elm tree.

Hezbollah:
Easily the most misunderstood organization in the Middle East, Hezbollah has gained a reputation as a relentless fundamentalist faction but is completely straight, narrow and, some might even say, cool. The truth is, whenever there is an attack on a Jewish temple or a kidnapping of a Western journalist, Hezbollah’s ex-girlfriend has her new boyfriend pretend to be Hezbollah and call the authorities to claim responsibility for the action.

Matthew Tobey:
I am not a terrorist. Do you believe me?

The Nantucket Nectars Juice Guys:
After months of investigation, surveillance and nectar drinking, Tom and Tom have checked out, and I’ve since moved on to Ben and Jerry. Tom and Tom don’t wear suits and ties, they don’t use high-fructose corn syrup, and they don’t have nuclear capabilities. They’re just juice guys, juice guys whose ties to the assassination of Anwar Sadat are strictly sexual.

I could go on for months, but Neal has things to say, and he will say the hell out of them beginning Monday. While you wait patiently for his long-anticipated return, be sure to email me, read Haypenny and buy as many copies of Neal’s Beneath the Axis of Evil: One Man's Journey Into the Horrors of War as a third mortgage will afford you.

Good day.

Last night I had the most profound dream. Below is the transcript.

The dream took place in my elementary school cafeteria. Despite the fact that it looked like the sporting goods department at Target, it was my elementary school cafeteria.
A mysterious figure of uncertain gender and race approached me from behind the cookie table/golf-ball rack.

At that point I suddenly found myself transported to the top of the Empire State Building, in the throes of passion with House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, as we engaged in the sweetest, most tender “Cincinnati Mudslide” history has ever seen.

While I’d planned to warn against another terror group today, I felt a need and urgency to illustrate the incredible leaps and bounds that have been made in digital dream recording. I’m sure you understand. The future is now, boys and girls. The future is now!

If you think that’s amazing, you ought to check out this so-called electronic-mail everyone’s buzzing about. After that, be sure to buy your mother a copy of Neal Pollack’s Beneath the Axis of Evil: One Man's Journey Into the Horrors of War and have a look at Haypenny.

My name is Matthew Tobey, I am a guest-blogger, I edit Haypenny, and I am still alive! I now know how Salman Rushdie feels. In the days since I began revealing the true culprits behind all of the earth's terrorism, I've found myself needing to constantly watch my back, appreciate every breath I breathe and only leave my undisclosed blogging chamber for meals and the occasional "Madagascan Shower." Nonetheless, I have survived for another day of outing the iniquitous.

While I have already begun enlisting my googling and covert message-board skills to their fullest extent in investigating the involvement of the cast of NBC's Scrubs in acts of terror and am mere days away from uncovering their plans to acquire weapons of mass-destruction, they can rest easy until I have irrefutable proof. The Eagles, on the other hand, are not so lucky.

Yes, by capturing our hearts and minds with immeasurably accessible country-ish, rock-type, music-esque sound, The Eagles have steadfastly distracted the masses of the free nations of the world, while behind an evil curtain of acoustic guitars, they rape and pillage all that is good and democratic.

Fact: In 1971, Don "The Jackal" Henley and Glenn "The Jackal" Frey formed a blood pact with each other in Jackson Browne's basement, vowing to dedicate their lives and musical talents to liberticide.

Fact: Bernie "The Jackal" Leadon and Randy "The Jackal" Meisner, upon leaving the band in the mid-70s, underwent extensive plastic surgery before assassinating and stealing the identities of Queen Elizabeth II and Muammar Qaddafi, respectively. By decades end, the same will be done to Timothy B. "The Jackal" Schmit, Don "The Jackal" Felder and Joe "The Tiger" Walsh.

Fact: Don "The Dragon" Wilson is not in The Eagles and is likely, as they say, "clean."

If you're shocked by any of this, you're more jaded than I had originally feared. My dear people, you don't turn a ten-track greatest hits compilation into the best-selling album of all-time without dabbling in a little tyranny. And by "a little tyranny" I mean a lot of tyranny and a heaping helping of the black arts. Hell Freezes Over indeed!

Email me your questions, comments and suggested uses for old copies of Hotel California on vinyl. Have you bought a few copies of Neal's book Beneath the Axis of Evil: One Man's Journey Into the Horrors of War lately? You should. While you're at it, read yourself some Haypenny.

Yesterday, I received this email:

Dear Matthew Tobey of Haypenny,

Zach Braff and the Cast of NBC's Scrubs

There are hundreds more just like this one, flooding my email box even as I presently type. I have to admit that I'm not exactly surprised by this kind of a response. The truth can be a painful and searing thing that stabs at the mind and rapes at the soul. I, myself, went through an entire weekend of manic, urine-soaked denial after first learning of the many factions of the organization of omnipotence and mayhem that I have mustered the bravery to expose on this blog.

I had never intended on revealing my source, but it seems my tight lips and trustworthiness couldn't save my dear friend, so identifying him is no longer consequential. My courageous informer was none other than photographer Herb Ritts.

I met Rittsy early this year at a Wendy's Old Fashioned Hamburgers in Tempe, Arizona. Filthy and disoriented, he appeared to have suffered a concussion after a rollerblading stunt gone awry and had been wandering aimlessly for thousands of miles before collapsing in my Big Bacon Classic. I carried Herb back to the condo I was subletting and nursed him back to health over the course of the following month.

As his strength and wits returned, Herb and I became intimate confidants and before we finally parted ways, he held me in a sibling-like embrace and whispered into my ear the world's deepest and darkest of secrets, a secret I now share with you all, despite our never experiencing a nurse/patient-type bond.
As you can see, Rittsy’s knowledge of these goings-on sealed his fate. I hope the pestering emailers are satisfied. I can only pray that I am able to elude the same grim destiny.

Comments, apologies and Survivor 7 audition tapes can be emailed to me here. Read Haypenny. Buy Neal's book Beneath the Axis of Evil: One Man's Journey Into the Horrors of War. Bought it already? Buy it again.

Despite the best efforts of the shadowy figures on the unmarked, black dogsleds who chased me into a forest Friday evening, I, Matthew Tobey of Haypenny, have returned to further strip bare the many faces of the group truly pulling the strings of the puppet that our sweet and saintly flibbertigibbet of a President so eloquently refers to as the "axis of evil." Mr. President, I salute your intentions and respect you like an uncle, but you have no idea how evil and how axial the real miscreants are.

Needless to say, I made it out of the woods, literally and figuratively. All I'll say is it involved a few twigs and a lot of cunning. I'll surely be looking over my shoulder for the rest of my uncertain life, especially in light of the revelation I'm about to make.

If you were blown away by my indictment of the Eskimos, just imagine how you'll react when you get to the end of this sentence and discover the involvement of the Harlem Globetrotters.

"But they can't be terrorists. They were on Scooby Doo!" you're hollering to anyone who will listen, continuing until you're too hoarse to be heard or your very lungs bleed.

“So were Pol Pot and Mama Cass!” I’d retort, were I in the room with you.

Fact: In 1973, in an attempt to establish his standing among elite figures in the world of secret international bodies of hegemony, Curly Neal ate alive half-a-dozen high-ranking freemasons.

It's starting to make a little sense now, isn’t it? Their hilarious and awe-inspiring mutation of Dr. James Naismith's creation is merely a distraction, enchanting young and old alike the world over, while behind the scenes they participate in and fund the blood-thirsty pursuit of fascist world-domination. Let us never forget the words of the misguided, but nonetheless prophetic, Karl Marx: "Pantsed referees and buckets of confetti are the opiate of the masses."

Prepare, friends. For merely possessing this knowledge will change you like you've never been changed before. The name Meadowlark Lemon will conjure images of enforced conformity and suppressed liberty, and a single note of Sweet Georgia Brown will send chills up the spine and sweat down the brow. Terror lives in red, white and blue shorts.

Email me. Read Haypenny. Buy Neal's book. Buy Niels Bohr.

Once again, I, Matthew Tobey of the Haypenny editorial staff, am sitting in for Neal Pollack, author of Beneath the Axis of Evil: One Man's Journey Into the Horrors of War. Thank you for your patience, dear players and haters, as you were left hanging, waiting for the unmasking of the true men, women and children behind the malicious terrorist attacks that seek to challenge freedom worldwide. Your patience will pay off in spades right…now!

Osama bin Laden and his Al Qaeda Community Players Guild have been contracted to perform as the terror side of the War on Terror by a conglomeration of several groups with one common goal: to disable freedom and spread evil. Like earthbound Skeletors for the new millennium, these monsters have no idealistic or religious agenda, just an undying thirst to make the good and free relinquish and wither in the darkness of their hot, musty shadow.

It will come as a great surprise to many, but won't even incite a crook of a brow from a few, that one of the most prominent peoples involved in this amalgamation of iniquity are the Eskimos.
Don't bother picking your jaw up off the floor, you'll just end up picking it up again and again as you read on. The Eskimos want it that way.

Fact: Of the 27 Inuit words for "snow," eleven are "death to liberty and free-market economics."

"But that doesn't make any sense!" you're surely screaming, confused, frightened and naked, as you've suddenly ceased to trust even the clothes upon your back.

This is a culture that encourages the wearing of tennis rackets on one's shoes. Sense is not something they are in the business of making. And that is without even broaching their illogical, irrational and nonsensical practice of kissing with noses. Anyone who has ever had the misfortune of being on either end of an Eskimo blow-job is more than aware that there is terror billowing from within the igloos of these so-called north-people.

This is all a lot to handle, I realize, so I will give you the weekend to let it sink in and decide whether this shrouded and evil-ridden world is one you still want to live in. For those who stick it out, I shall return Monday to expose yet another chunk of this malevolent assemblage.

Channel your fear, paranoia, shock and fear into an email to me, right before you click here to read Haypenny and click here to buy several copies of Neal's Beneath the Axis of Evil: One Man's Journey Into the Horrors of War. It does for the war on terror what Fast Food Nation did for books.

Good day, readers. My name is Matthew Tobey. Most of the time I serve as one-quarter of the editorial staff at Haypenny, but until January 13th, Mr. Pollack has invited me to assume his blogger chair, wear his blogger pants and smoke his blogger pipe, whilst he tends to other urgencies. To thank him, you should buy his book.

In keeping with my pledge to my dying mentor, Mark Twain, I will not squander this opportunity to have my voice heard. These next several days, friends and enemies, truth will be exposed, while opinions, editorials and op/eds lay by the wayside, clinging to life by mere threads after being lambasted by cold, hard, ass-shattering facts.

With all due respect to my host, I must begin by pointing out that Mr. Pollack is a fool. He can't be blamed, however; none of you can. You've been blinded by a combination of bright, shining lies and wool over your eyes. Even our fine president—easily one of the most aromatic commanders in chief since Wilson, maybe even Tyler—even he fails to see the forest for the trees.

The middle-eastern "terrorists" are decoys! There, I said it. Osama bin Laden and his band of troublemakers are simply a front, an out-of-work acting troupe, down on their luck and willing to do anything to make a few bucks, even pose as a large international terrorist organization bent on destroying all that is big and tasty in the world.

"But who is behind it all?" you're shouting at your computer screen, sweating and/or weeping with shock, anticipation and shockticipation. I'll tell you who. I'll tell all of you. Though I'm risking my reputation as an editor of a popular but revenue-free wit/lit website as well as putting myself and my family in danger, I will spill the beans that no one wants spilled. But be warned, the truth is so mind-boggling, so soul-rattling, so flies-in-the-face-of-everything-your-parents-teachers-and-clergy-have-ever-taught-you, that you might never look at yourself the same way ever again, especially if you're a terrorist.

In the meantime, email me, read Haypenny and buy Neal's book.