The Strike that Stole Christmas

by Pablo Kickasso – Senior Entertainment Correspondent

LOS ANGELES – As the Writer’s Guild of America strike stretches into it’s fifth week, and well into the holiday season, the collateral damage of the work stoppage is beginning to rear its ugly head. The strike is claiming an unexpected new wave of victims during what should be the most wonderful time of the year. Sadly, the money-hungry writers only care about fattening their wallets, and are not the least bit concerned about how their bottomless greed leaves the little guy trampled in its wake. Little guys like Dane Cook.

Comedian Dane Cook, long rumored to use writers in his stand-up routines, put those rumors to rest once and for all today, by admitting that yes, he does use writers in his stand-up routines. However, the writer’s strike has left Cook high and dry for over a month. Having already used up all the material he had “in the can”, and with his policy of using no more than three stolen bits in any one performance, Cook was forced to cancel his upcoming US tour.

No, it won’t be a very merry Christmas for Mr. Cook, who has no choice to dig in and wait out the heartless writers’ shameless campaign to increase their personal fortunes. The weather outside is indeed frightful, and Cook is riding out the cold winter days holed up in his Beverly Hills mansion, scared and alone, where he is reportedly running low on Evian.

Critics attempted to minimize the impact of the strike on Cook, citing his multi-million dollar movie career, and pointing out that Cook doesn’t even actually tell jokes, but generally just gets laughs by saying things very, very loudly.

Cook’s agent, Ari Gold, responded to allegations against his client by revealing that the writers weren’t employed to make Cook funnier, but to enable him to complete a sentence.

“Me want do tour,” says Cook. “But me no have jokes. Dane Cook have sad Christmas. Why no give Dane Cook jokes?”

Despite the this heart-wrenching plea and the prospect of a truly tragic Christmas for poor Dane Cook, the writers of the WGA have looked deep into the icy black chasms where their hearts should be and seen nothing but dollar signs. Their sickening single-mindedness drains the season of any trace of holiday spirit, leaving only misery and ruin in its wake.

Peter Grosz, a writer for Comedy Central’s The Colbert Report actually defends the abhorrent strike, which most experts agree is an all-out attack on all things merry and bright.

“Look, it’s pretty simple,” says Grosz. “All we want is a tiny fraction of the profit that is made off of the entertainment we work so hard to create. I don’t think that’s unreasonable.”

If that sentiment seems familiar, perhaps it’s because it sounds an awful lot like the rhetoric of another comedy writer, a young man from from Austria speaking in 1933, shortly before his National Socialist party swept to power in Germany. That writer’s name? Adolf Hitler.

US to Get Hooked on Fonix

by Pablo Kickasso – Staff Writer

WASHINGTON D.C. – Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings announced today a new Department of Education initiative to simplify the official spelling of common English words, citing low test scores among high school seniors.

“Perhaps total literacy is too lofty a goal,” said Secretary Spellings. “The US is continuing to fall behind the rest of the world in testing at the secondary education level. The simplest solution would seem to be to just make the tests easier.”

To that end, starting with the 2008-2009 school year, the Department of Education will officially recognize common phonetic spellings of certain words including “lite”, “thru” and “nite”.

The US has a history of using more phonetic spellings of certain words than other Anglophone countries, “color” rather than “colour” for instance. Spellings contends that American teenagers have been conditioned by dumbed-down advertisements and constant text messaging to express themselves more phonetically than previous generations.

“And really, who are we to tell them they’re wrong?” asked the Secretary of Education. “I mean, what is that ‘gh’ doing in ‘light’ anyway? What the hell is it with the British and adding extra u’s and gh’s to everything??”

The initiative reportedly has strong support from the White House. A senior administration official, speaking on condition of anonymity, revealed that the president was particularly enthusiastic about a proposed revised spelling of “nukyular”.

Secretary Spellings contends that the simplified spellings will have an added environmental benefit. Simply eliminating the extraneous gh’s from ‘light’, ‘night’ and ‘through’ could potentially shorten books by an average of 2-3 pages, for a nationwide savings of 40 gallons of ink and 69 tons of paper annually. That could save nearly elventy billion acres of rainforest every year.

In addition, the simplifications could make it easier for immigrant’s to learn English, which Spellings says can be intimidating to non-native speakers due to its non-intuitive spelling, inconsistent grammar and “general fucked-uppedness.”

But that may be the last thing we want, warns former CIA Director George Tenet.

“Making it easier to speak English takes away one of the three main tools used by the US Intelligence community to identify terrorists: dressing like a weirdo foreigner, talking like a weirdo foreigner and skin color,” protests Tenet. “If everybody speaks perfect English how are we supposed to tell a white American from a towel-headed terrorist during illegal wiretaps, for example? It just flies in the face of our values, the ideals of freedom, justice and democracy that America stands for.”

And he just mite be rite.

The Daily First Premieres to Rave Reviews

by Pablo Kickasso – Staff Writer

CYBERSPACE – Internetweb users the world over breathed a collective sigh of relief today, as the online newspaper they had been waiting for finally arrived. The much anticipated debut The Daily First! sent shockwaves of orgasmic pleasure through the complex series of tubes that comprise the internets.

Since Steve Gutenberg invented the printing press in 1436, virtually all human endeavor (most notably the creation of the internet by Al Gore in 1991) has been building to this moment. The Daily First!, brainchild of internet celebrity and YouTube superstar Pablo “Big Irish” Kickasso, is touted by most experts both as the pinnacle of mankind’s achievement and the likely salvation of planet earth.

Not satisfied with merely reporting on the news – as lesser “news” agencies like the Associated Press settle for doing – Kickasso’s groundbreaking vision calls for actually creating the news people want to read.

“Proactivity-ness is the name of the game,” said Kickasso. “Anyone can write about things that actually happened. Where’s the challenge in that? To me it just seems like lazy journalism.”

The charismatic and always humble genius celebrated the launch of the First! with a subdued red carpet premiere in Los Angeles. Attendees ranged from political figures like former Vice President Dan Quayle to Hollywood starlet and youth role model Paris Hilton. Even astrophysicist and world renowned cripple Stephen Hawking was spotted rolling around in his trademark cripple-chair.

“Pablo Kickasso is the single most intelligent man I have ever had the intense pleasure to meet,” gushed Hawking. “The life’s work of Einstein pales in comparison to the brilliance Kickasso shows in The Daily First!. He’s also pretty damn sexy.”

Creepy quadriplegics aside, praise was flowing from all quarters, as anyone with two brain cells to rub together could see the First! was the greatest thing ever to exist in the entire history of things existing.

“I don’t get it,” said Hilton. “It’s not really even a newspaper. It’s a blog. I mean, it’s on WordPress, right? And anyway, isn’t there already a fake newspaper called The Onion or something? I mean, seriously, what’s the big deal?”

Paris Hilton was clearly suffering from mental illness of some kind, or on drugs, or both, as everyone who wasn’t a talentless brain-dead crack slut couldn’t say enough about hurricane of awesome that is The Daily First!

“I love this newspaper,” said OJ Simpson, best known for his impressive professional football career. “I love it so much that if I ever was separated from it I’d go to its condo and stab it to death along with a Jewish waiter and then write a book about how I did it, if I did it, which I wouldn’t admit to doing.”

Wouldn’t we all, Mr. Simpson. Wouldn’t we all.