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In This Issue

• Get Your Freak On, Dorks
• (Almost) Rejected by Israeli Security
• Beaten by the Retard: Adventures in Drama
• Letters to and from the Fed's Maxima and Co.
• Columbia Hipsters Are So Shallow You Think You’re in High School
• Are You a Terrorist? The Government's Shocking Answer
• Failed Terrorist Herbie Bin Laden Marries Jewish Wife, Dabbles in Scientology
• Poetry.com: Your High School Poems are Waiting for You…
• Bottled Water: Bigger than Jesus, and now Semen Free
• Revolve magazine: The Seventeenth Seal
• I Passed the Oral but Failed the Urine
• Horribly Hassled Hermaphrodites Harangue Humanity
• Trial and Error Your Way to Perfect Genital Design
• Shot Down! : Rejections Made Simple
• Your College Essay, but with less Suck
• New Twenties Bring Back Tired Old Monopoly Money Jokes

Last week, with my dealer on the way, no cash, and my roommate deftly hiding his wallet from me, I headed to the ATM and was shocked when it spat out the ugliest thing since Michael Jackson’s last nose job: the "improved" $20 bill. My first thought was that I had been had—some jackass at Citibank had decided it would be really amusing to fuck with a bunch of Ivy Leaguers by loading the ATM full of Monopoly money. Thank God, no such shithead employee works at our local Citibank. Unfortunately just that sort of shithead works at the US Department of the Treasury designing new bills for circulation.

A quick look at the new bill reveals the government’s philosophy in designing new money: discourage counterfeiting by making the cash too damn ugly to study long enough to copy. What was once the world’s most boring currency has become the most hideous thing this side of tubgirl.com. Okay, maybe not—there are some wonderful things about the bill. The gold foil "20" and watermarks are great fun when you’re high, and the 20’s on the back really help you know what bill you’re dealing with if you’re drunk off your ass. And the sight of a blue eagle getting blasted in the chest by an official Alan Greenspan limited edition Federal Reserve logo baseball certainly brought enough sunshine to my day to make me forget about what my dealer would do to me if I didn’t have any money—real money—to toss up.

It just seems like the government’s goal was to make the $20 more fabulous than a bus full of Chelsea boys. The blue and peach goes so well with Andrew Jackson’s deep, ink-green eyes. I’m sure somebody out there loves that they can work their outfit to match the cash they carry, but it pains me to see someone—much less a dead president—get forced out of the closet by some bureaucrat at the Treasury Department. I guess it’s finally safe to say that money is queer, here, and good to buy beer.

But don’t let that get your hopes up. The new $20 may work for your next booze run, but the after-effects of handling the cash can be a hell of a lot worse than my acid flashbacks. I hope the Surgeon General gets on the ball and lets everyone know that these bills are just hazardous to health—I’m still nursing the wounds that I received from trying to pay my dealer with "that whacked out monopoly bullshit."