[WARNING: We begin on an upbeat note, but we must warn readers that late-breaking news as we went to press may not be suitable for sensitive types and similar bullshit artists.]

First up is the release of the JOE wireless phone app, which works with all the inexplicably popular overpriced gizmos. It comes with a 20,000-image photo gallery (sorry, no nudity), a selection of games including Caffeinated Psycho, which features a crudely-digitized JOE's head gobbling Dunkin' Munchkins through a maze while being chased by slimy aliens with slingshots, and a bank of ringtones with annoying Midi versions of hit tunes cleverly changed up to suit the theme---the fan favorite right now being "Hey JOE," with lyrics altered so that He's packing a Super-Soaker and heading to the penny arcade to shoot those rubber clowns in the mouth. But the real golden egg is the Personalized Outgoing Voicemail Messages function. Users can program JOE's actual voice to use their own words, in 40 languages, and 120 accents, including "Brooklynese," "Valley Girl," and "Moron From Delaware." The mix-and-match possibilities are endless. Your friends will surely shit with envy when JOE answers your phone as a Chinese waiter and says, "Me no home. You choke on wonton!"  

Next, it's the JOE workout DVD, featuring JOE and a favorite actress of His whose name He wouldn't reveal. He did tell us that the session is a 120-minute, unedited, 18-camera shoot, focusing entirely on JOE's favorite excercise, the Squat Thrust. "She'll be squatting, and I'll be thrusting, for two solid hours," He said from the gym, His ripped, rock-hard physique glistening with Vaseline and just the slightest hint of musky perspiration. "Just watching it is a workout," He added, "especially for your eyeballs. If you don't sweat, you're either blind or dead, but do buy it anyway, of course."  

Speaking of blind, Broadway is buzzing with the news of the upcoming JOE musical! As yet untitled, the multi-million dollar production will encapsulate His unique life in pathos-drenched vignettes, backed by a 64-piece orchestra, including TWO triangle players (one of JOE's favorite instruments, along with the glockenspiel). We can't give away too much, but the play opens as a depressing children's TV show, with JOE as a Pinky Lee-type host, and a younger-version body double strapped to a chair and forced to watch. The other kids are ordered to play games like "Bobbing For Rocks," the animal acts are all incontinent, and the clowns get crucified. "Not a big clown fan, as you might have gathered," He said. "This is a kid's show that kids can relate to. Have you ever heard them talk about how great the latest Captain Kangaroo was? Fuck, no! I respect their intelligence. They're starved for emotional realism, and this show has it in spades." The scene closes with "Klassikal Korner," which stars an African-American burro named Donkey Ho-Tay reading Shakespeare on his hind legs. "A little culture goes a long way," beamed a pleased-as-punch JOE. 

During the post-high school psychedelic segment, JOE dons platform glitter sneakers, garish striped bellbottoms with suspenders, and a pink afro to challenge "that deaf, dumb and blind kid" to a pinball throwdown. "Naturally, I kick his ass, not just because I'm the best, but c'mon---he's blind." Warned about a likely backlash from the visually-or-otherwise-impaired community, JOE made an especially gracious concession to His sightless followers. "From now on, every issue of our new online edition will be in Braille."

With JOE crackin' the whip to get our last issue out (understandable, given the gravity of the events), some significant facts were overlooked. Just days before discovering the "Cotton Candy Scent" body spray, JOE found another hidden treasure at that same Family Dollar outlet. Oddly misplaced amid the usual crap laid a ceramic soap dispenser, stunningly rendered in the form of a chicken, with a huge metal pump sticking out of its back. "It's not life-size, but it's larger than life," He winked, ultra-satisfied with His shrewd purchase. "It was three bucks, not one, but worth every cent. It's absolutely hideous. I swear I heard it calling my name, but you need teeth to say the 'J' in JOE, which even real chickens don't have. Plus, Eddie Money's 'Take Me Home Tonight' was playing in the store when I saw it. Like I'm gonna argue with Eddie Money and a ceramic chicken? I don't think so!"

We asked JOE if He considered His recent avalanche of good fortune to be more than a simple case of serendipity, to which He practically screamed, "I fuckin' LOVE Dippity-Do! I used it for years, but I dippity-don't since I decided to go full-on Kojak back in 2000. And that WAS a decision. Don't believe the hype. With the chiseled abs and everything, it's a lot like Mr. Clean, except I'm not gay. The gals have always loved it, the same way they love my scars from the Grenada Invasion, and now they're lined up to lick the Cotton Candy Scent clean off my noggin! Unfortunately, it only smells like cotton candy. Most of them can get around the rancid chemical taste, but a couple times, we did need barf bags. They still came back for seconds, though, so everything's cool. Between that and the chicken, I can't complain." We asked JOE if His hearing was going, or He was just being His adorably playful self. He responded by reciting the Gettysburg Address while gargling, so we suspect it's a bit of both. Either that, or He's back on the NyQuil.

But JOE certainly DID complain upon learning of recent incoming mail, which suggests that His "alleged" foot fetish (last issue) has some unsettling dark roots, if we're to believe the implications. An anonymous reader sent an article scanned from Washed-Up, Wacked-Out, Satanic Hippie Foot Fetish Times, a publication that folded shortly after its debut in 1972, and whose two known remaining copies are viewable only on microfiche under tight security at the Library Of Congress and the Research and Development Center at the Dr. Scholl Institute in Dubuke, Iowa. The entire magazine is written and edited by one Toejam Football, and its envelope is postmarked from Norwood, MA---JOE's hometown! It gets worse. The piece, entitled "Manson, My Foot!" consists mainly of an interview with someone calling himself only "Joe," who, we quote: "Yeah, man, Charlie had it all wrong. It wasn't Helter Skelter and race war, it was Piggies, and Harrison was singing directly to ME, about TOES. I played it backwards, and it clearly says 'Paint them, you groovy bastard / put the powdered sugar on / Beelzebub has a tootsie put aside for me,' stuff like that." While we're loath to speculate, we cannot ignore the startling resemblances, not only in the speech patterns and overall karmic portent, but in these photographs. Compare the recent shot on the left to the scan from the magazine. The classic nose alone leaves us dismally skeptical as to this all being coincidence:     

JOE jetted back from Liberia to address this bombshell. We approached Him more gingerly than usual, certain that we could never recover from a scandal of this magnitude. "This is pure bullshit!!" He railed furiously. "First of all, I'd never carve an 'X' into my forehead, pay to have it removed, and then slide some janitor twenty bucks to destroy the record of it. Plus, I was getting most of my subliminal messages from The Monkees anyway. How DARE you work people up for no reason? Circumstantial at best, you hacks, and when I figure out who to sue over this, you're all toast! I'll shut the whole thing down!" He roared, and right at that moment, this photograph of Sandahl Bergman slipped from His dossier onto the floor:

JOE, seemingly improvising now, said "That's the actress in the workout DVD. Big deal. It has nothing to do with the fact that she's up on her toes and that her name sounds like 'sandal,' which, YES, happens to be my favorite footwear. She's one of our finest actresses. She was in Xanadu, for God's sake! You people are fucked. I'm outta here." Regardless of what may transpire, we wish to assure readers that even JOE Himself cannot prevent us from covering His exploits. He doesn't have keys to our office, and is often deliberately incommunicado. Before storming off into the chilly September evening rain, He left us with one directive, which we're complying with despite the unbearable tension all this has caused, and since, admittedly, we don't have all the facts yet. "In honor of my ceramic chicken, I want this issue to go out on a chicken-y note with this beautiful song. The lyrics say it all. I'll be watching, you trecherous sleazeballs." YOWCH! 

NEXT ISSUE (assuming we can sneak one out under said classic nose): More stalling on the hash browns update, and hopefully, a return to relative sanity...