Friends, Romans, countrymen, Carrot Top haters and Alf lovers, a M.O.O.S.E. veteran has entered the building.

*cue music* “Casey’s back, back again, Casey’s back, tell some friends, preferably your hot, single supermodel friends.”

Since I know all of you love me like you might like your brother, or your brother’s girlfriend, I’m writing M.O.O..S.E. again, for the rest of the year. Huzzah!

To mark my return, I’ll delve deep into the M.O.O.S.E. annals to discover the first form of old school entertainment — fire. Ladies and gentlemen… start your engines because baby, the M.O.O.S.E.-dawg is about to start rocking. And there is no stopping. And I just rhymed.

Fire. We love it; we love watching flames and cooking weenies over open fires. I like cooking weenies, steaks and cheeseburgers over open fires almost as much as I like roasting politicians, and stupid, slutty “Real World” cast members over my cynical, spiteful hot pit. Almost.

Anyway, fire and entertainment go back a long time. Long enough to warrant a very sexy, yet accurate, timeline that goes exactly like this:

God creates man. Man creates fire. Man is entertained. Man sticks hand in fire, fire burns man. Man ignorantly sticks hand in fire again, fire burns man, again.

Man, or cow, harnesses fire, and burns down Chicago. Then in 1991, William Baldwin starred in “Backdraft.” Somewhere in my illustrious timeline, man invented the flamethrower and Smokey the Bear told us we could stop forest fires. That’s it — fire in a nutshell.

And, barring too subjective an opinion from the NIU Burn Victim Club, fire is great, intangible fun.

It’s the orange-red haze that can reduce to ash food and sticks.

It’s getting drunk and lighting farts on your couch in front of friends, simultaneously setting your couch on fire.

It’s buying illegal bottlerockets at Krazy Kaplan’s firework outlet, lighting those same bottlerockets and shooting them at your neighbors house.

It’s hiding in the bushes while the police search for that vandal that shot the bottlerockets at some old man’s house.

Everything listed above are all wonders of fire, little peculiarities that make us want to cook on open beaches and devour human flesh. Mmm … human flesh.

So in the meantime, folks, start up the barbeque and don’t bring the water. Just let that mother burn.