E-Mail This Article to a Friend DIRTY DEEDS Making peace on the potty BY CAMILLE DODERO

It’s been said that one way to remedy unrequited love is to picture the object of your affection on the toilet — the theory being that such an unsightly image should severely dull the romantic allure. But 27-year-old Dave Praeger believes the opposite: imagining friends and foes on the throne can actually bring you closer. And it’s by this community-through-the-lavatory logic that Praeger has christened April 15 — mark your calendar, plan your dinner, call the plumber — Poop for Peace Day, a date when people are encouraged to assume the potty position and meditate on one universal truth: everybody poops.

"Poop is the great equalizer," Praeger explains over the phone from his New York office, where he works as an ad copywriter. "It’s a day of meditation and reflection. You sit there and do your business and you think about George Bush doing his business and Osama doing his business, and you realize that underlying all our politics and all our differences, we’re all the same, trying to fulfill the same needs and desires."

Although Praeger moonlights as the founder and editor of Poopreport.com, a four-year-old site of "intellectual crap," the Brooklyn-based webmaster didn’t come up with the idea of scatological utopianism. Rather, the unorthodox notion originated with Tristyn Finn Cherian (www.tristynfinncherian.com), a toddler from Brooklyn who "writes" his own weblog. Two years ago, Cherian’s site suggested that Iraq-war protesters make their doodie an act of protest. "It said something like, ‘We’re going to poop on George W. Bush, and every time you poop, think about how that represents his policies,’ " recalls Praeger, who snuck away to an empty conference room in the middle of the workday to talk with the Phoenix about turd politics. "Hold on for a sec — do you need this room?" he says to someone in the background. "Can I call you right back?" When he does, he admits that his employers don’t really know about his online status as a poop panjandrum. "It’s not that they would not like it, it’s just that," he hesitates, "I don’t feel like explaining it."

At first, Praeger linked Poop for Peace Day to Cherian’s online journal, but after a year, he asked to appropriate the idea for his own site. "They said yes, but I think they thought I was creepy." Originally, Poop for Peace Day was April 16, but Praeger changed it this year to Tax Day — primarily because it was a weekday. "People are much more likely to be at their computer on a Friday for a reminder." He adds, "People have also speculated that Tax Day is a pretty shitty day, anyway."

Right now, there’s a conference call in the works for Poop for Peace Day — which will allow at least 200 people to share their experience. Praeger also hints that he might have some C-list celebrity endorsements, though they have yet to be announced. But never mind; the point is to remember that despite class, ethnicity, or partisanship, we’re all fundamentally human. "It’s remembering that you can get America’s worst enemy and America’s greatest heroes, and you feed them Taco Bell, and the same thing is going to happen," muses Praeger, who swears that his work isn’t sponsored by the Mexican-style fast-food chain. "Actually, there’s no advertising on the Poop for Peace page at all. It’s all about the movement."

Visit www.poopreport.com/Peace for more information.