First Casualties in The Coming War on Irony

Well I don't know what's the what, but while I've been writing apparently the world went crazy yet again. Never mind the crazy bride, who turns out to be a student from the University I taught at...but what are we to make of this?

Moments after facing a judge on felony charges, the two defendants in the cartoon character ploy that panicked the region were all smiles and jokes, staging a mocking press conference this afternoon outside the Charlestown courthouse in which they deflected questions about their culpability with non sequiter quips about their hair.

"Hair today, gone tomorrow," said Sean Stevens, 28, when asked about the charges.

Stevens and Peter Berdovsky, 27, pleaded not guilty to charges of placing a hoax device and disorderly conduct. Authorities say the two men were responsible for placing 38 electronic signs depicting characters from the "Aqua Teen Hunger Force" program on Cartoon Network as part of a guerilla marketing campaign for the show.

See? It all comes down to a bullshit corporate stunt gone bad . Aqua Teen Hunger Force, guerilla promo devices that have been up in other cities for weeks, causes a terror scare. Merciful Aunt Helen!

Of course, the minute things went bad, Turner Broadcasting basically SHAT themselves, and went straight into massive mea culpa mode:



But see, no one got the script to the fall guys -- who are the very demo that Turner makes money off of with "hip" shows like Aqua Teen. These are the guys who got the joke -- and for whom the overreaction is going to be seen as legendary.

To watch these guys below is just painful. The ridiculous over reaction by both the authorities and the media is made so much worse by their absolute refusal to play the role into which they've been cast.

THIS IS FREE SPEECH, kids. This is Jonathan Swift advocating the eating of Irish Babies (A Modest Proposal)...this is Poor Richard's Almanac...this is liberal stalwart Caroll O'Connor decrying racism by playing Archie Bunker. This is Chaplin in Modern Times taking on Hitler. America...you used to get this kind of thing!

The funny thing is that even Fox News seems not to know what to do with it. It's like making fun of Colbert. How do you mock someone who's mocking you?

Of course, what we can't talk about is the real context for all this: how this bullshit stupid stunt in Boston went so quickly to hysteria because the United States, and its media, has been sucking on the crack pipe of manufactured fear for five years now. Terror threat levels raised before major events. Lying about CIA operatives. The complete and utter mendacity of the current administration, who play fast and loose with American lives by hammering home talking points, then abandoning them and denying they were ever said. All of it creating a culture of hysteria and fear and deceit, where a a compliant, and complacent news media would rather track every motion of Lindsey Lohan and Paris Hilton than actually offer a coherent context for world events, so that stupid stunts like this don't make everyone go all Chicken Little.

Seriously, America...you are messed up right now. You're a sixteen year old girl who's drank a gallon of schnapps and two Mike's Hard, and your bra strap is backwards and your makeup is smudged, and the last thing you need to be doing is going to that bush party with that scary, skanky guy who chews the mints and calls you 'breasty.'

And to think, all it takes to put the entire mediascape into sharp relief, all it takes to puncture all of this hysterical bullshit is two assholes. One with dreadlocks. Unbelievable.

How can I write fictional tv when this is what's really going on out there? You're taking bread from Daddy's mouth, here.

I don't even like Aqua Teen Hunger Force. But now, I have to support it. Shee-yit.