"Really though, at this point, who's to say what's real anymore?"

Last year the actor Joachin Phoenix famously appeared on David Letterman's show, and in other public events, looking completely fucked up and saying he was quitting acting. Well guess what -- it was all a hoax or, as they're calling it, performance art, in service of a mockumentary called I'm Still Here.

In this post on Mediaite, about how Phoenix went back on Letterman's show and got a "scolding" from the host, a despairing blogger asks (emphasis mine):

Letterman took Phoenix to task for tricking him (he made the actor admit that he [Letterman] hadn’t been in on the joke or scripted) as well as using most of the footage in the film without paying The Late Show a licensing fee. He even (jokingly?) told Phoenix that he owed him $1 million. When Phoenix, playing along, asked if they could discuss it in private, Letterman took a hard swipe saying they could go to one of I'm Still Here's screenings.

Really though, at this point, who's to say what's real anymore? Maybe Letterman wasn't mad and this was all a hoax.

Such are the dangers of piling air quotes upon sarcasm upon satire upon irony. We're now approaching Andy Kaufmann territory, where a performer constantly spoofs and tricks his friends and family along with his fans so many times that even those closest to him don't know what to believe. You know, if I were going to venture into those rarified levels of hoax, I think I'd set up a secret website for my closest friends and family, where I'd promise to post the real truth, at pain of amputation of my privates. (Of course, if you're actually dying, like Kaufmann was, I guess at some point you might actually go so far as to risk that penalty.)

Irony compounds in Santa Rosa

A man who sells electric motorcycles was killed in a collision... with a Prius.

Satire is Dead: Army sends out "Dear John Doe" letters to dead soldiers families

The Army is apologizing for sending out letters to the families of dead soldiers beginning with the words "Dear John Doe..."

The situation evokes the famous passage in Joseph Heller's "Catch-22" where General Dreedle wants to send out letters that say "Dear Mrs., Mr., Miss, or Mr. and Mrs.: Words cannot express the deep personal grief I experienced when your husband, father, or brother was killed, wounded or reported missing in action.'"

Unintentionally echoing Dreedle's sentiment, Brig. Gen. Reuben D. Jones, Army adjutant general, said, "There are no words to adequately apologize for this mistake or for the hurt it may have caused."

technorati: Army, letters, Catch-22

Hitler might not have survived internet mockery, Nobel prize winner says

In his speech Sunday accepting the Nobel Prize in literature, French writer Jean Marie Gustav Le Clezio suggested that Nazi leader Adolf Hitler might not have been able to survive for long if the internet had existed in his day, saying "Hitler's criminal plot would not have succeeded - ridicule might have prevented it from ever seeing the light of day."

The story is illustrated with an example of what that mockery might have looked like: an lol-hitler, if you will, with the caption "I Can Has Sudentenland?" (A reference, of course, to the classic lolcat site ICanHasCheezburger.)

technorati: Le Clezio

Satire is dead, no 892134892: Praying with SUVs

A black church in Detroit blessed members who work in the nearly kaput auto industry as "three gleaming sport utility vehicles" shared the stage. In a nod to ecumenism, each car was from one of the Big 3 automakers.

Reinforcing the impression that these people are really stupid was a quotation from a church leader that "We have never seen as midnight an hour as we face this coming week," a sentence I had to read five times before I understood it. (In fairness, it was intended to be heard, not read. But I'm not sure the speaker knows, or cares, that "midnight" is not an adjective.)

technorati: bailout, auto industry, churchesa>, Pentacostals

Well, I think it's funny

I just looked on Google News -- there were 1302 news articles returned by the words "Obama" and "cover." Satire is dead, pessimists say. Perhaps the people who are freaked out about this satirical illustration -- which is entitled "The Politics of Fear," get it?? -- believe that.

It's classic coastal elitism. Not the cover itself, but the belief that people will see this cover and say "See?! This proves my point exactly! Obama really is an Islammer!" Thinking that you are smart enough to understand a joke while the hoi polloi won't, and that this could be horribly damaging -- that's the elitist belief. And the New Yorker -- the epitome of what the ignorant flyover folk are supposed to fear -- has done a good thing in giving a full-frontal dismissal of it.

Courtesy Huffington Post: The artist, Barry Blitt, defends his work. And so does the New Yorker editor.

You want a real "Satire is Dead" headline? It was on Salon today:

My wife left me when the dolphins at Sea World gave me an erection.

My God! An insult to dolphins!

technorati: New Yorker, Obama cover

Satire is Dead, #9823490823550

A company contracted to build a fence along the Mexican border will pay a $5 million fine for -- what else -- employing undocumented workers. (Courtesy Wonkette and LAist)

Satire is dead, #9820828563401

From a commend thread on a great Txg-themed entry on my friend Jackadandy's blog, which discussed how wannabes shamelessly rip off the whole Native American thing:

I'm reminded of a story I heard I think about the Michigan Womyn's Festival (is that the proper name of it? the big trans-exclusive folk music thing?) -- they had tents for different groups of people, and one was for Native American women. After about an hour, they had to put a sign on the tent that read "Native American in THIS LIFE ONLY."

This is what I was talking about in my entry on Monday -- when a strange group is seen as harmless, everyone wants a piece of them.

Satire is dead, #9234982311

No, it's not a headline from The Onion: Residents told to be ready 'for anything'

You know, this is pretty much "Dog bites man": Rep. Kennedy, drunk, crashes car near Capitol. That would be Rep. Patrick Kennedy, D-R.I., son of the most famous Democratic car-crasher in history, Sen. Teddy Kennedy. When he staggered out of the car he blurted something about being "late for a floor vote." Only problem? It was 2:30 a.m.!

How the mighty have fallen: Kenneth Starr, the former Whitewater special prosecutor who failed to hound Bill Clinton from office, will represent an Alaskan school board in a free-speech case about a high school student who displayed a banner at a football game reading "BONG HITS 4 JESUS." There's little hope Starr will stay in the 49th state, though; he is the dean of Pepperdine Law School, located in Malibu.

Doonesbury nails Bush's torture past

Is satire dead? Maybe. But how else to better compare Bush's current attitudes on the subject of torture to, as Sunday's Doonesbury strip put it, "a long-forgotten incident on (the) Ivy League campus" of Yale -- alma mater of W and Doonesbury artist Garry Trudeau (as well as, of course, John Kerry). This Editor and Publisher piece interviewed Trudeau and checked the Paper Of Record (the NYT) on the 1967 incident in which members of Bush's fraternity were branded -- with a red-hot coat hanger -- with the Greek letter delta.

 
Aside from the frisson of pleasure one experiences from seeing Bush's words come back to haunt him (if indeed he is "haunted" by what appears in Doonesbury, which I doubt) the questions I have to ask myself are, why am I laughing at jokes about torture? Is it that the actions of our own country to trivialize torture have made it something appropriate for even the Sunday funnies? How ironic is that?

Also: Today's Yale Daily News reports on the cartoon and recalls its story on the 1967 incident

Satire is dead, #93789045190

A Texas woman became the subject of one of those reality TV shows that subject women to extensive plastic surgery in order to "make them over." A crew from the show interviewed family members and "manipulated" them into "horrific, hurtful statements from virtually every member of her family," a suit alleges. The emotional trauma resulting from these admissions was so great it destroyed the family's emotional equilibrium and drove the woman's sister to suicide.

In the 21st century it's not enough that every magazine suggests that the feminine ideal is a sexually precocious adolescent who cannot be visually distinguished from a high school freshman, and that modern culture has become so rife with images from pornography that there's a word for it: pornification. It's not enough that most women in the media are virtually discarded after age 40. Now we have to literally invade the lives of ordinary people and push their face (literally!) in it. Gaaahh, it's so disgusting.

I told you so

Satire is dead, says Village Voice columnist Sydney Schanberg:

Remember the Miami Herald stakeout in 1987 at Gary Hart's townhouse that revealed his marital infidelity and ousted him from the presidential race? That was a landmark in the press's slippery slide. News became more like a game. It was entertainment. Later, of course, we gave the world the Monica saga of sex in the White House. Michael Isikoff, co-author of the Newsweek article currently in dispute, was a major unearther of the lubricious details back then. In devoting such investigative energy and resources to a love-nest story, the press took resources away from matters that actually have a tangible effect on American lives.

The press's proprietors and editors (some of the latter, to their credit, winced as they participated) told us that this was the necessary path to the future if we were to survive financially. They said we had to enliven newspapers and news on television so we could capture those 18- to 49-year-olds and thus draw the big advertisers who yearned to sell them things. "Get jiggy with it!" they told the newsroom doubters.

Just this morning I had to turn off the radio in anger as I listened to a report that Bush had "welcomed to the White House" children who had been artificially inseminated. Why? Something to do with the stem cell controversy. And I cringe that I used the word "controversy" -- it's like saying evolution is still controversial. Sometimes this country really bums me.

Meanwhile, on the Paris Hilton hamburger ad beat, the CEO of Wendy's -- I mean, Carl's Jr. -- said he had screened the ad for his three children, ages 12, 9 and 7, "and they have shown no signs of being corrupted."

journalism, Sydney Schanberg, stem cell, insemination, Paris Hilton, Parish Hilton ad

Satire is dead, #927258933344

Another Onion-like story, with the following lead:

Richard Gere is determined to instill his Buddhist beliefs into his son Homer, even though the five-year-old is struggling to understand the actor's religious lessons.

¡Pobre muchacho!

Meanwhile, in Jordan, a man and a woman, each unhappy in marriage, met online and fell in love. When they finally met face to face, they were shocked to find out they were already married to each other. Happy ending? Nope:

Upon seeing Sanaa-alias-Jamila, Bakr-alias-Adnan turned white and screamed at the top of his lungs: "You are divorced, divorced, divorced" -- the traditional manner of officially ending a marriage in Islam.

"You are a liar," Sanaa retorted before fainting, the (report) said.

That's almost too good to be true, so watch this space to see if this turns out to be a hoax or urban legend. (The Jordanian-slash-Islamic angle does seem like an added dash of realism, though.)

Speaking of hoaxes, there's this whole weird story. A man calling himself Jeff Gannon appeared in the White House press room last year, allegedly reporting for something called Talon News. After several bloggers attacked him for quoting White House talking points verbatim in his "news" stories and found links between him and gay erotica websites, he resigned yesterday. All his Talon material has been taken down, but here's Google's cached copy of his bio page from the Talon site.

Satire is dead, #8923999267204

British television viewers will soon be treated to a reality TV show based on the Guantanamo concentration camp.

"Using an east London warehouse and declassified internal documents obtained from US sources, programme-makers mocked up conditions as they are inside Guantánamo, before subjecting seven volunteers to some of the milder forms of torture alleged to have been used by US authorities. The programme exposed the volunteers, three of whom are Muslim, to 48 hours of 'torture lite' including sleep deprivation, the use of extreme temperatures and 'mild' physical contact."

And they'll be fed food from British pubs, too. Now that's abuse.

Meanwhile, MSNBC published the most Onion-like headline of the week: Teens' online lingo leaves parents baffled.

Satire is dead, ya know

On Salon today, Tom Tomorrow satirizes the Fox News Channel's recent drive to "defend Christmas" from secular humanists and liberals. Yeah, funny. But I'm really starting to wonder -- what good does it do? All the fucking satire in the world didn't keep Bush from being re-elected. Do you think those assholes really pay attention to stuff like this? Or is it all just to make us feel better?

Satire is dead, #923955782310

In Japan, "Single men find this soothing" -- a "lap pillow" in the form of... God, I just can't describe it. You'll have to click. (Courtesy Meme First, You Second)

Satire is dead, #923797823334

It's no joke anymore: European election observers will monitor U.S. elections this fall.

Satire is not dead, not in New York in August

Hundreds of activists-cum-performance artists are planning on making themselves heard during the Republican Convention later this month, not on the barricades, but through street theater depicting "Billionaires for Bush" and the like.

Their faith is touching. And doing something like that is certainly much more fun and camera-friendly than one more mass march or sit-in. But will all the playacting really swing a single swing-state vote?

Satire is dead

Sometimes I get in a mood when everything I read in the news sounds like it was lifted from The Onion.

Associated Press, 23 Dec 03: Wife Doesn't Think Much of Toilet Seat as Gift
St. Louis Post-Dispatch, 22 Dec 03: Outpouring Saves Family's Tree
Miami Herald, 23 Dec 03: Ben Affleck Tries to Put the Focus Back on His Work
Fox News, 7 Dec 03: Farm Boy Carries Torch for Parish Hilton
WIlkes-Barre Times Leader, 16 Dec. 03: Man is tired of neighbor sneaking into his yard to care for his dog
Baptist Standard, 19 Dec 03: Abstinence Pledge-Breakers Likely Not to Use Condoms

Then again, you can't make up something like this online forum discussion on the topic "Where's Mark Pritchard?" Apparently an Australian who shares my name has founded some kind of esoteric sect which teaches "astral travel" and "tantrism" among other things. Furthermore he now calls himself Beelzebub or Belzebuub, which should allay any confusion between him and me. I'll have to add this character to the list of "The Mark Pritchards I'm not" on my bio page.

Satire, dead or not?

Quite nice flibbit addressed to the driving public. (I just made up the word "flibbit" -- but you know exactly what I mean, right? A satirical piece designed to hold up to gentle ridicule a section of the populace.)

Then there's the woman who gives people casettes entitled "Road Sage." Whenever this woman decides that one of her friends is a bit too angry when driving, she buys this "Road Sage" cassette for them. It's her way of making the roads safer.

Dear friend,

Thank you for picking me up at the airport yesterday. What with the driving rainstorm, all the airport construction, and the trouble with your broker on the phone, I understood what a great favor it was.

With all these distractions, the fender bender we had with that nasty woman in the sports car was certainly understandable. Drivers these days just don't realize that just because we have a big SUV, we can't see everything! If we could, we would be gods and wouldn't need to drive at all. As it is, the height and expanded cargo space of your Ford Monument Pro makes us feel like gods. But gods don't get into fender benders with nasty little red sports cars.

If she had only realized this, she would not have tried to pass you in a lane that had only just that moment become clear. It wasn't your fault that she zipped into it at the same time you changed lanes. I thought your maneuver was very skilled. For a moment there I thought we were going to turn over and over and over and skid on the passenger side down the fast lane of 101 up and through the guardrail and into Richardson Bay. But your driving skill prevented this. Nice bit of driving there!

I did think it was a little bit of an overreaction on your part, once she had pulled off to the shoulder and gotten out of her car, for you to slam the Monument into reverse and roll backwards over her hood and bust her windshield. I could tell from the way you were screaming I'LL SHOW THAT FUCKING BITCH that you were a lot more bothered than you should have been.

So I thought you'd enjoy this tape. I put it on every time something like this happens to me. The soothing shakahachi flute and background tinkle of a rushing brook evoke a pleasant, meditative retreat, and the calming voice of the narrator, former Cleveland Zen Center roshi Dan Omoke, puts positive thoughts into your mind. So driving isn't such a stress event.

With love,

Shakti

Update: After I wrote that, I found out there really is such a thing as a Road Sage cassette. So maybe satire really is dead after all.