Trail’s Gone Cold, by Arthur Tebbel & Chris Toia – Pop Art… and Chris #3-

June 30, 2009 Arthur Tebbel & Chris Toia 7 Comments

Dear Art & Chris,
I was in the news a lot the early part of the week. It seemed that my political career was all but done. Then several famous people died and suddenly no one was paying attention to me anymore. If I want to hold on to my aspirations of holding national office, including the presidency, what can I do to keep myself out of the news?

-Mark Sanford, Governor South Carolina

Mark,

How to keep yourself out of the news, you mean besides not cheating on your wife? I think that option is still on the table. You’re gonna need to stop taking so many hikes on the Appalachian Trail. You know, during the wet season… The aroused season. Stop fucking other women. You could also switch your political affiliation. Perhaps people wouldn’t care so much about your marital indiscretions if you didn’t run on a platform of being some sort of perfect representative of God’s will on earth. We’d like to quote a passage from The Bible, “And thou shalt not nail Argentinean hose bags on taxpayer money.” This is coincidentally the only use of “nail” or “hose bag” in The Bible.

Don’t think it’s escaped out attention that the day after this story broke Ed McMahon died. Or that when that wasn’t enough Farrah Fawcett died the following morning. When that didn’t work Michael Jackson died that afternoon. Level with us man; you killed these people. We know this is a completely logical leap but some of you out there might not be able to see it so we’ll lay it out for you. Remember the ridiculous allegations that Bill Clinton murdered dozens of people because they might have been about to testify against him in Whitewater? We would like to assert that Mark Sanford committed all of these murders in attempt to draw attention away from an affair he hadn’t had yet. He was also the Boston Strangler and Jack the Ripper. He’s a time traveling serial killer.

While Michael Jackson will certainly remain dead other events may or may not be happening in the world. There’s no way to know for certain because the media certainly isn’t talking about it. Instead we’ve been treated to half a week’s worth of spectacularly empty coverage of his death and life. Not his entire life or anything. Just what his hanger-on have been saying from their front lawns and some music videos. The most insane media tidbit was their reporting that his life was made miserable by constant media scrutiny. This was coming during their round-the-clock coverage of his death. The media certainly seems to have lost their sense of irony.

This has certainly exposed all the flaws in new media. Just weeks after Twitter was being flaunted as the cutting edge in news reporting (including by us) we’ve seen that it might not be the case. Jackson’s death quickly pushed the Iranian election off the trending topics off Twitter. While we complain about the news media it seems that the media driven by the people will quickly turn to the same inane crap. Perhaps it isn’t the fault of the news outlets that we get such shoddy coverage; perhaps that’s what we’re demanding of them. Governor Sanford you shouldn’t worry, you lack the star power to stay in the spotlight. Unfortunately that probably means you won’t be President either.