Kidnapping Ends in Sentimental Anti-Climactic ClichÃ©

March 17, 2003

Salt Lake City, UT

Salt Lake City P.d.

Mitchell and wife do for Mormons what Stephen King did for Plymouth Furys and St. Bernards.

merica breathed a collective, if bored, sigh of relief Wednesday when missing Utah teen-ager Elizabeth Smart was found alive and well after being abducted last June from her bedroom. Police are calling the recovery of the teen a rare happy outcome to a potential tragedy; critics, however, are calling the fairy-tale ending trite and manipulative.

The major breakthrough in the case came earlier this week after two separate witnesses contacted police with information that a suspect in the case had been spotted in Sandy, Utah. Police soon apprehended Brian David Mitchell, an unemployed shelterless self-proclaimed prophet with everlasting bedhead. Mitchell had previously worked as a handyman for the Smart family, under the bizarrely erotic pseudonym Emmanuel. Authorities were surprised to discover Elizabeth Smart in shoddy wig and sunglasses disguise with Mitchell at the time of arrest, as well as cartoon witch Broomhilda, whom police claimed was Mitchell's wife Wanda Barzee.

Law enforcement and child safety advocates are applauding the teen-ager's safe return, but the more thick-skinned media critics are less kind. The New York Times resident crime reviewer Durill Barry Fields even referred to the case's conclusion as "claptrap."

"This fascinating story of a family's struggle to cope with lossâ€”and even more intriguing, the absence of closureâ€”came tumbling to a lifeless deadweight resolution Wednesday," Fields wrote in the Times' weekend section. "The little girl returns home, unharmed, and everybody's happyâ€”except those of us who watched this potentially disturbing and effective abduction story from day one. What a disappointment to spend nine months of considerable worry on a story whose ending would be rejected at Law & Order."

The duration of the kidnapping bothered other critics as well. The San Diego Review magazine's resident media sniper Hatley Wells took more issue with the time than the ending.

"It's completely difficult to make an original abduction these days. Personally I'm not a fan of the genre," wrote Hatley in Friday's edition. "While I appreciate what Mitchell tried to do with this kidnapping, any good criminal should recognize when their crime has worn out its welcome. Walking down the street in broad daylight alongside his victim, many will no doubt say he wanted to be caughtâ€”it would have been a much better idea to want to be caught about seven months ago, before this whole thing blew its suspense factor."

Even the usually easily-pleased media critics are reluctant to say much good about the crime. Early word has it that TV Guide is already leaking advanced press from next week's issue, where they "jeer" the kidnapping. Though they compliment the creative "prophet for the homeless" angle and Ms. Smart's "true-to-life" performance under pressure, they echo critics who slam the lackadaisical, violence-free capture of the terrorizing crazy abductors. The TV Guide review follows another Jeer to this year's ho-hum Survivor and precedes a Cheer to a "warm and dazzling" Will & Grace that tactfully addresses the subject of coming out at work.

the commune news is made of up two parts vermouth and one part vodka. Ivana Folger-Balzac is the commune's bitchy correspondent, which is not to say she covers submissive prisoner storiesâ€¦ but if she asks, that's what we mean when we say it.

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March 8, 2004

I Have Caught the CIA's Latest Death Virus

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I am in no mood to talk, gentle readers. Fortunately I can do my column in a written fashion, although it throws me off my game not to hear my own voice ranting as I freestyle my diatribe. But my voice hurts too much to even think about talkingâ€”see? That just now hurt really bad. I am sick with the influenza.

At least that's what doctors tell me. I have much darker suspicions that I have been infected with the CIA's latest death virus.

Doctors, friends, and those folks at the radio call-in show are quick to doubt me, I know, but it only makes my suspicions stronger. They ask me, "Why would the CIA waste time trying to kill you?" Of course, that question has a list of answers a mile long. There's my controversial columns which someone must be reading, influencing a whole generation of hypothetical readers toward an underground revolution. Or there's what I did last year in the city of Branson, Missouri's water supply. And these two things are only at the top of the list. Frankly, who knows? They're the CIA. I don't pretend to understand their motivations, even as I make them up.

All that matters is this may well be true. As you may know, the CIA are not to be fucked with, sir, when it comes to death viruses. They invented the best of themâ€”AIDS, syphilis, Hong Kong flu, herpes. I hear tell one of them even escaped the lab and got a talk show under the name Jenny Jones. These people are clearly the go-to folks when it comes to inventing death viruses. And if this one is their latest, it stands to reason I'm in big, contagious trouble.

The doctor was right about one thingâ€”nothing you can do but let it run its course. So I'm taking a fatalistic approach to it all, I suppose, saying what happens happens. Of course, this doesn't stop me from making our Marketing VP Sully work on a cure 24 hours a day, minus lunch. I've also cursed the name of God for letting this happen and trashed a church, but I was probably going to do that anyway.

The worst thing about any cold, even a death virus, is being sick all the time. Snotty, sore throat, always rushing to the bathroom at the drop of a hat, or something less hat-like. Everything in my office is germ-ridden and nasty. I've gotten the commune cleaning staff (a.k.a. the copywriting desk) to come in and scrub down my office every two hours, just to keep it less contagiousâ€”also, I admit, I'm a little curious to see how quick they catch it, to see what this death virus can really do. I've also had them empty all my jars of urine, since when they began to get in the way I had to confess I really didn't have much idea what I was saving them for.

In the even of my death, however, seeing as how this is a death virus, I believe the commune will be in good hands. I've assigned editorial duties to Sully, Mazie the Chicken, Lil Duncan, and celebrity heartthrob Leif Garrett, just to shake things up a bit. Each will have the reigning editorial duties on a certain day of the month, from first to fourth. On the event of a rare fifth Monday, responsibility for those duties will be determined by a battle to the death. Perhaps a bit extreme, but I'm damned to determine to see the creative control doesn't suffer due to my brother's meddling and the CIA's attempt to kill me.

Sure, I suppose I could get better, but you have to plan for the worst. After all, this all probably could have been avoided if I had invested in that hermetically-sealed personal bubble I planned on buying after seeing that John Travolta movie all those years ago.

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December 8, 2003

Boris is Tripping

Hello hello, reading persons. Boris is here for column.

So much to tell of story!

Big news is Boris is Angel from Hell like in easy Wynona Ryder movie! Is true!

So exciting. But Boris must tell how these things does happen. First of it all starts with Boris decides to decorate apartment to surprise robot friend Louis. Louis is in such bad mood all times because economy thing is bad for robot jobs, no persons wants to pay to see and talk to plain robot. Them does go to movie to see Arnold robot who is exterminator thing to go back in time. This is big deal. Persons are having all so much fun with Arnold thing who is important robot president of California. So hard for Louis, who is only robot president of apartment and does not like to go back in time. If person does ask can Louis robot go back in time like exterminator Louis says he will go back in time to kick person's ass. This is funny saying thing.

So Louis is grouch all times and is not happy that Boris does leave apartment door open all night in case Similar to Skippy dog does come home. All other dogs and hobo persons does come in to eat Boris' peanut butter and make big mess, is bad thing. Boris does not get award for this idea.

So now Boris does have better thinking, decide to decorate apartment to bring happy days for Louis friend, like show with Fozzie person. First idea is to get lot of clinging wrap to cover apartment and make shining and easy to...

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Milestones

1983: Reporter Raoul Dunkin begins down the long road of abandoning teams when things get rough, quitting a dodgeball match due to some minor bone fracturing.

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BY Roland McShyster

4/4/2005

El Vita Loca, commune readers! Whatever that means, it's time for some more Entertainment Police fun. And nobody needs a translator to know what that means! Unless they've never heard of Entertainment Police before. But even then a translator wouldn't help, they'd need somebody more along the lines of those guys that do the recap at the beginning of TV shows, like "Last week, on Entertainment Policeâ€¦" Hmm. I wonder if there's a market for that? I've got a pretty good speaking voice, according to the telemarketers who keep trying to sign me up for some scam broadcasting college. And I think I've got a better-than-average grasp on what happened last week on Entertainment Police. Unless it was one of Welch's columns, I still need to get around to reading those. Right after I finish cleaning out my trunk and alphabetizing my frozen burrito collection, I swear.

In Theaters Now:

Beaver Pitch
The Farley Brothers have taken a lack of taste to a new, stratospheric level with their latest addition to their "Honk in Your Popcorn" genre of films, this time starring that charismatic "Gellin' like a Felon" guy from the Dr. Scholl's commercials as a life-long Red Sox fan who blows his brains out a week before they end up winning the World Series. Trust me; it plays funnier on the screen than it does on paper. The Farleys even recover nicely from the structural gaffe of having their main character apply the lead Q-tip within the first ten minutes of the film by making the rest of the movie about funny baseball stuff. The first feature film to drop the bombshell that most baseball players just want to get laid, Beaver Pitch strikes a nice balance between serious social commentary about sports' place in society and jokes about a guy accidentally gargling with a glass of David Ortiz's cum. Speaking of which, all the real-life baseball players are believable as real-life baseball players, the actors are believable as actors, and Drew Barrymore is likable as the beaver.

Booty Shop
Finally, Brit rock legends Queen have been allowed to make the movie that's been festering in their imaginations for years, about a whorehouse in Compton staffed by sassy black chicks with plenty of ass to go around. Ass, and hips, elbows, hamhocks, really all proportions are amply represented in these women. Don't ask me, I guess Queen just like 'em large. The film's story is really just a mosquito-net-thin excuse to string together a series of rousing musical numbers that justify having Queen hang around the whorehouse all the time as the house band, cracking wise in their impenetrable British accents. I don't have any idea what any of them said during any part of the film, but the way they said it was hilarious. Although the film doesn't feature nearly enough sex to please most fans of whorehouse pictures, it more than makes up for this shortcoming by featuring at least seven times more Brian May than the average entry in this genre.

Sim City
I don't know about you, but when I was sitting in front of my Atari 2600 console as a child, gamely destroying my carpel tunnels in the pursuit of a 999 score, never once did my mind stir up thoughts like "Man, I bet Breakout would make a great movie!" or "Gee whiz, wouldn't Tom Selleck be great as the lead in a filmed adaptation of Combat?" Mostly I was just thinking about how cool it would be to be able to shoot giant rubber bullets at other cars on the freeway. But the Hollywood producers of today were apparently dreaming far different dreams during their formative years, scheming to adapt even the most unlikely source material into stiff, unwatchable cinema. Such is the case with the newly released Sim City, a movie adaptation of the popular PC title where you run other people's lives and end up just sitting and staring at your computer, watching your virtual people sit and stare at their computers while they control the lives of a town of virtual electric Smurfs in the game's game-within-a-game, Smurftual Reality. As you can imagine, this all makes for thrilling cinema when you add Bruce Willis, Mauricio Del Toro in Smurface, and $100 million in special effects.

And that's all the movie madness we've got the time or interest for this week, America, but be sure to tune in next time when I'll have the full scoop on the rumor that's been going around about the Supreme Court ordering Pauley Shore's food tube to be removed. Until then!