Ashlee Simpson Debacle Becomes 'October Surprise'

nyone waiting for the much-talked about "October Surprise" may have found it when, on an Oct. 23 broadcast of Saturday Night Live, musical ingénue Ashlee Simpson suffered a technical glitch that revealed her lip-synching to the world.

Legendary "October Surprises" have become a part of election year speculation, most memorably in the Carter-Reagan battle for the White House in 1980, when some suggested Carter's administration would pull off an October release of Iranian hostages and seal his re-election. Instead, he completely and utterly failed to release the hostages, and maybe that was the October Surprise, for the other guy. But you get the picture.

In the Bush-Kerry race, wild postulations on 2004's "October Surprise" included the capture of Osama bin Laden, another terrorist attack on U.S. soil, the release of new information about the economy, or a major degradation in the already-shitty Iraq situation. But if anyone had any money on a hack pop singer igniting the lip-synching controversy, you can collect your winnings, Charlie.

Simpson, a teen tart and possibly sister to "Chicken of the Sea" Jessica Simpson, was caught close-mouthed on stage before a live studio audience while the wrong vocal track rolled as her band played a different song. She apologized to the audience at the end of the show, blaming the incident on a wardrobe malfunction; later, Simpson admitted to using the backing vocal, but said she was sorry and it was the first time and she would never do it again, for honest this time.

The embarrassing event follows another flare-up in the lip-synching issue, when Elton John recently blasted ancient crumpet Madonna for allegedly lip-synching in her live concerts. John was drunkenly furious to hear Madonna had been nominated for "Best Live Act" in some shameless back-patting awards show. "Anyone who lip-synchs in public on stage when you pay seventy-five pounds to see them should be shot," said the famous "Crocodile Rock" singer, who is very gay.

As such flaps become newsworthy, it becomes harder and harder for the candidates to avoid the lip-synching controversy that divides the nation. For younger voters and pop-music, lip-synching is often a necessary evil that helps make stage-shows more involved and choreographed, while other voters and real music fans denounce it as technical trickery for the untalented. Older voters also often ask for the candidates to take a hard stance against rap music, which they proclaim is "just talkin'."

Although his platform is definitively against lip-synching, except on M-TV parody shows, Bush and his campaign would rather avoid a public stand-off on an issue that might alienate the young voters he seeks. While preaching to his conservative base at rallies across the nation, Bush has been known to challenge the legitimacy of music acts using pre-recorded vocals.

"My personal favorite has always been the Charlie Daniels Band," said Bush, to the same vigorous roar of applause he always receives. "If you can catch him lip-synching, I'll give you a coupon good for one free kick in my ass."

The Kerry campaign, on the other hand, has played it close to the vest, trying to court voters who feel that lip-synching should be regulated by the states and private citizens, rather than the government.

"I am against, and always have been against a constitutional amendment banning the use of pre-recorded vocal tracks by a live act," said Kerry. "This should not be taken as support of those who would choose to use such tracks live. I believe live music should be sang, not played back. Clearly, I would like to be elected."

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In the Valley of Sali, beneath a beautiful bridge, lived an Imp named Jojo who dreamed of one day being a construction worker. His daydreams were filled with visions of hardhats and bolt-throwers and rivets shining in the noontime sun. It was a stupid dream, but nobody had the heart to tell Jojo this, since he was the fragile sort and cried at the slightest provocation. Seriously, like when it rained and the ground got all muddy or when the sun came out and the water evaporated. Anything, really. One time he cried for two days because there were an odd number of blades of grass growing under the bridge. Thank God a caterpillar came along and ate one of them, or else Jojo might never have recovered.

One day Jojo woke up and the valley was buzzing with excitement. Really, it was making this sound like a refrigerator with a bad freon coil. There was some kind of problem with the trees being out of compliance, technical stuff. But besides that, everyone was excited. An exciting stranger had come to town, and even better: he was wearing a gigantic Mexican-style hat. Few things excited the people of Sali more than a genuine Mexican-style hat.

The stranger's name was Senior Sombrero ("Touché!" Jojo thought to himself wittily) and he promised the people of Sali (and by "people" I really mean all sorts of magical creatures and different-sized folks, not the boring kinds of people you see every day) many magical wonders if they would only allow him to take off his hat. And the people of Sali were practically starved for excitement, since though they lived in a magical enchanted land, people are people and they were bored with it. So of course they said yes, by all means beautiful stranger, take off your gigantic authentic Mexican-style hat!

In retrospect that was a stupid call, but few of the people had read ahead in the story so they didn't know that as soon as Senior Sombrero took off his hat and set it on the ground, all manner of different-sized and colored snakes would come pouring out of it, flooding the land with snakes extraordinaire. Senior Sombrero laughed a relieved laugh, as he'd been trying for weeks to get rid of all of those snakes in his hat and this was really starting to look like his day. He ducked into a doorway carved into an otherwise-ordinary tree and left his snake-erupting hat and the people of Sali behind. They would never see Senior Sombrero again, except for one time at the mall but that could have just been some guy who looked like Senior Sombrero, nobody was completely sure.

For ten days and ten nights snakes poured forth from the gigantic authentic Mexican-style hat, and the valley of Sali was filled to the brim with snakes. Everywhere you turned, there were snakes. Coming up out of the sinks, raining down out of airplanes, curled up inside the basketballs, they were absolutely everywhere. It was nearly impossible to find a place to sit down and there were major problems because all of the toilets were clogged up with snakes and when it was hot you couldn't turn on a fan unless you wanted to turn your house into a snake-themed Jackson Pollack painting.

All the people of Sali lamented and wondered aloud what they could do to get rid of all of the snakes. Wasn't there some meek little creature who could rise above his fears and save them all, proving everyone wrong who had always said he was good for nothing, and lending a touching conclusion to this dark tale? They often wondered this very aloud while walking past Jojo's bridge, and they sent him faxes musing the same. And they were right. Only Jojo could save them from this dastardly predicament.

Too bad he'd ditched out of town the second all of those snakes started pouring out of the giant Mexican-style hat. Good Lord was Jojo afraid of snakes! And that's the story of the town you know as Snakehampton.

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Dear commune:

Let me be the brave throat giving voice to the widespread, though silent, thought on the brain of the nation: It's time to set Arkansas on fire. We've danced around the issue long enough, now it is time for action. Nothing useful has come out of Arkansas in a very long time, possibly forever. Now is their chance to be helpful by providing heat for neighboring states during the cold winter months. When we set them on fire. It's the lease they could offer in return after all of the resources they have absorbed since becoming a state many years ago. We gave them roads, road signs, McDonalds, and even their own state quarter. Probably. Now it's time for Arkansas to give something back by being fuel. Thank you.

Roger Sylvester
Shalyma, MO


Dear Roger:

Though we here at the commune are excited about your idea (Ramrod Hurley was especially excited, and had to be locked in the mop room) we feel that it would be unconstitutional to take such a step without first giving the people of Arkansas a chance to prove their state's worth beyond a source of kindling. Therefore, we here at the commune call for the people of Arkansas to deliver unto us a beautiful maiden who both cooks and cleans and is experienced in the art of man-pleasing. Though not too experienced, if you know what we mean. If they cannot meet this request in the next 72 hours, we say Endurolog the whole damn place.

the commune

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Editor's Note: the commune is not responsible for getting your NetNanny pregnant, that bitch has been with every website from here to merriam-webster.com.

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