Nine Minors Trapped in Shaft

ine Florida teens were trapped in a St. Petersburg dollar theater Sunday after local hooligans wedged numerous pennies between the theater doors and doorframe, theater officials said. Pounding noises and loud complaining from inside the theater indicated at least some were alive as theater employees wandered around and stared at the ceiling in a vague attempt to rescue them.

The pounding and cries of “What the fuck, man?� created “a glimmer of hope� that the teens, who had paid $1.75 each to see the disappointing 2000 Samuel L. Jackson vehicle Shaft Sunday afternoon, were safe, said Betsy Mulroony, a spokeswoman for Gulf Coast Cinema.

“It is a race against time because the movie is still playing in there,� she said. “The last thing we want is for these kids to have to sit through the film’s gratuitously violent, unsatisfying finale. We’re doing everything we can to get those doors open.�

Theater employee Jared Wenham first realized that something was not right when he walked by the theater doors at around 3:30 p.m. and heard a loud pounding noise. Jared attempted unsuccessfully to open the doors, then brought the problem to the attention of his supervisor, Dickie Nelson. Nelson recalled hearing the pounding upon passing the theater doors minutes earlier, but had assumed the noises were part of the film’s THX soundtrack. “Like I’ve seen fucking Shaft,� Nelson explained, obviously annoyed by the implication.

Nelson pounded a tentative “shave and a haircut� on the theater door, and when the answering knock came back “two bits,� his worst fears were confirmed. Nelson went outside for a smoke break, then came back inside fifteen minutes later to begin coordinating the rescue efforts.

The theater’s three employees proceeded to work in shifts to free the teens, alternately tugging at the door handles and putting their weight into trying to push the doors open, as no one could recall whether the doors swung in or out. While one employee worked on the doors, the other two stood nearby to shout encouragement and tactical advice such as “lefty loosey, righty tighty,� that was of little practical value.

After twenty minutes of concentrated rescue efforts, the theater employees were taking a hard-earned Icee break when approached by local teen Brandon McFie, who told a harrowing tale made even more chilling by the theater’s overzealous air conditioning system and the freshly squeezed Icees. McFie explained that he had been one of the nine teens trapped inside the theater, but he had managed to escape after noticing the lighted exit signs to the left and the right of the screen, which indicated doors leading to the theater’s parking lot.

Theater employees raced against time to relay this new information through the jammed doors to the teens still trapped inside, but their task was made nearly impossible by the film’s pounding soundtrack and frequent gun battles. Morse Code was suggested as an ideal solution, but was then scrapped when minutes later it was discovered that “S.O.S.� was the only message the on-hand personnel knew how to signal, and this wasn’t especially useful given the situation. Workers resorted to old-fashioned yelling and eventually succeeded in conveying the news.

The eight remaining teens emerged from the dark theater to the scattered ironic applause of theater employees and derisive comments from a topless man wearing jogging shorts in the parking lot.

“I thought we’d never get out of there, yo,� said 16 year-old Ricky Niebolt of their 80-minute ordeal. “I had to piss like a racecar.�

“Man, I wasn’t even here to see a movie,� insisted acne-scarred Chad Runion of Brooksville. “Especially not this Shaft bullshit. I was on my way over to knock up some little 15 year-old slut or some shit, you know? Gettin’ my thang on, ba-bang. I just came up in here cuz I thought it was a condom store. Yeah. Not like I use the things though.�

Though the teens all escaped the theater unharmed, authorities are looking at suspects in the theater door penny-jamming, and are investigating Gulf Coast Cinemas for taking advantage of the poorly informed and suicidally bored by charging admission to see two year-old movies that are readily available on cable and as gas station rentals.

Observers site the incident as the worst movie theater mishap since dozens of people were extremely bored during a screening of Gremlins 2: The New Batch in New York in 1990, when theater employees thoughtlessly left several large trash bins in front of the exit doors.

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OH MY GOD SNOW

commune Editor Ramrod Hurley here, for one, was shocked and insulted by comments by BBC Director Greg Dyke Thursday insinuating American media coverage had lost all pretenses of objectivity. Or maybe "insinuating" was not the right word. "Outright accusing" is probably closer.

Posh, I say. Or if that's too effeminate for you: bullshit.

There's always someone from international media sources quick to charge American media coverage with being biased. Those people we call "terrorists." It's a shame to see the BBC align themselves with terrorists. Terrorists.

Speaking as the head of the commune, America's first source for third-source news, we know the virtue of objectivity more than anyone. the commune has prided itself on being an alternative source of news from its inception, and spelling its title with all lowercase letters. And though we value dissenting opinion like anyone, we recognize the importance of sharing the same dissenting opinion as those in power.

It doesn't take pure objectivity to see Iraq is a country plagued by years of repression, a government under which only suffering flourished. Even the most objective eyes can recognize Saddam Hussein was the great Satan, and only his immediate, brutal death could free his people and oil. The administration was quick to point this out, and provided evidence by way of saying it repeatedly. It was in the best interest of our nation, the people of Iraq, intangible ideas like freedom and democracy, and possibly apple pie, that we secure with military force the safety of the country.

To you critics, I say that the American media has objectively rallied behind the president in this time of crisis. For the sake of liberating Iraq from the greatest evil the world has ever known, we have put aside our need to "investigate" and "question" the administration. Those who allege we're co-conspirators with the Washington agenda in Iraq, I tell you this: Saddam Hussein gasses his own people. Do you like that? Gassing your own people? Is that your idea of objectivity? Buttholes.

We at the commune have embraced a new kind of objectivity, a quieter, more servile objectivity. It's not like we haven't tried the "objecting" kind of objectivity. We did that for years, with reporters like Raoul Dunkin and that other Duncan, what's her face, invading the personal space of Washington's top brass and asking them questions they didn't want to hear. We've even tried more a offensive, hands-on approach to reporting with correspondents like Ramon Nootles with personal space issues and groping habits, or Ted Ted who frequently quotes his friends and rants loudly in lieu of actual information. In the end, like that commercial song says, you "got" to give the people, give the people what they want. The people have spoken, and they want reinforcement.

You guys at the BBC and other terrorist-friendly news organizations can lob charges at American news all you want, but the fact is you only bitch us out as news organizations because that's what Britain and other countries want to see. Ooo, America sucks, ooo, America is full of inbred hillbillies with a gun in each hand and shouting "Whoo-hoo!" through a mouth full of overcooked hamburger. Well, that's surely true, but only anti-American European dicks would want to watch that on the news all the time. In the end, it is the responsibility of electronic media to cater to what its audience already expects to hear. And the commune's new slogan is, we cater!

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Ladies and genitalmen, I am filled up to my ears with Christmas cheer! And, to a lesser extent, liquid opium. Each year around this time I am amazed and bewildered when the same ol' jingle bellsy, silent nightish, away-in-a-mangeresque feeling creeps back in like Rudolph guiding Santa's sleigh flying low under radar. In some ways, when it comes to Christmas, I'm just a big kid, and I mean in a good way, not like the rudenik teenagers making fun of me as I shop for suits in the children's wear section of Sears refer to me as a big kid.

Which prompts the question, why is Christmas celebrated only once a year?

Around this time, as people's thoughts turn to the needs of their fellow man, and his live-in girlfriend, as children stand wide-eyed and open-mouthed with their sloppy noses pushed up against toy store windows with wonder until the fire hoses are turned on them, as children hang their stockings or those of dad's mistress by the fireplace with hopes of sugar hill gangs and such in their head, some people become a little misty-eyed and get a lump in their throat wondering, why can't Christmas be every day of the year?

Well, that's moronic, it would lose all meaning to have it happen every day of the year. Such a preposterous notion clearly is the work of someone who has little or no foresight or clue as to how the world actually works and makes me want to grab said person or persons and shake them until one of us has a stroke. No, that's ridiculous, we need a way to preserve how special Christmas is and yet still not have to wait a whole other year for it to occur. So I've come up with the perfect solution: Two Christmases!

Obviously the key ingredient is spacing it out properly. Having Christmas in November would steal all the joy out of the original Christmas in December, and we'd be eating enough turkey to slip into a seasonal winter coma from all the L-triptophane. Likewise, if we put it in January it would begin to grow on your nerves. Sure, I like the idea of getting a second chance to buy a better gift for some loved one based on how poorly they reacted to the first, but the logical answer here is to space the second Christmas out far enough to really appreciate it.

The clear answer for me is July. When in July? I was getting to that, you needn't be so pushy.

I say July 4th, good people. What about the Fourth of July, you ask? What about it?

Let's celebrate Christmas in the middle of summer, feelin' hot! Hot! Hot! A shorts-and-tank-top Christmas, a Jimmy Buffett-by-the-fireplace Christmas, a tequila-and-ribs-for-Santa Christmas. Let's start new traditions, I say. Let fireworks light the way for Santa! The kids can hang their wet swimsuits on the porch for Santa to fill up with presents; whimsical and practical.

New Christmas specials for a new holiday. It's A Christmas Sunburn, Charlie Brown!, Perry Como Live From Rio de Janiero. Bing Crosby's Dreaming of A Sweltering, Fuzzy Christmas. Sure, most of those people are dead already, I don't keep up on new celebrity but surely someone could fill their fossilized shoes.

Christmas is way too special to be just once a year. And people say Christmas is about the birth of Jesus and the celebration of his life, but I say Christmas is more than that: It's big, glossy, commercialized and holds little to no religious meaning. Why limit that to only once a year?

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