Dean to America: "Sorry I Yelled at You"

n another self-critical apology on national news, Vermont Governor Howard Dean tried to cheer up teary-eyed Democrats by letting them know, once again, he was sorry he yelled at them last Tuesday.

“Clearly, I was in a bad mood, or at least it seemed like I was in a bad mood,� Dean spoke slowly, in his lecture tone on Friday’s CBS Evening News With Dan Rather. “I want to make it known again, I was not yelling at you. I was just having a bad day.�

Blubbering Democratic and fence-riding undecided voters have chastised Dean, along with his supporters, for an almost human display of emotion following his third-place finish in the Iowa caucus last week. The candidate, previously holding a fair lead over other Democratic presidential nominees, has since appeared on every national media outlet except for the Food Channel and Screw! Magazine to let everyone know his yelling should not mistake him for being an exciting candidate.

“Understand,� Dean continued later, on NBC’s Later with Carson Daly show, “sometimes, you and your campaign people put a lot of work into getting your message out there, and it only helps you come in third in a state full of corn-chucking sons of—I’m sorry, sorry. Again, I’m not mad at you, Iowa. I mean, you can probably go and hand the thing to Bush right now, if you want, but—I apologize. I’m getting off message. I’m just saying, John Edwards? Isn’t he the guy that talks to dead people? How does John Edwards beat me? Tell me that and I’ll shut up.�

Dean’s efforts to apologize haven’t wavered since Tuesday’s outburst. He again tried to amend his statements and not go ballistic Saturday on M-TV’s Punk’d, with Ashton Kutcher.

“Sometimes I get a little riled up. I’m only human, or 80 percent human by-product, and I get mad sometimes. Like when Ashton made me think my car had been crushed into a cube—that was pretty funny, dude. But when I lost my temper, it wasn’t because I couldn’t take a joke. And that’s what the Iowa caucuses are, after all, right? Big fat jokes. John Edwards beats me, yeah, like I’m so sure—sorry. I’m losing my focus. What I mean to say is, sometimes, we candidates get mad and we fight with each other. But we’re not yelling at you, Democratic voters. It’s not your fault. Unless you’re from Iowa—lousy little outhouse right smack dab in the middle of America—�

Despite repeated outbursts on other news shows, Dean managed a reserved manner on Saturday morning’s Flatbush, New Jersey cable access show, 4 a.m. with Boner Cunningham.

“We’re taking lumps on this one, true, but it’s not distracting us from our campaign. The problem with this country is George W. Bush and a wayward administration, and we’re taking that message to the New Hampshire caucus, and people are responding. The Iowa caucus was a disappointing setback, but the New Hampshire caucus will show my campaign hasn’t suffered. I admit, I’m not a perfect person. I am capable of getting mad. Like when you introduced me as ‘that weird yelling guy’ on your show, or when you asked me if my statement of having ‘warts’ meant they were on my genitals. You think it’s funny, but it’s just the kind of thing that might send me into a rage if I weren’t so focused on the upcoming caucus and—look, you little shit, the word is ‘caucus,’ there’s nothing funny about it. Quit sniggering before I come over there and give you something to wail about.�

Needless to say, this reporter didn’t, and the governor did. We can safely say I think the commune has found a candidate worth endorsing.

eneral Motors Corp. announced today they would be recalling all production models of their popular Mars Rover sport-utility vehicle, due to unspecified problems with the vehicle’s onboard computer system. According to Robert Jungels, a spokesperson for the world’s #1 automaker, “God help the poor son of a bitch who’s counting on one of those things on a cold winter’s day.�

In an unrelated story, NASA technicians continue to twiddle knobs and fart around in an effort to repair their ailing Mars Rover, stranded on the barren Martian surface nearly 100 million miles from Earth. As of Friday, technicians were receiving only random blips of static and the sickening sound of grinding metal from the Rover’s powerful radio antenna.

“It’s just like my Lumina,� mused mission controller Mark Banks. “Looks like beautiful. Drives like shit.�

“As the owner’s manual states clearly in twelve point Helvetica, it is not recommended that the Rover be driven outside of the country,� explained GM’s Jungels when told about NASA’s car trouble. “Foreign gasoline is rarely up to US standards, and you never know what kind of weird-assed Chink nail you’re going to kick up from the road.�

Asked whether the red planet would fall under his classification of “outside of the country,� Jungels was emphatic. “Shit yeah.�

The scene at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratories in Pasadena, CA was a desperate one over the weekend, with a crowd of engineers hunched over the Rover’s remote display terminal, offering a cacophony of suggestions. “Turn it over… no, jiggle the… you’re flooding it!�

According to NASA officials, the Rover failed soon after rolling of its landing platform on the Martian surface, and the “check engine� light has been on since last Tuesday.

“My dad was right, we never should have bought American,� lamented NASA engineer Richard Bennett, echoing a popular sentiment at mission control. Due to budgetary cutbacks, NASA’s original plan for a high tech NASA-only Rover designed by Honda and Toshiba had to be scaled back in favor of a more modest proposal before launch. The Detroit automaker’s low APR financing was said to be a major deciding factor for cash-strapped NASA.

“The funny thing is, the radio still works fine,� chuckled a bemused Bennett. “Clear as a bell. We’ve been listening to K-BIG all weekend, their whole doo-wop countdown. Except when Mickels is in charge, he likes to channel surf and we usually get stuck listening to some bullshit AC-DC song. If there is any intelligent life on Mars, they’re going to think we’ve got really shitty taste in music.�

Though it may be of cold comfort given the mission’s $850 million price tag, GM customer service representatives have assured NASA that the offending control module will be replaced free of charge, as soon as NASA can bring the Rover in to any of the over 7,500 authorized GM dealers in the United States and Canada.

The American people should thank the inventor of the remote control. We should thank our fat asses off. Because if it weren't for the remote, we'd have to get up off the couch every time something crappy came on TV, which means we'd all have bionic Teflon knees by now. And I don't know about you, but I like my current knees just fine.

Before the invention of the remote, Americans had to get up off their big, fat asses to change the channel every time something crummy came on, which led to the modern trend of watching whatever is on for hours regardless of quality. Beaten down and bitch-slapped by the repressive lack of technology in those days, Americans slouched away their meek little lives in front of such stultifying fare as Ted Hammerslut's Big Band Breakdown and The Russians in the Cushions, both of which were huge ratings hits in the 50's because TVs came from the factory set to that channel.

During World War II, those ingenious fucks known as the Nazis developed the first remote control technology, which they utilized in the design of a robotic doorman that was used to heil Hitler a cab when he was visiting Nazi central headquarters in Berlin. Due to the crummy technology of the day, the robot didn't work very well and after decapitating Hitler's mother-in-law in 1943, it was given the German medal of honor (the coveted "Big Bastard") and retired to a furniture showroom in Dresden.

Early attempts to adopt the Nazi remote technology for use in television sets were unsuccessful, as the remotes would channel-surf on their own looking for reruns ofThe Three Stooges.

The first successful television remote was developed by the Zenith Electronics Corporation in 1950. Called the "Lazy Fuck," the device was attached to the television by a long wire, and was used less for controlling the TV than it was for tripping crabby housewives in hilarious ways all across America. Though a huge hit among unhappily married men all across the country, overall the unit did poorly due to its bitingly accurate name.

In 1955, Zenith sort of improved on their invention with the creation of the "Flashmatic," a small device that looked exactly like a flashlight but wasn't because it said "Remote Control" on one side. Viewers aimed the Flashmatic at one of four light-receptive cells positioned on the corners of their television screen, allowing them to turn the set on, change the channel up or down, and explode the television. Some considered the lack of an "off" command to be an inconvenience, but forward-thinking Zenith executives imagined a day when Americans would never turn off their televisions, making unsightly "off" knobs a garish eyesore. The main purpose of this innovation, however, was to draw attention away from the Zenith's exploding feature, which made tidy profits for the corporation due to repeat business from customers with poor hand-eye coordination who blew up several television sets a year.

Eventually the Flashmatic had to be phased out since on sunny days the set would flash channels randomly for a few minutes before exploding, and in 1956 Zenith televisions killed half the residents of Arizona. The Flashmatic was replaced in 1957 by the Zenith Space Command, a revolutionary new remote technology named to appeal to small boys and the insane. The Space Command used an unpowered remote which contained four small aluminum rods. When the buttons on the unit were struck violently, preferably with a xylophone mallet, the rods would produce inaudible ultrasound tones that were then picked up by vacuum tubes hidden inside the television set.

The Space Command worked like a charm, a shitty, useless charm, and was a big hit among the tech-savvy and expectant mothers who soon realized that if they stood close enough to the humming set, they could see their babies. Unfortunately, after several years of lawsuits from families claiming birth defects and complaints from dog-whistle enthusiasts that their sets kept exploding, Zenith decided to discontinue the Space Command in 1959. For nearly two decades Americans were plunged back into the darkness of throwing coffee table knick-knacks and snack items at television sets in hopes of jogging the channel knob.

The modern remote made its debut in 1980, with current units using gamma radiation to perform tasks as disparate as setting a VCR's clock or cooking a Thanksgiving turkey faster than a microwave. Research found the gamma rays caused attention deficits in children and obesity in adults, but it was a small price to pay to not have to watch CHiPs anymore.

In 1992 MTV debuted a gameshow called Remote Control, which was of no consequence to anyone beyond the fact that it fills up three lines of column space.

Over the last twenty years, countless new remote-controlled innovations have hit the market, changing the way we live forever. From the "Bitch Be Quiet" human silencer to the remote-controlled "Woody," few can deny that remote controls are here to stay. And why not?

Well, I'm waiting. I'll expect an answer by Monday.

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