When Reality Replicates Humor, However Unfunny

Watching the news on the tragic shooting of Rep Gabby Giffords (pictured above by way of some weird fring-o website) I was struck by the eerie similarities between the reporting on Gifford's alleged would-be assassin, Jared Loughner, and John David Stutts, who shot Buckwheat on Saturday Night Live all those years ago (his life and times are at 3:04).

Is it just me or are the same scripts being followed, both in reality and humorous fantasy?

(LAUGH TRACK)

Loughner ranted about government brainwashing through grammar (not a far-out idea, really). Stutts said his dog told him to kill Buckwheat.

(LAUGH TRACK)

Loughner seemed to have been planning this, possibly for some time. Stutts spent his whole life preparing. He was even a member of the Future Assassins of America, according to his high school yearbook.

(LAUGH TRACK)

And in both cases, it would seem that no one noticed there was a serious problem. No one did anything about it.

In SNL's case it was part of the joke. With Loughner... not so funny.

Yeah.

But when Eddie Murphy shot himself, back in the early 80's, things were different.

For one thing, there was no internet. So there was no youtube for John David Stutts to rant on about his dog and how much he wanted to kill Buckwheat. No Myspace. No Facebook.

Maybe he could have done a fanzine, or written crank letters to the editor of various unfortunate local papers, but not a lot of people would have read that.

Maybe a guest column in "Soldier of Fortune"?

(LAUGH TRACK)

There was just THE News. Either you got on it or you didn't. And if you wanted to get on it, you had to do something pretty spectacular. Or really bad.

So that's why Buckwheat went into a coffin, soon followed after by John David Stutts. Publicity. And a homicidal, god-bothering Dalmatian named Petey.

(LAUGH TRACK)

There was also no culture of make-your-own-news that allowed millions of uninformed people to speculate about exactly what made John David Stutts kill Buckwheat in realtime. I suppose they could have called in to radio shows and let fly, but you really had to fight to get on the air on those things.

The internet lets you on no matter what, and there's no fact check. So Loughner's been career military, kicked out of the military, and never allowed in, all at the same time.

Something of a cat in a box, our alleged assassin. Even I can't help but wonder in public...

(Looks around nervously -- LAUGH TRACK)

So is this what Loughner wanted? Publicity? If so, for what? The "interesting" ideas on his youtube channel? His exercise in flag burning, complete with "more info" rant?


There's something important in this video: There's no communication to anyone in this location.
You shouldn't be afraid of the stars.
There's a new bird on my right shoulder. The beak is two feet and lime green. The rarest bird on earth, there's no feathers, but small grey scales all over the body. It's with one large red eye with a light blue iris. The bird feet are the same as a woodpecker. This new bird and there's only one, the gender is not female or male. The wings of this bird are beautiful; 3 feet wide with the shape of a bald eagle that you could die for. If you can see this bird then you will understand. You think this bird is able to chat about a government?

How about that? Just needs someone to do it to music and we've got the next club anthem right there, don't we?

His youtube page also plays host to his favorite books, which seem to indicate a rightward/libertarian bent, with some lip service paid to everyone's favorite right-wing dictator, and everyone's favorite left-wing revolutionary tract. Many of the books are diametrically opposed to one another. Synthesis theory? Likes to read all sorts of things?

Red herrings? Is he having a laugh as we run around and try to decipher every little clue to put together a larger picture?

Keeping his name alive, just in case something should happen to HIM?

Like Mutual Life says "you could die tomorrow."

(LAUGH TRACK)

One thing I am sure of, though.

This morning, on Reliable Sources, they had a token conservative on, and she was just aghast that all these liberals were jumping to conclusions about the shooting, and trying to conflate it with Sarah Palin and her precious targets in that now-infamous graph we've got to see all over again. The other two folks there were either gracious (Clarence Page) or smug in the face of her horror (the token liberal douchebag).

All I could think was, if the shooter's last name had been Mohammed, or Sanchez, we wouldn't be told not to jump to conclusions. We'd be told what our good patriotic conclusions should be, and verbally castigated for not jumping to them quick enough.

And that's not funny at all.