The Bostonian government has watched far too much "24"

When I first heard that suspicious packages were being discovered around the Boston metropolitan area last week, I wasn't sure what to expect. Since September 11th, we've had several domestic terrorism scares that have proven false, such as packages at the Port of Miami-Dade, or the giant burrito in Clovis, New Mexico. Although part of me feared a terrorism plot was about to be unleashed on the East Coast, I admit that I mostly suspected another false alarm.

By the early afternoon, reports were coming from the Boston government saying that it was indeed a hoax. I finished my work day without giving the incident much of a second thought.

Later in the evening when I booted up my computer, and learned that the city of Boston nearly shut down for a few dozen Lite Brite sets arranged to depict the Mooninites from Aqua Teen Hunger Force, I didn't know whether to laugh, cry, or simply bang my forehead into my desk over and over again. I ended up doing a combination of the three, and added in some raspberry sherbet directly from the container for good measure.

I admit that I, like many a person that's been in college within the past few years, know about Cartoon Network's Adult Swim block, and its original show Aqua Teen Hunger Force. I also admit that I have seen every episode of the program multiple times, and further admit that I have had several discussions about the program as a very clever and funny post-modern cartoon, the first of which was actually a classroom lecture in one of my collegiate media-theory classes. The episode of ATHF we watched for the lecture was the first episode that featured the Mooninites.

So of course, when I saw the 1-foot boards featuring Ignignokt and Err, I immediately knew that there was no threat to the city of Boston. No Islamic fundamentalist is so well-tuned to fringe pop-culture that they could imagine decorating an explosive device with the boxy egomaniacal characters. For some reason, I feel like the most timely pop-culture reference Osama could come up with would be related to the "Fresh Prince of Bel-Air" or "Full House". I also feel like "Family Guy" made that joke before, but I'm not sure... it feels like a "Family Guy" joke, and I guess that's all that really matters. However, I digress.

There's a few things that boggle my mind and/or piss me off about this whole situation. The first is that on seeing the photos of the boards, one of my first reactions was 'how could someone be afraid of Err?', which was immediately followed by my feeling like a snob. I'll bet there are a lot of people my age that have never heard of ATHF, or even Adult Swim, let alone actual grown-ups with jobs that don't have the time or interest to watch talking fast food items solve crimes at 11 o'clock at night on a network dedicated to cartoons. I'm pretty sure I'm not an annoying beatnik snob, so I hate it when I act like one, even if it's in the privacy of my own brain. That's the least of the problems I have with this situation, though.

Second, these signs had been up in major cities across the country for weeks. For weeks. Nobody seemed to take notice of these signs anywhere. I just find it hard to believe that some Boston beat cop didn't see just ONE of these signs when it was lit at night, and in turn couldn't call off the insanity before it got out of hand. If you're a police officer, isn't it your job to take note of odd things like lit-up signs hanging from bridges and awnings in your precinct? Furthermore, there was a previous cross-country ad campaign prior to Christmas that featured the Mooninites on billboards - I saw them in LA and Chicago. I'm sure SOMEONE in Boston must have seen them, as I'm pretty sure, from what I've read on the matter, the billboards were in Boston as well. Again, there wasn't a single authority, specifically a police officer, that didn't notice the billboards and make the connection? Granted, the panels weren't lit during the day, so the character may not have been apparent until after the boards were taken down, but that brings me to the next point in my rant:

Who the hell was it that called the authorities about these things in the first place? I don't know about you, or what terrorists-in-training are taught in the desert, but I figure if I was going to plant a bomb somewhere, I'd hide it. Who saw a flat board in clear view and assumed it was a bomb? It's a BOARD. It is FLAT. Yes, on some of the boards there were exposed batteries and hanging wires, but you would think that the situation would prompt a concerned citizen to, at most, call the police and say that there was something odd. Actually, come to think of it, I don't remember hearing the bomb scare came from a citizen, which leads me to believe it could have been that it was an authority figure's reaction to the panels, which is even more inexcusable. The only justification they had for suspecting it was a bomb is, I think, because the panel was black. I guess it's common knowledge that bombs aren't made in pastels. But that more or less leads me to my next point:

The guys at the ironically named advertising firm Interference, Inc didn't think that placing a bunch of black panels all over major US cities without notifying any authorities was a bad idea? It makes me think of the time in college when I was working on a short film with a few other students, and since it was a class project, we couldn't find any performers so we were in it ourselves. I played the part of a NYPD sniper, and we filmed my scene on the roof of the parking garage adjacent to the apartment building where one of my partners lived. Prior to filming, I asked the guy to make sure his building management knew that we were working on a short film, because I was going to be in broad daylight with a very realistic-looking air rifle equipped with a scope (this guy was a big paintballer). He said we were fine, there was nothing to worry about, and we started working. Sure enough, after about 15 minutes of filming, a police cruiser tore its way up the parking structure, and out jumps the cop. He told me I was lucky the camera had been right next to me when he pulled up, because otherwise he, and I quote, probably would have shot me. Oops, says my buddy - turns out he forgot to tell the doorman on duty. Point is, if you're going to be involved in something that will in any way disrupt the status quo, you cover your ass. Interference may not have gotten a go-ahead from the cities to put these things up, but I'll bet if they'd used boards that were painted white instead of black, this thing may have not happened at all, and it sure-as-shit wouldn't have happened had they filed some sort of petition to do performance art around the city with a list of locations where the panels would be located. Of course, that would defeat the intent of random unorthodox advertising, and in Interference's defense, the panels didn't cause problems anywhere else. So what happened?

Boston authorities reacted as they should have when they first received a report of a suspicious device, but should have been able to discern from their first bomb-squad disarmament that this was nothing to be worried about - in some of the news footage, you can see police sheepishly walking away from one of the sites with the board in hand, like a kid at summer camp that freaked out thinking a bear was outside his tent, only to find it was a chipmunk.

In the aftermath of Boston's scare, Time Warner agreed to pay out $2 million to cover the costs of Boston's response, the guys that installed the signs will probably go to jail, and the head of Cartoon Network resigned. The ratings for ATHF will probably shoot through the roof, though, especially because it was announced in the aftermath that the Nielsen ratings would begin to include college students, meaning that with the influx of advertising money sure to be coming Adult Swim's way, nothing will change.

The thing that pissed me off the most about this, though? In their press conference after being charged with inciting a bomb scare, Peter Berdovsky and Sean Stevens began by saying they would only take questions regarding 1970's style haircuts.

1970's style haircuts.

They were being charged with causing a bomb scare in a major US city in a post-9/11 world, and they announced they were only going to discuss styles of hair common in the 1970's.

I don't care that it was foolish and it made them seem arrogant and unappreciative of the gravity of the situation. I care that "1970's style haircuts", no matter how you look at it, isn't fucking funny. At all. I wrote a humor column for two and a half years in high school that was, at best, Mad TV-caliber funny, and as a high-schooler I could have come up with something a little funnier, and certainly more provacative and relevant to the issue at hand.

Funny topics to bring up when you're being charged with causing a terrorism scare that shut down a major US city:
- The musical merits of Paris Hilton's album
- Whether or not Peyton Manning would lead the Colts to a Super Bowl victory
- Which of the Bush twins is hotter

Actually relevant topics to bring up when you're being charged with causing a terrorism scare that shut down a major US city:
- Whether or not your first amendment rights of free speech are being violated
- Debate why our country has itself wound so tight that an ad campaign could have this effect
- Saying nothing, plug in a Lite-Brite, put it on the podium, and spell out "THESE CHARGES ARE ABSURD" one peg at a time, then leaving

Still, it was kind of worth it to see their lawyer try to explain they were taking it very seriously, but they are performance artists.

I can't wait for the day when kids are expelled from school for pointing their fingers like guns while playing cops and robbers.

Oh, wait. That already happened.