The Kid Behind the Wheel

I know some of you get turned off when I get serious, but tough shit.

So, I'm sure by now you've all heard about the police pursuit that involved a 7-year-old boy who stole his parent's white Dodge Intrepid because he didn't want to go to church. If you don't know what I'm talking about, here's the fucking You Tube clip.

As I type right now, the kid is having an "exclusive interview" on the Today Show and Ann Curry and Meredith Vieira having been yucking it up all morning about how adorable the kid is and playing up the story for its novelty and humor value, making stupid, annoying puns and generally being cloying and irritating. In the original clip that aired on the local news stations, you can hear the anchors chuckling about the incident.

Now, I hate taking a dump on everybody's fun-time happy-hour, but this child could have killed not only himself but a bunch of other people on the road-- pedestrians, other motorists, a mailman. However, if you look at the vast majority of the comments on You Tube, they are of the "hahaha so cool kid!" and "rofl from video screen!" and, the crown jewel of them all: "Run, Forest! Run!"

I'm positively in stitches.

We're a "Kids Say (and Do) the Darndest Things" world, and we always have been. Look at how the world was obsessed with a 5-year-old Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, playing concerti for the Archbishop of Salzburg. The only thing kids do that adults do that we don't like is have sex-- other than that, dress a kid up in a suit and have him say a four-syllable-word and we're howling with laughter. Put him behind the wheel of the family car, and we put him on television and give serve up his fifteen minutes with a side of tater-tots. And, of course, the kid's an angelic, blond-haired boy, which makes it all the more appealing. Perhaps if he wasn't quite camera-ready, with a snaggle-tooth and a dent in his forehead, the story might not be so readily exploited-- but, with that punim, how can we resist?

I guess if this story had a less benign ending, which it easily could have had, the media outlook and societal reaction would be a tad different. On September 1st, 2000, Cincinnati Police Officer Kevin Crayon was at a convenience store, making a purchase. Upon exiting the store, he noticed that the driver of a vehicle in the parking lot looked far too young to be operating a motor vehicle. In fact, it was a child of 12 years old. Officer Crayon approached the vehicle and ordered the child out. The kid threw the car in reverse and Crayon, thinking only of the child's safety, lunged into the car to try and grab the keys, but it was not to be. The child floored the accelerator and Officer Crayon was dragged, either caught on an object inside the car, or still holding on for dear life. He screamed for the child to stop, but the child would not obey. Crayon, a father of three, was dragged for over 800 feet. In a desperate attempt to save his own life and the lives of other people on the road, Officer Crayon unholstered his revolver and shot the boy in the chest. The car made a violent swerve, and Crayon fell to the street, his head slamming against the pavement where he died. The young boy, mortally wounded, managed to drive the car to his parents home, where he collapsed and died as well.

I don't doubt that few people outside of Kevin Crayon's friends and family members, and this boy's friends and family members remember this incident. It had a very short shelf-life, one dead cop, one dead kid-- both black, in a poor, urban area of Cincinnati. A violent, tragic, unhappy end to two probably uncameraworthy lives. The story, too, of a seven-year-old boy who stole his parents car because he didn't want to go to church will have a short shelf-life, too, but the jovial attention focused right now on the child at the center of the tale is unfortunate and irritating, and shameful in light of the destruction he could have caused.

When the media reports on a story, they dictate how we ought to react. If they think something's sad and serious, they report on it in a way that communicates to us that we are supposed to treat the material in the same regard. Not only does the way in which the media report tell us how to react, but what they choose to report is of paramount importance. A local arrest of a scholar, a local police chase of a seven-year-old boy, a local storm, a local murder-- theses things somehow get plucked to make it onto the national stage, and then we are presented with the dilemma of how to react-- do we accept the demeanor of the news anchors and roll with it, or do we stop and think further about the stories and develop our own opinions after careful deliberation and scrutiny?

Meredith and Ann might be giggling with this kid on national television, but I'm sorry-- it just isn't funny.

I Want to Like Matt Lauer

Seriously, I do.

But sometimes he makes it difficult.

This morning on "TODAY" he was interviewing Adrian Fenty, the mayor of Washington, D.C. following the aftermath of the horrific crash between two commuter subway Red Line trains. The interview was proceeding normally and responsibly until Lauer let out this stinker,

"I understand that [name redacted], the operator of the second train that crashed into the back of the stopped train had very little experience. Do you think this was a contributing factor in the crash?"

Um, yeah-- so... this happened.... yesterday? Calm down, fuzz-head. I was livid. Here's the subtext of what he was saying,

"So, can we please prematurely jump to conclusions and irresponsibly heap blame upon this poor, dead individual and tear their family's hearts out even more than it already is? Pleeeease?"

Fenty, for his part, fortunately was having none of it, and he stoically refused to even entertain that idea until the NTSB is through with their investigation. He also stated, quite intelligently, that "there are lots of drivers with the experience level of this driver who perform excellently-- so that may have been a factor, and it may not have been."

Again... this happened..... yesterday? Chillax, media motherfuckers. The NTSB investigation may very well reveal that the driver of the second train was at fault. If that's the case, then we can tar and feather the driver's corpse through the streets of downtown Washington and burn it in effigy from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. But, Jesus Christ, Lauer-- they're still pulling bodies from the goddamn wreckage this morning, and you're already gunning for the driver's reputation?

Who the fuck do you think you are anyway? How would you like it if, tomorrow, Natalie Morales turned up pregnant and Diane Sawyer was reporting about it on "Good Morning America" asking her co-host if he thought "Matt Lauer did it?"

Nothing good comes from premature speculation-- that's the true hallmark of a muckraking, scandal-mongering amateur. Admittedly, it's still easier to like you than Ice Queen Viera, but don't keep giving the American viewing public a reason to think you're a shitlick.

An Open Letter to The People Screaming Outside the "Today" Show

Dear People Screaming Outside the "Today" Show:

What the fuck is wrong with you?

Seriously.

Mrs. Apron & I watch twenty three minutes of the "Today" show every morning, and, every morning, there you are. You're screaming your goddamn heads off about... well, I don't really know about what.

I don't think you know either.

You're standing behind barriers, guarded by police officers, while a middle-aged white guy, a middle-aged white woman and a middle aged black man chit-chat about the latest man-vs-animal incident or what the weather's like in Seattle, and you're tearing your vocal chords to shreds and popping your eyes and lunging against the blockades like you're witnessing the Jonas Brothers giving each other CPR.

Look at yourselves. You're grown people. Get a fucking grip. Stop shaming your neighbors back home in Des Moines by identifying yourself as from there when Al sticks his microphone to your frothing lips for your two seconds of immediately forgotten-about noteriety. I would cringe if I heard some loo-loo announce my hometown as their residence. I wouldn't want people thinking, "God, are they all like that?"

You're all tourists, I have to believe that-- except for the old, black guy who's there every single morning (Lenny, you're a whole different blog post, but I'll get to you eventually) so, I have to ask you,

WHAT THE FUCK?!

You're in New York City. To most people, it's the cultural epicenter of the United States. There's ducks string up by their doingities in Chinatown shop-windows, there's more museums and restaurants and cupcake shops and important architecture and theatre and shopping and even the Statue of motherfuckin' Liberty, for Christ's sake. What, pray, are you doing, freezing your tiggities off, yelling your fucking heads off at the "Today" show? Go take a walk in Chelsea. Go eat some street peanuts. Go to Ground Zero. Go... fuck yourselves, you demented housewives. Lauer's married, girls-- and chances are, if he weren't, he wouldn't be picking out his next bride from the ranks of the freakishly menopausal wailing banshees from the dubious Midwest who are in NYC for a day to catch "Mary Poppins" and have a good throat-rip at the "Today" show.

Honestly, people, I've seen better, more logical behavior from scores of intoxicated people. And I'd be willing to be that, at 7:30am, most of you cannot even claim alcohol as an excuse for your bizarre behavior. That's pretty early, even for the most hardcore of drunkards. In fact, I think I would have more respect for you if you were holed up in some shitty-ass dive, sucking on a gin instead of yelling so loudly that I could not hear the national weather forecast.

I was pretty sure that this unfortunate phenomenon was strictly an example of home-grown American idiocy, so imagine how saddened I was when the "Today" show went to Ireland to film for St. Patrick's Day and, there they were: our Irish brethern and sisteren, screaming their fool freckles off.

This is called "social loafing." It just takes one Irish asshole who saw Americans behaving like assholes to encourage a whole cluster of Irish people to start behaving like similar assholes.

Why? Because we're American, and we're assholes, and that's how we roll.