2003-04-10 - 11:17 a.m.

Um - ok. What a morning. The morning actually started last night. When I went to see how much the new Liam Lynch CD was at FYE. FYE charges so much fucking money for their cd's that it should stand for For Your Evisceration. Anyway, Lynch (also known as that supreme master of sock puppets - OLLY!!!) just came out with a CD called Fake Songs. And it's a mix of some old Sifl and Ollys songs, newer songs, and just some insane songs that cover disco, rap, new age, pop, rock, etc. Several of the songs are specific "fake songs", done in the style of an artist that Liam really likes. Or at least an artist he can do a really fucking good impression of - like Bjork. There's Fake Depeche Mode Song, Fake Bjork Song, Fake Pixies Song, Fake David Bowie Song (which is really the old "Olly Moondust" song from S&O), and . . . Fake Talking Heads Song!!!!! I almost fainted dead away. Plus, Ringo plays on a few of the tracks, Jack Black duets on "Rock and Roll Whore", and Matt Crocco (Sifl!) plays in the background on a lot of the tracks and voices some characters on the DVD that comes with the CD. I love it so much. The Talking Heads fake song is spot on. The quote above is actually taken from that song. So so good. Anyway, so after skipping out to Best Buy last night with Allyson's blessing, that's all I've been listening to. Plus, Best Buy had it for 12.99 - so fuck you FYE.

Ok, so pseudo-quasi-international-incident time.

So my phone rings at like 7:15 this morning. It's a long distance number I don't recognize. So I don't answer it. Then it calls again. I answer it. It's Rachel. Rachel informs me that her father had just called and informed her that McLaughlin was on TV. That's right. Said he was on TV, on his tank, in Baghdad, getting interviewed. Said he'd been invited into the home of an Iraqi family for bacon and eggs. Only McLaughlin. Only McLaughlin. So I am highly ammused by the news and thank Rachel for it.

So then I call my mother and tell her and I tell Ben before he leaves. Ben says, "Cool." My mother is simply agog at the news but is also upset that she's been on a McLaughlin Television Watch for months and then she got trumped by Mr. Giguere, who had the foresight to get his news from PBS. I called Monique to tell her too but she was all crabby and "putting her face on", which, as you can imagine, is quite an arduous process. So that was that.

Then Rachel calls me back. Apparently her father had called the McLaughlins to share the news. This is where things start to get murky. I don't know if Mr. McLaughlin told Mr. Giguere the story wrong (very doubtful), Mr. Giguere told Rachel wrong (still doubtful), Rachel told me wrong (possible) or if I misunderstood Rachel and mucked it all up (very likely). Somehow, after I talk to Rachel, my brain now contains the story that the oft-repeated image of the Statue of Saddam that got toppled at one point showed an American flag on it. This checks out. I'm under the impression (through the "telephone game" that was from Mr. McLaughlin's mouth to my ears) that the flag belonged to Tim and was from the Pentagon, which is where Tim was working when it was attacked on 9/11. So he brought that flag with him and helped to hoist it up on the statue. "helped to hoist" is important here. That might have been a portion of the story my brain got confused. I'm also keeping in mind what Peter had said to me a few weeks ago about "let's hope McLauglin doesn't get into a 'tree-climbing' situation where he could fall and break a bone."

So I called Ben and Andrea to tell them this new development and Ben informs me that he just heard on the radio that the U.S. Government is pissed about the Flag being draped across Saddam's face. Whoops! So then I'm thinking, oh McLaughlin, now what have you done?! Monique mentions that she saw the person who was rubbing his hands on the flag (which was on the said dictator's sculpted face) and it was most certainly NOT McLaughlin. Ok, fine. No one said anything about flag rubbing on Spleen's part, but that still leaves room for it to be his flag and for him to have had a part in the all important hoisting.

At this point, my mother is so overwhelmed by all the news about McLaughlin that she calls me and tells me that we should always celebrate April 10th as "McLaughlin Day". Now hold on Mom. I'm just as proud of him as the next guy, but I don't want to be forced into eating spaghetti and fish chowder every April 10th. Actually, wait a minute. What's so wrong with that?

I call Ben to tell him Coty won't be in Dover until later this afternoon. Ben tells me they just interviewed the two guys who "were responsible for hoisting the flag." Well? I asked him. "One of there last name's is Chin and the other one begins with an Fla . . . or F-something . . . so no, neither of them is McLaughlin." Um. Ok.

So as it stands. Unless Mr. Giguere and I were BOTH hallucinating this morning, and I don't think we were, we can count on the fact that #1 - Tim was on TV with his tank and #2 - He brought his flag with him to Iraq (I don't think Mr. McLaughlin would have made this up) and that there's a very good chance that the flag that was the subject of all the hoisting belonged to Tim, though the hoisting action itself did not belong to Tim.

As I was writing that last paragraph, Rich just called to inform me that he was watching WBZ and saw McLaughlin telling his story about the bacon and eggs. So I guess that confirms it. Our little McLaughlin is a media darling. I'm so proud of him. Anyone want to put money down on how long it takes for The Citizen to plaster a picture on the front page of Tim doing a "froggy" off of his tank??

Also, I'm sending out letters to Tim by tomorrow afternoon. I e-mailed some of you about it, but if you could have those done by Friday (4/11/03) sometime after lunch that'd be great. I'm gonna print them all up on campus and send them out. Thanks to those of you whose letter I've already received and I hope to get some more in the next day! Look to the television and try to find our McLaughlin! He's the one whose tank says "LEGO" on the side . . .

It's been real,

Melted Barbie Head

UPDATE: You are not gonna fucking believe what McLaughlin did now!!! How many international incidents can one boy cause?! Please go to this link. That McLaughlin makes me laugh and laugh and laugh.

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