Looks like the folks at Gawker have been casting their sarcasm-devoid eye at our one and only alt-weekly, The Missoula Independent:
Somewhere, in a land far, far away from The Island, there is a place called Missoula, Montana, where the Independent serves as the community’s alt-weekly. A ranch-handling reader alerts us to an item from the Independent’s events listing (at right), in which karaoke and bowling are likened to that other peanut-butter-and-jelly pairing, Israeli bombing and U.S. bombs. Um, okay.
Update: Missoula Independent Editor Brad Tyer responds:
The calendar entry in question is for a running event — every Saturday night’s karaoke event at a local bowling alley. In trying to keep the calendar entry fresh, our calendar editor Jason Wiener has developed a running “goes together like” gag taking its cue from current national news (Missoula is not so far, far away after all), the point of which is not, as your interpretation holds, to pair peanut-butter-and-jelly likes, but precisely to point out disturbing pairings.
For instance, from this week: “Bowling and karaoke go together like an anti-Semitic tirade from a drunken Mel Gibson and making movies about Jews killing Jesus during Solid Sound Karaoke at Westside Lanes.” Or, “Bowling and karaoke go together like responding to newspaper editorials you don’t like and envelopes full of white powder during Solid Sound Karaoke at Westside Lanes,” from July 20. Or “Bowling and karaoke go together like Mark Cuban and Dan Rather at…” from June 22. You get the picture. To the extent that we have an editorial policy on such things (settle down: we don’t) it’s that bowling and karaoke don’t go particularly well together at all.
Such could have been easily ascertained, of course, with a quick email to Calendar Editor Jason Wiener (calendar@missoulanews.com) or myself (btyer@missoulanews.com), but then that would have undermined your hick-bashing hypothesis. Better to take a tip hook, line and sinker from an anonymous “ranch-handling reader” (what the hell IS that, anyway?) and enjoy your snide fix untroubled by comprehension.
By gawd, with the help of the folks at the Indy, I think we might just show these city-slickers a thing or two about humor yet…
Comment by Karl Bakla
1 18. September 2006, 8:01 pm o'clock |
I have an Aunt that used to live in Montana & she used to be a big time activist up there, saving the environment, big on conservation you know all the stuff people should be concerned with until her parents threatened to cut her trust fund. Many years have past (20 or so) & she has changed very much, long gone are the days of caring about Montana, last time I saw her she told me she hated me because I am a socialist & she also told me my dad was going to burn in hell because he is an atheist, hmmm family… good times!