The Dark Balloon

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George Tiller’s Death Comes as a Shocking Blow to Advocacy Groups’ Ability to Take Advantage of George Tiller’s Death.

Advocacy groups and advocates everywhere are mourning the loss of Kansas pro-choice doctor Dr. George Tiller following a fatal shooting during religious services yesterday.

“George Tiller was a great man,” says pro-choice Director Jeff Maloney of the Spangled American Liberties Committee of Truth and Beauty. “He was everything you wanted in a symbolic figure truly abstracted from whatever it was that he did.”

Pro-life Director Jeff Maloney of the Beautiful Spangly American Coalition for Liberties and Truth offered similar condolences. “You could really eviscerate Dr. Tiller. For years we were lost in the wilderness without a guiding light. Who do we attack? Where’s the face of pro-life antagonism?”

Director Maloney paused in a moment of staged drama and pretended emotion.

“George Tiller was that man.”

Director Maloney of the Liberties Committee extended his commiseration to Tiller’s family. “We hope they make it through this time of hardship and become an equally great symbol for our pro-choice advocacy with the same great ability to be transformed into something empty of their actual actions and humanity.”

Upon this remark, pro-life advocates reacted with outrage. In one pointed criticism, individual Jeff Maloney unintelligibly shouted, “I can’t believe these murderous communistic fetus haters would paint George Tiller in such broad strokes.”

“Clearly, he’s a pro-life symbol,” a statement to which pro-choice individual Jeff Maloney hysterically screamed, “Nuh-uh.”

Ultimately, of course, at the center of this awful situation is the death of a courageous man whose shooting can only be seen as a warning sign for the increasingly heated abortion debate.

“It’s true. George Tiller’s death will be his last great symbolic contribution to the visceral bile from both sides,” says Jeff Maloney.

“It’s tragic, really,” says Director Maloney, “that George Tiller can only die once.”

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Keyboard cat and you.

“Get me my drink,” keyboard cat says to you.

You stare at keyboard cat, his 5-o’clock shadow, and his red drunken eyes, wondering whether you had ever loved him.

“Whatareya staring at? Get me my drink,” keyboard cat says.

“No,” you say, with a quiver in your voice.

“Whatdidya just say? Didya say no to me?”

Keyboard cat just stares at you until he throws his whiskey glass, which slams and explodes against the wall against your left ear. You cringe.

“I FUCKING,” keyboard cat begins, “WORK 10 FUCKING HOURS A DAY TO PUT FOOD ON THE KIDS—FOOD ON THE TABLE,” he shouts.

You pull your kids closer. You tell yourself you’re just trying to protect them, but deep down you hope he’ll take out some of his anger on them before he hits you.

He undoes his belt and pulls out his ring of keys. You shiver, close your eyes, and wait for the catchy piano music that never comes.

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IntricacyMan and the monoamine oxidase inhibitor!

Dark Bob walked up to our hero, who struggled in heroic captivity. He smiled and stroked an ebony finger down the slender cheek of IntricacyMan.

“Do you know what the most degrading thing you can do to someone is?” he whispered.

“Give him a federal holiday?”

“No! No! What—You know I want Dark Bob Week to replace Black History Month.” Dark Bob seethed and decided to do this another day.

As the cell door began to close, IntricacyMan muttered—not quiet enough—”That would only work if they could make a Prozac parade float.”

Dark Bob closed the door, sprayed tanning lotion on his weird finger, leaned against it, and cried.

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Ford’s theater.

• Ethane: MOMBYE
• Ethane: is A PLACE IN INDIA MISSPELLED
• Ethane: that got attacked by terrorists.
• Ethane: More like Bombai mirite.

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Full pause.

It’s time to talk about tower music. What it could’ve been. What it wasn’t. What never came to be.

We had a chance after 9/11 to create a new genre of music. Something bold that spoke to our generation—Generation Aww. Because we were the generation that saw those tragic events on TV and went “aww” for a week; maybe two weeks if you had a particularly boring life. We’ve seen it before, and how we’ve envied it. How classical-era music was born of the Renaissance. How blues were created when racism was invented. How folk music started when Peter Falk threw a guitar at a street urchin that had been bothering him but now, dead, bothered him no more. How alternative music started because “miscellaneous” was too hard to spell and “et cetera” was too pretentious. A pivotal event in history calls for a pivotal breakthrough in music. 9/11 could’ve been that pivotal event.

But we were lead astray by the sexiest, most alluring of all faults: the human ones; the ones of hubris. One catastrophe was enough but the flocks of problems and reasons for discontent multiplied. When we needed a single issue to lead the humble music scene, history failed us. And what do our children listen to? Hip hop. Thigh tussle. Rap. Liver l’accord. Clitoris clash. Hanna Montana. Idaho Schmidaho. Jaundice jangle. In short, pre-9/11 music. The last generation gave our generation the worst gift of all: Its music.

And, even when the moment is most dire for innovation in spangly instruments and quivering trebles (that’s synecdoche, mind you), no help arrives. For we had our chance, and we lost it. 9/11: It’ll never happen again goddammit.

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You can’t always get what you want.

(On a photograph of a kid mourning his brother’s death. This whole thread was severely downmodded.)

• Etropal: The first thought that came into my mind was “Damn, that kid ugly!”
• TurtleEater: Shut the hell up.
• KiddieFiddler: I think his ugliness makes it all the more tragic.
• TurtleEater: Shut the hell up.