Next Week on "Dipshit Island"
How sad that the story of "Balloon Boy" now appears to be a hoax. In trying times like these, the nation could have really used the inspiring story of an irresponsible family of "amateur scientists" accidentally allowing their son to float away in a giant mylar chef's hat--sending America on an emotional rollercoaster ride as it waited to see if Lifetime could cast the made-for-tv movie even before little "Falcon" became a skidmark on a grain silo somewhere in west Nebraska. Everyone presumably breathed a sigh of relief when Falcon was instead found hiding (no doubt preciously) in a box in the family's attic, making a nostalgic nation recall the time they hunkered down in the tree-house for the afternoon after righteously pelting old man Johnson with a fusillade of dirt clods and crabapples. A mounting body of evidence now suggests the adorably freakish affair was staged (the biggest flaw in the Heene family plan would appear to be that Falcon is incapable of lying without also puking, as he did twice on national tv the following day).
Of course, who but a simpleton wandering down from Walton's Mountain in search of magic beans could have possibly believed this story in the first place? Americans are notoriously predisposed to believe bullshit, especially when it involves the preciousness or precociousness of children, but honestly, which of the following facts (all known while the balloon was still in flight) was not a RED FLAG big enough to forever plunge Pyongyang into full eclipse?1. A family of "amateur scientists:" Today, allowing yourself to be called an "amateur scientist" is just about as insane as identifying yourself as a "professional alchemist"--unless of course you are a D.J. or some other craftsman using the term to capture your mad skillz through inflated metaphor. Also, other than the "Flying Wallendas," has any other family ever had a collective vocation? Is 6-year old Falcon a part of this team of "amateur scientists?" Or is he only a bag of ballast (albeit a lazy and ineffective one)?
The family's "science" of choice, meanwhile, appears to be the close analysis of Twister, the landmark Jan de Pont film of 1996 so pivotal in Hollywood's ongoing project of transferring all villainous affect to inanimate objects. Even as Falcon was allegedly buffeting about in the jet stream, footage emerged of the entire family chasing down tornadoes (perhaps with the evil Dr. Jonas Miller cursing them from a trailing Hummer:"Damn you meddling Heene family! I'll teach you to tangle with the professionals! Leave those tornadoes alone, you're not properly credentialed!"). In a way, you almost have to admire the effortless dementia that would release this footage to the authorities. With any luck there will soon be additional video of the Heene boys removing their uncle's gallbladder, or siphoning nitro, or centrifuging heavy metals with their bike wheels, or something else amateur boy scientists not named Venture might do just before they are whisked into foster care.
3. The two most successful movies of the summer were Up and Transformers 2: Rust Never Sleeps. Obviously, converting the family Corolla into an ambulatory bot-beast that might plausibly kidnap little Falcon (or their third son, "Ignot") was an amateur science too far. Much easier and more inspiring to rip off Pixar by raiding a hospital gift shop and sewing together all the "get well soon" balloons.
4. Finally, as reporters noted--again, even as the balloon was still in flight--the family had already appeared on Wife Swap--ABC's amazing reality experiment wherein men loan their wife-property to a neighboring tribe so that both clans might learn valuable lessons about picking up socks and occasionally taking the little woman to Applebee's so that she doesn't wake up one morning and pour rat poison over everyone's Cheerios.
Now--in a perfect world--the second, I mean the very nano-second CNN learned the Heene's had already been on Wife Swap, Wolf Blitzer would have turned to the camera and said "fuck this, fuck them, and most of all fuck little Falcon--this story is clearly a steaming load of Colorado bison shit." But, as the Heene parents no doubt already understood, because a small child was allegedly involved, there was no way the networks would abandon this story. And so America had to endure another hour of this idiocy, made even more ridiculous when reporters discovered that in addition to Wife Swap, the Heenes had only recently auditioned for their own series on TLC--no doubt some manner of Swiss Family Twister vehicle. Given that such stunts are only likely to muliply in the future--especially as appearing on reality TV becomes one of the last remaining viable industries in the U.S., perhaps we need new laws and penalities to help protect the already highly diminished "real" at the heart of reality TV. Why not grant these idiots their wish, Isle of the Alive style? Make all reality-tv hoaxing punishable by permanent exile to an island populated entirely by fellow hoaxsters--Octomom, Spencer and Heidi, that crazy woman who said a big angry black man carved a "B" for Barak on her cheek--there they could all live out their lives for our amusement on TV 24 hours a day, but with no hope of book deals, tie-ins, or paychecks of any kind. Most importantly, no hope of escape--just the bitter knowledge that America is at home watching in comfort as Mr. and Mrs. Heene try to build a makeshift raft out of old copies of US Weekly, People, and OK! Magazine, only to be quickly apprehended by their own children who, ten years from now, will gladly work as frontline security guards for Fox's breakout hit-- Dipshit Island.
