Do Not Taunt Pizza-Eating Red Sox Fans

Via.

Mushmouth Mayor's Mooninite Morass

Tom Menino's mouth has been so stretched out from his practice of inserting his foot into it that I think the whole Mushmouth thing may have come about that way. Here's the latest losing effort from America's most embarassing mayor (Gavin Newsom notwithstanding).

Score one for the Mooninites.

The “Aqua Teen Hunger Force” movie behind January’s marketing-stunt-turned-bomb-scare opens in Boston Friday (the 13th, no less) despite Mayor Thomas M. Menino’s plea to local theaters not to screen it “out of respect to the people of Boston.”

No such luck. “Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie Film for Theaters” opens Friday on two screens: AMC Boston Common and Kendall Square Cinema in Cambridge. Elizabeth Wolfe, vice president of publicity for First Look Pictures, said the film’s distributor had no trouble getting Boston theaters to show it.

As of press time, the mayor’s office had no comment.

Unlike the mayor, his press office knows better. More here from the Boston Herald. Backstory here.

Wicked Pissah? Hahdly

Some sonofabitch tore down the giant orange dinosaur at the Route 1 Miniature Golf and Batting Cages in Saugus, Mass. last week.

Route 1 in Saugus has more kitsch, per capita, than any road in Massachusetts. The orange dinosaur -- along with other unique local features like the fiberglass cows and cacti of the Hilltop Steakhouse and the leaning tower of Prince's Leaning Tower of Pizza -- is an intrinsic part of what makes driving to and fro Boston (especially Logan Airport) what it is. (As drives go, it is what it is.)

Back in the day, I used to work on Route 1 in Saugus (at the long-defunct Strawberries Records & Tapes location next to the surprisingly non-defunct Honey Baked Ham outlet). So trust me, I know what I'm talking about.

If this is another one of those MIT pranks, I'm going to have to track down my buddy Will Hunting from Southie so he can give those pussies a wicked awesome beatdown.

Post title explained heayah.

DJ, RIP

The best player Larry Bird ever played with, and a pillar of my childhood, died today at 52.

Red Sox and the Manny Nanny State

Daisuke Matsuzaka, the Japanese pitcher who joined my Red Sox this year after honing his gyroballing skills with his home country's Seibu Lions, finds himself in a bit of trouble here in the U.S. for... drinking a beer. On television. Legally. In Japan.

A slick commercial for Asahi “Super” Dry beer features Matsuzaka donning a Red Sox jersey and throwing in full uniform in front of a simulated frenzied throng. In between those shots, Matsuzaka, in street clothes, is shown first taking a couple of gulps from a large glass of beer. After a quick cut, the shot returns toMatsuzaka downing the beer and, with foam on his lips, smiling and sighing contentedly.

Asahi’s beer is No. 1 in overall sales in Japan and the ad campaign, which also features the Yankees’ Hideki Matsui, is nothing unusual for Japan, where athletes are often used in beer endorsements and can be seen drinking on camera.

But in the United States, beer cannot be consumed in TV ads and Major League Baseball does not allow its players to endorse alcohol domestically. Those rules do not apply to international markets, however.

The Red Sox have voiced tepid disapproval -- not even bothering to issue a press release. So the grumblings aren't coming from their end. The real trouble's coming from the (drumroll) U.S. government.

According to Arthur Resnick, director of public and media affairs for the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau in Washington, D.C., Matsuzaka’s Asahi ad may merit punitive action.

“Our jurisdiction runs to false and misleading ads,” said Resnick, who pointed to a 1995 ruling that says the bureau would consider unacceptable any ad “which depicts any individual (famous athlete or otherwise) consuming or about to consume an alcoholic beverage prior to or during an athletic activity or event,” or an ad that states that drinking alcohol “will enhance athletic prowess, performance at athletic activities or events, health or conditioning.”

As far as I can tell -- and my Japanese is probably about as good as is Resnick's -- this ad doesn't do either. Regardless, the ad doesn't even air in the fucking U.S.! It's only available here on them internets. If some little-known, nannying arm of the U.S. Treasury Department has any claim to jurisdiction over Japanese advertising that airs only in Japan, that's probably news to the Japanese.

More on the controversy in the Boston Herald here . Resnick railing against moonshine here.

Help DHS By Killing Mooninites in Beantown

Game here.

Our Long, National Mooninitemare

Dave Weigel, in Reason, nails the inanity of the Ignignokt and Err controversy spiraling out of Boston.

Not all public manias are acceptable. This one is. After a terror scare, the scared -- in this case Boston Mayor Thomas "Mumbles" Menino, some Bostonians, and the national media -- don't ask whether they overreacted. This is impossible; you can never overreact to terrorism. Those terrified mayoral statements to cameras are defensible, not uninformed. Those bright, red, clanging news alerts are informing the public, not exploiting viewers' basest fears. Does the hyping of bomb threats make urbanites more skittish and more likely to report a souped-up lite brite as a "suspicious device"? It doesn't matter. As Brian Doherty noted yesterday, panicked civilians calling to report those lite brites are considered a "perfect example" of "taking part in Homeland Security."

It's strange logic. The Bostonian who called in the phony threat is considered diligent, even though citizens in every other location where advertisers place the lite brites got the jokes.

It's worth noting that Menino took exactly this same overheated and especially incomprehsensible tone when Sony launched the PS3.

To 'Err' is Human, to Really Fuck Up is Bostonian

My sister, who works in Boston, emailed me this morning to let me know she was OK. Good, I said. Why wouldn't you be? Here's why.

A guerilla marketing campaign for a popular adult cartoon thrust Boston into pandemonium today as at least 10 bombs scares turned out to be battery-operated ads strategically place around the city, the Herald has learned.

Federal, state and local police swarmed around the city as reports poured in of suspicious devices, closing roads, tunnels and bridges for hours.

The chaos touched off a traffic nightmare and prompted a tense press conference from Gov. Deval Patrick and Mayor Thomas M. Menino, who assured residents the matter was under control. Fears of a possible terrorist act were quelled when it was determined the devices were part of an underground advertising campaign for the Cartoon Network TV show “Aqua Teen Hunger Force.”

The device features a character called a mooninite.

Named Ignignokt. Who is a pretentious douche, not a terrorist. (His henchman Err, though, may be a terrorist.)

More here. Cartoon Network's ATHF site here.

I wonder what Senator-Elect Curt Schilling (R-Fenway) thinks about this?

If I wasn't sitting in class right now, I'd be laughing. Out loud. Uncontrollably.