January 2003

ERI Staff Declares Irony Still Funny; Confuses Room of Children

WASHINGTRON, DC- In an early morning press conference at a local elementary school, the editorial staff of Evil Robots, Inc. issued a policy statement to a group of kindergartners. The press conference, held at the H. Brooks Johnson school in Washington DC, had been billed as the unveiling of a new policy initiative for the publication.

"I am sorry that we tricked you members of the press," said Grandpa as he wrote the word 'irony' on Ms. Miller's chalkboard and snickered. "We lied to you. We're really here to talk to these little guys about irony."

"Yeah, and to teach then about how dumb the press is," laughed Godzilla, "and they may learn a few cuss words while we're here!"

"Also, only Grandpa is sorry that we tricked you. I hate you fuckers," Godzilla continued. "Fuck," he repeated, "That's one new word for you kids to put on your vocabulary lists. In the coming days and weeks I'm sure you'll all learn to properly conjugate that."

The duo, co-founders of Evil Robots, began a thirty-five minute lecture on the merits of comic irony and how, as Grandpa put it, "Irony will always be funny. That will not stop just because Ben Stiller is dead." He then said that even though Ben Stiller was not technically "dead," he might as well be.

"Yeah, fuck that guy," instructed Godzilla. "See kids, though the word is the same, the meaning is different. English is fun!"

"Now that's some fucking irony for you," chimed-in Grandpa.

"And yet another part of speech!" Godzilla added. "You should totally have been a teacher, asshole."

"Seriously, dude, we don't have time to waste with the finer points of pejorative grammar," said Grandpa, changing the subject.

Ironic humor, which peaked in the mid-nineties, was declared 'dead' by many national magazines after the September 11th, 2001 terrorist attacks in New York and Washington. That declaration was "crap", according to Godzilla. "You know," he added, "those damn magazines bent over backwards to make Americans appear to be strong willed, friendly and honorable. Since when? Just because some wacky Arabs hate the U.S. enough to blow up a couple of buildings, we somehow lose our sense of humor and gain virtue?"

Grandpa elaborated by saying, "maybe magazine editors were too busy french kissing President Bush's ass to notice that the rest of us were drinking our lunch in an attempt to get on with our lives." He then asked the children if any of their Dad's watched the television alone in the dark.

After the lecture, they answered a variety of questions from the children, most of which were answered by their teacher, Ms. Miller. When the press asked Godzilla why they thought it was necessary to make this announcement at this time, he responded by saying, "these kids need to know that irony will be there for them when they are older. Also, Ms. Miller, I saw you on the Metro this morning and kind of followed you here. And I needed an excuse to meet you. So, I guess, what I'm saying is this- you wanna go out…back? Like behind the dumpster, maybe?"

Subsequently, after the press conference, Godzilla played on the monkey bars, while Grandpa did summer-saults on the hill next to the playground. Grandpa stopped when he felt dizzy. Godzilla stopped when he fell and a pebble got in his shoes. Then he cried.