Forget it Jake, it's Clown Town

Cecily Strong went on Weekend Update on Saturday as “Goober the Clown (who had an abortion when she was 23)” which neither started nor ended the weekend’s clownery but did mark its high point.

CNN had already beclowned itself on Thursday, with a report from Texas about a family of 11 (?) who claim they used to pay $1.99 a gallon (??) for the twelve (one non-baker’s dozen) gallons of milk (???) they buy in an average week (????). This triggered a full-blown milk discourse, in which viewers of the report (or as its reporter Evan McMorris-Santoro called them, a “remarkable number of assholes”) pointed out the flaws in framing an entire lactose-powered soccer side as “a normal American family.” But it turns out the family only has three kids under 18 anyway, which makes them more like the milk purveyor to an unofficial college dorm, I guess.

On Friday, Travis Scott’s show at Houston’s Astroworld music festival resulted in at least eight deaths and hundreds of injuries, which, like most clowns, isn’t funny at all. But Houston police chief Troy Finner brought us back on-theme by choosing to focus on the ludicrous urban legend that someone was injecting unsuspecting strangers with opioids at the show, and many news outlets put on the big floppy shoes and bright red nose of uncritical cop stenography, repeating this implausible claim until it is now being reported as a thing that really happened. Meanwhile numerous videos and first hand accounts from the concert report a crushing crowd and a performer who seemed unmoved by spectators begging him to stop the show, but no shadowy midnight phlebotomists have appeared so far.

Down to Clown, Lightning Round: Mayoral candidate Curtis Sliwa got hit by a taxi while running across a busy street against the light. 🤡 Doctors at Greek vaccination centers are taking 400 euro bribes to give pretend vaccinations to clients, but giving them the real vaccine anyway. 🤡 A January 6th Capitol rioter put up pictures of his house on Zillow that included a whiteboard showing a full list of his illegal explosives, and separately, “Capitol Rioter Who Bragged That She’s ‘Definitely Not Going to Jail’ Is Definitely Going to Jail.” 🤡 Grocery chain Kroger was ingesting a feed from PR Newswire directly onto its investor relations page, so naturally someone issued a fake press release announcing Kroger would start taking Bitcoin Cash. 🤡 A bunch of conservatives pretended to be mad at Big Bird, because that’s American politics now. 🤡 Mark Zuckerberg invented taking drugs. 🤡 And Sarah Jones argued in NY Magazine that the next Republican Ohio Senate nominee will have to be the state’s biggest clown, and incredibly that it probably isn’t J.D. Vance.

But this morning former New York Times opinion columnist and online clown ass Bari Weiss topped this entire weekend of clownery with the announcement that she is starting her own clown college in Austin, TX, home of intellectual luminaries Elon Musk and Joe Rogan. The college is unaccredited and offers no degrees and “is a college” in the same sense that Today in Tabs “is a space ship.” It will be headed by former St. John’s College president Pano Kanelos, is currently under the financial stewardship of Palantir co-founder and alleged violent rapist Joe Lonsdale and the intellectual stewardship of some Bloomberg contributors, and has so far released a teaser trailer. The University of Austin promises to be so committed to free inquiry that it will not even commit itself to free inquiry, and this summer it plans to offer undergraduates “The Forbidden Courses,” which will eventually transfer credits in full to your major in Hard R Studies. Regrettably, we will probably still be talking about this tomorrow.

Alexis Ong would like to talk about drinking piss, instead. “Rat sized moth” found in Australia, a country with absolutely no chill. Elon Musk made a twitter poll and it told him to do what he was already going to do. Clay Shirky made a spreadsheet of “the 1107 goods and services Facebook has announced it means to use META for,” including “Altimeters” and “Online journals, namely, blogs.” 83-year-old completes Appalachian Trail, so what’s your excuse? Dan Brooks wrote the first good Gawker post, which is about how difficult it is to avoid the conclusion that, ethically, someone should probably kill Joe Manchin. Imperial Fabergé eggs, ranked.

Today’s Song: The Reverend Horton Heat, “The Devil’s Chasing Me”

 ~ But doctor, I am Tabliacci! ~

Regrettably, this weekend jokerfied me. We live in a society. When you’re down here with me, you’ll float too.