Life After 9/11

The Stale Grapes News

"And in closing news, last night in the city of Barstow, California, a man and a woman were arrested for breaking into a gay bar. The couple in question had initially claimed that they had been sent to the bar by God to convert the gays to Christianity. The bar's owner had no comment about the incident, but a patron at the bar said that it would be nice if these so-called "Christians" could stay in their own useless world and leave the rest of us alone, a comment that is quickly drawing ire from many of the city's residents.

"I'm Sean Michael Rowes and that was my final answer. Be good to your parents."

The show quickly came to an end as Sean said his final words. The camera was shut off and the lights dimmed. As the crew cleaned up the set, Sean said to Mobley, "This is getting tedious. Can I please get something decent to report?"

"I've noticed," said Maverick Mobley. "The stories around here are dull and lame. I bet you can do better than that!"

"How?" Sean cried out. "It's not like I can't poke fun at the news that's going on here and..."

And then it hit him.

"That's it!" He cried out.

"What?" said Mobley.

"I can poke fun at the news!" Sean cried out. "Like how Jon Stewart and David Letterman make fun of the news every night. People like satire."

"Such as the gay couple that broke into the church during a Sunday service and attempted to shut down the place because Christianity was considered to be a threat to their right to be together," said Mobley.

"Yeah, that'll work," said Sean.

"That's incredible!" said Brock Jonson, who could hear them from the adjoining room. "The audience will love it!"

"I know," said Christina Bishop as she showed up. "Sean makes up the opposite of the news, and the world will beat a path to his door."

"Yeah," said Mohammed Salazahr. "I can foresee this happening: Sean's going to bring satire on the map. He's going to do for the Internet what Walter Cronkite did for the evening news."

"Yeah, I know," said Sean. "Maybe we need to remake this news broadcast into a straight-up parody of the news."

"And we'll show the world exactly what is wrong with news broadcasts nowadays," said Christina.

Mobley, Sean, Brock, Mohammed, and Christina had worked at the Oystertainment Station since 1997, when Phineas Perlman (founder and CEO of the station) had apparently died of lung cancer. The manner of his death was under investigation, as rumors of him being murdered surfaced all over the media.

Because of those rumors, Perlman's wife Rebecca had been accused of murder in his death and was sentenced to spend the rest of her life in prison without parole.

"So, what do we call our new news show?" said Brock.

"I was thinking about calling it Alternative News," said Mohammed.

"No, that's a bad idea," said Brock. "We need something else, something that's more exciting."

"What did you have in mind?" Christina blurted out.

"We call it the Sour Grapes News," said Mobley. Everyone stared at him as he continued, "because while the news channels everywhere like to sweeten the stories they tell, we here like to give the stories we tell a dash of hard-core realism."

"That's great," said Sean, "but instead of that, let's call our news show the "Stale Grapes News". The name "Sour Grapes" is too normal."