HOW TO SOOTHE SAVAGE (LITTLE KIMMY) JONG IL

DIGGING DEEPER
By Ivan G. Goldman
Pipsqueak loon Kim Jong Il, who, like certain previous U.S. presidents we could name, inherited his job from his daddy, is clearly trying to keep himself in the news. He's not willing to settle for the fifteen-minute fame coined by Andy Warhol. He's set on making the big time -- Springsteen- or Bono-class celebrity. Lasting and with a touch of hysteria. This gives us an opening, and if we do a little creative thinking we can use it. More on that below.

Little Kimmy’s missile launch seemed perfectly timed for a news media already bored with the European crowds turning out for Obama yet unwilling to go back to focusing on the same old credit default swaps, bonuses, bailouts, and new batches of homeless people. So they spent two or three excited days stewing over the missile launch out of North Korea even though it appears the test failed. Remember the time Kim’s K-Mart nuke just kind of fizzled like a bad match? Still, we can’t afford to have a poorly triggered nuke carried by a not-terribly-well-engineered missile flying over some civilized country the next time Kimmy finds himself ignored.

Okay, here’s what we do. Kim, reminded of his mortality by a stroke not long ago, clearly yearns to be immortalized in some way that reaches beyond communist statuary. Everybody knows there’s no fame to equal rock star fame. So why not ask U2 or the E Street Band to invite him into the band and go on tour with them? Whoever goes out there next. Intelligent rockers like them will instantly understand it’s better to have a maniac with a goofy haircut banging a tambourine at stage left than to have him blowing up parts of Japan or South Korea.

This is a win-win situation. It won’t hurt the band’s ticket sales, Kimmy finds fame beyond his maniacal dreams, the audience gets a little comic relief along with the music, and the standard news media get themselves a terrific story with loads of photo ops that maybe they can understand. Heck, if Billy Ray Cyrus had put Prince George up on stage with a toy drum we might have avoided the Iraq War.
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