Those wild and crazy Stompers

An e-mail arrived today from Asheville City Council candidate, Cecil Bothwell, which included this note:

Those wild and crazy Stompers
Thunderpig is on the loose again. Our volunteer video crew posted a YouTube version of Mayor Leni Sitnick's speech at the Grey Eagle campaign kick-off event, June 12. Because the team used a sound feed from the sound board, that is, from the stage microphones, the sound dropped out when Leni had to pause for applause from the capacity crowd. So our intrepid amateur videographers spliced in some applause from elsewhere in the recording so Leni's pauses "made sense."

Well, the Carolina Stompers, those ever vigilant defenders of all things radically right, took note and decided to mock our efforts. Good on you guys! We've reposted the original video here.

In response to the Stompers' critique, the blogger who goes by the name Thunderpig put together a new version of Leni's talk. Click the laugh track below for his version of her great speech. (Thanks to Thunderpig for helping to publicize this campaign and thanks again to Asheville's best mayor ever for endorsing me!) Heh heh heh heh heh heh heh

The Stomper-doctored Sitnick video (in sepia-tone) and the pointless effort that went into it reminded me of a story.

An old friend of mine - an upstairs neighbor, Chris - used to have a blue tick hound named Blue. No lie.

Blue was a hunting machine ... except Chris didn't actually hunt. But Blue loved to chase squirrels.

Chris and Blue would be out in the yard and, just for fun, Chris would call Blue to attention and snap, "Blue! S-q-u-i-r-r-e-l."

Blue would take off like a shot and tear around the yard, running around tree trunks, glancing up and down and sniffing, looking for the squirrel. Eventually, Blue would slow down, stop, and look back at Chris quizzically as Chris slapped his thigh and laughed.

Stompers! D-e-m-o-c-r-a-t-s.