“It started last week. People buying Smirnoff Ice like crazy,” said El Sayed Hayed, who has owned the King Street Grocery in downtown Charleston for six years. “This is the first year this happens.”

It’s strange, now, seeing it from this vantage point, but that June of 2010-the month that changed the course of history-offered hope and terror in equal measure, though none of us alive at the time were aware of just how significant and prophetic the events of that month would turn out to be.

America was in a bad place. The economy, which had nearly collapsed two years earlier, was still struggling badly, and the political will to address its problems was lacking. The second marital separation of a Gore family member had shattered the nation’s faith in the stability of Gore family marriages. And, of course, there was the unstoppable flow of oil from the spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

And yet, even at the darkest hour, there was one bright light that helped cut through the gloom: bros icing bros, that playful game where the forced consumption of horrible alcohol imbued our otherwise empty lives with a brief bit of purpose and gaiety. As the weeks wore on and the news brought no relief, Americans from all walks of life began to embrace the phenomenon. It was almost some sort of mass delusion in which society convinced itself that if everyone decided to participate in the icing our problems would mysteriously vanish and life would return to the normality we knew just a few years earlier.

The icing craze really took off in the third week of June, when a four-year-old child actor named Davey Duncan was hired to appear in a skit on “Lopez Tonight” where he mischievously iced host George Lopez. His most popular line in the bit, “I iceded you! You’re iceded!” became a national catchphrase, and a YouTube clip of the appearance proved so popular that it brought the site down within two hours of its being posted. Celebrities immediately moved to cash in on the craze, with Chelsea Handler’s Ice to Meet You, My Name Is Chelsea becoming an immediate bestseller despite the fact that the book had a total of 97 words, many of which were its title and the names of the author’s previous works. Still, it was several hundred pages of Handler holding bottles of Smirnoff Ice in various seductive poses, and that was enough to make it a gigantic success with the public. NBC announced that it would air a sitcom about a modern family whose members were only able to express their love for each other through frequent (and increasingly complex) icings. “Ice My Ice Ices” brought the network back to first place in key demographics (although the success was short-lived after Davey Duncan, now five and playing the family’s youngest child, was forced to leave the show for rehab).

Back on the Gulf, the situation remained dire. Oil continued to pollute the water and spread itself across the land. Every potential solution ended in devastating failure. It was at this moment that a young BP representative, hoping to add a little levity to another disappointing day, attempted to ice Coast Guard Admiral Thad Allen. Allen had been so focused on the crisis that the icing craze had completely passed him by. Confused and disgusted by the bottle of malt beverage being thrust in his face, Allen knocked it out of the BP man’s hand. It shattered on the hull of the ship in which they were standing. Then everything changed.

“We were all, ‘Are you seeing this?’ It seemed like a hallucination,” recalled the gentleman from BP in an interview several weeks later. “The Ice was literally eating through the oil.”

It was true. There was something about the chemical composition of Smirnoff Ice which made it absolutely toxic to oil. This was no mere dispersant; the ice completely eliminated any trace of the offending substance (the oil). Smirnoff factories sprouted up across the land, and unemployed Americans found themselves once more working in the manufacturing sector as they labored around the clock to produce enough Ice to save the fragile Gulf.

With the success of “Operation De-Icing,” the Gulf was indeed saved, and nearly restored to its previous condition. Subsequent testing revealed that Smirnoff Ice, with a brief modification, could power internal combustion engines, removing the need for oil in the first place. As Ice became America’s number one producer product the economy picked up, improving the chances that President Barack Obama (whose famous speech, “It’s time to kick a little ice,” would be noted as the most stirring moment of his term) would be re-elected.

In fact, going into the first debate of the 2012 general election against Republican presidential nominee Mitch Daniels, Obama lead the race by seven points among likely voters. However, when the two candidates met on the stage and were about to shake hands, Daniels-in what strategists later claimed was a move to lighten his stiff, humorless image-whipped out a bottle and attempted to ice the President. Obama’s team had expected such a scenario, and Obama was able to deflect the icing with an Ice of his own. Unfortunately, both campaigns had neglected to inform the Secret Service of these plans, and the resulting shoot-out left the two men dead.

In an attempt to unite a fragile nation, President Biden and his Republican counterpart, Vice Presidential nominee Chris Christie (who had been put on the ticket over Daniels’ objections that the inevitable catering budget overruns would cast doubt upon his credentials as a fiscal conservative), held a joint press conference on the very Gulf where America had once again found its spirit. “We are here to show the world that we can still stand together,” said Biden. Christie, sweating profusely, was about to make his own remarks when a giant creature slithered out of the water and ate him whole.

The Age of the Monsters had begun.

There was not much that scientists of the time were able to experiment on during the chaotic winter of 2012. The Monsters were seemingly impervious to bullets, and the speed with which they would emerge, devour their prey, and then return to the murky depths made them impossible to capture. Researchers were only able to offer hypotheses about the origin of the beasts. What became the scientifically accepted consensus was this: The massive amount of Smirnoff Ice that had flooded the Gulf had somehow caused a mutation on the bivalves who had survived the spill, turning them into the gigantic monsters that were now plaguing the American South. A plan was drawn up by which Ice would go through a reverse osmosis procedure that might prove effective against the monsters, but failed to pass Congress after the Republican party complained about its cost (“Unfair to pass this debt to those of our grandchildren who don’t get eaten,” tweeted Senate Majority Leader Sarah Palin.) This opposition, combined with a campaign by prominent radio and television personalities to cast doubt on what they soon referred to as “Monster Science,” led to the plan’s abandonment (and, some say, caused Al Gore so much disappointment that he divorced third wife Olivia Munn).

I write this from a secure compound in the Midwest. It seems that what we used to call Michigan causes extreme pain and revulsion in the Monsters, who avoid it, leaving it the last place on earth where humanity can still eke out an existence. I do not know how much longer our now tiny species can survive so I leave this historical record in hopes that it might provide information about a once glorious species that briefly controlled the planet and then died out as a result of its own folly. If you are reading this you will note that it has been weighed down to the desk by a bottle of Smirnoff. Guess what, bro? You are SO ICED. Drop and drink!

Goodbye, everyone.

“Just last week, my daughter-who is 8 and happens to be the only brown person in her Accelerated Progress Program class at Thurgood Marshall Elementary-was ordered out of the classroom because her teacher did not like the smell of her hair.”
–Oh Lord. A little Organic Root Stimulator’s Olive Oil Moisturizing Hair Lotion has become a really huge mess.

The fight between the Newsweek Tumblr and CNN/Washington Post octopus Howard Kurtz is my favorite thing ever. Kurtz wrote a really iffy piece that rests, ultimately, on What It Means That Newsweek Is Keeping Secret About Its Potential Bidders, which… unlike every other sale process in history, which is oh-so transparent? Now he calls Newsweek “thin-skinned and defensive” for ripping on his piece. More fun please!

From our inbox:

[PUBLICIST]
to notes@theawl.com
10:41 AM

Hi,

The Daily Beast posted a piece today about last night’s Webutante Ball. Nick McGylnn summed it up pretty nicely, hope you were there!

The crowd in attendance was keeping up appearances. For startup stars and seasoned vets of the tech scene, cocktail attire and jaded excitement were de rigeur. “Internet Week is just starting,” said Nick McGlynn, photographer and founder of RandomNightOut. “Anybody who’s anybody is at this party right this second… including me.”

Here’s the link: http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2010-06-09/chic-geeks/

Best,
[PUBLICIST]
 — 
[PUBLICIST]
Attention
blog.attentionusa.com

There is a serious anti-incumbent mood out there. Americans are fed up with Washington and are ready to change everything. The defeat of such prominent incumbents as Pennsylvania Senator Arlen Specter and Utah Senator Bob Bennett made it perfectly clear that the Tea Party movement on the right and angry progressives on the left are angry. Except in Arkansas, where incumbent Senator Blanche Lincoln won a run-off for her party’s nomination. Or California, where every single incumbent on the ballot won renomination, and the Democratic party overwhelmingly nominated for governor a man who already served two terms in that office as had his father before him. And also in Iowa where Republicans gave the gubernatorial nomination to a man who served in that role for 16 years during the ’80s and ’90s. So maybe there’s not such an anti-incumbent mood. Except in Nevada, where the Tea Party favorite beat two more established candidates for the right to face Senator Harry Reid in November. It’s kind of confusing! I don’t want to get too crazy here, but could it maybe be that, in a down economy, voters express worry and skepticism about their representatives to pollsters but still tend to re-elect them in the voting booth? And that where you see incumbents fall there are generally local or procedural (or, say, the small matter of party-switching) issues at play that are not necessarily part of a larger national swing? Maybe we could make that the new narrative? Or is that too complicated and not sexy enough? Oh, right. Okay, angry voters it is! Except in those cases where it’s not!

Once upon a time-the mid-80s-there were two amazing libel cases running concurrently in a New York City courtroom: Westmoreland v. CBS and Sharon v. Time. (And when Renata Adler wrote the book on them, she was threatened with a libel suit as well.) The number of libel cases currently being pursued against Time Inc. and the New York Times Company now, according to the New York Observer? Approximately zero. The paper offers three reasons: the lack of deep, lawsuit-spurring investigative reporting, the ability to make corrections online and the inability of any plaintiff to get a verdict in their favor. (Well, unless you’re a sitting judge, of course.)

I don’t even like fiction but even I would buy a book by Loretta Lopez, one of the 18-year-old winners of this year’s Scholastic Writing Award. She was on that NPR show The Takeaway (blech) this morning and she is awesome.

If you hate listening to the radio, you can read her here.

“There was absolutely no link between a woman’s relationship status, the number of times she’d been on the receiving end of a breakup, or her body esteem and the number of gay male friends in her life,” observes Scientific American’s Jesse Bering of a recent study which debunks myths about the type of lady he calls “the elusive fag hag.” In the course of the discussion, research psychologist Bering cites an impressive number of other appellations with which I was previously unfamiliar. “The French refer to such women as soeurettes (‘Little Sisters’), the German brand them as Schwulen-Muttis (‘Gay Moms’), and the Mexicans know them as joteras (‘jota’ is commonly used for ‘fag’). In Japan, these women are called okoge, translated literally as ‘the burnt rice that sticks to the bottom of the pot.’” And there are plenty of exciting variations in the English language as well!

[O]ther colorful expressions that capture this distinct demographic rather vividly, some less insultingly so than others, including:

• Fruit fly
• Queen bee
• Queer dear
• Fairy godmother
• Fag shagger
• Queen magnet
• Hag along
• Swish dish
• Faggotina
• Homo honey
• Fairy collector
• Fairy princess
• Fagnet

Just so you know, Bering admits that he shed a tear at the recent passing of Rue McClanahan, which is as solid statement of credentials to open this kind of discussion as any other.

What a fantastic election night-and just in California alone! At a cost of $71 million, Meg Whitman has bought the Republican nomination for Governor of California. And fellow millionairess Carly Fiorina will go up against Barbara Boxer. Both of these women are total freaks, so it’s going to be a great year. There is sad news though: birther queen Orly Taitz was viciously trounced in her effort to become California Secretary of State, losing the Republican nomination 3–1 in favor of former NFL player Damon Dunn. (I know.) And yet? Orly Taitz got 368,316 votes in that race. In the Senate race for the Democrat nomination, against Barbara Boxer, Slate blogger Mickey Kaus received just 93,599. But it’s no matter! When California goes to the polls, everyone wins! (Everyone who doesn’t live in California, at least.)

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has been fined by the state of California for not reporting as political activity the hours that church employees spent in political action for the “Yes on 8 committee.” The fine is minor but it’s extremely gratifying that no longer can anyone claim that the church was not acting in California as a political lobbying and organizing entity.