Fast Eddie Friday......Fast and Loose.

The boy in the balloon, for a minute there they had me, along with the rest of you rubes that make up the Land of the Free and the Home of the Naive. Even after they discovered young Falcon, in a box in the attic above the garage, skeered to come out for fear he was in trouble, even then I was lovin this kid. Now, not so much. It appears we have been Hoodwinked and bamboozled, we have had smoke blown up our collective ass. Even this would be humorous were it not for the fact that this little boys parents have been dragging him in front of the camera to the point he has called Ralph and Beulah twice this morning during interviews. For those living in a cave, here's a condensed version.



Wacko dad has a helium filled, saucer shaped balloon, tethered to a line in his backyard. Our hero Falcon climbs into said balloon and heads out into the wild blue yonder, he goes on a two hour flight, hold it, not so fast, turns out he wasn't in the balloon, but hiding unbeknown to his terrified parents, in a box in the attic. Then we learn mom and pop have already pimped their kids out, twice, on some show called wife swap, which is not nearly as dirty as it sounds, and dad was a total nut bag. Then kiddo drops a bomb while the fam is talking to Wolf Blitzer, dad and mom shit themselves trying to cover up the cat that Jr. just let out of the bag. When Wolf asks why the young boy didn't come out of hiding, then Dad jumps in and asks again, the kid replies, "You said we were doing it for the show". Ouch, busted. Here's the video, you decide.


What started out as a Tom Sawyer like adventure, turned out to be a Tom Sawyer fence white washing. Hopefully these two douche nozzles who call themselves parents, will be paying the 10 grand spent chasing a balloon across country. In hindsight the whole story was so ludicrous nobody should have bought into it. But we love a good story, and this one had it all, in spades. It also had all the signs and elements of a scam, one that most of us, myself included, never saw coming. There's the rub, and a pretty fair example of what constitutes a successful scam or confidence game. Whatever you are pitching, in sales, advertisement, or con games, because in the end they are all one and the same, whatever the play, you have to make people want to believe you. People wanted to believe this story, they wanted it to end happily, the little boy emerging from the balloon, a modern day Tom Sawyer. It was a great story, sadly, great stories often turn out to be great lies.

On another note, you may have noticed an absence of the usual "local crime" type posts on this blog over the past few days. Last week was the last time I covered any type of local crime. Nothing would make me happier than to say crime has taken leave from Kansas City, nobody has been killed, raped or robbed, we are now living in the land of Love, Peace, and lollipops, free unicorn rides and cotton candy are the theme of the day, but that wouldn't be the truth. The truth is, I was starting to sound like a broken record, and frankly there are already more than a few of those around these parts. The truth is, I've given that shit a rest because at some point it just becomes lip service. Folks are still killing one another, there's a rapist loose in Waldo, and Quik Trips are still ATM's for petty crooks. So I decided to give it a rest, at least for a few days until something extra heinous occurs. A person can only express so much outrage, there are only so many words one can write on a subject, until those words just become repetitive self serving horse shit. So it's not that I've lost my concern or my contempt, I'm just looking for a new angle, or a story that makes me feel something other than, the same old same. In the meantime, I'm putting together a multi part story from my sordid past and should have the first installment up come Monday.

That's it for this week. Stay safe, see ya Monday.