Gotcha! ...again
This year, we spoofed the court system, city hall and the mayor's recent threat of a lawsuit against this web site for our annual April Fool's prank
-- John Patten, 04/02/05
-- jpatten@veniceflorida.com

Got a comment? Make it here.

The setup
What appears below is the text that appeared on the front page of Venice Florida! dot com on April Fools Day, 2005. It was set up as a blank white page with no graphics or side banners, just a plain, empty and imposing white page with simple text, all in Times New Roman font.

The entire site was still up and running and the real front page could be accessed through the only two hyperlinks that appeared in the page in its original published form. Once inside the site and on the main page, readers were told in a lead item that the site was risking jailarity by staying up in defiance of the (bogus) court order and that our crack lawyers had filed an appeal that was on its way to Washington and the U.S. Supreme Court. The rest of the site was up and running perfectly normally.

The April Fools spoof is a long tradition on the web and Venice Florida! dot com has participated every year since the site's inception. Even NASA's official web site had a good one this year with the discovery and photograph of water on Mars.

In prior years, some of this site's April Fools spoofs have included the site being taken over by the City of Venice, which in turn was a wholly owned subsidiary of the Boone Law Firm; every word in the site replaced with the words "poot" and "pooty;" and a set of auto-referrer pages that sent the reader to web sites about other towns and cities named Venice (Venice Louisiana, Venice California, Venice Italy, etc.).

What made this spoof somewhat believable was the fact that an action like this from the city didn't seem wholly unbelievable or out of character to a number of readers, that the incredibly over-the-top totalitarian legal arguments presented below seemed well within the norm of the city government's basic philosophy in dealing with its citizenry. If anyone actually believed the spoof (and apparently quite a few individuals did), it is because the city's prior behavior made such an otherwise outrageous action believable. That is pathetically sad and was the biggest surprise to me -- I initially thought the idea was so stupid and outrageous that nobody would believe it for a second. That I was wrong shows me that the city has earned a far worse reputation among its populace than I ever thought possible, even under this newer administration.

That said, there were some grounds for credibility of the spoof. The mayor did actually threaten to sue this web site earlier this year over nearly equally ludicrous grounds as those given in the bogus legal document below. While most of the e-mails I received indicated folks were in on the joke, I did receive a few alarmed calls, to which I universally replied "The only thing I will say on the record is 'Look at your calendar.'"

Big kickers that should have told you that this year's offering was a spoof:
-- The date on the bogus court order (DOH!!!)
-- The date on your calendar, watch and on your computer screen (DOH!!!)
-- The Herald-Trib teaming up with a government to get involved in a First Amendment smackdown -- it would never happen, never never, never. The Herald-Trib is owned by the NY Times, which has a long tradition of defiance of governmental authority, the most notable incident in history being the publication of the Pentagon Papers in 1971;
-- The given legal grounds for the injunction: "...defendant web publication's lack of proper manners and lawful respect towards a lawful governmental agency," which pre-supposes that such things as sarcasm and rudeness aimed at politicians and government are somehow against the law -- if that were true, everyone from Matt Drudge (on the far left) to the entire staff at Fox News (on the far right) would be doing time and Hunter Thompson would have died from a court-ordered lethal injection instead of by his own hand;
-- The court siding with the Herald-Tribune while referring to the newspaper as a "...publisher of occasionally accurate news reports;"
-- The quote from Calamaras' (non-existent) motion that included a reference to the "What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas" ad campaign;
-- The judge signing the order: there is no Judge Mostin Lykelly (just say his name out loud);
-- And of course, the entire Appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court (which was actually written by a fellow Farker and donated to the site after the bogus injunction went online), which was so over-the-top as to include a citation to Monty Python and the Holy Grail as a legal precedent.

For those of you who recognized it as a spoof within the first few minutes of reading, you may now pat yourselves on the back and feel smugly superior ...to ...something.

________________________________________________________________

Note to readers:
A very impressive looking deputy showed up at our office early this morning with the following legal document in his hand. We are trying to sort this all out and we will be filing a motion for an immediate set-aside (or whatever the lawyers call it) of the below reprinted injunction order. Any further comments at this time on this matter from us would be, in the words of our attorney, "ill-advised."
-- John Patten, Venice Florida! dot com

IN THE CIRCUIT COURT OF THE TWELFTH JUDICIAL CIRCUIT
IN AND FOR SARASOTA COUNTY, FLORIDA

TEMPORARY INJUNCTION
ORDER TO TAKE DOWN
AND CEASE PUBLICATION

ORDER TO TAKE DOWN AND CEASE PUBLICATION FOR TEMPORARY INJUNCTIVE RELIEF

Now comes the above named plaintiffs, who having filed motions showing damage and written untruths that have been broadcast on the WWW (World Wide Web) by the web publication Venice Florida! dot com (www.veniceflorida.com), and who ask the court to order a Temporary Injunction for the purpose of injunctive relief from further harm pending a full hearing by this court.

Co-plaintiff 1, The City of Venice, Florida, having shown to the court numerous instances of the defendant web publication's lack of proper manners and lawful respect towards a lawful governmental agency, has asked the court for temporary relief pending further litigation. Such temporary relief is hereby granted.

Co-plaintiff 2, Dean Calamaras, Mayor of the City of Venice, Florida, having shown to the court numerous instances of the defendant web publication's lack of proper manners and lawful respect towards a lawful elected official and lawful representative of the aforementioned governmental agency, has asked the court for temporary relief pending further litigation. Such temporary relief is hereby granted.

Co-plaintiff 3, The Sarasota Herald-Tribune, having shown to the court numerous instances of the defendant web publication's lack of proper manners and lawful respect towards a large corporation and a publisher of occasionally accurate news reports, has asked the court for temporary relief pending further litigation. Such temporary relief is hereby granted.

The common thread through all of the plaintiffs' motions is that the defendant publication has, over the course of a number of years, repeatedly shown a cynical attitude and has harbored disrespectful feelings towards major social and governmental institutions and by publication of such attitudes has engendered in other citizens a similar lack of respect and an unhealthy disbelief in the integrity of these honorable and well-established institutions. As the attorney for plaintiff Calamaras noted in his motion, "...while the public has a right to know what goes on in government, it does not necessarily have the right to know everything, especially things that give the appearance of incompetence and/or corruption on the part of public officials. Such information is often confusing to the public and is usually in direct conflict with official stances that city officials are taking publicly. Some things are better left unsaid and unwritten -- as the ad says, 'what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas,' no less should apply to what happens in City Hall."

The plaintiffs collectively make a strong initial case that the defendant has repeatedly violated this time honored tradition by publishing such discoveries to the web for the general public to view and read, a general public that is largely unprepared and unwilling to handle such realizations. Such behavior is irresponsible and contributes to social and political dissension and unrest in what would be an otherwise docile and obedient populace, and as such, such behavior becomes a threat to the social and political well-being of these otherwise fine and untainted institutions and their lawful representatives. The court agrees with plaintiffs that such behavior, if successfully proven in court, would very much be considered an actionable tort.

While the court generally takes a dim view of temporarily or permanently restraining any publication due to the threat of erosion of First Amendment rights as guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution, the court feels that in this particular case, such an action is not only warranted but is necessary for the continued well-being of society in the affected geographical area. The court hopes that such an action will return the community to a more sublime, contented, law-abiding and obedient atmosphere that existed prior to the inception of the defendant web publication's relentless attacks against government, its lawful agents and news and media outlets that shared that harmonious and sublime contentedness.

Therefore, it is hereby ordered that Venice Florida! dot com, a web publication, will cease publication and immediately be taken down or its existing published content shall be otherwise immediately rendered as unavailable to the public until such time as the court can more fully review the claims made by the co-plaintiffs. The defendant is hereby placed on notice to immediately cease and desist any and all taunting, defaming or any other surly or disrespectful behavior in print or on the web aimed at any or all of the co-plaintiffs and to not act in a retaliatory fashion under threat of contempt..

Ordered this First day of April, 2005 in the County of Sarasota, in and for the 12th Judicial Circuit, State of Florida

Mostin Lykelly, Judge