LOS ANGELES—You may recall our previous story on Matt Taibbi’s inadvertent instigation of a Thomas Friedman porn-title contest, which came about as the result of a series of tweets the Rolling Stone columnist made in reaction to a particularly insufferable Friedman column in the New York Times. Not surprisingly, once the very concept of a Tom Friedman-titled porn movie hit the Twittersphere, the contest was off and running. To solidify the effort, however, Taibbi followed up his tweets with an article making the contest official, complete with a prize.
Well, a winner was picked today, and in typical fashion, Taibbi has thrown an entirely appropriate curve ball at the proceedings. After teasing the reader for three-quarters of the read today, naming the three runners-up, one of which would have been a winner on any other contest day, he unveiled the surprise finalist in the first-ever Thomas Friedman Porn-Title Contest—Thomas Friedman.
It turns out, wrote Taibbi, that “the very next column after this contest was announced was titled, ‘This Ain't Yogurt.’
"’Jesus Fucking Christ,’ noted a friend, impressed. ‘This Ain't Yogurt is more obscene than anything a mere commentator could think of.
"’He took your contest," noted another *friend* of mine, ‘and shoved it right up your poop-chamber.’
“‘Friedman's revenge,’ chirped a reader.”
Taibbe added, “Readers are welcome to do their own research to find out what's soup and what's yogurt in this story. Painful as it is to admit, it's worth it.”
We could not agree more. This Ain’t Yogurt may very well be a porn title by the end of the year. In terms of casting, it shouldn’t be too hard to find a mustache somewhere in props that more than approximates Tom Friedman’s legendary facial hair.
Image: Thomas Friedman, and Geoffrey Raymond's "It's a 401(k) World," a painting inspired by Friedman's work, and the possible winning prize for the Tom Friedman porn-title contest.
