Was revisiting my fave mid-00s atrocity exhibition
To Catch A Predator for cheap n' sick larfs.
While a meme machine in its day, I was unaware of the small but lively fandom "TCAP" maintains to this day. Peeps rattle off JPW and Hambubger and MeatRocket like we do Toaplan and Seibu and Raizing.
Hm. They even have big generalissimo sorts, and factions, and flamey flamey flamewars! I find niche fandoms an innately fascinating quantity - you can't fake passion, at least not without getting found out & fisted - so I went native for a bit.
The man at the top of this clammy pile is
Lorne Lynn Armstrong (b.1970) of Cornville, Maine. Moonlighting as a builder, Lorne scammed an elderly couple out of $30,000, then fled to Nashville, pursuing country music stardom. While working the karaoke circuit, he began an online romance with 13y/o "Kayla," a decoy. After a month of gruesome chat, Lorne hopped in his truck and crossed state lines to Bowling Green KY, on a date with infamy. He would ultimately spend five years in the can, pleading out to avoid a much sterner charge of intent to produce CP.
In the decade since, Lorne has become Chris Chan II: Rainbow Label. Older, angrier, and drunker, federally banned from internet use, a long succession of "hot twenty-something women" have nonetheless sought his number, mining countless hours of comedy pyrite. Having spent the last month's GAYME TYME on easier-going, console-geared stuff, I've enjoyed the background noise! Here are a few select episodes, for similarly afflicted Shumps Friends:
THE TELLTALE HEART-SHAPED BALLOON
Lorne's GF CASEY underwent a four-hour surgery, and is recuperating in hospital - tragically, she has not responded to his texts quickly enough. With DAN at CASEY's bedside to lend his support, Lorne's jealousy is primed - and when he hears of a certain get-well present, a blistering meltdown leaves his dream of vindictively wedded bliss in ashes.
CASEY: Lorne's glamorous actress GF. Mid-20s. Famously played "Kayla" in Lorne's televised execution. Understandably guilty, she seeks to atone by becoming his wife.
DAN: Tall, handsome Jewish attorney with a great ass and an eight-inch CAWK. Mid-30s. Bisexual BF of EMMA, Lorne's best friend. Visting CASEY at EMMA's request.
MATILDA (alias "Big Titty Matilda"): Sassy black nurse, mid-50s, whose wise counsel on life, love, and homosexuality reduces our hero to a Bud-fuelled flood of tears.
POT BROWNIE HOLOCAUST
Lorne's GF WINNIE is feeling blue, now that she is off the crack, so he reads a heartfelt poem he wrote for her. While she is in the toilet, he hits on her teenage daughter RHODA, encouraging her to enjoy one of WINNIE's pot brownies. Tragically, the brownie contains WINNIE's Death With Dignity Pill, which she had intended to consume following Lorne's serenade, and a double tragedy ensues.
WINNIE: Lorne's crackhead valley girl GF, frenemy of CASEY. Late 20s, irascible, source of many jibes about Lorne's tiny CAWK and misshapen head.
RHODA: Daughter of WINNIE. A ditzy and bubbly teen who inexplicably attracts Lorne.
EMMA: Mexican-American, mid-30s, a stalwart friend to Lorne. Hapless source of conflict between him and WINNIE, due to the latter's violent racism.
THE DOCTOR IS IN (YOUR GF)
Lorne's GF RAMONA is struggling with her 96y/o NANA's medical insurance forms, so she turns to her friend THE DOCTOR for assistance. Tragically, an innocent past mishap between the two sparks Lorne's suspicions, culminating in an unprecedented explosion of alcoholic, trailer-trashing anger. An epilogue covers the subsequent Wellness Check, which concerned listeners phoned into Cornville PD.
RAMONA: Lorne's rich, sporty GF. Early 20s. Bright, yet prone to youthful obstinance. Moved by Lorne's televised plight, she located him via the Sex Offender Registry.
THE DOCTOR: Black, mid-20s, good friend of RAMONA. One of several young professionals who her family consider worthy suitors. Known to have a big CAWK.
NANA: Ramona's very elderly grandmother, who cannot understand her labyrinthine health insurance policy.
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While I'm unrepentantly amused, I'm also left thinking of one Derrick Bird - better known to we Cuck Islanders as The Cumbria Shooter. Similarly tormented persona, life history, and even hairline. Was just a few years older than Lorne when he finally snapped. With you Burgers' infinitely greater opportunity to
Cock A Glock And Pop-Pop Til They All Drop, I do wonder if these hijinks might lead somewhere hideous - if even on a much smaller scale. FWIW, Lorne strikes me as a (cf Bill Burr) Angry Pussy, one I could only see (cf Doug Stanhope) Turning The Gun On Himself.
Internet-powered scammers like Zoe Quinn and Brianna Wu also come to mind. Unlike their thieving ilk, Lorne perhaps has some claim to the coveted grifter's mantle of
"The Internet Ruined My Life." Despite a similar verminous tenacity - Lorne mistook his online following for a fandom, early on, and has never quite disabused himself, even after the Hon. Judge WoodCAWK sagely advised him to Walk Away, at his 2019 parole revocation hearing - our hero has received no Patreonbux, nor senate runs, nor book deals; only teeming shoals of catfish, and hordes of chortling rubberneckers like your Shumps Friend here.
To be sure, even ignoring his jailbait fixation, Lorne is disgusting - when informed that cancer-stricken Betty, survivor of the couple he robbed, had been reimbursed by charitable TCAP fans, he declared the matter over, saying "the bitch could get a job" before asking anything of him. Combined with his remarkable stupidity - he was cowed into staying off the roads, when a catfish warned she'd watched him drink-driving on Google Earth - I will conclude he was destined for ignominy and disaster, and that moreover, "reviled internet clown" is quite possibly a relatively benign outcome.
Provided he doesn't snap and shoot up a Walmart, or something. I hope he drink-drives himself not into the side of a sleeping family's house, as he did just prior to the TCAP sting, but through a guardrail and down a ravine before that happens. But, as is the gift of Internet, we shall see.