Lettuce against Letterman: Morrissey fans fight Dave

You know, there used to be a belief that Smiths fans had no sense of humour whatsoever. That's something that's long been laid to... oh, hang on: Morrissey fans are calling for a boycott of the Late Show with Letterman because he did a joke with some spare ribs when Morrissey was on:

Early in the show, David Letterman was inexplicably handed a plate of spare ribs. Clearly perplexed, he asked why. His chortling producer responded, "It's a mistake."

Indeed.

Both Congressman Kucinich and Morrissey are vegetarians... a choice that is frequently met with derision, defensiveness and open hostility. This appeared to have been the case on the Letterman show. After the initial "confusion", Letterman set the plate of ribs aside. Then, upon returning from the commercial break, viewers watched Letterman partaking in the ribs and, later, offering them to audience members, who gleefully gnawed away at them for the cameras. Constant references to the ribs were made throughout the show (as well as an odd request for guest Shia LaBoeuf to translate his last name, which is French for "the beef"), though none of this took place while the vegetarian guests were onstage.

Now, I've not eaten meat in nearly twenty years, and I'm not entirely sure what the point of this boycoot is - it seems that the rib thing was merely a gag based on Shia LaBoeuf's name and had nothing to do with Mozzer (or Kucinich); while Morrissey might not like meat, it's not as if he's allergic to it or anything and since the joke wasn't intended as jibe at him, and he didn't have the meat put in his pants or thrown or at him, what's the problem?

Either you object to the very idea of meat being shown on television - in which case there are far better places to start your campaign (how about kids TV ads, for example?) or... maybe it is Morrissey fans do still over-react from time to time.

After all: if Stephen was that upset, to use his own words, he could have just walked away, couldn't he?