Local amateur comedian Steve Cook’s terrorist joke bombed last evening at a local nightclub, causing the death of both the comedian’s reputation and the evening of all the people in the half-empty room.

“Thank god the room was only half-full,” club owner John Jacobson said. “Can you imagine if the room had been filled to capacity? I don’t even want think about it. The tragedy at hand is hard enough to take.”

The joke, which on top of not being funny at all, was also in terribly bad taste, put the butt of the joke on the terrorist victims instead of the terrorists themselves. The move forced Jacobson to give all the patrons their money back.

“In this type of situation you’ve got to doll out the money–that’s what they do on the national stages, and that’s what we’re going to do on the local stage,” Jacobson added.

For his part, Steve Cook defended the joke, saying that while it didn’t go over very well, the audience members needed “the truth” to be put out there “in front of their faces.”

“All these Americans live in this little fantasy world and act like they don’t need to know the truth. But that’s why I’m here, to bring them the truth. And I won’t apologize for giving them them the truth,” Cook said.

Cook would agree that the joke bombed in ways he hadn’t anticipated, and that next time he would try to make sure the explosion was more of an explosion of laughter than an explosion of deafening awkward silence.

As one victim put it, “maybe next time he tries a terrorist joke, he should make sure it doesn’t create so much collateral damage.”