(Above image by Mort Walker, new text by David Maliki)
Once more the populace--or at least minor intelligentsia--is acting like the end of the world is nigh. Obviously not for the first time. Maybe not the last either. Have all the previous apocalypses made people as humorless as this one has? Don't see how it would help in any case.
3 comments:
The cartoon with its changed text is most appropriate for our times and what a sad statement that is to make.
There are no simple answers to the question you've posed, but I happened to find a link in an article on Unherd a few days ago written by Oliver Bateman about how the elite legacy media outlets have arranged to address their subscribers in ways that accomodate their hubris. Although it's kind of long you can check it out yourself and skip over the boring bits.
Ricky Lee Jones has done an interesting rendition of one of the Mother's earliest. Playing that album got us thrown out of an apartment long ago. But that's another story.
Not only ooops but double ooops..
By the time I realized I'd forgotten to drop in the link it was too late to turn everything back on again. Then, first thing before I had some coffee, Jer reminded me that was Nellie McKay and not Ricky Lee Jones (although I'm pretty sure if she's ever recorded a version of Hungry Freaks it would have been equally entertaining).
Ah well, we all have those moments. Here's the link.
But now that I'm here again I've thought of another thing you might enjoy seeing and that's the hot rod extravaganza that happened last in the summer of 2019. You may not be interested in hopped up old cars but the video has some nice views of our neighborhood - especially the first 5 minutes.
Zero, the blond soldier from that cartoon, is one of the regular cast of Beetle Bailey. He's supposed to be very dumb, but innocent and gentle. So his overt bloodlust is in context messed up, albeit perhaps an innocent kind of honesty.
Bateman and Kyeyune really hit the target with that piece. There's a John T. Sladek story in Harlan Ellison's first Dangerous Visions anthology that deals with what happens when technology can remove pain from the human equation, and it's not pretty. Needless to say, to the extent that Silicon Valley activists (self-styled) feel secure in their righteousness, I don't see that certainty as being earned.
At first I thought you were reminiscing about an actual Frank Zappa cover by Rickie Lee Jones. Which I agree would be quite interesting. If you find a similarity between her and Nellie McKay you're not the first. I wonder how much conscious influence there is between the two.
That's a pretty cool video of the car show in Victoria. It does look like a beautiful city. You have to be pretty dedicated to keep old cars like that in good condition. In some cases the companies that made them are no longer in business and haven't been in years. Even if it's a Ford or Chrysler you're talking about parts that you really have to go looking for.
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