Wiki Wiki

Bizarro is brought to you today Americans for the Right to Call Your Band Ska When it is Actually Polka.

In the mid-to-late 1900s, when I was a kid, encyclopedia, dictionary, and bible salesmen used to go door-to-door carrying heavy sample cases full of their wares. It would be hard to believe if I couldn't remember it from my own childhood. My parents actually bought a set of World Book Encyclopedias from a guy who came to the door. I think my mother worried he may drop dead if she sent him away with a full case.

Back then, before scientists had discovered the wonders of the Internets, an encyclopedia was the only way to research something in a shallow, half-assed way without going to the library. So that made it perfect for school projects. From such cursory forays into its pages, I learned that Idaho's main crop was cotton, that rock and roll music was a passing teenage phase, and that the Romans did not kill Jesus, the Jews did. I also learned how airplanes fly (pilots make them), what atom bombs are good for (keeping us safe from Soviets), and that the capital of China is Peking (until they changed it to Beijing, because it is harder to remember how to spell.)

My own Wikipedia page is rife with errors. I was not born on the 10th of anything (nor on any other day in July), I did not "drop out" of college (I was asked to leave at gunpoint), and in the picture of me it looks as though I am holding up two fingers when I was actually holding up one. Other than that, the site is a gold mine of information and I use it regularly. Even though my days of shallow, half-assed paper writing are long gone.

Sonseed

Found this amazing video from a Christian ska band called, "Sonseed," here.

My favorite lyrics are, "He taught me how to praise my god and still play rock and roll," and "He is like a mounty, he always gets his man and he'll zap you anyway he can. Zap!"

Enjoy.

WWJD?

I like clever rebuttals and wanted to share this one with you.

Fan Hitting

Today's Bizarro cartoon is brought to you by Bears Who Sh*t In The Woods In Comfort.

This idea came from my crazy friend, Derek, a regular contributor to the comments section of this blog. Many other blog commentators have commented on Derek's comments, in fact. They are unique, to say the least.

His original idea (as I recall with my notoriously Alzheimer's-quality memory) was a guy feeding toilet paper into an office printer. I figured given the robust economy that the Neo-Cons have blessed us with, it would make a good cartoon about cutbacks.

But back to toilet humor. Have you or anyone you know ever been this happy about toilet paper? I think if I saw a crowd of ecstatic people dancing through the streets with a gigantic roll of toilet paper, I would brace for some major sh*t to hit the fan. And I would be afraid of the size of the fan it might be hitting, given the size of that roll in the picture. If that's a grizzly in the pic, the roll is bigger than his head, which would make it roughly the size of a truck tire. Who needs a roll this big? And where is this much doody coming from? Perhaps we should attack the source rather than the symptom.



(NOTE: I'm not squeamish about so-called "profanity," but since some readers might be, I replace certain letters in potentially "offensive" words with asterisks, to keep the blog "safe" for the entire family.
NOTE 2: I recently got a "complimentary" box of "quotation marks" and am trying to "use" them up.)

Tragedy/Comedy

(Click this image to enlarge it and see the details the government doesn't want you to see.)

Bizarro is brought to you today by Citizens For a More Nefarious Explanation.

Because those of you who read this blog are my closest friends in the world, I'll be honest with you: I didn't draw this cartoon. It was given to me in its present form.

A few weeks back, I had been working all day and most of the evening, my limbs were getting stiff and my eyes bleary. I decided to take a walk around the block for some exercise and a little fresh air. If one can call the air in Brooklyn fresh. Especially while you're smoking a cigar.

As I circled the block and turned back onto my street I saw a flickering light ahead of me. I thought that someone was driving toward me in a jalopy with a loose headlight, but as it approached, I noticed it rising off the ground in a way that cars have a habit of NOT doing. I stopped for a moment, knitted my brow, took a long drag on my cigar, and waited.

One gets used to the unexpected in Brooklyn, so I kept my cool. But when the light raced to within a few feet of me I became alarmed and froze in my tracks. I admit I was quite suddenly gripped with fear, but was just as suddenly calmed by a warmth that started in my mid-section and magically flowed to my extremities. Well, not all my extremities, just my feet. Apparently I had peed myself.

I glanced down at the growing puddle beneath my feet, then looked up again to find the light had darted back down the street to my own building. It danced momentarily in front of the windows of my second-story studio, then shot off into the sky. This was no ordinary Brooklyn jalopy, to be sure.

I hurried back home and up to my studio, where my computer screen still glowed. Upon my desk, in place of the stupid cartoon I had been working on about a chicken crossing the road, was this cartoon entitled, "Aria 51." It was love at first sight – so I dated it, mounted it, and wrapped it up for submission. (I never realized how similar cartooning and romance terms are.)

I still have no logical explanation for where this cartoon came from. I suppose it could have been anything from extraterrestrials to elves & fairies to the Virgin Mary to local crack-heads with a damned-refined sense of mischief to a cigar-induced hallucination.

I prefer to believe, however, that it was an experimental government vehicle designed based on technology found at an actual alien spacecraft crash site, and which will later be used to dupe Americans into believing another terrorist attack has occurred and thereby justify compromising the constitution even more and handing more money and power over to the government and its corporate cronies. The cartoon was left to make the whole idea seem too silly to be believed.

But I'm not falling for it.

Serving Fitness

Today's cartoon is brought to you by Neckbolts To Go. "Lose your head if it isn't attached? We can fix that!"

This idea came from the fact that if elected (or "placed" into office) John McCain would be the oldest man ever to be inaugurated. His official bio lists him as having been born in 1936, and knowing how those things usually fudge the truth a bit, it means he was likely born closer to 1836. But even if it is accurate, he would be 72 when he took office.

Do you know anyone in their seventies? Do they work 12-hours-a-day at the hardest job in the world and bear more responsibility for more lives than any other person on the planet? Or do they take naps in front of the TV and forget to switch off their turn signal? Assuming they are still allowed to drive, of course.

I don't mean to insult the elderly, my parents are that age and they are terrific folks, very smart, totally lucid. But they know their limits. Neither of them is any more ready, willing, or able to be the leader of the free world than they are to kick a luchador in the pecans and live to tell about it. They're both voting for Obama.

Which means if the GOP manages somehow to sneak McCain into office, or if our nation's median I.Q. has not been raised above 50 in the past 8 years and we elect him, the chances he will not survive his entire first term are not slim. Which means the mayor of a small town in the middle of nowhere, governor of a few busloads of people (Alaska's entire population is about half of the number of people Wal-Mart employs), with no interest or experience in foreign policy or security issues, or much understanding of international economics, will inherit the presidency.

Wow.

A guy emailed me yesterday and said this, "And for the record: Sarah Palin is AWESOME! I am a hunter and love the fact that she sued the federal government for their outrageous listing of the polar bear."

Of course he is "outraged." Because his morbid amusement is more important than the balance of nature and the survival of the planet.
Of course she is "awesome." Because the dangers of her inheriting the most important job in the world without any sign of her ability to handle it competently are not nearly as important as the fact that she supports his hobby.

Wow. Are we sure that everyone should be allowed to vote?

National Killin' Thangs Week

This bikini-clad death machine may well be our president in the very near future. If McCain wins there is a very good chance he'll croak in office given his age, and presto, the first woman president is an embarrassing anti-women's-rights, anti-environmentalist, lying, kill-stuff-for-fun kinda gal.

Congratulations America! Just when we are poised to regain respect around the world, we snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.

Read this brief comparison of what was said at the GOP convention about Palin and Obama to the actual facts.

And this from Time Magazine: "When the Department of the Interior in May listed the polar bear as a threatened species due to warming—an action that could interfere with drilling in Alaska's coastal waters, where the polar bears live —Palin sued the Federal Government in response. "Our main concern with Sarah Palin's positions are that they are based on doing what is best for the oil industry, and not what is best for Americans," says David Willett, national press secretary for the Sierra Club."

Oh my.