9-24-01

We had a meeting of our T-shirt company Mild-Mannered this evening, and we're moving along. We're starting the design concept stage. We're going to brainstorm interesting scenes and characters for our T-shirts. Here are some rejected ideas:

Monkey shaving balls
A pile of dirt
Fred gets a colon cleansing
Smiley the Clown takes a bullet
Digitized dirty laundry

Yesterday I worried that The Event was also the death of irony. I just heard on the Daily Show that a New York Times columnist also declared it the death of irony. However, I did get a nice email from one of my friends who said, don't worry, it's not the death of irony - it's just going to be more underground and more subversive. I hope he's right because otherwise I'll never be funny again. The Daily Show is not back to normal yet, either. John Stewart is interviewing new personalities in a mostly serious manner, not making fun of news. Not yet, at any rate. Hopefully in a week or two he'll be able to get back to it, but things are so precarious with the "War on Terrorism" that it's hard to say what is going to happen next.

I really think the progressive cause is going to be set-back for quite a while because of this event. It seemed like there was a real movement starting - with the protests in Seattle, with the anti-corporate, anti-globalization movement. Things were really cooking. And the way that the Supreme Court hijacked the election; it pissed off a lot of people. I fear this will even stall the anti-death penalty movement that has been growing. Many people feel justified in the killing of a mass murderer - someone responsible for killing 6000 people. But if Bush manages to get Osama bin Laden & any other terrorists without causing a war with Pakistan, then he's going to look really good and get re-elected. And the conservative agenda will march on.

What I'm reading now:
Latest issue of Nest magazine (beautiful magazine) comes with an exclusive DJ Spooky CD he wrote to go along with the articles in the magazine. (It's a great CD, by the way)
Latest issue of Artext magazine, my favorite mainstream art mag (Juxtapoz being the best art magazine, of course)
A bizarre, sad and wicked comic called Hey, Wait…by some guy from Norway named Jason (confusing and excellent)
A really, really odd comic called Dirty Boxes. Trippy. Very interesting.