| [from the desk of Stickboy]
Bonjour, mes amis! A remarkable young poet, Alexander the Green, once wrote, “it’s terrible in the middle.” D’accord, and welcome to the Pretty Sure Back to School special, “The Year of Living Miserably.” Pick your poison, margarine – http://www.oliosonline.org/Olios/stickboy/miserable/stickboy_miserable.html Or butter – http://www.oliosonline.org/Olios/stickboy/miserable/living_miserably.pdf I know this superhighway, this bright familiar sun. As another long hot summer languishes toward autumn, I am, as always, damp with my many ardors, almost hopelessly awaiting that first gust of cold air, that first brittle leaf twirling toward the sidewalk, that first shop window haunted by black cats, ghosts, pumpkins and witches. You may ask, after reading “The Year of Living Miserably,” ‘how many modern classics can one man pen?’ Mon response? Step aside, mes amis, I’ve got talent to burn. These aren’t just comic strips, I’m building an entirely new genre – Stick Lit! And, oui, those are my skinny legs on the dust jacket. As his holiness, Pope Bruce Springsteen I, has oft said, ‘walk tall, or don’t walk at all.’ I am a tower on the land. Come on, you need a Stickboy t-shirt, doncha? Doncha? A mug? Leather-bound bible? http://www.cafepress.com/sticky_tbs Support our moribund economy! Shop early and often! Fill my gaping coffers! Speaking of gaping coffers, how are yours? According to a 21 August article in the New York Times: - For 2005, nearly half of all Americans reported incomes of less than $30,000, and two-thirds made less than $50,000. - People with incomes of more than $1M received 62% of the savings from the reduced tax rates on long term capital gains and dividends that President Bush signed into law in 2003. J.P. Donleavy was right – “the rich get the plums, the poor get the shits.” What happens now? We’re whistling through the end times, aren’t we? God awaits, and we will be judged by how we treated our animals, our children, our elderly, our ill, our poor, our huddled, yearning masses…it’s not looking very Christian, is it? But such is our rampant strain of capitalism; it consumes everything in its path. And here we are, in the terrible middle, dog paddling between din and doom. The granaries are empty; Yet there are those dressed in fineries, With sharp swords at their sides, Filled with food and excessive wealth. This is known as being a bandit chief. (from the Te Ching, #16) Is it too facile to wonder if it’s too late for peace? For bright and shiny hospitals? For little red schoolhouses with wireless access, a computer at every desk? The suits will say it’s naïve, balderdash, not as sensible as a trillion dollars for an illegal, incomprehensible, unjustifiable war. How much, and how many, will we spend to lose? Arms are for hugging, the bumper sticker tells me, but first you have to find them house-to-house at 3 AM, somewhere in Baghdad. Can you imagine? The sound of jackboots marching toward your door… New strips soon, PDFs for everyone! If you love this blog as much as I do, all of my epistles are available in their shimmering, grammatically correct glory right here: http://www.oliosonline.org/comfusion/stickboy.html http://www.myspace.com/stickboylovesyou My writing is far inferior to my drawings, but it’s still worth your time. You’re just at work fucking off anyway, right? Give your harness bells a shake, to see if there is some mistake. 500 days of Bush II left, then what? Hillary? Rudy Giuliani? We should just dig up Nixon and make him emperor. For life. Nixon or a potato. Somewhere there is the chime of a small spoon against a demitasse cup, snowflakes swooning through a curtain of streetlight, the cold, clean smell of the sea. Until then, |