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Weak XVII

24 April 2016

No. 3,745 (cartoon)

I’m sorry ...

I’m sorry too.

... for nothing.

25 April 2016

Bull Headed Dung Beetle/Beatle

The first written mention of Onthophagus taurus, or Bull Headed Dung Beetle, was on 18 June 1842. Paul McCartney was born on 18 June 1942.

Coincidence? I should think not!

26 April 2016

Waiting for Food, Profitably

I heard that Pablo Picasso used to dash off little ten-second sketches to pay for dinners, laundry, et cetera. It’s a good story, so who cares whether or not it’s true?

Robert Crumb was smarter than that, in terms of commerce at least. Whilst waiting for food in restaurants, he make a series of drawings on placemats with the perfect title, Waiting for Food. He published several books featuring reproductions of the sketches, then sold the original drawings to speculators and investors.

“Collectors love to get a little marinara sauce with their art,” he explained.

That comment surprised me; good taste usually isn’t that profitable.

27 April 2016

Don’t Die for Your Corporation

Bernie works for a large corporation. He gets lots of money for spending every second in his office in some flavor of misery. That sounds like a bad deal to me, but I suppose he has other priorities.

Yesterday he sent me a surreptitious message from the bowels of a nondescript building. “My meeting has just entered the fourth hour with no end in sight. My only hope is that we’ll all be free when there’s no more oxygen in this wretched little room.”

I suppose corporate life really can be that bad. This morning, a twenty-five-year-old Apple employee blew his brains out in a corporate meeting room. (Or as the polite media reported it, “died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head.”) That’s certainly one way to get out of another interminable meeting, but I think the long-term solution to a short-term problem wasn’t the best solution. Had I met the troubled young man, I would have suggested he simply quote Miles Davis and say, “Fuck all y’all.”

It’s too late for that now, just as it is for another Apple employee who killed himself when his work on the Newton Message Pad wasn’t going well. The poor kid took his life twenty years ago because he thought he’d failed his employer’s campaign to build an electronic gizmo no one—except a few dozen people including me—wanted.

As George Patton recommended, “Don’t die for your country, make the other poor bastard die for his.” I doubt that admonition will ever appear in any employee handbook, but it certainly should.

28 April 2016

End of the Line: Nancy Heckrotte 1958-2016

Nancy was a breast cancer survivor. Was.

A couple of weeks ago she told me that the cancer that had migrated to her liver had found a new home in her brain. That led to a brief exchange of messages from the hospital.

Nancy: Actually I don’t think I’m dying ...

David: Glad you’re being positive. I am too. You can’t die now; you owe me $53.

Nancy: That was funny.

Nancy died five days later; she left a week ago on 21 April.

I don’t have a single photograph of her, or of many of my other friends. I do have a photograph of her living room window, though; I made it on our last visit that turned out to be our final visit. Only Nancy and I would recognize the blurry silhouettes behind the shade. I suppose I should now say that only I will.

Nancy was enthusiastically supportive of my work. She never heard about my latest project, Rainier Ale: The End of the Line. She would have been pleased to learn that today I meditatively sipped the first can of Rainier Ale in the series while thinking beautiful and sad thoughts about a lovely friend I’ll never see again.

I’m thirsty and at a loss for words; that’s always a good time to stop writing and have yet another farewell drink.

29 April 2016

Gimme a Blond! Gimme a Cliché! What Does That Spell?

Idiots at the University of Washington published a handy little guide for any young woman who wanted to become a cheerleader. Well, not really any woman; that was the point. First, the successful candidate should have a good suntan, real or spray-on. Combined with the image of a woman of non-color with blond hair, the notice all but decreed that certain races and ethnicities need not apply.

The candidates were told to show up in a black bra and shorts, even which brand of lipstick to wear, Girl About Town. They were also urged to wear false eyelashes, makeup, and more. Or less, depending on the part of the object, er, body in question. About the only cheerleader cliché missing was the suggestion that they appear eager to provide sexual favors to athletes.

Oh well, at least by the time the successful candidates complete their cheerleading career they’ll have earned a degree in being used and objectified.

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©2016 David Glenn Rinehart