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Weak III

15 January 2022

No. 1,658 (cartoon)

Is hurting me your idea of making love?

Would you rather make hate?

16 January 2022

Marketing’s Fetid Spawn

Buzz and I were walking down Telegraph Avenue when I saw an advertisement for yet another movie about a comic book character.

“Why is popular culture popular?” I wondered aloud.

“What are you talking about?” he asked.

“That crap,” I replied waving at the illuminated sign.

“Tell me what you’re pointing at,” he continued.

“The huge billboard,” I confirmed.

“You just answered your own question,” he concluded. “Popular culture is created by marketing.”

Of course, why didn’t I think of that? I’m going back to ignoring marketing in general and its fetid spawn, popular culture, in particular.

17 January 2022

Omi[nous]cron Passover

I told Annie that we’re experiencing passover as gentiles.

“Isn’t passover a few months away?” she asked.

“The remembrance of the passover is in April, but this is a real passover in progress,” I replied. “The omi[nous]cron virus is just above our foxholes; duck!”

“You know I’m a shiksa, bubby,” she replied. “What do ducks have to do with passover?”

“Beats me,” I admitted. “We could ask a Talmudic scholar, I suppose, but I think it’s safer vis-a-vis the pernicious virus to stay here drinking at your studio with the windows and doors closed.”

And so the Coronarama passover continues ...

18 January 2022

The Center for Nothing

I was confused after I received a colorful mailing from Center today. Center? It wasn’t The Center for This, The Center for That, or even The Center for The Other Thing. Nope, just Center.

Having seen lots of pretentious and arrogant names for organizations, I’d have to say that Center is near the top of the dubious list. The closest I came to its raison d’état was the slogan, “Advancing the Photographic Arts.”

Ah, now we go from the ostentatious to the risible. May Ray said it best, “There is no progress in art, any more than there is in making love.”

I used to help nonprofit organizations promote their work before I stopped working for money, but I’m coming out of retirement to give the Center some priceless free advice: Change the name of the organization to The Center for Nothing.

You’re welcome!

19 January 2022

Two-to-One Odds

Wanda and Joel make all of their artwork together; I can’t recall either of them ever making a solo work of art. I find that hard to understand since I enjoy the freedom and independence of working without assistants and technicians let alone collaborating with other artists. Where’s the egotistical fun in that?

I asked Wanda how two people can create a piece of art. I was a bit unnerved but unsurprised when Joel answered. He said he was equally curious how one person could make two pieces of art.

I thought that two people speaking and working as one was more creepy than romantic, but since I’m only talking about something as trivial and peripheral as art, I don’t care and neither do they.

20 January 2022

The Mucus Magic Diet!

Most people would like to lose weight without exercising or changing what they eat; that’s why miracle diet plan scams are so popular and lucrative.

I came up with one, the Vomit Yourself Thin Diet. Before my agent could even shop it around, we got a trademark infringement notice from Betty’s Bulimia Banquet Diet.

Next came the Defecate Yourself Thin Diet. This involved using a complex Japanese toilet that weighed and analyzed the user’s urine and excrement. This never caught on because the hardware was too expensive and the dieters couldn’t monitor their weight loss outside the home.

I recently came up with the Cough Yourself Thin Diet; lose two kilograms every week. It’s simple, just catch a common cold, the flu, or any other malady that causes your body’s immune system to produce massive quantities of mucus, phlegm, and other disgusting gunk. Start with a new roll of toilet paper, use it to collect everything you cough up and sneeze out, then put it in a dedicated plastic bag. Once you’ve used the entire roll of toilet paper, weigh the bag, subtract the weight of the toilet paper and plastic receptacle, and that’s how much weight you lost!

Although I can’t guarantee this will work for everyone, I’ve lost several kilos since I came down with a nasty case of the flu over a week ago.

21 January 2022

Eight Saul’s Delicatessen Matzo Balls

Ina told me she was going to cure my dreaded lurgi with matzo ball soup. You’d have to be even much more stupid than me than to argue medicine with a bona fide Jewish mother, so I didn’t.

When I made it over to her studio yesterday she had eight containers lined up on the counter. I photographed the contents to make Eight Saul’s Delicatessen Matzo Balls.

I feel much better this afternoon. Even the dreaded lurgi is no match for powerful matzo balls lovingly prepared and served in a spicy soup.

Coming next weak: more of the same.

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©2022 David Glenn Rinehart