THIS MODERN WORLD

So this is what I was alluding to last Friday: Village Voice Media is hurting in this economy like everyone else, and their corporate response is to “suspend” cartoons and (I think) all other syndicated material across the chain, said suspension to last at least through the rest of the first quarter, and quite possibly beyond.

The papers I was running in are: Dallas Observer, New Times Ft. Lauderdale, Houston Press, LA Weekly, Minneapolis City Pages, Nashville Scene, OC Weekly, Pitch Weekly, Denver Westword, Village Voice and Seattle Weekly.

This still leaves me with eighty-odd papers, as well as Salon and Credo, so it’s not a fatal blow. And believe me, I wasn’t so naive as to imagine I was going to get through this economic mess without taking some hits. Nonetheless it’s a serious chunk of major cities to lose in one fell swoop (don’t get me started on the joys of consolidation this morning). Anyway, if you live in one of those cities and think this is a bad decision, you might want to share those feelings with the local editor. Politely, it should go without saying. And keep in mind: it’s not just my cartoon, it’s all of them, so put in a kind word for my compatriots while you’re at it. The only thing any of us have going for us in a situation like this is reader support.

Update: gosh, this makes it extra special:

The belt-tightening now only affects network-wide cartoons, Hoffman says; other syndicated features — like Dan Savage’s “Savage Love” and Rob Brezsny’s “Free Will Astrology” — will continue to run at City Pages.

So. How’s your week going so far?

… one thing I want to add here: while I am admittedly less than overjoyed by this turn of events, this isn’t a “me vs. them” situation. These are in many cases people who have supported my work and given me an audience for ten or fifteen years; some are personal friends. This is just an unfortunate decision made at the corporate level in response to a very difficult time.

(slight editing for clarity)

—PENGUIN prints are going a lot faster than I expected. UPDATE: None left!

–speaking of income-generating activities, a little birdie just warned me that I’m about to take a pretty large financial hit. I’ll explain more about this later, but for now just remember what I said before: if your paper stops running TMW, complain vociferously. In a very real sense, my livelihood is in your hands, so if you like the work, let them know.

–George Bush is no longer president. It makes me happy every time I remember that.

Now that Alan Colmes has been exiled to the Siberia of Fox Radio (did he jump or was he pushed?), Hannity has remade his tv show like someone newly divorced, trying to scrub away any lingering trace of his former partner. There’s no longer even the slimmest pretense of being anything other than a showcase for the fringe right. For example: over the past two nights, he’s run an “exclusive interview” with — oh, the excitement — Rush Limbaugh!

And there’s a very telling passage, in which Limbaugh says, “The culture, we’ve lost the culture Sean. We have lost pop culture. It is unrealistic to expect that people watching MTV, going to see the rot Hollywood’s putting out, listening to the rot music is today, that every four years they’re going to go into a voting booth and vote Republican, vote conservative.”

After years of attempts to make conservatism cool somehow, this is its new face, much the same as it ever was: a cranky old man complaining about the movies and music the young people like these days.

As if to underscore the point, later in the program Hannity brings in Pat Boone to comment on the week’s news. Pat Boone.

They’re writing off most of the population — what else can they do?–and focusing on their true base: the over-75 crowd. And I wish them the best of luck with that strategy.

During the first episode of the new season of Battlestar Galactica, they ran a commercial for a product placement tie-in with Kentucky Fried Chicken: “Log on now to join the KFC Frak Pak Sweepstakes!”

Um.

See the thing is, for those of you who don’t watch the show, the BSG writers use the word “frak” as a network-acceptable substitute for “fuck.” “Frak you,” a charcter will say, or “frakking cylons!” Things like that.

So basically KFC is running the “fuckbag sweepstakes.” I’d like some chicken in a fuckbag please!

And adding an even more dissonant note, the commercial ran immediately after a character blew her own brains out, quite graphically. I think the only way it could have been more appalling overall is if that character had actually been Colonel Sanders himself, or maybe some sort of chicken-human hybrid created by the Cylons.

(And with this post, I have ensured that my site will rank #1 in Google searches for the phrase “chicken in a fuckbag.” It’s good to be king!)

Update: Oy! even worse product placement following aforementioned suicide, here.

Probably some redundancies here; blame them on your unreliable editor. First, from my friend Jack:

phonied up the charges against Miss Alabama gov.

is still drinking

appointed U.S. attorneys to make false vote fraud charges.

did tell the Palestinian leader than God told him to strike down the Arabs.

did phony up the yellowcake via Italian intelligence.

aggressively stovepiped the wmd intelligence.

worked with Katherine Harris to keep the Democratic voter lists under challenge.

rigged the Ohio vote in 2004

And more from readers:

–Of course Bush decided to invade Iraq on or before
September 11, 2001

–Of course the Bush administration withheld desperately-needed federal disaster aid from Louisiana after New Orleans flooded while at the same time the Bush administration launched a smear campaign against the Democratic governor of Louisiana, Kathleen Blanco, and the Democratic mayor of New Orleans, Ray Nagin.

And probably my favorite so far:

–Of course the terror color chart and subsequent alerts were timed for maximum political gain.

… two more good ones:

Of course Bush intentionally skipped out on his National Guard service.

Of course Bush didn’t believe that his educational reforms would work. The whole point was to have public schools fail so that they could be privatized.

… they exaggerated and/or fabricated the details regarding Jessica Lynch’s rescue