Truesday: Turn On The Magical Shining Light!

*The views expressed in Truesday are those of the author and do not represent Austinist as a whole. Thank heavens.* -The Editors
Not that we need any more reasons to appreciate our fine little piece of Texas Xanadu, but what the hell is up with Boston?
Bostonist, please help me to help myself understand the root cause of this foot-shooting massacre of common, pop culture. I don’t want to rag on the city because it obviously needs some help. But I’m pretty damn tempted, even though the (blatantly hypocritical) irony therein would be almost too much to bear: “we are Austinites from the inner core of the country and our culture is advanced beyond all that you can possibly comprehend with 100% of your brain.” But I won’t say that, because, well, I just can’t spur myself to kick a city while it’s obviously down.
Pointless aside: I drove through Boston once, stopping only to eat at an Applebee’s near/in Cambridge, wondering why the hell the freeway system had no goddamn lane markers.
Word around the campfire is that the sarcastrobots behind Misprint Magazine are already trying to corner the Lite Brite market on Ebay. The mind RACES with possibilities and anticipation! Oh, the litigation!
One thing which can definitely be said is that two million is CHEAP for the kind of publicity this stunt/hoax/act-of-baddassedness has generated. Now, even my father knows who the Mooninites are, since their descent/ascent to terrorist/icon status. If it turns out that the wookie and his Steve Jobs look-a-like, partner-in-pseudo-crime had planned this all along, I will cry a torrent of jealous-joy tears at the sheer momma-slapping majesty of their brilliance. Did they get the attention of the entire Boston market with some busted-looking Radio Shack action? You’re damn right they did. Boston and beyond. Even the (ten, unicorn-barbeque-wealthy) Saudis (those who have electricity AND internet access) are googling “angry cigarette box cartoon” right…. now.
Now.
And… now.
The entire cnn-watching world got ruthlessly finger blasted on that one as the image of an angry Utah with legs, sportin’ the ol’ “sit-n-spin, motherfuckers” got plastered all up and down the interdigitube-o-tron-i-nets.
But beyond the miracles of bloated advertising budgets, the real victory here lies in that for the first time I can fathom, cartoons got some play off a sales method which has always been tapped for far more insidious purposes. Well, I guess those Cartoon Bible Stories have been playing off it for decades, in a tangential sort of way (and maybe less evil, though poorly drawn). But not with such blatant irreverence.
It’s been used to sell razor wire and cluster bombs.
It’s why we sell personal freedom in exchange for a mad-shifty appearance of national security.
It’s the crappy PowerPoint-presentation-of-the-mind used to sell xenophobia, racism, tit-jobs and shitty hair pieces.
It’s the easy-trigger most commonly used to sell little Skip-Through-Wonderland pills for fixing potentially, probably, (and should be) broken dicks.
And now, finally, thanks to years of careful groundwork put into place by numerous financial and political interests, Fear gets tooled-out to sell something much more practical: some fuckin’ Jersey-slappin’, fast-food based ‘toons, man. Boo-yeah, Halliburton: get that facial.
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