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Truesday: My Call To Your Arms
*The views expressed in Truesday are those of the author and do not represent Austinist as a whole. Thank heavens.* -The Editors
As you read these lines, dearest reader of the internets, I am completely far away from all forms of civilization which typically provide access to web-related entertainment such as: donkey porn, fark, and the constantly intriguing-yet-face-f*cking issue of “who owns Anna Nicole Smith’s baby this week?”
So I’m somewhere stupid remote, because even distant and strange places like Buda and Cleveland have the internet these days. I’m removed from somewhere very, very removed, and will continue to be so until next week.
BUT, that doesn’t mean I’m not posting, see? Isn’t the modern age f*cking brilliant? So cool. It’s almost as if I don’t have to BE at the Austinist office at all! You know, like I usually am at 7:30am every weekday! My parking space, right up in front of the corporate entrance (in FRONT of the handicrip spots of course, because laws are for stupids!) is empty today! The office coffee won’t smell faintly of fetid urine this morning! Score! Technology wins again!
So yeah, this particular post, technically is from the brain of my past. Like, the two-days-before past. And: so what? If you think that’s shitty:
Did you know that Chicago has its own municipal flag? They do. Check it. Their city banner is full of symbolism and badassery which has never before been imagined for Austin. YET, the flag was first requested back in 1915, with the first design being accepted in 1917. How many people lived in Chicago in 1915? Somewhere north of 2 million. Austin today? Somewhere around 1.5 million. So, round Austin up and Chicago down: POOF: we need a flag too.
There are lots of reasons for us to have a flag. I’ll just list a couple of them and let your minds’ fill in any remaining reasons.
1. Flags are cool. Sweden has one. So did the Black Panthers. Cub Scouts. European Union. Pirates. Shit, everyone’s got a goddamn flag. What’s taking us so long to get on this bandwagon?
2. Once a place has a flag, then cool stuff can happen with it! Things can be done to the flag that will, in effect, be done to the ENTIRE city! Like burnings! And carpets with the same design! Diapers! Mugs! Sarongs! The merchandising and political statement options are endless!
3. We live in a state which prides itself on the notion that it may return to being a sovereign country at any point it wishes. Of course: warm port + oil = US military intervention/occupation, so I’m not sure this idea would fly or last long, but it would be fucking awesome to try. However, and I’m not saying this with any negative sentiment directed specifically toward my own beloved Texas, but the majority of our fellow Texans have some scary-ass politics. Just plain back’rd and so deeply rooted in the good ol’ boy system, it’s a guarantee they’d kill us if they got the chance to do so legally. If you don’t believe me, then you aren’t literate enough to read this site so I don’t care. Hyperbolic ridiculousness aside, in the event that Texas does in fact secede, the nation-state of Austin will need to have an established identity in place which would allow us to secede from the newly formed nation-state of Texas. Otherwise all of San Angelo will come here and burn us all alive for being dirty hippies or whatever AM radio has been spouting lately.
4. Not to harp too much on reason #2, but flag underwear is really fucking cool, and it might get some no-underwear havin’ fools to try it out. Like that one-armed drummer for Def Leppard and his Union Jack briefs.
With all this reasoning placed before you, and with such compelling fervor, how could you not agree that we need a city flag? In fact, how could you not join in the patriotic mission of helping design the thing for yourself? Don’t you want to have a hand in the designing of what will forever be referred to as “that flag for Austin that totally kicks Chicago’s flag’s ass”?
DON’T YOU WANT TO BE A PART OF HISTORY? The cool part?
And that’s what I’d like to see. I want to see ideas for this. Some mock-ups. Use Adobe Photoshit, or (my personal fave) MS Paint, pen/paper with a scanner, construction paper and elmer’s glue. Whatever. Build it, magically JPEG it (preferably, unless you’re a true badass with badass imaging skills along with matching killer badass image-explaining-to-an-idiot skills), send it to truecraig[at]gmail.com (so help me god I will shut that email down if all the porn that it’s blasted with is cheap and/or tranny Brazilian) and I’ll post the results over the next couple of weeks.
I WILL NOT USE THESE ENTRIES AS FODDER FOR POKING FUN. Seriously.
There’s way too much easier, weirder shit going on in the world for me to have to solicit you for inspiration. So, as those assholes in the advertising schools always smug-out: WOW me/yourselves/us.
All entries will be treated equally and given equal time up here, unless they obviously have nothing to do with the question at hand. And understand, if this devolves into nothing more than crappy pornographic flag designs made by pimply-faced, coach-abused teens, then, well, whatever man. As far as I’m concerned, whoever enters an idea is who cares most about Austin’s future flag.
Oh, and I am offering you nothing but the glory of serving your city in its time of need. Otherwise, there will be two weeks of just my busted-ass designs up here on those Tuesdays, and we all know that Austin deserves better than that. MUCH better.
Send me flag. I want flag. Austin need flag.
