The Traffic Circle of Hell

click to enlarge This morning, as I was making my morning commute on the train, I got to thinking about the hoops people have to jump through just to get work every day. Whether you're on the I-10 in L.A., I-93 in Boston or Chicago's lovely "Hillside Strangler," being stuck in traffic is absolutely wretched. Sitting in a car for two hours in the morning surrounded by polluted air and the malevolence of a thousand angry corporate drones simply cannot be good for you. Stress kills people. People kill people. There has to be a better way. Telecommuting? Vacuum tubes? It would be nice if everyone could just take public transportation. Too bad that takes funding, which is busily being siphoned off to line the humidors of certain unsavory state officials. Ah, well, I'm rambling...perhaps it's time to go and make a dent in some of that homework...

The Many Pyrrhic Victories of Mental Health

click to enlarge Paper Pills' resident psychologist, Dr. Emile Thanatos, is once again faced with the recurring problem of curing a mental illness and then having to cure the cure. So often we come up with a solution that only fixes things in the short run. For example, mongooses were introduced to Hawaii to get rid of rats. Pretty soon, nothing could get rid of the mongooses, which amused themselves by eating the state bird and building nests all over the place. Similarly, healthcare is plagued by its own cures...cures that aren't nearly as cute and endearing as mongooses. On his final day of psychotherapy, a patient began to weep. The doctor said, "What's wrong? You've achieved so much! You're cured! I thought you'd be glad!" The patient turned to him and said "Well, I am grateful for all you've done doc, but, see, I used to be Julius Caesar, and now I'm nobody!" Sometimes it really sucks to be of sound mind and body.

The Emmys

click to enlarge Tonight is the 57th annual Emmy awards. I have never paid any attention to the Emmys, and I know almost nothing about them. I was surprised to hear the number "57" because I did not realize that the Emmys had been around so long. I did a little research and discovered that, in fact, the first Emmy Awards were presented in 1949. The name "Emmy" was a feminization of "immy", a nickname used for the image orthicon tubes that were common in early television cameras. Anyway, with the exception of Desperate Housewives and Family Guy, most of the stuff that is nominated I've not seen, and lot of it I've never even heard of. I think I'll watch it tonight, anyway, in the hopes of catching a glimpse of a truly hideous musical number. If they don't have one of those, then maybe I will get to see James Spader. Sigh, he's so dreamy... UPDATE I am watching the Emmys. Donald Trump and Megan Mullally are singing the theme song from Green Acres. Holy...fucking...lord. I'm afraid that my TV set is going to get struck by lightning. ONE MORE UPDATE All right, so the Daily Show won two Emmys (as it deserves to). Interesting observation though: When the Emmys showed clips from the Daily Show, they only showed clips of Jon Stewart making fun of John Kerry. No Bush Jokes, no Cheney Jokes, just Kerry jokes. What the hell? The show makes fun of everyone, yet we only see the clips that mock the left...hmmm....

A Modest Proposal

click to enlarge In the wake of Katrina, there's been a lot of talk lately about the racial disparities of wealth and health in these United States, not to mention the ever-growing chasm between the haves and the have-nots. Of course, there have always been haves and have-nots, and there always will be. In times of crisis, however, we often become painfully aware of such lamentable conditions. Listening to the news this morning, I was reminded of a pamphlet written by Jonathan Swift almost three centuries ago. Swift suggested, ironically, that the Irish poor solve their money and overpopulation problems by butchering their children and selling the meat to the rich…perhaps accompanied by drawn butter and a dry white wine?

The State of Health Care: Parts aren't Cheap and Labor's a Bitch

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The first step is admitting that everyone has a problem...

click to enlarge I was out late at a party last night--so late that I actually watched the dawn break while coming home on the train. I found out that people do, in fact, ride the train at 5:40 in the morning on Sunday. They are not people that I ever want to meet again, however. I sat next to a woman who kept talking to someone--someone she could see but whom I could not see--about Doritos. It was an ardent debate, with my neighbor adopting the pro-Dorito platform. As I sat next to her, I began to hear a voice of my own, a voice that said “Next time, you should take a cab.” Anyway, party shenanigans got me thinking about hilarious and not so hilarious drunk people at parties...when you're talking to the keg and the keg's talking back, it's time to go to bed. I was probably one of those people last night, but at least I wasn’t talking to the lamp. I think.

Ancient Greek Practical Jokes

The Battle of Wits

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Pondering...

Where do we come from? Where do we go when we die? And what are we supposed to do while we’re here? It amazes me how many people obsess over those first two questions and never really stop to consider the third one. “What the hell am I supposed to be doing with my life?” I watch MTV and I think to myself, “More people need to be asking themselves this question.” Tonight, on my birthday, I am contemplating my life and my mortality. I'm not sure what I am supposed to be doing with my life, and I can't help but get the feeling that I should be doing more. Maybe that's the point; maybe it's the drive to do more that makes our lives worth living. Or maybe the point of life is to just feel like you've found a point. Or maybe the point is to make more money than god and then die of a coronary in your gigantic swimming pool.

Chicken of the Sea...

click to enlarge So just now I was eating Chicken of the Sea and it led me to thinking about what would prey on mermaids in their natural habitats (besides humans, of course). Polar bears were the first thing to come to mind. Then I realized that if they ever did catch a mermaid, they probably wouldn't know what to compare it to. " Hey, this doesn't taste like seal..." Without even thinking about it, I drew the mermaid with a belly button, which is odd, since I don't think that mermaids would have belly buttons, being fishy and all. Then again, maybe they are mammalian and have live births, like gnarwhals. This is all a little nuts. Maybe I should stop painting in unventilated areas.

We Have...A Tentacle Gap!

Click to enlarge I woke up this morning with the overwhelming urge to draw something with tentacles. That's weird, even for me. Still, I could not resist. There is no grand sociopolitical message behind this morning's panel. It's just something with tentacles sitting in a baggage claim, which, if you have ever been to JFK airport late at night, you've probably already seen. Stay tuned, I think I'll have another one up later today...

Obsolescence

Click to enlarge Angel of Death...monarch to the kingdom of the dead! Buckminster Fuller, the guy who came up with Buckey Balls and the Dymaxion car once said that humanity is acquiring all the right technology for all the wrong reasons. I can't exactly call myself a luddite, since I am, at this moment, listening to a Pixies Mp3, watching the BBC news and typing into a weblog all simultaneously. However, the fact that I am surrounded by all this great technology got me to thinking about the associated dangers, like the redundancy of human factory workers or, say, nuclear war. We take two steps forward and then three steps back. Pretty soon, the Statue of Liberty will be up to its neck in sand and we'll all be ruled by damn, dirty apes...

Price of Oil: High ....Price of Handguns: Low

click to enlarge Oil is up to 69.47 a barrel. Handguns are easier to get than ever. If things continue on their current path, pretty soon it will be easier to get guns than gas. Oh, and since our current leader is a proponent of concealed handguns, no one will even know you have one. Which will make it easier to car jack people the next time you need a ride.

On Rejection

Click to enlarge Today's panel is about rejection. In my head, this comic was supposed to take place in a school, but I realize now that I completely forgot to draw the setting. In any case, I suppose it doesn't really matter; everyone, everywhere has felt rejected at one point or another, regardless of setting. Few things hurt more than rejection. Isolation is a powerful force that can leave you miserable and desperate and possibly heading for your grandfather's shotgun collection. However, no matter how socially alienated individuals become, they can never truly be broken until they suffer that identity crisis that leaves them alienated from themselves. Except Amanda, of course. She's just totally screwed.