Last week my agent sent out the Where am I wearing? book proposal to a number of editors, one of whom happened to work as Eric Clapton’s editor, which, you know, is super cool. I may be a bit premature in imagining sipping a drink at the publishing house’s cocktail party talking with EC, but I can’t help it…
Me: That Layla is some song.
EC: Thanks.
Me: We named one of our dogs Layla. She liked to roll in poop and sometimes she did that crazy dog thing where she would drag her butt across the ground. In fact, sometimes she drug her butt on our concrete block.
EC: …
But seriously, I’m realistically maintaining my level of hope. I’m cautiously pessimistic. This has served me well…
When I was kid she was much shapelier. Now, she’s as flat as a pancake.
There are only two reasons why they could have disappeared (none of which is that she is old and gravity plays on such things – because Mrs. Butterworth is ageless):
1) Economics - Pinnacle Food Company, which produces Mrs. Butterworth, decided that they could make a greater profit if they flattened her out, thus robbing consumers of two D-cups of her sweet nectar.
2) Prudishness - After decades of children and adult alike fondling the syrup maven, our culture cannot handle inanimate objects with anatomy.
Banished by corporate greed or by our ultra-conservative culture, Mrs. Butterworth’s boobs are gone.
Patagonia is an outdoor clothing company that has stuck to its guns over the years. Their quality is at a premium and so is their price. The stuff just ain’t cheap. They understand that producing goods impacts our world and they try their best to lower that impact and to educate their customers how they can lower their own. They don’t shy away from telling people where their goods are sourced, in fact, they have a map showing the global journey a few of their products take before they end up in our closet….
…an undercover Observer investigation in the back streets of New Delhi, reveal a tragic consequence of the West’s demand for cheap clothing. It exposes how, despite Gap’s rigorous social audit systems launched in 2004 to weed out child labour in its production processes, the system is being abused by unscrupulous subcontractors. The result is that children, in this case working in conditions close to slavery, appear to still be making some of its clothes.
Oh, that’s why the factories hated to see me coming. Now I get it. I thought that maybe I had bad breath, something in my teeth, or some other hygiene related issues. Here it turns out that journalists are bad news for factories that employ child labor.
I raided my photo archive from the WAIW? trip and set it to Gary Jules’ Mad World and U2’s Yahweh. Unfortunately, I couldn’t get either one of them to play for me so I had to do it myself. Don’t worry, I don’t sing. This is more of a beginner guitar player’s shot at spoken word.
In 2003 I spent the night alone in Castle Dracula and it has kind of become a blogging tradition that each Halloween I share the experience. You can READ THE STORY YOURSELF or…I’LL READ IT TO YOU. (Warning: I perform my own music and sound effects!)
Geoff Hassing also did a cartoon to accompany the story:
Welcome to the USA, where, according to this bit of propaganda commissioned by the State Department and produced by Disney, everybody smiles. But really, what’s wrong with that?
The main issue tends to be that Horseshoe Falls of Niagara Falls, which appears for about a second, is pictured and it belongs to Canada. The shot is from the Canadian side overlooking the falls with the USA in the background. The only thing more ridiculous than owning a waterfall is owning half a waterfall.
Yes, the particular half pictured is owned by Canada, but seeing how this is Tourist propaganda and Niagara Falls is a popular destination for…
I took a similar trip aboard the “Ostrich,” a paddle boat when I was in Bangladesh. I’ve yet to write much about it, which is a reminder that I’ve got loads of material that deserves my attention. Anyhow, what most surprised me in the introduction of the feature was this passage:
The risk of attack from pirates is slight, but it is real.
I had no idea there were pirate attacks. I’m not questioning the BBC reports on this (although, I do question their…
Everybody needs cartoons in their life. Geoff Hassing the cartoonist who drew my Where am I wearing? shirt has joined the blogosphere and I’m pretty excited about it. Geoff’s work is hilarious. He’s always exploring new characters and ideas and I expect he’ll feature quite a few of them on his new blog.
For a good Geoff sampler check out his Film @ Eleven series….
