Hark, a Canadian

They're on my blogroll already, but that just doesn't cut it.  Here is a short list of comic artists who I would open-mouth kiss and/or with whom I would enter into a common-law marriage:

Jess Fink

Katie Beaton

Tara McPherson

Tim Kreider

John Kricfalusi

In truth, I'm only interested in kissing girls, but I don't know if I could turn down Tim Kreider or the illustrious John K. if they asked nicely.  Also, the first two entries on the list are friends, so I can't help but imagine some sort of hazy, bohemian loft-turned-opium den in Uptown Minneapolis where I just sit around all day with two sexy lady artists and blow smoke into sunbeams.  That's the stuff.

Two Facelifts for Sister Jeffrey

As I have become bored recently with this blog, I've decided to, yet again, make a few changes.  I'm trying out a few new names, because I think the Chicago Public Radio pun is getting a little old.  Once I find one I really like, I'll change my URL.  

Content-wise, I'm going to try to shift away from bitching about my endlessly trivial life and focus more on some of my passions:  nuclear explosions, naked girls from the '50's, and pedal steel guitars.  Expect things to get a whole lot more pretentious around here.

Cogitatin'

Welp, I do believe it's time for yet another change in my blog. I've been usin' 'er as sort of a publishing house for whatever funny or interesting shit I find on internets, which I guess is sort of what Mediation does, and that won blog of the year last(?) year. Meanwhile, most of my profile views come from me, checking to see if anyone has visited my profile. I need something new in here. Sure, posting things made by other people to make oneself look cool by association is an honorable and even an important service. Culture is a lonely, individual experience without dispensaries to spread it around and mush it all together. But I want to be the peanut butter, not the knife. I lust to create things that people think are cool enough to send to their friends and to write praising articles about for alternative newspapers and zines and shit. I've been reading a lot of comic blogs lately, and it makes me wish I wasn't such a shitty graphic artist. Blogs are not the place to drop the kind of heavy truth I'm spitting, and the only ones I read are fraught with short entries and brief, though sometimes profound messages. So, I don't know. Maybe expect some sort of drawings soon.

Hannity Fair

I've realized that in order to have a successful (by which I mean, "serviceably popular") blog, I must choose from a very few, unenticing options:

1. I can look for other bloggers who share my interests and sense of humor, join a community, and network until I'm satisfied with my level of internet celebrity (puke).

2. I can post violent, daily rants of a racist/sexist/capitalist/nationalist/Christian/xenophobic nature and just wait until a bunch of angsty high school kids find my blog and try to retaliate with a morass of spelling and grammar errors.

3. I can become famous like Diablo Cody, write entries about what I did today, and then watch as thirty five to fifty MySpace users ejaculate in the direction of even my boringest drivel.

These options all sound like more trouble than they're worth, so I guess I'll remain in the same rut as a few dozen million of my fellow Americans: writing in a glorified, involuntarily private digital journal, waxing poetic to myself about our wonderful black president. One thing I believe the User-Generated Content Generation has yet to face is that, despite our newfound access to information and our sudden ability to network with almost anyone on the planet, most of us are just putting ourselves out there for the world to ignore. Our culture is no more intimate today than it was 25 years ago; at least not on a social level. It is, however, filled with infinitely more misspelled racial epithets, pseudo-intellectualism, and videos of fat people falling down.

Where's the Poop?

It's been a long time, but I don't know where else to turn. While this was meant primarily to be a video blog, I refuse to further update my old blog, which, while occupying a very cached-away place of love in my soul has proven too embarrassing and misunderstandishable for further use.

I only write now because I have realized that to write is a commitment tantamount to that which one must give a child or a lover, and although I don't actually know what I'm talking about, it must be that this is true because someone else's blog says so. I expect that what I have to say will rarely be of any consequence or relevance to anyone but myself, but perhaps time and a yet-unexposed group of similarly world-weary, pretentious young bastards will prove me wrong.

Now then; today I'd like to talk about Mickey Dee's, and more specifically about the meat of the matter. WacArnold's has launched a campaign, emblazoned on the sandwich boxes grabbed at by our corpulent children, bragging that their burgers are made with 100% Pure Beef. Rather than taking a more reassuring "This is what isn't in our food" route with a title like "FDA Allowable 2% Animal Feces," the Golden Arches has called into question the content of all of the Quarter Pounders, Double Quarter Pounder with Cheeses, and Big 'n Tasties made and served before these ads were printed. Am I supposed to assume that my suspicions have always been correct; that the hamburgers of my childhood were not only assembled and served with beef and a smile, but also with a dash of medical waste?

Maybe I'm being unrealistic. Maybe it's just that, before this campaign, McDreamy's put the meat from other animals into their sandwiches. That wouldn't be so bad, would it? Christ knows we've all had hotdogs that probably had a few bits of pigeon or saltwater iguana in them, and the worst that ever came of that was violent, effervescent diarrhea, right?

I know, I know. I'm being very hard on America's most popular eatery. I apologize. After all, they're just saying what they are. Certainly that must be better than the wily pitches of snakeoil salesmen Billy Mays and Ron Popeil. But something about McDuck's' sudden decision to advertise the contents of their meat smacks of the same kind of false sincerity observable in the "About Me" sections of countless MySpace rapists and in the smile of Ronald Reagan. Haven't Ray Kroc and company had something like fifty years to make their burgers with 100% Pure Beef, or at least to say so? Why now? Is it because of that ambiguously motivated but brilliantly cast Richard Linklater film? I want answers, McDonald's Chairman Andrew J. McKenna, Sr.

God DAMN You Are One Suave FUCKER

This is my first ever video blog post. Enjoy.


Sincerely,
Jeffrey Beaumont