Tickle me emo

Within the past week, I found out that I had inadvertently hurt the feelings of a couple of very dear friends. I’m happy to report those fences have been mended; otherwise, I’d still be in the pasture swinging a hammer rather than putzing around Blogger. But while I was still in damage control mode, I searched for a cute little animated smiley that would allow me to apologize with irresistible charm and cuteness. So I did some trolling through Photobucket using the keyword, “Sorry.”

The search results confirmed what I had long suspected: the Internet has been overrun by intelligent-yet-pretentious, angst-ridden emoteens.

For those who want a full refresher course in this pop culture phenomenon, check Wikipedia’s entry on Emo. Here’s the Reader’s Digest version: think Goth without the cool fashion sense or the good music.

My “Sorry” search started out innocently enough: there was this little message that was merely a little pouty.


Then the angst began to truly flow.


I found several different variations on this little ditty, which stopped me dead (pardon my pun) in my tracks.


The combination of this item’s morbidity and its ubiquity kind of lends it a unintended humor. I mean, the Photobucket search results suggest it’s downright trndy to express your regret through stylishly suicidal art. Yikes!

Well, once I started chuckling at the artistic angst of others, I couldn’t stop.


And I’m sorry I keep forgetting to turn off the hall light. But know that it’s ripping my soul out!



The lyrics are just about incomprehensible, but it’s the photo that’s genius here. The poor gent seems to be saying “How did I let my girlfriend convince me to buy this couch instead of the futon I wanted. My friends are going to think I am totally whipped!”

And then, there was the image that needed no additional commentary.


Indeed.

Conclusions? It’s no longer hard to say you’re sorry – especially if you’re willing to tear out your spleen for the one you love.

Banksy shots

This is going to be one of those copout posts. You've been warned. Sorry, but for someone not doing much, I've had a lot going on.

Nevertheless, this is a value-added entry. I'd like to show you some of the most provocative modern art I've ever seen. It gives me a bit of an idea why Andy Warhol was apparently so important.

The artist's name is Banksy, and those of you who follow pop culture may know him as the artist-prankster who secretly replaced hundreds of Paris Hilton CD's with his own bootlegs, complete with scandalously titilating Photoshopped variations on the original jacket art.

But there's a serious mind buried within this jester. And some incredible talent as well. Here's one of my favorite pieces from his latest exhibition:


For more, follow the link in this post's title.

Remembering

On the morning of Sept. 11, 2001, the first thing I noticed was that WMAY, our principal AM news station, was hosting a live remote from the Mel-O-Cream doughnut shop at the Sixth Street end of our alley. (It’s now a Jimmy John’s.) I grabbed a free doughnut and headed to work. It was about 7:50 a.m. When I got to work, several things happened simultaneously: I heard some sort of accident had happened at the World Trade Center, I got a call from my wife saying a plane had hit one of the Twin Towers, and I noticed I couldn’t reach any of the news Web sites I had bookmarked on my computer.

We didn’t have a TV in the building, but my wife had one in her office, so she fed me regular updates. The second plane hit the WTC at about the same time we were able to set up a radio to hear the news from New York. My wife, who had had a bad feeling with the first plane strike, now was convinced we were under attack.

Of course, it was hard for me to form any opinions, as I couldn’t see what was going on. The Web was still log-jammed from billions of hits from people like me, who were wondering what the hell was going on. Then, I got the call from my wife saying the Pentagon had been hit. That’s when I really started to panic.

But there was no time for panic, as one of my work colleagues who had planned to get married in the county courthouse two blocks away had decided that she was going through with the wedding. I joined the procession of work friends who made the quiet walk to the courthouse. I remember looking out the window of the fifth floor wondering if a county courthouse in a capital city was a viable target. As it turned out, the wedding went off without a hitch. In retrospect, it was a bold statement that life could go on in the midst of such barbarism.

But life would never be the same. And I guess that’s what I carry with me five years later: an anger that 19 fanatics could rob a country of its innocence and joy – a robbery from which I would argue we still haven’t recovered. Nor may we ever. That there has to be a post-9/11 world still fills me with bitterness if I think about it too long. But today is a day for remembering. And despite the bitterness remembrance brings, I owe it to those who died that day to remember.

As do we all.