Sock It To Me: Filling In the Blanks

I enjoy cartoons. This is why I always make sure to compose an entry for the New Yorker's weekly cartoon caption contest. For example, here's what I've come up with for this week's installment:
I don't actually send them in, and even though this one would almost certainly win, the sense of self-satisfaction I get from the act of composition is ample reward. I may be many things, but I'm no sandbagger.

In any case, given the nature of my hobby, you can imagine how pleased I was to find my blog referenced in a recent "Yehuda Moon & The Kickstand Cyclery" cartoon:

Of course, the best part of receiving an Internet mention is the barrage of negative comments that inevitably ensue, and in this respect the Yehuda mention did not disappoint. While an Internet "nube" might cringe, as a seasoned blog "curator" I know that there's no surer sign of online success than a bunch of commenters talking about how much you suck. However, that doesn't mean I'm not open to some constructive criticism. For example, one commenter was apparently dismayed by my foul language:

Widsith

My problem with his blog is the language he often uses. I can see only so many examples of foul language before my distaste for it overwhelms any pleasure I might otherwise take in whatever I'm reading. Recently I read an interview with him about the book he wrote, and even in the interview he couldn't keep his language clean, which just reminded me of why I don't read his blog.

Yesterday, 11:40:27

Frankly, this comment inspired me. Unfortunately, instead of inspiring me to clean up my act, it instead inspired me to find the filthiest reference I could, and while I didn't have all day I think I did pretty well under the circumstances. Here's what I came up with:

I'm sure commenter "Widsith" will be disgusted with me instead of with the staggering 164 people who gave the "Hot Karl" act a "thumbs up" on Urban Dictionary, which as far as I'm concerned exemplifies much of what's wrong with our society.

Also, I don't know where "Widsith" has been, but the Yehuda Moon cartoon can get pretty "blue" too. Just click to enlarge:

Even I couldn't bring myself to reproduce that last panel. Frankly, the cartoonist should be ashamed of himself.

My other favorite kind of negative comment is when someone tells a rambling story about how "over" my blog they are:

SDMSS

Bike Snob NYC sits in my RSS reader. I used to let 2 or 3 collect before trying to slog through them. Then 5 or 6... 12 or 13...

Eventually the tally would go up to 25 or so before I would mark them as read without bothering to read them. I just checked, my Bike Snob feed unreads are are now at 14. Time to remove that feed.

Yesterday, 16:01:01

That was a truly "epic" story of RSS feed "curation"--sort of like listening to an elderly person describe cleaning out the fridge. "First I took out the cottage cheese. Then I checked the expiration date. It had expired six months ago. So I threw it in the trash. Next I opened up the crisper. Uh-oh, celery was wilted. Threw that in the trash. After that I moved on to the egg tray..."

Clearly SDMSS leads a wildly exciting life.

Speaking of thrilling stories, I was visiting Urban Velo recently, where I learned that a new "poetic murder mystery" called "Verse" has dropped, and it's all about a "young bike messenger poet" who discovers a lost manuscript. Needless to say, I eagerly checked out the first episode, which I highly recommend you do not do, since the nearly 10 minutes it will take would be much better spent cleaning out your fridge or deleting your unread RSS feed subscriptions:



Instead, I'm more than happy to do your dirty work for you by summarizing it, which is just the sort of selfless act the people who read Yehuda Moon fail to appreciate. (I like to think of it as taking a "Hot Karl" for the team.) Anyway, first we meet our protagonist, a hopelessly out-of-style bike messenger on a mountain bike of all things who nevertheless executes a nearly flawless salmon-to-schluff transition:

Next, he goes upstairs to drop off his package, where he finds the recipient not only completely bald but also thoroughly dead:

(Filmmaker may have tipped his hand too soon, that mole looks highly suspicious and possibly cancerous.)

This he takes as an opportunity to engage in what people in the entertainment industry often refer to as "acting:"

(Method acting: "When I get freaked out my scalp itches.")

After which he calls 911 and actually says, "Yes, hi, 911?," as though he's calling a friend's house, or like he's tried to call 911 in the past and been told, "No, sorry, wrong number--this is 912."

Then, he examines the package, which has suddenly become...mysterious:

So mysterious that it compels him to ride around and "act" more:

(Method acting: "I purse my lips tightly and look askance when I contemplate recent events.")

At this point, our protagonist is faced with a moral dilemma: Does he violate bike messenger ethics and open the mysterous package? Or does he simply turn it over to the authorities, forget about it, and finish eating his panini?

The answer is an emphatic "both." (Waste panini not, want panini not.) By the way, by this time I noticed the cloyingly folksy Lilith Fair music in the background was describing what was happening--"Open it, open it now," the singer warbled--and from that moment forward as hard as I tried I could not tune it out.

Anyway, it turns out that the envelope contains a manuscript, and once home our protagonist retires to the comfort of his shoe pile in order to read it with his lips moving:

(La-Z-Boys are "out;" shoe piles are "in.")

Realizing that he's on to something, he puts on his best shirt and executes a suicidally salmon-tastic left turn off of 4th Avenue and directly into oncoming traffic on the way to the Strand bookstore:

Where he meets his love interest:

Cunningly, he fools her with the old "I'm going to have you look up something on the computer while I ogle your cleavage" technique:

This is a tried-and-true bookstore staple almost as common the old " 'Hot Karl' in the travel book aisle" approach--which is why you should always avoid the travel book aisle at the Strand, no matter how badly you think you need a used "Lonely Planet" travel guide containing hopelessly outdated information about Katmandu.

Soon they get to talking, during which she explains to him that she's working on an MFA in poetry at Columbia University, which means that once the Strand fires her for flirting with the customers she will remain unemployed for the rest of her days:

Having secured himself a date, he consults a popular search engine for some vital information:

Which prompts him to send an email to Old Man Exposition, who reads that email out loud to us from the comfort of his own shoe pile:

Then he meets his love interest's lecherous professor, played by an actor who wakes up every morning cursing the fates because Paul Giamatti "made it" and he didn't:

The professor then recites for our protagonist a poem about "shants," which he acts like he's listening to with profound interest:

Here the first episode ends, but rest assured it will be continued:

At which point we will presumably learn whether or not our protagonist actually manages to get "laid," as well as whether or not the mole killed the bald man, or if we're just leaping to conclusions because the mole has hair growing out of it and our society always assumes the guy with the beard is the villain.

Maybe the killer was Colonel Mustard, in the travel book aisle, with the tube sock.