Tag Archives: fashion

Absolute Zero Socks

cold naked tree
cold naked tree

As I exited the house this morning I noticed the temperature was +25. Above absolute zero. As the only parts of my body not covered in layers of clothing were my eyes, I couldn’t help but think this must be what it’s like to wear a niqab or barqa, just without the subjugation and humiliation. And I can wear bright colors. But mother nature was humiliating me by making me dress this way. And making me wear those cruel boots again, thus creating a conflict between the sock, foot and boot the likes of which resemble Middle East conflicts, just with less chance of a resolution. Largely because NONE OF YOU has come up with the requested sock Viagra I demanded that seems to have struck a chord with many of your readers. (Can 6 really qualify as many, especially when one of them is my mom?)

Just before I climbed on to the train to go work this morning, I noticed several things. Not moving when it’s sub-arctic weather is silly. So is being outside in -18C. I also noticed that as the slovenly, unkempt, disheveled, sleepy kids were getting off the train to go to the private school, one of the teenagers was just too well turned out, too well coiffed, too prim and proper. I bet he gets beaten up in gym. Survival of the fittest, kind of like surviving this week’s impending arctic explosion barreling across my corrupt city.

Where was I? Oh right, in the bathroom then in the kitchen. Yes, I washed my hands, I wasn’t handling raw chicken in the bathroom, nor the kitchen this morning. Relax, people, I am sanitary of body, if not of mind or soul.

But I digress again.

My long underwear-clad legs took me to work this morning with music blaring away, trying to distract me from the sinking, evil, bunching socks, but not the cold. My mind wandered to the topic of work where a number of my colleagues and friends are on their way to Las Vegas for a big sales event, where the weather is several hundred degrees warmer than here, and I couldn’t help but secretly wish somewhere in a primordial part of my brain, or in one of my shrunken frontal lobes that wouldn’t it be great if one of my colleagues on his or her way to the airport to spend three days partying it up and eating buffet food were to be abducted by, I don’t know, a rogue band of disenchanted and under-caffeinated fashionistas or Communist rebels. And then forced into hard labor sewing knock-off wallets. Then I would get the last minute call to appear in Vegas, gleefully free of long underwear, seven layers of clothing and potential frostbite.

Now, I know you’re saying, “how could you possibly say that you’d wish such misfortune on someone else?” First of all, I wouldn’t say it, I would think it. And secondly, if I were to say it, it would be most likely be quietly, in an elevator, so that no more than four or five people would hear me. Besides, wishing others ill while morally reprehensible, is a healthy thing. It’s a vent, and outlet, a blow-off valve, giving the brain and emotions time to breathe deeply and calm down. And time to read the floor plans of my enemies’ homes and so I can direct the rebels using Google Maps and maybe find a good croissant and coffee close by.

What does this all have to do with anything? My socks are irritating me and I need a nap.

The right (and left) honorable Judge Drunker

 

 

Genuine Labor

Genuine LaborDearest comrades, brothers and sisters, and fellow fans of this timeless online objet d’art that has a shaky grip on reality much like its creator,

I just downed a meal that involved grilled meats, fresh corn from the field and other such treats and as a result, the digestive functions have kicked in and rob me as I type this of the blood and oxygen needed to form a coherent thought.  I am  slowly fading toward unconsciousness on the First Monday of September, a.k.a. Labor Day (in North America), the day we cherish what labor is, how hard we labor at our work and most importantly — why we are wildly happy to have another day away from the office, where they have easily taken 16 or 17 pounds of my flesh. Not sure what that would be in metric.

The idea for this comic has a long a tortuous past if you go through my emails where I write down and store most of my ideas. Safe to say, it was simpler to draw than to write it. But I have to give credit where it is due. My sister-in-law’s sharp wit  inspired the final frame, but I liberally stole her idea and made it my own. If this comic ever makes me any money, she’ll sue me for it. As will my best friend and much of my family. Mostly for sport more than for any substantial reason.

So now that I have published this latest installment of the comic that is often cited by critics as “foul literature”, an “artistic blight”, and by the medical establishment  “as a clear sign of mental degeneration and likely a genetic defect masquerading as a sense of humor”, I shall retire to the bedroom, rummage through my car magazines and dream the dream of the just, with images of me at the wheel of a fiery sport cars, towing along a trunk full of butter-rich croissants and maybe a dozen fresh bagels.

Keep the faith, and please keep over-eating so I’ll look a little thinner next to you.

-Johannes the Druker