Radio Free Babylon

The Mayans Nonsense Made Simple

2012-01-02T11:24:00.000-05:00

This is a very nice explanation that lays bare the stupidity of the "world will end in 2012" crowd.

Saturated Street Scenes - Hershey, Pennsylvania

2011-12-21T12:36:00.000-05:00

Behind the Scenes of a Clip Art Comic Strip

2011-12-16T10:03:00.006-05:00

The process is a two-person operation. I, Dave, pick a topic and have Jesus and either Ann, Lisa, Carl, Kevin or Satan, talk about it. Then I hit Katie on a chat window and ask her to come and approve it. (She works in the back of the building, looking out over the canal, while my stand-up desk in the front has a street view. We stopped working in the same area a few months back as being on the phone in the same room can be very distracting.) It's about 50/50 as to which comics get approved. If she laughs out loud, up they go. If she makes a face that says, "Hmmmm, I don't know," then they get refined. If she walks away in disgust, I pursue her, asking indignantly, "WHAT?" That's pretty much how it works here in the comic studios of RFB.

Now I know that putting words in the mouth of Jesus, even a clip art Jesus, will give some devout people pause, and there was a time in my life when I might've found the notion a touch on the sacrilegious side, but only a touch, and only for a very brief period in my life when I thought I had a good handle on what was "godly" and what was not. (People who are super-sure of their righteousness are anything but righteous, I've come to believe. Spiritual pride is the most deceptive of all the prides.) But there are some people who find a clip art Jesus saying anything other than the words he spoke in the New Testament to be an affront that they must correct. One email that took me to task for "using the Lord's name in vain" (with a long and twisted explanation of what "vanity" really is) signed off with a line that suggested that the writer had done his duty to God by letting me know where I was in error.

The negative comments on the comics are far outweighed by the positive ones, but the sincerity, passion - and in some cases, vitriol - of the negative ones makes me think I might have really pissed some people off. The comic is called "Coffee with Jesus," not "Thus Saith the Lord," and I think most people understand that they are only comics, though occasionally they might be teaching tools, perhaps even a small soapbox. There is truth in all humor, or so the saying goes.

Without the Internet this comic would've never caught on, of course. The potential to reach millions is there, and that's really cool. Another beauty (or curse) of the Internet is that we can all fire off our opinions quickly and easily about everything. Don't like it? Let the person know! Right now! While your passion is hot! Bang that keyboard and give them a piece of your mind! It's a two-way street. If you had to write me a letter, in longhand, and put it in an envelope, then spend money on a stamp and put it in the mailbox, I'd never hear from you. But now...so easy. Another curse (or beauty) of the Internet is that you can do a "who is" search on a domain name and find out who registered it, what their phone number is and where they live. So I just rented a post office box and changed the contact info on all our websites. The email and phone number are still there, and that's fine, but I will rest easier knowing my family won't ever get to meet a person so stirred to anger by a clip art Jesus that they felt the need to confront the author. (I considered purchasing privacy protection for all our websites, but at ten bucks a pop and a growing list of domain names, the post office box was cheaper.)

People are passionate about their gods, some to a scary degree. I have a hard time not responding to the angry people on Facebook, and Katie says "Let the community police itself." She's right. If I let the negative comments sit there and not jump on to debate them, other readers will quickly take control. It's cool to know that people are getting it. One gentleman from North Carolina got in touch and offered to try to get the comic distributed in some independent weekly papers; you know the kind - left of center and a bit edgy - usually free. We took him up on his offer after speaking with him by phone. We'll see what happens. Meanwhile, as I type this, I can hear the server that hosts our main site restarting itself every ten minutes, which I assume is due to increased traffic arriving there from Facebook.

You know how giant ministries (we won't name names) are really mega-money-making corporations disguised as ministries, jealously coveting that tax exempt status? Radio Free Babylon has always taken the opposite approach. We intend to someday be a mega-money-making ministry disguised as a corporation, gladly handing over to Caesar the things that are Caesar's.

Broadcasts Removed

2011-11-07T11:15:00.000-05:00

All of the old Radio Free Babylon broadcasts have been scrubbed from the site. Dated, antiquated, sedated and overrated, we felt it time to rid the Internet of this dross. Some people were kinder in their reviews of our old show:

I'm searching for a way to protect my family in the wake of the ensuing anarchy when this hits the airwaves. If you were to shop this around, you wouldn't have any problems getting it on the air.

-Josh, Michigan

We have aspirations of creating a much more engaging and enraging format from which to spout our nonsense that will involve a cavernous studio, six cameras, make-up and wardrobe experts, unappreciated and overworked interns, catering people and the clashing egos associated with such an operation.

Someday I Will Beat Comic Jesus and His Coffee Gang

2011-11-04T08:38:00.000-05:00

The Unappreciated Stepchild of Coffee with Jesus

The disgruntled creator of "Saturated Street Scenes" is jealous of the success of "Coffee with Jesus."

It's not laugh out loud funny, but I'm sure it's actually much harder to create the Saturated Street Scenes that are featured at Radio Free Babylon than it is to make Carl, Lisa, Ann and Kevin have a four-panel discussion with Jesus. That stuff is child's play. I'm making art. I travel the world for the perfect image while the jokesters sit in their studio and get all the glory. I will take you through the grueling process.

Sometimes I start by simply dropping that little, yellow Google maps man onto a roadside and seeing if there's anything interesting to look at. It never happens on the first drop. If I find that I've landed in an area that was photographed in the early days of Google Street Views, back when the cameras were crappy and every part of the world looks like a grainy, hazy horrible day, then I back out and find someplace new, someplace where the Google Car was fitted with that nice high-def camera that makes you feel like you're there. Still, I end up dragging that man up and down the streets, turning and looking, hoping to see something interesting. Sometimes the name of a place will grab me and I say, "I wonder what's there." I was looking for a Vermont scene one Sunday when I saw a place in Quebec called "Magog." Up and down the streets of Magog I traveled on what appeared to be a beautiful weekend where flower baskets hung from the lampposts and window shoppers walked the sidewalks, beer gardens were filled with happy patrons and all the world was a sunny day. Nothing stood out, so I took a side street and found the part of town that didn't cater to tourists. Sitting on the steps of a beat down old corner store were two girls and what appeared to be their father and perhaps a grandmother. They stared at the Google Car in the late afternoon of summer, frozen in time.

What I'm looking for is human interest, usually, slice of life with a twist, maybe the unexpected or simply the pastoral. Sometimes it's accidentally perfect, such as the shot I found in Queenstown, South Africa, where a uniformed school girl walks down a dirt road past decrepit houses on a sunny day, her head shielded from the glare by a colorful umbrella.

Framing the shot is always a challenge as the Google Street Cam usually has fuzzy areas that are way out of focus, or telephone lines mar the perfect scene. I abandoned a beautiful scene in the deep interior of Mexico that I labored over for an hour at least. It featured a bricklayer working on a building as two boys ducked into a neighboring tortilleria, but the distracting crisscrossing telephone lines were unable to be Photoshopped out or cropped away. In the Queenstown shot, the telephone lines work well to frame the scene, but "Tortilleria" had to be scrapped.

Once it's framed, cropped and properly saturated - I want surreal and dreamlike - then it's time to decide if it needs an added feature. Sometimes it's perfect, as in "Schoolgirl," other times the addition of Major Mike Adams is in order, perhaps an entirely different sky, or the stealth bomber in this latest shot from Dublin, Ireland at a place called Glasnevin Cemetery. In this instance, I had a title in mind before ever finding the shot, and I scoured London, Cardiff, Edinburgh and other cities looking for an old cemetery with people in it in order to create an image called "The Living and The Dead." (Click it for the large)

These aren't mildly funny, base, crude or sarcastic. It's funny how these scenes are bypassed on our Facebook page as people flock to the silly clip art comics, giving them the coveted thumbs-up "Like" that passes for praise these days. "Saturated Street Scenes" are intended as art, to be studied, inspected and eventually shown in a Manhattan gallery, the opening of which I will attend, wearing a scarf and a loosely fitting but still devilishly stylish black suit, sipping a mineral water with lime. The Ladies and Gentlemen of the Art World will talk to me in those Manhattan accents and they will ask me questions and we will talk about inspiration and motivation, meaning and philosophy and what can we do to help the Third World from here in Manhattan. Then they will purchase one of the prints, or buy the expensive coffee table book bound in leather and trimmed in gold. We will laugh at the silly "Coffee with Jesus" comics, of course, and admit that "they have their place," but we will know where the real art is. Those comics, we will agree, were a passing fad, while I - they will tell me - I have created lasting beauty. Then my agent will whisper to me, "Your dinner guests are waiting in the private dining room at The St. Regis."

At dinner, I hope to meet a very powerful attorney who will offer to represent me against the giant and evil Google, the faceless beast that let me have these images for free now trying to sue me for using its copyrighted imagery to make personal profit.

We Give Up on the Coffee With Jesus Updates

2011-11-02T20:15:00.005-05:00

There's no sense anymore trying to keep this blog updated with the latest "Coffee With Jesus" comics coming down the pike. We're up to 150 at this point and the last one we put up here was #121. If you want them, you know where they are. Here and here.

It's sort of looking like, at least for this comic series anyway, that "the web" is actually Facebook. We'll watch as one particular episode in the series gains traction and then falls off the radar. Then it comes back again, gaining a new audience among a different group of people. Facebook, as it turns out, is not so much a community, but a whole bunch of little communities, criss-crossing, intersecting and diverging. ("Like a million little crossroads...") And the people drawn to "Coffee With Jesus" continue to amaze us in their diversity. We've got church goers and church haters, Christians and Atheists, people who like Bill Maher and people who like Sarah Palin, and every brand of Christian that ever dared kneel before a cross. One particular rabbi from San Francisco we are honored to call a fan, along with soldiers, seminarians, pastors, theologians, pilots, artists, musicians, advertisers, college kids, housewives, old men and women, and many others who've found that this thing resonates for them in some way. (Or at least one within the series did anyway. You can't please everyone all the time.) But really, nothing could be cooler. We've been called "blasphemous" and "insulting," among other things, while others say we are "nailing it." We would honestly have it no other way. This is exactly the audience we have always hoped for in the eleven years since RFB was formed.

It looks like this blog might now become a place to just talk about what's happening at RFB rather than one more repository for the stuff we create. There are at least two of those already. Why be doubly-redundant?

Wow - that's a relief.

Trick or Treat

2011-10-31T09:25:00.000-05:00

Herman Cain's New Ad: Smokin'

2011-10-26T07:00:00.000-05:00

Herman Cain's 9-9-9 tax plan, which vaulted him to the lead of the pack of 87 Republican hopefuls, was a nice soundbite at first, but has since been quickly gutted by all the other candidates, not to mention the pundits as well as the poor people who can't afford 9% of nothing. But Cain has taken that early jump in popularity to produce the strangest, perhaps coolest ad a presidential hopeful has made in years. It's nearly avant garde, it's so different.

There are no gloriously billowing flags. Cain is not featured with his sleeves rolled up, engaging in tough talk with farmers and laborers or happily mingling with families and babies. The Statue of Liberty is absent, along with the stirring narrative of one man's rise from nothing to a powerful and rich man.

All we get is Cain's Chief of Staff, Mark Block, looking haggard and road-weary, talking to us head-on in a nearly too close close-up in front of a city building. And then! AND THEN he takes a drag from his smoke and exhales. It is the last thing you'd ever expect to see and yet it is perfection. It might even be a subtle dig at the rumors that Obama has never really kicked his nicotine habit.

And they finish the ad with, as expected, an image of Cain himself, and yet it is not at all what you'd expect in the end-of-spot image of the candidate. The background appears to be simple, vertical window blinds, and a slow, nearly eerie smile creeps across Cain's face.

I think Cain's people have just changed the game of political advertising. Shepherd Fairey was a game-changer with his "Hope" poster, but this thing is nearly an indie film. I expect to see some unexpected people taking a fresh look at Cain after this.

Crossposted to Where's My Jetpack?

And Still More (117-121)

2011-10-18T13:55:00.000-05:00

Dreams

Coexist

Coexist II

Brah

Bieber Cut

Comic Dump (112-116)

2011-10-18T13:52:00.000-05:00

Chicken or the Egg?

Distance Yourself

Middle Aged

Boost Their Spirits

Paradise

Not Sure Why I Bother

2011-10-18T13:17:00.000-05:00

Blogs are so 2008. I guess I'm just super OCD about keeping this thing updated with the latest comics. And I've missed a ton of them in the past two weeks.

Cool New Logos

Aliens

Awfully Chipper

Carl 2.0

Japanese Elvis

A few more on the way. Blogger only lets you upload five at a time.

104, 105, 106

2011-10-07T09:30:00.000-05:00

Madonna

British Accent

Gonna Be Sick

101, 102, 103 + We Blew up on Facebook

2011-10-06T09:53:00.000-05:00

"Dutch Country"

"Crazy at Work"

"Crimson Tide"

Someone shared one of these on Facebook, and before I knew it, we went from 100 "Likes" on Monday to nearly 300 at present. But like most things viral (and this is very small growth as far as true viral goes) it will all be over by next Monday after the backlash hits. Already we're seeing theological debates and criticisms breaking out over these innocent little drawings.

Fatwa, anyone?

Why Do We Celebrate Century Markers?

2011-10-04T21:03:00.000-05:00

I don't know - I guess it just seems like a big number. This is the 100th "Coffee with Jesus," called "Delusional Charlatan."

Standard Earbuds vs Bose

2011-10-04T13:19:00.004-05:00

Ladies' Fellowship Potluck

2011-10-04T12:24:00.002-05:00

This is #98.

96 and 97

2011-10-04T09:25:00.002-05:00

In this latest pair, the guys want to see a tougher Jesus.

Reincarnation

2011-10-03T07:47:00.000-05:00

Jesus Don't Play That

2011-09-30T15:30:00.002-05:00

Where's The Love? (Numero Noventa y Tres)

2011-09-30T14:25:00.000-05:00

Just seven more of these and I hit 100. Not that that's a particularly large number, but it seems like the perfect amount to include in an expensive coffee table type book, where every other page features a large comic and the facing page is covered in rambling copy written by the author, wherein I bore the reader to tears with an explanation of what I was thinking and why I chose certain topics, thus ruining the jokes. To further entice the buyer, I will tell them they are going to hell if they don't buy a copy.

Autumn Up Here

2011-09-30T07:23:00.000-05:00

"Fall Festival" is Coffee with Jesus #91

2011-09-29T08:37:00.001-05:00

I find it curious how when Christians don't like something because they think it's evil, they co-opt it. From the tavern drinking songs of old that were turned into hymns, to Christian heavy-metal and Halloween, if it's bad, make it good by calling it Christian. I expect to see a burgeoning Christian porn industry in a few years.

Coffee with Jesus #90 - "Layers"

2011-09-26T08:11:00.000-05:00

Comic Dump: #88, #89

2011-09-23T05:38:00.000-05:00

Satan and Jesus going at it. Jesus always wins these.

Hear that tinny sound? That's me phoning this blog in of late. Busy.

Coffee with Jesus Numbers 85, 86 and 87

2011-09-22T10:41:00.003-05:00

Falling behind in keeping this blog updated with comics. My real job is picking up, making my goof-off time more urgent.

Coffee with Jesus #84 - "Stepdad"

2011-09-09T11:33:00.000-05:00

I've always kinda wondered about Joseph. What would that have been like?

Coffe with Jesus #83 - "WWF"

2011-09-07T10:55:00.000-05:00

Ann's family has an enviously small carbon footprint.

Conspiracy!

2011-09-07T10:30:00.000-05:00

Print this and stick it on a telephone pole.

Everyone Has a Role

2011-09-06T14:45:00.001-05:00

In "Coffee With Jesus" #82, Lisa wants to know her part since all the world's a stage.

No Favorites

2011-09-06T10:22:00.002-05:00

Coffee with Jesus #80 - Contagious Joy

2011-09-03T09:16:00.000-05:00

If you haven't seen the NASCAR prayer that this strip references, you should for context.

Guys From High School

2011-09-03T08:24:00.002-05:00

Coffee With Jesus #78 - "Swimmer's Body"

2011-09-02T08:32:00.003-05:00

I was talking to my Mom and Dad on the phone the other night. My mother is not a fan of these strips. She said, "I don't get them." My father said, "You've got some really good ones in there, but some of them are disjointed." I said, "You've never understood me! What do I have to do to earn your respect? Why can't you love me for who I am?" Not really. I said, "You're both a couple of idiots. Are you sure I wasn't adopted?" Not really. I actually just said, "Yeah."

Coffee With Jesus - War on Drugs II

2011-08-31T12:40:00.002-05:00

War on Drugs

2011-08-31T08:08:00.000-05:00

Coffee with Jesus #75 - The Devil's Game

2011-08-30T11:15:00.000-05:00

Satan wants Jesus to rebrand. They say there is truth in all humor, but this one is so true I'm not even sure there is a chuckle in it.

Coffee with Jesus #74: Identity Theft

2011-08-30T09:20:00.000-05:00

Lisa is a forward thinker.

Hurricane Irene - Brought to you by Budweiser

2011-08-29T08:15:00.000-05:00

Click.

Too Early for an Earthquake Comic?

2011-08-23T14:36:00.000-05:00

Click.

Saturated Street Scenes - Ireland

2011-08-23T12:47:00.000-05:00

I'll call this one "Generations," found in Dublin. (The corner of First Ave and Seville Pl if you want to go find it.) Click for the extremely large version, print it on canvas, frame it and then send me 1200 €.

The entire Saturated Street Scenes series is here.

Coffee with Jesus #71 - Linked In

2011-08-22T10:22:00.002-05:00

(Click.)

Coffee with Jesus #70 - Great Seats

2011-08-22T07:38:00.000-05:00

Click.

Coffee with Jesus #69 - "Pointless Anxiety"

2011-08-20T08:46:00.000-05:00

Carl's getting ready for the end times.

Step Down

2011-08-18T10:13:00.000-05:00

Listening to Obama and Hillary talking today, I think more people should employ diplomatic language when dealing with sticky situations. (Click.)

Yellow Ribbons

2011-08-18T08:27:00.002-05:00

Go NATO!

2011-08-18T06:16:00.000-05:00

Click.

Coffee with Jesus #67 - What's Wrong, J-Man?

2011-08-16T15:31:00.000-05:00

The rest be here.

Cafe con Jesus, Numero 66: Naked Sports

2011-08-13T18:39:00.001-05:00

Clicking provides maximum viewerness.

Saturated Street Scenes - Cialis Edition

2011-08-11T13:54:00.000-05:00

The trouble with trying to duplicate the Cialis commercials is you need two bathtubs and you have to change the water regularly. Someone is halfway there in this latest Saturated Street Scene from Whalsay, Shetland Islands, Scotland, overlooking the North Sea. The entire series is here.

(Much bigger when clicked.)

Coffee with Jesus: Dang Gays

2011-08-11T11:51:00.000-05:00

Carl has figured out what's wrong with his country.

Coffee with Jesus #64 - Box of Chocolates

2011-08-10T11:57:00.000-05:00

If there are any newcomers to the series, they're all over here.

Coffee with Jesus #63: Standard & Poor

2011-08-09T11:59:00.000-05:00

Click for the bigness.

The entire series is here.

Kick the World's Ass

2011-08-09T08:30:00.002-05:00

Coffee with Jesus: College is College

2011-08-08T14:49:00.000-05:00

Click.

Coffee with Jesus #60: Is Steve Jobs the Antichrist?

2011-08-08T13:57:00.000-05:00

Clickity clackity

Worship the Abs

2011-08-08T09:10:00.000-05:00

Coffee with Jesus #59 - Using All Your Brain

2011-08-05T08:25:00.004-05:00

We tackle the big issues. Click for the grande.

See the 58 that preceded this one here.

In The Shadow of the Golden Arches

2011-08-04T10:44:00.000-05:00

"In the Shadow of The Golden Arches - Nödinge, Sweden" is the latest in the Saturated Street Scenes Series.

Click for the massive.

Christian Dating Sites

2011-08-02T11:43:00.000-05:00

Clicks.

Coffee with Jesus #57

2011-07-29T14:02:00.000-05:00

I can't even pretend to understand the budget battle going on in Washington right now. All I know is that there's a whole lot of talk and not a lot of action. Which reminds me of an Elvis remix.

The 70s - When Laziness Really Got Going

2011-07-29T11:21:00.001-05:00

Our house was built in 1979. Apparently in those days, a "must-have" feature in a house in this neighborhood was an intercom system. This is the last one, out on the patio, that I have yet to remove. All four bedrooms had one that I've pulled from the wall, leaving giant boxy holes. They're not repaired yet, just covered with framed pictures, and I suppose they could make great wall safes someday. The "master unit" of this system was in the kitchen, where you could make all the rooms listen to a radio station if you chose. All the units could speak to each other and answer a caller at the door. Now mind you, the house is not that large, which makes the need to talk to someone in the next room via an intercom seem a little ridiculous.

"Dinner's ready!" the mother of this house in 1979 would intone quietly from the kitchen intercom to her children in the far, far reaches of the 2,200 square foot space, then she'd let the Top 40 station continue playing into their rooms. Dad out at the pool on Saturday would hear the doorbell chime. Then he'd grab a towel and instead of just peeking in the patio door through the living room and into the foyer to see the caller at the door, he'd push the "talk" button on the intercom and say, "Yes? Hello?" After no response, Dad would say into the intercom, "You have to push the talk button to talk, then release it to listen." Then they'd talk over each other a little and finally Dad, frustrated, would go answer the door. It was probably the Jehovah's Witnesses. And late at night when the parents were asleep, younger brother could call his older brother in the next room and whisper, "I know you have marijuana. I'm gonna tell if you don't give me some."

I was looking at this stupid contraption on the patio with detached bemusement, disdaining anyone who ever used it, wondering what sort of idiots ever put it to use more than once, just to see the novelty of it. Then I remembered that I've been guilty of calling my own children to the table by texting "dinner" to their phones. And now I'm thinking I might not remove this one. It's sort of a museum piece to me at this point, a relic from another era, a reminder that as we grow more advanced, finding new ways to make life easier, we sacrifice a little something, usually some human interaction, with each forward step.

Crossposted to Where's My Jetpack?

Closed Doors

2011-07-26T20:24:00.000-05:00

Coffee with Jesus #55: The Final Battle

2011-07-25T13:25:00.001-05:00

(Click it bigger.)

And FYI, I've revived the old blog, Where's My Jetpack?

Unemployment - July, 2011

2011-07-21T10:38:00.003-05:00

(Click for larger.)

Been to Space

2011-07-21T08:32:00.000-05:00

(Click.)

Zodiac

2011-07-17T19:33:00.002-05:00

Coffee with Jesus - #52

2011-07-16T12:43:00.000-05:00

As it says on the home of Coffee with Jesus,

There are some faith groups that will cut off your head if you draw cartoons of their founders and prophets. We like to think that the founder of Christianity might have a sense of humor.

We're ready for syndication. Somebody get on that.

Coffee With Jesus - J-Lo and Marc Anthony

2011-07-16T11:43:00.000-05:00

(Maximize your experience by clicking the image.)

Saturated Street Scene: The Cotswolds

2011-07-08T09:51:00.003-05:00

(Click for the big.)

More specifically, "Cows of The Cotswolds, on B4066, south of King's Stanley, England." And if this was America, the rancher owning these cows would be sued and/or prosecuted for allowing his animals to wander across the road, which could result in potential damage and/or death to cars and/or motorists that hit them. To say nothing of the nasty cow pies left in the road requiring cleanup by a county crew. As well, the cow pies endanger motorists who swerve to avoid them. In America, we would require the rancher build a bridge or a tunnel for these cows so that they might safely graze on the other side of the road behind a secure fence. This way the rancher might not lose his business and entire fortune to an ambulance chasing jackass lawyer.

And isn't it true, Farmer Jones, that you knowingly and willfully allowed your cows to wander into the traffic on road B4066, fully aware that the area your farm is located in is a highly trafficked tourist route for those seeking solace away from the confines of London, that they might just enjoy a little countryside weekend drive - and YOU, Farmer Jones, in your petty covetousness and jealousy of your precious Cotswolds, sought to do these Londoners damage? That YOU, Farmer Jones, maliciously and with extreme prejudice, sought to harm my client - who suffered not only a bruised forearm in the accident, but to this day is cripplingly frightened at the very site of not only cows, but hamburgers, steak and beef in general, to say nothing of milk, cream and butter! and is thus deprived of the simple joys that made his life worth living?

I have no further questions, your honour.

See the rest of the Saturated Street Scenes here.

And "Like" Radio Free Babylon here.

Babylon on Steroids

2011-07-03T17:41:00.000-05:00

I searched the country trying to find a nice image to represent the 4th of July. I looked at fireworks stands and barns with American flags painted on them, but if you've done any trolling on Street Views, you know how hazy and blurry much of the imagery was in the early stages of Google's project. Ultimately I went with the lion from the MGM Grand overlooking the New York New York Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas. Nothing says "America" quite like a faux New York City skyline in the heart of Sin City. The lion was the icing on the cake. The sky I added to make it more ominous. (Click for the big.)

Polishing the Bishop's Limo

2011-07-01T13:07:00.000-05:00

The latest in my series "Saturated Street Scenes." Outside the Anglican Diocese of Toronto on Adelaide ST E, a chauffeur polishes a limo. (Windex, rag and RUSH license plate sold separately.) The full series is here. Click it. Click it good.

A Hot Evening in Mexico

2011-07-01T11:20:00.001-05:00

Empalme, Sonora, México.
Por favor, click for the bigness.

Mucho mas Saturated Street Scene pictures are aqui.

Google +

2011-07-01T10:00:00.000-05:00

(Click.)

Google as a Mirror of World Opinion

2011-06-30T11:51:00.002-05:00

Or simply as a reinforcer of classic stereotypes.

Funny, really. Not one of the search suggestions for my people is positive.

Bikes at the Bahnhof - Zurich, Switzerland

2011-06-29T12:45:00.000-05:00

(Click for the full effect.)

Coffee with Jesus - Unmanned and Undeclared

2011-06-28T11:24:00.000-05:00

(Click.)

Coffee with Jesus No. 48

2011-06-28T09:28:00.000-05:00

(Click.)

Queenstown, South Africa

2011-06-28T09:18:00.001-05:00

Saw this schoolgirl on Google Street Views. The umbrella, the school uniform and her posture, the dignity with which she carries herself to or from school (we'll never know) were in stark contrast to the bleak backdrop of her surroundings. Click it for the very large and also check in on the RFB main site for all the Saturated Street Scenes.

If this collection keeps growing, and it will, I would love to display these images in a gallery. Of course then Google would sue me if any of them sold. Maybe there's a way around that. Probably not.

The Saturated Street Scenes Collection Grows

2011-06-25T16:50:00.001-05:00

Believe it or not, I have to do a lot of "traveling" before I find a shot I want to work with. Here are the latest. Click them for the massive size. The entire series is being housed over here.

Victoria, BC

Palermo, Sicily

Loch Brittle, Isle of Skye

Good Will

2011-06-24T08:30:00.000-05:00

Father of Lies

2011-06-18T11:01:00.000-05:00

(El Clicko)

Image is Everything

2011-06-18T09:55:00.000-05:00

(Le Click)

Coffee with Jesus #44 - It's All Good, Jeez

2011-06-17T08:09:00.000-05:00

(Clickity)

Cupcakes for Jesus

2011-06-16T13:38:00.000-05:00

Bloody Marys, Bloody Battlefield

2011-06-15T15:27:00.001-05:00

With no offense to your Confederate ancestors intended.

First class seats on a morning flight to Washington National Airport apparently require the consumption of Bloody Marys. We did as the natives did and consumed one, not making eye contact with the rabble boarding after us, slogging their sad way to cramped seats in the back like so many arrested political dissidents boarding a train for Siberia, hangdog, depressed, jealous of us. We tried to make eye contact with them, but they kept their eyes down on the carpet in the aisle, like good peasants, or affixed them to some imaginary thing in the back of the plane, anything but our eyes. I never do that when I fly in the back, which is to say, every other time I’ve flown. I look those first-class people in the eye and I think, “You suck. I hate you. You with your fancy Bloody Mary and your big leather seat and your legroom and your luggage coming off the carousel first. You think that’s worth the extra money you had to pay? Idiot! I’ll be back here saving money!” As it turns out, I think first-class travel might actually be worth the extra money, if you’ve got the extra money.

Washington National Airport has been slow to adopt the moniker bestowed on it in 1998 by Bill Clinton; Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport. The airlines still call it National. The exterior sign on the terminal when you taxi to your gate still says National. The flight attendants, those obedient servers of Bloody Marys, still announce that we have landed at Washington National. The only evidence I could find that this was Mr. Reagan’s airport were decals on the automatic glass doors as you leave the building. I suppose in the circles we traveled in that weekend, it is most certainly called Reagan and Reagan only.

Up in Gettysburg we tried to turn our blood into wine. We were joined by Kay's brother, an Army officer stationed in DC, and some other old friends at my sister’s second home, an antebellum masterpiece she bought for its proximity to the ski area. We drank late into the night, recalling Frankfurt and life as Army brats - far too late into the night. The morning was gloomy, with fog and light rain, and it matched the atmosphere of my brain. Kay’s brother, who possesses a hunger for history that will never be sated, gave us a tour of the Battle of Gettysburg that was more than my Cabernet flowing veins could properly appreciate. All I saw was the blood pooling in the rocks of Little Round Top, the bloated bodies roasting in the July sun on that hot day just four score and seven years from the Founding, where men wearing wool, good God, man! – WOOL – in JULY – were charging foolishly across fields to their slaughter – ordered by men who should’ve known better but let it proceed for Pride. The gloom of that March morning conjured well the ghosts of that battle, who told of bugs biting them, of streams running so foul with dead horses and blood that finding a sip of fresh water was all they could think of. They told of the heat, the stench, the miserable rations, the incompetent commanders and the flash of bayonets. It was utter misery. The glory, they said, was imagined in the aftermath. What was glorious in this? they asked? To have repelled an advance here only to let Bobby Lee slip through Fairfield to the South and escape back to the safety of Virginia? We had him! He was beaten! And we let him go for another two years. But it wasn’t just the Union ghosts complaining. The Confederate dead were later exhumed and relocated to the Carolinas. But to be buried even for that short time in Yankee soil meant they were cursed to haunt these serious grounds far from home forever, and they told of hearing the ludicrous orders to assault high ground occupied by the enemy across an open field under heavy artillery fire. Lee, they suggested, was a tiny-footed prima donna, and many of them lost respect for him that day. Oh, dashing, sure, they said. Cut a fine figure in his gray frock and white beard. Noble, maybe so. But so full of Pride that he got us all killed. Loved that damned Traveller more than he did us. You don’t know our names, but you know the name of his goddamned horse.

It would take Grant to whip slippery Lee, but today the men of the country clubs on the Potomac would have Grant removed from the fifty-dollar bill, to be replaced by an actor from California who spoke well and had a genial, grandfatherly way about him. They would do better to remove their nemesis, that dastardly Woodrow Wilson, from the one-hundred-thousand-dollar bill.

The Bloody Marys on the return flight to Orlando were welcome and we shed our jackets as we walked into the warm March air at our airport named for no one, not even Mickey.

Game of Thrones

2011-06-15T08:24:00.001-05:00

(Click.)

Super-Saturated Street Scenes Moves To RFB

2011-06-14T12:45:00.001-05:00

One of my favorite features from the old blog was Super Saturated Street Scenes, wherein I would just drop the little yellow guy from Google Maps down on a street and find something interesting.

Today while doing some research for a boring writing assignment about Cancún, I was wandering the streets of that seaside city on Google Maps and thought I’d take a hop across the water to nearby Isla Mujeres, where I found this gentleman staring down the Google Car crew.

So I decided to bring Super Saturated Street Views here to RFB. It’s a great big world out there, and Google lets us explore it from our computers, bumping up the saturation to imagine it better than it is, cropping to eliminate the periphery and creating our own versions.

In truth, no saturation bumping was necessary in this image. The Caribbean Sea is that blue. Click for the massive version.

Let the Shallow Analyzation Begin

2011-06-14T06:10:00.002-05:00

Politics is Theater and the 2012 race kicked off with all the splashy graphics and empty soundbites you expect from the American political stage. Like every other news site, blog or opinionator out there, we at RFB will offer our take on how the Magnificent Seven performed last night. We'll just take them left to right.

Little Ricky Santorum

Erratic, nervous, but very convinced of his own mission, Rick is an earnest if delusional man who will stay in this race long enough to let his social issue concerns become part of the debate, bowing out early, announcing that he had fulfilled what God sent him to do.

Michelle Bachmann

This lady makes Sarah Palin look like, well - like the runner-up at a sparsely populated state's beauty pageant. Bachmann delivered and I know that inside the Romney camp they're already looking at her as a potential running mate. She delivers the Tea Party that Romney can't. The 23 foster kids line is a winner, but except the press to go out and dig up at least one of those kids who will say something mean about living at the Bachmann house.

Newt Gingrich

It is very hard to like Newt because he says whatever is expedient at the moment, but he brought himself up from dead last to at least the lower middle of the pack last night by realizing he had nothing to lose while speaking in that tough-talk populist way he has learned to fake.

Mitt Romney

If Mattel® manufactured Romney, he would be Senior Ken™. Americans like their politicians handsome, tall and well-spoken, and Mitt fits that mold as if he were plastic. He is the total package, minus the Mormonism, which American's don't like. But you almost forgot he was a Mormon last night.

Ol' Ron Paul

If only Paul had a single ounce of charisma, you could hear the intelligent points he is making, but when he goes of on that senior citizen whiny old man way of his, it's hard to hear him. He's the smartest guy on the stage, but his awkwardness ruins him. Sadly, this is how we judge our leaders, and he'll have no chance when the field narrows.

Tim Pawlenty

If Rick Santorum had a boring twin brother, he would be Tim Pawlenty. Tim means well, you can tell, but he has trouble making his case. Cowering under the questioning about "Obamney" care didn't help him one bit. The establishment like him, but voters won't.

Herman Cain

It's nice to have a business leader who speaks plainly in the race, but the country is not a pizza shop and eventually Cain's folksiness is going to wear thin. He's good at a sound bite, but I think he's used most of his lines at least twice now. Could be a potential running mate for the front runner.

Can any of these people beat Obama in 2012? If the economy keeps tanking, any of them could.

Clever Title That Makes People Click

2011-06-11T08:17:00.009-05:00

Katie and I sat down with a glass of wine and the headset mics on and started talking. I forgot how fun creating these things was. Seems I took a five-year break to blog over at Wheres My Jetpack? Would like to do this more often. Audio production is always fun for me. In this episode of Radio Free Babylon, we talk about things in the news like Anthony's weiner, joblessness, the hopeless 2012 Republican candidates and we also solve the Middle East crisis. Enjoy. Or don't.

I can't guarantee that it will load on your first try as the file is hosted on our kitchen computer, which tends to randomly restart once an hour or so. Katie thought it was dog hair clogging up something, but I already took it out to the garage and blew it out. There was a hell of a lot of dog hair in there, but it didn't fix it. So just try again in a minute if it doesn't work.

Render Unto Caesar

2011-06-09T14:02:00.004-05:00

(Click it. Click it good.)

See the whole collection of "Coffee With Jesus" comics over here.

If a Tree Falls...

2011-06-09T09:55:00.000-05:00

(Click.)

What Would Jesus Eat?

2011-06-09T08:00:00.000-05:00

(Click.)

Make Hay While The Sun Shines

2011-06-07T06:08:00.000-05:00

What is made in America? Basically, food, cigarettes and some of the lousier alcoholic drinks. As for our cigarettes, no one makes them better, and if you’re not a smoker, basically you hate America. It’s the one thing we excel at. The Brown Gold. This country was founded on tobacco trade and yet we wage war against it. The anti-smokers are not thinking clearly. When they aren’t trying to rid the world of smokers, they’re busy worrying that China hasn’t signed a pact with the world promising that they will stop polluting.

My shirt is from Indonesia; my desk from Vietnam, my shoes and just about everything else comes from China. We demand these things, the toys in our Happy Meals, the PCs, PDAs, HDTVs and everything down at the Dollar Store. And we demand them cheap. And we want to tell the Chinese how to clean their air? How can they possibly clean their air when they are busy building factories for our lawn and garden wagons, our ear-buds, our Guitar Heroes and our backpacks?

Maybe the only reason America’s air is cleaner than it was forty years ago is because we stopped producing anything. We shut down our factories and started buying everything from China. God help Wal-Mart when China’s workforce starts demanding better wages and benefits. And God help China if America ever stops buying all the cheap goods they produce.

There is a Wal-Mart Super Center a few miles from our home that we call the Super-Ghetto Wal-Mart. It is in a neighborhood that is, to put it nicely, impoverished. We will shop there, though, because Wal-Mart has everything an American household needs, and at better prices than anywhere else. It is only a few miles from us and yet worlds removed. And when the top blows off of this Beast and the gangs are roaming the nicer suburbs, murdering and raping, smashing windows and stealing food, I hope one of them recognizes me from my shopping sprees and says, “Hey, wait! Don’t kill that guy and his family. They’re cool. I’ve seen them down at Wal-Mart.” I’m sure at that time a gang will have commandeered the Wal-Mart and anyone approaching it to loot its shelves will be shot and burned, the store’s produce and kerosene stoves, propane grills and bottled water reserved for friends and acquaintances of the gang. I envision men on the roof with automatic weapons, guarding with their lives the acres and acres of lawn chairs and batteries, the blankets and canned goods, the coats and candy all under the roof on which they stand sentry. Women will approach them and trade sex in order to feed their children, or they will simply be raped and murdered, the children sold as laborers. And men who look like me, who have not shopped there before, will approach with gas can in hand, begging and pleading for a little kerosene or propane, maybe some crackers or a two-liter of Coke. And they will be shot and burned.

But that is not Today. Today is bright. Today holds promise. There are lawns to mow, Playboy Channels to subscribe to and timeshare to sell. Mickey’s gates are open and all is right on Maple Street.

Weiner Jokes

2011-06-07T05:41:00.000-05:00

(Click.)

All The Old Comics Together at Last + Ayn Rand

2011-06-06T06:37:00.002-05:00

Over the weekend I traded Katie a breakfast in bed for the installation of a tool that allowed me to put up many of the comics from the old blog in an attractive, easy to navigate place on our main site. So, all the old Cold Call Carl, Credenza Boys and Coffee with Jesus stuff is here. And here's a new CWJ, where our hero weighs in on the Ayn Rand resurgence.

(Click.)

Coffee With Jesus - New Character

2011-06-03T14:59:00.001-05:00

So I was trying to find where I originally grabbed the image for this comic and came upon tineye.com, where you upload an image and it finds matches. Great tool. So now I can use the guy who Jesus replaced in the original as a new character. We'll call him Kevin. He will be as clueless as the other three in the series.

(Click.)

In Your Father's Footsteps

2011-06-03T12:30:00.002-05:00

(Click.)

Warms My Heart

2011-06-03T11:21:00.000-05:00

If you're enjoying these little comics, why not go Like us on Facebook? I'm not sure what good that will do either of us, but it seems to be what's expected of everyone these days.

(Click.)

I Think You Mean Walt Disney World® Resort.

2011-06-03T09:55:00.000-05:00

(Click.)

Coffee With Jesus - Vol I, No. 32

2011-06-03T09:21:00.000-05:00

(Click.)