Here are a few of me etchings from my latest book Badly Drawn Planet. This book would make the perfect Christmas gift for anyone on the planet ... except me cause I got a free one from the lovely people at Summersdale.
I got this email the other day. In fact it came to me twice and I’m excited. I have blogged before about the dire state of the Nigerian Email scam business. Their need to change, evolve with the market. Stop banging out the same old stories. That’s why this one was a breath of fresh air.
From: Captain J. M. K.
Efax:- +1-773-337-9207
Satellite Phone:- +88-216-210-156-56
Mobile:- +966-595-178-607
Private Email:- captainjmk@gmail.com
Dear Sir:
My name is Captain J. M. K. of the USS Cole (DDG 67), during one of our expedition, some pirates were intercepted on the High sea about 30 miles from the coast of Yemen by my team and some huge of money were recovered from them.
This money has been shared among some of us who are privy to the information and I really want to move my own share to safe custody and also for any viable investment.
Nothing much is requested from you except TRUST and MUTUAL UNDERSTANDING, as I am ready and willing to transfer my own share of this money to you for safe keeping and further disbursement while you will be given some percentage for your effort.
If you agree to assist me in this transaction, do let me know so that I can give you more information.
I will really be expecting your urgent response.
Regards
Captain J.M. K.
This email marks a huge step forward for those scamming pricks. It has pirates, the US Navy, a sexy enigmatic main character in Captain J.M.K, and it’s based on a topical event. You can’t make this shit up … well, ok , you can, but I’m hooked. Really. I feel like responding and then sending them the money they will no doubt need to free up the funds, just to reward them for their extra efforts. Ok, so the English is still a bit ropey. I imagine that the captain of a guided missile destroyer has a better grasp of the written word, but then again, knowing the dire state of America’s education system, maybe not. And fuck it, the gullible bastards that fall for this stuff wont notice anyway. Good on you Nigeria email scammers. Good to see you responding to the tough economic times.
Been thinking about guns a bit lately. This week, Mikhail Kalashnikov the inventor of the AK47 turned 90. If I had a choice between being the guy who invented the AK47 and the guy who invented Velcro, I would pick the AK47. I hope someone made him a cake shaped like an AK47 with 90 little candles that look like bullets. Actually, I bet he got that when he turned 47. That would have been funnier. Speaking of guns, I had a shooting weekend in Lebanon. Brilliant fun. Car loads of unshaven men roaring into the Beqaa valley with trunks full of guns. The humble Matwa was the target. Bigger than a sparrow, smaller than a pigeon. Fast little buggers and they have a habit of flying low. Hundreds of men standing in fields, blasting away. What could possibly go wrong? A few things as it happened. The count at the end of the weekend was 1 dead and 9 injured. And I’m not talking about the Matwa. As a result the Lebanese government has banned the sport. It was already illegal but none of the soldiers or police at the numerous checkpoints on the way into the valley seemed to care that we were all off for a few hours of bang bang. It will be a different story from now on they reckon so I’m glad I got in there last weekend.
The new shiny Nobel prize is sitting on his desk. Now, could his minders be positioning him for an even more celestial award?
I dont know who Yondette Larsen is but I love her cause she loves me book.
http://www.satellite.ac.nz/articles/reviews/2009/09/book-review-printmen/
Media Week ME Aug 9
NASA recently celebrated the 40th anniversary of man landing on the moon. It was meant to be a monkey on the moon, because NASA originally sent primates into space, but the scientists freaked out after watching Planet of the Apes and decided to go with humans. When I think of the moon landing I see the classic example of the client trying to save some money by cutting out their agency and film company, and doing the job themselves. The footage of Neil Armstrong is amateur to say the least. Bad lighting, only one camera angle. Conspiracy theorists will tell you the moon landing was shot in a studio. No way. If it had, it would have looked much better. I bet NASA regretted not forking out for a film crew and someone from their ad agency to go along on Apollo 11. And what about the talent. Neil Armstrong only had two lines and he still stuffed it up. ‘That’s one small step for man’ was supposed to be ‘That’s one small step for A man.’ NASA should have spent the extra money on hiring a professional actor, instead of roping in one of their staff. Look at Tom Hanks. He went into space and had heaps of lines and he nailed it. Apparently the modern fridge has more computing power than Apollo 11 did, and that got me thinking. Why don’t we send fridges into space instead of men? Think about it. If a fridge from earth, landed on another planet that contained life forms, what kind of impression would that make? Obviously they’d deduce that we are so busy and have so much cool stuff happening on our little green rock, that we don’t have time to fly around looking for aliens. This is automatically going to make us a must visit destination and we need an edge people. In case you didn’t know, the universe in infinite, so there are a lot of planets in lots of galaxies competing for that visiting space alien market. A fridge full of yummy food is a classy way to say hi. When one lands on the planet of the aliens who are responsible for all the anal probes, I imagine they’re going to feel pretty embarrassed. The only downside to our gastronomic gidday is that we’ll have to be careful with the expiry dates. It would be a shame for our first contact with an advanced race to be when their lawyers issue legal proceeding for food poising. When it comes to deciding what food to send, we can get those rich food companies to pay for the privilege. This would help fund the space program, rather than the poor old American taxpayer, and that way they their tax dollars can be put towards invading more countries. Imagine the publicity spin offs for a food manufacturer when they get a quote from an alien who has just arrived here that goes something like ‘ I traveled 45 light years for the cool refreshing taste of Nescafe Iced Coffee. I propose we send a selection of the planet’s greatest perishables, designed to titillate the taste buds and impress potential new visitors. We should definitely send ‘I cant believe it’s not butter’ and some real butter, so they wont be able to believe it for themselves. The space shuttle had a faulty O-ring, but I’ve never had a bad onion ring, so we should send some of those and a decent selection of low fat items would be advisable as well. Think about it. You never see chubby aliens. Those grays with the big eyes look like they watch their weight. Sending fridges into space would be a lot cheaper than rockets. You don’t even need one of the fancy ones with the built in ice dispenser, because there’s plenty of ice in space. The path to the final frontier starts in the kitchen. Forget ‘We come in peace.’ Lets go with peas and frozen carrots.
If you only buy 83 books this year, make sure Printmen is one of them. If you liked my stickmen books as much as my mum did, you will love this. Unless you hate fingerprints made into little people say stupid stuff, in which case you will hate this book.
HERES WHAT THE EXPERTS ARE SAYING ABOUT THE BOOK THAT HAS THE WHOLE WORLD TALKING*
‘If the guys from Weta can work out how to animate this, I’ll make the movie.’
P Jackson
‘Get out of my hotel room or I’ll call the police!’ J K Rowlings
‘Jesus. They made a book out of that?’ the Pope
‘How did you get this number?’ Barack Obama
‘How did you get this number?’ Osama Bin Laden
‘I have no fingerprints. They were burned off in a fight on a planet of lava with Obi Wan Kenobi.‘ Darth Vader
*for the purposes of this post 'the whole world' is defined as my immediate family.
Mr Potato head is 60 years old. That he has out lived his arch nemesis Doctor Atkins must make him feel pretty good. Bet he laughs about that at night while he sits on his couch in his Darth Vader costume watching Toy Story 1 & 2 on DVD over and over again.
(article I just wrote for MEdia Week ME)
Yet another survey has come out proclaiming that when it comes to trustworthiness, ad men rank way down on the list. Lawyers are down there with us, and my mum, who has one of each, forced our sister to become a social worker to try and offset some of the bad karma. You know who should be dwelling in the cellar with us? Dentists. First plaque, then tartar, then they discovered you have to clean your tongue. Your tongue? People actually fell for that. I bet, in their defense, dentist’s say it was the evil ad men that put them up to it. Quite possible I’m afraid. But it would have been the strategists.
Anyhow, in the Vegas household right now we’re introducing our 6-year-old daughter to the twice-daily rigors of, round in circles, round in circles, up and down. But what I really feel like saying to her is, ‘Listen honey, don’t stress about it, you’re gonna lose them all anyway. They’re baby teeth. Save your effort for the next set.’
The other pearly white lie that comes into play when you have a kid is the tooth fairy. That winged angel of deceit. As if parents aren’t being extorted for enough cash these days, for the 55 million versions of Brat Dolls or My Favorite Ponies, we have to stump up money for every tooth the little one loses. How about instead of cash, we leave our kids a coupon under the pillow instead - $2 off the $10,000 mummy and daddy will have to have to fork out to get your second lot of teeth straightened. It’s only a matter of time before kids work out that a solitary coin per tooth just aint gonna cut. They’ll start holding out for more and once one parent gives in, all the rest of the kids in the class are going to start putting pressure on their parents. With this in mind, I have plans to set up a service to help remove the growing financial threat of the tooth fairy. For a small fee you’ll be able to buy my kit to use the night your child puts out their first tooth for collection. In the morning, little Tommy is the first witness at the scene of a tragic accident. It will appear that the tooth fairy, in her eagerness to get away with her haul, mistook the ultra clean glass for an open window. But it wasn’t the crash that killed her. Or the fall to the bedroom floor. It was when she impaled herself on little Tommy’s tooth. In an effort to keep costs down, the model won’t be super realistic. I am counting on the fact that little Tommy will be so traumatized, that he wont want to get to close to the crash site. But just to be on the safe side, parents are advised to dispose of the evidence quickly. Explain to your little Tommy, that in the unlikely event of an accident, the Tooth Fairy had asked to be buried the same way as the goldfish, and then race for the bathroom. Like Santa, there is only one tooth fairy. So the beauty of product is that only one parent in each class or neighborhood, has to do the deed. Once Tommy spreads the word about the demise of the tooth fairy to his little mates, none of them will expect to see her at their place. Although we’ve had trouble with trying to create a fake blood that matches the viscosity of fairy blood, I expect to have ‘Fairy Fatality’ ready for launch in a few months. Got a problem with your kids eating too much chocolate at Easter? I’m also researching ideas for simple mishaps that could befall basket-carrying bunnies.
I would be a shaver. No question about it. Can you think of any other electrical appliance that has its own exclusive power point?
When a shaver checks into a motel or hotel with its electrical appliance mates, it must get such an ego boost when it says, 'Ok electric carving knife, phone battery recharger, ipod speakers and lap top, you guys hang out here. If you need me I will be in the bathroom plugged into the power point that says 'SHAVERS ONLY'. Being that special would make anyones circuit boards tingle.
I don’t want to speak ill of the dead but he isn’t really dead is he. Like Elvis, MJ will live on in the collective memories of loyal groupies forever. Guys like him don’t go to heaven I reckon. They head to a special celestial PR firm. The fact he was a kiddy fiddler seemed to be counter balanced by his catchy pop songs. Maybe people would like OJ Simpson more if he had had a few radio hits. There is no doubt that Jackson was a tragic figure, too many people made too much money off the guy and that ultimately ended in his death. 50 gigs in London. What a joke. For me the thing that will always stand out is the fact he had paid someone to have a miniature version of his bum attached to his chin. I wonder if all the plastic bits get unbolted once he gets to the other side. Goodbye Michael. May you rest in pieces.
