Wait A Minute Chester!

Yesterday morning I dashed out of the apartment in search of ingredients; Campbell's Tomato juice, celery, olives, horseradish...the heavy hitters I already had (Old Bay, hot sauce, Worcestershire). I passed on the clam juice. Over a few Bloody Buddipx, I scanned paper numero uno of the new decade, NYT Vol. CLIX No. 54,907. There's a wonderfully inspiring overhead image of people celebrating in Times Square, many people in humiliating, but corporately sponsored felt top hats, cell phone or camera clutched in hand. If only the ball were a mounted 360 disco camera, big brother could case the world and zoom in right at 12:00. (There is a pair of noticeable bros, one left-handedly pinching something to his lips and inhaling vigorously as the other roars in excitement.) Not a goddamn thing in the paper seemed worth while, articles about voided charges for contract killers and how there are too many honor students to distinguish whose honorable and who's "honorable." I did find an interesting piece in the op-ed section. It was a simply illustrated opened card that read "Happy New Fear" in white styled font on the left panel. The right panel read:

From:

Nostradamus
Mayans
Asteriods
Deadly Diseases
Weapons of Mass Destruction
Global Warming
Evil Aliens
Typhoons and Earthquakes

and the rest of the gang...

I found this to be "not in good humor." And I have a sense of humor that is typically willing to skim the depths of dead babies clogging city drain pipes and bastard banishment islands of meat eating, cigarette smoking sinners. I also enjoy cynicism, but this op-ed piece struck me as sarcastic. Was I to think, "Yes, Ji Lee, thank you for reminding me, I'm hitting the streets right now..." or "So...are you joking about it or did YOU actually create it just now"

Thinking about this reminds me of the classicly confusing slogan from the inspiring commodity Cheeto's. Chester the Cheetah, that crazy cool cat, used to say, "it ain't easy bein' cheesy." Really Chester, cause it looks pretty, pretty, pretty fuckin' easy to wear Ray Bans and hang around eating snacks. Should I not eat Cheetos because it's too difficult, or am I eating them out of pity for Chester, or do we as consumers not really know the amount of work and effort that goes into not only discovering what the public wants, but also distributing it to them?



I guess the "joke" is that these are the types of fears we'll be facing in the new decade. And yes, Chester it's suddenly not so easy to face the 10's, but in my mind it's because of a different set of card senders:

From:

Dangling Consumer Cellular Technology
Disappearing Media Hardcopy
Desperate Credit Lender/Collector
Encroaching Social Network
Mutating Allergen
Manipulated DNA Strand
Increasingly Radical & Stubborn Religion
Pattern-based Suggestive Decision Enabler

I guess what Ji Lee's op-ed piece really has to do with Cheeto's is that I don't want to think about fear propoganda and what shape it'll take in the coming years (1...pessimistic sarcasm peddling to the simple minded), any more than I want to think about "difficulty" while eating snacks.