OUR SOCIETY IS GOING TO THE DOGS!

I LIVE IN Somerville, Massachusetts but I've lived all over the United States. Florida. Minnesota. California. Oregon. New Hampshire. I think I know a little about the society in which I exist. We used to have to protect the minority from the "tyranny" of the majority here in America. Now - we have to protect the majority from the tyranny of the minority! The system is standing on its head. Our leaders seem like they're brought to us by Ringling Brothers. I think someone called it a "Pig Circus" not long ago. Big business acts like it wants to consume us! Peace of mind is no where on the map. We're killing each other and ourselves in record numbers. Our society is degenerating further into organized chaos every day. It's going to the dogs.

I call what we're experiencing "Neo-Tribalism". We are dividing into tribes of like minded souls and fracturing along every conceivable line. Everyone outside of your "tribe" doesn't really exist. People go through their day plugged into their ear-buds locked in a little land that only they inhabit. When you do manage to relate to someone - lo and behold - they are likely to be just like you. The people in your tribe are the people in your address book. Everyone outside is either expendable or only there to advance your self interest. Rather than be a culture based on trusting one another; we find our basis for relating in not trusting each another. Every living thing processes its way to its own demise. Our planet and everything that inhabits it is alive. If I had to venture a conclusion, I'd say we're living in a sick and dying world.



A dog can't even take a crap in peace anymore. You've seen it. The expression on the defecating dog. They can't even take a crap without someone watching. I like the ones who look to their owner as if to say, "Now pick up my feces!" Revolutionaries.

If it only stopped there . . .


Aliens come here from another planet and they want the dog! They're not interested in the guy. They must know . . . Maybe they've been watching the dogs all along. Could it be that's always been the actual purpose of their visits? Wouldn't that be the supreme insult? We spend millions and invest years trying to communicate with them and they want our dogs. GODDAMMMN!!!

WHEN WE WERE kids, our dogs pretty much took care of themselves. We had Dutches, a German Shepherd, Pal, a German Spitz, and Cisco, a three legged mongrel who'd been abandoned by one of our former neighbors. We lived in the "country" and there were plenty of woods around that had plenty of wild critters in them. We'd go out in the morning and there'd be a muskrat that had been turned inside out in the yard. All the meat would have been eaten off of it. Our dogs didn't wait for us to feed them. You'd hear them out in the yard at night in a murderous, coordinated attack. I suppose the rural environment coupled with our concept of dog ownership brought out the savage in them. When the neighbor who owned Cisco, moved back - my mother made us go over there to ask them if we could keep Cisco. The guy grabbed Cisco by the scruff of his neck and carried him off the ground up into his property. We stood there with our mouths opened in astonishment until we heard a rifle shot. The guy chose to kill Cisco rather than let us have him for keeps.


In the Great Society you don't have to leave the house before things start becoming bizarre. Even when you're home trying to get away from what's happening around you; it finds its way in. The relentless pressure imposed on you from daily life makes you lose control. Your leaders only want to use you. Your suffocating under the weight of the rich who expect you to support them. If only you could have one day of peace. The machine grinds on.

Sometimes it's not even funny. Feeling safe in his sanctuary, Citizen 1 opens his window on the world and gets assaulted. Peace is no where to be found. Outside, someone has removed all of the street signs. He senses the desperate wickedness of the world outside his door. Just for a moment he feels like there's no escape. No way out of the - GREAT SOCIETY.

GREAT SOCIETY COMICS

THE "GREAT SOCIETY" is more a state of mind than a tangible place. Some elderly readers now deemed: "disposable" may remember the "Great Society" of the 1960's. It was the theme of the administration of President Lyndon Johnson. America was forced to admit it was fracturing into two, separate and unequal cultures. Poverty was rampant. Race bias went with the territory. Johnson threw billions at the problem and hardly put a dent in it. I think that's when government figured since we can't eliminate poverty, racism, classism, age-ism and all the other ism's, we might as well work with the people we know best, people who are just like us - the rich. And off we went down this road where the rich are presently living like potentates while the rest of us are receding into the woodwork. They only see us as merchandise. What's bad in our world is worse in GREAT SOCIETY COMICS.

CITIZEN 1 is the primary inhabitant of his "Great Society". Where he lives and what he does in his world is a comic version of what we do and how we live in ours. Being in his world is like being on the other side of the looking glass. You can recognize certain elements of our culture in the world he lives in but essentially it's no different from ours. His smacks ours in the face when it needs it. His society mocks and taunts us. He's a mess within it. He's a slave to two rulers - his world and ours. Citizen 1 is riddled with issues that involve his economic status, body shape, mental health, love life (or lack of), his relationship with his mother and his quest to find out why he is a cartoon and not human. To give his existence meaning, he has allowed himself to be controlled by the artist. Some of the cartoons are about his "personal life". Others represent how he is manipulated, controlled and placed in these crazy scenarios in search of a cheap laugh. All of them are about his world - and ours.

SO HOLD ONTO your ability to view the world in the abstract. You're going to need it. Let me begin with a few panels that I hope will set the tone for the entire blog. I want you to see the world he inhabits. That way you'll better understand him and how he got as confused as to the reality of his observations as he has. I'm hoping you'll be able to catch flashes of your world and you in these images. I'm hoping they assist you in realizing that we're actually no better off in our world than Citizen 1 is in his. Enjoy!
THIS IS OUR boy! Citizen 1. Look at h im. Trapped trying to push himself through into our world. He wants that so badly but we've yet to figure out a way to get him over here. Frankly, based on what happens to him in his world, I think he's better off there than he would be here. You'll see him changing and morphing because his identity is so unsettled. In some aspects of his existence he's like a reed bending in the wind. He'll be this way; then he'll be that way. Before getting to far into his character, I want to show you what his world has become. Snapshots. Moments.

There's an old man out there somewhere whose wife died ten years ago. For the last five years not a day's gone by when he hasn't thought about being with her again. His kids don't call and his house smells like potatoes. The only thing holding him together is the girl in the apartment next door. She has become his salvation. His loneliness is so big - it has it's own time zone in - GREAT SOCIETY COMICS.



ON THE OTHER side of town there's some poor bastard exploring the absolute depths of human degradation. His god is pimping him. What he's a slave to; what the motivating force of his life is, is trying to kill him. Like flies, the rich have no problem patronizing him. As you can see they're little dogs love it too.


The dog says, "Take me to the land of ecstasy!" He's in heaven. Humping like he's gonna die tomorrow. Tired of just standing there panhandling, our bum had a bright idea. "Why not let rich people use my leg to let their dogs get off? (God Bless AMERICA!!!) I'm just a piece of human garbage anyway . . . MOMMIE!!! " (Cries - Has another drink) At least he can eat now. Before he couldn't even afford a hot dog at the 7-11.

You might say this society has "gone to the dogs". I wouldn't because it's trite. This guy's dog is more important to him than some people are. Obviously. It's a perverse role reversal. In a world of total fairness - the drunk would be humping the dog's leg!

There's no safe place here for anyone or anything. In the Great Society ; you're on your own!