Scan Arcana No 4

Set the wayback machine for 2005 and indulge me once more in a look at the world that was, interpreted in journal form. June is nearly here to mark this little blog's fifth anniversary and I've been pegging handmade pages to the screen for your amusement. Once more into the breach, dear friends, this round's on me.

Oops, set the dial back too far, this page is from 2004! We lost Nina Simone the previous year and the Boston Red Sox won their first World Series in a million years, major events from both ends of the proverbial spectrum. I remember getting the news about Simone while working the night shift as a barista. As soon as we could, my coworker and I got our sad selves a pub and raised cocktails to the memory of the High Priestess of Soul.

The mood was definitely more festive when the BoSox stomped the New York Yankees in the American League Championship. The glorious pitching of Curt Schilling, whose injured tendon at the end of game 7 turned his sock a bloody red, carried them to victory against all odds and finished off what to date is the finest playoff series I've ever seen and some of the best baseball playing in the history of the sport.

A hometown shout-out is in order. Remember Scott Peterson, the guy who chopped up his wife and threw her in a lake? His guilty verdict was reached in my hometown of Redwood City. It was a long circus of a trial and I remain proud of my peoples for seeing through the bullpucky and sending this creep to the hoosegow, where he remains to this day.

Let's not forget the unforgettable Donald Rumsfeld! One of the more charismatic and slippery (and quotable) Secretaries of Defense the US has seen in a good while, Rummy makes many appearances in my journals. His stick-it-up-your-nose rhetoric was right in line with the old school goon squad that operated in George W Bush's first term, what history will remember as the Cheney Administration; I don't think it fooled many citizens that anybody but Rummy and his old pal Dick Cheney were running the Executive Branch. Good riddance to those bastards.

2004 was one of the more pathetic election years in US history and the stage for political satire was ripe. Billionaires for Bush were savvy commentators on the sad state of affairs, culture jamming right up there with the Bush on Mars movement, and provided some welcome comic relief from an otherwise dismal time.

I'm a collector of stickers. There's a public discourse going on in the urban streets of the world, little messages being exchanged between artists in the form of stickers. I love 'em and never pass up a chance to immortalize them in the pages of my journal. Because my journals are immortal, don't you know.

Let's close with timeless words of wisdom, kiped I believe from Saturday Night Live:

When in doubt, poopy poop poop fart

From your friend in all things scatological, I bid you farewell and have a good weekend.