Fun times in Philadelphia and Chicago with John Hodgman. I was really LOL’ing at his new book. The only thing I didn’t like was drinking that horrible concoction.

And fun times in New York City with Matt Taibbi! When it comes to Taibbi, I’m LOL 4 LIFE.

If you attended one of these events, I thank you!

BAD NEWS: I left my swim trunks at the hotel in Chicago! WTF!

Hodgman was telling me about this new thing called “Twitter”; if I had Twitter, I would twit about my forgotten swim trunks:

“@davidreestwitter: Anybody at the hotel, can you mail me my swim trunks? Twit twice for YES, once for NO.”

I think that’s how it works . . .

Many of my readers know that I planned to quit GET YOUR WAR ON if John Kerry won the 2004 election. In fact, I tried to exploit that fact to sway any undecided voters who hated my comic:

This ran in Rolling Stone in October 2004.

Of course, the nation wasn’t ready to say goodbye to GYWO, and I received a mandate for four more years.

Election night 2004 was devastating for me (probably was for you, too). I got really depressed. I tried to buck myself up by writing a little piece of inspirational prose, which I credited to “Deepak Chopra.”

I’ve been thinking about that little piece recently, and I’m not the only one.

From reader BC:

David,

These days, as we witness what J.M.M. has famously called “the conservative movement’s dying regression into its ideological infancy,” I’ve been thinking back to your “message from Deepak Chopra” from way back in November 2004. That message, or vague memories of it at least, sustained us through many of the dark days that followed. And now it’s on the verge of coming true: We were smarter than those guys. We did learn faster than those guys. And it was on, oh boy was it on.

Do you think you could repost that classic call to arms?

It will be my pleasure.

CHIN UP.
We’re smarter than those motherfuckers.
We can learn more quickly than those motherfuckers.
We can be more ruthless than those motherfuckers.
We can be some six-million-dollar motherfuckers ourselves.

Chin up.
We’re more American than those motherfuckers.
We’re more responsible than those motherfuckers.
We’re more compassionate than those motherfuckers.
Hell, our atheists are more Christian than their Bible-thumpin’ motherfuckers.

There’s an election in two years.
There’s nothing we can’t do.

Chin up.
Because it’s on, motherfuckers.
It is on.

My friends . . . it’s time to bring it on home.

CHICAGO, IL: I’m staying with my brother tonight before tomorrow’s ten-alarm jammer at Second City.

CLASSIC “BRO-DIALOGUE”:

ME: Can I use your computer to check my email? (And check TPM?)

MY LITTLE BROTHER: Sure.

ME: Dude, what if N.C. turns blue, we will freak out!

MLB: Hey, Mom said you had a blog or something?

ME: HOW DO YOU NOT KNOW ABOUT MY BLOG?!? You’re not checking my blog?!?

MLB: You never told me about it. How long have you had it?

ME: Wait — you’re not on my mailing list?

MLB: No.

ME: WTF!!!!! Do you know about the GYWO videos?

MLB: I saw them but I didn’t watch them.

(ME: Head explodes)

(WE SPEND THE NEXT TEN MINUTES WATCHING GYWO VIDEOS)

MLB: Umm . . . I don’t really like them.

ME: NEW LITTLE BROTHER, PLEASE!!!!!!!

BONUS: At some point during this conversation (MLB and I can’t remember exactly when), MLB deployed the phrase: “Seven years after you were relevant.” LOL, didn’t destroy me very hard with that one!!!

BROS FOR LIFE!!!!

Once again, I am breaking the mold and shattering the possibilities of reality with my game-changing super-strategy. That’s right: VIDEO BLURBS.

This week’s video blurb is from JOHN HODGMAN, a long-time GET YOUR WAR ON reader.

He encourages you to buy this book! (Rats, I should have asked him to demand you buy fifty copies . . . oh well . . . just buy fifty copies anyway, to rub my nose in it.)

NOTE: If you’re a super-famous celebrity or politician or pundit and you’d like to make a VIDEO BLURB to promote GYWO, please get in touch! (Thomas Friedman, let’s make this happen! All is forgiven if you blurb my book! I’ll even start “buzz-marketing” your brand, going to hipster bars and talking to random strangers like, “You know who’s making a lot of sense these days? That Thomas Friedman. That guy is so hip . . . I think I saw him at the Arcade Fire show last week . . .”)

ALSO: John Hodgman has a new book of his own. I cartoonblurbed it here.

LOL, this one is so silly!

How dare this guy second-guess Thomas Friedman’s view of the world?

Friedman can’t easily deal with such analyses precisely because of the tenets of the conventional wisdom, American style, which is that fundamental change in direction is essentially impossible. The world is a growth machine and “nobody can turn it off.” Everyone wants “an American style of life,” and “their governments will not be able to deny” it to them. So the only option is to tinker with the American style of life to make it greener. Hence the longest soliloquy in the book, a hymn to the soon-to-be smart home, where the solar panel calls up to tell the “utility” when there’s been a blackout, where the smart lights in your office are triggered by motion sensors, where you plug in your “Smart Card” (“sponsored by Visa and United Airlines Mileage Plus”) into your Sun Ray computer terminal to start your workday. All this gear is so intelligent, in fact, that “when the sun is shining brightly and the wind is howling” (i.e., when your house is generating solar and wind power), your utility turns on your dryer to finish your laundry.

Does it ever occur to him, in the grip of a fantasia like this, that if the sun is shining brightly, or the breeze is blowing steadily, you could dry your clothes on a $14 piece of rope strung off your back deck, or for that matter on a foldable rack in the apartment hallway? And that since most of the world already knows how to do it, we might be smarter moving in their direction instead of insisting that they buy into our entire high-technology suburban dream?

SSSSSSSSNAP. But seriously, who wants a crummy piece of rope when you can have some fancy-ass robotic washing machine with wi-fi matrix-nodes and chrome digital hologram displays automatically adjusting how much energy it takes from the grid? How are you supposed to impress your friends with a piece of rope?

Friedman can’t see these new probabilities because they conflict with the one great imperative of the conventional wisdom, which is optimism. Just as you can’t run for commander-in-chief on any platform other than “Our best days are still ahead of us,” so you can’t run for pundit-in-chief either. But those instincts can get you in trouble. Friedman, after all, supported the war in Iraq with a similarly glib but upbeat forecast. The day of the invasion he weighed the two schools of thought: the Europeans were predicting “more terrorism, a dangerous precedent for preventive war, civilian casualties,” while Bush was arguing “that it will be a game-changer—that it will spark reform throughout the Arab world and intimidate other tyrants who support terrorists.”

LOL, optimism rules! IRAQ WAR-BOOSTER CREW FOR LIFE, DON’T STOP BELIEVING! “Boo-hoo, how in the world was I ever supposed to guess in a million years that George W. Bush would be incapable of democratizing a region he has zero understanding of? Waah, maybe I should write about futuristic eco-gadgets instead. . .”

Hey guys, I’ve gotten some concerned emails about the RELATIONSHAPES link, which is broken.

No worries, RELATIONSHAPES is safe! We’ll fix the link soon . . .

In the meantime, enjoy some of these classic episodes:

One of the first RELATIONSHAPES ever made!

I think this is one of the most expensive frames I ever bought for RELATIONSHAPES!

Holy Toledo! There are so many cartoons!

Philadelphia is one of the hottest cities in the USA . . . so it’s no surprise I’m headed there on Friday for a $150,000 shopping spree . . . I’m hitting all the hottest clothing boutiques, including PHILADELPHIA GENTLEMEN’S HABERDASHERY & FASHION STY and WILLY’S TUXEDO MATRIX.

Also, on Friday I’m doing an event with this guy John Hodgman (can’t wait to see what he’s all about, early exit polls looks promising) and Patrick Borelli — who is one of the funniest dudes in all of Real America.

First we do the reading, then we sign books (50 copies per customer, you know what’s right), and then we have a dance party with a real DJ. And also I think we’re going to have an auction to raise money for one of the two presidential candidates; LOL, guess which one, LOL it’s an East Coast literary festival, so you know we’re raising money for Mr. Straight Talk Express!

Anyway, I think this will be a five-alarm banger, you should definitely attend!

October 24, 2008
9:00 pm
215 Festival
THE LATVIAN SOCIETY
531 N. 7th Street
Philadelphia, PA 19123
(215) 922-9798
Admission: $10

Yes, this will be a fun event!

David Rees (that’s me) and Matt Taibbi (famous journalist who always brings the LOL’s) will be goofing off and signing books on Sunday, October 26!

Bowery Poetry Club
308 Bowery Street
(Between Houston and Bleecker)
212-614-0505
8:00 PM
THIS EVENT COSTS $8