NEW CATALOG-MAKING FIT

11-14-02

I have to admit I've been in a kind of a fit, a SPAZZ ATTACK. It's a fit of UTILIZATION of art that has gone unutilized for far too long. Some of it we STARTED to utilize some years ago, but the effort fizzled in the midst of some crisis or financial breakdown. But this week, or month... AHHH, to be again in a FIT! To FULLY SPAZZ!

I have written a whole new BOOK in the form of sarcastic ad blurbs for hundreds of new products made using old art and new technology. And new art too.

And the horror and wonder of it is that I'm only a FRACTION of the way through the POSSIBLE permutations. I'll have to move on soon, but WHEW DOGGIES!!

Just SKIMMING DOWN THE DISPLAY PAGES of the new catalog is worth a whole fropstick. Just LOOKING at the PSYCHEDELICNESS of the selection and imagining how COOL it would be to be RICH enough to own *ALL* THIS COOL SHIT!!

But then you can zero in product by product, and read the captions and lies and bullshit and truth. Wei and I, and Dr. Philo Drummond by phone, happily plunged into this process. It's like this. You have this great, hilarious and technically killer piece of art, and this list of Cafe Press products. And you try to think what products would be most, AND LEAST, appropriate. For instance, a Dobbs Skull Face is appropriate for a clock, and inappropriate for a teddy bear, so you put the design on both of those. But to do that you have to upload a specially-sized version of the art, probably with a black or white frame, and while you're waiting through the upload, you think up bullshit to say about it.

This has been going on nonstop for about two weeks. Maybe one week, but it feels like two. Wei says it rained like crazy all yesterday... I had no idea it had rained. Apparently I never looked out a window. I have just been WRITING AD COPY. SUBGENIUS AD COPY. You know the last time I did that? THE EIGHTIES. For our print catalog. (I went through one and re-applied all the good ad copy to the new one... old timers will recognize a lot of the old gags.) It was a GAS doing it up old-school again.

Our other products that are mailed out by Cafe Press were very poorly represented in the catalog, too -- my own fault for not messing with it -- but I messed with that too, shot some product photos, scanned box art, etc., so the ARISE and INWO and Membership ads all look better.

I then went into my OWN catalog, Connivin' Ivan's, and re-did and renamed that. Added the flexidisk and the 7 Bladed Windbreaker and a bunch of T-shirts that Jesus found squirreled away in a box, when they moved. Made new categories and rearranged everything.

I LOVE doing this shit. I can see a direct and immediately payback for work done, I don't have to leave, I can just sit here slugging down coffee and water, geeking SubGeniusfully. THIS IS THE LIFE. Princess Wei comes up to help gag-write and conceptualize now and then, and brings me food... I go down for coffee, water and peeing...

Anyway I just had to say that. There is such a thing as a good job. That's why my suggestion to weener-whiners all week has been to *get one.* I know it's a totally obnoxious statement that goes against the First Pamphlet's Second, Third, and Fourth Words, but by gobbs, FUCK 'EM IF THEY CAN'T TAKE A JOKE!

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Original file name: NEW CATALOG-MAKING FIT by Stang - converted on Monday, 21 July 2003, 13:44