Okay bloggers, real talk. I haven’t posted in a while, which makes me sad. I’m continuing to make glacial progress on my website overhaul, which makes me happy in a bittersweet kind of way. I haven’t even posted a celebrity for either of the last two Saturdays. Do I chalk this up as a blog vacation, or do I quit on the whole celebrities thing, and develop more drawings in the nakedness/supernatural/imp vein? I have been doing some more loose-limbed sketchbook doodling lately.

Let me tell you, it’s hard to figure out where one fits in the ever-shrinking editorial illustration world. It’s also hard to figure out the appropriate tone for a public blog. When I launch at PatBarrett.com, I’m going to include the sketchblog as a sub-site. How much of this sort of desperate, searching, I’m so in my mid twenties business should be allowed to continue? How should I link to you, my readers and fellow bloggers? Where do I leave the Live Journal world behind? Ay ay ay.

This drawing is inspired by Dr. Seuss wartime political cartoons. I’ll post some in a follow-up.

I’ve been watching a lot of this dude lately, and the other night I dreamed that David Wayne [Wain, alright? Wain. -Berated Barrett] and I were on his show, chatting about how awesome he is before we went on. The man is hilarious. He so perfectly skewers those powerful blowhards on Fox News, and it’s so funny that sometimes I forget that those people actually have a good deal of traction in the real world. Recently Colbert was up in arms because ignorant people are getting discriminated against, and he felt like there should be a week-long Ignorance Month. But check out this column from Paul Krugman yesterday; it reminded me that all of this satire comes from a true, and truly scary, source.

I’ve kept meaning to do a Stephen Colbert-style celebratory post with confetti and balloons on this subject for quite a while now, and my previous entry reminded me to do it. Please, consider the following (from the VH1 website):

Now, please dig this incredibly prescient comic from late in aught-six:

This was inevitable, of course. After the bell bottoms of the late Nineties gave way to the Eighties revival which was replaced by early Nineties grunge and hip hop cool, where else could we look for semi-ironic cultural inspiration but our own goddamn decade?? And so we have. Bless you, VH1. I can’t wait until cargo pants are back in style this fall.

I know it was cool in Pitchforkland to not be absolutely bonkers crazy for Paper Planes, and to instead dissect its samples and influences. I also know that by now, cool people must be sooo over this song, especially because it has gone national, being so thoroughly attached to the Pineapple Express campaign. But you know what, every time I hear it, I get so damn excited, cause it is a really! fucking! awesome song!

Also, I really like the flying hand gesture MIA makes when she let’s us know she’s fly like paper; gets high like planes. I even don’t hate her nineties-revival style. Retro pastiche of the previous decade has never been done with such aplomb.