April 17th, 2011

Armless Alien

by Wayno & Piraro

Bizarro is brought to you today by Inefficient Paintbrushes.

This week is a big deal on the Western religious landscape. Passover starts on Monday, celebrated by people who believe a messiah is coming to save them one day, and Easter is celebrated next weekend by people who believe that same messiah has come and gone and will come again. (You think that’s confusing? Read something about Mormonism some time.) For all I know, the Muslims have something going this time of year, too. The Big Three monotheisms grew from the same root, so there are often similarities other than large groups of people who believe they are the favorite of an invisible magic person in the sky.

I’m sure I’ll poke at religion some more in the coming week but for now, let’s talk about severed arms. Yech! I haven’t seen 127 Hours yet, but I have a Netflix disk of it sitting next to my TV. I’m saving it for a day when I think my life sucks because the weather is crappy and my Internet is down. Watching a movie about a guy who has to saw off his own arm with a pair of nail clippers might be just the thing to put things back in perspective.

I normally don’t talk to cab drivers – in NYC there isn’t much point. They don’t want to talk to passengers and they often sport such elaborate accents that I cannot understand much of what they say anyway. But when I’m on vacation, feeling giddy from the change of location and lack of responsibilities, I will often play fast and loose with my tongue. On more than one occasion I have asked a cab driver who does not look like a native how he ended up there. I’ve gotten the above answer more than once, which was the foundation for this gag. I’ve had days when I would almost chuck it all to drive a cab on a tropical island somewhere; the simple life of mindless days of sunny weather on a beach. I know that the reality would not be as much fun as my fantasy so I drop the idea, but it is comforting to know that people do occasionally do it.

One final note for the complete car and/or cartoon nerd: The taxi in this cartoon is based on a car that actually existed in the 1960s. I’d kill for one.

Get these red-hot cartoons on a variety of products here: ARM… TAXI…