4 Proverbs

(For a larger, non-zen version of this cartoon, click the smallest rock in the garden.)

Bizarro is brought to you today by Proverbs.

Proverb #1: A man is walking through Times Square, inundated by the sounds of music, electronics, talking billboards, traffic, and tourists. He turns down an alley and suddenly comes across a hidden zen garden. It is quiet, austere, peaceful. He takes a deep breath and contemplates the swirling lines left by a careful, simple wooden rake and wonders if his path in life has become too complex and chaotic, too far removed from the simple joys of life. Just then, his cell phone emits a single, electronic burp, alerting him of a new post on his Facebook wall. He slowly removes the phone from his pocket and sees that his best friend, Dave, has announced that his daughter just received a highly coveted scholarship to Harvard Law School. He looks at the garden and takes another deep breath. Slowly picking up the rake, he begins to trace designs in the sand. When he is done, he takes a picture of his effort and posts it on his Facebook page. Across the country, Dave’s phone dings. He sees that a picture of a zen garden has been posted by his best friend. The designs in the sand read: “Up yours, Dave!”

Moral: Have smarter children.

Proverb #2: A child goes to school and sees a cocoon in a jar. He tweets something funny about it and it gets retweeted 150,000 times. A TV producer sees the tweet and hires the kid as a writer on a hit comedy. The president of Harvard sees the tweet and ignores it as he crosses a street. He is hit by a bus and killed instantly.

Moral: Look both ways before you cross the street.

Proverb #3: A doctor wears his coat backwards without pants in order to make a patient feel more comfortable in his gown. He is sued for sexual harassment and loses his license to practice medicine. He looks or a new job on Facebook and sees a story about a kid who, based on a single tweet, got a job as a TV writer. He starts tweeting about medicine. He does not get a job as a doctor.

Moral: Keep your pants on at work.

Proverb #4: A cartoonist draws a cartoon about puns as a pun for guns. He submits it to his syndication company and they distribute it to hundreds of clients. It appears in the paper six weeks later, which happens to be a few days after a crazy guy mistook himself for a movie villain and killed a bunch of innocent people. Somebody sees the cartoon and thinks the cartoonist is making light of a tragedy. Instead of supporting logical gun laws, he complains to his newspaper for printing the cartoon.

Moral: Pull your head out of your butt, realize that people who have been in the business as long as I have are not that stupid, and complain about something more important than a cartoon.

I’m just trying to make a living like anyone else and it ain’t always easy.

Stay salty, Jazz Pickles.