I'm with Stupid

I read the following on an online newspaper site recently;


The cartoon that’s taped to the wall beside my computer is speaking to me every day and what it says isn’t very complimentary.
It says I’m stupid. (By the way. It says you’re stupid too. How do you like them apples?)


I thought it was a pretty good intro to the rest of the article, some of which follows;


The cartoon, by Thomas Boldt of Calgary (Feb. 3rd), features Mother Earth in an XXXL t-shirt standing beside a short, chubby male character (with his finger up his nose) who represents mankind. Earth’s t-shirt is emblazoned with the words “I’m with Stupid” and an arrow that points toward – you guessed it – mankind.
You didn’t see it? I’d reproduce it in this space but I don’t have $140 kicking around and I was politely informed if I used it “without payment” I’d end up in the slammer.
Anyway, after I saw the cartoon I pretended I was an investigative journalist for about 30 minutes (I read the paper, listened to CBC radio and watched some news on TV) and came to the conclusion that we’re being called stupid not because we go ‘diggin’ fer gold’ on occasion but because a report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change stated mankind’s activities are ‘very likely’ causing global warming.
Along the way I discovered that a ranking of ‘very likely’ means, as far as some of the world’s brainiest scientists are concerned, there’s a 90 per cent chance humans are fully to blame for the mess we’re in and, as far as I can tell, there’s only a 10 per cent chance we can blame global warming on El Niño, under-productive trees or high-octane gas from cows.

Ok, back to me.

(If you want, read the rest of the guy’s column some time later at www.thelondoner.ca/city/harris.htm but for now read below. Please.)

I think that same cartoon would make a great opening shot in a short movie I’m thinking of producing based on the last 12 pages of Death by Misadventure, the 6th chapter of Tom Miller’s book entitled Jack Ruby’s Kitchen Sink (Offbeat travels through America’s southwest).

The movie will be called Death by Misadventure as well (as long as buying the rights is a lot less than $140) because it’s a very descriptive title and would instantly catch people’s attention.

Upon hearing the title someone would undoubtedly ask, Who’s going to die? Is it really gory? Is there a lot of gunplay?

The answer is, Buy a ticket and find out, yes and you’d better believe it, boyo.

I’m working on the screenplay now. It will be ready in a couple of days. cb