Columnist for Tuesday, 2/27 - jasona

Crimson Spider Manifesto, a memo

From: His Mechanized Might,
      Lord of All He Surveys,
      Righteous Ruler of Earth,
      The Crimson Spider.
Subject: Manifesto
Date: Whenever I Conquer the Earth + 1 day

To whom it may concern, and you better believe it concerns you... The following will not be tolerated any longer:

  • The color black is not to be worn any more, ever. Just to be safe we're going to have big bonfires burning twenty four hours a day. Bring all your black clothes and we'll just take care of the problem toot-sweet. Bring all your old shabby clothes too, we'll make a day of it.
  • Gruel will not be flavorless. We've far to much invested in artificial flavors and flavor enhancers to limit ourselves serving flavorless gruel. Any overlord or warden found to be serving tasteless paste will quickly be placed amongst those he or she used to lord over.
  • I'm the only one allowed to use the royal "we".
  • Tales of the Gold Monkey is going back on the air immediately, if not sooner. And it better be as good as I remember it was. McCarthyism will be nothing compared to my wrath unleashed on Hollywood if it isn't. Unless the actor has gotten old and flabby, or something like that. Hmm, the dog's probably dead by now too.
  • All SUVs will be painted bright "Caution" Yellow. If you're caught driving one while not carrying an appreciable cargo load it's the leech farms for you.
  • Always say please and thank you.
  • Shop classes will now teach Mecha construction. I just know some pesky space armada is going to swoop in and take away from me everything I've worked so hard to seize. Well ... not on my watch. The only way to have a strong planetary defense is if everyone has a fighting vehicle parked on the porch. Oh, and no using them to incite rebellion. That's forbidden.
  • The spider is now the national flower. We never needed a national "flower" anyways. That's just stupid. All spiders will now be held in the regard we once reserved for the national flower. Picking spiders is prohibited.
  • No painting on concrete. And this is retro-active. I want people working on this night and day. I want it all scrubbed clean. Copper too. No paint on copper.
  • Pillbugs will be removed from the Encyclopedia. No... don't ask me about it. Just do it. I don't want to talk about it.
  • Someone form a guild or something so that there are people who will come door to door and remove your old computer carcasses for you. It's like bodies in plague times...
  • DVD players will no longer have copy protection installed in them. No, wait, DVD players made for me will not have copy protection installed in them.
  • Any restaurant that can't make decent coffee won't be allowed to sell it as "coffee". Maybe as "Kofy" or "faux-coffee", but not "coffee". This goes for minimarts and gas stations too. You get one warning, then it's into the minionizer with you.
  • If you see me bearing down on you in my great big mechanical spider, for God's sake, get out of the way. I mean, it's not a rule or anything, but damn it, I'm sick of having the crews scrap cars off of the thing's legs. It's not like the thing was built for handling or anything.

    - CS

    PS: ask me about this tomorrow, I'll probably have some more thought up by then.


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