Monday, October 12, 2015

"Nice marmot."

I left the candles and Scrubbing Bubbles mascot as is, to preserve the sense of gentle whimsy.

The original magazine cover and the 1970 LP.
An image as instantly powerful as the one above should not require any explanation, but I will provide one nevertheless. Back in September 1956, a now-defunct magazine called Man's Life ran a cover story with the extremely memorable headline "WEASELS RIPPED MY FLESH," accompanied by an illustration of a shirtless man actually being gnawed upon by angry weasels. The original story by Mike Kamens is available online if you'd care to read it. 

Meanwhile, those four magic words made such an impression on experimental rock weirdo Frank Zappa that he used the phrase as the title of a cacophonous, mostly-live album by his band, the Mothers of Invention, in 1970. That album's gory cover, with a ghoulishly memorable painting by Neon Park, has become an icon in its own right, even being included on Rolling Stone's list of the greatest LP covers of all time. 

Anyway, I thought I'd take the hapless adventurer from the original Men's Life cover and transplant him to a more domestic setting, specifically the bathtub of one Jeffrey "The Dude" Lebowski from The Big Lebowski. As Lebowski fans know, the Dude has his own memorable run-in with an angry ferret, though he famously misidentifies the creature as a marmot. Gaze upon this image, dear reader, and reflect that however badly your Monday may be going, it cannot compare to this fellow's day. Count your blessings then, scarce though they may be.