My name is Cecil Seaside. You don't know me very well. Yet we have been hanging out together for a while now. I've imagined that at one time or another, many members have said about me, "hey, who is that guy?" October 6th, 2003 was my first post. I was given a head without asking for one. I think Ben just drew it because he wanted to, and then decided it should function, rather than sit there in his sketchbook as if he had a crush on me. I kinda feel like one of those people--like an actor or a politician--who is given an "honorary degree" from Harvard or something just because... I don't even know.
Here's a true story: When I was in NYC in November, I met a girl from DC at the Beauty Bar. I told her I had recently met some kids from DC and apparently they hang out at a place called "The Dirt Farm". I asked her if she had heard of it. She said, No. I imagined it was some sort of band venue/flop house/food for the homeless distribution center/screen printing studio/beer bar/pizza kitchen. I forget when I figured out I was wrong.
Killoggs is weird. Half the time I don't know what is "real" and what is staged or sarcastic; and that's amusing, but being an outsider, it makes me tend to not believe that anything I read here is sincere, at first. It feels like I am at a party where I don't know anyone except the person who invited me. I stick around listening to in-jokes and "remember the time..." stories; I give an uncomfortable "heh" once in a while. I'm the one in the corner, showing way too much interest in the bookshelf, standing there, drink in hand and my head tilted sideways. I walk over to a conversation and listen, I hear an opportunity to tell a pun, get a laugh or two (and a scowl from Kara), and then I slink away to stare at the bad art hanging in the hallway. I've figured out some of the standard Killoggs joke replies. One is just to say something vulgar and/or nonsense in ALLCAPS. The most popular quip seems to be: "Why do you hate______?" Who started that one anyway? By the way, does Kara hate me? I think one of my very first replys to a post was a "what's in, what's out" sort of post that Kara made, and I said something that I thought was a compliment but she just shot me down as if I just called her a skanky ho-bag, but I was actually almost flirting. Boy did I eat shit on that one. And pretty much every comment she's made toward me has been dismissive. I've had a masochistic crush on her since that first insult. And then there's Brandon... I still can't figure him out. I definitely admire his effort toward what seems like pure absurdity; and I'm not being sarcastic about that; it's a worthy goal; and I'm not being sarcastic about not being sarcastic. (okay, that was kinda sarcastic) Basically, this is how I see Killoggs: Josh is the dad, Ben is the mom, Brandon and Kara are their children and everyone else is extended family, and this family is bent on taking over the world with their tyrannical brand of "freedom". Maybe some of you deserve to be siblings too, I don't know.
Anyway, I kinda lost my train of thought and I don't know why I wanted to make this post in the first place. But I do have an idea; a fantasy. I think Killoggs should get a tour bus and drive around the country, or even drive to Alaska or South America, maybe it could be a Mardi Gras to Carnival trip where you drive from New Orleans and take a year to end up in Rio de Janero, and you explode the bus in Rio. Everyone could quit thier jobs, all the members would live on the bus and post about the trip and it would be sort of like the Killoggs version of "Road Rules" but... without rules, I guess. No, more like a publicity tour. You could stop at internet cafes and give out autographed headshots. Head-shots; 8 x 10 photos of the drawings. Maybe there are too many members for one bus though so there could be two and they could race. And maybe you could get Pepsi to sponsor it because the colors kinda match Killoggs anyway.
Um, and on that note, I just gotta say, I think the torn paper with the blue background design is kinda... tired. Am I the only one?
Michael [ url ] said at 8:50 PM 04-26-2004: Hi Cecil - good post. For a variation on the torn blue paper theme, go to chatterwocky.com - all sorts of greens and crazier!
cecil [email] said at 9:10 PM 04-26-2004: Oh, I hope that post didn't sound like "why doesn't anyone like me?" Everyone likes me. Except Kara; she loves me.
You are cool, Zack. I met you.
cecil [email] said at 9:56 PM 04-26-2004: I was attempting some killoggs style allcaps vulgarity but obviously failed miserablly, it's just not me, I'd take it back if I could but it's just too late.
josh [email] said at 9:00 PM 04-26-2004: BEST POST EVAR!
The design has been intended to change for about 3 years, but then I started a record label and a webhosting company, and any time I have time to sit down and think about changing it, I remember that Loren would yell at me if he knew I was spending that much time on something that wasn't our webhosting company... so I go do something he won't know about for my record label instead.
cecil [email] said at 9:18 PM 04-26-2004: Wait, I just realized, is it supposed to be toilet paper??? Now it all makes sense. No, don't ever change it.
Baby Duck said at 1:38 PM 04-27-2004: Anyone not liking the blue and white motif can read Killoggs through RSS/XML and design a UI around it to their heart's content.
rick [email] said at 9:11 PM 04-26-2004: I want to go on a transcontinental road trip with you.
We could pool our funds and buy a Unimog. Then we could drive to Point Barrow, Alaska just to say, "Cold enough for ya?" to one of the locals. Then we could go to Pike's Peak, to see if anyone is crazy enough to go down it on a cast-iron skateboard. Then we could catch a bullfight in Tijuana. Then we could drive across the Panama Canal. Then we could drive up and down the Andes and adopt a vicuna. Then we could stop in Rio da Janeiro for Carnival. Then we could drive through the Pampas and Patagonia to Tierra del Fuego, have the Unimog shipped to the Chukchi Peninsula and we could begin again. I leave the iteniary to you once we are on Asia.
rick [email] said at 9:24 PM 04-26-2004: Or maybe I should just drive a Unimog to 'frisco to visit my brother. I am sure the San Franciscans would love the vehicle that makes the H2 look like a Prius.
courtney [email] said at 1:52 PM 04-27-2004: as much as I would question the vehicle, I would dig it if you came to visit SF. then we could buy orange mocha whip frappuccinos a la zoolander.
cecil [email] said at 9:42 PM 04-26-2004: yeah, that's what I'm talkin about. I think MTV would pick it up like THAT. But I want to be the director who watches from a safe distance and stays in the posh hotels.
rick [email] said at 10:03 PM 04-26-2004: Yeah! See it would be a challenge. You would have to come up with mix tapes that would work from Point Barrow, Alaska to the Tierra del Fuego.
rick [email] said at 10:03 PM 04-26-2004: Yeah! See it would be a challenge. You would have to come up with mix tapes that would work from Point Barrow, Alaska to the Tierra del Fuego.
cecil [email] said at 9:22 PM 04-26-2004: Is your head drawn with "quotation fingers" because you never "mean" what you "say"?
Or are they hippy peace fingers?
Or are they tiny goats standing next to you?
courtney [email] said at 9:22 PM 04-26-2004: I like Cecil and his sporadic posts. I also like his writing very much... I spent much time reading his publications I purchased during APE.
anotherben.. said at 9:49 PM 04-26-2004: i like cecil's halloween costume. also, my middle name is cecil. with a soft e sound (cecil rhymes with vessel..not diesel).
kara [email] said at 1:03 PM 04-27-2004: I was reflecting on the impression a lot of people get that I don't or won't like them.
I can never see myself from the outside, I suppose. My recent attempts, "in real life" to present a more friendly exterior have proved embarassing and disheartening, so I'm going back to letting people think what they want.
cecil [email] said at 1:26 PM 04-27-2004: Actually, I was just joking with my inability to know any killogger in real life, and imagining you hated me was probably based on only one misinterpreted comment. Plus your head kinda reminds me of Lucy of Peanuts so I just started building this idea of the mean crabby girl character in my head, which started to become and erotic fantasy and...
josh [email] said at 10:03 AM 04-27-2004: Kara doesn't hate you! And neither do I. You are aces in my book. Anyone who is a friend of Ben, Loren and Dave must be a pretty cool dude/dudette.
cecil [email] said at 12:50 PM 04-27-2004: Ok, I really did not intend for this post to sound like a Cecil pity-party of one. I was shooting for Woody Allen, not Eeyore. I don't feel ignored or hated, I was just trying to describe this weird experience of only knowing a couple of you and yet being part of you as I sit here in my office in Pasadena. But my head is warmed by the nice things said.
ed [email] said at 1:11 PM 04-27-2004: Oh, and I can totally relate to the whole "not knowing many people" vibe. Until last October, I hadn't met any Killoggs member.
cecil [email] said at 1:31 PM 04-27-2004: Really? I think it's just the way things are set up here, with the heads, it seems like all the heads live on Killoggs island.
Bendependent [email] said at 7:07 PM 04-27-2004: After reading this I looked down at my faded blue overalls that make my butt look big after popping out so many kids, took a sip from my diet coke and a bite from the kit kat I'm "allowing myself" today, thought about what time I need to go back and pick up the kids from soccer practice, and realized that I am really proud to be a mother.