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Weak XLIX

3 December 2025

No. 8,974 (cartoon)

I want to be with no one more than you.

That’s very flattering.

I said no one; go away.

4 December 2025

Crime Sort of Pays

Liquor stores are a great source of booze and urban myths. Having said that, I must emphasize that everything I say here is true, except for the bits that perhaps aren’t. But I do have a genuine photograph (as if such a thing existed) of the raccoon who knocked over—sort of literally—a Virginia liquor store. The wee burglar had a great criminal mind until it didn’t.

The wily critter put on its mask, broke into the liquor store in the middle of the night, then rampaged through a rotgut buffet of moonshine, rum, and peanut butter whiskey. (Again, our little story is set in Virginia.)

It chugged the hooch until it had so much to drink that it needed to vomit, then passed out in the bathroom before it could reach the toilet. And when it was caught red-pawed in the morning, the only punishment it received was a stern lecture from a social worker about its “poor life choices.”

Such opprobrium!

Who says crime doesn’t pay?

5 December 2025

Mozart Death House

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart died two hundred and thirty-four years ago today in the Mozart Death House. Of all the places he could have gone in Vienna, why in the heck did he choose the Mozart Death House?!

6 December 2025

Martin Parr 1952-2025

I note that Martin Parr died today. I never liked nor disliked his work; I thought it was, um, fairly okay. And that concludes my remembrance of someone I don’t remember.

I did, however, like one of his quotes in an obituary: “I make serious photographs disguised as entertainment.” Perhaps that makes him the anti-Rinehart, conceptually speaking, since I make entertainment disguised as serious photographs.

7 December 2025

Group Sex with an Egg-laying Mammal

The Guardian is one of the worst Internet news sites in the world, except for almost all of the rest. My main problem with the digital rag is how annoyingly sanctimonious its editors are.

I can’t even look at a headline without declining to send them any dosh at least twice, even after they smugly remind me how superior they are to everyone else: “fierce, unshakable independence, our journalism serves the public good above all else.”

If I want to read several articles, I’m required to provide my email address so they can track me and sell information to advertisers. Apparently, stuffing more money in their pockets “serves the public good.”

I wonder what they do with all the money their permanent begathon raises? They certainly don’t spend it on a search engine; they don’t have one. Good luck trying to find that article you didn’t have time to read a week ago.

I’m not sure if they spend much money paying journalists either. After asking visitors to donate money to their commercial business (at least they don’t pretend to be a nonprofit corporation), they then ask readers to contribute articles for them to reproduce without payment.

It works like this: they have a “Tell us” section with requests such as, Tell us: Have you ever had group sex with an egg-laying mammal? They then cobble together an article after they get enough material from people who’ve schtupped a duckbill platypus. Now that’s what I call hard-hitting journalism, and they do too.

And there’s So-and-So’s Best Photo. At least that works both ways: the publication doesn’t pay for reproduction rights, and the photographer gets a bit of exposure. I wouldn’t make that deal with the self-righteous Guardian editors; I don’t have a favorite image, not even a short list.

On second and final thought, I do have a favorite photograph. Of course: it’s the one I’m going to make mañana.

8 December 2025

David Rinehart, Photojournalist

When I was a teenager, I came across the wreckage from a horrific traffic accident. I must have channeled Werner Bischof from the fifties when I pulled out my six-by-six twin lens reflex camera and photographed the smoldering, charred debris.

I called the photo editor at the local newspaper to see if he was interested in buying one of the photographs.

“Did anyone die?” he asked.

“More than one,” I replied.

That’s when I learned why the old newsroom hacks say, “If it bleeds, it leads.” I accepted his offer of twenty-five dollars, and that’s how I sold my first news photograph. (My mother was very proud of me; she saved the clipping.)

Several years later, The New York Times bought my photograph of a beached whale on the Oregon coast. I decided selling two news photographs was enough for one lifetime, so that’s when I ended my career as a photojournalist.

I may come out of retirement if I see a flaming dirigible falling from the sky, but until then, I shall continue to make my rewarding—albeit perhaps only to me—stupid art photographs.

9 December 2025

Happy Copulation Day!

Why celibate when you can copulate?

That’s the philosophical and/or theoretical question that’s the foundation of the new holiday I just created, Copulation Day. I decided today was breeding day by using rigorous scientifical analysis. More Americans are born on 9 September than on any other day on the calendar; therefore, this must be the most popular day to copulate. I think you’ll agree that’s some darn good cyphering.

But ...

What have I done? Not unlike Victor Frankenstein and Albert Hofmann, I am already conflicted by my nascent creation. I am happily barren and don’t want to encourage breeding. Copulation Day is only a few hours old, so I’m agonna change it to Birth Control Awareness Day, after I have me one of them three-martini lunches of yore.

10 December 2025

Criminal Devolution

It had to happen: first the vinyl records, then back to chemical photography, and now this.

A twenty-four-year-old man in Oklahoma decided to knock over a liquor store. Given the location, that may have been his best recreational option. Instead of using one of the traditional tools of the trade, like a Glock 40, he chose what one of his victims inaccurately described as an “old timey musket.”

In fact, the perp used a nineteenth century derringer, just like in the olde days. (John Wilkes Booth used such an easily concealed pistol to assassinate Abraham Lincoln.) The weapon is still conceptually efficacious; he took the money and ran. But not far enough: the cops found him hiding in a nearby parking garage, along with the gun and the cash.

I don’t think we’ve seen the end of the retro devolution. I won’t be surprised when the next armed robber in Oklahoma uses a mace and a halberd.

Coming next weak: more of the same.

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©2025 David Glenn Rinehart