August 09, 2005

Curious George-I have a lifesize cardboard cutout of myself ... wearing a tuxedo and striking a gameshow-host pose. It is cluttering up the flat, so I need suggestions as to what to do with it. I feel it needs a spectacular send-off.

Back in 2003, I hosted a theatrical improvisation tournament in Merton, South London. It ran over six Saturdays, one of which I was on holiday, so they replaced me with a cutout. This was then signed by the teams and the crew, and given to me (to carry home). Now it looms at me whenever I go into the spare room. Any suggestions? Anything considered, destruction included.

  • Carefully cut it up, put the pieces in a box and give it to a special friend or family member. Tell them it's a homemade jigsaw puzzle. Ask your teammates where they had the cutout made. Call the shop and ask if they want it back for a display model. Carry it around town to all the local tourist spots, taking pictures of your flat self. On your way home, toss the cutout in the trash bin and save the photos.
  • Well, the next Burning Man is less than a month away... You could spray it with spray adhesive (which I find makes for a nice, and somewhat "safe," burning medium), and then light it up outdoors... Set it up outdoors and let passers-by take their best shot at it... Toss it in the street and watch as *you* get run over... Place it in a lift, press a random number, let it go (how weird that would be to walk in a lift with a life-size cutout of someone just standing there!)... Sell that baby on eBay with proceeds going to some charity...
  • Use it to fake your own death and collect the insurance money. Move to Rio. Rio's nice.
  • Affix it to the back of a piece of transparent glass, rest the glass on a couple of painted wood blocks, and use the resulting structure as a coffee table. Back it with soft cork and use it as a dartboard. Put one ten-ring on the nose and another on the crotch. Tape it to a window facing the street.
  • 1. Hang a pouch around your (the cut out you) neck with pre-addressed stamped postcards. 2. Put a sign in your (the cut out you) hand with the name of a far-away city on it. Add in small print "please take me in the general direction of [above named city] and mail me a postcard wherever you drop me off." 3. Position yourself (the cut out you) by the roadside. 4. Wait for mail.
  • But before you do anything, post a picture of it for us to see.
  • You will probably regret destroying it. Maybe your parents want it? If you must destroy it, do so gradually and record the process in photographs. Pass it around amongst your friends and let them "have their way" with it. Mickey and SMT have good ideas too.
  • Stick it in a nice big window in Grapevine Texas. See how many holes the Secret Service sharpshooters will put in it.
  • Fold it in half so it can be mailed. Send it to a monkeyfilter member. Said member takes pics. Cleans spooge from cardboard cut-out Sends it to another member. Post pics on Flickr And so on.
  • 1. Take pictures of yourself, and cutout. 2. Sell picture to diet marketers, as 'Before' and 'After' shots. 3. Profit!
  • 1. Bring cutout to local bars. 2. Make stupid sexist remarks about the female patrons. 3. When called out on your boorish behaviour, say "Hey, at least I'm not as shallow as THIS guy!" 4. Bask in the glory of everyone enjoying your witty retort. Or run from some girl's cro magnon significant other. Whatever.
  • 1. Slice cutout into long strips. 2. Find fax machine. 3. Fax yourself to innumerable local businesses, asking for their support for your teleportation idea. 4. Profit! Or run away from the authorities. Whatever.
  • 1. Bring cutout to local bank or amusement park. 2. Get in a very long lineup. 3. Abandon said lineup, leaving the cutout as your stand-in. 4. Try to reclaim your spot in line, preferrably while obnoxiously munching on something sweet and savoury. 5. Run away from mob.
  • Find a stupid girl and do that thing where the two twin guys both have sex with the girl but she doesn't realize she's actually having sex with two different . . . people . . . um, cardboard cutouts . . . Find a really stupid girl.
  • 1. Bring cutout to local construction site. 2. Lay cutout behind steamroller. 3. Scream "My twin! My twin! They've killed my twin!" 4. Sue. Profit!
  • 1. Take cutout to local tourist trap. 2. Set up cutout with a photo-op cutout of Bush/Blair/Pope etc. Have them shake hands. 3. Sell to art dealer as hot new site-specific installation piece. 4. Profit! Or try to outrun rift in space-time continuum. Whatever.
  • 1. Try to fold it more than 8 times. 2. Laminate it and then use it as a surfboard - Cowabunga! 3. When you go to a friend's house and ring the bell, and they say "who is it?", you slip the cutout underneath the door. 4. Go to Home Depot and buy enough bricks to make a wall. Go down to the basement, put your cutout in a corner. Using the bricks, wall in your cutout, leaving just a little hole so that future owners of your house will be curious enough to see what's in the "secret" room. 5. Strap it to your waist and pretend its your Siamese twin that got caught in the pancake machine. 6. Make it into a kite and fly it to the moon.
  • Capt Renault wins by stamina alone! *applause* *gives cardboard cutout of Capt Renault to Capt Renault*
  • 1. Take photo of cutout. Put on computer. 2. Use the photo file to replicate yourself dozens of times. 3. Use multiple copies of your static self, and your live self to create either a) a remake of Willy Wonka or b) a Star Wars fan-film of the Clone Wars. 4. Upload to internets. Profit!
  • I think Ebay's your best bet. Write it up as a religious artifact, something along the lines of a 21st century Shroud of Turin. Or you could take it to work and put it in your cubicle. Leave it face to the wall except for days you need to take off for "mental health" purposes. Modify it so the head is on a spring and bobs up and down with the air currents. Go on a three week vacation. Come back to a raise and a new office. Seriously, it can't take up THAT much room. Put it under the bed or something. It could be quite valuable someday. (not in your lifetime, but who knows. Maybe you'll be president or something, in which case, instant collector's item.)
  • Put it under the bed or something At night, pull it out and tell it your dreams.
  • 1. Bring cutout to Academy Awards, or any othe awards ceremony involving a lot of tuxes. 2. Photograph cutout amongst all the real people wearing tuxes. Repeat. Build a collection. 3. Publish "Where's Waldo" ripoff/revival. 4. Profit! Or avoid litigation. Whatever.
  • 1. Take your cutout and put it to next to Capt Renault's cutout. 2. Make it hold hands.
  • 1. Put him in front of a window (curtains drawn back) pointing directly at your neighbour's house. For added effect, have him holding binoculars to his eyes. 2. Keep him in the passenger seat of your car. Use the carpool lane.
  • 1. Bring cutout to your therapist. Keep it in lobby. 2. Say "Doctor, I think I've found the reason behind all those failed relationships.. you see, all along, I've really been in love with MYSELF!" 3. Open door dramatically, revealing cutout. 4. Go on steady stream of psychotropic medication. 5. Drugs, man! Drugs!
  • 1. Feed it some Eggs Benedict 2. Watch it explode.
  • 1. Go on a cross-country search for the original "parent" piece of cardboard from which it was cut. 2. Reunite the cutout with the cutoff. Snif.
  • I'd offer a witty suggestion but I'm not cut out for this. Oh ho Argh
  • 1. Go gunning down the highway, yeah, way past the speed limit, the cutout by your side. 2. The cops come, sirens screaming after you. 3. You pull over, the cop, e.g. Officer Snuffy comes up to your window. 4. You shout "Here!", throw the cutout at Officer Snuffy, and hightail it outta there.
  • 1. Send cutout to look for Abiezer_Coppe 2. When it comes back unsuccessful and broke from a year on the highways, tell it, "he's in China somewhere, you idiot"
  • Cut it's head off and pose behind it, like a Coney island cut-out, and take pictures. Take pomo-lovin' artsuckers for millions!
  • 1. Make cutout of current girlfriend. 2. Place two cutouts together, have them hump Barbie-and-Ken style. 3. Laugh uproariously. Repeat at dinner parties.
  • 1. Make cutout of former girlfriend. 2. Place two cutouts together in bed, for current girlfriend to find. 3. Enjoy ensuing wackiness.
  • The Count of Monte Cutout: Imprison your cutout in a fortified stone French castle. See if it can dig its way out with a spoon.
  • 1. Write a script for a movie starring yourself, which has at its climax a shootout at a standoff with police. 2. Get camera, film. 3. At critical moment in plot, cops will shoot at you. 4. Have cutout replace yourself for receiving shot, cutout will turn to the side, showing off a lack of a third dimension, allowing bullet to pass. 5. Audience will be stunned by plot "twist". Profit!
  • 1. Glue 2x4 to back of cutout. 2. Glue 2x4s to backs of current girlfriend, former girlfriend. 3. Stage life-sized version of Punch and Judy. Profit! Use profits to pay off your two exes.
  • ... or sell them to picketers who don't like you very much.
  • (Uh, that last one should read "CUTOUTS of current girlfriend, former girlfriend." They'd be more than upset as it is...)
  • Excellent, layne! 1. Contact a bunch of Islamic extremists overseas, who have no access tv. 2. Sell cutout to extremists, saying it's the newest president of the infidels, for use as an effigy. 3. Profit! Use profits to hire bodyguards.
  • 1. Place cutout outside former girlfriend's apartment, place of work. 2. Repeat for three months. 3. Explain to cops, "no really, it was all just a joke..."
  • 1. During ensuing incarceration, get mother to bring you cutout. 2. Place cutout in cell, escape, leaving cutout behind. 3. Cutout can easily escape at night by slipping between the bars. 4. Reunite, laugh at cops' expense.
  • First thing you do, wire a couple of red LEDs to the cutout's eyes...
  • 1. Get cutout, go to pet store. 2. Try to return the cutout, claiming that he is 'all too flat'. Demand another. 3. See if staff get the joke. 4. Tape abovesaid encounter, try to hawk as pilot to the networks. 5. Be told by Fox that you're much too highbrow. 6. Sell pilot of you kicking cutout in the nuts. 7. Profit! Spinoff, profit more!
  • 1. Celebrate you and your cutout's newfound celebrity by going for drinks. 2. Toast each other, watch as cutout downs beer, and wilts. 3. Fall to knees, yelling to sky "Why, God, WHY?!?" 4. Sit at home, wait for VH1 to invite you to join cast of "Surreal Life".
  • 1. Photocopy cutout. Make cutout clones. 2. Rent Broadway theatre. 3. Stage musical remake of "Multiplicity". 4. Profit! Sell clones as souvenirs, keep cast fresh.
  • 1. Take cutout clones, place in van. 2. Go on college tours. 3. Present lectures on Nietzsche's Theory of Eternal Repetition and Return. 4. College tour, so no profit. Only stipend.
  • 1. Contact Pro-Life movement. 2. Get the cutouts and yourself on a speaking tour. 3. Rail against the dangers of cloning humans. 4. See if your audience realizes that your argument is nothing but a bunch of straw-men. 5. Run for Governor. Profit!
  • GOD HELP US, CAPT RENAULT MACHINE WON"T TURN OFF. CAN"T REACH SWITCH...MUST TRY... *sparks fly* *explosion* Hello?
  • 1. Make cutout of Julie Christie. 2. Get cutout, place together with Julie Christie cutout. 3. Film remake of Fahrenheit 451. 4. Watch as critics applaud your creative use of symbolism. Profit! 5. Fall out with cutout over lover's triangle with Julie Christie cutout. 6. Use profits to create Catherine Deneuve cutout. Never leave house again.
  • GACK! DON'T YOU SEE? HE'S GOING TO KILL US ALL! WE'RE ALL GOING TO DIE! *reaches bloodied hand to auxiliary power switch*
  • 1. Apply for high-stress job. 2. Work at job. 3. Few months later, have co-worker bring in cutout, say to boss "the pressure finally got to him." 4. Go on workman's comp. Profit!
  • 1. Get cutout. Travel back in time to your youth. 2. Pester sibling relentlessly. 3. Goad mother into saying "now you CUT THAT OUT!"" 4. Present cutout. 5. Run as mother doesn't recognize your future self or cutout thereof, calls cops. 6. Travel back in time to present. Try erasing decades-old arrest warrant.
  • 1. Go to Barnum and Bailey's Ringling Bros. Circus. 2. Wait for performing elephants to appear. 3. Get cutout -- *Capt. Renault machine finally overheats* Daisy, Daaaaaaaaaaaaiiiiiiiiisssssssyyyyyyyy... 5. Profit... *Sputter sputter* ..wrrr...
  • NUKE THE SITE FROM ORBIT! NUKE THE SITE FROM ORBIT! *sees Renault machine disabled* DON'T NUKE THE SITE FROM ORBIT! DON'T NUKE THE SITE FROM ORBIT! OH YOU FUCKERS I AM SO PISSED.
  • *rushes in with 100 TON HAMMER™* *laughs too much, gets hernia* *hobbles out*
  • 1. Get cut-out a MoFi membership. 2. Have him take over while Capt. Renault rests up for the next period.
  • I certainly hope you posted the cut out in front of your computer to make it look like you were reading all these inane remarks instead of actually having to wade through them yourself.
  • Cut its ear off and send it to some Getty or other.
  • I'm surprised no one has suggested a "Burn Me in Effigy" party. Invite all your closest friends. Cut out of your will those who cheer loudest.
  • 1. Find a location with a nice view to bring friends. 2. Place cutout somewhere in the far distance but within site of said location. 3. Play "Where's Waldo" and give prize to the first person to spot your twin.
  • Paste it to the ceiling like they do on ABC's World News Now (It's the overnight news show for US network ABC.) Each anchor gets their own cardboard cutout (which occasionally fills in for the anchor in times of illness/silliness, and when they move on from the show the cutout gets stuck to the ceiling. When Kerry came to my town during the last election season, friends who lived in upper floor apartments that looked over the stage were told that they had a choice of a)leaving their apt. at 6am and not returing for 12 hours or b) staying inside *all day* and not opening the curtains unless they wanted to be pegged as a sniper. A friend who'd recently had an operation had to spend the day at a friend's because he couldn't do without a breeze on the hot summer day in his unairconditioned apt. It must be standard proceedure for the Secret Service.
  • I would affix it to the wall/window ledge of a tall building and then go down in the street and point at it yelling "Don't jump! Don't jump!" A crowd of people will form, firetrucks show up, police with bullhorns, etc. Videotape the entire thing. Sell to the highest bidder.
  • I say we get Capt Renault some cardboard cutouts of himself, and a video camera.
  • muteboy can't come to to the computer now (he's feeling a little flat) but he asked me to say thanks to alllllll of you for the wonderful suggestions (esp the Capt). signed, flatboy p.s. he'll regret sticking me behind the wardrobe.. who's that? Why... hallo... Muteboy... I've been waiting for you...
  • 1. find crowded tall lobby with old-fashioned glass mail chutes 2. weight bottom and trim to fit 3. go to second floor, drop in chute. scream "waaaaa! help help help!" after it. 4. retrieve from basement mail room 5. repeat
  • 1. find road resurfacing site 2. put cutout behind steam roller 3. scream 4. sue 5. PROFIT!!
  • Capt Renault...aren't u a cop?
  • *Capt. Renault machine shudders, comes back to life* No way man! I'm no narc! Much baser life form. Lawyer. But being cold-blooded is a distinct advantage in this heat wave. PROFIT! PROFIT! PROFIT! PRO-- *machine exhausts meagre energy supply, shuts down, falls to ground*
  • Lawyer huh?...that explains it!!!
  • Humph! A lawyer, of all things. Most lawyers are absolutely horrible people. Especially the ones that won't give you free advice in the grocery store. ;)
  • What you'll need: A camcorder Probably five or six boxes of jumping jack firecrackers Duct tape White cloth Black sharpie iMovie Take the standup outside, preferably out in the middle of nowhere. Tape the jumping jacks to the cutout's chest like a vest of explosives. Draw some squiggly lines on the white cloth, and wrap it around the forehead of the cutout. Turn camcorder on. Light a couple jumping jacks. Run. Download the clip into iMovie, and put the caption "re-enactment" on the bottom of the screen. Sell it to Fox News for huge profits or post on internet message board for laughs.
  • Trust me, it's even worse when they insist on giving the advice: "So you're going with the Iceberg, hunh? I know you don't know me, but I'm a lawyer, and... " Five hours later, I left with Arugula that just wilted in the fridge.
  • L,LL: I'm sure someone with more smarts than I have could put together a joke involving Arugula and lawyers. Or is it lawyers and turnips that's funny?
  • * sees 100 TON Hammer* Oooo. This will do nicely. * drag hammer off-stage, humming *