Ok, so if I posted a picture of myself as, say, Jesus, complete with seamless tunic and red shawl, that would be cool with you, right? I mean, people dress up as Jesus all the time. Have you ever seen a passion play without a Jesus? You can even buy Jesus costumes on Amazon. No big deal.

What if I imagined myself healing the sick with my touch? Jesus did that. It'd just be cosplaying. People love to pretend they're shooting webs like Spider-Man or flying like Superman. No one ever complains about that. Emulate your heroes. It's cool.

So long as I'm pretending to be someone with superpowers, I might as well surround myself with people in need, on their knees and begging for my help with their hands together. They do that for Superman, right? You can't really be a hero if you're not helping anyone. That's just common sense.

While I'm at it, how about some sunbeams and angels in the background? Jesus wouldn't have any supernatural pick-up-your-mat-and-walk powers without the Holy Spirit. You gotta have your winged boys at your back, or you'd just be some tent-revival faith-healing huckster. There's no mistaking the real thing.

And then if I then told you that I didn't know what Jesus looked like, I just thought it was me as a doctor and had to do with the Red Cross, you'd believe me, right? Don't you know a doctor when you see one? Who the fuck even knows what Jesus looked like? Jesus? Never heard of him. Where do you get these crazy ideas?

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I've been so down about the recent behavior of what currently passes as "government" in the country I was born into that I got the idea to cheer myself up by doing something good for my fellow man that I had never done before: I would donate blood.

Why hadn't I done it before now? Inconvenience, mostly. And some anxiety about the whole process. And, of course, in my town it's run by the American Red Cross, an organization I've had a bit of contempt for ever since 2001 when they had a hard time appropriately handling the flood of donations intended for Twin Towers victims. (And then Hurricane Katrina. And then Sandy. And so on.) But their being the only game in town, my choice was either to sign up to give blood there or feel bad about thinking about and then not giving blood. One of those options is clearly better than the other.

So I signed up online Sunday for the Monday evening blood drive, but when I showed up, they had no idea I was coming. Someone had penciled-in my name on their printed itinerary sheet, but the computer didn't recognize me or my driver's license. Eventually they had to type into their software everything that I had typed into their website the night before. You have to applaud that sort of organizational efficiency.

Then I had to wait. For an hour and a half. To be fair to them, I overheard someone say they were short of phlebotomists (only three), so I wasn't the only one who had to wait a bit; I was just the only one who had to wait so long. Donors scheduled for appointments an hour after mine went in before I did. The nice ladies at the front desk (who spent much of their time talking up the quesadillas they were offering to all donors), realizing I had been sitting in the waiting area so long asked if I would like them to inquire from the nurses within where I was in their waiting list. I asked if it would make any difference. When they said no, I said don't bother. I got through it by telling myself what a good, selfless thing I was doing. (Martyrdom has its privileges.)

When I did finally get in, the actual donation process itself took about three times as long as my paperwork had told me to expect. The phlebotomist had a hard time getting anything out of me. He said that maybe I wasn't hydrated enough (despite my drinking so much water in the past two days that I was peeing every two hours) and maybe the vein I had presented wasn't large enough (despite my having given him his choice). I don't mean to criticize the guy who was clearly having a long day; maybe it's just hard to get blood out of a stone.

Anyway, I did it. Blood donated. I hope it helps someone. (I half expect the Red Cross to find a reason to throw it out.) I'm not sure whether it made me feel any better, but at least I got a blog post out of it. I really don't know if I'll do it again. Even for quesadillas.

Also for what it's worth: there were three Walters scheduled for the day, all in the building at the same time. I go years without bumping into other Walters. I guess this whole time they've all been waiting in line to give blood.

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I've found another great television show: Superjail! Sure, the show's been airing on Cartoon Network since September, but if you hadn't noticed by now, I'm a little slow to accept new things.

It's super-violent, like cartoons ought to be. (I've long maintained that cartoons should always present something impossible in live action, and this show's got it in spades.) It's about crime-and-punishment, like all the best dramas. (Did you ever see Tom Selleck's jailhouse thriller An Innocent Man? Just thinking about it has me feeling a little logey.) It's filled with sci-fi and fantasy elements, like all the best comic book stories. (The Twins, recurring uni-browed characters of mysterious power and intent, dress as Sandmen from Logan's Run. That's enough to get my attention.)

However, I suspect that the real reasons that I like it are two-fold. A.) it is clearly hand-drawn, a rare commodity, indeed, in these heady days of computer-aided animation. (As much as I enjoy a heavy outline, I grow weary of the stiff and stylized Johnny Bravo style.) And 2.) It's always in motion. In many ways, it reminds me of some tortured cross between Itchy and Scratchy cartoons and Ralph Bakshi's work. If you've seen the bizarre, psychedelic action of Fritz the Cat, you know what I'm talking about. (Truthfully, I have to admit that I never really liked Bakshi's work, probably because he took himself and the world a little too seriously. I suspect that he could have used more pointless sight gags involving defenestrations and fewer topless lady-cats. But what do I know? He's a famous director with his own animation school and I'm just some schlub with a blog readership of 7 and falling.)

All in all, it's my favorite new cartoon since I discovered the The Marvelous Misadventures of Flapjack (also on Cartoon Network) earlier this year. Maybe I should be watching more Cartoon Network. Their programming of imaginary friends, Dial-H-For Hero rip-offs, and Family Guy re-runs is certainly more realistic than that of either Fox News or ESPN.

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The Dawgs kick off tomorrow at 5:30 PM. (I thought that was important enough to make the blog.)

On another note: why the hell is everyone in America endorsing donating money to the Red Cross? Has everyone forgotten the lessons of 911 already? The Red Cross received millions because of that, and then they kept what they wanted and diverted a large portion of donations gifted for 911 victims and New York natives to other causes. Do you think that they money that you are giving the Red Cross to help the New Orleans natives is really ending up there?

I heard on CNN that Diddy, Nick Cage, Celene Dione, Hillary Duff and more are giving millions (that's right, millions: who says that the Gilded Age ended over a century ago?) to the Red Cross. Let those rich bastard throw their money away if they want to, they have enough, but why am I hearing about it? Did their press agents release the news so that I would be motivated to give what I could? (Social pressure from celebrities? Wow!) Or did they just want me to know what great people they were for giving so much to those who have so little?

Maybe I'm really damn cynical, but that doesn't mean that I'm wrong.

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