The Sweet Release of Death

da Vinci, censorship, McCarthy, Canadian Maple Leaf

da Vinci's Junk

03/14/2010 06:33 PM Filed in:The Mental Giants

A funny thing happened the other day, a little sprinkling of comic dust over Corporate Land, The day was chaotic to say the least. Time sensitive projects were going sideways and had to be roped in and dealt with to hit our deadline, tempers were flaring between sales and production staff, with yours truly caught in the fray of at least 3 fire fights. So as the day was coming apart at the seams, a little corporate soldier from sales appeared at my 4x4 cube-of-doom and asked for a favor. The favor? Well, it was rather peculiar and kind of threw me for a loop. I was right smack dab in the middle of fixing a computer glitch, when I heard the strange request squeak from Sales Boy; “I need you to print me a leaf” What? Did I hear him correctly? “ You need what? A leaf printed?” “Yeah” Exclaimed Sales Boy. “We gotta cover something...well yeah...something” This request snapped me out of the chaos on the second go round. The request just sounded so bizarre, surreal given that all hell was breaking loose in production and Sales Boy is asking me for a print of a leaf. “OK...I’ll bite” I snapped back at him.

“What the hell do you need a leaf print for?” A dry grin started to spread across Sales Boy’s face. “The installers just finished putting up a new trade show booth by our desks upstairs and we need to cover some of the graphics.” Hmm... I thought. What the hell could it be? Whatever it was it had to be good as some of the staff upstairs, are so wound up tight, they make Reagan look like Sam Kinison. “Well, before I print anything, I need to know what we are covering and how big it needs to be” Sales Boy’s face lost its grin and became ashen. He leaned into my cube a little closer and a covert whisper hissed out of his mouth with the punch line I was looking for; “we need to cover da Vinci Man’s thing” WHAT? I croaked with an uncontrollable chuckle. “You’re kidding right?” Still chuckling. “No!” Sales Boy shrieked as he recoiled back from my insane chuckle. “Ok...Maybe later” I chirped. “ I’ve gotta put some fires out and then maybe I’ll come see the booth. OK! I’ll e-mail you a leaf to print” Sales Boy said with a sliver of giddiness that reeked of Joe McCarthy.

Hours had passed and the leaf request was forgotten amongst other things in the minutia of the day. Curiosity did get its hooks into me before I left for the day, so I sauntered upstairs to see what all the fuss was about. As I rounded the corner at the top of the stairs, there it stood: The booth with daVinci Man and his Junk. One thing though, daVinci Man’s junk was covered by... you guessed it, a fucking leaf. But not just any leaf. No, the Sales Storm troopers printed out the maple leaf from the Canadian flag! I thought “Are they serious?” Good God. It’s 2010 folks, and you are censoring daVinci? In a rebellious fit, I walked over to the booth and ripped off the leaf. Not quite as dramatic as the cry of FREEDOM!!! at the end of Braveheart, but it was fairly invigorating. Your welcome, Leonardo. You’ve been long gone for quite some time but your drawings certainly have a pack of middle-aged men all in a dither on the outskirts of Seattle. I had stopped censorship. Or so I thought. The next morning another leaf and, another rebellious takedown.

As I passed by one of the elder salesman’s desk, he quipped “ We need to do something about that damn thing” “Yes I replied. And we need to execute all of our Vietnamese workers in the sew shop too. They’re Communists you know.” No answer from The Elder. The daVinci Man’s junk remained free for the world to see. His junk has exposed the censors at work and for that, I’m eternally grateful, Leonardo.

Tags: da Vinci, censorship, McCarthy, Canadian Maple Leaf, Reagan, Sam Kinison