See updates below.
A few weeks ago I designed a bag for my zazzle store, as an homage to Portlandia, an awesomely satirical show poking fun of Portland. It was a canvas bag with a dead dodo bird on it, and it said (in very cheerful lettering) “Put a bird on it!” I put a link to their page so that people would understand why a sad, extinct bird would be a parody of the skit. I’d put a picture of it here, but I can’t, because the company that owns Portlandia made zazzle delete it because they said it infringed on their intellectual property. So apparently, you can’t put a bird on it.
It was fine though, because no one actually bought one anyway, but I thought it was funny that a show based entirely on satirizing an entire city would have a problem with my bag satirizing their show. So I made a new bag satirizing my last bag.
I even explained everything on the actual bag description:
And then I tweeted it to @ifcportlandia and said “We’re cool here, right?” And we were. Until the next day when that bag was banned as well. This is when most people would give up, rather than making it worse. Most people who were not me, that is.
Please click on the links to see the latest additions to my store.
PS. I still love Portlandia. And birds. Just not at the same time, due to really important and stupid legal issues.
UPDATED: Holy crap, y’all. I just got an email from Fred Armisen (co-creater and co-star of Portlandia), telling me that he and Carrie have no clue why those bags were banned, and that they think they’re fabulous. Then he asked how they could help, and he and Carrie offered to sign some of the bags personally. Which explains exactly why I love Portlandia, social media, and birds. I considered making one saying “Carrie and Fred personally approve of the birds on this bag” (and then have them sign it, along with a notary public), but instead I just suggested that they sign one and auction it off to a charity that rescues birds from crack houses. And we’d call it The GET-A-BIRD-OUT-OF-THERE Auction. No word yet from Fred. It’s possible I may have frightened him.
UPDATED AGAIN: So much awesomeness it needed a whole new post.