I was having an OK Sunday; feeling a tad lackadaisical, a bit flushed. But my day got a jolt of caffeine after seeing the footage of a just-captured Saddam Hussein on TV. While it may be bad for the karma to use another's hardship to raise your own spirits, I bet there's an exception clause at work here somewhere.
The verve of the iron-fisted dictator had long since been vanquished and the "Mighty One" looked like a Skid Row reject. Yep, pathetic images of a tyrant fallen were all around. Saddam having medical workers pick through his nappy hair looking for lice, spider or rat bites and the like. It was also good to see Saddam having his teeth probed; it's a well-known fact that gingivitis can wreak havoc on one's ability to elude capture. Saddam, scuttled physically, mentally and spiritually; his defeat clearly written on his face was the personification of what goes around comes around.
At first I thought someone Photoshopped Bin Laden's beard and Saddam's forehead into one image. But this idea passed. News commentators said he would crawl up in some hole and boy, were they right.
On the magazine front, things are looking up. Primedia is investing some additional resources into Turbo, which will result in a thicker magazine. The gameplan is to jump to a minimum in the 150-page range. Anxiety is high in my office as the workload of Robert Choo and myself could well double. I'm making nice with all the freelancers I know. The timing will be horrendous, though. The first of these super-sized issues will be generated during the Christmas and New Year's holidays, which further limits the number of days we have to pull stories from the proper orifices. We'll both be out a number of days at the Tokyo Auto Salon in early January 2004 and it's winter, which means good luck shooting any cars east of the Mississippi. It is all good for you though; the end result will be more stories, longer stories, bigger pictures and an enhanced reading experience. It's gonna be tough. Around January 13, I should be pretty strung out. I just hope I don't look as haggard as Saddam.