Friday, October 24, 2008

Ugly Tour Bus Photoblogging: Let the Eagle Soar!


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Yes, it's really photographed off a tour bus. The shot of the eagle on this one really struck me, because it looked like... such an asshole! Seriously! I thought about it, and a lot of bald eagles lately, especially ones on things like "support our troops" t-shirts and animated gifs 'n' such, totally look that way. And you know what? I think the people making these things choose the assholish, belligerent eagles because that's the image they want to project. Even when it's a crying eagle!

Another common eagle is the heraldic one, the one on the presidential seal or the back of the quarter. I like to call this the Monroe Doctrine Eagle. I spread my wings the better to smother you with, my dear!

Maybe if the election goes well, if you know what I mean, we'll see a return of the flying eagle, the most optimistic eagle, the Steve Miller Band eagle. Enough of the asshole eagles, already!

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

Why does this picture make me think of Rick Davis? When honestly, what I usually think of when I see Rick Davis is some odd offspring of a frog and a lizard.

Anonymous said...

bald eagles are somewhat a-holes of birds, they get alot of thier food by stealing from ospreys. ben franklin wanted a wild turkey for nat'l bird instead ;)

Anonymous said...

Last spring, a bald-eagle flew right in front of my car, and snatched some road kill, I think it was a racoon, off the street. He was enormous, his wing span looked to be almost 10 feet. After he grabbed the stash, he flew straight at me. I could see his face. He was tired, peeked, and demoralized. I felt like the indian in the old littering commercials.

Lynette said...

ha! i think the eagle eats dead things along with the occasional fresh fish and such. that sort of works if you think how we've been spreading chaos and destruction around the globe of late. sigh.

Matthew Hubbard said...

And the eagle is obviously not airbrushed, even though this is a way too intrusive close-up. I feel the right wing outrage growing as I type.

It was months back that The Daily Show had a bit about a crazy lady in Alaska (not THAT crazy lady) who regularly dumped edible trash in her yard so that bald eagles would show up. Think about bald eagles looking like seagulls or pigeons, the ground covered with them, the birds fighting each other for scraps. Not exactly the majestic critters we grew up idolizing.

Anonymous said...

The nothing-understated, ubermajestic eagle imagery that I b'lieve PSP is talking about reminds me of bad eastern European/east Asian mural art. The sort of technicolor realism combined with kick-in-the-head symbolism that is meant by totalitarians to be accessible to their undereducated base.

I think perhaps one thing that makes eagles in this genre look like assholes is the protruding lip-corners as in the above. That's the sort of look that makes one want to wipe it off another human's face, particularly when combined with a sharp stare.

TRex said...

Its boring using reality based animal images to promote a human ideal. And so I present a caricature, "Sam the Eagle".
http://muppet.wikia.com/wiki/Sam_the_Eagle

So much more fun when they can share their opinions/personalities and not just be another p[r]etty face.

schadenfreude said...

I love you PSP. Thank you for being YOU.

Glennis said...

I never had such a good look at eagle nostrils before.

Er...thanks.

Anonymous said...

Seems to me, that's what eagles look like. The focused eyes are simply birdish and anthropomizing a raptor face is just silly. But I suppose that's that point.