Stealing Sex.com doesn't pay

Two years ago I produced a cartoon for Gary Kremen, the current and rightful owner of adult website portal sex.com. The Flash cartoon, "How the Grinch Stole Sex Dot Com", is the story of how con artist Stephen Cohen stole the valuable domain name sex.com from Gary Kremen, by forging a letter to Network Solutions.

At the time of producing the cartoon, the gonif Cohen was still at large. On October 28, 2005, Cohen was finally captured and arrested in Mexico. Today, a judge ruled that Cohen will remain in jail until he accounts for all the money he earned from the stolen sex.com domain.

In my cartoon, the 40-second story ends with Cohen sending a holiday greeting to Kremen. This is not so far from the truth! During Cohen's exile, he frequently sent letters to Kremen to taunt him. Well, it looks like my cartoon is finally outdated, and Kremen gets the last laugh.

Click to watch "How the Grinch Stole Sex Dot Com"

You can also read the production notes.

NYC Marathon: 7-Mile Piss Break

Shortly after the 7-mile mark in the ING New York City Marathon, runners passing through Park Slope, Brooklyn on 4th Ave. are treated to a Poland Spring sponsored water station. Fortunately for the runners, now tanked up on H2O, a vacant lot perfect for a quick piss is just one block away. This impromptu public urinal served many runners well today.

I like "Toby", whose purple polka-dotted shirt announces, "I am helping make dreams come true ... by pissing on your house!" And how about the folks who are sponsored by Xerox? Their excuse is that they were just copying what everyone else was doing.
Incidentally, I got into a mild argument with another spectator who scoffed my photographing this spectacle. He said it was disrespectful of me to take photos of their private moment. I asked if it was any more disrespectful than pissing on the side of someone's house. And what makes this such a private moment? Pissing ain't no sacred ritual that shouldn't be filmed, like euthanasia or bum fighting. He argued that these people need to pee, but I don't need to take photos. I dropped the America Bomb and expressed elation for living in a country where we are free to take photos of whatever the hell we want. If we stop these guys from peeing, and I don't take the pictures, then the terrorists will have won.

I wished the fellow well and continued to preserve the moment.

UPDATE: I was interviewed by NY Daily News about this post.