IN STEREO...

I saw a middle-aged hispanic man today walking two chihuahuas. His eyes said, "I know what this looks like, but just let me explain..."

BEAT ON THE FRAT

I hate frat boys.

Not for any kind of jealous "gee they look like they're having some kooky, well-balanced fun that I'm missing out on" sort of reason, but mostly because nearly all of them seem to be gape-mouthed morons. But not just regular ol' run-of-the-mill gape-mouthed morons; they are gape-mouthed morons who think they're exceptionally interesting and wacky, when in fact they are neither remotely interesting, nor wacky.

Actual wacky people have just a flicker of terrifying insanity lurking buried under their fun-print clothes, crazy hats and nutty hair styles that lends a palpable air of menace to their antics.Frat boys feature none of that troubling "oh shit" factor that makes the truly eccentric something worth seeking out.

I have never had any interest in being a massive, ripped muscle man, though I would seriously think about swapping out pens and alcoholism for weight benches and squat thrusts if it also came with a license to freely beat the ever-loving shit out of frat boys.

At the moment, that doesn't seem like a terribly likely scenario, so I'll continue to brood silently and add them to the ever-growing list of things that irritate me. It seems with each passing interaction, however, they rise higher and higher on that list.

"MANIC DEPRESSION"

Abner Jay was a one-man band based in South Georgia from the 1920's all the way up through the 1970's, who billed himself as the "World Famous One Man Minstrel Band and Show."

The fine folks at Portland's Mississippi Records have collected an incredible sampling of Jay's music for public consumption, "True Story of Abner Jay," shining just a bit of light on a guy who's been shunned to near complete obscurity.

The LP-only release comes packed with some excellent ephemera, including a snapshot of a sharp lookin' young Abner Jay, and a copy of one of his "information brochures" he would hand out to promote his shows.

In his words (verbatim):

"Abner Jay is a living art. Plays and sings over 600 Favorite Ole American Classical songs, mostly of the Ole South....Abner is Old, he has been playing and singing these same songs since 1926. And he was wearing a size 12 shoe when he start singing...Abner has raised 16 young'uns ages are from 10 to 40 years of age. And they weigh from 100 to 312 lbs each. Abner is known to be champion of the HAMBONE AND the only JAW BONE PLAYER living to-day."

The picture of Abner Jay playing a jaw bone doesn't do much to clarify how one actually goes about doing it.

I have a real soft spot for "outsider" music, but there's a charm to this compilation that's rare to come by. Sure, they're culling from 40+ years of material, but every track is a gem. And the song introductions are classic vaudeville schtick (and how can ya not like that?)

The first track, "I'm So Depressed," is given substantially more weight- all ghostly wails and deep, baleful moans- by the deletion of its goofy introduction, which is transcribed on an accompanying typewriter-written sheet of paper that accounts each track's introduction as it appeared on Abner's original albums.

Here's the intro for "I'm So Depressed":

"You know they gotta stop makin' them King size cigarettes and start making Queen size... because it's got a bigger butt. Do you know why elephants don't smoke? Because they can't fit their butts in the ashtray. I know an ol' boy who took his girl out on a country road the other day. Stopped his car and took his key out. Says to his gal... 'Now are you gonna be a Camel and walk a mile? Or like a Chesterfield that satisfy?' She said, 'It depends on if it's King size or regular, daddy."

Ah. Just can't find good cigarette slogan humor much anymore.

But all butts aside, "I'm So Depressed" is a beautifully sad and lonesome song. I must have listened to it 6 times in a row, and it's held its sway each time.

INFINITY CRISIS!

While eating a fantastic pile of Thai food, I can't help but overhear a lengthy, heated conversation about what "infinity" truly means from an adjacent table of old-ish science nerds.

Finally, one steps forward as the bigger man, lets bygones be bygones, and cools things off with a clever retort that puts the other old-ish nerds in stitches...



Indeed! IMAGINE if there were an INFINITE NUMBER of Mr. Gumballs, Puss Puss, and Dr. Jolly Face? Why... that would be MADNESS!

Honestly, it's encouraging to see that all these people found each other.

And somewhere- an astrophysics department sits vacant...

MO GO DIGGY DIE!

Two random passersby have taught me that it is irresponsible to speak English as a second language, or rather, to "not even speak-like-legible English."

These same two random passersby have also undoubtedly never worked a day's hard labor in their lives.

TWO WILD AND CRAZY GUYS

It seems the loudest people have the least interesting things to say. Especially on public transportation; a place where no one wants anything to do with the other people they're unpleasantly stuffed into it with.

These loud, uninteresting folks are also likely to look around frequently at their fellow riders, just to see if anyone's hearing all the pithy, insightful things coming out of their noisy head-valve. In the off chance anyone IS paying attention, those persons are more often than not stifling a loud guffaw (at), or wearing a look of severe displeasure.

But sometimes, ineptitude breeds brilliant stupidity (er...)

Hence...

NO NEWS IS GOOD NEWS:

In 1/2 an hour of "news" this morning, there was a spot about a local place that offers tango lessons, an interview with a guy who had a bit part in The Matrix, a report on celebrity Facebook pages, a Lisa Loeb video from 1994, and a "Cutest Baby" contest.

So as banks are melting to their foundations and newly nuclear countries are aiming their weapons at each other, THIS is the most important, breaking news available to share?

Oh- right. This is 'feel good info-tainment." Looks like I'm the idiot for wanting to know things.

ENGLISH TAKES A SHIT

Sometimes, someone says something so stupid it must be captured for posterity, and to act as an example to anyone else thinking of saying something just as retarded.





I had to fight the urge to interrupt and say, "Excuse me, sir? I can teach you some other words if you find yourself running out of them."


Something tells me that might not've gone over so well.

"HOT DOG FACTORY SECONDS, ANYONE?"

The Vienna Beef factory is having a sidewalk sale. In a tent. In early March 30 degree-temperatures.

Aren't hot dogs essentially the 'factory seconds' of the slaughter house?

There's something truly sad seeing that tent set up in an empty parking lot. 4th of July cookouts seem a long god damn ways off...

BEST LAID PLANS...

My original plan with this blog was to post a comic every day.

I've realized that that will never happen if I'm attempting to come up with and draw a full strip every day in addition to all the other humdrum and ragamarolle I've got going on day-to-day.

Fortunately, I also realized that something weird or notable seems to happen just about every day if I look hard enough.

Thus- from here on out, I'll be putting up one panel a day. Kind of a diary, but mostly not.

I've always thought diary comics were kind of self-indulgent. So, instead of drawing myself everyday (which I find wholly unpleasant), I've decided to substitute a cartoon hobo.

Everything will be put together about two weeks out, just to make sure I'm doin' 'em every day. If you've ever tried to do something everyday, you know shit happens,and all of a sudden you're two weeks to a month behind schedule.

If I'm on vacation, away from the internet (God forbid!) or what-have-you, I'll post a bunch of panels on the same day. The idea is to have a comic every day. When they go up is something else entirely.

So keep yr eyes here, and program your blackberrys and boysenberrys and dingleberrys accordingly- I'll be updating much more frequently.

So- without further delay, here's day one....

It occurs to me while shopping for a new pocket sketch book to get this 'daily comic' thing rolling appropriately, that the local CVS stocks their office and 'art' supplies across the aisle from their toy section.

Somehow this makes everything seem futile.

Sure, their stocking pattern was probably just happenstance. But it begs the question:

Is a kid's work play, and toys are their 'office supplies?'

Or are we all big babies?

Also: Barney-shaped chalk is 'executive pen set' adjacent."

SAVE THE TONGA ROOM!



Everything old is new again- unless it doesn't last that long.

I have a deep-rooted resounding love for the leftover stuff of bygone eras. Perhaps that's not the most productive or encouraging approach to things, suffering blow after blow as you watch the things you love deteriorate or fall under the proverbial (or in most cases literal) wrecking ball, but I am who I am. Certainly, there's not much value in never changing anything, and if something's broke- by all means, fix it or let it die peacefully in its sleep. But if it AIN'T broke...

Thus: San Francisco's Tonga Room- a place on my short-and-ever-shortening list of mid-century Polynesian Pop palaces that I have to visit at least once before I die.

The Tonga Room began life humbly as the indoor swimming pool area for SF's world-famous Fairmont Hotel in the 1920's. As cocktail parties became all the rage in the post-Prohibition era, the pool area was transformed into an ocean-liner themed bar and restaurant offering tropical drinks and then-exotic Cantonese dishes.

Rather quickly, the ship must've landed in it's port-of-call, and the tropical paradise of the Tonga room was born. Visitors sipped Mai Tai's and Zombies and ate pupu platters under grass huts. The pool became a lagoon, complete with floating bandstand. And every hour, there was a tropical thunderstorm, complete with lighting and sound effects.

As the historically-and-politically incorrect concept of "exotica" went out of vogue throughout the late 1970's and 1980's, and corporate board-room blandness became a way of life, numerous tropical wonderlands were converted to average, run-of-the-mill nightclubs and sports bars, or bulldozed all together. After the fracas, few locations remained. The tiki-chic revival of the mid-to-late 90's once again focused the spotlight on these oddball eateries, but it was too little too late to do much about several decades of neglect and a newly hyper-PC mainstream with little interest in experiencing the past.

Tiki fans have suffered innumerable blows in the last few years. Columbus, OH's world-renowned Kahiki, with it's dual Moai doormen and distinctive A-Frame entrance got the bulldozer treatment. Des Plaines, IL's Kona Kai was boarded up and long sat locked and dormant, only to be unceremoniously auctioned off after years of hope that they'd re-open and once again offer up their trademark libations. Then, just a few years ago, San Diego's beautiful Islands restaurant in the then-equally impressive Hanalei Hotel was purchased by the reliably-bland Best Western corporation who, not knowing a good thing when they see it, gut rehabbed the place, tearing out its indoor streams, wooden bridges and bamboo ceilings in favor of a nice, safe, featureless white room with unpleasant salmon-colored furniture offering fried chicken wraps and cheese burgers in lieu of its former Polynesian feasts.

So now- we have the Tonga Room. Perhaps not what it once was, but certainly something distinctive, historical, and an authentic relic of a bygone era. There's no lack of business forcing them to close up shop. If anything, it sounds to me like their business is the same or better than it ever has been.

But rather, an arbitrary decision from the Fairmont's owners has them planning to re-zone the building and it turn into multi-million dollar condos. And the fact of the matter is, anyone wanting to buy a multi-million dollar condo (especially during the worst recession in 60 years) doesn't know a Mai Tai from Shineola.

On a daily basis, our nation's cities are losing their history, charm, and character to the bland whitewashed nothingness favored by the marketing research groups and investment corporations of the world. If you're anything like me, and don't want to spend the rest of your life deciding between TGI Friday's and Applebee's, let's put our money where our mouths are and do whatever we can to keep the Tonga Rooms of the world alive and vivacious.

I don't live in San Francisco, but if I did, I can only imagine how more deplorable this situation would seem to me.

Click the image below, and sign the petition to keep the Tonga Room right where it's been for the last 70 years. And if you live in the area, or are planning a trip- for God's sake, go get yourself hammered on delicious, colorful cocktails and an egg roll or two.

If you want the HTML for this clickable banner to post freely on the internet to rally others to the cause, just make a comment, or send me an email at peterklockau@yahoo.com

FRIDAY THE 13TH- SPECIAL EDITION


Everybody knows slasher movies are stupid. But as someone who grew up when they were still developing all their now-stereotypical characteristics, an alarming fact only recently dawned on me: most of the maniacal, un-killable killing machines of the 1980s are- in fact- retarded.

By retarded, of course I mean certifiably mentally handicapped. Think about poor old Jason, a deformed, slow kid the other kids openly mocked who couldn't swim turned unstoppable machete wielding murderer. Or Leatherface- undoubtably inbred to the point of simpleton, just longing for another human's touch. How about Michael Myers? OK- so he wasn't retarded (probably- They didn't get into that angle quite as overtly) but it goes without saying he was not all well and good upstairs.

I find this all more than a little disconcerting. What's so scary about retarded people? Or the mentally ill? In my experience, they're nice, friendly folk- not super-human, sharp-implement toting murderers hell-bent on decapitating drunk, nude teens.

Why is this factored into the suspension of disbelief- the "Oh that's just part of the movie" in slasher movies, whereas, say, an entire string of franchises based around mentally deficient superheroes seems ridiculous? It's not so far off- how many people really watch Friday the 13h movies and root for the irritating, vacuous teenagers that are swapped out for fresh every time the movie backers need more quick cash?

Watching the new bloated-budget Michael Bay-produced Friday the 13th re-make, I was amazed at how far we've managed to plunge the horror genre down the ever-circling box-office toilet. Though it's well established that the "villain" of the film was handicapped (I think he's a hero,) I had to wonder if just about every person who agreed to be involved with the movie was as well. It was terrible in a way that should reserved for movies made off-the-cuff, without a script, by bored high school kids in their parents' back yards after splitting a case of Old Milwaukee (of course, I'm not speaking from experience here.)

Of course, this was what I had expected. I have a sick urge to subject myself to terrible movies in the hopes that they will at least be funny. In this case, perhaps the only cathartic purpose in seeing such a colon clensing of a movie is to watch despicable people get arrows shot through their foreheads.

What was most alarming to me was hearing fresh reactions from audience members- screaming when you're supposed to scream, laughing when you're supposed to laugh, even though not a single frame could be described as scary or funny (OK- so some parts that weren't SUPPOSED to be funny were hilarious, but that's more laughing AT than WITH.)At one point, just as the music cues aptly gave away what was about to happen, you could actually hear the entire theater wait to react to what they all knew was coming, in unison- screaming just to scream, but only at the socially-acceptable, designated moment...

Congratulations, America- we've become the robot workers in Metropolis, only none among us has the good sense to revolt.