PAPER MADE US SACRED - Achewood
79
Transcript of PAPER MADE US SACRED - Achewood
PAPER MADE US SACREDPrint-only material from the nine original self-published
volumes ** With original covers and found rarities
C H R I S O N S T A D
A MOMENTARY DIVERSION ON THE ROAD TO THE GRAVEALL STRIPS FROM 10/2001 TO 6/2002 ***** VOL. I
WRITTEN AND ILLUSTRATED BY CHRIS ONSTAD
Beer Can Chicken
Make sure that a meat thermometer stuck into the deepest part of the breast and deepest partof the thigh registers at least 160-170ºF. Juices should be clear and not pink. Let sit 10 minutes.
Ray Says: “This is a recipe I always like to make when I have my special lady over. The bird cooks for about an hour and a half, during which time you can serve champagne and see where things lead. I often find that there is a point during the preparation at which you will sense that the lady has resigned herself to your power and charm. If this happens, just turn the oven off and forget about dinner. Throw the chicken away the next day.”
INGREDIENTS:A 5-lb. chicken with all the guts teared out1 aluminum can of beer, half full1tsp onion powder1tsp garlic powder1/2tsp salt1/2tsp pepperSpray oil(It's not real complicated)
PROCEDURE:Preheat the oven to 400ºF. Line a small roasting pan with foil (shiny-side down). Pour all the seasonings into the beer can and stick it into the big butt opening of the chicken. See if the lady notices. Then sit the chicken upright, like he was in a chair, onto the roasting pan, using the beer can as his base. Spray his skin all over with the oil (this will make it crispy). Throw salt and pepper all over his skin and then stick him in the oven for like a hour and a half. The fluid and seasonings in the beer can will steam all up through the bird and flavor it, as well as keep it real moist.
Galaxy Nachos
Serves 4-6 if anyone is around. Otherwise, once nachos are completed just dispose of them in the proper waste container or compost area.
Roast Beef Says: “The secret to making good Galaxy Nachos, or any tasty nachos for that matter, lies in pre-baking the chips. This makes them extra crispy and toasty. It is important to make them extra crispy and toasty because the ingredients you add later on will impart lots of moisture to the chips. Also, toasty things taste better. Anyhow, pre-bake the chips for a good 10 minutes in a 400ºF oven, til you see maybe that they have sort of browned a tiny
INGREDIENTS:A bag of some tortilla chipsA can of refried beans with a flavor that you likeGreen onions all chopped upSharp cheddar cheese, all grated upMaybe some canned diced green peppersTiny pieces of black olives and tomatoesChopped up cilantro (fresh)Other things that you like
(I did not include quantities because you should just use your common sense)
PROCEDURE:Preheat the oven to 400ºF. Line a cookie sheet with foil (shiny-side down) and then chips. Pre-bake the chips until their color changes slightly. Meanwhile, heat up the beans and stir some of the grated cheese in (this makes them nice and runny). When chips are done, take them out and drizzle the beans over them and then add more cheese all over. Throw all the other stuff on and then just bake the hell out of it for like 10 minutes, until the cheese is melted and all bubbly.
—Interview conducted via e-mail on 7.24.2002
The Sam Henderson InterviewThe artist and writer behind America’s beloved Magic Whistle series agrees to answer five important questions about his senses. Interview by Chris Onstad.
If you were on death row because of something that you wrote in the Magic Whistle, what would your last meal be?
SH: Three penguins, a Twizzler and Nerds pizza, four Koogle and Miracle Whip sandwiches, and a baby.
The actual sound of a Magic Whistle is different for everyone, depending on the quality of their imagination. How does it sound in your imagination?
SH: Like a walrus and a chicken fornicating.
What is the prescription of your eyeglasses? I only ask this so that if fans have the same prescription as you, they could send you their extra pairs and you could try them on.
SH: �On Sundays, Tuesdays, and Fridays it’s 20/20 left and 20/4000 right, the other days it’s the other way around.
If you got invited to go inside David Lee Roth’s apartment, what aroma do you think you’d notice first?
SH: A combination of kiwi incense and Mr. T.
How do you imagine David Lee Roth’s handshake would feel? What would you decide about his personality based on the way it felt?
SH: He’d probably do that thing where you tickle the palm with your index finger, but I'd be prepared and surprise him by coating my palm with heroin which would get in his bloodstream through a hangnail.
Thank you Sam
Lyle’s Basic Sicilian Pasta
Serves 2-3. This recipe is easily doubled or tripled. Italian food has to scale this waybecause Italians are always visiting each other unexpectedly.
Lyle Says: “Sauteeing minced garlic and red chili pepper flakes in olive oil is just the start. Make sure the water you boil your pasta in tastes as salty as the ocean (Atlantic not Pacific). Spend a few more dollars for real quality artisanal pasta, and try to match it to your sauce. Chunky sauces work well with bite-sized shapes like Orecchiete, which hold the chunks of condiment. Smoother sauces are better-suited to long, thin shit like Capellini and Linguini.”
INGREDIENTS:3 cloves minced garlic1/2 tsp red chili pepper flakes3 tbsp olive oil
1/2 lb (usually half a package) of yourpreferred pasta shape2tbsp salt
Dress-up ingredients: capers, chopped parsley, paper-thin slices of bell pepper, cheeses, olives, lemon zest, etc.
PROCEDURE:Boil then salt a gallon of cold tap water. Once water is boiling, add pasta for recomended cooking time. While pasta boils, add the garlic, chili and oil to a large skillet and heat until garlic begins to lightly brown. Once garlic is lightly browned, throw in whatever other ingredients you’re using for flavor (except cheese). Drain the finished pasta and add it to the skillet. Toss it thoroughly with the oil and other sauteed ingredients. Stir in any cheeses and then plate. Salt to taste.
Pee Sandwiches
Philippe Says: “Just kidding! There's no such thing as pee sandwiches! But here is a recipe for fart sandwiches...ha ha! Wouldn’t that be impossible?! The fart would get out from between the bread before you could bite down onto it and eat the fart! Anyways, I don't know any recipes so I'm sorry that I let everyone down. Here is a picture of me.”
“All hail Chris Onstad and the coming of a new era of comic strips!”
—Josh Weinstein, Executive Producer, The Simpsons
—Tony Millionaire Creator of Maakies, Sock Monkey
—James Kochalka Creator of ...so much
—Sam Henderson Creator of The Magic Whistle
“Achewood is a spectacular comic strip, amazing! It’s like a J. D. Salinger novel about Casper the Ghost.”
“Chris Onstad has created something wonderful. It’s a little comic strip called Achewood. This band of animal characters has become real to me. I don’t know exactly how Chris accomplished this. I think it’s because they’re real to him. Maybe he is “high.” Or, maybe it’s because they ARE real. I want to hug little Philippe, but I’m afraid I might hurt him.”
“Not satire, not parody, both funny strange and funny ha ha (and often funny HAYAK!), ‘Achewood’ is my current favourite thing. My friends are divided between those who love it, and those who stare blankly at each last panel like a horse being presented with a banjo. Those latter friends are under review. Sometimes I look in their eyes and I feel I never really knew them.”
—Graham Linehan Co-creator of Father Ted, Black Books
“Imagine ‘Barnaby’ with stuffed animals and a 21st century twist. No, wait...imagine ‘Red Meat’ if it were funny...uh...furry culture without the ickiness except to make fun of it...forget all that stupid shit I just said, just read ‘Achewood’ already. It's the only computer-drawn internet strip that’s funny in spite of those two things.”
© 2
002
Ray
Sm
uckl
es
Tina lay on the bed, her hair all curly
and awesome. The silk sheets
accentuated her luscious form, and made
Ray want to move across the room to her.
But he did not; he knew not to move too
fast with a lady this fine.
“Baby,” whispered Ray, a chilled
bottle of vintage white zinfandel in the
pocket of his black silk robe. “Let me
show you just how good a lady can feel.”
His tenderness was amazing—he knew
that she demanded perfection from her
man. And she had a right to. She was that
fine.
“But you forgot the roses, Ray,” said
Tina. She had a brilliant mind and could
remember that the evening before, as she
stepped out of the limo for the night, Ray
had promised her roses.
Ray was silent for a moment,
apparently taken aback by her question.
But then he slyly smiled.
“…did I?” he said quietly to himself.
Ray delicately pulled the silken cord
which hung just to the right of his smooth
but powerful form.
Within an instant, a rich shower of
fragrant red rose petals fluttered down
from the carefully disguised mechanism
suspended over the bed. Tina sat up,
delighting in the tender kisses of each
falling leaf.
When the shower had settled, Ray was
at the bedside. But something was
different: he was on one knee. And he
held something- a diamond ring a single
red rose.
“Baby,” he said, holding the flower to
her cheek, “I never forget a promise.”
THE NEXT MORNING
As Tina awoke, she saw Ray's
form in the doorway. What was he doing
up this early?
In his arms was the answer: a
steaming tray of Huevos Rancheros.
TAPTAP
TAPTAP
TAP
WORST SONG, PLAYED ON UGLIEST GUITAR
ALL STRIPS FROM 6/2002 TO 12/2002 ***** VOL. IIWRITTEN AND ILLUSTRATED BY CHRIS ONSTAD
Plus it don't even say nothin' about sales performance bonuses
And you got to include provisions for future buyout privileges
achewood
So what do you think, Beef? Is it a pretty good contract?
Sheesh Ray
But check it out, Beef! Red limo!
You about to sign away your soul man be careful
So you really tryin' to tell me not to do this! Well I'll be.
Jealous.
I have to say, Roast Beef, I always thought you'd be the one to make it big.
All computer programmingAll stock investingAll watchin' people do fractions on public TV
Now just when it looks like old Ray might get his piece of the pie, you ain't nothin' but bitter!
Well I'll tell you what, Roast Beef! I don't NEED that kind of friendship!
I don't need it like I don't need PANTS ON MY BODY!
First of all your royalty got to be a percentage not a flat fee
You just readin' the part that's in bold
Oh hell now
A Micro Q&A with the Cartoonist
Q: How many times a day do you draw Ray’s nipples?
A: Usually two or three.
A Micro Q&A with the Cartoonist
Q: What is the worst maxim that you have ever heard used to describe life?
A: “Life is like a bacon sandwich: it is awesome but then you die.” I don’t know who said this originally [no one—Ed.] but it’s a really trite way of describing life. Life is more like inheriting the shovel that you will use to bury yourself. Or getting it for high school graduation.
A Micro Q&A with the Cartoonist
Q: How big are the characters? A: Not very big. They’re all about a foot or two feet tall. Andy is the biggest.
Q: How tall is Philippe? A: About a foot and a half.
Q: He’s an otter? A: Yes I’m busy
A Micro Q&A with the Cartoonist
Q: What are some of your favorite panels from the strip? A: In the startup company strip where Ray tears his own head off, I like Roast Beef’s expressions. He is so scared.
Q: Which strip do you hate the most? A: I’ve yanked a few off the site. The way my basic process works is, I stay up late making the thing and when I wake up the next day I don't always like what I see. Sometimes people write in and affirm my suspicions that something isn’t making sense, or that a gag is just plain stupid. Like Lyle telling some ethnic people that he hates them just because he’s drunk - that’s not funny in any sort of lasting way. Lyle has to have met the ethnic people earlier and hate them because they gave him a rotten deal on some equipment that he needed for his penis.
ac
he
wo
od
Dang m
an
I gott
a q
uit
sm
okin
'
Let'
s se
e w
hat
kin
da
pro
gra
ms
they
got
Jeez w
ould
you
look a
t th
is
They
got
one w
here
you
shave y
our
head s
o y
ou
worr
y a
bout
that
inst
ead
Hm T
his
one j
ust
has
you
dre
ss l
ike a
lady
oh m
y g
oodness
A l
ady
Wonder
how
that
work
s
Huh h
ere
's o
ne w
here
a
Mari
ne l
ives
wit
h y
ou
Wow
here
's o
ne w
here
R
obert
DeN
iro c
all
s y
ou
N...n
o !
I bet
that
work
s
well
d
a
m
n
Sheesh
thir
ty
thousa
nd d
oll
ars
RO
AST
BEEF W
ER
E
YO
U S
MO
KIN
G I
N
TH
E G
AR
AG
E?!
You c
opped a
sm
oke t
oday
, did
n't
you R
oast
Beef?
Yes
you d
id
you p
ric
k
Man w
hat
a d
rag
Well
here
I a
m
SIR
YES S
IR!
I bet
that
work
s th
ough
© 2
001-
2002
Chr
is O
nsta
d a
chew
ood.
com
achewood
And so there we have it Vlad
Now that the track is all complete it's time to take the little train for its maiden voyage
This train, is very cute. I am thinkink that American ladies are likink this hobby Roast Beef?
Oh uh no man ladies definitely don't do the model railroad thing
Why not! They like well enough other cute things they see which are small!
Um uh basically what you can do is realize that if you see me doin' somethin then ladies are pretty much guaranteed not to like it
But surely the hot babies are respectink a man such as yourself who is absolutebomb with computer programmink!
Well uh I guess that's another thing you got to learn about America
Women computer programs here them to hellHate
hate I do not believe this! In Poland, in Krakow, the women are payink so much as fifty Zloty to sleep with man who has basicHotmail account!
W H OOO
OOOAH!
W H OOO
OOOAH!
WHUM
P!
WHUM
P!
a "A"? That's wonderful!
I should take him out for a reward!
Little Nephew, what do you say we go rollerskatin'! You know, guys' night out!
Uh no thanks Uncle Ray Rollerskating is for homos
You about to learn quitethe opposite! Now justsit and watch while UncleRay gets his Sugar Balls on!
Daaamn! It'sbeen a while!
Dang! Sorry, Roast Beef!
Little Nephew! What's up? How did you do at school today?
Um pretty good Uncle Ray
I got a Ain Science
achewood
© 2001-2002 C
hris Onstad achew
ood.com
WHO
NK
WHO
NK
WHOOOOOOOAH!
WHOOOOOOOAH!I just can NOT find
my balance today!
Look out, Beef!Move it! Move it!
Look out for thecarpet, Uncle Ray!
WHOOOOOAH!Back on my feet!Back on my feet!
Hey Roast Beef, let's go get some suds! What? Why not?
No thanks
'cause you an asshole
achewood
Neil Tennant walked gingerly through the bright white kitchen of his downtown Notting Hill flat. It was before noon so he was dressed only in a white bathrobe and white suede mules. He would have several outfit changes that day, much like every day, so he didn’t bother dressing properly until his agent called him with the day’s assignments. He had been up until all hours the night before. As Man One of the two Pet Shop Boys, it was his duty to serve as doyen of the large after-show crowds that gathered in the local underground discotheques. It was not unusual—in fact it was de riguer—for Tennant to call his driver around seven in the morning, summoning him from whatever garage he’d bedded down in, for the long ride home. Aside from the driver, Tennant was virtually always unaccompanied on his morning tour home. As for the low profile Chris Lowe, the Pet Shop Boys’ synthesizer virtuoso, he always left whatever arena (and usually city) they were playing in directly after the encores, never so much as stopping for water. Aside from Neil, no one knew where he went on these hasty retreats, and no one dared ask. He had no patience for fans or the press. He reached into the behemoth stainless steel refrigerator and pulled out the sole item in its inventory: a carton of freshly squeezed orange juice which had been placed there earlier in the day by Pasha, the elderly housemaid. He whisked a Tiffany highball off of the nearby dishrack and poured several ounces of the thick, vibrant juice into it. One unusually large gulp later, the glass was empty. This ablution always caused him to shiver a bit. A Gauloises Legeres and a
glass of still water later, he was ready for the day. Around 11:45AM the phone rang, predictably. Bruno, his agent of nearly fifteen years, had finished his morning’s e-mails and was calling Neil to remind him of that afternoon’s schedule. He picked the delicate Bang & Olufsen handset off of its angular, postmodern cradle. By the time the set was halfway to his ear he could tell by the silence that something was different—there was none of the usual atmoshpere that one heard on Bruno’s office line. And Bruno was usually talking at full speed by the time the handset was placed to one’s ear. He held the set to his ear for a moment longer than usual before speaking. Typically he was quick—almost brusque—about prodding a caller into action, but this silence was commanding. Something in the way it was meted out at that particular hour of the morning...it was clearly a person of consequence, and one he didn’t speak with often, if ever. His complacence was shaken. “Good morning?” Neil said, dry as bone. “Neil? Is that you, fella?” The voice had a polished twang, a natural charm. It was the voice of a man who knew you’d like him, but only because he figured he’d like you. He tried on a bit of impatience. “Who’s calling, please.” To end on a period, on a down note, would generally chill and subdue whatever solicitor held the other line. Or at least establish him as the superior. But not so here. “Neil, buddy...this is Willie Nelson.”
Tennant knew full well that his outfit had performed an unlicensed cover of “On The Road Again” which had garnered a fair amount of international airplay. This phone call was in fact not a big surprise to him—but it was a quite a surprise to be getting it in person—and getting it from the man himself. Neil had always expected that the whole affair would be handled by lawyers well out of earshot. Little did he know that Willie always handled business affairs man-to-man. “Willie!...uh, yes! Hello...sorry, just waking up...” “Oh, I’m the one who should be sorry!” said Nelson, genuinely taken aback. “I’ve got this small computer which is supposed to tell me when it’s okay to call your part of the world...” You could hear the smile in Nelson’s voice. Tennant literally melted. How could a man who had carved a music career out of the rust-and-tumbleweed, coffin nail, honky-tonk world of country music be so bucolically polite to a man who, by all standards of the entertainment world, had flagrantly betrayed him? “No, no,” began Tennant. “I really ought to keep better hours.” “Listen now, Neil, I’m calling about that little song you did.” Tennant’s throat clenched. He closed his eyes and waited for the hammer to fall. An eternity of seconds passed. “Neil?” “Y-yes?” Tennant looked down at his legs, which suddenly seemed terribly pale and thin. “My lawyers tell me that you never cleared that one with us.”
“Yes...well...I thought that our team had—” “No bother, Neil buddy. I was just callin’ to say that I like it alright, but I think it’s missin’ a little somethin’.” “Like licensing?” Tennant thought to himself.“I think what it’s missin’...is a little Trigger.” Nelson’s beloved Trigger, a war-worn Martin 6-string, was one of the most widely recognized musical instruments in the world, on a plane with B.B. King’s Lucille and Paul McCartney’s Hofner violin bass. There was a knock at the door of Tennant’s apartment. He struggled to find words for Nelson as he walked to answer it. “Willie, I...I don’t know what to say...I—” Tennant opened the door. There stood Nelson, cell phone against his ear, guitar across his chest. With a twinkle in his eye, Nelson spoke into his phone. “Listen Neil, I’ve got to go—I’ve got to make some music with a friend.”
TAP
TAPTAP
The Bigger Manby Lyle
TV
GUI
DE ER
In a
mus
t-see
epis
ode,
the
ghos
t of D
r. Gr
een
come
s bac
k fro
m th
e de
ad to
extr
act t
he fa
tal tu
mor f
rom
inside
his
own
corp
se's
brain
. Spe
cial g
uest
appe
aran
ce b
y Eriq
La
Salle
, wh
o kn
eels
and
pump
s his
fist
as th
e tu
mor i
s ev
iscer
ated
an
d th
rown
to th
e gr
ound
.
CS
IIt
is dis
cove
red
that
Ant
hrax
is b
eing
spre
ad v
ia 25
¢ vid
eo
poke
r pa
yout
s. A
tang
entia
l bu
t su
bsta
ntive
jou
rney
th
roug
h en
tom
ologic
al ev
idenc
e ult
imat
ely l
eads
the
pa
tholo
gy u
nit to
its
culpr
it: a
cicad
a-lov
ing p
it bo
ss w
ith
ties t
o an
Al-Q
aeda
siste
r org
aniza
tion.
Wor
ld's
Wor
st C
onve
nien
ce S
tore
A
ssas
sina
tion
-Sty
le M
urde
rsW
atch
with
hos
t J. C
lifton
Wrig
ht a
s se
curit
y ca
mera
s fro
m ar
ound
the
wor
ld ca
tch r
uthle
ss s
ociop
aths
doin
g wh
at
they
do
best:
bind
ing th
e fe
et a
nd h
ands
of c
onve
nienc
e sto
re c
lerks
, the
n pla
cing
small
-cali
ber
weap
ons
to th
eir
temp
les a
nd b
lowing
them
awa
y.
Whe
n G
ood
Pet
s G
o B
ad: M
iam
iA
wom
an's
wors
t fe
ars
are
reali
zed
when
her
gian
t sc
hnau
zer d
ecide
s th
at it
's Do
g's D
ay O
ut a
nd c
ollap
ses
her e
ntire
hom
e, s
trikin
g at
the
outsi
de w
alls
with
its
large
pa
ws w
hile
she
rema
ins tr
appe
d wi
thin.
Also
: in
a fit
of
irony
, a b
aby j
agua
r is b
acke
d ov
er b
y her
mas
ter's
Jagu
ar.
SU
RV
IVO
R (c
on't)
Host
Jeff
Prob
st los
es h
is cr
edit c
ard.
Whe
n it d
oes n
ot
appe
ar w
ithin
36 h
ours
, he
vo
tes
ever
yone
of
f th
e isl
and.
GO
OD
EA
TS
Ho
st
Alto
n Br
own'
s lau
ghab
le bu
dget
onc
e ag
ain
forc
es h
im t
o pr
eten
d th
at
styro
foam
ba
lls
are
food
mo
lecule
s.
IRO
N C
HE
F To
night
's th
eme
ingre
dient
: Co
d Er
ectio
n.
EM
ER
IL L
IVE
Em
eril
make
s a
pot r
oast.
In a
sur
real
turn
of e
vent
s, th
e po
t roa
st su
ffers
from
inex
plica
ble a
nd il
l-tim
ed fl
atule
nce.
Em
eril
tries
to p
ress
on
it wi
th a
spa
tula
to g
et a
ll th
e ga
s ou
t but
whe
n he
walk
s awa
y it f
arts
again
. Hila
rious
.
SU
RV
IVO
R (c
on't)
Surv
ivors
are
sho
wn ru
nning
th
roug
h th
e st
reet
s of
Ba
ngko
k wi
th J
eff
Prob
st's
cred
it ca
rd.
Amon
g th
eir
purc
hase
s: alc
ohols
, fat
s.
AM
ER
ICA
'S T
ES
T
KIT
CH
EN
To
pic:
"The
cas
t-iro
n pa
n:
Gods
end o
r Bitc
h God
dess
?"
LAW
& O
RD
ER
A
teena
ge p
sych
opath
use
s his
gym
nasti
cs a
bilitie
s to
murd
er
rand
om c
ivilia
ns.
Brisc
oe a
nd G
reen
wea
r fo
otba
ll he
lmet
s du
ring a
ll outd
oor s
eque
nces
.
LAW
& O
RD
ER
A
stude
nt at
an e
lite a
ll-girl
priva
te sc
hool
in Ma
nhatt
an tr
ades
gr
ades
for
sexu
al fav
ors
from
a ma
le tea
cher.
The
teac
her
cann
ot be
lieve
his g
ood l
uck.
He en
joys s
ever
al wo
nder
ful ye
ars
with
the g
irl. M
any
year
s lat
er, o
n his
dea
thbed
, the
teac
her
tearfu
lly th
anks
God
for a
ll of th
e bea
utiful
mem
ories
.
AM
ER
ICA
'S T
ES
T
KIT
CH
EN
To
pic:
"Gre
at d
emi-g
lace
in un
der f
ive d
ays!"
KIT
GIT
RID
GE
'S
TH
E L
AR
DIN
G
NE
ED
LE
(1
977)
FAS
T F
RA
CT
ION
S
Can
your
ch
ild
com
pute
fra
ction
s of v
aryin
g alg
ebra
ic in
tens
ity
befo
re
the
over
head
pro
jecto
r is
wipe
d cle
an?
(sub
titled
)
LAW
& O
RD
ER
Whe
n a
body
fails
to a
ppea
r dur
ing th
e op
ening
sequ
ence
, De
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NATE SMALL, CHAPTER I
ATTACKED !
NATE SMALL sat on the edge of his twin bed and pulled his faded black T-shirt on. Because it was early yet the sunlight slowly spreading across the old pine floor was still pleasantly warm, not hot as it would be later that summer day. He looked down at his worn black steel-toe work boots and noted that they probably could use new laces pretty soon. Yesterday's adventure in the gravel mine had taken its toll on them. ‘ ‘Nate! Nate! Are you awake in there?’ ’ It was his Aunt Haley. No doubt she was about to run her morning grocery errands and wanted to know if he would be home for dinner. ‘ ‘ I’m decent, Aunt Haley,’ ’ Nate replied. ‘ ‘You can come in.’ ’ Aunt Haley opened the door to his modest, unadorned room. Nate turned off the Radiola which had been quietly broadcasting the morning programs from atop his dresser. ‘ ‘Now Nate, there are a couple chicken legs in the icebox for your breakfast,’ ’ she announced. ‘ ‘Although I really do wish you would eat a proper balanced meal at the start of your day.’ ’ ‘ ‘Thank you, Aunt Haley,’ ’ replied Nate, dressed and ready to go. ‘ ‘Will you be home for supper tonight, Nate?’ ’ she asked. ‘ ‘ I promise to telephone if I can’t make it.’ ’ This was their routine, and she already knew that would be his answer. Even though Nate was nearly never able to return home by suppertime, she always had a plate of baked chicken, biscuits, mashed potatoes with brown gravy and green beans ready for him at 6 PM. Around 7 she usually made a meal for herself of everything but the chicken, which she wrapped in waxed paper for his breakfast. Nate gave his Aunt a quick peck on the cheek, which she accepted with a practiced tilt of the head. She heard the fridge door open and shut, the sound of waxed paper being crumpled and placed in the
trash can, and then the slam of the screen door as it pulled itself closed. Nate was off for another day, and if she had a dollar to bet she would wager that he’d find some trouble by lunchtime.
Nate had a long stride, and walked toward town with a lanky, confident gait. He reached instinctively into the pocket of his faded old blue jeans and found the twenty cents (a dime and two nickels) that Aunt Haley had furtively placed there for his lunch at Hamburger Ned’s. The dime would buy him a hot, fresh-cooked hamburger, with pickle and no cheese. One nickel was for a Dr. Pepper, and the other one was for the french-fried potatoes. Little did his Aunt know but Nate never bought the Dr. Pepper or the french-fried potatoes. He saved this money each day and on her fiftieth birthday he would use it to buy her a brand-new roadster. This had been his plan for as long as he could remember, ever since his parents had been lost on the RMS Titanic and she had taken him in as a scared and lonely four year-old boy. Suddenly, a sedan full of college ruffians squealed around the corner of his quiet street and gathered steam. As it screamed toward him, Nate caught sight of the boy in the passenger seat—he was making ready to throw a small package at him. Before Nate could get out of the way the package struck him and exploded. It was a water balloon. Nate filled with anger and humiliation as the car sped away, but he was not so angry that he couldn’t read the pennants that were waving jubilantly from the windows: DEXTER. Nate immediately knew where he would be spending his afternoon.
Excerpt from Nate Small And The Evil Aerie, Copyright © 1932 J. John CarrowayEntire text available 2003-2004 only at www.serializer.net
Try new
FLAMING SUB!
SANDWICH ACTUALLY IS IN FLAMES
You know one thing I would really like to do when I get out
What's that?
I would like to start a band
Really? Man, that sounds like fun!
I got it all figured out
Right down to the detail
I would just be parked on stage in my van you see
All the musicians just welded into their seat belts
I'm just lookin' back from the driver's seat
First one to miss a note I blow him away
Pretty soon it's just me and the drummer
Just playin' his heart out
Blood all over his sticks
His best solo ever
Such intricate music
blam
achewood
Tell me, Doc, will he still be able to enjoy the things in life? beautiful
Ray, I think you're asking me if after this surgery your friend will still have his original libido.
It will take some time to return fully, but there is no medical reason to expect any reduced long-term libidinal impulse.
Awesome! Oh, awesome!
Ray, if you two are lovers then perhaps we should go over what his needs and limitations will be during recuperation.
Yeah, his libido! Exactly!
Firmness!Stand down, Doc! I ain't slippin' the dude my
achewood
Jesus
RAY SMUCKLESPRESIDENT
I mean, come on now "Hamburger M$$T." How the hell do I even say your damn name.
Hamburger Meat?
Hamburger Moat?
Hamburger Mist?
I ain't signin' nobody named "Hamburger Moat."
And you, "Six Freddies In Love."
"Peabody Fairchild"
"The Sexual Homeboys"
"DRYYV-BYY"
You guys all look like you want to take a shower together.
That is too many goddamn Freddies.
Fuck...ALGEBRA!
with LITTLENEPHEW
These demos are terrible.
...I wanna help out new talent, but damn.
"Crap Attack." Man, that's exactly what was.that
Whoah, what the—LITTLE NEPHEW?!
achewood
This two-part column originally ran 5/27/2003 and 6/4/2003 at Ray's Place. Find large archives of Ray's Place on the Achewood website.
Man, I Had the Greatest Day!(Part One of Two)
Hey! I just had the greatest day! And I bet it's not even over yet, even though I am up in my room in my robe and I have brushed my teeth and stuff. That's how good my day has been, that I would still expect further developments. You know, I been kinda healthyin' it up lately. Wakin' up kind of early, like while the mail is still bein' delivered, and eatin' up a quick banana and OJ smoothie before a real long walk around the neighborhood. Not goin' anywhere, but totally just straight-up walking. And I have cut way back on smoking and what some people call "daytime drinking." Now I have like much higher energy all day, which turns out to feel excellent. After my walk I showered and put on just the smoothest white Fila warm-down suit. It has this black piping that makes me feel like a goddamn sex genius. Then I was feeling so refreshed and benevolent that I took Little Nephew down to the shops in the Underground to get him some new
Nikes and even, I was thinkin', a dope Fossil watch. He was so excited that he was just chattin' up a little storm around himself, and all I could do was smile. I remember how important it is to get little treats like that when you're his age and you ain't got no scratch in your pocket. So anyway before we get shoppin' we pull into that Burger King they got near the entrance and I look at him real stern and say, "Little man, you can order whatever it is on this menu that you want, but if the names of the food items in your order are not preceded with the words 'super-size,' for each item, then you are hella in trouble." I guess that wasn't the best way to say that information, because he kind of got the idea that I was mad at him, so he just ordered a plain hamburger and a cup of water. I felt pretty bad eatin' my big-ass Italian chicken sandwich with cheese in front of him, plus western barbecue bacon burger, plus fries and rings, so while we were eating I explained what I had meant and sent him back to the counter with a fat ten dollar bill. "Go on now!" I yelled, in a super friendly way. It nearly brought a tear to my eye to see him so relieved and excited. I figured he was gonna get himself a pretty fat spread so I put the bbq sauce and some bacon from
my western burger onto his little plain hamburger and ate it while he was ordering. When he got back he noticed that it was missing and I said "Oh my god! A rat took it! I was so scared!" We laughed because I always say that when I eat something of his. It's kind of our thing. We were pretty jazzed up after that beautiful perfect lunch, so I laid it down that we were gonna pick out a watch for him. Not some plastic kind of thing, but a real man's watch, all shiny metal. I knew he had been eyeing this Fossil brand of watch because he leaves his little magazines by the toilet and they're always open to some kind of Fossil ad lately. So in we go to the Fossil store and the lady there was just fine. Her ass was like ten kinds of round, like some Galileo map of the universe. She was squeezed into these real tight brown pants and this sweater that wasn't actually very tight but showed some...hell, you get the idea. She was just all smilin' and couldn't do enough to help us. I could tell she liked that I was there with a kid, because a guy with a kid seems like someone who has his shit together and can be relied upon. I thought to myself, "I got an ace in the hole here! When I drop that he ain't actually my kid, and that I'm single, she'll start
puttin' two and two together! Best of both worlds!" So anyway Little Nephew is just goin' crazy lookin' at like every watch in the case, which gives us all kinds of opportunities to give each other sort of those knowing, adult smiles, and I am just ten kinds of imagining romance with this lady. Actual romance, you know, not just the Act. I'm talkin' sayin' words like "love" and sharing ideas at a nice little restaurant, but also there bein' an intentional baby between us at some point. Daaamn, that's real. So finally I help him pick out this watch that was probably way more expensive than I should have bought him (I only let him wear it in his room now), but hell, I didn't want to seem like a tightwad, you know? Then I worked it in: I just said, "Well now, you're gonna look like quite the man in that one, Little Nephew!" and as soon as she heard that word Nephew I could feel both of our hearts just drawin' closer together. While we're payin' she writes her phone number real discreetly on this slip of paper and staples it to the receipt, making sure I see. That was an old-school move, which drove me crazy. If she had just been all "yo yo yo homeboy gets me on some mad two-way pager, I'm Alisha, aiiight," the spell
would have been broken, but this girl kept it real. I was mad in love and I think I even took a brochure about the Fossil Visa card, completely not thinking clearly. So then we're pickin' out Nikes at Foot Locker and he's just runnin' all around, tryin' on this and that, pilin' up a big stack of Air Jordans and Micro-Trainers and whatnot. But now I'm so happy I don't even notice his happiness so much (although I am still glad he is having such a nice time), and I get so distracted thinkin' about this girl that I kind of wander back past the Fossil store (except from the other side of the walkway so it's not too obvious what I'm doing). Then I wander into that Williams-Sonoma where they sell all that fancy kitchen equipment and I start puttin' together like a dream kitchen me and my lady could cook in. I'm all daydreamin' about pullin' a succulent crown roast out of this twenty thousand dollar French oven with her, me behind her, my arms wrappin' around as we lift the roast together and set it on the black granite counter. Daaamn. But then my daydream is interrupted when the security guard taps me on the shoulder and asks me if I'm Ray Smuckles. There he is with a cryin' Little Nephew, who apparently was reported as abandoned at
the Foot Locker because he'd been there for like over an hour. I felt just terrible about this because I knew I couldn't go back to Foot Locker and get all glared at by the employees while he picked out his shoes again. To make it up to him we went to Florsheim and I got him some cute little tassle loafers that he can wear on school trips and stuff. After the Foot Locker debacle the mall was kind of ruined for us so we walked on back home and I sent him to play with his things. Some new video games he had ordered were in the mail so he got all cheery and forgot all about being abandoned. And there was a message from Lyle on the machine! The dudes were playing poker at 3, and it was 2:50. I just had time to throw some chilled Asahi into a backpack and beat a trail over to their place. Everyone was just havin' a great time and I went on a tear like I never have before, clearin' like sixty bucks, floppin' full houses and flushes like nobody's business. I think I also caught on some of the dudes' tells, like how Téodor tends to place his cards closer to himself when they're good, and pushes them close to the pot when they're bad, like he's all ready to fold. And I can usually see Pat's hand in
these dumb mirrored shades he always wears when we play. By the time it was head to head and I put the burn on Roast Beef with pocket kings that went full, folks were in a pretty good mood and we decided to light the grill back at my place. I had these filet mignons wrapped in bacon, some jumbo prawns all marinated up, and even a couple of those mini-kegs you can get. Téodor whipped up some twice-baked potatoes while we jumped all around in the jacuzzi and pool. I got the perfect buzz goin' from this chianti we cracked, and it was just beautiful. Between the poker win and the buzz, I had my confidence going on strong. I dug up that phone number of the girl at Fossil, just knowing that I could smooth the hell out of a phone call. Hell, maybe I'd even invite her over. I grabbed the cordless and headed to the other side of the pool so that people couldn't hear me and heckle me, but close enough to the party that she could hear the fun goin' on. Roast Beef had put on some of the better Steve Miller songs, and there was splashin' and laughin', so I figured that was a good enough backdrop. Sure enough, she had just gotten off work (her name was Crystal, I think I forgot to
mention that) and said she'd grab a swimsuit and come on over. At this point I was on cloud nine. I could not lose. I even said these clever things on the phone that implied that I liked her while also keeping this real sexy distance. Well, as ladies do, she took like seventeen hours to even show up and by that time the party was just ash. Everyone was gone, bottles were floatin' in the pool, and someone had shaped hamburger meat into the letters C-O-C-K on the grill. By the time she came walkin' around I was just bored and kind of upset and I didn't notice her at first. I guess she read me pretty well because she said she was sorry for bein' so late. One look at her though and I knew it was worth the wait: she was done up all fine in this nice little dress, all makeup on and hair real carefully arranged. She was puttin' her finest foot forward, so I showed her around the pad, made her a Sea-Breeze, and then she noticed this Pretenders CD I keep around. I don't like most people knowin' I dig on The Pretenders...but anyhow, out of like six hundred CDs she spots that one. I pop it on and we just sit right down on the carpet in the living room, talkin' for hours. I didn't even notice the time pass, but next thing I knew it was 2am and she had to get home for work the next day. Just one little kiss at the end of the driveway and that was enough, that was it.
Any more would have been wrong. Now I'm gonna see her again on Friday! But we're gonna go out somewhere proper, just the two of us, so I can show her what a gentleman I can be. Wow, I really wrote a lot today. I think it's like 4am now, and I am pretty beat. But remember how I said at the beginning that I bet it's not over yet? I was right. For the next few minutes until I fall asleep I'm gonna hold onto this scrunchie that Crystal left on the counter—I'm gonna put it around my wrist and smell her sweet perfume. Man, I feel like I'm thirteen again. And it feels damn good. Oh, crap. I just remembered that I have to take Little Nephew to the dentist at 7:30 this morning. Dammit. I better go see if Roast Beef can take him.
Until then, Gentlemen,-=Ray=-
Pork Chops “Milanese” recipe by Teodor
This dish may sound difficult to cook due to the foreign word in the title. Nothing could be further from the truth. This is simply a pounded pork chop that is breaded and pan-fried. Pounding tenderizes the meat and also reduces the cooking time. Serve with a wedge of lemon for drizzling at table.
Ingredients 2 boneless pork chops, at least 1/2" thick1 small can fine bread crumbs1 beaten egg in a bowlOil for frying (Olive oil is preferred but Canola oil is acceptable)ButterSalt and pepper1 lemon
Procedure The pork chops will have a rind of white fat around them - don't trim this off. It will render down during cooking and add flavor.
One at a time, put the pork chops between two layers of plastic wrap and pound them with the rough side a kitchen mallet. If you don't have a kitchen mallet then just pound them with a rolling pin, full wine bottle, hammer, what have you. You want them to end up about 1/4" thick.
Spread the bread crumbs out on a plate. Put the bowl with the beaten egg next to it. Dredge the flattened chop in the egg, then dredge in the bread crumbs, making sure that the chops have an even and complete coating. Put the breaded chops on a plate and chill in the fridge for at least 10 minutes.
Heat a couple tablespoons of oil in a nonstick pan over a medium-high burner (be generous - olive oil's good for you). When the oil is hot but not smoking, throw in the butter and let it foam. Now lay in the meat - it should sizzle immediately. Cook one at a time unless your pan can comfortably fit both. Fry for 4 minutes per side - if you see smoke, turn the burner down to medium. Plate with a wedge of lemon (the lemon, squeezed over the meat at table, will brighten the flavor). Serve immediately on a heated plate.
The Story of Achewood Chapter One
It was a late, muggy weekday morning. The air was rich with clipped grass and exhaust fumes. The drone of two or three mowers came from invisible places up and down the mostly single-story street. No one was about. A small bear in a white henley, puffy Belorussian circus pantaloons, and skinny black knee boots dropped his suitcase on the front porch of 62 Achewood Court, an unassuming suburban home, and knocked with a delicate confidence on the door. Before it could be answered, he set his guitar case down beside the suitcase. He chided himself for whatever impression he might have originally been trying to make by holding the guitar case as the door was opened. The jasmine vines which framed the porch scented the air with their starry white April bouquet. The door opened a crack and a little blond otter in ginger-brown jeans and platform brogues looked out, a trifle nervous. “Téodor?” the otter asked, concerned. “That’s me!” he said, putting on a bit of cheeriness for the little fellow. “Téodor Orezscu, I called about the room in the paper.” The otter stood aside and made room for the bear to carry his bags in. Once inside, the otter beamed at him. As soon as Téodor had set his luggage down the otter surprised him with a big, friendly hug. “Huuugs!” cried the little fellow.
Téodor, somewhat kind by nature, embraced the hug not too awkwardly and gave the otter a little pat on the back. The hug proved to be cute and brief, and quickly he was released. “I’m Philippe!” “Pleased to meet you, Philippe. Do you live here too?” “My room is this way!” Philippe tugged at his hand and led him through the cluttered living room into a hallway. He pushed open the door of a cramped office. “My bed is beneath the window!” he exclaimed. Indeed, beneath the window which looked out to the street there was a white couch cushion atop a few upturned laundry baskets. Two pink bathroom towels had been folded in half and taped together with duct tape as a duvet, and a brown pillow which read HERSHEY’S in silver lettering sat at the head of the neatly made ensemble. On a cardboard box next to the bed sat a small plastic reading lamp and an alarm clock shaped like a tap-dancing egg. An old RCA Walkman, the orange foam long gone from its headphones, lay on the floor next to the box. Téodor appreciated the room and asked where his room might be. “You’re just across the hall!” exclaimed Philippe, with a tone that implied their sheer proximity would lead them to be close friends without much delay. For all his politeness and enthusiasm the young otter did not offer to help with Téodor’s bags, so Téodor picked them up once again and carried them across the hallway. The door to the vacant room stood open, revealing a small, plain cell of brown carpet, a twin bed on a simple metal frame, and a dresser with a lamp made of an old wine bottle atop it.
© 2004 Chris Onstad :: This and many other Achewood subscriber-only features can be found at www.serializer.net
The room smelled rather stale, and Téodor immediately went over to open the sliding window, which slid up with a bit of difficulty before becoming firmly wedged in its upright position. The house did look to date to the 1940s, so there was some understandable depreciation in the general qualities of the place. The anemic gurgle of a neglected spa could be heard just outside. “It’s...it’s very nice,” he said, having expected not much else for five hundred dollars a month. The little otter shriveled his nose. “Lyle used to live in here,” he said. “Now he just camps in the yard.” Téodor became uneasy at the idea of a former occupant lingering about the premises. “So, he decided he would rather camp in the yard?” “No,” said Philippe. “He ran out of rent money because of a problem with responsibility.” At this he put his put his hands on his hips and disapprovingly snuffed while frowning at the tobacco-brown carpet. Téodor noticed a few baseball-sized patches of off-color paint on the walls, right about at the height where an angry person might stick his fist. Also lightly painted over, on closer inspection, were myriad epithets, old lo-fi metal band names, and odd thoughts, all inscribed in either Sharpie marker, ball-point pen, spray paint, or low-relief gouge. He traced his finger over a particularly hard to ignore sheetrock engraving which roughly read, “MOTÖRHEAD.” Just beneath the engraving, which smelled of very fresh paint, sat an age-pitted garden hose spray nozzle, roughly flattened by the wheels of a car, the tip of which was full of chunked and powdered sheetrock. Téodor picked up the specimen and regarded it coolly.
The young otter relieved him of the tool and threw it out of the open window, where it clattered down the steps of the deck before landing and settling resoundingly on brick. Téodor's own adolescent room had enjoyed similar scarification and the inscriptions did not put him off entirely. What did put him off was the whiff of former occupant which hung about the place, the sort of musk that is buried deep in a carpet the landlord has been too negligent to shampoo. “So this Lyle,” he began. “Is he around much?” Philippe picked up a crumpled, pleated paper drinking cup which lay along the wall and gathered his thoughts before answering. “He cooks Italian food,” said the young otter, “and usually he brings us home some pizza or leftover Fettuccine Alfredo.” Indeed, Lyle held down a line cook’s position at San Ricci’s, a passable pizza/pasta joint which hosted young families as a significant part of their daily ticket. At the end of the night he usually threw sealed tubs of whipped butter and marinara into his knap along with wax-bagged staves of garlic bread and rejected slices, and these were fed upon heartily by the denizens of 62 Achewood Court, as well as their usual guests and the occasional interloper. “Is he around now?” In a puff of bravery Téodor elected to meet the fellow before much else went on. “He just left for work.” “No problem, I'll say hi when he comes back. What’s he look like?” “He’s a tiger, and he has a big mustache.” Philippe paused to consider something for a moment. “No one else in the house has a big mustache, so you will know him when you see him.”
© 2004 Chris Onstad :: This and many other Achewood subscriber-only features can be found at www.serializer.net
A massive problem with salads lately is that people are dissing iceberg lettuce. Iceberg has been the workhorse lettuce of half-cocked diner salads for a long time going, yeah, but don’t let its checkered past hide its true qualities. Iceberg is crisp, very moist, and slightly bitter. It’s the perfect lettuce to go with rich ingredients, as it provides moisture and crunch to balance and cleanse the palate.
With Dodighracha Salad, I aim to change all that. Iceberg lettuce will once again be elevated to its rightful place in the salad pantheon. Today, I reveal my secret to the world! Today, the peasant girl throws off her cloak: the whole time she was a beautiful princess.
—Ray SmucklesAchewood Estates, CaliforniaNovember 2004
RECIPE1 extremely fresh head iceberg lettuce, chilled in fridge1 bottle of your favorite Blue Cheese or Ranch dressing, decanted into burger stand-style narrow-nozzle squeeze bottles and chilled1 handful yellow corn tortilla chips, smashed into tiny bitsChilled plate, chilled chef's knife, chilled tongs, chilled spoon, chilled fork
PROCEDURE
If the heater is on, turn it off. You want it to be about fifty-three degrees Fahrenheit when you prepare and consume this salad. I usually wrap a scarf or bandanna over my mouth during prep to keep my breath off the ingredients.
Using a long, sharp, chilled chef's knife, carefully shred the head of lettuce into ribbons no wider than a linguine noodle. This is very important. There can be no big leaves. That is not part of this recipe. You are after a fine shred.
Using the chilled tongs (your hands will be too warm), delicately toss the shreds a bit to loosen them from each other, then set a nice portion in the center of the chilled plate. Put the crushed chips into a ramekin (the ramekin can be room temperature). Put all these things on a chilled aluminum tray with the chilled fork and dressing and bring immediately to table. Now, working quickly, use the bottle to squirt narrow lines of the dressing in a crisscross pattern over the lettuce until no square inch is without it. Sprinkle the chips evenly over this.
You must begin to consume this salad within 20-30 seconds of preparing it, or the lettuce will begin to lose its turgor pressure. Stick the chilled fork in and twirl the ribbons of lettuce like spaghetti, getting them good and coated with the chilled dressing and crunchy, salty chips. Enjoy the great balance of rich flavors and crunchy textures. This salad is my invention.
Editor’s note: This recipe is stupid. Ray only wrote it so that he would have an excuse to use the term “turgor pressure,” which he remembered from high school.
Dodighracha Salad by Ray
“I laughed till my lips fell onto my knees.”
— Robert PopperCo-creator, BBC's Look Around You Author, “The Timewaster Letters”
“Great stuff!”
— Chip Rowe The Playboy Advisor
“I’m addicted to Achewood. Chris Onstad is a dark, hilarious genius.”
— Dave Barry The Miami Herald
“Nowadays I open the big wide comics section of my paper, and my eye skates over everything. I read Get Fuzzy, and that’s it. Nothing in the dino media is as good as Achewood. I know, I know – some of you won’t get it, and I understand; I fought it for a week or two as well, because I was supposed to think it was funny, and at first it just looked like this inert thing saturated with that fatal “it’s so unfunny it must be funny” spirit you find in overhyped web comics. But it grew on me quickly. Onstad is not an artist who can write funny – he’s a naturally brilliant comic writer, period, an utterly unique talent who can’t draw very well. See also, Thurber. He deals in deadpan understatement, which is why some people don’t get it right away. You have to read the blogs he writes for his character to grasp the full extent of his talent: he can write in six different voices and you still detect his tone and style. In three years I expect there will be Korean animators working feverishly on the Achewood cartoon show, which will air briefly on Cartoon Network, die after 37 episodes, and be ever after revered like the Honeymooners.”
— James Lileks Columnist, Minneapolis StarTribune
Philippe, we just can't have Homosexuals the Gorilla as our party's mascot. I'm sorry.
I find that pretty hard to swallow.
Inside the heart of a rejected strip: Once I realized that I was writing a double-entendre piece using "gay" jokes, I immediately applied for a job as a Humor columnist at a college newspaper.
Why not?! Homosexuals will help me show that I'm different from the other guys!
Look. In the long run, this mascot will only hold you back.
You just watch! I'm gonna go all the way with Homosexuals!
You don't have to swallow anything! That's my job!
achewood © 2 0 0 4 C h r i s O n s t a d : : a c h e w o o d . c o m
Damn, I forgot to tell everybody about what I did for Friday night’s party! Sorry, all. I was bidding on these old board games on eBay right up until it started. (I got an original 70s Mousetrap, the old quality piece construction, before they replaced all the plastic and metal parts with cardboard, and also an old version of Monopoly from 1935 where the “Chance” cards say things like “Your negro spilled soup on a Senator!” and “Your only son is a confirmed bachelor, pay $50 to finance his musical”). Anyhoo, the theme of the party was Country Western. I saw Urban Cowboy earlier in the week and it was straight-up blumpity, so I went to Salvation Army and bought them out of old yoked western shirts, tight jeans and cowboy hats. Then I stopped by to see the guy who sells flags down by Samoleans’ BBQ cart, and he set me up with his cousin who operates a portable mechanical bull, so the main event was locked. Dimitri set us up with a few kegs of Michelob and Michelob Dark, plus Ten High whiskey, and I contracted a guy called Danger Chuck’s Cooking to serve chuck wagon-type cowboy food from his special old-fashioned cart. For music, I got the guys from Black Irish to come pick some rockin’ lowhills bluegrass. Téodor and Lyle showed up kind of early so I dudded them up and had them start drinking—this way it would seem like there were already rowdy cowboys at the party when folks showed up. For about an hour while he's gettin’ plowed Lyle likes to be real chummy and optimistic, so he was all about helping Danger Chuck get his rig set up (Lyle occasionally works in food service as a cook). They finished off some real nice dutch oven pot roast, simmered the chili beans, baked up scrumptious biscuits and
cornbread, basted the rotisserie chickens, and even made mile-high apple pies for dessert. The chow wagon was lookin’ good when folks started flowin’ in. First to arrive were Molly and Beef, and I don’t want to be a gossip but they were having some kind of dispute. They got into the costumes alright, but they were pretty steamed and couldn’t wait to get some beer and separate from each other. Beef went to help Lyle and Chuck with the cart, and Molly cooled it with Téodor, who had set some bottles up and was throwing baseballs at them, like a carnival. Meanwhile, folks started to stream in and get into the duds. The Black Irish struck up and it was all of a complete, promising scene. Some guys I wasn’t expecting to see showed, like old Smacks Peel. I blogged about his baby shower a little while back — you might remember. Anyhow, his wife apparently kicked him outta the house and told him to get lost, so he came and wound a couple on. Turns out he is not happy to be a dad and she has postpartum depression and he wants to die. I know when Smacks says stuff like this he’ll get through it — dude is a straight player. I slapped a straw Stetson on him and poured out a Dark faster than you can say Raymond Quentin Smuckles. Over in a corner Téodor was setting the bottles up for Molly, and when she pitched a ball that took down his pyramid, they hugged. Beef had been watching all this from the sidelines, and then he tried to do that thing where the country guy pulls the country girl off the premises by her forearm. Molly was having none of it and kicked him across his butt cheeks (Beef! Dude!). Anyhow, the guys in Black Irish got all into it and started to defend the lady, and before you knew it Beef was fighting the Black Irish. He banged one guy over the head with his own mandolin before the rest tackled him and forced him into a pretty bad position. I had to go in and bail his ass out, and let me tell you, I was none too pleased about it. I love my friends, but a dogg does not have to be a dirt dogg at his friend’s party. About this time the mechanical bull was getting pretty heavy
c•›”š˜ Mwˆ™šˆ˜”@p„ š̃ ABlog by Ray, Saturday, October 9, 2004
use, so folks started lining up to take rides. Damn but if Lyle isn’t a dynamo on the mechanical bull! He didn’t fall off once, and by about eleven he had the whole crowd cheering for him. I know the dogg has seen some serious days, but I never thought he had experience in honky-tonk pastimes. He kept going beneath the base of the mechanical bull and cranking up the difficulty level, and this had the crowd hooting and hollering. He’d get up, it’d throw him around for all it was worth, but he never let go. He’d be a little dizzy when he got down, but he never fell. People were all over him, slapping him on the shoulder and getting him beers. I thought he had the thing cranked up as far as it would go, but then I saw him talking to the bull operator, who nodded and gave him this special red metal key. Lyle went under the bull, pulled up this sliding door, stuck the key into some kind of lock and gave it this really hard turn. Then he got on the bull, cinched up his glove, and raised his free hand to signal that he was ready. What happened next kind of confused and scared me. I guess that red key-lock thing is like the turbocharger for the bull, because it started bucking so fast that the whole thing pretty much became a blur, whipping Lyle around like a rag doll. At first people tried to cheer, but then they just became slowly concerned, and then genuinely terrified. It looked like Lyle was having all his bones broken inside the sack of his body. There was no way his spine was handling all the heaving and dropping and whipping and turning — he looked like if you’ve ever dropped a raw chicken into a laundromat washer when it’s on spin cycle. I ran up to the operator but he just set his jaw and pointed: Lyle was still holding on. I guess that’s part of the honky-tonk credo: if the cowboy is still holding on, you’ve got to let him ride. People were starting to yell things like “Call 911!” and “Oh my god, make it stop!” and a few women (plus Smacks) started screaming and crying. The bull has an automatic shutoff feature, so it won’t keep going indefinitely. When the bull finally shut down, Lyle was
leaned over, limp in the saddle, his face resting on the foremount. His left leg twitched once, and then he lay still. No one was sure if they could go near him, or if the bull was still dangerous. The operator got up, walked over to him, and took the key out of the lock. He whispered something in Lyle’s ear and then, lifting his head up by the hair, poured something from a small flask down his throat. Lyle fell back down onto the chassis, but then, ever so slowly, his body seemed to draw back into form, and he began to sit up. It had been dead silent all this time, and now people started to cheer and holler with a passion. Lyle squeezed his forehead, spat, and stood up on the bull, his fists raised in the air. The crowd was deafening. At the back, I saw Beef and Molly turn and fall into each others’ arms. Later on I went up to congratulate Lyle and he was standing alright, but he wasn’t making too much sense when he talked. I asked him if I could fill his beer and he said things like “a muscle in a poke, baby strawberry pie!” Not a good sign, but probably temporary while his brain settles back down inside his skull. If there’s one guy I don’t worry about after physical torture, it’s Lyle. So, a pretty good party! I nibbled on some chili beans while Danger Chuck and the bull guy wound down their operations, and soon all you could hear on the property was the low buzz of the floodlight.
At least, that's what I remember!
S S S S I P
Hey Waterbury! What do you do if you think you might be slightly losing just a small amount of hair on the back of your head?
I believe the only hair loss factor one can control is stress, sir.
Huh! Maybe I'm too stressed out!
R-R-RING! Ray here! What's the haps, paps?
***Include your b 0 n e r in your next romantic evening! Click here for CIAL;IS ***
almond suffragette demeaning anagram portent cyanide pith cardinal rubric entomology
Lessee here...what bugs me...you know what? I hate loggin' in to e-mail! They need to make that easier!
Maybe I can get one of those systems where email just gets sent to your cell!
achewood © 2 0 0 4 C h r i s O n s t a d : : a c h e w o o d . c o m
How goes the musical of the steak-eating contest, sir?
Oh, damn, Waterbury! Check this out! I used your advice about giving the main charac-ter optimism!
I am most gratified to hear it, sir.
Check this out!
INVESTOR #1Maybe in your DREAMS, Steven! Hah! Ha ha! Ha ha ha ha ha![The limo pulls away as the investors laugh. House lights fade.] SCENE II
[Spotlight on STEVEN, sitting in his darkened boyhood room. All of his toys are broken and all over the place]STEVEN[sings]Ohhh, Steak! Do you doubt me, as they doubt me? As I doubt me?
[pause...a candle flickers to life in the darkness][looks up, struck by a thought]But wait, why not have Optimism![now opera-style singing][brings the two broken halves of the child's globe back together]I, believe! I, can eat! The...STEEEAAAAAAAK!
This never ran in the daily strip, and was only discovered when scrounging around for material to fill the back pages of this book. In fact, I had to make up the left three panels during layout.
What is the only poster on Pat's spaceship?
What does Ray want to look for after he crashes he and Téodor's golf cart at great speed into a lake?
What is Ray's full name?
What is Ray's father's full name?
GK
BL
CH
EL
005
Why did Philippe get fat?
What is the name of the man who kidnaps Dimitri Warnock, the famous guitar player?
What is Todd's full name?
What is the riddle that Ray has to solve to get out of Hell, via the Friendly's bathroom stall?
GK
BL
CH
EL
004
GK
BL
CH
EL
007
In Vlad's proposed Subway ad, who punches Jared in the heart so hard that he dies?
What was Ray's nickname for his housekeeper, and why did she quit?
Where is Téodor's family from?
What is the secret ingredient in Pat's nonfat eggnog recipe?
What does Roast Beef accidentally cook for Molly while in Heaven?
Where is Lyle detained while in Scotland?
Where is Philippe's family from?
What four categories of pornography does Ray expense from he and Téodor's ad agency?
GK
BL
CH
EL
006
GK: General KnowledgeBL: BlogsCH: Character DetailsEL: Expert Level (all areas)
Hey! It’s time for...
Who is the worst guy in the Achewood universe?
Who was hanging around drinking Long Island Iced Teas when Roast Beef accidentally arranged food in a frying pan such that it looked like cock and balls?Under what pen name did Ray write his romance novel?
Where does Roast Beef eat lunch on his "Me" day?
GK
BL
CH
EL
009
What is the full name of Roast Beef's twin brother?
Who does Cornelius fly to Russia to meet?
What is Mr. Bear's profession?
What identity does Vlad assume when he crashes Pat's Subway messageboard?
GK
BL
CH
EL
008
What is the name of Ray's record label?
What did the little old Korean man whisper into Ray's ear after he ate the baby bird?
Who is Lazarus the Shoe's brother?
From where does Molly buy the shirt that Roast Beef later buries in his backyard?
GK
BL
CH
EL
011
What does Roast Beef find in the bathroom drawer in Molly's heaven apartment?
What is the name of Little Nephew's clown business?
What is Molly's last name?
What does Nightlife Mingus ask for the first day he shows up?
GK
BL
CH
EL
010
Name the hiop-hop mogul whose contract says you must look into his eyes (initials B.B.)
Why does Téodor hop the NSTL to San Bruno?
According to Nice Pete, killing resembles what sport?
Who is the neatest person that Blister met in Heaven?
GK
BL
CH
EL
012
What ain't exactly five o'clock news?
According to Philippe, what is the name of the Italian person who causes Chris to give in to peer pressure and smoke a cigarette?
Who is Achewood's foremost physician?
At one point, Vlad got so horny that he ate something unusual. What was it?
GK
BL
CH
EL
013
GK
BL
CH
EL
005
It has these two people fucking and it says “Fuckin’”
“...some shrimps!”
Raymond Quentin Smuckles
Ramses Luther Smuckles
GK
BL
CH
EL
007
A Green Beret.
Conchita, which Ray did not know means "little pussy" in Spanish.
Minsk (Belarus)
Roasted Garlic
He ate at all of his friends' Subway shops, once a day, to be polite
Eustace K. Dobbs
Todd Todd Todd Todd Todd T. Squirrel
“How much do most rocks weigh?” (A: “About a pound”)
GK
BL
CH
EL
004
A rooster (ding dong intact)
At a girls school.
France (Bordeaux)
Print, video, audio, interracial
GK
BL
CH
EL
006
Want to have additional fun? When you’re done, underline the answers which would make great band names (e.g. all of card 13).
GK
BL
CH
EL
009
Todd
Ray and Lyle
Rick Dorado
Toshi's Fine Teppanyaki
GK
BL
CH
EL
011
Prime Time Records
"Now you know what it is, to have death inside you."
Leopold
Calvin Klein Online
GK
BL
CH
EL
013
A turd with a bullet in it
Tony
Dr. Paul Andretti
"The soap."
Michael “Showbiz” Kazenzakis
Ekaterina Gamova ("Enormous volleyball player" also acceptable)
Writer (failed)
Daedalus_X
GK
BL
CH
EL
008
An enormous condom
Chortlezz Tha Klown, a Modern Klown with an Uncommon Attitude
Sanders
A cold glass of Tuaca
GK
BL
CH
EL
010
Bensington Butters
Pat gave him a gift certificate to an absurd leftist bookstore
Basketball
The guy who invented salami
GK
BL
CH
EL
012
ALL STRIPS FROM 11/2004 TO 7/2005 ***** VOL. VIWRITTEN AND ILLUSTRATED BY CHRIS ONSTAD
THE DUDE IS FROM CIRCUMSTANCES
Incidents of Police Record for the date September 8, 1932.
IN LARAMIE ST.Eulalie Dorsson, of 14 Laramie St., reports that groceries valued at $3.42 were damaged by animals before she could meet the grocer and bring them in. A packet of coffee beans was opened and contaminated by claw marks, tins of Italian tomatoes were tossed about roughly and scraped, and 2 lb. of ground beef was missing entirely.
Barbara Fenwick, of 62 Laramie St., reports that several chrome strips were removed from her automobile. Deputy reports confirm that said pieces are missing. The automobile is a ’25 Mettering Type VII. Reward.
IN PINING WAYDavid Grimes, of 175 Pining Way, had left his hat outside for a moment when he returned to discover that it had been struck through the crown with a sharpened dowel. Mr. Grimes (Dexter ’02) reports that several of his old college chums may have been in the vicinity, with no good purpose in mind. Several animal tracks were found in the area, perhaps made by special molds belonging to Mr. Grimes’ college chums. Investigation open; contact with the chums has not been established.
ALONG ACHEWATER CREEK, WEST COÕPERATIONThe body of a vagrant was discovered early yesterday morning along the West Coöperation at Hooper’s Gate. The
pockets contained several dollars in loose change, and a wallet with photographs remained intact. Only the curious detail of the vagrant’s hair having been tied to a nearby blackberry bush via a half-dozen lines of twine distinguished the otherwise common scene.
SOUTH OF THE WATER TEMPLE PEDIMENTTrespassers once again dislodged the grate covering the main aqueduct exchange. Found about the scene were several discarded liquor bottles and one extremely small novelty hat. Youth are suspected.
PENMAN SQUAREEach of the perimeter refuse bins which demarcate the border of the square was set aflame last evening. Responding officers noted nothing other than a preponderance of curious raccoon eyes in the underbrush, which quickly dispersed when a rock was thrown.
CROFT-BYMAN SUBDIVIDEA fresh boar’s hide was found draped over the Croft-Byman gate yesterday morning. Perversely, the creature had been decorated with four tiny black boots, and a miniature wallet found nearby held a photograph of what is assumed to be a lady-boar.
EAST ACHEWOODA hound dog was found hanged by the neck, strung up on the automatic railroad crossing gate. The cord was long enough that the dog could stand on the ground while the gate was down, but not once the gate lifted. This is the fifteenth such incident in recent months, a crime which detectives have nicknamed “mailbagging.”
No leads have been identified, but officials have stated that the perpetrators always wrap the victim’s head in a burlap Gravenstein apple sack prior to placing the noose.
Sherovoam Duncan was arrested on charges of public drunkenness outside of the What Cheer saloon on Broadway.
Murray V. O’Dowd was arrested on charges of public drunkenness outside of the Tam O’Shanter saloon on Larkhurst.
Immanuel Rutlidge was arrested on charges of private drunkenness, in his own bed, so loud did he yell his own name and cry for arrest. It is the first known case of its type.
A man’s body was threaded through a dozen car tires and rolled down Parson’s Grade. The man came to a rest in Swinehart Creek at Mooney’s Mill. The dome of his head had been exposed during the roll and was extremely damaged by rocks and brambles. Investigation open.
Stanislaus Kyrevjcny, 31, toppled the house of a neighbor with whom he had been having an argument. He pushed hard on the neighbor’s wall until the house fell down. The neighbor sat there, in his garters and shirt, without even his collar, as the dust settled into his breakfast soup. He blinked several times incredulously as the Pole stood by and laughed.
A local meeting of the Men of Promise, a Christian husband’s club, was so overcome by the spirit that they overturned a child’s pedal-car. Mr. Einar Ingvaldsson, of 341 Drake, upon
inspection of the toy, decided not to press charges, at which point the accused returned to the church to consume juice and swap impressions of the event.
OBITUARIES.
Eldred Phepps, 65. Mr Phepps was found deceased next to his cat, also deceased, in his East Achewood pension. Cirrhosis was determined to be the cause of death for both. Mr. Phepps was remembered by his neighbors as a troubled widower who had lost all six of his sons at Chemin des Dames. Mr. Phepps will be cremated by the city. No services are planned. Marjorie Rozenfeldt, 83. Mrs. Rozenfeldt took her own life in an East Achewood doss house. Mrs. Rozenfeldt had lost eleven grandchildren in the battles of Gallipoli, Trentino, and Jutland. Her husband Abraham passed away eighteen years prior. Mrs. Rozenfeldt will be cremated by the city. No services are planned.
Silas Manning Graham, aged 3 months. Baby Silas was tragically poisoned when an exotic orchid wilted into his crib and the deadly flower was mistaken for a suckling teat. Dr. and Mrs. Robert J. Graham plan to donate a new library to Dexter University in honor of their son’s passing. Funeral services to be held Tuesday at Our Lady of the Divine Grace, Achewood Heights, 10:00AM.
ACHEWOOD CITY POLICE DEPARTMENT
Contact the Department: Tel. A-5022
EAST ACHEWOOD
ACHEWOOD
ACHEWOOD HEIGHTS
1
2
3
5
4
6
Dexter Univer s i t y
SevenPine sG.C.
1. Residence of Ray Smuckles2. Residence of Roast Beef Kazenzakis3. Residence of Pat Reynolds4. Residence of Téodor, Philippe, Mr. Bear, Lyle, and the Onstads5. Apartment residence of Chucklebot, Andy, Vlad6. Residence of Todd Squirrel
L E G E N D.Entrance to underground (storm drain, disguised stairwell, train tunnel, repurposed newspaper stand, basement, manhole, etc.)
Major thoroughfare or highway Surface streetBoundary of main underground imprint
Overground Map: Achewood, California.
ACHEWOOD ESTATES
S C A L E .
= 1/6 mile.
The Bon Vivant d‹“‹“‰@”š™@œ‹™Š@¹p‡™‡º@c—”•‡˜
__________________________________REVIEWED: Casa Mia Cucina Italianaby Peter H. Cropes__________________________________
Hello. I am Peter H. Cropes, and I will be reviewing a restaurant for you. This was a very good oppor-tunity for me, as I had never had a fancy sit-down meal at a restaurant before. Therefore I think you will not see a lot of the flim-flammy language that pro-fessional restaurant reviewers use when plying their trade. I am just seeing the restaurant for what it is, and I will tell you exactly how I
felt and what I thought of the flavors. Thank you to Chris Onstad for this assignment, and for covering the considerable fee for the meal.
RESTAURANT SNAPSHOTCasa Mia Cucina ItalianaAchewood, CaliforniaSeating: 66 seatsSpecialty: Italian
At first you go into the restau-rant, and there is a beautiful arrangement of dried plants and jars of pickled vegetables. Oh how it is lovely. It reminds you
of warmth, and of times of plenty. It is good, and you feel fine. Then there is a small lecture stand, with a book. They have your name in the book, because you have a reservation that Chris Onstad made (in my case). They say that you are a "party of one"
and agree to take your coat. The lady smiles, she is a little shorter than usual. Also there is a smell.
You sense that you will get your coat back, that they have done this before. She is still smiling.
They show you a table, and you agree, and they give you a menu. Your hair is combed and you have on a cologne. The menu terrifies you, and a dread clenches at your gut, but then you realize that in smaller typing all of the Italian names are presented in English. The relief is tremendous. You feel at home again, even better than home. You feel like you are on a wonderful new ride.
You ask if the garlic bread is good that night. They say that it is, and so you ask for a serving of it. When it comes, it is delicious. It has butter, and garlic flavor, and it is so hot. It is so hot, yet soft inside. The meal does not end there. There is a boy now, and he smiles.
The water has lemon in it. This kills giardia. Classy.
While you have the garlic bread, you remember to order a second food item—a Main Dish, and also a chilled carafe of fine wine. You decide on the Main Dish of Chicken Cannelloni, and a carafe of chilled White House Wine. They say you can have a half carafe, but you do not want to act poor. You say to bring the whole carafe. You remember about the money you were given, and are grateful. This is high on the hog. It is not your normal way.
The boy is back and he has your wine. He takes the plastic peel off, and un-pops the lid of the carafe. He pours you a full glass and sets the carafe on the table. You are free to do as you wish. You take a healthy swallow of the wine and it falls, cold, into your belly. It makes a feeling, a dead feeling, like listening to a relative undress in a different room. The flavor is that of sweet apples, a ruse, to mask the terrible sensation of the product.
The Chicken Cannelloni comes and you are warned that the plate is very hot. They have cooked the plate as
well as the food. This seems insane. Then you see that it is a big portion, and that the hot plate will keep the food warm up to the very last bite. They are professionals, and have done this before. This is clear.
The food burns your mouth, it scalds your tongue. You are in excruciating pain. Tears come to your eyes and you may scream as you try to get it down, but you continue to shovel it in. They know what they are doing, after all. Your mouth grows numb as you chew the white-hot Chicken Cannelloni. Soon all you can feel is the fiery pain in your throat. Then you realize that is why they have the wine. You grab the carafe and drink it all down. It is soothing and it puts out the fire. No wonder. No wonder about the wine. It all starts to make sense. It is a brilliant system. Centuries old.
There is a lot of Chicken Cannelloni left, so you order another full carafe. The manager comes, to make sure you are serious, and probably to see if you have enough money. You fan the money out on the table, and he
nervously thanks you and places it in a small leather booklet. The boy is back with your wine, but he is not nice this time. He is not a friend any more, he wants to be away from you. He is scared. It is all too familiar.
You continue to shovel in the steaming, scalding Chicken Can-nelloni, and pull deeply from the carafe. Your mouth is in shreds, and your head is swimming. True dining is pain, a madness of the senses. They bring you the check while you finish your plate, and you put it in the leather booklet with all your money. You can go. You take a peppermint wheel and a toothpick. They have thought of everything. With a body full of fire, you are properly readied for the long night ahead. You hunger for more ex-tremes. There is plenty of gas in the van, and there is no moon. __________________________________Casa Mia Cucina Italiana
Chronicle of Philippe's Day
6-8AM, Wednesday, May 25
by Philippe!____________________________________
6:00am: Time to wake up! The alarm clock is going off! Hello, day! Hello, sunshine! Let's see if anyone is up to have breakfast with! Breakfast is the most important meal of the day.
6:10am: Nobody was around, so I brushed my teeth. Brushing your
teeth is the most important personal activity of the day.
6:15am: Well, Lyle is around, but he is way too sleepy and just staring at the TV. How come he doesn't look at me when I talk to him? When people are so sleepy that they are drooling onto their shoulder, isn't the drool the body's way of telling them to go to bed? It would get all cold on your shoulder and wake you up! Not in this case, though.
6:16am: Lionel Richie is on the TV! He is so smart! He travels all over the world and keeps very busy. Did you know that he has a new haircut, and doesn't like raisins in his cookies? I don't mean to be a big knowitall, I'm just saying what I saw on the TV. He was chuckling when he said the raisin cookie thing, don't worry too much about it.
6:18am: Hey, where's all the milk? People drank all the milk! Cereal is almost the only recipe I am allowed to cook by myself, but if I don't have milk, I'm up the river without a paddle! Oh well, looks like it's cereal
with warm water again (I like it better than cold water, it makes kind of a gravy with the bran).
6:24am: The dog came in! She is so sweet. A lot of people ignore the dog (Olive, she is a dock's hound), especially Chris, but she is good! She can be your friend and play, but if she wants to be alone, she will go to her far corner of the yard and just look at you. Perfect!
6:30am: Uh oh, Chris came in. He really doesn't like when the dog wakes him up. He poured her a half-cup of dog food with one eye shut and then said the "d----t" word in a real quiet angry way as he went back to bed. Sometimes in the morning he says he will buy a machine to replace everyone he knows, but I don't know what that means.
6:35am: Hey, we should do corn cob art projects today! You know, make statues by joining the cobs together with parts of coathangers. Is that where "cobbler" comes from, a person who makes shoes? Did they used to make shoes out of corn
cobs? It seems likely. The fluffy dried part might make a great sole, and the hard part was probably for ankle support.
6:42am: Whoops, I was looking at the ingredients of spaghetti (ahem: macaroni?!) and the package fell on the floor. Chris rolled over in his bed and said the "d----t" word again. Here's a riddle: What is mad in the morning, mad in the afternoon, and mad at night? Chris.
7:21am: Not many people go into the garage this early in the morning. I looked around in there and the sun was shining through a knot-hole in the wall and the sunbeam fell exactly onto the word "SUN" on a newspaper title! Is today going to be the best
day of the year? Let's see!
7:38am: I figured another place to look for miracles was in the back studio, where all the guitars and t-shirts are. It was locked, though, and when I was trying to wiggle the knob a huge car crash happened on the busy street in front of the house. I went back in to look out the window, but the baby was crying, and that is my cue to make myself scarce. Pretty soon Chris was walking around in his underwear and t-shirt with the crying baby, and lots of sirens were going off out front, and a man on the radio played a really loud heavy metal song about dying, and Chris told the dog that she was an idiot, and then everyone in the entire house started yelling until every
single person was told that they are an idiot.
7:59am: Everyone is back in bed and Chris's wife Liz showed me where the new carton of milk was, so I can have better cereal. She even told Chris to tell the dog that she is not an idiot, so Chris told the dog that she was a genius at ruining his morning. When they had all left I gave her (the dog) a Trader Joe's Carrot Nub.
8:05am: Whooh! What a day so far! Maybe when Téodor gets up I will remind him about the English Muffin Pizza Lunch idea I had yesterday. He said he knew what I was talking about for the most part, and that it wouldn't be too hard.
Get lost, idiot!
Oh my goshWait...maybe he was just mad
...LATER
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Scholar’s note.The subject of this song is a child who stands for hours every day in front of a mysterious shop (“Sullivan’s”) which never opens. Through the bars on the windows he can see dusty shelves and glass cabinets filled with a variety of dimly lit curios. Among them he enumerates sets of asian jars, baby animals in ether, intricately detailed models of wooden sailing ships, obscure cookware, stringed instruments, tin soldiers, sagging leatherbound volumes, and great containers of multicolored candies. However, the objects which hold the most fascination for him are a life-size stuffed bear and mallard. The child stares at them incessantly, sure that if his attention is directed toward them long enough they will come to show signs of life. Season after season, year after year, in full summer sun and driving snow, the boy steals away from his chores to come look in the window. He stands motionless, intent, looking into the dim glow of the locked shop on the ever-deserted alleyway, peering unceasingly into the eyes of the bear and bird. Never moving, never changing, they perpetually stare into the distance. Eventually the child goes insane.
“Sullivan’s Bear and Dried Bird” stands alone in its vivid depiction of the effects a prolonged exposure to achewater can have on the central nervous system. While the identity of the author remains a subject of some contention, lines like “staring past the orange brocade/the brain in lively marinade” and “still water fooled the lonely duck/the beak sucked in the devil’s muck” hint that the slave liquor had made its way into a more literate circle of society and may well have been penned by an aristocratic addict.
—Joel SteinmetzBoston, MA 1975
ca. 1901
I strayed on down an alley-way, the name I did not know - the window dressing caught my
Intro: Andante, Legato.
The soldiers numbered twenty-four, the mallard plainly saw. The bear, he had no time for “They’re mocking me and dancing, when I'm not around. That much I am sure of, as sure as
“THE OLD tadpole@sac”A Classic Cocktail by Roast Beef
1. Release two raw egg whites into a
buttered tumbler.
2. Using a syringe, inject one marble-sized
drop of Midori into the egg white.
3. Draw the needle away from the Midori
so as to create a "tail." Lift the needle out
of the egg white after an inch or so.
4. Admire the tadpole you have made. Lay
the drink back in one gulp and notice the
rush of energy from the protein.
This is thought by many to be what Rocky
would have drank in his last days if he
had gone pretty crazy.
The Magnum P.I.
A Signature™ Cocktaille© by Ray Smuckles
1 Michelob1 chilled 8oz. glass mug, with
thick little handle and heavy base
Procedure: Be in a bar. Pour 2/3 of
the Michelob into the mug, and
make sure it gets 1" of head on it.
Take the mug into the corner of the
room by the bathroom doors.
Bathroom doors in bars are
particularly heavy and can shield
you well from bullets. Also handy to
know is that all bar bathrooms are
required by law to have a window
you can crawl out of (I don't think
this is true - double-check).
Ray's Recipe!by Ray Smuckles.
Hello! Do you not want to have a problem when guests come over? Then do what I do, and always make this recipe. INGREDIENTS1 can of chili, con carne or sin the carne1/2 cup grated cheddar cheese1 tbsp Tabasco or other hot sauce (such as Ray's Rad Chilies)
Fritos, 2 bags1/4 cup chopped green onion, for sprinkling3 TBSP sour cream, with desired amount of fatness
Heat the chili up in a pot, and when it's hot, stir in the Tabasco and cheddar and mix until all the cheese is melted. Put this substance into a bowl and sprinkle some extra grated cheese on top, then sour cream, then sprinkle the green onions on. Serve the Fritos in a bowl next to this substance. Invite your guests to eat the substance.
The Story of Achewood ...continued from Vol IV
A small alarm sounded in Philippe's room, at which he immediately bounded off to the living room, where he flipped on the TV and jumped onto the couch with great glee. The pleasant harmonies of a cartoon show plucked up and soon Téodor was all but forgotten in the smelly, complicated quarters which had befallen him. He set down his bags and stepped out into the hallway. Hearing an odd noise, he cocked his head. A sound like a small lead balloon filling with circus gas came from behind a heavily stained oaken door, followed shortly by a brief, piercing "bhurp" and the clinical tap of a metal implement being set down onto a wooden surface. An old leather chair squeaked and groaned as something slumped into its lap, its wheels rolling crisply around on hard flooring, making a very brief but very lazy circuit. Not sure what to make of this curious soundtrack, Téodor set out on a wander around the house. He noted with some curiosity that none of the other doors matched the heavy oaken one. In fact, save for that one they were all a very humble, uncomplicated, matching plain white. The Onstads had told him they'd be at work late and out for dinner and a comedy after that, so he wouldn't have a chance to meet them and be shown around. They had effusively insisted that he make himself at home upon arrival, so he did not feel terribly uncomfortable popping into open rooms and checking out the fridge. He had long endeavored to devise a pithy logic whereby
one could size up the occupants of a house based on the contents and manner of their refrigerator, but as yet he had been unsuccessful. Refrigerators are complicated things, and it is more useful to think of them as nuclei rather than simple appliances with a front door and a plug at the rear. Orbiting around this particular refrigerator were six folk: the Onstads (who at this point numbered two), Philippe, Lyle, whoever was doing odd things in the room with the heavy door, and now Téodor. Téodor had intended a program of strict food separatism within the fridge, whereby each tenant had a clearly delineated quadrant in which to put their groceries, but this plan immediately fell to pieces as he surveyed the interior of the wayward ship before him. Jammed as tightly as you can imagine, and then some, were packages, packets, parcels, jars, baggies, cans, bottles, wilted nude vegetables, crockery sealed with various types of wrap (including rubber bands and scotch tape), and a small sleeve of M&Ms with the corner torn off. So dense was the smelly cornucopia that the fridge's ceiling light scarcely made a difference in the illumination of its contents, and may as well have been taken out and sold for more food. As he stood contemplating the purchase of a small personal refrigerator for his room, a low, intense whir grew in volume before rounding the corner and presenting itself in the form of a little green remote-controlled car. A loopy squirrel, jet black and clearly incapable of piloting the vehicle, had been placed in the driver's seat. Téodor immediately suspected that the dissolute tiger Lyle had had a hand in orchestrating this small, perverse spectacle. He knelt beside the car, which had come to a stop rather abruptly against the base of the stove. To his surprise the
little fellow was lighting a discarded cigarette and laughing quietly to himself. "WhoooooOOOO!" he yelled as he exhaled. He began to speak to Téodor as though they were resuming a conversation. "So I'm g-g-gonna get clean beat for stealin' Danny's wheels but like I told him, 'it don't bother me none.' Screw that g-g-guy!" He dragged again on the stale cigarette butt, which was shrivelled and discolored from time spent in water. He looked at Téodor, who had not said anything up to this point. "Are you alright"? Téodor managed. "N-N-Never better!" chittered the squirrel. "Who the f-f-fuck are you?" A personal sense of decorum kept Téodor cool while he explained his recent arrival. "No shit. Take 'er sleazy!" said the little fellow, as he screeched the tires and shot out of the room, upsetting a stool in the process.
Téodor considered that he might make a warm reception for himself if he cooked up a meal to share with his various housemates. Stealing quickly back to his room, he procured from his suitcase a few cans of chicken stock, an onion, his 6" Henckels, a tiny jar of saffron, a baggie of Carnaroli, and, from a cooler-compartment, a half-pound of Andouille, a handful of frozen peas, and a bottle of pinot grigio. From the well-appointed rack of copper cookware in the kitchen (Mrs. Onstad held a job as an inventory analyst and forecaster for Williams-Sonoma, so the household enjoyed a 40% discount on all high-end cookware) he selected a high-sided, hammered pan, into which he swirled a few tablespoons of
olive oil. Before long his staple risotto, with the idiosyncratic inclusion of chopped Andouille, which made it almost paella-like, was steaming away on the stovetop and generating the faint sounds of stirring from elsewhere in the house. "Good heavens!" declared an elderly, distinguished bear in a fresh bathrobe, ascot, and pince-nez. "These aromas are absolutely transporting!" "I'm Téodor, I just moved into the vacant room," Téodor said, extending his hand. "Cornelius Bear," cried the fellow. "Absolutely delighted." He shuffled over to the cook-top and lowered his head over the pan, taking in its steadily rising column of alliaceous steam. "Aaaaahhhh! So good to have a fellow gastronome in the house!" Then the fellow paused. "Why...is that Andouille?" Téodor was not sure if this was a risotto purist's objection, or the exclamation of one who appreciated that the heavily spiced sausage bridged the gap between the Spanish and Italian versions of the dish. In his careful frame of mind, he went with the former. "I know," he said. "Not exactly traditional, but this is California, right?" "My sentiments precisely, young man!" cried Cornelius. "The piquance of the Spanish dish, with the subtlety of the Italian! Delightful!" In this character Téodor knew he had a friend. He openly mused about the possibility of venturing out to acquire a Calvados for an after-meal repast. "You know," rejoined the old man, "I know we've only just met, but I've got a bottle of something very Spanish and very special back in my room. If you'll pardon me a moment, I'll return with just the thing."
ALL STRIPS FROM 8/2005 TO 12/2005 ***** VOL. VIIWRITTEN AND ILLUSTRATED BY CHRIS ONSTAD
KISS MY ASS, BITCH. I'LL BE AT DUANE'S.
This week: GEORGE CLOONEY...or HARRY POTTER?Help George Clooney get to his pet pig Max!
Help George Clooney get to his Christmas Present!
Goal: get him to the new Ray Bans, and not to the plain piece of toast.
Who has called George Clooney more times than anyone, only to hang up out of a fear of not impressing him? ANSWER: Ray Smuckles. TRIVIA ON THIS ANSWER: Ray got his number off of eBay, and always throws away the cheap cell he uses to place the call.
Stuck? Take the Pleasure Transporter ("p") but be sure not to land on the old-school bomb!
This week: A VASE, or AN EMACIATED PISSED DUDE?
*#Q$)&!!!*%
ANSWER: I DREW BOTH.
Thanks!
p
Who's calling please?
Ray’s Puzzle Korner is a regular feature of the Achewood Town Newsletter, which you receive free of charge if you’ve ever bought anything from the Achewood store. It tends to come out whenever we need to drum up sales.
WHICH MOVIE WOULD HAVE BEEN AWESOME IF GEORGE CLOONEY HAD PLAYED ALL THE MAIN PARTS, WITH SLIGHTLY DIFFERENT HAIR?
T E H R G H T I S F F U T
LAST WEEK: "THE BLACK STALLION "
THIS WEEK:
I was seven. Dad wasn't around, never had been. But that didn't stop mom. Mom was tough as nails...nails in a Chanel blazer and houndstooth skirt. You ain't got to wear backwater flannel to be a lady who can bust a dude down so hard that he's nothin' more than his name and shoe size. I think she learned how to break a man down from dad...Ramses Luther Smuckles. Sobriquet rouge Rodney Leonard Stubbs, GOF 1973. Yeah, I've always had a bit to live up to. They were tight, but he went away a long time ago. He wasn't a thing around our house. Not in name. In spirit, yes. For my birthday, mom rented an RV and took me and a friend up to Mixture House Falls, way up in the mountains, like maybe seven or eight thousand feet. She knew boys liked roughin' it, and even though I'm sure she would have rather stayed at home with her Matlock, she dug her heel and brought that machine
up into the hills and the hell took some boys camping. Beef, my main boy then and ever since, was all stoked to come. He had a small bedroll that he took along, even though the RV was fully outfitted with linen. He had big ideas from his favorite book, "My Side Of The Mountain," and totally loved the idea of roughin' it. He had this real bad imitation Swiss Army Knife, real dull blade with scrapes all over it, and a tiny mess kit that wouldn't shut properly. So we get to the campsite, this flat area with maybe ten spots, hella deep in the pines. There's a river down a ravine, and mountain walls all up one side. It's kid paradise. We pretend to make like the US Army troops that were training on the rock walls on the way up. Yeah, lots of army bases up there in the mountains. Good rappelling ground. We dug on that so hard. Man did we want grappling hooks.
Hard-Ass Camping Story from Knucklehead Times of Youth.
by Ray Smuckles
Mom set up the RV awnings and stuff and got some food fryin' on the little stove. I remember: it was thick ham steaks and mushrooms. She would throw some garlic and butter in and that was her "treat in a pinch," she called it. Beef and I cleared on out, and started scalin' the nearest wall. I had on some new super-stiff Raichle boots, and he had on his old fish-floppy Converse, but we both got up OK. Soon we were maybe twenty feet up, with a good view of the campground. We took it all in, the whole layout of the place. Kind of like in slow motion we saw some dude from another RV walk over to mom and make small talk. I had my eye on it, but Beef was much anxious and rose up the anger. "Look at that guy," he said. "Look how he's touchin' every surface, makin' the place his own. Look how he just opened that bag of rolls and sniffed inside. That's real, real bad." "Yeah," I said. "I bet mom sends him off real quick." "No," Beef said, all of a sudden lookin' all around the small ridge where we stood. "This ain't that way." I don't know where he picked this stuff up, but in about ten seconds we saw the dude bear-hug mom and try to kiss her a bunch of ways. I kept waiting for her to drive it off with some of her techniques, but the guy was a monster. Soon he had her down on the ground, pinned beneath him. His hands were starting at stuff. I was raw with anger—but Beef was already on the task. We had a horseshoe pit at our house, and Beef loved to stay out after daylight and work on his "vectors." He
would lob those heavy-ass shoes for hours, way until it was cold and I was halfway through some VHS inside. He had a finesse, and could throw a leaner on command. Beef picked up a crumbled piece of granite maybe the size of a baseball. I was just lookin' at him, not even up to speed. He nodded real brief at me, because he always did that, always got somethin' from you when you were involved-and then he set up. He underhand lobbed that rock, all arc, all net, and it landed right on the dude's lower back. Right on his kidneys like a fist punch. Nowhere near mom's head. We were like eighty feet away. The dude rolled over and grabbed at himself, like he had been bit by a crocodile. We jumped down the ridge like a couple of billy goats with spring-loaded legs, and soon the other campers had surrounded like a citizens' army. I was hella grateful for that, because all I knew was that we and mom had to get the hell back home asap. We stopped in at some valley Carl's Jr. on the trip back, for dinner, and by the time we finally pulled back into our driveway, Beef and I were sound asleep in the bunks. Mom was so cool that she camped with us in our driveway, and then pulled out to an IHOP as we were wakin' up that next morning. We made no mention of anything, but Mom made extra sure that Beef got two helpings of bacon and the large orange juice. Which is kind of funny, since she couldn't have seen that it was him that threw the rock, but whatever. Dude deserved it.
WHAT'S ON OUR HARD DRIVES...COMMENCEMENT ADDRESS TO J. VINCENT J. LEMONI HIGH SCHOOL GRADUATING CLASS OF '06Author: Peter H. Cropes
- B E G I N -
Hello. My name is Peter H. Cropes.
[pause for silence]
Thank you. You may be wondering
why I am addressing you today,
here on your special day. I will
tell you.
It is because I Asked for the
opportunity. Recently. In my
Asking, I did not use "question
marks." Not as such. Thank you,
Mr. Brennerman. Students, thank
Superintendent Brennerman now. He
has been instructed to wave as you
clap.
[pause for their thanks, observe
Brennerman]
I always wanted the chance to
address a large crowd. Some are
fretful at the idea; I am not one
of those people. I relish
tremendous stress, for it puts me
into a particular frame of mind.
Like a great soldier of yore, I
find it helps me focus. My hands
become like guided machinery. My
eyes are like electronic owl-eyes.
I am free of anger, full only of
purpose.
So I believe that aside from my
needs, you generally expect advice
at a time like this. While I stand
here, feeling how I want, I will
recite some advice from the piece
of paper I prepared. It is only
fair, I think. This may be the
last fair day of your life. One
per cent of you will die in
alcohol-related crashes this
evening. And when you do, I'll be
there.
Look at the boys on the football
team, so strong and so happy. Look
at the female people. Look at the
boys from the Math Club, and
wonder how they will die. When
they will die. Will it be the
jugular? Or, will it be a slow
wound in the belly? They all work.
Which you use depends on how well
you've prepared.
Preparation is a theme in life.
Oh, how I could go on. I won't
bore you with details, but let's
just say that I can take over an
hour to cross a ten-foot patch of
bedroom floor on my belly. You
can't even tell I'm moving. Slow
is your friend when it's pitch
black. That takes practice.
Discipline.
But slow is not always your
friend. I will leave you with this
thought: It takes two minutes for
a California police officer to get
approval to take down a non-
violent suspect with gunfire. I
see my time is up. It is amazing
to feel this high. I am so high as
I leave you now.
[sprint for fence]
PETER H. CROPES
[phone rings, it is Vlad. It is like 9am or so]
RB: Oh hey Vlad yeah uh what it is uh no I ain't doin' too much [grunt as I get out of bed, why do I grunt, I got to be way out of shape or something].
VLAD: Oh, man. Oh sister. You are hearink this story Lyle tells me last night at the Smoke?
RB: Yeah sure man dogg lay it on me I got time.
VLAD: Heh. Lyle is tellink this story. Is such raw business. He really is gettink up to the third knuckle, this guy.
RB: Yeah Lyle plays it pretty raw he ain't I mean the dude is like a bulldozer and life is in the way you know okay so anyhow sorry tell the story man.
VLAD: Heh. There is this chick, you know. Not like the best one or anythink. Pretty much eatink crackers to stay alive, or gettink
with Larry from scanner shop for some cash. Larry is such dirt bag. He is thinkink he has a chubby even if a dog walks by. You know him, he is pony tail and red Buick. Was of his mother. She dies and you can see the flies on the plate at his house.
RB: Oh man yeah right I know the guy.
VLAD: So this chick, the bitch have a name. Sammy. Is probably not even short for Samantha, ha ha ha! Is real buck teeth and tattoo of I think egg or pizza piece or somethink, done real bad in the clink. This Larry, he is gettink her into his Buick, I guess he gets good sale that day or whatever. The usual what you might think, they do. You see his head whole time of course, it is leant far back so he looks at ceiling in the back-seat. Probably has picture of dog taped there. Like a nasty mutt takink crap next to old cigarette stub, not even some nice
Borzoi in thong. Lyle says this to me.
RB: Hee man I know Larry dude is so greasy he would love that first photo I mean I saw him walkin' outta Walgreens with some bags man his pants knees were all stained and like there were oil drops on his pants thighs and plus you know his shirt is so bad.
VLAD: Is so funny. I am crackink up at this he says, the dog stuff. But anyway. I go on. Sammy and Larry are in Buick, and I guess now she did what she was to do, and Larry is hungry for burgers from Jack in Box. He get into front seat but car does not start!
RB: Oh man that got to be weird you know all with both people hitting simultaneous lows.
VLAD: [laughing so hard he's choking] So...so Larry...he is makink the broad...he tells to Sammy "Push the damn car and I get you a Jumbo Jack!"
RB: Oh man that is raw I mean at one point that lady must have been somebody's little baby daughter and loved and cherished all in a romper and ribbon headband and now she's pushin' the dead Buick of a creep she just blew so he can get Jack In The Box drive-thru and she can get a hamburger with not even any cheese.
VLAD: So Sammy is like, burger! Is some nutrition! I do this. And so she is pushink the car but since she only eat Saltines she goes faint and does a fall-down. But meanwhile Larry was watchink Asia Carrera video all night and he fall asleep too! So car goes past drive-thru window and into traffic and [screaming so loud the phone's electronic signal distorts] BUS HITS HIM! HOLY MOTHER OF GOD!
RB: Man I knew it bus every time.
VLAD: ...but Larry is fine! You should see this guy! Standink and throwink a brew down! Friday! With crash settlement money! Five
figures, dog man!
RB: Wow great I'm glad public transportation has such a good lawyer.
VLAD: Anyhow Larry is gettink bombed by seven and Sammy is there! He is kickink her exactly on the ass for pushink him into traffic!
RB: Wow not exactly the Taj Mahal but I guess that's how you thank some people.
VLAD: Oh, man. Is such good story. Lyle really can tell the stuff. I am goink, got to call Andy and L.B. with this.
RB: Cool man uh thanks for callin' man that is a good story about what happened.
VLAD: Kick her exactly on the ass! Heh heh oh heeeeEEE [hangs up]
SELECTED STRIPS FROM 12/2005 TO 9/2006 ***** VOL. VIIIWRITTEN AND ILLUSTRATED BY CHRIS ONSTAD
EMERGENCY PARTY AT MY PLACE
This book is dedicated to all the little children who ever fell down and started to cry and then got up and wandered around.
Vol VIIIpossible titles
EMERGENCY PARTY AT MY PLACE
I SEE TWO MISSING THINGS AND NOT ONE
THE ARMATURE HAS A NICE CANTILEVER WEIGHT
YELLOW BUS WITH GOTHIC ARCH WINDOWS
YARD DANCER WAS DESTROYED BY THE COUNTY
DRUID PEOPLE AT EASTER ISLAND
YOU KNOW I GOT NO SENSE OF EGGS
DON'T SASS ME WHEN I'M GRUMPY, I'LL HAVE YOU SLAYED
GOD WILL SHAME HIM ON HARVEST DAY
THE ONLY DIFFERENCE BETWEEN CHILDREN AND THE INSANE IS PRIDE OF WORKMANSHIP
There's a big food and wine festival down the street from our house, and Thomas Keller of The French Laundry is one of the featured chefs. I can see his lanky frame walking wearily down the rough gravel path that skirts the street as it wraps up around six PM, heading toward his old two-tone brown Bronco (I don't actually know that he has this car). Just to see what will happen I stroll out of the front door in his general direction, as though I were a mildly curious local going to the festival to see what sort of condition the grounds had been left in.
At the last minute I look up to nod but he's already asking me where he can go to get a good local meal. To my surprise I casually say, "Oh, come on back to the house and I'll rustle you up something." To my even greater surprise he responds with a pleased, "Sure, that'd be great." I have just invited the most famous chef in the world over for dinner, and I don't even know what's in the fridge. We get back to the house, which is sort of our house, only there is more brown tile and rough Spanish ironwork. It reminds me vaguely of a home that
would have been newly decorated at the height of fashion around the time I was born. Lanterns with panels in alternating ivory and amber glass hang from cheap chains, the electric wire threaded down them quietly hinting at the half-heartedness of this quasi-Latin illusion. Thomas and I find ourselves in the kitchen, where he sits at the brown tile breakfast bar and runs a hand back over his sweaty forehead. I offer him wine; he accepts. I find a fat little unlabeled green jug with a thick neck and pour it into a water glass. (These two objects remind me of Charles Bukowski books.) The wine is quiet purple stuff, and he seems glad to receive it. We don't speak much, but it seems alright — he's tired, and it's understood that he should be however he wants, which is quiet. He's in my hands. I tell him he can go outside and have a cigarette if he likes, and he smiles a thanks. I know that he smokes, but I don't think he's a smoker. I think he smokes after shifts, from tension.
Téodor’s Tense Dream About Thomas Keller
I open the fridge and am momentarily struck with terror: all we have are some leftover store-bought ravioli that look like yellow golf balls, mushrooms floating in thin brown liquid, and a handful of sliced Parmesan cheese sitting in a pile right on the refrigerator shelf. The slices are more or less squared off, and on average they are the size of a man's thumbnail. They are not yet discolored around the edges in the way that exposed Parmesan often is. The ravioli have already been cooked; it looks like someone fed some to Philippe and was hoping the rest would get used later. Dew has collected on the inside of the Saran Wrap that covers them. Their surface is already in a certain condition from this and the boiling, but, I think, if I really use my brain power I can get these objects hot again without ruining it, without turning it to mush or glue. It's a test. God how I wish I had a fresh fish filet and something green, maybe some wine to make a simple
butter sauce with. I would love to have done something like that for him. There is some confusion, and he's talking to some people, and the next thing I know I am handing him a hot bowl of reasonable-looking ravioli sitting in a little light mushroom broth. He asks if I have any cheese as he takes the bowl, and we both look at the fridge, which is open. The pile of exposed cheese is there on the shelf, and he takes a generous amount between his outstretched fingertips. I hand him a fork. I try to offer a few sounds and words that suggest, "sorry, it's the best I could do," but I can tell that he's happy with the food. Privately I wish I could have done more, but I don't let it eat at me. The man is being satisfied.
When I woke up, I still felt disappointed in myself, though.
THE ONLY UNUSED ARTWORK FROM 2005
As you may have observed, I draw all the artwork I might use in the upcoming year on
New Year's Eve. This is all that was left from 2005 -- pretty good!
A note on the type used in this edition:
All dialogue in this book is set in Fonty-Font Font, designed by Swedish type foundry Årdensek in 1744.
All commas are set in Font Bold, the first typeface, designed by Tim’s of Jericho in 1020 BC.
Look, This Is Why I'm Afraid Of Computers. Okay? by Ray Smuckles.
I ain't need to tell you that I'm basically the same age as computers. I don't mean those WWII code-cracker things that looked like typewriters in a big cherrywood shoeshine box - I mean computers with a monitor and a mouse and a copy of Lemonade Stand. Hell, I even used some computers before they had the mouse. I'm talkin' cassette drive and command line (and Lemonade Stand, of course), but not for too long. Maybe five years, tops. Three. One? I took some time off. Anyhow, I could handle that old interface action, I could work it at the time, but I doubt much of it would come back to me. Bein' the age I am, I learned straight-up hardcore how bad computers were when they first tried to be for the home-livin' man. I mean, they were some stone pieces of trash when they rolled out. To this day I hit Control-S about every three seconds, even though modern computer programs auto-save everything every time you type a single letter. I live in constant fear that the Christmas list I typed up last night is gonna be gone in the morning, totally unaccounted for, and Santa's gonna be like, "Well, dick for this guy." I permanently dread that when I turn the computer on there will just be a blinking white cursor in the top left corner, boot after boot, and that my ideas about a good new board game based on piranha and safari guides will be lost. Those early home computers were kind of like how the first cars would only shoot straight across fields into the closest tree: the engineers were stoked just to get the cylinders deliverin' torque to the drivetrain; they weren't so concerned about what happened next. In the same way, early home computer makers were pretty stoked if the thing booted up and read the floppy; they didn't care if a bunch of French women with parasols and
black petticoats stood there screaming as their father plowed into a birch tree. Fortunately, we have progressed beyond those days. Computers are pretty nice at the time I write this. You buy them, and they turn on and say, "Hello! I'm Fred! Do you have a dog? I don't! I don't have a command line, either! The doctor cut it off when I was one and now I don't get horny!" Then you plug them into the Internet and sixty years later you die. The computer has not gotten in the way, and you have been able to look up how many players can be on a football team (at least forty-six, not including guys who are out for the season because they got really stoned and ran over a high school). It's a good deal. But I bear the old scars. Personally, I don't think these scars will ever heal. To the end of my days, I'll expect a laughing pixellated skull to play when I boot up, proving that I have been hacked. I'll expect that some dirty website planted a virus that sends my browser history to the FBI - or worse yet, to everyone in my address book (twice to my mom, in case she accidentally deletes it the first time). Part of me - a very, very small part - will always think that really good hackers can actually see out of my screen, at my face. I guess I came into the world at a bad time, computer-wise. Maybe the worst time. Sucks, because computers are gonna be around a lot longer than me, and I'm not gonna be able to erase half the dumb stuff I did and said, and I'm gonna go down in history as the modern equivalent of a French dude giving a thumbs up in a head cast.
SELECTED STRIPS FROM 9/2006 - 5/2007 ***** VOL. IXWRITTEN AND ILLUSTRATED BY CHRIS ONSTAD
SOURED ON BEER AND GIVEN TO CLAIMS
I dedicate this volume to people who are late, and people who sleep in, and people who blow things off. However, I also dedicate this volume to people who rise early, drive on the highway while it is still dark, and power
through all their tasks in a clean, focused state of mind.
Setting: a very nice restaurant. PAT and ROD are seated and reading
menus.
RODJust...I don't know. Get the summer salad. Tomatoes are very in season
right now, and the toasted sunflower seeds sound divine.
PATIt has "bottarga." That's dried
tuna roe. You think they can omit it?
RODOf course they can omit it! It
won't taste the same, though. It'll be all out of balance.
PATWhy can't a restaurant have ONE complete vegan dish on its menu? Why does no one see the need for
this?
RODMaybe they have lentils. Lentils
are very popular right now.
PATI eat so many pulses my
gastrointestinal tract has calluses. I wonder if they have any
avocados...I could go for an avocado bruschetta, with some lemon
juice and olive oil—
ROD—and that big gray rock salt! That
would be right up your alley.
PATI know, I just want to be fed. I
don't expect to have a good time at a restaurant, I just want to be able to eat something besides
coffee and fruit salad.
RODI know, I'm sorry. Thank you for coming out tonight. I know this isn't really your kind of place, pudding, but I put SO much work
into that autobiography that I feel like I deserve a special treat.
PATOh, you do! You do! You've been
working on that since, what...May?
RODWho even knows. It's amazing that Steven's even talking to me at this
point.
PATI think he did a fantastic—a
FANTASTIC—job with your early life. People only think of you on the set, but the way he covered your
troubles in school and your bastard father, it's really empathetic without being saccharine or
victimized.
RODThank you for saying that. [Briefly squeezes Pat's hand] I used to come home after my sessions with him and just agonize that I'd laid myself
too bare.
The following short play is available for a
nominal fee to advanced drama students and
higher-end community theatres. A word of
caution: this piece requires EXTREMELY good
acting, such as Wallace Shawn might do.
PATBut you have to. To matter. To
connect with everyone. We all have issues like yours.
ROD[Quiet]
PATI don't mean to belittle what
you've gone through, you know I don't. My issues are different from
yours, but we all, many of us, anyway, have things that...test our
limits.
RODLet's not talk about it.
PATThis isn't...this isn't because of
what I just said?
RODNo, I really just want to enjoy
tonight.
PATBecause what I said was pretty
clumsy, and I can see how it might have hurt you.
RODIt didn't. You can't. Not that
easily.
PATI'm sorry, Rod. Why don't...how about...does the lobster and
caramelized shallot bisque look good to you as a starter?
RODYou know I had my eye on that. I
was thinking of asking for a drizzle of crème fraiche and a
dusting of grated bacon.
PATI knew you'd gild the lily like
that! [Smiles, squeezes Rod's hand to relieve the last traces of
uncomfortable tension.] How about for a main?
RODOh, gosh. They've got a trio of suckling pig, with horseradish mashed potatoes and soubise, and you know I'm just dying for that.
PATBut then there's the cowboy ribeye
with mushrooms and red wine reduction.
RODI was reading that they get a
really great char on the meat here while still leaving it rare in the middle. The picture in the Chron
made the meat look almost like a big hunk of lacquered chocolate.
PATI think you want the steak.
RODDamn it, I do want the steak. I want to slice it piece by piece,
salt it, and chew every last bit of beefy goodness out of it.
PATAnd how classic that it comes with
old-fashioned steakhouse hash browns!
RODOh, I'm dying now. Where's that
waiter?
PAT[signals for waiter]
WAITERYes, gentlemen! Are you ready to
order? May I start you with a wine?
PATTap for me, thanks, but let's get
something nice for him.
WAITERVery good, then! How do your tastes
run, sir?
RODI'll be getting the ribeye—
WAITEROh, I am so sorry, sir. The kitchen just informed me that they've run out of the steak. Perhaps the trio
of suckling pig?
RODI...good save, dumpling! That was
my second choice!
WAITERTo be honest with you, it's a lot more fun. By the time you get to the twenty-third ounce of ribeye, you're like, "Somebody, ANYbody,
get me OUT of here!"
PAT, ROD[Laugh]
RODPig it is, then! And I'd like to start with the bisque, with a
little crème fraiche and shaved bacon for garnish.
WAITERExcellent additions. I'm sure the chef will be intrigued to try the dish that way himself-I've always thought it would have enjoyed a
little smokiness. Now, for wines, I
actually suggest pairing the first dish with a beaujolais, so the esters can play off the smoke
[points to glass on menu with his pen, then slides the pen down]
...and then I really think a glass of the 2005 Ridge Zinfandel will bring out the most in the pork. That particular wine is so active
right now.
RODWonderful.
WAITERVery good. And for you, sir?
PAT[Relaxing] Do you have any vegan
fare?
WAITER[Brightening] But of course! Why
don't I have the chef send out...[briefly consults
menu]...fried green tomatoes with chili tahini and then...an eggless penne with our mushroom ragu? The prices would be in-line with...the
caprese salad and the rigatoni bolognese, respectively.
PATThat would be absolutely wonderful. Thank you for saying that up front,
by the way.
ROD[Beams]
WAITERYou're very welcome. I'll be right back with your beverages. [Takes their menus, rushes off to the
kitchen]
PATWow. Oh, wow.
RODOh...my god.
PATDid...did that just happen?
RODOh my goodness. Do...did we just
find our place?
PATWho cares where we are, we just found our waiter! I'd follow him
anywhere!
RODWhat a...what an absolute master. Wow. I can't believe that just
happened. The thing with pointing out the prices?
PATExactly! Normally that would seem
tacky, but he knows vegans are used to paying sixteen bucks for a bowl
of grilled zucchini!
RODOh, pudding. I am SO relieved
you're going to have a nice meal too. Let's go thirty.
PAT[giddy] Wow. I almost never more
than match tax.
RODThat's because you're an out and
out bastard.
PAT[Blushes] They consider twenty a
really good tip, you know.
RODThen thirty percent is a really, really good tip. Because that guy
is really, really good.
PATI know. He is. Okay, maybe just
this once.
RODWe're coming back for lunch
tomorrow, by the way.
PATHe'll know! He'll know we're his
groupies.
RODI'm sure it happens all the time.
Want to invite him to the She-52's?
PATNO.
RODJust kidding, banana pants. I would
never.
PATYou can't.
RODI'm sure he doesn't get off until way after their set, anyway. This place serves until like eleven-
thirty.
PATWow. Fried green tomatoes. I'm really looking forward to this.
RODSo am I. I can't remember the last time I was this relaxed, baby.
PATNeither can I. This is already our best night out in a long time, and
all we did was sit down in the right place! What if we'd gotten
him?
[They glance over to the hirsute, impatient waiter serving the young
couple next to them]
RODOh, worst night ever. [Looks back at Pat] I swear, all I need is our
guy's schedule.
PATDid you get his name? I feel like an ass, I don't even remember when
he introduced himself.
RODI don't think he said it. What if
he's like Brigadoon?
PATDon't. It'll show up on the check. And you can request your waiter at
a nice place like this.
RODWe should make sure he knows we have to be out by nine forty-five
for the She-52's.
PATThey're playing next door. I'm sure he knows why we're here. I mean, is
there any other way to interpret that cheetah ascot of yours?
RODOh, you're right.
PATOf course I'm right. Now, you just enjoy yourself, and I'm driving. You need to relax tonight, and you deserve it. That book is going to
make you a mint.
ROD[slurps up remains of gin and tonic through tiny black straw, pushes it
to edge of table]
[Dim lights, lower curtain. BEAT, then we hear: a little more
slurping on the straw.]
