This is the “edgy” humor that earned me a reputation in the old days. I never saw it coming really; I was just trying to do “married” humor. By the way, the blush color on Janis’ face in the last panel was added this morning by me. When this strip ran in 1991, all daily comic strips were black and white. Readers were adept at transcribing comic strip shorthand. The little lines around her lower face indicated to all that she was blushing. Or had a five-o’clock shadow.
About those t-shirts. Developing my own line of clothing is proving to be more problematic than I imagined. The trick is to order the correct amount of shirts while juggling colors, styles and sizes. Failure would mean not just financial loss but that I might face the prospect of wearing a new A&J t-shirt every day for the rest of my life. Quel horreur! So, here’s probably what’s going to happen. There will be one style offered initially, the arloandjanis.com logo, the car art. I hope to learn a lot from sales of the car shirt. I really expect it all to proceed well, and other designs will follow quickly. I’m just hedging my bets while I learn my way around the world of haute couture. Remember, I really am doing this myself. Like an idiot.
135 responses to “Busted Blush”
Jimmy, I’ve had great experiences with zazzle, except that whenever I ordered a shirt in the “gold nugget” color, it arrived in the darker “gold” color. I had some tragically amusing conversations with customer service about this, wherein I theorized that the bin marked “gold nugget” simply had the wrong shirts in it. It was hard to get too angry, however, since I was allowed to keep each “gold” shirt for free, and they replaced each with another mistakenly “gold” shirt until I simply felt too bad and stopped calling. But otherwise, the shirt and print quality is excellent. I wonder what you’ll charge for your shirts as planned. That’s the key. Zazzle gets their cut, and the price of the shirt is determined by how much you’d like to make on top of that base price. But they do all the work including shipping, and people can choose any of your designs, as well as any size, shirt style or color. All that might make the zazzle way the optimum way to get all of us into A&J apparel. If you sent me an image, I could upload it and print a sample for you. I know it sounds like punting, but I sell t-shirts at the store, and we inevitably run into size issues! I would be happy to talk about it all if you want to call.
The title of today’s vintage strip has a two-fold meaning, at least to me. Yes, Janis’s blush is evident, and she’s busted! But also, it brought to mind the old Travis McGee mysteries – and his houseboat, the Busted Flush. He had won it in a card game.
Which brings something else to mind… when I started dating my now Significant Other, we were doing the standard get-to-know-you conversations – favorite music, movies, books… I stated that I enjoyed John D. McDonald’s character, Travis McGee. He said – OK, if you like McGee, what is the name of his boat? Quick as a wink, it came out of my mouth – The Busted Flush! I think that is what convinced him that I was the real deal.
He was the one who created my screen name: Gloria (Ryan) from Gallia County became Galliglo. But I may be moving from Gallia County in the next couple of months. Hmmmm… wonder what we can come up with?
I love the Busted Blush strip.
I look forward to getting a t-shirt, but I tell you, I’m a sucker for the signed stuff.
Busy day just now opened the page. Loving the retro. Hope you will be offering a blush pink shirt for your feminine fans.
I at first miss read today’s page header. Thought Ghost or sandman had corrupted Jimmy. Am not saying what my eyes thought they saw. Color me blushed.
Galliglo: My husband and I had a similar literary moment one of our first dates when we were walking on a beach. Bob said something about wishing it was still possible to walk the length of the state. I said, “Like the Barefoot Mailman”, he said “yes”, and we realized we both knew the book by Theodore Pratt, not exactly a best-seller.
As for MacDonald, one of our favorites is The Girl, the Gold Watch and Everything.
Galliglo, maybe Gallivant? I am also a fan of McGee and still surprised they never turned any into a movie. Ever read any of Spider Robinson’s Callahan series? One of them paid tribute to McGee and the Busted Flush, even having the characters meet up with Meyer.
Oh, Galliglo, one more thing. Try John Sandford’s Lucas Davenport and Virgil Flowers novels.
Perhaps, Mark. I always had a secret crush on Meyer. He was so brilliant… confident in his academic and financial knowledge… but just a bit shy. What a combination!
Galliglo, To keep the naming convention consistent (part of your name with some other relevant), I’d suggest modifying Mark’s suggestion to Glorivant. It’s (sort of) still obviously a play on gallivant, but keeps the association with Gloria.
Oh, yes… I am familiar with Sandford, Davenport and Flowers. My daughter is reading a Flowers book now. She said she would give it to me when she finished. Ah… ’tis great to children who read!
Hmmmm… that’s a good suggestion also, David!
Gee! to *have* children who read!
“gift stuff that only sells during the holiday season”. Right!
A big source of revenue for hospital auxiliaries is the usual ‘Gift Shop.’ When I first volunteered almost 10 years back, I specifically said I did not want to work in the gift shop. I’ve seen poor people who probably cannot afford it wheel grandma out to a waiting vehicle laden with crap from the g.s.
What is a ‘gift shop’? Wouldn’t that depend on the recipient? At an earlier age, it would have been a camera store. But I gave up photography when pixels replaced film. Book stores have qualified since I was 8, but how much variety of books do ‘gift shops’ display? XC ski gear would have been great before a knee injury; no longer interested. There are probably not two items in most ‘gift shops’ that I would buy for myself or inflict on another. If I am laid up in the hospital for a while, the last thing I want is balloons or plants. Flowers I can leave for the nurses and aides. If I could still think, see, and move my fingers, I’d like to have this laptop available.
EMB, I too once was a volunteer at large hospital in Houston area. It was during days when volunteers were used to pass out trays, refill water jugs, run errands for patients, give out snacks, wheel chair them out, load and move their flowers and gifts. The auxiliary ran gift shop, (these are often leased out to profit making contractors too) and didn’t use the hospital volunteers who ran thru an office in hospital.
Sadly, these days of the candy stripers and pink/blue ladies seems gone. Liability issues seem to have done them in? All the hospitals we have been experiencing lately seem to have employees only policy, limiting access to patients’ rooms.
During my days as a gift, silk flower, Christmas supply salesman, I called on many hospital gift shops. Some were far better customers than others and I would usually ask “why?” It seems that in some, the employees and medical staff were their best customers! Not the patients at all.
Love, Jackie
P.S. It is nice to see so many “new” names appearing here and a lot of old ones returning. Welcome to all.
There was a Travis McGee movie made some years ago. It pretty well sucked. As was mentioned here a while back, they are trying to make “The Deep Blue Goodbye” from a script written for Leonardo DiCaprio (really?) who passed on it. At last report, Christian Bale had agreed to star, but I haven’t heard anything else about it. Bale is also slated to play Steve Jobs (really?) in another movie. Steve Jobs as Travis McGee…what could go wrong with that?
My long-gone but still missed friend “debbie” once suggested Matthew McConaughey as Travis McGee, a choice I still think would be a winner.
Quick: What did Trav call his electric blue Rolls Royce “pickup truck”?
I cheated and went and read Wikipedia on Travis McGee and the series, so I won’t answer on that one! Which I know now.
I think Matthew McConaughey would be great in that role. Yuck to all the others especially Leonardo and Christian Bale. McConaughey would physically fit description and his good ole’ boy, laid back personality would too.
I knew McDonald had written about changing South Florida, the ecological damage done to Everglades. I concur on it all. In the 1960’s Florida was a totally different state from what it is today.
Rant on destruction of state by tourism, Disney, condominiums, over population and development. Insert three hour soapbox rant here_______________
Love, Jackie
Jackie, have you read Carl Hiaasen? He addresses Florida environment issues in his novels.
I’ve got to find time to catch up on his books, the last one I read being “Sick Puppy”.
Another quiz: In which novel did Stephen King apparently lift details of a scene involving a dead body from which Travis McGee novel?
Not a rant, personal experience on environmental issue in Everglades and South Florida: “Stuck In The Mud” was how we got labeled when Mike’s sailing partner made a serious routing mistake and got Mike and himself stuck in a restricted area where the Everglades’ Florida Bay was being restored with the grasses.
This and subsequent events gave me ample time to learn about the Glades and what has happened to them, a manmade disaster actually of ecological destruction on a huge irreversible scale.
The story has a happy ending, as we got the boat and both boaters out without doing further ecological damage. But it was not easy and involved Mike crawling a mile in a military crawl in life vest across mud flats, after being brought in by a poled flats boat who dropped him off. It took about two weeks to extract the two boaters (Mike and partner) and the boat.
During that time my 93 year old mom, the 10# Rottweiler and me
had interesting adventures deep in remote areas of the park and I learned a lot fast about the park, the rangers, drug dealers, smugglers, poaching, alligators, snakes and other critters. Cell phone service down there is not existent most of time, no gas stations, no motels, no food services, so we spent hours commuting in and out.
Most of time we were down trying to do our own rescue, there were thousands of people involved in a search for a lost Alzheimer’s senior who had walked away from a campsite in park and was never found. Now that was exciting! And numbing. And rangers were REALLY annoyed to have two idiots stuck on an islet of grass where they were not supposed to be.
Happy ending, I got Mike out, boat out, partner home to Oregon before he went berserk, rescued boat without having to pay huge fines. Ate a lot of Cuban food, which I love, met some really good people, along with a couple encounters with probable drug dealers, one of whom drove head on into my path around 2 a.m. in dark at high speed, forcing me into ditch/shoulder on park road.
Enough about Everglades adventures! I am off to bed. I liked Florida better in the 60’s and early 70’s.
Love, Jackie
Miss Agnes. Don’t know what it means, but my dad often used that phrase too.
I pulled up online the MacDonald novel I referenced above and reread its first three chapters, for the first time in many years. God, but it holds up well.
And I still wish I were Travis McGee.
Good morning Villagers…
I am sorry to say that it’s been a few years since I’ve picked up a novel and read it, and I believe it was a Michner novel. Need to check out who Travis McGee is…..
Yes, it is good to see new and many postings today, or in my case, yesterday.
GR 😉 thank you for keeping a smile on my face yesterday with your “Rawhide” tune…and I did sing it 🙂
Need to finish hanging up my work clothes….
oh, and I would be interested in reading your notes too, GR
ya’ll have a blessed day
=^..^=
Important List
3. The greatest loss, Loss of Self-Respect
emb…thank you for your little ‘tune’…..yesterday the hens were really loud, as if there was a fox in the hen house……I went out on the front deck, and hollered “chow” three times, they started cooing and chowing 🙂