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”
if you think the retro is racy…wait until you see todays current toon…oh la la
Yes, the truck was Miss Agnes. She was the same shade of blue as his old school teacher’s hair.
Most MacDonald books are great for people who don’t have a lot of time to read – they’re fairly short and the action moves them along. A much longer one of his that hit hard on over-development, shoddy construction, and “you can’t fight Mother Nature” was Condominium. It’s a slower read but I would recommend it for anyone who lives anywhere that might be affected by rising sea levels and/or storm surge.
I would think that almost anyone here in the Village would like Carl Hiaasen.
Right, today’s A&J is racy, but subtle enough for JJ to get away w/ it. Today’s ‘Ballard Street’ spells it Janice, and there’s no resemblance at all.
I liked Jerry Van Amerongen better when he did ‘The Neighborhood.’ Same level of insight into human foibles but not confined to ditsy old folks. I may have mentioned my ‘Neighborhood’ tee: heavy eqpt. + piles of gravel / sand in background, shack in foreground, Fred visible inside with kitchen eqpt., sign outside says:
‘FRED’S FILL DIRT
and
Croissants.’
I’ve not checked in on The Dark Side since early this morning, but knowing how poorly the word “subtle” is understood over there, I can just imagine the quality of the “repartee”.
All the comments remind me it’s about time for me to re-read the McGee books. I had a full set some years ago but they went missing in a move. I think they got put in the wrong bag and ended up at the used book store. However, last year when I was helping Husband go through his mother’s house after she died I found that she had the full set, which I now have. I do agree that Matthew McConaughey would be very good as Travis.
Another good read is the Kinsey Millhone books, by Sue Grafton (A Is For Alibi, B Is For Burglar, etc) Other than the main story line is the relationship between Kinsey and her octogenarian landlord, Henry Pitt.
As to the t-shirt question, while I have several ideas for designs, I will be happy with whatever JJ decides to use. If they are standard men’s shirts I’ll take a large, but if we can order a women’s shirt it will need to be at least a XXL. JJ, consider this my pre-order!
Ghost, I just took a look at The Dark Side, and you are right. They just don’t get “subtle”.
I knew we had Travis McGee novels around unless husband had donated them. He does that with excess books and often paper backs, keeps them in circulation being read somewhere.
Since they were set in a marina, even if on a houseboat, I figured he might still have them. He said some were around but they were formula novels, so not gripping. He said you wanted to scream, “Don’t go in that bar!” Because you knew Travis would be beat to a pulp.
When I was young (very young) I slurped up Perry Mason, Ellery Queen, Agatha Christie, all formula writers. I told Mike if formula didn’t work, women’s romance novelists would be out of business!
Maybe I will look for Travis McGee books, I used to buy them at garage and book sales when I saw them for Mike. Light and fast reads would appeal to me about now!
Love, Jackie
Ghost and John, you are forgiven for being on the Dark Side. At least you are sanely commenting! The rest are sort of idiotic. Now if any of the rest of you are over there, please forgive me for lumping you with the mob!
I avoid and always have reunions of all sorts. An employee once came into my gift/candy shop and found me curled up under a counter, out of sight. She wanted to know “What in the world?” I replied, “There’s a guy from my past out in the shop with his wife.”
Even accidental meetings just don’t make me happy. Not even if I liked the person, dated the person, almost married him, doesn’t matter.
Love, Jackie
Good morning, Jean dear. I too lost my Travis McGee books in move. I’ll check my ebook sources to see if they are available there.
Good morning, Jackie. Those books may have been formulistic, but in my opinion it was a good formula that worked well. And one that did get somewhat adapted along the way. (There were, after all, 21 Travis McGee novels.) Also, I remembered last night while reading a section of one of them that MacDonald could really sell a sex scene…and with subtlety.
emb, some years ago, I used to see a roadside sign advertising a business along a rural route I traveled, which read…
SHELLED PECANS
SCRAP METAL
For some reason, that always made my teeth hurt.
Jackie, as you can imagine, one of the features (I almost wrote “hazards”) of being a lifelong bachelor who has lived in the same medium-size city for quite a few years now is that I occasionally encounter a lady with whom I’ve had some “history”. I’m always cordial, however the relationship ended, but I have been frankly surprised at how many of those encounters end with me asking myself, “What was I thinking?”
I suppose we never get too old to undergo some degree of personal growth. 🙂
Ghost, I will go you one better, we were in South Louisiana when I saw an ad for gourmet gift baskets, live bait and night crawlers.
Went back and told my employees I had a new product line to add to our shop.
They laughed and said, sure we’ll just run out front and scoop out those minnows in between funeral sprays.
So, not afterwards I saw that employee start an out of town order and abruptly hang up with strange look on her face. I asked what happened? She said she was giving a funeral order when she heard woman on phone yell out, “Junior, go turn that fish over, it is about to burn!”
Love, Jackie
One major online purveyor of ebooks does indeed have what appears to be all 21 of the Travis McGee novels available…most of them at $9.99 per pop. As that would put a dent in my BBB (book-buying budget) for the next few months, I’ll pursue Plan B…a weekend visit to the local Public Library, which organization I’ve been supporting over the years, through taxes paid, in a sum which I’m sure totals more than $210.
While looking at ebooks, I found a reference to a man who maintains a Travis McGee blog. I haven’t had time to look at it yet, but it might be of interest to fans of the man from Slip F-18.
http://drmar120.wordpress.com/
My Mom seems to be having a very good day; the new prescription medicine dispensing system I worked out for her seems to be working well; and since I’ve got the day off anyway, I guess I’ll catch up on my housekeeping, both literally and figuratively.
The slow-cooker Chicken and Cannellini Bean soup I made last week before my Mom went into the hospital turned out to be a very good idea. I had frozen it in individual serving sizes, and now that I have given it to her, she can thaw and reheat it in her microwave. She loves it, and it gives her some of the protein she needs. She also likes ham, so I’m going to make another batch, substituting diced ham for the chicken, and perhaps kidney beans for the cannellini beans.
Damn, but I’d make some gal a great husband. 🙂
For awhile I had a retired librarian down the street here who often checked out and brought me books she thought I would enjoy. She is passed away, I am sure, having moved long ago to live with family members out of state.
Anyway, among the mysteries she often brought me were some that had a cat who actually solved the crime, not the human, but human got credit as the detective. Since I loved cats, she would bring me these books. This was 15-20 years ago and I cannot for life of me remember who wrote or the series!
Love, Jackie
I can think of two mystery series involving cats. Lilian Jackson Braun’s The Cat Who… series and Rita Mae Brown’s books “coauthored” with her cat Sneaky Pie. I haven’t read the first but I really like the latter.
From a librarian with retirement in sight 🙂
Ruth Anne, I have probably mentioned my two aunts who were librarians all their lives, one in California and one in Mississippi.
Two others were post mistresses, a highly respected post for either profession in small towns!
In the country I loved the book mobiles who came to our farm. I would check out entire quota allowed on my grandmother’s card, mine and my two cousins! Then devour them in time to turn them in by next visit. I loved the printed word and writers.
Since I was well known to librarians, I was allowed to check out anything I wanted, as they knew my reading levels. This probably led to some inappropriate reading for my age but it only opened windows to a world I didn’t know but wanted to. How many second graders aspire to visiting the Brown Derby or the Algonquin Hotel’s “round table”?
So many of the things I read led me to real life experiences, not just imaginary ones. Discussing the national parks system, I should admit to having visited each park in America except Alaska, many more than once. I visit the monuments, the scenic designations, the rivers, the lakes.
Luckily I am married to a reader who reads daily and shares a lot of the same interests. One of the aunts was his and he spent summers on the farm reading, just as I spent visits to California reading nonstop. New library, more books.
Any of you with readers in your family are blessed. And bless librarians!
Love, Jackie
Yes Jackie readers are special, and one argument I never get into anymore is paper or electronic, they both have their merits. I have had a Kindle Fire for almost a year now, and the reading skills for it are not quit the same, but I still love both paper and electronic. I have found many free classics to load on my Kindle that normally are a little hard to find, lot’s of Jack London and Lewis Carroll. Along with all of that I keep two versions of the Bible and an excellent 6 volume Bible commentary. Yet when I can get paper I love the feel of turning real pages, and the smell of a fine older volume. There is room for both in a world where reading skills are slowly being lost. If you have electronic check out http://www.gutenberg.org/
Ghost, try dry limas and ham, either hock or fatback or both. I cooked some for mom and Mike and me. Turns out I am only bean eater! Your chili had inspired me. Gave it away to dog sitter who said she had never eaten limas but that was best beans she’d ever eaten. Really easy, flavors came from smoked ham’s crusty fat I had cut off and saved. Had a bay leaf, some salt and pepper, can’t remember that I put herbs but maybe half an onion chopped and some dried parsley. Parsley in pots is growing but not huge. May have thown in a heaping tsp. of sugar just in case.
I love beans but never saw a dried bean until I was about 22, as no one in my family cooked them. I have made up for that void!
Love, Jackie
Jackie, oddly, I was thinking about using navy or lima beans with ham instead of red kidneys. Or perhaps not so oddly. You know what they say about great minds… 🙂
I suppose you are familiar with Blue Runner brand products. Their beans are not bad at all, when you don’t have time to prepare dried ones. Plus their Creole-style products.
Jackie and Ghost, Margaret Holmes and Glory brand are both pretty tasty canned veggies too.
As for books, don’t forget the Richard Stark novels by Donald Westlake. Think there are over 20 of them too.
Those of you who like the classic Perry Mason books might be surprised to learn that one of them could be considered science fiction, because the plot hinges on a (then) new piece of technology: The Case Of the Drowning Duck, from 1940. Now, I’ll let all of you mystery fans figure out just what the new thing was that made the plot work.
Ghost, have you considered lentils? They take less time to cook than beans, are high in protein, and pair well with many vegetables and meats.
You know, Denise, I’ve never prepared nor even eaten lintels in my entire life. Somehow, I don’t think lintels are a “Southern thang”, at least not in the parts of it where I’ve lived. But perhaps it’s time to experiment with them.
sideburns, I’m going to say “dishwashing liquid” which, when poured into the water, caused the duck to sink and drown. 🙂
OF due 1708-1728 CDT. Peace, emb
http://www.nps.gov/features/yell/webcam/oldFaithfulStreaming.html