A pithy comic strip about life, love, lust and puthy cats.

Est. 1985

Extra, Extra!

Character Flaw

By Jimmy Johnson


Buy the new book, "Beaucoup Arlo & Janis!"Today's "Arlo & Janis!"
I intended to be here yesterday, and I would have but for technical issues. I still prefer a desktop computer for my work. It seems to me much more suited to the graphic manipulation that is much of my effort. However, the old Dell I’d been using was about 150 years old in computer years. Loading modern Web sites was excruciatingly slow and increasingly futile, and it simply was not powerful enough to run updated versions of some of the software upon which I rely. Worst of all, I couldn’t stream HD movies to run in the background while I worked! So, I purchased a new computer, the latest incarnation of the first computer I purchased back in 1994. I love it. However, the migration has not been easy, particularly getting my scanner to work properly. That’s what I was working on yesterday about this time. For now, it’s working, but it was working once before—perfectly—then my scanner vanished from my new computer’s “friends” list. So we shall see. For now, here’s Vince. We’ll talk more about him and the cartoons next time.

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307 responses to “Character Flaw”

  1. sandcastler™ Avatar
    sandcastler™

    I believe Chappy’s Bistro is not a serious condition. Most likely cured with a double Irish whiskey latte.

  2. Ghost Rider 6 Avatar
    Ghost Rider 6

    Keep it up, Jackie. I’ll soon be trying to fit everything in A&J into a Mississippi Gulf Coast context. 🙂

    Yep, Cafe du Monde Beignet Mix is available at Wally World, according to their web site.

    sand, you may have that confused with “chappo bistritis”. No worries, though, as a double Irish whiskey latte should still be a palliative, if not a curative, potion for the condition.

  3. Jackie Monies Avatar
    Jackie Monies

    Was that the original Mary Mahoney’s? Definitely remember the Friendship House. Which restaurant was Italian and had huge trees growing through the roof of dining room? I mean oak trees!
    Restaurant built around the trees.

    I also remember a huge white restaurant, maybe the Colonial?

    Actually what I remember most about both supper club restaurants were that they had good entertainers. I remember Brother Dave Gardner, Jerry Vandyke, Ray Stevens, Jerry Lee Lewis. I know that Gus Stevens used African American entertainers and I could swear that was where I saw Ray Charles and Fats Domino. I don’t think club in my home town was using black performers back in 1960’s.

    Thought the prices were unbelievable but maybe we didn’t in the 1960’s? I noticed $3.50 was cost of cover for Jayne Mansfield show and I remember $5 was a high cover back then.

    If you were a teenager back in those days, these clubs still let you in but you might have to drink sodas. I just remembered seeing Fats Domino in my hometown, which is strange? I can see him at that big baby grand playing.

    Love, Jackie

  4. Jackie Monies Avatar
    Jackie Monies

    Ghost, I do think of A and J in a Mississippi Gulf Coast setting, even though Jimmy throws in some snow now and then to confuse us.

    It is snowing up here right now.

  5. sandcastler™ Avatar
    sandcastler™

    GR6 said: “Yep, Cafe du Monde Beignet Mix is available at Wally World, according to their web site.” There is a disturbing message somewhere inside that sentence.

  6. Jackie Monies Avatar
    Jackie Monies

    That Wally World has taken over every tradition and institution in our lives?

  7. Ghost Rider 6 Avatar
    Ghost Rider 6

    No, Jackie, Mary Mahoney’s Old French House Restaurant has been in the same location for like forever, and as far as I know, still is. (That’s where I had breakfast with a lady friend one morning and had to tell her if she didn’t quit smiling at me like that, everyone would know what we had done the previous night.)

    The While Pillars was in the old mansion on Beach Boulevard near the Biloxi Light House. Specialties of the House were Eggplant Napoleon and Eggplant Josephine, for which I have a copy of what is supposed to be the original recipes. It was closed for years, but I understand it was renovated by the family that owes it with the idea that someone would lease it for a restaurant. I don’t know if it is open or not.

    The Italian place sounds like Hugo’s in downtown Biloxi, but there were no trees in it that I recall. Hugo’s has a Jayne Mansfield connection, also. There is an April of 1963 photo of her at Hugo’s, showing her with owner Hugo Rungo and Deputy Sheriff Frenchie Brochard (what a great name!) who served as her bodyguard during her visit to Biloxi. (I tried to link to the photo, but its URL is about 250 characters long.)

    There was great little cafe on Division Street near Hugo’s that was owned by a family of shrimpers. The fried shrimp you were served at night had been unloaded from their boat that morning.

  8. Mindy from Indy Avatar
    Mindy from Indy

    I don’t understand half of what he says, but I figure with all the Southern talk, this is appropriate. 🙂 (Posting now in hopes I can get it all translated by Christmas.)

    Christmas Eve on the Big Bayou – Hasa Ortego: http://youtu.be/44IVtTHNChk

  9. Jackie Monies Avatar
    Jackie Monies

    Evan, Sand and Ghost can translate the French (?) I understood the Cajun parts.

  10. Debbe Avatar
    Debbe

    GR 😉 it was a MAS-36. and Dakota had bought it off of a friend who had bought it from a licensed dealer. And it did come with a bayonet I give the 15 year old credit. he did some research on the rifle and found that some 1.1 million were manufactured during that time.

    Then the little squirt had to bring in his hunting rifle…an HR 44 rifle, and when he showed me the ammo, I asked what the ‘red’ points were on the tip of the ammo….then he showed me the slits on the ammo…I asked him to explain to me the ‘red’ tip, the grooves and etc…..I told him then it did not seem to be a “sporting’ event….all I could think of was Bambi calling out for his Mother…… I don’t like deer season around here…

    Tired…signing off for the night….My wonderful husband has yeast and bread loaves baking in the oven….with fried chicken…….

    Good ending to a fiasco at both, antiquated hen houses…..I am home…and I am warm with cats in my lap…

    Indy Mindy….love your new cat pad….and the fireplace….stay warm my friend.

    Good night….

  11. Mark in TTown Avatar
    Mark in TTown

    Ghost, I remember Chappy opening the restaurant in Nashville while I was living in Tennessee. Never ate there but it was in the local news. Later he was in the news for negative reasons. His business was seized by the state for unpaid taxes and closed.

    http://www.bizjournals.com/nashville/morning_call/2013/06/chappys-restaurant-closed-seized-by.html

  12. Mark in TTown Avatar
    Mark in TTown

    http://www.wsmv.com/story/22686359/chappys-employees-say-they-have-paychecks-they-cant-cash

    Knowing this, I doubt I would patronize his restaurant in New Orleans. As one of the employees said in another story, “how can he go to New Orleans and open a new business without paying off his former employees?”. Apparently he left town after the state seized his business in Nashville and was not responding to questions.

  13. Jerry in Fl Avatar
    Jerry in Fl

    Ok. Here we go. An airliner was preparing to depart and the captain turned on the PA. “This is Captain so-and-so. We’ll be flying at 25,000 feet, etc. etc.” Now the Captain had had a busy day and was already tired so he forgot to turn off the mike. He says to the co-pilot “I sure could go for a nice piece of (beep) and a good cup of coffee right now.” Well, you could have heard a pin drop on the airplane as everyone had heard what he said. A stewardess rushes toward the front to tell the captain what happened when a voice calls out “Don’t forget the coffee.”

  14. sandcastler™ Avatar
    sandcastler™

    Guessing it wasn’t cherry pie. 😉

  15. Mindy from Indy Avatar
    Mindy from Indy

    Jerry – That’a a good one. 🙂

    The is snow sticking to the ground now. 🙁

  16. sandcastler™ Avatar
    sandcastler™

    MfI, keep the snow.

  17. emeritus minnesota biologist Avatar
    emeritus minnesota biologist

    GR6: “. . . breakfast with a lady friend one morning and had to tell her if she didn’t quit smiling at me like that, everyone would know what we had done the previous night.”

    Reminds me of Edda’s bemused smile as she walked Brussels’ streets the morning after curing lover boy’s hiccups. Brooke is a good draftsman. I’ve lost the plotline, too, but still enjoy the strip.

  18. Jerry in Fl Avatar
    Jerry in Fl

    EMB, that reminds me of the first morning after when my wife-to-be had received a delivery of flowers from me and she told me on the phone that everyone in her office had told her that those were morning after flowers.

  19. Jackie Monies Avatar
    Jackie Monies

    Mark, unlike my favorite New Orleans chef, John Besh, whose bio describes him as “chef, television personality, philanthropist, restaurant owner and author.”

    I find it interesting that he considers his philanthropy more important than being a restaurant owner or cookbook author.

    During Katrina he organized food kitchens and cooked and provided meals to everyone, emergency personnel, military, anyone needing to be fed. He located and paid all his employees, made sure they were safe. And he paid them until they reopened.

    He has been credited with revitalizing and preserving local food sources, has set up loans for small farmers, total programs to help local small businesses that are vital to the restaurant industry. The emergency rations and military meals using Louisiana seafood and ingredients he helped create may get him knighted!

    No, I prefer to eat at restaurants of those I admire. And it doesn’t hurt the food is great too.

    Love, Jackie

  20. Jerry in Fl Avatar
    Jerry in Fl

    A 6.7 quake hit New Zealand approx. half an hour ago.

  21. Jerry in Fl Avatar
    Jerry in Fl

    Geysers behind OF erupting like crazy.

  22. emeritus minnesota biologist Avatar
    emeritus minnesota biologist

    Jerry: Were They?

    Sand and M/I: Mindy / Indy . . .. The is snow sticking to the ground now. sand. MfI, keep the snow.

    We have 2-3″ on the ground now. Even if it doesn’t snow again for weeks, and highs stay in the 20s or lower, that won’t keep ’til 25 Dec, because snow sublimes slowly but surely. But it will likely snow lots more, so we probably will have a white 25 Dec.

    The deer would prefer the snow leave, but it’s hard on the little guys at and below ground level. Also on people whose pipes are not buried deep enough. Ours in the townhome community are: 6′.

  23. emeritus minnesota biologist Avatar
    emeritus minnesota biologist

    Jerry: I believe that geyser at the far left is one of YNP’s biggest, but not so predictable ones. Somewhere the NPS has/had a diagram of the geyser basin with names of the geysers with arrows pointing down to the geysers.

  24. Jerry in Fl Avatar
    Jerry in Fl

    Way over on the left. The guy is moving the camera all around. Nobody there. I assume that the camera will be shut down for the winter soon?

  25. Steve From Royal Oak, MI Avatar

    Did the pilot take it black or with a little cream and sugar?