I’m running late today, but I am here! The above A&J from five years ago is a good example of something I mention here rather often. Regardless of what one thinks of the joke itself, it’s a good example of the essential comic strip, one where the words and the art are equally important. Take one away, and the other doesn’t work. No less than Charles Schulz said, it is what makes a comic strip a comic strip.
461 responses to “Is there any other kind?”
Lily, during the ’80’s AIDS devastated the interior arts, theater, music, floral, arts, food, just about all the creative fields. My first friend to go was one of the younger conductors at Houston Symphony. I lost so many friends in the “high end” floral décor trade that I lost count at about 200. It ended up being, who was still alive, not who was gone.
There was a lot of talent lost, a lot of gifted people. We had an AIDS support group that met at my show rooms location and it had people from all walks of life, all sexual persuasions, all ages.
In the early days it moved so fast people died rapidly and it was a death sentence, like the plague.
And now perhaps Ebola? It gives me pause.
Love, Jackie Monies
Ghost, they are like overalls only shorter! And less fabric.
Love, Jackie Monies
Google “Overall shorts,” Ghost, and you’ll get the idea. I think the lady emcee was just trying to be clever. “Too clever by half,” the Brits would say.
Oh, I see. Yeah, I’d just call them “cut-off denim overalls”. And I can see how wearing them sans tank top could provide an interesting display of what I believe the kids are now calling “side boob” or “side cleavage”. But I can also see that our resident Munchkin would look cute in them.
Jackie, I have a cousin who has been HIV-positive for many, many years, but who is still totally asymptomatic for AIDS. Early on, he was one of the relatively few subjects of a medical study attempting to learn why, as that was so seldom true at that time. Well, my extended family does seem to be blessed with pretty good genetics.
I recently remarked to a younger friend that she seemed to have more health issues than does my elderly mother. “Yeah, crappy DNA,” was her response.
Who remembers the 60’s and 70’s too when we wore them without shirts? Remember “Ghost”? Or did she wear something under? I never could wear them successfully, as the flatter the better I think in this style! I’d buy them and then never wear.
I bet Arlo and Janis may have worn them in their “hippie” youth. Remember Arlo as Mr. Natural? Loved that one!
I also cannot wear suspenders and never could.
Love, Jackie Monies
That is what my doctors often tell me, Ghost! And yet I have lived far, far longer than anyone, especially me, thought I would.
Genealogy often gives you hints about family health too, like I was surprised to have found several suicides in same generation of a direct line. Either depression or ill health? I’d love to have a DNA study done to find out who I really am? What countries, what races, what ethnic backgrounds? What lousy DNA?
Since a lot of the stuff that curses me seem to have a familial link, I wish I knew who to blame for the pain!
Love, Jackie Monies
And how was Janis able to wear leiderhaus? Can’t spell and spell check can’t either!
Lederhosen, no?
‘black squirrel in the Thousand Islands’. Yep, you mostly find them up here, not down there. From my reading re my grad research on interspecies interaction among S. MI squirrels, I learned that, in the late 18th and 19th centuries, black phase Sciurus carolinensis were quite common in the North but rare in the South. For unknown reasons, they became less common as the North was settled, but there are still substantial numbers up here, and pockets where they are > common > greys.
Prof, we were in town with albino squirrels very common on one of our trips. The town had laws that prohibited the squirrel napping of any of their albinos, as they were a major tourist attraction. I think it was in your area? Do you know about these squirrels and the town?
Love, Jackie Monies
Wikipedia- Olney, Illinois, White Squirrel Capital of America.
Jackie Monies, I recently did the DNA testing, not for health reasons, but for the ancestry information. I used 23andMe.com which will send you a kit for $99. It is a fairly simple procedure and is quite fun to see what parts of the world your DNA originated. They also used to do the health information but apparently ran into some legal problems (I assume) so they do not offer that at this time. It also matches your DNA with others in the database, various cousins, etc., so that you can communicate with relatives, if everyone agrees. I am still new to the site so have not learned to use it very well – maybe some of us in the village are long lost distant cousins! You never know! 😉
Jackie, I remember the 60s and 70s vaguely. I was known as “Ovum.” 😛
Carol, I wouldn’t spend $99 on genealogy to discover I was the rightful Queen of England. There are too many clothes and shoes I really, really need. Though it would be kinda fun to walk into a party and hear them whispering “She doesn’t look like royalty” instead of “Can you believe how short that dress is?”
LB, alas, I guess we’ll never find out if we’re cousins. If running is a genetic disposition, you are more likely related to my husband anyway – he is the marathon runner in the family. He is training now for a 50 mile ultra; well, opposites do attract. Hmmm, I never thought about the possibility of being in the line of royalty, but you may have something there. I am (broadly) 98.8% European, .1% West African and .1% Native American.
How would someone named “Ghost” not remember a movie named “Ghost”? 🙂 And I do believe that was before the actress in question got “enhanced” for her role in the movie “Striptease”. Also, I’m guessing that Janis wore those lederhosen (my spelchek keeps trying to change that to ‘leaseholder”) without benefit of any other garments, judging by the outcome of that episode.
I went out and assassinated some paper targets with my primary Glock yesterday afternoon. Gosh but our late July-early August weather has been uncharacteristically temperate and pleasant around here. If I were of the paranoid persuasion, and with it being hurricane season and all, I’d probably be thinking, “Uh oh.”
My shooting partner asked me if I were a “the magazine is half full” or a “the magazine is half empty” sort of person. I told her that, as with most things in life, it depended entirely on the tactical situation. 🙂
Oh, and Lily, just how short are those dresses, anyway? 😉
As short as they need to be, Ghost 😛 A lot depends on how tan I am and what kind of mood I’m in. “Very tan” and “mischievous” equal “very short indeed”. Especially if I know a woman I don’t like is gonna be at said party
Jackie, I lost a friend to AIDS before the disease was widely known. He had hemophilia and had to take injections of the clotting extract. Unfortunately, this was before they began to screen out high-risk donors and he got an infected batch. He was part of the group I used to wargame with at UA and never got to finish college. To me his case was doubly sad because he did nothing to expose himself to the disease, he simply followed his doctors’ instructions to prolong his life and the opposite happened.
Whereas the first gay friend I had died in a car accident. A group of us, including him, were at my house on a Saturday night playing Monopoly and cracking jokes. The next morning my mother was waking me up to tell me he had been killed early that Sunday.
As my pastor said today, you never know when your race will end.
As as I often say, “Life does not come with any guarantees.”
A lot of people today…including two close friends of mine, one living and one not…have Hep C (or have already died from it) for basically the same reason as Mark’s friend contracted HIV…donor blood wasn’t being screened for it at the time because the virus was not known to exist.
As I said before, Lily, on another subject, I can’t fault your tactics. 🙂
Say, isn’t it about time you updated you Facebook photo? 😉 Not that I don’t like your “4 out of 5 doctors” one, of course…
We lost the hemophylic husband of a woman I know [knew? not seen her for years] that way. The woman took the only off-campus course I ever taught [Deo gratias] in ’70 or so, and it was after that.
Ghost, that is my favorite photo of me. I have others, but I am not a “selfie” taker, and my adopted family is not into picture-taking at all. We got back from a month in the Mediterranean with only two or three pictures, none of them of me.
Wow, you all have gay friends? I don’t have a single one. That I know of, anyhow.
I have no living gay friends (that I know of). Most were dead from AIDS by our 30th high school reunion.
Oh my, I think I have found another one of those websites where I could easily get lost for hours! Since it looks like one that others in the village would appreciate, I’ll share the link that took me there – http://publicdomainreview.org/collections/made-in-the-trenches-a-ww1-magazine-created-by-soldiers-1916/ – but be sure to look at their main page to see all that they have.
I like that photo just fine, too, Lily. But if you ever do feel compelled to change it, and you are “very tan and mischievous” at the time, I’m just saying… 😉
Although I’m still tweaking its shape a bit, I have decided to keep The Beard, primarily because of the universally favorable comments it’s attracted from those of the female persuasion. (Vain? Who, me?) Actually, it’s more because I’ve decided it doesn’t make me look like Colonel Sanders, as I had feared it might. Although having his money might be a pretty effective chick magnet, being dead wouldn’t be.