One of the things a person quickly learns as a beginning cartoonist is that he or she must master onamonapia, a word that replicates a sound, as in the “clink” of glasses. Of course, in the case of cartoonists, we most often are called upon to invent our own words using onamonapia. Using the above cartoon from last November as an example, how does one replicate the extremely arresting—and grating—sound of that horrible horn, the klaxon, which blares repeatedly when the heavy metal doors are about to close and you have 30 seconds to get to the last shelter on earth before the nuclear bombs start raining down, or the sound a game-show contestant hears when giving a disqualifying answer. Well, this was my stab at it. Onamonapia can be fun! Splut. Blop. Plap. Try it at home.
237 responses to “The Sound of Mayhem”
Saw your recent, I would not return to a dealer who cannot locate a legitimate recall, or honor it.
Were I Santa, I might perhaps be tempted to give all the good girls moderately priced gifts for Christmas and all the naughty girls new Beemers. And I would know where all the naughty girls live. 😉
When vanity license plates were the rage two I encountered:
White Corvette, driver a tall blonde female; ALLTAN
Black Mercedes, young female driver; 4BNGOOD
OK, Morphy, you knew you’d make me look at C’est la Vie, didn’t you?
Sort of reminds me of a St. Valentine’s Day gift from MWL…a pair of thong underwear inscribed with the legend “You’re Dynamite!” With, of course, an illustration of a lit stick of dynamite on its front.
That vicarious enough for ya, Jackie? 😉
Collateral damage, Ghost, I swear!
But you did make me recall a lower ticket item, cheap printed pair of briefs I received in high school. But my dumb, nerdy younger version couldn’t see a flirt applied with 2×4. The sad tales of missed opportunities. And seasonally appropriate, too. It was a very un-secret Santa exchange.
“My goodness” (re Mae West’s fur coat)
Mae West-“Goodness had nothing to do with it dearie.”
I don’t know if Lucky Brand denim jeans are still around. Same young lady and I would share rides into town to hang at the mall. Doesn’t the description alone make you gag with 80’s shame? Any who, she would tease me by showing how the fly opening on the jeans were printed on the inside: You Just Got Lucky.
In my defense, I was happily pursuing a sophomore hottie at the time. But still, I’m an idiot.
Since Janis jokes are often based on underwear or lack of it, I feel someone here has to be available to stimulate interest besides Ghost. Although my wearing or not wearing doesn’t stimulate much of anyone now-a-days.
No, I am resolved to get my Honda towed to Tulsa should it ever break down again. My consultant today gave me his card and said call him. Don Carlton Honda has superb repair department and perhaps best customer service in America.
Need to call Debbe in Indiana back. She had a rough day today and had smoked two cigarettes. God keeps intervening to save me from sugar and fats.
Where are police when people blatantly drive with no plates? Saw two such on drive from Tulsa just now. Had the kind of gift shop plates you put on front of car screwed down on back where real plates go.
Is it the salesman in me that makes me notice them?
That’s a tale I could flesh-out a bit more, as it were. 😉 While maybe fifty know the nickname I used for her was Jeri, only five souls on the planet know why.
Until now, of course.
VCR replays of favorite movies was a common theme for small gatherings of young adults. Cult status in my circle included: Airplane!; MP’s Holy Grail; and in this case, an obscure offering from down under, Goodbye, Pork Pie! [not sure if the exclamation mark belongs there]
In that movie, an epic drunken stoned mess of a plot travels the length of both New Zealand islands to find the woman who left the drunken stoned mess of a man, in hopes of reunion. Aussie humor was in vogue, and we felt privileged to know of this hard to find example of Kiwi wit, in the way young idiots like to feel superior.
Description now appropriate, while many examples exist that are not quite right, this one will do: If you saw Kristy McNichol’s bubbly character in The Pirate Move [G&S nod for you, emb], you are pretty close. Unfortunately, she was convinced I was more interested in brunettes. Yeah, confusing right?
Back to our tale. Another member of our group took to calling our subject Groucho Blondini from this movie. A character named Gerry Austin referred to the starring pair as the Blondini Gang, and himself as Groucho Blondini. Jeri was a good sport but let it be known she wasn’t fond of the Grouch part of Groucho. My nerd creds intact I tried to continue the theme while changing it for her. She chose the spelling because neither of us could remember and IMdb didn’t exist.
Down the road, Jeri explained she liked the name because it sounded like ‘Cherri’, said as the fruit not the French. A name she also didn’t like that had been hung on her by a group she left to join us. But close enough to be mistaken when our paths crossed. I soon learned when it was appropriate to give which inflection. Link that to a couple of years later when Melanie Griffith did her futuristic bad ass with a past, Cherry science fiction.
No Soap, Radio. A bit of a shaggy dog. You read all this looking for more ‘flesh’ didn’t you?
Well, Morphy you are the age of my girls who were teens in the 80s and ran around with a large group who just hung out, drank , smoked and consumed various other substances and of whom more than half were males, we’ll, you sound about right. I understand you.
Oh, crap, Jackie! Don’t hold it against me!
Some of us cleaned up all right.
Ruth Anne:
Will order one of those, M, soon.
Cutest I’ve seen recently [in an unnamed outfit where I don’t get paid for working*], white or yellow, green background, on a 2-3 yr. old male toddler, ‘CHICKS LOVE ME’. And he was real chick bait. His attendant [How should I know?] wasn’t bad, either.
*There are at least 3; actually, dozens.
Peace,
About the comic strip, dumb and blatant and not too funny.
How old was MWL back then or even though she has passed , as we say in South, is it too rude to say? I need to seriously get back to working out but it has been pointless except for personal gratification and self esteem. I have too much of that already and I have seen nothing I’d want. Now that thought is depressing.
For entertainment purposes I ordered a lace nightgown with a bottom as well and they shipped it in an envelope smaller than a greeting card. I looked at it and said “Now what have I bought that looks like a hair net?” The entire thing looked like a crumpled Kleenex.
Morphy the “gang” cleaned up well too. I think one is attorney, even my daughter teaches in Houston. I met most again at her second wedding and they seemed quite respectable. Married with children, minivans and lawn mowers.
Going to coordinate more outfits as soon as I look at Illinois weather. I need to drive 8 hours straight through which I hate to do now.
Old Bear, that was fun! I found myself watching the ‘solo” deer during the whole thing…you just knew he was going to do wonders.
Ruth Anne, that’s a neat shirt!
We spent this evening walking around the Detroit Zoo’s Wild Lights. Three years in a row on the winter solstice—I think we got us a tradition here. And hot chocolate with whipped cream to warm up afterwards in front of the fireplace.
Well Quincy has 30s and lows of 20s and only one day snow but rain.
Oklahoma is predicting tornadoes on Christmas day. Damm.
Jaquie, sorry to offend with the comic. A little confused on the prose versus pictorial distinction of non-explicit material, but acknowledged and noted all the same. Had missed that you changed spelling of your name back. Glad your transportation is tip-top for your trip, enjoy.
Don’t feel bad, Morphy; in retrospect, I let some of the fish escape the barrel with shooting them when in my teens. Made up for it in my twenties and beyond, however.
Jackie, MWL was about six years older than I, although she didn’t nearly look it. Almost all my serious relationships have been with women who were from one to eight years old than I. Hmm.
Bat Guano Crazy Lady was 14 years younger. Perhaps that should have been a warning flag?
Tell Debbe I said “hi” and to hang tough. And that I believe in her.
Think I have figured out how old you are Ghost from your many clues. That must have been a young wife widowed?
I never figured out what my late husband had in common with the young women he favored? I don’t think it was conversation. I know what they expressed interest in so one would assume that’s their attraction and most were pretty explicit about their areas of interest and assets
That’s what happens I suppose when a person can’t clean it all up when they die, the correspondence goes on.
Tonight I am apparently catching some bug I have been exposed to, I feel so horrible and am afraid to think about driving myself eight hours plus gas, stopping for breaks. I was putting together sets of clothes and almost keeled over. I would not describe this as a ladylike glow.
Actually didn’t change my name Hal did. I have five machines I post from. I am Jackquline H. Monies but go by Jackie and have all my life.
I pronounce my last name “monies, like the plural of money.”
Remarkably very few people can spell the plural of money.
My late husband pronounced his name as Moniz but spelled it Monies.
Morphy the only thing insulted was my intelligence by your comic. It was sophomoric and you seem far more than that.
Jackie, thanks for clarify. Yeah I’d always read it as $$$ and had assumed it was a handle until you had shared boating columns.
GR6, in a brotherly way back at you, on BGCL.
I passed, in my twenties, on what may have been A Very Good Thing. When presented, after thirty, with a truly difficult choice that no man would complain of having to make, I passed on the younger in favor of the more ‘appropriate’ age. Not taken lightly, I truly feared that the beautiful young woman with a fresh new degree in marketing might feel limited if an ‘older’ man followed her to NY. I was ready for the big commitment, and knowing that I was not ready at twenty-three, projected that onto her. Foresaw A Big Problem.
The woman who had bravely left a not lucrative career and went back to the flexibility of waiting tables in high-end restaurants, so that her schedule could always adapt to whatever training was needed for her passion of medicine, that sounded like a grounded individual that could take life choices by the balls. I thought that would work well with how I had made out my world. (Not in medicine, I’ve seen that pairing go bad.) Life hands everyone obstacles as well as opportunities. When doors didn’t open to a simple knock, she reacted in a way I did not foresee. And I didn’t do well with that either.
But my current interest knows my war stories, and I might know most of hers. She even wondered what I’m working on here and laughed at me.
Can’t be predicted, only enjoyed.
P.S. Ran into Miss Marketing at my son’s 7th birthday party held at one of those kind of places. She had come to a high school friend’s daughter’s sixth. Astonished I recognized her, and told me so. I tried to play it off, but I don’t hold illusions well.