If his chest had been a cannon, he would have shot his heart upon it

Okay, so I'm stealing from myself. "The Moby Dick Bit" is my favorite thing I ever wrote as a stand-up comic, and I didn't want to see it die. I may yet resurrect some other parts of my old act, but I have no plans to at the moment.

And yes, I'm aware that the title of this post is a misquote of Moby Dick. You'd think Capt. Picard of all people would get his literary quotes right.

I told you recently that I had been picked up by two more papers, but I only told you the name of one, the San Diego Reader.  I'm now at liberty to announce that the other one is the San Francisco Weekly.  Slowly my empire begins to take shape!

Two quick comments on the news. By now you've certainly heard that George Carlin has died. He was my favorite comic for the first ten years I was aware that stand-up existed. I memorized "Class Clown" and recited parts of it whenever my Mom wasn't around. It goes without saying that I was an irritating kid. He will be missed.

The other thing ... I read this morning that James Dyson, the inventor of this vacuum:

and this wheel barrow:

is working on an electric car.  I immediately grabbed a post-it and doodled what this car will probably look like.

The future is a bright one, for people who want to drive around in a scrotum.

A short one.

This will be a short news post, which is ironic, because I actually have much more news than usual. This news will be delivered in two parts, with the little news first, then the big news second.

The little news is that I've added some Amazon recommendations for items I use and endorse to my main page. I'm starting with three items:

"The Jimi wallet," which is the wallet I own and love like no other wallet I've ever owned.

Moleskine Notebooks, because a little pretension can be fun!

And "The Areas of my Expertise" by John Hodgman. If you haven't already read it, you should do so immediately.

That's the little news. The big news is that Basic Instructions has been picked up by two more papers! The San Diego Reader and the another paper to be named in the coming few days will soon be guilty by way of their association with me.

Allow me to mention yet again, I am the luckiest man on Earth.

One problem down.

I've found a reader who speaks Spanish to help me, so never mind, and thanks to TE.

A tall glass of Shredded Wheat!

Sorry for the delay on the news posting. The eccentricity I describe in this strip is indeed something I do every single day. a couple of people have already e-mailed me to say that they do it too. We're freaks, but we find strength in our solidarity.

I could use some assistance from a reader who speaks both English and Spanish well. If you meet that description, please email me at basicinst@gmail.com.

Here's a word cloud containing all of the words in the strip I just finished.

Go make your own!

Jeesh, even the title is wordy!

This might be the most wordy, self indulgent strip I've ever produced. Sadly, it is almost a direct transcription of a conversation I have on a regular basis. I'm prone to over-explanation where old Sci-fi movies are concerned.

One night, long ago, at an open-mic the comic in front of me mentioned The Creature from the Black Lagoon. When I got on stage I pointed out that most people don't know there were three Creature from the Black Lagoon movies. The original which everyone knows, Revenge of the creature, where they capture the creature and put him in an aquarium, where he takes the horrible revenge of ... trying to escape. Then the third was The Creature Walks Among Us, in which they capture the creature and surgically remove his gills and dress him up in a suit in an attempt to make him human. They still keep him in a pen out behind the lab though.

Halfway through describing the third movie my friend Bob yelled "MEYER, YOU ARE A DORK!"

(Here's Bob's myspace, just because he's a great guy.)

While I'm promoting old friends, my wife's former improv group, which was founded by two of the three guys in this image, does lots of what they call "Long Form Improv".  Basically, it's an entire shows worth of improvised comedy with a single cohesive narrative.  It's very difficult to make it work, and they do it really well.  Anyhoo, below is the trailer for their latest project. The trailer alone made me laugh out loud more than once.

Ka cheesa crispa Greedo?

The inspiration for this strip was a coworker holding the door open for me while standing in such a way as to block 70% of the door with his body. I was forced to turn sideways, much like the Millennium Falcon squeezing through a ravine.  As I slid past him I felt compelled to thank him, and was instantly disgusted with myself.

On the subject of the Millennium Falcon, or at least her captain, I got into an argument with a coworker today. He's twenty years old and told me with great authority that Greedo shot first. I'm sorry, his exact words were "that green guy shot first". I told him that in the special edition he was right, but in the original version of the film not only did Han shoot first, but "that green guy" didn't live to shoot at all.

He shook his head and said no. He assured me that he was right. After all, he "owns the dvd."

I've got to learn to let this kind of thing go.

Funny things

It's a funny thing. The strip from last Sunday was drawn nearly two months ago. Today's strip was done last week. It was only as I posted it that I realized how similar they are.

In honor of today's strip, I've created a new shirt! It's available in men's and women's styles, but only men's is available in chocolate brown.

Another funny thing, I was working on a strip today (you'll see it in a month or two, right after an almost identical strip no doubt). In it I'm insulting someone. I realized I could make it me insulting Mullet Boss (a fictional character) or my friend Ric (a real person). I chose to insult Ric, because I've been picking on Mullet Boss a lot lately. Wouldn't want to hurt the imaginary person's feelings.

Hey! Here's the final front cover art for my book!

The book will be available on September 1st, and will contain new material. That new material will include:

-Commentary on many of the comics.

-A strip that will only be available in the book.

-A foreword written by my friend Ric which will ensure that I'll never be welcome in my home town again.

I am so excited about this thing I can hardly breathe.

Quality is Job One

So, I'm back to posting fresh, un-rejected material. Thanks for you patience.

My last posting generated a huge amount of e-mail, not all of which has been answered yet. Almost all of it consisted of words of encouragement and assurances that the strip I posted wasn't really bad at all. That's really good to hear, believe me.

Most of us are our own worst critics, and I'd love to believe I'm being too hard on myself. The thing is, I spend lots of time at work telling people "It's our standards that set us apart". Yes, we might be able to loosen up on our dress code and appearance standards a bit. Yes, we do spend lots of money on parts of the ride experience that aren't obviously part of the ride experience. Yes, we could spend less money on set decoration and costumes and lower the prices slightly. We could replace live entertainment with TV's showing music videos. There are many parks that do those things. Most people go to them AFTER they've gone to Disney.

You deserve better than that.

Enough earnestness.

The blog Cake Wrecks has posted a truncated version of my infamous "Wang Cake" story.

Quickstop Entertainment has a fascinating contest going. It's a songwriting version of Iron Chef. So far JoCo is winning. I'm a big fan of the JoCo, but Doc Hammer has written my favorite episodes of my absolute favorite show, so I'm torn.