How to Create a Memorable Advertising Campaign

There are certain products that tell the whole story on their own. If you’re buying wart removal gel, feminine hygiene products, or Preparation H, nobody has to ask why.

One time I went over to Ric’s house. He had two dogs at the time. I entered the living room and saw a wee wee pad taped to the wall, like a foot up from the floor.

I asked, “Why is there a wee wee pad taped to the wall?”

Ric asked me, “Why do you think?”

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How to Diffuse Irrational Anger

I am always instantly suspicious of people who seem overly worried about “rats” and “snitches.” I find that I’m usually not notified when I make the transition from being the person they’re worried will “rat them out,” to becoming the person they’re worried someone will “rat on them” to.

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How to Provide Context

If I’d had unlimited funds when I was fourteen, I would have totally doused myself in Drakkar Noir. I also would have worn a Members Only jacket, gradient tinted aviators, fingerless gloves, and had Falco blasting from the headrest speakers of my Pontiac Fiero.

In a word, I would have looked “rad.”

In retrospect, girls still would have found me as repellent as they already did at that age, but for different reasons.

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How to Learn About Someone Through Their Family History

In my whole comedy career, only twice did I get “the hook.” I was disappointed that in both cases it wasn’t an actual hook, just the person paying me walking up on stage, putting their hand over the microphone, and telling me the show was ending early because it wasn’t going well.

Just to be clear, in one case they scheduled the show during an important Seattle Mariners game, then had me perform on stage next to a TV showing the game. In the other they advertised “comedy at 9PM, dancing starts at 10PM,” then delayed the show so I started my act at 10:30, to a room full of people who deliberately arrived late to skip the comedy.

After treating my performance with such disrespect, the least either of them could have done was grant me the dignity of a nice, professional hook.

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How to Reverse Engeneer

I’ve only ever eaten at the Rainforest Café once. I can imagine that in a suburban mall a restaurant themed to feel like a tropical jungle full of exotic animals would be a novelty. I ate at the one located in Walt Disney’s Animal Kingdom Park, where it felt redundant. I was eating a club sandwich in a simulation of the exact environment I’d come in there to get a break from.

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How to Give the People What They Want

I was lucky enough to get to make some joke-a-day calendars of my comic a few years back. The company that gave me a shot was Gladstone Media, and I will always be grateful to them, and to Leonard Phillips, the specific person who took a chance on me. Seeing my calendars on sale in Barnes and Noble was a real boost to my confidence. Would have been even more so if they had sold better.

Here’s an Amazon search that will give you a nice overview of Gladstone’s more popular calendars. I leave it to you to decide how well Meow-serschmitts would have fit into their lineup.

(Also, here’s a link to their website.)

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How to Treat Your Adversary with Respect

It could be argued that the “double fishhook” at the end of this comic is a sort of a callback to the two kids stretching each other’s mouths, about whom I’d written a comic a week or two before. Clearly, they made an impression.

Really, if two kids stretching out each other’s mouths hadn’t gotten my attention I’d have to wonder just how numb to the world I’d become.

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How to Appear Far More Knowledgeable Than You Are

I used to work the front desk at a hotel in Florida. As you may suspect, it got hot. There were a few small fans supplied for all of us at the front desk to use, which helped a bit. It would have helped more, but two of the most senior front desk employees claimed two of the fans as their personal equipment, would set the fans up so that only they benefited from the breeze the fans generated, and eventually went so far as to hide the fans when they left for the day so that nobody would “steal” their fans to use in their absence.

The rest of us complained to management, who agreed that it was asinine, but did nothing.

This might seem like a case of evil (or at least stubbornness) triumphing over good but think about this: while those two knuckleheads didn’t get fired, they also damn well never got promoted. Knowing how that place works, most of the rest of the staff has probably turned over four or five times by now, but those two are still there, behind that same oven of a desk, feeling like they won because they’ve got those same two fans pointed at their faces. And, because management didn’t deal with the problem decisively at first, they’re still putting up with it to this day.

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How to Speak an Unpopular Truth

As I write this, I just finished watching a documentary about the first ten years of David Bowie’s career. It focused on the long string of failed bands, low-selling albums, and unsuccessful singles he had to persevere through before he finally got some real traction with Ziggy Stardust. It’s tempting to think of him as this towering pop-culture colossus, but he was just as fallible as the rest of us. The documentary really did a great job of humanizing him.

In fact, it could be argued that the photos from the period when he was working as a mime might have humanized him too much.

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How to Explain Why Star Wars Is Much Better Than Star Trek

If the analogy in the third panel had held, The Last Jedi would have ended with Luke selling the force texts in the tree to Rey for a hefty profit. Some of the fanboys might have preferred that.

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