How to Discuss Someone's Questionable Life Choices

Two things:

1.       “Drunken Failure” is one of my favorite jokes I’ve ever written. Few things I’ve ever come up with make me smile as much.

2.       When I was a teenager, I was convinced that Commander Riker was pretty much everything women wanted in a man. Later I talked to some women and found out that was not the case. Missy, specifically, is not impressed with him. Here’s the weird thing. No matter how many times or how emphatically women tell me they weren’t attracted to Riker, part of me always thinks they’re lying.

Note from Missy: Why would any woman go for Riker, when Picard was right there??

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How to Remove All of the Funny from a Story

If memory serves, this strip came about when Missy and I went out to dinner, and the server said they had “appetizers, salad, and soups, too.” I thought she said “soup-stew,” and after she left I asked Missy what “soup-stew” could possibly be. When Missy was done laughing at me I wrote this comic.

The great thing about Basic Instructions was that I could take any stupid thing I did, have a different character do it, and some good would come of my mistake. One downside is that to this day I get reminded of mistakes I’ve made that most people would have long forgotten by now.

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How to Discuss a Book

A few months back Missy and I did some house hunting. We went into more than one place that was staged with nice furniture. Many of these places had a room, or a corner of a room, staged as a den or an office. The bookshelves were always full of hardcover books, their dustjackets removed to show off the hardness of said covers. In staging the space this way they were trying to create the sense that this was a place to sit quietly and think deep thoughts, but they clearly bought the books at used book stores and thrift stores without paying much attention to the titles.

What I’m saying is, if you want to steal a copy of either Twilight or Fifty Shades of Gray, go tour a model home.

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How to Mess with Someone

I have commented many times that being a sci-fi fan and being a sports fan are more alike than they are different. Fantasy sports blur that line even more. As near as I can tell, the primary difference between fantasy sports and role-playing games is that in fantasy sports, real life is your dungeon master. Also, you can bet on them.

I wonder how many Las Vegas executives have tried to come up with some way to take bets on D&D or Magic the Gathering.

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How to Consider New Ideas

A long, long time ago I worked at a juice bar in the lobby of a health club. Our most popular item was Snickers, but that’s not my point.

One of the salesmen was a guy who was not a good-looking man. His girlfriend was a model, in that she was paying for a service that provided modeling classes and would act as your “agent” if you paid them a fee, which is not how agents work.

Anyway, her modeling coach/agent convinced this poor dumpy salesman that he could be a male model too. The first thing they did, after cashing his check, was put him on a strict diet. Because I worked at a juice bar, he believed I had some nutritional expertise, which I emphatically did not. He kept at it and would constantly come up to the juice bar to ask me how many calories were in various things he wanted to eat. First it was just stuff at the juice bar, then it was things he wanted to buy elsewhere. Finally, one day, he called me from home to ask me how many calories there were in a teaspoon of mustard.

I told him that this was madness. That he was starving himself for no good reason, and that some day he was going to pass out while he was at work or possibly even while he was driving his car, and that if he was lucky he would wake up in the hospital with an IV of glucose solution stuck in his arm, and then he would call me to ask me how many calories there are in glucose solution.

He laughed and told me I was right, and he would stop. Calling me, that is. He didn’t stop the modeling classes with the pre-paid agent. He just gave up on coming to me for help, which I took as a victory.

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How to Avoid Accidentally Offending Somebody

I completely understand women not liking being called “chicks.” I just point out that there’s no non-insulting female equivalent to the word “guy.” This is not in any way women’s fault.

Here’s a fun game, if by “fun” you mean “revealing and depressing.” Try to find a synonym for woman that hasn’t taken on some insulting overtone.

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How to Complain About Your Personal Problems

Here’s a story I don’t think I’ve ever shared. When I started doing workplace humor, I needed a boss character. Because I drew from photos, I needed the boss to be based on me. I threw on jeans, a button down, and a blazer, erased my beard and drew on a mustache and a mullet. (Leaving out the job at Chik-fil-A [Ben Folds Five reference!])

A few months later, the office I worked at got a new boss. A very personable man who treated me well. He primarily wore jeans and button downs with a suit jacket over the top, and while he didn’t have a mustache or a mullet, he was born and raised in Arkansas.

A few months after that, when Basic Instructions started running in the Seattle Weekly, I was forced to show my comic to my coworkers, and I was entirely unable to convince him that Mullet Boss was not based on him. Luckily, I put in my 2 weeks’ notice that same day, so it made little difference.

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How to Sell the Unsellable

I’ve told the story before that I started being nicer to Rick in the comic and the real Ric called me and told me to stop it. He felt the comic was funniest when treating him the worst. Looking at this specific comic, I think he was right.

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How to Gain Insights From Current Trends

Men don’t know what women want and that makes men unhappy.

Women know exactly what men want and that makes women unhappy.

I give you the human condition.

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How to Help a Friend

I bet if I wrote a self-help book about unlocking the power of spite, it would sell. It is a totally renewable power source. Heck, I’d probably generate quite a bit of it in my readers as they read the book and reflect on how much it cost.

I also have a theory about improving your memory by taking things you wish to remember and re-framing them in your mind as slights and insults, because I at least never forget those.

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