Scientology in New Mexico Exposed

This post is now on my website.

Friday Robots

Pretty simple idea this week, but it took me a while to figure out what I wanted to draw. I took this panorama when I was in Tucson last week:


Then I used one of Photoshop's filters to make it look faded and duochromatic (that's not a word, I know). After that it was only a matter of adding robots.

fall hard

Hello dear readers. I'm back from my trip to the Southwest. It was a good trip. As is usually the case for me on a trip, I learned a few things. Since I have you people as a captive audience, I present my findings for your enlightenment.

In Albuquerque, when you fall, you fall hard.
I have seriously never seen a "slippery when wet" sign with such a horrific stick man. I walked with care.

I'm trying to get them to start referring to Albuquerque as "the Querque." As in, "Yeah, I just flew in from the Querque a couple hours ago. Want some green chili?"

Steven Spielberg sure likes to make movies about divorce and father figures. Oh, and airports.
Speaking of airports, they have added to the list of a hundred indignities that you must endure for the privilege of paying to fly through the air for a few hours. Now you must pay to check your bags. $15 for the first bag, $25 for the second. Thanks, US Airways. I spit on your grave.

Bison Witches continues to be the best place in Tucson to get soup in a bread bowl and a sandwich.

My brother continues to stink up the world, both literally and metaphorically.

Stay tuned for a post on our quest to find the secret Scientology base in the desert. It will thrill you!

Glad to be back.

Friday Robots

These look like album covers. I wonder what kind of music Friday Robots listen to?

get back, jojo

The Author, pictured here in an undated photograph with man-cub Mowgli.









The results of the haircut poll are in! According to my unbiased fan base, the animal I most resemble due to my haircut is a polar bear. In case you're curious, I'm posting both an old photograph of myself (above) along with a real, actual polar bear. The resemblance, I admit, is shocking. Thank you all for voting.
I will be on vacation in Arizona this week, so posts may be few and far between. Fear not, dear readers, for I hope to still provide Friday Robots on the day that falls between Thursday and Saturday.

What will you do in the meantime? I assume that all of you out there reading this are either 1) at work, looking for something to read that is not pornography or 2) somehow unable to make this page not your default home page. In both cases, may I suggest following a few of the links to your right. Many of my friends are expert bloggers, and their fanciful musings are filling the internet with joyful noise. You can also read Jimmy Carter's Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech. It is both concise and relevant. Then of course you'll be able to watch the Inauguration on Tuesday, which promises to be both warmer than actually being there in person, as well as historical. For those of you not so politically minded, there are plenty of cat photos to be found somewhere online.

Of course, you'll still be able to get your daily fix of Welcome to Falling Rock National Park by simply clicking the link in this sentence, or the other twelve bazillion places I've linked to it on this page.

Do not strike this blog from your daily to-do list, however! When I return we will get right back to schedule. How will I grow my fanbase in Sweden and Armenia? Will I ever find my blogger nemesis? How many more members of my family can I publicly alienate? Answers will be forthcoming.

To be continued...!

my sad dad

Beneath his sunny disposition, my father is a deeply troubled man. He has tried to do everything right: he went to college, fought for his country, married a redheaded woman, always worked to support his family, paid his taxes. He bought the right kind of car to transport his family rather than the sporty car he always desired. Yes, my dad has sacrificed to bring happiness to others. Why, then, couldn't his only two sons return this kindness to him?

When my mother gave my father two strong redheaded sons, he was delighted. What man, in his heart of hearts, doesn't want other men to carry on the paternal blood line? What man doesn't want to see his sons take on the world and win? My father, although he would never say this to anyone, is one of those guys.

Sadly, neither of us - me or my brother - did the things my father secretly, fervently wanted us to do. We let him down in every way imaginable, and now he must find a way to cope with the pain. Why were both of us such screw-ups?

-In spite of a long family history of being good at math, neither of us have pursued a career in mathematics or math-related fields.

-I failed to make varsity football in high school, and my brother threw away a perfectly good basketball scholarship to an NCAA school (hint: it rhymes with "nuke"). His graduate thesis, "Folk Singing in 1930's rural Mississippi," sits unread on our bookshelf at home.

-In spite of my young age, I failed to vote for Jimmy Carter in 1980.

-As of this writing, both brothers have refused to take on multiple wives.

-My brother shows no remorse for having shot a man in Reno just to watch him die.

-We aren't "ethnic" enough for him.

-My gambling addiction forced my father to sell his most prized possession, a bronzed parakeet the Archduke of Lebishstein-Upon-Ainsworthy gifted him for protecting the commonwealth.

-After a promising childhood, my brother turned into a hideously ugly adult.

-My brother and I both laughed at his one attempt to write historical fiction. "The Meadows of Brunswick," a coming-of-age story set in Southern Maine about a group of boys who set off to see a dead body, just seemed too familiar. All major publishers agreed with us, but this didn't take away the sting of having been rejected by his sons first.

-Neither of us contracted a horribly disfiguring disease like elephantitis.

-My brother, while playing in the backyard, accidentally stepped on my father's favorite anthill. In spite of our best efforts to rebuild, it never looked the same.

-There was the time I spat in his face and called him a lousy cheat.*

-After brief forays into elementary school musicals, neither brother took up singing professionally.**

We have, of course, let my father down in many ways I cannot bring myself to recount here. Suffice it to say there is slim likelihood of a reconciliation. Next time you see my father, show a brave face. He's suffering under his big smile and gentle demeanor.



*I have no recollection of his incident.
**My mom is more sad about this than my dad.

Friday Robots

The last one contains a big orange DESTROY sticker. When you are offered a roll of bright orange DESTROY stickers, you take them. You never know when they'll come in handy.

one more reason to hate meth heads

It used to be cold medicine worked. Sudafed, or any medicine containing pseudoephedrine, is like a fist to your nasal passage. It knocks the cold right out of your head. As a bonus, it leaves you with that floaty, disembodied feeling for most of the day.

Well, a few years ago meth heads discovered that they could mix pseudoephedrine (taken from over-the-counter medications) with various other ingredients (frog wort, root of Hoary Tree, salamander mucous) and make their precious, precious meth.

So what does our government, in its glorious wisdom, decide to do? Take pseudoephedrine away from EVERYBODY. That's like making everyone take off their shoes at the airport because one nutcase tried to hide a bomb in his loafers.

Since pseudoephedrine was banned, Sudafed, Tylenol, and other cold medicines began using a substitute ingredient. This ingredient sucks. It doesn't work. I want my pseudoephedrine back. I am a law-abiding citizen with a cold, and I demand relief.

Maybe they could put Sudafed in packages designed so that someone on meth would not be able to figure out how to open them. Maybe we could use a code word that meth users are not privy to. "I'd like some of that Toasted Oat Cereal," I would say to the pharmacist, and he would wink knowingly and hand me cold medicine that actually relieves the symptoms of a cold.

Excuse me, but my nose is running again and I have to go.

really?

I'm shooting myself in the foot by trash-talking a blog - especially one written by the very editors whose attention I've been trying to get for the past eight years - but some statements cannot go by unremarked.

Make 'em Laugh

Humor is all about surprise (a strikingly similar formula to Horror, strangely enough). But it is also about relatability, and demographics, and whatever a syndicate thinks makes a newspaper editor chuckle.

Bill Watterson snuck his weirder tendencies in the back door by making Calvin's imagination so vivid. Had he sent in Spaceman Spiff as a submission, I have a feeling it wouldn't have made it to the editor's Inbox, let alone any newspapers. It seems the safest bet with a comic strip is one that features human characters doing everyday things.

I'm certainly not putting down any of strip that does feature human characters doing everyday things. Like I said, Calvin and Hobbes was, in part, a boy and his parents. Cul de Sac is a "family strip." Heck, even Charles Addams' comics featuring the Addams Family could be classified as people doing everyday things (though...weird...things).

Saying "be funny and we'll syndicate you" is a gross understatement. It should be something more like "be funny in a particular way, with particular characters and particular art, and we might syndicate you. " But that doesn't make for a good blog post, does it?

lovable rogues

We want to love criminals. After all, who among us has not sat at his office desk or her cash register, dreaming of an escape plan? How many of us would love to live outside the confining rules of society, running free with the wolves, punching our enemies with our bare fists and stealing all the video games we could ever desire?

Banks, government, religion. In theory, we'd love to watch all our institutions crumble to dust. That's the lure of a life of crime.

But there aren't any embraceable criminals these days. A quick sampling of recent crimes suggest none of the perpetrators is a lovable rogue whose exploits we can merrily follow. Sure, we'd love to thumb our noses at the bumbling cops who can't ever catch up with the suave cat burgler, but that never seems to happen. Instead, we've got a bunch of cops who are hard-working, good people and criminals who are nasty, self-centered fools. What's the matter with this country? Our criminals are shortchanging us.

We need to hearken back to the days of pirates. Pirates often had better lives (excepting their brutal executions) than the merchant sailors they robbed. In fact, many formerly above-law seamen turned pirate at the first opportunity. The pay was better, the rum was better, and the people they robbed were often rich landowners who routinely mistreated their employees and owned slaves.

What about Jesse James? A ruthless outlaw, James captured the heart of the nation by murdering and robbing. He was so loved, in fact, that Robert Ford was christened a "coward" for shooting James in the back of the head.

In absence of real embraceable criminals, society turns to its storytellers to create a supply. Robin Hood, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, Catwoman, and Patrick Swayze's character in Point Break are but a few of the fictional criminals we turn to in these lean times. Even Batman is, at best, a vigilante whose motives remain shady to the public at large. When we can't find enough criminals to love, we turn our heroes into criminals. That, my friends, is the true meaning of The Dark Knight.

Why is it that our criminals are so unlovable? Instead of robbing Rich White Guy Bank to save the orphanage, we get teenage thugs who hit a Circle K to get money for crack. There is nothing lovable about meth addicts, nor is cocaine a drug that promotes altruism. I want a witty criminal, a criminal who leaves rhyming notes taunting the investigators. I want a criminal who knows how to dress for any occasion, be it a jewel heist or a yacht party in the Caribbean. I want a criminal who can turn Larry King into a babbling idiot with a mere phone call to his live show. A criminal whose voice is smooth like Frank Sinatra's, whose eyes pierce your very soul, whose dark mind lures you in to his evil schemes. A criminal to sweep you off your feet.

In this age of crooked investors and petty creeps, drugged-out zombies and twisted accountants, we need someone to remind us that crime can be sexy.

most bestest fans

I could be huge in Sweden. It would be the height of awesomeness if some Swedish book publisher decided to put out a collection of my work or if they wanted to publish a collection of Friday Robots.

I'd go on a Swedish book tour and visit Stockholm, Gothenburg, and of course Malmo. I would take speedy trams and trains to get around. I would visit ancient stone formations and the most famous architecture. I would have the chance to go see a film festival of one of the world's greatest directors. I would wear my winter coat and maybe a souvenir Viking hat I buy at the airport. I may even pay my respects to Sweden's Prime Minister, Fredrik Reinfeldt.

I wouldn't ever have to go to that other Scandinavian country if there is a rivalry between the two. However, if all is peaceful, I would be more than happy to make a visit.

Yes, if I did a book tour of Sweden I would surely have plenty to see and do in my off time. But my most pleasurable experience would be in meeting the kindhearted and welcoming people of that fabled land. Would I make lifelong friends? Would I endear myself to the locals of some small fishing village? Would I solve an 80 year-old murder mystery and become Sweden's national hero? We'll never know until I get a book deal.

So, if you work for a Swedish book publisher and you like the quirky writing of this blog or the unassuming comic strip Welcome to Falling Rock National Park, why don't you give me a shot? The Swedish public demands comics and Friday Robots.

Friday Robots Over NCAR

play meets work

I recently read this essay on the difference between work and fun. It got me thinking about jobs like cartooning, which are essentially fun but require a lot more discipline if you want to do them professionally than if you're just goofing off on the weekends.

I would laugh really hard if a cartoonist said he drew comic strips because all the accounting jobs were taken. I would laugh, and my eyes would tear up and then I'd pull out my handkerchief and daintily dab at my cheeks. And I would move on.

The fact is, getting paid for anything even resembling art is like climbing a sheer rock wall. Sure, you see a few eagles soaring around. They're set. For the rest of us, it's a matter of digging in early and never letting go. Of course you don't have to climb the wall - you don't have to be a professional to draw comics. In fact, if everybody tried making comics at least once in their lives, it would make the world a more bester place.

Getting back to my point. I learned pretty fast that I had to up the ol' ante if I was going to graduate from drawing comics for fun, to drawing comics for fun and profit. This is when having fun morphs queasily into doing work. Fortunately, I like it so much deadlines have never bothered me. But I do have to force myself to sit down and draw, daily. Same with writing. Writing is fun, and I do it all the time anyway, but for Falling Rock I have to focus. Fun with deadlines can still be fun, but it is also work.

I always feel strange saying I have work to do when I mean drawing comics. It seems easier to say it that way than to explain: in order to make comics every weekday and maintain the website and send out submissions to syndicates, I can't draw only when I feel like it. I have to draw the exact amount the strip dictates.

Can play make the transition to work? I think so, if you have the right mindset about it. If your idea of fun is a lack of time constraints, freedom of topic or media or form, then maybe you need to keep doing fun for fun. John Lennon once said that, in order to write his book A Spaniard in the Works, he'd have to get drunk every night. That's why, he said, he never wrote another book. And that's good: he realized he didn't want to write that way on deadline, or to fill a certain page count. But if you can play, keeping in mind certain expectations, then you can try to make it a living.

With all this in mind, I'm going to launch my career as a Lego builder.

College Cartoonist: A Retrospective

This post can now be found on my website.

suggestion box

This blog, as it is read by the most intellectually stimulated people around the world, is a good place to suggest improvements on anything from foreign relations to weapons manufacture. In the spirit of the new year, I humbly submit a list of improvements that should be implemented worldwide in the coming year. Should these fail to be carried out in the next 365 days, I would certainly like to speak with whoever's in charge.

A few things that should be changed in the calendar year 2009:

Car steering wheels. We have been using these outdated contraptions for far too long. Why is it that we're stuck with a tool used for ships? My suggestion: joysticks. I have read these have already been tested, so all that really needs to be done is put them into the cars that people buy. No big deal here. This can be accomplished by mid-February.

The metric system. Are Americans still angry at the British? No? Then why do we continue with our bizarre system of measurement? Implementation date: June 1, 2009.

Dollar coins. Again, here is something we Americans cannot seem to get right. Why print dollar coins when you only get them in certain vending machines? People look at you funny when you try to use them. You feel like an idiot. U.S. Mint: either stop printing paper dollars, or stop printing dollar coins. You only get to pick one. Implementation date: immediate.

Eliminate the penny. Here's another one for the Mint. I cannot remember the last time I used a penny when I wasn't stuffing it in a roll to sell to the bank. Pennies are for flicking at co-workers, not spending. Why do we still print these? Implementation: immediate. Side note: find another denomination to put Lincoln's head on. I never much liked Andrew Jackson on the $20. Put Lincoln there. He should share the $5 with Martin Luther King, Jr. They can be pictured with their arms over each other's shoulders.

Fax machines. These have been useless since the day they were created. Send an email with an attachment. Use the U.S. Postal Service. We're covered already. Fax machines are only used for receiving junk mail at this point. Implementation: fax machines should be immediately discontinued, and the last fax machine should be disintegrated on October 1, 2009.

That's all I've got for now. Should I come up with any more suggestions, you can be sure you'll read about it here first.

Thanks all! Have a productive New Year.

Friday Robots

"Swimming in January" edition.

Dear Ryan Seacrest

Grow in your beard. Don't leave it as one-week stubble.

You don't look like Indiana Jones.

Please, finish the beard.

Your bearded friend,
Josh

New Year

In the spirit of peace and happiness, I wish everyone a happy new year.

(song by Dan Bern)

Disarmament

Well, you can't stop
on the side of the highway
see if someone
needs help

You can't pick
a hitchhiker up
He might
have a gun

How could you send your kid
to an American school now?
I could not send my kid
to an American school

Well I can almost see you
having a gun
if you lived out, way out
on the open range

If there was no one
within 30 miles of you
But these days we live next to
and right on top of each other

Well back in 1933
Einstein left Germany
He knew what he was feeling
And he wasn't feeling safe

I wonder if he felt like his number
could come up any time
I wonder if he felt entered
in some dark lottery

It's no wonder
we need so many drugs
The mall on the edge of town
has turned into Beirut

I do not like
anyone walking behind me
And I do not want to get stopped
by the cops for anything

I'm talking disarmament
Disarmament
Disarmament
Disarmament

Talking disarmament
Disarmament
Disarmament
Disarmament

See, I do not want my politicians in my bed or in my house or house of God
I don't care what they believe in
Or what they look like or who their daddy is

And I do not care
who a senator sucks or a president fucks at all
How many ads they got on TV
What they did or did not do in the war

See I'd rather kill the guns
Then have to kill off my emotions
I'm scared to speak my mind, or disagree, or even move
I might get noticed

Man, it's just no fun anymore
The golden rule has changed
Fire unto others
before others fire unto you

I don't need no more erection pills
I don't need a million baldness cures
Hell, these days to die in a car crash
Is practically dignified

What's the point of going to the health club
building your body, pumping them weights?
If a five-year-old can walk up
and blow you away

Hey governor
What you doing about the guns?
Hey candidate
What you gonna do about the guns?

I don't really want to die
‘Cause someone's pissed off at his girlfriend
I don't want my kid to die
‘Cause someone didn't make the football team

I don't care what John Rocker says
The first amendment's good by me
But the second one's outdated
Its ashes ought to be burned and scattered

We're talking disarmament
Disarmament
Disarmament
Disarmament

Talking disarmament
Disarmament
Disarmament
Disarmament

I write this from some highway rest stop
Now I'm gonna go sleep in my van
In America these days
That makes me practically a hero

I don't care what the top ten movies are
I don't care who just won a million dollars
I don't care what you think of abortion
Though I think it's probably better to eat the egg than kill the chicken

Hey senator
What you gonna do about the guns?
Hey Mrs. President
What you gonna do about the guns?

Hey Batman
What you gonna do about the guns?
Hey Superman
What you gonna do about the guns?

Hey Lone Ranger
You ain't alone anymore
Too many other rangers
Time to turn in your gun

Hey policeman
Time to turn in your gun
Hey everybody
Time to turn in your gun

England isn't coming
We ain't holding off the Huns
If you want to hunt the elk
Check out a gun like you check out your bowling shoes

See, I've heard all the arguments
"We need the guns against the government"
But the last time that I checked
The government's supposed to be us

And if that isn't true
Let's have a revolution right now
But if the government is us
Let's get rid of all the guns

People say it could never happen
Well, that's what they said about Jim Crow
The day he became president
John Kennedy said "Let us begin"

We need disarmament
Disarmament
Disarmament
Disarmament

Talking disarmament
Disarmament
Disarmament
Disarmament
Disarmament
Disarmament
Disarmament

I used to live next to a nursery school
Those kids screamed all day, every day
I often dreamed about killing them
I'm glad I didn't have a gun