Like a Clown on Fire

Posted on March 27, 2012 by You Monsters Are People

After being thoroughly stalked by this French speaking anomaly, after browsing his blog, I was convinced into having a few drinks and drawing him his very own doodle.  It turns out that he was, in fact, a very nice gentleman.  He even whored out my work to his readership without any prompting on my part.

While I’m not usually one to showcase other people’s work, with the previous exceptions of Pretty Scary and Vosky (both of which I was also creatively involved in), I had to make an exception since he was so very nice to me.  You can find him at A Clown On Fire.  And, if you happen to be monolingual and worried, most of it is in English.  I recommend going through some of his earlier posts this month too, since he posts so frequently.  Give it a read through and then give him some feedback, unless you think it’s awful- in which case you can give me the feedback and I’ll soften the blow for him.  The worst case scenario is that you can just enjoy the picture I made for him.

The reason I came across him in the first place was because of how intrigued I was by his blog’s name.  “Like a clown on fire” is a term I would use to refer to any genuinely funny person that hit a point of relentless self destructive behavior.  Speaking of which, I also found this bizarre comic that I had drawn several years ago.  Like some of my current work, and most of my early stuff, it’s a true story and comes sans the normal panels and frames.  It’s also a little sad but those were mostly different times for me.  I’m not sure if I ever posted it so here it is now– I’ll have another post up very soon and even got my arm twisted enough to do a Cat Lover’s Diary this weekend, but until then…

Like a clown on fire indeed.

Posted in cats, comics, Current Events, Dark Humor, friendship, pets, stories, true stories, web comics, Webcomics | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 40 Comments

No Prolonged Eye-Contact: An Empirical Guide to Subway Safety

Posted on March 19, 2012 by You Monsters Are People

Public transportation is a convenient way to get around most major cities and the subway is what makes the really big cities livable in the modern age.  However, there are hazards to consider when riding the rails and there will be times when you are confronted with a situation that you might not know how to deal with.  I’m here to offer helpful advice on how to avoid disaster in five of the most common dangerous situations.  They include diagrams of key avoidance areas (represented by a white field emanating from a black dot) and text on how to handle them.

This one’s bark is worse than it’s bite, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t capable of a vicious stabbing incident.  If you let them argue with whatever invisible demon directly in front of them, you should be alright.  But get between them and their full blown craziness and you might find yourself getting spit on, eyeballed and even bitten.  The best case scenario is that you and most of the people on the train think that they are yelling at you.  They aren’t existing in your reality so don’t bother to try and exist in theirs.  There will be a time for them to calmly engage the real world again and this is not it.  I’ve routinely seen people having arguments with ghosts and once heard someone claim that “Abe Lincoln was a black robot lesbian” and then follow it up with a string of angry cursing.  You have no idea how much I wanted to be a part of that conversation, but there was just no way he was having it with me.  That statement was reserved for the burning giraffe breastfeeding thousands of spiders that also happened to be tenured at Yale.  I can’t even begin to compete with that.  I had a schizophrenic friend once and no matter how much you connect with them in your world, their other reality will eventually merge with yours and the end result can be pretty unpleasant.

The door opens, someone walks through and then you hear it, “Excuse me, ladies and gentleman.”  Most people tune out at this point but, if you listen in, you might hear a pretty good story about someone’s mom having asthma or a mental illness you were previously unaware of.  The good news is that this is usually the easiest subway hazard to avoid.  Standing out of the center isle as they pass through the car is usually enough but you might have to make brief eye contact.  If the story is good enough and they’re not a repeat on my train I usually give a little change but you’re not obligated to do the same.  They’ll probably make enough money to dine out somewhere nice that week and still make rent.

Some of the most dangerous elements on the subway are also the most difficult to spot, and this is one that can go completely undetected until you get a lap full of someone’s dinner from two hours ago.  While usually a lone male, it could just as easily be a woman or a whole group sitting in wait as the inevitable draws ever closer.  Notice the slow deep breaths, swaying motion and look of utter defeat.  Heed these warnings because it might be all that you get.  If you notice any of these signs, immediately sit at least three seats away to avoid spray.  Sometimes the passenger in question may try to communicate with god by whispering his name.  This is a countdown and you will not want to be around when they finally blastoff.  It is, however, recommended that you stay on the car to enjoy the potential show that could just be waiting just at the next bit of rough track.  If you find yourself in the midst of an incident and are unable to escape the full fury of their internal evacuation, take advantage of the handrails along the top of the train.  You can safely pull yourself along most of the car without having to touch the floor.  Although if the person seems to covering their face and crying, you can relax because all is clear.  That’s how they signal that they have finished.

Alone they pose no threat, but combine them into groups of three or more and one of them will start doing pull-ups and shouting while the others exchange made up stories about girls they’ve had sex with.  If, for whatever reason, there is a young woman with them, one of them will seem to be holding her against her will.  Sometimes they will even try and force her to kiss them and she will struggle and complain.  Every fiber of your being will tell you to save this poor defenseless girl but you must not do this.  Each time I’ve spoken up on behalf of this girl, she has told me to mind my own business or the group began to threaten me with physical violence.  The peer pressure to appear tough makes them extremely aggressive and they will be more than willing to cut you with their dad’s knife to impress their friends.  If you’ve attempted to help the girl or told them to stop cursing and laughing so loudly and find yourself about to get your head kicked in, back off casually and do not show fear.  Act like you’re getting off, go to another car and wait until you can follow one of them.  Follow them all the way home and tell their parents or, if you’re pressed for time, just follow them part way home and then beat them within an inch of their life.  I can also not recommend taking an ear or one of their teeth as a trophy highly enough.

At one point this used to be a fully functioning human being but cruel fate has twisted them into their current state.  Now that they are on the streets, normal societal rules do not apply to them so their behavior might seem strange to the layman.  This includes the smells that they give off.  Average people might find this unappealing but it serves a strictly functional purpose as a signal to anyone that might disturb them while they sleep to stay away.  “Normal urine” has the ability to stink up a bar bathroom a moderate amount but the stink of derelict urine is several times more concentrated than that of a cat.  Even a few drops would be enough to disorient every single person inside of a space the size of a football field.  If possible, do not share the same car with a sleeping bum fermented in his own piss.  However, if you do find yourself trapped near one, take small short breaths through your mouth while covering your face and get off at the next stop.  Like radioactivity, a small dosage isn’t dangerous but prolonged exposure can cause you to lose teeth and hair or even be fatal.  Not every bum sleeping on the train is going to smell but, when the whole world is your toilet, the potential for them to drop their pants and just go is still substantially higher than that of any other type of human.  Steer clear unless they seemed bright eyed, happy looking and alert.

Posted in comics, Current Events, Dark Humor, humor, Life, science, Uncategorized, web comics, Webcomics | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 39 Comments

Cats Aren’t Cute and Neither is Your Date: Seeing Through the Fog of Perspective

Posted on March 6, 2012 by You Monsters Are People

Society has a serious problem with objectivity.  This is because every person perceives everything differently but it’s our job to reign that in before it we end up with racism, sexism, agism and a slew of other prejudices.  Being objective is a good strategy for almost any situation, but you don’t want to suck all of the passion out of life.  When we find ourselves in a situation, it’s important to attempt to hold some of the outsider’s perspective on our situation or else we can come across as looking a little silly.  Perhaps the most perfect example I can give, is the fervently creepy love for cats online.

Many of us, myself included, possess a strong affinity for felines.  However, this seems to be one of those affections that often goes unchecked while the person’s grasp on reality becomes ever more tenuous.  Inevitably, some of these people will spiral into a disturbing mindset that requires them to spend several unblinking hours defending their cat love at their job while having sobbing conversations about work to their pets once they return home.  Cats can make wonderful companions, but there are too many people that view all cats as whimsically cute and cuddly creatures.  You can usually recognize these people by the awful names they give their pets (like Miss Constance Wildflower) and how frequently it causes you to roll your eyes.  They’ve lost all of their objective powers and do not see the animal for what it really is. Pound for pound, cats are one of the most perfect killing machines currently walking around on planet earth.  They should have standard human names, like Burt, or awesome names that showcase their insatiable blood-lust.  When kittens grab onto your arm and kick you with their back legs, they aren’t making an attempt at cuteness.  They are practicing disemboweling prey or a future rival.  Yet I have heard countless people witness a cat doing this and say “Isn’t that the cutest thing you’ve ever seen?”

My response usually goes something like, “Yes.  I can’t think of anything more adorable than practicing a violent murder, and I am really trying over here.”

If we were like most other mammals, we would think that cats were just about the scariest thing we could ever encounter.  Even as humans we can just watch their behavior and get all the evidence needed to fully assess their sneaky, eerily sexual and violent nature, but we ignore it because they’ll cuddle up with us and we get to wake up to their darling little faces.

However, this kitty blindness is only the tip of the iceberg.  It’s probably the softest and least dangerous example I could have given. Very few people are found in their apartments eaten by their cats every year, even thought it definitely does happen.  There are so many more important things that we turn a blind eye to, fail to analyze correctly or just flat-out ignore because we’ve allowed our perspectives to become too narrow.  Everyone is going to have prior experiences shape who they are and how they deal with the world but, unfortunately, this background can mitigate logical and productive mental processing.  This is how one person can see something that seems perfectly obvious to them yet completely unfathomable to another person.  Rich people have to suffer though this problem on a daily basis due to their immense wealth creating an uncommon reality that they are forced to live in.  There are hero billionaires, like Warren Buffett, who somehow manage to see the big picture, hold onto their objectivity and better the world around them– but I’m not talking about them.  I’m talking about the morons that make regular claims about how people who earn $250,000 a year really aren’t “wealthy.”

Of course they are, and that’s totally fine, but you can’t claim that you’re “just getting by” on an income that many of us could live comfortably on for several years.  I crunched the numbers for myself and found that I could easily live on it while pursuing my dreams and still have enough left over to purchase a new wardrobe, throw some pretty extreme parties hosted by famous DJs, buy a new motorcycle and maybe rent a tiger to ride around on for a week.  However, I get what the wealthy people mean when they explain that they they only have enough money to pay the bills.  If you purchase a large home in an affluent area, buy a couple of fancy German cars, put two children through a good college, eat all the best foods and take a couple of nice vacations, you’ll only have enough money to get you through that year.  You’ll barely have enough left over to afford the extravagant holiday shopping, pay for your mistress to choke you and invest the remnants into the stock market.

Really, though, it doesn’t matter if you’re making fifteen-thousand or fifteen-million every single year.  You are probably never going to feel like it’s enough but you will always feel entitled to every penny of it and get defensive if someone even suggests that you may not be.  That really goes for everything.  Our experience and situation shapes our perspective and, once we’re at a certain point, most of us sort of selfishly feel like we just know best, regardless of what is actually best for the people whose lives we are effecting.  This is why nobody wants to pay taxes and Tyler Perry keeps making movies.  Everyone is sort of oblivious to the realities of life.  I don’t want to blow your mind, but a lot of the most attractive actors and actresses are actually just regular ugly people who happened to have talent, famous parents, or some combination of the two.

We just don’t all have the same information, so it’s easy to miss something sort of important.  Have you ever watched a couple flirting at a bar and noticed that one of them seemed sort of awful while the other didn’t seem to be aware of it?  That’s because alcohol, desperation, ignorance or past experience has blocked their ability to be even slightly objective in the situation.  The whole world functions on these almost invisible threads that create the web that supports society and we have to peer through a pretty heavy fog to see the realities directly in front of us.  It’s all pretty amazing if you stop to think about it.

Posted in cats, Dark Humor, humor, Life, love, pets, Uncategorized, web comics, Webcomics | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 26 Comments

I Watched Beetlejuice The Other Day

Posted on February 28, 2012 by You Monsters Are People

It seems like the solution to the Maitland’s problem would have been to kill the Deetz family right away.  Outside of that, being trapped in your house for one-hundred years doesn’t seem like too bad of a deal.  That actually sounds a lot better than most other versions of an afterlife that people have pitched to me.

This is really just an aside.  …more to come from me this week.

Posted in comics, humor, Life, love, stories, web comics, Webcomics | Tagged , , , , , , | 21 Comments

Digital Gravidness: What Not To Expect When Someone Is Expecting

Posted on February 22, 2012 by You Monsters Are People

If you’re anything like me, you’ve been thinking a lot about pregnant women.  It is actually pretty unavoidable what with all the rampant pregnancy on, and offline, right now.  It’s sort of hard to know what to do with it.  I love children but don’t always know what to do with babies or the people about to have them.  This is, of course, entirely dependent upon our relationship with the mother to be, so it’s hard to take a stand on the phenomenon of documenting a pregnancy online.  We all seem to be fluxing between the most sincere congratulations and quiet underwhelming disgust.  I do not entirely understand what possesses a person to photograph themselves becoming progressively fuller of baby meat.  It sort of reminds me of a middle school science project about plant growth.  It’s still pretty interesting, but also a little redundant.  We all know what to expect.  Very rarely do we see a series of pregnancy photos where the expectant mother suddenly starts to mysteriously slim down, change color or speak in tongues and, if they do, it’s normally very bad news.  So the best we can hope for is business as usual.  Despite every single person’s deepest desires, we all know that a swelling gut isn’t going to pay off with a hilarious explosion, glitter and a parachuting infant.  Childbirth is, unquestionably, horrifyingly magical.  Anyone who has seen one mammal exit another and take its first few breaths of air usually ends up a little awestruck.  However the months leading up to it are pretty boring, unless you’re the one with a tiny person lounging around inside of you.

What I would really like to see is someone go that extra mile and document the pregnancy from conception to excretion.  That would help to make up for the dull bits that we always get to see.  I support people sharing sonograms, but fourteen dozen photographs taken in front of the mirror with your shirt pulled up just seems like something to do when you’re really bored.  Honestly, it doesn’t seem fair to showcase a growing belly and then not show the aftermath.  Some people miraculously seem to come off undamaged though and I get genuinely curious.  But I’d love to see that photo where she’s in the same pose and the stomach looks like a stained deflated basketball.

Posted in comics, Current Events, Dark Humor, Life, science, Uncategorized, web comics, Webcomics | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 32 Comments

The Moments Succeeding Saint Valentine’s Day

Posted on February 15, 2012 by You Monsters Are People

I hope that everyone had consensual sex on Valentine’s Day but, if you found yourself sans a valentine, it’s not like this was your last chance.  I assure you, despite that deep dark feeling, you will probably have another opportunity.  This desperation that accompanies the holiday is really sick.  I bet the number of people who contemplate suicide is astronomical.  But, before you jump out of a second story window, take into consideration how many other people are in the same boat.  People are lonely everywhere, especially married people.  If you just want some human contact, you don’t have to shack up with someone to get it.  There are millions of people out there that would love for you to come up and hug the crap out of them, although probably not literally.  There are bound to be exceptions though.

I know a lot of people are in a hurry to couple up.  Maybe you feel like you’re running out of eggs, or have nothing left to contribute to society so you’re in a big rush to have children as soon as possible.  Well, other than that being the worst reason to have children ever, I can marginally understand.  However, finding someone on Valentine’s Day isn’t the best plan for you or that child you are so desperate to make.  Because, after that initial date, it’s going to be a couple of months before you can secretly go off birth control and conceive.  That will put the birth date of your fresh brood right back around the winter holidays and, frankly, that is the worst thing you can do to your child.  Seriously, if you’re going into labor on Christmas or Valentine’s Day, hold that baby in until a few days later.  You’ll be doing that kid a huge favor.

Besides, if you go another year without having a child, that’s another year people aren’t going to have to deal with you posting photos of yourself pregnant and then a succession of photos of that thing after you have it but before it does anything even remotely interesting.  Out of all of the people I know, less than twenty of them had a child that I bothered to keep up with and even fewer had one that I actually found entertaining.  Furthermore, sexual real estate plummets after you’ve had a child and there is no guarantee that you’re going to find someone who is going to go out with you just because they like your personality after you get divorced.  If you think this is limited to just the women, you are severely mistaken.  After a string of late night feedings and weeks of dirty diapers, take a long look into the face of a new father– I don’t think you’ll like what you find (haggard mental anguish).  Male, female, straight or gay, nobody escapes the physical ravages of parenthood.

I’m not here to cheer you up or tell you not to worry because you’ll eventually find someone perfect to start a family with.  I’m just suggesting to wait until the last possible moment, or until you’re absolutely ready for one.  It’s not like it would be the worst thing conceivable to never have children or find a long term mate though.  Also, if you happen to be Japanese, you’re just about guaranteed to stay single anyway because that whole country has made loneliness its national bird.  Even if you do find someone, most people pass on relatively soon after their spouse dies. So, even ideal love has its issues, don’t spend the whole day worrying too much about it.  We’ve all got a lot more to offer the world.  Just live your life and it will sort of take care of the rest, even without you stressing over things.

How many articles by unlikable single people did you read about on Valentine’s Day?  I read six and I was actively trying to avoid them.  At least you’re not one of those people, actively complaining about the commercial nature of the holiday, not because they have a problem with the rampant commercialism that plagues our society, but because they feel jilted and lonely on a day that exists to remind them of that.  Maybe you’re not in the perfect relationship but there are worse things in the world.  Adults that enjoy Pokemon are a perfect example of this.

There are still dozens of people in the United States still living inside of an iron lung, so we really cannot get away with feeling too sorry for ourselves.  Seriously, just consider all of the poor unfortunate ugly souls that have it so many times worse than you do.  If you can do that objectively and still pity yourself, then this next illustration is for you.

For what it is worth, I do hope everyone has a lark and finds love– just don’t do it on anyone else’s terms but your own and hold on to a modicum of self respect.  I firmly believe that we can all muster that and are absolutely worth it.  Step outside and take a lung full of air.  You’re sharing that with billions of other people.  Don’t get fixated on just one of them, even if it’s yourself.  Now go and have yourself an adventure .

Posted in comics, Current Events, Dark Humor, friendship, humor, Life, love, musings, Uncategorized, web comics, Webcomics | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 36 Comments

Scenes from the Subway: A True Story

Posted on February 9, 2012 by You Monsters Are People

 

It has been appallingly busy this week, and in all of the wrong ways too.  Happiness is a matter of occupying one’s normal state of being with a productive outlet until we are busy and lively and unconcerned with the self.  However we should all be mindful that having a task and having a purpose are two intensely different things.

So, with that in mind, I offer a short comic and a true story until I can offer more.  If you think you can translate it, you are welcome to try.  I just wrote it how I heard it but didn’t speak the language.

Posted in comics, Current Events, humor, Life, stories, true stories, web comics, Webcomics | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 25 Comments

How to be Complacent in Your Conceitedness

Posted on February 1, 2012 by You Monsters Are People

There are a lot of people out there that are so far up their own asses that all you’ll be able to see are the tips of their shoes.  However, smugness is for everyone, even “normal” people are guilty of being smug.  I certainly can attest to coming across as complacent from time to time.  It is occasionally unavoidable, but that doesn’t make it any easier to hold back all of the building violent urges you feel when someone’s sense of self-satisfaction gets right up inside your face.

This all stems from an overriding desire to be superior.  Striving to be the best is commendable but how helpful is basking in the warmth of your own perception of self-worth?  Everyone wants to believe that their chosen life path is unquestionably the best, this is why people are so proud of their adequate children and refuse to stop talking about their boring jobs. Progressing through my twenties, I have noticed that everyone starts assuring themselves (and everyone around them) that the places they have chosen to visit and live are unquestionably the best too.  No where is this more apparent than in the rivalry between the people living in the cool parts of the city and the people who live anywhere else on planet earth.

I’d, personally, love to live in all of the hippest places of several cities but they are sometimes prohibitively expensive and have a slightly more dense population of smugly successful people who have also just moved there.  This is a phenomenon I simply cannot comprehend.  You’re never going to be an overnight success in a new place.  The only exception being this documentary series I saw about a man who took a taxi from west Philadelphia to Bel Air and was made prince of the entire city overnight.  I would expect they did this because he would have to be an eccentric millionaire to pay the several thousand dollars it would cost just to take a cab.

Being completely objective, I don’t imagine a person’s overwhelming hubris is too destructive until it gets directed at another person.  The problem being that people love to make assumptions and give advice about things they have no experience in.  However, they will still find a way to channel it through their own unrelated experiences and pride before radiating it out of the toothy void in the middle of their face.

Think about the moment of your first kiss.  Before then you were likely a bit put off by the entire concept but afterward you probably changed your tune.  Did you have any idea of all of the unbridled perversion and despicable acts that it would eventually lead to?  Of course you didn’t, nobody did.  The same goes for every other moment of our lives.  We should be perpetually learning new things and attempting to remain humbly open minded.  Real experience means acknowledging that there may not be a right answer.

That’s not to say that pride isn’t important, we just all need to ride the line and not find ourselves going over the edge and falling into the smugness abyss.  And, if you are going to be conceited, you’d better have a valid reason as to why.

Posted in cats, comics, Dark Humor, humor, Life, musings, Uncategorized, web comics, Webcomics | Tagged , , , , , | 28 Comments

The Greatest Used Book in History Continued: September 1988

Posted on January 25, 2012 by You Monsters Are People

This is the ninth installment of the infamous diary within a used book that I procured from a clearance event for “junk books.”  For those of you new to this strange saga, the journal is the story of an especially peculiar woman living in 1988 who is a little over-amorous about cats and under ambitious about everything else.  While I have remained conflicted about exposing further entries of the journal, everybody always demands to know what is next.  If you would like to enjoy her tale from the very beginning (something I highly recommend) or just want to catch up on some of the earlier entries, go to The Cat Lover’s Diary.

 

Posted in books, cats, Dark Humor, Life, pets, stories | Tagged , , , , , , | 21 Comments

Seven Days of Convalescence: A Weak Week

Posted on January 23, 2012 by You Monsters Are People

Here is a bad drawing of a bad totally awesome pun I made while I’ve been unwell all this  week.  I suppose it’s healthy to be sick once in a while.  I’ll offer some real content in a day or two once my neutrophil granulocytes finish cleaning house.

Posted in comics, Current Events, humor, Life, web comics, Webcomics | Tagged , , , | 20 Comments