Surrealism

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Just got back from Tulsa a few hours ago and it's great to be home. A glance at my calendar induced euphoria when I saw that I am not scheduled to leave town again until the end of May. This may be the longest stretch of uninterrupted living in my own home in the past five years.

I'll be posting some photos and stories about my fabled trip to the near-middle of the country in a day or so, with tales of a visit to my old high school and the disturbing memories it conjured. We also had a very interesting time Tuesday in a little Oklahoma town called Guthrie.

Meanwhile, here is this cartoon from last week, which I'm not entirely sure about. I thought it might be fun to have a guy with a live web link on his face, instead of a mustache. But in color, if it's the proper bright blue it doesn't really look like a mustache, and if it's darker it doesn't really look like a link. Maybe it works anyway. Someone wrote to me who really liked it and wants to put it on his web page or in a newsletter or something, so at least one person liked it.

I'll be blogging regularly again now, but this one is short because I have to go watch Lost on ABC. I'm hooked on that show, perhaps because it is like a soap opera written by Salvador Dali. Or maybe it's just the crush I have on Evangeline Lilly.

Homeland Security

Bizarro has been brang to you today by Hometown News.

Sorry I have been remiss in my posting duties for the past few days, I have been visiting the home front in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Had a ding dang devil of a time getting here, we made the mistake of booking our flight on Delta through Atlanta, something we had sworn we would never do again about five years ago when stranded there for 7 hours. Our flight was late leaving NYC because of weather in Atlanta, but we were assured our connecting flight to the Indian Territory would also be delayed and we would have no trouble making it.

Like the serpent in the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, they lied. Our flight arrived in Atlanta one hour later than scheduled, our connecting flight to Tulsa actually left five minutes before scheduled. Lo and behold, there were no more flights that night, so we had the pleasure of spending the night at an airport hotel without any luggage. Did Delta pay for this inconvenience? Certainly not. They don't pay for delays caused by weather. How do we know our delay was actually caused by weather and not some ineptitude on their part? They assured us it was so.

Next morning, we arose at dawn to grab an early flight to T-Town, I was scheduled to perform at a fund raiser brunch that very morning. We arrived on time and rushed to the baggage claim area. As the bags began to be shat out of the bowels of the airport, we and our fellow passengers could not help but notice they were accompanied by an unusual amount of moisture. All the bags were soaked through, completely, as though submerged in a tank at Sea World overnight. Nearest anyone could tell, the rocket scientists at Delta's Atlanta baggage handling unit had left our luggage out in the rain all night long.

CHNW and I arrived at the brunch not wearing the clothes we had brought for the occasion, as it was dripping wet, but in the crumbled comfy crap we had worn for the flight. Joy.

Our troubles ended here, fortunately. The fund raiser was wonderful, everyone was nice as cherry pie, the audience was happy and tweaked on mimosas, and the show went great. After, we went to my parents house and dumped all out clothes into the dryer. Thankfully, we didn't have any "dry clean only" clothing in our suitcases or Delta would be buying us some new clothes. (Yes, I'm sure it's real easy file that claim and receive compensation.)

I began the show Saturday morning with the story of my travel woes, accompanied by a huge graphic project on the wall, "DELTA SUCKS!"

Today I visited my old high school and spoke to a few hundred kids in the auditorium. I mostly passed on wisdom such as, "it's true, you will never need algebra," and "the planet will no longer be suitable for human inhabitation in the very near future, so don't worry about those grades." They're good kids and I have no doubt that many will manage to stay out of jail for a good long time.

From there, I swung by my niece's elementary school on the other end of town to tell the first and second grade classes to "just say no to drugs." Many seemed to take my advice to heart, others looked a little too glassy-eyed to understand what I was saying.

I will likely not post again until Thursday morning. Thanks for your readership, see you then.
Reporting live from The Coffee House on Cherry Street, Tulsa, Oklahoma, this is
Danny "Chuckwagon" Piraro

Take Me Back

Bizarro is brought to you today by Giant Drag Queens and the Men Who Love Them.

I've touched on this subject of young men dressing like rodeo clowns before, but this is perhaps my favorite one. I did a cartoon back in the 90s about cops having covertly started the baggy pants fad to make gang members easier to catch on foot. Might be true.

This week, a real life cop wrote to me and said he could not count how many times this had actually happened to him. He cuffs a suspect, their pants keep falling down, and they blame him.

When the baggy-pants-underwear-showing look first became popular, I laughed out loud and thought it could not possibly last. Here we are like, what, 20 years later and it's still hip? I mean phat? WTF?

I'm heading to Tulsa in a couple of hours to visit my family and to perform at a fundraiser for my old high school, Booker T. Washington. If you have some extra bucks to donate to educating ne'er-do-wells and miscreants (some in baggy pants, no doubt), and nothing to do on Saturday morning, come join us.

Confusing Rainbow of Mystery

Bizarro is brought to you today by Presidential Dishtowels.

CHNW and I became friends with a transgender person in Hawaii recently, which later gave rise to this cartoon. Our new friend informed me of the difference between "transgender" and "transsexual" and although her definitions were a bit fuzzy, as I understand it, the gist is that transgenders psychologically relate to both sexes, crossing or erasing traditional sexual assignments, while transsexuals wish to be the opposite sex from which they were born.

Our friend in Hawaii is male by birth, but his personality, mode of dress, and demeanor are entirely female. He has changed his name to a woman's and comports himself as a woman, yet he is sexually attracted to women, always has been, is not gay or even bisexual, and hopes to find a wife. You are right, that might be a difficult task.

You might say he's a lesbian with the wrong plumbing. But he likes his plumbing and has no desire to change it. He's a lesbian with a strap-on without a strap.

How this differs from transvestism is subtle, and not something I pretend to understand fully. Apparently the term transvestite has undergone many changes through history and currently floats somewhere between transgender (described above) and cross-dresser (who wears clothing of the opposite sex but does not go as far as psychological identity.) (I think.)

Confused? That is appropriate, because sexual identity and preference is not a black and white issue, as was taught by our forefathers and mothers. (Is there a name for someone with four fathers?) It is an immense, sweaty, throbbing, sliding scale of tendencies, preferences, fetishes and nuance.

Just one more way in which the human ape is hopelessly complex, but such is our fate as mutant primates.

So for those who feel the urge to criticize, clobber, or deny legal rights to someone whose sexual orientation and/or display offends them, I ask that they remember that other people have no more control over their desire to dress like Elvis and hit on lumberjacks than you do over your attraction to drunken coeds with big boobies. Time to grow up and accept that the world doesn't always conform to our fairy tales.

SPECIAL THANKS to all you who posted an alternate caption to the Grim Reaper cartoon from yesterday's post. Most of them were great, several were WAY better than mine. I should ask you guys ahead of time on every gag. (he said, inviting the snarky remarks of various curmudgeonly commentators.)

Dead Death

Bizarro is brought to you today by Exciting Discoveries!

I spent all of my blogging time today on the previous post about Ash Wednesday, so this one is short.

I don't know how good this cartoon is (I'm sure the commentators will tell me in no uncertain terms) but I was thinking one day what conclusion you could draw after finding the Grim Reaper's dead body. If you can think of a better line for the cop to use, I'm all ears.

Ash Wednesday

Since today is Ash Wednesday, I thought I'd post a short, special tribute to my ex-girlfriend and wife, Ashley, a.k.a. CHNW, whom I commonly call, "Ash."

Here she is wearing a coat that has bunny ears on the hood. She has related to non-human animals in a special way since early childhood and cannot seem to break the habit. (Anyone who makes a bestiality comment gets voted off the island.)

Here she is with a rescued fawn at Woodstock Farm Animal Sanctuary. The momma doe was killed by a car so we took in the fawn for a few days until we could find a wildlife rehabilitator. The fawn was fond of sucking on Ash's earlobe for comfort, which Ashley enjoyed, too. What a nice lady.

Here, she is very excited about a rescued calf at Woodstock, whom we named Dylan. He was found tied up inside a dark barn and was destined to be veal. That was a few years ago, now he is all grown up and the size of a Cadillac Escalade. He still comes to the fence when Ash calls him, and clearly has affection for her. She can no longer get inside the pasture with him, however, for he could accidentally crush her skull with a twitch of his upper lip. Did I mention he is large?

Here is the obligatory Ashley with chicken and donkey shot. This kind of thing tends to happen to her a lot, this time it was at Leilani Farm Sanctuary in Maui. Keen observers will notice there are two donkeys in this picture, one is pushing his nose into Ashley's butt. Who can blame him?

Here she is sharing a guava with said butt-muncher.

Speaking of butts, in this photo, Ash cleverly displays the world's largest nut, which comes from a palm tree of some sort. Since it is somewhat difficult to discern the nut from Ashley's own booty, I have included a picture of myself with said nut for proportion.















To conclude this special Ash Wednesday edition I offer this picture of Ash in a medieval helmet. This took place a couple of years ago in an Italian museum which does not employ enough guards to prevent this sort of thing.






(Special thanks to my buddy, Richard Cabeza, who's also married to an "Ash" and who reminded me of this special day.)

Sad Stereotypes

Bizarro is brought to you today by Real Live Indians.

Me: "My name is Dan Piraro and I suffer from depression."
All: "Hello, Dan."
Group member: "You're not supposed to use your last name, this is Depression Anonymous."
Me: "You're not supposed to use quotation marks in a script format, either, so sue me."

Yes, I'm a long time taker of "crazy pills," thus called because they keep me from being crazy. As such, I know full well that anti-depressants do not make a person feel the way Melancholy Wolf appears to feel in this cartoon. In truth, they just make you feel normal. Normally happy, sad, or somewhere in between, depending on the circumstance.

I was quite the melancholy wolf for many years, with unpredictable bouts of utter hopelessness and despair, as well as unbridled anger, that would last from a few days to a few weeks. I went to shrinks, I read books, I exercised, I changed my diet, I changed my life – nothing worked. It was inexplicable.

Until one of my therapists bothered to "explic" it to me and asked me to try anti-depressants. I was very hesitant, being one of those tough guys who doesn't want a chemical solution to my problems. But I was so desperate I finally agreed and within a couple of weeks, I felt normal for the first time in my adult life. Melancholy Wolf's exuberance is representative of how I felt when the cloud first lifted. I just wish I hadn't waited until my late thirties to take the plunge.

Speaking of the Injuns in the cartoon above, I was in Indianapolis recently with some Native American comic artist colleagues and learned a lot about what sort of pop culture stereotypes bother them. I suspect this cartoon might fit into a few of those categories because I didn't bother to research it.

Not all American Indians wore braids, bone breastplates, feathers in their hair, fringe on their shirts and lived in teepees, yet that is commonly how they are depicted. Sorry, guys, didn't have time to look it up, deadlines loomed. I just went straight for the easy cliche, I hope I didn't get it completely wrong.

On a slightly different note, I'm a fan of Native American names. Not all of them are bucolic monikers about nature – like Soaring Eagle and Whispering Beaver – some are more expository. My favorite name, which was in a book of photos of Native Americans from around the turn of the 19th century, is Stabs By Mistake.

Following this method of naming, when CHNW and I were first married, I dubbed her grandmother, Stares At New Guy Like She Hates Him.