2:30am: You aren’t asleep because jet lag or midnight gelato or both roused you from a dream about not being able to find your car at your own wedding. The hillsides are alive with howling, yowling, baying hounds in tempo prestissimo. They freak each other out in simultaneous call and response, and this continues unbroken until dawn, when you look up the phrase “the dogs bark all night” (i cani abbaiano tutta la notte) so you can say it to Salvatore, the charming little old Italian man who manages the lemon grove and the breakfast. When you step out the door at 7am — red eyed, pallid, and still drum-taut with a shitty pasta that hasn’t begun to digest — he is just below your balcony, puttering with some deck boards from the empty above-ground pool that is in post-season renovations. He sympathizes, and suggests closing the window. It is your honeymoon, so you do not tear the sky from the air and cram it in his eyes with your shaky white fingers, which have become skeleton bones. It is not his specific fault Italians have no sense of dog management; the property dog, Spot, has been nothing but silent and indifferent.
Instead, you gather your best self from somewhere deep in your medulla and tell yourself you’re going to have a lovely breakfast visiting with him and his bright, tiny wife Nilde in the new little breakfast cottage they are so proud of. You like chatting with old people; you miss your own grandparents. You enjoy a tender, slightly sour warm croissant with thick, almost vindictive lashes of their homemade lemon marmalade. Nilde sets out a dish of fresh lemon cookies, and you swab them with marmalade. The hard-boiled egg is a bit green at the yolk and salt bounces off it. Don’t be a prick, they keep filling your cappuccino and offering personal dining recommendations in the far-off hills of Campagna.
Soon you and your refreshed bride, who slept, hike the thousand steep stone steps to Ravello, another ancient hamlet in the clouds. It is one mile; it takes one hour.
A 14th century villa (Rufolo) is the epicenter of affluent tourism there; you see your first organic glimpses of Prada on the women. The immaculately groomed men wear the seasonally appropriate Ralph Lauren collection. The people-watching on the square is world-class: sweaty pie-faced youngersomethings with backpacks queue democratically for tables with Warren Buffet’s pinochle buddies. Up here the taxis are black Mercedes vans we don’t have in the Stati Uniti. We choose to sweat it back down, plunging down the steps on protesting shins.
Murdered by heat and sun, you shower and collapse back at the lemon ranch. A so-so outdoor dinner on the Minori port square, managed by one of those stereotypical Italian cocks, is fine, and later you go to bed, and this time, in shifts, you eke out nearly eight hours. The sky has cracked open with a deluge that washes all the dogs away down a ravine to hell, and you smile as consciousness collapses in around you.
In 2007 an Australian journalist named Tim Blair commissioned me, writing as Ray Smuckles, to compose a series of columns for Sydney’s Daily Telegraph. Ray, true to form, didn’t really ask what Mr. Blair wanted from the partnership, and randomly submitted these pieces over the course of the next several weeks. Remarkably, they actually ran, but as they no longer exist on the Tele’s site, I reprint them here for your enjoyment.
(Edit: Thanks to alert reader Jarret for pointing out that many of these Australia columns also exist in harder-to-access form in Ray's blog! I had completely forgotten that I ran these there, after they ran in the Telegraph. So, I guess these aren't super-exclusive to Patreon, but they are formatted and edited here, with new illustrations. Perhaps I should just compile them as one big doc.)
For the next two weeks, while we're away on our honeymoon, I'm running three new strips a week, M-W-F. These are ultra-classic, single-row Achewood strips like you saw in 2001.
I'm posting three a week instead of the usual one-on-Friday because, frankly, posting short strips makes me feel insecure about providing enough value for you, even though I love how this set of six captures the old absurdist flavor of original Achewood. It's me, not you.
Why am I doing short strips at all? Because they show an essential element of the Achewood approach, and it's also becoming a pleasant custom for me to do these during my vacations. They make use of the scratch-and-dent part of my writing file — weird little ideas that can't carry a long-form strip.
Please enjoy the change-up, and when I return, you will probably see a comic about what it's like to honeymoon in Italy during a transportation strike. (Hint: Ray will sit in one restaurant in Minori and eat Pasta alla Garlic Butter until his systolic becomes a hum, like the electric pump of an aquarium).
Last night we were the only tourists at a bright and lively locals restaurant filled mainly with older couples. The food was fine but the people-watching was Michelin-grade; tables full of bangled wrists, sheer tops, stuffed trouser-fronts, hairpieces, discreet vaping, and towering bowls of mussels entertained us for nearly two hours. It was an education to see Italians in their sixties outpace us (in the slow sense) and finish a Saturday dinner at 11:45pm.
Today we wept to leave behind the lavish, classically western European breakfast spread at Casa Ricola (sp?), but it was time to mix on down to Minori on the ferry. The waters glinted, the cliffs bluffed, and the tacky embroidered bags and ball caps were hawked with disinterest by the woman who also operated the beer and cookie concession, and seemed to like the beefy Adonis who dropped the anchor.
Minori is a small beach backed immediately by terraced residential cliffs built over many centuries. It could not have been centrally planned by human intelligence, but only by a steady appreciation for mudslides, stairs, and great calves. Sure, it’s touristy, but the gradient keeps out the denim-shorted ones with the husband who won’t try the bruschetta.
Monday
Our cottage, among the dense arborage of a small lemon farm, was built in 1732 and looks out from an aerie hundreds of feet above the port. It is six AM as I write this, and the hillsides have been alive with barking dogs since I first woke at two. The better dogs can go three barks per second, if counted against the Mississippi scale. Tomorrow night we will close the window.
Today we will stretch and climb the footpath to Ravello, as the postage stamp of Minori’s quaint downtown still feels a bit defined by, and weary of, selling mealy gelato to foreign couples.
For now, we lay in wait of the breakfast the little old man has promised to cook for us in the little old building among the lemons.
Perhaps the most noteworthy event of our flight from Portland to London was discovering that our Premium Economy seats, which actually reclined to within one degree of where the body understands that sleep may commence, were not so thoughtfully engineered that popping back wouldn’t topple the stubby wineglass of the lady behind you, causing a great deal of distress for both parties. I only did it because the person in front of me had swung theirs all the way back, to no inconvenience or injury in my quarters. Startled words that edged accusation into the delicate DMZ between rows were issued toward the back of my head; a limp and defensive attempt at explanation was muttered in response. Not wanting to deal with unresolved drama along the only path to the restroom, I soon thereafter stood and apologized with eye contact and sincerity, which disarms far more often than it escalates.
Heathrow was an uneventful washing machine of souls, tumbling and streaming and otherwise indicating a total and chaotic national surrender to the challenges of managing foreigners. I was unimpressed by this, coming from a people whose chief export is the impression of order and dignity. And the bread at Pret wasn’t as good as I remembered. If a food stall at a Major League Baseball game offered a sandwich on a pretzel bun, it was this.
My first act as a guest of Napoli was to forget my phone in the cab, engendering a very grouchy, hungry, and tired hour which Lauren gamely endured. She found us a hole in the wall bar at our final destination, Ercolano, from which soon issued forth an eye-popping procession of bread-based cuisine. Forget what you know about Italian bread; this was even better, the likes of which simply may not be possible with the awful domestic flours on whose intestinal kludge the American belly swells and groans.
It is now the next morning. Sans phone, I slept in dreamless perfection on luxurious and pillowy white bedding of tender but grippy hand, and six hours later awoke to a fourth-floor view of the gulf, just shimmering into life. Soon more astounding bread, matched with prosciutto cotto, tender cheeses, and piquant condimenti filled our plates in the centuries-old stone basement of our villa, and my first caffeine in four months arrived in the form of a wholesome cappuccino. And then another, and then a small chocolate croissant and wedge of musky, velvetine white melon.
As we dined, the hostess brought my lost phone to the table, violently refusing a tip for the old cabbie, Pepe, who had returned it. I was going to give him a €50, but so be it. Her little brown dog Tobia (Toby? “toe-BEE-ya”) looked back at me as they walked away from our table, as though to make sure I did not leave the unwanted tip.
And now, changing into a more commodious shirt, I prepare for our day trip to Herculaneum and Pompeii.
Lyle's song at the end...I know it's 2024 and the rap songs playing over the loudspeakers at Starbucks are bullish on coprophagia, but it felt a bit extreme for this gentle universe. If there ever is an Achewood musical, though, (which is unlikely, because I despise musicals) it will be given the badass title PRISON AT THE DIVE BAR RIOT. It's an edgy phrase which can't be easily parsed, which quickly qualifies it as pop culture gold.
As is custom, the bloopers, outtakes, & unused lines from this strip will post at noon in the In-Universe and Author's Tiers. Upgrade for a month and get access to over 100 other pieces!
For the next two weeks, while we're away on our honeymoon, I'm running three strips a week, M-W-F! These will be ultra-classic, single-row-format Achewood strips like you saw in year one (and of which you also saw twelve last Christmas holiday).
I'm posting three a week instead of the usual one-on-Friday because, frankly, posting short strips makes me feel insecure about providing enough value for you, even though I love how this set of six captures the old absurdist flavor of original Achewood, and membership has been steady. Why am I doing short strips at all? Because they show an essential flavor of the Achewood approach, and it's also becoming a fun custom for me to do these during my vacations. They make use of the scratch-and-dent part of my writing file — weird little ideas that can't carry a long-form strip.
Enjoy the change-up, and when I return, you will probably see a comic about what it's like to honeymoon in Italy during a transportation strike. (Hint: Ray will sit in one restaurant in Minori and eat Pasta alla Garlic Oil until his belly button leaks. Again.)
Chos of Woes! As promised, here is the second installment of our honeymoon diaries. We are at the gate at PDX, next to one of those people who listens to videos out loud on their phone in a crowded place. Can you imagine life as such a creature?
This is a rather thin update, except for the news about how our cat Zigzag would not stop blepping last night when we tried to shoo her from the bedroom. Eventually we carried her and her blep to the landing and shut the door.
If you happen to be at Heathrow in about ten hours, let’s grab a kidney pie and mange tout fizzy lifter. I don’t think this dispiriting chicken bento and welded-together-gyoza dinner is going to last me all the way to Margheritaville. (The cool-down lap of fresh, hot Burgerville fries was, however, a perfect kiss goodbye to the land of arrhythmia and oil.)
Dear Ray, I'm making more money than I ever have before in my life--but I'm still always broke! Can you offer some advice for a man who is working his tail off and still cannot maintain his greenbacks? Many thanks, Frothy
Frothy,
Yeah, I seen it. Got the stack comin’ in every month, but you’re livin’ above your means, and that’s a real sour pill to swallow. I taught a seminar once on how to live thrifty, and while it didn’t go over too well—people yelled that it was “infuriating hypocrisy” and “a total masturbaTED Talk”—I did learn a thing or two while I was googlin’, and I’ll share them now.
While I don’t know the particulars of your financial situation, here are the most common leaks in the balloon:
Staying in to eat. The average cost of a casual sandwich lunch out is about $23 these days. If you buy groceries to make the same lunch at home, it’ll cost you about $63.50, which is higher.
Unnecessary Target trips. Sure, you could always have a third size of silicone spatula, but how often are you even doing high-end chocolate work? Sometimes it’s important to recognize that you’re just goin’ out to buy something in order to have any sort of emotional experience at all.
Subscription Hygiene. I just checked, and I have 73 active subscriptions. I even have a monthly subscription to an app that lets me use my iPhone as a paperweight?! A little quick math shows that I’m spendin’ nearly a grand a month on stuff I don’t even know about, or can’t exist.
Fine beds. I filled all my guest rooms with top-of-the-line Hemick & Kern mattresses and Thittavapa Monsoon sheets washed in Kurkdjian Aqua Universalis, but almost nobody ever sleeps on ‘em. If you’ve been a little too free and easy with the fine beds lately, it might be time to rein it in.
—Rayllelujah—
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Ray - How much is an acceptable amount to lie while golfing? Or I guess playing any somewhat competitive game with friends. Sincerely, John
John,
The new movement in golf is radical honesty, so dudes these days are actually competing to turn in higher numbers. It proves how strong they are, to admit how bad they yard-saled on the links that day.
A little background: everybody who plays golf knows we suck at it, and that we usually take about three more strokes per hole than we’re supposed to (when we don’t just give up entirely and kick it in the water). So, when a guy turns in a 126 instead of a 72 (par), that’s showin’ he’s an old-school honorable fella, like Socrates.
It’s a brave new time to be a man. That hokey old macho style — with the mustache and the punch in the face — is in the Dumpster, and not givin’ a damn that you suck is the new John Wayne.
—Rayment of Ermine—
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Ray, please, I just need one good versatile salad dressing recipe. Can you help a brother out. —Bungus
Yeah Bungus, I got you in the pinch. You know those extra tubs of Ranch you always throw in the glove box after hittin’ Popeyes?
‘,’,’,Fond On Cookies, Fond On Cream, He’s Ray,’,’,’
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Confidential to Gary_V in Minneapolis: Hey, glad you’re back! Hope the fishing trip went well. Missed you last week. Anyhow, I’ve found that teflon tape really isn’t necessary with the pressure rings. And, I plumped for the $600 Milwaukee cordless PEX expansion tool set, but you can get the manual expander for like $120, and it’s fine unless you’re a f/t pro.
Tomorrow, at a reasonable hour befitting two people who are trying to treat themselves nicely during a once-in-a-lifetime vacation, we will board a plane for Heathrow, then bella Napoli. There will be no one-two punch of awful sleep and terrible airport pastry that makes everyone constipated. There will be no seeing of one's breath while loading into the Uber. This honeymoon will not begin with unsightly cortisol abdomens, or the harrowing sort of disassociation where you wonder if you were just talking out loud to yourself in your seat.
Our path is Ercolano > Minori > Rome > Naples, and, emboldened by the expressive relationship which I believe Italians have with clothing, I have brought pants in pink, orange, yellow, and pinstripe. I also have a bright orange shirt, which I hope you will see in photographic updates as we wend our way from zuppa to noci each day. I have not worn this bright of a shirt before, but I am hoping I can get away with it, there among the sanguine children of Remus. (I believe Romulus was childless and given to philately, but I hope to discuss this with someone.)
See you tomorrow, Chochacho. I intend to post a daily or near-daily tour diary for you, as you have been so kind as to significantly help make this lovely trip possible. Buona notte.
The livestream archive will be open and free to the public, so please share! THE WORLD NEEDS MORE PODCASTS
One hour and forty-two minutes of me answering questions submitted by Chochachos in an AMA-style Achewood Community chat. Topics include: webcomics, my recent wedding, the two categories of cheese, and what I'd be doing for a career if I wasn't doing what I love. Makes fantastic background listening during car drives or silverware sorting; my rich, sonorous voice is never irritating or gluey.
This is the second one of these I've done. The first was an experiment and wasn't recorded. So, you can look forward to continued improvement, guests, and even...structure!
It is a quiet, chilly, early fall morning as I post this. Looking out from my second-floor office window, across the yellow and purple Giverny of treetops soon to be bare twigs, and having just been through the camera roll of my time working at the grocery store, the moment feels draped in a forlorn gauze. Five years have passed since I learned to mince garlic in a food processor that could turn barbecue tongs into tinsel; it has been five years since I felt the food serviceperson's resting grudge stain the envelope of my perception.
I still use my Husker Deux meat thermometer almost daily, and I still stand by my commitment not to eat any of the nasty food I used to cook there. Mostly I'm sad for how much time has passed from my allotment, but I also recognize that it's dispiriting to have worked so hard at something that evaporated the moment the burners were off, every veteran of the team scattering to the winds without a connection to one another.
I've long moved on, and so have most of them — let's take a closer look in this final installment.
All paid tiers (Weekly Comic, In-Universe, and Author's Tier) will be able to join me for a livestream event tomorrow, Tuesday evening, 6PM Pacific time. From my home high above Portland, Oregon I will be happily fielding your questions, complimenting your achievements, and commiserating in your miseries (limited to 3).
You will get an email letting you know when the stream has started, but best to set an alarm, as last time the alert was buggy and only a fraction of the actual membership got it. I had a lovely hour-long chat with a more intimate group of people, including a man from Iceland who was under attack from volcanoes. If that man could join, surely so can you.
Please have questions for me, on topics Achewood or other. Don't worry if you think I've answered it before; there are many new people here, and many years to cover.
Some many years ago, an Australian journalist named Tim Blair commissioned Ray Smuckles to write a series of columns for Sydney’s Daily Telegraph. Ray, true to form, didn’t really ask what Mr. Blair wanted from the partnership, and randomly submitted several pieces over the course of the next few months. Remarkably, they actually ran, but as they no longer exist on the Tele’s site, I reprint them here for your enjoyment.
The following column was written on July 26, 2007.
(Edit #2: Thanks to alert reader Jarret for pointing out that many of these Australia columns also exist in harder-to-access form in Ray's blog! I had completely forgotten that I ran these there, after they ran in the Telegraph. So, I guess these aren't super-exclusive to Patreon, but they are formatted and edited here, with new illustrations. Perhaps I should just compile them as one big doc.)
I still struggle with the feeling that these "cutting room floor" pieces should go in the Author's Tier, since they're clearly past the fourth wall, but a precedent is a precedent. Polling has shown that you fine people enjoy them here, and that's what this is all about anyway, so here they shall stay.
In other In-Universe news, you may have noticed that I got married a few days ago. This signals the end of my aggressive home repair and landscaping efforts (we had the wedding at our house, and did not want the guest toilet to be a venti Starbucks cup stuck in the flange where the actual commode used to be). Such a preponderance of time points to a renewed period of productivity here at the Patreon, and I want to thank you for bearing with me during the last several months, where the In-Universe payload seemed to consist mainly of Ray's Place and bloopers strips. I miss doing the middle-distance pieces, like the MWYEGTDAT interviews and short stories, so you'll start to see those again, along with...wherever the heart may tug the nose.
God bless, for those who celebrate.
— — — —
(I am not actually a Catholic man, despite the lukewarm efforts of my childhood church, and at any given moment am likely to just declare myself "still workin' on it" when it comes to spiritual commitment.)
The outtakes and unused scripts for this strip, as always, post at noon today in the In-Universe and Author's Tiers.
To be a very young boy decades before the Internet was to live in an information desert of speculation, misunderstanding, and ill-intentioned lies. What precious little could be deduced about the female body occurred in the liminal mental space between the brassiere section of a catalog, and a terrifying thing a cackling boy from a broken home said about boobs leaking during orgasm.
May the unmanaged nature of sexual awakenings be a subject of conversation at all your weekend's gatherings.
Tell me by 1pm PST today which of these designs you'd like to see on apparel in the 2024 Achewood holiday shop! Please leave your thoughts in the comments.
The first three will be tees, and I want to re-release the Dude and Catastrophe on a thick forest green hoody, As Is Classic. Thank you!
As mentioned elsewhere, I got married a few days ago, which signals a return to my full-time writing and cartooning in the Achewood Patreon! Here are the updates currently in the hopper for your enjoyment during the next several weeks:
All Tiers (including Free)
Free Membership Trivia Contests — The last two were a lot of fun, and I will be doing these again, so that more Free members can come in and see just how much great material goes on here. (A one-month free membership was awarded to ten people; I'll be giving away half that many in the future.)
Holiday Shop Updates — I'm getting ready to open the holiday shop in Mid-October, and am excited to share the new products and news with you. They are badass.
Weekly Comic Tier
Honeymoon Comix! — We'll be honeymooning in western Italy soon, but I have prepared M-W-F comics to run while I'm away. These are ultra-classic single-row-format Achewood strips like you saw in year one (and of which you also saw twelve last Christmas holiday). I'm posting three a week instead of just one on Fridays because, frankly, posting short strips makes me feel insecure about providing enough value for you, even though I love how this set of six captures the old absurdist flavor of original Achewood, and membership has been steady.
Regular Comics! — After the two weeks of honeymoon comics, the regular comics will of course return. I'm focusing on standalone strips for now, and giving long storylines a break. Looking forward to revisiting characters we haven't seen in a while.
In-UniverseTier
All previous content, plus:
Ray in Australia — Ray was an actual columnist for the Sydney Daily Telegraph In 2007, thanks to SuperCho and Aussie journalist Tim Blair. I'll be reprinting the half-dozen columns documenting Ray's journey to Australia here, as they can no longer be seen anywhere else.
Ray's Place — Including another call for your questions.
Author's Tier
All previous content, plus:
Livestreams — I have been bitten by the chatterbug! I did an hour-long livestream a few weeks ago (due to a tech error the notification only went to like 100 people) and had a wonderful time — it reminded me of how much I used to love doing bookstore signings and getting to know you. My buddy Uncle T "Boothnavy" Norton subsequently sent me a top-shelf Blue Yeti microphone the size of a tallboy, so this chapter has officially opened. Get your questions / discussion topics ready!
Honeymoon updates — As requested, I am going to post photos and journals from our upcoming honeymoon in Rome, Naples, and Amalfi. Still interested in your recs for these areas.
Conclusion of "My Stint As A Real Cook" — Nothing lasts forever, especially me working as a cook at a grocery store. Please enjoy this final chapter in which I struggle with the inescapable socialist implications of hourly commodity employment, and run a "where are they now" on some of the characters we came to know and feel sad for.
Surrender — The story of my time studying with yogi, flavorist, Chinese & Ayurvedic functional tea master, and extradimensional pinhole Guru H. Khalsa.
On Saturday afternoon at 4:30pm Lauren and I were married before a small gathering of friends and family on the property we had prepared for the last year. It went off with a hitch.
We were seen unto the pouring-forth of our conjoined life by children, sisters, friends from small times, patient parents, and a man who is quietly dying. (He forced himself to be well enough to come. He is not pictured here.)
The living room floor joists did not collapse into the basement under the weight of guests who sought pre-ceremony air conditioning. The toilet did not capsize from its gasket. The barmaid was swift and kind; the appetizer station (my purview) was cold and bountiful. A tray of emergency cheese, ferried upstairs to stabilize the bride, a daughter of Wisconsin, restored equanimity to her and her cohort of Hair & Makeup specialists. The groom made small talk in the driveway with a friend from fifth grade who is now a firefighter in Seattle.
Charley Crockett's I Am Not Afraid began things. The Zombies' This Will Be Our Year saw us back down the aisle. In the middle, we were in the moment, unconcerned with crowd or priest or drone-of-ex, in love and alone together, as we are everywhere, but there was a greater openness and feeling of potential between us than perhaps even when we met three years ago.
Some rice told us it was time to kiss. Later that night, we signed government forms so that I could get on that sweet, sweet spousal medical insurance.
We're off to Rome, Naples, and Amalfi soon enough. (Got any recommendations?) For now, we're enjoying calm in the house again, while the last partygoer quietly deals with Covid down in the guest room. Tonight we left a homemade doner kebab wrap in front of his door, dressed with my special wedding dijonnaise. I notice that all my favorite coffee mugs have disappeared. I hope he is ok.
Here are the vows I declared to Lauren during our ceremony. In order to carry them off, I mentally told myself, "You are Kurt Vonnegut." That gave me both the presence, confidence, and lubricity of delivery to really sell the goods.
***
Lauren, That we agreed it was not just exciting, but logical, to save a listing old farmhouse, while simultaneously reinventing our careers, and managing a travel schedule that would leave Odysseus panting — meant each of us had found our needle in a haystack.
You and I knew this long before, of course. Some say as early as that first fateful walk among the marshes and oaks, where I met a woman with a playful imagination, a beguiling energy, and eyes whose vocabulary sends the great poets packing.
This place where we’ve spent the last one year and one week — an old house that was built before World War One, the circular saw, and the cheeseburger lunch (two of which have been indispensable to the stability of our bond) — has had one particular, remarkable effect on us that I notice every night. It may seem small, but it unmistakably means everything, and it is this: after sixteen straight hours of the things we do for pay, and then the carpentry-by-moonlight, the electrical-by-flashlight, and the endless, endless painting — as we lay in bed, as we always do, chatting for an hour or more before the lights go out, I notice that, at some point yet again, we’ve begun holding hands.
And the next day we start anew and mostly refreshed, with the desire to do right by one another in this grand project which makes no illusion about being both a colossal metaphor, and the literal roof under which we will go through our ages together, building a happy basis for this inexplicable miracle to which we awaken each day. In this home, you have shown me how true partnership feels, and what it expects, and how it rewards equal sincerity.
These three years with you have been a wonderful way to experience the phenomenon of love, to piece together the twin-language which identifies a couple that is not so much new as reunited, each day building calmly on the last, every hour embroidered with the unique new patterns of lives that have become one life.
Lauren, here before the people who have traveled from far and wide and deep through time to affirm that our love is true, and offer us their ongoing support, I give you myself for the rest of my days, and will be your loyal husband in all the seasons and cycles of life.
***
Next week, it's back to non-me content. Probably. You never know, I might get hit by a plane or something and star in a cool gurney video I just have to share. But not having a house to restore, or a wedding to operate, has just put a whole lot of time back in my schedule, and I plan to be at my desk. Which I really need to share a picture of, because my desk is a piece of lumber across the arms of an upholstered chair a cat peed in a long time ago.
Dear Ray — I am engaged to the most wonderful woman. She comes from a smaller family than I do; I am very fond of her parents, and her sister is a charming character (this is fundamentally a compliment, but complicated). Thing is, her sister's wife? She sucks. She is ungenerous of spirit, incurious by disposition, and aside from some unimpeachably virtuous choices re: their children, the kind of person one would try to drum out of a party by making loud fart noises at every time they try to speak. Is there a proper way to express a broad disdain which doesn't lower my own vibrations beyond what a couple reasonable tacos could restore? — Tyrone
Mr. Tyrone,
Hell of diggin’ on this well-written letter! Man, this lady sounds so unpleasant you could basically put her in a Jane Austen movie as-is. (Except she would wear a tight wicker bonnet, shaped kind of like the original leather football helmets, and scold pets. The smaller the pet, the bigger the scolding — you know the type).
So, a guy who understands people as well as you probably already knows that, no, there ain’t no way to broadcast that you think this chick is big brick ’o bum-chunk. Especially since you ain’t even been down the aisle yet! If this squish diblet and your bride are close, you got to suck it up until she offends you personally in front of another family member, at which point you can defend your own honor (privately, later, but it sets the ball rolling). If they ain’t so close, and you can confide in your fiancée that her sis is a boy dog’s O-face, she’ll appreciate that you are open with her, so long as you choose your words gently. Either way, this ain’t a sitch where you come in guns blazing, ’cause that grommet-wattled jib-neck still ranks higher than you in the family totem pole, and she’s producin’ lineage.
Of course, all that can change if you play the diplomat. Consider it a fun roleplay! And write us back to let us know how you’re gettin’ over.
-=DOUBLE-0-RAY7=-
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Dear Ray, I have a friend who is “getting into” grappa. But that stuff tastes like old fish in turpentine. What can I tell him? — Carl
Dear Carl,
The 1990s called, and they need Kevin James to ride a Segway across the set of Friends.
Okay, that didn’t really tie in with grappa at all, but I want to communicate that grappa ain’t been culturally relevant since Clinton was Trumpin’ ladies over the pants in the break room. I just liked the idea of the 90s always wishin’ more 90s stuff would happen. (It’s like, The 90s Haven’t Grown! That would be a killer TV show.)
The list of niche liquors that permanently fail to launch in the USA is as long as your arm. Grappa, cachaça, retsina, poteen, rakija, moonshine, whatever. If they’re drinkin’ it outta used 7 UP bottles in some unplumbed holler somewhere, somebody’s gonna burn through his marketing spend tryin’ to romanticize it into the US market.
But to dis a man’s special vice is to dis him as a man, so that ain’t useful water. Just let it run its course. There’s a reason the only grappa drinkers are either 25 with a Tesla, or 85 with a small beret.
=-Bibulo-Phanatique-=
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Dear Ray, Last weekend, I was at a friend's barbeque, and everyone was starting to have a pretty good time. You know what I mean, homemade margaritas in the punchbowl and smiles all around. I found myself talking to a dude I had never met before, and after about a minute of smiling and nodding at him, I realized he was an asshole. Often, I will cut short an interaction with an asshole by pointing out what sort of asshole I think they are and briskly walking away. But this was a small, crowded deck, we were elbow to elbow, and everyone, except me, was having a great time with all the laughing and conversations, and such. I didn't want to kill the vibe, and there was no room to briskly walk away, so I had to endure this bona fide asshole for several minutes until he went to get another drink. What is your advice for disengaging from a situation like this without ruining the scene? — C C
Dear C C,
I have known Pat for more years than I care to count at this point, so I get you. Last month at my regular shindig around the pool, he kept coming up to every group I was in, and braggin’ about how he’d just made this big investment in some Utah-based startup company that makes solar-powered blinds. It was that thing where he was all high on risking a lot of money (embarrassing but universal rookie phase) and wanted everyone to both validate and worship him, like he was some kind of market-shapin’ whale for dropping a couple grand. In my head I was all, “Dude, your alpha on that is gonna be zero once China gives those excited Mormon kids a few tasty ones across the face.”
In earlier times, I would have dunked on him in front of everybody. I coulda’ said I drop more change when my pants fall down. I coulda’ asked what their Dooney Ratio was. (That’s a concept I made up just for this example, using the classic Irish Last Name + Math Term formula. If I get pushback, I say some jazz like, “it’s the coefficient of their run rate over their nationalized dividend schedule.” Toss my business salad, cause you’re eatin’ my Warren buffet.)
But these days, I want to radiate positivity. It’s best for the brand. At the end of the road, nobody likes a bitter dude, even if he was funnier, smarter, or right. It’s always better to be remembered as the peacemaker than the saber-rattler. My method for dealin’ with a jerk in a group is, “say nothing.” Somebody takes a convo-shit in the air? Leave that hangin’ there to stink, don’t grab it and rub it all over the brand. Keep it their problem. Silence is power.
An alternate technique is, if you want to disengage from some dud without creatin’ bad energy, point your finger in the air like you just thought of something brilliant, and say, “I know exactly who you need to talk to. Stay right here.” Then leave. Because nobody is exactly who they should be talkin’ to.
-=Raytaliation Nation=-
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Confidential to Fantail_Frannie_NOLA: When I’m leaving on a trip I always send my luggage to the airport in a separate Uber, from Téodor’s house, and I tell my Uber driver that I just need a lift back to the airport to get my car outta long-term parking. That way they never know if and for how long I’ll be gone. I learned this from a Joe Rogan guest.
(This strip is not the beginning of a storyline.) (Also, I apologize but the noontime bloopers version of the weekly strip will return next week, please read below.)
Dear Reader,
It is exactly one day until our wedding. I currently have one shoe on, and am about to rush out to clip table and altar flowers from a local nursery. I have to pick up three dozen cheese and onion knackwurst from Gartner's, for the appetizer station. Then a dozen local fruit pies. I have to soak my head in frozen water to give the impression that I have slept. I forgot to eat dinner last night because of a very salty hamburger at lunchtime. We are picking up ten eight-foot tables with an aircraft-carrier-size Dodge Ram pickup truck a friend rented through something called Trulio or whatever. There are parents, friends, staff, and the long-lost sitting on airplanes on tarmacs across the country. I apologize for not having a really great paragraph, or In-Universe / Author's Tier version of the strip this week. These things will all return next week, when I am a married man!
I feel distant from some of my family (cousins, uncles, aunts). I’m almost 30 and I’m wondering if its worth putting in the effort to get closer to them or if its better to just accept that none of us are close and that’s just the way it is. How do you deal with distant family?
— Scott
Dear Scott,
It’s a real pivot point, ain’t it? When you’re little, family is all you know, which teaches you that family is the highest value. But family is just a lot of people who grew up to realize that family ain’t permanent, that family is just people with their own interests, who don’t necessarily value havin’ you around, unless there is some elder at the top demonstratin’ this stuff and doin’ the maintenance on it. It ain’t personal when an uncle goes from the light drug addict in the Izod shirt you know to the light drug addict in the Izod shirt you don't — it's just the natural way of things.
But one thing to remember is, families also age on more of an epic than an annual scale. Family patterns are long. You might find in a decade that you and Uncle Teasemont actually really enjoy traditional Yankee woodworking, or Older Cousin Lune-Miel also really loves Taiwanese soap operas, and the fact that you’re family makes hangin’ even richer.
Or, like usual, everybody might fade away. Aunt Bonaventúre (first name) might move to France to deal with horses or drink alone. Nephew Chandé might become a gunman and then homeless. Try not to get sad. Everything they do is their fault, including drift away from you.
View From A Quiet Ray
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Hey, Ray,
How do I make time & energy for working on my side hustles / dreams when working a 9-5? How do I stoke that go-getter fire if I’m slouching at a damn Dell monitor for one third of a 24-hour day?
—Mackenzie
Mackenzie!
I began this reply with an energizing exclamation point, ‘cause you got to get your energy up if you’re gonna escape them gerbil shavin’s you’re buried in! And unless you’re gonna burn your board up with Adderall and crack, you’re gonna have to hit them bricks with fine, fine Nikes in high-motion blur. Literally.
Now, you got to create the energy you need from within. That’s difficult when your job is killin’ your ass, but success is hard (Mother Nature reserves it only for a tiny fraction of a percent of her players), and the sad path you’re on is only gonna get worse and harder to escape with every minute. (Close your eyes and picture blackness. That’s death. It’s in the Uber, comin’ from the airport. It will rotate its head robotically toward you when it pulls up in front of your window.)
But there's a good first step. You ever been on a walk? It ain’t just easy, it’s also a fun excuse to buy nice shoes. Walk six miles a day for a month, no complaining, Sundays off. You don’t have to go fast. Just go get those miles. GET THEM!!! Pretty soon you'll start to have energy again, and that investment will build other good habits and self-care instincts. GET THEM!!!
Oh, I almost forgot! Also don’t eat any food that was made in America. J. Michel Balanquin, this video diet coach I had during Covid, had me try that approach for a month. It was like takin’ off a space suit filled with wet plaster.
I’m stoked you want to escape that nasty wheel! Write me back and let me know how you’re treadin’ the grass fantastic, slappin your ass with your heels all gymnastic!
Ray, The Art of The Entrepreneurship of Life Advisement
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Most Esteemed Playa,
After a long time on the Bench of marriage, I find myself unceremoniously pinch running in the dating pool. I do not want to play poorly for unwanted prizes. Neither do I wish to scrape scraps from the human lint trap and reconstitute it, like shoddy, into something that holds up as human connection under only the most cursory and untested scrutiny. I don't drink, so the classic barmeet is not such a great option. I've gotten a phone number here and there in the neighbourhood, but almost uniformly plans get cancelled. I seem to have a horrible talent for giving the families of women who make plans with me medical emergencies. I have spent a little time swiping on apps, but the people who seem interested in me are, politely, not interesting. Bit of a Groucho Marx thing going on maybe? Who's to say. It seems kind of like these apps are a video game for pretending you are doing things about making your life better. Like DuoLingo, for loneliness. I'm a little lost. When I read profiles, what women say they are looking for tends to line up pretty well with what I have to offer (credit scores and Going to Therapy and decently presentable in a way that she will not wake up in the middle of the night panting from a nightmare about a celebrity I have never heard of tempting me away with a sex position I have also never heard of). Help a player get his mojo back?
—Ben
Ben,
Okay, as far as getting your mojo back, what do you believe in? It’s real easy to have a spark with a lady if you have a fundamental belief in common. (Cornelius calls this “ideology,” but he just means beliefs, or opinions.) I have seen hella-unlikely couples superglued together because they shared a real strongly-held value, such as protecting the home with guns. I’m talkin’ fat old ugly-assed retired three-foot-tall business dude, with some Amazon spray-tanned muscle lady who has bleached hair and a white cowboy hat like Vince Neil. If those two can get rug-utty on the Idaho bearskin, I got way better hopes for a dude of sentences like you. Maybe try a writer’s workshop or book club (I swear these things are real, though I have never googled even one character of those words), or go see some small local stand-up. Also recently discussed around here is that yoga classes are a great way to meet single ladies who are in a good mood.
Send us baby pics in nine months, or at least a sonogram that's pretty far along!
-=DayRondo RayDondo=-
PS The Random Nash is a great sex position for your more elite player. It’s based on the work of John Nash (that game theory dude), and involves five potential partners standing in a flat room, facing you. You hold up the palm of one of your hands, as though to “stop” them from coming at you, then close your eyes for five minutes. The one that is still staring at you is insane, and will be a hoot for a few days, until the insane stuff starts coming out. (This also works if you are female and the five are male, except after ten minutes they will all still be staring at you, and will continue to do so until you leave.)
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Confidential to Gary_V in Minneapolis: Man, I been there, and the first time it happened it broke my heart — I was utterly defeated. What I had done was accidentally hit the brass nipple with the utility blade when I was usin’ the heat gun to remove the PEX pressure collar. Even a microscopic nick will cause leakage. Just get a new brass coupling and you’ll be fine.
Today I felt the inevitability of the wedding tractor beam for the first time. It was signaled by the surprise pop-by arrival of an excited friend, the first indicator that things outside of my control were going to start happening with greater regularity.
I installed the risers on the new front stairs this afternoon. Don’t my sassafras balusters look clever? I borrowed a scroll saw for these, but can see the logic in owning one.
Earlier today I went shopping for a tie that will match Lauren’s dress, and one actually materialized at the first place I looked. Thank you for small mercies, Clackamas Nordstrom Rack. I also bought a shirt which promised to wick away the sweat stains on the 90-degree day we’re going to have. Feeling blessed by kismet, I me-dayed it at a birria cart, then a banh mi shop, then Dutch Bros for an iced decaf.
Please have a look at some candids from the recent preparations, and get ready for more action shots as the event draws nearer.
I was wondering if I ever used that "you don't look good at karate" scenario anywhere. Did I? If I didn't, I could still use it in a strip, even though it's just been "spoilered" a bit. I think I could still make it work, though. Please let me know! At this point it's impossible for me to keep nearly twenty-three years of this tumbling blabberband in accessible memory.
Outtakes and production notes for this strip post at noon in the In-Universe and Author's Tiers! It's like a whole other strip every week.
During the autumn running season, when it's easier to put on miles, the rogues' gallery of my toenails grows to strongly resemble that multi-color corn moms used to decorate with when I was small. Misshapen, broken, absent entirely...the toe box of my On™ Cloudsurfers is quite the bundle of berries — a horror to behold, and I imagine it is no easier for others. This got me nostalgic for when toe jam was the extent of my problems. Does anybody have a good article about how that stuff even forms, and is it mostly just sock molecules?
On Saturday, September 7, Lauren and I will be married at a small ceremony here on our property. This event is the culmination of, among other things, one year and one week of constant renovation, repair, financial hemorrhage, landscaping, and the desire to strangle a certain electrician with his own 12-gauge Romex. (Q: How many crooked switches and outlets can a man truly install? How many old circuits can one man fry and fail to repair before that tasty pow-pow falls and snowboarding season opens? A: How many you got, pal.) Then, ten days later, we're off to the Amalfi Coast and Rome for a couple weeks. I'm gathering a handful of those single-row-style comics to post here and there throughout the time we're gone, like I did last holiday season. If you have any travel recs for those areas, please share in the comments! My heart soars not only to think that I will join the love of my life before all gathered on a day of joy, but also that I will not pick up an impact driver, compound miter saw, or paint gun for at least a month.
Did you miss the Achewood livestream? Patreon tells me that only 119 of the 3800 or so members got the announcement, due to a permissions error, so you probably did. It was a full hour of happy live audio, where I responded to reader questions in voluminous and illuminating detail. I got so excited by the experience that I told my good friend Uncle T that I was considering investing in a nice lavalier microphone, and he immediately sent me two brand-new Yeti Blue mics from Sweetwater Music. (This man cares a great deal about microphones, and occasionally teaches classes about them.) It's the size of the microphone Letterman had, so I am feeling pretty good about things. Are there any podcasts you think I should be on? I was thinking maybe I could pay a visit to the Senator Ted Cruz podcast and create some variety besides cheap, nasally partisan whining. (I am actually only thinking about him because I wanted to sneak into the wedding program that the homily would be read by surprise guest Senator Ted Cruz, and quietly observe the crowd for growing discomfort.)
During the livestream, a nice man from Iceland said that he was under attack from volcanoes. Let's all hope he's alright, and tunes in again with an update. Was a new Todd being born? (Töddikkáá?)
In lesser news, I am looking for a tasty decaffeinated coffee. We stopped drinking caffeine several months ago, mainly out of boredom with ourselves, but quickly noticed several positive health benefits. Chief among them were equanimity, focus, and no longer waking up at 3am to pee (me). If you're a nightstalker like I used to be, take a few weeks off the chittering bean and see if your life isn't acutely improved. What makes a tasty coffee, to my palate? Rich, dark, chocolatey, almost burnt. (I'm not into that poncy, acidic, light roast stuff. I want Willy Wonka and roofing tar. I don't want there to be any doubt that I am tasting something.)
Speaking of dull dietary tweaks, we've stopped buying food that has enriched flour in it. I don't remember exactly why, but it largely has to do with (a) generally eliminating food that the government/cigarette industry/pesticide industry has fucked with, and (b) some podcast about the inability to methylate folic acid. One of us, perhaps due to a misfiring MTHFR gene, has noticed a distinct lack of inflammation/fluffiness in the subsequent months, but more I will not say. Fucked-with flour has joined refined sugar and BPA-lined cans on the shame wall of our dietary history. (Recent inductees to the diet include potato chips fried in avocado oil, herbal teas with honey and lemon juice, and all the homemade hummus we can eat.) If this paragraph has painted a sad picture of two ageing Portland worry-warts, a millimeter of alfalfa sprout just visible at the creases of their mouths, don't worry: It's Always Sausage Week.
Also health: I noticed that since I've transitioned from a flat, 10-mile run to a very hilly and excruciating 5.5-mile run, my VO2 max has climbed a few points, so I'm saying goodbye to my favorite long slog for now. At least, until I get nostalgic for that one concrete plinth behind the MLK Safeway where a different solo drug addict or vibrating alcoholic always seems to be producing a glistening pool of vomited cereal.
(I had spelled that "excrutiating" at first, and could not fathom why it got a red underline. And two days ago I realized it was "impostor" and not "imposter." Will I next forget my own mother? That would certainly make for an awkward wedding.)
Lyle is claiming that he just pooped out "one of the rings from the Olympics logo," but nobody is fooled. Téodor just yelled at him to flush it and stop claiming stolen valor.
That's it for today. I'm off to Lowe's to buy lumber for the new front porch stair risers, prime and paint a used console table we'll use for living room books, get some new trim for the double doors, and maybe even write some vows. Thanks for tuning in, and I'll see you...at the Library.
Hi Ray. How are you so calm and chill? I am anxious about everything. —Jonathan
Jonathan,
No way to sugar coat this: chill is a born thing. I’m sorry about how life seems to you, but there is no solution except either (a) finally finding whatever chemical God didn’t give you, or (b) spending seventeen years meditating. Even in the latter case, though, if somebody cuts you off in traffic you’ll still emotionally relapse and repeatedly bang your head at either end of a continuous arc between your headrest and the steering wheel, and your pencil-type Hare Krishna hair thing will flail all around in your 1999 Honda Insight. (Butts in the ashtray, old Incubus CD with a chewed gum on it in the console box. Calling it.)
So, my main advice is to eat a real small-dose (like 1-2mg) weed gummy and see where that goes. For me, I stop knowing “when” it is, if you catch my meaning, and that’s like always the first step towards happiness. Was time the worst invention man ever made? On a real big philosophy level, probably. Maybe you agree.
-=Pistachione=-
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Hey Ray, How do you get over impostor syndrome? I feel like I've gotten lucky to get where I am but it's a bit of a house of cards right now, professionally. I'm worried that I am gonna get "found out" one day for not really being fit for the gig. Joe L.
Dear Joe,
I’ve heard this term “impostor syndrome,” but I never connected with it — just like people who say they can’t eat cilantro. I love cilantro in all the ways that I can experience it, so I am baffled by folks who say, “iiiitttt’’’’sss ssssooooaaaapppyyyyy!!!”
What you need to really get through your head is that outside of Albert Einstein and the other old suds who got their jay-peg on with equations, everybody is fakin’ it to some degree. (And there is actually new evidence that even he cooked his potatoes a little sideways sometimes.) Also! Remember this: nobody is as good as folks in the movies, ’cause nobody has Aaron Sorkin dreamin’ up how witty they could be while he trips on some ultra dark-web designer smoke called like, “amethyst-antagonized purple dialogue meth.”
Here’s an exercise I want you to do: next time you see a CEO, or a gray hair person who meanly teaches the hardest literature, imagine them driving along in an average pickup truck with the windows up. They indulge in some real humid garlic-seafood-on-a-road-trip gas (the kind that actually stays in the fabric of your clothes for a while) at the exact same moment a cop pulls them over, and they have to roll down the window and let the cop see that they have been sittin' there stewin’ in the kiss that their next shit just blew ’em. Who's lookin' all expert now, SpongeBob FogShorts?
Also, that reminds me: try takin’ an acting class. Spongebath, that big dude on the mart scooter, took improv for a couple months down at the JC, and I swear that guy could be national. His flow is lava, his flow can melt aluminum objects, you can braise oxtails in a pot near his flow. I need to have a party, so I can share his flow with the people.
-=Raycharles=-
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Hey Ray, my go-to dinner routine to impress a date is home made pasta with a lobster cream sauce (lobster base ftw) with some tender shrimp on the side. But how do you live an ethical life with the weight of capitalism on your shoulders? I should be middle class but damn if asparagus as a side dish isn't wrecking my budget. — Sandra T.
Dear Sandra,
Daaamn, that sounds luxe as hell! How’s a player get on your dating schedule!? I mean, I don’t know anything about you, but you are clearly a lady of tender textures, and □□□&&endif
Okay, I just got an alert from our new software Chris installed, saying I am not supposed to respond to stuff in that way anymore. We are being real careful about this stuff these days. It ain’t the grody old times of me just sayin' whatever. It is now, and we are serious. It's the right thing to do. We are on track for a great ESG score and it means more to us than anything.
I want to talk to you about charred broccoli. Charred broccoli is very affordable and has a smaller carbon footprint than asparagus. You can cook it for one dollar a person and it is nearly identical in fiber content. Charred broccoli is mainly the molecule 8-dibroctane-chemodecahedron-9-1111-1111111.1111
{
then.PerfectRay
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Confidential to Gary_V in Minneapolis: To make matters worse, there’s crimp PEX and there’s clamp PEX, and they ain’t interchangeable, and each needs entirely different tools. (I tried to re-pipe my hot tub one time when Arlingo was outta town, and learned this the hard way.)
I'm not going to lie, but I am typing this sentence at a pretty good clip because I want to go play my electric guitar. Evening is wrapping up fast, not much light left, and there are moody clouds due for rain. I am upstairs and I can sit in the wide window that faces the street and Mt. Hood and plug in the amp and twiddle the dial to a synthetic pedal preset that I created. It's kind of ethereal like Frusciante's The Empyrean. I'm playing a Telecaster I got used a couple years ago. Its action is so light and easy that I'm bending notes I don't even mean to. It's like trying to fret across the belly of a ticklish finch. You have to be delicate.
(A full page of outtakes, along with a very different version of this flowchart, post at noon in the In-Universe and Author's tiers!)
Ray was recently challenged to help a sad, homely man become handsome. This led him to a "lotta' thinkin'," and he came to the realization that self-confidence and charisma are the most powerful tools a man has in attracting others. He argued - by extreme example - that devastatingly handsome men who communicate mainly in short, selfish grunting noises, and always have the dried juices of marinated steaks on the skin around their mouth, are unlikely to attract mates. Then he swung in the opposite direction and identified ascendant comedian/podcaster Stavros Halkias, the featured finial in today's flowchart, as a dude whose personality is doing so much heavy lifting that the physical form of the man himself becomes a sort of prop for the revolutionary notion that the body should be in service of the personality. Halkias's personality is so engaging, Ray stated, that his physical self only makes complete sense, and is therefore perfect, and attractive.
This is also a way of saying that you may, or really may not, find Ray's weekly advice column Ray's Place useful, at least as a basis against which to evaluate actual truth.
