Some co-workers and I took one of our Chinese suppliers out to lunch a couple weeks ago. I work with a Project Engineer who is drier than sawdust, and of course he accompanied us which frankly worried me from a conversation standpoint. His idea of a good story is how his sandal squeaked, and he thought it was a kitten. Yeah, that is one of his rather more involved stories and takes him at least five minutes every time he tells it.
So we are at lunch, and he begins telling this involved story about a comic book he read where Superman crash landed in Russia during Stalin's reign and became a proponent of Soviet Communism and the Marxist Party et al. He's sitting there telling us this - and why I haven't a clue except maybe the presence of a Chinese national who lives in a Communist country spurred his recollections - when finally I couldn't take it anymore. You know my political views; I burst out and said, "Well, I simply couldn't read a book like that-" and my co-worker said, "Why, because it has
pictures?"Har-HAR! I laughed really hard at that one. Sometimes even simple people can stumble into a really, really good joke. But now you know everyone, don't get me any books with pictures. ;)
11 comments:
HA! They know you!
Seriously, I used to love comic books and graphic novels. Anymore, I just can't get into it.
That's all I have.
Then why'd you put pictures on your blog?
This post cracked me up because for many years I worked as a marketing manager for engineers. They thought I was crazy because I was creative and liked something called, "design." They preferred something called a "straight edge ruler."
I often had Devo's song "Blockhead" running through my mind when I was in a room with several of the engineers:
CUBE TOP
SQUARED OFF
EIGHT CORNERS
90-DEGREE ANGLES
FLAT TOP
STARES STRAIGHT AHEAD
STOCK PARTS
BLOCKHEAD!
This is a great story, well told. I'm with you on the picture thing. I never thought comics were funny, not Bazooka Joe (that's a bubble gum wrapper comic for the edification of you young-uns) or the Sunday comics. Well, I did read them and somewhat enjoyed them but never really laughed. This from the dame who laughs so hard at other stuff it almost hawks up the lungs....anyway, I liked this entry.
Shorty: Yeah, for a BLOCKHEAD I thought his comment well-timed and quite insightful. Here's the thing, though...I don't think he was trying to be funny. Maybe he was trying to insult me. ;)
BPV: Uh, yeah! You've evolved as a human being beyond the need for the superficially-enhanced "pow" and "ker-punch" of the graphic novel. You've developed the ability to do that in your brain. It means you're smart. Yay for you!!!
Ah, Blackbird, you thinks you befuddled me but no.....I put pictures on my blog because it pleases me. I have no psychological dissonance with the fact that what I say and what I do is not consistent. Hence, the charm that is bunnyjo.
Debra: Perfecto! A woman who understands the tongue-rasping dryness that is life with engineers...the bad stories, the bad clothes, the bad hair, the bad music, the bad jokes....it is an endless cycle of boredom relieved by the occassional accidental insight. I have to go to these engineering meetings where they endlessly discuss the attributes of a screw, and I LIVE for the moment when I can inject a bit of humor. Do I care that the geek squad all turn to me as if I were an alien species suddenly revealed in some presto-magico phenomena....? No, I just throw it out there into the atmosphere hoping to lift the cloud of intellectualized stupidity just enough so that I can breathe for one dilapidated second as I scream silently, Help me, dear God, I think I am going out of my mind!!!!
Vee: Do you mean to say that you never liked Calvin & Hobbes? Oh, please, that has to be the funniest cartoon ever put to printing press! Perhaps you forgot that for a moment.
WHILE I'VE READ & ENJOYED BOOKS SUCH AS "THE HOBBIT" "LORD OF THE RINGS" AND THE CONAN BOOKS (i'M ALSO TYPING UP THE "BLACKSENT: SECOPND BOOK OF THE UMBRA [I TYPED THE FIRST BOOK, TOO - BOTH ORIGINALLY WRITTEN IN LONGHAND AND NOT ILLISTRATED]), I STILL ENJOY THE SUNDAY COMICS, CALVIN AND HOBBS, AND GARFIELD BOOKS. I HAVE A SMALL COLLECTION OF COMIC BOOKS AROUND HERE. AN OLD FRIEND OF MINE WORKS FOR MARVEL COMICS & I THINK HE'S DONE SOME WORK FOR DC AS WELL.
THEN THERE'S THE NOVEL I RECENTLY READ BY AN AUTHOR WHO LIVES JUST OUTSIDE OF RAVENNA.....
Hubbyman: Ah, yes, the books of Blacksent....hearkens back to memories of "Jeff's nuts roasting on an open fire..." I will probably never be able to erase the image from my mind....stricken for life!
You and me both on the Jeff's nuts thing...funny how I can find that both hilarious and offensive at once...oh, no, Calvin and Hobbes never made me laugh. No cartoon has made me laugh. Except two I saw in Playboy and one in the National Lampoon. Cartoons are amusing...but I never found them funny and therefore I don't read them anymore.
I see that today you became one of 'the coolest people I know'.
Congratulations. It's good juju.
Vee: Yes, it was amusing and offensive at the same time. That captures the moment perfectly. I'm surprised you don't find C&H funny - I've laughed right out loud many many many times on that one.
BPV: It was an askident, honest.
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