There we were, inspecting the townhouse we were going to buy. It was me, my wife Cat, our (superb!) Realtor (Hi, Lynda Cook if you read this!), and Tony, our frightfully knowledgeable house inspector. Cat and Lynda were sitting at the dining room table belonging to the [major health care provider with a thriving practice] who was then renting the place, and I was tagging along behind Tony, wondering if I was even vaguely fooling him into thinking I knew anything about plumbing and/or electricity.

As he began inspecting our might-be kitchen, Tony pulled down the oven door—and voila: Weed-o-Rama.

“Whoa,” said Tony.

Looking over his shoulder, I said, “Okay, now this I know about.”

“Who lives here again?” he asked.

“What is that smell?” said Cat from the dining area.

“Oh my God,” said Lynda. “I know what that smell is. That’s pot.”

Now, I don’t want to too dramatically conjure the Major Stoner I used to be, but, quality-wise, this was about as “good” as (evil, evil, evil) weed gets. And as you can see from the photo that I totally took of it, it wasn’t exactly a minuscule amount of it. Back in the (awful) days when I used to smoke, that would have been enough weed to last me for … well, that’s really beside the point. The point is, it’s mucho dope.

“Isn’t the guy who lives here a [major health care provider with a thriving practice’” asked Tony.

“He is,” I said.

“That’s so awful,” said Lynda.

“Can you email me that picture you just took of it?” Tony asked me. “I give classes for home inspectors. I’d like to use it as an example of why it’s important to look inside the oven before turning it on.”

“Yeah, sure,” I said. “And, by the way, if you want this weed, take it. It’s not like Dr. Feelgood is going to come asking where it is.”

Tony laughed. “No, thanks. I have a life.”

Throughout the house we found other evidence—roaches and clips and so on—proving that the guy who lived there was a dedicated stoner. (And drinker. And world-class slob.) He didn’t even bother trying to hide it (even though he knew we were coming over to inspect the place).

Isn’t it awful, to know that somewhere out there are patients willingly putting the care of their health into the hands of a man who, just before he began working on them, at the very least had to make sure to use a hand soap strong enough to cover the stench of smoked pot that he knew was on his fingers?

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Related posts o’ mine: Proof of How Easy It Is to Buy Marijuana in California; Proof People Get Stoned at Work, and My Visit to a Marijuana Anonymous Meeting.

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You probably shouldn't submit to this guy

In response to my post “Penguins,” My Blasphemous Christian Book, Finally Returns Home, I received a couple of emails from people wondering what a writer can do to protect his or her work from being stolen by a literary agent. I’m actually asked that pretty often, so I thought I’d take a moment to answer it here.

Before you send your manuscript or book proposal to an agent, be sure to first thoroughly research that agent, via the web and the usual writer’s guides. If you’re considering a legitimate agent, with a roster of real authors he or she represents, and a real track record of real books sold to real houses, don’t even worry about that agent stealing your work. A real agent can’t be bothered with that kind of nonsense. They’ve got their hands more than full dealing with all their business that’s not slimy or weird.

That said, there are creepy agents and editors out there, so it’s not totally inconceivable that what happened to me with Penguins will happen to you. (I’ve actually had two books stolen from me: in my naivety, I once sent a book proposal directly to a major publisher, who never responded—but who then did publish the exact book I sent them under the name of someone famous. Can’t get much stealier than that.) But you don’t really care if an agent or editor steals your book, because then only one of two things can happen. Either the version of  your book that they publish will be so much like your book that, once it’s published, you can sue them—or, in an attempt to hide their nefariousness, they will have so altered your book that your original work and their published rip-off of it won’t be alike enough to ever be confused—which means your book is still yours.

So don’t worry about an agent or editor stealing your book. If you’re a new writer who wants to publish a book, do your homework, learn how to write a good book proposal, find the right agent for you, and submit to that agent. Just make sure that you always keep a very clear paper trail off all correspondences between you and the agent or editor. I always do business by email, because I want that trail. But other than that, don’t worry about it. If you’re the kind of person who comes up with ideas so good people want to steal them, then you’re the kind of person who’s going to make it anyway.

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I have a mini-book available on Scribd.com for $5.99 entitled, How To Make a Living Writing.

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My first book, “Penguins, Pain and the Whole Shebang: Why I Do the Things I Do, by God” (as told to John Shore), is the only thing I’ve ever written that I think is perfect. (You never feel that way about anything you write–-especially years later.) The story of that book is so unbelievable that if I told it to you, you’d swear I made it up. It involves, for instance:

A Christian agent stealing the idea for the book, giving it to a more established Christian author, and that author—knowing the book’s origins—gladly running with the idea (and ultimately using it to create a truly awful book published and heavily promoted by a huge Christian publisher who was only too happy to substitute it for my book, which they had been considering publishing, but were hesitant about since I wasn’t a known author).

Christian publishers reading the manuscript, declaring that no Christian publisher would ever publish a book written in the voice of God (and also that it was, as one leading Christian publishing executive wrote to tell me, “sheer blasphemy” to suggest that God has a sense of humor)—and then rushing to print books by name-authors, written in the voice of God.

My learning just how true it is that publishers prefer an author with a recognizable name. (And also that many in the Christian publishing industry aren’t, to say the least, exactly burdened by the sort of ethical constraints one would hope they would be—a lesson that I’m sad to say in the years between then and now has been too often reinforced.)

The book being picked up for representation by Deborah Schneider, of Gelfman Schneider, one of the most successful and respected “mainstream” literary agents in the world.

The heads of the largest American publishing houses all responding to the manuscript in the exact same way, which is, “We personally love this book, and would love to publish it. But we can’t, because: A. We have no idea how to market to Christians, and B. We’re afraid this book might anger Christians—and no publisher wants that kind of headache.”

How I—the tireless and imminently honorable Deborah having done virtually all she could—ended up selling the book to its publisher (for more money than they’d ever paid for a book in their 100-plus year history).

How the newly-hired, Big Deal Christian Book Marketing woman who acquired my book for its publisher quit the publisher three weeks later. (Never good.)

How its publisher so mishandled the book (that was their lead title for its season) that … well, for instance, when I received in the mail the large envelope from the publisher that was supposed to contain the book’s pre-press publicity materials, what I found inside was actual garbage: expired coupons, balled up newspapers, broken CD covers, a smashed styrofoam cup, etc.

And that’s just some of the stuff that I can tell you.

But the big news—the massively good and big news to me and my wife—is that, as of yesterday, I once again own the rights to this book! After literally years of trying to get it back, I finally own my book again! I now have in my garage the 1,500 remaining copies of Penguins, Pain and the Whole Shebang, and hold in my hands a contract that reverts all rights to Penguins from the publisher back to me.

Ahhhh. Feel the joy.

One day this book is going to make me a ridiculous amount of money. (Which is hardly why I wrote it; but there it is.) I know it like I know my name. And now I’m back in control of that.

First I brought back all rights and the remaining copies to I’m OK–You’re Not, and now I’ve done the same with Penguins.

Oh, but yayeth.

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Not actually me.

(A Muslim reader of mine [who keeps a blog I like here], asked if I’d like to write a guest post on his blog. I’m going to! But first, I thought I’d run a warm-up post here, so that, with the help and input of you winos guys, I could hone my message. Lemme know if you think I’ve gotten it just about right. Here’s to the furthering of world peace and understanding!)

Hi, Muslims! My name is John Shore. I live in San Diego, California. San Diego is very far down in Southern California, almost where it meets Mexico. Please forgive this geographical detail if you already knew it. As an American, I naturally assume that nobody else in the world knows anything about geography, either.

Ha, ha, ha. That is a joke at the expense of me and my fellow countrypersons. We Americans are a very funny people. But it’s also true that most of us aren’t exactly nicknamed Rand-McNally. It’s not that we’re not interested in world geography. We are! It’s just that studying geography means spending a lot of time staring at maps and globes. And maps and globes don’t move very much. They just sit there, making you do all the work. But we Americans like things that move. That’s why we make so many movies. If they could ever figure out a way to turn geography lessons into a TV show starring Charlie Sheen, a beautiful woman in a bikini, and maybe a cute little monkey who rides a skateboard and/or smokes a cigar, then I’m sure that before long we Americans would be able to instantly find on a map the Strait of Magellan, or the Sea of Marmara, just like we were native Magellaneos or Marmararians.

But enough about geography. Let’s talk about what really matters in this world: People. We’re all one race. So why don’t you give your land to the part of our race that’s us? We’ll take great care of it, we promise. It’s better to give than receive, right? But why not test this theory out for yourself, and give us your land? You’ll feel great! Of course, we understand what a big step that might be for you. We’ve given up land before, and we still sometimes resent Canada. So what you should do, then, is take the first baby step toward giving. Start from the bottom up, and give us what’s beneath your land! You can keep the part on the top—the part with all that fun sand. But, out of our desire to be good neighbors and see you enjoy the benefits of giving, we are willing to take off your hands all that nasty, thick black gunk that’s beneath your land. What’s that stuff called, again? Broyle? Roil? Tar? Well, whatever it is, we’ll take it. And we know how glad you’ll be to get rid of it, too! Have you ever tried to get gloil out of your clothes? It’s just about impossible. You should just pass that problem along to us. We here in America have very good laundry detergents. We can handle it.

But enough about stubborn stain removal. Because clothes don’t make the man, do they? What makes a man is his heart. And what’s at the heart of most men? Religion. So let’s talk about religion, shall we? I can’t foresee any problems talking about religion with you, can you? No? Great!

Like most Americans, I am very sensitive to the religions of others. I understand that when it comes to talking to people about their religion, one must tread with the kind of great culture sensitivity and general conversational delicateness for which we Americans are so universally renowned.

Now, the way I see it, the main problem with your religion is its confusing names. You believe in Allah; your main personage is Mohammed (PBUH!); you’re Muslim; and your religion is Islam. See? That’s a little confusing, isn’t it? I thought so, too.

Now, as you may be aware, many Americans—including myself, actually—are Christian. And look how we do it: We believe in Christ; our main personage is Christ; we’re Christian; and our religion is Christianity.

See? Much easier! Ahh, economy of effort. That’s just one of the things that makes our country so great.

The point is, you might want to consider streamlining some of the main features of your religion. Nothing too big—just change some of the key names. And please, don’t bother to thank me. That’s what we Americans are here for: to help others change the way they do things for the better. As you may be aware, world improvement is one of America’s top exports!

Also humor. We Americans produce a lot of humor. Being funny is what we Americans do. We used to produce things like washing machines and cars that didn’t fall apart in the rain, but now we mostly produce and export humor. Jim Carrey! Will Ferrell! Jerry Seinfeld! Dick Cheney! Saturday Night Live! Riotous, all, wouldn’t you agree?

So please remember that: humor. It’s all about the humor. We’re a funny people. I’m considered one of the funnier bloggers, for instance.

Please, please remember that.

Your good and true friend from across the aisle,

John

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Be afraid.

(This is related to my last post, Christian Men SHOULD Lust.)

Like virtually every human being who’s ever walked the planet, Christians are completely irrationally insane about sex. Some people would even argue that Christians are particularly completely irrationally insane about sex. My friend Dan is one such person.

“Look at the gay issue,” said Dan to me just the other day while I was trying to get him to either change the subject or pick up the check. “You take Christians out of that arena, and you’ve got no fight at all. Christians don’t seem to worry about anything as much as they do who’s having sex with who.”

“Whom,”I said. “Who’s having sex with whom.”

“They worry about gays having sex,” continued Dan obliviously. “They worry about premarital sex. They’ve got this whole Sexual Purity, ‘I’m saving myself for Daddy’ creepiness happening. Christians’ whole thing seems to be about repressing anything having anything to do with sex. Especially in themselves. And then they act all surprised when people like Ted Haggard and Jimmy Swaggart happen. Do you think I don’t see you inching the bill towards me?”

So I think it’s clear: I need to make new, less observant friends.

But let’s think about this idea that Christians have for so long been so intent on repressing their own and everyone else’s sexuality that what they’ve grown to adapt is a profoundly unhealthy orientation toward sex and sexuality generally.

Well, I think Christians do have a very serious problem with sex, and for a very good reason: Nobody can have sex without utterly losing control of themselves.

For most people, that’s a frightening enough prospect: Everyone prides themselves on the degree of control they keep over their lives and themselves. And sex is the one thing that’s 100% guaranteed, every single solitary time, to … well, cause you to at the very least shudder whilst making funny faces. When you have sex, you really do become an animal—and an exceptionally stupid animal, at that. So everyone’s crazy about sex, because everyone knows that sex is always right there, just waiting for the chance to obliterate the control over their mind and body that they like to think they have over themselves. It’s an extremely terrifying force, that way.

And that’s just the normal, everyday reason for which humans obsess on repressing sexuality. Christians have a humongous additional reason for fearing and repressing sex. As one good Christian commenter on my last blog put that reason: “Self-control is a fruit of the Spirit.”

And there you have it: the reason behind 2,000 years of Christian sexual repression, boiled down to eight words. Christians equate being filled with the Holy Spirit with being Godly in nature and behavior. And being Godly in nature and behavior is the direct opposite of being the humping, grunting, out-of-control animal that every Christian invariably becomes whenever he or she has sex.

So Christians are stuck with this extremely troubling formulation for their existence:

Being sexual = being an animal = not being filled with the Holy Spirit = betraying God. But:

Being human = being sexual. Therefore:

Being human = betraying God.

Yikes! What Christian wants to actively and purposefully betray God? Not one. So what do each of we Christians do? We try to control our sexuality. We try to be bigger than our sexuality. We try, through the exertion of our sheer will, to dominate our sexuality.

And—the vast and lucrative Christian “You Can Rise Above Your Sexuality” industry notwithstanding—we find, in the privacy of our own mind, that we can no sooner repress our lustful, animalistic sexuality than we can control how often we blink every day.

But, ever “faithful” (not to mention spurred on by the terrible guilt that is such an awful part of the Christian experience) we keep on trying to control our sexuality—and we keep on failing at it. And what do we do then? We hide that failure. We pretend we’ve proven victorious in the war against our sexuality. We pretend we’ve risen above it, that we’re past that, that we’re better than that. We pretend we’re more Christ-like than that.

And then we’re living a lie.

Which means we’re then involved in what we should understand as some serious sinning.

Hmmmm.

Now, what was that one big thing that Christ said, again?

Oh, that’s right: “The truth will set you free.”

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Not.

Part of a comment on my post Five Things Women Don’t Know About Men was this, from a (very nice) woman with the screen name of “Wee Sandy”:

And John, I truly hope men aren’t really watching a constant mental porn show. I agree with [commenter] Feather that it is addictive and destructive to both men and women, not to mention children. I hope that was a tongue-in-cheek post! But if men really ARE that focused on lust, shouldn’t we be trying to do something to help change that? Like helping our sons to understand that it is unacceptable, and that the only way to stop focusing on one thing is to fill your mind and life with something better? Or to work yourself until you’re too exhausted to be filled with temptation? Stuff like that?

The ancient, persistent, pervasive idea that being a good Christian man means being a eunuch (a castrated male) is something that I think we need to reconsider. Men are men. Men lust. They lust constantly. They can’t help it. And I get real uncomfortable whenever I hear anyone say we should want them to help it.

Do we really want men who don’t find women—lots of women, all the time—sexually attractive? Are we sure that’s what we want? Because wanting that necessarily means wanting our men to have less of a sex drive than they do. And are we sure that’s a good thing? Because if you reduce a man’s sex drive, you automatically reduce a whole lot of stuff about him that you definitely want to think twice about losing.

You want an ambitious man? Then you want a man with a strong sex drive. You want a man who will always protect his wife and children? Then you want a man with a strong sex drive. You want a man who will lay down his life for his country? Who will explore new territory? Who will take control of a bad situation? Who will champion the cause of the weak and oppressed? Who will clear trees, kill animals, build a home, and make sure that when the dust all settles, he and his are standing? Who will roll up his sleeves and work when things get tough? Then you want a man with a real sex drive. And a man with a real sex drive could no sooner not lust after women than he could unhook his gonads and leave them at home in his sock drawer when he goes off to work every day.

No man should disrespect women. And certainly no man should lose control of his behavior. But being a man means that in the privacy of your imagination, you are going to do to think a great many lustful thoughts. That’s just a fact about being a man. That won’t change. It can’t change. It shouldn‘t change. The whole idea that somehow Christian men aren’t really supposed to be men is ridiculous, and harmful.

Healthy sex isn’t just a good thing; it is the necessary thing. It’s how our race survives. It’s what makes the whole world go round.

If God didn’t want men to be men—to do their part to help that world go around—he wouldn’t have filled them with all that testosterone. That certainly doesn’t mean that men should ever be promiscuous, or in any way ever disrespectful to women. But it does mean that men are bound by their very nature to, in the privacy of their imagination, have lust for women.

I know what  Matthew 5:27-28 says. Here’s how it’s translated in “The Message”:

“You know the next commandment pretty well, too: ‘Don’t go to bed with another’s spouse.’ But don’t think you’ve preserved your virtue simply by staying out of bed. Your heart can be corrupted by lust even quicker than your body. Those leering looks you think nobody notices—they also corrupt.”

I have got not problem with that. One’s heart certainly can be corrupted by lust, just like it can be by anything that’s unhealthily fixated upon. And certainly no man should ever look at a woman “leeringly,” because that’s obnoxious, invasive, and extremely disrespectful.

But the bottom line is this: Show me a man who doesn’t look lustfully at women—by which I mean who doesn’t constantly imagine himself in sexual situations with all kinds of women—and I’ll show you a man who’s … well, gay, for one.

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A couple of years ago a friend of mine showed me a stack of photocopied cartoons featuring a dog named Stinky (www.stinkydog.com), created and drawn by Samantha McCullough. I instantly fell in love with the image of Stinky. I was so enthused that I contacted Sam, and asked her if there was anything I could do to participate in the great fun that was clearly All Things Stinky.

She then read some of my stuff, and together we decided that it might be fun if I wrote some captions for her collection of Stinky doing … oddball Stinky stuff. So she sent me maybe thirty of her best Stinky drawings, and for about a week I lost my mind. All I did was walk around the house trying to think of funny Stinky captions. I became obsessed to the point of actually walking into walls and putting my slippers on the wrong foot.

So I wrote the captions, and she did up a bunch of one-panels with them, and then … then I’m not sure what happened. I think life happened. She’s a busy mom, and had a Stinky store wherein she sold many Stinky T-shirts, hats, and coffee mugs, and just then I got involved with this four-book co-authoriship deal, and we just sort of never did anything with the cartoons.

This morning I was going through my files, and there were our old Stinky cartoons! So I emailed Samantha, asked her if I could run them on my blog, and she said of course.

So here’s the first two! We have no idea if anyone but us will think these are funny, but if any of you miscreants guys do, I’ll start running these every once in awhile.

But don’t you love this dog? (We keep on our bed a stuffed Stinky doll Sam once sent me. That’s what I’m talkin’ ’bout.)

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I know a lot of Christians, and they’re split pretty evenly between conservative and liberal.

I like the conservative Christians, mainly because they’re so clear about what they believe. They know what the Bible says; they know who they are; they know what they’re doing in life; boom—they’re solid. The whole “backbone of America” thing is no joke; the strongest trees, after all, have the deepest roots. Not a lot of wafflers in the conservative camp. Plus, they’re super dedicated. Conservative Christians don’t wonder if they’re in the mood; they go to church. They go to Bible study. They show up for the church functions. They actually do stuff. Conservative Christians also tend to be, in practice, extremely loving. Liberal Christians think conservative Christians are harshly judgmental, and sort of fundamentally (ha, ha) hardhearted. They think that if, in the middle of the night, a clearly gay guy showed up at the home of a Christian conservative in need of help, he’d summarily get a door slammed in his face. But he wouldn’t. All the conservative Christians I’ve ever known are serious about putting God’s love into practice. The fact that they’re so sure of what they believe makes them more open to new thoughts, ideas, and experiences. If you’re sure of who you are, you’re a lot more open to discovering who others are. When things get rough, it’s good to know a conservative.

On the other hand, conservative Christians can be too sure they’re right about everything. It’s too easy, when you’re a conservative, to boil down what you believe into a really simple set of assertions, and to then never again question or allow those assertions to evolve (har, har). Then it just becomes about rules; then it’s too easy to make everything about who is and isn’t on the right side of right. When it comes to something as complex as God and history, it’s too easy for “keeping it simple” to become “keeping it stupid”—which too easily becomes “keeping it mean-spirited.” Conservatives have a troubling propensity for closing their minds.

I like liberal Christians because they’re so generous with their love and respect. They’re seriously focused on God’s love, and they’re not afraid to insist that anything that hinders that love must be suspect. They love Jesus; Jesus preached love; they’re all about loving as Jesus did, period. Also, I like the way liberal Christians are so thoughtful. They listen. They reflect. They refine. They search. They question. They study. They understand that part of their job as Christians is to actively try to access the mind and heart of God, and they’re disinclined to let anything interfere with that goal. They’re not afraid to get inspired. They live with the confidence that God will never fault them for loving too much.

On the other hand, liberal Christians can waffle like IHOP on a Sunday morning. They too often fall prey to thinking that the emotions of their loving feelings is really all they need to guide them, with the result that they never feel a need to be clear on what they actually believe at all. Maybe Jesus was mainly a social activist. Maybe the cross is a metaphor. Maybe Jesus walking on water was an optical illusion. And so on, until they may as well be astrologers. Yet for all their comfortable ambiguity, liberal Christians can also be altogether too smug, too sure, too condescending toward those who take the Gospel as gospel. They tend to think they’re smarter than they are. In the main, the problem with liberal Christians is that they can stay so busy remaining lofty and above it all that their rubber never hits the road. Many of them are better with compassion as a theory than a practice.

In the end, who cares? Everything’s got its positive and negative aspects. All that matters, spiritually, is that each of us finds the place on the liberal-conservative spectrum where we’re most comfortable. Each of us has to carve for ourselves our own niche, the one that’s perfectly suited to us.

And from there all we have to do is live, love, pay attention, listen to God, and let him pull us ever closer to his divine and glorious reality.

Here’s to the idea that we’ll all eventually end up in exactly the same place.

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Lately some have complained that I (via posts like this,this, and this) have been entirely too obnoxious to New Agers.

To which I say: Hey, if you can’t take the heat, stay out of the supernova.

But that’s really more of an astronomy joke. Which, as you see, are impossible to make funny. Unlike astrology jokes, which even Dick Cheney could make hilarious.

As an example of just how easy it is to make Top Notch Comedy Jokes about astrology, here are some choice yuks from a faux-horoscope I was once asked to write for a magazine:

If you were born today: It’s incredible that you can already read. Stop drooling on this magazine.

Libra: You’re an exceptionally balanced person. Maybe a little too balanced. Why don’t you loosen up once in awhile? It’s like hanging out with a Supreme Court judge. Health-wise, you have psoriasis. In love, try a Pisces. At least you both have scales.

Pisces: You really must do something about your smell. And your scaly skin condition. And the fact that you breathe through flaps on the side of your face. And stop making that weird kissy-face all the time. You’re freaking people out.

Cancer: Tough on the outside, white and tender on the inside—you’re pure delight, once you’ve been pried out of your shell. You’re bowlegged, short-tempered, and forever complaining. But you can be fun in a pinch. When it comes to love, you prefer spineless bottom feeders. But more often than not, this means you only end up with your heart cracked in two.

Scorpio: Born with Venus in your main house, Mars in your secondary house, and Uranus right back there where it belongs, you’re a vicious little twerp who enjoys causing other people pain. You have long gnarly arms, forearms like Popeye, beady eyes, and enjoy scuttling around in the desert. When it comes to matters of the heart, you have a way of feigning indifference—and then, when threatened, of rearing up and attacking with, well, Uranus. And you wonder why nobody ever calls.

See? I did a whole horoscope of jokes like that! Can you believe all the humor? Me, neither. It’s still a complete mystery to me why the editor who asked me to write this piece never published it. Or called me back. Or answered any of my emails. Or ever came back to lunch that time I waited for him at his office. Just super-busy, I guess.

Anyway, for the record, I’ve got no particular beef with New Agers. I hardly could; I used to be a New Ager. I spend decades doing yoga and transcendental meditation and all of it.

True fact: For my 19th birthday, my mother bought me (for $300!) a full reading of my astral charts. I thought it was going to be a joke—that my poor mom had been taken in by some New Age flim-flammer. But the woman who prepared and read my charts (whom I later learned was also a major Jung scholar) actually and truly earned her money. She had these astronomy maps all laid out, and all these colored charts she’d made and everything. It was way impressive.

So was she, actually. She and I ended up having quite the little thing. You know how it is: a middle-aged Jung scholar who’s made a secondary discipline of astrology; a 19-year-old boy who works at a Wrigley’s gum factory. She reads his charts. He reads the magazines in her bathroom while he’s sneaking a hit or two off a joint. She smells the weed, and through the bathroom door forthrightly demands that he not bogart it all. The stars align. They almost start making out and everything, but then don’t because it’s so weird because she’s friends with his mother. So instead they hang out on the porch of her snazzy Pacific Heights apartment in San Francisco, and talk about their lives. She says something that ends up sticking with him for the rest of his life, which is, “Life is a long time.”

Me, anti-New Age? Hardly. When I say that some of the best people I’ve ever known were New Age devotees, I’m not just blowing smoke into an air vent in someone’s bathroom. I mean it.

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This is “Blue Boy,” by the immortal comic artist (from Mad magazine’s halcyon days) Don Martin.

Every time I look at this, it just kills me. Growing up, Don Martin’s work meant the world to me. It showed me just how funny funny could be.

As I wrote a bit about here, for Christmas of 2007 my wife got me the ultimate Don Martin collection.

Man, that girl knows how to pick gifts.

This is a crappy scan of this drawing, but … you get the idea. Genius.