The Daily Muse

Shade and I went to a very small venue in the arts district of Oak Cliff, ( a long ignored and much maligned district of Dallas south of the river) called The Kessler Theater to see Junior Brown and his small group play a gig. That’s his wife, Tanya Rae Brown, on rhythm guitar. Of course Junior is showing off his virtuosity on his self made “GuitSteel”. Note how he routinely uses his special tuning pegs for effects during a number. He has a little holder for his guitar slide that he switches to almost faster than the eye can follow. He got the most response when he played his hits like “You’re wanted by the po-lease and my wife thinks you’re dead.” and “The Party Lights”.  Junior manages to be a “Guitsteel” genius and very funny at the same time. This place only holds about 150 people and I was able to move around and real close to get some great shots.

Hello Musers, Sorry I’ve been out of touch with The Muse but I’m too busy to be friendly lately and sometimes my “snark meter” was flashing red alert when I was about to comment. However,this announcement is important. Shade and I have finally started the presses on his new book and it’s a beauty. Check it out on EBay by searching for Strange Ones cartoon book. All the first copies will be signed and he will personalize one for you if you ask. No returns on personalized books. PayPal only please. Free Shipping………..I’ll try to post more often. Thanks, Roto 

Here’s Shade’s Halloween strip. I was able to witness the creative process first hand. I hope my nagging for Shade to add a little scratch to the family coffers was not the motivation this shameless plug and he insists that it doesn’t smack of crass commercialism but rather is just another example of his twisted sense of humor created solely for the edification and enjoyment of his multitude of fans. You be the judge.

Shade is visiting me and today he called down the stairs, “Hey, you have some cows near the bridge!” I ran outside thinking he must be nuts since I never seen cows on my property in all the 18 years I’ve been here. I don’t know where they came from but I grabbed the camera and told Bonnie who also thought I was joking. The cows came right over to us and seemed content to munch the grass. Then they walked over to the Mayor’s house next door and his wife saw them looking in the windows. I called the authorities thinking they might get hit by a car but I haven’t heard any more cow news. If they weren’t so much work it might be cool to own some of these critters.

Here are The Strange Chicks modeling the new Strange Ones T-Shirts in the hip black with white graphics. For a very limited time Mr. Shady has a few of these available (the shirts) in sizes small to 4x. Contact him NOW! at mr.shadeeee@gmail.com to place your order. Only $14.oo each! But wait, there’s more! The first ten clients who order two or more shirts can get them for only $11.95 each! Operators are standing by.

Here’s a brand new episode from Mr. Shady. These guys always get in the strangest situations.

When I was growing up it was “where were you when Kennedy was shot?” Now it’s Sept.11th. I had just flown into San Francisco CA the day before and was looking forward to a fun and relaxing week long tour down the coast to LA. We checked into a quaint inn overlooking the bay and enjoyed the day. On the morning of Sept. 11th we called the front desk to ask why we had not been summoned to breakfast on the veranda. They told us to turn on our television. I didn’t like the sound of that. I watched the live coverage of one of the towers collapsing. I turned to Maggi and said, “Pack the bags, we’re getting out of this city, and oh yeah, our country is going to war.”

  The staff of the inn couldn’t locate the dude with the key to the hotel safe containing my wife’s jewelry delaying our escape for an hour. Finally we drove the rent car out of the city though the bridges were shut down. We knew we couldn’t just fly back to Dallas and we didn’t want to drive the rent car there either so we decided to just stick to our original plan, drive down the coast highway and hope that the planes would be flying again out of LA a week later.

  We listened in horror and disbelief to the constant radio coverage of the events sensing that something fundamental had changed in our country. About thirty miles south of San Fran I stopped at a beach and walked toward the ocean. I couldn’t figure out what was different at first and then I realized that no planes were flying above. I was amazed to see a bunch of surfers catching waves. Was this the California reaction to our first catastrophic attack on America? Go surfing? Are you serious?

  We stopped for lunch in San Jose and the resturant was full of locals eating, drinking and generally whooping it up, seemingly without a care in the world. Again, maybe it was the California way. We returned to our car and I was amazed to see I had gotten a 90$ parking ticket. Holy shit! We are under attack but this cop kept right on with it.

  That evening we had checked into a famous golf resort and as night fell on the dunes I watched and listened as  a lone bagpiper stood silhouetted against the setting sun piping patriotic dirges. Tears welled in my eyes.

   We went to the wild scene at Venice Beach where several people had set up displays laying out the CIA conspiracy to orchestrate the attacks. Within hours of our scheduled departure from LAX they cleared the planes to take off. We chucked all sharp objects and waited for the flight. Also waiting were four middle eastern young men, some very nervous passengers and a couple of dudes in black suits who I guessed were heavily armed air marshalls. I thought to myself, “If one of those Arab guys so much as gets up to use the john I’m gonna tackle him.” 

  It was an edgy but uneventful flight back to Dallas but something fundamental had changed and I was right, we did go to war.