Fresh Fish

B.S.

Fresh Fish

B.S.

YAMBAR THINKS ABOUT GROWING OLD.

So, I'm out doing some shopping at our Austintown Rulli Brothers grocery store and I'm waiting for my number to be called at the meat counter. They have some pretty good deals on boneless chicken breasts and 90/10 ground round, and there's a million people ahead of me, but I figure, "What the heck? I'm already here. No biggie. Besides, I need an idea to blather about on my blog anyway."
The old guy next to me must have been reading my mind because that's the precise moment he decides to fart on my leg. I'm not talking about a light whisp or even a baby-clap fart. This guy lets out a full-tilt "Blapptttz!" and a wet one at that. When I look at his face, he faces straight ahead and sighs deeply as if he has just found a cure for cancer. He's skinny, is about 5' 3", is wearing a red checked hunting jacket (standard Ohio issue), 34-year-old dark green mill pants and is standing by an obese woman-stump holding a thatched Epcot purse with plastic flowers on it. The kind of woman that saves Arby's wrappers to preserve apples in so they'll be fresh for the old man's lunch pail later. She's also holding a coupon book that is at least two fists thick. Most of them are collector's items from the Ming Dynasty. The kind of woman who keeps gay men gay!
As Swamp Gas Sam's offspring floats up to say 'hello' to my pinched and tortured nasal passage, his number gets called. As he steps forward to pick out his meat, I find myself rejoicing ...until he bends over for the Kaiser rolls. "Ragnarokkkkk!" This time even Odin stirs from his slumber. Like a proper storm trooper, his wife doesn't flinch. Instead she barks out, "Get some hot rope sausage, too. Don't forget the hot rope sausage like last time. I don't want to stand here all day like we did last time."
Nobody moves an inch or even scrunches their faces as he lets out another brackish breeze and dumps the plastic-wrapped carnage into their cart. As he and the Giant-Sized Man-Thing wheel off up the cake mix aisle, the guy looks at me and smiles. Not the kind of smile that says, "I'm an old man who can't hold in his farts. Sorry about that" but the kind of smile that says, "Yes! I realize that I farted on you and you can't do a thing about it. I'm old. Tee Hee!"
I couldn't help but notice how many AARP members were in this crowd. Then it hit me. This is the same crowd that sits in McDonald's every morning talking about their latest surgeries in graphic detail while I'm trying to choke down an Egg McMuffin with a shell fragment in it. This is the same gang that argues with the waitress about the price of a lunch special - after they eat it - in order to wear them down AND THEN whips out the Golden Buckeye Senior Citizen's Discount Card to get 10% more off the deal. This is the same wrinkle fest that decides to park like an earthquake-hit outside of every major department store in the Tri-state area. The same gaggle of grey geese that whisper to each other - at the top of their lungs - during movies about the big sale Wal-Mart is having on adult-sized diapers across the street. And about how their son just married "another lazy-eyed Jew who is just after my money."
Suddenly, I'm gripped by the realization that something had to be done about all of this. I needed to take a stand. I do what any red-blooded late-baby-boomer SHOULD do in this type of situation. I roll my cart around the next corner. He clearly sees me coming. I get up beside the old geezer and his troll. As I reach for some grated horseradish, I 'accidentally' let out one of the most violent steamers since my birth. This is the type that ferments and rusts the body of a Buick. He doesn't smile at my "performance art." As a matter of fact, he looks kinda offended. He moves toward the pickles. So do I. And so does my garlic Casper ghost. From the look on this soon-to-be departed's face, I have returned the dignity of my generation. I smile as I put a jar of Kosher dill slices in my basket and hear my number called in the distance. I wink.
I get the ground round; but today, instead of the chicken, I buy a large rope of hot sausage and sauerkraut. In tribute to my elders.

YAMBAR ON THE MADNESS THAT MATTERS.

One of the sadder facts of life is that, without fail, there is usually always something to be mad about. People are ruder, dumber and more self-entitled than ever. I remember getting a phone call from my dad several years ago and hearing him go on with a list of hateful actions targeting him as he made his customary journey to his local McDonald's and back for his #1 Breakfast Value Meal. He got cut off by another driver on a cell phone, was flipped off at a stop light by some creeps at a bus stop, was bumped out of line by some career welfare mother and her booger-eating brats while waiting to order, was treated like a retard for mentioning that the counter help gave him the wrong order, and then had someone walk off with his paper while he 'was about to read the comics section.' To top it off, he had to return home to his swamp witch of a second wife (not my real mom), who was off to massage the Amish and didn't have time to get his prescriptions which he needed for the day before going to work. He also found out that he needed to pay for her personal business taxes and that the cat box was full and needed scooped.
When he finished, he took a well-deserved breath and asked me if I missed the same memo that he did. The one broadcast globally while we slept. The one where everyone else was more important than he was.
We then discussed how unhappy these people were and what their lives may be like. Living hells where the petty becomes the dramatic at the drop of a hat. Lives filled with echo less voids, unfulfilled dreams and one-upmanship without reward. Mornings filled with self-loathing and social retardation. Too much TV and lots of silent masturbation to scenarios that never happened to anyone in real life. Lottery tickets with losing numbers paid for by the baby's milk money. MADNESS.
I could hear him shaking his head as he hung up the phone. It was then that I looked up the word 'mad' in the dictionary. It has a lot of meanings, including "having a mental disorder, intense anger, the lack of proper judgment, being affected by rabies, and insanity." It also had a few meanings that made me feel as if I was 'mad,' too:
"Carried away by enthusiasm or desire, marked by wild gaiety and merriment, hilarious, and wild."
It's interesting how one word can have such completely opposing meanings. It's also interesting how we can all wake up on the same planet and still be so alienating and other-worldly to each other.
I suppose this is based on where we focus our passion. Some have a passion only for self. Others have passion for life. I am a creature of passion. We all are. And like they said during the Mad Hatter's Tea Party in Alice in Wonderland - "We are all mad here."
I just choose to be a madness of a different color. Nobody hit that on the head better than the late beat writer Jack Kerouac who described those ensconced and enraptured in the beat experience:
“The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn, like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue center light pop and everybody goes 'Awww!'”
Yeah!

Fresh Fish

B.S.

WELCOME TO SUCKLAND!

The new year is upon us and is running down the street screaming like a sugar-charged devil baby holding a power drill and a can of WD40. It's way beyond our ability to stop or even slow down. Time waits for no one. While we scratch ourselves dressed in our morning Snuggie, the havoc unfolds and this little bastard is wiping out everything in its path while showing us its stinky butt with our name tattooed above it on a poorly scribbled tramp stamp! Good morning, beautiful.
By now, all of our vows and promises are completely riddled with holes, and hopeless futility has returned to plug them. Cigarettes have been lit. Subscriptions to Playboy have been renewed. Diets have been blown. Divorce papers have been filed. Church has been skipped. Tax filings are being falsified. We're back shopping at WalMart. We've begun to give our national bird to other drivers. We hate our jobs even more and are stealing paperclips just to feel a sensation. Discontent, anger, depression and boredom have returned fatter than ever. Even our meds are telling us to take the gas pipe. Welcome back to SUCKLAND!!!
Everyone lives there regardless of who, what, where, and why. Regardless of status, income, upbringing or religious roots. Here are a few thoughts to roll around in your skull that may help you survive and even flourish in spite of your journey in SUCKLAND:
1) You are a success or failure no matter who you are or where you stand. The decision is yours. How you view yourself makes all the difference. Success and failure are, first and foremost, mental decisions. I'm not talking about bloated self-importance or bogus entitlement based on a false reality where you actually believe you are your favorite pop star on Cribs or the E Channel. The world owes you nothing...and it has already made the delivery. It's all up to you. You are your meal ticket out and up. Treat yourself with a little kindness and respect. Next time, try to eat half of that pie. Cuddle for 10 minutes afterwards. Geez. Allow yourself to have a little dignity.
2) OK. This may not be your dream job, but at least you have something to do that brings in some money to pay the bills. It's a start. Tired of working for someone else? Who isn't?! Change your brain and realize that the only reason you work at all is so that YOU can have a better life. You just happen to work for this company and that guy to do it. Become the most valuable person at work. The legend. Do this while knowing that the exits are clearly marked for your escape. YOU are working for YOU.
3) New math: If you work 8+ hours a day, then you have 16 free hours to do what you want. Instead of sitting on your pizza-stuffed rectum watching TV and porn in between loading photoshopped images of yourself onto Facebook, try adding something to your exit plan that will benefit YOU. An online or vocational course. A few hours a day creating some new art that can be shown and sold. You never know who is looking at your stuff. Sell some old clutter on eBay. Plan a vacation in the sunshine somewhere. It may take a year or more to save up for it by putting a couple of bucks in the old underwear drawer, but the day will arrive when you have enough to make it happen.
4) Change your dating rituals. Instead of hunting old bar whores and date-rapists in the bar scene, why not check out the local church chicks. These ladies will not only reform you to a sub-human social level; they are also the best kissers on the planet. Next to librarians. Repression is a mad dog on a leash. Control is a gift that establishes and better defines. Think about it. Change your social circle. Try attending some Rotary or special interest groups. Planetarium lectures, book reading or writers clubs, poetry slams, bitch-n-stitch covens, something away from the bars and sports scene (read previous blog). The local university always has something going on. Think outside of your box. Try something new. You can always apologize later.
5) Most humans want to be something vocationally when they are children. Try to remember what that was. If you can't become an astronaut or Japanese monster, then you can at least write about it. Go through old pics of your youth and journal them in a secret notebook or post the stories on a blog. You may be very surprised at the results. People generally love to read about other people's lives. C'mon. Be honest. That's why we watch the boob tube in the first place. It's the same reason why most of you peek into your neighbor's windows when they are lit at night.
6) Do a sit-up a day. One sit-up is better than none. Take a half-hour walk when you get up in the morning or go to lunch or before you go to sleep. This gets the blood moving and beats the cost of showing up at some meat locker gym where everyone is trying to outdo each other. Forget that trap. Keep it simple and don't talk about it. Nobody wants to hear 'the lecture' about how to 'do it right.' Just do something and add to it when you want to. The only competition is yourself.
7) Doing one or two good things for yourself is better than promising to do a million things and never delivering on even one of them. Try a multi-vitamin and drink at least 4 glasses of plain water a day. Drink some orange juice. Eat some kind of plant-generated life form. It makes YOU feel better and cleans out the poop chute. Keep it simple.
8) Read one randomly picked word from the dictionary every day and try to master it.
9) Take a private walk with God. Get all primal and let it all hang out. Vent! Let your freak flag fly. Bitch and moan. Gripe and giggle. Unplug the hurt and fear. Tell Him "Hi." Then ask Him where He's been all of your life. Make sure to leave some quiet time for answers. Sometimes I see lightning. Sometimes I get a pat on the head.
10) Keep your yap shut about doing any of this. Make it your secret world, an adventure that you take with and for yourself. Rediscover the happiness that we tend to all lose as children by becoming fast- and slow-moving adults. Happiness and contentment are as good as it gets. You define your own success level. What does it mean to you?
11) Always look for humor in everything. It's there in SUCKLAND. Tons of it! Remember: Wherever you find yourself, there is at least one thing to laugh about - It's all about YOU.

(This weeks blog art provided by my favorite madman and co-creator in comics: Levi Krause.)

Fresh Fish

B.S.

Fresh Fish

B.S.

REALLY LOVE FOOTBALL? THEN YOU MIGHT BE GAY!

It's amazing how many men love watching football with their friends. Recently, I was a supper guest and got trapped into watching a football game with a die-hard fan who was relentless in his idea that I was the least bit interested in his team. Happily, his team eventually lost, so both of our weekends were equally ruined. I'm pretty sure he cried a little. He did sulk a lot. I actually laughed out loud when his daughter ran up to the TV and put in her Disney Princess-related movie when he left the room for another beer. He never noticed. Then it hit me. Synchronicity. My friend was a football fag.
Here is a checklist of facts about football that may help in determining just how gay you and your friends are about the sport:
1) Half the game is spent watching adult men bent over in a tight line.
2) The quarterback begins each down by reaching forward under another man's ass for a 'good center.'
3) Positions include names like 'wide receiver,' 'tight end,' and 'full back.'
4) Men are brought to the ground by violent hugs called 'tackling.'
5) Bright and shiny team uniforms that all match.
6) John Madden talking longingly about Brett Favre's stats. No matter what game he is announcing.
7) The squirting of the Gatorade.
8) Fans wear the uniforms of other men and get excited that they have their names and numbers on them for all to see.
9) Sundays spent sitting on a couch with other men watching other men instead of making love to the wife for hours or taking the kids to the zoo or Grandma's house.
10) The decoration of a room in matching team colors and images pre-approved by a faceless committee. Then meeting there with other special members who like to dress in a manner that matches the team curtains. Very Hello Kitty.
11) The clapping and hooting when someone does a victory dance for his team. Behold, the male pole dancer.
12) The team pennant and decorative towel. Man hankies.
13) The group cuddle known as 'the huddle.'
14) Eating hot dogs whle watching football.
15) Collecting little photos of other men in matching outfits and placing them in protective slip cases.
16) Showing off your collection of little man-photos in 'sequential career order' to your man-friends in a dimly lit basement 'man-cave.'
17) Admitting that you'd actually consider doing Howie Long "IF" you were gay.
18) Getting excited when your team 'takes it up the middle' or 'completes a pass' to another player.
19) John Madden and Brett Favre are married and ride around the country in a big love-bus together.
20) Terry Bradshaw's tooth.
21) Defensive players are encouraged to 'sack' the quarterback or at least get him 'in the grasp.'
22) Doing a belly bump.
23) Screaming when another man 'puts it through the uprights.'
24) Punting.
25) Thinking about football on a Tuesday at work.
I could go on and on. Think about it. GAY!
Ok. There are a few of you out there who are hiding behind the fact that your wives or girlfriends are big football game watchers, too. HA! Review the list again, fella. If you were a girl, wouldn't these be great excuses for watching the big games?
Then there are the guys who talk with each other about the latest naked lady in Playboy and what they'd do with her if they ever got the chance. EVER GOT THE CHANCE. Ever.
Fantasy Football League. Disney Princesses. Either way, you come out of the closet dressed in someone else's clothes.

Fresh Fish

B.S.

YAMBAR CONFESSES TO HAVING O.C.D. (OBSESSIVE COLLECTING DISORDER)

Only 2.5 feet of wall display! (You should see the rest of the house.)

Holy Cow! I'm OCD!

I call it an "obsessive collecting disorder". My brother Tim, an antique dealer and fellow horder, calls it "having a weird eye". My sister Sharon calls it having a "messy house filled with junk". My sister Katti just likes stuff that you can put out on the porch.
Every time the sun shines beyond the thaw and garage sale signs return to roost once again, we set our alarm clocks to 6:30 AM. No open garage, auction house, yard sale or antique junk shop is safe around us. Our highly caffienated minds swear-to-god that inanimate objects call out to us like whores in port. "Hello, Daddy. That's it. Run your fingers around my edges. Pick me up in your warm knowing hands. Turn me over and inspect me. Look at my flawless condition. Turn me over. Yes. YES! You're the one I've been waiting for. See, my price is just for you. Take me home. I display very well. I promise to make your friends jealous. I love you long time!" The addiction swirls in our heads like the orgasmic brain fever of a heroin junky in a fix-heat. We sardonically watch other novice seekers pass treasures in plain view and roll our eyes while adding them to our baskets. Like a happy pentecostal hearing an unknown tongue, we are thankful that the gifts of interpretation and identification belong to us. Mental disorder or supernatural shopping power? Whatever it is = WE LOVE IT!
I can't remember a time when collecting something (or everything) was not a part of my life. I always love entertaining my friends with collections they will never see again in their lives. Sure, you can inherit a collection of depression glassware or Hummel figurines from Grandmother. You can hide away your collection of old fishing lures and Boy Scout equipment from Dad. But to build something that is a reflection of your own taste and decision - now that is a gift that you give to and from yourself.
There are times when I collect things based on my personal childhood connection and the memory of a better, simpler time. Other times I feel like I have to save certain items from total extinction because frankly, this generation doesn't give a shit about anything that didn't happen before Halo. Sometimes I find myself somewhere between the identity of a fanboy geek and that of a museum curator.
Recently during an interview I was asked about what I collect. When I began to reply I could see the interviewer's face evolve from amusement to belittlement...and then to complete horror and fear. I must have crossed a line somewhere.
When I stopped to allow him to catch his composure he shook his head slowly and took off his glasses with concern.
"Don't you think that you may be a little bit overboard in your collecting?"
"Nope!" Then I continued to blow him away with the rest of my list. He had asked the right guy the wrong question. I'm an artist. I'm interested in everything!
Then it happened. You should have seen his face when I hit on cereal boxes and premiums. Suddenly he started talking about how much he loved digging through the cereal for the prize inside the package. This led to his love of sports cards (yuck!) and his memories of flicker cards and Cracker Jack prizes at the movies on Saturday afternoons with his friends who he used to sneak into the movie house when the usher was distracted. Suddenly he remembered his first two-wheeled bike with the metallic purple banana seat and riding through the woods. His face became younger and his hands moved in a slow sacred motion as he talked. He began to smile and sway as if he were kissing that special girl again when kissing was all that you dared do. And you were completely drowning in it. Now I was amused.
A fellow cartooning pal was once so mad at me for selling off my collection of over 130+ Soaky bubble bath bottle toys that I thought he was going to cry. You'd have thought I raped his sister. Seriously! He didn't collect them but he loved knowing that I did and had so much to look at when he came to visit. When I told him how much I got for my collection his eyes got way pie-sized. I worked hard to build that collection and it in turn returned the favor by working for me. The circle of life. Unlike the stock market my fetish collection was paying me with blue chip dividends.
"Sometimes", I explained, "you just have to release your collection back into the wild."
There is an art to listening for the changing of the seasons when one collects. Some things you catch and release. Some you gather for resale. Others hold onto you for the duration of your life and move on to another generation who hopefully gets why. Whatever the reason you should enjoy the process.
Eventually our planet will become a big ball of fire and all of our collecting will have been in vain. Until then here is a partial list of things that still have my attention:
Pre-1980 cereal boxes and premiums, Chick Tracts, Tijuana Bibles, Happy Hollister books, Sideshow, Carnival and Amusement Park prizes and chalkware, old children's comicbooks, arcade machine cards, underground comics, pre-2001 Pokemon PVC figures (I don't play), paintings by street artists, Lucha Libre lobby cards, monster models, old bar humor shot glasses, joke books, children's figural plastic head character mugs, pre-1975 Casper products, biographies & autobiographies, Give A Show projectors, Soakys (I only have 16 these days), old comedy / Polka / Hawaiian music LPs, Big Little Books, Mold A Rama Sinclair dinosaur figures, WW2 ration books and propaganda, old paintboxes, Batman autographed photos, newspaper contest pinbacks, original Syroco cartoon character figures, Bonzo dogs, metal advertising premium spoons featuring figural logo and cartoon characters, German bisque comic strip character nodders, tent revival and circus posters and tie-in items....
Yeah. I definitely have a collector's disorder. But at least it has a resale value. It also makes me very happy. And if you're honest - it may have even helped you to dig up a few nostalgic inner treasures of your own. Feel free to email me with your pet collections and finds or catch me on the road. I do trades for my comics and art and sometimes even buy. I'm cheap but I do buy. Sometimes I just don't. Enjoy your disorder. Mine's a freakin' party!

Fresh Fish

B.S.

Welcome To The Chris Yambar Show! 2.0

Behold Citizens. I have returned once again to the Blog Zone. I am here because many of you have expressed the need for solid direction and purpose in life and have asked me to provide it for you.
"What is the meaning of life?"
"Why am I so full of fear when I watch the News?"
"Will things ever get better for me or am I doomed to stay trapped in this hellish nightmare I jokingly call living?"
"Is it wrong as white man to watch COPS and Judge Joe Brown and laugh out loud?"
"Will they ever stop making holiday shows where someone has to save Christmas?"
"Is the age of reason and invention only motivated by a quick money grab updating of what is already here?"
"Is this enough salt to put down on the front walk or will some stupid idiot still manage to find a way to fall on their ass?"
"What's up with the Red Hulk?"
"Will Lost ever get to the point or is it a remake of The Prisoner?"
"Will Levi Krause ever leave his rotting, skunk-stinking, zombie-trailer and venture out to conventions to meet his fans or will he remain an intellectual, cigarette smoking, elitist snob?"
"How does the fat guy on Lost stay so damn fat when he's on the island?"
"Is this really what it sounds like when doves cry?"
I have the answers to all of these questions and many more.
But this really isn't about YOU is it? No it isn't. It's about what I think. What about my feelings, needs and desires? My obsessions and long-winded ponifications? My numerous collections of things that have little or no value in the eyes of those who will sell it off in a garage sale for pennies on the dollar when I am dead? My endless typos and misspellings? In 2010 it is MY chance to vent, fella.
Y'know, a lot of you have asked me about the true nature of The Chris Yambar Show. It's a mindset that helps me to realize that for this single magic moment I am the person in charge of who I am and what I accomplish. I am responsible for what I do, for what I create and what stands in the eyes of the world in my name. It also helps me to treat others who come my way as if they were my special guests - guest stars, if you will. There is no net on my show. Only danger and possibility. And coffee. Do I have answers to all the questions of life? Yes. Should I just give them out to everyone who asks? Nope. Only those who prove to seek for wisdom shall find it ...and if they are truly blessed, Wisdom will find them.
I am content with finding cognitive answers, not in trying to exist in an endless swirling black hole of important questions.
Random News: starting THIS weekend I will begin posting 2 new single-panel comics = FRESH FISH and B.S. The images will always stay the same but the captions will always change. How far can I take these captions? I will endeavor to be relentless. In time I may even release collected trades and T-Shirts. Perhaps a float in the Macy's Thanksgiving Parade.
In all fairness here are a few answers for you: "Yes." "No" "She's just not that into you, man." "Jesus Christ." "Paul Stanley." "Chocolate" "Spin again." "Lower, please." "Because Lost is a complete waste of precious life." "Yes, Virginia. There is a Chris Yambar." (You provide the questions. I'm not going to do all the work here!)