Category Archives: Crime

Interlude to The Commandments

Stanko & Tibor - Winterlude Interluds

To my fondest adherents (mostly they are incarcerated),

So much is made of laws and customs and social morays, how without them it would be anarchy, chaos, or like shopping at Walmart on a Saturday morning when the grannies and families are out for bargains at the cost of someone else’s blood. I am not sure we really heed these laws and customs, or even “best practices” (there’s a load of crapola if I ever heard one). Bear with me while I bare down on the imagined argument I am about to lay out (figuratively, of course, because if I were to lay it out literally, it would involve using a lot of paper or white sheets and a movie projector and I don’t have a permit for that).

A common refrain I think I hear in my family as we either age or have sinus infections is “that’s how wars are started.” This refers quite simply to one party having misheard the other and a minor argument has ensued or shouting. Or the shouting is needed to repair the miscommunication because we’re all deaf or listening to something way too loud on our respective i-devices that Mr. Jobs gave us before he the cold finger of vegetarian death claimed him.

My point being miscommunication and mishearings are often at the heart of what’s wrong with the world (that’s not counting religious or political zealots, both of whom seem to like raising taxes). Oh sure, there have been some horrible occurrences in the past when the message was loud and clear (yes, I’m referring to Hitler, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Apartheid, Joe Stalin, Chairman Mao, or the owners of many sports teams).

Yet so much death and violence and ugliness could have been spared had we all just listened to each other, or turned on our hearing aids.

10 best practicesLet’s suppose for a minute that the story of Moses getting the word of God on Mt. Sinai actually happened. There are people out there on the globe who scoff at this story, others who believe it wholeheartedly, and many, many somewhere in Mongolia fondling an ox, or on a beach resort in Bali too blasted from the hedonistic hellishness from the night before to really give a rat’s ass about this. But let’s take this as a basis for Western culture’s biggest misunderstanding: The 10 commandments

I contend without any formal training or guidance, and possibly with one glass 10-year old of port too many and 23 nights too few of proper sleep that if we posit that Moses did receive the commandments lo those many weeks ago, he must have misunderstood something. If Hollywood is to be believed, when Moses was up there on the Mount, there was thunder, lightning, a burning shrub (most likely from the lightning, or maybe God tossed a lit cigarette uncaringly out of a cloud – smoking was much more acceptable back then).

It would follow logically that Moses, who by that time must have been dehydrated from climbing Mount Sinai without a Sherpa guide or oxygen tanks and a North Face jacket, was a little dizzy and maybe took down the commandments by shorthand and couldn’t read them afterward. Or more likely, in state of not having had a coffee on the Mount, misheard what God said due to early morning grumpiness. Or he went deaf from all the thunder and shouting and had to read God’s lips.

My theory is that “Thou shalt not steal” was really “Thou shalt not eat veal” given that, unless it’s cooked properly, preferably with garlic and lemon, it’s not one of my favorite meats. Especially if it’s overdone. Furthermore, I have a funny feeling when God said “Thou shalt not kill” I think God really said “Thou shalt not spill.” Let’s look at the facts.

Humans kill all day, every day, for good reasons, for no reasons, for money, sex, fame, women, sports cars, for accidental rollator theft at the old peoples’ home, not to mention because of boredom in South American, Russian and Asian dictatorships. If that commandment in particular were meant to be heeded, we’re doing a pretty crappy job of it. Frankly, if we killed more, and more selectively (I’m talking to you Mr. Neighbor’s Cat Who Craps On My Lawn Just Before I Go To Mow It, and Subsequently Step In Its Droppings) world over-population wouldn’t be such a hot topic at the dinner table, right after “Can we order Chinese instead of having leftovers?”

If my theory is right, and “Thou shalt not kill” was a typo or miscommunication, and should have really been “Thou shalt not spill”, it would explain why my father would throw us death looks at the dinner table when we were kids and we knocked some liquid over. I think dad wanted to kill us then. Furthermore, have you noticed how bent out of shape people get when they spill milk? They cry over it! Even though we have developed a coping mechanism in the English language to deal with that fact. We tell people not to cry over it. Easy.

To underscore my point further, what happens when there’s a chemical spill somewhere? Everyone goes nuts, the media are all over it, some environmental lawyer with poor grooming habits is on every talk show and the victims of the spill are helped and cared for. Yet, when a politician runs over someone after an all-nighter with a hooker, no one bats an eyelash. But spill hot coffee on a dictator’s lap when he’s planning an assassination and there will be hell to pay.

It’s quite clear to me now that the 10 commandments should really be renamed to the “10 best practices”, because if they were true commandments, and there were real consequences with eating poorly prepared veal, there would be some kind of bad-ass payback in the form of locusts or reality shows being banned from television. Furthermore, if you believe in a god, he or she or it is a pretty hands-off manager, and not in the good way. You get your marching orders from some lower-level manager, then god is off who knows where playing golf or at a bar in the Caribbean with the top salesmen, and when it’s time to give feedback on your performance, you’re usually dead. So what good is a bonus then?

I won’t even get into “Remember the Sabbath Day” – I am sure it was “Remember to take a bath every day.” Those ancient Israelites must have stunk after being in the desert and sweating and fornicating. The least they could have done was wash their privates and armpits. But no, Moses had to go and take a perfectly good commandment on hygiene and he made up the word “Sabbath” just to confuse the vitamin and water-depleted freed slaves so he’d have a day off to watch football. There went millennia of good hygiene and the birth of smelly Frenchmen.

What does any of this have to do with the latest installment of Stanko & Tibor, the illustrated dialectical Karl Marx once used as a beer coaster when he was hitting on the busty waitress at Das Bierhaus? Not much except that try as we might, communications will be missed thus leading to wars, and killing will go on unabated, and sadly it won’t be that cat that is forever in my backyard dropping fecal reminders.

Master Plumber and Part-time Electrician
Zsolt “The Volt” Tesla-Druker

 

 

Pursuit-Of-Crappiness

Stanko & Tibor: Pursuit of Crappiness


Upon leaving the house, I made sure to pack all the essentials before my self-imposed health walk: keys, wallet, watch, and most importantly, my iPhone with headphones. Made with love and labor in China, where every day is (Hard) Labor Day!

Back to the iPhone. The toy of toys. And just as I was about to leave, I grabbed it with headphones and cable dangling perilously, but being in such a rush it slipped from my hands, not unlike a wet bar of soap in the shower (not prison, so save your rectal-wrecking comments), it popped in the air and then I began what felt like 20 minutes (was 3 seconds at most) of facial, bodily and emotional contortions as I tried desperately to prevent it from hitting the ground, and thusly prevent my toy of toys, my pride and joy (you thought I was going to refer to my kids? really?) from a premature death or dismemberment.

My daughter saw my face and body motions and couldn’t believe the physical lengths I would go to in order to keep The Device from tumbling. (Note: The ‘T’ and the ‘D’ are capitalized because capitalization in English generally denotes that some thing or person is so special, it’s deserving of a visual cue to the reader so you know it isn’t just some common, lowercase lay-about. It’s why when you read ‘Superman’, you think of a do-gooder dude in tights, and not some guy behind the counter at the hair salon who is “just super!” Oddly, words I have used like ‘spouse’ and ‘kids’ remain in lowercase. Go figure.)

Anyways, back to the dynamic action. Being forced to place my muscles and bones in positions usually in the domain of the Cirque Du Soleil pretzel benders, I could actually feel my body and face react like a dyspeptic, apoplectic mental patient losing grip on his favorite stuffed animal, and the earth shattering panic it would cause at not having the thingy in my grasp. (Control issues, anyone?)

In those few seconds I must have done more yoga stretches and danced such a jig of inebriated complication than I have done in years, since I was achy and had back spasms after The Device actually did tumble to the floor, albeit at a decelerated rate of speed thanks to deftly stretching my left leg at a 68º angle, extending my hairy foot at a 45º angle, using it as a cushioning agent so the The Device deflected off it, and then landed several feet away, none the worse for wear. My near cranial aneurysm notwithstanding.

Which brings me to my next point. Assembling toys and rollators for children and parents respectively. Toys for all age groups require some assembly, and I, as a middle aged mensch, need to be able to do this job, lest I show myself to be incompetent to my generational bookend familial attachments. Besides, if I left assembly to my kids, a small war would ensue after ignoring them for a full 10 minutes and checking my Device for non-existent emails.

As for the assembly of the advanced (grumpiness and age, maybe intellect) adult toys for my dad (I never heard the word ‘rollator’ until I saw one with an article description on the side of the box next to ‘Made with the finest prison slave labor in cell block 23 in China’ sticker. The rollator is a slick looking, three-wheeled walker used by spinally reticent and bald men to scuttle about freely in shopping malls and your finer homes. Who knew?

Let’s be honest, what choice did I have about assembling the thing? I couldn’t say no to the man who raised me, primarily on beef, to retain and cherish the phrases “people are stupid” and “my soap is better” (he is a freaking genius!), who bestowed upon me words of filth and Impressionist quality obscenities like a 19th century master would to his eager student, in the name of being able to express myself in meetings, or while hanging with the boys or in front of my children, usually in a car stuck in traffic.

Which brings me to the last point in this sleep-deprived diatribe: Kids. Should we be having them intentionally or not? How do they stack up in the “value vs efficiency” equation? Can you see where I am going with this? If you can, that means my blinds are open and you have very good binoculars, and you can see me strut around the house barely clothed, you filthy pervert. You sicken me. But I digress.

So do children test the theory of “are they really worth the money?” But the same can asked of smartphones, 2-seat convertibles, motorcycles, maple fudge, 300-watt car stereo systems, high-priced prostitutes, high-priced designer clothing that isn’t marked down more at least 45%, politicians, gluten-free baguettes and several other objects I can’t think of without another beer or a good night’s sleep. The answer is a clear ‘yes’ – I’m referring to the things that aren’t kids, the jury is still out on those little rodents. If you can develop and emotional attachment to it, replace it, get a guarantee on it or have an irrational, vein-in-brain-busting fit if it breaks (especially the politician), then of course it’s worth the money.

The kids, well, that’s a bit of a crap shoot. Homosapiens generally aren’t really good long-term thinkers. We really don’t consider the costs, consequences, ulcers, medical bills and trips to Ikea and Costco that comes with children. We can’t give them back, we get no guarantee, and if you leave them in the parking lot, the police eventually find you even after you have grown a beard and dyed your hair.

What does this have to do with this installment of the comic listed in the Oxford Companion of Deviant and Defamatory Literature Not Worth Wiping One’s Gluteal Cleavage With, Vol. 6? If I knew, I’d bottle it and sell it as a baldness cure or a sexual stimulant and make a killing. But I am not that enterprising, it would seem.

Witchingly and itchingly yours,
Sifu of Seafood (not) Jonathan Izuki Druker

Dummies For Books

Book1

This episode of the comic that spawned the NSA’s covert domestic spying division is truly an indication of society’s ills. Not really, I just said that to get your attention.

It’s hard to imagine, but summertime is already here and the fish are jumping and the cotton is high. Is the living really easy? Well, it has been for a little while, and was indeed contemplative and full of grilling and sugary treats until last week when I had my annual checkup.

Like all men, you hit a certain age and the doctor has to have a look in places that are best left to dirty jokes at the happy hour for the annual gathering of colo-rectal surgeons. You can see where this is going. Partially because I was walking funny for a few days after the examination took place.

Although he did buy me dinner and flowers afterward, so I can’t say that it was a total loss.

But believe it or not, that poop-chute prostate prostrate taught me several things about life and its many mysteries:

  • I wouldn’t do well in a men’s prison (I’m not that good a dancer or boxer either)
  • After one of those events, who the hell needs coffee in the morning to wake up??!!
  • Why did human biology evolve to put such an important piece of anatomy in such a difficult to reach place? Probably because mother nature has a nasty sense of humor.
  • The manufacturing sector is obviously missing out an important resource for crushing rocks into pebbles, because in what seemed like the three or four hours it took to perform that exam, I tensed up and bit down on my teeth with enough force to shatter granite, diamonds, adamantium all encased in Roman cement.
  • Lastly, and most importantly, it’s what’s on the inside (and  to some degree outside if that person showers regularly) that counts.

OK, that last one may seem odd, but indeed it’s true. So much of what’s important to our physiognomy and psychology is hidden from view. How often have you seen someone and wondered what they were really like. I do that all the time, but that’s because I’m on vacation and have too much free time. But seriously, if the doctor doesn’t look at what’s under the hood once in a while, greater and more expensive maintenance is usually in the offing. So the innards count too.

And that applies to our psychological and personality traits too. Some may seem nice on the outside but aren’t, or the opposite, some may be gruff and angry (like dad when we serve him orange juice without pulp or a bagel that’s slightly too well toasted for his liking), but are sweet and generous if a little too loose with racial epithets. It’s the ones who are nice on the outside and inside that are true rarities, and sadly, the ones who are rotten both on the inside and outside (this last category of people doesn’t read my comic) really need to be sent to live on the moon, but technology hasn’t gotten us that far yet to make it affordable to do it against their will.

So look for important parts and goodness both inside and out, see what really counts, such as treating your family, friends and even your colleagues well, having good health, the ability to laugh, or not take your job too seriously. And if you can’t do any of that, I’ll reserve a place for you on the moon where you may wake up one day with an ether hangover.

Blood-bloodcurdlingly  honest and lovingly yours,

Jonathan Livingston Spiegel

 

Modified

Not unlike the rabbinical scholars who would sit across the table from each other and argue a the meaning of life, the existence of God, and the universe, each from opposing sides all day and all night, (largely in an effort to make their wives do the heavy work in the fields while the men played an ancient form of poker called “5-Card Sheep Stud”), our brave characters in this episode of Stanko & Tibor are coming to terms with things they can’t control.

Speaking of things I can’t control — but have to accept — I spent last weekend in the backyard committing baleful acts upon living things. The majority of the time was spent slashing green grass that had grown to a height great enough to cover a small family of pygmies that I think were living beneath our house and fighting with the family of gophers that reside beneath our house in times of duress.

The slaughter continued as I discovered not one, but two ant colonies, one of which I am sure is the source of the 6-legged invaders of our kitchen of late. They crossed the line when they entered our house looking for sugary leftovers. Milling and skulking about in the kitchen without our permission was just too much for me to handle. Such disrespect. And visited upon my kitchen no less. So I proceeded to introduce them firsthand to modern chemistry and its compressed effects in the form of a foam that is meant to kill the little buggers where they live. Kind of like a nicely scented shaving foam, but with, I am assuming, DDT leftovers from Vietnam and other harmful chemicals found in discarded generators and modern foodstuffs like the sausages and cookies I eat on a regular basis.

The killing field widened to include the most evil of all invaders in my green space – weeds, specifically dandelions. The nerve, the chutzpah, nay, the temerity to erupt in full bloom in the backyard, en masse, was just too much for me to handle. Off I went to obtain my preferred killing machine, that claw thing that rips out the dandelions by the root, an industrial version of what my dentist has used on me for what she delicately refers to as “cleanings.”

Well, those dandelions and their deep roots mock me no longer. And you’d think that after violently ripping some 50 or 60 of them out, the other dandelions would have gotten the message to stay away from our backyard. They are either of a kamikaze variety or just not very bright as far as weeds go. Maybe they are the lemmings of the plant world. Now the green grass and occasional cat poop that is my backyard is safe for now.

Oddly, while I was committing these acts of “planticide” and “anticide” I kind of wondered if this how God feels when he or she or it is flooding a coastline full of villagers and tourists in Indonesia or triggering a volcano somewhere and wiping out a village of evil-doers doing their laundry and making love to their oxen in a third world country. I wonder if God thinks we all look like ants and has a giant can of death foam or worse, a giant magnifying glass for frying.

I also came to the conclusion during my garden rampage on the living things that by holding the power of life and death over living objects, I was like God. Or a serial killer, there really isn’t much difference between the two, is there. They both seem to have the same characteristics: indiscriminate killing, twisted logic, rage issues, don’t handle stress well, and they both probably have a tattoo with the words “Suck it” on a shoulder blade. But I bet God would be better at cocktail parties making small talk, like “oh yeah, I hurt my back splitting the Red Sea the other day, and I can’t get a good chiropractor…”

Effervescently yours,

Mojo Dojo Mofo Druker

Credit Races

Stanko & Tibor - Credit RacesDear Darting-Eyed Readers,

Having just finished a workout at the gym last week, it was time to take a shower, which meant I had to deal with the fact that science has again failed me. Why? Because modern beauty product scientists haven’t come up with a way that I can clean myself without using water? No, I like taking a shower with water, it’s a place for me to sing off-key and wash away my many sins.

No, science has disappointed me because it still hasn’t found a way for me to hover in mid-air. No, not so I can smash my so called enemies from above. Enemies that my doctor says are purely imaginary. But what does he know. He’s against me, as are the squirrels and raccoons who tear my garbage bags apart. And the weeds in my garden are definitely my enemies. And he says I need help.

Where was I? Ah, the useless scientists. You see, I would need this ability to hover for one place above all – while using the gym shower / bathroom. Are there any places more athlete’s foot-ridden and smelly than a gym bathroom and shower? Well, maybe the floor of a strip club, but I don’t frequent those places since the shock therapy. If we all could float above the filthy bathroom floor on command, athlete’s foot would be cured and the evil, profiteering cabal of the podiatrists and the oligarchic foot cream producers would be smashed. And think of the benefits when your child / pet vomits and you wouldn’t have to touch the ground. Just glide right over it and let your robot vacuum cleaner clean up the spill.

Oh wait, the low IQ scientists haven’t mastered that either.

So, it is with deep disappointment in mankind, specifically the scientists, that I bring you this installment of the handcrafted “objet d’art” that the secret police in China would have imprisoned me for, despite the fact that I eat a lot of Chinese food. It’s about reality – financial reality more accurately, and no matter what happens, the banks and credit card companies will always win because we humans (me) love to buy stuff. Or have to have our bathrooms renovated thus enriching the interior decorators’ union yet again. There will always be debt, and we need to stay fit to stave off its weighing-down effect.

Or maybe, those lazy scientists could make themselves partly useful and invent a way to make the debt go away. And I don’t mean resorting to modern pharmacology.

Everlastingly yours, until the men in the white coats come,

Feng Shui Druker

Effing Around

As sure as spring has come and long frozen dog poop thaws on the brownish-green grass in our neighborhood, there is activity afoot, the kind of activity that makes bears stir from their dens, the kind that makes birds chirp and tweet, the kind that makes me want to do rash and crazy things in the workplace, like nap or fling paper clips with a rubber band. (Sadly, those last two are not considered ‘productivity enhancing’ by my colleagues and boss.)

So, to you dear reader of the dashing delusions of comedic machinations, you are forced to read through yet another episode of Stanko & Tibor, often seen to be even more primitive in its skill and composition – and less informative – than the cave drawings made by a low-normal cave boy named “Nick” from the Neanderthal era, who according to records had been clubbed by his dad one day after scaring away their prey when he began belching his cave’s hunting anthem for kicks.

What do cavemen, spring and my place of work have to do with each other? Well, on the surface, nothing. But below the surface, it’s still nothing. But below THAT surface, buried in dirt, there is a thread of logic all bound by the notion of creativity. Spring is a time to burst forth and create, or if you’re a fish or bear, procreate. At work, we are told to think creatively. Usually between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m. with an hour for lunch in between. Cavemen, now those were some creatives flea bags. Need I mention the club? The wheel? Obsidian tools for killing prey and each other? Steve Jobs was an idiot by comparison.

And in this episode, our leading man and his offspring show us the value of creativity in vocabulary. An episode inspired by the book I mentioned last episode that pretty much convinced me we’re at a tipping point where software programming and linguistics are more deeply intertwined than we think.  Not that you care. It’s 10 p.m. on a Saturday night, and the highlight of my day was doing the laundry and vacuuming under our bed.

So, now my bed sheets are clean, the dust weevils are sucked away and the sugary treats that spike my glucose levels to heights of a Mount Everest-like altitude await be by my bedside.

To you all, I bid adieu for now. More episodes delving into absurdity and stupidity await you shortly.

Júlio Prestes de Albuquerque del Melo Neto von Druker

PS – if you’re wondering why the cat is in the comic, my cousin says he swears it looks like a feline reincarnation of Hitler. I tend to agree.

cat4 cat1 cat2 cat3

Epiphany Ruined

To the remaining 2 or 3 readers of this dark yet truthful sketched oracle that have not abandoned the virtual ship in the 4 weeks since I last posted something, I will reward your patience with many hugs and kisses — but only of a professional kind, you know the ones on the cheek, like at a family gathering where you have to kiss that aunt who wears too much makeup and perfume, and then, thank heavens, only the cheek skin touches, and you’re off like a flash to the dessert table?

Now I have been accused of many things. Perfidy, sloth, greed, envy, poor table manners, sub-par kissing skills, sugar addiction, excessive profanity at formal events, having spinach between my teeth, poor posture, amateurish dancing skills, poor penmanship, questionable fencing skills and not to mention of messy desk-keeping.

While all of those things may have a grain of truth to them, well, maybe a satchel of truth. OK, a duffel bag of truth, but that doesn’t prevent me from providing you with the thought leadership on things of a cartooning (or is that cartoonish?) nature. Things like what defines and is the source of creativity? Usually it’s a smallish gene pool or some intermarriage. Or very close proximity and easy access to the cabinet where they keep the cleaning products or medicine cabinet with the tasty cherry cough syrup they pulled off the market due to excessive alcohol and codeine content. Or in my case, living awfully close to the high tension wires, while mom cooked with aluminum pots and pans, while she left me close to the microwave as it cooked her cauliflower.

Some people have genius in their soul. Like Thomas Edison, Leonardo Da Vinci, Steve Jobs. Or one of my cousins who painted the bathroom walls in his own droppings to express his inner self.  He’s in therapy. Others learn to be creative through exposure to many media, like music, art, food, alcohol, and by realizing they have no future in accounting as their grade 4 math scores indicated at an early age. Sometimes it’s just sheer desperation that is the mother of creativity. Or being short in a tall man’s world.

But I digress.

The path to creativity is never clear, but one thing is for certain — that inflatable unicorn hat for cats is real. Swear to God. Check it out: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/21/inflatable-unicorn-horn-for-cats-photo_n_1901789.html

It will be my duty to provide you with unending creative wit, imaginative prose, unforeseen plot twists and at least a post once every week or so, providing I ignore my wife and children more than I usually do. I know, you’re rooting for me.

Many warm and sticky returns,

The Vicious Aloysius (my wrestling alter ego) Druker

Manny The Mender

Stanko & Tibor - Manny the MenderCrime is like tomato sauce – there are many types, versions and kinds, and getting it just right takes patience and practice. The timing has to be just right and you can’t just use any tomatoes to get the job done. And sometimes you have to improvise with gun powder.

Now, those of you who actually deign to read Stanko & Tibor — probably in private, in the dark or in a closet with a flash light, lest you be outed as a deviant fan of this handcrafted, visual gem that once was called by the National Board of Psychologists, Psychotherapists, Physiotherapists and Psychiatrists as “messed up” — are wondering to yourselves, “how could he credibly compare crime and tomato sauce in the same breath?”

Quite simple, actually. Allergy medication, two large, sugary chocolate danishes for breakfast and an insurmountable deficit of sleep have all come together over the past week and conspired to give you this installment of Stanko & Tibor and the theme of crime and incompetence.

And these two deeply intertwined topics are present every day that I walk past the multiple construction sites that surround my place of work, knowing full well they are being done with shoddy workmanship and half the “proceeds” going to the Fund for Overfed Mafiosi and probably a slice to the mayor and the party in power too. Don’t even get me started on the extortionist approach of the protesting students while they tweet on their iPhones. But I digress as the evening progresses.

Now with the start of June here, the green grasses grow quickly(when it isn’t so dang cold in the evenings), the trimmers and mowers work their magic and the kids run about til late in the evening, shouting and coming into the house with filthy feet and subsequently filthifying the bathtub when we force a shower on them. And it is with these summery thoughts and images in your head that I bid you adieu for another week or two until I get around to the last installment on this topic of crime and self-punishment.

Enjoy the weather, eat some non-criminal tomato sauce, and eat a lot of fiber. A recipe for happiness if there ever was one.

Truly and deeply yours,

Gustavo del Fuego Drukero