Category Archives: Frustration & Complaint

Crime, Day-to-Day, Frustration & Complaint, Meaning of Life

Dummies For Books

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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

 

Crime, Day-to-Day, Frustration & Complaint, Meaning of Life

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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

Crime, Day-to-Day, Frustration & Complaint, Meaning of Life

Credit Races

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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

Crime, Day-to-Day, Frustration & Complaint, Meaning of Life

Effing Around

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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

Frustration & Complaint, Meaning of Life

Stanko & Tibor

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Humidity Shock

Since the summer arrived several weeks ago, and humidity of a nature best described as Vietnam hot box hot has descended upon my region of the world, flies and sleepless nights have coincided in a way that would suggest Mother Nature is having her period, or she is just mad at everyone for no good reason. I am mad at everyone for no good reason, largely because it’s an effective use of my time, and gives me a reason to get out of bed in the morning. Not everyone can say that.

So the image used to portray this humidity-infused rage it really nothing more than a distraction to you, the reader, while I rifle through your wallet/purse/underwear drawer. However, I can say it is the atmospheric stickiness, and not the spilled honey stickiness, that really forced me indoors. And being forced to stay indoors, especially with my family, is a test of wills, defined as torture by the Geneva convention, the Shriner’s convention and the conventions of war, and last but not least, will lead me to immerse myself in a world of iPads, games and other such things that might need headphones, thus preventing an early death in the family.

Consequently, the humidity is also the fault of the USA or China. Or Both. Sino-U.S. readers of this comedic tome of complaints and complacency make up less than 1/10000th of the readership, so I can easily blame them for things that suit my needs. By the way, if I have 10,oooo readers, it’s because 9,999 are incarcerated as violent recidivist offenders and their punishment, apart from solitary confinement, involves being forced to read this sweeping series of commentaries on life and why it’s stupid and has no meaning.

I hear you asking quietly, what proof does he have that the Chinese and the USA are to blame for the never-ending waves of high pressure mixed with moisture and a cajillion mosquitoes that seem to know where I sleep, those sneaky little bastards? Let’s examine the evidence.

My ancestors were forced from what is Central / Eastern Europe decades and decades ago and they tried to emigrate to the USA. Some landed there, some elsewhere, some perished along the way, no doubt due to poor hygiene, no swimming abilities and a diet high in salt and cigarettes. If any of the traits exhibited by my various and sundry family members today were  on display back then, probably at the dinner table where all the crap comes out, I wouldn’t put it pas the US government scientists, a large contingent of whom were ex-Nazis with excellent poker-playing skills (Nazis are great bluffers), to have created the weather condition known as “humidity” and unleashed it as punishment for the boorish behavior of my ancestors at many a restaurant up and down the east and west coasts of North America.

Conversely, if the Americans weren’t to blame, I am sure the People’s Republic of China had a hand in this humidity plague. Alluding again to my family’s behavior, it well conceivable that in the hundreds of pounds of beef and pork dried spare ribs, won ton soup, and flavorless chicken with cashews in oyster sauce they ordered over the years, they never once tipped the waiter enough for their incessant whining about there not being enough meat in the dumplings, or more likely, when one of them made gibberish noises and said “Hey everyone! I’m just like our waiter!” and then proceeded to pull at the sides of his eyes to make them more narrow, a.k.a. Asian-looking.

Thus a curse was unleashed upon all who dwell here in the summer, with weeks of unending waves of sticky hair and armpits not unlike the consistency of the sticky rice I ate the other night.  And as we purchase more and more air conditioners to temper that weather plague called humidity, the Chinese manufacturers of said air conditioners laugh mightily at my expense, causing more hot air, causing for more purchases, enriching them until one of us drops dead from a diet with too much salt.

Logically and hysterically yours,

Friedrich Nietzche Leechy Nut Druker

Day-to-Day, Frustration & Complaint, Meaning of Life

Summer Sloth, Sort Of

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It’s summer time and the living is easy. “Unoriginal thought” you say? “Sounds like I’ve heard that one before” you’re saying to yourselves. “Is he off the wagon again?” you’re wondering as you rifle through your emails in the hopes of deleting stuff that evaded the hi tech filters?

Well, there is an explanation for the Porgy and Bess quote. I am feeling the effects of work and summer and now vacation all coalescing into a big ball of laziness. I have indeed been remiss in my duties to provide you and the rest of the Internet with the finest humor that I can muster after a sugar high and a sleepless night. However, this short post and attached sketch will prove to you that I am alive and well, I am on vacation, and that I have embraced a summer sloth with the intensity of an emotionally unstable person gripping the handles on a roller coaster car as it climbs the heights before plummeting into a g-force-induced vomit-fest.

I am cooking, grilling, slicing, preparing and chopping all manner of ingredients almost daily for me and the family. I’m also managing to eat foods that fall into either the category of “tasty and all natural” or into the “may cause genetic damage and shortened lifespan” category, so you can see little has changed on that front.

But it isn’t for lack of original ideas and plot lines that I am slow to create new illustrations and stories. Ideas I have aplenty, even if they are the fevered creation of a man whose own children say “Dad, uh, you know you’re a little offbeat, don’t you.” So be prepared for new characters, stories that will make you chuckle and guffaw (in private, of course). Just give me a couple of weeks to get my butt back in front of the computer.

And I’ll be tanned and fit when I do. Ok, just tanned.

Forever yours (until a better offer comes along),

Master of the martial arts (like painting with my toes) Jonah van Damme

Crime, Day-to-Day, Frustration & Complaint, Meaning of Life

Manny The Mender

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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

Day-to-Day, Frustration & Complaint, Meaning of Life

Going Illegit

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Given the recent events of the past few days in Europe, with the French electing a socialist who went on a diet, the U.S. elections kicking off officially with pomp and circumstance, the hockey playoffs going into the stretch drive, and International Workers Day having passed just last week, I’m reminded of the toiling and hard work we all put in, day in, day out, and I decided to give you a thematically related installment of the comic that was once described by Vassily Kandisky as “not fit to line my grandmother’s bird cage.”

It’s all about work, be it honest or dishonest, hard or easy, high-falutin’ or low-brow. It’s all the same.  And frankly, some days it does feel like we’re all horse manure inspectors.  Not exactly sure what that means, but I haven’t slept enough since I came back from Germany and my sugar intake has been inversely proportional to the amount of exercise I have been doing lately. Which is next to none, if you don’t count screaming at my children to brush their teeth.

But as the spring approaches and my backyard resembles a south Asian jungle any pygmy could love, I am reminded of the work I will have to do to keep the weeds (notice I didn’t say grass) at bay long enough for old man winter to come and kill them again. And then I think, maybe joining organized crime would be way easier because I could afford to pay some gardener to mow the lawn and rake the leaves. But I’m far too lazy for organized crime. Disorganized crime, with a lot of TV-watching and extortion by telephone would be more my speed.

And if that last paragraph isn’t enough to convince you that this episode of Stanko & Tibor is about to embark into uncharted waters, then you need more help than I do.

May you all be blessed with peace, love, happiness and access to a deli open til 3 AM.

Sincerely and unfailingly yours,

Professor Steinbrecher von Currywurst

Day-to-Day, Frustration & Complaint, Meaning of Life

And Toothpaste For All

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Oh to be thin again, to be limber again, to be less gaseous and less rotund again. And to have healthy, strong teeth again. Having chipped my tooth some weeks ago, one of my front teeth no less, I realized that the onset of age, even in the realm of the dental knows no mercy.

As I stare into the mirror and smile to see this chipped chopper, I wonder both silently and aloud, “how the heck did my wife ever agree to marry someone as challenged in the looks department as me?” That question took on deeper significance this weekend as it was our wedding anniversary, and she — who felt duty-bound to keep her word and marry me despite probably having heavily regretted it when she woke up the next morning after I had proposed knowing she was under the influence of both jet lag and alcohol — once again said these past 13 years have felt like 13 minutes. Under water.

What does any of this have to do with this episode of the comic foretold in the bible as one of the 4 signs of the apocalypse and referred to by Salman Rashdie in his book club as “not suitable material to wipe a baby’s butt” have to do with toothpaste and beauty? I’m really not sure, to be honest. This is the Internet after all and they let any putz with a keyboard and the ability to type publish pretty much anything they want, so it’s your fault for reading this.

But I digress. The idea for this particular episode was not actually related to the aforementioned description of dental damage. It was a mere reflection of the marketing wordsmiths who gave us “new and improved” and other such marketing gems. And with that explanation, I will trundle to bed with a belly full of Thai food, a car magazine at the ready and maybe an intense focus on a 8-hour face-to-face discussion I’ll be having with my pillow shortly.

To those who have celebrated this long weekend with family, food and merriment, I wish you well. And remember to take out the garbage and brush your teeth.

Sincerely,

First Officer of the R0yal Brigade of Sheep Herders Lord Druker upon Cushy Bed

Day-to-Day, Frustration & Complaint, Meaning of Life

Of Leaves, Birthdays and Futility

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Dear followers of the last, great illustrated bastion of freedom of expression that has been deemed by the CIA and most Western religious groups as being mentally corrupt AND corrupting (not an easy feat), as well as deviant and just plain poorly drawn,

I send to you this latest depiction of the absurdity and frailty of life as illustrated by the hideous chore of  leaf raking, perhaps the most humbling, futile and idiotic activity humans have devised since the dawn of time. Sure, it gives me time to think of stuff to write for this comic, which is akin to giving a simpleton (me) with a penchant for hard liquor and fireworks (definitely not me unless it’s gold tequila) the keys to the fully stocked liquor cabinet along with a new Zippo lighter for his birthday (hint, hint).

And then you wind up with mental mush like this prose as a preamble to the comic.

What I came up with was a comic that delights in its visual and philosophical acuity yet is just a simple sight gag intended to tickle the soul with a devilish charm. Like life itself does from time to time. Or more accurately, this episode of Stanko & Tibor is like my birthdays.

In the spring of life, they entertained with the promise of gifts a-plenty, and wrapping paper and plastic enough to choke a horse and fill a landfill. However, there were many gifts that needed batteries and made noise — man, I hated those.

And then came the summer of life, where birthdays were joyous affairs, sometimes filled with booze, dinners and tasty cakes, and sometimes fraught with 2 ex-girl friends showing up simultaneously to give you hell for things you shouldn’t have done in a social setting with your underwear.

Then in the autumn of life, birthdays contain memories, aching body joints and discussions about medications, therapies and combustible, yet all natural medicinal herbs that help one forget that which he left in the kitchen not 5 minutes ago.

I don’t want to even think about the winter – that entails shoveling and scraping and salting and I’m just not ready yet. Oh and the kids and their filthy winter boots. But I digress.

So as this comic shows us the lesson of the ever-returning chore of leaf-raking in its most simple and humorous light, don’t forget one thing — that my birthday is Tuesday and I expect one whopper of a high calorie, high fat steak dinner that will trigger a 4-alarm gout attack followed by some damn gooey chocolate cake!

May you all find your true paths of glory. And if you found yours already, don’t rub it in my face, please.

Hugs and kisses,
Chairman and Supreme Leader Jon