Funny Times Anniversary Contest
We had our 20th Anniversary Gala celebration over the weekend of July 29-31, 2005. We offered our readers a chance to win our Grand Prize - an all-expense paid trip to Cleveland for two for a jam-packed weekend of events. We received many interesting letters but our winners were Warren Turner and his son, Joe Bailey-Turner from Hanover, NH. Boy, did they have fun. Here they are with Ray at our Cain Park-Sauce Boss concert and picnic grand finale on Sunday night.
And here are some of the interesting letters and funny quotes that we received from people trying to win our Grand Prize:
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Please enter me in your drawing for a FREE TRIP FOR TWO TO CLEVELAND.
I first read Funny Times when my friend Keith sent me a gift subscription
many years ago, an act of generosity which has lead to years of enjoyment
in subsequent renewals. In fact, my house for some time has had 2 subscriptions;
the second was ordered in an attempt to quell marital disharmony since
my wife Mary and I would fight over the new issue in bad. Now she keeps
both -- one hidden by her bedside, the other in her car. I wait every
month for a careless act on her part allowing me to steal one back.
A few years ago I made the mistake of sending gift subscriptions to my
wife's brothers, who are attorneys. I now realize that they are probably
conservative humorless Republicans to boot, since they have never mentioned
the gift in the years since. Never.
Thanks for the great publication.
William C. Neal of Jackson, WY
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Dear Funny Times,
I received my Funny Times in the mail last night and read about your
anniversary contest --wracked my tired brain for something interesting--
and gave up. However, when I woke up this morning, the following happened:
I pawed through a dusty box of old audio tapes, looking for some Christmas
music to put myself in the spirit to put up my wreath and one string of
twinkle lights I've had since the 80s. I had first tried to get my CD
player to play a holiday CD, but it refused, just flashed "no disc" or
endlessly twirled and twirled. Anyway, what do I see at the bottom of
the box but a tape with my (second) former husband's name on it and SOMETHING
CAME OVER ME and I slipped it into my $8 cassette player. There they were,
all those last pleading messages from my (thankfully functioning) answering
machine, of years ago, put on by my ex.
Poor guy! The machine kept cutting him off! But he persisted, though
he pointed out that it cost a lot calling all the way across the country.
He sure did say that he loved me a lot. (Maybe I needed to hear that.)
He also said that he was going to come the 3000 miles home in his new
car, and I remembered I later heard he'd almost killed himself in that
car driving through a red light in an alcoholic blackout. So, some laughs,
some tears.
Later, listening to Silent Night on my Original Music Box Favorites,
Volume 2 tape, eating my pancakes and reading Dykes to Watch Out For --
Marriage Engage, it suddenly came over me that today is the 14th anniversary
of our marriage! (Well, actually we've been divorced over 10 years.) So
I guess this is really a story to fit both the anniversary and memorable
Funny Times moment!
Thanks so much for the years of laughs, giggles, guffaws and chuckles
-- not one of the issues has made it to the recycle bin yet...
Happy Holidays and New Year,
Susi Morningmountain of Cottonwood, AZ
P.S. Looking forward to visiting Cleveland.
P.P.S. I'm not bringing my ex!
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Tis the Season -- A Replay
I flash back to a small town in North Dakota during the Great Depression
and to the 4th grade where we all drew names for the Christmas party.
That year I finally drew the name of the girl of my dreams -- Little June
Bug. She was the cheerleader type, the most beautiful and sought after
female in the class with a permanent lickspittle following.
We shopped at a little general store and I searched every counter, finally
deciding on a ten cent bottle of toilet water. I knew instinctively that
perfume was always well received when a man gave it to a woman. I wrapped
it as best I could and took it to school on the day of the party. She
had a crowd around her as she held up and opened the present from Little
Robert. She took one sniff, made a face and said: "Phew! That stinks!"
All of her followers laughed while I reddened and hoped for an early death.
It took me years to get over that, but I am finally able to laugh at
it all. I am mature now and see things in their proper perspective. I
really feel sorry for June now, even though I hope she married an alcoholic
and they had nine subnormal children, many of whom are now in penal institutions.
I hope she is obese with sagging breasts and no teeth as she is unable
to afford dentures. It is my Christmas wish that she have a constant body
odor and greasy, stringy hair which is a dirty gray. And that she is aware
(and has daily regrets) that she passed up the one beautiful thing in
her life that day at the 4th grade Christmas party.
Bob Stokes of Anchorage, AK
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Beginning November 3, 2004, a heavy feeling of despair and despondency
enveloped me 24-7; my thoughts were unable to get beyond "I can't believe
it!" "Four more years?" and "To where can I immigrate?"
A few weeks later, I pulled my January Funny Times from my mailbox; there,
on the cover, I saw... myself! Yes, me: blue in a red state! It was like
receiving a sympathy card; Funny Times knew how I felt... not just I,
but how thousands of others were feeling, also. I was not alone!
I've been intending to write a thank you note to you ever since. Not
just for the sympathy, but because (I now realize) you tell my --our--
story, via essays and cartoon... our yesterdays, our todays and our tomorrows.
Thank you for providing a healthy perspective, for keeping me sane (since
about 1990) in a world gone mad.
Sandy Schiller of Boise, ID
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I began subscribing to Funny Times in the early '90s, don't remember the
exact year. I noticed many cartoon writers had their own email addresses
and websites. In 1996, I went to the website of Ted Rall www.tedrall.com
which at the time was requesting short stories in response to his question:
"What is the worst thing you've ever done?"
I sent in my "rabbit story," one that I have told to clients and friends
since 1988. As I understand it, of the 600 stories Ted received, he picked
mine as one of the final 20 that would be written into cartoon form. I
was thrilled!
Ted's subsequent book was published as Real Americans Admit: The Worst
Thing I've Ever Done! and he sent me an autographed copy. My story was
renamed "Lapiside" and I am listed as Tony P.
The December 1996 issue of Funny Times ran an ad for Ted's book, and
used my story as an exerpt from the book. I cut the panels out and framed
them in a nook in my house, surrounded by little rabbit figurines.
About a year later, Ted Rall's publicist contacts me. Apparently, Ted
was trying to round up the various "contributing authors" of this book
to appear on the Sally Jessy Raphael talk show. I suspect we will be placed
on one side of the stage, and on the other side would be PETA (People
for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) or similar. The show was scheduled
for the second week of January 1998; they would send me to New York City,
covering the expenses of my airfare and hotel.
Unfortunately, my boss called me a few weeks before that, and asked me
if I could travel to Tokyo, Japan, to visit clients for the first three
weeks of January. I explained that I was scheduled to be on the Sally
Jessy Raphael show and he said I neede to make a decision, go on to the
show, or keep my job. I chose to keep my job, and contacted Rall to indicate
that I would not be attending. He responded that he was unable to get
enough contributors to make a show of it, most were in jail or otherwise
unavailable.
Over the next couple of years Ted and I kept in contact. On September
15, 2001, he was going to visit a bookstore less than half a mile from
my home. Unfortunately, the terrorists struck, and I was spending nearly
every waking hour helping clients located in New York City.
I learned a lot form my interactions with Ted and others. I learned that
cartoonists preferred to be called cartoon writers. Some cartoon writers
do not have drawing skills, and instead farm out the actual artwork to
others. The key is coming up with a concise way to tell a story, in a
few words, on a series of panels.
As I approach my own 20th anniversary working for the same company, I
realize that my interaction with cartoon writers was my motivation for
changing careers, from computer programmer to marketing executive. I write
my own sides and draw my own charts and graphs. After all, what is a deck
of Powerpoint slides but a large 36-panel comic!
Keep up the good work,
Tony Pearson of Tucson, AZ
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Funny Times Got Me Through Some Serious Times
My most memorable Funny Times moments were in the mid 1980s, when I was
finishing graduate school in Cleveland. I was in a non-traditional Social
Work Masters program at Case Western Reserve University. I would come
to Cleveland for 4-day weekends several times a month. I had to stay in
a dank, depressing dormitory. It was like Bates' Hotel, but with more
bug spray smell, and totally devoid of entertainment. The nights were
long and lonely until I discovered Funny Times.
Back then Funny Times was free and had some great ads. I was hooked by
my first issue! I'd grab a Funny Times at the corner store and fall asleep
reading it in the dorm. In the mornings other students would ask me why
they heard laughter coming from my room late at night. Just to make their
dorm experience creepier, I'd tell them I didn't hear any laughter.
Since then, I have never missed an issue of Funny Times, nor have I ever
thrown one away! I now work as a stand up comic and sometimes a joke or
cartoon in Funny Times will inspire a bit for my comedy act. So after
10 years of college and about $80,000 worth of higher education, I am
now doing a job that I was overqualified for by 6th grade... thanks in
part to Funny Times.
Thank you for 20 years of Funny Times,
Meg Maly of Erie, PA
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What the Doctor Ordered...
It's my last session of therapy before we break for the holidays and
I've just spent another hour bitching about the results of the 2000 election.
My therapist, a man not unsympathetic to my pain, signals that it's time
to stop and swivels his chair to reach into an old leather satchel slumped
against the wall behind his desk. He pulls out an envelope and hands it
over. Inside is a card saying "May you enjoy "Funny Times" this coming
year." In January, I discover that what I've taken for sardonic wit is
actually the name of a newspaper that will end up doing me so much good
that I'll keep it coming for three more years. But when Bush crowns himself
Emperor for a second term, I give in to despair and I let my subscription
slide. I'm down to my last issue when, with uncanny insight (good gawd,
surely he can't read my mind?!), Dr. K sends his condolences with a Funny
Times postcard tucked inside. Doc, if you're reading this, I want you
to know that I've had my Times prescription refilled for another year
and my outlook continues to improve.
Helen Klopfenstein of Portland, OR
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The New Dead Sea Squirrels
by Ken Kittleson
In the spring of 2000, Funny Times published an article entitled "Live
Music," a listing of outrageous band names that caused me to go into convulsions
of laughter every time I looked at it, bands with such names as Pabst
Smear, Poultry in Motion, Skeptic Tank, and the Testosterones. I carried
a folded and tattered copy in my wallet to show all of the other loosely
wired, musically inclined '60s throwbacks I stumbled upon in my extensive
travels about our small city.
At the time, I was playing bass guitar in a yet-unnamed band, which was
one notch below a garage band on the time/practice continuum. The only
accomplished musician in the group was the lead guitar player, who had
played in bands in New York in the 1970s. The rest of us -- drums, bass,
harmonica, occasional rhythm guitar, various vocalists -- were jam session
wannabes, true neophytes of the musical world. I was a practitioner of
two-string, one-finger bass playing, a minimalist sect practiced primarily
by ascetic and untalented beginners.
The lead guitar player became our bandleader since he was teaching the
rest of us how and what to play, and he favored the classic rock of the
late 1960s and early 1970s. He worked on the ore boats on the Great Lakes
and had always wanted to use "Screamin' Seaman" as his band's name. The
rest of us were naturally disinclined to be referred to as ejaculate in
any form, screamin' or not, and we kept suggesting other names to use
(my personal favorite was Boy Howdy and the Doodyheads). We were at the
point where we were going to start playing in public, ready or not, and
we needed a band name. Once again, I pulled out the Funny Times "Live
Music" list and our fearless leader scanned down the list and chose Dead
Sea Squirrels, presumably because of the sea connection. If he couldn't
be a seaman on stage, at least he could be a sea squirrel.
The ethically inclined among us were slightly bothered about stealing
another band's name, but we realized that we were bound for oblivion and
would probably never have any ' splainin' to do to the real Dead Sea
Squirrels. We began assaulting the public's ears at birthday parties,
graduation parties, drinking parties, and the local food co-op's annual
meetings, all for no remuneration. For a brief period in 2001-2002, we
were the house band in a local dive bar called Callahan's, where we were
paid with discounted drinks and all the secondhand smoke we could breathe.
Our biggest fan at Callahan's was a septuagenarian fellow who always sat
at the end of the bar chain-smoking, oxygen tank by his side. One very
large and inebriated patron asked if we knew any Charlie Pride songs and
I made the mistake of laughing. Another dipsomaniac fetched his concertina
from his truck and proceeded to play along with us, although we were playing
"All Along the Watchtower" while he was playing "The Beer Barrel Polka."
One night we inadvertently found ourselves playing for a wild "Just Got
Out of Prison and Moving to Florida" going away party for a young woman;
apparently we had missed the "Just Moving Into Prison" going away party
some months earlier.
The Dead Sea Squirrels' last gig was a graduation party in the spring
of 2003 as a favor to a friend of the head squirrel. At the party, several
guests requested country music and we responded by playing "Dead Flowers"
and "Honky Tonk Woman," which were as close as we could get to country
without becoming nauseous. By the end of the evening, we were playing
on one side of the house and all the guests had congregated on the other
side. After that night, the head squirrel landed a job in Madison, Wisconsin,
and the Squirrels were defunct. I can't prove it but I still think Yoko
Ono was somehow involved in the breakup.
Please keep up the good work with Funny Times. I consume it as an anti-depressant,
with the added benefit that the newsprint adds fiber to my diet.
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ANNIVERSARIES OF THE HEART AND BUTT-NUDGING
I was in trouble. My wedding anniversary was fast approaching, and I
needed a good gift. Fortunately, I have a copy of The Amy Vanderbilt Complete
Book of Etiquette, a book that I formerly read for amusement (Amy's advice
to dinner guests: "... if a bug crawls out of your salad, you should ignore
its presence and simply leave your salad unfinished) but which I now consulted
in earnest.
Wasn't there a time-honored hierarchy of gifts that a man presents to
his wife on such occasions? Yes, like the first anniversary being the
"paper" anniversary, the second one being '"wood", (or a more logical
intermediary step, like "'cardboard") and so forth... Here we go. The
sixth anniversary is the wooden anniversary. Hey, this list can't be that
old because the fourth anniversary is for "Electrical Appliances." I do
see a balance to the progression of gifts. For instance, to offset the
risque' '"leather" ninth anniversary, there is something guaranteed to
cool passion's flames: "textiles" for year thirteen.
My immediate concern was the third anniversary (crystal or glass), so
my plan was to present my wife Lynn with her anniversary-appropriate gift
after our evening meal I made dinner reservations at a sophisticated French
restaurant named Le Petomane. It was there that Lynn handed me a beautiful
anniversary card containing some nicely expressed sentiments, among them
an innocent reference to a practice often known as "spooning."
As you may know, "spooning" is what happens when two individuals in bed
seek the position which best promotes both proximity and relaxation; that
is, one person has his or her back to the other, with legs drawn up in
a partially fetal position. The partner draws up in an identical posture,
and "spooning" results. It is a wholesome activity that can be satisfying
even with both parties fully clothed and in separate sleeping bags. As
Lynn and I sleep in an undersized bed, spooning is a necessity with us.
I am carefully explaining how harmless spooning is because Lynn and I
have a pet name for this virtuous activity. We rather inelegantly call
it "buttnudging."
Butt-nudging is what we call it, and that is that. Lynn casually referred
to "butt-nudging" in her card to me ("In the dark of the night, when we
buttnudge...'j, but it was not particularly integral to the card's message;
it was simply there.
It was still there when we put on our coats, bid the hostess adieu, and
went home. The card, too, was there, in its envelope, on the table, where
I had left it.
When we got home, Lynn asked what I had done with the card.
After dutifully searching for it, I announced that I had left it behind.
This did not go over well.
"Call them right now and tell them you're on your way for it!" Lynn said
with great energy.Picking up the phone, I responded, "All right, but don't
worry. All they can do is read it."'
"Exactly," she pointedly replied. Recognizing her tone as meaning, "Think
about it, doofus," I considered this for a moment. Nothing came to me.
"What do we call 'spooning'?" Lynn prompted.
"Oh... OH!" Now I realized what she was getting at. To the uninitiated
reader, Lynn's "butt-nudging" comment might seem less than innocent. What
travesties would go through the mind of the unsuspecting waitress? Not
that it suggested anything illegal, but still ... it was a French restaurant;
they would be sure to imagine the worst! I had to get that card back!
I called ahead, and the hostess reassured me that our waitress had found
the card and it would be waiting for me at the bar.
Racing to the establishment, I braced myself for the mortification of
a misconstrued phrase. Would they have had the gall to read someone's
private correspondence? What would I do in their shoes? Of course they
read it! Should I then try to give the restaurateurs the proper interpretation
of "butt-nudging"?
I breathlessly strode into the bar room.
The bartender's face was obscured by the open anniversary card, which
he held up close to his eyes as he read, oblivious to my presence.
I had managed to turn the tables of embarrassment in my favor. As the
bartender was still intent on his private contemplation of butt-nudging,
I coughed and said, "I think that belongs to me."
The card came away from his face in a guilty start. I waited for the
bartender to tender an excuse of some kind, an explanation, a rationale
for this intrusion of privacy. Instead, he wordlessly put the card back
in its envelope and held it out to me, eyes contritely averted.
Although the advantage was mine, I was confused as to how to proceed.
Should I pretend that I was offended and walk huffily away? Should I save
him from his shame and tell him I did not mind his faux pas?
I was saved from indecision by the hostess who walked in behind the bar
and said by way of explanation, "He didn't know whose it was."
Nodding, I looked at her and she too looked away, in embarrassment. She
had read it as well! Had they passed it around the restaurant, laughing
with each other about their customers' lascivious ways? Perhaps they had
made a copy of the card so they would tack to the employee bulletin board?
It did not matter. I had the card and the moral upper hand. In fact,
I had the card in my moral upper hand. With a knowing smile, I swept out
of the restaurant. I found the situation very funny and I was anxious
to share it with Lynn.
She was not amused.
"We can never go back there again," she pronounced.
It was fortunate that I had chosen to observe the proper forms of giftgiving.
My anniversary present of a very nice glass vase (third anniversary!)
went over well and almost succeeded in removing the malevolent specter
of butt-nudging from the evening.
If one insists on a moral to this tale, I might state that regardless
of which anniversary comes next, I will be careful not to leave a paper
anniversary gift trail behind. Now, I have eight years to think of a good
gift for our eleventh anniversary. The motif is "Steel." Any suggestions?
Bart King of Portland, OR
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We are celebrating the first year anniversary of our relationship March
17, 2005, a year after two liberals' unlikely meeting at the unlikely
location of the Aspen Glen Country Club, near "Aspen, Colobama." Dama
and her mother landed in Cleveland in 1981 as political refugees from
communist Czechoslovakia, and I'm a faculty brat from the liberal island
of Indiana University, who came to the Peoples' Republic of Boulder for
the Buddhist Studies Institute-Naropa in 1974 and stayed.
Dasa is an artist who was masquerading at the country club gathering
as an arts fundraiser and I'm a gestalt therapist who was obligingly posing
as a board member of the chamber of commerce. I suppose the initial attraction
between us was our common "Elk in the headlights -- get me out of here!"
look in our eyes. But social chat soon led to Cleveland, which prompted
my querying her of any familiarity with Funny Times -- of which I just
happened to have the latest issue tucked into my day timer. We laughed
the laughs of political soul mate recognition, exchanged phone numbers,
and the rest is contemporary history.
I'm not saying the Funny Times was the only ingredient in our recipe,
but it sure doesn't hurt while trolling for compatible blues in an otherwise
increasingly red landscape, to have that Funny Times close at hand. We
picked the gang subscription option for Christmas presents this year,
and appreciate your regular infusion of entertaining truth, i.e. humor,
into our lives.
Dasa Bausova and Vince Savage
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