OLD, INCOMPLETE VIDEO FOR BETH OF BOTH WORLDS

 https://trustthebeard.net/BOBW.mp4

Years ago, Vernon Zehr worked on a video to go with my audio for a BETH OF BOTH WORLDS promotion. He never finished it. This is as far as he got.

YOUR GROCERY STORE HERO NEAR THE MIRROR ROOM

One accurate voicemail transcript, one inaccurate voicemail transcript:

SONG LYRIC COINCIDENCES

On June 17th I posted a link on here to a new song on Bandcamp. It turns out that many decades ago Shelagh Delaney came up with a line very similar to one of my lines. Great minds think alike. 

ONE STEP BEYOND

I have a humor piece in the current issue of Funny Times:

A NATIVE OF THE SUN STAFF

By J.C. Duffy

The other day I got a text message on my phone:

“Transcript (low confidence) 

Good afternoon, it’s a 

native of the sun staff. I 

just wanna let you know

your groceries are here

whenever you get a

chance to pick them up.

Thank you.”

Imagine how excited I was when I thought I’d gotten a message from a native of the sun staff. I mean, the staffers on the sun must be busy. And hot. So, to take the time to leave me a voicemail, it must be pretty important, I thought. 

Then I read the rest of it: they wanted to let me know my groceries were here. Wow. How would a staffer on the sun know that, and why would they care, with everything they have to worry about up there? And why were they calling themselves “natives”? That’s weird. Then I noticed the words, “Transcript (low confidence),” so I listened to the actual voicemail. 

It wasn’t “a native of the sun staff.” It was actually “Anita at the front desk.” That made a lot more sense.

How disappointing. The nicest thing I can say about the robots at the phone company is that their low confidence in their transcript was well-placed. 

I went down to the lobby and thanked Anita for being a real person. She gave me the fisheye. It wasn’t the first time. As I turned away I noticed that the name tag on her sweater had a tiny image of the sun next to the word “STAFF.” Was there more to this than a mere garbled voicemail transcript? Was Anita a double agent, a spy working for both my building and the sun? I grabbed my groceries and got the hell onto the elevator in a cold sweat.

This will make a great scary story to tell the next time I’m sitting around a campfire roasting marshmallows with a bunch of idiots 

                                                         ****

This story was based on an actual transcript and an actual voicemail I got on my phone. And then I took it from there. One of the things I invented was the "image of the sun" on Anita's name tag. At least I thought I invented it. Then I noticed just such an image in one of the photos in my previous blog post:

Then I found images of the sun on my building's website:

[Insert the sound of eerie theremin music here.]

METHODOLOGY

Sometimes a delivery person will send me a picture of what they delivered:

Sometimes they'll send me a picture of themselves reflected in my front door:

PROGRESS

Some years ago my building switched from a package room run by human beings, which ran smoothly, to an automated locker system:

The new system never worked as well as the old one, but lately the carriers have gotten completely lazy and just drop packages on the floor:

SUSPENSEFUL DELIVERY STORY

I opened my door when I heard the grocery delivery guy in the hall. He hadn't rung the bell. He asked me to wait until he photographed the bags. Then he left. He emailed me the picture to let me know the bags were outside my door. I already knew that.

EBAY MARKETING TIP

The "small change" Ebay suggests I make is to reduce a $23. item to 99 cents. The art of the deal! Great haggling advice, Ebay. Why not just have an "I SURRENDER!" option with a white-flag icon?

NEW ON SUBSTACK LIGHTNING

 https://substack.com/home/post/p-173421507

UNFORTUNATE MONIKERS

Suggested slogan:

"TOFURKEY YOURSELF!"

NEW ON SUBSTACK

 https://substack.com/@jcduffy/note/p-171280347

Many years ago I sent a cassette tape of this little jingle to the Perdue company. They gave me the name of the Madison Avenue ad agency that handles their advertising, but I never followed up with them. The woman who wrote to me included some chicken recipe cards and said that everybody in the steno pool found my song amusing.

WORDLE STORIES

Never bathe in Clorox, my friend. If I may opine, it's your own fault that your skin has a matte finish. 

 

ART SCHOOL PAINTINGS 7

Here's shot of my teenage bedroom at the time, featuring the BAR lamp from one of the self-portraits. That's the back of a painting leaning against the bed.

ART SCHOOL PAINTINGS 6

A couple of self-portraits.

ART SCHOOL PAINTINGS 5

I guess this was the "style" I finally landed on, such as it was. (More little blue stain eaters!) After only one semester as a painting major, I switched to graphic design, where I thought less bullshit was involved.

ART SCHOOL PAINTINGS 4

At the time, there were TV commercials for a washing detergent that featured cleaning enzymes, which they called "little blue stain-eaters." For some reason, this triggered my little-blue-stain-eaters period.

ART SCHOOL PAINTINGS 3

I actually remember this model's name: Ivy. She once invited the students to a party at her house, where we got to see her fully clothed for a change.

ART SCHOOL PAINTINGS 2

I wasn't just painting trees in art school, thank goodness. Here's a (stylized) nude model.

ART SCHOOL PAINTINGS 1

I recently came upon some ancient, blurry slides of paintings I did in art school. Here are some trees.

CAMEO

My name made a cameo appearance in a video about Eldon Dedini on YouTube. It was a shot of a list of cartoonists in a New Yorker cartoon book collection.

I'd like to thank alphabetical order for making this possible.