Achewood
patreon
Ray's Place: Party Tunes, Definition of a Gentleman, Bores
🕑 Added 2024-06-03 02:49:52 +0000 UTCHey Ray! Nothing shits up a night like bad tunes. What’s the Ray Way to ensure you’re the DJ guiding the party action and not your friends who insist on the same “This Is Paul Simon” playlist no matter the situation? —Aaron
Paul Simon? What, are you guys sittin’ around discussin’ barefoot shoes and New Zealand? I’m sorry Aaron, but that is not a party. That is just where one of the guys has slight BO, and another guy probably thinks he looks cool with an acoustic guitar even though he looks like that dude from Jim Cramer Money Madness. (Incidentally, the third guy who's there, the one with the really soft forearms, will be dead within a year from choking. Total freak accident. I’m sorry to tell you this.)
In basic, maybe just don't call every time you hang out low-key with friends a party. Sometimes, you're just some guys in a room, and it doesn't turn out special.
-=Ray's Got Diamonds in the Dank in his Donk=-
-- -- + -- --
Dear Ray, I confess that despite being a longtime reader of your column, your place in the Generations is an enigma. I have more respect for you as a gentleman of taste [than] to simply ask your age, but can you advise me on how to tell what generation a person is? Best, Yelahneb (Gen X)
Yelahneb,
A true gentleman’s generation will not be evident, so classy and timeless are the elements of his style. And by style, I also mean his conversation and pastimes. But he can also be a bit of a maverick...for example, you typically won’t find a gentleman gettin’ carried naked-‘cept-his-cologne outta Top Golf, but I think I mighta’ had food poisoning that night, which interacted with this new mezcal that Mayor C was passin’ around, so I still get to call myself a gentleman. If the scene you caused was actually because the nacho chef at the driving range still had doodoocrack doo on his hands, then you are still in the club.
Getting back to your question, though, count the wrinkles on the neck. Start at twenty, then add ten years for each one.
-=OuCh!=-
-- -- + -- --
Dear Ray, is there a good way to tell a long time friend that they have become a bore, and that I don't care for or about their gym routine, and to suggest a more entertaining hobby such as bassoon tooting or transmutation? — Funkulus
See, I got to quibble with you here, Funkulus, and my quibble game is pretty bouncy these days. Check it: anything is interesting, if you ask the right questions. What do you think therapists are doin’ that whole hour? Some moanbag is sittin’ there goin’ all, “I can’t get anything done! Whyyyy WHYYYYYY” so the shrink has to be all, “Did you ever burn yourself when you were a kid?” The patient assumes psychiatrists know some classical reason this might be relevant to later-in-life performance issues, so they actually start tellin’ a neat story about a firecracker or welding incident, and the clock hands actually start movin’ again.
-- -- + -- --
Confidential to Marky_J: Most coffee is decaffeinated using a water-based process, so I don't think you have to worry about mites.
Comments
Chris Onstad
I'm not convinced it's really all that Alzheimer-y. It strikes me as a gently romanticized and shallow treatment of the concept, if I can even get there. I enjoy having it on ambiently, but it doesn't terrify the way it ought to. Sometimes I wonder if this dude has even had the involuntary psychosis it would take to bridge common consciousness into malfunctioning consciousness!
Stavro
Yeah but you can do a whole DEATH OF SUPERMAN thing and then Ray comes back the next week fine. Ain't like Beef and Molly and LN and Todd haven't all died before
Douglas Wykstra
Regardless of whether Onstad intends to Simpsons his characters, "No one born after the McD.L.T. has any business stomping around acting punk rock" is maybe the purest distillation of Gen-X sentiment existing outside the borders of a Bloom County strip.
Julie (HiDeeHoGal)
All situations can be enhanced by the opening bars of Everywhere at the End of Time.
Chris Onstad
ah, January 21, 2008 — ray gets elected short-term mayor of achewood. Thanks. I had a childhood friend named Byde, and Finnegan because Achewood's civic infrastructure seems classically Irish, like old NYC or something. Sergeant Callahan, etc.
Mackenzie Guillory
I’m not sure, I used OhNoRobot a couple months back when I was making a Reddit post about compiling a list of important but yet-unseen-fully characters, like Mayor C. and Corliss Kazenzakis. I believe his name is in the blogs. EDIT: I lied! It’s in a news clipping, if memory serves. I’m at work and multitasking.
Chris Onstad
Where did Ray mention his full name like that? (There are something like one million words in the Achewood canon, I console myself that I could never be expected to remember them all, especially due to all those darned vodka sales all the time)
Chris Onstad
Sometimes it's just a hang. Sometimes it's only just proof that it's time to level something the F up.
Chris Onstad
Note to self: stop committing hard dates to canon, because now Beef and Ray will have to age and die one day :(
Chris Onstad
Enjoy the verdant bounty of this season! Peninsula Park is "poppin' off" right now, if you like roses.
Mackenzie Guillory
man, WHEN are we, the comic crunchers, officially & finally meeting Mayor C. Finnegan Byde?
Aaron J. Rushton
Thanks for the wisdom about not calling things a party, Ray
Evan Tessier
If the 8/26/08 strip is any indication, Ray and Beef graduated in 1993,, so born in the mid 70s and therefore solidly Gen X. Barring any unfortunate issues such as being held back several years due to poor academic performance or otherwise entering the school system late or early due to Circumstances. Not that I'd judge the boys for timing the central trauma of American life outside of the normal range.
Ismini Roller
I am actually in Portland as I read this!
