Stephan Pastis's Blog

If you ever see me when I get out of bed, brush my teeth, and make coffee, you might mistake me for a genius.

The way I put both feet on the floor, squeeze the toothpaste tube all by myself, and manage to get the coffee into the cup are all hallmarks of someone very, very intelligent.

But take me out of my own home and my natural gifts decline.

Particularly when I travel.

Where my stupiderness expands like an exploding popcorn kernel.

And it’s not just that I don’t always know where I’m going, or what people are saying, or even what it means when someone nods their head (in Bulgaria, it means “no”).

It’s also the fact that when I travel, the biggest threat to me is me — me staring down at my phone as I walk to check which way is north; me looking up at a cathedral as I cross an intersection; me failing to notice the tiny step outside the restaurant’s front door that was put there for the sole purpose of watching foreigners fall. 

As a result, over the years I’ve snagged my forehead on electrical wires, tumbled into holes in the sidewalk, and crushed my testicles on an iron sculpture. In fact, in one spectacular fifteen-second sequence in Amsterdam, I managed to clang the top of my head on a street sign, crack my shin on a fire hydrant, and fall off a sidewalk. Which to any passing Dutchman must have looked like the Three Stooges had suddenly been reincarnated into one living man.

And while I’d like to be able to say that these things only happen when I travel abroad, the fact is I’ve driven into oncoming traffic in Nebraska; toppled a table filled with cocktails in Chicago; set a woman’s sweater on fire in L.A.; and sheared off the side mirror of my car in Denver.

That’s to say nothing of the awkwardness and social faux paus that come with encountering new people, customs, and environments. And while it’s one thing to not know you should take off your shoes in a Tokyo home or cover up your legs in a Malaysian mosque or remove all your clothes in a Finnish sauna, it’s another to be drinking with a stumbling librarian in Pittsburgh and decide to say, “You look like you’re even more wasted than me,” only to have her then turn around and say, “I have cerebral palsy.”

And all of these physical and social pitfalls are compounded by the fact that when I’m on a trip I seem to lose all ability to assess risk.

Drink tarantula venom? — Sounds smart.

Smoke the strongest weed in Oregon? — I’m there.

Ride a zipline held up by duct tape? —  Let’s do it.

Wrap a boa constrictor around my neck? — Why not?

And often it’s the places themselves that demonstrate, at least to the few friends I have left, that on the road I make even dumber choices than I do at home. Because while others brag about their time in Paris or Rome, I tell them I went to Three Mile Island.

“You mean where the nuclear reactor melted down?”

“Yeah.”

“Is that even safe?”

“There was no one there to ask.”

Because the fact is I’ll journey miles to see the bizarre (a monument to circus workers killed by lightning), the obscure (World’s Largest Concrete Garden Gnome), the magnificent (Machu Picchu), the tragic (the killing fields of Cambodia), the inappropriate (Lincoln’s outhouse), the gaudy (Saddam Hussein’s palace), the famous (Dorothy’s ruby slippers), the religious (the Church of Scientology headquarters), the musical (Dylan’s boyhood home), the gross (a Mexican cantina where you can relieve yourself while standing at the bar), the historic (from where Trotsky was murdered to where Napoleon was defeated), the ghoulish (from Einstein’s brain to Chopin’s heart), and the deceased (from Ho Chi Minh to Mr. Rogers).

That is when I can actually find all of those places. And not travel the wrong way on a one-way road. And not fall down a flight of stairs. And not become so bored and juvenile on a long drive that I cause my travel companion to turn the car around and drive home (that has happened). Or change to an earlier flight (that has also happened).

All of which raises a very important question:

Why is travel never portrayed this way?

Why in all the travel magazines and travel shows — and particularly on Instagram — is travel mostly about sophistication and status? Beautiful people photographed against the usual backdrops of the Eiffel Tower and the Colosseum, Times Square and Tokyo. All experts after just one class on origami or cajun cooking or tango dancing — in destinations arrived at seemingly without inconvenience or error, as though their mode of transport was not a missed flight on United, but a carriage pulled by unicorns.

But surely that’s not how their travel really went.

Surely they had their own moments of stupidosity — moments where they got lost on the way to a castle or dropped their phone in the Seine or lost their passport in a laundromat or were gored by a bull or punched by a friend or hit by a train or mistook someone with cerebral palsy for a drunk (easy to do).

Because I’ve met the kind of people who post those travel shots. And they’re not that smart even when they’re at home.

I was reminded of this wide gap between how other people’s travel is portrayed and the clown show that is my own during a recent trip to Singapore.

While there, I visited a nineteenth-century Chinese tea house and saw a quartet of twenty-something tourists taking a photo of themselves seated on the floor around their table — all savvy and smiling, heads pressed together like beads on a necklace, each gripped by the inexplicable need to flash the peace symbol — a photo they no doubt posted later on Instagram to demonstrate both their mastery of the tea ceremony and fervent struggle for world peace.

While across the room sat me.

Cross-legged and alone.

Befuddled by a teapot.

For I had just listened to the kind Chinese server methodically explain the centuries-old process by which I was to prepare my tea, an elaborate ritual involving five different receptacles.

But I don’t listen well even at home, much less after a dozen sleepless hours on a plane.

And so all I could remember of it was:  

“You pour something into something.”

“Now you try,” she said.

So I began to pour the hot water.

And she immediately put her hand out to stop me.  

“No, no. First pour the water into this pot.”

I stared at her like a lost fawn in search of its mother.

“Okay,” she said, ever-patient and smiling, “maybe I explain again.”

And so she did — restating the entire set of instructions — for a second time.

Which as I heard them were:

“You take the thing and pour it into the thing and then the thing and the thing.”

And when she was done, she motioned for me to try again.

So I picked up one of the teapots.

The wrong teapot.

And that’s when the smiling Chinese woman stopped smiling.

“This not rocket science,” she snapped.

I looked up at her.

“No need M.I.T.” she added, a reference to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Her twisted face looked like that of every exasperated teacher I had ever had, from pre-school to law school, each of whom found my poor listening skills unfathomable.

And so, much like those teachers, she shook her head and abandoned me.

Never to return to my sad, little table.

Where I sat on the floor randomly pouring one receptacle into another, like a four-year-old making mud pies with the hose.

Demonstrating a level of stupidity you rarely see in travel stories.

At least until now.

I just spent over 10 hours trapped inside a United plane at the Newark airport.

The list of reasons for the delay was, well, magnificent:

1) Food was not stocked on board

2) Needed de-icing

3) Needed de-icing again

4) Lost fuel from waiting for takeoff

5) Lost our captain

6) No new captain (stuck in traffic)

7) Lost our crew while waiting for new captain

8) Got new crew

9) Still no new captain (still stuck in traffic)

10) Got new captain

11) Lost new crew while waiting for new captain

I wish I could write comedy that well.

During the 10 hours, we got off the plane only once.

Wait, you may say, they have to let you off the plane after so many hours.  Well, not really.

They tell you that you can leave.  But if you do, they add, you need to remove all your luggage. Translation:  If this plane is ready to go, we will abandon you like a three-legged mule.

Result:  You don’t dare leave the plane.

Remember that guy United dragged off the plane not too long ago? We were longing to be him.

But United added to the experience by offering no WIFI, no water, and no food.  The food part was especially ironic given that the lack of food on the plane was the initial reason for the delay.  Turns out, they weren’t going to give it to us anyway.  Eventually, I walked to the back of the plane and snuck a glass of water from the flight attendant.  I traded away one of my children for it.

But it was all okay, because United kept me informed viatext, telling me in a series of texts that the flight would:

Depart at 3:30 pm (wrong)

Depart at 7:45 pm (wrong)

Depart at 8:45 pm (wrong)

Depart at 9:35 pm (wrong)

Depart at 10:35 pm (wrong)

Depart at 12:55 am (wrong)

Depart at 11:59 pm (wrong) (an odd shift back in time, as well)

Depart at 12:30 am (wrong)

Depart at 12:59 am (wrong)

Depart at 3:49 am (wrong)

If you’re keeping score at home, that’s a stunning 0 for 10.  A monkey taking an algebra exam could do no worse.

In fact, their updates were so consistently wrong that I started texting back to update THEM, replying to each of their updates with:

Update:  We don’t have a pilot.

Update:  Crew just left.

Update:  You literally have no idea what’s going on.

And after ten hours on board, they finally cancelled the flight at 1:30 am.

But like a good firework show, United saved the best for last.   They told us all that we would have to go to the United service desk to reschedule.

And that’s where the bad math kicked in.

Number of employees at service desk:  4

Number of people waiting for service desk:  400

So the same people who got off the plane at 1:30 a.m. had the added joy of standing in line until 5:00 am (And beyond.  Line still had 225 people in it when I left at 5:00a.m.).

The good news is that I finally got a new flight by connecting to United on Twitter.  The bad news is that the flight is not until Saturday.  Which means I need a hotel. So I’m out a few hundred more dollars.

United will tell you it’s all because of the weather.  And that’s true.

But it’s sort of like building your next house out of cardboard and blaming the rain when it disintegrates.  

I now get the United slogan – “Fly the Friendly Skies.”  The skies are friendly.  It’s their planes that suck donkey ass.

So next time you have to fly, don’t fly the friendly skies.

Fly the friendly airplane.

My newest treasury, Pearls Hogs the Road, will be in stores next week.  It has 18 months’ worth of Pearls strips and contains my commentary below many of the strips.

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It is the ninth Pearls treasury.  If you own them all, you have every single Pearls strip I’ve published (Well, except for the last six months or so of strips.  It takes awhile to get them into books).   For the curious, those prior eight treasuries are:  Sgt. Piggy’s Lonely Hearts Club Comic; Lions and Tigers and Crocs, Oh My; The Crass Menagerie; Pearls Sells Out; Pearls Blows Up; Pearls Freaks the #*%# Out; Pearls Falls Fast;  and Pearls Gets Sacrificed. 

The commentary  is often people’s favorite part of the book.  Which is not saying much for the strips.  It’s sort of like when someone compliments your shoes but adds that you’re fat.  But I am not fat.  Though I am getting there, after eating this burger with a donut for a bun in Nashville last week.

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I’m now thinking that wasn’t a healthy move.  So instead of flying home from Nashville to California, I ran.  It burned off almost half the calories.

My fatness aside, the commentary is often both funny and insightful, and sometimes neither.   But if you don’t like it, there’s a money back guarantee.  Not from me, but the store.  And not willingly.  You’d have to rob them.

But before you rob anyone, take a look at what a sample page looks like.  This one contains commentary about how angry people get when you kick nuns.  So kids, don’t kick nuns.

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I should add that my fingers do not come with the book.  Though I suppose they could, if you were willing to pay extra and let me stay at your house.

Speaking of staying at your house, here are the 9 cities I’ll be traveling to on my upcoming book tour:

Friday, April 21, 7:30 pm — Charles M. Schulz Museum, 2301 Hardies Lane, Santa Rosa, CA

(Well, this one doesn’t really count as “traveling”, as it’s just two miles from me.  So I suppose I can just sleep at my own house for this one.  Though I have been assured by the museum that if the event goes late, I can sleep under Schulz’s desk.)

Sunday, April 23, 4:00 pm – Powell’s Books at Cedar Hills Crossing, 3415 SW Cedar Hills Blvd,, Beaverton, OR

(Ah, Portland.  Where I can eat even more donuts and get stoned legally.  So if you’re going to come to just one event, make it this one, as things could get interesting.)

Monday, April 24, 7:00 pm – Elliott Bay Book Company, 1521 10th Avenue, Seattle, WA

(Always sunny Seattle.  Where I hear The Far Side‘s Gary Larson lives.  So if you have a connection, let me know.  Otherwise, I’ll go to that market and catch fish with everyone else.)

Wednesday, April 26, 7:00 pm – Magers and Quinn, 3038 Hennepin Ave, Minneapolis, MN

(Minnesota!  The state that gave us Charles Schulz and F. Scott Fitzgerald and a very, very large mall.  But I do not like malls.  So please, someone recommend a bar.)

Thursday, April 27, 7:00 – Dallas Morning News, 508 Young St., Dallas, TX

(Dallas!  Believe it or not, this event was almost scheduled to be at the Texas School Book Depository, the building from which Oswald killed Kennedy.  Or didn’t.  Depending on how conspiratorially-minded you are.  But no matter, it is now being held at the Dallas Morning News.  So if I bore you, you can just kick back and read a newspaper.)

Friday, April 28, 7:30 pm – Universal UClick, 1130 Walnut Street., Kansas City, MO

(If you are a comics fan, Kansas City may be the most unique opportunity.  That’s because the event is being held at my syndicate, the same syndicate that distributes Calvin and Hobbes, The Far Side, Doonesbury, and many more comics.  As far as I know, this is the one and only time they have opened up the building for a public event.  More importantly, the head of my syndicate, John Glynn, will be there.  Feel free to touch him, hug him, pat him on the head.  But be careful – he has a temper, as you will see in this video.)

Sunday, April 30, 5:00 pm – The Ivy Bookshop, 6080 Falls Road, Baltimore, MD

(Baltimore!  This is one of only two cities on the tour where I have never done a book signing.  I put it on the tour because I recently drank in the Inner Harbor area and loved it (My motivations are just that shallow).  So if you don’t see me at the signing, that’s where I’ll be.  Passed out.  Perhaps floating lifeless in the water, like something out of an episode of The Wire.)

Tuesday, May 2, 7:00 pm – Quail Ridge Books, 4209-100 Lassiter Mill Road, Raleigh, NC

(Raleigh!  It’s been a few years since I’ve done a signing at Quail Ridge, but it was one of my favorites.  So I am coming back!  That is, if I survive Baltimore.  If not, please entertain yourselves.)

Wednesday, May 3, 7:00 pm – Brookline Booksmith, 279 Harvard Street, Brookline, MA

(Boston!  Along with Baltimore, one of only two cities on the tour where I have never done a signing.  While there, I will also be talking about my kids book series, Timmy Failure.  That’s all presuming I have any fans at all in Boston.  Which I may not.  So if it’s just two or three of us sitting around, we can hold hands and share intimate stories.)

So that’s the tour. The goal of which is to make me so rich and famous that one day, just like Elvis, I can fill my home with things like this monkey, which I found on Elvis’s coffee table.

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That’s all assuming I live that long.  Which, after the hamburger in Nashville, is iffy.

So please, come see me while you still can.

Sincerely,

Stephan “Pretty Fingers” Pastis

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Good news.  Or bad.  Depending on your perspective.

I am being let out of my locked office for ten days to go on a book tour.  I’ll be visiting eight different cities.

All in support of my next treasury, which looks like this:

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The eight cities will be announced soon (Thus, the black strips over their names in the banner.  That’s to build suspense.  Are you suspended yet?)

The tour will begin April 21.  This will give all of the cities the necessary  time to obtain restraining orders.

No, that’s not true.  I can go anywhere.

Except Turkey.

But that’s a discussion for another day.  So if you were planning on a big signing in Ankara, you might want to make other plans.

At each tour stop, I’ll be showing strips, reading hate mail, and signing books.   I will not be perched atop a girl’s bicycle.

And please, someone bring beer.  Even if the bookstores tell you not to.  Because, as you can see from the photo above, I’m a rebel.

So for those of you who might not know, I have written a book series for kids called Timmy Failure.  It’s about a little boy who is a detective.  And is not smart.  And can’t solve any crimes.

It’s filled with lots of drawings.

Contains an unethical polar bear:

And has a girl in a toilet.

There are four books in the series so far:

And you can get them at your local bookstore.  Or, if you are lazy like me, you can just get them HERE.  Or, HERE.

All four of the books are all written in the style of the Diary of a Wimpy Kid and Big Nate  books (meaning they’re filled with lots of drawings and are easy to read).  So if your son or daughter liked those books, they will hopefully like Timmy.

Best of all, they are written by me.  And I am funny.  According to me.

Happy Holidays,

Stephan

I’m often asked if I sell original Pearls strips.  And unfortunately, I don’t.

But every year or so, I auction one off for charity.  In this case, homeless kids here in my community of Santa Rosa, California.

So if you’ve always wanted to own an original strip, and would like to help a great cause in the process, there is ONE glorious day left to bid in the auction.

Just click HERE to see the wild and crazy bidding.

Your fearless cartoonist,

Stephan

In honor of the upcoming Pearls Before Swine treasury, Pearls Gets Sacrificed, I am touring this whole angry nation.  Not to be burned at the stake (truly, that would ruin things), but to talk about ME, and to talk about Pearls, and — if someone out there brings me gin — to sign your book.

The cover of which looks like this:

So, you may ask, where can you meet this idiot?

Right HERE.   (And don’t worry if you’re not on Facebook — you can still view all the particulars.)

And if your town is not on the list — do not fret.  There are two cities to be named later.  Both of them will be part of the Timmy Failure tour, but on that tour, I always talk about Pearls anyways (and will even draw a Pearls character in your Timmy book).

And if all that fails — well, there’s this totally nuts idea:  Go on vacation with me.  That’s right.  A cruise in January in the Caribbean where I sign your books, talk about Pearls, and apparently, eat dinner with you.  (Believe me, you’ll want to switch tables).  But more on the cruise stuff later.

For now, join the mob and come see me on the “One Step Ahead of the Mob” tour this September (but leave the pitchforks at home).

Love,

Your Favorite Idiot, Stephan Pastis

A sneak peek at the cover of the next Pearls treasury, Pearls Gets Sacrificed, which contains 18 months worth of strips, Pearls stickers, and of course, my insightful commentary.  The book’s publication (and 8 city book tour) will all happen in September.

Cities to be announced soon.

If you’re like me, and have trouble doing good in life, here is your chance to turn things around.

On Saturday, June 20, at 1:00 pm, I will be speaking at the Disney Concert Hall in downtown Los Angeles.  That’s right, they’re allowing me, Stephan Pastis, to speak in a respectable venue.  I will talk about Pearls and Timmy Failure and all things Stephan.

But wait, that’s not all.

I will be appearing with many authors far more successful than my humble self, including Jeff Kinney (Diary of a Wimpy Kid), Dav Pilkey (Captain Underpants), and Lincoln Peirce (Big Nate).  Why they are allowing me to join their esteemed ranks, I have no idea.  It’s a big mistake.  But it’s too late for them to do anything about it now.

And ah yes, the part about you doing good in life….

All proceeds from the event will go toward helping L.A. school libraries!  That’s right.  You can both hang out with me AND do good, which sounds like an oxymoron.

All of the info you need is right HERE.

So buy tickets.  Buy lots of tickets.  Help libraries.  See me.

Oh, and see the other guys, too.

But mostly, see me.

So a couple weeks ago, when I was at St. Jude Children’s Hospital, I met this very cool kid named Tyler who’s battling leukemia.  His mom happened to mention to me that he loves to see new “likes” on his Facebook page.  So how about we blow his mind and add a few more “likes” to the 2,400 he has now.

Just go HERE and click “like”.