Is this straight up banjo, or moving from a similar stringed instrument.
I have a soft spot for banjo pluckin' but I haven't even given enough time to the guitar yet.

How could you be so petty as to begrudge Ray's blitzin musical talent? A true banjist would salute him; clearly you will never be granted, by the gods of musical karma, a number one banjo-related hit to be spoken of on 60 mInutes.

all he did was pluck 3 strings. quit bitchin....

a guitjo is a little easier

Funny thing is that if you know a lick of guitar theory you can re-tune the beasts to suit your liking. I have a plectrum (4 string, no short 5th drone string... 'plectrum' denotes that you play it with a pick... these are mostly for rag time and jazz) banjo and I can no some devil blues on it no sweat. If you want to get cute like ray just did without shredding bluegrass all night long... plectrum banjos are the way to go.

*I can rip some devil blues on it*

well he did sell his soul to lucifer for nasty piano skilz. I can say from experience that it is way easier to pick up piano if you know how to mess with strings it prolly works vis versa as well. though i never dont recall selling my soul to lucifer at any point along this ride, though ray prolly doesnt remember doing that either cuz as i recall he didnt even read the contract.

oh whoa i just went to the next strip i think lucifers involvement in rays musicality may indeed be a factor here.

Nice

that wasnt a song about "takin 'it' slow"......

I'm not sure I have that much time...

I'm publishing some Reader Notes this Spring.

You're forgetting about 90% of modern metal... and about 100% of all the modern music I listen to.

Oh no! How could we have forgotten about what soticoto listens to?! HOW! HOW DID WE FORGET. IT IS SO GODDAMN IMPORTANT.

OH HOLY FUCK! FUCK! SOMEONE GET THIS GUY'S OPINION RIGHT NOW!

Lowest form of wit, that.
Mariana trench wit, I'd say... as I've been prone to in the past.

the fluid retention is hell of lame

Good "Strangelove" reference.

portal of evil?

What? Why did this get lamed?

People found it difficult to understand.

Or, you know, found it completely facetious.

Or were put off by 'fluid retention', which is an incredibly unsexy way to talk about a sexy thing.

Hey, I'm still confused, Disney Guevara. "Fluid retention"? I guess that's why I date rockers.

Maybe he's talking about hydrocephalus.

Elaborate on this... theory.

http://www.laddertheory.com/
http://www.intellectualwhores.com/masterladder.html

it will all make sense...

This is a theory of angry, angry men.

irrelevant to its truth value, but yes.

for the record, I know of counterexamples, implying that ladder theory is not all-inclusive, and in spite of it manage to find happiness in love and cuddles.

If you haven't seen Love Actually, see it; even I can't be cynical about it.

That film is indeed somewhat pleasing.

It is not a theory, and they are not Men.


P.S. Misogyny is still cool.

They are Devo!

I read that, and want to cry. At least he's not pretending to be impartial, what with the highly scientific classification of 'bitches' being, well, all women.

I tend to think of the hatred of the opposite sex as a normal (though neither healthy nor necessary) part of post-pubescent development in our society -- surely we can hold out hope for killerlimpet and the ladder "theory" guy becoming men later. The fact that young males feel comfortable posting scientific websites about their hatred and young females don't is a different problem, and one which seems less surmountable.

Ditto.

Is that near Blueberry Hill?

And it is usually where you can see me cruising in the car of pain.

sigh

Nah, that's where you find your thrill and ditch the girl. It's in a completely different state where there are no taxes and no enforced age limit on drinking alcohol.

That's how I hear it in my head yes.

Whoa, Mervyn Peake and Christian Bale all wrapped up into one delicious Assetbar profile. AUTOCHUBBY

Yeah, lima beans, broad beans, kidney beans, black-eyed peas, chickpeas, lentils...

Fucker loves them pulses.

Ray's lucky he already had his foot in the music industry door

If Ray had only known what evil lurked within his Learn the Banjo banjo...

Unfortunately, none of us will ever find out.

The Shadow will!

They ran out of new 5 note patterns and started suing each other, so it had to get more complicated because most musicians are poor.

Ray can pay the license for whatever dang song he "ripped off" so he's probably good to go.

Hey, that's also I guess how we talk to aliens.

And to think that this time he didn't have to sell his soul.

Every time I write a song, I imagine this happening to me.

Why isn't Andry Rooney dead?

He's a pretty stubborn dude.

Panel six has to be the best. Ray is shading his eyes as the sun does wane on his relationship with Mabel Jane. His acting out the part is what gives the song meaning and feeling. It is a simple thing.

It is my life's goal to get Andy Rooney recognized as a badass.

No, Dave, Andy Rooney is Andy Rooney without a sense of humor.

Several days after finding 50 dollars on the sidewalk, Ray accidentally writes the biggest single ever. Can I please know or be someone this lucky?

I am scared and confused by the prospect of Pat's Oscars party.

http://stuffwhitepeoplelike.com/2008/02/24/74-oscar-parties/

crap! nvm. were talking about critters here.... if you want to shoot me, its ok.

As I'm going through the archive, the first thing I do now is scroll down to give you the first chubby in case I run out of them later. Thanks.

Onstad's lying in his "Awesome!" blog. He just didn't want to use two blogs to explain that the worst flavor is Garden State.

Humans know about cat music?

I know this is a year later, but I don't think there's a statute of limitations for Hudsucker Proxy shoutouts.

that is such an unfair avatar it is impossible to dislike anyone who uses it

the banjo revolution is about to begin...

I'd five this strip if Rooney wasn't such an asshole.

Here's Live 105's actual site for those of you outside the Bay Area = http://www.live105.com.

They suck. The station used to be locally owned, but now it's not, and so now they're indeterminable from any other "alternative" station. Sigh.

and they just keep getting worse

You now have this song stuck in my head while I'm at work. Chubby.

Your username made me hungry. Chubby.

GodDAMMIT why can Ray pick up a banjo after one minute and write a hit song? That's not right. I've dicked around for a year and written maybe three songs that aren't Cream ripoffs.

Raymond Smuckles gets his banjoes lowered directly into his house. On a crane.

(What's that? That could be a wall corner behind the box? Yes, it could be. ...But it's not.)

Personally this song is made significantly better due to actually listening to LIVE 105. The juxtaposition is just wonderful.

And don't we all, deep down, yearn for approval from Andy Rooney?

A rough sketch I dont have a banjo, poeple. Bear with me here.

I love Ray's "Fly by the seat of his pants" style to writing music. Or in this case, fly by the seat of his thong.