Jug Band O' Birds

Humans hate birds. When we’re not shooting them, eating them, or chasing them into the sky to dice them with our airplane engines, we’re making up phrases that highlight how lame we think they are. For instance, something that is foolish or ridiculous can be classified as “for the birds,” someone who’s not very bright may be called “bird brained,” “killing two birds with one stone” is a bird-hating substitute for the term "multi-tasking," and if you mention to someone with a gentle honk that their texting is putting your life in danger, they will almost always thank you for your courteous warning by “flipping the bird.”

As if threatening and insulting the entire bird population with phrases like these isn’t enough, consider the negative connotations that are associated with individual types of birds... like chickens, turkeys, loons, cuckoos, dodos, stool pigeons, silly geese, and lame ducks. No one wants to be called bird names. That's mean... and it's not 1955.

Are birds doomed to be loathed by mankind forever? As long as we're using phrases like "a bird in the hand is worth squeezing to death," it appears so. Which reminds me... please start using that phrase.

Bayou Jug Band

I have a fun game, but we're not going to play it. Instead we're going to play this dumb one... which of these animals would you guess has the most teeth? Here's a hint: it's not the alligator. Don't feel bad if you were wrong... unless you guessed "the guitar-playing dragon," because then you should feel kind of bad. It is actually the opossum that has the most teeth... more than any other land animal. Hopefully this information will help you win Jeopardy someday (if that's even a show still), because that's the only chance that it's ever going to come in handy. See what I mean? I told you this was a dumb game. Unfortunately I was lying about the "fun" game. There never was one.

Speaking of opossums, can you think of a single, non-spelling-based difference between opossums and possums? From what I've gathered, which is very little, it seems that possums are native to the Eastern hemisphere whereas opossums are native to the Western hemisphere. So why do so many people in the Western hemisphere call our opossums "possums?" It's the same reason we have calculators and Dancing with the Stars... because we're lazy and stupid.

Mythological Jug Band

According to Wikipedia, the internet's leading source of mythological information, gryphons (which some people spell "griffins" and dumb people spell "grifunz") mate for life. What? I can think of one major ingredient that's missing from the theory that gryphons mate for life: "life." Don't you have to exist before you can enter into a lifelong relationship? Why are we assigning behavioral ettiquette to animals we've pretended into existence? I don't have an answer to this, but here's what I do know: if a gryphon finds your gym bag, he'll return it to you at his own expense, unicorns sneeze cake frosting, and flying pigs are offended by the mere thought of under-salted french fries. And when a gryphon gets together with a unicorn and a flying pig, you can count on three things: jug band music, rainbows, and a dessert buffet. (You may want to steer clear of the cake).

Ocean Jug Band

For someone who grew up on a planet whose surface is two-thirds water, it's surprising how much I hate the ocean. Don't get me wrong. I love marine animals, and I enjoy the sunshine and the cool breezes at the beach as much as I enjoy frolicking in the ocean's gentle tide. I guess what I don't like about the ocean is that my favorite things about it seem to want me dead. Most of the animals in the ocean could easily kill me without even trying or meaning to, the pleasant ocean breeze only masks the inevitable heat stroke and skin cancer that the sun is constantly dishing out, and the "gentle" tide tends to treat me like a washing machine treats a kitten that hasn't figured out the difference between its bed and the laundry basket. I could possibly forgive all of this if the ocean was as delicious as the sea food that resides there, but the miserable ocean even tastes gross. For such a beautiful, incredible thing, the ocean certainly is a scary, nasty place.

The ocean even scares me when I'm not in it... like when I'm in airplanes. For me, the worst thing about a plane crash at sea would be the off chance that I might survive it. I would choose death over drifting alive in the open sea. Perhaps I could talk the stewardess into beating me to death with the fire extinguisher at the first sign of turbulence. But I guess she'll probably be busy helping everyone prepare for the imminent water landing, so I better just ask her to do it as I board the plane... even if it's not an overseas flight... just to be safe.

We are within a few days of my blog's fourth anniversary. Thank you all for coming here, and an even bigger, specialer thanks to those of you who have come back over and over again. I never thought anyone would like this kind of stuff, but I guess I hadn't counted on there being you. Happy 4th Anniversary, Blog! After four years, 325,000 visitors, and eight animal jug bands... we've only just begun!

Jug Band of the Apes

Do you know what the difference is between monkeys and apes? There are actually several differences, the most noticeable of which is that monkeys have tails and apes don't... unless the ape has ripped a tail off of another animal (but let's hope apes don't have tails under those circumstances, because we have to draw the line somewhere). Another difference is that monkeys walk on all fours while most apes can walk on some twos. Also, apes have rotary shoulder joints that enable them to hang and swing from branches. Monkeys have useless, non-rotary shoulder joints which confine them to simply running across tree branches like crazy acrobatic stunt dogs. Do they have crazy acrobatic stunt dogs? Is that a thing yet? Come on, evolution! You're slacking lately... and you missed a lot of apes that were certainly hoping to be humanized years ago.

If the apes have a whole planet of themselves, I figure they must at least have a few jug bands there, right?

Australian Jug Band

I've already shared all the fake information my brain can hold concerning koalas, kangaroos, and jug bands, and I have nothing to say about dingoes, Australia, or Uluru (which is more commonly known as "Ayers Rock" to those of us with no hope of correctly pronouncing "Uluru"), so I don't have anything to say about this picture. Instead, let's just look at more Google searches that have brought people to my blog. These are all actual Google searches written by actual morons:

"Where did kangaroos come from T-rex." Unfortunately, T-Rex is too dead to answer your question, so I will in his stead. The answer is either "Australia" or "kangaroo mommies."

"Why do people say when pigs fly." Oh, no - this is awkward. She just doesn't want to go out with you, man... probably not ever.

"How to look like the headless horseman." Have no head and ride a horse.

"Are killer whales vegetarians?" Yeah, because killer whales were named by plants.

"Bears attack hope." Well it appears to be working, because reading that just filled me with more despair than I've ever known.

"Why tiger shark afraid of the Human Killer Whale." The Human Killer Whale? Oh, dear. Now I'm afraid of that too. I guess I can see where tiger shark is coming from.

"I think sharks are scary." Yeah, me too... but have you heard of the Human Killer Whale? Not even bears kill hope as quickly as that thing.

Farm Jug Band

I bet farm animals sound great when they perform in jug bands, but do you know when they sound even better? Breakfast. I love breakfast! What, to me, is the best meal of the day, to farm animals is nothing more than an all-too-common "cause of death." It's too bad anyone has to die just so I can enjoy eggs, bacon, and sausage at Denny's in the middle of the night, but if farm animals had any idea how delicious breakfast is, they'd probably be lining up at the slaughterhouse to be made into breakfast. What? They do line up at the slaughterhouse? Wonderful! Thank you for being so willingly tasty, farm animals. I'll see you first thing in the morning.

(My wife just pointed out that eggs were never alive, and cows don't die to give us milk. I guess that's true. Cows die for lunch.)

Desert Jug Band

How would you describe the desert? I'd say it's a tie between four equally undesirable things: dry, hot, dirty, and boring. The animals and plants in the desert are also dry, hot, dirty, and boring... and ugly, and unapproachable, and a slew of many other unsavory adjectives. To sum up, the desert is a dreadful place that has traded in its shade and water in favor of prickly weeds, poisonous snakes, and scummy casinos. Of all the places on the earth, the desert is the only one I know of that seems to hate me and want me dead... well, and also the ocean, I guess. Wherever you can find moderate amounts of water... that's the place for me.

Yellowstone Jug Band

I've always been a huge fan of Yellowstone and North American wildlife, which is why I couldn't help but add a fourth performer to my Yellowstone jug band. The washboard-playing bison almost didn't happen. I should have added a harmonica-playing deer and an antelope with a fiddle, but that seemed like a lot of work just to be able to make a not-very-funny "deer and the antelope play" joke. See? Not very funny at all. I'm glad I thought ahead.

I'm getting the feeling that my "animal jug band" series may be causing the death of my blog. It takes a while to draw, clean up, and color multiple characters for just a single blog post, and since animal jug bands require an accompanying landscape, I can't even resort to the time-saving "Photoshop gradient" background that I've perfected. Plus I've already said all I can think of to say about jug bands, so with nothing new to rant about... well, my blog's kind of dying. In the hope of posting more frequently in the coming weeks, I'm going to put a hold on my desert, ocean, farm, mythological, monster, insect, dinosaur, and Australian jug bands for now. We'll see if that revives this thing a little.

Many gloriously appreciative thanks to those of you who bought my book. You're part of a very select group of people who I know as "the coolest."

African Jug Band

Hey, look! It's another jug band! Unfortunately I haven't come up with anything more to say about jug bands since the last time I drew one. I probably won't have anything new to say by the next time I draw one either... which will likely be soon. It turns out I'm kind of hooked on drawing animal jug bands lately. I like to think that animals gather together and play music when people and their documentary-filming cameras aren't around. Luckily for me, no one will ever be able to prove otherwise. So with that in mind, mountain, desert, ocean, and mythological jug bands should be coming to my blog soon... unless I get hooked on something else before then. One thing I know, though... lions play a mean banjo.

Big Al-Gator

A couple of months ago I set out to draw a jug band, and this was the first thing I came up with. For a minute I kind of liked it, but then I realized the design was nothing more than a rip-off of a combination of characters I grew up with at Disneyland. (Yes, I grew up at Disneyland... I'm pretty sure I spent more time there than I did at school during my elementary years, which would not only explain my career choice but also my inability to sound out words of three or more syllables). Those of you who are familiar with America Sings and The Country Bear Jamboree have probably already figured out that this guy is a mix between Big Al and one of the Swamp Boys. Those of you who are not familiar with America Sings or the Country Bear Jamboree - I hope two things... one, that you enjoy this fabulously creative gator I thunk up, and two... that you only read this last sentence.

Arctic Jug Band

As a young child I was introduced to the wonderful world of jug bandery by Disneyland's Country Bears and Emmet Otter. I've been a fan of household-object-and-appliance-made music ever since. (Before I continue, I'd like to welcome all of you who found your way here by googling the word "bandery," which, sadly, is not a word.)

I like lots of weird music. I used to just pretend to like weird music because I thought it was funny to annoy people who had to travel in the same car as me. Then somewhere along the way, my mockery of such music turned into a kind of misguided fondness. There are tons of songs on my iPod that you don't know by artists you've never heard of... like The Chad Mitchell Trio, Bread, The Sons of the Pioneers, Loggins and Messina, and, well... Emmet Otter. Where would I be if Emmet had never put that hole in the washtub? Not in the happy place I am where bears play corn jugs... which is the only place I care to be.