Hi Folks! I’m retiring the Golden Circle—mostly since I haven’t had any decent “Golden Circle” (that is, doughnut shop-based) stories to tell in a while. Check out brand new comic stories by me over at Picnic Spirit and sketches at The Cowboy Campfire. Thanks!
October 4, 2011
Picnic Spirit!
Posted by Jay Sacher under webcomic | Tags: Adios!, Picnic Spirit, The Cowboy Campfire |Leave a Comment
August 25, 2010
Sympathetic Wet Eye — Chapter 3
Posted by Jay Sacher under webcomic | Tags: burrito hands, Calling CDs "tapes", Cat Burglar Fantasy, De Soto and the Mississippi, demo tapes, Diddly freaking squat all, ingratiating shmoozers, Luisa and/or Jeannie, Mix Tapes, no-talent sycophants, real life female ideal, Steamy Ski Lodge Hot Tubs |Leave a Comment
Continuing from our last chapter, Larry McMasters prepares to drop off his demo tape to the ladies of the local rock outfit, Cat Burglar Fantasy…
Continued soon…I promise!
July 20, 2010
Sympathetic Wet Eye — Chapter 2
Posted by Jay Sacher under webcomic | Tags: burrito hands, demo tapes, dragon, little kids holding hands, Los Besos State University, octopus, rusty cars, skim milk, the sound of guitars, twerpy kids |[2] Comments
July 7, 2010
Sympathetic Wet Eye — Chapter 1
Posted by Jay Sacher under webcomic | Tags: Banned in DC, California Rainy Season, Cat Burglar Fantasy, indie rock outfits, Jazz Age, Soy Creamer, St Francis, Sympathetic Wet Eye |Leave a Comment
January 27, 2010
Thesis Part 12
Posted by Jay Sacher under webcomic | Tags: Bachelor Sports Medicine, blandly handsome, Joe E. Lewis, Kitty Piraeus, La Folie Quotidien, Paco's Camera Exchange, Santa Cruz, spartan pete, the second law of thermodynamics |Leave a Comment
And so it was that the summer of 1970 found Spartan Pete not racing in the T.G.I.C.T. with his team of all-divorced Swedish chess experts, but instead convalescing in Santa Cruz, California, his right tendon having been sliced open–for reasons unknown–by a beautiful French socialite. Pete spent most of July in the exclusive Kerner Bachelor Athlete Sports Medicine Sanatorium (motto: “Never will our food contain saltpeter, always will our nurses be fetching”).
Oddly, perhaps, Pete felt content. He spent most of his time wheeling down the polished corridors of Kerner’s Joe E. Lewis Knife-Wound Wing with a transistor radio on his lap, flirting with his nurse and listening to Team Gustav’s progress in Europe. His Swedish friends eventually finished the race in a respectable fourth place, and Pete left Kerner with a clean bill of health, although he did suffer from a severe limp for the rest of his life.
Not long after his release from Kerner, we asked Pete about the cause of his limp. We asked, quite pointedly, about that strange night in the village of La Tenatrice with that strange woman. What happened, really? Did she drug him? Was she a psychotic, a sadist, a grifter? Had she robbed him or was she innocent? Was he, perhaps, to blame? Had he done something wrong? And then, the larger questions: Was it all worth it? His time with Team Gustav, the optimism he instilled in those broken men, the life he had begun to build, was it all real or was it just a fantasy? There he was, undone and scarred by a malicious act, his profitable cycling career and the promise of international fame come to an end. Was he bitter? Was he angry? Did he feel he’d been treated unfairly? In short, did he still believe in himself and the universe at-large? The Second Law of Thermodynamics, the mysteries of which began this yarn, had risen its unfathomable head yet again. If all things decay and fall into disrepair, if all hopeful things can sour, and if all lovely things can wilt, where then, Spartan Pete, is your wisdom and your optimism? Give us an answer to the whole kit and caboodle.
We were at a downtown lunch counter. Pete ordered liver and onions and we sipped coffee. We placed a recent copy of the French society paper, La Folie Quotidien, in front of him. We wanted to get a reaction out of our friend. There on the page was a photo of a beaming and smiling Kitty Piraeus, sharing a romantic dinner with a blandly handsome would be-matinée idol.
Pete stared at the photograph for a bit, and then handed the paper back to us. He smiled and lit his pipe, and then Pete gave us what we might call a koan, and what you might call the overriding moral of this long-winded tale. “You raise some good questions, kid.” he said, “But you know, I’m as confused as you. And I got the wounds to prove it. Nobody likes being a fool, but frankly, that’s what we all are–from day one until check-out time. The only positive aspect to this entire situation is that life is far too short to wait for answers.”
In our next episode, we return to the present day and to the Golden Circle Doughnut Shop to discuss some of the ups and downs of contemporary rock music.
December 16, 2009
Thesis Part 11
Posted by Jay Sacher under webcomic | Tags: achilles tendons, alpine nights, Kitty Piraeus, lambert hendricks and ross, Romantic flights of Fancy, Sardine sandwiches, spartan pete, Tu ne seras jamais l homme que je souhaiterai avoir |Leave a Comment
The party had reached its inevitable end. The last of the booze had been consumed, 17 glasses had been broken accidentally, and 12 more had been purposefully thrown into the fireplace, something had gone horribly amiss with the hi-fi, two lovers lay entangled and asleep on a couch, and the remaining bleary-eyed guests wandered–in pairs or singly–out into the fading Alpine night.
In the pantry, three drunken party-goers were busy making sardine and hard boiled egg sandwiches, in the stairwell, a man had passed out and was deep into a fevered dream about a fistfight on his grade school playground, and in the foyer, our particular friend, Spartan Pete, exited the building arm in arm with Kitty Piraeus.
Pete and Kitty strolled down Rue de Cassé Rêver with flirtatious amiability. Pete was a practical man, but there was something about the way Kitty’s arm felt in his, something about her high and generous giggle fits–so at odds with her striking beauty, that sent his mind off on romantic flights of fancy: Kitty and Pete on a sailboat in the Mediterranean in bright white swimsuits, Pete and Kitty at the theater in dinner wear, in a Manhattan jazz club smoking tea, “Dear friends, we cordially invite you to the wedding of Helen Piraeus and Peter Waleska,” ol’ gramps and Ma Kitty, and so on, all the way down to matching gravestones in a quaint New England town. Pete knew it was foolish, but it had been years since he’d even pretended to let his heart go a’flutter–it felt better than he remembered.
It is here where the story takes a turn. Pete’s hotel, The Ulysses, was the new couple’s final destination. He had a bottle of bourbon in his suitcase, and it seemed like an inevitable and easy extension of their canoodling to watch the sunrise over the Alps and call it a day. Instead something else, something quite unexpected and slightly tragic, occurred.
Indeed, Pete did not awake to the delicate perfume of his new French lass in a soft and luxurious bed, but instead he found himself groaning in a rum-soaked alley behind The Hotel Ulysses. He was covered in dew and shivering, he had no memory of how he’d ended up there (his last memory was of opening the door of his hotel room as Kitty kissed his neck), and his right ankle was bleeding profusely–in point of fact, his tendon had been severed with a knife.
On the wall he was slumped against were various messages, written in his own blood, including this one: “Crois-moi, je pense que c’est pour le mieux.”
Next time, the final chapter in the protracted tale of Spartan Pete and his brushes with the Second Law of Thermodynamics.
November 15, 2009
Pre-order Meathaus Go For The Gold 3!
Posted by Jay Sacher under commerce | Tags: al columbia, brandon graham, chris Mcd, comics, farel darlymple, james jean, meathaus, nathan fox, nick bertozzi, tomer hanuka |1 Comment
I am very pleased to inform you that the latest Meathaus sketchbook collection, GO FOR THE GOLD 3, is now available for pre-order. It’s 242 pages of sketches and ephemera from an amazing array of artists–old school MH regulars like Farel Darlymple, James Jean, Tomer Hanuka, and Brandon Graham, as well as a host of amazing comics luminaries, including Al Columbia, Nick Bertozzi and Nathan Fox. As always with my MH contributions, I’m honored to be included in this astounding collection of talent.
Gentleman cartoonist, scholar and web-master Chris McD has just revamped the Meathaus website, which is where you should go to check out a preview of the contents before purchasing this hot item.
Below is the cover image (by Chris McD) and a sample of one of my pages.
October 9, 2009
Monumental delays over here at the Golden Circle Doughnut Shop, with due apologies to whatever my sparse and ever-dwindling readership happens at this moment to be. However, the next installment in the saga of Spartan Pete and his bicycle race across Europe is almost done, and geez Louise it promises to be incredibly anticlimactic!
In the meantime, here’s another low-yield ditty to mull over as you consider the state of your interpersonal relationships.























