Being Jim Davis

"Live fast, die young, read Garfield ." That quote is pretty much all you need to know about todays's episode. Today's strip :

Today's episode seems vaguely like a promotion for the NRA. In the background, of course, are the notoriously high crime rates of the 1970s: <img class="thumb-image" data-image="https://static1.squarespace.com/static/57b273931b631b852a251d7e/t/58607447b3db2b35c2428645/1482716235493/" data-image-dimensions="707x558" data-image-focal-point="0.5,0.5" data-load="false" data-image-id="58607447b3db2b...

In today's episode of Being Jim Davis , we discuss suicide and the subjunctive mood. In fairness to us, though, Jim Davis really left us with no choice on either count. We're not convinced that suicide is funny, but then again, we aren't wildly successful syndicated cartoonists, so what do we know? For real, though, a lot of people find the holiday season dark and oppressive. If that's you, m...

In today's episode, we spend an excessive amount of time discussing the details of SCP, our new time-saving acronym for "Standard Countertop Position," our new time-saving shorthand for panels where Jon is on the left, standing, and Garfield is on the right, sitting on a countertop. Basically, we save a lot of time in this episode. A lot. Today's strip :

Hey, you know what's great in a podcast? People talking about various hand signals you're not able to see, that's what! Also when random other people wander by and start unrelated conversations -- that's great too. Or even if it's not great, it's what happens in today's episode. So live with it. Oh, hey, after we recorded this podcast, I (Christopher Winter) changed my Twitter handle back to...

A raucous night in the Grand Ballroom of the Trump International Hotel in beautiful downtown Philadelphia! We enjoy a Garfield-themed quiz, shout at each other, and do a live commentary of 1987's "A Garfield Christmas Special." You can watch the special on YouTube  while you listen. That would be fun, right? Also, here's a screengrab of Jon, Garfield, and Odie on their way to the farm. Take a...

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Hey, you know what's pretty darn good? The Darkwing Duck video game for NES. I mean I guess it's no surprise since it was made by Capcom, literally the ONLY company that was able to consistently make good video games based on licensed properties in the 1980s, but while the likes of Ducktales and Rescue Rangers seem to get no end of good press in today's retro gaming community, relatively few peopl...

Today's Garfield strip is pure applesauce. Really just a tangled mess of legalistic argle-bargle, if not outright jiggery-pokery. Honestly, I can't in good conscience recommend reading it, even though I HIGHLY RECOMMEND listening to this episode of our podcast. It's ok. We argue about geometry. Today's strip

“A cup of coffee – real coffee – home-browned, home ground, home made, that comes to you dark as a hazel-eye, but changes to a golden bronze as you temper it with cream that never cheated, but was real cream from its birth, thick, tenderly yellow, perfectly sweet, neither lumpy nor frothing on the Java:  such a cup of coffee is a match for twenty blue devils and will exorcise them all.” &nbsp...

Can one genuinely describe  Jim Davis? Or does the very act of measuring his essence alter it in some fundamental way? Even if you succeed in painting an accurate representation of Jim Davis as he exists in the present moment, does that get us any closer to understanding the origin of Jim Davis, or is Jim Davis Irreducibly Complex? Jim Davis. Anyway, this one's got a toilet in it, so it could...

How do you convert degrees into radians? And also, why would you do that? And why, for that matter would Jon Arbuckle attempt to take his cat, Garfield, for a walk on a leash? We talk about that stuff for a while, then about old people and attitudes toward immigration, then, finally, about whether committing to a multi-decade daily Garfield recap podcast was a terrible soul-crushing mistake. <i...

Hey, you tune into this podcast mostly for discussion of 17th century Japanese poetry, right? Well, good, because that's what you're going to get. <img class="thumb-image" data-image="https://static1.squarespace.com/static/57b273931b631b852a251d7e/t/58535e20e6f2e1c36a1acd14/1481858597962/" data-image-dimensions="600x339" data-image-focal-point="0.5,0.5" data-load="false" data-image-id="58535e20...

So @elliottlusztig , precious voice of sanity and conscience over the past few months, was forced off of Twitter yesterday (Thursday, December 15) by abuse and death threats directed at him and his family. Fucking appalling, Twitter. Appalling. <img class="thumb-image" data-image="https://static1.squarespace.com/static/57b273931b631b852a251d7e/t/585357bfc534a5cc29691fa4/1481856967511/" data-ima...

In today's episode, we discuss (again?) what Garfield's thoughts sound like. Then Chris tries to do a bit about the weather in Muncie, Indiana but to be honest it really doesn't go anywhere. Sad! Hey, off-topic, but have y'all read Ta-Nehisi Coates' retrospective on the Obama presidency in The Atlantic ? Damn, that guy can write! Today's strip:

In today's episode of Being Jim Davis , we talk about phonetics some more -- or do  I mean phonology? If you're a linguist, or just someone with access to the internet and no other purpose in life, why not drop us a line to let us know? (email: info@beingjimdavis.com; twitter: @beingjimdavis) You might be surprised how few people contact us about this show. Or maybe you wouldn't be surpr...

Believe it or not, today's strip actually made Jon laugh. Weird, right? We also debate whether Lyman has become a born-again evangelical Christian, or whether he just has congenital analgesia -- a term neither of us knew at the time. Today's strip:

In today's episode, something-something Garfield something Jon and Chris something-something-something lawnmower something "I hate Mondays" something-something, with predictably hilarious results! Today's strip:

Look, this is extra-textual, but I'm fairly certain Garfield is in fact singing the Ariel's aria from Thomas Adès' The Tempest. You wanna argue about it? Hit us up on twitter, motherfucker. @beingjimdavis. I'm dead serious. Bring it on. Today's strip

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The distinction between responsible moral agents and beings with diminished or no responsibility is coherent, real, and important. It is coherent, even if in many instances it is hard to apply; it draws an empirically real line, in that we don't all fall on one side; and, most important, the distinction matters: the use we make of it plays a crucial role in the quality and meaning of our lives. [....

On today's episode, Christopher Winter has VERY strong feelings regarding phonetics which threaten to derail the podcast.     Today's strip

Not really much going on in this one, but we did mention Orson Welles, so that's a pretty decent excuse for us all to re-watch the opening crane shot from Touch of Evil . Man, what a shot! Today's strip