The Dumb Guys

As has been mentioned in the past, each of the characters in the Dumb Guys strip equates, roughly, to one of the real-life Dumb Guys.  Though not all the characters have yet been revealed, Art is based on the strip’s artist, co-writer and general webmonkey, Steve.

See how clever it was to name the character “Art”?

In today’s strip, we can see Art falling for a name-yet-to-be-revealed female character.  Again, as has been mentioned in the past, much of what happens in these strips is based on real life.  Therefore, with today’s strip, I’d like to talk briefly about Steve’s dating history.

Steve, much to his chagrin, is often the kicking boy for the Dumb Guys.  Jokes tend to be made at his expense.  Sometimes the rest of us feel bad about it, but most of the time we are glad it is him instead of us.    Usually, however, he makes it too easy to pick on him, and his dating life has for many years made it very easy to taunt him.

Should I start with the woman who shaved her cat (not a metaphor) because she was afraid it was hot?  Or should I recount the his adventures with the “lady of the night” (though he was unaware of the fact)?  Or any number of the various crazy and possibly homeless women he has occasionally dallied with?

Maybe, in the interest of avoiding lawsuits, I’ll just point at Steve and say “HA HA!”  Now that he is rapidly approaching middle age, he seems to be developing a more discerning mind-set when it comes to the fairer sex.

That said, you see how fast Art becomes twitterpated in today’s strip?  Yeah.  Some things in this strip are not far from fact.

Ladies?  The line-up starts to the right.

As I insinuated (if I did not state it outright) in my earlier post, the core of the Dumb Guys have known one another for absolutely ages.  Though I don’t feel the urge to go into the long, convoluted two- or three-generational tales of our friendships at the moment (and I’m not kidding about the multi-generational bit), I do think it is time that a bit of the curtain be peeled back to allow our two faithful readers a bit a peek. 

Thus it is I welcome you to Uncle Keith’s Dumb Guy storytime:

Sit down, children.  Scoot forward.  Gather round.  I am now going to tell you the story of the first great Dumb Guy project.  It was many, many years ago.  We all had hair and more time than money and had not acheived the level of maturity we are supposed to have at this point.  In short, we were young.

And we were bored.

You see, in those days, not everyone had a big-screen TV.  They were luxury items to be held in awe and wonder.  Few had them and fewer were willing to share theirs with their friends.  The Dumb Guys, however, had a member (and still count him among their number) whose basement was decked out with a big-screen TV and enough chairs and couches that we could all lounge comfortably without touching one another.  An important consideration.

We all had our spots.  That was Ian’s couch.  Jeff’s loveseat.  My chair here, Steve’s chair there.  We watched TV.  That’s what we did.  Not all the time, mind you, but an awful lot.

Before you go judging us, I want to point out two important things:  (1) we called ourselves “the Dumb Guys,” we were self-aware of our social deficiencies, and (2) some of my fondest memories come from our time in that basement, laughing together over movies and basically being lazy asses.  Fond memories, honestly.

At the time of the Great Dumb Guy Project, however, we did not have access to the basement.  It was Ian’s parents’ basement, you see, and he had gone to Brazil.

What were three or four bored young men to do with their time?  It was summer.  The weather was beautiful.  We were in the prime of our lives.  What else were we to do?

We filmed “Dumb Trek: The Search for Ian” — a film about our expedition to retrieve Ian from Brazil so that we could watch his TV.  Though I haven’t seen the film in years and it’s very existence may easily be called into question, but there you have it.  We spent a couple weeks being creative and silly and, in Steve’s case, violated.

But that’s another story for another day.

The point of the story is this:  We were great friends that did strange things solely for the sake of doing them.  And though we do not see each other as much any more as we like, we do remain great friends.  This Saturday morning comic strip may not be non-fiction, but it holds true to the spirit of the Dumb Guys.

And remind me to find that footage of Ron and Steve so that I may post it to YouTube.