Summer is here

Even though it has nothing to do with the Summer Solstice, Memorial Day Weekend is generally considered the beginning of the season of summer. That sounds good to us. We love swingin' in the summertime. It's time to get into the heat that's coming off the street and eat to the beat where the elite meet to be discrete.

It means it's time to adjust our styles (and our clocks...or did we already do that?) accordingly.



No more of this...

But plenty of this...

Is Michael even wearing a suit??

Time to put this thing in storage...

And get this gorgeous babe out of dry dock...

Far less of this...

But plenty more of this...

And always dressed appropriately, of course.
As in, not like this...

But definitely like this...

"Where's Jeff? Oh, we sent him to fetch a jar of pickles. Ha ha ha ha ha!"

Him ... And Hymn

Jeff left out one little detail about our Memorial Day celebration:

Furious D.

I mean ... of course Memorial Day is all about  remembrance of the people who died while serving in our country's armed forces. But that doesn't mean we can't have a little musical accompaniment to go along with that remembrance, right?

And don't you think The Unbelievables' own Furious D has at least a few patriotic tunes to go along with the grilled burgers and dogs? You betcha!

Happy Memorial Day

Well, folks, it's Memorial Day and you know what that means...

Splashin' around with the Unbelievababes?

Well, no, actually what I was thinking was... BBQ!

However you celebrate on this Memorial Day, take time to remember and appreciate those hard working men, women and animals of the Armed Forces, whether it be Army...

Navy..

Air Force...

or Marines...

We salute you!

Men Of Action, That's Who The Unbelievables Are

"Jeff and Michael have their own pet projects that have yet to yield completely satisfactory results."

That Clark.

You've got to love the guy ... but sometimes he's just plain wrong. (He can also get overloaded with some pretty jealous snits on occasion. You know how possessive and over the top he is about his Corvette.)

As I was saying ... in the example of his quotation above from earlier this week, it's simply false. (Well ... mostly.)

I'll admit: My idea about Franco-American Spaghetti some time ago didn't exactly fly ...

... but give me credit where credit is due. At least I gave it the old college try.

And ... hello! Did each of you (Clark included) completely forget about The Michael Noble Good Time Whoopie Straw with its patented bendie action and sanitary hermetical seal for your protection? Not to mention its ability to provide safe and sane enjoyment anytime, anywhere. I'd say that was a pretty damned nifty invention for the time ... and still going strong today, I might add.

Yes, yes ... some of my other ideas didn't go over too well ... or even get off the ground for that matter.

But I'm not here to mull over failures and coulda/shouda/wouldas.

Instead, let's focus a moment on one of The Unbelievables' most amazing inventions, one in which we all had a hand. (And more!)

Of course I'm talking about this: 

Yep ... the #207 Briefwear Brief Zip with zippered front! Needless to say (but I'll say it anyway):

These! Briefs! Sold! By! The! Boatload!

It was one of our greatest merchandising successes! And one of the coolest marketing ideas we ever came up with was employed exclusively with this product:

We offered them for a strictly limited time. You had to buy them chop-chop because, at any moment, they could be gone, daddy gone.

And, just for fun, every once in a while we'd bring them back for a couple weeks to tantalize our adoring public (you know ... Christmastime, Labor Day, that sort of thing) ... and then, just as quickly, << WHISK! >> they were gone once again.

That's what made them the popular, much-sought-after item the dapper gent had to have. And at $3.99 they were a bargain. 

As mentioned, we all had input on the design, marketing and distribution campaigns for these babies. I came up with the zippered front innovation, Clark was instrumental in suggesting they double as swim trunks and Jeff came up with the fantastic idea to add the "Word Of Warning" in the ad copy. Brilliant! (We're still are at odds as to which of us was used for the physique illustration in the ad. Realistically, it has elements of each of us. The truth may never be known ...)

Bottom line? Fashion: It's one of our middle names. Boom.

Jeff's Side Project

As Clark mentioned on Monday, I too have a side project which has so far failed to get past the 'prototype' stage. My hobby is musical instruments. I want to invent the ultimate "Unbelieva-instrument", if you will. I want to combine as many different instruments into one, all-purpose instrument that also happens to be really cool-looking. Listed below are some of my prototypes that as yet are still just that.

The Cat-Piano. The fellas told me it was cruel and unusual, but I said "Awww kitties!". However, I was forced to abandon the project when the ASPCA stepped in.

Elworth "Catman Scatman" Dingle Jr. playing the Cat-Sax. Smooth tunes, brother man.

Unbelievababe Marina Van Jell-O, heiress of the Jell-O fortune, playing the bediano (bed piano, for lazy people). Needs work.

The Unbelievatinkler, part glockenspiel, part Gatling gun.

Best not to mention this one, or the fact that you'd need seven hands to play it.

Kip the Mail Boy modelling the Unbelievaphoniumspielentubafunk. It looks amazing, but sounds like an elephant sitting on a piano. 

So as you can see, I haven't had a lot of success. But I think we can all agree that I have had a lot of fun tinkering around in my workshop and creating these visual feasts. Ah well. At least I have my career as an Unbelievable to support me while I perfect my instruments. Some day, some day...

Unbelievabots and other projects that have yet to pay off

The plot of the current cinematic blockbuster "Avengers: Age of Ultron" has something to do with some form of Artificial Intelligence (also known as Fake Smarts or FS) that becomes sentient and uncontrollable. Interesting to me, in that I have been working on advanced robotics for a number of years with little to no success. This in spite of my solid scientific method:

• Build something out of metal that looks like a human: legs, arms, torso, head with face including mouth and eyes (nose optional).
• Toss a motor of some sort inside. I prefer a classic Briggs and Stratton; if it's good enough for lawnmowers and go-carts, it should be good enough for a robot.
• Leave outside to be struck by lightning.

You'd think this place would be crawling with sentient robots by now, hanging out everywhere and contemplating mortality and other existential concepts, but so far, nothing.

Failure and surrender are two words that aren't really part of The Unbelievables vocabulary so I plan on sticking with it. Jeff and Michael have their own pet projects that have yet to yield completely satisfactory results. I'll let them tell you all about it later this week. 

The Bad Guys Are Here, and They Rock

I had completely forgotten. It had totally slipped my mind. I have to face facts - my memory, though still razor sharp 95% of the time, is not what it once was. 

There we were, all week, pondering the meaning of this cryptic message...

All week we wondered (well, not all week - just up until about lunchtime Thursday), and all week none of us could figure it out. 

Until about 11:57 am, when I saw a van making its way up the street while on periscope duty (that's right, we have a periscope - u jelly?).

Anyway, as I say, I saw a van tooling its way along Main St. and suddenly the penny dropped. Bad Guys! Thursday! A van! A tour van!

Not actual bad guys... Bad Guys the band! From the UK! THESE Bad Guys!

I completely forgot that I had invited them to our hideout to set up for this weekend's Unbelievables music Festival!

Wait, wait, let me back up...

Unbelievafest is our first foray into the festival scene. After all, May is nearly half over and everyone is getting ready for festivals such as Bestival and Rock Am Ring and Splendour In The Grass and Wychwood and Tentertainment and Create and all those other festivals that mostly end with the word "stock". So we thought - why not? We like music, and parties, and beer, and girls, so let's start it with just the one band, plentiful drinks and the Unbelievababes, and if all goes well, then we'll go bigger next year. So we asked Bad Guys (an appropriate name, I thought, given our line of work) to come along and play some kick-ass rock for us all weekend. And they were happy to come along. Because Bad Guys are our kind of guys. Need proof? Here you go.

So as I write, they are about to take the stage for their first set. Clark's just expertly crafting a few beer-based cocktails, Michael is blowing up some festive balloons (pantsless, naturally) and I have just made a mondo bowl of the most amaaaazing whipped potatoes for us all to enjoy. This should be a weekend to remember. Just us and the Bad Guys, rockin' and rollin' till Sunday night. Crank it up to eleven, boys!




P.S. That whole pin thing? We asked the guys about that and they said the reason they used a pin was not to throw us off or anything like that. They had simply run out of Blu-Tack and sticky tape.

A Little Later This Week (as in Tomorrow)

The three of us sat down together at The Unbelievabase, in The Unbelievaconference room, seated around The Unbelieveatable to hash this thing out...

MICHAEL: All right, what do we know about Thursday?
JEFF: That it's not Friday?
CLARK: Unless you're a college student.
M & J: ... ?
C: Most college students don't schedule classes on Fridays so they start their weekends partying on Thursday nights, like most people would on Friday.
M: Well, that's stupid.
J: This particular Thursday marks the 415th anniversary of King Henry IV of France being assassinated, the 90th anniversary of Virginia Woolf's novel 'Mrs. Dalloway' being published and the 73rd birthday of German actor Rüdiger Vogler.
C: (under his breath) You're stupid.
M: Hmm, any one of those could be the source for a number of criminal capers.
J: What about the use of a pin to attach the note? Who would use pins?
C: Somebody who likes to pop balloons?
M: I was thinking of someone who uses pins in their profession. A tailor or dressmaker perhaps?
J: I'm not sure...
C: Ooh! I know someone who uses Pinterest! A Pinner. A Pinterester.
M: Maybe we should take a break.
C: A Pinnerator. A PinPerson. One who Pins.
J: I'll go whip some potatoes.
M: Put on some coffee while you're at it. This could be a long night.
C: A Pin-up girl
M & J: ...
C: What?
M: I just had an idea. What if it's a pin-up girl?
J: I was just going to say the same thing!
C: (under his breath) I hate you so much right now.

So we sort of followed a lead but we'll have to wait and see if it pays off tomorrow.
What will happen?!? Tune in Friday!

Later This Week ...

Personally? I don't think we'll ever understand bad guys.

Oh ... they're simple enough to figure out most of the time. But there are time they just don't make sense.

Here's a note we found pinned - pinned, mind you - to our headquarter doors Sunday morning. It was just left there for us to discover:

"Bad Guys" ... ??? "Thursday" ... ??? What the? See what I mean? 

 We have some work to do.

Just who are these bad guys? Old enemies? Some foreign group out to make a name for themselves, hoping to "up" their notoriety quotient by tangling with The Unbelievables? Could this be the aforementioned "Stews" Clark noted last week?

Time to hunker down and see what we can come up with. 

In the meantime, it appears Thursday could quite possibly be one crazy day ...

Obamaback! (But it's not all good news)

Well, Michael wasn't much help, was he?
Tsk.
Oh well. That kind of thing happens from time to time and we move forward.

First of all, good news; the President has been found! It turns out he had retired to a lavatory and was seen carrying a copy of this particular magazine:

We think the messenger who sent us the email got confused:

No biggie. The President is back and he's fine.

Now the bad news; it would appear that we have some new rogues to add to our gallery. A group of ne'er do wells who call themselves The Stews are out to cause mayhem. The young lady featured in Jeff's entry on Monday is a member, as are the ladies (if you want to call them that) shown above. Their M.O. (that's Latin for "how crooks work") is to use their feminine wiles to lure otherwise responsible air travelers into following them aboard planes and then making them misbehave (smoke, drink to excess, use objectionable language, etc.). Were they involved in this particular case? Probably. We're not entirely sure.
What we do know is that what starts out like this on the runway A in Pittsburgh...

Turns into this in the air over Omaha...

The next thing you know, innocent rock stars are being led astray...

"They seemed like such nice girls"

To what end? I don't think The Stews have even figured that out for themselves. Just for kicks, maybe. At any rate, I'm sure we'll cross paths with them again in the future.

What's More Important Than The POTUS Gone Missing?

Far be it that we Unbelievables shirk our responsibilities.

We're known for our resoluteness, our uncompromising courageousness in the face of danger, being mavens of fashion and our gracious attitude toward the ladies. (Hello, Ladies!)

But I digress. Regarding this "Obamagone" business (and Jeff hit the nail on the head with his final declaration in Monday's post:

"More on this story as it develops."

Well guess what? Nothing has developed.

Not a single thing. There are no further developments. Nil. Nada. Zippo. Zilch.

As far as we know The President is still jib-jabbin' around with the likes of David Letterman as he was Monday evening. Here, see for yourself:



It's not like he's Vladimir Putin disappearing for a month (or more) at a time, completely out of the public eye. And you must be aware President Obama is surrounded by secret service 24/7. It's a little difficult to fall off the face of the earth for any length of time without them knowing.

So ... when something comes up? You'll be the first to know. We're on it. We're privy to the 911 on the POTUS.

Besides, there are more important things than The President gone missing. (And let me clarify one last time: We highly doubt he's truly missing.) 

What's more important you ask? How about this past Monday, Star Wars Day? (Hokay ... maybe not.) Well ... what about yesterday, Cinco de Mayo? (Uhmmm ... no.)

You're right. Neither of those is really important. But you know what is important? I'll tell you what's important folks:

Today is May 6th! Monica Lewis' birthday ... !!!

What's more important than that ... ??!?

Obamagone

Sooo... I don't wish to alarm anyone, but we have a little problem. 

As you may or may not be aware, politicians in the USA are currently deeply mired in campaigning for the Presidential Election, despite the fact that it's 553 days away. And you may also be aware that this man

Barack Obama, leader of the free world, (well, not really, just President of the United States), has gone missing.

And we just received this cryptic message in the form of an email attachment.

There was no signature, just another picture - this one.

What does it all mean? And where is our man Barack? More on this story as it develops.

We're Wild About Harry ...

All the tributes are nice, there's no doubt about that. And, as you might gather, there are a bevy of them.

But I'd like to switch gears for a moment and offer something by contrast - one of The Unbelievables favorite things to do when we defeat ne'er-do-wells, something I don't think we've shared previously.

We leave them a nice little present while they're wallowing in the misery of their defeat.

Each of us - Jeff, Clark and myself - enjoy playing the song "One" while we walk off the scene, leaving them to lick their wounds.

Psychologically, it's one more punch in the gut. And an appropriate one at that. You can imagine it being difficult to recover from a good old fashioned Unbelievables ass kicking any time of day or night. It's even more difficult with the iconic tune dancing 'round your head while you're holding it in your hands trying to make the throbbing stop. Poor bad guys.

Now, while one might thing the popular Three Dog Night recording would be the go-to tune, it's not. Each of us have our favorite versions, none of which is that particular one. 

Jeff's? The Aimee Mann rendition. (Who knew he was a sucker for Aimee Mann?!?)

Clark? He prefers Filter's take on the tune which is ... interesting to say the least. (There's a twinkle in his eye each time he puts this one on for Henri Petit. With the little twit flailing wildly after being chucked through a window to the waiting pavement below, "One" fades off in the distance. in. Can you imagine that? It's devastating, to say the least ...)

Me? I'm old school: I like the Harry Nilsson original ...

Those poor, poor bad guys ...