About

What’s the deal with Ha! Yes!?

Normally, you’d be taken to task for using an exclamation point and question mark in tandem, but this is acceptable. Is that the deal you mean?

No, I mean what’s the purpose?

The dissemination of humor. Memorize this collection of bon mots and you will become irrestible to most genders, provided you don’t regularly carry trout on your person.

“Ha! Yes!” is sort of an awkward phrase. Why is that?

The founder is Jim Hayes, who is actually the personification of rippling grace, and not awkward at all, except when meeting entities known to unleash the power of life and death. He’s always wanted exclamation points in his name.

Are you Jim Hayes? If so, why?

Yes. I couldn’t get anybody else to write my bio that would agree to use the phrase “rippling grace.”

So, what’s the deal with you?

Could you ask questions in a less-stupid way?

So, what’s the dealy-o?

Mostly, I’m a graphic designer who creates logos, brochures, posters, etc. You can check out that stuff at Ha-YesDesign.com. You should hire me.

I′d love to. My company makes cigarettes and guillotines. Would you have a problem with that?

Do you make those novelty magic finger-choppers that slice right through cigarettes, but leave fingers intact?

Yes, but the other way around.

I won’t wield my skills in the service of shoddy merchandise. Send me a sample and I’ll try it out.

You do these cartoons, too, I see.

That’s not even a question.

Do you draw the cartoons that happen to have your signature, and are on your website, and do you write the essays with your byline on your website?

Yes, I do. Thanks for asking.

I’ve found the best way to strengthen friendships is through forwarding comics and drinking hard liquor together, and crossing our vomit streams, like on Ghostbusters. Can I do that?

Are you over 21?

No, I meant the first part.

Yeah, you can forward my stuff and reproduce it, if it’s not for commercial use. Just make sure it’s credited to Ha-Yes.com. I’m worried about you.

I feel the need to display some crap you designed on my body, preferably printed onto fabric. Is that possible?

It’s more than possible, it’s a glorious reality.

Are you by any major airports, preferably with lax security?

I live in Salt Lake City, with two beautiful females. They are my daughters, not my wives. But if I wanted to, I could have up to 46 wives. It’s the local custom. So far, I’m making do with just one exquisite girlfriend, who put this site together.

Is this all you do?

I also write music. I’ll set up a store for that soon. I play piano and racquetball, though never simultaneously, do fathering stuff, ride my 80-lb. 1970 Schwinn Collegiate 5-speed with the dynamo-generated lights, as well as work out questions of biological philosophy, and make up terms like “biological philosophy.”

Are you diligently searching for a replacement light bulb for your Schwinn Collegiate’s headlamp, and a replacement for the tail light assembly that was lost to the mysteries of time?

Diligently.

You sound like the latest incarnation of Leonardo da Vinci. Or the collective mind of an ant farm.

I like to keep busy, so I guess the ant farm analogy is pretty accurate. I’ve been trying to invent the helicopter, with little success, so I’ll humbly refuse the da Vinci moniker. I did invent the study of human anatomy, though, so you weren’t too far off.

What does the future hold?

Everything that hasn’t happened yet. Like a possible comic strip, with repeating characters. I won’t call it “Peanuts,” though “Garfield” has a good ring to it. It will be about a U.S. president who was assassinated. The humor potential is potentially potent.

Can we stop this interview now? My nachos just dinged.

I’m on my way over.