tomversation

The red beanie

If you swipe back and forth on this image, you can see the two options for today’s cartoon.

The stovepipe hat won out in the end. Not just for Abraham Lincoln, but for the cartoon. At the last minute, I changed from the “caught dead” cartoon to the “more formal” one.

I saw a picture of Lincoln the other day and thought, I would love to draw Lincoln. It was the stovepipe hat which drew my attention, and in the end, the hat, which is the star, never made it to the drawing board. At first I thought of funny ideas for the stovepipe hat but the red beanie won out.

I thought it would look funny to put a red woolen hat on him and the cartoons emerged from there. The “over my dead body,” was dark and I’m glad I changed the final cartoon to the fashion-based one.

I’m not sure why I keep calling it a stovepipe hat, rather than a top hat, but I guess in Lincoln’s era it was called a stovepipe hat. In the 1920s, it was called a top hat.

What’s even stranger about the hat is Lincoln here, in 1862, wearing the stovepipe hat on the battle field. It doesn’t seem like the type of thing to wear in a battlefield.

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Aug-tober; it’s a real thing

Aug-tober. It’s a thing. It’s celebrating October, and specifically Halloween right now – in August!

Many stores, including Home Depot and Target have Halloween items out already and I’ve seen items being featured on tv on QVC. But of course, we know that as soon as September comes, the Christmas items will start showing up.

I see old movies and tv shows where people are buying and putting up the Christmas trees on Christmas Eve. I don’t want to go back to that, but I do think we should celebrate each holiday and season in the order that they come.

I have to admit that I do put up my Christmas tree in mid-November – only because I leave for New York then and don’t return until December, and I like to have it up when I get home so I don’t have to think about it.

I don’t light it. I start lighting it up a couple of weeks before Christmas.

One year I had it up in October! It wasn’t decorated, but it was stored in my spare room and I had a friend sleeping over, so I had to remove it from the room (it’s artificial, of course), and it seemed that it was easier to just put up the tree where it stands usually in the living room, but it wasn’t decorated. It just was there.

I do have my plans for October, regarding travel. I think it’s my favorite month. I’ll be at New York Comic Con as usual and I’ll be pumpkin and apple picking with some of my cousins in the Hudson Valley, which is always a favorite thing – seeing the leaves change, being in the cool weather, going to farms for the pumpkins and applies, having hot apple cider and apple cider doughnuts . .. it’s perfect! And sometimes we do the Oyster Festival in The Hamptons and so many other fall things.

**Dude With Sign loves Halloween, too.**

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Morning Joe, and Mika

I came up with this cartoon years ago. I redrew it for publication today. It just made me laugh when I blurted out “Morning Joe it alls” one morning a few years back while watching the show. I do watch it almost every morning – not the whole thing, but maybe an hour, from 6 am to 7 am, first thing in the morning.

I do like Joe and Mika, although Joe does shout a lot and it’s very early in the morning, so I have to lower the tv quite often when he’s off on one of his tangents. There are a couple of regular guests who put me to sleep the moment they open their mouths, so I turn the channel when they are on, but I do enjoy Morning Joe.

My mother started watching years ago. I believe it premiered in 2007, so back then, she would say to me, “You don’t watch Morning Joe?” as if it was must see tv. I didn’t know what she was talking about, but I knew she was addicted to politics and she would go on and on with the goings on in Washington whenever she could.

She wanted to discuss the world events so badly and finally she finally found a comrade to discuss things with when my niece’s husband chimed in that he was addicted, too. So the two of them would rattle on about the goings on in DC, and so much of it included what Joe and Mika had to say. They agreed with each other and with Mika and Joe, so there were no shouting matches.

So while it’s still dark out most mornings, I turn the tv on in the living room at 6 am and I watch and listen to what the crew on Morning Joe has to say – the “Joe it alls.” And I agree with them most of the time, so I don’t mind Joe screaming at me in the cold, dark mornings. Like he did this morning.

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Less is more

I’m still feeling FOMO about the Paris Olympics. I want to be in Paris. The 2028 summer Olympics are in Los Angeles – meh. For me it’s about the Olympics and Paris as a combo, not simply the Olympics, so LA has no allure as far as I’m concerned.

I started up my Tomversation single panel cartoon again, along with the final week of Ollie And Jacomo in Paris, so they are overlapping. My single panel had been on a two week break while I concentrated on Ollie and Jacamo.

I’ve been playing around with Substack, the blogging platform, but it seems to be overwhelmed and hogged by a few other cartoonists. I don’t follow them, but they seem to be dominating the platform in an annoying way. One cartoonist is very thirsty, he posts something every few seconds it seems, which is really being too extra. It’s all about him it seems where Substack is concerned.

He draws in the park and announces it. I’ve seen so many people drawing in the park in NYC and I don’t think any of them announce it. It’s sort of like these street musicians, they just appear and play, I don’t think they announce it to everyone, “Hey, I’ll be in Madison Square Park by the fountain playing at noon.”

This one guy drew something on a stain on the wall in a public restroom and had to post that image.

It reminds me of when my condo board was doing things around the building but not telling everyone about it as a courtesy. One person said, “I’ll tell you the next time I sneeze or pick my nose, Tom!”

I guess less is more. In every situation.

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Watching the Olympics on and off

I’ve been watching the Olympics occasionally, depending on when I catch it. I am feeling FOMO of not being in Paris, it looks like it’s the place to be this summer.

When I was a kid, I watched it all – from opening ceremony to closing ceremony. I knew every Olympians life story if it was reported on tv and I watched hours and hours of it. Of course we didn’t have 1000 tv channels back then, so since there weren’t many choices, I watched the main event for two weeks.

I did catch the men’s gymnastics and I stuck with it because one of the guys is the spitting image of one of my neighbors. He could be his brother. They look so much alike. I’ve seen still pictures of this Olympian online and he doesn’t look like my neighbor in still shots, but on tv, moving, he looks just like him.

I haven’t told my neighbor because I don’t know how he would take it, sometimes when people tell you that you look like someone it isn’t a compliment. My neighbor is much younger than me, more like a son, and I yelled at him one day, as a father would yell at a son, only he isn’t my son, and it caused bad feelings. He’s back talking to me, so I don’t want to be stupid by saying anything that might be stupid.

For years I’ve said things out loud that I think I am only thinking in my head. I’m not sure how or why that happens, but really, I think it and I think I am only thinking it, and I end up blurting it out.

I’ve been having fun with Ollie And Jacomo, setting them in Paris during the Olympic games. It’s given me lots of ideas and themes to work with.

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Ollie and Jacomo in Paris

Ollie and Jacomo are back for a summer run. I’ve been getting requests and lots of followers on social media, which is odd, since we’re not promoting the feature, but people seem to love the wile rabbit Ollie and his buddy Jacomo, the hedgehog. The Jacomo, “I Live for Summer” t-shirt has been selling, too, so it’s time to bring them back.

I enjoy them because they seem to write themselves, they took on their own personalities right way.

The Paris Olympics start this week and by dumb luck, Ollie and Jacomo happen to be right there in Paris! So we’ll follow their French adventures while they are overseas!

I just started drawing up the adventures, and as usual, they seem to be writing themselves! The cartoons will be all set to roll on Monday.

You can can check them out at OllieAndJacomo.com

Or you can follow the on Social Media at:
Facebook here: facebook.com/OllieAndJacomo
Instagram here: instagram.com/ollieandjacomo

Is he today’s Michelangelo?

Saw this on CBS Sunday morning. A story about an Italian artist named Jacopo Cardillo, known in the art world at just Jago. he’s called the modern day Michelangelo due to his incredible sculptures.

One of his current marble pieces was placed in NYC this week, I missed it by a few days, hopefully it will still be there when I return in the fall. It’s called, “Look Down,” it s a sculpture of a baby, laying down on the ground. It’s in Thomas Paine Park, a small park a few blocks north of City Hall.

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Came to Miami to cool off

Glad to be home, I had to leave NYC to get some cooler weather – in Miami!

NYC was brutal. Heat indexes over 100 made it unbearable at times. This red hoodie cartoon reminded me of my favorite red hoodie, which I brought to NY with me, thinking I might need it at nights like most summers, but even the nights were warm this year, there really was no cool air other than the airconditioned places. I heard a weatherperson on tv describe it as the Northeast having “no airflow.”

I was living on iced coffee.

One day, I felt I was getting heat stroke, really – I wasn’t sure what to do, but I managed to get back to the a/c and my bed and I drank a lot of color water, and in time, I got back to normal. I wondered how I would get back across town, from uptown to downtown, as I waited on those roasting subway platforms.

Also, this year Manhattanhenge was a bust – too many clouds blocking it both nights.

But in spite of all the heat, I did have a lot of fun. A lot of my family from Miami was up north and we had good times mostly in The Hamptons. In the city I did a lot of my favorite things and went to many of my favorite museums, including Cleopatra’s Needle, behind the MET Museum and the JP Morgan Library, which I had passed a few times, but never visited.

Ate in a lot of new places – three Greek restaurants ironically. But I forgot to check out Maria Loi’s place, Loi Estiatorio, which I see on tv a lot. I like her Mediterranean cooking style.

I’m looking forward to cooler temps in the fall, when I return for NY Comic Con and pumpkin and apple picking in October and Thanksgiving and so many more things in November.

***Cleopatra’s Needle in Central Park***

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McSorley’s Old Ale House

A few of us went to McSorley’s Old Ale House the other day. It’s the oldest bar in NYC, founded in 1854. Able Lincoln visited the place! Along with dozens, if not hundreds of celebs.

The 170 year old saloon is located at 15 E. 7th Street. Interestingly enough, across the street from LaSalle, which was my father’s high school.

McSorley’s only sells beer and only sells two types – dark or light, and they price – $2.75 per glass! You get two glasses with every order because of the head on the beer, so to compensate, it comes in two glasses.

I went back a few days later to buy t-shirts, I wanted to buy four. The bartender told me the price was $80.00. I asked, “Per shirt?” He replied, “No, total, tax included!” I think they are usually $25, but since I purchased four, they reduced the price a bit.

So beers are $2.75 and t-shirts are $20.00 – probably the best deal in town. And of course, the history is even better.

The place is full of history – all sorts of items around the bar, old photos on the walls, an old stove in the center of the room and so much more. It looks like a movie set, but it’s all real, all authentic. It’s a museum that you are drinking in!

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Paul McCartney’s photos

I went to the Brooklyn Museum to the the Paul McCartney exhibit, “Eyes of the Storm.” They are random photos Paul took during 1963 and 1964, an important time for the Beatles.

He didn’t plan any of it and that’s what makes it so great.

I’m not a fan of the Brooklyn Museum, it’s impossible to navigate and they have a rude staff, but I went for the Paul exhibit.

Maybe it was just a bad day for me, that same day I was sitting in Union Square along with dozens of other people, and the rainbird type sprinkler came on. Hard. And it hit me right in my face along with wetting my whole right side from head to toe. Some stupid teens thought it was funny, but it did feel good in the summer heat.

On the subway a big heavy guy in one of those big ass wheelchairs ran over my toe. He backed up right over me. My toe is still hurting, hope it’s not broken.

And a chocolate Mister Softee dripped onto my new white sneakers. The cone had a hole in it. The guy in the Softee truck offered to give me a new cone, but I told him no problem. Then I saw the big stain, that looked like a black bullet hole.

Oh yes. On another train a guy comes up to me. Puts on a rubber glove and shoves it in my face. I don’t know what that was about. We were the only two on the car. I ran out at the next stop.

Just a random Wednesday in paradise.