tomversation

The speakers

My neighbor asked me if I wanted two large speakers he had. I didn’t. But this reminded me of a story from some years ago. These aren’t the speakers my neighbor had, but they look like the ones I am going to tell you about

Many years ago, I was leaving Macy’s with my friend Jorge and a couple of guys approached us. They wanted to know if we wanted to buy these two big speakers, like the ones shown here. I don’t know why, but I agreed. Oddly enough, I had my checkbook with me, which I never carried around, but I was about 22, and I guess I didn’t have credit cards yet. I wrote the guy a check, we took the speakers and left.

Jorge and I went home to my apartment and left the speakers and other stuff we got at Macy’s and we went out, I don’t know where, probably to lunch or something.

When we got home for lunch, there sitting on my kitchen counter was the check I gave the guys outside Macy’s and the speakers were gone! I had the guy’s phone number and I called him to ask him about this. He told me the bank, I think it was Centrust at the time, wouldn’t cash the check for them. I guess these guys looked quite shady, which they were.

I asked him how he got into the apartment, he said he broke in through the window. And this did not faze me, because I guess when you’re 22, things don’t faze you. It is creepy to know now that the “secure” building was not so secure from the front building entrance to my window. Both easily broken into.

I told the guy to bring back the speakers, I wanted them. He came back and I don’t remember if I gave him cash or we went to the bank together or what. But I ended up with the speakers.

And you know what? For many years, they just sat there. I never used them; never attached them to any music equipment and they were mostly used as sort of plant holders or end tables. I don’t even know if they ever worked. I had to have them, but never even tried them to see if they worked.

Ahh, to be young and carefree again, not letting anything bother me. Although I don’t think I let many things bother me now.

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Jasper and Richard

A dog and cat are part of my new Ollie and Jacomo cartoon. They will start showing up in cartoons later this summer.

Jasper is the dog and Richard is the cat. I always liked the name Jasper for a dog and Richard seems quite funny as an animal or pet’s name to me.

Years ago, my parents had a next door neighbor who had a dog named Richard. She would often call out to the dog who was out lost in the neighborhood somewhere, “Richard! Richard!” The first time I heard the lady’s high pitched voice calling, I asked my mother, “Who is Richard, her son? Her husband?” And my mother replied, “Her dog.”

I never got over it, every time she called out to Richard over the years it always made me laugh. I don’t think I ever saw Richard or the lady. I guess I was too lazy to look out the window. I didn’t live there at the time, I had long moved out, so I was just over visiting and I guess I really didn’t want to spoil the image by seeing what Richard and the lady looked like.

That reminds me of that train trip I took where I listed to the old ladies the whole trip and didn’t want to know what they looked like, but did see them in the end and was disappointed. That story is blogged here.

Anyway, I hope you are enjoying Ollie And Jacomo. I know it’s started out slow, but I had to introduce the premise. It will pick up now. Here’s today cartoon. It sort of hits home because lately I’ve been noticing that everything seems to be half full or less these days – in cans, packages, whatever. You open the package and wonder where the food is? It’s worse with clear packaging, you really feel gipped.

You can see Ollie and Jacomo at these locations if you would care to keep up with their adventures in Coconut Cove:

Website: OllieAndJacomo.com
Facebook: facebook.com/OllieAndJacomo
Instagram: instagram.com/ollieandjacomo

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Many errors, many likes

I was going to put Tomversation toons on hiatus many times and start up Ollie and Jacomo again, which I did earlier this week finally and I hope you’ll check it out. But each time I was going to make the switch, a current Tomversation cartoon would get millions of views (one cartoon had over 2.5 million views just on Instagram) and it would egg me on to keep going. One day cartoons would get a few thousand views and then overnight, one cartoon would get millions. It happened more than once and so I kept putting Ollie and Jacomo off.

This cartoon about the one hour film processing ran last week. It was one of my most popular cartoons. It has been seen by almost 1.5 million people so far on Facebook alone, and shared by thousands and debated and commented no non-stop. You can see the stats below. There are over 1000 comments, and over 3000 shares.

It’s still being shared and commented on today, almost a week later. The odd thing is that I meant to say, “One Day Service,” not “One Hour.”

And originally when it was published, I spelled “whoa” wrong. I was corrected by readers, as they are so quick and gracious to point out one’s mistakes.

Many camera aficionados or people who simply worked in photo places at the time told me that One Hour Service started some time in the early 1980s. But it’s interesting either way how many memories this cartoon has brought people, mistakes and all.

I love when a cartoon hits a nerve in some way – in a good way, that is – jogging good memories is always a good thing.

My Ollie and Jacomo cartoon started Monday, June 12, hope to see you there for something new and different from me. You can see it here.

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Ollie and Jacomo premiered today

Ollie and Jacomo, my new cartoon, started publication this morning. It starts off slow, to introduce the characters and will get funnier by the end of the week. Promise. 🙂

Ollie And Jacomo will publish Monday thru Friday, and can be seen at these locations:
Website: OllieAndJacamo.com
Facebook: facebook.com/OllieAndJacomo
Instagram: instagram.com/ollieandjacomo

I hope you’ll follow along at one or all of these locations.

Succession

I’m loving Succession. I started watching it about a week ago. I never watched it during it’s initial run on HBO. Not sure why. There was a time when I watched all those Sunday night 9 pm shows on HBO and Showtime – The Sopranos, True Blood, Boardwalk Empire, etc. But for many years now, I’ve been watching other stuff, I guess.

I did the same with Breaking Bad. I never watched one episode during it’s initial run and then after the show was over for about a month, I started watching it and got addicted. I think I’ve seen every episode about five or six times. My two favorite episodes are Dead Freight and Face Off.

As for Succession, I just finished season one. My favorite character is Kendall Roy played by Jeremy Strong. Love him – the character and the actor. He commands the screen when he’s on.

I do have one complaint – the darkness. The show is very dark. And I don’t mean the storyline, I mean the filming. It’s as if they are trying to save money on lighting or something. I guess it’s to set the mood, but so many times I can’t see what’s going on. The tv screen is almost black! Have you noticed that?

I literally have to shut the lights off in the room and make it pitch dark to see what’s going on. From an article in TV Line, regarding many tv shows: “Dark twists are fine, but scenes that are lit so dimly we can’t tell what is going on, or even with whom, are quite problematic.” The whole article is here.

Other than that, I love it all.

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Ollie and Jacomo

I keep going back and forth in my head about starting up my “Paws” comic panel again.

Some of you may remember it, I first started posting it in 2013 – 10 years ago! I’m not quite sure why I stopped.

It stars a Rabbit and a Mole – Ollie the Rabbit and Jacomo the Mole. Ollie was called Tombo at one time, but he’s back to being Ollie, his original name.

Back 10 years, ago, in 2013, I saw a cute black and white cartoon daily on Instagram. A 19-year-old guy from Norway or that area of the world would post this great cartoon about a 5-year-old boy and a snowman. Each day it was sort of a full adventure in one comic panel and without any words! It was that good. It was quite amazing. And that’s what gave me the idea to start up “Paws” which I’m sure was called something else back then.

I was enthralled by the artwork and concept from the guy from Norway and I wish I had remembered his name. He started branching out, selling his work as greeting cards and things like that. The reason I may have stopped following him was that at the end of winter and these charming cartoons, he had the snowman melt! Yes, the snowman melted and that was the end of the adventures of him and the boy and he probably stopped posting things so his account just went dormant.

Anyway, I’ve played around with the characters and really like them. I now have things set up, I changed the whole thing from “Paws” to Ollie And Jacomo and got a new URL and set it all up, I reworked the characters and premise, renamed some and am ready to start publishing.

I don’t want to do two things at once – Ollie and Jacomo along with my Tomversation daily cartoon panel, so my Tomversation comic panel is going on hiatus for the summer, maybe shorter, maybe longer, I’ll see how I feel. I may publish Tomversation toons intermittently all summer, we’ll see.

I have this idea about cartoons having seasons, like tv shows, you know, one cartoon will run for a bit, then take a break, then another will run in its place and so on. And then the other will come back with new episodes and so on .

So now, starting Monday, June 12, Ollie And Jacomo will publish daily, you can see them online at these locations:
Website: OllieAndJacamo.com
Facebook: facebook.com/OllieAndJacomo
Instagram: instagram.com/ollieandjacomo

Hope to see you there!

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Saying ‘ok’ is okay

I saw this quote and it’s me! I do this all the time. But I didn’t know it was a sign of maturity. I do it so that I don’t have to have a long conversation. It seems easier to just say, “Ok” and leave it at that.

I say “ok” a lot on texts. I also do it because I don’t want to type, or dictate a text. A couple of my cousins sort of mentioned it. They sort thought it was rude for me to just respond, “ok” to their texts.

I do it to be agreeable and to answer a question or statement concisely. There’s a thumbs up thing now, so I can do that rather than even type “ok.”

For instance, I’ll get a text that says, “We’re meeting at such and such place at 2 pm.” And I respond, “ok.” Or they text, “We want Italian food, so we are going to such and such restaurant,” and I respond, “ok.” They have said, “Take the R train because the M train isn’t running,” and I respond, “ok.”

But seeing that they don’t care for those “ok’s,” I’ll sometimes answer, “Ok, looking forward to it,” or “That damn M train is always out of service!” or things like that, just not to be “rude” which I don’t think I’m being, I think I’m being economical.

One interesting thing is that two of my brothers type “okay” when they respond, they spell the whole word out, which I find interesting. I don’t think I have ever done that.

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My doctors

I wrote about going to the doctor recently. It was about the mole on my head, which turned into a cartoon. But the mole was benign, meaning it was nothing. The doc cut it off and I’m good as new.

This was a new dermatologist because my previous one, the one I had been going to since I was a child retired! As did my dentist. It’s a weird feeling when doctors you have been going to all of your life retire. You think they are always going to be there.

My GP or PCP or whatever you call them changed over the years. Why? Because two of my doctors died, which is even worse than retiring.

One was hit by a deer, or maybe it was that he drove into a deer or swerved off the road while avoiding a deer, while vacationing with his family in rural New England. It happened years ago, so I don’t remember all the details, but I believe the doctor and his kids were killed and only the wife survived. Horrible.

A second doctor died a couple of years ago – from covid! Very shocking and sad. A doctor he worked with told me and was in tears while describing it the whole time.

All of these doctors were mild mannered and gentle. Very quiet and peaceful guys, who made you feel comfortable. All of them.

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Worrying about the wrong things

I had to go to the doctor’s recently. It was at a place downtown where I had never been and my biggest concern was the parking situation. and finding the location. I even did a dry run drive on a Sunday, to be sure I could find the place on a busy rush hour Monday. I wasn’t worried about the actual doctor’s visit, I was more concerned with finding parking and finding the actual place.

Then there was a follow up for the results. I was nervous about that. I wasn’t nervous about the results, I was nervous about how it would work. Will he call me on the phone? Will I be on Zoom on the computer? I never set up Zoom on my new computer because I haven’t used Zoom since I got the new computer, so what will I do?

That’s what worried me.

I had a recent conflict here at my condo recently. I was supposed to be on the board, the board members begged me for months to run, and then at the time of voting, not one board member voted for me. I did not want to be on the board, but I felt obligated, but yet I was upset.

A friend asked why I was upset since I didn’t want to be on the board anyway, and I was upset because I had gotten psyched up about it. I told him, “I wasn’t psyched up in a good way, like I wasn’t excited about being elected. I was psyched up in the way you get when going to the doctor or dentist.” Maybe that’s why I don’t dread a doctor’s visit since I psych myself up ahead of time into dealing with it. Sort of like being on the condo board.

There’s a cartoon in all this somewhere. Or maybe a Seinfeld episode.

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Simply the Best

I redid my cartoon from yesterday, it seemed only right. I added Tina Turner up in heaven on a cloud, replacing the random guy from yesterday. What do you think?

I’m in mourning for Tina. Her death hit me hard, I don’t know why. I mean I know why – I loved her. But I don’t know why when some celebs die it hits me very hard. I sometimes believe it’s the state of mind you are in that day or week and that mood translates to the death of someone whether you knew them or not.

I saw Tina in concert many years ago, maybe 2008, around that time, she was of course already an icon. Our seats were great. I was looking for the photos I took, but can’t find them. She came up right over us on a crane. She was right there -feet from us.

I think I know every one of her songs and all of them from the 1980s are stuck in my mind – I can remember that time frame when I hear the songs. “What’s Love Got to Do With It,” reminds me of the summer of 1984 – one of my favorite years. I can remember that summer so clearly whenever I hear that. The video was all over tv, and you could hear the song in stores, on the street, wherever you were. You hear the first few bars and you know the song.

In 1984 or 1985 I stole a big Tina cutout that was outside a record store in the mall. I’m not sure where it is now, probably folded up in my parents’ garage. It was sitting right outside the entrance, I was with my cousin, and I just took it. I was possessed. I kidnapped Tina!

“Simply the Best” of course is iconic and it’s used in so many ways these days – at events, on tv commercials, it reminds me of HBO, which used it for many years as part of their brand.

I love “River Deep, Mountain High,” and “Rolling on the River” reminds me of my mother, she loved that. My mother also loved the Tina and Bryan Adams song, “It’s Only Love,” whenever that video came on we stopped what we were doing and watched.

I remember as a young kid seeing Ike and Tina Turner on tv and thinking, “what a funny name,” it just sounded funny to me. But she’s been part of my life, like so many of us.

We all know her story, how she escaped from Ike with nothing, made it to a motel, where the owner let her stay even though she had no money, and through it all, she reinvented herself and became a superstar.

Seeing the announcement of her death yesterday was a shock.