I saw this on CBSSunday Morning, the tv show, last week. It was “Hail and Farewell” to all those celebs we lost in 2025.
What got to me was the sheer number. The segment went on for over 25 minutes! If I had to guess, I would have said about 15 minutes, but I see the time on the YouTube video.
One person who did not make this tv segment is Tatiana Schlossberg, granddaughter of JFK, who died yesterday. Another sad moment for the Kennedys. Tatiana’s mother, Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg, lost her mother, father, uncle, brother and now daughter, many due to disastrous circumstances. It hurts just to write that.
When the CBS segment came on, I stopped and stood in front of the tv, and just stood and watched in silence for those 25 minutes.
Check it out, I think you will be surprised at all the people we lost.
A few generation gap instances happened during Christmas. There were probably more, but I remember these few.
One of my young nieces received a pink digital camera as a gift. A small hand-held plastic thing where you take pictures then take the chip out and put it into a small printer and print the pictures, or you can just keep them on the camera and see them digitally. It’s funny how she felt that an actual camera was a new invention. I guess what’s old is new again, I’ve read where people are going back to malls and movie theaters, too.
I told her about the “old days” where we would have a limited amount of photos on the film cartridge, usually 12, 24 or 36 and that we would take the pictures and then have to have them developed, waiting a week to see the results.
In time, there were one hour photo processing places and I also explained before the cartridges, that rolls of film had to be inserted into the camera. I explained film, negatives and developing. It all drew a blank stare.
Later, we were talking about the new year and I was telling her about something that happened in the 1980s. That drew a blank stare, too. I guess she only knows the 21st century.
Then there was. MY DVR. Apparently DVR’s are ancient, according to my nephew. I know cable tv is, but so are the DVR’s. He was flabbergasted that I have DVRs connected to my tv. He was flabbergasted that I still have cable tv. So am I at times, I pay too much and watch too little.
I like to do cartoons based on the past, where people thought they were in the most modern of times, which they were, but to look back, it was almost primitive.
I often see old photos online, from the 1890s or 1912 or 1920s and I look at the people in the photo, who think they have it all. And they did for that time period. I’ve seen old photos of NYC in the 1860s, where people dogged big white trolleys and horses around the city. Strange by today’s standards.
Another instance involved a new pen I received as a gift. It’s a beautiful pen I received from another young relative. At first I thought it was a fountain pen for drawing, because she kept talking about the “ink refill.” It turns out, she meant the ballpoint pen ink cartridge that you just slip in when the ink runs out, which you can purchase anywhere. But she made it sound as if I needed to fill the ink from some sort of well.
I think she is so used to throw-away plastic pens, that it was something interesting and new to her that you can just buy an ink cartridge and slip it in the pen without throwing the pen itself out. I almost told her about quill pens, but I didn’t.
Speaking of living in the modern world, one of my nephews helped me set up SoFi, the investing site. I had the app on my phone but I never completed the sign-up process, so I did that, I completed the sign up process and now have a robot making all my stock decisions. He claims the robot makes him 9% on all the trades it chooses, so let’s see how it goes!
Years from now, what we do today will look ancient – the digital photos, the DVRs, tv and stock trading, but for now, I’m living in the moment.
Till next time . . .
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This cartoon was published this morning. But it replaced the one below it, at the last minute. It was a quick change of Santa, as you can see.
I kept thinking after the cartoon was published that it needed something else, and it seemed that if Santa was lying back on an easy chair, it would be the thing.
So after the first one (the close-up of Santa cartoon here), was published, I quickly drew a new Santa sitting back on an easy chair, and I had the published cartoon changed to the easy chair one.
I do this often – not usually changing the whole cartoon, but finding a typo or something minor and I change it before people hopefully see it. After the cartoon is published, it gets passed around the internet quite quickly, so sometimes the “wrong” one gets shown around.
I really like the close-up image of Santa, but I think the other one conveys the message better.
Anyway, that’s it. A quick change on Christmas Eve morning.
I’ll be with my family tonight and tomorrow, hope you will be, too. But I am thinking of Italy and I saw something about Christmas in Rome on the news this morning, and I sort of willed it, you know, manifested it, that I’ll be in Rome for Christmas next year. I’m really feeling it, you know. As I thought it, I felt it. And that is really how manifestation works.
Let’s see if that plays out!
Till next time . . . Merry Christmas!
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I’m not getting the readership I want. I want millions of followers and readers. To be fair, some of my cartoons do get millions of eyes on them. Most of course, don’t.
I read one time when the comics were revered, I guess in the 1940s and 1950s, Al Capp would get 80 million readers a day for Li’l Abner. If he got that size readership, I’m sure most of the big name strips at the time, did, also – Blondie, Moon Mullins, Dick Tracy, Little Orphan Annie, etc.
While many cartoonists get many views, many don’t. If you look at sites like GoComics.com, those big cartoonists who you would think have a lot of followers, don’t.
I am resigned to the fact that I have fans that get me. I like to think my cartoons are more cerebral. Not on purpose, it’s just how I think. I’ve noticed when I have a silly cartoon, something that plays to the lowest common denominator, well, that’s when I get all these eyes on my work.
A lot of my cartoons are “stolen.” What I mean is that they are picked up and used in anthologies without permission. These jerks at one publication one time picked up 60 cartoons and published them without permission, then other sites similar to their site (clickbait sites) picked up the cartoons and published them and so on and so on.
When I complained about the 60 cartoons being picked up and rerun, they reduced it down to 30. Guess they don’t know the word plagiarism.
Recently, a friend sent me a site where one of my cartoons was published, it was there along with some others which were illegally picked up and reused. My name and copyright were removed from the cartoon, but I was impressed that my friend recognized my work. He knew my style.
When I complained to the site editor, they said, “We did link back to you!” I had to tell them that they linked back to another site that illegally swiped my cartoon. I guess this is journalism today – anyone can publish anything without anyone editing or checking them. Sort of like I do here on my blog.
But it’s nice to know people think the work is worthy of stealing, or maybe it’s just that they need clickbait and anything will do.
I like to create my cartoons thinking of cartoonist Jason Chatfield’s quote: “Don’t curate your art to what gets likes. Curate it to what you like.” So I’ll keep on doing it that way.
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I found out about Rob Reiner’s death on Twitter, which seems to be how I find out about many famous people’s deaths. It’s the first thing I look at when I wake up in the morning.
The first thing I saw about it was the “Sock and a sock, a shoe and a shoe” routine, which I remember seeing so many years ago. I remember the first time seeing it on All in the Family with my mother. She loved it and for years after she would always bring up, “a sock and a sock and a shoe and a shoe.”
I hadn’t seen it in all these years and there it was on Twitter. Rob and Carroll O’Connor were so good together, a comedy team, which you don’t usually think of them as being.
Rob once said, “When you make something, it’s for everybody else, but the making of it is what you have for yourself.” He also said, “I hope I didn’t take up space [in this life].
So many obits start off by giving Rob credit of the movies he was involved in, but so many of us remember him as “Meathead” on All in the Family, which was the number one tv show for so many years in the 1970s; it was a big part of the culture at the time. Archie Bunker, Edith Bunker, Gloria Bunker Stivic and Meathead (Michael Stivic).
My mother used to cut my hair at one point in time, I don’t know why, I think I just didn’t want to go to the barber. So she would cut my hair, and we would do an Archie Bunker routine then.
She would ask how I wanted my hair cut, and I would say, “Without blood, ma, without blood.” Which is what Archie said to Edith one time when she was cutting his hair.
Then I would tell mom to “go around the back, come back to the top and trim and for gawd sake, when you come to an ear, stop!” I would pronounce God like “gawd,” the way Archie said it.
When I would drone on and on with my long stories, my mother would cut me off by doing another Archie routine – she would pantomime loading a gun and shooting herself in the head or she would pantomime making a noose and hanging herself – just like Archie did when Edith told long, boring stories . Archie would also pantomime overdosing on pills and slitting his wrists.
I saw a recent version of Tears for Fears performing “Everybody Want to Rule the World.” And it’s amazing to see them then (1985) and now. Curt Smith and Roland Orzabal – 40 years apart.
They sound the same and every time I hear them and the guitar riff in the center of the song, it transports me back to 1985.
I listen to this, and all Tears for Fears songs from the “Songs from the Big Chair” album, in my car almost daily. Sometimes I go out of my way while driving, to pass a business I used to work at in 1985 and while listening to Tears for Fears, I feel as if I am back in time – you know, time travel.
Then the traffic light changes and I drive back into reality.
Here is today’s version. Excellent.
Now I have this in my head all day. But that’s ok. I’ll spend the day in 1985.
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A perfect holiday gift. And a way to support me. 🙂
I came up with this idea for today’s cartoon while making my own list.
I have a large family and I was writing down the names so I remember everyone when buying holiday gifts, and I said to myself. “I hate this. Not buying the gifts – writing down the list!” And therein was a cartoon.
I hate making the list because I feel like I might forget someone. I should just save the list. I have a travel list. It’s quite old. I have made a couple of changes over the years, but every time I am packing for a trip, I pull the list out and use it.
And yes, I check it twice, and three times or more. I don’t want to forget anything.
Everyday life turns in to a cartoon. I just have to pay attention to what I’m seeing and thinking and hearing.
I bought a bunch of large things this year, which I thought I would not do again after doing it for a few years. Last year I got these Save the Whale bracelets which were easy to transport. In years past I bought air fryers, soda machines and ice cream makers. And they were hard to lug around.
During the pandemic, we didn’t do Christmas Eve or Day, so I lugged the air fryers from house to house. The bunch of them barely all fit in my car, but I got it done.
This year will be a chore lugging the large gifts. They are heavy. The Amazon guy arrived with them yesterday and he was struggling to carry the large boxes, so I helped him, it was quite a workout. I’ll have to repeat it getting them down to the car on Christmas.
First world problems.
Till next time . . .
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