tomversation

Urban cops

A funny thing happened the day before I left NY.

Since a Nor’easter was affecting things up north, I sat down on a bench to check my airline schedule, to be sure it was on time the next morning. This past summer I had my flight home canceled and then rescheduled and rerouted thorough Boston, due to bad weather, so I wanted to check this time.

All looked good. The app said all was on schedule.

I was sitting on a bench across from Lincoln Center looking at my phone when two NYC cops came up to me. They asked how long I was sitting there. “Oh, no, I thought, what was this about?”

I had just read an ad in the subway, which was in Spanish, which said something like, “Have your real ID on you, they are on the streets! Truth!” So I thought this was that.

I told the cops I was only there a short time, and I asked why they were asking. One said, “Well, we were told a guy was chasing another guy with a firearm and they ran right by here. And we wanted to know if you saw anything.”

“What?” I said? “If I saw a guy holding a gun up to another guy running by, I wouldn’t be sitting here so calmly,” and I held my hand out as if I was holding a gun.

The cops laughed and ran off, looking for the guys.

Oddly enough, a few days before, these two cops came up to me in Hoboken (I blurred their faces here).

Again, I was sitting on a bench, this time to tie my shoelace. I seem to do a lot of bench sitting it seems. Anyway, I was sitting right in front of City Hall, and they came across the street looking at me. It could be because I took this picture of them, but they came up to me and said, “Hello. how are you doing?” I said, “Ok, thanks.” And they were on their way.

A few minutes before I had taken some pictures of some bigwigs in suits in front of City Hall, although I don’t think the cops saw that. I took the picture because I thought it was funny. Hoboken is literally one square mile in size and they have their own city council, mayor, police department, etc.

It’s sort of a real life Mayberry, when you think about it. I always say if I was to move to New York, I would actually move to Hoboken, one train stop from NYC. It’s like being in Brooklyn, but on the other side of Manhattan, so it’s a quick ride in and out.

It’s autonomous, it rules and controls itself, as any city would. It isn’t part of a larger government, like Brooklyn is (which is part of NYC). So little Hoboken calls its own shots. There are really no tourists there, because who, except for me, goes to Hoboken? It’s easy access to and from the city (Manhattan), it’s right next to the larger Jersey City, which is its own city, too.

I’ve seen people pop over to Macy’s at Herald Square in Manhattan, it’s only a few train stops away. Very convenient, yet it’s a quiet little “village” right on the Hudson River, doing its own thing.

Till next time . . .

Subscribe to this Tomversation blog by clicking here – it’s free!

My nonsense Uber experiences

I’m glad to be back in Miami. But it seemed like I would never make it home from the airport. The Uber drive from the airport almost took as long as the plane ride from New York, and it should only take about 15 minutes!

My plane ride home was uneventful, the best type of plane ride. It left on time and arrived earlier – can’t get much better than that. Except, then there is Uber.

I summoned an Uber and waited and waited and waited. The app showed she was right near me, but I couldn’t find her. And apparently, she could not find me.

The last time this happened was last December, during Art Basel, where the airport is a madhouse, but this was a quiet Tuesday afternoon in October, so the airport was dead, there weren’t many people in the place, but yet we could not find each other.

I kept looking for a gray car, I can’t remember the type now, but there were no gray cars and the thing with Miami cars is that we don’t have front license plates, so it’s sometimes impossible to find your Uber.

In places like NY, you see the car coming simply by looking at the front license plate.

I sent the driver a message or two or maybe six or seven. And I called her a number of times. Nothing. No response. After half an hour, I canceled the call and they are trying to charge me something for the cancellation, which I’ll fight.

I summoned another car. This one was “green” and the guy was apparently deaf. That’s what his profile said. So I thought what could go wrong. He arrived fast and turns out he wasn’t deaf. So that was good, I was picturing a Seinfeld episode in my head trying to communicate with him, but that wasn’t a problem.

The issue with this guy was that he took me on a long trip through Miami. Basically, on a sightseeing tour. We went through Doral, Little Havana and other areas. I asked him why. He said he was trying to avoid traffic.

Finally, when we got to my neighborhood, I told him to go straight ahead to the main street and not make twists and turns through the neighborhood, as Uber usually does with their maps.

After an hour-and-a-half, I got home. An hour and a half after we landed at the airport! I may start going back to yellow cabs for a while.

COMING UP:
My brush with Urban cops – NY and Hoboken
Friday’s Tomversation toons of the week
What’s behind my Publix self-checkout scrutiny?

Subscribe to this Tomversation blog by clicking here – it’s free!

Discover the beauty of Autumn: A day at the farm

Three of us, two of my cousins and me, did our yearly thing – we went upstate New York to pumpkin and apple pick.

We ended up at one of the farms we had been to before, we usually change it around each year.

It’s so peaceful and beautiful on the farm. The leaves are starting to change, there are pumpkins in the field and apple orchards at another end and a farm store where you can get apple cider donuts, pies, jams, and so many other things, including hot apple cider.

We went to lunch at an old tavern from 1832 in Cold Spring, a small village right on the Hudson River.

A Nor’easter was coming, so the weather was a little rainy, sort of misty at times, but still so beautiful up there.

Subscribe to this Tomversation blog by clicking here – it’s free!

Highlights from New York Comic Con 2025

I went to New York Comic Con the other day. As usual, it was mobbed – claustrophobic.

These days, it’s less about comics and more about tv, movies and streaming, but if you look, you can find some comics-related things.

I saw the National Cartoonists Society booth and the Comics Kingdom booth. I’m not sure if GoComics.com was there, I didn’t seem them.

Comics Kingdom tells me I am on their short list to be published by them, but I didn’t see anyone I new at the booth to pester about that, so I didn’t

I tried to find my cousin who usually works the booth for the comics company he works with, but I couldn’t find him in the crowd.

See that Batman photo above, from his back, I was following him from behind, filming him for a mini movie and he turned and asked me to take his picture with Superman, who you can see there. I didn’t get the image on my camera, but I took a few of them together on his phone for him.

There were a few Spider-men around, not the usual dozens that I usually see and of course, there were many characters that I didn’t know who they were.

A couple of times I heard people thanking others for knowing who they were, so maybe they weren’t that common and only real fans knew who those cosplayers were.

When I left, scalpers were asking for my badge. I didn’t scan myself out because I knew I wasn’t returning, so it was not a usable badge if you don’t scan out, and I almost sold my “dead” badge to the scalpers, but then realized they wouldn’t lose out – an innocent person who buys the badge from them would suffer, so I didn’t sell it, I just saved it as a souvenir.

Subscribe to this Tomversation blog by clicking here – it’s free!

The salmon wars

There’s a deli down the block and I try to eat a small piece of salmon every day. It’s not dinner or lunch, it’s just a small piece of salmon. I get it at one of those hot bars, where you help yourself.

At home, I have a teaspoon of extra virgin olive oil and also a teaspoon of Norwegian fish oil, so when I’m traveling, I try to have the salmon in their place for the Omega 3s. This is the Norwegian fish oil I buy.

Well I walk in and there the other night and are two old ladies blocking the area where the salmon is. They were sort of debating what to eat at the hot bar in the deli. It’s set up like Whole Foods – two sides lined with food where you can see reach through the middle from one side to the other if you wanted to,

I wanted to get my salmon and leave, and I didn’t want to have to ask them to move, so I went around to the other side of the hot bar and reached through to grab a small piece. Keep in mind, there was a whole tray of salmon, plenty for all. And as far as I knew, I was being unobtrusive.

Well, the ladies went crazy when they saw my spatula reach through and start cutting a slice of salmon. They started fighting off my spatula with their spatula, sort of like a sword fight.

One of them broke up all the salmon and ruined it. She turned the beautiful full fillets of salmon into shredded salmon, just to keep me from getting a piece.

One lady reminded me of Ramona Singer, from the Real Housewives of New York – that type if you know who I mean, sort of an entitled, confused Upper East Sider. We were on the East Side of Manhattan, by the way.

I finally grabbed my small piece of salmon. One of the ladies called me a “low life.” I walked around the counter and towering over them, I said, “What did you call me?” She backed off and said something about waiting her turn to get the salmon and I didn’t wait, but I didn’t get in their way.

I walked away, paid and left. There was a security guard standing there watching it all and enjoying the show.

I ended up with this story, and so did these two old ladies who I am sure told the story to 100 people by now, “the salmon thief” (in their eyes) made their day in the end.

Subscribe to this Tomversation blog by clicking here – it’s free!

Fall in NYC: Warm October Days

I’m back in New York. Perfect month – October. But it’s a bit hot – close to 80 degrees, and it may pass 80 over the weekend! Glad I didn’t pack heavy.

Did my usual and as you can see above, I had my first Mister Softee of the Fall. I actually ate my way through the city today.

I’m already noticing the polite way the city runs. People are holding doors for each other, smiling and saying hello in elevators, things like that. Unlike a lot of what I see at home in Miami.

Even at LaGuardia airport cars stopped so I could cross the street to get to my Uber.

But I did have one altercation, and maybe I was the rude one, but I don’t think so. It was with a Ramona Singer type at a deli, I’ll talk about that in another post, we had our own little reality show going on in front of everyone in the store! Stay tuned for a future post! Subscribe here so you don’t miss it.

I’ll be going to New York Comic Con on Thursday, so I’ll report back on that. I’ll also be going pumpkin picking with my cousins, I think that’s next weekend, when the weather will be cooler and perfect for pumpkins and apples.

Subscribe to this Tomversation blog by clicking here – it’s free!

The three avocados

One of my neighbors was a grumpy old man. When I first moved into the building, I was sort of afraid of him. I tried to avoid him and we never really saw eye-to-eye.

I became the president of the condo board and had to deal with him and we clashed. He never wanted to spend a dime. He would ask me, “Why do we have to paint the building? We don’t see it; people from the outside see it!” I had to explain it was mainly to protect the building from the elements.

We had nasty emails go back and forth and it was a mess for years. But thanks to him, I got off the board. I tried to quit so many times, but they wouldn’t let me. I didn’t want to just leave people stranded so I stayed on as president, but one time he got me so angry at a meeting, I did just that, I stormed off and just left and never looked back.

Over the years we became friendly and spoke on the phone almost daily about this or that. I think he was lonely and just wanted to talk.

We don’t do it anymore, but for a long time, the whole condo building bought Christmas gifts for each other, and we would send them back and forth in the elevator, using it as a dumb waiter. This particular neighbor grew avocados and citrus and he would gift each of us with a carton of fresh grapefruits, something we all looked forward to each year.

I asked him how they could possibly be so fresh and he said they were fresh because only one had had touched them – guy who picked them off the tree and put them in the box. He told me that in the supermarket, by the time the avocados reached there, they had gone through 20 hands!

Anyway, he would always promote the avocados. He ended every text to with three avocado emojis. Always.

He passed away a couple of years ago, the building is not the same without him, but every time someone group texts one of his daughters or mentions him in a text, they add the avocados as periods to the text. It puts a smile on all our faces.

Subscribe to this Tomversation blog by clicking here – it’s free!

Enjoying making them happy

When I’m creating a cartoon, I usually have one or two people in mind. I wonder, “Will they think this is funny? Will they like it?”

I don’t know why them. Probably because they are more vocal about my work and they have sent me cartoon ideas over the years, so I feel they are paying attention, even thought I might use 1 in 100 of their ideas – but they are being involved.

When I was publishing the daily news, there is one person who I would think of, too. I would wonder if she thought I was doing a good job. I wondered if she thought the article I was writing made sense and wondered if she would approve. She was always in my head as I was writing.

This person is gone now, but I always admired her and cared how she felt about issues. I admired her as I was growing up, she was always saying what I was thinking she was a fighter and protester. She cared about life and history. One time I saw her in person and was so excited. I didn’t say anything to her, but it was like seeing one’s favorite movie star in person.

Years later, I ran into her at a protest, and she knew my name. She literally knew who I was, she approached me and introduced herself and said my name! We eventually became friendly over the years. She wrote a book on Miami history one time and included me!

Are there people who you try to impress? But I think impress is not the right word, I don’t know what the word would be. Make happy? Entertain? Not sure.

One of my favs from quarantine time. Via TomFalco.com

I think in my cases, I just admired these people and the way they felt about things, so I wanted to try to entertain them with my work and put a smile on their faces when they see my cartoons and writings. I don’t want to lose them as an audience.

To be honest, I don’t think I ever changed an article or cartoon because “they” wouldn’t approve, but I just hoped they would enjoy what I was doing.

Does any of this make sense?

Subscribe to this Tomversation blog by clicking here – it’s free!

Why does Whole Foods have the rudest shoppers?

Over the weekend I went to Whole Foods. The parking garage was full as usual so I parked far away from the store. As I walked toward the store, I peeked around the columns because drivers at this particular location drive like it’s a racetrack – in the small garage.

As I walked by one column, a black car came barreling toward me. The guy made a turn from the main lane, into the parking lane. I jumped back. It reminded me of Charlie Brown at the end of the Christmas special – where he sees the little Christmas tree all decked out and he jumps back.

The car came to a screeching stop. I just stood there and looked at the guy. I put my arms out as if to say, “What was that?” As I walked out from in front of the car, the guy pulls up and I am expecting him to apologize, but he starts yelling at me. He yells, “I wasn’t even speeding!” Did I say a word? Guilty conscious, I guess.

He was speeding. Everybody does in that garage, I still haven’t figured out why.

So I yelled at the guy, “This isn’t a racetrack!” And he started screaming at me from his car again. And we started yelling back and forth for a bit and I finally walked away.

The funny part is that he seemed like a nice guy. But he was upset and so was I.

I was hoping to see him in the store so I could tease him and call him “Speed Racer.” But I never did see him. He seemed like the type you could tease, I don’t know why, I just got that feeling. His yelling I think was out of embarrassment.

This particular Whole Foods is known for its rude shoppers. Driving like maniacs, blocking aisles while screaming to someone on their phones, walking around the open food with dogs (and a pig one time), hitting you with their shopping cart. Very rude, entitled people in this particular store.

People block things with their shopping carts, and they know they are wrong, because I usually push the carts far away from them and they just look, but don’t say anything. What could they say?

The other day, a family of six blocked every aisle with their shopping cart. Ever time I turned round, there they were taking over the aisles.

I only notice this when I return from being in NY for a long time, usually I guess I have nothing to compare it with. But when I come home and visit Whole Foods for the first time, it’s glaring. I live among animals.

Just another first world experience, I guess.

Subscribe to this Tomversation blog by clicking here – it’s free!

Time flies and other times it doesn’t

Pumpkin picking last October in Upstate NY.

September is half over. October is almost here. I think that’s my favorite month.

Autumn was always my favorite season, but for some reason Summer crept in and that was my favorite for a few years, but now we are back to Autumn as being my favorite.

The cool weather, the colorful leaves, Autumn is really the best time of year.

I’ll be in New York City soon for Comic Con and for pumpkin and apple picking upstate New York. The city is always so great with so much going on – the green market, of course, museums, musicians on the streets and in the parks.

Last year, a bunch of us were at a restaurant in Brooklyn, talking about a cousin’s upcoming wedding in the summer, which recently passed. And now it’s a year later. Time flies and other times it doesn’t. That’s a good headline for this post.

I often think about spending time in New England for an extended period. You know, like get an Airbnb for a couple of months, maybe three months. In my head, I often think summer would be best, but I bet fall would be even better.

The Lake House we stayed in this past summer.

The lake house we stayed in during the summer would be a perfect spot. It’s not too far from the New England border of Vermont and Massachusetts. And I can get to all of New England from there on day trips. I can work while I’m there, do my cartoons, get a different creative spirit from being there, get ideas for cartoons that I wouldn’t otherwise think while home in Miami.

A friend just left for Italy. She is meeting up with other friends next week, but she went early to immerse herself in the culture. She takes Italian classes and lives with a family in a room in their house, an Airbnb situation. So she wanders around along, takes it all in, and then meets up with friends and does that.

I envy that. Not that she’s in Italy, although I would love to spend months in Tuscany, but because she gets out and immerses herself in a different place, sort of like I would like to do in Upstate New York or New England.

Speaking of pumpkin picking, I saw this in Target the other day – fresh pumpkins for $4.00 each! So it’s either this or Hudson Valley. I joked about having to make a choice, but of course Hudson Valley is the way!

Subscribe to this Tomversation blog by clicking here – it’s free!