So I show up on Christmas day to my Nephew’s house, which the family traditionally does every year. I opened the door, and there is a dog staring at me. I asked his wife (my nephew’s, not the dog’s), “You have a dog?” She said, “Yes!”
“When did you get him?” I asked. She said, September.
I then asked, “What’s his name?”
“Toast,” she replied.
“What?” I asked, I thought I didn’t hear right.
“Toast,” she replied. I had to ask, “What did you say, a few times, as I thought I heard wrong.”
Apparently one of the kids named him because he was the color of toast, which I don’t get. Especially since he is gray. I’ve never seen gray toast, even when it’s burned.
It reminded me of years ago. My parents lived in the same house for more than 50 years, so once in awhile, neighbors changed next door. This one time there was a family with a dog named Richard. Yep, Richard.
The first time I heard the lady calling out, “Richard! Richard!” I asked my mother if she was calling her husband. She said, “No, that’s her dog!”
The funny part is I never saw the lady or Richard, but whenever I was at my parents’ house, I would hear the lady calling Richard. He must have gotten out a lot. It sort of sounded like Hyacinth Bucket calling her husband Richard. It was that same tone, “Richard! Richard! Richard!”
I never saw the lady, or Richard. I don’t know why. I just never did. I guess they moved away and that was that.
The quote, “And all at once, summer collapsed into fall,” is by Oscar Wilde.
Fall/Autumn is my favorite season. Again.
I say again, because I think most of my life Fall was my favorite, but for some years recently, summer ended up being my favorite. I don’t know how it became summer, but I’m glad it’s back to fall.
I live in Florida, and yes, we can feel the fall here, too. I was standing outside over the weekend and I could feel the fall. The light is different, there is a breeze in the air. It just feels different. There is less light and cooler temps.
This final quarter of the year is the best, as far as I am concerned. My favorite holidays have changed over the years, too. Of course Christmas has to be the best. And then I loved Halloween. Now my favorite is Thanksgiving. I don’t mind New Year’s Eve either. One of my friends always had New Year’s Eve as his favorite holiday, and I can see that now. I guess it’s the anticipation of a whole new year.
On Thanksgiving, I go to the Macy’s Parade, I stay about an hour, and then one of my cousins picks me up at the subway station in Queens and we go to her house and have brunch. Just three of us and Sara, their dog.
I get to the house before the parade is over, so we watch that and then the dog show which comes on tv afterwards. At 2 pm, we go to my other cousins not far away, and about 20 or more of us have Thanksgiving. We overeat, argue, laugh, just have a nice family time.
We sometimes do the Southampton Christmas Parade the Saturday after Thanksgiving, and it ends up being a perfect four day weekend. In between all that, I am in NYC and enjoying the buildup to Christmas, with all the holiday things the city has to offer.
Of course, October leads into this and upcoming in a few weeks in New York Comic Con and a few of us go upstate New York to apple and pumpkin pick. That’s a perfect things, too. I’m hoping the next few weeks go slow leading up to it all because I don’t want it to all happen and be over with. I want the whole season to last.
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If you slide back and forth on today’s cartoon, you can see the difference in the two.
Originally, I had the one guy reading a book, which I liked lot, but I thought that maybe I should make it an ipad, which seems more in touch with today. I have to admit, I read books on my kindle, actually on my iphone.
I have a kindle and a tablet, but I prefer to use my phone. It’s more convenient. The fonts adjust to the size of the phone, so they aren’t tiny, and it’s easy to read.
I’ve tried getting into audiobooks, but I don’t like the voices or the speed of the voices as they read the content. As for printed or digital books, I prefer printed if it is a graphic novel or a book on comics or comic strips.
My cousin loves books, she almost opened an independent bookstore. There is one in Madison Connecticut where we always plan on visiting, but we never seem to make it there. On Sunday, I saw a story on CBS Sunday Morning, about a small town in upstate New York, where they have many independent bookstores. I sent my cousin the story and she was already planning out visit.
We were once in Barnes and Noble and as she was perusing the books, I was taking a few pictures of books. She asked me why I was taking pictures. I told her it was so I could remember them so I could order them on Amazon later. She was not amused.
One time she handed me a book, it was Roz Chast’s book, “Going into Town.” She asked me if I ever heard of Roz. Of course I had. I told her I went to see the Roz Chast exhibit in The Museum of the City of New York recently. I had never been to that museum before and I located it to see Roz’s exhibit. I’ve been back to the museum many times after that. I love that area of the city and the museum.
I have many books I’ve “borrowed” from my cousin and her husband over the years. I don’t think I ever returned any of them. I guess I should.
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This recent cartoon received a lot of talk lately. It seems another cartoonist did the same thing, a few weeks after mine was published and it might be a meme, too.
Over the years, so many cartoons have appeared that were the same or similar and it bothered me, but I’ve learned to get over it. There’s no way of knowing where the ideas come from, although this one particular cartoonist seems to have quite a few of my ideas pop up a week or two after mine are published. Coincidences, I guess?
I got this idea from a friend who actually asked me, “Are you ready for the fall?” And I laughed and said, “Of what, civilization?” And we both laughed. When he first said, “ready for the fall,” I thought of my favorite Madonna song, “Live to Tell.” In it she sings, “I was not ready for the fall.” I never saw the movie it’s from, “At Close Range,” but I’m assuming she isn’t singing about October.
The fall is special to me – Autumn, that is. In October and November, I’m in New York and there is a lot to do this time of year. I attend New York Comic Con in October and also in October, my cousins and I take our usual trip from NYC upstate to pumpkin and apple pick and to see the leaves changing.
In October, we sometimes go to the San Gennaro Feast in the Hamptons and also there’s an Oyster Festival, out east, too. This year, I see San Gennaro is in September. And of course, October is capped off with Halloween!
In November, we do Thanksgiving, and then the Saturday after Thanksgiving is the Southampton Christmas Parade, where all the small Hamptons towns get together for a light parade at dusk, then there is a tree lighting and fireworks afterwards. One of the best events of the year.
So yes – I am ready for the Fall – September, October and November.
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I wasn’t sure what tv show to use for this cartoon, but I ended up doing “The Office,” in hopes that people are familiar with it. I don’t see how you can’t be since it’s on almost 24 hours a day on some tv channels.
I thought of doing Seinfeld or I Love Lucy, Gilligan’s Island or some other well-known show, but The Office seemed to work.
I’ve been watching The Office constantly on Comedy Central and while I watched it on it’s initial run every Thursday night, I never realized what a jerk and creep Andy is. I always liked him, but as I watch the reruns now, I don’t see any redeeming qualities in him. I guess he was always been a jerk, on purpose. Dwight is a jerk, but he doesn’t know he’s a jerk; that’s the difference.
My sister-in-law has a few dogs, their names are Lucy, Ethel, Desi and I think Carolyn Appleby, not sure if there is a Fred, but I remember on one Lucy episode, they had a puppy named Fred on the show.
My parents used to have a next door neighbor whose dog’s name was Richard. I never saw the lady, but when I would visit, I would often here her calling Richard – “Richard! Richard!” I asked my mother if the lady was calling her husband, and my mother, with a straight face, said, “No, she’s calling her dog.” And the fact that I never saw the lady made it even funnier.
This was some years back. My parents also had good friends who lived across the street – the Earps, descendants of Wyatt Earp, but that’s another story.
We had dogs named Daisy, Hans, Ginger, etc. The usual names i guess.
This is one of my favorite pictures It was taken a few summers ago. That’s Molly and Me (that’s a movie, isn’t it?) on our way to the Hamptons in the back seat of the car. Molly was my aunt and uncle’s pet, they were in the front seat. I don’t remember if one of them took this picture or if I took it as selfie. Molly is no longer with us and neither is my aunt.
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Swipe back and forth and you’ll see the two different text choices.
I changed the text on this cartoon just before it was published. At first it said, “You uninvited your brother to the BBQ?” and then I changed it to, “Your brother uninvited us to the BBQ?” I thought the brother uninviting them worked better. What do you think?
It makes the guy I drew here the protagonist . . . but maybe not, since he was uninvited.
My family isn’t dysfunctional, but my small condo building is – in a funny, nice way. I always compare it to Mrs. Madrigal’s boarding house at 28 Barbary Lane in Tales of the City. When I mention that to people, they start laughing, because they can see that about our building and the comparison is right on.
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My brothers and I have been cleaning out my parents’ house, but it is slow going. We would go one Saturday, work a few hours and leave, but then we wouldn’t return for another week or two because things came up. But we are almost down to the wire.
Last weekend, I finally got most of the things out of my old closet in my old room. After weeks of cleaning the room out I found one box that was a treasure trove of my life. It was the last thing left in the closet after I went through everything else. It was quite large, sitting at the back of the closet and it contained a hodgepodge of things. There were old newspapers – ones I saved with news stories I thought were interesting and school newspapers I had printed, when I handled that with my printing business.
But there were lots of newspapers and magazines that I saved because my cartoons were in them. I used to do cartoons for local publications when I was in high school and college. I had forgotten about that. Some of them are excellent. I also had a lot of comic strips I was working on as a kid, they are not bad either.
I threw out a lot of the excess newspapers that weren’t needed, but I’ll show you some of the cartoons I had published and the comic strips I was working on when I get a chance. I noticed that the newspapers I had saved were of tragedies, like the Miami Herald with stories of 9/11 and Hurricane Andrew – things I would rather forget. Those I dumped. I didn’t need to revisit those times.
I found awards in the box, and diplomas from high school and college and lots of boy scout stuff – awards, badges, things like that. I also found letters – letters and post cards that friends sent me so many years ago. And I found random photos of myself and my family and friends. And everything brought back memories. There were lots of old computer parts and old computer programs from the early days of PC’s.
I worked at a local newspaper at one point and I sold ads as well as working in production putting the paper together for print. I drew a lot of things for them back then – I drew political cartoons but also I did drawings for advertisements that ran in the paper. I can see I really put a lot of time into them.
I found a color aid pack which I used in college. I still don’t understand the point of it for my classes after all these years, but I remember I couldn’t find it at the time and I needed it. My father ended up finding it in downtown Miami somewhere. It was expensive I remember, and I think we used it once or twice in class to cut out colors for something. Literally I used one or two color swatches from the whole packet.
I remember in one art class we used magazines to cut out colors from the printed images and we recreated famous art from that, gluing the odd shaped pieces into art. I did a small image of Picasso’s Les Demoiselles d’Avignon. I’m hoping to find it as I clean out my old room, I’ve been looking for it all these years. I’d like to frame the little thing.
My recreation was only 3″ x 3″ and I remember seeing the original for the first time – it’s huge, it blew me away at the size after seeing the small piece I created so long ago. Les Demoiselles d’Avignon seems so large to me and my favorite, Starry Night is so small. Both at MOMA – worth the trip.
Anyway, I’ll show you some of the cartoons and things I found when I sort them out and hopefully some other things.
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I wasn’t sure if today’s cartoon would be understood by many people. But it makes me laugh.
My father used to always say, “Stop haunting me!” when we were kids if we nagged him about something. It was just a common expression around our house, I guess we “haunted him” a lot, because I remember him saying this often.
I guess there are so many old expressions that will soon be extinct. It sort of reminds me of sounds that will soon be extinct, like the sound of a ringing telephone or a typewriter bell.
I sometimes think of the opposite – of things that we hear today that maybe 100 years ago or so we would never hear – like a plane flying by, or a lawnmower, or any type of motor. If you go outside and listen, you’ll hear all these sounds which seem second nature. Freeways are loud, “Can someone turn down the freeway?” asks cartoonist Lalo Alcaraz, as he painted a mural that says, “The future is emission free!”
But imagine 100 years ago when a person would go outside and maybe just hear the clopping of horse feet on the pavement and maybe that’s it!
We have a construction site across the way, and the sound of that non-stop “beep, beep, beep,” of trucks and equipment backing up, is maddening. One of my neighbors called me one day to see if I could do anything about the sound, it was driving him nuts. “What could I do?” I asked him. “You know people, call someone!” was his reply.
I didn’t know who the call, so the sound goes on and on Monday thru Friday. It’s quiet on weekends.
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A friend posted this on Facebook: “Annoying in the moment but everyone is grateful afterwards.”
She was referring to a quote: “Take pictures of everything and everyone. I don’t care who I annoy by constantly taking pictures, in the end they will be all we have left. Every photo is a memory – capture it.”
I had to laugh because for years I would take pictures of everything – with a camera. This was before cellphones. So it was with an actual small camera that I carried around.
I would take pictures of us on the subway or on a bus, or in the middle of the street and one of my cousins, who I was always with, would get embarrassed and annoyed. He would always tell me to stop it, but in the end, he would always ask for a copy of the picture(s).
Every once in awhile he brings that up and we laugh.
Even today, with my cellphone I still embarrass people at times, even though everyone is constantly taking pictures all the time. I’ll say to a stranger who we ask to take our picture if they mind, “We are from Kansas, we aren’t used to all this city stuff,” I’ll say. I think the person knows I’m joking.
I read once that in this age of non-stop picture taking, we are losing something that in the old days was a part of it all – the scrapped pictures – which have a life of their own. But these days I assume most of us take a bunch of pictures and only save the ones we like, deleting the ones we don’t like, losing those scrapped, interesting pictures for good probably.
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When I was younger I went to a lot of parties. I don’t know if I was a party animal in the sense that I went to every party, which I didn’t, but I enjoyed going to quite a few, plus all my friends were there, so I sort of had to go. These days I don’t really care to go. I do, but I would rather not attend.
There’s a condo get together next week, just about a dozen of us are attending, I would love to not go, but I guess I should. I mean I just have to take the elevator down a few floors.
A few years back, I didn’t go to my brother’s for Easter. I had just seen my family a couple of days before at Pizza Night and I didn’t feel like taking the long drive out to their house. When my nephew asked me why I didn’t show up, I said, “You expected me to drive all that way for a fukn slice of ham?”
I can still see the look on his face, his reaction. He jumped back, the way Charlie Brown does when he sees the little Christmas tree all lit up and decorated at the end of A Charlie Brown Christmas. I laugh every time I think of it. I’ve been to so many events at their house over the years, I just didn’t feel like going that one year.
I was just with about 20 people at Thanksgiving at a cousin’s house in New York – that’s a yearly thing, I wouldn’t miss it. And this Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, I’ll be with my family here in Miami, I wouldn’t miss any of that.
One time I didn’t go out on New Year’s Eve. It was my first time being alone, ever. I’m including when I was a baby and a child up to adulthood. I was never alone.
I don’t remember the reason for being alone this one year, but it was very uncomfortable at first. I’ve always been with family or friends or at parties or whatever. But this was so odd. I didn’t know how to react. But you know what? I loved it. I look forward to not doing anything on New Year’s Eve every year now. As they say, that’s a night for amateurs to go out.
I’m known for not doing things I don’t want to do. Typical Gemini.
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