Yep, I started another newsletter. Blogs are called newsletters now.
I have my cartoon published daily at TomFalco.com, then there’s this Tomversation blog you are reading now. Then there is 10 With Tom, where I have lists of 10 things and also interview people with 10 random questions and the new newsletter is called The Morning Grapevine.
Yep, I’m a busy guy.
The Morning Grapevine is where I share ideas that will inform and help you curate a business. And even if you don’t own or run a business, The Morning Grapevine is fun and informative.
The newsletter features marketing and business news along with fun interviews with people about their businesses – how did they start, how did they get funding, how do they market themselves- things like that. From bakers to artists to Wall Street types, we want to know about them and share their knowledge, which will help us all with what we do whether it’s build things, write, teach, draw or run a large company.
I have a friend I am interviewing now. She’s a well-known artist and she is a whiz at marketing her art. I was with her this past weekend. I would love to share her techniques for selling art and getting clients, who keep coming back for more. I am interviewing her now.
I also want to ask people what they offer when they have Patreon sites as incentives and also when people have Go Fund Me sites. I’ve donated to a lot of Go Fund Me’s – usually for art project and books – and a lot of those have original art and things like that as incentives. But what about other Go Fund Me’s for different projects? I’m interested in that.
I hope you are interested enough to to subscribe to The Morning Grapevine. It’s free. No cost to you. You can check it out here to see what is published so far.
S0 this cartoon got a lot of play – lots of likes, shares, etc. It’s the month of Luigi. Luigi Mangione. I don’t know why I am linking to him, unless you live under a rock, you know who he is.
The idea for this cartoon was a natural. It just wrote itself.
While watching and reading the news, it was all about Luigi and I thought to myself, “Are they going to start naming newborns after Luigi now?” And the cartoon was born.
Some comments I received were that I’m idolizing a murderer. I think I’m just commenting on what’s going on in the country today. It’s the top story. While I don’t do political cartoons, I thought this was interesting to comment on. People are infatuated with Luigi.
It was posted on Reddit with the headline, “Even the girls?” And most of the comments there were about girls names for Luigi, like “Luigia” or “Luigina” or “Luigette” And many were concerned about Mario’s feeling (from the Nintendo game) Luigi’s brother, since the name Luigi is getting all the attention. Unfortunately, most Redditors didn’t really mention the victim in the shooting.
I don’t even like the name Luigi, I would never name one of my kids that. I don’t really like my own name, Thomas. I like Tom and Tommy, but when someone calls me Thomas, I cringe. Usually it’s people I don’t know like someone at the doctor’s office or at a hotel check-in or things like that.
Luigi is such an ethnic name. I think of Nintendo and Mario Brothers when I hear that name. I don’t think I know a Luigi in real life. But Luigi Mangione now stole that name and it’s his now every time you hear it.
He’s a hero to many because he struck out against our screwed up healthcare system, but what I don’t get is that Luigi’s family had lots of money, why didn’t they have good health insurance?
Over the years I’ve paid a lot for health insurance and when I need it, it came through. I wasn’t happy with the premiums I paid monthly, but I was happy when I had two hernia operations in 15 years and didn’t pay much or anything.
After the first one in 2009, I got one bill. For $58.00.
After the recent one I did not receive a bill. It was all paid for. I had CT scans, MRI’s and so many other check-ups over the year before the operation, and through all that, I didn’t pay a dime. And after the operation, I didn’t pay a dime. All those people called me “Thomas” by the way.
So while Luigi and his family may have had good health insurance, is he paying the price now for trying to help the little guy?
That part I don’t get. We do need a new healthcare system in our country. It’s odd that the healthcare is for profit. The most important aspect of our lives, our health, is controlled by huge for profit corporations. not doctors or medical personnel.
For 15 years, I edited and published the local news in the village where I live. It was hard work, but I enjoyed it. I was the only source of news and information around here. People depended on it and read it daily. But after many years, I gave it up. I had to, I just burned out.
To this day, almost daily, people ask me when I’m coming back. It is sorely missed. It really was the voice of the village and everything that was happening was published. My stories were republished in the Miami Herald and the Huffington Post. I was interviewed by others about local issues.
I won awards over the years and I was given a great honor at the end of my run – the City of Miami made February 14 “Tom Falco Day.” All this is not to blow my own horn, it’s just to set up the next part of the story.
Well, a new publication started up a few years ago, I helped them start it by giving advice and explaining the ins and outs of publishing the news. I was all for it, as we needed a local news source. The publication has changed hands and I noticed they have a section called “Village People.” It’s where they talk about locals and what they are up to, etc. At the end of the article, they ask for submissions and provide an email address.
Well, since I started my new 10 With Tom blog (an extension of this blog) at Substack, I thought it would be a good opportunity to pick up some of my old subscribers. Also, people keep asking me what I am up to, so I figured it would be an interesting read.
I sent in a press release, not long, but informative and guess what? I was turned down. By someone I know! A guy who I know well is the new co-editor of the publication. And to add insult to injury, he asked if I would like to write for them – after turning my press release down! The irony of it all.
I told him, “I am writing for you. I just sent you a story. Publish it.”
He refused. He said it’s not what they are looking for. He said this, “We do not print submitted articles. The [last Village People profile] article is different from what you’ve proposed in that we (the editors) came up with the idea and we assigned (and paid) a writer to do it. We are always looking for talented writers to add to our stable but only for producing assigned content.” And in another email, he asked if I would be interested in writing for them.
Crickets.
Assigned content? Talk about a total idiot without a clue. If he was a news person, an editor, he would grasp at all news/articles that came in. That’s how news organizations work. They accept news tips, press releases and stories – newspapers, magazines, tv stations, especially online publications – that’s how it is done.
He might not publish them as-is, but he would get a story out of it some way. He would re-write it, he would call the person and do a fresh story, he would make something out of it. He would realize that unsolicited news coming into the office is where most news comes from. You take the news that is given to you and make it something. One one hand this moron is asking me to write for them, and on the other he says they don’t print submitted articles that I have written for them.
We live in a small village. Everything is a story. Joe Schmo painted a new portrait, that’s a story. Wilma opened a new bagel store, that’s a story. Ed bought a vintage house – that’s a story.
I published everything – I wanted everyone to be heard in the village. I published articles on subjects this guy was interested in. He would contact me and discuss issues and ask me to cover the event or the subject. And I did. Now I asked him and was told, “no.”
The one thing I would not post was lost animal notices. That would have turned into a 24/7 non-stop thing if I did that. One guy on the Village Council called me a prick once because I would not post his girlfriend’s lost cat. Ironically, I personally had to hand this guy an award a week later for winning “best car” in a classic car contest. Yes, I also covered the contest and his winning the award as news, pictures and all.
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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It’s been on three separate occasions. These three men can get up to 12 years in prison for this.
It’s nice to see how strict the gun laws are in other countries, but I have one question for our country – how did the bullets get by the TSA at our American airports???
I’ve been stopped and searched for a pair of tweezers in my luggaage and I can’t tell you how many times I’ve randomly had my hands swabbed for explosives. So how did bullets get by the TSA process?
I’m not for guns of any types – hunting or whatever, so I have mixed emotions about these guys who had bullets in their luggage. I know they were leftover from hunting trips and such, but still – random bullets just floating around in the bottom of your luggage? How careless can you be?
And the next time a TSA agent stops me for something stupid, I’m going to say, “Why don’t you check for real problems, like bullets in luggage that you seem to miss.” But I better not.
One funny story about the tweezers – I was leaving NYC at JFK and an agent calls out, “Whose luggage is this?” I calmly walked over and said, “It’s mine.”
He then says, “Don’t touch it!” And I responded, “I know, I know, I watch ‘To Catch a Smuggler,” and he laughed and said, “So do I.”
He let me go with my little pair of tweezers.
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See the white space at the end of the article? Unsettling to me.
I read The Miami Herald every morning as I’ve always done, but I subscribe to the online edition, rather than have it delivered to the house. I read the e-edition daily.
I recently found out that since I subscribe to the online edition, I can read all of the McClatchy-owned newspapers that way – The State in Charleston, SC; The Olympian (Olympia, WA), The Modesto Bee (Modesto, CA), The Telegraph (Macon, GA) and so many others, which I like to do.
Inside The State newspaper
One thing I noticed, with just The State newspaper so far, there might be more, is that they just end a story on the page and leave white space. Now maybe since I’m reading it from another state, ads are there and they just don’t show where I am reading from, but I don’t think so. I saw on the front page of the Sun-Herald, the Biloxi, MS newspaper, this big gap next to the masthead, but inside the paper, there is none of this white space stuff.
Lots of white space on page 1 of the Sun-Herald in Biloxi, MS
I’ve been in and around the newspaper industry for so many years, and I’ve never seen this. I used to like this tv show called 800 Words. This guy wrote a column for the newspaper and it had to be exactly 800 words, he would add or subtract words to make it 800 in the column he wrote. The show really has nothing to do with his newspaper column and it’s a dumb name for such a great, but the 800 words concept in a way, it sort of reminds me of this – just end it wherever you want.
At left is a large white space at the end of a story and at right, is another large white area in The State.
It’s sort of interesting to see in the paper, where it just goes blank, but it messes with my sensibilities. It’s such valuable space to be wasted, a little panel cartoon could fit there (Tomversation perhaps?). And speaking of the comics, it’s one of those things were every McClatchy newspaper has the same comics page – same comics, same layout, etc. No individuality.
More white space in The State newspaper.
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A couple of nights ago, about 2:30 am, as usual, neighborhood was dead quiet. All of a sudden, we hear loud booms! Sounded like bombs going off. I thought that was what it was because the houses and buildings shook. And the booms were so loud.
I heard voices and then assumed it was kids with fireworks which happens once in awhile, but the booms got louder and scarier. I then thought it was kids throwing bombs. What else could it be?
I looked outside the window and saw nothing but neighbor across the street was screaming, which made it worse. She then started yelling “Fire! Fire!” And when I looked out the window again, the street started to go in flames. Literally. Suddenly dark black smoke filled the sky and the flames grew to about 25 feet high and started spreading along the street as it grew bigger.
I was sure they were going to reach the electrical wires and travel from house to house. Looking at it all this the next morning, I was amazed that didn’t happen. Maybe the wires are fire proof.
What next, I thought? More of this? I was sure we were being bombed. More and more explosions happened. One of my neighbors told me that her synagogue has 24 hour watch due to problems in the Mideast. TV news reported about localized antisemitic attacks and I thought perhaps this was an attack against someone who lived in the neighborhood. But then I just thought it had to be kids on bikes or cars with homemade bombs just randomly throwing them.
The fire department arrived very quickly and attacked the fire, which relieved me. The police arrived, too, and I thought, perhaps they can find the culprits and stop them tonight.
I went out on the balcony to see, but the sky was black from all the smoke which grew worse as the killed the fire. Was it toxic? Was it dangerous?
I started to think of the people in Israel, Gaza and Ukraine. This was a mini thing, but it was scary as hell. Random people bombing our homes? Invisible people at this point.
As soon as the fire department got it all under control, I was relieved to see it was two cars that were involved and not what I had suspected. One car blew up and caught fire. As it turned the corner, it just started popping and exploding, sounding like bombs. Each explosion caused the conflagration. Each explosion was louder and louder.
It was very close to another car, one of my neighbor’s cars, and it caused that car to catch fire because it all happened at that car’s gas tank.
It ended up being the newspaper delivery people’s car. The man and woman who deliver the Miami Herald. They were in the car driving around the bend delivering papers when their car exploded which caused the fire and all the chaos! Luckily they got out in time.
Neighbors all ran down but I watched from upstairs. I was still shaken thinking it was something else, which luckily, it wasn’t.
The fire was put out, the fire department and police left, the two cars were towed away and just a big black area in the street is all that is left. Glad that everyone is safe and the fire didn’t spread to the whole neighborhood.
This cartoon running today is weird and maybe a foreshadowing. The Herald lady wasn’t delivering my Herald. I unsubscribed the delivery part and I subscribe to it online and read the eEdition daily. So far no word of our incident in the Herald.
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I always tell them these days, that it’s going well. No, I’m not published in newspapers, but honestly I don’t want to be.
Being published in newspapers was always my goal but those days are over. I sometimes wish I was part of the height of the cartooning days, when cartoonists’ works were worshiped. From the turn of the last century until possibly the 1980s, I think that was the time to be part of it all. In the very early days, they were treated like movie stars.
I think the 1940s and 1950s might have been the best time. Now I think it’s all about online publication.
Just as new performers, singers and such, are discovered online and on apps, so are new cartoons and comics. It’s where the readers are, and viewers. Many people watch tv and movies via apps now, they aren’t subjected to the scheduling and whims of tv networks.
It’s where I can be creative, do my own thing, have short deadlines and just not be controlled by a large corporation – gaining the same readership as I would if I was printed, maybe more.
Jason Chatfield and Ginger Meggs
I’ve lived by cartoonist Jason Chatfield‘s quote: “Don’t curate your art to what gets likes. Curate it to what you like.” In that way, my readers find me, rather than me searching for readers.
And now he introduced a new one that I am living by: “We need to forget the newspapers. They forgot us a long time ago,” referring to cartoonists and comic strips. Keef Knight, another cartoonist, said it first. But Jason brought it to my attention.
And it’s not just cartoons. I’ve been reading newspapers online from other areas of the country. I subscribe to them and read the e-papers which I like flipping through. I noticed that so many of them don’t seem to be published locally, even though they are local daily newspapers.
One newspaper in upstate New York had as their main above-the-fold headlines stories on Nevada’s wet weather and a story about Olympians from California. Nothing related to upstate New York on the front page, not one story! I unsubscribed from that paper after a few days. It wasn’t what I was looking for. It’s owned by USA Today and it seems that that is the news that they print – what USA Today prints in all the newspapers they own.
Back to Jason Chatfield – he took over an old Australian newspaper comic strip called Ginger Meggs a few years ago. It will be 102 years old this November. It’s gone through quite a few cartoonists since it’s inception in 1921.
Well, the newspapers in Australia that publish the strips has cancelled Ginger and that’s the end of his 102-year-old newspaper publication. It appears as if the newspapers there have abandoned all cartoons. There seems to be a newspaper monopoly ownership in Australia.
Hence, the quote: “We need to forget the newspapers. They forgot us a long time ago.” But I’ve been way ahead of Jason and Keef on this one for quite a few years now.
I interviewed Jason a few years back for my 10 With Tom series when he was president of the National Cartoonist Society. By the way, he is also a New Yorker magazine cartoonist.
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Today is the first day of school in Miami-Dade County. The private schools started last week.
The reason I bring that up is because I started going through things in my old room at my parents house and I came upon so many things I had forgotten I had like these school newspapers.
For many years, I had a company that printed school newspapers among so many other things. I found all the newspapers I had saved that we printed – years and years worth of papers. I plan on giving them to the schools – a time capsule from the 1980s through the early 2000s.
I used to celebrate the start of school – I used to go to the beach on the first day – the beach was dead due to it being the first day of school – and I had the place to myself.
I was celebrating because business picked up again. My business was dead all summer. There were no school newspapers or other things to print since most of the work I did was seasonal. So I worked for nine months, but for those three summer months, there was no money or business coming in. But starting in the fall and particularly, the first day of school, business picked up again for the year.
It’s interesting going through the newspapers because most have the news of the world, not just school news. There are a lot of movie reviews from new movies of the time – Ferris Bueller’s Day Off and Back to the Future and things like that. The kids loved the movies, by the way. There is national news that the kids were interested in and it’s interesting to see their take on all that and how it played out at the time. Lots of pop culture made it into the newspapers – music, movies, tv – Madonna!
I loved those days. The work was easy and I was in schools around the county almost daily. I would go by to pick up the work and then deliver it after it was printed. I not only handled the newspapers, but we printed year book supplements, literary magazines, sports journals and so many other things. I loved being part of that as it kept me young being in the high schools and junior high schools which became middle schools some time in the middle of all that.
I taught the newspaper classes sometimes – meeting up with classes and explaining the process. I was friendly with most of the teachers and office staff.
The black and white newspapers started experimenting with full color and computers took over the schools and rather than my company doing the typesetting and paste-up, the kids did it all and handed the job in ready to print. So I was there at that interesting time of all the tech changes.
I drive by so many of the schools these days and it brings back so many memories as I drive by. It all comes flooding back.
Back then I had my run of the schools. Toward the end of my doing the newspapers after doing it for so many years, something sad happened. Metal detectors started appearing at the front doors and many of the entrances. I had to show my ID to enter and it was the end of those innocent time.
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I got this crazy note from my newspaper carrier. No joke.
I only bring this up now because I see the FTC is trying to make it easier to cancel subscriptions to everything. Right now you have to jump through hoops to cancel any subscription and that’s what happened here.
I called the paper to cancel my subscription and rather than just canceling it, they questioned me as if I was on the stand. Why did I want to cancel? “Well,” I said, “I never really read it.
You don’t read it? “Well no, like today. I didn’t read it.”
Why didn’t you read it today? “Well, to be honest, it wasn’t delivered today and I didn’t even miss it.”
It wasn’t delivered? “Well, no, that happens a lot . . . “
And then on and on, I go . . . “A lot of time it’s left out front where people pick it up off the street, other times, it just doesn’t come. It’s late, it’s this it’s that,” and I go on and on.
At the end of the conversation, I asked them to please not use my name and don’t say anything to the carrier, but of course they did, and I got the above note.
After the subscription was finally stopped, I got non-stop calls from the paper asking me to re-subscribe.
One day I was standing out front, very early in the morning, it was still dark out, I was waiting for an Uber to pick me up to take me to the airport.
Up comes a car, I think it’s Uber. It comes right up to me on the front lawn – right up on the grass. It’s the delivery girl! She has her usual music blasting and she hands me the newspapers for the whole condo, says, “Good morning,” backs up into the street and is off.
Since then I’ve resubscribed, but only to the digital version, not the printed paper. But I forget to read the digital paper and occasionally use it to read the tv listings only. I once read up to seven newspapers a day (no really), now I read none. I can read the comics online, which I do, I can get all the news online from social media, where all the stories are posted and I hate to not support the local papers. So maybe I’ll go back to print, soon.
By the way, about showing this letter to her boss. I know her boss, he lives next door to one of my best friends. I have his number in my phone and if I really had a complaint, I most likely would text him, not go through the subscription service.
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