Personal – Page 13

I see your true colors

true-colors It’s interesting how people’s true personalities come out during this time of stress. I’m happy to say that it looks like most of us are rising to the occasion, but then there are those few who are miserable and they want to make you miserable – not on purpose, it’s just their way.

I have friends who I have not spoken with in weeks because I turned them off. I didn’t dump them, I don’t dump people, but I do distance myself.

One of my best friends, who is always abrasive and rude, was quite rude via text. How do you get rude and obnoxious via text? I mean, in person, you can easily blurt something out, but I would think with a text you have time to look it over and remove the rude parts. Anyway, we have not spoken in a month. We will again, but not right now.

Others are negative about everything. I’m not that way, for years when I wrote the daily news in our town, I was abrasive at times, I fought with politicians and others and it got ugly sometimes, but that’s not me. I turned into something I didn’t like. But during these stressful times do I need to hear other people’s problems? I don’t mean serious problems, I mean daily day to day problems like you can’t find toilet paper, or you can’t get the SBA to answer your phone calls or you don’t have any business – I don’t either – I can’t do anything about it for myself but I don’t dwell on it. We’re all stressed, it’s how you handle it.

quit

I found out that by avoiding things, or thinking about things I don’t like, it helps me out. I know it sounds like a simple thing, but it protects my sanity. My cousin texted me the other day, sad and concerned about Broadway being closed. But while she is a New Yorker she lives far from Broadway and only goes a few times a year. I don’t think she would be going during this time of year, so I told her to just imagine it like it always is and don’t look at pictures of the empty streets. Make believe it is business as usual. Make believe Times Square is full of people and all is right with the world.

I’m using that with friends who insist on going out where they should be sheltering in place. They think it’s ok to go out daily for food or drive up two counties away to be with their family or run daily or just not stay home. I know it’s none of my business, but I feel the longer we prolong this thing, the worse it will be. So I’ve taken to ignoring them and what they are doing, just to get it out of my head. Who am I do judge them, although the air they breathe affects all of us these days. They want to be selfish, fine.

My favorite saying is, “It’s not about how many times you fall down, it’s about how many times you get up.” That saying has been attributed to so many people – Lincoln, Knute Rockne and others. I’m not sure who said it, but I love it. I have always lived by it.

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Enough with the solitude already

solitude

This sheltering in place is starting to get to me. A couple of weeks ago (was it a couple of weeks, or one week or a month, who knows anymore at this point) I said that I could live like this – alone in the woods or in Alaska in solitude. But this has gotten old faster than I thought. Maybe I could be alone in the woods for a week now, maybe a few days.

It’s early Saturday morning. I miss getting up and heading to the gym on Saturday mornings, in the quiet, where the village is quiet and free of people. Wow, there I go again, liking to be free of people. But I mean only when I’m out early in the morning at the gym. Then of course after the gym at breakfast – I like it quiet then. Then when I get home and watch tv. On Saturday mornings I watch a bunch of cooking shows on PBS, I barely boil water, but I find the cooking shows very relaxing. I like to eat, I don’t like to cook. After that I do my day whatever that is, but of course it always involves people, which is the big thing missing now – people.

I’m rambling on. I keep thinking of summer, hoping we will all be set free and can travel and have a normal world, but how will that be? Will we still be wearing masks when out in public? What will the subway be like? What about bars and restaurants? I’m sure hand shaking is a thing of the past, but I don’t care about that, and that ubiquitous kiss on the cheek or both cheeks will end, that I will not miss, I was never a fan of that.

One day at a time, that’s how I’m taking it. My life moved in slow motion for so many years. I would tell people that a week felt like a month. I didn’t know the reason why and I didn’t want to know out of fear of ruining that. It’s a great thing when your life moves in slow motion, but now it’s moving fast, which is kind of weird since you would think out of pure boredom it would move slow, but it’s the opposite. It’s Saturday again? Wasn’t it just Saturday?

I keep thinking of years from now when we tell young people what it was like in 2020 – how the whole world shut down, how we were all in self isolation, under house arrest. I don’t wish to rush my life, but I sort of look forward to the future.

Alone naturally

I’m enjoying the shelter in place and solitude. I think I could live alone in a cabin in the mountains for long periods of time. These days I don’t see another person for days and I like it.

I wake up in the morning and think, “What do I have to do today?” And then I remember – Nothing! There is nothing I have to do today! Not a damn thing. At the moment, I don’t have any responsibilities. If I do, I can’t get them done. It’s a nice feeling.

I have been reading how the earth is resetting, the oceans and waterways are cleaner, the air is cleaner, there is not a lot of gas or carbon emissions or fossil fuels spreading around. The world is renewing.

These two famous quotes/comics are exactly my sentiments. But I am conscious of the fact that there is no FOMO – Fear of Missing Out. Since no one is out doing anything, I don’t feel like I have to be out there either.

Job search

I work for myself and there is not any money coming in, so I filled out the unemployment form online. I have not collected unemployment since I was 16 and worked at Sears.

Basically you don’t have to fill out much on the forms, yet you do. They want a resume and things like that even though they know this is temporary and caused by the caronavirus. You are also asked to job search.

So I filled in all the necessary stuff. Keep in mind I am a cartoonist and marketer, I’ve been in the printing and marketing business most of my adult life. Of course my goal now is to cartoon full time, but that’s another story.

Anyway, I received job offers. Here is one:

It’s for a full time VP Technical Management position. The job requires:

1) Manage a growing fleet of over 240 aircraft, and analyze fleet activity to ensure that fleets are being utilized appropriately.

2) Predict the operational lifespan of aircraft components to know when a specific component of an aircraft is about to deteriorate and/or enter into failure mode before the operator does.

3) Maintain Maintenance Reserve and End-of-Lease cash flow predictions.

4) Automate any/all processes by employing Machine Learning/Artificial Intelligence/Natural Language Processing where possible.

5) Up to 10% Travel Required.

There are actually 30 things on the list.

First off, if this is how they randomly hire people to manage planes, I don’t think anyone should feel comfortable flying. The good part about this job is that I would only have to travel 10% of the time, on the unsafe fleet that I would manage.

And to manage the end-of-lease cash flow predictions? If I could manage money, I wouldn’t be applying for unemployment.

I wonder how many people get jobs like this that are not qualified. You know, fake it till you make it, only you never make it and are always faking it.

I had this friend named Morton, he was afraid of his own shadow – always afraid of getting new jobs, trying new things. I told him that most people don’t have a clue what they are doing – they just show up for work and do whatever it is they do.

For many years I would bid on large printing jobs and after I got the job I would figure out how to do it later. It always worked out. I provided a top class job at a good price, but I learned on the job with each print job I received. The customer was happy, I was happy.

I filled out forms for the PPP, the Paycheck Protection Program. I read that most people are having problems getting the loan. My bank, the one where I have had my business account for many years, Chase, turned me down right away – but I’m hoping it was just the system acting up, as no one had time to look over the form. Or did I check one wrong box that disqualified me? The government is guaranteeing this, is it Chase’s decision to make?

It should be an easy process – how many years have I been with the bank? How many accounts do I have with them? Have I ever been late or defaulted or been overdrawn, including my house mortgage? No? Never? Then give me the freaking loan.

I think I may know how to get to Chase Bank. A few years back I wrote a story in the Huffington Post about a bad experience I had with them. They saw it and I was hounded by Chase for months – they called me on my house and cell phones, they emailed me, they sent snail mail – concerned about the bad press. Maybe I should do that again. Hmmm.

I fear that those trillions of dollars are going into the wrong hands – going to people connected to the White House, people who don’t need it.

Isn’t it ironic?

house-arrest I was talking to my cousin in New York and I told him I know how Sam (not real name) feels now. Sam is a guy who has been under house arrest for many years.

“Oh, that’s the funny part,” my cousin tells me. After all these years, his time is up, he is not under house arrest anymore!” But he is! Where can he go now?

Sort of reminds me of an Alanis Morissette song.

I met Sam a couple of times – at a bar, at happy hour, where there were many of us. My cousin would tell me, “Don’t look him in the eye, don’t joke with him, he is very volatile and could explode at any second!”

One time my cousin showed me an article in The NY Post where there was a picture of Sam being taken from his house by the feds in the middle in the night. It explained why Sam was under arrest – he beat up this guy, he gambled, he sold booze, he robbed a bank, he stole a car, he sold things that had “fallen off a truck,” he sold drugs and prostitutes, he hung with a shady crowd, etc, etc. he did everything except murder. You get it, he was a step down from Tony Soprano.

Anyway, my cousin would visit Sam at his NYC apartment once in awhile over the years, dreading each time he was “summoned,” but he would go with another friend of Sams. Now I guess they are all free and when the bars and restaurants are open again, they can hang out like they always did.

By the way, my cousin is an honest person who does an honest day’s work. In New York you are sort of thrown in with people by circumstances – you hang out with a buddy at bar, he invited a buddy who invites someone and a guy comes over from a nearby table and becomes part of the group and so on. I was part of that mix for many years, but I got tired of it and got out. But these are all great people with one virus in the crowd. See how I did that?

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Don’t lose perspective

shameless I saw this online – A college student was reminiscing about the caronavirus of 2020 with his mother 10 years from now, in 2030 and the mother was telling him what a horrible time it was – “everything was shut down, grocery stores were out of everything, people were dying, the economy was a disaster because no one could work, we were all frightened ….”

“Don’t you remember?” she asked him.

He said, “All I remember was the school closing and being home schooled. I remember doing scavenger hunts in our yard, I remember eating meals as a family for a change, I remember getting great sleep because I wasn’t up late for homework or getting up early for school. I remember board games as a family. I remember watching our pastor on our laptop. Honestly, it was the happiest time of my childhood.”

You know what? I feel the same, right now as it’s happening. I’ve always seen the glass as half full. Sure, money is tight, bills have to be paid, but I don’t dwell on that. While friends panic around me and I have to shut them off most of the time, I feel happy. I sent a friend who is like the mother in the meme, only 100 times worse, and his response was more drama, he ignored the meme and started in with the drama of the day. I can’t understand how people exist like this. We are all in this together, not just us, but the whole world. That should give you some sort of odd comfort. You are not alone. Billions of people are in this with you.

I have been turning these drama-filled friends off and I am enjoying the solitude. I have been Spring cleaning as I said before, I get up early and watch tv, I love not having to answer 100 emails that came in over night since there are no emails coming in these days.

I stay up late and watch tv, not going to be earlier as I usually do. I go for walks around the neighborhood. For so many years I would go to the beach almost daily, I would eat lunch or stay and swim and run and hang out, I have not done that for years. But once this mess is over and the beaches open up again, I plan on doing that.

I have plans to downsize, I’ve been thinking about it so I have been house hunting online, planning my future. You know, I’ve been making the best of this time. I loved an episode of Shamless so much that I watched it twice. When do we ever have time to do that? It’s Season 2, Episode 11, “Just Like the Pilgrims.” That’s my favorite episode so far. With Breaking Bad there are two episodes that are my favorites that I can watch over and over Dead Freight and Face Off, the name is so perfect for the episode. I would watch these two episodes over and over. Dead Freight is my all time favorite. But (spoiler alert), I don’t know why they had to kill the boy on the moped at the end. That’s the one part I don’t like.

Anyway, I’m seeing life in a whole new way. I am feeling a shift. Whenever there have been changes in my life, I get this feeling. I don’t mean bad changes, I mean life changes, like moving or getting a new job, or things like that. I am feeling that now – a fresh, new beginning is coming.

Don’t lose perspective.

I’m wanting to go back in time

comiccon5 — New York Comic Con, October 2019

I think the depression is starting to set in. I know I wrote about being positive and I still am, but now I am starting to feel like I am in prison or house arrest, which I felt was an easy thing to do. I was concerned about money for the month, but I think I got that sorted out, so now my attention has turned to life itself and our world during the coronavirus.

I know that the real heros are the doctors, nurses and all the health workers out there who are at ground zero, dealing with this daily. And of course the sick people, the patients and their families are all suffering. I am just writing this from my own selfish perspective.

I have not seen my family or friends in person, I don’t think I have seen any of my neighbors. I just ran downstairs to pick the newspaper up, which was thrown on the front walk and a guy I didn’t know was walking his dog. He lives down the block I assume. I was glad to see him. I kept starting at him and the dog. A human and a dog! Wow. But again, I am well, all the people I know are well. I am thankful for that.

I keep reminiscing about the past and by the past I mean a few months ago – October in Upstate New York pumpkin and apple picking and Thanksgiving in November. Also, a lot of the summer photos keep popping up on my phone. I did a lot this past summer. This image above is New York Comic Con in October. Will we ever be that physically close again? Comic Con takes place at the Jacob Javits Center, which is now turned into a field hospital; just that thought is so depressing.

I watch a tv show on Bravo, a reality show called Summer House, it was on last night – it’s on every Wednesday night. It’s about a group of friends that rent a house in the Hamptons for the summer.

It always brings back memories because I am usually in the Hamptons at the time they are there. The image here is from a restaurant where they filmed last summer on July 5. I headed back to the city on the morning of July 5 and then there they were filming at a place where my cousins were eating later that night. One of my cousins sent me this. They show the date of each episode when it airs and as it airs I think to myself, where was I that day? What was I doing when they were doing this?

But as I watch the show I see all the places we would go, they film at so many of the places. I keep wanting to go back in time, but maybe I should wish for the future when this whole mess is over since that is a reality – facing the future when the world is healed.

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Selling my services; taking commissions

fiverr13 I’ve never been one to take commission work, but in these hard times where I don’t have money coming in, I am taking commissions. In the past I did a lot of work for newspapers and magazines – and books – single panel and editorial cartoons – and drawings for advertisements. I remember when I was in high school I used to do spot drawings for a local magazine. I still have all that published work somewhere, probably at my parents house in storage.

I’m also selling comics that I’ve sold before. What I mean is, take this Flintstones comic. Over the years I have sold this to numerous realtors.

I didn’t set out to sell it, I didn’t realize it was online anywhere. I may have posted it online a few years back and perhaps people shared it and it got around that way. My copyright info is at the bottom of the comic and thankfully the people who shared the comic left it there, as that is the proper thing to do when sharing other peoples’ work. But anyway, people reached out to me, they literally searched for my email address and asked to purchase the rights the comic. This has happened many times for this exact comic panel. Out of the blue I got emails, I blogged about it here.

I made a deal to sell them the rights, they purchased the comic and used it for their marketing – usually on postcards or business cards according to the buyer. And all of the buyers were realtors so far I think, except for a magazine publisher.

Anyway, I’m selling the rights for this and I’m doing commission work, starting off with low prices, until I get volume orders. I know my work is worth more, but I need to start somewhere and test the waters. It seems that every time you start a project, there are so many other people out there doing the same thing, especially on the internet. But the good part about cartooning, illustrating and art is that everyone has their own style and that’s what sells, rather than everyone competing to sell the same thing like a regular product or service.

colorize — Before and after colorization.

I am also recoloring old black and white photos. I learned how to do that with Photoshop so I thought I might as well make use of my “talent” and make a few bucks.

It’s amazing how this downtime is changing lives, people are doing things differently and thinking differently. Friends have told me they have taken up cooking and they are working out more and so many of us are doing Spring cleaning and so on. I have a friend who is doing workout classes online and it’s really such a renaissance for so many people.

Anyway, please reach out to me if you need art for anything – personal or commercial: tom@tomversation.com. Thanks!

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Moving on down the road

boho3

I’ve been wanting to move for the longest time, but I’m too lazy to move. This whole lock down/Caronavirus thing is sort of resetting our lives; it’s resetting the whole Universe. I have been thinking differently about my future and how I want to live.

I want a change of pace and I would also love to take the money out of my current place and re-invest it and live. I need to start enjoying it. I started cleaning closets and other things out so that there wouldn’t be so much to move when and if the time comes. With all this free time now I guess I should start the “spring cleaning” again. I think if there is less stuff here it might be more motivating in getting me to move.

boho1

I saw this thing on Shark Tank last week, it’s a van turned into a sort of trailer. So basically you live in the van, there is a kitchen, bed, shower, everything, but it’s easy to drive and maneuver since it’s not a huge RV. Trouble with that is I hate long driving trips, but I still do love the concept. The vans are called Boho campers. But I’m sure there are similar vans available, too.

boho4

Oddly enough, on the same episode, this girl had portable solar panels, which you hang on a window, it charges up, and you use it to charge things. That would work perfect in the small camper. That can be seen here.

Now all I need is the balls to go ahead with it and see the country, but first, I need to sell this condo I’m in, and clean it out first. I’m putting it all into the Universe along with the end to the Caronavirus so all this can start happening. Oh, and I would draw comics and post them from my Surface Pro along the way!

boho2

But I do have a more realistic plan that will work better for me. And I can retire in the process if I want. Stay tuned, I’ll explain that in the next blog post.

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Andy Warhol hoarding soup cans

andy-warhol

Saw this picture online titled, “Andy Warhol hoarding Campbell’s Soup Cans and Brillo Boxes.” I thought it was funny. I saw some of the Brillo boxes along with the paintings recently at the Whitney in NY.

I see he is in Gristede’s a NYC supermarket. I saw Carol Channing once in Gristede’s in NYC, it was years ago, on 59th Street near 5th Avenue, she was at the check out in front of me. The second she spoke she gave herself away – that voice!

Once Mary Wickes was in front of me in line in the supermarket here in Miami – I think it was at Grand Union. She commented on the Entenmann’s chocolate chip cookies I was buying. Her hair was snow white not like the jet black you know her as having.

Which brings me to Hello Dolly!, probably Carol Channing’s most famous roles, since I’m doing 6 degrees of everything – I saw Hello Dolly! a couple of summer’s ago, back in NY, with Bernadette Peters as Dolly.

I have been social distancing by staying home, but I did run out to get corned beef and cabbage at a local hang out. I got take-out, but I was quite surprised to see the place so full at lunch time. I thought the governor shut down restaurants and bars and only allowed take-out, but I guess that didn’t take place yet. The place was full of people, more than the allowable 50% and people were closer than 6 feet. I’m concerned as I want this freaking virus gone already – if we don’t stop infections it will never go away.

People need to stay at home to reduce the risk of spreading infection.