As usual, I am posting my favorite Christmas commercial from Publix. It may be my favorite commercial of all time.
It reminds me of my youth, for a number of years, from 1987 to 1996, it ran every season.
The music in Last Train Home is from Still Life (Talking) an album by Pat Metheny Group, released in 1987.
To this day, when Pat Metheny is performing, he’ll refer to the song as, “The Publix song.” Publix has a new Christmas commercial every year, but I always hope they will bring it back for nostalgic value, so when I hear it come on, like I did in the “old days,” I would just drop everything and run to the tv to watch and listen.
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Someone posted a question on Facebook on a comics/cartoonist-related page. He was asking about seasons. He said, “I’m thinking about doing a TV-style release schedule for my comic. What I mean is this: instead of following a schedule the whole year (like XKCD does for example), divide my comics into “seasons” (i.e., Season 1, Season 2, …) and follow a schedule for a few months before going on breaks for a few months or so between seasons.”
I brought this subject up a couple of years ago in a post called, “Can a comic strip have seasons?” where I bring up the fact that comics should have seasons and why. As long as you are creative and can keep your audience, why not take a break and enjoy seasons.
I have one cartoon that I haven’t published for awhile, but every day it gains dozens of followers on Facebook. It has a life of its own. So even though it isn’t being published right now, people are still interested, so I believe if a cartoon is on hiatus, fans will still be there when it returns to publication.
Also, regarding the process, someone mention that they are having an issue coming up with gags for their comic and also they cannot relate to the characters. They can’t find themselves (the characters, not the cartoonist).
I’m doing my panel now, so I don’t deal with characteristics, it’s a quick, in and out gag, but in the past when I did strips and recurring characters, they sort of found themselves fast. One who was in the background, would sort of take over the strip by default, he just popped out of the shadows. Others in another strip would easily pick up their characteristics as I drew and wrote for them. They defined themselves. In one instance, they almost wrote themselves, what I mean is, they sort of wrote their own gags and dialogue.
As for my Tomversation single panel cartoons, one thing that stands out for me is the names. I don’t wrestle with names, they just come out, like, “this one is called this and this one is called that.” I don’t sit and think of names, the names just fit the drawing or personality and I use the first one that pops into my head.
I don’t use names often, but some years back, it seem the thing to do in gag cartoons. Like this Santa one which ran recently, In the past I might have given the lady a name, the gag would say, “Is it me, Martha, or does it seem to get more commercialized every year?”
I did two things there – I named her and I gave her the name Martha, which actually popped into my head as I was looking at the cartoon.
With this one, “Jane” popped into my head when I looked at it, and it could be, “The tree is up, Jane!”
I like not having names now, it seems less pretentious.
In this instance, for some reason, maybe to emphasize the doctor’s concern, I think a name was need. “Mr. Reynolds,” seemed to fit as s name for some reason.
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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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The last few years there has been a Sarah Brightman Christmas special on PBS and in it she talks about an animated 1982 British movie called The Snowman, based on a children’s book.
There’s a haunting song that she features about and has a boy from her choir along with the original singer Peter Auty.
This is a scene and the song from the movie.
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I saw this cartoon by Bill Bramhall and it really brought memories back of Norman Lear. It’s sad that today’s generation doesn’t know so much about our history, including television history. I still pay for cable! I want to cut the cable, honest, but I can’t figure out if I’ll miss it or not.
Bill Bramhall is the excellent cartoonist for the New York Daily News, you can see his cartoons daily at GoComics here.
I grew up watching all of the Norman Lear shows from All in the Family to Maude to Sanford and Son and of course Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman. And there were so many more. He basically created 1970s tv. For awhile there, All in the Family was must see tv. Norman died on Tuesday, he was 101!
I think our favorite was All in the Family. My mother and I used to mock Archie Bunker all the time. There was one thing that Archie did when Edith would over-talk, he would make believe he was killing himself. He would slowly load a gun and then shoot himself. Or he would tie a noose and hang himself. My mother would do that when I overtalked. She would just suddenly mime one of the actions, and we would both bust out laughing.
There was a period when Mom used to cut my hair and I would quote Archie. There were a few episodes when Archie was out of work due to a strike or something, and Edith would cut his hair, so when my Mom would ask me how I wanted my hair cut, I would say, “Without blood, Mom, without blood.”
And I would also say, “Go around the back, take some off at the top and when you get to an ear for Gawd sake, stop.” I would say God, the way Archie said it, Gawd.
Archie was a bigot and politically incorrect, we knew it. But so did the 40 to 60 million people who watched All in the Family each week.
I guess I’m in a grumpy mood these days – airing all my gripes.
The other day I got a notice from Amazon that my package was delivered. Only I looked all over the building and I could not find the package.
This is a common thing. We have a sign out front that says leave all packages on the table by the elevator, but no one reads it or pays attention, so we’ve found deliveries back on the table by the pool, in unused emergency stairwells, on private balconies of neighbors and other places. So I looked all over and the package was nowhere.
I went on line to double check and it says it was delivered and signed for by “Fermin” who is one of the security guards at the building next door. So I traipsed over and he handed five packages – for five neighbors, including me. The Amazon guy just dumped all of our deliveries next door. But who is wrong? The guy did get a signature, and Fermin just accepted them without reading the labels.
Either way, Amazon is always screwing up. I know it’s the start of a busy delivery season, but he did manage to the packages next door. He just neglected to read the addresses.
We have a great UPS guy. He has my cell phone number and often calls about deliveries and other things. When I was in Greenport last week, he called, it was about a neighbor’s delivery. I told him I was just thinking about him because as we drove to Greenport, we drove through a lot of farmland and there right in the middle of it all was a UPS truck delivering a package to a house.
One day, recently, our UPS guy called to tell me he had a delivery I needed to sign for. I went downstairs and there he was at the pool (dressed) talking to one of my neighbors (dressed), both lying on lounge chairs feet from the bay, chatting away. I joined them and we all ended up talking for about 45 minutes. Sorry for the neighbors expecting deliveries!
Village life.
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I took an Uber to LaGuardia Airport from the city. As usual, I go early in the morning for early flights, I was coming home.
A lady named Miguelina picked me up. She seemed nice, she didn’t speak much English, so we didn’t speak.
As we approached the area of the airport, I didn’t recognize it. It wasn’t the usual way. It was early Monday morning, about 6 am, so there was no traffic to avoid, so she should have taken the usual route.
As I looked out and saw the airport in the distance, I was wondering, “Where are we going? Did I punch in Kennedy Airport by mistake? Are we going there?” I asked her and she said she didn’t speak English. I asked her in Spanish, if we were going to LaGuardia and she sort of ignored me.
We finally arrived, but it was at a place I had never seen before. I had just seen the Seinfeld “The Pledge Drive” episode where his grandmother is lost in a desolate area, looking for Chemical Bank. That’s what this was like. We were sort of underground somewhere – under the airport!
She told me to get out, in that rude way non-English speakers think they are speaking English politely. I said, “Wait, there is nothing here!” The airport is usually very well lit, you know, there are always cars coming and going and there is always plenty of travelers and staff around. This was bare. The lights were very dim, there was no other car or other person. She said this was my stop.
I told her we have to go to “departures” but she would not move. She looked at her phone, which meant nothing. Finally a security guard arrived and he yelled for us to move. She refused! The guard said we were on level 1, and get this, the baggage level and arrivals was up a flight to level 2 and the departures were level 3, we needed to go to 3. She didn’t care, she just sat there.
I asked the guard if I could just get in some way down in that dungeon area and climb stairs or something and he showed me a back escalator and I took that up two flights to the regular entrance area. I’m still not sure what that was or why we were there. Maybe it’s a loading dock area.
Scary trip. Scary driver. First time in my life I did not tip. The driver deserved nothing.
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There were a lot of us together for Thanksgiving, and then Friday, we went to Greenport, Long Island, not to be confused with Greenpoint which is in Brooklyn.
Greenport is this little old village at the northern tip of Long Island – on the north fork. You can see Connecticut from the shore, which is across the Long Island Sound.
We ran into a guy, who seemed to bore everyone else who wandered off, but he had me interested in the history of the town. He was about 70 and he was visiting from Brooklyn. He told me he grew up there and he was pointing out things in the area – where the old police station was, where the 5 & 10 was, where his uncle worked in a sailing mast shop, etc.
This old building was the hardware store in Greenport, some years back.
He explained the place as if it was Mayberry, with only two officers on the police force at the time.
My family and I shopped and hung out, spending money on Small Business Saturday, but it was Friday.
It was nice, but so far from the city, about three hours in and three hours back. We went to the Hamptons after that for dinner and hung out, then headed back to the city very late.
Usually we would go to the Southampton Christmas parade and tree lighting on Saturday night, but we did Greenport instead.
We enjoyed the non-Starbucks, one-of-a-kind village coffee shop.
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This is the situation at the Hoboken bus terminal.
I’m back in NYC for Thanksgiving week. I took the Amtrak down from New England.
I was telling my friends how bad the drivers are in Boston, and I guess karma came and got me. I was almost mowed down by big bus in Hoboken yesterday!
I was leaving Hoboken, and it was cold and windy. I usually walk along the Hudson River to the train terminal where I could get the PATH train back to the city (NYC), but I took the back way and walked through the bus yard, which is part of the train terminal.
There were only three buses and they weren’t moving. The whole big lot was empty otherwise, so I proceeded to cut through to get to the trains. Just as I was standing in the center of the lot, one of the buses started moving, and it appeared to be coming right at me, but I figured the driver saw me, he was going to bypass me, there was 100 feet or more on either side of me.
But no, he came right at me. Then as he reached me, he proceeded to make a U-turn – right into me! I started running along the side of the bus, at the driver’s side window to avoid ending up under the bus. If I ran to the left, I would be under the bus, if I stood there, I would under the bus, so I kept running, and yelling and the driver didn’t see or hear me! He was alone on the bus, so there was no one to distract him.
Someone from above was there to protect me. It had to be, it was the only explanation. Finally the driver saw me and stopped. He opened his window and started yelling at me. Sure, I was wrong to cut through the lot, but I would assume a driver could see a man walking alone in a parking lot.
I was so pissed and upset, that I just ignored him and walked away. Another driver who witnessed this from her bus, started yelling at me. I told her I was lost and that’s not a reason to not be paying attention. If I was a stray dog, would he have run over the dog, too?
I walked away from her since they weren’t going to take the blame.
So after all these years of almost being hit by Boston drivers, I now have the distinction of being almost struck by a Hoboken City bus; at the bus terminal.
It was very scary. Remember that old Dennis Weaver movie, Duel? It was a bit like that. Not really, but almost.
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