I’ve been written about often but I’ve never been in a comic strip before! The other day I was in “Amanda the Great” by Amanda El-Dweek! So cool!
I interviewed her four years ago for my Huff Post column, but she mentioned it this week!
Here’s the 10 With Tom Column with Amanda.
And here’s Amanda’s daily comic strip.
I’ve been wanting to be part of GoComics, so I guess this week I am! 🙂
I’ve been watching “Pretend It’s a City,” on Netflix. I’m probably done with it by the time you read this.
It’s a seven part show featuring author (although she hasn’t published a book in 30 years, but I guess it’s like being an Oscar winner. You’re always an Oscar winner) and humorist Fran Lebowitz. Each episode is about 30 minutes long.
Martin Scorsese directed the series and is shown as he interviews Fran in many scenes, which fade in and out of various locations, from a quite club called Players, which was founded in the 1800s by Edwin Booth, brother of John Wilkes Booth, to being on stage in front of an audience.
The title “Pretend It’s a City” refers to Fran’s frequent mantra mostly to tourists who stop in the middle of sidewalks or do other annoying things, who she says need to realize, you are in a city – act like it! Fran is the female Larry David to me.
Some of the funniest things she talks about are New York City itself. Like, why are lawn chairs needed in the middle of Times Square? One interesting thing she says is that when she got to NYC in the 1970s, it was rough and gritty. But that’s how she knew New York since it was her New York at the time. She had nothing to compare it to. People who arrive today expect to see the lawn chairs in the middle of Broadway and that’s their New York.
She hates the no smoking inside rule. She says that artists and creative people meet and mingle over drinks, music and smoking. What if Picaso had to run out to smoke a cigarette every once in awhile, “Think of all the things he would have missed,” she says.
It’s all funnier and hits home when Fran tells it. Try the first episode, I think you’ll stick around for all seven.
Fran talks about so many famous people she has known. About her dislike for Warhol, her lifelong friendship with Toni Morrison and so much more.
There are lots of old scenes of “old New York” in the shows. She is really great to listen to.
This video is so great. It’s one of my favorite songs from the ’80s, “Waiting for a Start to Fall” and it’s four and a half minutes of 1980s scenes. It brings you right back to that decade.
Here is the original video, “Waiting for a Star to Fall” by Boy Meets Girl. I have this video saved and I watch it often on YouTube.
I was manifested the other day. Rather, I was the product of manifestation.
As you know, or man not know, I am a big believer in willing and manifestation.
I was talking to a friend named Marc about joining a new gym and he said a new place was opening in the old location. But he said it was quite expensive. So I didn’t feel like going there if it was an expensive gym. I can work out at a $30 a month gym, same as a $180 a month gym.
But anyway, I was waiting for a lunch order, so I said, what the heck and I walked over. The gym was closed so I went into the store next door. I asked a couple of ladies about the gym. They said they had not heard about it.
One asked me if I was Tom Falco. I said, “Yes, I am.” And the other said, “That’s so funny, we were just talking about you!” Now I didn’t know them and they didn’t know me. But they knew of me, but had never seen me.
I told them, “Well, here I am. You manifested me!” And I guess they had.!
So many times I hold back cartoons because I’m not sure most people will get it. The whole idea is to have people get the gag and laugh. So when that happens, I love that.
Today’s comic really is not going to be funny to people who don’t watch much tv.
But for tv watchers, it’s obviously a parody of the Domino’s Pizza commercial, which seems to be shown on tv every few minutes. It’s one of those “part of the culture” things, simply by being repeated over and over, sort of like the Bernie Sanders meme, which is still making the rounds. It’s all American pop culture I guess.
I have a friend who doesn’t watch much tv. When he saw my skunk- “We all see it” cartoon, he thought it was a political statement because of the blue streak, but of course thousands of you got it as a parody of the Progressive tv commercial, which is also a “part of the culture” thing.
I saw a talk or read it somewhere that a cartoonist said to just do what you like and the audience will follow. It’s true – it’s being true to myself when I do what I like and not pander to the audience. The audience will get where you are coming from. And they do, it seems.
Here’s the Domino’s commercial for those of you who don’t watch tv. It’s on tv every few minutes. Believe me.
This Travels With Farley comic strip appeared on January 31, 1978. I follow the old strips on Facebook.
I laughed when I saw it because, well, because I always laugh at Farley, but also, it reminded me of an old t-shirt I had that said in big bold letters, “BROOKLYN.” I bought it at a local Gap store here in Miami and every time I wore it, strangers would come up to me and want to talk about Brooklyn! Sort of like Beethoven here.
Once I wore it to the mall. I was at the food court at International Mall in Miami, with my friend Jorge, and people kept coming up to me separately asking me about Brooklyn – where was I from, where was I born in Brooklyn, how is it today, they hadn’t been back in a long time, etc. Crazy!
I don’t remember what I told them, I think I said, “I’m not from Brooklyn, I got the shirt at The Gap.” Funny thing is I wear a lot of shirts that say, “New York” but no one comments – but this one Brooklyn shirt – fugetaboutit!
Truth is, I WAS born in Brooklyn, but we left when I was three! Yes, I’ve been back 100 times since then, but I didn’t really feel like talking about it with strangers who saw the word on a t-shirt.
The Beethoven reference here always reminds me of comic ideas I have but they have already been used by so many people. Like “Beethoven’s Fifth” and having a bottle of liquor and Beethoven lying drunk over it, or something like that.
I started making travel plans for the year. It’s been so long since I’ve been on a plane. Heck, it’s been so long since I left my city, I hardly left the zip code, this past year!
I made plans for NY for this upcoming summer. I usually spend part of June and July there, I miss my cousins and aunt and uncle. We do a lot together in the summer, actually we do a lot all during the year. We’ve been on the phone and face time a lot this year, compensating for lost time.
We spend time in the city, The Hamptons and Montauk.
Some of us were planning on spending time in Italy during the upcoming summer, but I think it might be best to wait before heading out of the country. Baby steps.
I also am in the process of making my Thanksgiving plans. Yes, already. I’d like to visit Boston and then take the train down to New York after a few days. Love that train trip, I wrote about it here one time.
I am still up in the air about October and ComicCon. I’m not sure if it’s on this year, although I assume by October it will be ok to attend and I do love going apple and pumpkin picking in the Hudson Valley in October, so maybe I’ll plan that trip next.
Crossing my fingers that nothing has to be cancelled. But my premonitions are telling me that things will go well this year.
I threw today’s cartoon together last night.
I follow a bunch of art sites on Instagram – classical artists and museums. Yesterday I was looking at a Monet that came up on the screen and the first thing I did was look for Bernie! That’s when I knew I had to do a cartoon regarding the Bernie memes.
The beauty of it is that Bernie isn’t even in it!
I changed the text about 10 times until I was happy with what it said.
The title of this post is a play on the great website called, “A Case for Pencils,” where Jane Mattimoe interviews New Yorker cartoonists.
I’ve tried to be a New Yorker cartoonist, but they don’t even look at the submitted work. I have many things in the queue; many since April, just sitting there, awaiting attention. They get too many submissions, I guess.
I love reading how cartoonists create their work and it seems that most, if not all of the New Yorker cartoonists still use pen and ink, – or pencils, as the title says. Me, I am all digital.
If I was interviewed for this, I would have to say, “I get an idea, jot it down on a pad. Go back to it and try to decipher what I wrote down. Then draw up the comic on my Surface Pro, and ta da – it’s done. The sad part is that there is no original art.
Years ago, I would eat all that stuff up. I would get the pen nibs suggested by cartoonists I liked and I would buy the proper weight bristol board they suggested. I spent so much time at the art supply stores. I even had a discount card that gave me discounts for shopping there often. Now I can’t remember the last time I stopped into one of these stores.
I remember when I was in college, since I majored in art, I was constantly buying new and exciting things I never heard of – tools that were new to me. My store of choice was Rex Art Supply in Coral Gables, which is no longer there. They have been gone long before the digital age.
I remember before fonts and computers and stuff I would get fonts on sheets that I would rub off on paper. It was for a word or two or three, not for paragraphs or anything like that. I mostly used it make or clean up logos and things like that. There was a time I could look at any font and tell you the name, now I barely notice if I’m using Times Roman or Arial.
I have a box somewhere at my parents house, I think in my old closet, where I have so much of this stuff left over – font sheets, rulers, erasers, pencils, etc. I need to find that box. Open it. And take in the smell – the smell of yesteryear.
Does the air seem clearer today? Is the sun shining brighter? Does the grass seem greener? Is the sky bluer? I think so.
I feel it’s a new world, and I’m read for it.
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