life

The man without a face

I was in NYC for a bit for my uncle’s funeral. I’m home now.

The wake and funeral were beautiful, if those are the right words. So many people showed up, he really touched so many lives. I knew many of the people from being there so much over the years, so it was nice to see some old faces. But there was one old face that “I knew,” but didn’t know.

This guy, let’s call hm Ricky, was at the wake and the funeral and he was sitting at our table at a restaurant after the funeral. There were many people present at the restaurant, and I didn’t know them all, but since he was sitting with the immediate family, I wondered who he was.

I asked one of my cousins and he said, “Oh, that’s my mother’s old boss.”

His mother, my aunt, passed away a few years back, but for so many years she worked for Ricky. I heard his name 1000 times, she always talked about him. He was much younger than my aunt who was the office manager, so she treated him like a son, she was a mother figure to him. I remember hearing about his exploits and non-exploits from when Ricky was a young guy.

I yelled out to my cousin, “That’s Ricky?” I was excited. I finally saw the man who was talked about so much. It was like a tv show where there is a character mentioned all the time, but you never see them, like Vera, Norms’ wife on “Cheers,” or Niles wife Maris, on “Frasier,” or Ugly Naked Guy on “Friends.”

I ran over to him and another cousin asked if I wanted to be introduced, which of course I did. I told Ricky how I had heard so much about him over the years, all good. I told him how much my aunt loved him and always felt he was one of the family and I went on and on. It was like meeting a favorite rock star or movie star. It was so nice to put a face to a name.

Not surprisingly he was very quiet, and mild-mannered, but he enjoyed our conversation and was very friendly.

I noticed over the long luncheon, that a couple of others did the same thing when they heard that that was Ricky. We all gushed over him! A little gray haired man sitting in the corner.

As he was leaving later on, I went up to him and shook his hand and told him it was a pleasure meeting him. I said I hoped we would meet again soon. He said, “Hopefully, under better circumstances.” I agreed.

It was a real pleasure meeting him after hearing about him and his life for so many years, putting a face to the name.

Till next time . . .

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An officer and a gentleman

My uncle passed away yesterday. The last of all my uncles is gone. All my aunts are gone and my parents, too; and of course, all my grandparents are gone.

That whole generation and the ones before it are all gone. Gone.

I was probably the closest to him out of all my uncles. I was in NY often and I saw him often. When I was young I would stay at their house for long periods. He was a second father to me.

I saw him last month. I have a photo I took of him at a family BBQ. I didn’t know it would be the last photo I have of him, he looks so great and healthy in the photo.

He left us on my aunt’s birthday, which I guess was a birthday present to her. Now they are together forever.

When he was in the hospital these past few weeks, I was remembering a story he always told. He and my aunt shared an apartment with my parents when they were all young married couples – an apartment in Brooklyn.

My uncle would tell the story of a tilted floor they had in the apartment; he joked that it was like walking up a hill. He would tell of holding me when I was an infant, and walking “up that hill” in the apartment, back and forth to put me to sleep. He would mimic walking sideways, trudging up a hill, as he told the story.

It always made us laugh, no matter how many times he told the story.

He was a New York City Police officer, and I always pictured him in his uniform when he told that story. He was quiet, polite, honest and a gentleman, the type you want every police officer (well, everyone) to be.

Now I picture them all together, on the other side. Back together again, like it was so many years ago – the fearsome foursome.

Till next time . . . .

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Urban cops

A funny thing happened the day before I left NY.

Since a Nor’easter was affecting things up north, I sat down on a bench to check my airline schedule, to be sure it was on time the next morning. This past summer I had my flight home canceled and then rescheduled and rerouted thorough Boston, due to bad weather, so I wanted to check this time.

All looked good. The app said all was on schedule.

I was sitting on a bench across from Lincoln Center looking at my phone when two NYC cops came up to me. They asked how long I was sitting there. “Oh, no, I thought, what was this about?”

I had just read an ad in the subway, which was in Spanish, which said something like, “Have your real ID on you, they are on the streets! Truth!” So I thought this was that.

I told the cops I was only there a short time, and I asked why they were asking. One said, “Well, we were told a guy was chasing another guy with a firearm and they ran right by here. And we wanted to know if you saw anything.”

“What?” I said? “If I saw a guy holding a gun up to another guy running by, I wouldn’t be sitting here so calmly,” and I held my hand out as if I was holding a gun.

The cops laughed and ran off, looking for the guys.

Oddly enough, a few days before, these two cops came up to me in Hoboken (I blurred their faces here).

Again, I was sitting on a bench, this time to tie my shoelace. I seem to do a lot of bench sitting it seems. Anyway, I was sitting right in front of City Hall, and they came across the street looking at me. It could be because I took this picture of them, but they came up to me and said, “Hello. how are you doing?” I said, “Ok, thanks.” And they were on their way.

A few minutes before I had taken some pictures of some bigwigs in suits in front of City Hall, although I don’t think the cops saw that. I took the picture because I thought it was funny. Hoboken is literally one square mile in size and they have their own city council, mayor, police department, etc.

It’s sort of a real life Mayberry, when you think about it. I always say if I was to move to New York, I would actually move to Hoboken, one train stop from NYC. It’s like being in Brooklyn, but on the other side of Manhattan, so it’s a quick ride in and out.

It’s autonomous, it rules and controls itself, as any city would. It isn’t part of a larger government, like Brooklyn is (which is part of NYC). So little Hoboken calls its own shots. There are really no tourists there, because who, except for me, goes to Hoboken? It’s easy access to and from the city (Manhattan), it’s right next to the larger Jersey City, which is its own city, too.

I’ve seen people pop over to Macy’s at Herald Square in Manhattan, it’s only a few train stops away. Very convenient, yet it’s a quiet little “village” right on the Hudson River, doing its own thing.

Till next time . . .

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Enjoying making them happy

When I’m creating a cartoon, I usually have one or two people in mind. I wonder, “Will they think this is funny? Will they like it?”

I don’t know why them. Probably because they are more vocal about my work and they have sent me cartoon ideas over the years, so I feel they are paying attention, even thought I might use 1 in 100 of their ideas – but they are being involved.

When I was publishing the daily news, there is one person who I would think of, too. I would wonder if she thought I was doing a good job. I wondered if she thought the article I was writing made sense and wondered if she would approve. She was always in my head as I was writing.

This person is gone now, but I always admired her and cared how she felt about issues. I admired her as I was growing up, she was always saying what I was thinking she was a fighter and protester. She cared about life and history. One time I saw her in person and was so excited. I didn’t say anything to her, but it was like seeing one’s favorite movie star in person.

Years later, I ran into her at a protest, and she knew my name. She literally knew who I was, she approached me and introduced herself and said my name! We eventually became friendly over the years. She wrote a book on Miami history one time and included me!

Are there people who you try to impress? But I think impress is not the right word, I don’t know what the word would be. Make happy? Entertain? Not sure.

One of my favs from quarantine time. Via TomFalco.com

I think in my cases, I just admired these people and the way they felt about things, so I wanted to try to entertain them with my work and put a smile on their faces when they see my cartoons and writings. I don’t want to lose them as an audience.

To be honest, I don’t think I ever changed an article or cartoon because “they” wouldn’t approve, but I just hoped they would enjoy what I was doing.

Does any of this make sense?

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I’ll do it every time

I saw this old comic strip recently, it’s “They’ll Do It Every Time.” It’s from the 1940s.

This reminded me of me because I never wanted to go anywhere – to weddings, parties, communions, whatever, and my mother would always say to me, “You always say you don’t want to go, and then you’re the last one to leave.” And she was right, I did it every time.

I remember a few years back I was at a Chamber of Commerce event and at the end, I was sitting at a table with three other people, and as we were talking the restaurant staff was taking the table cloth off the table, telling us they needed to get ready for the dinner service, so we were basically pushed out.

One of the people with us was a friend named Robert, who is no longer with us, he was a nice guy. As we exited the building, I can remember him looking down at my shoes and saying, “Nice set of wheels!” Which I guess meant he liked the shoes. I had never heard that expression before, but it always stayed with me.

“They’ll Do It Every Time,” the comic panel is one of the ones I enjoyed as a kid. I was surprised to read recently that it ran new until 2008; it started in 1929.

I also liked “Hazel,” and “Our Boarding House” and so many single panel cartoons, which is why I probably do my Tomversation single panel cartoon today.

I see also old “Our Boarding House” cartoons posted daily on Facebook and I often watch the old Hazel tv show reruns.

While the cartoon above is not single panel, most of the time “They’ll Do It Every Time” was single panel.

I like the fact that single panel cartoons have to happen in that one panel. Of course, “The Far Side” was the best when I was growing up. I loved seeing that in the newspaper every day.

While I don’t have to be limited to a single panel or a single size since I’m publishing online and I could fill up a whole page with multi-panels if I wanted, I do enjoy having the one size – 5″ x 5″ where I have to fit it all in.

Once in awhile I do break it up, as I did with this one last week, but it’s very rarely that that happens. I like to keep it in the one panel.

There are many single panel cartoons that I don’t like, simply because I don’t enjoy them, so it’s not that every single one is enjoyable to me. But the format is what attracts me to it.

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The cop’s hand signal

I felt old the other day when I had an interaction with a police officer.

Our streets had been blocked off due to construction in one area, so there were cops directing traffic on certain intersections.

I came up to one intersection, a block from where I live. It was a full stop, and the cop directing traffic looked at me and made some hand signals. It was sort of like a dog pawing at you with both paws, you know, “Paws up,” Lady Gaga style.

I thought he was signaling me to slow down, but I wasn’t moving. Then I realized, he was signaling me to put down the window so he could speak to me.

I was a bit taken aback, since the signal I would have given is the winding motion or cranking motion signal, like winding down the window – which isn’t a thing anymore and hasn’t been for a long time. But people, including me, still use that motion for opening a car window.

Strange and funny.

The cop wanted to ask me where I was going, that’s why he wanted me to lower the window.

I didn’t think about it until later, but that was a funny way of indicating me to lower the window. I guess that’s how it’s done now.

The good news is that the work on the streets was to take two weeks to complete, but the city got it done in four days! Unheard of – the City of Miami Water & Sewer Department got the job done in less than half the time. So no more cops, street closures or hand signals.

Impressive!

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Snagged my NYCC tix

I got my tickets for New York Comic Con (NYCC) yesterday.

It’s a whole process. I no longer get press passes after 15 years of that, so I have to purchase the tickets now and wait in line, online, like everyone else.

You have to be fan verified, and get a time and date to get on and buy the tickets. Mine was 10 am Sunday morning, the first thing, the first group, but of course if you get online at that very moment, there is a long wait to get your access to the tickets. My wait was 20 minutes, not that bad.

Who are these people that are always there, first in line? In person, you see them in tents, camping outside venues for a week to buy something like an Nintendo Switch or concert tickets.

By the way, NYCC is Oct. 9-12, and the tickets sell out fast.

For so many years, I wrote for the Huffington Post and other publications and I received press passes, which made me feel important, but best of all, I didn’t have to wait in any lines and I had access to everything for all four days.

To be honest, I think I outgrew the whole thing, but since I’m a cartoonist, I feel it’s my duty to go, but it seems that Comic Cons have gone from being comic oriented, to movies, games and tv, which make up the bulk of it all.

One of my cousins works for a company that sells original cartoon art. His company has a booth at the cons and last year when I finally found his booth, he was telling me how the actual comics are all confined to a small area now, almost being forced out of their namesake event. I can’t even find the cartoon syndicates now. I’m not sure they show up anymore.

The best part of course is the cosplay, you know, people dressed up as their favorite tv and movie characters. But I do like to mix and mingle with other cartoonists and organizations. I could have sat and worked the National Cartoonists Society booth, but I declined. I’m not sure why, that way I would have free access and get to meet many of my peers. Maybe next year.

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Now, I am the stalker

The stalked becomes the stalker.

I wrote about my neighbor who is “stalking me,” – unintentionally, that is.

Well, this morning I wanted to run downstairs to get something from my car and I felt I better scout the area first, so as not to be “attacked” at the elevator.

Good thing I did, because, as you can see, there she is with the freaking dog, just lying in wait. If I had called the elevator up and went down, she would have been standing there, waiting to get in, as I was getting out.

This is a screen capture from our security cameras.

I fear I have turned into the stalker now – stalking out the layout of the place, to be sure that the coast is clear.

Am I being paranoid? I don’t know.

If you haven’t read the past blog post about this annoying neighbor, it’s here.

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They are always lurking

I feel like I’m being stalked.

There is a new couple who moved into our small building and it seems that every time I turn around, there they are – in my face. It’s not intentional, I don’t think, but I am beginning to hate them for it. They have been here a few months and they are driving me out of my skull.

They rent the unit, and over the years, I’ve known everyone who has lived in that unit, and I was friendly with all of them and liked all of them. And I never felt annoyed by them. But this couple – I can’t explain it – they are just there – they are always there.

It’s a young husband and wife with a baby, who seems to be about one-year-old, maybe younger. They own a small restaurant in town, but they seem to always be here at home, when I am, rather than at the restaurant.

They seem to walk the baby around in a stroller or walk their dog every five minutes – they are always doing it. But the annoying part comes in where they are everywhere I am. Just lurking.

If I’m going to the elevator, she is invariably standing there waiting for it. If not standing there waiting for it, when the door opens for me to enter, there she is exiting and I have to say hello to her, which I don’t want to do.

More than once, I would say maybe seven times, when I have come home, driving up in my car, as I try to park in my parking space, she is in the parking space, washing her dog! The hose is next to my car, but rather than pull it out across the lot to a more convenient area, there she is, in my space washing the freaking dog.

And she is always so sickeningly sweet – “Have a nice day.” “Have a beautiful day.”

Her husband, is usually on his bicycle and he is always there when she isn’t there. Come to think of it, I don’t know if I’ve ever seen them together. But I must have. But it’s sort of like they torment me one at a time – only not on purpose.

I’ve lived in this building for many years, it’s a small condo building, only 14 units. I can honestly say, I’ve never seen any one of my neighbors this much. I’ll go weeks without seeing anyone, except for them. I don’t even remember their names.

Another neighbor, my friend Mary, says I am conjuring them up, you know, willing their presence, by talking about them. But I don’t think about them ever – that’s what makes it so irritating, when they pop up in my face so unexpectedly. I feel can do a magic trick, regarding this if I wanted to. I can tell someone, watch this, I can push the elevator button and one of them will appear – no joke.

I have avoided them by not getting in the elevator with them, making an excuse that I forgot something in my car, just to get away and not ride the lift with them.

Mary says I sound crazy, and asked if I told anyone else about this. But I only told her, and now you. I know it sounds crazy, but imagine that every time you opened your front door the same person was standing there. Or you walk in your backyard and there they are. Or you go to park your car and they are blocking your spot. Daily, more than once a day.

I did say something to the lady with the baby yesterday. I came home from Publix with arms full of bags, I hit the elevator key, and out popped mamma and baby. I said to her, “You are always there! You are always coming or going!” She said, “Excuse me?” She wasn’t exasperated, she really did not understanding what I meant. I just let her pass and I got in the elevator without responding.

I’ve taken to using the stairs to avoid the elevator, but of course that doesn’t matter since she is always washing the freaking dog in my parking space and always walking the dog around the elevator area and always pushing the baby in the stroller. The husband, not so much, but again, he pops up when she isn’t popping up.

Another neighbor keeps insisting that we go this couple’s restaurant for lunch, which is right here in the village. I keep turning that down. I see enough of them right here up my ass every day, I don’t need to go seek them out.

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The dreaded beep

American Airlines is trying out this new boarding system, to avoid the “gate lice” problem. You’ve seen it. I just saw it yesterday when I was flying – that’s people who rush to the gate to be the first on the plane, whether their group is called or not.

I fly first class a lot only because I use frequent flyer miles by paying for things for my business with credit cards that give me miles. So I am usually in Group 1.

But even if I think I am one of the first on the plane, there is always someone sitting in the aisle seat where I have to ask them to move so I can get to my window seat. Always.

I give them a dirty look, which they probably don’t notice, but I boycott them during the flight by not speaking to them. I find them to be real “gate lice” and “hogs.”

They say people do this to get the best overhead bin space, maybe that’s it, I usually travel with a small bag that fits under the seat, so I don’t feel the need to rush onto the plane for any reason.

Right now, the new American Airlines boarding system is in Albuquerque, NM and Tucson, Arizona. The system works like this – if your group is not called for boarding, a beep will go off – a loud beep, which will alert the gate agent and the rest of the travelers, I would guess, that alerts everyone that you are not supposed to be boarding the plane yet.

So if you are group 7 and trying to get in with group 1, that ain’t gonna work.

I love that. I find these gate lice people obnoxious as hell. They all rush to the gate to stand and block everyone else. I guess they don’t realize the plane isn’t gonna leave without them. But maybe it all comes down to the overhead bin space again. So maybe they have a point. Who knows.

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