Auchtoon!

Originally published in the Grand Rapids Business Journal, October 8, 2007

It shouldn’t be news to any of you — whether you live here or just read this blog — that Michigan is down. And not just losing to Appalachian State down (although that certainly didn’t help). No, economically, politically, spiritually down. Our state’s unemployment rate is highest in the country — a full percentage point over our next “competitor.” Our state government recently took us to the brink of shut down and then — finally facing reality after years of denial and shell games — raised taxes to keep crippled services hobbling along. Our state’s automotive industry celebrates new labor agreements by shrinking even more.

And so (ever the contrarian), I looked for some good news, and as it turns out, it was easy to find here in West Michigan. In the span of a few days, we had three openings, each startlingly positive in their own way:

• The new Grand Rapids Art Museum opened in a marquee spot of downtown. It’s an impressive community investment in not just the arts but in city life. Local leaders in government, business, arts all got together to build a beautiful new home for celebrating creativity and with very little friction.
• The JW Marriott luxury hotel opened near the existing Amway Grand Hotel and the DeVos Convention Center. Yeah, we might be a mid-size post-industrial Midwestern city, but there’s something more happening when a building like this goes up. Again, our local rich guys invested their money and their expertise back into the local economy. They don’t have to do that, ya know.
• The new Metro Health hospital and ancillary building opened in Wyoming on the growing south side of the area. Metro previously was in a landlocked portion of the city with limited prospects for growth or even survival. As the smallest of Grand Rapid’s three major hospital systems, its future was somewhat bleak. But with its new facilities, it has created a whole new center of economic development (not to mention a huge expansion of medical services). Bonus: Its previous facilities are being renovated for elder care.

Sure, none of this changes the fact that it will soon again be February in Michigan (and it’s gonna suck), but it’s nice to enjoy the sun’s warmth when it shines….

Originally published in the Grand Rapids Business Journal, October 1, 2007

When you’re 16 and lifting weights in the basement while your parents are talking with a neighbor upstairs in the kitchen just beyond the open basement door, and you just finished your last rep and go to put the bar back on the holder and it slips and it crashes onto your thighs and you say, “F-bomb!” and because F-bombs are actually lighter than air it floats upstairs to the sudden and coincidental pause in conversation, what you should have said was …nothing.

When it’s after 10:00 at night, and it has been a long, long day, and you’ve said “Good Night” to your kids several many multiple times but they never seem to actually go to bed and you’re about to pass out and you hear a kid walking in the hall and you shout, “I swear I’m going to break your legs so you stay in bed!” and it turns out the kid was coming to you because she just lost a tooth, what you should have said was …nothing.

When you’re on the Grand Rapids Public School Board and you’re frustrated because hundreds of parents send their kids to suburban schools for various reasons but at the very least they are the kind of parents concerned enough about their children’s education to be active participants and you say to them, “You’re a bunch of racists and if don’t like the schools in Grand Rapids, then move someplace else.” what you really should have said was, …nothing.

Originally published in the Grand Rapids Business Journal, September 25, 2007

Back in the olden days (1984), Disney re-released the animated classic “Fantasia” to theaters for a limited run. Fantasia was not available at that point on spanky new videotape technology (VHS or Beta), and even if it was, viewing it at home on that 17 inch Magnavox console television would certainly not be the same experience as projected film on a big screen. The point is I desperately wanted to see it. And as I was at home on Thanksgiving break in the sophisticated city of Flint (sophisticated meaning that there was more than a single movie theater as opposed to my college town of Houghton, Michigan), I had but one chance to see it. Maybe forever. (It was 1984 — what did I know?)

The complication was that my friend Isaiah was staying with me on that very last weekend of the release. Isaiah was from Nigeria and had limited options for places to go when school was out, so I had invited him to spend a few days with my family. He was a quiet, reserved guy but with entertainment tastes that ran more toward pro wrestling than experimental animation set to classical music. I knew this. I absolutely knew this. But hoping against hope that the magic of Disney would somehow transcend all gaps in culture and personal taste, I took Isaiah to see Fantasia anyway.

He hated it. It was clear right from the start he hated it. About 15 minutes in, he leaned over to me and asked, truly perplexed, “Is this the movie?”

Jane was sitting between me and Isaiah which allowed me a sort of buffer to lose myself occasionally in the film. She definitely took one for the team there because he passed the time by taking off his boots and eating ketchup packets he had swiped from Halo Burger earlier that day. (Isaiah liked to eat condiments. I don’t know if it was a Nigerian thing or what, but he is the only person I have ever seen go to a salad bar, put nothing but five different dressings on a plate, and eat it.) Anyway, as I marveled at the dancing hippos, Jane was nearly asphyxiated by the acrid swirl of feet and spiced tomato paste.

After the movie, I apologized profusely. I told Isaiah it was a selfish thing for me to do, and I regretted making him sit through it. Isaiah, trying to find some positive in the unfortunate situation replied, “No no, John. Thank you. Thank you for taking me to see this movie. Now I will know not to ever see it again.”

Which brings us to the theme of this week’s comic: willful stupidity. The comic itself has enough dialogue to explain the background of what happened with the state representative from my district, David Agema. If you want to read more, here’s an article. All I can say is, “Thank you for taking the hunting trip, David. Now I will know not to elect you again.”

Originally published in the Grand Rapids Business Journal, September 17, 2007

Drawing editorial cartoons for a Business Journal, it’s hard not to make comparisons between the business world and the government world. Yes, yes, they’re different animals. Both worlds have their own nuances. And we all know that being a successful CEO doesn’t necessarily make you an electable public servant, right Mr. Perot? Mr. DeVos?

But still, you look at what makes a successful business successful — things like respecting customers, building honest relationships with customers, not patronizing the customers — and it’s difficult to understand why this wouldn’t translate directly into good practices in government.

Vice President Dick Cheney was in Grand Rapids recently to follow up on the General Petraeus testimonies on the Iraq War. It wasn’t big news, even locally. It was the standard fare of ominous warnings framed in patriotic tones and followed up with the usual “now go about your business and stay out of mine.” (Actually, now that I think about it, that’s probably exactly how Cheney ran Haliburton.) Kinda makes me all misty for Ross Perot….

Originally published in the Grand Rapids Business Journal, September 10, 2007

Just sort of a silly homage to traditional Michigan politics this week. West Michigan leans to the Republican side — East Michgian to the Democrats. That’s the way it has been for a long, long time. So when a mastodon image was recently discovered….

Originally published in the Grand Rapids Business Journal, September 3, 2007

Not to go all Facebook and MySpace on you here, but my 44th birthday was September 10th. (You could celebrate this event by adding a comment to this blog entry — something like “gr8 post!” or “urkewl” or “bff!!!” — and then adding me to your list of friends. If I get enough friends, I think maybe I get a coupon for a small flurry at Dairy Queen. Actually, I’m not exactly sure how these new social networking things work, but from what I can see it starts with meta-relationships and corporate tie-ins and ends with identity theft and tears. xlnt!)

I mention this because while my 44th anniversary of birth was very special thanks to my family, the number itself was unremarkable. I mean, in general, who looks forward to, basks within, or always cherishes their 44th because of the number? Not many. So it was with this year’s sixth anniversary of the terrorist attacks of September 11th. It just sort of felt, well, blah.

What could one say six years hence to evoke a special feeling, to commemorate the tragedy in a special way? I mean, six is just six. Nothing special there. And after all these years of politicians trying to alternately cajole and beat 9/11 emotions out of us, I just felt tired about the whole thing. (Good news: Dick Cheney is popping by Grand Rapids tomorrow to re-serve some “stay the course” crappola, so that should give me some new energy.) But then, after giving up on a sixth anniversary idea, I had to take care of some new school year stuff — and the comic came to me.

cul8r!!!!!

Originally published in the Grand Rapids Business Journal, August 27, 2007

There is a story in my extended family about a young man who had recently graduated high school, but was seemingly making no effort from that point to move on. No career path, no job, no further education, no source of income. When another relative challenged him on this, he replied (in complete sincerity) that he did in fact have a plan: “I’m buying lottery tickets every day!”

While not always that naïve, we Americans have demonstrated with disturbing consistency an enthusiastic willingness to suspend reasonable expectations to mortgage the future. This subprime loan crisis is only the latest example. So it only figures that with a government “of the people, by the people, for the people,” it, too, can be found sinking into the quicksand of debt.

See? I told you last week that I’m hoping to be a frumpy irascible curmudgeon….

Originally published in the Grand Rapids Business Journal, August 20, 2007

This summer I took a flight to Washington DC, which meant making a connection through Detroit Metro Airport. Oh, there is a direct flight from Grand Rapids to DC. One might ask why I didn’t take advantage of that. But then one might also have had the experience of laboring for hours with maddening websites and hopelessly worn-out customer service representatives to figure out how to use one’s frequent flyer miles for such a purpose. And one would then give up before one’s bile and hatred backed up further into one’s throat and choked one to death. (I’m seriously considering cashing in my 90,000 miles for the alternative crap they offer — paper weight, tea cozy, $20 Applebee’s gift card, whatever — but I dislike the idea of Northwest Airlines winning.)

There. Now that I got to complain about something I can tell you that the flight experience itself went well. In fact, the only thing remarkable about it was that, as I started to mention, I flew from Detroit Metro to DC and who was three rows in front of me but our very own senior US Senator, Carl Levin. Senator Levin is a frumpy irascible curmudgeon perpetually peering over half-moon reading specs and sporting not so much a comb-over hairstyle as it is a wind-up. Honestly. It’s like a mini-turban. I’m not quite sure how it stays there. I didn’t detect any barrettes, shellac, or staples. I mean no disrespect — I’m truly curious. As a bald man who aspires one day to be a frumpy irascible curmudgeon, I’d like to know the secret.

But the reason this is remarkable is that Senator Levin was flying with us common folk in coach, not first-class. It was heartening to know my Senator was slumming in steerage with the rest of us riff-raff, sharing the countless indignities such as finding a small space in the overhead to store away his already wrinkled suit jacket. He was cordial but obviously wasn’t there trying to collect votes. He sat down and immersed himself in his own business just like the rest of us. And not once did he solicit me to join him in the restroom for a homo-erotic encounter, which apparently is not a courtesy all US Senators extend to fellow travelers.

Did you ever fly with somebody famous? Tell me about it!

Originally published in the Grand Rapids Business Journal, August 13, 2007

A couple of weekends ago, we Auchters were hard at work on various painting and cleaning projects around the house. Nothing major — just the sorts of projects that are ideal for summer. You know, the ones that typically get blown off till the last nice day of November.

My particular task was to repaint the basketball court. The key word: repaint. No thinking involved. I decided to play some music and grabbed my old boombox. The CD player on it can be dodgy, so I dug out a few old cassette tapes, most of which I haven’t listened to in at least 10 years. The one I played was 10,000 Maniacs, “In My Tribe.” Remember that? Late 1980s, Natalie Merchant on vocals? I remembered liking it. In any case, I bought it. Well after listening to one side I clicked stop and decided to store the Maniacs away for a long, long time.

Oh the music was okay. Jangly. Poppy. But it was the lyrics! C’mon Natalie, lighten up, can’t ya?! Poverty, alcoholism, spouse abuse, despair, heartache, LORDY! Here I was on this cheery summer Sunday afternoon merrily slapping new paint to brighten one of my happy places, and I was gettin’ all bummed out. Where was my “Whistle While You Work”?

Now I understand the need to address social issues and tell the stories of the downtrodden, but why so relentlessly negative, so soul crushing, so glass-fully-empty, so… so much like an editorial cartoon?…

Right. Well. I therefore endeavored to find a bright side with my next editorial cartoon, the one you just read. It was more difficult than I had imagined. It turns out negative goes hand-in-hand with irony, sarcasm, parody, sanctimony and all the other tools of the trade. A positive spin arouses suspicion — the acrid fumes of marketing come wafting by. So I guess I cheated a little by taking a swipe at TV journalism, but I did attempt to feature the uniquely American virtues of tenacious optimism and entrepreneurial spirit. What do you think?

Next week: Back to “it’s all going to hell.”

Originally published in the Grand Rapids Business Journal, August 6, 2007

If Michigan has one thing going for it (and after several years of economic recession, it sometimes feels like it may be the only thing), it is our abundance of fresh water. Twenty percent of the world’s fresh surface water is contained in the five great lakes and four of the five great lakes touch our shorelines. Michigan is so dominated by these lakes that our state is split in two: the Upper and Lower peninsulas, and has given us what is surely the most awkward of all state mottos, “If you seek a pleasant peninsula, look about you.” Seriously.

For the first 120 years of statehood, Michigan’s two peninsulas weren’t even connected. A stretch of water five miles wide called the Straits of Mackinac (a channel between Lake Michigan and Lake Huron) provided the closest point. In 1957 the Mackinac Bridge (aka, Mighty Mac, or simply “The Bridge”) was completed, and the peninsulas were linked.

I wanted to draw a comic that would commemorate this 50 year anniversary as well as address some modern concerns: Lake levels are approaching historic lows, the world is warming, the population of decidedly drier states is booming, and Michigan’s political influence is waning. You do the math. That giant sucking sound that Ross Perot heard back in the ’90s might just turn out to be the water draining out of Michigan….

(For more info on what I meant by “invasive species problem,” click here.)