Auchtoon!

I tell people that I’m an “accidental entrepreneur.” I say a lot of things just to try to be witty. I don’t know if this one qualifies, but it does happen to be true. Most other folks I’ve met who have started their own businesses have done so with some sort of formal plan or at least a long term desire to “be their own boss,” which, by the way, is a huge fallacy perpetuated by ponzi-schemers: You’re never really your own boss — if you have clients, you have bosses.

But, yeah, I’m a small business owner because it seemed like a sensible thing to do at the time, and I’m still one because it seems like the sensible thing to do at the time. So I can often feel something of a pretender, a poser, when grouped with real entrepreneurs. It’s like I’m there in spirit, but I haven’t formalized it by taking vows. And yet, even if I’ll never be an orthodox member, I can comfortably associate myself with other small business owners in at least one respect: I like to work.

It’s not as noble as it sounds, of course. Lots of people in all sorts of careers like to work. It’s just that a small business can fail more easily if you don’t work, so liking to work dovetails nicely with continuing to work.

This week’s comic is a bit of a love letter to that notion. Michigan’s economy has been down for quite a few years now. And although it shows signs of recovery in fits and starts, we all expect ongoing difficulty in transitioning from our traditional manufacturing base. Still, people like to talk about it. Sometimes too much. Especially our supposed leaders: politicians, corporate executives, pundits. In the meantime, small business owners just continue to work. Me, too.

Originally published in the Grand Rapids Business Journal,April 24, 2006

I’m good at hiding things, but I’m lousy at finding them. Kinda weird. Intuitively, one would think that I would be able to use the same brain functions for, say, hiding Easter eggs for actually finding the Easter eggs. You know, just reverse the process. But no. It doesn’t seem to work that way.

Growing up, my Dad used to say that I couldn’t find my own ass if it wasn’t attached. Actually, I was so skinny that — attached or not — I had a difficult time locating it. I can clearly remember one time being sent to the garage to get a broom. Couldn’t find it. Got sent back. Couldn’t find it. Got sent back a third time. Couldn’t find it. So my Mom, in total exasperation, marches past me, reaches her arm from the kitchen into the garage, and plucks the broom off the wall bracket. You know, one of those brackets for brooms and mops. I never thought of looking there.

My Dad would try to help me. If I had to fetch something from the basement, he’d give me a landmark. “Do you know where the washing machine is?” “Um… yeah.” “Right. Start there and….” He’d try the same thing on my brother, but my brother would be insulted. “Yes, Dad! I know where the washing machine is!!!” I recognized that my father was being sarcastic, but I wasn’t going to turn down a good clue.

Anyway, this odd dichotomy turns out to be useful for editorial cartooning. I’m good at loading up a comic with hidden messages and inside jokes, but then I also recognize how difficult it can be for me to find those sorts of things, so I’m typically able to balance the two. And the best editorial cartoons, I think, are the ones where you give readers enough to get to a point where they can figure out the rest on their own.

Of course, you still have to know the back-story and, briefly, this is it: Downtown Grand Rapids will soon be home to the Michigan State Medical School, which is something like landing a GM assembly plant 40 years ago — lots of jobs, lots of growth. In the meantime, there is another potentially huge downtown project (known to this point as the “Mystery Project”). But this is many, many years away. And so, a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush. Which is especially true for me because I would never think to look outdoors for birds, let alone in the bush….

This week’s comic has to do with the upcoming governor’s race in Michigan. The Republican nominee, Grand Rapids’ own Dick DeVos, has been running TV ads like crazy to try to get some name recognition in the rest of the state. But the problem with TV ads, especially early in a campaign, is that you can’t actually say anything exact or true or exactly true. There’s too much of a chance that it will be used against you later. So we’re conditioned to expect a frothy “there should be more jobs” and “those jobs should pay money” and “I smile a lot, except when I’m serious” and “I’m serious, we need more jobs that pay money” and “But look at me smile. God love me.”And that’s pretty much what we’re getting from Mr. DeVos. But then he slipped one in called “Grand Turnaround.” You can see it online. Go to: http://www.devosforgovernor.com/Multimedia/VLog/
and click “Grand Turnaround”.

This was much more of a late-in-the-campaign ad where you take a kernel of truth and then make wildly exaggerated claims and imply strongly that the sun shines out your butthole.

What I did was take the ad and rework it to stay within the bounds of that kernel of truth. The funny thing is that I think my version works much better. So if anybody from the DeVos campaign wants to throw a little money my way, I’d love to do some script writing. And I would promise not to use the word “butthole.”

Right. So if a child (yours or otherwise) ever comes to you to ask for help with math homework, what’s your first question? “Can’t your Mother/Father help you instead?” No. C’mon now. You can do this. “Why the hell do you need to know that stuff?” Definitely not! It’s what you’re thinking; it’s what they’re thinking. But saying it out loud is not helpful. “Can you wait until my show is over?” Okay, I see that I’m going to have to tell you.

The correct answer is “How did they teach you to solve the problem?”. I’m fairly good at math and, consequently, I’m usually the parent that helps with math homework. Early on, I was Mr. Smartypants and would grab a fresh sheet of paper and show my kids examples of how I would solve the problem. And I would get the right answer. But when I’d turned to give my kids my best “aren’t you lucky to have me?” smile, they’d just groan. “That’s not how taught us how to do that.” Little ingrates. Stupid teachers. Damnable uh,… other people who, um…. Soon I learned to take a minute to look at their text book first. Math isn’t always about getting the right answer; it’s often about showing you understand how to get the right answer.

See? Like most things, life — *real* life — is more complicated than you hope (and, therefore, think). Take, for example, writing comprehensive laws for primary education. Michigan just passed a law that significantly increases standard requirements for earning a high school diploma. This is generally a good thing and certainly well-intentioned. But it will take much, much more than simply passing the law to make it successful. I’ll be interested to see the state government’s reaction when they find out they aren’t Mr. Smartypants.