Auchtoon!

Originally published in the Grand Rapids Press, October16, 2010

On the ballot next month Michigan voters will get to choose whether to have a convention to rewrite our state constitution (or the cool way to say it, have a “con-con”).

Why It’s a Good Idea: Our constitution has been amended several time since the last whisking nearly 50 years ago, and it’s a bit of a patchwork mess. In fact, the whole state is a bit of a patchwork mess. So now would be a good time to start fresh, realign goals, and move on a clear path forward.

Why It’s a Bad Idea: We can’t trust ourselves not to totally screw it up. Notice I didn’t say “politicians” or “Wall Street bankers” or “that damn Obamacare that is tearing the moral fabric of a once genteel and noble society leading us into ruination, bankruptcy, venereal diseases, and the designated hitter rule in baseball, which I have never liked.” No, it’s kind of like term limits — because we think so little of our capacity to make good decisions we take away our own options.

 For the comic I singled out the politicians because it’s election season and their pandering is in high gear (and because it was the path of least resistance to get the point across). But it is good to keep in mind that — in a country that is of the people, by the people, for the people — politicians are not separate citizens and government is not a separate institution. They are we, and it is us. Time to take some responsibility, read up, and vote.

Not published

This was going to be the editorial cartoon in this Saturday’s Press. Unfortunately, my editor decided against it. Well, unfortunately for me (I was really pleased with the drawing — got Justin Amash’s lips just right), but fortunately for my editor. You see, my point in this is that Justin Amash, the Republican candidate for the Grand Rapids’ area congressional district, needs some definition. He’s a young guy who, after being a state rep, is running for congress for the first time, and he is likely to win this traditionally Republican district. Amash has big potential, but he also hews a line often to the right of previous representatives (re: Gerald Ford, Paul Henry, Vern Ehlers).

I’m not passing immediate judgment, but his website does read very much like Sarah Palin’s but without (to his credit) the cutsie “mama bear” stuff and cloying need to be part of pop culture. So I dressed him in a Palin-esque suit, wig, and glasses to draw attention to their political similarities and let readers decide how they feel about it. No labels, no arrows, and with some subtly. But subtly doesn’t work all that well in the weeks before an election. And the likely result? Letters and phone calls demanding to know “why your cartoonist is saying Justin Amash is a transvestite!” My editor would be the one getting those, not me. The dress. All certain folks would see is the dress. So I came up with something different. Buy a Saturday Press and let me know what you think.

Originally published in the Grand Rapids Press, October 9, 2010

A few week’s ago, the Grand Rapids Press ran a story on the recently completed summer home built on the south shore of Lake Macatawa near Holland. It is owned by the DeVos family. Richard DeVos and Jay Van Andel were founders of Amway Corporation, their families continue to run Amway, and have since created, developed, married into, and spawned many, many other ventures. Long story short, the DeVos’s are a prominent and successful West Michigan family.

So the article was basically “fabulously wealthy local family has existing mansion plowed and builds a magnificent new house and guest house in its place.” If nothing else, it made for attractive first page photos. Shortly thereafter the letters to the editor started rolling in regarding “in poor taste” this and “in these times of economic hardship” that. How dare the Press make this a headline story!  Then the counter letters started to show up with their “providing paying jobs” this and “you’re just jealous, so go suck an egg” that. It devolved from there. Which is all very understandable if not predictable — people have strong feelings and a baffling conviction that a letter to the editor or a post to a chat forum will convince the world to see it their way. But the truly remarkable thing was just how well sustained the argument. It has been a serious collective panty bunch for West Michigan for several weeks. The comic was my attempt at hastening the unbunching process.

As long as I am going to share something very personal here in a blog post, I might as well go all the way and tell you this: Our cat Stellaluna was my potty pal. I generally start my day somewhere between 4:00 and 5:00AM, and the first thing I do after I drag out of bed is head to bathroom down the hall. I have to warm up to the idea of vertical, so I have a seat. That’s when Stellie (if she isn’t snoozing away with one of the kids) stops by to say good morning. She rubs and chats and brumbles. So I pick her up for a good skritching, and it isn’t long before she stretches her possum nose up to give a few kisses. Along about this time, our other cat Cassie (aka, Poo!) strolls past the door and throws us a “that’s disgusting and unsanitary” look, but then gets close enough for a few touches. After a minute or two, I put Stellie down, and she pads happily off. I take care of what I need to take care of, now fully awake. And happy because it is eminently clear: I am loved.

Stellaluna died Tuesday. She had congenital heart failure. It was sudden and horrible. I am certainly grateful for the seven and a half years of good health where she was her kind and sensitive Stellie self. (Nobody could enjoy a summer day quite like Stellie.) But you know what? I still feel cheated. I guess that’s normal when something or somebody goes too soon.

It’ll be okay. I feel bad — my whole family does — but we’ll work through it. It’s always difficult to lose something good, but it’s even more difficult to lose something special. I don’t expect that it will be very easy to find another potty pal.

Originally published in the Grand Rapids Press, October 2, 2010

I am not quite sure whether I am very proud of or sorely disappointed in the potential voters of West Michigan. It seems we will be voting for governor in less than a month and the disinterest is palpable. That is, the air is thick with not caring. Apathy is skyrocketing?… As you can see, I’m having some difficulty putting it into words. But the feeling I get is that it is very cool the governor’s race has not (yet) turned into a mudslinging sideshow of partisan bickering. And yet, it might be nice if voters had some idea of who in fact was running. (Point of information: Rick Snyder is the Republican candidate; Virg Bernero is the Democrat.) But, hey — the truth is, we’ve been pretty dazzled by ArtPrize around here, and if that’s the big distraction, the governor thing can wait.

Originally published in the Grand Rapids Press, September 25, 2010

The highly abridged back story is this: Bob Israels, a longtime West Michigan furniture store owner and entrepreneur, got caught in the credit crunch. Back in 2008, Israels borrowed a boatload of money to renovate the former Roger’s Department Store in Wyoming to be the new home of Klingman’s, a century old name for high quality furniture retail. The investment was stunning — the store, the building, the surrounding grounds were all top class, and a beacon for commercial development. 

Unfortunately, the timing could not have been worse. The Great Recession reached even into the ranks of Klingman’s customers — the upper and upper-middle class. Israels attempted to work with the banks for some flexibility with his loans. In years past, banks were glad to work with business people with high integrity and proven records. But the mid-size banks that Israels borrowed from were hurting for cash, too. Maybe they tried to work with him, I don’t know. But they ended up calling in the loans. Now Israels is liquidating Klingman’s.

So to review: Wall Street throws a party, sucks all the money out of the system, takes money from the government and keeps it, reports tidy profits as actual businesses in the hinterlands of America suffocate from lack of capital, and then attempts to bolster consumer confidence by declaring the recession over. That about right?…

Originally published in the Grand Rapids Press, September 18, 2010

Many years ago my friend Mert had an installation at an art gallery in Detroit. An installation is a room or area that is set up with several works of art and usually has some sort of central theme. That’s the basic idea, anyway. There are variations and I’m sure an installation could be created outside of that definition (a minimalist might, for example, paint an empty room white and name it “untitled”), but for the purpose of this story, that’s what an installation is.
 
The gallery had three rooms for installations in the basement. You’d walk down one flight of stairs, go from one room to another, and go back up another flight of stairs. (That’s the right term, isn’t it? Flight of stairs? Looks weird when you see it written twice.) Mert had the first room. I can’t remember the name of his exhibit (perhaps he will chime in here and let us know), but it was a series of painted cutouts — some six foot tall on the floor, some hanging from the ceiling — and it was about the experience of driving through the Detroit Metro area. I actually wrote a review of it and submitted it to a local art magazine (never printed, I wasn’t part of the local art club). But that was like 427 computers ago. I probably have a backup of it on a SyQuest cartridge or a floppy disk the size of notebook paper. I’m not going to look for it.

Anyway, Mert’s artwork was bright and colorful and edgy and in your face. There was nothing esoteric about it. You really didn’t have to guess at the point he was trying to make. If, say, a penis was required — BAM! — there was a big ol’ cartoony penis. No veiled allusions. The next two exhibits, however, were just dripping with pretentious symbolism. The one after Mert’s was titled, “Le Petit Mort.” It was a dense awful arrangement of various shades of black drapes and God-only-knows what because you could barely see anything. I’m embarrassed to say that I actually knew what the title meant — in French it’s literally “the little death,” but it’s a metaphor for orgasm. (You live in a house with a guy from France for a year in college, you pick up important stuff like that.) The installation after that was at least technically a little bit impressive — there were ponds with fish, lots of shiny things like ruby slippers, but beyond the Wizard of Oz references, incomprehensible.

So, yeah, as you can guess, I didn’t particularly care for the other two installations. That’s was fine. It was art, and others apparently found it worthwhile, so good for them, and I was glad they had the opportunity to express themselves. The thing that bothered me is how badly the other artists (that is, real artistes) treated Mert. Shunned him, basically. Treated him as a lesser person who, to paraphrase my cartoon, could not possibly understand the greatness of their art. So last week when my editor sent me a link to a Wall Street Journal article on ArtPrize and a few real artistes opined, in effect, “Ewww, Grand Rapids.” And when several real artistes complained last year about ArtPrize winners being largely a function of location and popularity. And when real artistes begrudge others earned money. I draw a cartoon.

Hey, if you want to see some of Mert’s current illustration & cartoon art, click here. And if you don’t know anything about ArtPrize, click here (and make a point of visiting downtown GR in the next couple of weeks).

Originally published in the Grand Rapids Press, September 11, 2010

Time to move on, Michigan. It’s time to move on….

Originally published in the Grand Rapids Press, September 4, 2010

Growing up in South Carolina, tobacco use was not so much encouraged as it was celebrated. The stuff grows like, well, like weeds, so it just made good sense to support it. The fact that it is insanely addictive certainly helped. You were, for all intents and purposes, handed a pack of smokes when you entered the state. I remember the coaches of my brother’s baseball team sharing a chunk of their Red Man chew with an eight year-old kid who simply asked for it. Yep. I am deeply thankful that I was never hooked.
 
I think about this occasionally when I see others who were in fact hooked — huddled in their designated smoker areas, exposed to the elements, and hopefully downwind. There but for the grace of… well, I don’t pretend to know God’s intentions for such things. But unless he’s from South Carolina, I’m guessing he’d prefer I didn’t smoke.

Originally published in the Grand Rapids Press, August 28, 2010

First, to explain the topics covered:

There was a recent staging of a mixed martial art (MMA) or “cage fight” event here in Grand Rapids, and apparently it was for amateur fighters. And whereas there are regulations and certain safety rules for professional events (like having a doctor on hand), there are none for amateurs. I think that was it. To be perfectly honest, I don’t know exactly what the story is here. When I see MMA, my tendency is to look the other way. Professional, amateur, whatever — it’s all sort of violence porn to me. It hits so high on my “that’s really stupid” scale, that I cannot generate the energy to learn more.

You may or may not be aware that this summer Michigan had its own oil spill disaster. A pipeline burst and spilled an enormous amount of oil (not BP enormous, but still quite substantial) into the Kalamazoo River. I’m surprised I didn’t cover this earlier, but with one cartoon a week you can only get to so many topics (even doubling up like I did with this one). Anyway, this story led the Grand Rapids Press to do what good journalists do and investigate further. (I’ll give you a moment now to put down your web browser and go buy a dang subscription!) The Press found there are lots and lots of pipelines that transverse Michigan carrying oil, gasoline, natural gas, chemicals, and other toxic nasties — what sort of plans are in place to monitor and maintain these? Turns out, not a lot.

And now for a full disclosure: Credit for the live grenades and minefield line in the third panel should go to Garry Trudeau. One of his very early Doonesbury cartoons (and one of the first that I read) involved his character BD joining the Army to go fight in Vietnam. Some officers were testing new recruits and requested a volunteer to go retrieve a live hand grenade for a minefield — BD races forward enthusiastically screaming, “I’ll do it! I’ll do it!” Obviously it stuck with me, and I ended up paraphrasing it. Of course I know I’m likely the only person in the world (other than Trudeau) who could detect my “sampling,” but telling you makes me feel a little less skeevy. Hmmm… maybe I can relate to MMA promoters….