Nine-part story starting now!

This week has seen the start of "Tommy and the Guttersnipe," an eight-chapter story with a holiday sequel, at the Weekly Storybook. Chapter Two will post Sunday, but if you don't see this until then, it's easy to go back to Chapter One and catch up. The illustrations are by Christopher Baldwin, with whom I have collaborated on a number of serials going back nearly a decade to my first, "The Legend of Perseus," which will be featured on the web site beginning in January.

"Tommy and the Guttersnipe" originally ran in papers throughout New York State two years ago as part of a statewide reading/education initiative by the NY Newspaper Publishers Association. It made such a hit that a sequel, "Anna's Story," will be running this spring. We thought it would be worthwhile to run "Tommy" on line for the benefit of anyone who wanted to read it before the sequel appeared.

The historic fiction is set in New York in 1896 and tells of Tommy McMahon, whose father has disappeared while working out West, and of Tommy's struggles to help support his mother and baby sister without the money his father had been sending home. It is very consciously modeled on the work of Horatio Alger, but involved a fair amount of historical research, including a visit to the Tenement Museum in New York.

When we ran the story in the New York papers, we asked students to write the next chapter in the story, and I was overwhelmed by the passion they put into it. Although the story was set more than a century in the past, the sense of abandonment and helplessness that Tommy and his family experienced was very present for young readers and Christopher and I were asked to produce a holiday sequel to tie up the loose ends. Then, two years later, we were commissioned to produce an entirely new serial story to let kids spend more time with Tommy and Jake.

I hope you will give it a look, and please feel free to comment. As my blogosphere friend Jean notes, that's how we know you were here.

The gift of a future

I've mentioned Esther Garvi's blog, and the Eden Foundation which her family has established in Niger. Their goal is to assist not by providing pallets of wheat and rice to refugees in hastily-erected camps, but by helping Africans maintain self-sufficiency through the foods that are native to the area and will grow and thrive in the soil and climate of the region.

Meanwhile, Esther's blog is a delightful day-to-day record of the dogs and horses, the sunrises and sunsets, the changes in weather and the lives of those who live in the area around her home. My grandkids love to see the pictures and I probably share this blog with them more often than anything else on the web.

This particular posting, however, touched more deeply on both the mission of the Foundation and on her personal commitment, and that of her late mother. And the photos are adorable.

Esther's blog is a daily reminder that life isn't so bad after all, and that all it takes to make a difference in the world is the will to do so. On this day, she's made a difference in my world too.

Two Quarks for Muster Mike
(Adventures in the Software Trade)

The past week has been fairly quiet as I spent most of it saying bad words, according to granddaughter Samantha, despite her older sister Abigail's assurance that "piece of junk" is not a bad word. Grandpa admits that what he wasn't saying out loud, and what he was saying out loud during the day while the kids were in school, certainly qualified.

The process began about two weeks ago, when I realized that my departure from the newsroom had robbed me of some layout tools I still needed.

Most of my writing is just that: Writing. I can handle it all in Word, which is really a lousy program but so much the default that you need it because it's what your clients will be using. Even those who don't like, or want, Word will have it because other people use it.

And several years ago, I purchased Photoshop Elements, the stripped-down version of Photoshop that does nearly everything I need, and what it can't do are all things that a client would be tweaking at their end anyway.

But I've been working on a serial story that will be running in New York newspapers this coming spring, and, as I started work on the accompanying curriculum guide, I very quickly realized that Word's layout capacities end at the club newsletter level.

What to do?

There are two programs to be considered: QuarkXpress, which was the industry standard for several years, and InDesign, the up-and-comer that is taking over the top position. Now, I'm assured by friends who have used both that it is easy to learn InDesign if you know Quark and that the transition is painless. However, working alone means I don't need to deal with compatibility, and my layout needs are rudimentary enough that either program is far more than I need anyway. So I needed Quark.

Which brings us to the next point: Quark costs $799, which is a pretty big investment for a fledgling freelancer.

However, I didn't need the latest version, Quark 8. What I needed was the ability to lay out text and images, then create multipage, one-piece PDF files which would be the final product. Quark 6, which I used at my last two jobs, would be adequate, and there are (relatively) legitimate Quark 6 programs available on Ebay.

Easy enough. I found a copy of Quark 6 that had never been registered and got it at a very reasonable price. I spent the next week writing the guide, so that, when the disk showed up in the mail, while I hadn't finished the writing, I was ready to do the initial layout and then fill in the other pieces of the guide as I wrote them.

Except.

Except that Quark 6 is not compatible with Vista, the operating system on my new laptop. I was able to install it, but it constantly crashed, froze up, lost my files or saved them in a format it then couldn't open. (This accounted for most of the bad words as I kept reinstalling it in hopes that it would magically begin to work properly.)

No problem: I still have my desktop, which doesn't have the power of the laptop but runs the XP operating system, consistent with Quark 6. I unpacked it, set it up and installed Quark 6.

Quark is kind of a memory hog, but if I stripped everything but Photoshop Elements and a couple of browsers, there was enough to run Quark, as long as I was willing to switch it on and then go make coffee or something while it mounted and then go make another cup of coffee any time I asked it to do something complex.

Except.

Except it turns out that Quark 6 can't export PDFs unless you have a particular type of printer installed. A particularly expensive kind, common in newsrooms but not so common in home offices. Not that you even want to print the PDFs, but ... well, that's the way they set it up. And, while you can lie to Quark 7 and pretend you have such a printer, you can't lie to Quark 6.

In other words, it would allow me to lay out the guide, but then I couldn't turn it into something my clients could use.

What to do?

Well, now that I had Quark 6, I could register it and then buy an upgrade to Quark 8. Which I did, and which I was able to install on my laptop, where it runs smoothly and swiftly on Vista.

Somehow, I still managed to emerge some $300 ahead of having bought it straight out in the first place. Yesterday, I sailed through a large portion of the layout and am nearly to the point where I have to start writing again.

And next week, when Windows 7 is available for free to all of us who bought computers with Vista in the last six months or so, I will pass, thank you. We do not plan to fix that which is not broke.

Here's a 10-minute video extolling the virtues of QuarkXpress 8. I feel like I bought a Maserati to take to the grocery store. Those who understand this stuff will be able to see how wonderful Quark 8 is. Those who don't will really enjoy the pretty pictures.

For my part, I liked the pretty pictures and didn't understand more than about 20% of what she was saying. It was kind of like watching a film in a language you studied in high school -- every few minutes, a familiar phrase flies by and gives me the impression that I can understand it, but I really couldn't.

What I did know is that it will do what I need done and that, while I've just lost a week or two of productivity wrestling with it, I certainly won't feel like I should have bought something with more horsepower down the road sometime.

And I like owning a Maserati, even if I keep putting the key inside the wrong little hole. (See below)

Grand au Pere

Above are Charlie Ruggles and Debbie Reynolds in "The Pleasure of His Company," one of my favorite movies, in which they play grandfather and granddaughter. To appreciate my current situation, there should be two more granddaughters sliding down that bannister.

The last time I provided a career update, I had found work with a fellow who had obtained funding to begin an on-line project. Well, he hadn't entirely obtained it, and, when it came time to put the name on the old parchmentoroonie, the venture capitalists were hard to find. Something may yet come of it -- he got enough funding to go into business. But my part of it didn't happen, at least yet. And I'm old enough that I place promises in the drawer marked "nonessentials."

Meanwhile, I've sold a few serials to newspapers here and there (the marketer in me says "from the Rio Grande Valley to Newfoundland!"). It's not a lot of money, but it's money and we like money. And I have a project going on with the New York Newspaper Publishers Association, and the possibility of another and the potential for a third. And I've got a few other possibilities out there.

Somehow, as all of this was coming down, I ended up crashing at my son Jed's house, with his wife and three daughters (12, 8 and 5). They -- the parents -- recently moved down here to begin work as nurses at Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center, which is a very good place to work. And the kids are in good schools.

But there are some disconnects involved in the oddball schedules of nurses and the unmoveable schedules of school, soccer, horseback riding, piano lessons and suchlike.

Enter Grand au Pere.

I moved in here with a great deal of trepidation. The kids (that is, my kids) deserve to have autonomy at this stage in their lives. In fact, they deserve autonomy at any stage in their lives after they turn 18, because that's how we've set up this family. But certainly, they deserve to run their own lives after they have children and careers.

But somehow, it's working. As grandpere, I'm here to listen to eldest daughter, Elizabeth, and to tickle the younger two, Abbie and Sammie. As au pair, I walk them to the bus in the morning, meet them in the afternoon, help them with their homework and generally fill in when Mom and Dad are working or sleeping after a night shift, including doing some of the cooking and the dishes and just generally filling in the missing pieces.

It is a blast. The girls are learning that Grandpa isn't a pushover, but he does listen. And Jed and Courtney are well aware that free childcare is a bargain, and that free childcare that adapts to their insane, ever-shifting schedules is a real bargain. And getting to walk the girls to the bus, go to their soccer games and generally hang around being the cool guy is a bargain for me, too.

Not to mention the free rent. I chip in for groceries and it's my gas on all the pickups and dropoffs that are involved, but that's chickenfeed. I couldn't afford to rebuild a freelance career without this little cut in expenses.

Did I mention that it's a blast?

So the other night, Abigail said, "I like having you here, Grandpa. How long are you staying? I hope you stay a long time!"

And I said, "Well, I think I'll probably stay here at least through the cold weather."

And Jed said, "You have to stay here through the cold weather."

Apparently, Grand Au Pere has succeeded in making himself indispensable.

Good. Whatever is going on in the economy at large, I can't think of a better organization in which to be indispensable.

Among my souvenirs

(Click for a larger version)

David Gustafson, my former publisher, remarked on Facebook last night that he once forced me to go interview a possible murderer. I'll give him this: I didn't think I'd get anything but grief, driving up to the guy's place and asking him a bunch of questions. As it was, I got a very good story, as well as one helluva souvenir.

As I have often told students, it's important to ask the questions, even if they are rude or seem pointless, because you never know when someone is going to screw up and answer one.

In this case, a woman had been murdered at the flooring mill which she owned and where she also lived. A rival paper wrote that the police were looking at a former employee as a possible suspect. They identified him, and David suggested I drive up there and try to talk to him.

(I should note here that he said he didn't think I'd have any trouble, but then told me to call when I arrived and again as soon as I left. And to be careful. It's good to be publisher.)

The fellow was living over an out-of-business diner on a country road not far from the flooring mill. I parked and walked around the place, trying to sort out the various diner entrances from the upstairs apartment entrance. I found a likely door and knocked, and heard a window open upstairs. I expected "Get the hell out of here," but the young fellow came on down, we talked for a few minutes and he invited me in.

We sat at the kitchen table and talked for well over an hour, while his girlfriend tried to keep the pets and kids out of our hair. He laid out his life and his side of the story, protesting his innocence but not sugar-coating a past that included a couple of stretches for burglary, arson and domestic violence. He said he had cooperated with the police up to a point, but now felt he had to stop talking to them and get a lawyer. (Yes, it occurred to me that, if he intended to stop talking, right now would be a good time to start, but I didn't suggest it to him.)

Aside from his accusation that they were putting words in his mouth, he was also upset that the police had taken all his shoes and both of their vehicles. I said, "Did they have a search warrant?" and he said they did, and I said, "Did they give you a copy?" and he said they did, and I said, "Could I see it?" And he brought it out and I photographed it, which is much quicker than taking notes.

This is where the part about the subpoena begins. For the nearly three weeks since the murder, I had been trying to get the police to say whether it appeared to be a robbery or a sex crime. This wasn't a matter of prurient interest. It was a matter of letting the people in this very small town know whether they had Jack the Ripper running around or someone who had needed money. In terms of their personal safety and security, that's a very large difference.

But the police wouldn't budge. The lead investigator said that people should lock their doors no matter whether they lived in the big city or out in the country. One resident of New Portland laughed at that and said to me that, if he locked his door, he wouldn't be able to get back in because he hadn't seen his house keys in years and didn't know where they were. But people who hadn't kept track of their keys were digging out their guns and it was becoming a potentially uncool situation. I recognized the importance of not compromising the investigation, but it was, I felt, in the public interest to let people know the basic nature of the crime.

Looking at the search warrant provided some insight into the matter, and I wrote up the interview, including the observation that the items on the search warrant strongly suggested that Louise Brochu had been murdered as part of a robbery. The police declined to comment for the story, despite my assurance that I wasn't trying to reveal important information and would respect the integrity of the investigation as long as I could tell readers what was going on.

And to make my point, I said there were all sorts of rumors flying around, some ridiculous, some credible, including ... and here I mentioned a few things I had heard and wasn't going to publish, but that indicated both the level of speculation going on and the futility of keeping everything under wraps. I suggested, once more, that it would be better for them to reveal a small amount of non-critical information to reassure residents and to keep the rumor mill within bounds. No dice.

A month after the story ran, I was visited by a detective. We spoke for a time, I declined to reveal anything not in the story and, in response to a request, told him I didn't know where my notes were and that there was a good chance I had already thrown them out. And that, in any case and with all due respect, it is a point of First Amendment ethics that reporters do not testify about unpublished information they have gathered in the course of researching a story.

And so he presented me with the above subpoena. And reminded me that the state of Maine does not recognize the aforementioned ethical point. With all due respect.

This sort of story only has teeth if you end up going to jail to protect your integrity, but, alas for the storyteller in me, it didn't come to that. There were some more discussions between me and the lead investigator, in the course of which I realized what they were hoping Jeffrey LaGasse had said to me. It was one of those rumors I had listed in my conversation about things I had heard but wasn't going to publish, a specific detail that I knew they would not like to see in print having to do with the disposition of the body. I hadn't gotten it from LaGasse, however, but from someone in town.

Now, a purist would have refused to offer any information, but I'm not a purist, I'm a pragmatist. I did not tell the investigator where I had heard it, but I did tell him I didn't get it from LaGasse. Which probably robbed me of my chance to be a First Amendment martyr, but since martyrdom wasn't the point of the exercise, I'm not too bent out of shape over it.

I did not intend to testify except to confirm the accuracy of what I had written, and I was not sure how far my employer was willing to back me up, since David had left and our ownership had changed since the subpoena was issued.

But I knew I could find someone to feed the dogs, and that pretty much covered my bases.

Then, the day before the grand jury was to convene, I called to confirm that I was still on the agenda and was told my presence was no longer required. It was an interesting combination of relief and disappointment.

A few weeks later, Louise Brochu's family held a news conference to announce a reward for information about the murder. In the course of things, the lead investigator and I were standing at one side and he said he knew I was just doing my job. Then he asked, "So, what did you think of him?"

I replied that I've known a number of cons in my life. Some of them are very scary people, others you would invite to your kid's birthday party. Jeffrey LaGasse was a friendly, personable young man. That had nothing to do with his guilt or innocence.

And some months after, I ran into a trooper at something else entirely, and took him aside. "By the way," I said, "are you aware that our friend Jeffrey LaGasse has moved out of that apartment and is living in Kingfield?"

He chuckled and said, "Oh, we're keeping a close eye on Mr. LaGasse."

And apparently they were.

Without my testimony, you will note. But I got to keep the subpoena.

* * *
(For the curious, here's the story. You'll certainly have to click on it to read it.)

What did you expect? "Welcome, sonny"? "Make yourself at home"? "Marry my daughter"? You've got to remember that these are just simple farmers. These are people of the land. The common clay of the new West. You know... morons.

-- The Waco Kid

A few minutes with Jef Mallett

"You can't have the blank page -- that's just not an option."

I was in Lansing, Michigan, this past week, visiting my two youngest grandchildren, and took the opportunity to finally meet Frazz creator Jef Mallett face-to-face. Jef and I have known each other since I interviewed him by phone for a series of cartoonist interviews I did about six years ago, but we had never been in the same room.

And now we were. This was quite impromptu -- I had the camera with me and wanted to have a look around anyway, so it made sense to ask questions and get the answers recorded. I also knew that Jef was under some serious deadline pressure (as he alludes to), so this was basically a very quick hello with the chance of a more leisurely visit the next time I was in town, assuming he doesn't get himself into another book contract and that I avoid showing up during triathlon season.

For those unfamiliar with Jef's work, I attach a trio of favorite Frazz strips below. (Click to enlarge)

This first example is included because I went unshaven throughout the trip, mostly to see what my beard looks like these days, having shaved my last one off in 1978. I learned that, while my ears, nose and back have all learned to grow hair much better in the intervening years, I still have some shortcomings in that department along my jawline. I could grow a goatee, of course, but ... no. Shaved it off at a Travelodge in Batavia, NY.

And, of course, the start of football season brings this one to mind:
Several years ago, Jef gave me the original of this third one, which remains my favorite Frazz ever, mostly because of the way he structures a three-shot gag and makes serious demands of his readership.

There's nothing wrong with making demands of your audience, as long as you're making demands of yourself as well.


Incidentally, Jef's book, Trizophrenia: Inside the Minds of a Triathlete, is already listed on Amazon and will be released in time for Christmas giving. I say that with a sense of awe since he was finishing up the illustrations as I interrupted him Wednesday. If you hit the link on the title, you'll see that he had apparently already done the illustration for the cover, but the rest had to be completed that day. And then there was a Sunday Frazz that had to be done Thursday.

Apparently, running, swimming and biking aren't the only of his activities in which speed is a factor.

Moving Day

Getting ready to vacate the apartment this weekend.

I think I've got most of the important stuff boxed up ...

Sadder but wiser

Forty years ago, at the age of 19, I became sadder but wiser. My first serious romance, an astonishingly beautiful woman, revealed that she had taken up with my best friend, my roommate. It was a soul-crushing moment.

But that's not what I'm writing about today. My first love exploded in a drunken rant of recriminations and words that flew out my mouth faster than my brain could call them back and so it ended. Three people behaved very, very badly and nobody came out unstained. A story you have all heard a hundred times.

So, not wanting to encounter my best friend or my ex-girlfriend, I spent a few days on a couch at the house of some friends, then found an apartment within walking distance of campus. It was a hole, but I was feeling very low and that was what I felt I deserved. I cleaned it up as best I could, and also packed up my stuff at the apartment, working quickly to avoid running into the new young couple of our social group.

It was a very low moment in my young life.

But one Sunday morning, I was down on campus. The school year had not yet begun, but the football players were back, doing two-a-days, as were the student government members, setting up their system for the coming year. The freshmen would not arrive on campus for another week.

As I walked across campus, I saw a rather spectacularly attractive young woman, at a moment in my life when such things mattered more than normally. Not only did I see her, but she saw me and said, "Excuse me, but is there some place around here where I can get some breakfast?"

"Well, the pay caff is right down there," I began, but she interrupted me.

"Yes, I went in there, but it didn't look very good," she said. "I was wondering if there was some place nearby where I could get some eggs and pancakes."

"There's a Pancake House," I said, and began to explain how to find it, but then said, "Tell you what, I haven't had breakfast, either. You want to grab some food?"

So we went out to the parking lot, got into her VW bug and went to the Pancake House. Along the way, she explained that she was in town to visit her little sister, who was one of the student government types. And she told me who it was.

And I said oh, yes, I knew her sister. But I didn't say more because her sister was a kind of a pain in the ass type. She was wonderfully bright, a little overweight, possessed of acceptable but not extravagant good looks, and would have been a nice person to know except that she wasn't a nice person.

She was a bitch.

Her circle of friends were the Social Lionesses, but I could never figure out how she was one of them. She wasn't cute enough, she wasn't socially poised enough, she just wasn't really one of them. And yet she was. She only went out with football players or similar types, and she sneered at those who didn't fit the mold. And I could never figure out what gave her the power to sneer at much of anybody.

I wasn't a popular guy, but I wasn't a schlump either. I never dated a cheerleader seriously, but a couple of them were real friends and I went out with almost all of them on the level of "let's grab a pizza." The one I never went out with was also a Social Lioness, and would have refused to go out with me, had I asked her. Which I didn't. And I also never asked this Little Sister out for the same reason.

So anyway, this Big Sister and I went down to the Pancake House and had some pancakes and sausages and eggs, and she told me about her job as a stewardess for Eastern Airlines and how that worked. This was before stewardesses became flight attendants and protective of their dignity, but she had no problems about her dignity. She was a wonderfully smart, articulate, beautiful woman who was having the time of her life flying all around the country serving drinks and seeing the country.

Since she didn't take life seriously, she didn't seem to care if anyone else did, either.

And we ate and talked and laughed and, as we finished up and paid our tab, I suddenly realized something about this gorgeous woman: She had a car.

So I asked if she'd mind swinging by my apartment. Which was fine with her. We went to the apartment and she helped me lug a large trunk of stuff down to her car and then we hauled down some boxes and she ran me over to my new place and helped me haul it all back in there, and then it was time for her to get back to campus and meet her little sister.

We drove back to campus, found a parking space and starting walking. And as we're walking and talking and laughing and enjoying the sunshine, down the sidewalk comes Little Sister.

And my grasp of the world changed.

Because, when Little Sister saw us together, she actually, physically recoiled, and I saw in her face a look of consternation and horror. And I suddenly understood why she was such a despicable little bitch.

Here I was, a long-haired, geeky guitar-slinging hipster, walking up the quad with her older sister, a beautiful scholar who flew for Eastern Airlines and had everything a woman could possibly want in life.

I realized her big sister had almost certainly been Prom Queen, and was probably National Honor Society as well. She was the Sibling It Was Completely Impossible To Live Up To.

Now Little Sister was at a prestigious college and was a Student Leader. She was on campus early to set up programs, she was a friend of the Social Lionesses, she only went out with football players and other appropriate young men ...

... and here was her goddamn perfect, unattainable Big Sister walking up the quad of HER COLLEGE laughing and joking with a goddam longhaired guitarslinging hippie asshole.

She didn't get it.

She just didn't get it.

She had punched all the right buttons, but the bottom line was that her Unattainable Big Sister was comfortable enough that she didn't give a damn who she was seen with, who she had breakfast with, who she walked laughing up the quad with ... and that there was no way she could ever, ever compete with her Unattainable Big Sister, and that it had nothing to do with anything she could quantify.

I guess I should have laughed in her face, but I didn't.

I stopped thinking of what a bitch she was and started thinking about how much of her life she had wasted chasing something she didn't even understand.

The advantage her sister had was not looks, or brains, or even poise, but self-confidence.

Big Sister could do whatever she wanted to do, hang out with whoever she wanted to hang out with, go wherever she wanted to go, and never fret over what it said about her.

How can you compete with someone who is completely comfortable in her own skin?

"Sadder but wiser"? Oh, yes. I was sadder but wiser.

Because now I had to view this contemptible little bitch with sympathy, and compassion, and I had to understand her insecurities and her weaknesses.

Damn. Who knew that breakfast with a stewardess could turn into something so complex???

Ten (plus 30) Years After
A warm thank you for Ten Years After!

A few posts ago, I alluded to an article I had written on Woodstock 10 years after the fact, but couldn't find. Well, it just turned up and, as you will see, it wasn't just about Woodstock but about the year 1969 in general. So I should save it for December, which is when it ran in Boulder Monthly Magazine, but my suspicion is that I'd just lose it again. So here it is, with my 1979 analysis untouched and only one or two minor misprints corrected. And, as you see by the illustration, we had already begun to be snarky about the era well before the current 20-pluses came along and invented the idea.

We're all supposed to cast an eye backward at this time of year and think about the year that is just passing. Done it? Not much to get nostalgic about, was there? Now let's look at a decade-ending year that had some substance to it, 1969, that marvelous year in which the above words were spoken in a pasture outside of Bethel, New York. How much more do you remember about 1969?

1. The owner of the farm at which the Woodstock Festival took place was

a. Hugh Romney
b. George Romney
c. Max Yasgur
d. Peter Max.

2. 1969 saw the death of a charismatic Communist leader. Who was it?

a. Ernesto 'Che' Guevara
b. Leon Trotsky
c. Ho Chi Minh
d. Patrice Lumumba.

3. Norman Mailer won a Pulitzer Prize for his 1969 book, Armies of the Night. In what city is the book set?

a. Washington
b. Saigon
c. Chicago
d. Miami.

4. Abbie Hoffman did not receive a Pulitzer Prize for his 1969 literary effort, perhaps because he wrote under the pseudonym "Free." Name the book.

a. Butterflies Are Free
b. We Are Everywhere
c. Revolution for the Hell of it.
d. The Whole World is Watching.

5. The Iseley Brothers released a record in 1969 that won them a Grammy. Complete this line: "It's your thing,do what you want to do, I can't tell you ... "

a. "When to sing the blues."
b. "How to tie your shoe."
c. "Who to sock it to."
d. "What you got to do."

6. Terry Southern's immortal masterpiece, Candy, became one of 1969's silliest and dirtiest movies. Who played the gardener who ended up on the pool table?

a. Ringo Starr
b. Paul Williams
c. Buck Henry
d. Art Gardener.

7. Heavy thinkers claim that the last line in 1969's classic road movie, Easy Rider, was "We blew it." Nonsense. The final line was

a. "Give me another hit, Billy."
b. "We better go back."
c. "Goodnight, man."
d. "Welcome to nowhere, Cap."

8. In 1969, Duke Wayne beat out Joe Buck and Butch Cassidy to win an Oscar for his role in True Grit. Who won the Oscar for Best Actress in 1969?

a. Vanessa Redgrave for 'Loves of Isadora'
b. Ali McGraw for 'Goodbye Columbus'
c. Maggie Smith for 'The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie'
d. Lena Nyman for 'I Am Curious (Yellow)'.

9. Sharon Tate was murdered in 1969, together with five other persons, in the famous "Helter Skelter" murders. Which of the following names never came up in subsequent investigations?

a. Doris Day
b. The Beach Boys
c. Robert Heinlein
d. Gertrude Ederle.

10. In 1969, President Nixon ordered the implementation of Operation Intercept. What was its target?

a. Draft dodgers
b. Grass smugglers
c. Dirty record lyrics
d. The Chicago Seven.

11. Which album was not released in 1969?

a. Abbey Road
b. Nashville Skyline
c. Strange Days
d. Crosby, Stills and Nash.

12. Neil Armstrong walked on the moon in 1969; Buzz Aldrin was the second man out of the lunar module. Who was piloting the command module during that famous small step?

a. Michael Collins
b. Deke Slayton
c. Chris Craft
d. Phil Ochs.

13. Which Apollo flight was that famous touchdown part of?

a. X
b. XI
c. XII
d. XIII.

14. On February 7, 1969, a tradition fell at Miami's Hialeah Park. What was the innovation?

a. First woman jockey
b. First entry by Communist China
c. First win by an unregistered quarterhorse
d. First time for legal off-track betting in the continental United States.

15. Four new major league baseball franchises got their start in 1969. Which of the following does not belong in that group?

a. Seattle
b. Kansas City
c. Toronto
d. Montreal.

16. A famous twenty-one year old spoke in the British Parliament on April 22, 1969. Who was it?

a. Bernadette Devlin
b. Prince Charles
c. John Lennon
d. David Eisenhower.

17. In a speech on Vietnam, President Nixon called for support from the "Silent Majority." What did he ask them to do to show their support for the war?

a. Write to Ho Chi Minh
b. Honk their car horns when passing the flag
c. Turn on their porch lights at night
d. Get a haircut.

18. Spiro Agnew also made a famous speech that year, in Des Moines, attacking the press. What did he call them?

a. An elite corps of impudent snobs
b. An effete corps of impudent snobs
c. An elite corps of imprudent snobs
d. A complete source of ebullient slobs.

19. Who of the following was not a member of the Chicago Seven?

a. Abbie Hoffman
b. Rennie Davis
c. Tom Hayden
d. Bobby Seale.

20. The Christmas card of the year was a full page ad in the New York Times that stated, simply, "War Is Over, If You Want It." Who sent that holiday greeting?

a. The Chicago Seven
b. John Lennon and Yoko Ono
c. Vanessa Redgrave
d. Phillip Berrigan.

ANSWERS (no peeking)

1. c. Max Yasgur, who claimed that he didn't know how to speak to a half a dozen people, let alone a crowd like this. Hugh Romney, a.k.a. Wavy Gravy, was there with the Hog Farm. George Romney and Peter Max weren't.

2. c. Che had been dead for a couple of years, although the movie of his life that came out in 1969, with Jack Palance as Fidel Castro and Omar Sharif as Dr. Guevara, would probably have killed him if the CIA and Bolivian Army hadn't gotten to him first. It was Ho Chi Minh who died on September 3 at the age of 79.

3. a. Mailer's book on the march on the Pentagon in 1967 was a good look at what had happened for anyone who couldn't be there. For those who had been there, it was less impressive.

4. c. Another reason Hoffman didn't win a prize was that, unlike Mailer, he didn't claim to know what was going on or to speak for an entire generation.

5. c. Not to be confused with the other deep, meaningful lyric, "Sock it to me, baby, sock it to the Judge."

6. a. Ringo found love on the pool table. Swedish star Ewa Aulin also attracted the lascivious attentions of Richard Burton, Marion Brando, James Coburn, and the bulk of the male audience. At the time, the movie was deliberate bad taste and was condemned for using sex to make money, which may have given some television executives big ideas.

7. b. The redneck says it after they shoot Billy. There may be arguments that Captain America does some incoherent blubbering over Billy's body, but that hardly counts. "We blew it" may have been the last line before Columbia made Fonda and Hopper reshoot the ending, but such is the price of glory when you play with the big boys.

8. c. Ali McGraw made her screen debut to yawns and suppressed giggles in Goodbye Columbus. Vanessa Redgrave gave a sterling performance for much of The Loves of Isadora, and might have won the Oscar, but most critics agreed that she choked at the end.

9. d. Miss Ederle swam the English Channel long before 1969. Doris Day's son, Terry Melcher, was an acquaintance of Charles Manson, and had lived in the house where the murders took place. Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys was also a Manson acquaintance and had put him up for a time at his house. Robert Heinlein wrote the pretentious and naive but essentially innocuous Stranger in a Strange Land, which Manson used as a guide for setting up his "family."

10. b. Operation Intercept cut off the supply of street grass, putting the casual collegiate smuggler out of business and turning the job over to the Mafia, who were better equipped to deal with such things. It made for an upsurge in heroin, "bad" acid, cocaine, and other harder drugs, as well as swelling the coffers of organized crime.

11. c. Strange Days was an established classic by 1969. All four albums are still good listening, though not suitable for disco dancing. Pity.

12. a. Michael Collins will never forget the experience of standing on the deck of the carrier while Armstrong and Aldrin haggled over who should tip the driver.

13. b. Apollo XIII, incidentally, was the one which blew off a panel in deep space and had to return, which may interest any treskadecaphobes who didn't pass over this question automatically. It is also interesting to note that President Nixon had the landing of Apollo XI's lunar module shifted to a weekend and the first step delayed until the end of prime time. Abbie Hoffman wasn't the only person in 1969 who knew how to use the media.

14. a. Diane Crump was the first woman jockey, and she brought home her first winner in her seventh race.

15. c. Tricky question. Seattle was awarded a franchise that folded almost immediately to become the Toronto Blue Jays, but not in 1969. Kansas City had long been the site of major league baseball, but the A's moved to Oakland and the Royals were a new franchise in 1969. Montreal is the home of the Expos, a team made up of ex-Denver Bears. Denver, you may note, still does not have a franchise. (Editor's note: All true in 1979)

16. a. Bernadette Devlin made her maiden speech after being the youngest person ever elected to Parliament. She attended sessions in blue jeans, entertained Jerry Rubin and friends in the private members-and-guests cocktail lounge and ended up serving a term in prison for inciting a riot, after which she went back to Northern Ireland and gave birth to an illegitimate baby. Not your typical British MP.

17. c. A lot of pacificists ended up falling down the stairs at night. In a countermove, a Yippie leader urged motorists to drive with their headlights on at night if they supported the legalization of marijuana.

18. b. A lot of people thought "effete" had something to do with being a sissy, but it actually means unable to bear offspring, which came as a great relief to many of the free spirits to whom it was applied.

19. d. Bobby Seale was a member of the Chicago Eight, but insisted on having his own lawyer, Charles Carry. Denied this right, he proceeded to become abusive and was bound and gagged. When he continued to mumble what might have been obscenities through his gag, he was found in contempt and sentenced to four years by Judge Julius Hoffman and ordered to stand trial separately. The remaining defendants, then, became the Chicago Seven. Name them without counting on your fingers.

20. b. John and Yoko ended the year with a touch of taste. After 1969, the war was basically over and it only remained to stop the killing, which no longer had any support from the people of the United States, most of whom had given up on ever hearing the "Secret Plan" that President Nixon had promised to reveal after his inauguration in January of 1969.

HOW TO SCORE: Where were you then? Where are you now? Give yourself the score you think you deserve.

Groucho and I reminisce

On the 40th anniversary of my first glorious and tragic romance, Groucho sings of a lady who was equally memorable and, alas for me, easier to read ...

Getting Woodstock right

I promised to post something about Woodstock that was more authentic than the blah-blah-blah we've all heard for 40 years. But being in the throes of unemployment, temporary housing and suchlike, the thing I wanted to post is buried deep in boxes in storage.

But not to fear: A friend from that era, Tom Henehan, was interviewed for a story that, in my mind, got it right.

That's Tommy in the red circle, at a gathering of campus folkies a couple of years ago. I'm second from the left in the upper row. We got the guitars out and made some wonderful music. But he's the one who got Woodstock right. Click and enjoy.

(Thank god for Facebook!)

A giggle of cartoonists

(Click on images for larger versions)

Yesterday, Dartmouth College gathered, in Jules Feiffer's terminology, not a "gaggle" but a "giggle" of cartoonists for a presentation on political cartooning. Feiffer has been an artist-in-residence at the college this summer; sitting on yesterday's panel above were, from left, Jeff Danziger, Feiffer, Edward Koren and Edward Sorel, with moderator Richard Stamelman.

I didn't count heads, but the mid-sized auditorium was filled and people were standing in the back. Most of those uncounted heads were covered with white hair, which may have been because the college is out of session but I suspect was in large part because of the heavy New Yorker and Village Voice influence on the panel.

A 90-minute presentation with that much talent present was necessarily pretty packed, but they had a good format: Each cartoonist had 10 minutes for a slideshow plus commentary, and then they just took questions and talked.

Danziger led off, and had several observations both about cartooning specifically and as a trade. For instance, for this chilling cartoon showing the murders of a human rights worker and a journalist in Russia, he noted that, with no witnesses, he had the freedom to imagine and portray the scene in a manner that made his statement. "Nobody knows what happened, so you, as a cartoonist, can make it up as you please."
But he also groused, albeit in a humorous way, about the problems of getting creative images past culturally illiterate editors. "The issue with using 'The Road Less Traveled' is that you have a problem with the number of editors who haven't read any poetry."

Age came up more than once in the discussion, as you will see, but Danziger got a large laugh when he pointed out the limitations of creating cartoons that have meaning for 29-year-old editors. I guess that, in the Q&A, I should have asked him about the related issue of reaching 29-year-old readers, but the over-50 audience broke up when he showed this Eliot Spitzer cartoon, and a second time when he confessed that he had to explain to an editor in Boston that an "Escort" was a type of automobile. (And, let us note, a type of automobile that was produced by Ford until six years ago. Not exactly a Hupmobile.)

Speaking of getting laughs, I was surprised at how many outright laughs Edward Koren's cartoons got. I don't think of New Yorker cartoons as provoking laughter so much as thoughtful amusement, but he had the audience broken up with a good two-thirds of his panels, with the other third getting the knowing chuckles I would have expected overall.

Koren himself was very warm, with a twinkle in his eye but a barb on his tongue. This came up in a cartoon I didn't find on-line, though it is here in his Cartoonbank listings. It is set in a kitchen, in which an older couple say to a middle-aged fellow, "Your mother and I think it's time you got a place of your own. We'd like a little time alone before we die."

It also came up in the Q&A, when someone asked what particular element they all shared, to which he quickly answered, "A hatred for humanity."

That shared trait came up again after the panel, when I was talking to Danziger about editors who think editorial cartoons should be "funny." He spoke of a prominent cartoonist (unnamed, since he didn't know I was blogging this) who has a very sunny disposition, and he told of confronting him: "Isn't there anybody you hate?", answering himself back in a John-Denver voice, "Nope! I like everybody!" and then dismissing the fellow and his admittedly humorous work with a snort.

The entire panel also expressed jealousy of Danziger for having been named by Bernard Goldberg as one of the "100 People Who Are Screwing Up America," and Feiffer added, "Paul Conrad at the LA Times made Nixon's enemies list. We had been friends up to that time." Feiffer also observed that he had really gone after LBJ during the war, and there was a period "when I had just pounded him and pounded him. One of my cartoons about him was particularly vicious, and then I got a call from the Johnson Library asking if they could have the original. Boy, they really know how to get to you!"



Later, the humor disappeared briefly as Edward Sorel cited one of Feiffer's Vietnam era cartoons as a favorite. It wasn't available at the time -- Feiffer did describe it in detail -- but I found it and that's it above. (Note, incidentally, the artistic motif of stripes, which Feiffer cited in his description.)

Feiffer, as you might expect from a fellow who is also a playwright, was the most like a stand-up comic, in terms of cracking actual jokes rather than wry observations. Unfortunately, he explained, he was so busy with his teaching duties that he forgot that the panel was supposed to be on political cartoons and simply brought a selection of his work.

For my part, I'm not sure where the dividing line between politics and social observation is drawn; many of Feiffer's works seem perfectly editorial, if not specifically "political." Feiffer was George Carlin long before George Carlin was George Carlin.


Sorel, meanwhile, presented in large part as the accomplished ink-and-watercolors artist he is, though he does not shy away from political commentary. But he cited this illustration of an imagined meeting between Edgar Degas and Mary Cassatt as his favorite work of all times. "I will never do a drawing that good again," he said soberly.

For most of his 10 minutes, though, he showed his Time and New Yorker covers, in which his talents as a caricaturist as well as a commentator were on display. Later, in the Q&A, he decried the lack of artistic development he sees in younger cartoonists. He suggested that penicillin was likely to blame: "Nowadays, penicillin can cure pneumonia in a few days. When I got pneumonia, I was sick for a year, and by the end of that year, I was an artist!"

The panel as a whole, however, was gentler on the topic, citing the artistry on display in graphic novels as a high point in current cartooning, and mentioning with approval the nearby Center for Cartoon Studies. ("It's far more impressive than any other cartooning school I've ever visited," Koren deadpanned.)


And Sorel himself softened a bit on the topic of the future of cartooning. "It's a mistake to ask four elderly gentlemen what new thing is coming along," he said. "How the hell would we know? There will be other things that come along and nobody will know what they are until after we're dead."

He gave the example of theater, which "died" years ago, and then along came Beckett and other playwrights to re-invent the form. Cartoonists yet unseen "will re-invent cartooning in their own way and will be able to find ways to make it pay."

Among the anniversaries

I hadn't intended to post anything about Woodstock because (A) I didn't go and (B) it quickly grew into something it wasn't. But my friend Mike Powers (musician, magician and mathematician) sent this link and I believe this NYTimes photographer is someone who did go and who isn't misrepresenting what he saw there, which makes his ruminations valuable.

I'll have something else about the era shortly. Meanwhile, in his e-mail, Mike used the subject line "A 3 minute trip down memory lane" and I think that's a pretty good summary. It's worth the click.

Whatever happened to the world of yesterday?

I've kind of kept quiet about this, but we're two weeks away from the 175th anniversary of the sailing of the brig Pilgrim for the coast of California, then a part of Mexico. Aboard this tiny trading vessel was a Harvard student, Richard Henry Dana, traveling as a common sailor.

His journal, Two Years Before The Mast, was a landmark not only in journalism but in human rights. To this day, most stories of the sea are told from the point of view of the officers, who tend to depict poor Jack as a brute, a comic figure or simply an interchangeable part in the greater drama. Dana's best-seller did for sailors what Jacob Riis's "How the Other Half Lives" did for poor slum-dwellers, but, unlike Riis, Dana was a participant and not simply an observer.

Not only did it inspire reform in the merchant fleet, but it inspired Herman Melville, who wrote, "if you want the best idea of Cape Horn, get my friend Dana's unmatchable Two Years Before the Mast. But you can read, and so you must have read it. His chapters describing Cape Horn must have been written with an icicle."

My own knowledge of the book came when I had a rare visit alone with my grandfather, a very wise man whom I generally shared with others. On this occasion, I was visiting his Pennsylvania home from Colorado and we went out to dinner and then talked for several hours about a variety of things. Before he went to bed, he went into his library and took down his copy of Two Years Before the Mast, handing it to me and saying that it was one of the most wise and formative books he had ever read.

I cannot imagine that I devoured the entire book that night, but I didn't take it with me and yet I read it, so perhaps I really did take it all in in a single setting. I think, however, that I had a second day before I had to catch a plane to a wedding in New York.

Whatever the case, I devoured it in the sense that I digested it and it became part of my body in a way few books have. While the events and sights he describes are rooted in the early 19th century, his observations are utterly timeless and I have quoted him and thought of him as often as any other author, philosopher or personal acquaintance I have ever known.

So, the blog: I intend, over the next two years, to post his writings in real time, but delayed 175 years, so that readers can enjoy his voyage in a blog format. I have added some backgrounders to the rail so that people can find the vocabulary and diagrams they need to fill in the gaps in their knowledge of seamanship, and I intend to add a map or two before the launch, but I hope folks won't fret over the difference between a jib boom and a marline spike, because the point is that Dana was a wonderful writer who would truly have made a great blogger -- engaging, insightful, inspirational and with a wit that remains sharp nearly 200 years later.

Please bookmark it and join me!

PS -- Shortly after posting, I discovered a problem with the URL and had to change it. If you have already visited, check the current links. The correct URL is http://www.weeklystorybook.com/dana/

I hate using this cartoon again

As the dust settles, a little bit of good news. Apparently, the Cambridge Police are going to look into their handling of calls in general, not just the one that overshadowed health reform the other night. Well, good.

But, goddammit, here we are again. I first used Cory Thomas's brilliant cartoon back in November, 2006, when Houston Texan Fred Weary was followed, followed, followed by police and then stopped and, well, basically harassed into a reaction. Charges were dropped, apologies all around ... and then in March, 2009, Dallas police stopped another Houston Texan, Ryan Moats. His crime? He was rushing his wife to the hospital so she could be at the bedside of her dying mother.



What we have here is a cop demanding that a black kid produce his proof of insurance. The young man is trying to get to the bedside of his dying mother-in-law, and the cop is showing off his power.

Here's what you have to understand: The cops says, "I can screw you over. I'd rather not do that"

And that's all you have to understand. Because I've been the longhaired kid in this exchange. And I understand the position of the young black man in this exchange.

This is not new. And it is not right. And it is not fair.

Let us flash back 41 years, to May 1, 1968. There was a peace demonstration in Chicago, and I was there, not because of my opposition to the war, but because Cream and The Mothers of Invention were playing at the Coliseum that night. But I was also against the war, so whatthehell. A bunch of peaceful people with signs began walking downtown, chanting and singing.

And then, in a preview of the Democratic Convention three months later, the police rioted and beat the living crap out of everybody. I knew a guy who ended up with a broken collar bone, but the people who were with us remained safe and we went off to the concert.

And, as we walked away from the scene of the crime, young blacks in cars drove by, giving us power salutes and yelling "Now you know! Now you know!"

And yet we didn't, because all we had to do was cut our hair and put on some nicer clothes and we could slip right back into the mainstream and never have to deal with this again.

That, my friends, is the critical difference.

I can stop being a hippie. Can you stop being black?

I'm willing to concede that Professor Gates was an obnoxious, self-important, born-again black sonofabitch.

In fact, I'd make book on it. He's a college professor, after all. It comes with the job title.

But let me ask you this: So what? So the hell what?

Let me tell you something about being a cop: If there were a bank robbery and the machine guns and shotguns were going off, I'd wade right into the middle of that.

But that's not really what cops are paid to do. I watch "Cops" and I promise you, I would never have the patience to deal with all those semi-delusional drunken idiots that local cops deal with time after time, hour after hour.

That's why we give them great health benefits and good retirements -- not for the shoot'em-up moments, but for the unbearable tedium of dealing with idiots. And god bless'em for undertaking that thankless task.

The case of Professor Gates and the Cambridge Police is one of those cases where your task is to sort out this jackass from that jackass. It's not a robbery-in-progress call. It's an idiot call. And so here's what I find most offensive about the whole thing:

I don't want to hear the opinions of a bunch of middleclass white jackasses who have never been there, never seen that, never dealt with that.

I've been a tourist in that world. But I've never had to live there. And I've read about black men throughout the country, talking about how they were carefully taught how to behave in a situation where a cop with the power of life and death had decided to screw with you.

White boys cannot possibly understand that world.

Bloviate to your heart's content. But understand that you don't know what you are talking about. And you don't have the grace to shut the hell up.

Please. You are embarrassing me.

Shut the hell up.

Can't believe they still do this

There are certain things you just assume don't happen anymore, and having large chains of pet stores continue to support puppy mills is certainly one of them.

I've long had a policy of refusing to buy anything from a store that sells puppies. I continue to be uncomfortable with stores that have exotic tropical fish, because I know there are serious problems with that market, though I think there are laws that control birds and some other small animals. (And I suspect that the economic incentives of cheating do not often outweigh the costs of getting caught.)

But puppies are my area of concern, and, in their case, it is a no-brainer. Anyone who investigates for 30 seconds knows that purebred puppies in pet stores come from puppy mills, regardless of what they tell you. If they can't give you the name of a local breeder, they are lying. (Often to their own employees, by the way.) I've never seen the pet store that takes puppies on consignment and sends them home each night if they didn't sell that day.

What I have seen is this: People who can't resist that cute little puppy and end up with massive vet bills because, whether as a result of genetic issues or because of a lack of prenatal and early care and nutrition, it has enormous, life-long health problems, ranging from incurable skin diseases to tumors requiring removal of eyes to psychotic behavior requiring euthanasia.

That's only within my own small circle of friends, and most of my friends wouldn't fall for that "doggy in the window" -- they realize that rescuing that puppy simply provides a profit to the store and puts another pathetic little wretch in the same position a week later.

I've also seen examples of major chains that figure it all out. Whatever you think of Sam Walton, Petsmart has become an advocate for dogs. When I was in Glens Falls, I shopped at Petsmart where not only did the humane society have an adoption area to help place their pound animals, but there were constant fundraisers for the society, including holiday photo sessions that produced some truly ridiculous pics.

It made me more loyal to Petsmart and more grateful to them, which is an odd way to feel about a Wal-Mart spin-off. Whether they do it out of social consciousness or good marketing is not my concern. I don't buy motivations, I buy results.

Apparently Petland doesn't get it. And as much as I think a lot of animal rights groups go over the top, the American Humane Society's campaign to shut down puppy mills is not such a case. In fact, while I'm willing to understand that small, independent pet stores can be as unscrupulous and sleazy as any other individual or business, it's hard to fathom why a chain like Petland hasn't gotten the message.

Well, except that apparently they are "a chain like Petland." They offer partnerships with adoption programs, but they continue to sell puppies. And pet store puppies come from puppy mills. You cannot offset cruelty with kindness. The way to end cruelty is to end cruelty.

The HSUS has a petition at Facebook, which I have pointed out to some but not all of my "friends" (my loathing for puppy mills competing with my loathing for spam). But there are other ways to help them try to hammer home the message, if not to the deaf execs at Petland, perhaps to their customers.

And it's good practice for going after the small, independent shops that also need to get this message, one sleazebag at a time.

Rant mode off.
(But, of course, it isn't.)