Drudgery

My palms are sweaty, and I'm drinking instant coffee, so things are shitty. I hate instant coffee and I hate when my palms are sweaty. I have real coffee, but I broke my french press back at the old apartment when the toilet exploded, and I needed to catch water with something, and I cracked it when I was bringing it up to pour water into the sink. Then I moved again, so there was no time to replace the cracked french press. And this morning I noticed my palms were sweaty, while I was drinking instant coffee. And not to complain more, but I will -- all the email I sent out last week about work or cartoons must have ended up in spam folders everywhere I sent them, because nobody has written back. What drudgery.

News - All Time Favorites at CM Evans Cartoons

I've decided to run some of the "All Time Favorites" over at my cartoon website CM Evans Cartoons. With over 1,000 original work posted there, over a span of more than 6 years, some of the funniest, most popular gags can get lost. You can go to the website blog H.P. Lovecraft is My Paperboy for commentary. If you've been with me the entire ride of CM Evans Cartoons, thank you so much for your attention. If you're new, welcome to the show. For everybody else who has stopped by over the years, I'll be gearing up for many many more. There is no end to the work!*


* Plus I have about 5,000 drawn cartoons laying around, and I need to do something with them, other than construct huge paper mache bunnies.

Chung Tzu and I Discuss Fish and People Wrangling

"I'd like to be a Fish Wrangler when I grow up." I say to Chung Tzu

"Ah. I don't think the fish will want you to grow up that way." Chung Tzu says back. "Unless there are some fish out there that want to become People Wranglers."

Chung Tzu Asks Me What I Have Against Knives

"Hello, brother!" says Chung Tzu, as he comes into the kitchen with a swirl of snow. "Now what is this, that I hear you're against knives?"

"Hello!" I say.

"Don't you know knives are good for things, like "cutting through", or even "severing all attachments to the preferences of what-is, or what-is-not?"

"You make an excellent point!"

"Yes I do!"


Potshot Sez:

Ha! Looks like Negative Nancy
got a comeuppance!

Poem - there's a lot of poetry in the backyard

there's a lot of poetry in the backyard
or is it

i have not seen enough falling leaves
this lifetime

Dedicated to Richard Brautigan

Poem - November

wind ripples the hammock
twists it like it was alive
brushing the edges against
snow dusted ivy

Peom - gilbert they said/ tell us about love

gilbert they said
tell us about love

are you ready to know
about love asked gilbert

i will tell you about love
if you are ready

we are ready to hear
they replied

gilbert said love is profound
strongest of things

but if you are going to love
you have to love everything

in the past it has been said
you must love beyond constraint

and beyond all causes
and conditions

if you are going to love
there can be no end to it

you must absolutely love
everyone and everything

then you will find that everyone
and everything loves you

do not make the typical errors
when doing this

do not love one person or thing
contrasted to another person or thing

do not love based on time
nor feel love on occasions

do not love through discerning
do no arrive at love by deciding

loving all is like opening a door
that was always open and was never a door

loving all is complete without
effort of completion

love is here and will always be here
unrequested and requested

no going to it no going away
from love or the loved

uneducated untaught not done
nor not not done

clear through and straight
for you and for me if we do it

Poem - danny is two and nonstop

danny is two and nonstop
he moans he cries
he laughs & plays
even he does things he shouldn't
do
all the while knowing
doing certain things is bad
and certainly very naughty

he's in a stream of action
all day long and if
i get exasperated
i know that he and i are precisely alike
the
only difference is i have covered
most of the rough pleasures and
selfless begging in thinking

self-reflection

and manners

Poem - there is no "A" for effort in Hell

there is no "A" for effort in Hell
and doing your duty comes at a high price

but Hell is the best factory in all the universe
you wouldn't want to be anywhere else

slowly being burned all the way through
going beyond ash going beyond unrestrained carbon

your limbs torso and head even eyes vaporized
heart turns into a diamond which rests there in the deep

until a jet of flame squirts it up to earth then
it may be found and cut into a fabulous treasure

mounted on the royal sceptere of a monarch
who makes the world tremble

or on a sober thin gold band
worn on a woman's finger

Advice

1. Take some time off and reflect on what happened. Absorb the past few months and try to get some perspective. You'll need this kind of introspection if you wish to aspire for the higher office, a position you clearly believe you deserve now.

2. Focus on the work you should be doing. Be the best at exercising what power you have now. Rebuild a feeling of cooperation, transparency, and accessibility -- even to the people who hate you, or disagree with you.

3. Demonstrate the kind of discipline when a microphone is stuck in your face, or camera, that you will decline to speak. Realize that many interviewers are on the outside friendly, but most of these interviewers want to record not who you are, or what you want to be -- what they really want are your gaffes, they want to record a display of presumptiveness towards power.

4. Realize the more you seek national exposure, at this time, the more you fritter away what small amount of political capital you have gained. This is because you are speaking too much, too soon after the election. As in point #3, it brands you as a blatant opportunist, a power monger, and a fool.

5. Educate yourself in the following areas, at least to the point where you can name some names, have a general appreciation for, or show you know the big picture, or basics concepts of:

- World Geography
- International Relations
- National Affairs
- Economics
- The Civil Rights Era in America
- American History
- History in general
- Linguistics
- Psychology
- General Science
- General Political studies
- Basic Philosophy & the history of Philosophy
- Comparative Religious Studies

Also read "The Prince" by Niccolò Machiavelli, read "Democracy in America" by Alexis de Tocqueville, read "The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich" by William R. Shirer, read "The Spanish Inquisition: A History" by Joseph Perez & Janet Lloyd, read the Constitution of the United States, the United States Bill of Rights, the Amendments, be familiar with the significance of the Magna Carta, the Mayflower Compact, understand the valuable concept of Habeas Corpus, be familiar with the history of the Supreme Court and famous cases -- you may wish to take some introductory classes, or do undergraduate work at a law school.

The good news is, realistically, you have at least 8 years to "bone up" and get educated the rest of the way. I don't think the first 4 colleges you attended were very good schools, or you didn't apply yourself. So get your head down, start some night classes at the local J.C., and see where it takes you.

Poem - You and Me

the first time we broke up
was at a harbor

when we got married
it was on the top of a cliff
and we held onto each other
as tightly as we could

now ten years later
divorce proceedings
negotiations about money
day in day out of a tug of war
.now
...raking
.....leaves
........while i wait
..........to take you to the
...................................train

(knowing all along it is rather
pointless to rake because
who cares if they pile up
and a million more are ready
to fall and erase this work)

i suppose they call all
this suffering and punishment
acquiring wisdom through
direct experience but i don't
know what kind of wisdom
i am acquiring

i wish i did understand
why it must
be so painful in the process

but who am i to criticize the
flow of this relationship and how
it brought me more direct
wisdom

oak park
november 2008

Poem - fall

11:06 am

fall is an ocean of leaves
overdue library books
making sure the drains are clear
ready for rain

Poem - boys rake leaves into huge piles/ on the side of the road

boys rake leaves into huge piles
on the side of the road

listening to a tinny AM radio
playing a pop ballad about love

like the possibility of romance
there is no end to the leaves

until they all have fallen

Monday, November 3rd, 2008

Monday, November 3rd, 2008. The day before the biggest election of my life. Weather in Oak Park is surrealy nice -- 75 degrees. All the trees are changing into their striking fall colors with no fall chill, not a hint of winter in the air. It's been this way for about 3 days, and we'll keep having mild sunny days for the next few days. Who would have thought the Midwest could have finer weather than California? A thunderstorm that will break the spell is set for Thursday, or Friday. After obsessively watching the polls and the predictions, I've been reading old Horizon art books, right now I've gone over a interview of Hemingway by George Plimpton in Havana, in 1959. Hemingway, of course, is brilliant in the discussion and a bit quarrelsome with some of the questioning, as if he was hung over, or wanted to get drunk again, or both. He also said some things that are new to me, and I can think about what he said that day, back in 1959, in Havana, for a long long time. Making sure I spelled George Plimpton's name correctly, I discover he died in 2003. I didn't know Plimpton was dead. Hemingway, he blew his brains out with a shotgun in 1961, aged 61. Plimpton died of natural causes in his apartment in New York City, aged 76. Can you imagine the way you'll end up? The time, place, and circumstances? With such events happening around me, intertwined with the past, and the fine weather at the present, it seems inconceivable that I, or anyone living now in this moment, should die.

Adios!

i.

I've been thinking about Lao Tzu, nothing specific, as I pack the last few boxes. I clean the apartment for the last time, put the boxes in the car 1 by 1, in no hurry at all. When I know I'm done, the place is cleaner than when I moved into it, empty, serene, ready for someone new to move in and fill it with all their hopes, dreams, talk and worries. I take one last trip into the building when there is nothing left to do. I let myself in, as if I still live there, as if I would be staying there more. Here is where I pause, I look, I listen. I see the floors are almost dry, I peer in all the rooms, I say nothing. Cars move up and down the steet, the sky looks like it might rain later this afternoon. All is done. On my way out, I bow to the apartment of the second floor. Adios! I say. Then the door is locked, a few minutes later the key is in an envelope in the building manager's mail slot.

ii.

Driving away, with the last of my stuff, I almost feel blue -- but there on the side of the road is Lao Tzu. Under the falling leaves, he might be reading a Pennysaver, but I'm not sure. I pull over and he gets in. We drive through town to the flat, and have tea in the kitchen sitting on boxes stuffed with packing paper.