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The comics archives are listed on the left side of the blog. They are linked roughly by week, and they are dated. They are complete. If there are dates missing that is because I didn’t publish a cartoon on those dates. For archives 1-6 simply click on the image once to make it bigger. Starting at Archive 7 you need to click once on the half cartoon you can see. Then it will become whole but small. Click on it once more and it will become large enough to read.
I LOVE the Harry Potter books, and I am quite excited to go see the Half Blood Prince movie, even though the movie’s are always a little disappointing because they never put in all I want them to and they tend to change things on a whim. But still, a pretty exciting day in our household.
I first heard about Harry Potter on the Rosie O’Donnell show about 9 years ago. She was interviewing J.K. Rowling about her book The Prisnor of Azkaban (the third in the series) and it sounded boring. Then she said that all three of her books were currently on the best seller lists and I was more than irritated, I was pissed. Because nothing ever lives up to the hype and I thought the people buying these books were complete morons or lemmings, just fattening up Rowling’s pocketbook. I was trying (unsuccessfully) to get published at the time and I just had to know what was sooo good that everyone had to buy their very own copy of it. My jealousy runneth over…
I didn’t want to give her any more money, so I checked the first book out of the library. We went to Disney World that week and I started it in the hotel room the first night with no real hope of it being good. It sucked me right in and I got a very peculiar feeling as I read it. I just kept thinking how fabulous it would be if it were true. I had been a misfit child (hard to believe, I know) and it would have been so wonderful to be able to leave all of that and go to Hogwarts and perform magic… This was a very impressive book. I can honestly say that it’s one of the few times in my life where something is not overrated. The hype behind it was true. At least for me.
I immediately wanted to read the second book but it kept being checked out of the library, so I read number three first. That book remains my favorite in the series (well, except for the last one). Then I bought the second book and then I went out and bought the first and third one’s too. And when The Goblet of Fire came out (number 4) I had preordered it and it came to my house on the day it came out. My daughter was also into Harry Potter so we had to share the book. She got to read it until her bedtime and then I got it, and I finished it (she was sooo mad that I read it before her) and with books 5, 6 and 7 we bought 2 copies so we wouldn’t have to share. Yes, J.K. Rowling is a billionaire today because of crazy people like us. My husband is not into Harry Potter at all and he just rolls his eyes whenever we start discussing it. Poor man…
I’ve met a lot of Christians who are appalled that I not only read the books and love them but that I let my children read them too. I have to say it baffles me why they are against these books. No they are not Christian books but I read lots of fiction (a lot of horror) and most of it is MUCH worse than this stuff. All there is is some minor rule-breaking that the kids do that could be considered bad. They spend the rest of their time fighting evil. There is magic in the books but there is also magic in the Lord of the Rings books and they are deemed ok because a Christian wrote them with a Christian agenda. I get the distinction, I just think it’s rather silly and arbitrary.
I get the whole witches thing, but honestly, these are not real spells. The witches and wizards in the books are magical. Kind of like Doug Henning or what’s his name who almost married the supermodel (you know, if they were actually performing magic and not doing tricks). I just think the books are neat. They are full of really cool details that I wish I’d thought of, and I think they have a good heart.
So I cannot wait to go to see this movie (if not tonight, tomorrow for sure!) It’s always a good month when we get some new Potter stuff…
I have new toons up on my website (www.karenmontaguereyes.com) in the Clear Blue Water section. I’ve completely caught up and I’m feeling very proud of myself.
Okay, so I turned on the Michael Jackson memorial and watched the last 20 minutes or so. Here I was thinking that it wasn’t QUITE the spectacle I thought it would be. It turned out to be in better taste than I feared it would be. And then they had Michael’s daughter Paris speak about her late father. To a world-wide audience. This is a child that I didn’t even know what she looked like 2 weeks ago and now she’s talking and crying about her very real and painful grief for her daddy for all the world to see. That moment will DEFINITELY make the nightly news. It will be the soundbite they use over and over and over.
…It was a sickening display.
And though the family quickly hustled her away when she broke down in tears, seconds before that, they were telling her to “speak up, honey” and thrusting the mike at her. What the hell is WRONG with these people? Can they just not help themselves? Why would they exploit that child like that? If she really wanted to speak, then it should have happened at the private funeral this morning. No, this was a calculated move to show the world that Michael was a good and normal dad who’s children loved him and would miss him.
What they are forgetting, in their barely concealed desperation to cling to the fading spotlight and dead moneytrain, is that Michael Jackson spent his life shielding his kids from the spotlight. He went TOO far in fact, well into freakdom, to make sure they weren’t in the very public eye that his family just opened up for the entire world to peer into. When Michael Jackson makes better decisions about something than you do, then you know you REALLY need to rethink your worldview.
I spent the morning watching Michael Jackson’s videos and I must admit, he was a damn talented entertainer. But he is gone now, and I, for one, will be glad when the media can focus on something else for a change!
Michael Jackson’s been all over the news and Sarah Palin quits and we had the fourth of July… Whew! I am exhausted just thinking of it. Anyway, I have been writing cartoons daily, but I haven’t had time to post them until today so today you get an entire weeks worth of cartoons all at once! (I sense your excitement…) The trick is, you have to read them like you are reading them on the DAY that things happened or it makes my characters seem slow. I knew I had to get them posted today because of the big memorial in L.A. I wouldn’t miss THIS for the world.
I must say, the last panel of the last cartoon today contains one of my favorite images ever from my cartoon. I just really like the way Eve came out here. The story line might not be grounded in reality (they won tickets AND plane tickets AND they could find babysitters at the last minute for 5 children including their autistic son? Yeah right…) But, then again, that’s the fun of a comic strip. I can write things in it that could never happen in real life.
I’ve had a blast writing this week, and I like all of the cartoons (which guarantees that most people will not get them and think they are unfunny and in questionable taste). Which is ok, I guess. I write for myself mostly anyway.
The story of their L.A. vacation is not over…Stay tuned! Oh, and I am going to either try to post a new cartoon daily or post them in big chunks every few days, but no more missing days. As you can see, the first week in July is complete and I am really going to try to keep up ths schedule. I should be able to. I mean, I MADE my deadlines when I was syndicated! I’ve just gotten lazy…
It’s hurricane season in Florida and so, of course, we are thinking about getting a rabbit. Because nothing sounds more fun than evacuating with a disabled child, a senile dog (yes she’s still hanging in there!) and a huge rabbit cage. …Wheee!
I have never had a rabbit as a pet, but I did take care of the rabbit in my son’s preschool one summer. I’ve never been overly impressed with them, but my daughter wants one badly, and she’s wanted one for years. My husband promised her that when we moved she could get one, and we’ve moved so… sigh. My husband thinks we should wait until after hurricane season, but my daughter is not going to be able to wait. Hurricane season doesn’t end until December and her birthday is coming up soon, AND she knows someone who is giving away 6 baby rabbits. Let’s just say that it looks like the stars are aligning for her and she shall be blessed with rabbity goodness soon. The only thing I’ve said is that I don’t want an albino one. I do not like looking at red eyed animals, but otherwise she can choose whichever one she wants. We’ve been researching rabbits online so that we can be good rabbit owners and if you’ve ever seen Fatal Attraction, you can get some idea of the level of excitement and anticipation that is going on at our house right now.
Hopefully, my husband doesn’t have some secret, psychotic girlfriend on the side who likes to murder rabbits.
…That would TOTALLY suck.
We are also going to eventually get a puppy and a kitten soon too. But the puppy can wait until our dog finally dies, and the kitten can wait until after hurricane season. No need to be taking two caged animals on an evacuation. …Did I ever tell you about the time I had to give our old cat a bath in the dark (the electricity was out), at midnight, at my mother-in-laws house, in the middle of a hurricane becuase he’d had diarrhea inside his cat carrier due to stress?
…I still have the scars.
The puppy is intimidating. We got our dog from a shelter when she was a puppy, and, having never had a puppy before, I seriously underestimated how difficult it would be. There is nothing cuter in the world than a puppy. And nothing as joyfully destructive either. I do NOT look forward to the puppyhood of another dog. I’d just as soon adopt an older dog but my kids want a puppy and the pounds are full of them, and our dog now has turned into the best dog ever. She was definitely worth the trouble.
New toons are up!
I had to go out last night around six and just before I left the story broke that Michael Jackson had been in cardiac arrest but he was alive at the hospital. My husband (a former EMT) commented that not many folks came back from full on cardiac arrest and it would be unusual if MJ was one who did. Then I left, thinking nothing of it. I figured he was alive, he’d be ok. After all, he was Michael Jackson. It didn’t even occur to me to pray for him, and I pray for everyone. Heck, I always pray for the person inside if I see an amubulence. When my husband called me to tell me MJ had died, I felt bad that I hadn’t prayed and I felt terrible for his poor children who are now orphans and I felt… indifference. There was none of the pit of the stomach sadness that I usually feel when someone has passed. Like I felt for Princess Diana, or John Ritter, or Farrah. In fact, I told my husband, “Well, folks are gonna gloss right over Farrah dying now, just like they did when Jim Henson died on the same day as Sammy Davis Junior, and so I felt like I grieved alone for my Jim.” My husband told me that not everything is about ME, but of course, that’s crazy talk. 
I used to be a huge MJ fan. My sister had Thriller (as a record, no less!) and we listened to it all the time. On one of my birthdays (maybe 15th?) we rented a VCR (yes RENTED. They were expensive and state of the art at one time!) and the Making of Thriller video, and watched it at my party. Then we spent the night trying to learn the Thriller dance. It was a fabulous party and I have a lot of fond memories from it. I also remember watching that Motown celebration where he moonwalked. I was in like the ninth grade and when he was done our family applauded him! Who does that? We certainly didn’t and yet we DID. Then we kept trying to do it and couldn’t and the next day the entire school was full of uncoordinated moonwalking fools. I would miss THIS Michael Jackson.
I was a huge fan of the Jackson 5. I watched their cartoon show when I was small. I had their records. I wanted to marry Michael. He was such a handsome little boy. He had a beautiful face (which is why I never understood why he started messing with it), he had the most amazing voice I have EVER heard on a child, strong and soaring and tough, and he could really dance. I would miss THIS Michael Jackson too.
He was sooo talented, I SHOULD miss him. The reason I don’t is because I feel like he already died years ago and I’ve already gotten my grieving over with. The poor creature that died yesterday is NOT the same person I used to be a fan of. The person who died yesterday had messed with his face until he was an unrecognizable freak with no nose to speak of. Changing his nose had changed his voice for the worse already. He had dyed his skin white until he didn’t even look like he’d ever been black. In fact, my daughter when she was 8 refused to believe me when I showed her pictures of MJ as a child. She thought I was messing with her. And yes, I know he claimed to have a skin disorder. The thing is, I have a family member with the same thing and lets just say that they aren’t the same at ALL. MJ might have had it, but I think his skin was white mostly because he bleached it. There is just no question in my mind.
This person who died yesterday had been accused of molesting children TWICE. And I think he did it. Yes, I know he was acquitted, but so was OJ and I believe he was guilty as well. This took away all of my remaining good will I’d had for him in my heart. The first accusation I could blow off. But number two makes him repugnant. He should have died in jail doing hard labor. I have no compassion for people who sexually abuse children.
The person who died yesterday had three children who were probably not his biologically (after all, he was still, biologically, a black man). Which is fine, but the making them go out in blankets and hoods, the keeping them inside… they were being raised by a lunatic and I hope he didn’t molest them too. I also hope they can be raised by someone who is sane, but there don’t seem to be a lot of choices in the Jackson clan or even in their mothers (although, to be fair, I don’t know WHO Blanket’s mother is. No one does).
This person who died yesterday owed everyone he ever met money. He thought he was too good to have to pay anyone back. He left his debts to his poor children and they might be penniless when everyone he owed gets a piece of whatever the remaining pie was. MJ seemed to believe that his problems were always because of other people and should always be solved by them too. There was not a lot of personal responsability going on in his life. He didn’t seem to have real friends, just sycophants who always ended up bitter and low on cash after being taken for a ride by Michael, the bleeder of cash.
This person who died yesterday was a seriously troubled wreck. An absolute freak in more ways than one. Both physically and emotionally and I am just glad that he is at peace finally. It must be so hard to live in the world with so much obvious self-hatred. There seemed to be mental illness galore and deviant behavior as well. I mean, he liked to be called the King of Pop! I always say, if you have to make up your OWN nickname and then force people to call you that, well, your real nickname should probably be “Psycho”. Or something…
I will not miss MJ and I will not mourn him. I can still listen to his best works whenever I want, it’s not like he was ever going to produce anything like it again. I do not mourn for his squandered potential because it’s been wasted for years and I am well over it. Out of the three hugely popular 50 yer old entertainers, (Prince, MJ and Madonna) who’d a thunk 20 years ago that MJ would be the most freaky of the bunch AND the first to die).
I am writing this because an icon from my youth is now gone and I feel like I should feel SOMETHING. The fact that I don’t troubles me so I wanted to get my feelings down to figure out why. Poor Prince Michael Jackson 1 and 2 and poor Paris. I hope someone is comforting them today.
My son Sawyer loves music. It’s the one thing that he seems to derive real pleasure from in life. He’s got quite sophisticated taste (sophisticated might not be the best word. Esoteric is probaby a better word). His favorites change pretty regularly but he loves woman singers with jazzy smokey voices like Nora Jones and Dinah Washington and Ella Fitzgerald, and he adores reggae. Especially Bob Marley. I must admit I get a kick out of him singing along to “Get up, Stand up. Stand up for your rights!” He also loves Ray of Light by Madonna. He seems to enjoy Queen and the Eagles, though they aren’t particular favorites of his. His favorite CD right now is from Kenny Chesney and the first song on the disc is Blue Chair. I’m not certain that’s the real name of it, but it’s a song about a blue rocking chair sittin’ in the sand, and it’s Sawyer’s go to song of the year. We listen to it EVERY time we get in the car. Over and over and over.
Did I mention how much I LOATHE that damn blue chair now? …Sigh…
Sawyer gets particular favorites of things and then he seems to get stuck there for a while. He was stuck on Nora Jones for a long time. Luckily, I enjoy her music even if it does seem like you are on qualudes after prolonged exposure. We used to listen to the song Soft Winds by Dinah Washington (which I love) all day long. I would play him the song off of my itunes account on the computer and I would set it on repeat for him. It was played something like 600 times. The second most played song was like 70 so that shows you what we were listening to. And now it’s Blue Chair. There seems to be no rhyme or reason, no particular style of music from which he’ll pick his new favorite. I just hope his next favorite is something I like too. Because either way, I will soon know it by heart.
He does the same thing with movies. I might have blogged about this before, but it’s worth mentioning again, I think, that his favorite movie of all time is Spice World. Yes, the Spice Girls movie. I have seen this movie more times than any other movie in my entire life. He watches it, literally, at least once a day. Every day. Our entire family knows it by heart. So does Sawyer’s aide. So do my children’s friends. I don’t know why he loves it so much, I just know that he does. We even have to listen to the credits (which are his favorite part, for some reason) and if we mistakenly turn it off before they are finished there is hell to pay! His other favorite movie is Cars by Pixar, but Spice World FAR outranks it. Sometimes, very rarely, he will allow us to substitute Cars for Spice World and those are blessed days indeed.
I actually LIKE Spice World. It’s a funny, well-written spoofy, farcey kind of thing and all the gals seem like they have good senses of humor. It was filmed at the height of their fame and it’s got some good music and it’s colorful and fun. You might ask how this came to be his favorite movie? Well, someone gave it to my oldest daughter and Sawyer liked it as a child. Then it broke. One Christmas, I saw it for like 5 bucks and gave it to Sawyer in his stocking as a filler gift. And the rest is history. It has worn out twice and we’ve replaced it both times. It’s easier just to have it on hand than to NOT if anyone gets what I mean.
We watch it with the captions on and I credit this with helping teach my youngest children how to read. Who knew it was the movie that kept giving and giving and giving?
When the Spice Girls got back together last year, I considered taking him to a concert. But they didn’t play anywhere near us and it would either have been glorious or terrible, and it cost too much and was too much trouble to gamble that it would have been the former instead of the latter.
I will have new toons up tomorrow morning!
Tonight, my two youngest kids are off spending the night with their friends. They were SUPER excited and it was so nice that they got to go off and have fun. Then I got to thinking about it… Sawyer NEVER gets invited to go anywhere. Not that he cares, not that he wants to go anywhere, not that he has any friends or cares either way, but I care and it made me sad. Mostly I don’t dwell on his future or his limitations but sometimes it hits me hard and my avoidance of the subject becomes a full on pity party.
That’s where I am right now. Want to come? No? Then stop reading right now. Don’t say you weren’t warned.
Unless there is a miracle of some kind, we will never have an empty nest. When we retire we will still be full-time caregivers. When we die he will be alone. These facts are bleak and they are why I mostly don’t choose to think about it. I get through this day by day. Thinking years in advance just serves to freak me out.
My son is in a small, sheltered class at his school. It is the class for the VERY disabled kids. Every year we buy him a yearbook which he never looks through or has anyone sign. I have put them aside for him just in case someday he might want them. Now, logically, I KNOW he will never want them. It’s just not going to happen. But every year I continue to buy him a yearbook just like the other kids just in case he someday does. Why yes, I AM in denial. Thanks for noticing.
Anyway, this year when I looked through the yearbook his picture wasn’t with his class. I couldn’t believe it. He’s never been left out before and my mind immediately went to all sorts of crazy conspiracy theory places wondering if it was an actual oversight, or if he’d been purposely left out for some reason. Finally, I remembered to mention it to his teacher. She told me that he wasn’t left out, but instead of putting him on the page with his acutal class, for some reason, his picture was put in his actual grade, along with all of the other middle schoolers.
This has never happened before.
I went home, opened the yearbook to his grade, looked him up and… started to cry. He took a good school picture this year. We had it retaken and his teacher made the photographer take his picture something like 72 times (literally) until she got one where he didn’t look stoned or retarded or crazy or manic. The photographer actually had to delete all the pictures because he filled his camera and keep shooting until he got a good one. No one has ever taken the time to do this before and I was soooo appreciative! For once, Sawyer looks handsome and neurotypical in his school picture, and seeing his sweet little handsome face in the yearbook surrounded by all of his peers who I don’t even KNOW even though he’s been going to this school since he was in preschool, was kind of overwhelming. Yes, technically I know what grade he’s in. But he’s never been mainstreamed. His peers are complete strangers to me. I’m sure those kids looked through their yearbook and went, “Who is THAT?” Or worse, “Isn’t that that really weird kid from the disabled room?”
Sometimes really unexpected things can hit you hard. When we first found out Sawyer was disabled, I was really resentful of other boys his age. Not girls, just boys. I kept thinking that their mom’s were pregnant at the same time I was and how come they got the “normal” kids? I wanted one too! As he grew older, that completely went away. …Or so I thought. But seeing him on that yearbook page surrounded by all the “normal” kids his age brought all those feelings to the forefront again. These are feelings I thought I’d dealt with years ago. Feelings I thought were done with. Over. And now I realize that they aren’t gone, not by a long shot.
Apparently, burying feelings and DEALING with them until you are over them are two very different things. Looks like I’ll need to spend some more time doing the latter.
My children have been clamboring to go to the zoo but I am hesitant. First of all, I don’t particularly like zoos. I’ve been to some really sad ones where the apes look suicidal and it’s all lonely, bored animals caged up for our amusement. I’ve been to other zoos that were far, FAR better, but still there’s always that stray thought that these are prisons for innocent animals and I woudln’t want to be caged and WATCHED 24/7 for the rest of my life. All my time at zoos is basically spent feeling apologetic and guilty and hoping that PETA never finds out I was there (why they would care, I dont’ know, but I DO think of them when I’m there).
Our zoo is the Miami one. It’s a fairly decent zoo as far as I can tell. Not the best I”ve seen but no where near the worst (that title goes to the Eureka zoo. I really hope that thing has closed down. It was an abomination back in the late 80’s/early 90’s). One thing about the Miami zoo is that it is hot. REALLY hot. Unbearably hot and yes they have misters going but it’s still bright and hot and humid and dragging tired hot neurotypical kids around a zoo is one thing, but add in my autistic son and it’s a day to be avoided at all costs. Uphill and downhilll, hither and yon seeing the bored animals and being unable to read about any of them because no one is really interested and they are all raring to go to the more interesting animals like the elephants except when you get there it’s just a couple of hot looking elephants in a pen, and moooommmm, this is boooorrrrrinnngggg. I”m hot and tired. Can you carry me? Can we get ice cream? Can we go to the giftshop and buy overpriced T-shirts and trinkets? Pleeeeeasssseee?
They DO let you feed the giraffes, which is always a hit because those things are HUGE up close and they are so beautiful, but you have to pay for the privilege and with 5 kids wanting a turn, this can get expensive fast.
Where animals are concerned, I am a bit of a freak. I’m one of those who LOVE them. I have always had pets and I always will, but left to my own devices I would end up a crazy cat lady who feeds 30 strays daily. I am not currently a vegetarian, but I was one for 12 years and I eat very little meat. I don’t eat meat on pizza or in spaghetti or chili. I don’t eat casseroles or tunafish. I don’t eat shrimp anymore. I will eat fish and chicken occasionally, ground beef hardly ever (I’ve had one hamburger in 20 years and that was unavoidable if I didn’t want to be incredibly rude) and steak maybe twice a year. I do not eat pork or veal or lobster at all EVER and no sausage, pepperoni or balogna either. I do eat eggs though. I would love to be a vegan, and if I were rich I would be. Mostly because it seems time consuming to cook that way, but if I was rich I’d hire a vegan cook and be done with it. I eat a lot of tofu and fake meat products and I think they are mostly fabulous. I mention this because I get the same guilty feeling when I eat meat that I get when I go to zoos. I love animals and the fact that I’m an omnivore bothers me sometimes.
I can’t eat lobster because I keep thinking, “Boy, being boiled alive is the worst way to die I’ve ever heard of!” I’m sure cows entering slaughterhouses are pretty stressed out too… Man, I am freaking myself out here! How did my simple little summer day family outing at the zoo post go so horribly wrong?
I sure wish I had a picture of my daughter licking ice cream off the pavement at the zoo to add right here, but alas, I do not. Because we haven’t BEEN to the zoo yet. Soon though. If I can work up to it. Definitely before the summer’s over. ..Probably…
My husband is always telling me that I think too much, and this time I believe he’s right.
If you are a zoo working, petless, unapologetic carnivore, no worries. You are still welcome here. If you are Dick Cheney? Find someone else’s blog, big guy. This one’s not for you!
(New toons are up, sorry for the long delay…)
I don’t know how many of you read my last cartoon before the one I posted today, so I will repost it below (because I am writing about it today).
I was planning on doing a 3-4 day sequence on race relations as a kind of mini storyline. I think that Jesse Jackson/Sesame Street thing inspired me to reach for the stars. Instead, I ended up taking a week long break and the cartoon I just posted has nothing to do with race. Why, you may ask? Because I hated everything I wrote and I didn’t think any of it was funny enough or important enough or even silly enough to see the light of day. It was rather strident and some of it was stupid. Ugh. I HATE when this happens, and it tends to happen every summer.
I have the sort of kids who expect to be entertained on long summer days. They want to do things like go to the beach and the pool and the park. They want crafts and sprinklers and snacks and library runs and puppet shows and Barbies… and they GOT the sort of mother who likes to hide in her room reading novels and eating ice cream or talking on the phone with the door locked between us. …This is not a good fit. I spend much of the summer either doing good motherly things and feeling exhausted and vaguely resentful, or doing all of the extra chores that come from having 5 kids home pretty much 24/7 (well 4 kids really. My oldest is so rarely home that when she is here we barely recognize her…) and feeling VERY resentful, or doing MY thing and feeling guilt-ridden. My point is that it’s a stressful time that I am poorly equipped to handle.
I love my kids, but I have found that I both like and need the break from them that public school provides. We get along much better that way and I actually miss them and look forward to their coming home. What does this have to do with anything? I am getting to that. When my kids are home in summer, my cartoon suffers. It happens every year. I look back on the stuff I produce in the summer and it’s not as good as the rest of the year. The decline was more pronounced when I was syndicated because I HAD to produce 7 cartoons every week even if I had nothing to write about. Now that I’m on my own I am not under that pressure anymore and I don’t want my strip to go into it’s annual suckfest (thankfully, no one else seems to have noticed this phenomenon. Isn’t it HELPFUL of me to point it out to you so that you may see if it’s true?) Anyway, I could have produced cartoons for every day this last week. I had them written. I even had good ones written. But I got it in my head that I wanted to do this race storyline and then my mind went blank and/or stupid. Finally, after a week of trying to force what wouldn’t allow itself to be forced, I just said the hell with it and posted one of my other cartoons.
…Which I happen to like, so don’t think I am foisting a subpar cartoon on you today. I have done it before, but this happens to be one that I actually like. I am back to the daily production schedule (more or less) and if I ever think of good cartoons about race that I can use, I just might have Manny run at night again to set it up. At this point I wish I hadn’t ever published the cartoon above. It was a good setup for a storyline. RUINED. It was also a good setup with a ho-hum punchline. I forced this one and that was probably why I had such a hard time writing anything else to go with it. It’s the times that I don’t force it where I get my best material.
Oh well, live and learn…
A few years back my sister gave me a book on Sesame Street for Christmas. I was a baby when Sesame Street premiered and so I was the first audience it had. I still remember a bunch of the old skits and things and whenever they play now I get all nostalgic. For Sesame Street fans the book is great. It’s called Sesame Street Unpaved by David Borgenicht. Anyway, I dug it out tonight and was pouring through it when I came upon a section called The Poetry of Sesame Street. It had a poem by the Reverend Jesse R. Jackson. I assume he wrote it, and the words are powerful. So powerful that I looked it up on youtube.
It’s even more powerful when you watch it. It gave me chills. This clip was filmed in 1971 and I don’t think it would be re-aired today. Too in your face.
Sesame Street was such a neat show. I still can watch it but it’s a shame what political correctness has done to rob this show of what made it great in the first place. It set out to teach kids about their letters and numbers, but also about kindness and tolerance and cooperation and sharing. It taught by example, but it also showcased a grouch to show kids that even negative emotions were ok. It was just ahead of it’s time in every way.
I always wanted to meet Jim Henson and work with him (I used to want to be a puppeteer) and I always wanted to be on Sesame Street.
The former is now impossible and the latter is not very likely to ever happen, but hey, a gal can dream, huh?
