A STRATEGY FOR OLD AGE

Believe it or not, one of my heroes used to be BF Skinner (above), the famous behaviorist. His ideas seem dated now, but back in the day I read a few of his books including the one on old age. I was in my early 20s and it gave me a lifelong interest in the subject. Now I find myself only a decade or so from having a practical interest in it and not just a theoretical one. I can't wait to read the book again to see if it holds up. 

Anyway, I have my own strategy for dealing with those problems when the time comes and I thought I'd talk about it here. 

Well, I'm most concerned about lifestyle. What kind of old guy will I be? Will I be envied by others for my hipness or be pitied because I'm a doddering old whatzzit? Of course I'd like to be envied and for that I have a two-pronged solution. First I'll get a nice tailored suit and do the whole suave thing. My role model will be the World's Most Interesting Man in the beer commercial. 

The other half of the time I might try my hand at being an eccentric. I'm not naturally inclined that way but it's possible that I'll grow into the part like so many people do. I picture myself with a small hat, a beard, maybe a unibrow...and I'll slurp my soup.

Maybe I could become a sort of handyman and fix things around the house.

If eccentricity is something you can steer like a boat then I think I'd like to be an opinionated eccentric like John Barrymore in "Twentieth Century." Here (above) he says, "What do you know about talent? What do you know about theatre? What do you know about genius? What do you know about anything you, you...you BOOK KEEPER!?"

Of course at a certain time of life I'll have to stop thinking about young women.

I'll have to learn to appreciate women who are my own age.

I'll also have to discipline myself so I don't criticize people when they do something dumb. They think you're crazy when you do that and I'll need their forbearance when I do something dumb myself.

I've had to abandon some of my earliest plans. When I was a kid I considered being a vigilante in my extreme old age, ridding the world of obvious over-the-top criminal types who do unspeakable things.

All these years later that doesn't seem like such a good idea. If I get addled, how will I know who the criminals are? I'd leave a trail of dead crossing guards and baby sitters.

I also considered becoming a heavy drinker and a cigar smoker in my extreme old age. After all, what would I have to lose? But that wouldn't work either.

I guess if I knew the exact day of my demise I could arrange to have a few sybaritic months beforehand, but nobody knows that. What if you inflict all that cognitive impairment on yourself then live another 20 years? It reminds me of what Yogi Berra said: "If I had known I'd live this long I would have taken better care of myself." 

So what does that leave? I have serious things I want to accomplish but what will I do for recreation? As it happens so often, Basil Wolverton shows the way (above). I'm an artist so I'll take up painting. I'll paint my older friends.

I'll try different styles. I could fill a garage with this stuff. Someday it'll all end up in a thrift store and become much valued by punk rockers.

I got this drawing (above) off the net. It gives me confidence that if my line quality deteriorates I can just adapt to whatever the new bad drawing thing is.

That's all I have to say about this, but I'll add that Skinner is no longer in my Pantheon of heroes. I had an experience with his conditioning theories that resulted in demerits for the master. I'll blog about it sometime. I still like the guy though, and I don't regret that I was influenced by him.

P. S. Mike started to read this and put it down because he thought it was depressing. I don't see why. It's about a problem to deal with, just like anything else. It's just hard to think originally about the subject because so little's been written about it. Here's (below) a link to one of the rare articles. I don't agree with the author, but he's made a good conversation starter.

http://www.theatlantic.com/features/archive/2014/09/why-i-hope-to-die-at-75/379329/

UNKNOWN WOLVERTON

Well, maybe "unknown" is the wrong word, but these pictures are certainly little known. It's a tribute to Basil that sketches this funny seem second rate when compared to his other work. See what you think.

Is this (above) by Basil or his son Monty?

This one's (above) definitely by Basil. I like how the eyes are on top of the head.

The black and white version of this sketch (above) is fairly well known, but not this colored version. The color helps it, I think.

Mike Fontanelli sent me this caricature (above) of Basil Wolverton, drawn by Drew Friedman. It's certainly well done, but it's not the way I like to picture Basil. I see him as a sort of mischievous joke teller like Rodney Dangerfield.

Here's another Friedman caricature, this time of Mad artist Will Elder. Don't ask me why, but I buy into this 100%. Probably Friedman knew Elder.

Here's the link to Drew's site:

http://drewfriedman.blogspot.com/2012/07/legends-of-comics-portraits.html

BASIL WOLVERTON'S "CULTURE CORNER"

I wish I knew more about this strip. Was it popular? Did kids like it? Me and my grade school friends would have gone nuts over it if we'd known about it. I would have saved it in a scrapbook.  

I'd be surprised if women liked it.  It's slapstick humor about deliberately ugly people. That means it was probably meant for guys. I wonder why girls don't like stuff like this? Maybe it's because they're so focused on looking good. We men, on the other hand, know we're ugly. We know we're the butt of a cosmic joke, so we decide to make the best of it and laugh.  

Wolverton drew in that "bigfoot" style that was as much influenced by black and white era gag animation as by print media. Wolverton gives it a big, thick line to make it more gritty. 

Being a true cartoonist, Wolverton instinctively knows that feet are funny.  They wouldn't be funny if they were covered with fur and had leathery bottoms. They make us laugh because they're so delicate and fru-fru, and yet we're forced to walk through the dirt with them. 

Many thanks to John Glenn Taylor, who put up these pictures on his "Easily Mused" blog.

http://johnglenntaylor.blogspot.com/2009/03/basil-wolvertons-culture-corner.html

CHOICE WOLVERTON

Mike sent me these Wolvertons, which almost made me fall out of the chair.  According to Mike the artist's name is Colin Batty.  Man, Batty's done a service to the whole cartoon world here! Nice job, Colin!

Batty's site: http://www.freakybuttrue.com/wolverton.htm

You have to wonder if characters like this could work in 3D animation.

The underlighting (above) makes this "Lena the Hyena" look menacing.

Aaaah...true art!

What program were these pictures done on? My first guess was ZBrush, but maybe they were done on "Sculptris," which is something I just found out about. It's a free program.

Here's some Wolverton-style stop motion animation courtesy of commenter Ben Leeser. It's a YouTube video called "Ugly Girl," posted by Necrofinger (!). This got over 11,000,000 hits! Thanks, Ben!

BASIL WOLVERTON WOMEN

Sorry for the minimal post. Thanksgiving, Christmas shopping, and agonizing over whether to buy a copy of Painter 11 at a "Black Friday" price, took all my time. Boy, I love Christmas but we can all be thankful that it's only once a year.

Making a decision about Painter 11 was hard because the specs support Leopard, but not Snow Leopard, which is my operating system. People on the net were divided about whether Snow Leopard is compatible. Half said it worked just fine for them and half said it didn't. Ordinarily I'd skip something as risky as this but the asking price was ridiculously low....I just couldn't pass it up. Geez, I hope I did the right thing.

Anyway, how do you like these Wolvertons!?  They're made by someone who doesn't identify himself on his site, but whose watermark moniker is Stu Sutcliffe. Nice job, Stu!

http://stusutcliffe.blogspot.com/2009_07_01_archive.html