BACK TO DISNEYLAND

Yep! I've been to Disneyland again and the thing that caught my attention this time was the tram that connects the parking structure with the park. I especially liked the lecture the conductor played. It sounded like a poem...well, sort of.




Was it really poetry? Listen to the video above and judge for yourself!

I'd love to have been a beatnik poet in the 50s reciting this in a coffee house...

UNCLE EDDIE: "Okay, okay...I call this thing 'The Tram.' Here's how it goes...."

Hello everybody! 

Welcome aboard the Mickey and Friends Tram!

As a courtesy to other passengers

We ask that there be no eating,

drinking or smoking on board.

For your safety remain seated
With your hands, arms and legs inside, and...
And supervise children.
Be sure to hold on to hats, glasses and any loose items...
Items that could fall from the train.

If an article should fall,
Please stay seated until the next stop, 
And inform the nearest cast member.

Before entering the park,

I'd like to remind you, 

that smoking isn't permitted, 

Except in designated... 

....areas.

As a courtesy to other passengers we ask,

That there be no eating, smoking or drinking on board.

And now....

...In just a few moments, we will arrive at...

...The  Disneyland  Resort  Entrance  Plaza!
Thank you!

The crowd expresses its approval.

UNCLE EDDIE: "Drat! 'Plaza' didn't rhyme with 'board.'


BTW: Thanks to Mark for taking the great Disneyland photo!

THANKSGIVING 2015

It's Thanksgiving again, that wonderful day of days when we put aside our differences and recall the blessings we've received all year.

It all starts with a reading from the Good Book. 

The local pastor solemnizes the occasion with a prayer of thanks, then the meal begins.

Good manners prevail.

All are welcome at the table. 

No arguments between brother and sister on this day.

Couples are reconciled.

Friendships are solidified.

We're given a glimpse into a better world...

...a world of friendship and co-operation, of love and harmony, of...

UNCLE RICKEY:  "GASP! Look!! IT'S ALMOST BLACK FRIDAY!!!!!"

ALL: (COLLECTIVE GASP) "BLACK FRIDAY!!!!!!!!??????"

FWOOOMP! SWOOOP!!!! THWOMP!!!!!!!!!!!!! The car fills up and peels out!

PASSENGERS: "I lost a tooth!" "My eye! My eye!"

A mad rush to the mall!

Inside.

Boy, Black Friday can get pretty intense!

Here's hoping that you got what you were looking for!

FUNNY DRAWINGS

'Only two drawings this time, but they're both heavy hitters.

How do you like this early one (above) by John K? It's so wonderfully ignorant, so delightfully low...so...so, class clown. It reminds me of why I got into the cartoon industry in the first place. When you draw every day for a living it's so easy to get diverted into the refinement of technique. You need to see something like this to be reminded that what we do is all about getting a laugh.

This one (above) is by my daughter. Apologies if I posted it before. I can't remember. Anyway, that's me sipping a soda at Carl Jr.'s. Boy, it's so streamlined, so stripped down to essentials. Here a man with weird hair and a massive bull moose of a face, puckers his lips to drink daintily from a needle-thin straw. How did she come up with that?

For comparison, a few days ago I took this picture (above).

DOODLES AND SKETCHES

I found an old envelope of scraps in the garage and here's a few samples. The picture above is my kid when he was a baby, drawn by John K.

Haw! Another John baby picture of my kid. This was for his first birthday. 

I think this (above) is a John drawing too, but it's not done in one of his usual styles. Haw! I remember telling him that the colorful, plastic watches little girls were wearing looked better than the ones worn by most grown men, and this drawing was the result.

Here's (above, right) a really early caricature of me by my daughter. She hadn't discovered her own style yet but I see glimpses of it in the eyes, teeth, ear hair and beard stubble. I love the transparent pants. 

I think this (above) is me again. She often drew me with a cigarette, even though I didn't smoke. Haw! Little kids are fascinated by adult smoking.

These are fragments of doodles I did with a hard, HB pencil applied with a light touch. I held the pencil high, the way Chuck Jones said to do it, and it worked. I wish I'd done more HB sketches. I usually work with a 4B.

DEPRESSION

It seems to me that psychology has long overlooked the "Gorilla in the Living Room," the fundamental mental disorder on which so many other disorders rest.

Haw! That's (above) a caricature Mike did of me, showing me in one of my cheery moods, oblivious to anything depressing. Haw! Maybe he's right. For all I know, I might have a mountain of psychological disorders, but I don't think Depression is one of them. Even so I can't help but feel sorry for the people who do have it, a sympathy made deeper by a reading of William Styron's book on the subject, "Darkness Visible."

I think the image most people have of a depressive is that of a lethargic person (above) who spends hours looking wistfully out the window at grey, overcast skies. I don't think that's always correct. My own belief is that depressives are sometimes the most active people you know, the people who are least likely to waste time staring out of windows.

It's true that they're all vulnerable to funks of frightening intensity, but it's also true that lots of them have developed strategies to deflect those funks....I mean, apart from the medication they take. Those strategies frequently include alcohol or drugs...

...but they also might include hypochondria, hoarding, workaholism, over-achievement or sex obsession.

Even crime, even philanthropy!  What all these strategies have in common is that they allow the sufferer to get out of his own problems and focus on something outside of himself.

I find this fascinating, especially the workaholic part (above). I used to regard workaholics as possible candidates for what's called "Obsessive-Compulsive Behavior Disorder, but now I'm not so sure. If a person deliberately cultivates compulsion just to deflect depression, is he really clinically compulsive? Wouldn't it be more accurate to say that he simply has a compulsive "problem?" Surely the stronger term "disorder" should be reserved for the the depression he's trying to avoid.

Okay, I've probably bored everybody to death with all this fuss about naming things. I'll end with this thought: if lesser disorders are dropped from the official list...if vulnerability to depression is recognized as being far and away the central problem...

...the "Gorilla in the Living Room"...

....then psychiatry and treatment is simplified. Whatever drug lessens the frequency of depression will lessen lots of other problems too. In fact, in a general way, I think that's already known to be the case.

My own guess is that if depression were easier to recognize, we'd discover that 1/2  or more of all people have it. Something that widespread might have come about because it's benign or useful in some way. Maybe the deflection strategies it engenders are an essential part of creative thinking or getting things done. Who knows?