Mama's Musings

Rubes cartoonist makes millions laugh every day

Leigh Rubin likes to look at the world a little differently. Applying his creative mind and his artist’s hand, he has drawn thousands of Rubes cartoons in his twenty-some years as a full-time newspaper cartoonist.

I got to know Leigh after seeing one of his cartoons online – Rudolph’s Revenge. According to Leigh, that is one of the most copied cartoons he’s ever done. Over sixteen years old, that cartoon reminds us all of what it feels like to be bullied by all the other reindeer in the neighborhood.

Animals offer us a great opportunity to laugh at ourselves without feeling the alienation of actually     being laughed at. There’s something about animals, not to mention animal cartoons, that makes it safe for us to feel what we do.

With Leigh Rubin’s cartoon series, Rubes, he addresses the lighter side of life.

“I take every day experiences and capture them in one frame,” he told me during a Skype session the other day.

“I’m not an editorial cartoonist, but rather a sit-down comic,” he admitted. When asked if he ever suffers from drawer’s block, he revealed that he typically does after taking longer trips. “Drawing is like working out. The more you do it, the better shape you’re in.”

Astoundingly, Leigh can draw just about anywhere. A few years ago his son had an operation in San Francisco. While waiting in the hospital cafeteria, he whipped out his block and started drawing. “I also use cheap tape recorders as a second memory bank to help me capture ideas,” he said. Even if it’s just the grocery list.

His talent spans beyond the 400+ newspapers in which his cartoon is syndicated. He has also penned the opening credits of the movie Moola (directed by Don Most, best known as Ralph Malph from Happy Days' fame). Most recently, he put together a calendar entitled Zoo in a Box. If you want the lion's share of his funnies, it is available online here.

Leigh works mostly from home in his ‘dog’s bedroom’ when he’s not on the speaker’s circuit encouraging others to live their dreams and not be put down by rejection. A regular dad with three kids, Leigh reminds us all that to laugh is to live well. To laugh a lot is to live even better.

If you want to be a hero, call the managing editor or features editor of your local paper and ask to have Rubes come to your local rag (more info on the syndicated comic here). You can make a difference to an entire community with a single phone call. Laughter is the world's best medicine!

**Images used with permission by the artist.
 

Merry Christmas!

Because pictures speak a thousand words...

Just one more game, Mom, pleeeeeeeaaaaaaaaassssse!

This is why video games scare me. It's like giving your kids cigarettes, but telling them not to get addicted. I'm willing to go to the grave being wrong about this one. Are my children's brains worth it? You bet.

Faux Family News - Something to Laugh About

I am blessed to know some of the funniest people on the planet. Many thanks to Leigh Rubin for his permission to post his cartoon here (please do not illegally reprint - ask him yourself. He's a nice guy!).  

Another funny guy I know is my pal Gary (who shall be last nameless). He works in Public Radio in a sparsely populated State and has razor-sharp wit. His down-home humor and occasional cussword make him a fresh read.

I promised not to mention last names so as to protect the hilarious. Nonetheless, he has allowed me to post his faux family holiday newsletter in which nothing is true, yet incredibly funny. If you've ever received one of those over-the-top-aren't-we-all-glamorous-and-perfect-while-you-are-not holiday letters, this one's for you. He writes these every year and sends them to his relatives. They storm their mailboxes the last week before Christmas just to be the first to read it (okay, so I made that up, but it's quite the visual!). And when you write your own holiday letter, remember: Rudolph is listening!

Introducing a new genre: the satirical holiday newsletter!

~~

Christmastime, 2008

Dear Families,

Another year has almost slipped by, a joyous holiday season is here—and there’s not a better time to look at the year and the good fortune it has brought to all of us.

After years of planning and a careful bid process, Our Mother has finally built her long-anticipated addition to her home.  The construction has nearly doubled the size of her house, and includes three screened-in porches, a game room and an Olympic-sized pool.  When asked how the financing came about for the project, Our Mother lit another cigarette and laughed her throaty laugh.  “Nothing to it,” she said.  “You just go to the phone book, call different numbers just after school, and when a kid answers, you say, ‘Listen, Honey, it’s Grandma; I’m in a jam down here at the casino, and I need you to go to Mommy’s purse and take out all the green pieces of paper you find and send them to me.’  They get some quality family time, I get my house re-done—everybody wins!”

A shaky peace has settled once again at Mike and Kathy’s home in Nebraska, after a year largely spent in damage control.  The couple’s two bewildered daughters, Christine and Sarah, have apparently fueled an Internet rumor on Facebook and MySpace, which reads:  “On Friday and Saturday nights, our mother puts on tights, white vinyl boots and a red cape, and runs through the streets of Beatrice fighting crime.”  Asked for his reaction to this news, their father says, “It’s hard to argue with the approach; crime on Friday and Saturday nights in Beatrice is down 40 percent.”   Their son, Mike, stays above the fray, serving his country in the U.S. Marine Corps, while youngest daughter Erin lives in Wisconsin and tours the County Fair circuit, signing autographed photos as “The World’s Tallest Dwarf.”

Oldest daughter Julie is the toast of the literary world this year, as her latest entry in the “Bracer Lungfish” series, “Damn, Dan!  The Damn Dam!”  is a rousing success.  In this epic tale, the hero, Bracer Lungfish, “A short, stocky young man with a close haircut and a quizzically confounded look about him that suggests he’ll get the joke, though it may be a day or two,” continually has to outwit two local villains, “Guilty Guiltyton” or “Phat Boy”, who connive to wreak havoc in a small Michigan town.  Though the hero often cuts it close, right usually wins in the end.  Daughter Jennie is manager of “Smock on the Water,” an artist supply shop along the Wisconsin River north of town, while son Eric calls square dances (Our Mother says, “he does this whether there’s a dance or not”) Thursday nights at the G.A.R. hall in Boscobel.  

Youngest daughter Jayne and her husband, Doug, are still employed in the Radio Show business, living in Mount Horeb but spending as little time there as possible.  Relationships with townspeople have been strained since this year’s Christmas concert, when every song performed by the Kindergarten classes ended with a loud, “WHAT in the hell was THAT!”  The couple’s twin daughters, Summer and Ana, were relieved to discover it was only their grandma providing the commentary; as Ana explained, “Here we thought it was Daddy.”  Oldest son, Spencer, is counting the days to high school graduation, and appearing in local theatre as car salesman “Randy Randall” in the ground-breaking musical, “Hate Wore Seafoam Taffeta.”

Vivian and Rick report a joyous 2008, as Rick has won another Marksmanship Award from his employer, the U.S. Postal Service.  The honor is only one of several to reach their household in the past year, as youngest daughter, Kayte, won a national mascot contest sponsored by the USPS.  Her winning design, soon to appear on stamps and the side of mail trucks, is a wild-eyed Rottweiler named “Snap.”  Vivian is earning rave reviews with her advice column, “Why is This MY Damn Problem!?” while Mike and Mary spend their days tending to their successful 43-acre commune in the Ocooch Mountains.

Our Fifth Child continues to set impeccably high standards for the World to follow.  He is a compassionate friend to all who meet him, and he lives by the motto, “I never met a man I didn’t at least tolerate.”  Wife Sandy is making a name for herself with the South Dakota Parent Connection, while sons, Preston and Tyler, amaze and delight everyone without exception, in all facets of excellence.

That, dear Families, is our look back at 2008.  We wish you a blessed Christmas and an even more blessed 2009.

~~

It's my house, Gus!

Eddie Murphy's stand-up act, Raw, in the 1980's came at a time in my life when I was an adolescent looking for direction and my own identity. At one point in his act, Eddie imitates his drunk relative who, inevitably at one point at every family gathering, drunkenly shouts out "This is my house, Gus! It is my house!" Today, when my prepubescent nine-year-old acts out, I find myself sounding a bit like Eddie. "This is my house, Missy!"

Years later, I still feel as though I am searching for that same identity. As an adult, the process might look different. We look towards our partners, our careers, our life's work as our legacy. It suddenly becomes important to mold that which we will leave behind. Perhaps it is my pending fortieth birthday that has made me so ponderous. I feel a seismic shift in the way in which I relate to things.

Thanks to Abby Seixas, author of Finding the Deep River Within, which helps people through this process to find balance and joy in a teetering world, I read this poem today by May Sarton "The Work of Happiness". Thank you Abby, and May, for your wisdom on this bleak Wednesday morning!

"The Work of Happiness"
by May Sarton

I thought of happiness, how it is woven
Out of the silence in the empty house each day
And how it is not sudden and it is not given
But is creation itself like the growth of a tree.
No one has seen it happen, but inside the bark
Another circle is growing in the expanding ring.
No one has heard the root go deeper in the dark,
But the tree is lifted by this inward work
And its plumes shine, and its leaves are glittering.

So happiness is woven out of the peace of hours
And strikes its roots deep in the house alone:
The old chest in the corner, cool waxed floors,
White curtains softly and continually blown
As the free air moves quietly about the room;
A shelf of books, a table, and the white-washed wall--
These are the dear familiar gods of home,
And here the work of faith can best be done,
The growing tree is green and musical.

For what is happiness but growth in peace,
The timeless sense of time when furniture
has stood a life's span in a single place,
And as the air moves, so the old dreams stir
The shining leaves of present happiness?
No one has heard thought or listened to a mind,
But where people have lived in inwardness
The air is charged with blessing and does bless;
Windows look out on mountains and the walls are kind.

Top Ten Tween Unplugged Toys #9

Foreign language learning is more important than ever before. While English is a pervasive international language, other languages (such as Chinese) are gaining in importance. Raising a bilingual child can be fun (both of my kids speak English and German). In fact, one of my first NPR interviews was on the topic.

This book, 7 Steps to Raising a Bilingual Child, is a super resource for learning how to raise your child in a bilingual environment. I found most of the tips to be right on. And what a great way to unplug, connect, and have fun while learning!

Tough Calls for Holiday Frenzy

As a mom blogger, I receive a lot of pitches from public relations firms that want me to showcase their clients' products or services. This pitch, I would have to say, gets a golden star from me. With permission, I have reprinted a section of it below for your reading pleasure:

The family was bundled all snug in their threads while visions of eggnog danced in their heads, and I in my beanie and mom in her cap had just fell prey to a holiday trap. When out on the snow-covered lawn there arose such a chatter that I sprang from the patio to see what was the matter. Away to the yard I ran in a dash, took the hot chocolate from little Timmy and threw away his candy stash.

To help your readers avoid the stress that accompanies their efforts to have the perfect holiday, pastor and football referee Dr. Travis Collins has written a tip list on how to referee the holidays (see excerpt below). In an ever-changing climate of relative morality and leadership, Collins knows how to weather the storm and hold firm when making tough calls. In his new book, Tough Calls: Game-Winning Principles for Leaders under Pressure (New Hope Publishers September 2008, $14.99) the parallels he draws between officiating games and calling leadership shots provides a useful paradigm to families struggling to navigate the holiday frenzy.

You want the list, too? Read on...

Why Can't You Be Like Other Moms?

It finally happened. My nine-and-one-half year old has discovered her mother isn't perfect. In fact, her mom is so rotten she can barely stand it.

At least, that is what she said yesterday after I caught her lying two times in twenty minutes. They were snow white lies, but it fostered a marrow-deep dis-ease in me. The first time I let it slide.

"If you want to do that part of your homework later, just tell me. But please don't say you are finished when you are not."

Then, moments before she was to leave for her dance class, she said she'd prefer to go alone. "No need to drive me, Mom. I'd like to walk." It was starting to snow outside so I asked her why she insisted. She had refused to eat most of her lunch, and she held one foot over a bag on the floor that she was bringing with her. I knew she was compensating for not having eaten well a few hours before.

Turns out she had put gum in the bag. Most likely, she was hungry. But she didn't want to tell me. After years of picky-eater-dom, I exploded.

"You lied to me again. Why?" She burst into tears, telling me what a terrible mother I am for not letting her have a Nintendo DS and for 'never being there' like all her other friends' moms.

I recently volunteered ten hours of my time to help pull off my daughter's fourth grade Christmas concert. I played the flute side by side with her. It was one of the proudest moments of my life. Then, out of the blue, came the most hurtful accusation a mother could ever hear.

Let me be clear. I work from home so I can be with my kids. I work until 10 pm on some nights so I can 'be there' for them when they come home from school ridiculously early (never later than 1 pm), so I can help them with their homework, if they need it, and so I can tell them adventure stories about a little boy who always gets into mischief. Just.for.them.

I know I'm not the only mother in the world who has been confronted with the three most insidious words in the English language: "I hate you."

But I sure wish I had been the anomaly. Just this once.

Why Online Shopping Rules

Holiday shopping isn't my thing, as I have already said. I don't like the throngs of people, the overheated stores, and the commercialism that makes people want more than they can afford. Like my dad, I'm into laser-like shopping. Take our trip to CVS. During a visit to Florida a few summers ago, my daughter had a fever. I've never seen a man make a beeline so fast for the asprin section in my life. We were in and out of the store in one minute and 36 seconds.

Online shopping can be like that. That is, if you know what you are looking for, the price you are willing to pay, and if you do not get tempted by the impulse purchase items they flash on your screen.

I just stumbled across a cool site called BeatMyPrice.com. With its sleek ad-free format, it allows you to comparison shop without all the temptations many online shops such as eBay or amazon have. RetailMeNot.com is another cool coupon code site, but from what I have read, many of the codes are unreliable so it's a bit of a crap shoot.

Happy Holidays, Everyone! Remember - tis the season to be jolly!!

Controversy at the Cocktail Cafe

I recently had the pleasure of meeting Rhea Brown, an outspoken mom of two who celebrates ME time as much as WE time. While it seems unpopular for moms to actually have a social life, Rhea stands for mom as social being, not just breast, bruise-soother, and bona fide confidant.

Yet some of her recent visitors have blasted her for celebrating life (okay, with a martini in your hand, but choose your poison. Some of us prefer chocolate).

Why won't June Cleaver curl up like a dry leaf and blow away? It seems we moms still struggle with our own emancipation. We may be good at what we do, but do we always have to do it? Even truck drivers get a day off. Sheesh!