Tim Egan, Brilliant Cartoonist

Save the Fool

Posted on January 14, 2015 by Tim Eagan

I get a little nervous when they start murdering cartoonists. I’d feel that way even if I weren’t a cartoonist, but it’s reassuring that so many other people seem to feel that there is something especially wrong with the Charlie Hebdo massacre.

Cartoonists, I think, enjoy a special reputation, even among their fellow satirists. They are the modern incarnation of the Fool, or close to it. Like that archetype, they are often seen as innocents and as truth-tellers. In fact, the reliability (and forgivability) of their truthfulness is rooted in that innocence.

In his purest form, the Fool acts as a mirror to the world around him. He blurts out what he sees in the way that madmen do — without regard to manners or custom. He simply reflects the unvarnished, often painful truth right there in front of us. Sometimes that truth is so obvious that the rest of us miss it. It catches us by surprise, and it makes us laugh.

The Fool is not reasoned, nor earnest, nor moral, but he does have an eye for absurdity and a nose for bullshit. He adds no analysis of his own; that is left to those who are foolish enough to call themselves wise.

The reaction to the French terrorists has become a little more diffuse since the Charlie Hebdo story. Since then, a kosher market and some unlucky hostages have been added to the list of bloody outrages in France. The sharpest sting for me, though, remains the murder of the cartoonists. I take it personally. It forces me to examine my own efforts as a satirist.

My first reaction was something like guilt. Those cartoonists were brave; I am a coward. I should be making drawings that push the edge and challenge the darkest, most dangerous forces in this world. Cartoonists in much more threatening surroundings than mine do it all the time, so why can’t I? I should be doing work, in other words, that makes people want to kill me.

I have since backed off that position. I am a coward, after all. Instead, I’ve decided to try and be a better Fool. Of the host of cartoons drawn in sympathy with Charlie Hebdo, my favorites have been the least angry. R. Crumb also labeled himself a coward, but he did draw “the hairy ass of Mohamid” (as only Crumb could), noting it belonged to his friend Mohamid Bakhsh of L.A. And I especially liked Charlie Hebdo’s first cover after the shooting: a head shot of Mohammed shedding a tear and holding a sign reading “Je Suis Charlie.” Innocent, simple, human, real. Defiant, yet sympathetic to non-radical Muslims (if not their faith). The epitome of a Fool.

I’m not Charlie, but I wish I were. 

You can explore Tim Egan's brilliance here: Tim Egan Dot Com

A Wrench In The Works

 

 

It has been Republican party policy since the sainted Ronald Reagan's  presidency that government programs useful to Americans should be unfunded, rendered incapable of operating effectively, then declared useless and abolished. The weird part about this plan is that people who will be negatively affected by such cuts support the wrecking of government programs. Why? Because the propaganda is so effective. It amazes me how my fellow citizens, indebted to their eyeballs and thus nowhere near "free", fall over themselves to rush out and support the destruction of decent paying union jobs, pensions, health care programs, childcare, schools, parks, utility infrastructure and even prisons, all in the name of "freedom."  It has been a brilliant Big Lie put about by the master propagandists of the right and they have done very well protecting the interests of the one percent.

 

So when I find  a nice  piece of artistic humor offering a different view I cannot resist, not least in the hope that perceptions may be changing. This from Santa Cruz cartoonist Tim Egan's brilliant mind: www.timeagan.com/ 

 

 

Silly Season

British newspapers talk of "silly season" during the summer months when news is slow, parliament is in recess and politicians aren't slapping each other in public. In the Keys I think of silly season as the winter months when people come to escape harsh winters Up North and manage to make themselves look silly in the process. I like to see their empty manicured homes waiting for signs of life, like this one shown below on Big Pine Key. It's a reminder snow birds pay property taxes without homestead exemptions (if they are lawful) and they don't use civic services during those log months when they sport Up North with their grandchildren. Good on 'em.

I like this definition from Wikipedia, talking of silly season:

The silly season is the period lasting for a few summer months typified by the emergence of frivolous news stories in the media. This term was known by the end of the 19th century and listed in the second edition of Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable and remains in use at the start of the 21st century. The fifteenth edition of Brewer's expands on the second, defining the silly season as "the part of the year when Parliament and the Law Courts are not sitting (about August and September)". In the United States the period is referred to prosaically as the slow news season. In Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa, the silly season has come to refer to the Christmas/New Year festive period on account of the higher than usual number of social engagements where the consumption of alcohol is typical, which are in the Southern Hemisphere summer.

I suppose we who live here all the time should find it endearing when we listen to people who claim to live here but in fact just visit a few months at a time. I doubt people are lining up to claim permanent residence wherever it is the snowbirds come from. We should be flattered we who get to live here year round. I notice a higher incidence of intolerance this time of year, more people are on the streets and there is less silence. The snowbirds bring their habits with them and the usual (summer) practices of the communities get disrupted. Cyclists decked out in spandex riding gear woth colorful helmets replace scruffy wanderers on bicycles who ride down here during the rest of the year. Clumps of talkers block aisles in grocery stores not talking abiut workplace irritations like true locals. Snowbirds compare changes from the last silly season while they jostle the check out lines. On the highway retirees drive extra slow and in town they clog commuters by choosing to add to the traffic at peak times. They stop unpredictably to view the sights. Tempers flare and impatience runneth over.

I was walking a public street when I saw a loser bumper sticker. I never took a vow not to gloat so I stopped to take a picture and the honorable defender of freedom (a nebulous concept apparently) gruffly demanded to know what I was doing. Photographing the bumper sticker I said meekly though I wanted to remind him that around here the Michigan Militia holds no sway.

On the other hand when official silly season (elections!) is upon us I turn to the comics of Tim Egan of Santa Cruz, California.

Instead now the noise of vote seeking is over and I am ready to be disappointed once again by our leaders created during the District of Columbia Silly Season. So I look at a lovely pink Hibiscus, suitable for our silly season, that time of year when snow falls Up North and we get to hear about if from lots of people happy to have escaped the noose of the snow shovel for a winter. Silly season down here is when the flowers bloom not when snowflakes fall. Not bad even if we have to put up with slow drivers, loud talkers and silly cyclists clogging our lives for a few weeks. They'll be gone soon when the weather gets really nice.

DEEP COVER - by Tim Eagan

 

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