Power at its best is love implementing the demands of justice. Justice at its best is love correcting everything that stands against love.
Martin Luther King Jr.
But Always Love, Hate will get you every time
Nada Surf “Always Love”
Always Love, Even when you wanna fight
Here’s to better days ahead. (Hat tip to my friend Phil for the MLK Jr. quote. Hat tip to Nada Surf for being a great band.)
John Ham passed away a week ago. No relation to Jon Hamm. But there was a connection.
Jon Hamm, the actor, is best known for playing the character of Don Draper, a cigarette-smoking ad agency man in the 1960s, on Mad Men.
John Ham also was quite the character. He was a cigarette-smoking ad agency man in the 1960s. And the 70s, 80s, 90s and 2000s, too.
I worked with John from 2000-2005. He was an illustrator, and a damn good one. He did a lot of the packaging artwork for the original line of Star Wars action figures and toys. He created the illustrations for a Cincinnati beer company’s souvenir six-packs of the Reds World Series Championship way back in 1976.
By the time I joined the agency where “Hammy” worked, he was 62 years old… the wise (and wisecracking) elder statesman of the creative team. He didn’t really need the money – he and several friends had broken away from a big agency to form their own small ad agency decades prior. They grew the business, and were eventually bought out by a big national firm. But John was a people person through and through. “Gregarious” is probably the best adjective. He genuinely enjoyed the camaraderie of a creative environment. Always smiling, always generous with his time. He was much older than the rest of the creative team, but it never really felt that way. He was one of us. And when he wasn’t pursuing his art at work, he was engaged in his other passion: playing tennis.
Toward the end of his career, John would often get tapped to create a “farewell” caricature. It was usually for a bigwig who was leaving P&G (our largest client by far). But occasionally he’d create them for co-workers. I was lucky enough to get the Hammy treatment when I left the agency.
When John retired in 2008, Keith Neltner, our mutual friend and co-worker, turned the tables and created a caricature of Hammy in that same style.
The Yoda in the illustration is fitting – not just because of John’s Star Wars experience, but also because he was a lovable, wise mentor to all of us.
I shouldn’t feel so bummed out about the passing of a guy with whom I haven’t worked in 15 years, especially someone who made it to 83 (despite the smoking habit) and lived a very fulfilling life. But that smile, man, it was incandescent. We’ll miss that light.
May the force be with you, Hammy.
Well, this past week was a whole ‘nother level of abnormal, wasn’t it? I mean, we thought Kim and Kanye would be together forever, amirite? Oh, and I think something happened in D.C. too…
First, a couple of notes to the folks who are saying “this is not who we are” about the ugly rioting by Trump’s thuggish, domestic terrorist minions:
This is who we are. 74 million Americans voted for Donnie Dumpsterfire. (74 million is the real count, not the mythical one.) And he topped Gallup’s 2020 poll for the most admired man in America.
But today, let’s talk about the folks who allowed The Ego in Chief to run rampant for the past four years. The ones who work in the building that was overrun on Tuesday. My friend Greg summed it up nicely yesterday:
Ever since he won the nomination he has had enablers of various types. Hypocritical sycophants– Cruz, Graham, et al. They declared Trump as unfit, citing the clear proof. After Trump’s election they became full-blooded Trumpists. Another type–Jim Jordan, Matt Geatz, Nunes, et al. Suddenly highly noticeable like stink on shit by ratcheting up their always wacko selves. And finally the many. Think Portman and many others. Stayed as unnoticeable as possible. Too chicken to call out Trump on so many opportunities, thereby being perhaps the worst enablers of all. And even after the latest episode some of them still yammering about needing a solution to the nonexistent problem of voter fraud. The ones who went on record before and even after the riot, opposing electoral votes that Biden won. Wenstrup, Jordan, Chabot.
I couldn’t agree more. By not speaking out against Baby Donald’s baseless claims, by not calling him out on his blatant lies, his egregious (and seditious) acts, they gave a whiff of credibility to the circus… they gave oxygen to the dumpster fire. Not just about the non-existent “stolen” election but to all the stunts he’s pulled for four years.
In the days leading up to the Electoral College certification, 13 senators and 100+ members of the House (all Republicans, of course) were, as the Washington Post so eloquently put it, “more interested in placating Trump than protecting democracy.”
Heck, even after the Capitol was overrun by Trump terrorists, eight senators and 139 reps still voted to sustain one or both of the objections to states’ election results, based on spurious allegations of voter fraud. (To quote our incoming Prez, “c’mon man!” Heck, even Bill Barr said there was no evidence... yes, the same Bill Barr who, on most days, could give Trump a colonoscopy with his nose.)
I hope these politicians realize there’s blood on their hands. Brian D. Sicknick, an officer with the U.S. Capitol Police, passed away Thursday night.
Acting attorney general Jeffrey A. Rosen said in a statement that Sicknick died of “the injuries he suffered defending the U.S. Capitol, against the violent mob who stormed it on January 6th.”
I hope their consciences haunt them, much like Lady Macbeth’s did…
Officer Sicknick died for no good reason. And these craven congresspersons are part of the reason he died.
No, their hands will never be clean. And it’s time to clean house (and Senate).
In the same Gallup poll where DT was the most admired man, Michelle Obama was voted the most admired woman. Here’s what she had to say after Tuesday’s events:
If we have any hope of improving this nation, now is the time for swift and serious consequences for the failure of leadership that led to yesterday’s shame… Thankfully, even in the darkness there are glimmers of hope… But make no mistake: the work of putting America back together, of truly repairing what is broken, isn’t the work of any individual politician or political party. It’s up to each of us to do our part. To reach out. To listen. And to hold tight to the truth and values that have always led this country forward.
Michelle Obama in this social media post
Harry Shearer’s splendidly satirical radio program/podcast (he’s cross-platform!) Le Show does a great job pointing out the folly and foibles of humankind. His two-minute intro to the first show of 2021 made a great point about the silliness of a “brand new year”:
It’s so true – we put waaay too much stock into a single, solitary day on one particular calendar.
“Does the fate machine restart each time one of those flips a year?… We could just take the alternative path, resign ourselves to the ‘random now’…”
Harry Shearer
I love that phrase, “the random now.” Instead of making grandiose resolutions and year-long goals (most of which end up in the dustbin or collecting dust within a couple of weeks), just focus on the here and now. That way you won’t “break” your resolution irrevocably or feel like a failure.
Don’t take on the extra burden to create a “New You” in the “New Year.” The ‘year’ is arbitrary… the ‘you’ is always evolving, moment by moment.
I wish you good health. The pandemic has shown how precarious that can be.
I wish you happiness. Cut off from our usual social connections, it’s harder to find the joy every day.
I wish for peace. This old world sure could use it.
I send you love. Please re-gift it.
From an old article by Brian Doyle, republished this week in The American Scholar:
Can I ask you a strange favor? On Monday night, December 22, go outside with your kids, or your friends, or your neighbors, and start a bonfire… And when it is going well, when it’s leaping and steady and warmer than you remember bonfires being, stand around it with your friends or your loved ones, and tell stories, and laugh, maybe have a beer, maybe even sing a little.
Mr. Doyle asked us for that favor because Joe Strummer (musician, singer, songwriter, co-founder of The Clash) died on December 22, 2002.
his favorite thing to do was gather friends and family and make bonfires and stand around the fire telling stories and laughing and singing.
Brian Doyle, in the article linked above.
My friend Kevin read the article recently, and was happy to oblige the request. He organized a firepit gathering at my neighbor Mark’s house on Tuesday night. We were a day late for Joe Strummer Day, but better late than never. It was a wonderful way to celebrate the spirit of a man who touched a lot of lives with his music and his stories.
I’ve read a lot of autobiographies from rock and rollers. Many of them include “the first time I met Joe Strummer” tales. And I’ve yet to read an unkind word about him. From all accounts, he was generous with his time, and liberal with his praise and encouragement.
Joe was only 50 when he passed away. The folks gathered around the fire on Tuesday have passed that milestone. I hope we’re able to keep Joe’s spirit burning brightly.
Think of it as a way to say hey to Joe Strummer, who was a good man, much missed; but think of it too as a way to honor what he cherished and savored in his own life: the way standing or sitting together matters, and telling stories matters, and laughing matters, and singing matters. That’s Joe Strummer’s true legacy, I think, more than the records he sold
Brian Doyle’s piece is quite short, and well worth the read. Mr. Doyle passed away in 2017. Like Joe, he left us with food for thought, with something to savor, with fond memories.
See you next December 22nd. Until then, keep the fire burning.
Raise a toast to Saint Joe Strummer
Lyrics from “Constructive Summer” by The Hold Steady
I think he might have been our only decent teacher
You done said…