It would be cool to be a cartoonist, the trouble is that I’ve only come up with two good ideas for cartoons, an average of one per decade. The first is from my radical environmentalist phase in high school. At that time, the first George Bush wanted some protected wetlands to be undefined as such because they were only wet part of the time, or something. So one of my cartoon characters (the characters were the NG people, who were anthropomorphic drops of natural gas) was running for president, and proposed that many “trees” should not be defined as such because a “tree” is a tall, leafy plant; while many so-called trees are only leafy during part of the year, while others aren’t “tall” at all. It should have ended with a witty comment by one of the other characters, but I could never come up with one.
The second would be titled “Harry Nilsson with a banana in his ear.” The first panel would show Harry Nilsson with a banana in his ear, and a friend would come up and say, “Harry, did you know that there’s a banana in your ear?” Harry would say, “What?” This would happen a couple more times, and in the final panel, Harry would say, “I’m sorry, I can’t hear a word you’re saying, only the echoes of my mind, because I have this banana in my ear.” Ha, ha.
More recently I had an idea for a bumper sticker that would read “I’d Rather Be Preserving Ma’at,” however I can’t remember if this was my idea or Andy’s, or maybe somebody else’s. I frequently plagiarize other people’s catchphrases and witticisms without really being aware I’m doing it.
Wow, that’d be an awesome bumper sticker. I’d like to claim credit for that, but I’m pretty sure that idea didn’t come from me. One thought, though: this bumper sticker would sort of imply that whatever you are currently doing, it isn’t doing anything to preserve Ma’at. I kind of like that, but it makes you sound kind of evil.
I’m trolling around posts I haven’t read yet, hence the late comment.
I have to admit, I don’t know who Harry Nilsson is. But I do know that the monkey in the Pippi Longstocking books was named Mr. Nilsson. So when you first said that name, I thought of a monkey with a bananna in his ear. I then had to re-trace my subconscious thought process until I realized why I was visiualizing a monkey.
Scary, since I haven’t read (I swear) one of those books in a long, long time.
Harry Nilsson wrote the song “Everybody’s Talking,” which starts with the words cited above minus the banana reference. I’m not sure if there is any connection between him and Pippi’s pet. I’d forgotten about Mr. Nilsson the monkey. I think she had a horse too, but can’t remember his name.
Ah, the Midnight Cowboy song. What a great movie.