All Things Must Pass...Legal

The past two weeks have been spent obtaining permission rights to the over twenty quotes used in my book (The History of the Snowman). I've heard from alot of interesting people like the renown P. K. Page, who graciously helped and granted me permission to use her snowman poem. "The book sounds fascinating," the 91 yr-old Canadian poet wrote me in an e-mail, a common sentiment I got from people...unless they were dead. That includes the following group, made up of some of the world's most important writers: Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Dylan Thomas, Kenneth Koch, Wallace Stevens, George Santayana, and Michael Gold. I didn't receive any e-mails from them but I have already received clearance through their family and/or publisher.

The costs? One publisher wanted $50 for a two-line excerpt from their book. Everyone wanted free copies. One family estate wanted a trade; a quote for an original drawing of mine of their famous relative.

I'm awaiting response from Jack Handey (Deep Thoughts, Saturday Night Live) and George Harrison's widow and estate. Even to use one lyric from Harrison's Here Comes the Sun requires a contract. All things must pass legal.

Frantic Pace

Haven't had a break to write – things have been a bit frantic (working on a rewrite on my snowman book and labor intensive jobs from Sports Illustrated, Consumer Reports, and Trader). But the big time consumer has been relearning to draw – without the computer. That's going horrible because I was so used to being able to type command + Z to undo something, allowing me previously to draw with reckless abandon. One can argue no great artists ever used a Wacom tablet. Oh well.

New Yorker Cartoonist

Above is my first official New Yorker cartoon reject.

There was a great article recently in The New York Times by New Yorker cartoonist Caroline H. Dworin which triggered my interest in trying to get into the New Yorker. I've since had a chance to meet this writer/cartoonist and thank her in person for this new career path. There's an interesting interview with Sam Gross and Matthew Diffee online. Sam Gross is the cartoonist I'm indebted to for getting me started doing gag cartoons (as of last week). Matthew Diffee is a young cartoonist who came out with the best-selling book The Rejected Collection (incidentally, published by the same people currently working on my book). I actually did the same idea five years earlier in Details magazine.

The Newest Freelancer

Having finished the art production of my upcoming book two weeks ago, I was able to return to other "interests": cartooning, restoring friendships, the Lacawac Sanctuary (where I am now in charge the old Lodge's restoration. Last week; lighting.) and this blog.

I decided to try gag cartoons and hit the pavement. I went to The New Yorker first (a couple of days ago) and it was pointed out by the editor how much I did wrong in my submissions – mainly executing the cartoons on the computer. Nevertheless, luckily, they bought a cartoon of mine and I will be meeting with them weekly to pitch more. But I will have to start drawing with a pen on paper...for the first time in over five years! (Pretty pathetic for an artist to say.)

Like most "readers," I was a big fan of Kurt Vonnegut, who just passed away. In light of the fact that I recently made a statement at my local town meeting in protest to the building of a super McMansion next door to me, here is a far more interesting statement Kurt Vonnegut gave in 1998 at a Southampton town meeting to stop a super McMansion going up next to him;

"I'm a novelist. I have lived in a house in Sagaponack for twenty-two years. The house appears on the map in 1739. I restored the house. When I moved here, I had no idea how pliable the town government was. And how humorless, that it would look at a plan for a dwelling this huge, just visually, obviously not a one-family house and call it a one-family house. It will destroy Sagaponack for me, where I have worked and lived very happily. It will cut off use of the waterfront. Such an enormous establishment does not belong between us and the water. And so I'll be leaving. Thank you. One more thing. I'm not a human being. I'm a kangaroo."

Cartoon Reject

Here is a one of the many cartoons I pitched to TimeOut and had rejected;

Illustrated Guide to The Passover Makeover
Here are the latest efforts to market Passover;

Holiday specials include; A Charlie Brown Seder,
Survivor in Israel and Noshing with the Stars.

New Fashion from The Gap for Orthodox.

Exciting new food branding. Gefilte Fish Fruit Roll-ups for kids, Matzah Balls On the Go, and for dogs, Brisket Bits, the kosher dog food.

Blogger Rabbi Joel Glickstein will podcast Seder live on YouShmooze.

Adam Sandler and Sarah Silverman star in Woody Allen’s new racy romantic comedy, Why Is This Night Different From All Other Nights?

Just in time for Opening Day, Major League Baseball announces the first ever all-senior baseball team, The Manhattan Beach Meshugehs.

NPR premieres their new program, Prairie Home Chutzpah.

Tools of the Trade Part II

For any I may have misled thinking I was going to talk about physical tools of the trade, here’s a quick tech post.

I use a pair of Mac Intels, each with their own Wacom pad and each with a “continuous” pair of monitors. A pair of G4s and a laptop are my back-ups. An external hard drive, the size of a pack of cigarettes, and a subscription to .Mac, theoretically, keep the computers in sync, along with a handful of thumb drives that are God knows where (things are constantly disappearing in my life – I’m like a melon truck on a bumpy road).

The other day one of the monitors turned green, like it ate a bad file. So off to the chat rooms for a diagnosis I went. I tried using the monitor on its side, tried degaussing, wiggling the cables, kicking it. Finally, its color reappeared when I turned the monitor around to face the wall.

Correction

Apologies to all who follow this blog. For the past few weeks I was unable to post as I was involved in multible legal proceedings including an apartment closing (for my place in Brooklyn), a contract dispute and 2 court cases. I'd finish into the evening dealing with all the phone calls to lawyers, etc. then working through the night on freelance jobs until 4 am or so and catch three or so hours sleep. I won't bore you with the details and a couple are ongoing so I can't anyway. One case that finished (in my favor) was stopping a subdivision from being built next door to me. I testified and stated my objections to my neighbor trying to illegally start a development on her land – it was a violation of zoning and she forged deeds.

I chair a Preservation Land committee in Pennsylvania and this is the second house development I successfully blocked. The other has since become ten acres of public forest for everyone to enjoy. I have been heavily involved in the Lacawac Sanctuary and until my recent time problems, I produced a quarterly newsletter called Notes From the Forest which discusses scientifc work and research at this 500-acre site where it can boost having the most Southern North American glacier lake.

Anyway, please revisit Freelancer's Lament as I resume a every other day schedule of posting on this blog. Thanks and again sorry for dropping out of sight.