April Generations

It's almost time for April showers to yield to May flowers, so I get around herewith to resurrecting a generation's worth of my cartoons from Aprils 1983, 1993, 2003, and 2013.

in UW-Parkside Ranger, Somers Wis., May 12, 1983

I dated this cartoon in April, although it wasn't printed until well into the month of May, in the University of Wisconsin at Parkside student newspaper's last issue before summer break. 

A 1981 college graduate would typically be someone at the the tail end of the Baby Boom generation, depending on whether you draw the line at persons born in 1960, 1963, or 1965. If this fellow didn't have a job lined up straight out of college, he soon ran up against the recession that was only just beginning to fade away in 1983.

Such was also the fate also of Generation X (a term not yet coined) who bypassed college to head straight into manufacturing jobs — just as the manufacturing sector began to slip away, first to the anti-union South and then overseas. It was a good time to know how to program computers, but not a good time to follow your father to the foundry.

For the blue-collar middle class, "Morning in America" meant it was time to wake up from the American dream.

in UWM Post, Milwaukee Wis., April 19, 1993

Vaulting ahead ten years, I've got a Gen-Xer (or is he a Millennial?) leading off a local issue cartoon for another University of Wisconsin student paper. That spring, tap water in Milwaukee was contaminated with cryptosporidium, a microscopic, chlorine-resistant parasite that caused respiratory disease and diarrhea in some 403,000 Milwaukeeans. City government warned residents to boil water used for drinking, bathing, and dishwashing.

The contamination was caused by snow melt and storm run-off in the city's sewer system, and is the reason Milwaukee invested hundreds of thousands of dollars in a new big tunnel sewer system and water treatment plants.

References made by the two characters in the cartoon to safe sex practices should, I hope, still be obvious. The guy in quasi-military get-up is Alderman Michael McGee, a firebrand who was not above threatening — or excusing — violence in the streets. (Note that this was one year after the Rodney King riots in Los Angeles, and just as the nation was bracing for reaction to whatever verdict came down in the trial of the officers who had beaten him.)

And then, once more, some product placement for Old Milwaukee beer. Because you can't draw a cartoon about beverages of any kind in Milwaukee without bringing beer into it.

in The Biz, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, spring 2003

This cartoon accompanied an article generalizing about the respective attitudes of Boomers, Gen Xers, and Gen Y in The Biz, the glossy, full-color supplement to The Business Journal of Greater Milwaukee.

The oldest Baby Boomers were still a decade away from retirement, but according to the article, impatient Gen Xers were complaining that we were old and in the way. Given that the leading presidential contenders 20 years later are the incumbent Silent Generationer and the most self-absorbed, spoiled Baby Boomer on the planet, perhaps they had a point.

Meanwhile, another generation was coming up inexorably behind GenX. I was hoping I could dig up a copy of the Biz this cartoon was in so I could pass along whatever it was the columnist had to say about Generation Y, but no such luck.

Chances are, however, that droopy drawers had nothing to do with it.

for Q Syndicate, April, 2013

Finally, I'll toss in this cartoon as a tribute to Louise Fletcher, who passed away last year. Fletcher is best known for her role as the authoritarian Head Administrative Nurse Mildred Ratched in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975). I referenced Nurse Ratched for this cartoon about an incident in which Research Medical Facility in Kansas City, Missouri, had a man arrested for refusing to leave the bedside of his civilly unionized partner (marriage not being an option in Missouri at the time).

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By the way, I could have put together a post of April cartoons from 1983, 1993, 2003 and 2013 on a military theme. If I had, the 2013 cartoon would have posed a conundrum, given my cartoon earlier this week touching on the issue of deadnaming transgender persons.

I drew a cartoon in April, 2013, about a soldier who has since become transgender. The person doesn't appear in the cartoon, but their deadname does.

To what degree is it deadnaming to refer to a transgender person's pre-transition past if they were on magazine covers, cereal boxes, or their parents' variety TV show at the time? It isn't as if I'd be outing them. One can't entirely pretend that they had no existence and no effect on reality during their pre-transition years. 

On the other hand, it probably isn't exactly polite. So this time around, I'm giving them a pass.

But if that cartoon turns out to be perfect for some future Saturday History Tour, I won't promise that it will never, ever, show up here.

Q Toon: So Long, Elon

Reversing a fiver-year-old policy at Twitter, hate speech champion Elon Musk has reopened his platform to right-wing attacks on LGBTQ+ users and users of color. In response, LGBTQ non-profit organizations across the country are deactivating their Twitter accounts.

Dozens of regional LGBTQ community centers are deactivating their Twitter accounts today, decrying recent policy changes despite the rise of hate speech and calling on the app to do more to protect its users. 

The announcement came from CenterLink, an international nonprofit network of more than 325 LGBTQ organizations, many of which will also be leaving the platform.

"Twitter has become increasingly unsafe in recent months for LGBTQ and BIPOC people with anti-LGBTQ, anti-trans, anti-Black, and antisemitic tweets on the rise. The removal of this policy was the last straw," Denise Spivak, CEO of CenterLink, told Mashable. 

Earlier this month, Twitter, led by CEO Elon Musk, quietly removed a portion of its hateful conduct policy that specified protections against misgendering and deadnaming transgender users, adding to an already hostile, hate-speech filled environment. 

In response to the conduct changes, CenterLink and its members have decided to forgo the app entirely, formally deactivating their Twitter accounts today. Some participants have already left the app, announced they will no longer be active, or pinned statements opposing the app's changes.

I was late signing onto Twitter myself, getting on board shortly before Musk took over the joint. The headline on today's post notwithstanding, I don't have plans to deactivate my account there at this point, even though our value to each other is really quite marginal. (I've also tried Counter Social and Mastodon, but the experience is kind of like finding yourself in a huge stadium filled with people each of whom is talking to him/herself.)

Just the same, if my Twitter feed were to become intolerably toxic, I would probably hang it up.

And neither of us would miss the other much.

This Week's Sneak Peek

 Let's just say that I'm relieved that I didn't stay up late drawing a Tucker Carlson cartoon last night.

I Could Have Danced All Night

100 years ago this week, the 1920's marathon dance craze provided inspiration for several of our best cartoonists, and a break from this here blog's preoccupation of late with gun violence.

"Breaking the Endurance Dancing Record" by John T. McCutcheon in Chicago Tribune, April 19, 1923

On Sunday, April 15, 1923, Magdeline Williams of Houston, Texas, gained national fame by dancing for 65.5 hours in a dance marathon, blowing past the previous record of 52 hours and 17 minutes, in a contest won by Samuel Glasser and Myrtle Smith of Baltimore, Maryland, the night before. (There were seven dancers still on the dance floor when theater owner Charles Whitehurst abruptly shut the Baltimore event down at 1:00 a.m. Sunday morning.)

21 couples had started the Houston dance marathon on Thursday evening. As reported by the Houston Post:

Pretty Miss Magdelina Williams, winner in a recent Valentino beauty contest, danced steadily through two days and three nights and the greater part of the third day, while couple after couple dropped out around her. To the very last, there was very little evidence of exhaustion about her, and for a swan song, she staged as lively a one-step as she did on the first night.

"She Used to Belong to Our Dancing Club" by J.N. "Ding" Darling in Des Moines Register, April 18, 1923

The last man on the dance floor, Louis Kessler, was ruled off the floor at 2:27 p.m. Sunday when judges declared that he was unable to keep time with the music. Magdalene Williams vowed to continue dancing with the goal of making it to 72 hours, but objections by the dance hall owners and a note from her parents convinced her to bow out at 3:08.

"Having an Endurance Test of His Own" by Dorman H. Smith for Newspaper Enterprise Assn., ca. April 23, 1923

Houston and Baltimore were only two of several cities where marathoners were testing the limits of the Lindy and the Charleston. That New York would be on the list is only to be expected; Cleveland, being the home base of Dorman Smith and the NEA, naturally rates a mention. Apparently the craze extended to England and Australia as well (although, judging from Sidney Strube's cartoon below, the marathon in London was mere kid stuff next to those in Baltimore and Houston).

When I first saw Dorman Smith's cartoon, I misunderstood it to be about some whirlwind honeymoon planned by the very-soon-to-wed Albert, Duke of York. It's not. Turns out, the future George VI never did get around to taking in the romantic sights of Cleveland, Ohio.

"Our Marathon Entry" by Daniel Fitzpatrick in St. Louis Post-Dispatch, April 18, 1923

To some, the dance marathon fad was a source of befuddled amusement. Daniel Fitzpatrick's cartoon brings together two characters from the Post-Dispatch's comics page: Bud Fisher's Augustus Mutt and Fontaine Fox's "The Powerful Katrinka." (If you're wondering who they are, I refer you back to my post here on Tuesday.)

What would Mrs. Mutt say?

"Tripping the Light Fantastic" by John Cassel in New York Evening World by April 23, 1923

Needless to say, some older folks were not so amused by the kids' antics. Clergymen called on the authorities to use "lunacy laws" to curtail the dance craze, and they weren't the only ones to hit on that idea. 

"Where the Next Marathon Should Be Held" by Dennis McCarthy in Fort Worth Record, April 25, 1923

Maryland Commissioner for State Hygiene warned of health risks, including that "mental strain, which would be almost severe as physical, might leave a permanent impairment, a condition of mental instability, with periods of depression or of excitement."

"Her Partner" by Edward Gale in Los Angeles Times, April 21,1923

My, that got dark quickly!

"Speaking of Marathon Dances" by Sidney Strube in London Daily Express by April 20, 1923

Meanwhile, some cartoonists seized on the dance marathon craze to comment on other current events. British cartoonist Sidney Strube here refers to the massive wartime loans his country promised to repay the United States — eventually. In Strube's scenario, the British Taxpayer would be dancing "the I-O-U Fox Trot" long after the next World War had come and gone.

"Destructive Dancing" by Clifford Berryman in Washington (DC) Evening Star, April 20, 1923

Clifford Berryman adapted the dance craze motif for the communist regime in Russia, showing no signs of leaving the stage after 65.5 months in power.

"Here's Hoping He Goes After a World's Record" by Dennis McCarthy in Fort Worth Record, April 19, 1923

And I'm sorry, Dennis, but this one's a swing and a miss. Considering that the kids right there in Fort Worth had also vied for that coveted world record only to have local law enforcement shut them down after only twelve hours, this pitch was well outside the zone.

"Jazzed Up to Date" by Nelson Harding in Brooklyn Daily Eagle, April 24, 1923

At the Wrong Door

In yesterday's post, I commented that it has never occurred to my better half and me to shoot at people who turn around in our driveway or mistakenly ring our doorbell.

There was one episode that wasn't so innocuous when I lived in a downtown apartment.

I had a neighbor next door — I'll call him John, since that's what his parents did — who does not rank among my favorite neighbors.  He and his friends were into heroin, and I'm quite sure that his apartment was the source of the cockroaches that kept getting into my kitchen. (The statutes of limitations have run out on anything I'm about to post here; and by now, John and his friends have straightened up, served time, or overdosed.)

We shared a back porch off our adjacent kitchens.

One summer afternoon, I was watching TV in my living room. I had the kitchen door open on the latch to let the outside breeze through the apartment since I didn't have air conditioning, when I heard banging noises coming from the kitchen.

It was one of John's druggie friends trying to force the screen door open. I was furious confronting the guy, who backed off, saying that he had mistaken my door for John's. 

John, who wasn't home at the time, later apologized profusely to me for his friend's behavior, inviting me to party with them and offering to introduce me to one of his druggie friends who happened to be gay. Suffice it to say that I was not at all interested in any of it, up to and including the apology (which, at least, contained no blather about "continued commitment to the highest journalistic standards" or any such bullshit.)

All things considered, however, we were all alive to tell about it afterward because at no point in this story was there any gun involved.

Q Toon: America, We Hear You

Mass murders in the U.S. continue to outnumber the days on the calendar this year — a statistic made possible by the conjoined statistic that guns outnumber U.S. citizens.

The response by Republican lawmakers is epitomized by Tennessee Congresscretin Tim Burchett, who promised grieving parents after the massacre of six schoolchildren and staff in his state, "We're not going to fix it."

“It’s a horrible, horrible situation, and we’re not going to fix it,” Burchett said. “Criminals are gonna be criminals. And my daddy fought in the Second World War, fought in the Pacific, fought the Japanese, and he told me, he said, ‘Buddy,’ he said, ‘if somebody wants to take you out, and doesn’t mind losing their life, there’s not a whole heck of a lot you can do about it.’”

And also by the yahoos in the Nebraska legislature, who are poised to allow concealed carry without permit or gun safety training, thus voiding ordinances in Omaha and Lincoln.

Amid the daily carnage this month, the National Rifle Association held its annual convention in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Guns and cash exchanged hands in the parking lot with nary a thought given to whether either party to the transaction were a criminal, mentally unstable, a terrorist, or Gov. Kristi Noem's two-year-old kid.

Because, you see, as far as the NRA and its ammosexual fetishists are concerned, guns are not the problem; guns are the solution. And they'll be more than happy to sell you as many and whatever arms you think you need to protect yourself against their other customers.

As a result, in just the past week, two cheerleaders were shot in Texas when one of them got into a car she mistakenly thought was hers in a supermarket parking lot. We also had a scared shitless gun owner in Kansas City firing his gun through his front door and shooting in the head a 16-year-old boy who was supposed to pick up his little brother and sister and had rung the wrong doorbell. And some other shoot-first-think-later homeowner in upstate New York shot dead a 20-year-old woman in a car that was backing out of his driveway when the women in the car realized they weren't at the house of their friend.

Now, I've never had a stranger open my car door by mistake, but there's nothing at all unusual about people using our driveway to turn around instead of driving around the block. It's usually delivery people or neighbors' guests. If unwanted salespersons, or kids looking to earn money mowing lawns come to the door, we tell them we aren't interested, or sometimes we just ignore them.

But then, we don't belong to the NRA.

Mutt and Katrinka

In the post I'm working on for this Saturday, there is a reference to two cartoon features from 1923. One retains some residual fame; the other, not so much.

Some of you might have heard of "Mutt and Jeff" by Bud Fischer:

"Mutt and Jeff" by Bud Fisher, April 22, 1923

Mutt and Jeff appeared in a couple of animated film features back in the 1910's, and Mutt and Jeff plays hit the vaudeville circuit. Their names lived on for a while as something one might call any pair of boys or men of dissimilar height.

The Powerful Katrinka was a recurring character in Fontaine Fox's "Toonerville Folks." You might possibly have heard of the Toonerville Trolley, or the 1940's films starring Mickey Rooney as the Toonerville town bully Mickey McGuire. 

"The Powerful Katrinka" by Fontaine Fox for Wheeler Syndicate, April 18, 1923

Now when they come up on Saturday, you'll know who they are.