Some people are easier to draw than others. Albert Einstein, Donald Trump, Richard Nixon, Angelina Jolie, Will Smith, Jimmy Durante, and the Beatles, for example, lend themselves to caricature. Apparently, so do I.
Whether this is a bonus or a curse remains unclear. I’ve been lampooned by professionals, amateurs, and kids from the age of five. A tuft of hair, a pair of glasses, a sketchy beard– that’s all it takes. I’ll collect them in a gallery here, just to prove my point.
Admittedly, I’m often a willing participant. Being reduced to a silly sketch is good for the soul. It reminds us that we’re all playing our parts in a wildly entertaining comic opera. My approach to writing history, readers often point out, is peppered with humor since, without it, the past can be a veil of tears. The rise of AI has only made the tears, fo good or ill, flow faster.
This particular cartoon depicts a real event for which I still plead innocent. Back, I believe, in the 1970s, a friend and I wandered into a Portsmouth bar called the Night Owl. Bars were, shall we say, different back then. It might have been a private club, but we knew the bartender. Nothing, as I recall, was going on. The place was dead. Someone, maybe me, put a dime in the jukebox, which was a little improvement.
A huge cat was sitting on an unused pool table. It was as bored as we were. Ohimut of sheer whimsy, I picked him/her up and began waltzing around the empty saloon. Long story short, we got kicked out of the Night Owl. When I recalled the event in a local publication, now long gone, the staff cartoonist whipped off this illustration. I shrink to admit, it’s pretty darn accurate.
The moral of the story? First, don’t dance with the owner’s cat in a private club. Second, be careful what tales you tell to people who know how to draw. And third, embrace your inner foolishness. Whether you admit it or not, other people find you hilarious.
Copyright J. Dennis Robinson, all rights reserved.
(Click image to enlarge and start gallery slide show.)
Portsmouth’s Forgotten Textile Business