CARICATURES: MY SHARPIE ALWAYS LIES!

 

SELF-PORTRAIT

Full of bluster, I fancy myself to be a planetary busker having the creds of busking with either my guitar or my pencil on streets in Ireland, The Netherlands, Morocco, and of course, Canada. In a line, I am accustomed to the bustle of streets, both foreign and domestic.

Coming into summertime, I’ve now decided to trade my pencil for a Sharpie, and foray into the art of caricature. Yes, I am a tyro, but I can draw faces. No arms, no trunk, no legs, no accessories. Just faces.

FACTOID: This seems apropos because I believe I’ve a good enough eye and the hand skills and to make the switch from portrait to caricature busking. I may be delusional, and I know the switch will not be with facile. However, with just a week of practicing drawing caricatures taking each between three to five minutes, I just recently attached a few of my practice pictures to my application for drawing caricatures at the OLD WIVES LAKE SUMMER FESTIVAL this July. Two days later, my application was accepted!

The OLD WIVES LAKE SUMMER FESTIVAL is scheduled for JULY 19^TH. Up and until the day of the festival, I will PRACTICE PRACTIC PRACTICE, in my effort to draw caricatures in under five minutes. (This I know from experience: The longer I take to draw someone, the more my drawing is expected to look like a photograph.)

Admittedly, I shall be sacrificing quality for speed. But this is a good thing because there is no artistry in perfection. Factoid: Imperfections create style.

The art of caricature relies on an exaggeration of distinct facial features. I have read that to be a successful caricaturist, not every detail on the customer’s face needs to be exaggerated. Rather, a caricaturist needs only to highlight or alter the proportion of the one feature that truly defines that person in the caricaturist’s eye. It could be the nose, it could be the ears, it could be the mouth. But really, no matter whose face I draw, I doubt I’ll have the heart to make fun of the person. Hmmm. But if I ever do, it will only be just the one feature on my customer’s face that I personally deem significant.

Factoid: Over the years of busking with my pencil, I have always bragged that “My pencil never lies.” Now that I will be busking with my Sharpie, I will confess that “My Sharpie always lies.”

I have decided, at least for now, that my caricatures will be non-exaggerated monochromes, drawn with a Sharpie black marker. And my measure for knowing whether the faces that I draw are good or not?

If I am pleased with the picture, most likely my customer, too, will be pleased with the picture.

I know from personal experience, that attempting to eke out a living as a guitar busker can be very tough. I am thinking caricaturists have more opportunities, permanent jobs in theme parks, loads of freelance opportunities for corporate gigs, big weddings, birthday parties, and such.

Marching in my CHAUCERIAN PARADE this week are those who posed for my ambitions of becoming a nobby and planetary caricaturist:

MY COLLEAGUE

MY COLLEAGUE

MY NEIGHBOUR

MY NEIGHBOUR

OWNER OF MY FAVOURITE SCUBA SHOP

MY KEN FOR DRAWING CARICATURES SHALL BE A BAPTISM BY FIRE AT THE OLD WIVES LAKE SUMMER FESTIVAL THIS JULY 19^TH.

MY THREE-MINUTE SELF-PORTRAIT

 

 

MY PENCIL NEVER LIES: FROM PORTRAITURE TO CARICATURE

 

SELF-PORTRAIT

For these soon-to-be summer days of street busking, I have decided to draw caricatures rather than draw my traditional “my-pencil-never-lies” portraits. Typically, my pencil-never-lies portraits take me 15 to 20 minutes to draw, whereas my caricatures just three to five minutes. This translates to four pencil portraits per hour versus ten caricatures per hour, at ten dollars a pop. (Hmm. $40 per hour compared to $100 per hour.) CHA-CHING!

And what are the differences between my pencil portraits and my caricatures? In a line, caricatures are my pencil portraits jacked on steroids. Note, that most caricaturists exaggerate the most noticeable facial features when drawing their subjects, whereas I tend to draw more realistic than an exaggerated cartoony fashion. My notion of caricature is to make my clients smile, not make them cry. Even though people with naturally exaggerated features are much easier to draw than those having the look of the boy or girl next door, so far, I have not exaggerated anyone’s nose or chin or whatever. So far …

For drawing caricatures I use a marker, and for drawing portraits I use a pencil. In this short period of transition from one to the another, I have discovered that drawing with a marker leaves little or no room for error. A marker stroke is permanent; an errant pencil stroke can easily be erased. Even so, drawing with markers is much quicker and much cleaner than drawing with pencils. 

Here is an example of my my typical pencil-never-lies portrait drawing.

Now this next picture is my very first attempt at drawing a caricature live:

MY CO-WORKER, BRIAN

Here is another attempt at a live caricature:

MY FRIEND, LORRAINE

And yet another attempt:

TOO MUCH LIPSTICK MAYBE?!

Walking through Prince’s Island Park in Calgary, Alberta, by happenchance I bumped into a professional caricaturist.

ROB MILTON - CARICATURIST

And Rob Milton drew me:

And then I drew Rob Milton:

“There is a resemblance,” he stated. YIKES! (I thought I did a great job!)

From long ago I have learned to realize that people do not know what they look like. And after drawing literally hundreds of my-pencil-never-lies portraits, the longer it takes me to draw people, the more they expect it to look like a photograph.

Drawing clients live on the street can be, both literally and metaphorically, a hair-raising experience. Years ago, at the Farmers’ Market in my home city, a woman screamed at me that I did not capture the essence of her daughter in my pencil portrait. Another time in Marrakech, a ten-year old threw quite the tantrum when he looked at his likeness that I had drawn. (His dad was totally on my side and brought three more of his children over for me to draw!)

In moments of bluster, I love referring to myself as a “Planetary Busker.” I say this only because I have drawn pencil-portraits of people on the streets in Canada, Ireland, The Netherlands, and Morocco. I really am a planetary busker! (More bluster.)

Of course, I would be remiss not to mention, that my busking is a mercenary enterprise. I sling both my guitar and my pencil on the street for the money. And this is why I have decided that being a caricaturist is the way to go, and like I alluded to earlier in this essay, TIME IS MONEY!

Here are a few caricatures I drew a few years ago, back in 2020 when I was considering adverting to caricatures, but never did. These were drawn from pictures (obviously), which I consider to be rather meh when compared to the never-ending kinetic excitement when drawing live on the streets.

Yep. Caricatures shall be my defining zeitgeist from this day forward! Here is hoping the quality of my caricature drawing improves before my next blog post. And I do know the only way to become a successful and sought after caricaturist is to PRACTICE PRACTICE PRACTICE!

And here is my last practice caricature for today:

 THREE MINUTES!

 

DOGGONE IT!

It was windy and cool, not really the perfect day for busking, but still a perfect day in the park for trees to bud, the geese to gather, and people to walk their dogs. Just ten minutes into my thrumming and harping inside the Queen Elizabeth II Gardens, in the riparian zone close to where Her Majesty is always riding to nowhere while seated high upon her horse, a rather ragged looking gentleman, very tall and wearing very loud red and yellow blowing-in-the-wind sailing clothes, stopped walking his dog to have a chat with me.

Fittingly and amusingly, he introduced himself as “Barber.” My inner self chuckled as his foot-long unkempt and scruffy beard was quite the distraction to anything he was attempting to communicate to me. He was mumbling something about the election (we had just gone to the polls the day before, the politer still on front lawns and park billboards), but I was not listening. The distraction of his unsightly and knotty beard was quickly eclipsed by his dog defecating on my buskspot. With nary a look nor a word regarding this action of his pooch, Barber simply bid goodbye and walked away leaving the poop at my feet. 

Rather roiled, I wasn’t sure what to do. Just leave it and change buskspots? Confront Barber?  Bag it and deposit into the nearest trash can? With my iPhone, take a picture of Barber and his Fido and show it to the nearest park sheriff? Or bag it, and follow Barber to his residence and deposit it there?

For me to just leave it and move on would have been the simplest action, whereas confronting Barber was a bit more complicated. Here is what I know about confronting someone over anything. Anyone you decide to confront is always a wild card. Confronting Barber could predictively lead to a shouting match or even fisticuffs. 

But for me to bag it and deposit it into a park garbage can, yuk. Not my dog’s poop – I do not own a dog for this very reason. I’ve no quarrel with people and their pets, but having a pet is just not for me. Too much maintenance for my already imaginary busy schedule. Besides, I do not need a dog for an excuse to go for a walk in the park. This I do daily, without a dog, and with or without my guitar.

For me to bag it and follow Barber to his place and dump it there, though sinister in nature, would certainly be the most delicious poetic justice. Hmmm. But I would have to take time out of my busy busking schedule and in a most aggressive way, take a chance of confronting the wildcard.

After the fact, I googled the appropriate by law. According to my city Good Neighbor Guide:

“Picking up after your dog, be this on private property or public property, is part of responsible pet ownership. On public property, immediately dispose of your dog’s waste. Dog poop poses environmental risks health hazards, carrying diseases and parasites harmful to humans and other animals. Noncompliance of this can result in fines ranging from $100 to $300.”

Hmmm. Reading all this is good to know but to point out and preach about this to a dog walker who is guilty of not picking up after their pooch is a risky business, and such confrontation could potentially lead to a disastrous outcome.

I googled the breed of Barber’s Rover. It was a Newfoundland, and this Newfoundland left quite a load of poop.

Call me a coward – I left it and moved on. 

Doggone it! 

Doggy do does take the fun out of busking!

MY DOPPELGANGER ?!

DOPPELGANGER, was first coined by German author, Jean Paul, in 1796, and translates into English as “double walker” and/or “double goer.” When I first heard the term, I was listening to Canadian writer, Eli Mandel, as he was doing a poetry reading at Balfour Collegiate, Regina, SK in the ‘70s. At that reading, Eli expressed that he saw his doppelganger while on a walk one day, strolling through a city park, and walking near a footbridge. There, Eli noticed his doppelganger leaning over the guard rail and looking straight at him. Eli stated that that was a moment that stopped him. They waved to one another, and then each went along his way. 

“Meeting one’s doppelganger meant imminent death according to my Jewish mythos,” Eli said to us. However, this proved to be not true, at least not for Eli, who passed away in 1992, more than 20 years after a brush with his “double walker.” (Whether it proved true or not for his doppelganger, we will never know.}

Not-so-strangely, as I have just finished watching the series, “1883,” I cannot help but notice one of the main actors, ISABEL MAY,

ISABEL MAY ("1883")

looks a lot like JENNIFER LAWRENCE of “Hunger Games” fame.

JENNIFER LAWRENCE ("HUNGER GAMES")

ISABEL & JENNIFER? JENNIFER & ISABEL?

But lots of people look alike. Unrelated people can share uncanny resemblances, and according to science, people who look similar are also similar genetically. If this is true, then lots of celebrities share lots of genes, especially those that are responsible for facial features.

WILL FERRELL & CHAD SMITH

LINDA EVANELISTA & MILLA JOVOVICH

MATT DAMON & JESSE PLEMONS

A YOUNG BRAD PITT 

A YOUNG ROBERT REDFORD

But Eli Mandel was correct. Not just Jewish folklore presents doppelganger encounters as being menacing and creepy. Gothic horror novels with a doppelganger theme have been around for some time. The American writer, Edgar Allen Poe, wrote about doppelgangers in his William Wilson novel in 1839. In 1846 the Russian novelist, Fyodor Dostoyevsky wrote, The Double, a horror novel having a doppelganger theme. Another American, Mark Twain, wrote about doppelgangers in The Prince and the Pauper in 1881. And, Despair, another doppelganger story, was written by the Russian American, Vladimir Nabokov in 1934.

In movies, too, there have been doppelgangers. I will just mention five, that I found to be the best: “Dead Ringers” (1988), “The Dark Half” (1993), “Enemy” (2013), “Double” (2013), and “Us” (2019). 

ENEMY

THE DOUBLE

Apparently, the odds of encountering one’s doppelganger are extremely low, with seven billion people on the planet, there is a one in 135 chance that a single pair of doppelgangers exist. 

Dear reader, please take another look at the picture atop this blog post. This is not me. This guy looks like me, but he’s not me. Just by happenchance, this picture jumped out at me while I was scrolling through my Instagram. If looks could kill, this guy is my doppelganger. He looks to be a dead ringer, does he not? Everyone that I have shown this picture to says that I look exactly like that guy on the right, and the younger version of that guy on the left looks exactly like my youngest son! The caption reads that the first picture was taken in Woodstock, and the second picture taken 50 years later. Had I gone to Woodstock in 1969, I might have met him and might have died shortly after!  But I did not go to Woodstock and …

For me, “doppelganger” need not be a pejorative term. Should I ever meet this doppelganger of mine, I really doubt there would be any danger, drama maybe, but not danger.

Now for my public appeal:

If anyone knows or recognizes my doppelganger whose picture appears in this blog post, please have him contact me. Not pretending to be a private investigator on this matter, but rather sideloading this burden onto my readers who are willing to do some Facebook friend farming for me, we can dangerously assume just two facts: 

My doppelganger is an American and my doppelganger went to Woodstock August 15th, or 16th, or 17th, or 18th in 1969. 

And that’s all I’ve got, folks!

IN MY FAVORITE GUITAR SHOPPE

CARL JUNG AND MY DISCOVERY: I AM A 73-YEAR-OLD ADOLESCENT!

 

SELF-PORTRAIT

Age is just a number.  Hmmm. This wisdom in this idiom may be true, but my age of 73 is a real number. And that number, 73, signals that I am in the winter of my life. According to the statistics, males in my area of the world have a longevity of 78 years.

Yikes!

(So far, I have managed not to think of that number much, unless of course I am writing about it as I am doing right now.)

There must be loads of others like me, who do not seem to pay that much attention to that number designating their age. In just a Google away I can read about an American folk artist, Grandma Moses, who began a prolific painting career at 78. In 2006, one of her paintings, SUGARING OFF, sold for 1.36 million dollars.

SUGARING OFF

I can also read about British-American writer, Harry Bernstein, whose wrote his first novel and bestseller, The Invisible Wall, at 96.

THE INVISIBLE WALL

In that same Google, I am looking at Irish race car driver, Rosemary Smith, at 79 years of age drove a Formula 1 race car.

ROSEMARY SMITH

And there is this Polish American, Leonid Hurwicz, who won a Nobel Prize in Economics at 90.

LEONID HURWICZ

There is the Japanese skier and alpinist, Yuichiro Miura, who reached the top of Mount Everest when he was 80.

YUICHIRO MIURA

Ha! A long-time favorite character of mine, Captain Kirk, (AKA William Shatner), rocketed into real space at 91 years of age!

CAPTAIN KIRK (AKA WILLIAM SHATNER)

These folks are aged, yet proof that people of my age and older, in the winter of their lives, can still take the time to seek and explore new frontiers, can still discover and embrace new lifestyles, and boldly go to where they have never gone before.

Considered a meshuggener by some of my acquaintances, especially those who have been retired for several years, I am oftentimes mocked because I am still working. Who could be so foolish or crazy as me to still be hiking and diving and running and lifting and skiing (and soon to be surfing) and gigging?!

Yikes again!

There I was, just minding my own business, next thing I knew I was the same age as old people! (Admittedly, with some glee or disgusting schadenfreude, age has seemed to emasculate these same people who mock me.)

CARL JUNG stated, “The world will ask who you are and if you don’t know, the world will tell you.”

Well the world has been telling me who I am for years. Graduating from high school I had no clue who I wanted to be. Because I had worked on telephone line construction in summers during high school, it was a logical for me to sign on with Saskatchewan Telephones, as a pole climber. After that, it was not much of a stretch to go from pole climber to pipe-liner. Working poles or pipes were both of a similar culture, that being lots of guys, lots of beers, lots of hotels or workcamps.

During high school, the only subject I enjoyed was English. So, when my enthusiasm for work camps waned, I registered for university as an English Literature student, and then graduating to become a high school English teacher was a dream come true (at the time)!

And then as a graduate student in Psychology to land a gig as a high school guidance counsellor was really Nietzsche Pietzsche. I thought I had arrived. Thinking I was Smartre than Sartre, upon receiving my master’s degree, I applied and landed the job of a sessional lecturer in Psychology at our local university. On my academic cake, this icing was sweet and thick and delicious!

Yes. All these mentioned labor and academic jobs were jobs what the world was telling me to do. I chose them because they were the most convenient, the most practical, and as I was raising children, the most pragmatic choices for the times. All these jobs I quite liked, and no matter the politics and accountability, they were easy to tolerate. Hmmm. Reading CARL JUNG and reflecting on this, they were fun until they weren’t.  

CARL JUNG also stated, “The privilege of a lifetime is to become who you really are.”

Of all the jobs I ever worked, there was always the one that I really loved and thought lots about. That was when I was a swimming instructor. I became a credentialed swimming instructor while attending university. Being listed as an English major with a Physical Education minor, swimming became a significant part of my program. I took Swimming 110 (Learning to Swim), Swimming 210 (Bronze Medallion), and Swimming 310 (Swimming Instructor), and during which times I also took my Award of Merit, and my Scuba Bronze Medallion). I also joined the university dive team. Swimming, swimming, and more swimming.  I loved it became an all-year-round swimming instructor, employed part-time at the YMCA.

But because I could not make enough money to raise a family the way I wanted to on a swimming salary, I still toiled in academia. It is only as of late, and not-so-strangely at 73 years of age, I have given myself a second chance to closely replicate those past years of being a swimming instructor. The past couple of winters I have been employed as a part-time ski instructor.

In skiing there is a saying: Where you are is where it’s at. I am not in the mountains but skiing at the MISSION RIDGE SKI RESORT, a prairie escarpment in the beautiful Qu’Appelle Valley is the next best thing.

I am still employed full-time, having a continuing contract working with young offenders in the public-school system. I still have my private hypnotherapy practice my in downtown Regina, SK. And though the royalty payments are slow and low, I am still writing and still knowing that my soon-to-be bestseller is just one influential reader away.

This is where I’m at and this is who I really am – a 73-year-old adolescent!

(Hmmm. Perhaps a 73-year-old emerging adult would be the better psychological comparison!)

MY ST. PADDY'S DAY GIG AT THE BUSHWAKKER BREWPUB

*Tomorrow is the first day of Spring -- the start of the outdoor BUSKING for 2025!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dear Donald ...

 

Dear Donald,

From the beaches of Normandy to the mountains of the Korean peninsula, from the fields of Flanders to the streets of Kandahar, we have fought and died alongside you during your darkest hours. We were always there, standing with you.

During the Iran hostage crisis, when a group of Iranian students stormed the U.S. Embassy in Tehran and held 52 Americans hostage, six American diplomats escaped and sought refuge at the Canadian embassy, leading to a joint CIA-Canadian operation known as the Canadian Caper to smuggle them out of Iran using Canadian passports and a film crew cover story. 

During the summer of 2005, when Hurricane Katrina ravaged your great city of New Orleans, or mere weeks ago when we sent water bombers to tackle the wildfires in California, we were there for you.

During the day, the world stood still, September 11, 2001, when we provided refuge to stranded passengers and planes. We were always there, standing with you, grieving with you.

Together, we have built the most successful economic, military and security partnership the world has ever seen. A relationship that has been the envy of the world.

As President John F. Kennedy said many years ago, Geography has made us neighbours. History has made us friends; economics has made us partners and necessity has made us allies.

Donald, if you want to usher in a new golden age for the United States, the better path is to partner with Canada, not to punish us.

Yours truly,

Neil

P.S. These are not my words – these are the last words to you (in summary) from my Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau.

P.P.S. These are my words: I love your Kentucky Bourbon, but I’ll not drink another dram of it until you have decided that CANADA is your friend, not your enemy.

 

FAMILIAR STRANGERS: THE STRANGE CASE OF DONALD TRUMP AND JUSTIN TRUDEAU

 

FAMILIAR STRANGERS AT THE SKI RESORT

Most of us notice the same people who regularly ski at the same mountain, wait at the same bus stop, regularly shop in the same marketplace, or regularly work out in the same gym as us. Most of us recognize other people in our routines that we frequently notice on a regular basis but with whom we do not interact. Psychologist Stanley Milgram, in 1970, coined such persons as “familiar strangers.”   

During my daily routines, I am very cognizant of many familiar strangers. In the mornings in my building I share the same passenger elevator with familiar strangers. During my regular afternoon gym time, I share the same exercise pumping iron space with three or four familiar strangers. And in the evenings when I go for a London Fog at the Tim Hortons just down the street from where I live, there are always a few familiar strangers pounding down their Timmy grounds. All these familiar strangers I’ve mentioned, though closer than complete strangers, do not yet rise to the level of being an acquaintance.

Reflecting, familiar strangers have always been part of my occupied public spaces. In grade school, high school, and university, there were other students in class who I recognized, but with whom I never conversed. Specifically, I can recall Sharon and David and Gale, with whom I went all through grade school and high school, and yet, ashamedly, do not recall ever chatting with any of them.

When I was a pipeline grunt for several years working the lines in Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta, British Columbia, and in the North West Territories, there were crew mates who I recognized but never spoke with. Sometimes we even stayed in the same isolated work camps, with nary a word between us.

When I was a high school English teacher, professionally I was close to the other English teachers, but rarely spoke to teachers from any of the other departments, save for the Physical Education Department -- I was a long-distance runner and swimmer and so shared the same locker rooms. When I was on faculty at the University of Regina, I would bump into a few of the other Psychology profs, but rarely spoke to any of them. (I think this was because I was a sessional instructor, and not positioned high on academic strata compared to that of a tenured professor.)

When my kids were young and taking them to soccer and swimming and wherever, lots of like-minded parents carting their kids to the same spaces became familiar strangers. On the pitch or in the pool, there were parents, including moi, clapping and chatting, but never any real conversations beyond the immediate event.

Familiar strangers. They are everywhere. They are at Open Mic Night at my favorite downtown pub, The Cure. Familiar strangers are some of my passer-by consumers when I am out and about guitar busking. Having a photographic memory for people and events, I know that for me, having these familiar strangers alongside me does make life, not-so-strangely, comforting.

Oftentimes familiar strangers do happen to connect with one another. When the intimacy becomes more than just a nod-and-hello, when the phatic quite-the-weather-we’re-having chat becomes the more inquisitive what-do-you-do-for-a-living chat, the needle begins to move from stranger toward friend on the stranger-to-lover continuum.

The American band, the Hollies, sang about this very phenomenon:

“Every mornin’ I would see her waiting at the stop

Sometimes she’d shopped and show me what she bought …

That’s the way the whole thing started

Silly but it’s true

Thinkin’ of a sweet romance

Beginning in a queue” (Bus Stop, 1966).

 

There are no strangers here; only friends you haven’t met yet (Irish poet, William Butler Yeats).

Yes, it can happen. Perfect strangers can become familiar strangers, familiar strangers can become friends, and friends can become lovers. And it could happen, too, that a familiar stranger, who happens to be a picayune president, who has a legion-like following of toady disciples, and who has decided to reduce friendship to a transactional relationship, could potentially cause an international trade warfare of sorts.

Now’s the time for true confessions -- the real purpose of this blog post. This blog entry I have written as a respond to the slurs and scatology coming from the mouth of a boorish president who is known for his egregious behaviors.

Factoid: My grandmother was an American. She was Kentucky born and raised and she, along with her family, crossed the Missouri River from Kansas City, Kansas, to Kansas City, Missouri in a covered wagon. That was then, this is now. At present, I have two uncles residing in California, and their children and grandchildren are all Americans, and just like my grandmother, born and raised in the good ol’ USA. Even with such American family connections, nowadays nobody in my Canadian family will travel back to America, at least not until Trump has left office.

This is too bad, too sad, considering that we have been regular vacationers to south of the border for years! Here are just a few of my cherished spots in America:

SKI MAP, ALTA, UTAH

RIALTO BEACH, WASHINGTON

HUNTINGTON BEACH, CALIFORNIA

SAN DIEGO BEACH, CALIFORNIA

Relations between the USA and Canada are getting grim. Canadians are now boycotting American booze (my Kentucky bourbon has been pulled off our Canadian shelves), Canadian snowbirds are canceling plans for their next-winter-vacay in the sunny climes of Florida and Arizona. All my group-think friends and neighbors are not buying anything stamped Made in America. USA and Canada. Very familiar strangers, and now we are even booing the Star-Spangled Banner at sports events, especially hockey as of late,

CANADA- USA FINAL 4-NATION HOCKEY TOURNAMENT

I shall close this strange case of Donald Trump and Justin Trudeau with a bit of agitprop.

“Let me be perfectly clear” (as I channel formerly disgraced president, Richard Nixon, who now looks not-that-bad when compared to Donald Trump):

WE ARE NOT BOOING YOUR PLAYERS – WE ARE BOOING YOUR PRESIDENT!