Jack Ohman

Pennsylvania Attorney General Kathleen Kane: A political attraction

Our very attractive president of the United States returned to D.C. the other day, where he attended a fundraiser. I know these political campaigns are expensive, but I am sure he had no idea how expensive.

While at one of the fundraisers, the very attractive president (right up there with JFK and Clinton) described the California Attorney General, Kamala Harris, as "by far, the best-looking" AG in America, while throwing in brilliant and all that other stuff guys say.

With all due respect, I randomly checked out some other state AG's (I'm throwing out the men here), and the president is not completely correct. Don't get me wrong about our AG. But he should consider the following other Attorneys General as well here.

Lisa Madigan, the attorney general of Illinois (his home state, and nice play on excluding her, Shakespeare), is certainly right up there.

Check out Florida AG Pam Bondi. She's awesome.

Martha Coakley, the AG in Massachusetts, is definitely attractive in a tough law enforcement sort of way.

Attorney General Lori Swanson of Minnesota is very, very attractive. Very. A true challenger to Kamala Harris.

Catherine Cortez Masto, the Nevada Attorney General, is also extremely attractive.

Pennsylvania's Attorney General, Kathleen Kane, is what the president might also describe as attractive. I would describe her as attractive in the extreme.

Oregon's Attorney General, Ellen Rosenblum, is also what I would call attractive. Also, a very nice person.

I have just listed all of the women currently holding the position of Attorney General in the United States. They are all attractive. Period. In fact, politicians in general tend to be attractive. There are very few people in politics who aren't attractive in one way or the other, intellectually or physically.

Now, the president went home to his very attractive non-Attorney General wife on Friday, and she is also an attorney as well.

My guess is the conversation went something like this:

"Hi, honey, I'm home!"

"Sit down."

"What?"

"SIT DOWN."

"Baby, I..."

"Don't 'Baby' me, Mr. Hope and Change. I hope you got a change of clothes, 'cause you aren't sleeping here tonight."

Maybe he can hang out at the Clinton's tomorrow night.

I hear they have a nice sofa guys can sleep on.

One of the trickiest aspects of editorial cartooning, other than making sure the Supreme Court keeps the current libel laws in place, is lettering and spelling.

Today was an action-packed afternoon for me. I gave a speech to the Sacramento Press Club, which was a lot of fun. I always enjoy the high-wire tension of public speaking; it's very similar to the feeling of drawing a cartoon in which it's possible to make a mistake in front of a few million people. Later in the afternoon was an awards ceremony honoring three of our Bee reporters, Matt Weiser, Jon Ortiz, and Kevin Yamamura. A large chocolate cake was featured, and, being hungry from lack of food at my Press Club event, where I was the main course, I didn't really get to eat enough, so I was feeling a little...slow.

So when I finally got around to actually putting down the majority of ink on my drawing, it was about four o'clock. My deadline is a little flexible, but I like to be done before five, and preferably before four, which leaves me enough to time blog without feeling like I'm in a hostage situation, adrenaline junkie that I am.

So, in order to get done on time, I went into a speed-inking frenzy. And that includes lettering.

One should never letter quickly. Ideally, I'm focused on each and every letter, carefully making sure that the proportions are correct, the spacing is right, and the composition is good.

One thing that I usually don't have a problem with is spelling.

I consider myself a fairly good speller, for a cartoonist, but I must add I am not infallible. So I made a mistake.

I turned in a finished drawing, in color, with the word "bureaucracy" spelled improperly. Wrong, in fact. 

Bureacracy.

Now, look. I know how to spell bureaucracy. I also know how to spell pedantic, theorize, etiolate, anesthesia, and lots of other SAT words. But, today, of course, I have to misspell bureaucracy in front of the publisher, and my Columbia University School of Journalism Masters Degree-holding editor.

I call this a lettering error as opposed to a spelling error. 

A lettering error is where you go into this weird trance, let your mind drift, and you forget a letter. This is opposed to an actual spelling error, like "excellance," which was inscribed in a book to my ex-wife by an author who had sold several million copies of that very same book.

Presumably she had an editor help her.

And so do I.

Mr. Columbia J-school Editor caught it immediately, just as I was coming into his office to regale him with clever japes and bon mots about my Sacramento Press Club appearance, which required no spelling whatsoever, just the wearing of a navy blue suit and smoothly-operating mandible.

So I had to slink back into my office, and re-letter the cartoon, run it through Photoshop, re-color it, and send out a correction that included all my clients and the publisher of The Sacramento Bee, who I can assure you is an excellent speller. 

I have no idea about her lettering, but she has very nice handwriting.

I just want to show that we here in Arrogant Editorial Cartoonlandia have our own issues and weaknesses, and are willing to admit errors.

I need to spellcheck this.

Brown and Brown... (Unknown/Unknown)

Blonde and Brown... (Unknown/Warner Bros.)

Last night, I watched the movie The Candidate.

For those of you who are not, say, under 55 or so, this movie, starring Robert Redford and his spectacular hair, is about a fictional 1972 U.S. Senate race in California. This film is perhaps the most accurate portrayal of the interior of a political campaign ever made.

As a newly minted Californian, I was particularly interested to watch this film for contemporary California resonance. Written by Jeremy Larner, a former staffer to Eugene McCarthy (the late senator from Minnesota and 1968 Democratic presidential candidate), the movie traces the reluctant bid of the son of a former California governor named John J. McKay, who was heavily reminiscent of former Gov. Pat Brown, the father of the current governor. 

The present Gov. Brown had just been elected as California's Secretary of State in 1970, and was certainly looking toward higher office while the screenplay was being written. In The Candidate, the idealistic son, Bill McKay, runs a legal aid clinic and views his father as an anachronistic hack, saying of his movie governor father, "He got to be Governor John J. McKay. I don't know what good it did for anyone else."

In the present Governor Brown's emotional makeup, there are some light parallels, but he obviously reveres his father. Brown's political trajectory was so meteoric in the mid 1970s that Barack Obama and Jimmy Carter are the only two analogous careers I can think of (I exclude Sarah Palin because she lost, and Dan Quayle, who had served considerably more time in congress as preparation than he was given credit for) where a candidate exploded so quickly onto the national stage. Incredibly, Brown was about 37 or so when he started running for president in 1976. 

Bill McKay is talked into running against an entrenched, gray-haired GOP incumbent named Crocker Jarmon (chairman of the Senate Finance Committee) by a canny political consultant named Marvin Lucas, played by Peter Boyle. McKay tells Lucas that he's happy running a legal aid clinic.

He responds, "You're happy. Clams are happy. Meanwhile Jarmon carves up the air, the water, and the land. Have you seen him? Have you seen how he operates?"

But McKay wants to run the race his way. "I get to say what I want, do what I want." Lucas says, "You haven't got a chance, McKay, so you can say what you want. Here's your guarantee." Lucas hands him a matchbook with the words, "You Lose," written on the inside cover. McKay asks Lucas what's in it for him. Lucas says, "An air card, a phone card, a thousand bucks a week."

Heh. A thousand bucks a week. How quaint.

First off, in today's environment, I doubt there are any reluctant candidates. The system doesn't permit it; it's self-nominating and self-promoting all the way. Second, the big boy consultants and media buyers can makes hundreds of thousands if not millions of dollars in a state like California, where they get a percentage of the media buys. It's all about the media buys. I do not exclude the odd idealistic candidate of the 21st century, but mostly it's a bunch of multimillionaires who have been compulsively running for offices since third grade. 

As the movie progresses, McKay realizes that he actually wants to win, and has no intention of becoming a sacrificial lamb allowed to spout off progressive dogma. He turns to his father for help when a rumor is put out that John J. McKay actually is supporting Crocker Jarmon. He crawls to his father's mountain cabin, in a charmingly reluctant and golden-haired manner, and asks his father to put out a statement disavowing his support of Jarmon. After a bit of toying with his son, the elderly former Governor agrees. This opens the door to his father's re-entry into politics, and the grand old man spends the rest of the movie greasing the skids for his son.

At this point in the film, I wondered what kind of conversations Jerry Brown might have had with his own father. I suspect there was no begging for an endorsement. 

In the film, our political landscape is lightly discussed, and the old California model of the conservative southern part of the state and liberal NorCal dynamic is mentioned. Now, of course, in a state with every single statewide elected official elected as Democrats as well as 38 out of 55 members of the California congressional delegation, it's hard to see where that has any currency now. 

Naturally, some of the old rules hold true today, such as the need for massive television campaigns featuring political commercials that seem like they were written by Don Draper on a particularly cynical alcoholic bender: James Madison Avenue. 

The film concludes with a come-from-behind McKay victory. The famous ending scene in The Candidate depicts McKay plaintively asking Lucas, "What do we do now?" But the more important scene very near the end is of Gov. McKay gleefully telling his newly-elected son, "You're a politician," and chuckles like a guy who just told a joke about a farmer's daughter. Sen.-elect McKay looks like he wants to pass out/throw up/resign. 

If, in his entire life, Jerry Brown has asked anyone, "Now what do we do?" I would view that with a great deal of skepticism. I think, unlike Bill McKay, Jerry Brown has always known precisely what he wants to do and how he's going to do it. 

I think, more appropriately, if there is some aspiring GOP Bill McKay lining up to take a shot at a now-venerable incumbent Governor Brown in 2014, he or she should be asking a lot more than "Now what do we do?"

More like, "Where can I get a political consultant for a thousand bucks a week?"

Nevada rough... (Jack Ohman/)

When I'm asked how I get my cartoon ideas, I usually say that I subscribe to an idea service. The Inquiring Mind smiles and nods, satisfied that I, in fact, subscribe to an idea service, since one person couldn't possibly come up with a cartoon idea AND draw it.

Since I actually don't subscribe to an idea service, I have to come up with my own. 

Let's use the cartoon that ran today on the Nevada mental health system. So, I knew that my subject was going to be Nevada's unusual practice of exporting discharged patients to California. I had originally thought about doing a cartoon using the theme of Nevada's chief exports. I went to the internet to see what they were, and they weren't anything particularly amusing: gold and copper. So I was back to a blank sheet of paper.

I then proceeded to the Nevada Department of Health and Human Services website, where I went looking for possible phrases that I could expand to having a double meaning. In this context, that would be Nevada's practice of throwing the mentally ill with three days worth of meds on a Greyhound and calling it good.

I found four phrases I could work with: Transitional Housing, Psychiatric Hotline, Outpatient Counseling, and Mobile Outreach Safety Team. Now, in and of themselves, these aren't intrinsically amusing phrases, but in the deft hands of a trained American political cartoonist with a bachelor's degree from a state school, they were transformed into transcendent political satire (he exaggerates for comedic effect).

So, without having a drawn a pencil line or inked a brush stroke, I already had my idea down. I would just illustrate these four phrases with contrapuntal cartoon art, and I'd be on my way to a MacArthur grant or the Nobel Prize. 

In order for this undrawn idea to became an actual pencil rough, I then got out some highly technical gear to make this idea spring to life in the pages of The Bee. I pulled out a piece of copier paper (8 1/2" X 11") and a number two pencil. So space age. So yesterday it's tomorrow.

I blasted the drawing out quickly, making sure to spell everything right. Then I redrew it on a piece of smooth Strathmore drawing paper.

You can see that the pencil rough was quite different from the final drawing. I had changed "Los Angeles" to "Fresno," because I thought "Fresno" sounded more cartoony. I also thought "7:35" sounded better than "7:40."

"7:35" is a well-known humor device, like a chicken or a talking dog.

I also changed the order of the panels for pacing purposes, and rejiggered a punchline in the final panel for space and composition reasons. 

You people never think about my space and composition needs, do you? Never. Not once. And I thought you all cared.

In any event, once I got the pencil composition worked out, I then put down the ink, which looks like the hardest part but actually is the easiest for me; it's rather relaxing. 

Like a free bus ride to California.

Once I've inked the drawing, then I throw it on the scanner at 350 dpi (dots per inch), and zap it through Photoshop. Boom. Completed cartoon.

And you thought cartooning was hard. Nope.

It's just as easy as throwing someone on a Greyhound.

One of the things that I truly enjoy is the wide variety and creativity of correspondents regarding my work.

Thus far, here in my new gig at The Sacramento Bee, I have gotten mostly positive correspondence. I also try to respond to any politely-worded missive, positive or negative. "Politely-worded" would mean that my life wasn't directly threatened, and there were none of George Carlin's Seven Words You Can't Say on Television.

Naturally, whenever I do something on guns, I hear from faithful Bee readers, and these letters have been pointed. Most have been civil. None have demanded a duel at dawn. Yet.

For example, in response to my Adam Lanza cartoon of a few days ago, a reader in Virginia canceled his Washington Post subscription because the cartoon ran in that newspaper.

At least he wasn't in a position to cancel The Bee.

Last Sunday, I did a cartoon about the City of Stockton's bankruptcy trial, and Wall Street's rather complicated relationship with the events currently transpiring there. One response that I got came from a gentleman in the state of New York. Being syndicated, I hear from people all over the country, but I was surprised by this one, as it was commenting on a local cartoon that wasn't syndicated.

The e-mail read thusly, in full:

"You really don't know what you're talking about, do you?"

The e-mail wasn't signed, exactly, and there was no hearty or even half-hearted salutation and close. I don't need anyone to write "Yours Very Respectfully," or "Your Faithful Obedient Servant." Just something. I almost always close with "Cordially." I do this because National Review founder William F. Buckley used to do this, and I just like the way it sounds. What I think it means is this: "Hey, look. I know you don't agree with me, but we all have human DNA here, so let's be ladies and gentlemen and play nice."

Anyway, the man's name was on the e-mail, along with his e-mail address. So I Googled it. Usually I don't, but we all do this from time to time. Since he was from the state of New York, I was kind of curious why he would be commenting on a local cartoon about Stockton, California.

To protect his privacy, I won't use his name, of course. He just wanted to insult me personally, so I roll with it. However, when I Googled him, I found something interesting. One was that he's involved professionally in the financial services industry. 

Another was that he had made public predictions about the outcome of the 2000 presidential election in a forum in National Review Online.

Hmm.

Well, of course, I had out find out whether or not Mr. Knows What He's Talking About knew what he was talking about. You know. For academic reasons.

So I go into the very long thread where Mr. KWHTA published his Knows What He's Talking About predictions.

Here they are:

"BUSH 51-GORE 43."

A quick check of the returns shows that, in fact, Gore got 48.3 percent of the vote, and Bush got 47.9 percent.

"LAZIO 50-HILLARY 49.99."

Another easily checked fact. Apparently, Hillary got 55.37 percent of the vote against Rep. Rick Lazio in her Senate bid. Lazio got 43.1 percent.

So far, Mr. KWHTA is zero for two.

"SENATE +10." Ahem. Actually, it was 50-50. A net pick-up of four for the Democrats. 

Zero for three.

"HOUSE + 20." Nate Silver was probably in college at the time in 2000, but my amazing numeric and computer Nate Silveresque brain was able to discover that the final number was that the Republicans got 221 seats, and the Democrats got 212 seats. 

That's Oh fer Four.

So, I wrote Mr. KWHTA back, observing that he had made those predictions, and I provided the correct outcomes as a personal favor. No commentary attached. 

I signed it, "Cordially, Jack."

No response yet from Mr. KWHTA in the very important financial center of New York. After all, I'm just a rube living out here in California.

I miss William F. Buckley.

Cordially, Jack.

One year ago today, Rex Babin died. He was 49, far too young.

365 days is an eye blink in geological time, but for people, it’s a long period and their lives can be profoundly altered; they can be made indescribably wonderful or irretrievably shattered.

For the people around Rex, his passing was a moment of not only great loss, but proof that life is demonstrably unfair. John F. Kennedy once made that offhand observation at a news conference not long before he died at 46; one minute, a man with the world on his fingertips, the next minute gone. When he died, the columnist Mary McGrory told Daniel Patrick Moynihan bitterly that she would never laugh again.

Moynihan replied, “Heavens, Mary, we’ll laugh again. But we will never be young again.”

In my case, I felt that was very apt, for along with his family and friends, my life too was permanently altered by his death. Not only was he perhaps my best friend, I succeeded him in his position at The Bee.

I had first met Rex in 1987 at the Association of American Editorial Cartoonists convention in Washington, D.C.. He was 25 or so, and I was almost 27. Over the course of the next 25 years, we became regular pals at the conventions, and spoke on the phone constantly, usually on Friday afternoon around three. He’d call and say, “Scratchin’?” Yeah, and then we would say all sorts of kind of brotherly, unprintable things. When he told me he was sick, very sick, it seemed so otherworldly. He was the model human specimen: a rower, a multi-talented athlete, and no obvious bad habits that would lead you to think he was vulnerable.

Coming into the job was something that I could not have imagined. I was happily drawing away at The Oregonian in Portland, and I assumed that I would play out the balance of my career there. In my own life, Rex was a third death in rapid succession: my father in June, 2011, my Oregonian editorial page editor Bob Caldwell (two weeks before Rex), and then Rex himself. I said I lost the three most important men in my life in nine months. I know all of you have suffered loss, and I am not pointing out my loss as unique. I am pointing it out as a fact in common with most others.

When I was hired to fill Rex’s position ( I will always think of it as Rex’s position), I had a gamut of emotions. One was relief that I was welcomed here warmly. Another was the notion of following Rex would prove haunting and emotionally draining. Even as Rex and I talked on the phone multiple times per week and had spent many, many hours together in various places, including Sacramento, I had never been in his office before.

I didn’t want his office, and said so.

I got it, anyway, and now I am glad that I do.

I don’t know what I believe in, honestly, in terms of heaven, or hell, or afterlife, or anything. I describe myself as a faith seeker. But I can tell you that every single day I think about Rex. I am sitting in his chair. It is worn from his use. I sit at his drawing table. I turn on the same lamp. I look at his books. I have his phone number. I use his paper. I see his pens. I have a drawing from him, inscribed to me, hanging over my desk so that I can read it: “For Jack Ohman, who accepts only the finest craftsmanship.” When I read that, every day, I take it as a challenge from him to me: do your best, do what we talked about all the time ( craftsmanship, and more), and enjoy your life.

I cried a few times when I started here, privately. Not loud. Not long. But I felt him around. Sometimes, I can hear his voice telling me something or using a nickname that I can't share. I dine with his wife. I play with his son. I am friends with his friends. I talk with his colleagues. I live blocks from his house. I live my own life not as his, but certainly in rough conjunction with it.

He even showed me around the Capitol —twice — right before he died. I thought that unusual.

There are many, many times, every day, when I want to ask him something. Frankly, I feel the same way about my father. I want to ask him what he thinks about this state senator or that reporter or that restaurant. I now have to guess.

People ask me what he was like all the time. I say he was like the cool jock in high school who talked to the dorks. I think it was because he grew up poor and without his father, who also died in his forties. He was more comfortable around athletes, I suspect, but he had an intellectually curious mind and was forever asking questions about how something worked, or how you did that, or have you ever tried this? And so on. And watch out if he knew something better than you did, because he would give you the Bible on it, chapter and verse, in a California surfer drawl. He had a ridiculously crooked smile, particularly when he would look at you after you had said something funny.

He was influential in the profession that he loved, and, frankly, a bit under-recognized with awards. He was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in 2003 (that means there were three people selected by the jury to go to the board for consideration. He wasn’t selected; I was more surprised than he was.) He was a real artist in a field of people who mostly probably couldn’t cut it doing advertising illustration. I have often felt that his work was perhaps a bit too smart or not as joke-oriented, which limited his appearance in some venues. His peers all respected him and that’s saying a lot: you never heard anyone saying anything other than, “Why the hell doesn’t he have a Pulitzer?”

He was recognized and revered here. The outpouring of grief over his death was truly stunning in Sacramento, and not a day goes by where I introduce myself where the other person says, “Did you know Rex? He was great. Did you ever meet him?” Yes.

He could be terse sometimes. Not very often, but if he didn’t like the way the conversation was going, you were off the phone. He had a big heart and was always helping people with little things. I never thought him cruel, ever. Not once. He liked being around all types of people, and was socially adept but not slick. He probably would have made a damned good political candidate.

He was incapable of falsity. He was almost comically candid. One time, right before he died, he said, “You’re really weird, you know that?”

Yeah. I know.

I can hear you saying that now.

Yesterday, I referenced the fact that there is, indeed, an Association of American Editorial Cartoonists. Now, I know you're all wondering this: what could a bunch of cartoonists, who are kind of born anarchists, be doing in a formal organization where they get together, talk about bylaws, and have table manners?

Well, not only do we meet, we have officers ( I'm Vice President, and it's as powerful as it sounds), rules, points of order, budgets, and other accoutrements of the Real World, just like you.

I've been in the group 25 years, and when I first went to a convention in Washington, D.C., in 1987, we had about 225 editorial cartoonists, more or less, some active and some retired, working on daily newspapers. Now there are around fifty, give or take. Mostly take. I suspect this is a rather similar attrition rate in a lot of sectors in the daily newspaper economy, but we are indeed a small fraternity/sorority.

I would say that, given the fact that there are around fifty editorial cartoonists, that I am very close friends with 20 of them, hail-fellow-well-inked with another 20, and casually cordial with the other ten. There are a few party poopers in the profession who are not members, but we think it's kind of a Groucho thing: why join a club that would have them as members?

We have panels at our conventions. About WHAT, you may ask? Well, we talk about technical innovations in the craft, such as new drawing equipment like the Wacom Cintiq, an electronic drawing tablet that I'm always almost ready to buy (it is very cool), and the latest animation and Photoshop programs. I haven't done animation, mostly because I think it's too time-consuming and takes time away from, you know, actual editorial cartoons that run in the paper. There are some brilliant animators, like Mark Fiore (who won the Pulitzer) at SFGate, and Ann Telnaes from The Washington Post. Walt Handelsman at Newsday does them, AND he does the voices and music. It's really rather amazing.

Walt is probably one of the most personally amusing of all the editorial cartoonists, and extremely vocally gifted. I recall many nights at the convention where he would imitate a fax carrier signal. In fact, his fax noise is so uncanny that he once called his mother's machine and activated it...with his impression.

Do that, Rich Little.

I'm glad he doesn't imitate a launch code for nuclear missiles.

The cartoonist convention used to be a hotbed of internecine warfare, with little cliques and splinter cells breaking off and muttering darkly about who didn't deserve the National Headliner Award or who shouldn't be syndicated, but now we are all rather genteel in our tiny enclave. We are simply glad to be here. I'm not saying there aren't still Moments of Intrigue, but generally we sit quietly and thank God we have jobs.

The convention will be held this year in Salt Lake City, which should cut down on the hijinks normally associated with conventioneers. We'll be hosting Pat Oliphant, the dean of editorial cartooning in the United States, and Vic Navasky, who was editor of The Nation, and the author of a forthcoming book about editorial cartoons.

People always ask me what Pat is like. I barely know him. I have had several pleasant short chats with him. But I will say that Pat draws the funniest cartoons at the bar, by far, that I have ever seen. All the action at the AAEC convention is at the bar, where all the cartoonists get together and draw each other. All night.

For free.

So if you want to have a fun time, go the editorial cartoonists convention.

We'll only charge you a $350 registration fee.

But you're going to save money on the caricatures at the bar.

Any questions, again? (Tom Meyer/)

Drawing a blank... (Jack Ohman/The Sacramento Bee)

Planet Cartoon is a small one. There are about 50 or so full-time editorial cartoonists in the United States, and there is also a slightly larger number of syndicated editorial cartoonists.

Tom Meyer draws cartoons about California for various dailies and weeklies around the state, and he was formerly with the San Francisco Chronicle for about 25 years or so. He and I started cartooning at virtually the same time, and we have known each other forever. Or, about 25 years.

So it was fun for me to reconnect with Tom when I moved down here. Tom and I even grew up about three blocks from each other in Springfield, Virginia in the 1960s. We didn't know each other then.

When I first met Tom, I had been at The Oregonian about four years. Tom was at my first Association of Editorial Cartoonists convention (yes, there is one) in Washington, DC in 1987. We started chatting about our various interests. One of them happened to be coin collecting, for some reason. Since I have multiple children in college, I don't have any coins to collect these days. They're all at Knox College, The University of Oregon, and Portland State University in their permanent collections.

Anyway, I asked Tom if he wanted to go to the Smithsonian to see their coin collection, and he declined. He had to go visit his parents who lived in Northern Virginia. "Oh," I said, "my parents live in Northern Virginia."

"Huh. Did you grow up around here?" Tom asked.

"Yeah, I lived in Kings Park."

"I lived in Kings Park," Tom said.

"YOU'RE KIDDING. WHAT STREET?"

"I lived on (whatever it was)," he said.

"You're kidding! I lived on Perth Court!"

So, anyway, having established that we were practically editorial cartooning brothers, he asked me what my dad did.

"Oh, he has a high government job. Very senior."

"What?"

"He's Deputy Chief of the U.S. Forest Service for Research," I replied. "What did your dad do?"

"Oh, he had a high government job."

"Huh. What was that?"

"He was Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He's the Army Chief of Staff."

"Oh."

You know. Four stars. In charge of the United States Army. Like Eisenhower.

Anyway, Tom and became friends, and I rarely asked him to have his father send in a Ranger battalion for me to scare a neighbor's barking dog.

On Monday, I was making a rough sketch about the Kings that I couldn't quite get a fix on. I stopped halfway through. The plan was to draw something very intricate on the screen that indicated the Kings deal was complicated. A spokesman at a lectern with KJ asked, "Any questions?" I got another, simpler idea and moved on.

So I open up the paper Tuesday morning and see my cartoon. I scan down the page and see Tom Meyer's cartoon, which featured a man at a lectern in front of a blackboard with something complicated on it, asking, "Any questions?"

It was even oriented exactly the same way mine was.

I had not seen Tom's, and he certainly had not seen my rough. I called Tom and we talked about this, and about how I needed his father to send in another Ranger battalion against some new neighbor dogs.

People sometimes assert there are twelve basic novel plots. I'm not sure, and I haven't counted, but there may be twelve basic cartoon approaches. 

Now, does anyone have any questions?

Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson, right, chats with the Editorial Board of the Sacramento Bee with Dan Barrett, left, a top arena finance consultant for the city. Photo taken March 25, 2013 in Sacramento, California. (Renee C. Byer/rbyer@sacbee.com)

This was the first time I saw Mayor Kevin Johnson up close. 

A few weeks ago, I went to the State of the City/NBA Finals Re-Enactment, and saw him on a larger stage. This time, he was right across the table. 

At an event at The Bee the other night, I was asked if it was important for me to see my subjects in person. I replied that it was useful, but video was good, too. In person is better.

As I was (slightly) late for the meeting, because Mayor Johnson was (a half hour) late, I didn't get to shake hands or chat. He left a bit early. But he did give me enough time to get a look. He was certainly athletic-looking, but didn't give off the NBA Player as Frightening Giant effect that I had experienced when seeing other NBA stars, such as Bill Walton, Chris Dudley, or Maurice Lucas. These were enormous men with massive heads and hands. Johnson seemed like a good-sized man who spent time at the gym. 

The thing that immediately struck me was what the mayor was wearing. While editorial writers are not necessarily known for their sassy fashion attitude, the men were all pretty much wearing dark suits, and the women were stylishly low-key.

Kevin Johnson looked like he just stepped out of a Brooks Brothers Summer catalog. I thought that Mayor Tom Wolfe had walked into the room. (I didn't check for spats.)

He had a light blue windowpane blazer on, a pink shirt, khakis, and a floral handkerchief. I have seen lots of things before, but I had never seen a floral handkerchief. I mean, it was fine and everything. I have just never seen one. 

I expected a more mayoral outfit like I have seen other mayors wear (gray or navy suit, white or blue shirt, red or blue tie--political Garanimals), but I wasn't expecting that he'd look like the cruise director while we looked like a bunch of, well, editorial writers.

I think it's great that he wore all this.

Now I just feel like I need to look like a billion bucks around him.

Anybody got a number for a Whale? I need a quick loan.

I attended my first Sacramento Kings game Sunday evening.

I have to say that I only have a passing interest in this sort of thing. I'm more of a baseball person. It's more sedate; basketball is something I find generally stressful. I usually like to watch sports to relax, and basketball is certainly a lot of things, but relaxing isn't one of them. So when I go to an NBA game, it's to entertain my two sons.

They are, shall we say, microscopically knowledgeable about the NBA. For example, they could probably have a conversation with Kevin Johnson about his own career that would put Michelle Rhee to shame. 

Both of my sons are in town this week, and I took them and another boy to the Sixers-Kings game. Again, I don't really follow this stuff that closely, but I was reliably informed by my color commentator progeny that this was a fairly typical performance for the Kings. Fine. It was more fun to watch my sons and our friend enjoying it, anyway.

Another thing I enjoyed watching were the Kings fans. In Portland, it's a more coffee shop culture fan base. One of my sons tells me that one Blazer player is enormously popular in Portland for his interest in art and his residence in the tony Pearl District. In observing the Kings fans, I saw a more passionate, visceral affinity. 

In Portland, fans have to be constantly exhorted to cheer, or, indeed, to show vital signs. Like Los Angeles Lakers games, where many of the game attendees are there to see and be seen, the Portland fans are also there as somewhat casual observers. The only face paint you would see would be from the Lancome counter.

Sacramento's fans, on the other hand, were yelling, wearing all sorts of Kings gear and baubles, and paying pretty close attention to the game, even when the Kings drifted away from the Sixers, who started off behind but wound up 15 points at the end. There was even a Kings fan in a gorilla suit.

Loud, rhythmic chants of "Here We Stay" bounced off the Sleep Train arena's 1988-era cement walls, and it was difficult to hear. During the ironically-timed "Here We Stay" chant, many fans began exiting the venue to their cars when it was clear that the Kings weren't going to stay for the end of the game, either.

The end of the game is approaching for the entire franchise, one way or the other. Monday afternoon brought Mayor Johnson and his aides into The Bee editorial offices to explain the many intricacies of the deal that the city was throwing together to keep the team. 

As is common in these types of situations ( building big muck-producing tunnels, shotgun weddings, starting a war) , the amount of public scrutiny is going to be limited by design and by time itself. The brokers want a vote by the Sacramento City Council by Tuesday night. To deliberately mix sports metaphors for lightly humorous effect, this deal isn't exactly a Hail Mary pass, but it's definitely a two outs in the bottom of the ninth scenario.

Sometimes these deals work out; the 23-year-old millionaires with the basketballs as well as the real estate lawyers are compensated, and the fans win, too. But make no mistake: this is a business deal. Whales may have some interest in basketball, but I'll bet they probably couldn't hold their own in a conversation with my sons about Kevin Johnson's career. Or maybe even with Michelle Rhee.

And to go back to a more relevant metaphor, Kevin Johnson is on the free throw line. He was very good at it in his career. 

I can tell you that he's also on the warning track, he's got a heavy pass rush, and he needs to sink this putt or it's goodbye Mr. Spaulding.

So, Mayor Johnson, in the words of a great Californian, win one for The Gipper.

Or at least the Kings fan in the gorilla suit.

Today, we're not going to be amusing at all. Sometimes, cartoonists are called upon not to be funny, but to be poignant or brutal.

I had to do brutal today. 

I drew Senator Harry Reid stepping over gunshot victims to tell Sen. Dianne Feinstein that he "didn't have enough bodies to pass the assault weapon ban."

I can hardly wait to read my e-mail tomorrow.

Anyway, in so doing, I had to draw dead bodies. Drawing dead bodies is a normal part of the editorial cartooning genre, but it has to be done in a certain, rather sanitized manner. Not enough blood, and you can't really convey horror, and too much blood means you're kind of sick. 

I've been portraying these scenes for a long time. One of unwritten rules is that a cartoonist shouldn't really show faces in any recognizable manner. You can show them turned away, but expressions are out. 

I use extended hands to convey death scenes, because if you don't have faces, there aren't a lot of reference points for readers other than feet. For the Reid cartoon, I used bare feet, which is actually the first time I have drawn them in a death scene. I also made a point to draw women. I indicated children by small shoes and backpacks. 

I keep coming back to this assault weapon issue over and over, as does everyone else. Senator Feinstein's barely contained emotional exasperation in a New York Times interview today was quite moving, and it conveyed just how frozen the process is in Congress, particularly in the House.

I got another idea about assault weapons while drawing this one, which happens pretty frequently. I may be able to use it later. 

After I read Sen. Feinstein's interview and finished drawing the cartoon, I saw that a would-be mass shooter at the University of Central Florida had killed himself before he could execute his plan. He had ordered the usual murder toys ($700 worth) through the mail (and picked up his on-line purchased assault rifle at a federally-regulated gun shop, all completely legal) and was going to kill students massed in hallways after a fire alarm.

I wonder what Sen. Reid's reaction to the Feinstein bill would have been if, say, this lunatic had killed 50 people today? Probably the same, with more chicken poo caveats and asterisks. Reid can do what he wants.

Hey, it's free country. Right?

It is if you have an assault weapon. You run the table.

And the House and Senate.

Do this, don't do that, can't you read the sign? (Jack Ohman/Sacramento Bee)

Do this, don't do that, can't you read the sign? (Jack Ohman/Sacramento Bee)

I've been driving for about 36 years. I'm a perfectly OK driver. I'm alive, I keep the shiny side up and in between the telephone poles, and I observe pertinent signage.

Some signage in Sacramento has perplexed me, and some has exhilarated me.

When I drive through Sacramento, I still find it really cool that there are signs for San Francisco and Los Angeles on the freeway. I suppose this is a remnant of growing up mostly in Minnesota, where the most exciting highway sign in the Twin Cities was for Faribault and Albert Lea. There wasn't even an inspiring sign for Chicago.

One set of signs in certain neighborhoods that amuse me are the signs for "Speed Bumps," "Speed Lumps," and "Undulations."

Now, I am certain there are very specific surface street engineer definitions for bumps, lumps, and undulations. I really do not have the time or inclination to have it explained to me; if you want to do so, go right ahead. I'll file your e-mail under the Massive Difference Between Pepsi and Coca-Cola. I just don't think there's much of a distinction between bumps, lumps, and undulations.

Which brings me to The Sign of End Times.

There is a traffic sign in Midtown that reads "17 MPH."

Not 15. Not 20. 

17.

Now, I mention again that I have been on the road since 1975, and that was a hell of long time ago. Like, Jerry Brown was governor then.

So, I have seen many, many signs. No auguries. But signs.

I have never seen a sign that asks me to please keep it under 17 mph, under penalty of law.

The 17 mph sign is located around a traffic island in the middle of the street, and these are indeed treacherous and annoying. Combined with the 17, the symbol for the island looks like a small algebra problem one has to solve while navigating around it. Annoying in and of itself, and then you have to make the tricky jog right/left. Survivable, certainly.

But I am still stuck on the question: Why 17?

Now, knowing people in passing who are involved in things way more complicated than drawing my little political cartoons, there must be some sort of actual reason for 17 miles per hour. There must have been a bunch of traffic engineers somewhere in Caltrans with a radar speed gun, endlessly clocking a test car with passengers with heads mounted on springs as it circumnavigates a simulated traffic island.

I hope they didn't roll the car at 18.

No, it's 17 mph; the optimal speed with which to proceed. 

There may be some explanation other than my own snide, mean-spirited ones.

I'll ponder it as I drive home at 25 mph, praying I see a Speed Limit 27 mph sign.

And if Caltrans was involved, they might have just let this 17 mph sign slip by on an inspection, or made a mistake.

I'll just be glad the sign isn't on a bridge.

A self-chasing car... (Jack Ohman/The Sacramento Bee)

Sutter Brown, the acting Lt. Governor and First Canine of the State of California, is a Corgi on the move.

Not content with saving the state due to his dogged campaigning on behalf of Proposition 30, nor being Gavin Newsom's worst primary nightmare, Sutter is now apparently driving his own wheels.

Corgi Force One was spotted parked near the Capitol, legally.

While his master frugally travels around the state on Southwest (does he even buy Business Select and get into the A seating group?), Sutter is tooling around Sacramento in a rather banged up Honda Accord.

Sutter wasn't specifically seen driving. Perhaps he has a state CHP trooper escorting him around, handling the driving duties while Sutter reads briefing books and makes some calls to L.A. and SFO power hitters, asking for donations to The Committee For California's Canine Future PAC.

Californians deserve answers to questions about Sutter's driving status. Does he have a valid license? Does a California driver's license require that breed be specified? Why or why not? If Sutter isn't driving, just who precisely is driving him and who is paying? 

Note that the plate says "Sutter I." Is this a kind of papal name? Does Sutter hold a position in the Corgi Curia?

Find out this Sunday.

At East Lawn cemetery, no one's punching a clock...

Breaking news events often interrupt the pleasant idyll of the gentle editorial cartoonist. Today was the selection of Pope Francis I.

I knew this was coming, along with 1.2 billion Catholics, but since we didn't know who it was going to be (the front-runners didn't make it, and I was pulling for Cardinal Dolan, the Norm Schwarzkopf of the mother church), I couldn't prepare anything in advance.

We here in American newspapers often hear about things the same way you do; you happen to be walking by a television, and it says Special Report or Breaking Calamity on the screen, and you think, rut roh, what happened?

So today it was the selection of the pope.

While I personally favor a series of cardinal debates,  regional primaries, and precinct caucuses, the college of cardinals have their own way of doing things. Of course, American television media has to make it as close to an election night as possible -- Chris Matthews was doing commentary on MSNBC. He didn't mention getting a thrill up his leg or anything, but as a political commentator and a Catholic, he was uniquely qualified to be on the air.

They finally opened the glass door with the red velvet drapes, and the new pope came out, looking like a guy who had been instructed just seconds before about how to wave to several billion people (tentatively, oddly, like it might be a question about whether he was an Animatronic Pope).

So after a few minutes, it was determined that the pope was the first pope from the Americas, and the main hook was that he was the next Hispanic pope (although he's Anglo--I guess they didn't have a truly Latino cardinal, right?).

I decided to play off of the phrase, "Si se puede (yes we can)," which is the commonly accepted phrase of solidarity between Latino peoples. I turned it into, "See se puede," as in Holy See.

Now, when you are sitting by yourself all day, things that seem obvious to you in the silence of your soundproof booth at the end of the hall, around the corner, may not be as obvious to your editors. I ran the rough by one editor, and he thought it fine. Later, another editor came in and said he thought it a bit obscure--at 5:10. My deadline is about thirteen seconds after that.  After a moment, I agreed with him and went with the more graspable "Holy See se puede," which I agreed was clearer, and better.

After a quick run through Photoshop, the word "holy" was added, all was well, and I thanked the colleague.

I saw the light.

There are none so blind as those who will not See.

Today was Pick on Los Angeles Day.

Frankly, I wasn't really looking for a reason to do so, but the story about the city's massive lack of interest in the future of American democracy as it relates to their city governance compelled me to go there.

Sixteen percent of the city's 1,800,000 registered voters turned out in their local election, which was comically less than previous elections. Analysts have been puzzling over this for days, and have come up with reasons ranging from "It was below 60 degrees and kinda cloudy and rainy" to "the commercials were too negative."

First, let's take weather as a reason.

I grew up in Minnesota, and they had their precinct caucuses in February. Did I mention February in Minnesota? Not March in Los Angeles. I would say the average daytime temperature in Minnesota would be in the low twenties, give or take, and on a bad day, it could certainly get below zero. Or twenty below zero. Or thirty five below zero. Zero. Zero is cold. 62 and cloudy is not cold.

Minnesota gets out to the polls to the tune of seventy percent voter turnout, and the other thirty percent have very good reasons for not voting, like their cars were frozen in glaciers.

Now let's address the subject of the "commercials were too negative."

Honestly, I like negative commercials. They're less insipid than alleged biographical commercials, which are so candy-coated that no one with any analytical skills should believe them. I'd love to see a biographical commercial like this:

"Bob Anderson. He was such a kiss ass in high school everyone knew he'd make it big in politics. He went to law school and got dragged along in his study group so he'd pass. Then he had to take the easier Iowa Bar four times because he couldn't pass the California bar exam. Through more ass-kissing, he managed to get elected to various offices because no one decent had a chance of winning. Here's Bob with his wife he's cheating on and his kids he never sees. Oh, and Bob's dad was a millionaire. That's why you're stuck with Bob as one of two pathetic choices for your next congressman, thanks to gerrymandering. Paid for by the Bob Anderson for Congress Committee. I'm Bob Anderson, and I approved this silly ratification of my grandiose ego and clinical narcissistic personality disorder."

Los Angeles still has time to make up some ground in the voter turnout department. They're down to two candidates for mayor, and they vote on May 21.

I checked the average L.A. temperature for May 21, and it's 74 degrees. They should be in good shape on the weather. 

Way warmer than Minnesota.

Democracy lives.

After reviewing a rough of a cartoon a few minutes ago, one of my editors sent me a text. 

It said simply, "Phallus watch!"

I knew exactly what he was talking about.

Cartoonists live in dread fear of accidentally indicating something in a cartoon that wasn't intended to be indicated. For example, in 1982, the Miami News cartoonist Don Wright, a true legend in the profession, drew President Reagan lying on his back while some people walked over him. In looking towards the area where his phallus was, was what looked like either random brushstrokes or...a...um...

You know.

He denied it, and I believed him. Five years later, at the Association of American Editorial Cartoonists convention, I asked him if he had actually done it. He snapped, "Of course not. Do you think I'm insane?" Or something like that. 

So, when editorial cartoonists draw missiles, bushes, trees, tongues, Doric columns, or anything else that could hide something like the aforementioned, we kind of do a quick scan to make sure there's no misinterpretation.

Today's cartoon has a lot of military hardware in it. Lots. And as I was drawing all those missiles, I did keep an eye out for A Slip-Up. I saw none. 

A cartoon came in the other day that I thought was, shall we say, suggestive. Specifically, in the eye, nose, and mouth. Very. I am almost afraid to post it. I just can't. But I was somewhat convinced that The Colleague in Question might have done it deliberately. I recall a Canadian cartoonist used to draw his characters so unbelievably That Way that it seemed to be an elaborate practical joke. Again, no names, but I can assure you that's what he was doing.

Do you know how many straight lines I've walked away from in the post?

A lot.

I'd like to thank the Academy...later. (Jack Ohman/)

Time and tide wait for no man... (Jack Ohman/)

Driving down Folsom the other day, I noticed two curious but rather compelling signs.

One simply said, "East Lawn." It was green, white, and red neon. There was a clock on it. The sign was in front of a beautiful ivy wall. What is it? A country club?

Um, no. No. It's a cemetery, speaking of clubs I wouldn't want to join that would have me as a member. 

Okay. Why is there a clock at the cemetery? 

1. Who's asking what time it is at a cemetery?

2. Let's say that a person in a cemetery needed to know the time? Wouldn't that be the Zombie Apocalypse? Would the zombie care what time it was? "Geez, I gotta meet the other zombies at 6:15 tonight or this attack on the living is gonna be a freaking trainwreck."

3. Would the people in the cemetery be upset if the clock were off? Would they want it fast or slow? Why analog? 

4. Is it illuminated brightly in neon so they can see it better? Hmm?

5. Never mind.

Slowing down to take a look, I noticed another sign.

"American Cemetery of the Year."

And, "ACE: American Cemetery of Excellence."

So, who gets to vote? The people in the cemetery? Maybe they have a different view of the place.

"This place is dark. No light. Dark, dark, dark. Nothing, and I mean NOTHING to do. No amenities. At all. And I hate my neighbors. Too quiet. Stiff."

I can just imagine what that award ceremony is like.

"Good evening and welcome to the ACE Awards. Tough crowd, tough crowd. I'm dyin' up here. I know you're out there, I can hear you not breathing."

I doubt even Seth MacFarlane could jazz that one up.

Look, I am sure that East Lawn is a very nice cemetery. And I know that these places are supposed to be places of repose, like an editorial page office. And I don't want any humorless e-mails from East Lawn Cemetery. You guys have to admit it's a little amusing that you are advertising the cemetery as award-winning. A little.

I know.

I'm dead to you.

This morning seemed rather slow on local topics, so I started digging back in the Sacbee Capitol Alert section to see if there was anything a bit...yeasty.

There was.

I noted that there was yet another Fabulous Free Hawaiian Vacation Package set-up for California state legislators by Perfectly Innocent Lobbyists.

Now, honest to God, here we are in 2013, where we've put a man on the moon and everything, and these people still haven't gotten the memo on how bad/tawdry/unseemly/catastrophically corrupt this all is.

Naturally, they all discuss public policy issues while staying, for free, at the Kea Lani Resort on Maui, as I surely would.

You're looking at someone who's going to Association of American Editorial Cartoonists convention in Salt Lake City this year.

Now, I like Salt Lake City. My great great grandfather had four wives and 38 children (his name was Joseph Smith Black--he Googles), so I have a little soft spot for Utah. But if I tried to sell the senior McClatchy executives on subsidizing a nice little gig in Maui with my cartoon homies, I suspect they'd take away my corporate credit card (which I love just...looking at).

In Oregon, one of the lobbyists for the beer and wine industry tried to rig a Hawaii junket like this, and the local news media absolutely took his head off. For weeks. On the front page. He aged about ten years in two weeks. He needed beer and wine after the story broke out.

In California Politics Land, it's just another day at the beach. Ho hum. And pass the SPF 50.

Naturally, one of the groups that paid for these trips were appropriately vaguely named, as they always are -the California Independent Voter Project and the Pacific Policy Research Foundation. Now, I am certain that these people are all on the up and up, both being run by former assemblymen and everything, but if it's so very sanitary, why the delay in reporting the trip until April? If it's so pro bono publico, then shouldn't the participating legislators just have a nice little news conference and pipe right up about what a great time they're going to have on Maui? It's just a little sister state eco-devo, right?

Snort.

Please.

Oh, and the California Independent Voter Project and the Pacific Policy Research Foundation don't have to disclose their donors.

Snort, again.

Why do we keep putting up with this stuff? Because they make the rules, and you don't seem to care too much. That's why.

So, maybe the California Independent Voter Project should think about another state for next year's Thinking About California Public Policy, Legislation, and Issues.

I like Utah. Salt Lake City.

Then they won't get distracted.

One of the fascinating aspects of editorial cartooning--besides my really long conversations about different types of pens--are my occasional interactions with the public.

In Sacramento, the public includes lobbyists.

In fact, it seems that virtually every time I meet anyone anywhere, they're a lobbyist.

In Oregon, they mostly seemed to be the Governmental Affairs Director (so sanitary-sounding) for the Oregon Confederation of Coniferous Tree Growers. You had to go down to Salem to see any of them, and that usually would be when I needed to take a rest stop on I-5.

Sacramento's lobbyists all look like NewsCenter anchors. Life's genetically beautiful winners, they exude height, teeth, brains, and charm. If any of them have any problems in life, they are obliterated by their breathtaking pulchritude and microscopic knowledge of California tax law.

The men are all obvious former tennis team captains and wide receivers, the women all statewide debate champions and 100 yard dash record-holders. None of them seem to smoke, have crummy smiles, or walk less than 5000 steps per day.

1960s lobbyists were all stinky alcoholic hucksters from state schools in the midwest (dropped out to work on a Chicago alderman campaign), and 21st century lobbyists are people who could just as well be Olympic javelin throwers with Yale undergrad/Stanford law degrees.  

The one thing that seems to divide the lobbyists here is the Moral Relativity Quotient of who they represent. The wages of sin are fabulous for the satanic groups. While underpaid, lobbyists for groups like the California Association of Helping Children Grow Up Healthy and Good At Math are always chirpy and engaging, like really motivated 23 year old elementary school teachers. The lobbyists for the California Freedom of Choice Coalition For Tobacco-based Nuclear Waste Gasoline Additives seem more subdued, and look down ever so briefly when asked who they work for, their shiny shoes reflecting the slight shame in their face. Then they look up with gleaming teeth, recovering their composure, and offer to buy you drinks, cigars, dinner, upper-end cars, yachts over 50 feet, European vacations, precious metals, and will introduce you to the latest Hollywood actress named Jennifer.

I look forward to meeting more lobbyists. I am not for sale.

Unless you give me a really nice pen.  

With the death of Hugo Chavez, one of the most enduring tropes of my profession will be yet again revived, so to speak.

I'm talking about the obit cartoon.

Obit cartoons are very tricky, and they tend to stick to a familiar format: (Late public figure) at gates of Heaven, with St. Peter, while saying (insert relevant punchline) or (performing task public figure is well-known for). God, never pictured, may add his own from behind-a-cloud comment with the attendant streaming golden light.

I try not to do these, but I certainly have, depending on how interested I am in the character. My favorite one of my own was George Steinbrenner at the gate, greeted by Red Sox uniform-wearing angels, frowning.

Honestly, since a famous person dies virtually every day, one could do a fairly steady stream of these things, which are highly controversial in the profession. 

The caveat is, the person who has departed has to be elderly in order for this metaphor to work without issues of taste. If the celebrity is young or went tragically, cartoonists will tend to shift to a more tasteful portrayal or tribute.

In Chavez' case, I doubt I will have a specific comment about him, mostly because I fear the very real social approbation of my peers. Many major cartoonists just groan when they even hear the phrase "obit cartoon," knowing it is a formula for the hackneyed. 

I think most readers kind of like the obit cartoon, and they don't seem to care that they've seen the same metaphor over and over, drifting toward them in a blinding white light, surrounded by other loved-one metaphors, like the couple sitting watching television and the Iwo Jima flag-raising. 

Today, I'm looking at the sequester.

We'll see.

If I don't get an idea, I may see a blinding white light myself.

In this month's Sacramento Magazine is a list of the 35 reasons that Sacramento is better than San Francisco. Having spent a lot of time in San Francisco, and now being employed in Sacramento, I am still not terribly qualified to ratify the thesis, but my experience here thus far has been very pleasant.

Having come from Portland after almost 30 years, I can give you a much better comparison and contrast between Oregon and California. For example, Portland, Oregon has just the one palm tree.

It's out on 82nd Avenue (an area similar to Folsom), and I have no idea how it got there. I saw it on a bike ride. 

Surrounded by evergreens, it had the appearance of Paris Hilton forced to shop at REI.

In Oregon, everyone discusses California constantly, as in, "We don't want to be like California," or "What will California think of us?"

In California, no one gives a flying flip about Oregon. At all.

"Dude, it's like a northern county, like Siskiyou or something, right? Up by Alaska?"

(Interestingly, Alaska is a very real concept in Oregon. Lots of people from Alaska. People who knew Palin personally. I knew the guy who designed the Alaska Airlines logo. He was a jerk).

I love Oregon, and it has many lovely qualities. Being discussed by Californians is not one of those qualities.

In Oregon, people are always discussing vacation plans for California, particularly on Spring Break. Try booking a flight from Portland to Palm Springs the last week in March and let me know how that goes for you. Bet you would have a place to put your carry-on on Southwest flying back to Portland. Like, the whole right side of the aircraft. The view side where you can see Crater Lake.

"Man, I can hardly wait to go to Portland for Spring Break," is a sentence that has never been uttered in the history of the English language.

Like wreckage from a plane crash at sea, you will see some tiny fragment of Oregon in California floating by from time to time, a Ducks t-shirt or hoodie, usually. The only Oregon plate I've seen down here is my own. And I've been looking for them.

Occasionally, in the past few months, I have heard Sacramento described as the Portland of California. In some respects, it's pretty accurate. There is a thriving cycling culture here (although the vast majority of cyclists I have seen in downtown Sacramento have been riding down the wrong side of the street with no helmet or lights), and there is a similar vibe in Midtown to Portland. In other ways, it is most decidedly non-Portland. There are more congressmen in the Sacramento metro area than there are in the state of Oregon.

For example, Sacramento can't seem to let itself have a parking lot with food carts that aren't ready to roll at a moment's notice, like scrambling F-16s.

Food carts have become an integral part of the Portland brand, and local restauranteurs here are mostly opposed to them. Portland's food carts are so specific that I can't understand why a restaurant would be threatened by them:

--"Vegan Elephant Ears On A Stick"

--"Asian Fusion Pork Oreo Gelato"

--"Quinoa 'n' Bacon Pasta Hut"

--"El Mundo del Kale"

In addition, Portland now has a somewhat disturbing superiority complex ("Let's Build The First Green LEED Technology all-Titanium Gay Bike Path!"),and it was very much the reverse case in 1983 when I first got there. I was asked repeatedly why, in fact, I came out there to Oregon. The tone was along the lines of, "Are you in the Federal Witness Protection Program?"

I was in Detroit, ok?

Seattle plays San Francisco to Portland's Sacramento mentality, and I recall coming back from bustling Seattle on the train into Portland one night, and it felt like I was rolling into a Twilight Zone episode model railroad city that had been wiped out by anthrax.

I will say that one thing I am constantly asked here by Sacramentans:

"Is Portland really like Portlandia?"

Hmm.

I wouldn't know. I lived in Beaverton.

Try living with that city name, Sacramento. You'll feel better about yourself in no time.

Baby, you can drive my caricature ...

I'm often asked what editorial cartoonists worry about more than anything else.

Ideas? No. Art? No. Topics? No.

We worry about smashing our fingers. A lot.

Like the late concert pianist Van Cliburn, neurosurgeons, and first basemen, we make our living with our hands, and, more specifically, our fingers. You lose a finger, and you're no longer an editorial cartoonist.

You're a stand-up comedian.

So I have eschewed hobbies that involve losing fingers, as a rule.

I remember about 15 years ago watching PBS's The New Yankee Workshop while running on my treadmill and thinking, gee, that woodworking sure looks like fun. I'll get a bunch of power tools and make Shaker furniture.

Ugly, bad Shaker furniture.

So I went out and put $2000 as a deposit on a table saw, a 14 inch drill, a joiner/planer, a dust management system, and more. My ex-wife thought it was a crazy idea, along with all the other crazy ideas I had that led to her becoming my ex-wife.

We get along fine now.

Anyway, while waiting for the delivery of all these cool new power tools, the following power tool-related finger-centric events took place:

1. A colleague cut off his thumb while running a power saw.

2. Another colleague cut off the tips of several of his fingers while running a power saw.

3. One of my ex-wife's friends cut off her index finger while running a power saw.

A pattern is detected.

So after the third incident of fingers/power saws/inattention to detail, I was able to read the auguries and I canceled my table saw order.

The salesman noted that I wasn't the first potential customer to cancel an order in the interim period after learning of an amateur finger removal involving power saws.

So, yesterday, I wasn't running a power saw. I was closing a garage door that was based on a design created during the Spanish Inquisition.

And my index finger and my middle finger were trapped in a crack in the closing door. After about five seconds of thinking, wow, I am not going to be drawing cartoons for The Sacramento Bee anymore, I raised the garage door.

I examined the fingers. They were attached and not bleeding, which was my quick field triage assessment.

So I spent the rest of the day on the sofa, watching Ken Burns' Baseball.

There was a quick shot of Rollie Fingers, the A's pitcher, or maybe it was Vida Blue, and it made me think of Rollie Fingers.

Then I thought of my fingers.

So, from now on, I am no longer going to engage in any finger-risky behaviors.

I've got a Nerf brush and a Tempurpedic pen. 

I've got to go now. I'm going to repair my garbage disposal.

Wish me luck.