Posted on November 4, 2023 by davidrobinsoncreative
One of the first paintings I did for Kerri is called Dancing In The Front Yard. From the very beginning we’ve had a natural impulse to dance. In the kitchen. On the deck. In an airport. On the trail. In the front yard.
If we break into spontaneous slow-dancing and the Dogga is near, it never fails that he joins us. Standing on his hind legs, paws on our shoulders, together we three dance our celebration of togetherness. There is nothing better on this earth.
Posted on October 28, 2023 by davidrobinsoncreative
Today is one of those days. There’s not much I can add to illuminate the wisdom of the comic strip. Rest easy knowing that my brain is putty and I am off to take a nap. Somehow, “nap” floated to the tippy-top of the we-do list and I always do what’s on the list.
Posted on October 14, 2023 by davidrobinsoncreative
Mighty regrettable breath! I laughed so hard when I read this that tears came to my eyes. She didn’t back up when I laughed so I’m fairly confident that I’ve taken care of the problem. Either that or I’ve permanently damaged her sense of smell.
Note: She also ate the dip. That I didn’t write a cartoon about my point of view (smell) is why she loves ALMOST everything about me. Well, okay. She probably likes a lot of things about me. I think. I know she tolerates a very long list of eccentric character traits and quirks. All-in-all, I generally get a passing grade if I point my mighty regrettable breath downwind. And open the wine. And make the coffee.
Posted on October 7, 2023 by davidrobinsoncreative
“Do you remember when you used to stand up without sound effects?” she asked. We burst out laughing at the truth of her question. A gathering of friends comparing the aches and pains of simple movement.
Kerri and I have initiated a few new roadtrip travel rules. First, we stop before the sun goes down. The days of seventeen hour long-hauls are over. Diminished night-sight made that rule necessary. Next, we stop every few hours to stretch our legs. We’ve found that if we don’t stop, the only way out of the car is to roll off the seat and crawl to the curb. Social grace and the aesthetics of aging made the stop-every-few-hours-rule essential. People at rest areas get nervous when our car door opens and I fall groaning to the ground, crawl with my elbows around the car, reach up to open Kerri’s door, and pull her moaning to the pavement.
Let’s face it. It’s not pretty. It’s always a better idea to stop while there’s still some feeling in our legs.
Posted on September 30, 2023 by davidrobinsoncreative
The good news is that, eventually, late becomes early and my adorability is magically restored. Kind of like a reverse pumpkin in the Cinderella story. Or, perhaps a more accurate analogy, like a werewolf during the dark hours, I metamorphose back to a less-loud-adorable-man-shape with the sunrise.
Mostly, I am grateful that her memory is short and with the sunrise she seems to forget the werewolf-in-me. Either that or she’s imagining or dreaming the snoring (I’ve never heard it so I am understandably filled with doubt). What matters is I awake each morning from a restful sleep and look at her with adoring eyes. Come to think of it, that may be why my adorability is magically restored. Not magic, it’s an adoration loop!
Posted on September 29, 2023 by davidrobinsoncreative
If there is a metaphor for Kerri and me, it is this. A seedpod filled to bursting, ready to release into the world an abundance of the new.
We write more than most people care to read. I’ve calculated that, at this point, we’ve written the equivalent of ten full length novels. We have readers all over the globe – yesterday someone in Mongolia showed up. “Why would someone in Mongolia want to read what we write?” we asked, delighted. No matter. It’s what happens when you love what you are doing.
Yesterday, in a fit of no-duh, I reformatted the Smack-dab page on our site so it might be readable (I’m not sure what took me so long…) and I was astounded at our output. I fell into it. Smack-dab joins the comic canon of Chicken Marsala, Flawed Cartoon, At the Door, Flip, and the KnowNow series.
We love to share what we love. Sometimes I see-just-for-a-moment that our ordinary is extraordinary.
We have the third of Beaky’s books to produce. Kerri’s written a children’s book that someday she will allow me to illustrate. I have new ideas every day that get written on slips of paper and tossed in a bin called Someday.
Our Roadtrip is ready to roll and join The Lost Boy in our canon of plays performed together. I am working on a draft of a new play that I’ve been thinking about for years. I allow myself an hour of space away from the job hunt to write or work on a scene. One scene a week. I’m awaiting the decision whether or not my Last of the Old Gods will be rescheduled into the PCO season. It’s a timely story. It needs performing and I need to perform it.
Kerri stares at her piano. There is so much more music to make. I know it. She knows it. I can personally attest to the fact that some of her best vocal pieces have yet to be recorded. I am the sole recipient of such riches.
Each day I stand in my studio and close my eyes and feel the pulse. There are so many more paintings to paint.
Years ago, Joyce, staring wide-eyed into my future, said to me: You express what is true. You reach people through their hearts. You help them to believe.
It’s not a career. It’s an imperative. Seedpods. Ready to burst.
Posted on September 16, 2023 by davidrobinsoncreative
Yes. It’s true. I’ve been paying on my student loans for 22 years and I currently owe more now than the original loan. That little statistic is not an accident. I am not alone. There are so many of me, in fact, that our economy will teeter when payments resume.
The mechanism was set up in the Reagan years, a mechanism that has more recently been echoed in the Affordable Care Act. What seems like a good idea at the time, accessibility to education, accessibility to healthcare, is in actuality a shell game. The government provides a subsidy-or-loan-program for an industry yet places no cap on what the industry can charge. It places little regulation on how the loans are structured and serviced. It’s a money-making-machine in the guise of a social program. Tax dollars to corporate pockets. Compare the cost of an education in 1988 to what it is today. Compare the cost of healthcare in the USA relative to other developed nations. Once in the trap, it’s nigh-on impossible to escape it.
Do a bit of reading before you weigh in on student loan forgiveness. For extra credit, compare the amount of recent loan forgiveness granted to businesses (not to mention the amount given to large corporations when the economy melted down in the Bush years – due to bad corporate/market practices) relative to the amount proposed for student loan forgiveness by the Biden administration. Student loan forgiveness is peanuts in comparison though the impact on real people would be profound.
For extra-extra credit, keep in mind that humor is often the result of other people’s pain… it’s possible that this cartoon will strike your funny bone since the pain for us is real. We hope it strikes a slightly different bone.
Posted on September 2, 2023 by davidrobinsoncreative
And isn’t the true wealth of life about the extraordinary people that walk the path with you? I am, every day, astonished by my good fortune, especially by this woman who chooses to walk this life with me. In this measure, I am unbelievably rich.
Posted on August 19, 2023 by davidrobinsoncreative
A lot of love and attention goes into Kerri’s garden. It may be small but it is a mighty source of pleasure and satisfaction.
I’ve found that there is no better antidote for feeling defeated in the world than taking a break and smelling the basil. OMG. The lavender makes me close my eyes and smile. The mint clears my mind. The tomatoes fill us with hope and renewal as we daily cheer them into existence.
What goes around, comes around. So much love and attention goes in to her garden and what comes around, what comes back to us, is nothing less than a miracle. Smells and tastes that affirm how great it is to be alive. Tastes and smells that can turn a dark day into something brilliant.
Posted on August 12, 2023 by davidrobinsoncreative
We’re staying put this summer. Circumstance requires it though that hasn’t put a damper on our capacity to dream. “If you could go anywhere right now, where would you go?” For us, it’s a daily game and fun to play.
Kerri and I are roadtrippers. New experiences feed our imaginations and our artistry. Kerri imagines composing with her piano firmly seated at the edge of the canyonlands. I imagine a series of artist-residencies providing stops along the way, taking us to beautiful places to create, stir the pot, meet new people, ignite ideas…
It’s a great dream. Our job, as we see it, one way or the other, is to bring it to life.
The Direction of Intention 