Weekly Dose of Dangle
My friend Karthik is running for mayor of San Francisco. He’s an artist with an interesting background as a statistician and a news director for KPFK in Los Angeles. He’s traveled around the world many times and probably done dozens of other things that I'm not aware of. Now he walks the hilly streets of San Francisco talking to the people and stopping in at every bar and cafe to press the flesh. Anyway, check out his campaign, he’d kick ass as mayor. I’d vote for him except that I live in Oakland. Although he’s determined to fight cronyism I’m hoping that he will name me SF commissioner of cartooning. I’d liberally dole out money to all the cartoonists who are just one step from the gutter.
I’m heading off to Chicago for almost the whole week to do a graphic recording gig with my colleagues at Alphachimp. Corporate gig! I wish I could take some time to go see my dad two hours north of Chicago in the wilds of Wisconsin, but it ain't going to happen. He’s ninety and lives alone in a three bedroom house out in the countryside near where he was raised. My sister, Joyce, lives nearby too. She’s a school social worker who is in the crosshairs of Governor Scott Walker’s budget cuts. Her job is to try to get toothless, meth-addled hillbillies to send their kids to school. She’s half expecting to be laid off. And she’s had that job forever.
I also wish I had time to see my pal, John Schmelzer, the guy who was Guild president after I finished my term from hell. He’s incredibly obnoxious, the kind of guy who gives waitresses a hard time, but I’m fond of him. He collects bulldogs, draws illustrations, and raises pigeons. We like to drink together. Maybe I can see him on the last night before I return unless Alphachimp has other plans for me.
Took Oscar to his cuong nhu martial arts class Saturday morning. He was goofing off and not paying any attention to the teacher. Spinning around and falling on the ground and being a clown. I asked him what the hell he was doing out there and he said, “Dad, if you ever make another comment like that I will never do cuong nhu again.” He’s always making ultimatums. I heard a guy deriding California dads who want to be their kids’ buddies instead of parenting with an iron fist. I wondered if I was one of those dads.
posted by Lloyd Dangle at
10:27 AM
2 Comments:
If successful, I would absolutely appoint Lloyd Dangle to help our team communicate.
I'm running for mayor as a means communicate ideas because it may be one of the last ways to really implement policy changes that Dangle often describes so effectively as necessary in T'town.
Lloyd, I'm counting on you to provide Graphic Recording for the Campaign and the City if I am elected, to explain some of the more complicated ideas to SF voters: things like IRV or Instant Runoff Voting, new forms of taxation or laws and evaluations of how the City spends its resources.
For twenty-two years you've been excellent at making complicated things clear through Troubletown.
Your strip will be missed by many many thousands of San Franciscans who still know how to read newspapers, but I am confident your influence via the Internets and other media are going to continue to have a positive effect.
And of course, you always have my ear.
Yours,
Karthik Rajan
Candidate for Mayor of SF 2011
Don't worry too much about not being iron fisty enough. People who think of themselves as tough parents who rule with an iron fist are usually just bullies who have easy kids. All kids are either easy kids or tough kids. With easy kids, everything works; with tough kids, you have to work and figure out how to talk to your kid so they don't walk all over you but at the same time you don't have to spend every waking moment yelling and threatening and punishing and yelling some more. The Iron Fist approach works for about one day with a tough kid, and then they figure out how to beat you at your own game. Anyone who has tried Iron Fist with a tough kid knows that. That Tiger Mother lady wouldn't last for a week with MY god-damned kids. She doesn't know how to do anything but bully.
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