Friday Fitz Fix
Headliners and one-liners that cross the line
Kangaroo Rat Pet Peeves
Too often misidentified as “tiny kangaroos”
“We’re more than just amazing kidneys”
No marsupial pouch for babies
Butt of jokes due to pouch in cheeks
Never been to Australia
Long tail gets caught in revolving doors at 5-star burrows
Domestic cats
“Cats” the musical
Harris Hawks who don’t even knock
Sense of being unfairly banned from Olympics Long jump competition
Set back by a respiratory plague
I’m going to give myself a good break to recover. Look for your next Fitz Fix next Friday. At my age, pacing is everything.
Dr. Hackenspittle told me that.
Or maybe it was my obnoxious son who rebounded in less than 3-days from the snifflefest that is still is on a Jihad in this geezer’s wheezy bronchial backcountry.
The Life of a Small Town Cartoonist
Last night I cracked open a desk diary calendar from 2002.
Yes, I kept them all.
Looking at my incomplete notes for one week I was reminded of the insane schedule I embraced my entire public career:
Monday: Tubac Center for the Arts, set up Mansfeld M. S. date
Tuesday: Alzheimers Caregivers talk, D D Casino
Wednesday: Thornydale School, Career Day
Thursday: Sierra Vista Windmere, Sierra Vista PD, banquet
Friday: Tetra Corp, Hliton East
Saturday: Planned Parenthood Luncheon, Phoenix
This was a normal work week.
On top of the travel and prep for the nearly daily public appearances, I drew 5-political cartoons a week, plus one light-hearted cartoon for Caliente. Within a decade I added the challenge of writing a column to my respertoire, all of it motivated by this cartoonist’s desire to make himself essential to the Arizona Daily Star.
Another retired writer and I recently talked about the challenge of shedding the madness of the deadline treadmill. It is not easy after decades of never failing to meet a daily deadline. But I can dig it.
Thank you all for your support and patience!
My 2020 ode to Spring in the age of Covid
Reprinted form The Arizona Daily Star
I was a refugee seeking refuge from the asylum in my rearview mirror, escaping into the embrace of the Tucson Mountains. I promised my scruffy self my furlough would be a restorative break requiring only my camelback and my two favorite walking sticks. A hike a day keeps the chattering world at bay.
When NPR news barked from the car radio I spun the dial to avoid the knowing. Not this week. Up ahead a rusty pick up swerved with the same ferocity to dodge a vulture feasting on roadkill. The hand lettering on the rear window read,”Will swap TP (Toilet Paper) for weed.” Tough times for us all.
Before I knew it Was hiking among the Great Ironic Spring of 2020, the most beautiful Spring I have ever seen. Indifferent to our suffering, the natural world is ablaze with color and life. When have these familiar hillsides brought forth a more glorious field of native wildflowers?
“Perhaps, mistaken man,” coos the mourning dove, “the penstemons, brittle bushes and fairy dusters are bouquets of condolence.”
On a high ridge I’m eye to beak with three pterodactyl-sized vultures elegantly floating on thermals. My journalist mind chatters questions. My phone tempts me with answers. I abandon the zen moment. I google, a prisoner of the restless, furtive monkey mind.
“A group of turkey vultures is called a committee, a venue or a volt.”
I pocket my phone, squinting to follow the volt of vultures, descendants of dinosaurs driven to seek refuge in their primeval sky preserve by an ancient asteroid.
“Get video!” I resist the devil in this wilderness, the digital temptation, and instead, I silently swoop with them in circles above the shadows of the clouds rolling across the desert floor below.They vanish behind a distant range of ragged mountains.
Fools say we’ve peaked.
It is not a single peak. Experts say it is a sawtoothed mountain range we must cross in the months and years ahead.
I see everything as an analogy for another thing. Masked hikers up ahead. “How are you folks?”
“Good. You?”
“Paranoid. Deluded. Beautiful day. Nice mask!”
I try not to exhale as I walk past. Atop the first peak I rest to catch my breath and wonder if my lungs could survive an assault by this virus.
The golden poppies at my feet are not opium poppies. Only their beauty is addictive. So is thinking. Monkey mind starts juggling. Opium poppies. Heroin. Quick fix. Chloroquine.
“Chloroquine Study aborted in Brazil after deaths.” A news item among the hundreds pin balling in my brain. I turned off the news alerts on my phone. All I want to hear is the wind.
I add a tiny golden flower to the doll-sized bouquet in my water bottle holster, a posy I’m assembling to present to Ellen when I return home.
What did the children sing? “Ring around the rosy, pockets full of posies.”
My bouquet offers no antidote to plagues. Only distraction.
“Ashes, ashes,” we sang as they circled the cremated. “We all fall down.” The trail becomes a narrow ledge. I will not fall.
A sign near beautifully crafted stone stair steps lectures me as I catch my breath. FDR created the Civilian Conservation Corps in ‘33 to provide jobs for millions. A dollar a day. How many barrels of oil could that buy?
I walk on. Happy days are not here again. There is no New Deal savior. Only this daunting, rocky trail.
By now Moses would have reached Sinai. This splendid trail galls like Golgotha and dazzles like Eden. From the summit this heathen shall see the Promised Land, Gates Pass, Picacho, Wasson and Golden Gate. I listen to my breathing. I surrender to the beauty that is in front of me at this moment. I commit this vista to memory.
I think of the healthcare workers, the out-of-work, the clerks, the stockers, the responders, the sick, the dying, the lonely who deserve to be where I am right now, in the sun, free from fear, free from the struggle, free from the suffering, surrounded by the unnerving quiet of this ironic spring.
Down below a vulture dines on death. Repelled, I’m immune to the irony that I belong to the species that worships mammon over mothers, profits over people, pharisees over the least. In our national wilderness no one will turn these stones to bread. Or masks or ventilators. Or hearts that beat with empathy and compassion.
In the valley I hear a twig and stop. A young desert tortoise crosses my path, a small marvel, persisting. If only we could hibernate in our shells through this viral season and stir on a more pleasing day.
I returned from the trail, got in my car and drove in sublime silence among ten thousand saguaros, free of rancor, rumor and chatter, windows down, blasting past the trill and dirge of the mourning doves who mourn for us all.
Upcoming Fitz Guest Column in The Star!
Look for my column in this weekend’s Arizona Daily Star on being an Arizona Sonora Desert Museum Docent. It’s part of series I’m writing on volunteers in Southern Arizona.
Next: Volunteering for “Tu Nidito”. I hope you enjoy the series.
Fitz Doings
March 25th, this Saturday night I am honored to host the 40th Annual Amphi Foundation Gala at La Paloma. One more joyful opportunity to be a champion for public education, in my tux to raise bucks.
On a similar note Raytheon has not invited me to host a single fundraiser for multi-billion dollar missile systems.
April 16th, I’ll be closing out “Before I Die”, a community event that begins at 2pm at The Loft which will include a wide range of topics about aging, death and dying, and end-of-life issues. Organizer Mary Ganapol wrangled some amazing TED talk quality speakers from the non-profit world, businesses and academia to speak about various end of life topics.
Will my presentation be entertaining, deep, dark, funny, relevant and memorable? Am I Dave Fitzsimmons?
For more info about “Before I Die” festivals: https://beforeidiefestivals.com/event/first-before-i-die-tucson-event/
For a list of presenters: BeforeIDieTucson.com
For more info contact Mary Ganapol at mary.ganapol@gmail.com
April 22, at Fini’s Landing, my musically gifted pals, The Booth Brothers, will be performing their Beatles tribute along with other boomer classics. I’m plugging them here because:
They’re fabulous.
I owe John Booth a huge debt for helping me produce The Old Pueblo Holiday Radio Show every year.
I created their logo :-)
Click on this link to nejoy a sampling of their music: Booth Brothers
Justine
Justine “Q-Anon” Wadsack and the Christian Nationalist evangelical church here in Tucson, the Bridge Christian Church (Not Woke, just right) have been harassing Bookman’s to stop hosting drag queen story hours. Now I’m not a religious man but I am curious about The Bridge Christian Church, where it is wrong to be “woke” for “Verily, I say unto you, blessed are the proud boys and all who labor in the Vineyards of Q-Anon to exclude the marginalized.”
My all-time favorite blog on Arizona politics,“The Blue Meanie’s Blog for Arizona,” covers this in the most recent blog: Blog for Arizona
Support Blog for Arizona.
Hummingbird Nest Update
I check the nest daily. Yesterday, when Mom was gone, I stood on my tiptoes for the daily inspection and nearly fell over when I heard humming from inside their eggs, a sure sign they are due to hatch.
A Great life
A highlight of every cartoonists conference was always the side trips. In 2014 I attended the San Francisco gathering, with my wife, Ellen and my son, Matt and the side trip was to the Charles Schultz Museum in Santa Rosa.
The maturity level of one professional political cartoonist is here on full display.
My grand kids have no clue who Charlie Brown or Snoopy are. It’s remarkable to me how quickly our cultural Gods rise and fall. That’s okay. I’m still practicing drawing Bart Simpson.
By the way Bart is nearly 40-years old.
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Public schools! Yes!,
Love the lyrical essay that you wrote in 2020 about the hike in the Tucson Mountains. I didn't see it back then, but so glad I read it today. The English language is stepped up a grade when you use it.
Glenna Snider