Hey There Spooky Skeletons!
Here in the Willamette Valley, spring doesn’t end until early July fall doesn't arrive until mid-October.
Most years, I love the extended summer weather, but the past few years, warm Septembers have meant more wildfires. Today I felt like I was back living in the San Francisco Bay Area. The sky was hazy, and the smoke smell permeated everything.
But I won’t let a slow-motion climate catastrophe ruin my mood!
I’m doing my best to focus on what I can control and release my anxiety over everything else.
This newsletter is going out much later in the day than usual because I have plenty of things that are out of my control right now!
Fortunately, one of my greatest assets (or character flaws, depending on who you ask) is my dark sense of humor.
No situation is too dire for me not to joke about it. When I had kidney cancer, I even named my tumor.
Humor is one of my favorite forms of creativity. Nothing feels as good as making other people laugh. But it’s tough to pull off. One of my obsessions is listening to comedians talk about comedy. I’ve watched every episode of Jerry Seinfeld’s show Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee multiple times.
When Gilbert Gottfried passed away earlier this year, I listened to an old podcast episode he was on where he talked about his workhorse attitude towards making people laugh.
What I love about this genre of media is that you get to see how hard these people work at their craft. These comedians are extremely talented because they work hard at something they are passionate about.
I’ve spent a lot of my life working hard at things I’m not very passionate about. I’ve developed certain skills that are useful and lucrative, but I don’t talk about them with the same love and wonder that you hear from the comedians that Seinfeld pals around with.
Over the past year, I’ve had several gradual awakenings and shocking epiphanies that have helped me reorient my life. I know it’s never too late to live your full, authentic life—not even when you’re 46. I also know it’s hard to make the transition.
But when I’m 56, I want to be living the kind of life where I’m excited to talk about the most mundane parts of what I do. I’ve had a few different careers in my life, but now I’m working on a craft.
I’m learning to combine my writing, poetry, storytelling, collage art, and weird outlook into comics, cartoons, and visual essays. This is the thing that lights me up, the thing that makes me alive.
When I’m creating silly gimmicks like the ones in this post, I understand that I’m not dead inside at all.
Creative Challenge: Talk to someone who loves the same creative thing you do and geek out about it together! (If you need a partner for this, I’m available!)
Thanks for reading!
Be the weird you want to see in the world!
Cheers,
Jason
P.S. There are t-shirt versions of both of these cartoons. Here are the links:
Dead Inside Ghost
Email Hell
What a fun post, Jason. Love the t-shirts!
My wife and I recently started watching Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee and we laugh start to finish of every episode. The show is like eating a bag of chips...you can’t just have one. We end up watching three or four or five in a row every time, ha.
Laughter is the best medicine!
"Creative Challenge: Talk to someone who loves the same creative thing you do and geek out about it together!"
Jason, you've given me a challenge, and I'll need to meditate on this one. Thank you!
(Question: What do you like about Red Bubble?)