by Marty Coleman | Jun 16, 2014 | The Illustrated Insult 2014, Winston Churchill |
The truth is, it would be an insult for you not to read day #1 of ‘The Illustrated Insult’.
The Truth
Do you know people who do everything in their power to avoid the truth? It might be the truth about themselves, about their failed relationships, their job woes, their looks, their spouses, or something else. I have known some people like that in my life. Actually, I have BEEN one of those people. A perfect example is someone who drinks heavily and makes excuse after excuse about why their drinking isn’t that big a deal. I did that. I finally realized that the problem was never going to go away via the avenue of blaming others or finding rationalizations. It would only go away if I recognized what was tripping me up was me and that I had to something about it.
It’s You
That is the hard part, realizing the solution to the truth you are stumbling over is you. The stone in the road may not be self-inflicted. It may be your spouse or your job or your drinking or worse yet a civil war or a natural disaster. it can be any number of things. But solving it always starts with you. You have control over you. Not complete control of course, but certainly more control than over someone else or many outer circumstances.
Even When it’s Not You, It’s You
But what if it is outer circumstances? What if your job sucks? What if you are being abused by your husband or wife? What if you spouse put you in terrible debt? You can blame all those people and circumstances if you want, and it is good to properly evaluate who is doing what wrong. But once you realize that, you still need to make your choice as to how to respond. It’s still you that needs to take action, recognizing the truth and doing something about it.
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Drawing and commentary by Marty Coleman
Quote by Winston Churchill, 1874-1965, British Politician. The quote was originally about a specific male, using He and Himself, in the quote. I changed it, as I sometimes do, to bring attention to the all to common linguistic assumption that everything is about men, not women.
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She occasionally stumbled over the truth but hastily picked herself up and hurried on as if nothing had happened
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by Marty Coleman | Jun 11, 2014 | Marilyn Monroe, The Extrovert & Introvert - 2014 |
It’s day #3 of ‘The Extrovert and Introvert’ series!
Alone Together
I started out in college studying printmaking. Because you have to use big, heavy and expensive presses to print your work, and you have to use chemicals and inks that require special handling, you usually are in a group environment in a big studio. You do your own work but you are talking to others, maybe helping them print something or asking advice on how to get something right, as well as just idle chitchat that happens during long hours in the studio. It’s the perfect ‘alone together’ environment for an artist who is an extrovert.
Alone Alone
But early on I was so much of an extrovert, I wanted so much socializing, that I didn’t really spend an adequate amount of alone time doing my artwork. I believe my career as an artist actually suffered because of that. What I eventually learned is embodied in the quote, ‘A career is born in public, talent in private’. In my understanding now I believe you will not be successful creatively unless you spend immense amount of time alone simply practicing, training, learning, exploring and creating your work.
Model Alone
This is true of artists, actors, singers, writers, speakers, and more; anyone who has to be in the public at some point. Even professions you wouldn’t at first think about. In my capacity as an organizer for PHOTOG, the photography group I help lead here in Oklahoma, I often will need to find models for shoots. If the model is inexperienced one of the essential bits of advice I give is for them to practice posing in a mirror by themselves. The reason is so they can really know their own face and body, what it does, how they can make it do this or that.
Being alone, focused on practicing something over and over, is where talent will be born. We who are extroverts can learn something from introverts who already know this.
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Drawing and commentary by Marty Coleman
Quote by Marilyn Monroe, 1926 – 1962, American actress
Norma Jean Baker
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by Marty Coleman | Jun 10, 2014 | Family History, Marty Coleman, The Extrovert & Introvert - 2014 |
I hope you haven’t had your fill yet, because today is only day #2 of ‘The Extrovert and Introvert’ series.
Raised by Extroverts
I was raised by two extroverts. My mother was a loud laughing broad who likened herself to Lucille Ball, even if she did look more like Jackie O. My father was the smooth charmer who could work a room like no other. My sisters and I are pretty much the same. We aren’t overly self-conscious and we make friends easily. We certainly wouldn’t be called shy by any stretch of the imagination.
I Married an Introvert
So, when I married my first wife, Kathy, I really had no idea what shyness and introversion were all about. I didn’t understand being self-conscious. I simply had very little exposure to what it was and how it affected people. Kathy was pretty shy. As a matter of fact, she probably was the shyest person I had ever met when we first crossed paths in 1977 at UCSB. It wasn’t until 2 years later, in San Francisco, that we met again and started dating. We were married within the year and my journey of discovery started.
I didn’t pay nearly enough attention to what it was all about and as a result Kathy suffered quite a bit. I was not aware of what she was going through, and when I was, I more often than not blew her feelings off as not being valid. After all, in my mind, what was there to be shy or self-conscious about, right? It just seemed ridiculous to me. That obliviousness to her and how her mind worked, that judgment I had about it without really understanding it, were contributing factors in our divorce 20 years down the road.
I Married an Introvert, Again!
Fast forward a number of years and I marry Linda. Linda isn’t shy. She isn’t at my level of extroversion, but she is comfortable and easy going in social situations. But I learned something very important this time around. Just because someone is able to socialize, doesn’t mean it is easy. I found out that Linda has to work hard to socialize. She works a room and it is what it says it is, work. She is tired and exhausted after socializing. It wears her down. She needs down time after it. I respect that and we live a life that allows for that rejuvenation to take place as often as possible.
They Married an Extrovert
If it was and is hard for me dealing with being married to introverts, it was and is equally hard for them to be married to an extrovert. I make friends with baristas, waiters, people I happen to run next to in a strange town (yes, I mean actually running down a street and meeting another runner), and random people on the internet who live around the globe in Slovenia or Australia or Korea or who knows where. It isn’t a chore for me to make friends. I like it. It makes me happy. I am not tired after a long day of socializing, I am usually ready for more.
I sometimes will tell Linda a story about someone I met and something they are going through, and she will stop me and ask, “How exactly do you know them again?” My response will most likely be along the lines of, “I am not sure, I think I met them on Flickr, maybe back in 2006, or maybe I was in the lawn mower repair place. Oh wait, I think they were on that bus in Florida that time in 2009, remember?” She’ll look at me with that look that that says, ‘I am exhausted just listening to how you met this person, much less hearing the rest of this story.’
Who We Are
I think what both Kathy and Linda eventually learned was that this ease and love I have for socializing and making friends is not part of a secret agenda on my part, any more than their reticence to socialize was part of some agenda on their part. It’s simply what feeds me and what feeds them. None of us are the same, and neither are our offspring. We are on a social continuum, not in one camp or the other, like sparring political parties. That’s always good for me to remember.
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Quote, drawing and commentary by Marty Coleman
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by Marty Coleman | Jun 9, 2014 | Frans Hiddema, The Extrovert & Introvert - 2014 |
I am not too shy to say today is day #1 of ‘The Extrovert and Introvert’
DIY Prison
I have had many friends over the years who have felt locked up. They feel paralyzed in life. They can’t move emotionally, socially, career-wise, or physically. They are imprisoned. Sometimes that imprisonment is imposed from the outside. It might be a societal thing, or a marriage, bodily illness/injury or family expectations. But often I find that the prison is made by the prisoner. The family judgment is minimal. Society is actually paying very little attention. The spouse is actually supportive and encouraging. They are healthy. The prison is not built by others. It’s built by themselves.
Best of Intentions
And the prison is custom built for only one prisoner, by someone who knows the prisoner best. And even at one point, had the prisoner’s best interests at heart. After all, when we are growing up, don’t we need defenses? Don’t we learn how to protect ourselves from danger? The bullying classmate, the judging mother, the condemning father, the harsh friend, the manipulative pastor, the scolding teacher. Haven’t we all had someone like that in our lives? We figured out ways to protect ourselves. We built a fortress to keep those people out. And it worked. We were protected, if we were lucky.
Bed and Breakfast
But we didn’t realize that a fortress is also a prison. As we grew older the need for the fortress lessened, but the fortress was still there. Fortresses don’t come down by themselves, do they? They have to be knocked down and destroyed, right? Or perhaps they don’t have to be. Perhaps they can be simply opened up to public viewing, like an ancient castle in Europe that is now a Bed and Breakfast.
Invitation to Your Brain
I once took part in an open studio tour. I had rented a large garage space as my studio in my next door neighbor’s lot behind my house in San Jose, California. I put up many pieces of art; drawings, photos, paintings, etc. for everyone to see. At one point I noticed a good friend of mine sitting quietly on the coach in the middle of the room, just staring at the work. I came over, sat down and asked him what he was thinking. He chuckled and said, “I was just saying to myself that sitting here looking at your art makes me feel like I am wandering around inside your brain.” That was a pretty cool compliment. Well, at least it was after he explained that what he found in my brain didn’t freak him out too much.
More Than One Tool
Maybe that is the key. Don’t expect to completely destroy fortresses you have built up for decades. Maybe have more than one tool. Have a wrecking ball to knock some parts down and a welcome mat to allow access to other parts.
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Drawing and commentary by Marty Coleman
Quote by Frans Hiddema, 1923-1997, Dutch Poet and Psychoanalyst.
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by Marty Coleman | Jun 1, 2014 | Margaret Atwood, Violence Against Women - 2014 |
It’s #3 of my Violence Against Women series, sparked by the murders in Isla Vista and UCSB, my Alma Mater. Addition events in India with the rape and lynching of two teenage girls only increases my desire to keep this issue on the front burner.
Size Matters
No, I don’t mean THAT size. I mean the size of the anger, the size of the ego, the size of the insecurity (which of course could possibly be linked to THAT size, who knows). In most cases men feel a little embarrassed and maybe a little humiliated by a woman laughing at them. It might sting a little, and it might make them a little angry. But most men are not all men. And all it takes is one man whose anger is BIG and whose predilection to violence is BIG to create a violent situation.
Not All Men
Too often men will listen to a woman talk about an incidence of sexual violence and their response is will be, “Well, not all men are like that.” But what they don’t realize is that for a woman, they may know most men aren’t like that, but they have very little way of knowing which man is which. I heard a great analogy the other day to help a man understand what a woman is dealing with.
Yes, All Women
Imagine you are given a bowl of M & Ms and are told that you shouldn’t worry too much because they are mostly safe, but there are about 10% that are poisonous. Would you be inclined to grab a handful? I doubt it. Well, that is how many women, especially those who have had run-ins with poisonous men already in their lives, feel about men in general. It’s hard to know who is who in advance. And yes, all women have to deal with it.
The quote above is true: Men are afraid women will laugh at them. Women are afraid men will kill them.
Hidden Men
The other thing us men who aren’t poisonous don’t realize is that we don’t see the poisonous men doing their damage, their seductions, their manipulations, their intimidations because they don’t do it around us. They do it when we aren’t around. What does that mean? It means we don’t default to saying, “Nah, that didn’t really happen.” or “eh, I am sure he didn’t mean anything by it.” It means we have to default to believing a woman when she tells us that it has happened. It means if a woman says WE are doing it, even if we don’t think we are, we stop and believe them. We don’t believe them because we are guilty of something (even though we might be). We believe them because the effect of what we said or did gave them that feeling. That is enough.
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Drawing and commentary by Marty Coleman
Quote by Margaret Atwood, 1939 – not dead yet, Canadian author
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by Marty Coleman | May 28, 2014 | Anonymous, Violence Against Women - 2014 |
This is part 2 of my series on Violence Against Women. It was sparked by the violent events at my Alma Mater, UC Santa Barbara, last week.
Pleasing
To my female friends and readers: do you try to please your husband or boyfriend on a regular basis? Are you able to? If you are and they appreciate it, great. I hope they are trying to please you in equal measure.
But what about when you can’t please them? What happens when nothing you do is good enough? What do you do when the man says you aren’t thin enough, pretty enough or a good enough homemaker, child raiser or money maker? Then what? What do you do when you aren’t good enough in bed, aren’t wild enough in public, aren’t sexy enough in your attitude? Then what? Are you hit? Abused? denigrated? assaulted? What do you do to stop it?
Avoiding
If you are like most women I have talked to who are in that situation, you will try everything to make them not be angry, not be violent, not be dissatisfied. And if they are never satisfied have you stopped trying to please? I imagine that is very scary because he has power. power to hurt, power to seek revenge, power to make your life even more miserable.
Divorce
People often cite divorce statistics saying 50% of marriage end in divorce. They use it as a way to condemn modern society. But I think there is another reason. A good reason. And it’s because women have started saying ‘No More’. I know it’s not the whole reason, but I do know it is a BIG reason. More and more women are no longer willing to be the punching bag, verbally or physically. They no longer have to just suffer through it, they can get out and they do. I think that is a good thing.
Here and Now
If you think I am just talking about this as an abstraction, I am not. I have a friend in the here and now who is seriously contemplating divorce for precisely this reason. Her husband will not support her efforts to be fit, to be strong, to have friends, to be even minimally independent. Does she want to have an affair and blow the family fortune? No, she just wants a life, that’s all. She is more than happy to tell him all about it, to introduce him to her various friends and activities. But he not only doesn’t support her, but actively tries to stop her. He denigrates her and threatens her with divorce again and again. He isn’t stabbing her with a real knife, but he is stabbing her with his words.
What Men Can Do
It’s not easy for me to always understand what women go through since I don’t live it directly. But the truth is many women deal with this all the time in one way or another.
What I try to do now that I didn’t do before is to listen and believe them. They aren’t lying to us and they aren’t making it up. They are facing it and would like to at least be respected enough to be heard and believed. It won’t harm us to listen and react with the love and respect we would want for ourselves.
You can see the entire series so far here.
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Drawing and Commentary by Marty Coleman
Quote by Anonymous
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by Marty Coleman | May 27, 2014 | Mignon McLaughlin, Violence Against Women - 2014 |
This isn’t going away and I am wanting to talk about it.
Isla Vista
To even be talking about this is disappointing. The world is filled with men who don’t believe women should use their mind to make up their own mind about things. To pursue relationships or not, to pursue careers or living arrangements or travel or money or style or design or art or a million other things.
If you have any doubt you need go no farther than the town of Isla Vista, next door to the UC Santa Barbara campus in California. I lived in Isla Vista while attending UCSB back in the 70s and the shooting there is particularly disturbing because of the familiarity with all the places they are mentioning as the shooter rampaged around the town.
A young man killed 6 people on a rampage against women. He killed two members of the Tri-Delt sorority standing nearby after failing to get into the Alpha Phi sorority he wanted to attack or the toll of women would have been much worse. He killed 4 men but he was not enraged about men, they were unfortunate to be where they were, not targeted because of their gender.
Veronika and Katie
But the two women were, not because of them as individuals but because of their gender. The women, Veronika Weiss and Katie Cooper, were targeted because the murderer felt he was unfairly rejected by women. It’s unclear if he ever attempted to actually date any women, all that is known now is he claimed to be a virgin and blamed women for his inability to have sex with them.
Rape Culture
He was involved online with a group that is virulently anti-women. They portray them all as sluts and whores who manipulate and deceive for their own advancement and pleasure. They are not to be trusted but to be manipulated themselves into having sex with these men. Why? Because the men deserve to have sex with them. Why do they deserve it? Because they are men and women are supposed to do what men want of them.
Under the Radar
This is under the radar in the US most of the time. You don’t hear about these groups and their attitudes directly. But you do hear about date rape often enough and where does that come from but the same mind set of deserving the sex.
On the Radar
It is not under the radar however in other countries. The newspaper just this morning had an article about a woman having been stoned to death in front of a courthouse in Pakistan by her father, brothers and fiance. Why? Because she married a man she loved instead of the man her family told her she must marry. In other words, she had her own mind and followed it. And the men in her family and in the society don’t want that to happen. They don’t want women with a mind of their own, just as the murderer in Isla Vista didn’t want women who would or could reject his advances if they wanted to. They, as the victim in Pakistan, were obligated to obey the man and not have the power to make their own decisions about the matter.
Avoidance
What do I think is the solution? Heck if I know the big answer. But I know one small answer. Never, EVER spend substantial time and effort on a man who does not respect your intelligence. If he doesn’t respect your mind, he doesn’t respect you. Period. And it will come out. And when it does, it won’t be pretty. Much better to stay away from the beginning.
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Drawing and commentary by Marty Coleman
Quote by Mignon McLaughlin, 1913-1983, American journalist and author
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by Marty Coleman | May 19, 2014 | Anita Roddick, Launching a Business - 2014 |
It’s #6 in my ‘Launching a Business’ series, and that ain’t no small thing.
Small Things
Having been in the humble business of drawing on napkins for many years I know this simple fact. Big things can come from small things. As a matter of fact, there is no big thing that didn’t come from something small. Whether you start with the universe itself or human DNA, everything starts small.
- That first business loan from your parents
- That first little storefront you rent and take a picture of.
- The first dollar you make and frame to put on the wall of that little storefront.
The list of small firsts goes on and on when you launch a business. How far you go with it is not a function of how small you start since we all start small, in everything.
It’s a function of how far you want to go and how hard and smart you are willing to work to make it happen.
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Drawing and commentary by Marty Coleman
Quote by Anita Roddick, 1942 – not dead yet, Founder of the Body Shop
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by Marty Coleman | May 14, 2014 | Anthony J. D'angelo, Launching a Business - 2014 |
I am passionate about today being day #4 of my ‘Launching a Business’ series!
So Close I Can Touch It
When I graduated with my Masters in Fine Art from San Jose State University in 1984 I went about applying for college level teaching jobs. I landed a job right off the bat as a part-time, or adjunct, instructor at Cabrillo College in the town of Aptos on the Monterey Bay of California. That seemed like a good start. I landed other part-time teaching gigs shortly thereafter at Evergreen College and Mission College in the San Jose area. I was on my way, a full time job couldn’t be far off, right?
So Far Off I Can’t
It was far off. It was so far off that 8 years, hundreds and hundreds of applications, many interviews and more than a few finalist positions later I gave up. I switched focus, retrained myself on computers during the 93-94 year instead of applying for teaching jobs. I started applying for computer graphic jobs instead, focusing on getting something in the educational computer game market. It worked and by May of 94 we had moved to Tulsa and I had started a new job creating educational CDroms for children. It was the best job of my life.
Giving Up
I made the decision to give up because I saw that my persistence and passion was becoming stubbornness and ignorance. What I wanted may still have happened, who knows, but in my circumstances of having a family and 3 small children, I could not afford to be stubborn and ignorant any longer. I made the switch and never regretted it.
Self-Awareness
The same need to be self-aware is true when you have your own business. You want to be persistent and passionate. And some may call your persistence stubbornness before you do, and call your passion ignorance before you do. You might succeed in spite of having others say you have gone over the edge in those categories. You don’t need to bow to their opinion. But you should consider it. You should be willing to hear them out, see if they have any valid reasons why they think what they do. Especially consider their opinion if you believe they understand you and always have been on your side.
Honesty
Most importantly though you need to honest with yourself. No matter what anyone else says, you have to be self-aware enough, egoless enough, humble enough, strong enough, to face reality. If you face reality, you can move forward, if you don’t, very likely disappointment or even ruin will follow. You don’t want that.
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Drawing and commentary by Marty Coleman
Quote by Anthony J. D’angelo, American author
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by Marty Coleman | May 5, 2014 | Being Alone - 2014, Blaise Pascal, Frederic Dard, Julien De Valckenaere, Marilyn Monroe, Martin Luther |
Hello Napkin Kin! Have you been wondering all weekend what the theme of last week’s ‘Unnamed Series’ is? Well, wait no longer, here is the answer: Being Alone
I started it because a dear friend of mine who is going through a divorce is now living on her own in a condo. She is learning how to be alone for the first time in many years. It’s hard enough to be alone when things are going right, but when your world has imploded and all seems lost, being alone can be devastating. These drawing and quotes were a result of my exploration of the idea of ‘being alone’.
Here they are from first to last, with the quotes written in.
Being Alone #1 – from the series formerly known as ‘Unnamed’
Being Alone #2 – from the series formerly known as ‘Unnamed’
Being Alone #3 – from the series formerly known as ‘Unnamed’
Being Alone #4 – from the series formerly known as ‘Unnamed’
Being Alone #5 – from the series formerly known as ‘Unnamed’
So, now that you know, what do you think? Do the drawings make sense now? Do the quotes fit the drawings? Come on, let me know. I want to do another series like this, it was a lot of fun and there was more than average interaction with the Napkin Kin and your feedback will help make the next series even better.
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Drawings by Marty Coleman
Quotes by the following:
#1 – Frederic Dard, 1921-2000, French author
#2 – Julien De Valckenaere, 1898-1958, Dutch writer
#3 – Martin Luther, 1483-1546, German monk, religious rabble rouser
#4 – Marilyn Monroe, 1926-1962, American actress
#5 – Blaise Pascal, 1623-1662, French mathematician and philosopher
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