Vice-President Joe Biden with an observation on the street . .

Here is a good one for the " What it's Worth Dept. " . . As most of you know, I've been sending cartoons to the New Yorker since most of you were born . . AND I've been rejected over 20,000 times . . that's Okay, Hey, we can't ALL sell to The New Yorker  ( In fact, it's not really "no big deal", but, I'm not used to failing, and maybe, that is where the problem is, it ain't over till it's over )  . . That doesn't really bother me at all . . it's just NOW, believe it or not, is getting to be fun . . . what I started doing about six months ago ( after a suggestion from a New Yorker office insider ) is I've been shot-gunning batches USPS simultaneously to all three editors at The New Yorker that do the final selections for the cartoons to be purchased that week . . this tipster person figured that possibly, just POSSIBLY, ONE of the three MIGHT, JUST MIGHT see a cartoon and would say, EUREKA! . . . looka dis !  The poor bastard FINALLY sent us one that I think is as good or better than the stuff we've been buying . . After all this guy sells to every magazine OUR New Yorker cartoonists sell to . .  Man ! I GOTTA show this to my collegues . . Wait a minute . .  this bastard has been sending to all three of us at the same time !  Why didn't somebody SAY something ?  I didn't want to say anything, one said, another said, I was AFRAID to say anything and what difference does it make we AIN'T A GONNA buy this poor bastard's work . . ANYWAY . . And the other one said, Yeh, but one of us shoulda said sumphin' . . HEY ! We've been HAD !  Don't you SEE, he's been trying to fool us ! . . Just for that . . . Now we are NOT NOW OFFICIALLY, POSITIVELY, ABSOLUTELY NOT EVER GONNA BUY ! Let the poor bastard twist in the wind ! was the final agreement by all three . . who the hell does this bastard think he is . . ANYWAY ?  He can't MAKE us buy ( unless maybe the ACLU picked up the case ) . . this guy HAS to be a brick shy of a load, maybe Pat Byrnes was right, this guy is "almost embarrassing to the profession . . " ( Is this a profession ? , I always thought it was just an easy way to make a fast buck. ) 

The irony of all this is that in every batch I would include a courteous letter, typed and addressed to each of the guys stating and underlining the sentence that there was no need to return these drawings because they were just copies ( Obviously it was a gesture, thinking of Al Gore, that I was trying to save their time and paper and postage,energy, etc.

 I.e. I didn't WANT to know if they were rejecting them . . I only wanted to hear from them IF, IF they wanted to buy . . I actually wanted to have the last word, in each transaction . . You see,I've been running the show all my life and having my way and I forget that I'm no longer CEO of a company with 32 minions, I forget . but NO, NO . . They thought, HE ain't running THIS show . . WE ARE RUNNING THE SHOW . . SO-O-O, here is what happens next, in the mail yesterday, I get a batch back in a 9x12 grey printed New Yorker logo envelope with THEIR postage, and inside was the my letter AND my returned rejects, which I TOLD them NOT to return, it was the letter I addressed to the real editor and they were returning my cartoons with a rejection slip, AND, AND the cartoon editor with a blue pen crossed off the editor's name in the letter AND printed HIS name . . . in other words, HEY ! send ME, Da DRAWINS, NOT HIM, You Moron.  Not even a note . . Don't make waves ! . . HEY ! 

Now I know what Kahlil Gibran meant in The Prophet . . when he said: " Do not be a solver of riddles. " . . by doing it without a word he won THIS particular chess move . .

Was watching East of Eden last night again with James Dean and the scene when he's up in his mother's room trying to borrow $5000.00 to make an investment and give his religiously devout Dad ( Raymond Massey )for a loss of money in a bad unfortunate business accident he suffered from . .  He just found out that his estranged mother, Agnes Morehead was a very successful brothel owner and that all of the city officials went to her place of business when it got dark and his hypocritically devout Dad and the city big wheels were all a bunch of phonies who looked down on her during the day and here, Massey needs to be bailed out by of all people, his ex-wife using tainted money ! . . And his mother starts to laugh almost hysterically and says to her son, who isn't laughing . . " SON, IF YOU DON'T THINK THIS IS FUNNY, YOU BETTER NOT GO TO COLLEGE ! "

That's how I felt . .