Monday, June 14, 2021

My biggest audience, ever.


 






A few weeks ago, I had lunch with my old friend Brian Crane who, for years, has lived on the opposite side of the Great Basin, some 500 miles away. So, we don’t see each other as often as we like. Many, many years ago we worked together in a small ad agency in Idaho Falls, were in business together for a time, and later worked together again at an ad agency in Reno.

I left there for Utah and he stayed. Brian stayed in advertising for a time, working as an art director and designer. But he worked his way out of the business by drawing funny pictures and writing funny words. And he’s kept at it for more than thirty years, earning a living and much acclaim as one of America’s top comic strip artists—the man behind “Pickles.”

I have written a lot of poems over the years, and been published in a lot of periodicals, anthologies, collections, and online. But my most widely read poems are probably—almost certainly—those ghost-written for, or in collaboration with, one of the stars of Brian’s comic strip, Earl Pickles.

Now and then, Earl gets a hankering to be a cowboy poet. When he first got the urge, I lent a hand. Now the old geezer writes his own poems. But, like the little verse above, my words have on occasion basked in Earl’s limelight in hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of newspapers across the country.

If that’s as close to fame as I ever get as a cowboy poet, I’ll take it.


12 comments:

  1. That's awesome, Rod. We have Pickles in the Seattle Times, I'll have to watch for Earl's poetry now!

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    1. Keep watching. You never know when the muse will tap Earl on the shoulder.

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  2. You have done pretty well on your own without Earl's help, Rod. The wall where you hang your awards is about to crumble from the weight. Write on!

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    1. Thanks, Marleen. I try. But, as Earl once said, "I have my standards, I just don’t know what they are."

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  3. You introduced me to Brian once long ago. I remember when he’d include a drawing on the Pickles wall that could be construed as the Temple in Salt Lake City. Such a delightful cartoon series.

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    1. Right you are, John. Brian does slip surprises of many kinds into his strip now and then.

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  4. What fun. I do think many have been inspired by Earl.

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    1. Earl is an inspiration, all right. As the great man once said about accomplishing things in life, "Find out what you don’t do well, and then don’t do it."

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  5. So cool, Rod. I quite enjoy Pickles.

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  6. I love "Pickles." Now I wonder if I have read some of your poetry in one of the strips.

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    1. There's always a chance, Tanja. I contributed several verses over the years, as well as a few ideas for the "stories" surrounding them. But, as I said, Earl now writes his own poems and does a darn fine job of it.

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