I love chatting with my old friends; many of them are back home in Hattiesburg, or are from Hattiesburg, grew up with me, and live in other parts of the country (or world).  facebook is like a barometer. It tells me where I was three to five decades ago, and real life and even Twitter tells me to a certain degree “where I am now”.

By Londons Times Cartoons (Click To Enlarge)

I love hearing of my friends both old and new successes, overcoming obstacles and illnesses, falling in love, and sometimes even out of love because they may have found themselves with the wrong mate. It happens, and it is not a failure (to break up or divorce); in fact I imagine it is a failure not to, if one is in the wrong relationship and makes it the status quo and surrenders to unhappiness.  That saddens me.

Divorce by Londons Times c2011 (Click To Enlarge)

But nothing saddens me more than running into old friends who I know to be very bright who have gotten stuck in some political dogma and it is basically all they can discuss.  I know they don’t mean it.  I know they do not even know they are more or less in a cult.  It can be “on the far left” or “far right”.  They are so predictable.  It is like being in a physics 101 class.  You can say one thing and they say the opposite. You can agree with them, and they’ll find a way to disagree and find a monster under the bed and describe it in rapid detail because it is only seconds away from taking over America.  Usually it is somehow connected to The President, some senator or congressman, a tv network, or you name it.  The conspiracy is as real to them as the glass of bourbon they have just downed to fuel it and keep it alive.

Osama Bin Banana In His Birthplace Of Lemon

I make light of it, but it is not funny at all. I have lived and worked all over this great country and I know the ending of people who are like old 45 records that get stuck because of a big scratch.  They talk about it and as the years go by the conspiracies get more real (they find real researched blogs and books to back it up) and they describe it louder and louder.  In Los Angeles, I was at the death bed of a man who I admired but he was like that.  He told me at the end he knew he was wrong but it was “like a gang”. There was no way out.  He would have become persona non gratis in his small town. He commuted to L.A.  I told him he had enough open-minded friends in L.A. who didn’t care what he believed and he could be who he wanted.  It was too late. He died while I was there.

by Londons Times Cartoons

It was a lesson for me; one of the most valuable lessons I would ever learn.  Though I was then in my 30′s, it was time for me to get educated. I mean really educated.  That meant re-evaluating everything I learned from my teachers, my parents, my Sunday school, my college, and my experiences. It did not mean they were all wrong. It meant it was important for me to write them down and study them closely. Many of the ideas of which I hung onto are ideas I formulated decades before. Did they still serve me? Some did but most didn’t.  But that left “the great unknown”. If I let go of a lot of this political, religious and educational dogma that was no longer valid, but of which I identified myself and bonded me to my friends, and dropped it, what then.

I wasn’t getting any younger nor any happier. Nor were my friends. It was mandatory that I be honest with them.  I was changing. They may or may not like the changes but that was their issue, not mine. It took some bravery on my part, bravery I didn’t think I had.  But I had it, which led me to believe that most if not everyone has it if need be.

Nobody needs to die in their own toxic dogma.  They can change midlife.  The average college student is now in his/her 40′s and when I went back to college at 51, many of my colleagues were in their 60s-80s. As I got to know them, and my professors, I discovered they were going through healthy mid-life changes, as opposed to mid-life crises.

By Londons Times Cartoons

We never quit learning. If all we are doing is teaching, we might as well be dead.  Socrates and Aristotle even knew that.   Perhaps rethink your ideas.  Many of them may work for you, but many may no longer serve you well.  You can learn new things.  My wife and I do almost every day.

God gave us this beautiful planet to enjoy.   Yes, life can be a struggle but if all your doing is struggling, fighting, arguing, fighting, etc., I can almost guarantee you, its time to rethink your life.

Dance a bit, sing a song even if you’re alone.  Do something nice for yourself and/or someone else.  Smile.  Be yourself.  Experiment being your new self.  That does not mean letting go of  your moral or ethical principals. It is understanding and celebrating others opinions that might be different. It is re-learning tolerance. It is re-learning understanding.   It is celebrating life.  And do it often, even, no especially when you get the urge to flex your political muscles and “show them the light”.  We’ll never get perfect at it.  But we will make progress; and with that progress, love ourselves and others a lot more for it.  It’s scary at first..no absolutely frightening….then so sacred and positive, there’s really no going back.

Shirley Temple Of Doom by Londons Times Cartoons c2011 www.LondonsTimes.us

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I am a mountain man from rural Arkansas. I founded Londons Times Cartoons in 1997 and it has been Google and MSN’s #1 Offbeat Cartoon since 2005. I founded numerous stores that sell over 1/4 million funny greeting cards, tees, mugs etc.  I design unique shoes and clothes at shops like Shoes That Amuse that sell the world’s only famous love quotes shoes & Shoeshies.com which sell Sushi Shoes, Clothes & gifts.

When I lived in Washington, D.C. throughout the 1980s and early ’90′s I was lured to newly-formed self-help groups that taught victimization.  One was the “Men’s Movement” by Robert Bly & Sam Keen (Bly had been a protoge’ of Jack Kerouac and a former beatnik-turned extreme capitalist after his book “Iron John” was released). He did the speaking circuit to all men audiences and took us into the woods to “become men”. That consisted of dressing in Native American attire and yelling very loudly.  Each of us in the audience left several hundred dollars poorer, but at least we could now  yell like real men.  That meant a lot.  For a day or two. Who could have known being a man simply meant yelling loudly in the woods loudly while painted in traditional Native American war paint. While that was occurring the 12-step programs decided on a new self-help group based on the victimization of having grown up in an alcoholic home called ACOA or Adult Children Of Alcoholics.  It taught us the fine art of whining about our tragic lives due to the effects of one or more parent that drank alcohol and found it more appealing than they found us. Don’t get me wrong. There were some terrible dysfunctions that, if not for interventions, could have turned into even more tragedy.  But this group never seemed to want to get to the core issue so it became a whining contest and a “My Mommy Or Daddy Was a Worse Alcoholic Than Your Mommy Or Daddy”.  I lasted there about 3 months.  I can’t say that I didn’t learn the fine art of whine.  I learned blame. I learned guilt. I learned all the emotions I had stifled for many years.  But I was not seeking these skills. I was seeking ways to bring serenity and a bit of happiness into my life.  This group was definitely not the answer.  I left the group and that was a positive thing to do. That was 17 years ago and I bet the same players are whining the same whines about their parents in the same chairs in the same rooms.  It was cathartic a few times, then rather silly, mainly because it was clear that it not only wasn’t effective, it was counter-productive; substituting whining for action to change one’s life.  I decided changing mine was a better idea than chronic lifetime whining. Fast-forward  about a decade sitting in a coffee shop in Lumberton, Ms on Main Ave. I was sitting with my best friend an Episcopal Priest (Ed) discussing life; as we did about three to four times a week.  We could talk for hours about politics, religion, war, peace, movies, books, and (you name the topic).  He was an intellectual giant so I felt humbled that he would choose to spend that much time with me and apparently enjoyed our conversations. We both had come from childhoods that were far from exemplary.  But we both still had our senses of humor intact, and neither of us were chronic complainers or whiners. Yes, like any human we had our bouts, but it was not traits by which people identified us.  We were more known as creative productive thinking people.  Not necessarily great, in fact probably not. But good guys.  In other words we’d moved past our childhood. Faith and humor were two important factors for both of us in that “moving on” process. I became a writer, cartoonist designer and musician. Ed earned two PhD’s and became (in addition to a priest in a wonderful church) and was also a professor at the local university.  He also often went on road trips on his “Harley-looking” BMW vintage motorcycle in mint condition.  He had two beautiful children in college.

Ed was a few years older (and a few centuries wiser).  One day I decided to ask him an important question. He had been the black sheep of his family and I’d been the black sheep of mine.   Some of the treatment (to both of us) was brutal at best, torture at worst. And that is a fact.  I asked Ed,  “Ed, why do you think my family treated me that way?”  He said, “I have theories, but I can’t be positive.” I couldn’t wait to hear his answer. He added, “It was probably a combination of things Rick.  Your parents were in a war zone.  They had issues between them that were not working out.  Couplease counseling was not really an option in their generation. They were most likely very good people and cared about you the best they could with the tools they had, but when a couple is married and at war full time, their tools are not very functional.  Plus, if your Dad was drining 2-3 large martinis a night (and he was) alcohol played a major part in your Dad’s life.  You rebelled, as any bright child would, and consequently acted out (the only way a child or teen really knows how to make changes). The changes didn’t work, but you did try.  You had to be sacrificed and/or scapegoated.  It is sadly psychology 101. It happens more often than you’d wish to know. You were more or less “orphaned” emotionally by the time you’d reached about 18. How did he know? I never told him I worked for my dad’s real estate firm  for nearly 4 years and was only paid sales commission on  real estate sales in a department he was about to close. He paid not a penny beyond earned sales which, during the Jimmy Carter years with interest rates at their highest, was slave wages.

Years later, after Dad had closed the fledgling residential department my younger brother started in the commercial/apartment department and he was making a very nice salary from the start.  He now owns it.  I am happy for him, and he has a good life.  And even better new is that his oldest daughter has shown an interest and may take it over.  So that part of the family is happy, and I turned out happy. And the real estate legacy will continue which is very good news. The injustices were long ago.  But I’m alive today because of those injustices. I’m happy. I am doing just what I wish to do with my life.  If life had been fair, I’d have been dead a long time ago. Ed added, “You hated real estate.  You had this creative existence in a town (Hattiesburg, MS) which, at the time, had no outlet for my talents.  You were made persona non gratis and forced to live in a tin shed like an animal.  In reality, they thought I was crazy; but as it turned out, I had a dysfunctional vagus nerve, and thank God, in 2005, a procedure was approved, an implant that pretty much cured it; certainly controls what had appeared to be garden-variety depression, but was nothing more than a vagus nerve which didn’t function.  It functions with an implanted pacemaker now;  and I was one of the few lucky ones to get one. UALR Medical School in Little Rock was able to prove the Ms psychiatrists wrong; there was no depression or mental illness, simply a bad functioning nerve that runs up the chest to the top of the neck. I do not know if the procedure is available in Ms. but if someone has thought they had depression, tried at least 6 therapy and/or medicine modicums, and they did not work, chances are very good you are in need of a Vagus Nerve Implant.  See Cyberonics.com; the firm in Houston that invented it.   Don’t expect your psychiatrist or M.D. to go along with it; he/she is losing a patient and a lot of money.  But you are getting well.  It’s worth it, trust me.

Finally Ed said, “Just think, Rick. What if they had treated you as you deserved to be treated?  What would you be?  A bored (probably mostly drunk) Realtor in a town that did not encourage you to be creative, probably drinking in some neighborhood bar every night.  But you probably would not have done it for long.” I asked why. He said, “Because you wouldn’t have lived to be fifty, that’s for certain”. He was so right; even if that long. And even those fifty years would have been pure misery.  God was looking out for me and sometimes it takes the free will of humans (acting badly) for the right thing to manifest in someone else.  Thank God for them. Back home to stay busy,   I had already started my offbeat cartoons with an inventory of over 1000 on a free website with popup ads which were quite aggravating, but I couldn’t afford a domain at the time. I had plans to move to Hot Springs, Ar in 1999 which I did (where I live now with my wife Lee Hiller-London, the woman of my dreams). We hike in the mountains often and commune with nature.  We do not smoke or drink. She is a master photographer and designer.  She teaches me a great deal of things I could never have learned in my hometown.  Hot Springs is only 1/5 the size of my hometown and is as progressive as any big city in the world.  We have millions of visitors annually from nearly every country in the world.  It is an amazing little place.  A fairly well-kept secret. Since my move, this is what has happened. I enrolled at age 46 at Western Governors University; one of the best colleges for business and IT in the country.  It should be.  The advisory board consists of Bill & Melinda Gates, Google, Michael Dell, HP, IBM and many others.  I learned a great deal, pragmatic knowledge that was easily transferable to run an Internet business.  I run eight Internet businesses; or for the most part they run themelves.  I mostly design products, create cartoon concepts and go hiking if I wish. I have the number one Google and MSN-ranked cartoon on the internet. My website has 5000+ cartoons which have lured 8.7 million visitors and my manufacturing plants have an inventory of over 1/4 million products carried by such outlets as Amazon, Sears and others.  I receive emails worldwide asking for my autograph. I just discovered my  autograph sells on Ebay for $45 by an authentic-autographer-finder firm. My first compilation cartoon book is published and will be in Barnes & Nobles & Amazon within a month.  I am working on my second one.  My signed cartoons sell for up to $200 at charity and other non-profit auctions.  It boggles my mind. Now I also design shoes, clothes and gifts.  My shoes have been featured positively in USA Today. Last month I opened ShoeShies (Sushi Shoes & Gifts). Yes,  I am grateful and full of good cheer for the negative way I was treated. I am lucky to have been demonized.  I don’t whine. I wouldn’t have it any other way.  To live the life of one’s dreams does not often come easy.  It didn’t for me.   And I finally know the meaning of happiness. It’s an inside job…and outside…in nature . Ironically, sometimes others hate, fear or mistrust of you, is your ticket to paradise. And by the way, that kind of “treatment” does not happen in our little village.  Everyone knows everyone.  We know each other’s neighbor’s character as well.  Am sure there are the gossips and troublemakers but that kind of behavior does not stand, not for long, in a town like this, that believes in equality, liberty and justice for all.

My beloved wonderful wife Lee.

———————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————— Rick London says he’s a natural mountain man.  He also happens to be a cartoonist who launched Londons Times Offbeat Cartoons which have been Google and MSN #1-ranked since 2005.  He has licensed image shops with over 1/4 a million funny gifts & collectibles. He founded the worlds only famous love quotes shoes ShoesThatAmuse.com and a shop that sells sushi print shoes & sushi gifts called ShoeShies.com

A few weeks ago, an old childhood friend asked me how I can always “be funny” & added “You are #1 on the Internet.  You live on a ridgetop mountain paradise. Do you ever feel empathy or sadness?  There are different types of humor and though it all “comes from the same place, different events or visuals might trigger it. Do I feel sadness and/or anger or grief.  Of course and often lately with all the world tragedies. Just because we are somewhat buffered does not mean we don’t care what happens in our world.  What happens five thousand miles away, affects us. We all now live in a global village called “earth”.

At first I thought back to the BP Oil disaster in the Gulf Of Mexico. I grew up on that Gulf and it was magic to me as a child even up into young adulthood.  I loved everything about it. I swam there, fished there, skied there, flirted with girls there, ran with my dogs there. It was my life in many ways. In the blink of an eye it was destroyed, and though the oil is out of sight, out of mind, we all know things are not okay but a lot of chemicals; oil and dispersants have sunk to the bottom or halfway down.  Baby porpoises are floating to the beach. Sperm whales are nowhere to be found.  I created a Tony Hayward  BP cartoon which has become popular.

I had been thinking about starting Londons Times Generation Two Offbeat Cartoons, and funny gifts, but the oil spill was the only thing on my mind.  So I made a pledge to write a parody song regarding the oil spill every day until it was plugged; and I did. If I could have found a band to record them, the funds were to go to various Gulf animal and environmental causes.  Sadly, I was unable to recruit a band on spec who could do song parodies. But I was able to purge, in a jaded sarcastic way, humor, as angry as I was. Anyone who knows Lee knows how angry I was, and I could not shake it. The songwriting helped.  Posting them on my popular well-visited blog helped even more.

Then I mellowed out a bit after a number of nature hikes with Lee and though I never forgot the event, and never will (both of us have pledged never to buy gas or other BP-owned products), we have in our own way, moved past it.  Lee is from Oregon and has never seen the Gulf and all its natural beauty.

Then came the uprising in the Arab world. Though I occasionally do socio-political cartoons, it is not the norm. Most are offbeat in the spirit of, some critics have said, The Far Side, which I consider a compliment, though my goal from the start was to attempt to continue Gary Larson’s absurd spirit, but create it with less text and a more “fine-art” look. For the most part, that has worked out fine.

So I decided to create ideas about the dictators which is always fun. It gives one a chance to be iconoclastic without hurting anyone but lampoon those who has not hurt many others.  A few of the cartoons landed in a major newspaper in the Middle East and though I find nothing about nations in turmoil funny, again, I was able to find comedy in fear and anger and it happened.

Finally, there was the tsunami and nuclear disaster in Japan and a lying company called Tepco.   I can’t explain how much it felt like watching the oil leak from Deep Horizon and Tony Hayward saying things weren’t so bad, and when busted by the media added, “I just want my life back”.  It reminded me of Yogi Berra’s great quote “Just like deja vu all over again”.   Now the citizens of Japan, one of our greatest allies if not our greatest, and good friend, was being destroyed, first by a natural disaster, which I know from Katrina can eventually be fixed, but then by a firm “Tepco” which seemed to play the game exactly like BP.  The sad thing is that the Japanese media seemed to go along with it; basically reading Tepco’s press releases as news, until evidence began showing what was being released as news, was not what was really happening.  Radiation was leaking everywhere.  Tepco was insisting it was not so bad.

Meanwhile radiation was covering the planet and it has now been found in nearly every country on the planet. It will go down in history as worse than Chernobyl.  My team created a two-headed frog cartoon lounging by the leaking plant reading a newspaper. The headlines read, “Nuclear Accident Safe, No Worries”. One frog head says to the other, “Looks like the media is telling us the truth. Nothing to worry about”.

Some mistook my jaded reaction to making fun of the event.  It was anything but that.  It was a message to Tepco and the complicit media that they have no right to hide the truth from their citizens (any more than BP had a right to do all they could to hide their disaster from us).    Again, there was nothing funny about this event, and it felt like BP was happening to them this time.  I was enraged.  But from that rage I was able to find a bit of humor. It was angry humor but humor nevertheless.

Then came the flurry of tornados. One hit our hometown of Hot Springs about 7.8 miles from us and we lost some of our Arkansas citizens.  This was a very sad time and even out of anger or fear, I found nothing funny, so I just stared at the news and went on hikes when I had the energy. I created a few items, but no cartoons.  It was a time of grief as the warnings kept coming and tornados were hitting ground and destroying cities and killing people and other living creatures.  I was too sad to get much done, but I allowed myself to be that sad.  Lee understood as she too was sad.

Neither of us had ever experienced anything like it, and I grew up outside of New Orleans, tornado and hurricane alley and went through the worst of them. It had been a way of life growing up. Now with global warming and climate changes, the tornado behavior was/is too.  All I knew is we were lucky to be surrounded my mountains, and though there is always a slight chance of one landing inside such a geographic area, it is very rare.  That did not take away the sadness I felt and still feel watching the people hit in Kansas, Alabama, Mo, etc try to pick up and put their lives back together.  No way to create cartoons (or much of anything) when you know people are experiencing such a tragedy.

I don’t enjoy creating cartoons out of fear or anger. To me, they are not as funny nor do they have the same feel of professionalism as do those that come out of my head when the world feels a bit stable and I am hiking/communing with nature.

So I founded Rick London Designs which include Sushi Wear (I kid you not) and love quote gifts (again no joke).  I don’t have to feel funny to create these gifts and collectibles.  I love sushi and I love shoes, so I make shoeshies (sushi shoes) at my ShoeShies.com. These are fun creation, but I don’t have to “be funny” to create them, yet I have a wonderful outlet.

The love quote gifts and sushi items also just got picked up by our main manufacturer who is not a traditional POD but a private organization who chooses talent they want (creators cannot simply sign up with them), which means they are already beginning to show at Amazon and should soon be at Sears online and other outlets. Some of the sushi gifts at Amazon can be seen here.  The famous love quote gifts on Amazon can be seen here.

This makes me not feel angry, but that life is good.  And it is.  The world is a good world.  We live in a very good place.  Lee and I get to create for a living and she gets to hike and take photos and design products. I get to design products and think up cartoons and make gifts that make people laugh.  I can’t think of anything for which we would trade our lifestyle.  And as you can see, we still are a part of the world, feel sadness, happiness and all the other emotions persons in Metropolis feel.

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Rick London says he’s a semi-pro blogger, a designer of sorts, a cartoonist who doesn’t draw well, and a professional twitterer who doesn’t like social media all that much.  He and his wife Lee enjoy hiking, outdoors, nature and wildlife and they live in the heart of the gorgeous Ouachita Mountains of Arkansas.  Lee is a professional wildlife and nature photographer who runs the popular blog HikeOurPlanet.com. She designs beautiful designer shoes, gifts, clothing and home decor at her Lee Hiller Designs Gift Shop.

Click To Enlarge This Is Me

I bet I read 200-300 or more (mostly self-serving articles designed to get the readers to follow the author), but I started getting the idea of how it worked and as William Wordsworth once said, “To begin, begin”.  He always put a guilt-trip on my system of procrastination.

On the first day I think I managed to round up eight followers and I may have even doubled that my second.  People were posting messages to me, and I felt like I knew them; or at least the icons they portrayed to be them next to their name. I was told later most persons icons were ten to twenty years old and a lot of senior citizens were still tweeting away with their college sophomore yearbook pics.  That turned out to be true.

I also discovered that though many of Twitterers were interesting, and I still believe that, I was not only out of my league, I was out of my category, and a lot of that was my fault.  Though I had been posting for several months as an offbeat cartoonist who loved animals, that was about as much as I had in my profile.

When someone presents oneself in such an unfocused way, they are bound to attract a lot of unfocused people with unfocused agendas.  And agendas flew left and right and it would not be unusual to wake up one day and be “hated” by someone who “loved” you the day before, simply because you were friendly with someone who “done them wrong”.

My then friend Lee Hiller, now my wife Lee Hiller-London was quite a bit more savvy, more than slightly ahead of the learning curve than me.  She suggested I change my background which she happened to know how to do. I still have the same one up she installed, a wall of Londons Times Cartoons. She suggested I focus my short bio (Twitter allows about once sentence) and I did.

Click To Enlarge (Please Meet My Dear Wife Lee)

A month or so later three Twitterers opened accounts with my name claiming to be the founder of Londons Times Cartoons. That is my website and has a high visibility on the Internet. It has been Google’s #1 ranked offbeat cartoon since 2005 and MSN #1 since 2008 and remains so on both engines. It has had 7.8+ million visits.  At this time, Twitter was offering nothing aggressive to correct that, but did finally come up with a “verification system” that they provided for (mostly film, tv, and business celebrities) but also those with high-profile websites that could easily being cloned.

I filed my complaint and within three weeks, I woke up with a little blue Twitter verification next to my name.  This did not prevent “the clones”, but it did help my friends and fans to know who “the real me was and is”.

Then Lee, at that time my fiance, was building her own brand and a well-known Twitterer, not verified, used her good name to enable him to use it in his own complicated scheme.

Her brand was then at its very early vulnerable stage; not yet a few months old, but we could not provide the kind of proof (he had deleted it after we wrote him a scathing tweet), so she has continued without verification, but fortunately has such a huge following; nearly 25,000, people know they are really dealing with her, plus, she is a professional nature photographer and shares during her daily hikes the wildlife and flora that she encounters. So now, if someone tried to do a copycat scheme, they would have to re-create links to photos and merchandise she creates at her Lee Hiller Designs Shop that is distinctively part of the Hot Springs National Forest. Unless they live or move here, most would know they were “the wrong Lee Hiller-London”.

Below are some recent photos Lee took while hiking in Hot Springs National Forest for her Hike Our Planet Nature Blog. She is also a very talented gift and clothing/shoe designer where her nature pictures and original graphics appear on countless Lee Hiller Brand Products.

Meantime we Tweet along.  Our agent and syndication Great Southern Writers Syndicate @GSWSyndicate,  tweets famous quotes, and the occasional plug of one of Lee’s or my shops or Lee’s nature blog HikeOurPlanet.com. I have somehow accumulated 12,000+ followers (Lee and I call them my friends because actually they are).

Below are a few Lee Hiller Brand Products which she designed. Please click To Enlarge:

Today we are more focused.  We let our work and our products speak for us for the main part. We do work hard. We don’t just sit and tweet. It is very different than when we started on Twitter. We use a pre-scheduled Twitter client to get out information of our promotions and specific products and shops. It works, and leaves us time to create products and personally tweet with those with whom we prefer.

If someone is inappropriate, creepy, or both, (or shows signs of hate or bigotry),  we simply block them (we usually talk about it first and there has to be a very good reason). We try to give everyone a second and sometimes third chance if they “done wrong”.  Please don’t get me wrong. Most who tweet are normal people trying to get by in life, make a living and/or friends, and make a contribution.

Below are a few of my Londons Times Cartoons. You can see these and about 5000+ other full color cartoon at our main offbeat webcomics site.

Since joining Twitter I have branched out to open various types of online shops. My funny gifts shops also remain Google & MSN’s #1 ranked offbeat cartoon gift shops and have been since 2005.

All in all, Twitter is very fun. But it can be very hard work.  One has to create their own strategy for whatever reason they are there; whether it is to make friends, money, or find spouses.  Actually Lee and I were not there to find spouses. We were both promoting our Internet businesses.  We ended up spouses and glad we did.

We both have strengths where the other has a weakness (and vice versa).  Two heads, truly can work better than one, and get a lot more done, on or off Twitter.

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Rick London is an Arkansas-based writer, cartoonist and designer living in the beautiful Ouachita Mountains where he regularly hikes with his wife Lee and is an avid wildlife and nature lover and active in those causes (including environment).  London founded the #1 offbeat cartoon on the Internet in 1997 titled Londons Times Cartoons.  He later founded the world’s only famous love quotes shoes, Shoes That Amuse, featured on APWire and in USA Today.  He has created four funny gift shops featuring his licensed cartoon images on gifts with an inventory of over 1/4 million sold by Google Shopping, Sears Marketplace, Amazon, and many other shopping channels.  London recently founded his own line of Sushi Shoes (ShoeShies.com) and has now expanded to sushi fine art gifts and clothing as well which he calls ABoyNamedSushi.com. To see Rick’s sushi gifts click here.

Of course the first and main reason the gratuitous slap in the face to all the life coaches, social media experts, “wisdom experts” (who either lift quotes and/or articles and take credit) or edit them just enough to insult our intelligence with their name as the credit.  I love such “writers” who do not understand that we’ve been to college, because they certainly haven’t.  Most of those are what are known as “life coaches” who are nothing more than a “gang of literary thieves”.  What they do is often attractively package and sale mundane and sometimes exciting philosophy that we learned in college and is, of course, now free on the web. They charge a fortune for books, tapes and the like, leaving their victims (clients) bleeding in the streets, but with the opportunity to become such a “literary-thief-in-training” as well. So it has a “Donald Trump/Amway MLM feel to it”.

My wife Lee and I decided a long time ago that was not for us. Don’t get us wrong. Nearly every major life coach on and off Twitter has tried to recruit us…let me rephrase that..recruit our wallets, but we decided it might be safer to put what extra we have in savings and invest in our our clean businesses which involve designing and selling gifts and collectibles. Our business is very simple, very clean, and offers products of tangible value, no regurgitated philosophy or wisdom, simply usable and/or collectible gifts, clothes, etc.

Lee is an amazing nature photographer who writes a nature blog, Hike Our Planet, and I’m sometimes told I can turn a phrase and create a cartoon that goes on all our products.  Though we often deal with POD’s (Print On Delivery) manufacturing companies, our main factory for six years now is in Rhode Island and the majority of our products sell at Amazon.  Recently the Sears Marketplace picked up a good many of my cartoon gifts. Lee has taught herself not only photography, but how to take that photography and her own unique graphics and create products such as shoes, tees and gifts at her  Lee Hiller Designs Shop. Her items are also available at associate shops all over Amazon.com. She has no snake oil for sale. It’s the real thing.

Why do I make this “comparison story” between “life coach” and legitimate businessperson?  Early on, especially in social networking, it could have so easily gone the other way. The life coaches are artists. Con artists. They are friendly. They know all the right things to say. They can win one’s hearts and minds the way no politician or army even dreamed of doing.   And they have built in radar that heads straight for the pocketbook.

Life coaches often “build a name for themselves”, then start the process of writing books, making cds and tapes, having seminars, and talking nonsense that sounds somewhat like wise philosophy, and it should, as it is more often than not lifted from major names like Emerson, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche and so many others, edited and/or watered down, and their own (the life coach’s name) placed on it. I’ve even seen them lift Biblical quotes, change them a bit, and wala, guess who the new author is?

If you’ve just started Twitter, you probably have many of them on your friends list who are following you. They seem to be predatory (the most) to newcomers who haven’t a clue.  Many of the wiser ones change their moniker to “spiritual coach”, “spiritual advisor” “life author” “coach/author”, and the list goes on and on.  In any case, watch for subtleties; the devil is in the detail and as I mentioned earlier, they are con-artists of the highest degree.

My wife Lee once quoted, “You are your own best life coach”, and she is so right.  The alleged purpose of the life coach of whom you pay thousands of dollars is to motivate.

I prefer the freebie by Walt Whitman who would laugh at any life coach. His great quote is, “To Begin, begin”.   Really, what more does one need to know?

Oh, look in the yellow-pages under “pest control” to rid ones home of rodents. I almost forgot that part of the story; but should note it since rodents and life coaches seem to be in the same category (sorry rodents, I know you’re better than that).

When I read an article, I don’t just want information, I want a remedy. A solution.

The solution is, when you find yourself being called and/or emailed by these “Oh, so nice life coaches”, and you will, cut off all ties.  Yes you will hear cries like a baby. They will “badmouth you” on Twitter, facebook and wherever.  Trust me, in the long-run, these are the types you DO want to bad-mouth you; for persons of goodwill know, that if these crooks think you are “no-good”,  you must be a person of substance.

And you really are if you were able to out-maneuver these cyber-whacky sharks by cutting them off and blocking them from your Twitter stream. It is as simple as that.  Oh and screen your calls. You may receive a few curse-word filled calls for your sinful betrayal.  That means “You Done Good”.  Congrats.  Now it’s time to play REAL Twitter. The riff-raff has suddenly disappeared and the drama and chaos has magically dissolved.  Oh, and you still have your money. Now, wasn’t that fun and easy?

On the side of the blog I’ve posted some recent products I’ve made from my various shops (the cartoon store, ShoesThatAmuse, and ABoyNameSushi) shops for your entertainment enjoyment. Oh, and please don’t be shy to purchase. If you don’t, I may have to have a life coach call you for an appointment.

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Rick London is a writer, cartoonist, and designer.  He created Google and MSN’s #1 ranked offbeat cartoons, Londons Times in 1997. Less than a decade later he launched online shops which now feature over a quarter million licensed products which are featured at such shopping channels as Amazon, Sears, Shop.com, Shopping.com and many others.  He also has his own shops such as Rick London Collection where he sells his favorite cartoons on tshirts, mugs, greeting cards and other funny gifts.  London founded the world’s only famous love quote shoes in 2007, ShoesThatAmuse.com which have received the thumbs up from APWire and USA Today.  This year he launched ABoyNamedSushi, a division of his ShoeShies which are sushi artwork shoes and gifts.  London has published over 500 articles and his cartoons have appeared in the Jerusalem Post. His main Londons Times Cartoon site boasts 5000+ color offbeat cartoons which have lured 8.7 million visits.  Several of his originals are a permanent part of the Roy Orbison Collection and Mayo Clinic Medical Library.

Though sushi has been a part of civilization longer than one might imagine, it was not always in the current form in which we are used to devouring. It started as a simple “fast food” dish in 2 A.D. in China and was an excellent way to preserve food (there was no refrigeration then). In the early days chefs fermented rice, placed raw fish on the rice, threw the rice out, and ate the fish when hungry.

By 7 A.D. sushi made its way to Japan, where seafood is a staple entrée. However they started making the rice a “side order” with the fish. About 1600, Matsumoto Yoshiichi of Edo (now known as Tokyo) began experimenting with flavors such as rice vinegar and selling this “new dish”. By doing this, they created the world’s first “fast food” and it was more often than not eaten immediately.

Below is a wonderful short YouTube video by my very talented wife Lee Hiller London.

The majority of “sushi” eaten in American restaurants is nigiri (finger sushi) and California rolls, almost no resemblance to the original Chinese food known as “sushi”. An ethnic food that swept the world by storm was developed yet further by the artful experimental restaurant entrepreneurs of north American creating a fusion of food and art.

So not all, but a good deal of the history of my favorite food was familiar. Also familiar was my limited knowledge of design; that is, the best design often reflects the vision of a culture; a modern trend if you will.

Though pizza, hamburger, etc all have their “beauty”, I was not inclined or motivated to purvey the beauty of thousands of mg of trans-fat artery-clogging foods.

But sushi was and is a different story. I started with shoes (mostly womens) but now make mens too. I named the store ShoeShies.com. Then I started designing aprons, mouse pads, mugs, postage stamps, key chains, caps, and just about everything else showcasing dishes of sushi and sashimi and its all available now at Shoeshies.com. I am loving doing it and it has “recharged” me to continue to make cartoon products for Londons Times Cartoons and my love quote Shoes That Amuse…and eat more sushi.

But now, when all the sushi places are closed at 2am and I have a hunger for it, I can look at the sushi mouse pad next to my pc and drool…or drool on my shoes; knowing they will lead me to the nearest sushi bar….tomorrow.

Woodchuck Physics by Londons Times Cartoon (click to enlarge)

Oddly enough, a friend asked me that question yesterday. At first I thought it was a rhetorical question so I waited for her to talk again, but it was not.  I asked her for more detail regarding her question.  She said, “Well you write, you create, you do this cartooning thing, you spend half your life on Twitter and facebook, and I’m wondering if that is some kind of escape from the real issues of the world.

It was a good question, but not a very thought-out question. I became a home-office worker in 1997. At the time, we represented about 10% of the workforce in the U.S.  Today we are the majority.  That is correct. More people work in their home office than in corporate skyscrapers.  There are still plenty in corporate skyscrapers but they are dwindling rapidly due to the economy. It is more economical for a large corporation to hire an independent contractor from home who is “internet-wired” than provide an office, desk, office supplies, coffee, and an assistant.  I saw that coming long before it came.

My friend then asked, “Doesn’t the work world need you? I mean we are working for peace on earth as much as we are working for money. This question very much confused me.  I do my part with blogging, Twittering, creating cartoons, and much more, many of which I would never be allowed to do in Corporate America. I do them at home. And quite successfully I might add. I have the ear of many major news publications and people who read them, that I would never have in my once plush office in a good downtown neighborhood.

And what about the pay? My pay is much less than it was when I worked at the top of my field in corporate America.  But there is a trade off.  My stress is down to near zero on a daily basis. My living expenses are a mere fraction of what they were living in “the right neighborhoods” of America.  My wife and I live on the ledge of a National Park which we hike all the time.  A trip to the grocery is five minutes or a few dollars gas, and grocery prices are a fraction of what they were in New York or Washington, D.C.  We don’t have to take that many vacations because we live in a place where millions come annually for vacation just for the beauty.  We like to vacation, but often all we have to do is drive a few miles to somewhere we’ve not seen, rent a cabin and throw out a fishing line or write a blog or start on a book and enjoy the quiet beauty around us.  Nature is the most amazing vacation.

Finally, and I get this question all the time, “With all the violence and war in the world, how can you think funny? How can you create cartoons?”  It actually is a good question, especially for those without any sense of humor.  One HAS to have humor to a certain degree to get through this chapter of the world in which we are enduring.  It may seem horrible and much of it is.  But whatever it is, it is something that has been put in front of us from which to learn, and if we don’t, well perhaps we’ll learn how to handle it next time it comes around….let’s hope/pray we’re smart enough this time. Perhaps we can dig through our history lessons, spot something similar, see how it was handled properly, and follow suite.  If not, create one that makes sense.

That does not answer the question of humor and cartoons. They are necessary.  If all we are focused on is blood, guts and war, that is how we are going to think about the world, and that is not ALL of what the world is about.  Some of us, in fact the majority of us, wish it did not exist but it is in our face.  We do what we can to divert it, to forget about it. Musicians play music, dancers dance, writers write, and cartoonists and humorists make us laugh.  What are you doing to make the world a better place, especially during these trying times?

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I am a writer, parody songwriter, cartoonist, and create designer shoes.  I am active in animal and children’s rights, love hiking, nature and the outdoors as well as my wife Lee Hiller-London. Lee is an amazing writer and gift designer.