It’s been quite a day and tonight we’re watching Ed Wood with Johnny Depp.  Lee has seen it but she’s seen now catching me up on all the films I missed when I went back to school in my latter years.  I’m 56 now and went back to school on and off through my forties to early 50’s; at times, full-time.  Much more fun in one’s youth. LOL.  I wish I’d paid more attention my first time in school in my late teens but I guess I forgot to pay attention after forgetting to listen to my dear late mom (who had a degree in education) say, “Pay attention!!!”.

Since my first job selling records at Pal’s Music Company in downtown Hattiesburg, Ms at age 12 in 1966 until the early 2000’s, I had so many odd jobs to support my “life as a writer”, I can’t even count them all.  Had a lot of false starts too.

Anyway, fast forward to June 18, 2010. I married the woman of my dreams (Lee) atop Hot Springs Mountain with a handful of guests.  It was a gorgeous indoor/outdoor nature wedding (if there is such a thing).  We had so much fun.   We still do.

Well, most people by now know that I founded my offbeat cartoons & funny gifts, Londons Times back in 1997 but I had a few near stops, real stops etc due to health, school, etc.  Then around 6 months into our marriage Lee suggested I’d probably be happier if I started a Londons Times Gen 2 cartoon reflecting all that has occurred in the world since my early cartoons, which a lot of people still thought were fine, but they didn’t reflect the changes of today. She was onto something (I later discovered).

Since I launched that cartoon came Google, blogging, 9/11, social media (Twitter, Facebook et al), med-resistant e-coli, tornadoes that went on for months, and so much more.   So I recruited a new creative team after reviewing several hundred portfolios. This new team was/is the tops. The new toons are much larger.  The text is more to the point, and hopefully the whole finished product is more productive.

We work as a team, as most cartoons you see in the newspaper do.  I write them, and do what is called “blueprinting them” which gives more detail such the expressions on the various persons faces, their body language, the pictures on the wall (if inside); what kinds of trees, dogs etc if outdoors.  I think blueprinting might be the hardest part of the process, but the most fun.  In a way it is like being an art director in a film. I’ve watched them work and it reminds me of that (only not so complex); I mean after all it’s only a cartoon.

I now have about 5000+ cartoons on my site and over a quarter million funny gifts. The funny t-shirts,  gifts & funny greeting cards by brand name sites such as Sears & Amazon.  Over 200 or the cartoons are new Gen 2 as are about 1000+ of the offbeat gifts & collectibles. Let me preface the rest of this paragraph with I dare not put myself in the same league with the master,  Gary Larson, but I remember when he took his all down from the net and demanded all others do the same. Finally he had to threaten suit and possibly sued, I can’t remember for those who would not remove them.  I loved Gary’s personality and his work.  I never understood why he had the cartoons removed (at first).  Then one day he said in an interview, “I had them removed because they are like my babies”.  I didn’t understand it at 1^st.  5000 cartoons later, I don’t understand how anyone couldn’t understand it.

Cartooning and creating merchandising is work that can be difficult or easy; but its always fun, and sadly, it is work that most people don’t see you do.   Lee sees me work, and as a fellow designer, she knows how hard I do work. It seems like I’m always working though it seems like play.  Between all the crazy jobs I had to take to get to our little piece of paradise in the Arkansas Mountains, I can truly say it was all worth it.  But what a journey!! I have learned new digital design skills and am now making the world’s only famous love quote shoes at my shop Shoes That Amuse and a line of Sushi Shoes & Gifts at my ShoeShies Shop. I’ll feature them in a near-future blog.  Meanwhile please feel free to take a look.  About 400 of the items have also been picked up at Amazon.com and I expect Sears Marketplace to carry them this year.

PS: Since I wrote this blog my beloved wife Lee & I watched Ed Wood and it was brilliant and strange. I loved it. She loved it (again); she’s seen it many times. In the middle of the film, we received a phone call on Lee’s phone from a very close special person in our lives and she couldn’t get to the phone in time.  When we checked the message, our dear friend had sung “Happy Anniversary To You” in a voice as atonal as mine; but we absolutely loved it.  (Let me add she is a most talented woman and known around the world for various advanced skills….but like me, singing does not happen to be one of them.  But it surely was fun and we surely did laugh aloud the rest of the day.   It was a beautiful day with my amazing wife Lee on our 1st anniversary and I felt the love and support from everyone who wished us well, who have supported us in our business ventures, and been there for us. It does not go unnoticed.  We love you all.

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

My current one saved my life a year ago this past April with two stents.  Three of my four main heart arteries had blown out; and the only one holding things together was one that was put in a stent back in 2001.

I had gone to the hospital because edema had set in and I noticed my feet swelling.  I thought I’d get a diuretic and go home the next day. It was not to be. It required two separate procedures.

Now every 6 months, I go see (“Surfer Dude”). That is what my wife calls him (my cardiologist) as he is young, good looking and always tanned and in good shape and wore a pooka shell neclace in both surgeries; a bit discomforting at 1st but I adjusted.  A little over a year later, today, he did an EKG and checked my weight, blood pressure etc.  Everything was perfect. I explained to him that my wife Lee has been watching out for my health prodding me to eat better and exercise more. I go hiking with her every other day. I drink 1/2 gallon of our “magic 2000 year old thermal water” every other day.  I eat salads, sushi, and other health foods.  Salt has virtually disappeared from my diet.

But my blog is not about heart disease and I rarely bring it up.  But its been a little over a year and but for the grace of God I have cheated death yet again.  Don’t get me started on all my near-death experiences…there have been quite a few more than the two heart attacks; most having to do with accidents, etc.  I am a klutz as well.

Today, I wore one of my cartoon caps to Surfer Dude’s Office. I think I’ve worn it there before but he never brought it up. He was rather chatty today and aske me where I got it. I told him the story of Londons Times Cartoons and gave him one of my business cards and then asked me if I had any medical cartoons. I assured him I do (in fact probably several hundred). That’s what happens to your psyche when you are klutzy all your life and later end up with heart disease.  But I digress.

I have always heart that attitude is half the battle and taking care of oneself is the other half. I am a nonsmoker and nondrinker.  Lee and I hike 2-4+ miles depending and they are mountain miles which means you can just about double that as far as the aerobic value of it.  Plus the miles are in the middle of the most beautiful National Park in America, Hot Springs National Park, which, like the water, is very healing.  It is impossible to be suspicious of a turtle, silly to feel hatred toward frolicking squirrels, and impossible to be angry at an affectionate mockingbird who is following you just for a collaborative melody. In other words it is a safe healing place.  And I’ll be damned if more often than not, I can look at all the beautiful wildlife and flora which surrounds us, and an idea for a cartoon doesn’t pop up. So I keep a pen and paper in my pocket on every hike (though that is not why I go).

My hope is to encourage everyone, especially younger people to take care of themselves *now*; in other words it is never too early to prevent heart disease. Eat right.  If you smoke, stop. If you’ve stopped and started back, not to worry. Stop again, and again, and again. It is that important. For many it takes 10+ times. It will finally make sense as you learn to re-enjoy the taste of fresh air.

Look at your diet.  Simple is better. Fresh fruit and veggies.   Less or no salt.  The lower the sodium the better.     Exercise!!!  If you are immobile you can still exercise.  You can learn tai chi on the Internet.  Lee & I do Tai Chi before every hike.

I hope I don’t sound preachy.  If you are reading this, chances are you are probably a Londons Times Cartoon & Gifts fan and I’d like you to be with us a long time.  Plus to be honest, I don’t want you to have to go through what I’ve gone through because you truly don’t have to. It is a choice.  Seems complex but it is simple.  Choose to be healthy.  That does not mean perfect; it means conscious of healthy things vs unhealthy things from food to emotions to exercise to career.  Choose what feels healthy and the younger the start, the faster habit becomes lifestyle.  Cheers, Rick London

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Rick London is a writer, entrepreneur, designer, and outdoorsman.  He founded Londons Times Cartoons & Funny Gifts which have been the #1 offbeat webcomics & gifts on the Internet (MSN & Google ranked) since 2005.  He has founded numerous online shops which feature his cartoon images and also others which are unique fashion such as the worlds only love quote shoes, Shoes That Amuse, and ShoeShies.com, Sushi Shoes & Gifts.

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.

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.

Then came college. The importance of specializing became even more important though it was demanded of me to pick a major and minor which I did about ten times at four different colleges. I didn’t finish but I did study hard and a lot of subjects. I was always a hit at cocktail parties because I learned words like “ethnocentric” and “Kierkegaard” and phrases like “To thine own self be true”. I stopped using that Shakespearean gem as it seemed to depress most of my fellow college students (including me) as, which of us was truly being true to ourselves if we were sitting at a desk listening to the most boring professors on the planet? Do as I say, not as….

In my twenties I simply decided to go out and conquer the cold cruel world and almost did so a few times. I worked on a few major projects for others and a few of my own and learned a good deal about how the world works. Of course the more I learned, the more I learned I needed to learn.

The years passed and early important lessons never left. “Learn to do one thing and do it very well”. I learned to do a few dozen things and none of them all that well.

I went back to school in my mid-40s and everything had changed. The new mantra was “Be flexible. Learn to do a lot of things because things are changing so fast you are most likely to be doing something else tomorrow”. In fact none of the nearly 100 hours I had accumulated my first time in college applied (even though I didn’t need to take the classes again as I was tested for life experience and apparently had learned my lessons). But the new pragmatic (right in your face) lessons were harder than anything I could imagine. But some of them manifested and transferred into the workplace.

Do I do any one thing very well? Not really. I co-create Londons Times Cartoons with my very talented team. I founded it in 1997. I founded several funny gift shops which feature my cartoon products with an inventory of over a quarter million of them.

I founded ShoesThatAmuse.com in 2007, the world’s only famous love quote shoes. APWire and USA Today wrote a very nice story about them.

This past month, I launched ABoyNamedSushi.com a division of ShoeShies which are sushi shoes and gifts and I enjoy that very much though sales are far from brisk, but then again inventory is far from full. So I keep plugging away.

Sadly, most of my early professors who (not on purpose) misled me to do one thing and do it well (how in the world could they see how technology would change our lives and future) are now deceased.

My more recent professors and students from Western Governor’s University are now on Twitter and facebook and, like me, are attempting to become more renaissance every day (as am I). We all have so many balls in the air, at times, it looks like an online juggling convention.

My wife Lee started with a simple photography blog HikeOurPlanet.com which has turned into a very popular nature wildlife blog and she makes her own line of gift and home decor products, LeeHillerDesigns.com.

On the way to doing what we do now, Lee and I did what we had to do to survive; that is, SEO, article marketing, blogging, promoting on Twitter and other social networks; you name it.

We do all this and still have time for our favorite charities and causes such as wildlife, environment, Japan recovery, domestic animals and much more.

We’ve learned to do a lot, and though we may have received an “F” for that 40 years ago in college, it is what is the norm today.

Times change and so do people. I was thinking recently if Einstein came back and lived in our generation, a 6th grader would have to not only have to teach him how to work a PC, but tell him what it is.
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Rick London is the founder of Google’s #1 ranked offbeat cartoons, Londons Times and its licensed shops such as The Rick London Collection which is currently seeking associates. There is no fee (EVER), our manufacturer Zazzle pays YOU for sales, you never pay us a penny. You visit my Zazzle Shop, sign up for a free shop and affiliate account.  Post items you like from my shop, promote, sell, earn. Just like in the olden days.  To sign up CLICK HERE.
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Click To Enlarge

Above was our 1st Londons Times Cartoon logo. I remember thinking “This is brilliant”…proof, there was much work to do!!

I do now understand a little more how the cartoon became successful (there were two main elements) 1. Hard work. I mean relentlessly hard and not giving up when obstacle after obstacle arose, and they did, often fast & furiously. I couldn’t have done it alone.

I had and have an amazingly talented creative team, and supportive friends (some call them fans, but they are real friends) who are very loyal. That part often seems strange. I think it was the struggle of getting 20 people per day to visit at the start which was difficult to now; having had 8.7 million visitors since January 2005. One can imagine the surprise. Anyone would be.

Click To Enlarge

Above is our current Londons Times Cartoons & Gifts logo. Maybe not brilliant, but doesn’t it beat that Partridge Family looking thing???

By the same token, everything I’ve learned in school tells me, it would have been even more surprising if we’d not had the result not have been as it turned out. All the elements were in place. Everyone involved worked and work very hard. I am surrounded by talent I believe to be way out of my league. It works. My wife Lee is very supportive and offers consistent support. I’m grateful every day.

14 years ago, I was on the floor of an old tin shed in rural Ms. begging artists and web people to work with me for peanuts.

Click To Enlarge

Above is the View From My Hot Springs, Ar Home Office

Today I’m looking up in my office at numerous cartoons (two of which just appeared in the Jerusalem Post; one they left up for a month), and several that are in the permanent collection at Mayo Clinic Medical Library, and one that Barbara Orbison, widow of the late great Roy Orbison has placed permanently in the Roy Orbison Archives.

Click To Enlarge

This Londons Times Cartoon (and one other) is part of the permanent collection of Mayo Clinic Medical Library

We received an email from them several months ago requesting signed copies for their Medical Library which we sent. It is part of their permanent collection. The Library’s founder, Dr. Polly was “a cartoon fanatic” (in their words).

In 2001, I launched Cartoonists Against Terrorism to raise funds for the families of fallen 9/11 responders. A heart attack and resulting bad literary economy afer 9/11 put that effort on hold, but cartoonists worldwide have contributed and we are building a 9/11 Memorial Shop which will open in September 2011 to benefit 9/11 families.

Click To Enlarge

This Londons Times/Panel Hollywood Cartoon is in the permanent collection of the Roy Orbison Archives

The above cartoon is part of our “Panel Hollywood” series. It is now a permanent fixture in the Roy Orbison Archives at the request of his widow, Barbara Orbison.

My loving wife Lee is a wonderful wildlife/nature photographer. She has the popular Hike Our Planet nature blog with incredible photos of Hot Springs National Park.

Click To Enlarge

Above is the logo of Photos4Japan.Org founded by my wife Lee-Hiller London (Lee Hiller). Her user name is @LeeHillerLondon on Twitter to follow her updates.

She recently launched Photographers For Japan in which some of the best nature photographers I’ve ever seen have contributed photos to help raise money for our favorite charity Mercy Corps.

I was briefly involved with a Mercy Corps project in which both Lee and I were very impressed.

Above is a graphic of the cover of our 1st book “Londons Times Cartoons 13th Anniversary available at Lulu.com as a coffee table book or download cartoon E-book at Lulu.com and soon at Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble, etc (6-8 weeks from now).

I decided to launch Cartoonists to help Japan, starting with cartoons from our Londons Times collection, and placing want ads on various artist websites recruiting others (worldwide). We also placed a Mercy Corp donate button and it is becoming a popular site.

This is the logo for our Cartoonists For Japan blog. On Twitter, the user name is @cartoons4japan in case you would like to follow; we’d be honored.

Click To Enlarge

This Londons Times Cartoon & One other appeared in the Jerusalem Post Feb 2011 (stayed up a full month)

The above cartoon and one other appeared in The Jerusalem Post in February 2011. They ran this one for an entire month in their online paper during the Egyptian uprising. The other cartoon appeared for a day in their paper edition.

I sit at my desk in my Hot Springs, Ar office which overlooks the mountains of Hot Springs National Park. I think back to the start and it all seems like a blur. I can remember how few believed the project would ever work. I tended often to be on their side. My own belief in it was slim to none. But there were a few who felt I might have some talent and encouraged me. I remember them as if they are family A few are no longer with us but their spirit is. Without them, we would not have these cartoons.

Now it is too late to turn back…too late to throw in the towel. Not that I’d want to. Every day I feel like the adventure has just begun.

I’m designing shoes at my Shoes That Amuse famous love quotes shoes shop. I go hiking and absorb and enjoy nature with my wife Lee as she snaps some of the most fascinating photos I’ve ever seen. And we’re happy. Next week is the Royal Wedding of William & Catherine. Everyone is very excited so I designed a lot of gifts and collectibles with a caricature of them we created plus designed several styles of shoes. Its all available at our Shoes That Amuse Shop.

Click To Enlarge

Above is the lace-up style of Royal Wedding Shoes I designed on U.S. Keds. (Champion Keds for women). I also made tees, mousepads, etc and two slip on shoe designs at our ShoesThatAmuse.com shop.

Click To Enlarge

Looking back and seeing what happens (when one gets out of one’s own way), one can easily have faith that God really does want us to be happy. I happen to believe that; not to worry though, in case you don’t share that belief, it doesn’t matter to me. I wish everyone joy, happiness and laughter. Get your work done, but go out and play, no matter what your age!!

Above was our 1st Londons Times Cartoon logo. I remember thinking "This is brilliant"…proof, there was much work to do!!

      I do now understand a little more how the cartoon became successful (there were two main elements) 1. Hard work. I mean relentlessly hard and not giving up when obstacle after obstacle arose, and they did, often fast & furiously.   I couldn’t have done it alone.

I had and have an amazingly talented creative team, and supportive friends (some call them fans, but they are real friends) who are very loyal. That part often seems strange.  I think it was the struggle of getting 20 people per day to visit at the start which was difficult to now; having had 8.7 million visitors since January 2005. One can imagine the surprise. Anyone would be. 

Above is our current Londons Times Cartoons & Gifts logo. Maybe not brilliant, but doesn’t it beat that Partridge Family looking thing??? 

     By the same token, everything I’ve learned in school tells me, it would have been even more surprising if we’d not had the result not have been as it turned out.  All the elements were in place. Everyone involved worked and work very hard.  I am surrounded by talent I believe to be way out of my league.  It works.  My wife Lee is very supportive and offers consistent support. I’m grateful every day.

      14 years ago, I was on the floor of an old tin shed in rural Ms. begging artists and web people to work with me for peanuts. 

       Today I’m looking up in my office at numerous cartoons (two of which just appeared in the Jerusalem Post; one they left up for a month), and several that are in the permanent collection at Mayo Clinic Medical Library, and one that Barbara Orbison, widow of the late great Roy Orbison has placed permanently in the Roy Orbison Archives. 

The above cartoon is one of two we did about Mayo Clinic. We received an email from them several months ago requesting signed copies for their Medical Library which we sent. It is part of their permanent collection. The Library’s founder, Dr. Polly was "a cartoon fanatic" (in their words). 

       In 2001, I launched Cartoonists Against Terrorism to raise funds for the families of fallen 9/11 responders. A heart attack and resulting bad literary economy afer 9/11 put that effort on hold, but cartoonists worldwide have contributed and we are building a 9/11 Memorial Shop which will open in September 2011 to benefit the families. 

The above cartoon is part of our  "Panel Hollywood" series. It is now a permanent  fixture in the Roy Orbison Archives at the request of his widow, Barbara Orbison. 

      My loving wife Lee is a wonderful wildlife/nature photographer. She has the popular Hike Our Planet nature blog with incredible photos of Hot Springs National Park. 

Above is the logo of Photos4Japan.Org founded by my wife Lee-Hiller London (Lee Hiller). Her user name is @LeeHillerLondon on Twitter  to follow her updates.  

       She recently launched Photographers For Japan in which some of the best nature photographers I’ve ever seen have contributed photos to help raise money for our favorite charity Mercy Corps. 

       I was briefly involved with a Mercy Corps project in which both Lee and I were very impressed. 

Above is a graphic of the cover of our 1st book "Londons Times Cartoons 13th Anniversary available at Lulu.com as a coffee table book or download cartoon E-book. 

      I decided to launch Cartoonists to help Japan, starting with cartoons from our Londons Times collection, and placing want ads on various artist websites recruiting others (worldwide).   We also placed a Mercy Corp donate button and it is becoming a popular site. 

This is the logo for our Cartoonists For Japan blog. On Twitter, the user name is @cartoons4japan in case you would like to follow; we’d be honored. 

The above cartoon and one other appeared in The Jerusalem Post in February 2011. They ran this one for an entire month in their online paper during the Egyptian uprising.  The other cartoon appeared for a day in their paper edition. 

      I sit at my desk in my Hot Springs, Ar office which overlooks the mountains of Hot Springs National Park.  I think back to the start and it all seems like a blur. I can remember how few believed the project would ever work.  I tended often to be on their side. My own belief in it was slim to none.  But there were a few who felt I might have some talent and encouraged me. I remember them as if they are family  A few are no longer with us but their spirit is. Without them, we would not have these cartoons.

     Now it is too late to turn back…too late to throw in the towel. Not that I’d want to.  Every day I feel like the adventure has just begun. 

      I am working on my second book Londons Times Generation Two Cartoons which should be out before the 2011 holidays. 

      I’m designing shoes at my Shoes That Amuse famous love quotes shoes shop.  I go hiking and absorb and enjoy nature with my wife Lee as she snaps some of the most fascinating photos I’ve ever seen.  And we’re happy.   Next week is the Royal Wedding of William & Catherine.  Everyone is very excited so I designed a lot of gifts and collectibles with a caricature of them we created plus designed several styles of shoes.  Its all available at our Shoes That Amuse Shop. 

Above is the lace-up style of Royal Wedding Shoes I designed on U.S. Keds. (Champion Keds for women). I also made tees, mousepads, etc and two slip on shoe designs at our ShoesThatAmuse.com shop.  

      Looking back and seeing what happens (when one gets out of one’s own way), one can easily have faith that God really does want us to be happy. I happen to believe that; not to worry though, in case you don’t share that belief,  it doesn’t matter to me.  I wish everyone joy, happiness and laughter.  Get your work done, but go out and play, no matter what your age!!