Morty Comix # 2515

 The fate of Morty Comix # 2515 is rather involved, so settle in and read this tale of wonder.

 I set a thin plank above the living room floor

 On this plank I precariously set puzzle pieces for all 50 states

 Then I took out some potent catnip in order to gain assistance from my little friends

 The catnip was sprinkled along the plank

 All set to go

And within minutes Charlie was on the job. I wanted to choose among the very last states left on the plank. Washington was one of the very first ones he sent to the floor.

Seeing that he had started the process, he decided to take a break.

Since it almost time to hit the hay anyway, I made a choice to just leave it for the night. By the next morning I noticed more pieces had been knocked to the floor in the course of the evening.

That morning Dreamer and Buster decided to check out this scene and add to the carnage. Dreamer's tail really did a number on many of the states remaining on the plank.

In fact, one end of the plank was knocked to the floor and the other barely held up by a tiny bit of the corner.

 Buster inspects Dreamer's handiwork.

It was at this point I left for the day.

 When I returned home from work, here's what the plank looked like.

 

Three states were left touching the top of the plank: Florida, Oregon, and Alaska

  

Oh, wait, I found Arizona under Alaska. Make that four states!

As it turned out after examining the earlier photos, I was in error. 

Arizona was merely where part of Alaska landed on the floor.

Then it was time to haul out the old Washington State House of Representatives Cafeteria tray and some wooden pegs.

The tray was placed on the kitchen floor and the four states were balanced on top of the pegs. I was going to let a cat narrow down the contenders, but this time I would pick the states that were knocked to the floor.

Charlie obliged within a minute, by knocking Florida to the floor.

He was enjoying batting around The Sunshine State so much on the linoleum I was afraid he was going to  knock the puzzle piece under my dead dishwasher, so I had to rescue it.

 So for good measure, he reacted by returning to the tray and punching down Arizona.

 Tired out by this activity, he returned to his duties as the sentinel of the kitchen window.

Meanwhile, Hettie, who is the smartest creature under this roof, observed all this foolishness with a bit a haughty disdain.

So it came to Arizona and Florida. I decided to enlist the help of my cartoonist comrade who also dates back to the Newave Comix days, Richard Krauss. As an Oregon resident, he knows we Pacific Northwesterners have to do something to keep occupied in these dark and rainy winter days.

Actually, all I did was ask him to choose either Arizona or Florida and explain why, but he went all out in the spirit of this random art distribution, which demonstrates how contagious it can be. When he was done I had a name and address. Here is Richard's response:

Of course, I'm honored to play "Where is the Morty Comix going to be sent?" The rules of this particular edition are somewhere in Arizona or Florida.

First thought was to flip through Delaine Derry Green's Not My Small Diary #17 to select a city. Her contributors span the country and she lists their addresses at the bottom of each page. There would likely be cities in the two states to narrow the selection. 

Another thought was to take a character name from my novelette in progress, Walt Hutchison, and see if the interwebs point to anyone. Bezango! There's a real estate agent in Fort Myers. And Linked-In lists a full 19 candidates. The Route Salesman at Bimbo Bakeries sounded like a winner, but unfortunately his location in the greater New York area was an instant disqualifier. I wonder if he'd consider moving?

I discussed the game with my family. Ideas of using Pinterest and six degrees of separation were discussed, without conclusion.

I searched "How to make a random selection" using Duck Duck Go. Too scientific.

Drawn to Florida, I downloaded a spreadsheet of population data from the Office of Economic & Demographic Research, scrambled the counties, closed my eyes, held my breath and blindly placed a cursor on Pasco County, population 464,697 by way of 2010 count. Now, we're getting somewhere.

A new search provided Pasco County, Florida results. The official site, leading the results nearly sucked me in, but no, Morty wouldn't go there. 

Pasco County was created in 1887. It was named after Samuel Pasco, who served in the Confederate Army and the U.S. Senate from 1887 to 1899. Towns include Anclote, Blanton, Dade City, Earnestville, Fort Dade, Macon and San Antonio.

The name Dade City is appealing and it's the county seat to boot. Population 6,449 in 2011.

Scrolling results for Dade City, Florida, the entry listing Bee Removal looked interesting. Turns out the resident beekeeper there is the lucky candidate. He is not actually located in Dade City, but he serves the area's bee removal needs and his company is located in Pasco County, in Lakeland.

 

Thanks Richard! Now, off to Florida!

Morty Comix # 2444

Morty Comix # 2444 was left on a brick ledge over a couple of pathetic real estate brochure distribution boxes in a strip mall on the Westside of Olympia. This was the same facility where I first met J.P. Patches ca. 1960 when he came to promote the grand opening of this place. Notice both storefronts pictured here are vacant.

Old, decaying strip malls, I must admit, do hold a certain fascination for me. They were the proto-malls of their time. This particular one predated the Oly area's first bonafide mall (South Sound Mall in Lacey) by a half dozen years. Both vacant holes pictured here hold many memories for me as the spaces have performed a variety of retail roles in their past.

In cartoonist terms, the left half of this image once housed a pharmacy/gift shop back when Tricky Dick was in office. They also sold LP albums, lots of them. The owner was a big fat Republican member of the Washington State House of Representatives who used his girth as a campaign plus since he claimed it would make him be noticed when he stood up to talk. But in fact all he did was introduce bills to benefit pharmacists.

Anyway, when my parents would be shopping for groceries next door, I'd slip into this place and study the amazing album covers. I didn't really care about the music on the vinyl as much as I studied the big graphic images used to sell them. This was part of my education as a visual artist.

Buttons - State Campaign - 1988

Re-Elect Bob Basich, State Representative, Democrat

Washington State House Rep Basich served the 19th District (Grays Harbor area) in the 1980s and 1990s. I am pretty sure I picked up this button in 1988.

Under the curl: G.H. Stamp Works, Aberdeen, Wash.

Buttons - State Campaign - 1988

Max, Demo.

Max is Max Vekich, State House Rep from Washington State's 35th District (chiefly Grays Harbor area) in the 1980s. I believe I picked up this button in 1988.

Buttons - State Campaign - 1972

Jim McDermott is known today as the long time Congressman from Seattle and is the most outspoken liberal in the Washington State delegation in that Other Washington. Since 1988 he was won elections by ridiculously huge margins (over 80% in 2010 for example). But it wasn't always so. Long ago he made two unsuccessful bids for Governor. In 1972 he failed to win the Democratic primary and in 1980 he lost the general election.

I might be wrong, but I think I picked up this button in his 1972 bid, when he was a little known member of the Washington State House of Representatives. And in 1972, when he was trying to win name recognition, it seems strange to have a button with no words on it. Maybe it was this sort of marketing that lost him the primary.