We continue recounting the eleven-day trip that I took recently with my fine friend Amber to Las Vegas, Philadelphia and New York. Before you read about Day 6, you really oughta read about what transpired on Day 1, Day 2, Day 3, Day 4 and Day 5.
Sunday, May 27, 2018
I awoke Sunday morning feeling like I'd been away from home for six months, all the time reminding myself that we weren't yet at the halfway point of the trip. Amber felt the same way and we reminded each other to enjoy the leisurely pace of our last full day in Philadelphia. For the most part, we were (and still are) glad we decided to hit three cities in eleven days but there were moments when it didn't feel like the best idea I ever had.
I was moderating the MAD panel at 11 AM and before it, I caught the last half of a presentation that Charlie Kochman was doing in the same room about the great cartoonist Rube Goldberg. Rube has probably not received his due since he, unlike many of his peers, did not leave us with a truly iconic and legendary character; not the way Elzie Segar left us with Popeye or Charles Schulz left us with Charlie Brown and Snoopy.
Then again, Rube did get his name in many dictionaries as a noun or adjective referring to a very silly, elaborate invention…and the top cartooning award — the Reuben, which was presented the previous night to Glen Keane — was named for Mr. Goldberg. Those count for something. His work is often reprinted — though probably not as often and as much as it oughta be — and there are books like this one inspired by his work…
Charlie was the editor of Rube Goldberg's Simple Normal Humdrum School, written by Jennifer George and illustrated by Ed Steckley. It's a fun book to give a kid or to read if you are one or have ever been one. Here's a link if you wanna get a copy. In an ideal world, Amazon would deliver yours by having a pussycat knock a bowling ball off a shelf which would turn on a fan which would blow a kite across the room which would knock over a lit candle which would burn through the ropes of a catapult which would fling a copy of the book across the room into a FedEx box…
The Rube Goldberg presentation was followed by the MAD panel. I've moderated well over a dozen MAD panels over the years and most of them blur together in my memory. This one won't because though no one imagined such a thing at the time, this was the last MAD panel to feature Nick Meglin on it. A week later to the day, he was the late Nick Meglin and a lot of us are still reeling from that.
In the obit I wrote, I hope I made it clear how utterly vital Nick was to the creative and financial success of MAD. Most people are aware of its founding editor Harvey Kurtzman and his successor, Al Feldstein…and you all know of Don Martin and Mort Drucker and Al Jaffee and Sergio Aragonés and Dave Berg and everyone else in the Usual Gang of Idiots. Their contributions were credited and it was kinda obvious what they did. What Nick contributed is a bit harder to explain and once I came to fully understand it, I felt I had to do my part to help others to know. He was kind of the Vice-President in Charge of Funny.
Here's a photo from the panel. It was taken by Kevin Segall…
Nick is the guy seated. MAD's recently-retired Art Director Sam Viviano is the man leaning on the chair next to Nick. From the left, the others are Ryan Flanders, Bill Morrison, Grant Geissman, Tom Richmond, Sergio and Yours Truly. Ryan was a designer and talent scout for the old MAD, Bill's the editor of the new MAD, Grant's a fine musician and the world's greatest expert on MAD not counting me, Tom is its star caricaturist and I have no idea what Sergio does. But I know what Nick did and I want the world to know.
Nick was the guardian of the magazine's sense of humor when it was growing up. And since that helped shape my sense of humor when I was growing up, I feel a great debt to him.
The MAD panel was the last seminar-type event of the weekend. Many NCS members then spent the afternoon at a nearby library giving drawing demonstrations but Amber and I went to eat at the Reading Terminal Market (where I did not have turkey) and packing The Box.
The Box was an idea I had to avoid having to squish eleven days of clean clothes into our respective suitcases. The previous Monday, I packed the clothes we'd need in Philadelphia and New York in a big crate and shipped it to myself at the Philadelphia Marriott. In our luggage, we took the clothes we'd need in Vegas. Then when we got to Philly, The Box was waiting for us and we had our clothes for that town (including my moth-eaten tux) and for the next town. Before leaving Philadelphia, we would pack our New York clothes in our suitcases and ship everything else back to Los Angeles.
This was a brilliant notion, especially since the Philadelphia Marriott has a 24-hour FedEx/Kinko's in its lobby. It turned out to have one teensy complication but we'll get to it.
That evening at the hotel, there was a Farewell Dinner and a chance to say bye-bye to everyone. Amber and I turned in early because we had a big day ahead of us. The next morning, we had to catch a train for New York, New York, a helluva town.
Before I close down this installment though, here's a little video with Nick Meglin in it. It's fuzzy but watchable footage from two New Year's Eve parties hosted by longtime MAD writer Dick DeBartolo. He's the one who stole his mustache from a member of the Village People. You'll briefly see MAD publisher William M. Gaines doing a magic trick, and you'll see two musical performances — a year apart — from Nick…