“The wind will set me racing as my journey nears its end, and the path I’ll be retracing when I’m homeward bound again.” From Homeward Bound, written by Marta Keen.
It’s important to know your limitations, even though it is difficult to accept them. Sometimes this understanding will limit us in ways we do not wish, but as both Doris Day and The Pixies noted, “Que será, será. What will be, will be.” Or, in Kurt Vonnegut’s words, “So it goes.”
For example, as my fingers limp across my keyboard right now, I’m sitting in Connecticut and not in Maryland. This is unusual for me as normally I am a fixture at the Baltimore Comic-Con, a wonderful event that remains a true comic book convention. It attracts good friends of mine who I miss. However, last week I was in Sweet Home Chicago for a swell ol’ time, also with friends of mine, and I knew I simply did not have the wherewithal to drive to the midwest, hang out with people for the better part of a week, drive back and then immediately jump back in the car and drive to Baltimore.
(This is the place where I point out that from where I live it is actually more convenient to drive 850 miles to Chicago than it is to drive to and from any of the New York City airports. It might be faster as well. It’s been two decades since I enjoyed flying; as service deteriorated, seats shrunk, baggage space disappeared, schedules became a joke and the immense power airline workers wield intensified, my enthusiasm for enduring a walk-in refrigerator’s volume of shit has vaporized. Que será, será.)
The motivation for my decision — and regular readers doubtlessly are aware Chicago is my first love — was lunch. Food often motivates my choices, but this time I was having my feast with some folks worthy of having their names dropped. Alan and Pauline Weiss, Alex Ross, Jim Wisniewski, Mark Braun, Jason Millet, Jim Nelson and Mitch O’Connell. Hilary Barta usually joins us, but this year he’s fallen head-first in love and a simple meal with virulent weirdos wasn’t going to disrupt his schedule. Understandable.
We were joined by our pal and my fellow ex-patriate J.J. Sedelmaier, the animator who was the man responsible for The Ambiguously Gay Duo, The X-Presidents, Tek Jansen, and the pilot of Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law, among lots and lots of other great stuff. In addition to being a great guy who knows a lot of great shit, J.J. might be the last person alive to animate Speedy Alka-Seltzer. This alone would qualify him for a center-space in my personal pantheon of pop culture heroes.
The locals have these lunches every month, and I am permitted to join them if I’m in town. Attending them is my favorite thing on Earth, at least among the stuff I can do in public.
I’m uncertain I can make that drive again. I’ve done it well over one hundred times; I believe my late wife and I actually named each and every tree along I-80 in Pennsylvania. A couple years ago, pre-Covid, my daughter made me promise to stop overnight roughly mid-way along the route, but given the drive and the intense amount of energy I spend with my homies, sooner or later I’ll be abandoning the Dodge Journey for the Amtrak Lake Shore Limited. Train travel is everything airplane travel used to be (except for that “on-time” part) before a handful of malcontents decided they’d rather land in Havana.
I left the Baltimore Comic-Con in the experienced and worthy hands of my Pop Culture Squad editor Bob Harrison, who, doubtlessly, will issue his own report. I’m sure we’ll most likely discuss all that on our video Squadcast tomorrow night (the 24th), which goes live most every Tuesday and some Thursdays at 8 PM Eastern.
In 1940 Thomas Wolfe wrote “You Can’t Go Home Again”, and its well-earned success became a meme. However, these lunches are an act of renewal, an event that centers me and reminds me of my roots. You can go home again, unless there’s a warrant out for your arrest or there’s a reactionary who feels the need to get what they think is dues.
Thankfully, I’ve outlived most of all that. Que será, será.
