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4 ~ Wednesdsy, Murch 26,

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1986 - North Shore News

tnt enisedt or

Bob Hunter

© strictly personal ®

ONE OF MY favorite people is Jules Feiffer, the cartoonist.
Another is Ralph Steadman, also a cartoonist. Jet me throw

in a third favorite cartoonist:

And then there was a chap named
Jan Kaminsky who did stuff for the
Winnipeg Tribune ...

I met a Hindu guru once who told
me he viewed cartoonists as being
among the highest orders of artist.
It was an awesome undertaking —
actually drawing a picture for the rest
of us dolts that we could understand
~~ a lot more important than mere
writing or management or political
leadership.

It's that ‘‘instantly’’ part that gets
them the points. And because they're
working in the mass media, they
have maximuni editorial input to im-
mense chunks of the Collective
Semiconsciousness (as I like to call
it), much more so than the mere
mortals who write the editorials.

Or those of us who write columns
or books or whatever.

This muttering was prompted by
looking at a recent Feiffer cartoon
about how ‘‘maturity is a phase ...
adolescence is forever.’’ Absolutely
brilliant!

I met Feiffer once in the late ’60s.
He was staying on the North Shore,
writing the script for some movie
that seemed very heavy at the time,
but whose title escapes me now. |
was writing a column — yeh, verily,
even then! The phone rang. The guy
said: ‘‘Hi, I’m Jules Feiffer.”’ | said
“Sure! Who IS this?”

It was a classic dumb response.
Feiffer invited himself over anyway,
and my then-wife and I fluttered ner-
vously around, trying to figure how
to prepare for the mass medja
superstar from Nah Yark (sic).

It was a disaster of an evening, by
the way. We had lined up lots of
European wine and I was prepared
to be hip. Feiffer, when he showed
up, asked right away for Scotch. My
liberated kids tried to push their way
into the limelight. He loathed kids.

He thought ecology was boring
and was, in fact, utterly indifferent
to any subject we tried to get going
on. So we finally shut up and just
listened, which is all a visiting hon-
cho from the Big Apple wants in a
strange boondock village.

Roy Petersen.

Hlearned all about Norman Mailer
and Andy Warhol and Tom Wolfe
and this person and that, we got
tanked, and a good time was had by
all. Nothing unusual, really. The sad
thing about great and famous peo-
ple is that up close they turn out to
be relentlessly ordinary, and hence
disappointing. Feiffer was no
exception,

Except for one factor, He WAS a
genius, and so everything else was
forgivable.

[ met Ralph Steadman, the guy
who illustrated such visual master-
works as Fear and Loathing in Las
Vegas, many years later in London.
It turned out we had the same British
literary agent, who introduced us.

We went drinking, got enormously
drunk, and wound up so helpless
that the agent had to pour Ralph in-
toa taxi and me into a Tube station,
where I was attacked by a pack of
skinheads and rescued at the last se-
cond by an off-duty cop ... but that’s
another column, isn’t it?

Ralph recently did the really stupid
thing of daring someone in a pub to
hit him as hard as he could in the
solar plexus so Ralph could
demonstrate how much control he
had over his stomach muscles. He’s
getting a bit old for that sort of
thing: ended up in hospital, not tak-
ing on any projects at all.

By contrast, Roy Petersen, as |
remember him, is one of the easiest-
going, most cheerful guys in the
world, and Jan Kaminsky was a bon
vivant par excellence, excuse my
French.

All this simply means, of course,
is that the sampling of cartoonists !
have known and loved is small. 1
could add several other mysterious
and existential fringe cartoonists who
skulk about downtown Vancouver
and whose moment of recognition to
the max lies probably centuries
ahead. But it would go to their heads

Here’s the bottom line, though:
we need these guys. [ hate to say this,
indebted as I am to print, but while
a good story may be a scoop, a good
cartoon is a smoke. Y'know?

District endorses
peace-seeking duo

NORTH VANCOUVER District Council! unanimously en-
dorsed a petition drawn up by a North Shore couple seeking
to end parliament’s traditional mud-slinging matches on the

floor of the Commons.

Jennie Keeran and her husband
Dan Keeran say ‘‘name-calling and
sarcastic put-downs"’ spouted daily
by members of parliament ‘‘often
cloud over issues."’

The couple, who operates a
private psychotherapy practice in
North Vancouver, wants parlia-
ment to exclude all ‘‘conflict-in-
creasing language’ in the House of
Commons and urges MPs to use
“emphatic reflective listening”’
when dealing with their political
opponents.

The couple, profiled in the News
March 3, operates the Conflict
Training [nstitute, which — sells
audio cassette tapes and offers
workshops on conflict reduction.

Jennie Keeran says the petition
is an adjunct of the couple's per-
sonal concern for world peace.

Worldwide peace, she says,
would be come easier if people
“only stopped to listen to one
another.”"

By NEIL LUCENTE

Contiributiag Wraer

[_

“Look what happened when
Reagan called Khadafy a ‘flaky
barbarian,’ she said. ‘*Name-call-
ing breaks down communications
and creates defensiveness,

“We're not saying you can't
have conflict -- it’s a part of life.
Sometumes its's productive. But
resolving conflict is a choice.”

Ald. Ernie Crist spoke in favor
of the petition, despite his admit-
ted preference for direct language.

The couple, who received
derisive responses from members
of Vancouver City Council, will
present the petition to other
municipal councils in’ the Lower
Mainland, as well as school boards
and Chambers of Commerce bran-
ches.

A letter outlining the petition
has been sent to all provincial
MLAs,

District |
runs for|
research!

ON THE ROCKS

PRESENTS
WEDNESDAY . COMEDY NITE

NITE featuring LA. comedians

THURSDAY
NITE

1552 Marine Dr.
West Van.

DISTRICT COUNCIL has cleared
the path for the Lion's Gate Medi-
cal Research Foundation’s Run for
Research.

Council approved the use of
municipal streets for the June |
fund-raising event.

The foundation must notify all
merchants on the route, B.C.
Transit, the fire department, and
the RCMP of the run and its plan-
ned course.

The 10 kilometre run will wind
through North Vancouver District
from its starting point at the
William Griffin Community Cen-
Te,

LADIES NITE :

If you care about children we
need you.

Foster parents are urgently needed on the #
North Shore for preschoolers, and teens.
You will be eligible for training in fostering
skills.

Find out more by calling the
Ministry of Human Resources,
Shirley Davis cr Linda
Wishart 660-1256.

aditferance.

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