WE DON’T NEED NO STINKING WASHCLOTHS!

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Q: What do skunks, snakes, octopi, vomit, talking toast, disembodied heads and stupid zombies have in common?

A: All are subjects of cartoons drawn by Lonnie J. Millsap III (L.J.M.3).

That may sound like the name of a pretentious White guy, but once upon a lifetime I worked with Lonnie J. Millsap the Third. I knew Lonnie J. Millsap the Third. Lonnie J. Millsap the Third was a friend of mine. Lonnie J. Millsap the Third is no pretentious White guy.

Yes, it’s true, Lonnie (J.) Millsap (the Third) was a co-worker of mine at a University far, far away. He and I supervised about 80 college students. Which means that mostly what we did was pitch pennies on top of parking structures for eight hours a day and play video games after “work”.

The video game contests we engaged in were pretty ferocious, pretty intense. You see Lonnie is Black and I’m the pretentious White guy. You’d have to travel back to the Civil War to match the Black and White intensity level of our video game contests. I won more video games than Lonnie did, but he won’t admit that. Just like he won’t admit that I drew better cartoons than he did.

Yeah, we were always competing at something, even to the point of drawing dueling cartoon characters on the chalkboard at work (when we weren’t busy pitching pennies or going to lunch).

Now I find that Lonnie J. Millsap III has published a book of Far Side-like cartoons titled ‘MY WASHCLOTH STINKS’. Well, we don’t need no stinking washcloths! But then again, we might WANT one. If not for ourselves then maybe to give as a Christmas present to that person who has a sense of humor and deserves a gift from us but not a gift that’s overly expensive, overly White, overly pretentious, or overly classy. ‘My Washcloth Stinks’ would be perfect for him or her.

What galls me is that decades ago, Lonnie and I took a ‘How To Start Your Own Greeting Card Company’ class together. I’m the student who stayed awake and took notes and yet Lonnie is the student who started his own greeting card company and published his own cartoon book. Don’tcha hate it when that happens?

He calls his enterprise “Rollyhead Publishing” – apparently based on all the disembodied cartoon heads he draws – but I remember when Lonnie wore a flattop haircut and used the name “Flattop Productions”. Well, the shape of the disembodied heads he draws may have changed, but what hasn’t changed is the black comedy nature of this Black cartoonist. You have to be a little demented, a little twisted, a little sick in the (rolly or flat) head to enjoy Lonnie’s comedy.

Fortunately, that describes me well, and a number of the cartoons in ‘My Washcloth Stinks’ made me Literally Laugh Out Loud (LLOL). Of course, in a blurb on the back cover of the book, one reader expressed a different opinion:

"Lame, lame, lame. What Black person draws cartoons like these?"
~ Ruby Millsap (Lonnie's Mother)

Well, I remember when all of Lonnie's cartoons really were lame. But, like the village idiot who claimed he had been turned into a newt by a witch in the movie 'Monty Python And The Holy Grail', Lonnie "got better".
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Who knew the guy had genuine talent that would lie doggo until he was jobless and destitute and FORCED to rely on it in order to scrounge up enough money for another Fatburger?

It would be easy to describe here some of the twisted and funny cartoons you will find in ‘My Washcloth Stinks’, but rather, I will illustrate Lonnie J. Millsap the Third’s sick sense of humor with a couple of personal anecdotes that will prepare you for the “style” you will encounter in his cartoon book:

I still have the original hand-drawn Christmas card that L.J.M.3 gave me in 1988. It shows Santa Claus on a rooftop, an open sack full of human skeletons lies at his feet, and Santa is thinking: ‘Damn, wrong bag!’ Below it reads: “Why Christmas came a few hours late in 1977.”
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Inside the card, L.J.M.3 wrote: “Stephen, you S.O.B., you crazy fool, retard. I bet you thought you’d never read this stuff on a Merry Christmas card!”

Can you believe the shi— er, the “stuffs” that guy would say to me? If it wasn’t for all the pennies I was winning from him 40 hours a week, I wouldn’t have hung around the dude.

Yeah, the card may not have exactly expressed the “traditional” Christmas greeting but, nevertheless, it’s one of the best Christmas cards I ever received. (But don’t tell Lonnie - it’ll go to his rolly head.)

And don’t be shocked by the language he used in that Christmas card he gave to me. If it weren’t for the word “Fool” and the initials “S.O.B.” we wouldn’t have known how to speak to each other.
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One time Millsap was on vacation and he sent me a post card. On the front was a photograph of a short pier, and on the back he wrote: Two words come to mind. Long walk. (That’s not a direct quote because although I know I’ve saved the post card, I was unable to locate it in my filing boxes. I looked under “L” for Lonnie and “M” for Millsap, but it wasn’t there. I’ve probably stored it under “F” for Fool or “S” for... well, you know.)

Another favorite tactic of ours back in the day was to sling racial epithets at each other while each of us accused the other guy of being a racist. Of course, I was only joking, but after reading L.J.M.3’s cartoon book, ‘My Washcloth Stinks’, I suspect this black comedy humorist might really be a racist after all. You see, I noticed only one White cartoon character in the entire book, and that was a drawing of Thomas Jefferson with a non-diversity-lovin’ world-view. (It was dang funny though!)

Lonnie J. Millsap III is going to need to draw a lot of albino zombie cartoon characters if he expects me to ever again accept the idea that he’s not a racist S.O.B.

In the meantime, buy his book. It’s cheap and the fool needs the money.

I would stay and tell you more but I have a buzz to catch.

~ Stephen T. McCarthy the First (I'm #1!)

Links:

Rollyhead Publishing
(There’s some some zany stuffs to surf on this site and you can buy ‘My Washcloth Stinks’ here, too.)

‘Dumb Is Everywhere’ (L.J.M.3’s blog)

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