My Zen Is Like Mickey Mouse

My Zen Is Like Mickey Mouse

“In perpetuity and throughout the universe.”

I’ve always loved the poetry of that phrase.

How simply and elegantly it covers…

Everything.

Very zen!

It is also, on a personal level,

Very evocative to me,

As it reminds me of the years

I worked for Walt Disney Feature Animation.

You see, that’s what my Disney contract actually said,

“In perpetuity and throughout the universe.”

Meaning the company owned 

The work I produced for them 

Throughout the cosmos and for all time.

Forever and ever and everywhere.

I suppose that’s in case

I try to collect royalties from  

Martians of the future who

Land on earth and demand

To see Beauty and the Beast!

But you know lawyers.

Especially Disney lawyers.

They’re very thorough.

“So what?” I said. “I’m an artist!” 

I wanted to make 

Cartoons for Walt Disney,

The biggest damn cartoon-maker there ever was!

So I signed on the dotted line.

Of course, I never met Mr Disney,

Who died in 1966.

I’m old but not that old.

I worked there from 1989 until 2004.

Fifteen years.

The second golden age 

Of hand-drawn animation, 

It’s been called.

Although I don’t think I can seriously

Take all the credit for that one.

Maybe I was a small part of it.

Who knows?

A big thing is often made 

Of smaller things, is it not?

While working for Disney

I drew everything from 

Roger Rabbit losing his lunch…

To the little bear cub Koda…

Who loses his mother.

“Just like Bambi!” I used to brag,

Remembering that famous scene

Of a father explaining why a mother, 

“… can’t be with you, anymore.”

I don’t know about you, 

But that scene from Bambi

Still makes me cry today.

Hmmmm. 

I wonder.

Have I worked on a scene

That made you cry?

Or laugh?

Or squeeze a loved one’s hand 

In the dark with excitement?

At Disney, there’s a lot of tradition

Behind every animated movie.

Almost a century of progressive filmmaking.

Over sixty animated features.

Uncountable hours of labor by

Generations of talented employees.

Think of it…

Millions upon millions of drawings!

That’s a lot to live up to

And sometimes it weighs heavily

Upon those who make these movies today.

They try so hard!

It was here that I learned, btw,

The most important lesson an artist can learn…

To trust yourself.

I loved them all,

My pencil’s creations!

As you should love your children.

But I have three special favorites

From my days at Disney.

They are Khan the horse from Mulan,

Whom I love for his beauty and strength.

Stitch the experiment from Lilo and Stitch,

Whom I love for his appeal and sense of fun.

And Mickey Mouse, the little guy who started it all,

Whom I’ve loved since I was a child,

For his bravery and humanity.

Which is maybe a funny thing to say

About a mouse.

His humanity.

But that’s the magic 

Of Disney animation, isn’t it?

Between features sometime in the early 1990s 

I finally got to work with Mickey. 

I drew him dancing with a German supermodel 

While endorsing an orange-flavored soda pop. 

A commercial.

Made for the European market. 

Never shown in America.

But still I worked with Mickey Mouse!

Luckily, he was a good dancer,

Because I cannot dance worth a darn.

He was a good actor too,

Which made it easier.

Claudia Schiffer, the German supermodel 

He danced with in the commercial, 

Said he was a good kisser, as well.

Which doesn’t surprise me.

Mickey always brings his “A” game!

He was difficult to draw though.

At least he was for me.

You had to get him just right

Or he didn’t look like Mickey Mouse at all.

And you know what?

When I worked with him I discovered 

That he was even nicer in person 

Than he is in the movies!

The really big stars 

Are like that, they say.

Hard working… 

Kind… 

Considerate of others…

Which reminds me of my zen.

And the reason I began this poem.

May I compare my zen 

To that great actor, dancer and kisser,

Mickey Mouse?

My zen is hard working, 

Like Mickey is,

Because work is love… 

And without it nothing is achieved.

My zen is kind, 

Like Mickey is, 

Because it’s not how smart 

We are that matters… 

But how kind we can be. 

My zen has consideration for others, 

As Mickey does,

Because even a cartoon mouse knows…

Without consideration for others you are just an asshole. 

Finally, my zen helps me understand 

My place in the scheme of things.

That I should try to be happy

And not worry too much 

About living in a world 

I cannot control… 

But must not fear!

That life is short 

And ought to be funny.

Just like a Mickey Mouse cartoon.

Yes, my zen is very much

Like Mickey Mouse.

Even more so than I thought

When I began this poem.

Which doesn’t surprise me.

That’s one of the reasons

I like writing them…

Anything can happen

In my search to express my zen,

So that I might,

With love and respect, 

Set it before you.

And let’s not forget the poetry

Of such wonderful phrases as

“In perpetuity and throughout the universe.”

Which makes me laugh.

As my zen commands I should!

Thank you, Mickey.

You make me laugh too.

You always have.

I love you.

Take care.

Hurling Napoleons

“Is there anything you guys don’t fight about?”

I was having coffee with my friend John. We have coffee together sometimes, usually at a trendy cafe where the guy behind the counter gets our orders all wrong. 

I can’t blame him, the guy behind the counter I mean, because it must be difficult trying to remember how to make the three-dozen different types of coffees they have on offer. 

So he doesn’t try, but makes the same thing, whatever you order. 

I fooled him today, though, I asked for tea. Hot tea. And a muffin.

“Hot tea?” he repeated, like I had two heads. He shrugged his shoulders, took my money and returned his attention to his personal device. He seemed preoccupied, texting as he was and talking at the same time to a pretty girl who stood off to one side waiting for her sandwich, also texting. 

So the joke was on me. Instead of tea I got, as near as I can tell, a double tall espresso with frothy goat’s milk and cardamon drizzle. 

I don’t know why, but I’m always too intimidated to complain when he gets it wrong. Maybe I’m getting old and with the wisdom of maturity have come to realize that it wouldn’t do any good. That in a moment of cosmic clarity I understand that coffee or tea, what’s the difference? 

Or maybe it was the fearsome tattoo he wore of a large, fire breathing dragon wrapped menacingly around his neck that I found inhibiting.

It wasn’t a very friendly tattoo. 

So I sipped my espresso and smiled like it was just what I wanted, saying thanks a lot. 

“Remind me to leave that guy a big tip,” I said to John.

That’s when John had asked me about all the fighting I did with my wife. John’s a good friend, and even though he’s met me for coffee and heard it all a million times before, he knows that sometimes I’ve just got to get it off my chest. 

He’s also married, so he knows that every marriage has its ups and downs. 

Perhaps you’ve found it so?

“Geez, Rusty,” he asked me with a laugh. “Is there anything you guys don’t fight about?”

I was unsure how to answer his question. My wife and I have been married a long time and, being married to me as you can imagine she’s had the opportunity for plenty of fighting. But we’ve also had plenty of good loving too, let’s not forget that. 

That’s the way it is with my wife and me… no holds barred!

John took a bite of his muffin, and seeing this, I had an inspiration. 

“Well,” I began. “We’ve fought about every type of muffin or pastry that I know of, that’s for sure! Cake too, especially wedding cake. That’s one of her favorites. She likes to bite the head off the little groom and growl at me menacingly.” 

John laughed, but I continued. “You know that painting Goya did,” I asked, “during his Black Period, of Saturn devouring his own son?”

John looked up in horror, recalling Goya’s famous painting. Goya was 75-years-old when he completed this terrible masterpiece, alone and in mental despair. 

John is a very accomplished artist whose work I truly admire. He has a better outlook on life than Goya did, too, which makes him fun to be around. He has a way of making other people feel good, of always adding and never taking away. We had worked together for Walt Disney on movies like Mulan, Lilo and Stitch, and Brother Bear, drawing cute little critters until our hands bled, and this had made us kin.

“But it’s not just cakes and pies,” I continued. “We’ve fought about pastries, too. And every cookie there ever was! She likes cookies. She likes to throw ‘em at me. She’s a good shot, too! I’m surprised she never pitched for the damned Yankees, with an arm like hers.” 

John was chewing his muffin. Which makes me laugh because it sounds so dirty. Chewing some muffin. Don’t worry though, it’s safe to chew your muffin in a cafe where one is surrounded by many chewable muffins for sale.

It’s when you’re chewing someone else’s muffin that the trouble sometimes starts.

“She could’ve pitched for the damned Yankees!” I repeated, then added with undisguised admiration, “You should see her hurl a custard-filled Napoleon!”

“Who?” asked John lazily, still chewing his muffin. “Your wife?”

“Sure, my wife!” I answered. “Who else? 

“It was in Paris. She’d been in this pastry shop on the rue Saint-Honoré for over an hour, while I stood outside waiting in the rain. You know how it can rain in Paris?

“Well, like a fool I had to go in and ask when she thought she might be finished so we could go get some lunch and wham! She let me have it! Right in the kisser!”

John looked up from his muffin. “She got you in the face?” he asked. “With a custard-filled Napoleon?”

“Not me!” I laughed. “The guy behind me! I’ve had plenty of experience, mate, and as she went into her windup I saw it coming and whoosh! I ducked down just in time! Haha! Luckily, it wasn’t a Parisian, but a German.”

“Who? The guy behind you?”

“No. The pastry! It was a strudel! She’d picked it up by mistake! She meant to grab a Mont Blanc!”

“What about Napoleon?” asked John.

“That wasn’t at Mont Blanc,” I answered. “He got his at Waterloo, didn’t he?”

“What about the guy behind you,” insisted John. “The guy who got it in the face?”

“Oh, him! He wasn’t from Mont Blanc either, but was a Dane.”

“You mean he was Danish?” asked John.

“No, no, no!” I replied, somewhat exasperated. 

“It was a strudel!”

Artistic Pride

   What is it with my family and horses?

   I might have mentioned my great uncle JB was hung for being a horse thief. That was in Texas back in 1927. He stole from a famous singing cowboy his equally famous horse.

   For some infamous barnyard fun. 

   We don’t speak of it round the Pliers family table. Not in the presence of the young ones anyway. 

   Then my dad, when he was little, fell off a horse and broke both of his arms. 

   I used to love it when he told that story, because he always looked so embarrassed when he told it. Like falling off a horse and breaking both your arms was a silly thing to do. I especially liked to hear how he had to let his mother (Dad was fatherless from an early age) help him go to the bathroom. 

   Ha! Ha! Boy, did that make a funny image in my mind!

   Like Uncle JB, Dad was from Texas, but I suppose unlike JB he wasn’t much of a cowboy. Or a horse lover. Not as a child anyway.

   Then we come to me. Ironically the first time I ever sat on a horse was at the home of a Disney animator. The ranch really, of John Lounsbery (master animator and one of Disney’s original nine old men). This was in the late 1950s. My father (whose name is John Ewing, for you history buffs) had just started working for Disney and Mr Lounsbery was his new boss.

   So our family was visiting his family, to get to know each other. 

   I couldn’t have been more than five or six years old.

   It was a picnic party. After a barbecue lunch I wandered from the picnic tables to where the horses were fenced. I stood and looked at the huge glistening animals shaking their heads and snorting in the sun. 

   They were so big!  

   As I stood there my dad came from behind and lifted me up and sat me down on one of them.

   I cried and cried!

   Dad thought it was funny and took my photograph while Mr Lounsbery stood by in case I should fall. I suppose he didn’t want me to break my arms like father like son. I remember he wore a real cowboy hat and the most beautiful cowboy boots, red and shiny in the fine California dust.

   (I’m sorry to say the photograph was lost during our move years later from California to New Zealand. I was fourteen then, and when I happened upon it quite by accident as we were packing to move… Well, let’s just say that no one has seen that photograph since. But I paid the price for my youthful vanity. My young conscience racked me for years about tearing up and throwing away that single stupid photograph!)

   I sat upon the horse crying. After I’d about cried myself out, my mother came and rescued me, saying to the men they ought to be ashamed making me cry like that. 

   She laughed as she scolded, like she always did.

   But it wasn’t the men that had made me cry.

   It was the horse.

   I had been terrified! 

   They laughed gently together, the men and my mother, so I knew I wasn’t in trouble for crying, which made me feel better so I stopped sniffling and calmed down, then my mother took me and sat me in the dust under a tree with some toy cars.

  

   

   It wasn’t until I started to draw that I began to appreciate horses. Drawing opens your eyes to the world around you and the beauties of nature at every turn. Later when becoming an animator I had to study horses and their amazing poetry of motion so that I might work with them in the movies.

   An animator must exercise close observation of his subject in order to analyze and later artfully reproduce its particular movements. 

   I mean mind-numbingly close observation! Not everyone can do it. You ever met an animator? If you have then you’ll know.

   We’re a special breed.

   Anyway, with my observation of horses came understanding. With understanding came appreciation. With appreciation came admiration. With admiration came love.

   As an artist I’ve learned that it helps your performance if you are in love with your subject.

   You should have seen all the stuff we had to learn about horses for our performance with Khan in Disney’s Mulan (1997). I say we because more than a dozen of us drew and animated Khan for the movie, under the supervision of the great Disney animator Alex Kupershmidt. 

   Khan was a watershed experience for me. It was my first chance to ‘lead’ a character, as we called it, in a Disney feature. That meant that I had more responsibility for my character than I had before, that I could take more ownership. Ha! Ha! That suited me! With other artists, designers and animators I helped bring Khan to life from the germ of an idea in the director’s mind about the Fa family’s old war horse to the final poster of Khan and Mulan that graced the theater marquee at the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles, where Mulan premiered with great fanfare.

   I attended that premiere. Walked the red carpet. Hobnobbed with the big shots.

   I felt like a god that night!

   After being in the business for twenty-five years and working at Disney for seven, my dream of being a Disney animation artist had finally come true!

   Hey world! That’s my work up there! Me! What do you think? I did that!

   (Me, and well over three hundred other talented, dedicated artists and technicians let’s not forget. I'm bigheaded, but not that bigheaded!) 

   About artist’s reference let me say this. The trick is to learn all you can inside and out about your subject right down to the fingernails… then forget the facts and animate it from the heart!

   We lived and worked with Khan for close to two years while making Mulan.

   It was made the old-fashioned way. 

   Drawn by hand, one frame at a time.

   There are sixteen frames per foot of film.

   There are ninety feet of film per minute.

   An animated feature film is eighty to one-hundred minutes long.

   Do the math and you’ll come to the same conclusion we did.   

   You don’t have to be crazy to be an animator, but it helps.

   

   It ain’t easy, as we used to say with a laugh before we worked all weekend to finish the scene.

   Drawing horses till our hands ached.  

   Mulan was released in June, 1997.

   I’m still very proud of Khan. 

   He is beautifully animated and exquisitely drawn.

   Hard to believe that was nearly twenty years ago.

   I guess it’s true that no one forgets their first great love.

Whine and Cheese

   Last week I met my friend Kathy at a Wine Bar on Orange Avenue. 

   I arrived early. After scanning the menu, which listed at least two-hundred different beers, I couldn’t decide and settled for a local brew, and some Spanish cheese with crackers to go with it. I couldn’t be bothered flirting with the young lady behind the bar. She was probably half my age, which to some men might sound good, but not to me and besides, three other guys were flirting with her already. They jabbered on about what successful, important days they’d had, and dropped hints about the foreign sports cars they drove. She smiled sweetly but seemed unimpressed.

   The beer I ordered was called, rather appropriately, Swamp Brew. Made from the finest Florida waters, bragged the label, and collected at the shores of Lake Okeechobee when the moon was full. Why during the full moon I couldn’t say, maybe the water tastes better then. It’s a very dangerous profession, by the way, collecting this water, because of the alligators and snakes that inhabit the lake. 

   That must explain the excessive price, I reckoned, danger money for the brewmasters.

   That might have explained the taste, too, alligator and snake poop in the water.

   I was reading my Kindle, chewing cheese and sipping beer. I like reading from a Kindle, no one can see what you’re reading. I like my privacy, especially about what I read. Don’t worry though, I wasn’t reading anything naughty. I was reading Aesop’s Fables.

“After all is said and done, more is said than done.” ― Aesop

   “Hi Rusty!” called Kathy as she entered. We’d been friends for many years, Kathy and I, both of us having worked for Walt Disney Feature Animation, animating gorillas and lions and horses and bears and Stitches. All of whom, when they wanted to, spoke perfect English, except Khan*, the horse from Mulan, who never said a thing. Then, after the Disney execs laid us all off and closed the Florida studio in 2004, we’d worked together for five years at Full Sail University, teaching animation to mostly disinterested young video game players.

   They thought animation was going to be easy. How wrong they were!

   Funny how life is. I’d been Kathy’s boss at Disney, she’d been my boss at Full Sail. 

   So remember; you artists out there! You’d better try to be nice to the people you meet as you make your way through life, because you don’t know when you might meet them again.

   “What’s new?” asked Kathy.

   I noticed the slight look of apprehension in her eyes. She was afraid I’d start on one of my favorite subjects, my impossible-to-finish book or my sometimes pugnacious marriage. She’d heard it all before, many times. Disregarding her apprehension, I pitched straight in.

   After all, what are friends for?

   “I’m fighting with the missus again,” I started.

   “Oh really?” she asked with more than a touch of boredom. “What about this time?”

   There were so many things we fought about, it was difficult to choose just one. I looked down at the table, where the Kindle and plate of cheese sat, and answered simply, “Crackers.”

   “Crackers?” 

   “Yeah,” I sighed. “Crackers.”

   Kathy poured herself a Swamp Brew. After tasting it, she made a sour face and said, “Go on, I’m listening.”

   “We’d been fighting like cats and dogs,” I began. “About what I can’t remember. I think it was the weather. Her smartphone app said it was going to rain, mine said it wasn’t.”

   Sometimes even our apps can’t agree, so what chance have I got?

  “Anyways,” I continued. “I was making a salad for my dinner and I needed a bowl. Well, the bowl I reached for contained small packets of crackers, like the ones you get with your soup at Denny’s, you know? So I spilled them out onto the counter top, intending to replace them when I’d finished with the bowl. I’m not that stupid!” I insisted. “I know enough not to mess with my wife’s stuff, even if it’s just crackers. 

   “She comes in and seeing the crackers, starts yelling at me not to touch them!”

   I took a sip of my beer as Kathy asked, “What happened next?”

   “‘Don’t touch those crackers!’ she ordered. ‘They’re for the meatloaf I’m going to make!’ And I said, ‘Fine, I’m not touching your crackers. I’m making a salad. Don’t worry, your meatloaf is safe!’ 

   “‘Yeah?’ she says, ‘Well, I’m not going to make the blasted meatloaf now! It’ll be a cold day in hell before you taste my meatloaf again!’

   “‘Okay,’ said I, ‘Then I won’t touch the crackers you won’t be using to not make the meatloaf!”

   Kathy excused herself and went to get a beer.

*Disney's Mulan 1998