For all the emotional confusion and practical changes she’s been forced to go through, though, one thing has been crystal clear for some time: Evelyn likes life in the Berkshires more than she ever liked life in Florida. West Palm Beach air, she says, is murder on her arthritis.

So she’s staying with Eddie and Lulu and me for now.

Never one to mooch, however, she insists on chipping in on whatever tasks we toss her way. For example, as the photo above shows, helping to stuff envelopes for one of Eddie’s projects has put her in a great mood this evening.

And yesterday she helped me fold copies of the North County Perp in preparation for my little ‘zine’s big launch party tomorrow.

Speaking of which, here’s a link to reporter Jennifer Huberdeau’s article about my Perp project that ran in today’s North Adams Transcript.

Click the image above for party details.

The North County Perp is a small-scale, low-rent, shoestring ‘zine that I seem to have propelled into existence by sheer force of will and a willingness to spend my own money printing it even though I’m giving copies away for free.

This kind of thing is why no one ever makes the mistake of calling me a good businessman!

It all started several years ago, back when Eddie and I were North Adams newbies, when I noticed (a) that none of the locally published newspapers had any discernible interest in publishing locally drawn cartoons; and (b) that there weren’t even that many places around here that were looking to publish written humor, satire, or essays that risked stepping on toes.

It’s not that nobody in these parts is funny. Seth Brown, a friend of mine, writes cool humor columns regularly for the North Adams Transcript. Bill Shein, who doesn’t know me from Adam, spoons up nice helpings of wit in the op-ed columns he contributes twice a week to the Berkshire Eagle.

But even Seth, despite his own foothold in the local media, agreed with the bitching and moaning I threw at him during our conversation at a Williamstown party a couple of years ago when we had just met. Venues for folks like us are rare around here, he ruefully allowed. But on the whole, guys like Seth are exceptions in these parts. That seriousness has the upper hand among Berkshire commentators is undeniable. Seriousness plus a disorienting degree of courtesy.

Courtesy: bane of satirists everywhere! New Englanders don’t like to hurt each other’s feelings even if, in their hearts, they think they are surrounded by idiots. It ain’t like it was back in New York City; sharp elbows in the rib are not appreciated among small town folks who cross paths with each other regularly. I might as well be back in the rural South again!

Or maybe a shortage of humor isn’t the core problem. I’m not all that funny myself; in fact, I can be a major depressive if my supply of Zoloft runs out. There’s a shortage of quirkiness, whether couched in sobriety or glee. Weirdness is out. (I’m not talking about people in the real world, understand; there’s plenty of refreshing weirdness there. I’m talking about a shortage of weirdness in the words and pictures that get applied to paper.)

I’m not typical, I admit. If I ruled the world every city would have at least one old-fashioned underground newspaper that celebrated sex, drugs, and rock ‘n roll. But then, I’m a traditionalist.

Anyway, you’d have to be totally off your beam to think that a genuinely underground newspaper of the San Francisco Oracle or East Village Other sort could possibly take root here in the Berkshire mountains this century. Hell, you can’t even find eyeball-candy rags like that in ‘Frisco or the Big Apple anymore. But it did feel like one segment of the creative people in the north county were being unfairly deprived of a place where they could be at least a little out of the ordinary in print.

So last year I decided to see if I could make something happen myself. My role model wasn’t the Oracle, actually, but rather the cheap little photocopied handout some friends and I put out while we were at Birmingham-Southern College in 1967. Nothing momentous; just something to jack up the energy level of a sleepy campus and allow us student smartasses to let off steam. We called our college "underground" paper Granny Takes a Trip.

(Sound familiar? Back in April of 2006 I wrote a blog entry about one of the pieces I wrote for it.)

But back to the present: I decided to name my new venture the North County Perp, subtitled: "Perpetrators of irreverent art and commentary for Berkshire County and the world." To get the ball rolling, I put a stack of fliers on the counter of a North Adams bookstore and asked a local writers’ group to distribute copies to its members. Hoping word would spread, I waited to see if interest would be generated.

Lo and behold, some submissions did materialize and the Perp was soon taking form—only to get temporarily derailed by Mark the Art Guy, the 14-episode commercial webcomic gig that was unexpectedly commissioned by Adobe Systems Inc. just as the Perp was beginning to take flight. As a non-income-producing indulgence in publishing hobbyism, the Perp of necessity conceded the field to Mark, which consumed most of my waking hours during much of the last year. Thanks to Mark the Art Guy and some other welcome freelance assignments that have showed up unexpectedly, it’s been life-on-the-back-burner time for my little gaggle of art perpetrators.

Fortunately, the Perp has been blessed by a set of preternaturally patient contributors who have waited out the long lull uncomplainingly. Along the way, some additional local writers and cartoonists have added their work to the mix. And now, with my Adobe work completed, the Perp’s early momentum has been restored. The printing is done and preparations for the aforementioned launch party are underway.

Come if you can.

Unfortunately, Eddie’s dad Harold ("Hesh" to his family and most friends) died last Saturday while we were there, under the exemplary, compassionate care of the staff at Hospice of Palm Beach County. His family was at the bedside as he left. The funeral was on Monday.

You could name a whole range of afflictions that had ganged up to make the man miserable during his final few months (though his reliable stoicism never failed him during the siege), but the basic cause of death was this: After nearly 98 years on this planet, Hesh’s body decided that enough was enough.

Below left: Hesh with Eddie in 1979, shortly after Eddie and I began our relationship. Below right: Hesh with Evelyn, his wife of 71 years, enjoying the cake commemorating his 95th birthday in 2004. The two of them were in North Adams at the time attending Eddie’s and my wedding.

Hesh, Ev and I had spent an evening getting to know each other and, as Eddie and I approached the door to leave, I made a jocular reference to our differing religious heritages.

"You’re a good person," Hesh told me. "That’s what counts."

Blogging will resume when feasible.

Well, I’m happy to report that the heavy lifting has already been done by the industrious worker bees of the Library Patrons of Texas Inc., a non-profit agency dedicated to keeping their fellow citizens apprised of what’s on the library shelves of Montgomery County, Texas.

The results of the LPT’s research on my book can be found online here.

Alright, that might be going overboard. I myself opted for an understated fig leaf in my own rendition of the very same panel, seen below as it appears in a special revised edition of SRB that I’ve whipped up expressly for residents of Montgomery County.

Below: A second excerpt from Stuck Rubber Baby: The Montgomery County Edition, available soon at Christian bookstores everywhere.

I’m sure that local gay people, sexually comfortable heterosexuals, and fans of literature that questions the received wisdom of majority culture were among those polled by the LPT to determine exactly what the community standards and values being applied might be.

And the powerful Fig-Leaf Lobby must surely have been consulted as well.

That was my first time to set foot on French soil.

And my first time to meet French comics fans.

And my first opportunity to mingle with my French comics- creating counterparts (all of whose drawing skills put mine embarrassingly to shame).

And also, uh, my first time to stumblingly place an order for French Egg McMuffins at a McDonald’s not far from my hotel, using what’s left of my high school French while hoping none of my culinarily cultivated convention hosts would spot me doing so.

It’s always easy for me to remember which year I made this trip, since George W. Bush was busy starting a war while my plane was over the Atlantic. Once I had settled into my hotel in Bordeaux, CNN International provided me with stimulating views of tanks barreling through sandstorms as preparations were being made to visit shock and awe on the citizens of Baghdad.

A welcome postscript to my introduction to les choses français occurred a couple of weeks ago, when Laurent paid a visit to the Cruse-Sedarbaum homestead here in North Adams. Laurent arrived with his girlfriend Lawrence in tow, as well as their friends Yan and Hélène, a charming couple who have only recently relocated from Bordeaux to Quebec.

The four of them stayed overnight with Eddie and me before proceeding to New York City. Laurent had never visited America before, and hence this would be his first exposure to the Big Apple. We recommended the street vendors’ soft pretzels, of course, and I made sure he knew to visit my favorite Manhattan comic store, Jim Hanley’s Universe. We also provided the traditional suggestion that everyone keep their wallets in their front pockets while making their way through dense crowds.

"The city is really magic," Laurent wrote to tell me once the gang had returned to Yan and Helene’s Ottawa digs. "We were amazed at every street corner."

Snapshots taken during Laurent’s North American vacation are now on view in his blog. Seeing New York through Laurent’s eyes reminds me why I’m grateful to have experienced life in that city for as many years as I did.

Which is not to suggest that Eddie and I aren’t thoroughly pleased to be living in rural Massachusetts now.