Caricature/Cartoon – Bette Midler as Winifred “Winnie” Sanderson of Hocus Pocus, Brewing a Tea Party Potion

Dear Readers,

I’m honored to present the caricature of The Divine Miss M(idler) as Winifred ‘Winnie’ Sanderson of Hocus Pocus!

Caption in reference to her recent tweet (May 16, 2013) about the IRS Raid on the Tea Party office.

I chose to caricature Bette Midler’s Witch-avatar, because:

• It made my job easier
• It made the drawing more interesting
• She was the only reason I watched Hocus Pocus twice
• On 16th May, she tweeted: “The IRS overtaxing The Tea Party? I never thought I’d say this to the IRS – THANK YOU! THANK YOU FOR DENYING 501C-4 to any group who hates!” – And that my friends, is what led to the small print at the bottom of the image.

Most of you know who I am talking about, but for those who don’t know about this potpourri of talents, here’s a small intro.

Bette Midler is:
An American Actress, comedian, singer, and entrepreneur, and…she’s the master of all these trades!
She was born in 1945 and started her career on Broadway and moved into singing. Midler’s debut album released in 1972 was called The Divine Miss M, and it fetched her, her first Grammy.
Till in her mid-thirties, she hadn’t worked in a motion picture. Her first movie was “Rose“, for which she received a Golden Globe award.Her career details are mind-boggling and this caricaturist will like to excuse herself from the labor required to post them all here. If you are interested, please find Bette Midler’s biography and Career Details here.

My Favorite Bette Midler Movies:

1. Hocus Pocus
2. What Women Want
3. The Stepford Wives
4. Cats and Dogs – The Revenge of Kitty Galore (As the Voice of the Awfully Awesome Kitty Galore)

Some other Important Midler Movies (this obviously isn’t an exhaustive list – and as you may have noticed, I’ve not even mentioned her sitcoms and albums.)

1. The First Wives Club
2. The Rose
3. For the Boys
4. Divine Madness

More…

Bette Midler’s Website
Bette Midler’s Twitter Page 

Please join me in welcoming Oglers Inc.

Oglers Inc. is about 2000 words and Free - two good reasons for you to click the following icon and download it from SmashWords.

Click the image to Download Oglers Inc. in a format of your choice.

The caricatures in the book are done using color-pencils on Executive Bond paper – just in case, you wanted to know If you like the book, leave a rating/comment. If you are a guy AND, an ogler , reflect upon how important you are for the general well-being of woman-kind, and appreciate the fact that your efforts don’t go un-noticed

Writers often provide what they call, teasers of their books on their blogs. Their books, however, aren’t as tiny as mine – they run into tens of thousands of words – so a teaser ends up looking meaty and delicious. My book’s teaser would bear an underfed, emaciated sort of look…but I must do the writer thing the right way – and so here are six types of oglers…I hope they whet your appetite

1. The Curious Adolescent Ogler
2. The Exploring Young Ogler
3. The Recently Hitched/Married Surreptitious Ogler
4. The Satiated Disinterested Ogler
5. The Returning Middle-Age Crisis Experiencing Ogler
6. The Geriatric Wrinkle-protected Ogler

Interested?

Click here.

PS:

Ladies, I am banking on you!

Pencil Knight – An Addiction that doesn’t Kill…keeps the Caricaturist away.

The caricaturist was gone again.

She wasn’t thawing in a polar bear’s belly, nor was she whisked off to Atlantis; and no, she wasn’t invited by her double in the parallel dimension either.

She was with Pencil Knight.

I won’t say a lot more for the next 36 hours, but here’s a picture of the gentleman I am talking about.

That look in his eyes…oooooh…
That smile on his lips…mmmmm…ah!

Now the question.

In 36 hours you’ll know the right answer. (Hint: All the analytical reader has to do to arrive at the right answer is, find the clues hidden in this post)  In any event, I’ll be posting again…tomorrow

News! First Neanderthal baby cloned from the toe-bone of a Neanderthal! They will walk the Earth once again!

Governments and Research Establishments have been known to keep their discoveries under wraps.

• They’ve got aliens in glass-jars, God knows where, but they do.
• They’ve also got tiny dinosaurs skipping away merrily in some obscure national park, nobody knows which park, but they do.
• Now they’ve got cute little baby neanderthals in their labs, crawling on their cute rotund little tummies; nobody known where those labs are, but they do.

When I learned about this, I was shocked. Our dear planet earth is already groaning under the ever-growing population of humans. Do we really need the crop of para-humans on this earth? They weren’t smart enough, so we survived and they didn’t. But then smartness isn’t a measure of the resources one consumes. We may be able to keep them under control for a few centuries, but then they’ll start demanding equal rights. And then, we’ll have to look at their viewpoint too. Think about it. It’s time for the homo-sapiens to protest against the cloning of Neanderthals.

Let us protest.

Let us put up a Facebook page “Stop Cloning Neanderthals” and get a twitter handle “@keepthejobswithhomosapiens“!

Read the full story at the Washington Post site.

PS: Please don’t misunderstand me. I am not being rude to the Neanderthals.If they came as aliens from another planet, I’d welcome them with open arms. I’d even become their spokesperson and business liaison to help them engage in trade with Earthlings.

PS2: Remind me to take this post off my blog in another 15 years. By that time, the cute little Neanderthal babies would’ve grown up and they’ll consider this post “speciest” (biased against another species.)

Source of Inspiration:

“Scientists in Germany say that they have completed the genome sequence of a Neanderthal, and are making the entire sequence available to the scientific community for research.” Source: http://www.clevelandleader.com/node/20578

Caricature/Cartoon – John F. Kerry – The US Secretary of State shares a Happy Moment with Democrats and Republicans!

John F. Kerry recently became the 68th US Secretary of State.

Here’s my rendition of the event.

Nano-biography of John Kerry

The highlights of Kerry’s early life include the awards he earned during his short-service commission with the Navy, after which he joined Vietnam Veterans Against War and campaigned against the Vietnam War. Later he worked as an Assistant District Attorney too. His political journey began when he was sworn in as a US Senator in 1984.

More recently, Kerry became the US Secretary of State when Susan Rice had to face flak for her comments on the Benghazi incident. She was “forced” to withdraw from the race (now, she’s likely to become President Barack Obama‘s National Security Advisor.)

Some Interesting Facts about John Kerry

(Other than the fact that he was born in 1943, which makes him 70 now,)

• In the 2004 US Presidential Elections he was the Democratic Presidential nominee.
• Kerry’s father’s parents were jewish but then some time around 1900 they changed their surname to Kerry. Kerry’s great-uncle and -aunt died in the Nazi Concentration Camps.
• Kerry is tall (and slim – what must be his bending moment?) He’s a fan of the Beatles (I did sketch John Lennon once, you can see his caricature here,) and The Rolling Stones (Keith Richards here) He loves to cycle.
• He is married to Teresa Heinz (if you are reminded of ketchup, your gray cells are working fine,) who has a net worth of USD 750 Million. (In my next life, I’ll not let myself be flung on earth unless God promises me to make a wealthy heiress – however, so that you aren’t mistaken, Teresa Heinz “married” into the Heinz family – she wasn’t born with Heinz surname!)
• John Kerry is the Richie-Rich of US Politics.

I guess that’s all for now. I must return to drawing caricatures

Color Caricature/Cartoon – Sammy Hagar: The Red Rocker Rocking away.

Sammy Hagar‘s Caricature was the last. He was the last because I had to show him drunk. An artist often begins to feel what he or she portrays in her drawings, and I couldn’t have drawn the other two if I ended up feeling as drunk as I’d paint him to be. (Keep drawing 3 sad faces a day, and I assure you that in a couple of years the corners of your own lips would begin to droop, and you’ll acquire that forever sad kind of look. If you don’t believe me, you are welcome to give it a shot.)

The concept for this caricature was simple. Sammy’s autobiography didn’t sell too well so he could be shown sprawled (inebriated…of course,) near the cartons of his unsold autobiographies. I took the liberty of planking (or to be technically accurate, reverse-planking) him over the cartons…and added that stuff in the foreground. (My love for non-sensical details always manages to kick-in…sometimes just a minute before I am about to send the final image to the client.)

Here’s Mr. Sammy Hagar sprawled upon the cartons (I know that you can see his naval, but it’s “cute” and not “obscene” – so please don’t start.)

About Sammy Hagar:

Hagar also known as the Red Rocker was with Van Halen for a long time. He wrote his biography, “ Red: My Uncensored Life In Rock“, and unsuspectingly became the subject of this caricature for the American Spectator Magazine’s March 2013 Issue feature “Rock and Roll is (Mostly) Noise Pollution.” 

What I loved Painting?

The smile, the bottle, and the stomach. I must confess that I had forgotten to paint that cute little belly button and I added it just before I sent the image over.

The Colors?
As I said in the Keith Richards post, rock-stars come with an in-built supply of color-ideas. The Red Rocker wears red (well, mostly) and so all I had to do was off-set the red. I could do it with green or with blue. I didn’t want to use green because I had used it on Criss’s caricature, and as all the caricatures were going to accompany the same article, I wanted some variation. So I used blue Quite simple, really.

That’s all, friends. I’ll return with a John Kerry caricature (colored one…I hope) soon

Turning over a new leaf…Spring brings color to this blog :)

My dear valued visitor,

If you have been here before, you might be wondering whether you’ve arrived at the right address. I assure you that  you have. While I’ve made a few changes to its look, but underneath it’s still the same. Nothing has changed, except that I’ve tried to make it easier for you to find my caricatures (new ones are coming…) and that I’ve taken off a few other pages from the menu.

 

A Snapshot of the Changes…

“Cool Caricaturists” will return on the sidebar, “The Evolution of the Caricaturist” can be accessed from the sidebar even now, and a couple of other pages have been renamed. My eBooks (sadly only two so far) are primarily satire and so they find a place under “Satire“. “The Time Machine” page is no longer there on the top menu but it’s available through the side-bar (yep! the avuncular looking gentleman with those soda-cap glasses.) The Gallery remains open 24×7 – accessible from the top- and the side-bars.

I’ve also updated the “About” page. This page used to be about a paragraph long earlier, and it led some of my visitors to share the observation that I am pretty stingy about sharing who I am. That isn’t true anymore for almost every important bit about this crazy caricaturist can now be found on the page. If your curiosity is piqued enough, check it out !

I’ve made some really cool caricatures (Hey, don’t give me that look. Every artist thinks that every squiggly that he’s ever drawn is cool.) I’ll soon share them here. (Now you know why I’ve renovated the site – it’s to welcome those brand-new caricatures!)

Bye then…I’ll see you again and soon

The World Ends tomorrow and a Seat on the Ark is selling for Billions!

Updated: December 21, 2012 a.k.a. Doom’s Day a.k.a Mayan Apocalypse. Note: The threat still looms large. 21st has not even begun in the US, and we don’t really know anything about the time-zone that the Mayans had in mind, when they prophesied the end of the world.

I am updating this post because in the last 12 hours, this blog has been inundated with more than a hundred instances of the query, “What Time does the World end?” Honestly, my incredible omniscience fails to tell me the exact time and also the exact time zone for this once in the earth’s lifetime event. But when I switched on my computer this morning, I was driven to draw this guy, who really wants to know.

Will someone please tell us the exact time, so that we can stop waiting and start working?!

Oh, I forgot to mention. There’s a Doomsday Discount on the above cartoon. If you want to take it away with you for your blog, you are welcome to do so It’s free. The sale ends along with the world!

 

Folks,

If you’ve kept your eyes and ears open, you must know that the world is going to end tomorrow (December 21, 2012.) This key information comes from the Mayans, and so it has to be absolutely correct. What? You are questioning it? Are you crazy? The Mayans knew. How?! Don’t you know? Those guys were the original programmers of this world matrix, and they planned an auto-shutdown of the Universe program on the date in question.
We are really running short of time here, so let me skip ahead and talk about more important things.

You see, I’ve been frantically searching for any information on a Noah’s Ark-alike that leaves from my city. So far, I’ve found out nothing. I think people don’t want to share this information on the Internet, because only two humans from every city are allowed to board the ark. Sources who’ve requested anonymity say that only politicians will be allowed to board the ark, and that some seats in the hull are going for Millions of Dollars. I also hear that Paris Hilton, Lady Gaga, and Justin Bieber have already secured their passage into the new world by parting with almost all their riches.

So why isn’t the media reporting this corruption around the Ark-deal? Oh well! Those media guys are going to be stowaways. It’s rumored that these arks were built with secret compartments to ensure that the best of the best (read: the politicians, the paparazzi, and the stinking rich) will be able to escape the inevitable, either directly or indirectly.

If you have any information on this matter, please leave it here in a comment. I have a feeling that if you had such information, you must’ve already been brain-washed into believing that you’d have a seat on the ark, if you just remained silent; but my friend, they are playing with you. Mark my words, if the world ends tomorrow…billions of us would be standing together bidding farewell to our politicians and others of their kind.

Now, the second important question…

What’s the exact time at which the world is expected to end? Any information will be deeply appreciated and widely distributed.

Once in a while…this caricaturist too feels colorful…and Dogs do Rock!

I love black, and white, and gray. I like color, but only when I have to like it. If I were invisible to others, I’d wear black, and white, and gray. Here’s a bit of color for this colorless blog

Evolution of a Cartoonist – Post 3 – How to Draw Cartoons – Can YOU become a cartoonist?

As this post refers to content that’s covered in the two previous posts of this series, it is recommended that you begin by reading them in sequence:)

Read the two previous posts of Chapter 1:

1. Evolution of a Cartoonist – Post 1 – How to Draw Cartoons – Introduction, Working Definition, and Three Examples.
2. Evolution of a Cartoonist – Post 2 – How to Draw Cartoons – The Two Essential Dimensions of a Cartoon.

This post helps you answer the question – Can YOU become a cartoonist?

This question is contextual, and the context is that of your current abilities. Here’s a continuum that you must find your place on.

If you are like the guy at the right, you are worried about expressing your ideas in a visual form. However, if you can identify with the guy at the left, you can draw and illustrate but you worry about finding the right ideas.

The Stronger-half of a Cartoonist – The Conceptualizer

If you are an idea-generation machine but you feel constrained by you drawing abilities, you need to pick up some basic cartoon-drawing skills that can help you do “a relatively simplistic and sometimes exaggerated visual portrayal” of the many ideas that keep rushing in and out of your minds, so that you may capture them into an awesome cartoon. However, if you feel that you are Mr./Ms. Ideo (represented by the day-dreaming gentleman in figure 2 below) – and that no matter how you wield that pencil, you can do no better than create a squiggly, you may want to team-up with an artist, who can  create a picture that goes with your ideas…or perhaps, you could learn to create ultra-simplistic, Dilbert-Style cartoons that can speak your mind.

Mr./Ms. Ideo (The Conceptualizer in the following figure.) needs a visual medium of expression that can be used to capture those ideas that will grow wings and fly away, if they aren’t caught and trained.

The Fairer-half of a Cartoonist – The Illustrator

If you have placed yourself on the right side of this continuum, you must learn not only to generate ideas, but also train yourself on keeping them.  I’ve gone through the learning-to-generate-ideas phases, and I must tell you that it isn’t easy. However, if you are like Mr./Ms. Arto ( represented by the horrendously dressed, lip-smacking (!) gentleman in figure 3 below) you might find that you require considerable practice to ensure that you find your ideas and keep them too. Perhaps a helping hand from a friend who has a fertile mind, could help. Yet if you teamed up right, you could end up creating fantastic cartoons to delight your readers.

Mr./Ms. Arto (The Illustrator in the following figure) can draw, but he faces issues in finding the right ideas and visualizing them in a way that fits them into the cartooning mold.

End Note for Chapter 1

(This end note is for those bright individuals, who think that they aren’t cartoonists and so they mustn’t create cartoons – and who identify themselves better with Mr./Ms. Ideo, I must mention the Johari window here, which speaks of the “Unknown Room”. Perhaps a comic post on the Johari Window is due on this blog, but for the time-being, it should suffice you to know that the Unknown Quadrant of the Johari Window, now called the Unknown Room, refers to your traits and skills that nobody know anything about, but they exist.

My advice here is that because you nor anyone else knows that they exist, just assume that they do (with due apologies to Mr. Joseph Luft (Jo) and Mr. Harrington Ingham (Hari) this is how the twisty logic of this caricaturist interprets it.) Dear Reader, possibly one of these unknown skills within you is the skill of cartooning…and nobody, not even you is aware of its existence, so dig it out! Surprise yourself, and surprise the world. Oh…and if you want to take the Johari Window Test, click here.)

Cartoons have a mysterious power to reach into the hearts and minds of people, and shake them out of their stupor.  Before we move on to the apparently more practical matter of explaining what a cartoon is, I must mention the fact that sometimes the cartoons that change the face of the world, don’t come from the cartoonists. We’ll discuss the reason behind this anomaly later, but let me share an example to corroborate my viewpoint.

Benjamin Franklin, officially created the first American political cartoon in 1754, which depicted a snake severed into 8 parts with a caption “Join, or Die” to bring together the colonies – thus, sowing the idea of the United State of America, in the minds of the people.

Franklin is considered to be one of the founding father of the United States –  among other things, he was an author, politician, scientist (he invented the bifocals and the Franklin Stove,) and a musician. Did you read the term cartoonist anywhere?

Reflect upon it while I disappear to bring you the second chapter of this book “Evolution of a Cartoonist” or the fourth post in the series. I hope this book will sow the seeds of cartooning into your mind, and motivate you to express your ideas in this delightful visual format.

Read the two previous posts of Chapter 1:

1. Evolution of a Cartoonist – Post 1 – How to Draw Cartoons – Introduction, Working Definition, and Three Examples.
2. Evolution of a Cartoonist – Post 2 – How to Draw Cartoons – The Two Essential Dimensions of a Cartoon.

Wicked dogs don’t want to work, and a depressed pretzel watches as Nike Women just do it!

When the Caricaturist was stuck inside her computer for three long days and three long nights, she spent most of her waking hours interacting with her files and folders. While there were many files that had to be “exterminated”, there were some that were saved. One of these files had some funny Search terms that had brought people to my blog in the past six months.

Here are some that I thought I must share with my sweet readers. I’ve added my first reaction to the term along. You are welcome to share yours

Search Term 1: Caricatures of wicked dogs

Huh?! Wicked dogs?  Really? Wicked DOGs? WICKED dogs? I don’t know of any, and I’ve known more dogs than humans. Excuse my brutal honesty, but wicked is an adjective that applies exclusively to humans. So, dear searcher, I am not sure if you’ll ever succeed in your quest. Even if you are able to find a caricature of a so-called wicked dog, I assure you that the subject of that caricature never existed – and so, such a caricature would be a work of fiction.

Search Term 2: Don’t want to work cartoons

Now this searcher has my complete attention. “Don’t want to work” is the stable human state. You know about stable states, don’t you? “Want to work” is the exact opposite state of “Don’t want to work,” and unfortunately “Want to work” a highly unstable, extremely volatile state to be in. If a person stays in “Want to work” state for too long, he or she might become explosive. I hope that this searcher succeeds in his or her quest of truth.

Search Term 3: Justin Beaver

Yep! Justin “Beaver”. It’s so much more meaningful than that other surname that he uses…Bieber or something.
Beaver, according to this Wikipedia entry here is: “a primarily nocturnal, large, semi-aquatic rodent.” Makes a lot of sense, especially to the Crabby Old Farts. While I am not sure about the “large” and the “semi-aquatic” part, I’d accept “nocturnal” (as it applies to everyone connected with the music industry) and “rodent” (check out his hair!)

Search Term 4: Depressed Pretzel

An oxymoron. I can’t believe that a pretzel can actually be depressed. This search term doesn’t make sense to me – unless the searcher was in fact looking for my Toony Pretezel about Loneliness and Depression. Hey Presto! Here’s the said Pretzel!

Search Term 5: Nike women just do it!

I disagree. I think Nike women are a lot more discerning. They don’t just do it…they do it properly. But what would I know, I am an Adidas woman. Nike women are welcome to comment.

Search Term 6: How to draw someone holding a pencil in mouth

Easy! Draw someone and then draw a pencil in his mouth!

Search Term 7: Handsome Caricature

Hmm… Let me see. A handsome caricature…? I think I should point you to my Caricature Gallery. All my caricatures are handsome enough… at least they look handsome to me. It’s the same old reasoning that makes the Rhino-mom think that her baby rhino is the cutest kid in the universe…if you catch my drift.

Search Term 8: Brainy Kid Cartoon/Studious Girl Cartoon/Genius Caricature

Hah. You are looking for portraits…not cartoons or caricatures, my friend! Just get a photograph and you are done.

Search Term 9: Handsome Indian Men Naked

How many times do I have to tell you, my dear searcher o’mine blog? For Indian men, handsome and nakedness don’t go together! In fact, handsomeness and Indian-ness seldom goes together. We are some of the smartest people on planet Earth (and we are smart enough not to let people know that we are,) but we aren’t really “handsome” or “beautiful” – and we aren’t talking about the exceptions who prove the rule. (One exceptionally creative Italian lady would like to mention a few names here. She will try her best to discredit me, but then I ask her – has she seen those “handsome” India men naked? Ever?)

Search Term 10: Indian Nudes

Oh, c’mon! The only Indian artist who had the guts to have herself photographed naked and then paint some naked self-portraits was Amrita Shergill, and she couldn’t have done it if she were a commoner or even completely (and I mean it in the genetic sense,) Indian. Her mom was French, and Indians are quite forgiving of the lapses by semi-firangs (semi-foreigners.) And yet, something drove Amrita Shergill to commit suicide at the young age of 28.

 We have come a long way since then…my friend. Now we don’t even dare to think of doing “terrible” stuff like that. Stay safe, my friend, stay safe!

For some inexplicable reason, if you are interested in reading more SEO Humor (humor? Really?) posts, here are four other loony posts that I made in the past.

• Some More SEO Humor and… Who is Shafali the Caricaturist?
• Shafali Hitler shares Some More SEO Humor!
• Shafali’s Cartoon, A Football Rat, and Handsome Indian Men – Some Long Tail SEO Humor!
• A Depressed Woman Sketches a Cartoon Tongue Walking on Blood.

Caricatures/Cartoons of President Barack Obama – Mitt Romney’s Coming Soon.

Click here to view President Obama rejoicing upon winning his second term

It’s time for Americans to choose their new President.

I’ve followed the three Presidential and one Vice-Presidential Debates closely; I’ve seen the Aggressive Romney of the first debate turn somewhat docile over the past one month. I believe that Romney has the expertise to put the house in order. I am not sure of his foreign policy though. I’ve been thinking of creating a caricature of Romney for a very long time (truth be told, I already have a digital one ready, but that was created when I hadn’t watched Romney talk…at least I hadn’t seen him talk long enough to really understand how his features worked together to create various expressions.) Now, after all these debates, I feel that I need to make another caricature of his. I am working on it, I assure you.

In the meantime, let me show you all the Obama Caricatures that I’ve published on this blog in the past three years.

Obama Care – Cynically yours (2012)

Penalty or Tax? Whatever! (Published in The Suit Magazine – October 2012 Issue – Copyrighted Image – Contact me or use.)

The Debt Burden  (2011)

Illustrated for The Suit Magazine – Issue 43 (Copyrighted Image – Contact me for use.)

A Worried President Obama after being elected as President – (Early 2009)

(I know you can’t read the text – but I was just beginning )

What’s he thinking?

I will be back with Mitt Romney’s Caricature…soon Until then…stay happy!

Caricature/Cartoon of Robin Williams – Patch Adams, Peter Pan, and Mrs. Doubtfire…all come together!

“You’re only given a little spark of madness. You mustn’t lose it.” – Robin Williams

You know who Robin Williams is, and so you also know that Robin Williams is funny and intelligent. He can make you laugh and think at the same time. This isn’t something that you can learn to do, it’s an ability that you are either born with, or you aren’t. Robin Williams was born to do roles that make people feel happiness, joy, loneliness, sadness, anger, and curiosity; all at the same time. He is one of the most versatile actors in Hollywood.

This caricaturist is honored to present the caricature of Robin Williams.

Robin Williams Tiniest Biography on the Web

Robin Williams was born in the family of a Ford Motor Executive about 60 years ago, in 1951. Unlike many other Hollywood actors, he didn’t start acting until he grew up. In fact he had a perfectly normal childhood and…believe it or not…he even completed the four years of college!

He played the part of Mork (the alien from Ork) in the TV series Happy Days and later, Mork and Mindy, and this was his first acting assignment. One thing led to another, and Robin Williams moved through tv sitcoms and standup comedy into Hollywood. While he started working in films, in the late seventies, it wasn’t until 1987 that he did Good Morning Vietnam for which he won an Oscar Nomination, and through which he won this caricaturist’s respect.

Some Robin Williams Movies

1. Good Morning Vietnam 
2. Dead Poets Society
3. Awakenings
4. Hook (He’s absolutely lovable as a grownup Peter Pan:))
5. Aladdin (he’s the genie in this one…once again, a fantastic performance)
6. Mrs. Doubtfire
7. Good Will Hunting (A fantastic movie about channeling genius and you are bound to love Robin Williams in his role as an atypical psychologist)
8. Patch Adams (nothing needs to be said about this movie – right?)
9. What Dreams May Come (This movie won no acclaim – but its concept keeps you suspended between this world and the other.)
10. One Hour Photo (In absence of a clear storyline, I think I must’ve watched this movie only because of Robin Williams – yet I loved it, because of Williams’ acting prowess.)

Robin Williams, a Graphic Designer, and an Addiction

Well…well. This is the first time that I’ve read about one of our kinds getting up and close with a Hollywood celebrity. Robin William’s newest wife (the third one, the one who he married in 2011) is, trust me and more so trust Wikipedia, a Graphic Designer!

Another point to note is that he “had” a cocaine addiction in the eighties, then he was sober for about two decades, but he succumbed to it once again (in the mid 2000s.) While I can understand his addiction to a Graphic Designer (we are naturally interesting people,) I can’t understand why Robin Williams, with all his fame, wealth, and…wives, was addicted to cocaine?!

Before I end this post, I must tell you what he has to say about politicians (especially because I’ve been watching the Presidential debates that’ve recently begun to transform into duels.)

“Politics: “Poli” a Latin word meaning “many”; and “tics” meaning “bloodsucking creatures”. – Robin Williams”

Ouch!

If you too like Robin Williams, leave a comment…more later!

Caricature/Cartoon Keira Knightley, a Beautiful Scarecrow, and Two Beer-drinking Mice

Keira Knightley debuts on your favorite Caricature blog.

I know that we’ve been waiting for the lady to make an appearance here, for a very long time. I’ve been talking about her caricature for near about three months now. Whenever her appearance was announced here, there would be some last-minute change in her schedule, and we’d go back sulking. But then last-minute changes in schedule are the mark of a true diva…right?

I am glad to announce that I’ve finally found the evasive caricature of Ms. Keira Knightley, the lady whose inability to make her mind up almost cost Captain Jack Sparrow his life.

Presenting Ms. Knightley.

A Short Biography of Keira Knightley

(Thanks to the one and only Wikipedia.)

Keira Knightley was born in London, England, in a family of actors. Quite like many other actors and artists who make it big, Keira too was diagnosed with dyslexia. This obviously isn’t much of a handicap when you are an actor, perhaps this is why at the age of six when it was discovered that she was a dyslexic, she became an actor. She acted in many movies before she got the opportunity to work in Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace. Keira was 14 when she acted in this movie.

In 2001, at the age of 16, she got her first role as a grown up. This was in a movie called Princess of Thieves. She worked in a few other movies but it wasn’t until she acted in Bend it Like Beckham, that she got her big break, and people began to recognize her. Four years later, she played the character of Elizabeth Bennet in Pride and Prejudice, and establish herself as more than just a pretty face.

Other more interesting bytes about Keira:

• Keira has appeared in the FHM’s (For Him Magazine of UK) 100 sexiest women of the world (I am not linking to the magazine’s site for obvious reasons.) again and again, and she topped the list in 2006. (I know that most women will find it difficult to believe, but it’s impossible to figure out a man’s mind – isn’t it? And oh, I should also tell you that Rosie Huntington-Whiteley of the panties fame, topped the list for 2011. I can’t stop wondering how Jennifer Lopez (twice, 2000 and 2001) and these two could get to the same spot in the same magazine!! Perhaps, it’s a mark of changing times.)
• She says that she’s got no life outside of acting, which implies that her friends and family can never be sure whether they are talking to the actor or the character.
• She’s NOT an anorexic and she’s got nothing to do with girls who stop eating so that they may look emaciated and thus make it to FHM’s 100 sexiest women of the world, and die in the process.
• She is expected to marry singer James Righton, and the caricaturist hopes that they’ll beat the average marriage longevity among Hollywood couples.

Click for a list of Keira Knightley’s movies, along with the names of the characters she played in them,
So how much does Keira weigh and What’s her BMI?

Curiosity is such a b…well, a…lady dog. I checked it out myself and was shocked to learn that Keira’s BMI is 17.23!

A BMI of less than 18.5 means that you are underweight. This site has this advice for Keira:

“You should consult your physician to determine if you should gain weight, as low body mass can decrease your body’s immune system, which could lead to illness such as disappearance of periods (women), bone loss, malnutrition and other conditions. The lower your BMI the greater these risks become.”

Wow! If I were Keira, I’d act pronto. If you know her, stop telling her that she looks great and send her to the Doctor. That poor little rich girl needs help.

Caricature/Cartoon of the Teen Sensation Justin Bieber… and of his Hair!

I’d like to begin by apologizing for my long absence from blogging. While I could write unbelievable yet true stories about my being abducted to Atlantis or my journey into and out (no, not that way,) of a polar bear’s belly, but I have changed. I have transformed into a serious, good-for-nothing, dreamy-eyed artist, and so I must tell you the truth. I was busy, and I still am, but I was so ashamed of my tardiness that I decided it was time that I made this post about Just-in Bee-burr!

If you are below 18, you may try to scratch my eyes out for caricaturing your heart throb, the oh-so-cute Bee-burr, but the adults of this world, the ones who really count (in my opinion,) will appreciate my ability to recognize, and then remember this young boy with diamond earrings and…well, a thatch of golden hair that keeps changing its direction. You see, at my age, all kids begin to look-alike.

Here’s his caricature with his golden hackles up!

Don’t get me wrong. I love the boy. He’s neat and clean, and cute, and he’s even finished High School in order to please his mom (who’s quite young herself.) I’d say that his achievement of becoming a multi-millionaire at this tender age is dwarfed by these other important achievements. I mean, kids his age try their best to look as shabby as a porcupine that’s been out all night, and they compete to find the most effective method to make their parents unhappy. But Bee-burr isn’t like all other kids and moms would be mighty pleased to see their kids emulate him.

A Quick Bio of the Teen-Icon Justin Bieber

Just-in burst upon the American music scene when he was barely thirteen! Moms, tune in…this is how it happened. Justin’s mom made YouTube video of her son’s performance in a local singing competition. Now, there’s this particular African-American genre of music that originated in the 40s called Rhythm and Blues (lazily called R&B), and young Bieber sang in this genre. Now a gentleman called Mr. Scooter Braun discovered one of his videos and figured that the boy had talent, and so he found him out and then scooted him away to Atlanta. The rest is…as I’d say, recent history, and full of mind-boggling details too! So, if you’d like to boggle your mind, tap the mother lode of all information here.

Oh…I forgot to mention. He was born on March 01, 1994, in Canada, and his middle name is Drew.

Interesting Bites about Bee-burr!

• Bieber’s hairstyles have been as famous as he is. (In fact, I found an online game that gives you the opportunity to cut Justin Bieber’s hair. I don’t know if they have Bieber’s permission to play with his magical locks.) His first hairstyle made him look like he was going up at -g (Check out Alfred E. Neuman with a Justin Bieber Hairstyle here.) and then second makes him look like he is going down at g. I am sure that all this means nothing really, because his career continues to climb.
• Bieber doesn’t want US citizenship (if that slot is free, I’ll be happy to take it,) and he’s happy being a Canadian. (Come to think of it, if I were a Canadian, I’d be happy too. I mean a grand total of 35 Million people living on 9,985,000 km² would mean that only about three (two?)-and-a-half men (oops! Corrected – people,) live on a square kilometer. With that kind of space, nobody from the neighborhood would bother complaining about a young boy who practices singing at odd hours in the night.)
• Justin gifted a song to his mom.
• Justin is going steady with another singer Selena Gomez, two years his senior. Good boy. It’s time to tell the world that a woman can be a man’s senior and they could still share a great relationship.
• And for the Justin-crazy lot…if you aren’t already there (fat chance, I know,) here’s Bieber’s Facebook page, and here’s his Twitter handle (He had 26,872,932 followers when I checked his page and he gets a new one every second, so don’t blame me if the number has changed.)

Sinister-handed Lefties are the Smarter Lot – A Case for the Left-handers!

The Boon of Left-handedness

Left-handedness is a trait that makes you special. Among the right-handers, a left-hander is the center of everyone’s attention. Secretly, every right-handed person wishes for the boon of left-handedness, because it makes one special…in whichever way.

So, if you were born left-handed, rejoice. Because people around you envy the fact that to look different, all you need to do is be yourself. Those right-handers also envy you because you are smarter, more creative, and infinitely more interesting than them, but then this too is something that they’d never confess to you, ever.

The data-squirrels have sacks full of data suggesting that the lefties are:

• Smarter (They’ve got a disproportionately high incidence of lefties among Nobel Prize Winners, Writers, and Painters.)
• Better at sports (Many lefties are fantastic sports persons – perhaps because their left-handedness surprises their opponents.)
• Better Earners (Among the educated, lefties earn more than their right-handed counterparts.)

Yet, the left-handers of the world have been called names. They’ve been called sinister-handed, southpaw,  cack/cacky-handed (clumsy) Why? Because every damn thing ever made was made for the right-handed people, and the lefties appeared obviously “clumsy” when they used them. I wish there were a place where everything was made for the left-handed people, and then a few right-handed, “dexterous” people were let loose in it. I’d like to see how they continue to remain dexterous!

Nevertheless, the left-handed people do a good job with these right-handed instruments, because they have better visual sense and the ability to analyze space. I agree that it’s a freaking pain to cut fabric using the scissors manufactured for the “dexterous” majority (and, trust me, it’s a bigger pain trying to find a pair of scissors for the left-handed,) yet the lefties will give you a straighter cut than most of your right-ies.

Some of the lefties are ambidextrous, which means that they are able to use both their hands with equal efficacy (well, according to this link, ambidextrous also means – deceitful and bisexual – do you see how the right-ies try to bring us down at every available opportunity?) The ambidextrous appear magical to the normal, rightly-gifted lot…and magic is more often feared than revered. This makes the ambidextrous lot angry, but there isn’t much they can do about it. So they go into their shells to save themselves from those wide-eyed, crazy looks that they get, and they hide themselves from the world.

The fact that I can draw with both hands at the same time, the fact that I can write in reverse without ever practicing it, could’ve been a normal thing for me; but when I was in seventh grade and  stupid enough to demonstrate it in front of my friends, I lost them because their parents thought that I was a witch. And so I kept it hidden, but every once in a while when I get lost in an idea, I start using both my hands to draw it out. Yet the moment I catch myself in the unspeakable act of allowing my sinistrality (note that it isn’t even a proper word) to work together with my dexterity, I stop to look around and check whether anyone’s watching me. Wonder why people don’t give that funny look to themselves when they type with both hands, or when they swim using all their limbs.

I spent a long time worrying about hiding my weird writing and drawing habits, and now I’ve reached a point where I don’t care anymore, especially because these sinister abilities didn’t harm me in any way.

Here’s something for people who worry about their kids being left-handed/mirror-writers.

I survived and I survived well.

Without going into irrelevant details, here are some facts about this woman who masquerades as the caricaturist:

• I’m good at Math and Physics. I studied Engineering and then worked as an engineer.
• I successfully competed in many national entrance exams, and I even topped one of them.
• I can read, write, and speak two languages, and I can learn the script of any language almost overnight.
• I can draw better than many and I am not clumsy at all (but don’t put me behind the steering wheel or I’ll drive you right into the oncoming traffic).

Yet,

• I can’t understand or appreciate music at all, nor can I recognize voices beyond those of my family members. (I don’t really miss it.)
• I am left-handed, but I learned to write and eat with my right hand. (Not bad. Righties may try doing the opposite and see how easy it is.)
• I am less practical than about 90% of the human race. (That’s what makes me an artist )
• I am straight. (not a great loss, I think. Read this.)

Do you see?
If you are a lefty or a parent of a lefty, there’s no reason for you to worry. You (or your child) are gifted.

Before I end this post, here’s a quote that I read on a t-shirt (and so I don’t know who wrote it, but whoever did – thanks. I also found a link with many more quotes about left-handedness and added it here.)
“”Everyone is born right-handed…but only the greatest overcome it.“

and yes, there’s a World Left-Hander Day. It’s August 13th (and no, it’s not a Friday.)

Caricature/Cartoon Tom Cruise – The Caricaturist undertakes Mission Impossible to play the Matchmaker!

With Katie Holmes leaving Tom Cruise, we’ll once again have a 50-year old eligible bachelor looking for a wife who’d stick to him no matter what.

The caricaturist has found the right bride for Tom Cruise – one who’d never leave him especially because he wants to follow his religion. She won’t be mad because he’d want their kids to follow Scientology.

Tom Cruise, the Hollywood actor who has successfully completed four Impossible Missions has recently been handed the divorce papers by his most recent wife’s attorney. Tom’s been trying very hard to stay married. His first marriage to Mimi Rogers who was 7 years his senior, lasted about two years. He then married the nose of Hollywood, Nicole Kidman, stayed married for 10 long years, then they got separated in 2001. In 2006 he married Katie Holmes, who’s now asking for a divorce.

The reason that Katie’s lawyer wants to cite as grounds for divorce, drove me to draw this caricature. Believe it or not, Katie wants a divorce because Tom Cruise is a very religious man, and he wants to instil the same neat values in their daughter Suri. He wants Katie to join the Church of Scientology so that she may grow up to become a hardcore scientologist. Shame on you, Katie! In this crazy world of today, you are a lucky woman to have found a religious thetan-fearing husband. Well, Holmes doesn’t want her daughter to grow up with the right scientological values.On the other hand, Tom Cruise, a strict follower of his religion, is unable to come to terms with the fact that most people in this world don’t even consider his religion a proper religion. He’s constantly trying to communicate with his thetans!

Tom Cruise’s Problem – A Serious Analysis

Ron Hubbard, the pulp fiction writer who started the Scientology religion, says that millions of years ago, a guy called Xenu (who perhaps was the President of a Galactic federation made of many planets) faced the same problem that humans are facing today – the problem of overpopulation. He decided that the best way to get rid of the extra people was to blow them up and send their spirits to earth. These alien spirits are called Thetans and they are responsible for all human miseries, including the ones that Tom is currently experiencing. I am sure that Tom has done everything in his capacity to ensure that his Thetans don’t bother him, yet…he’s not tried the one thing that could bring happiness and peace to everyone.

Tom must marry an alien from the same Galactic Federation. His Thetans will then develop the right sort of connection with the bride’s Thetan, and all Thetans will then live happily ever after!

BTW, it was Mimi Rogers, his least permanent wife, who had introduced Tom to Scientology. She however decided that Scientology wasn’t her cup of tea and stopped following it. Smart girl.

Caricature/Cartoon Angela Merkel and Francois Hollande – Euro-zone Crisis Agreement – Will it douse the fire?

German Chancellor Angela Merkel and the sparkling new French President Francois Hollande recently made big news by reaching an agreement that is expected to rejuvenate the economies of the region, especially those of Italy and Spain. Yet, whether the €120 billion growth pact will indeed bring about the momentum needed to pull the Euro-zone out of crisis, is a moot point. In fact, not many are willing to believe that this would work.

Here’s my take on the “monstrous” Euro-zone Crisis and the two leaders on whose shoulders rests the responsibility of reviving the Euro-zone’s finances.

When Francois Hollande flew to Berlin, to meet Angela Merkel, the world watched it with a lot of interest. The reason was simple. The chemistry between Angela Merkel and Hollande’s predecessor Nicolas Sarkozy was fantastic. Perhaps it was because Sarkozy’s personality is Merkel’s opposite. Sarkozy’s quick wit and humor would make Merkel smile, and they appeared to enjoy each other’s company. However, when Sarkozy lost the Presidential crown to Mr. Hollande earlier this year, this happy political relationship came to an abrupt end.

Merkel’s first meeting with Hollande was dubbed drab by the media. Hollande and Merkel didn’t warm up to each other, the way people had hoped they would. So, when the time came for Merkel to visit Hollande in Paris, everyone was even more worried than before. When they met, however, they shared their thoughts and talked about Growth vs. Austerity.

The recently concluded Brussels Summit apparently brought some good news for the Euro-zone but after the initial euphoria has died down, we can now hear the experts say that the package is good, but not good enough.  What may be good enough for rest of the Europe, however, isn’t good enough for Merkel as Germans won’t be happy footing a bill that’s not theirs, and the unhappiness of Germans can jettison Merkel out of the Chancellor’s chair in the 2013 Bundestag elections.

If you are interested in a metaphorical story that explains the genesis of the Euro zone crisis, read “The Euro-Zone Crisis.“

Obamacare Law Upheld – America’s March towards Darkness Begins – Caricature & Cartoon of President Barack Obama.

Click here to view President Obama rejoicing upon winning his second term  (Posted on: November 09, 2012.)

Thursday, June 28, 2012 was an important day in the History of the USA. On this day, America took a giant step towards assassinating free will.

This, of course, is the opinion of a caricaturist. Caricaturists are infamous for exaggerating stuff, but in this case, I think I am reporting it exactly the way I see it. It’s Mr. Obama’s way of gaining political mileage by ensuring that about 30 Million votes come his way.

Penalty or Tax? Whatever!

About the Health Care Law and its Long-Term Ramifications:

The US Health Care Law a.k.a. the Obamacare Law has been upheld by the American Supreme court with a majority of 5:4! 5:4? Yes. The bill that passed the house with a 219:214 majority and which was voted down not just by all Republicans but also by 34 democrats. If it’s a panacea of all medical evils, then why almost half of these intellectuals voted against it? Who is to say, which half is the smarter lot?

I’ll leave that discussion to those who know more about law than I do. I’ll just sit here and wonder, why does Mr. Barack Obama think that this is going to really help America and the American people? While I am still to read a convincing argument how it’s one of the smartest things ever done, here’s why I think it’s one of the dumbest.

If I work hard to earn what I do, I’d like to decide what “charity” I’d like to give my money to. You can’t hold a gun to my temple and expect me to put my money into charity, and then feel good about it too. Fine, fine. You say it’s not charity. You say, I “might” end up using some of it too. Right. But I might not. I think that I should be able to decide whether or not I want to even use a hospital at all.

I see “red” when I read or hear about the Health Care bill. It smacks of communism. I see the beacon of freedom fading. I see America marching towards a future that will make people question the value of hard work and merit.

In fact, I do see some people dancing about and making merry now that the healthcare bill’s got the Supreme Court’s nod. These are the medical practitioners, the Insurance companies, and of course, those who wanted health insurance but couldn’t pay for it. Those who couldn’t pay for it, would’ve earlier tried to work to pay for it, but I hear about subsidies being given to them now (so, the young who don’t need insurance – except in the rare instance of their being in an accident, and the rich who don’t want insurance, or even the upper-middle-class who’d earlier rather fly to a cheaper medical treatment destination instead of paying the premiums, will all now pay for the 30 Million or so uninsured among which you’d have the children of the illegal immigrants too. Great idea!)

Earlier Obama’s team vehemently denied the “fact” that they accepted in the court, which was that the penalty would be a sort of tax. So in principle, US has accepted that it’s fine to impose additional tax on those who work hard to earn an honest living, because they didn’t want to buy “insurance” that they believed they didn’t need, to help provide insurance for those who wanted to buy insurance but didn’t or couldn’t work to earn it. It makes me believe that Ayn Rand had predicted this a long time ago, when she had written Atlas Shrugged. Mr. Obama has opened a Pandora’s box that will continue to spew newer schemes to make it shameful to work hard. The healthcare bill may well be a soft beginning with a delicate touch. Anyone who stands up against it would be called heartless and inhuman, and suffering will be sold in the garb of equality and affordability.

There might be a time, not in a very distant future, when Americans will look at one-another with suspicion. Distrust will grow, as will Xenophobia. The seeds have been sowed already. And while it’s been presented as an innocuous, do-good policy, yet in the years to come it’s going to spawn many more of its kind. In time, with repeated exposure to the evil of Need over Merit, Americans will lose their edge, which comes from their individualism. They’d become a collective whole – the good never aiming at greatness, and the bad never needing to leave their badness. Unless, of course, the other half that voted against it, stands up against it. Unfortunately, populist measures aren’t easy to rollback, so whatever Mr. Romney may be saying now, he might find it really difficult to actually uproot it completely.

It’s funny that I should feel so strongly about it. In my country, health insurance is a personal choice, and for more than 90 percent of its population, it doesn’t exist. I think it would be safe to assume that a large majority of the population doesn’t even know what health insurance is. Whether you get medical attention or not is determined by whether or not you or the ones who love you have earned it or not. For instance, if something really terrible happens to me, I’ll die swift and quick, because I really didn’t earn my right to health care by being able to buy a policy. What’s so wrong with it? It’s completely moral. Anytime when death comes visiting, I’ll die happy, knowing that I lived a life that I wanted to live. I understand how it’s hard on people who care about you, but it’s just one of those things that we accept and it doesn’t make a ton of difference to the population in general.

I think I am concerned because for me the US has been a lighthouse in the darkness of a world that I don’t understand. I’ve always understood the value-system of America. I’ve admired the freedom that the country gives to every individual so that he may write his own destiny. This is the freedom that leads to other freedoms – the freedom of speech, of doing business, of making money, of keeping money, and to help others make money. It’s this freedom that has made America the greatest nation in this world. What America does, others emulate, yet this once, I find myself hoping that others don’t follow suit.

But as I said earlier, this is the opinion of a caricaturist – and caricaturists exaggerate. Go home, sleep well, and forget all about it.

Caricature/Cartoon – Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook’s IPO – Why Should he be the One?

It’s easy to awe this caricaturist. You just need to be a Leonardo Da Vinci, an Albert Einstein, a Steve Jobs, or a Mark Zuckerberg.

Presenting Mark Zuckerberg, the coder who decoded our lives by creating Facebook and in the process became one of the most talked about people in the world of business.

Caricature – Cartoon of Mark Zuckerberg, the Initial Investors, and the Facebook IPO (Actual Size: 8.5 inches x 11 inches) Copyrighted Image – Please don’t use without permission.

Mark Zuckerberg’s Biography (based on information “leaked/sold” by Facebook?)

When Mark was born on May 14, 1984, people around the world saw their walls disappear. They suddenly found themselves sharing their most private moments with the world. Though this phenomenon lasted only a few seconds, many thought that it foretold the future of Mark Zuckerberg and the world. Accordingly to my sources, Zuckerberg’s childhood was uneventful except for the sudden flashes of brilliance that he let escape. When he was little (well, he still is – perhaps, when he was littler,) his dad engaged a computer tutor for him. The tutor tells us the Little Mark was a child-prodigy (note – he has superior mathematical, logical, and linguistic intelligences.) Little Mark loved to make computer games and applications.

Around 2001, Mark built the Artificially intelligent Synapse Media player that could figure out the listener’s musical preferences. As it usually happens in cases such as these – the biggies came treasure-hunting. Both Microsoft and AOL tried buying it from the kid – but the kid said “NO!” Now that’s another thing that I like in this guy – his ability to say NO to something that looks so obviously appetizing. It requires significant willpower…no?

Anyway, in 2002, Mark joined Harvard. Here he made a couple of other networking applications including Facemesh in which students could choose the hotter male/female from two pictures (according to the movie, The Social Network, he did this to spite his girlfriend who had fallen out with) – this met with some disapproval, perhaps from those who were voted down in the hotness race. Undaunted, Mark went on to create Facebook, which was launched Feb 4, 2004. The rest, of course, is history.

Mark’s Personal Life:

Mark lives in Palo Alto, California – with his girlfriend Priscilla Chan and his dog-friend Beast (beast? He looks like a soft-toy!). Mark’s New Year resolution for 2012 is that he’s going to code every day of the year. Now that resolution makes the caricaturist rather sentimental. I really admire programmers! (not the code-lifters – so if you’ve been lifting code from the web or from the books, and you call yourself a coder, don’t start sending me love-notes and flowers. Also note that I’ve had my share of those goodies about half-a-century ago – so scat!)

The Social Network – The Movie

I think that the essence of what I feel about Zuckerberg (and also about Steve Jobs) is:
“You don’t get to 500 Million Friends without making a Few Enemies.”

While the movie (with Jesse Eisenberg playing Zuckerberg) has colored people’s perception of Zuckerberg and Facebook, the movie may have painted a picture of Zuckerberg far more colorful (and dirty?) than he actually is. According to Mark Zuckerberg, “this is my life, so I know it’s not so dramatic.”

About Facebook’s IPO

When you read this post, the Facebook IPO for the retail investor must either be a few hours away or it must’ve already hit the stock market. Facebook’s Initial Public Offering was priced at USD 38.00 a share (the price at which it was offered to the institutional buyers) and it is expected to raise 16 Billion! It is expected that the Facebook share may debut on the stock market at a much higher price. While there’s a flurry of expectation in the market, everything mightn’t be going right for Facebook. The fact that General Motors has decided to pull its advertisements out of Facebook is being touted about and some say that this may spark off a trend, which obviously could result in Facebook’s revenues going downhill. However, I think that Facebook must have some plans of using the cash it’d generate from the IPO, and with Mark back at the keyboard (I know, I know – whether he’d be a good CEO of such a big company is something that’s being debated), we may see some new stuff coming out of the Facebook menagerie.

Facebook Privacy Concerns

There have been concerns that Facebook sells the personal information of its users to advertisers and companies (and perhaps, even to the government.) When Mark was 19, he sent an email in which he bragged about how he could share the information of thousands of students, if he chose to do so. And then other emails have been leaked too – some more recently. Surprisingly, we have come to know about a lot of bad-stuff only after the IPO was announced. The point to note here is that despite such concerns we aren’t able to wean ourselves away from Facebook…why? Are we zombies?

Warning: You are perilously close to reading explosive stuff. Read further only if can handle your emotions and promise that you won’t break my blog, in a fit of misdirected rage.

The Caricaturist’s Personal Opinion on Zuckerberg and Facebook!

The caricaturist thinks that:

1. being a genius doesn’t make you a robot and that only robots can be perfect (if at all.) Ego, greed, and genius, they are all human traits – and to expect that one who built a multi-Billion dollar company will be immune to these foibles only because he built a multi-Billion dollar company, is sheer stupidity.
2. there’s no free lunch. Only fools would expect an organization to provide us “social networking” for free. If we want to post our most personal thoughts and experiences to social-networking sites, we are the ones who are delusional. What does a site like Facebook has, that it can sell? It can sell focused advertisements – and how can the companies focus the ads on us? By knowing about us. Google does it all the time – except that makes those connections on its own. LinkedIn openly sells our details. What’s wrong with Facebook doing it? Nothing. Except that some dis-satisfied soul who either couldn’t convince MZ to part with his F/B stock, or whose mom perchance wasn’t greeted by MZ, decided to set a spark, which was blown up into a blazing fire by the media.
3. there’s nothing wrong with Zuckerberg. We’ve got a child prodigy here, who did such stuff at 22 that we couldn’t at 44 or at 66! Let us face it – we hate prodigies unless they are ours, or we ourselves are one of them. Even if we were prodigies ourselves, we hate the successful prodigies because they had opportunities that we didn’t. So when we look at Mark Z, we exclaim, “Hey, he may be brilliant, but he’s a shallow human being,” “He’s selling our information, he’s making money using our information,” or as one of the CNN anchors put it, “he’s selling you, he’s selling me, he’s selling our information.” And yet, we are same people who are responsible for all this action and…if at all…the over-pricing of the Facebook stock.