"You Can Make It With Plato"

If you’re a child of the seventies, you can already hear the commercial jingle in your head, and no, that isn’t a typo, I misspelled the word intentionally. See the above cartoon for the reason. Of course, your “commercial jingle” hard drive might be overwritten by the theme from S.W.A.T. or is bleeds into the Coca Cola song about “teaching the world to sing in perfect harmony.” And if you’re a child of a different decade, it might be that theme from Farmer’s Insurance, or the scatting of the McDonald’s theme song.

Concerning the above cartoon, I thought for sure this joke would have been done in exactly the same way because to me it was obvious. Plato/Playdoh™: That pun has been rattling around in my mind for years now, and for some reason it just oozed out this past week. Maybe this means I can finally replace this useless information with something constructive and valuable.

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There is a cartoonist’s state of mind, and my sketch pads are remarkably bereft of many ideas. I wish I had more to be honest, so when I get one, I write it down. At least if I remember to write it down, but as a friend from college often reminded me in the realm of ideas “Your distraction is your destruction."

I think many of us have these free associations going on in our mind. I play the game all the time with song titles. “Angel flying too close to the ground” There has to be a “demon flying too close to the sun, right?” If you sing half of 99 red balloons is it 48.5 red balloons? If there is a band called “They Might Be Giants” isn’t there another one called “I Might Be David?” Perfect Karaoke song to sing after “I Who Have Nothing” by Tom Jones is “Something” by the Beatles, right?

One thing this time we live in right now is that laughter is important, probably more vital than it has even been. I for one need to constantly remind myself of the absurdity of it all, including the absurdity of myself.

The moment I take myself too seriously is that moment that I have failed. So if you have some free association gestalt going on, no matter how silly, maybe take a moment to write it down. If you want, send a couple my way so I can check it out, and maybe laugh a little at some of the absurdity that life has to offer.

What song lyric, commercial jingle, or rhyme has taken a left turn into the absurd in your mind?