EDISON, THE JACKASS

I recently suffered from a droopy fluorescent bulb in my art lamp. Being a cartoonist, this was a practical problem, of course, but I also found it embarrassing.

I never thought of “cartoonist” as a very manly job title in the first place (unlike “inventor,” for instance), and this only made it worse.

I don’t get a lot of female visitors to my art studio, for some reason, but if I did, well, you know the world-famous expression (and so do they): “Droopy bulb, droopy penis.”

It wasn't the kind of thing I felt comfortable talking about with anybody. And anyway, who would I talk to? An electrician? A doctor? A hooker? A priest? Hell, they all charge a lot of dough.

Then, while looking at the lamp last night I had what Einstein (and only Einstein) liked to call an "Einstein moment." (Tesla liked to call it a "Tesla moment.") The solution popped into my head fully formed, and I reached for a large binder clip and attached it to the lamp, all in the space of 10 seconds. It was as if I had channeled Hedy Lamarr!

My bulb was rigid* and straight as a rod. My fluorescence had regained its tumescence!

Now I can once again draw a guy in a bar, a guy on a desert island, a guy on a psychiatrist’s couch, and a fish evolving into a guy.

Move over, Spencer Tracy ("Edison, The Man"), Mickey Rooney ("Young Tom Edison”), and Sam Joshi (the mayor of Edison, New Jersey).

*For rigid bulbs lasting more than four hours, consult an electrician.