Author of MOSES AND THE DOCTOR (USA Today bestseller) and OUR TEAM (on Larry Doby, Satchel Paige, Bob Feller) Contact: lepplin@gmail.com
Jersey
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Now that "Moses and the Doctor" is available everywhere books are sold, here's how you can get a signed copy: Order through Astoria Bookshop (link below), or send me a request for a signed bookplate (my email is in my bio). I'll mail you one free. It's that simple.
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Thinking again about "Fast Car" and how the lines "I know things'll get better / You'll find work and I'll get promoted / And we'll move out of the shelter / Buy a bigger house and live in the suburbs" convey more meaning than entire novels sometimes do.
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When Jim Henson died, he was developing an idea called "The Cheapest Muppet Movie Ever," in which Gonzo blows the budget on the opening credits and then the rest of the movie gets cheaper and cheaper looking (same street in every shot, etc.). Would've been amazing.
what's your pop culture white whale? i mean unreleased/unrealized stuff like "the day the clown cried" - mine is the rumored jay-z blueprint 3 track "crispy benjamins" which supposedly sampled regina spektor's "chemo limo"
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It's wild that we have a president who refers to the governor of the most populous state as "Newscum" and everyone in his party is just fine with that behavior. They've just completely ceded the idea that a person in that position of power should act dignified or morally.
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I'd never heard this Larry Bird story before (from Jeffrey Lane's book "Under the Boards").
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Surprisingly, given how directly he dealt with other holidays, Charles Schulz did few Fourth of July strips, and no TV specials. Perhaps his own sense of patriotism was the cause. Here's a telling letter he sent in 1970.
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The line "I had a feeling I could be someone" is kind of the kicker, but I love the line before that: "Your arm felt nice wrapped round my shoulder." It's how this song works, by wrapping these heavy themes with concrete, deeply felt personal detail. So masterful.
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All right, here's my wild story of the birth of my daughter, Ava. My wife started going into labor on Friday, so we spent that night at a hospital in Upper Manhattan. I slept little that night and then not at all the next day. Finally, on Saturday night I dozed on a couch.
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Charles Schulz had a specific tradition every Veterans Day--he'd draw a strip about Snoopy, usually decked out in a non-WWI Flying Ace uniform, going over to cartoonist Bill Mauldin's house for some root beers.
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As I said, they're saying it all out in the open now. It should go without mentioning that presidents don't pick and choose mayors.
Trump: "Mayor Bowser better get her act straight or she won't be mayor very long because we'll take it over with the federal government and run it like it's supposed to be run ... it was a crime-invested rat hole."
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I dashed into the maternity ward, the attendant looked at me, and said, "Oh, you're the guy everyone's talking about." I came back to my daughter not yet born. My wife asked how it went. I said, "I'll tell you later." An hour later, this photo was taken.
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Let's do a mini-Mother's Day thread: When Charles Schulz got drafted in WWII, his mother was dying of cancer. He never saw her again. Mother's Day in Peanuts is often a sad occasion, none more so than this autobiographical strip.
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And for the nighttime crowd, an added bonus to this thread: here is my visitor’s pass from that day, head bandages and misspelled name and all.
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This is wild. I was named after Luke Skywalker. True story: my parents saw Star Wars, loved the name Luke, and here we are.
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In his new WTF interview, Rick Rubin tells a story where Bob Dylan, George Harrison, and Tom Petty are writing a Traveling Wilburys' song together. Harrison leaves for a minute, and Dylan leans over to Petty and whispers, completely seriously, "You know, he was in the Beatles."
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Here's my Bobby Knight story, this will be a longish thread. Two years ago, I did an event with the Negro League Baseball Museum in Kansas City. The moderator told me afterward that Bobby Knight once had come to the museum and mentioned that he was a huge Cleveland Indians fan.
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I should mention that I can't take off my head bandages until tomorrow morning, so every picture of me during Ava's first day on Earth looks like this. I hope that she has a good sense of humor about it some day.
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Imagine an adult posting "I hate Taylor Swift" on social media. This is not a serious person.
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I promise that this won’t be an all baby all the time feed, but this has been my view for the past two hours. Ava is sleeping, well, like a baby in my lap.
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Here's my only Cormac McCarthy story: I know someone who worked at The Strand bookstore. Once, he spotted McCarthy there, grabbed one of his books from the shelves, and asked if he might sign it. McCarthy smiled and politely said that only his kids have signed copies of his books
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The two best things I've read about 9/11 are Lawrence Wright's extraordinary book The Looming Tower and this piece in Esquire, for my money the greatest magazine piece published so far this century. esquire.com/news-politics/a4…
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A reminder that Charles Schulz was ahead of the curve when it came to anti-vaxxers. This strip is from January 3, 1967.
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It's Charles Schulz's birthday, and at the risk of turning my Twitter into nothing but Peanuts' strips, I want to touch briefly on how extraordinary it was at the time for the main character to talk so openly about depression.
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My former partner was a publicist, and her clients often went on the big talk shows. Out of all the hosts, Colbert was the nicest. He greeted everyone there, asked questions, and even remembered her name when she'd come back much later. Just a really solid, good-living guy.
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I'm a broken record here: They're not even bothering to cover up what's going on anymore. It's all out in the open.
“The Pentagon has for weeks been planning a military deployment to Chicago … The use of thousands of active-duty troops in Chicago also has been discussed” wapo.st/4mvKFW3
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It's Bob Dylan's 80th birthday, which seems somewhat hard to believe, but just fifty years old, it was hard to believe that Dylan was turning 30. Even Charlie Brown commented on it.
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Maybe I'm speaking as a new parent here. It seems like it will be harder to teach my daughter how she should treat other people if that sort of behavior is not only tolerated but celebrated by the ruling power in this country.
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My wife isn’t online, much to her and our benefit, but I am, so it’s her birthday today and I can’t let it pass without mentioning that she is my moon, my stars, and my world.
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Everyone who's seen "A Charlie Brown Christmas" or read the Peanuts strip in depth knows how important religion was to Schulz. But he did *not* care for current trends of equating Christianity with Americanism, which has only gotten worse. Here's an interview snippet.
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Mauldin was a cartooning sensation during WWII, but by the time I was growing up, I'd never even heard of him. I think Schulz knew that--look at this one, where Linus basically acts as an interpreter for the audience.
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4) Mothers are absent in Peanuts in general. Charlie Brown talks of his father but rarely his mother. Peppermint Patty's mother died when she was a child and she's raised by her father. Here's a poignant strip of her on Mother's Day.
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I told him my wife was in labor on the 10th floor, gave him her name, and he called up. They took a picture of me for a new badge and I'm staring wild-eyed into the camera with my head wrapped. My last name is spelled Epplyn. It was perfect.
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Anyway, there are numerous other examples, mostly with the same setup. Drinking root beers with Bill Mauldin on Veterans Day was one of the longest and most recurring themes in Peanuts. A shame that it isn't as well known as the Great Pumpkin and other such ideas.
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I was awoken at four in the morning today (Sunday) to active labor. I got on my feet, threw on my clothes, and then was thrust in the middle of the action. Whether because of exhaustion, lack of food, or having just gotten up, I don't remember anything else. I fainted.
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I told him the same thing: "My wife is in labor!" Again, he looked at me, bandage and all, patient tag on my wrist, and said, "Sir, I'm gonna need to see some discharge papers." I had no ID, no visitor's badge, no cellphone, nothing. Suddenly, it dawned on me: I'm in trouble.
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This time, I didn't even try to explain. I simply asked where the maternity wing was, he said two blocks down, and I sprinted in my bandages and slippers. Again, my old nemesis greeted me: security. I'd learned at least that I had to explain everything first.
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I thought I followed them correctly, got an elevator to the 10th floor, and ended up in a bone marrow center. Granted, I'm in the clothes I slept in, with a massive white bandage wrapped around my head, like something you'd see in a World War I movie.
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Originally, they were going to give me a CT scan, which means that I would've missed the birth of Ava. Luckily, they checked me out, did some tests, treated the wound, and then plugged six staples into my skull. It took maybe an hour. I was then free to go.
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Especially toward the end of Schulz's life, the strips dispense with humor altogether. Schulz didn't particularly enjoy his stint in the service during WWII, but the farther he got from it, the more he seemed to commemorate it.
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2) In the 70s and 80s, it was often Woodstock who was looking for his mother on this day. In keeping with the sadness of this day in Peanuts, he not only never found her, but often ended up heartbroken.
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When I woke up, I was on the floor, blood oozing from the back of my head. I'd hit my head on the edge of a metal table as I fell and cut a gash in it. It was serious. They called the EMTs, had a stretcher come up and whisked me to the emergency room.
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So I slowed down, tried to explain that I'd fainted while my wife went into labor, cut a gash into my head, got it treated, and then got lost. He was *very* skeptical. But he let me leave at least. On the street, no coat on, I rushed around until I found a parking valet.
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It's been a year since the pandemic started, so let's do a "Peanuts" thread on the character who most fully embodies this strange time: Spike.
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I flagged down a nurse and said rather frantically, "My wife is in labor! I need to find her!" She took one look at me and said, "I think you need to see security." I said I didn't have time, but she escorted me out and firmly but politely dropped me off with a guard.
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This hospital was massive--more than a city block, connected by tunnels. We were on the opposite end. A nurse walked me down numerous hallways, through various departments, and then got called back for an emergency. She gave me some quick directions and sent me on my way.
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3) A recurring trope was for Woodstock to sit at the top of a hill with a flower in his hands in the hope that his mother would fly by. Much like how the Great Pumpkin never comes, his mother is nowhere to be found.
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Culture Twitter in a nutshell:
Me: I like this thing.
Response: This other thing is better.
Me: I like that thing too.
Response: You should. It's better.
Me: It's good. I also like the thing I like.
Response: The other thing is better. So is another thing I just thought of.
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And let’s get this straight: no, this did *not* start with the left. There was no leftist President who was using his platform to call governors “Newscum” or any other high school bully names. This is a problem with the right and they need to recognize that.
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But if I had to give a favorite, it's this one. It's a Veterans Day strip more in keeping with the Peanuts' tone, and grapples with how most of the audience most likely was receiving these Mauldin strips.
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RIP Christo, an artist whom Schulz evidently admired based on this strip from November 20, 1978
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I’m exactly three months away from being a father. I’ve been collecting children’s books from my work, but was wondering if anyone has any favorite children’s books, especially new ones that I might not be aware of. Anything is helpful!
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10) OK, I'll conclude here. I don't think you can separate the absence of mothers in Peanuts from how Schulz lost his own mother, a loss that came just as he was shipping out to war. Mothers are searched for in Peanuts, but never found.
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Folks, I don't mean to freak out or anything, but....Spike Lee just called me and said that he has my book and is going to read it this weekend!
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And of course, for those with an interest in my book "Our Team," about Larry Doby, Satchel Paige, and the 1948 Cleveland Indians, you can order a copy here: amazon.com/Our-Team-Satchel-…
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I imagine that many folks think that the president is just speaking truth to power, but that's BS. The president *is* the power. If you want to speak truth to it, then someone in his party could get a spine and tell him to grow up already.
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This is one of my favorites, if only because Schulz is nakedly praising Mauldin through the character of Linus. It's a sweet tone for an often melancholy strip.
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This particular strip, for example, was incomprehensible to me as a kid. I'd never seen Mauldin's work, so the Willie and Joe punchline didn't land.
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She did a *long* four hours of pushing. I didn't tell her about my escapade until after she recovered.
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The Snoopy on the battlefield motif--as opposed to on his doghouse Sopwith Camel--became more frequent later on. Here's a particularly poignant Veterans Day strip from the 90s.
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This strip isn't from Veterans Day, but touches on similar themes, perhaps more to an extreme, since Sally is younger than the rest of the characters.
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The Veterans Day strips were as constant as the ones where Lucy pulls the football from Charlie Brown, but aren't as beloved mainly because Schulz was interested more in honoring Mauldin than landing a particularly good gag.
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With nearly everyone who played in the Negro Leagues pre-1948 no longer with us, Sabathia has become the foremost champion of keeping the league's memory alive. Loved this speech and all that he touched on.
CC Sabathia in an amazing HOF speech, spoke of the work he's doing to bring more black players into baseball:
"I don't want to be the last member of the Black Aces. And I don't want to be the final Black pitcher standing here giving a Hall of Fame speech."
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My favorite Christmas Eve strip--maybe my favorite "Peanuts" strip overall. Published during the height of Vietnam in 1967; also deeply personal for Schulz, who served overseas during Christmas in World War II.
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There is some variation. Here's some earnest praise for Ernie Pyle, the sort of strip that Schulz wouldn't have done for anyone else.
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5) Snoopy, too, doesn't know his mother but tries to find her at various points. Once, Schulz did a long series on Snoopy just wandering the country trying to locate her. She's nowhere to be found.
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He's one of those American writers who seems like he could've grown only from these soils (think Faulkner and Morrison along those lines). I've read most of his books and understand maybe half of them but I know they're all saying something deeper than I can grasp. RIP.
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7) Of course, the Peanuts characters find family among themselves. Snoopy does seem like a parental figure for Woodstock, but as these strips make clear, he can't replace the absence of a mother.
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Bumping this thread for lunch because I teared up a little while compiling it and now can't stop thinking about it.
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It's hard to know what he would've made of our current predicament. I imagine we'd have seen perhaps a strip or two like this one from May 2, 1958.
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The last sports strip in "Peanuts" (from January 2, 2000) was about football. A little more than a month after it was published, Schulz would pass away, and I've always considered this one to be about mortality, about the end drawing near.
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6) There is humor in these strips--as in the last two panels--but at its core it's about loss and wandering in the rain looking for a mother who will never return.
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I still haven't fully processed it. I never thought that I'd ever have a link with Bobby Knight, but then again, he probably never thought the same of me. All I can say is, it's an honor to know that something I put out alleviated those final tough years of his life. RIP.
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I don't know what sort of relationship had with Mauldin, but if I had to guess by the strip, I'd say that it was warm. Schulz clearly thought of him as a master.
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A late-period entry, after Schulz had scrapped the four-panel structure. Again, the jokes are dispensed with--or the very idea of drinking root beer with Mauldin is the joke.
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9) The punchline, if you want to call it that, of the entire series where Snoopy wanders the country in search of his mother is just, "Mom?"
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And if you think Schulz couldn't have combined two of the most frequently recurring strips in Peanuts, think again.
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Honestly, as they were wheeling me out of the maternity ward, I thought to myself, "I thought that people only fainted like this in movies."
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But more strange than that was just knowing that in Knight's last few years, he was finding meaning in a book that I'd written, that it gave him and those around him comfort. I don't know--it was the first time that I understand the book as something larger than me.
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OK, I lied: I have another McCarthy story. One of my old roommates used to live in Santa Fe, New Mexico, and she used to see McCarthy at the Barnes & Noble there. She said that he loved browsing through the car magazines. That's all I got.
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I'm reposting the Mother's Day thread from two years ago. This is still my favorite "Peanuts" thread.
Let's do a mini-Mother's Day thread: When Charles Schulz got drafted in WWII, his mother was dying of cancer. He never saw her again. Mother's Day in Peanuts is often a sad occasion, none more so than this autobiographical strip.
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In honor of my first vaccine shot yesterday, here's a "Peanuts" strip from January 3, 1967, that perfectly captures the moment.
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