“Drawing on Empathy” with Marshall Ramsey

Written By Billy Rainey
 
 
 

Shownotes

Editorial cartoonist Marshall Ramsey has been involved in the journalistic life of Mississippi for quarter of a century. Ramsey’s cartoons have served as cultural artifacts for both local and national events such as 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina. In his personal life, Ramsey’s spirit of empathy and resilience has given him a unique sense of sensitivity to the world around him. He joins Eddie and Chris to talk about the cultural impact of Ted Lasso, the power of reframing our stories, and how our relationships keep us grounded.

 
 

Full Transcript

Eddie Rester 0:00

This is Eddie Rester, and welcome to The Weight. Chris McAlilly is actually in the interview portion today, but he is not not with us for this part. He left us early today. Today we're interviewing one of my heroes in Mississippi, a guy named Marshall Ramsey. Many of you, if you're from Mississippi, may know him. He is a nationally recognized editorial cartoonist. He's the Editor-at-Large Mississippi Today. He has a radio show that airs on Mississippi Public Broadcasting. He has been involved in the journalistic life of Mississippi for a quarter of a century. He's one of the people that I remember, every day looking forward to his editorial cartoon in the Clarion Ledger out of Jackson.

Eddie Rester 0:47

He's drawn some cartoons through the years that have just gone viral, that people have appreciated really all over the world. And today, he talks with us about a lot of things we talked about our shared love of Ted Lasso, he talks about his work as an editorial cartoonist. But we also spend some time just talking about life, what it means to make it through life. One of the things, if you follow Marshall on Facebook or Twitter, he is remarkably positive and upbeat about life, even when he goes through hard things. He's very honest about those things. But he always has an outlook of what's next. And we're going to hear about that today.

Eddie Rester 1:33

And for me, when he talked about resilience, it was an important moment to realize one, that we can encourage that in other people, but two, there's a choice that we get to make when we face hard things in life. So I think you're really gonna enjoy the conversation with Marshall today. I think it'll be something I think you're gonna want to share if you're a fan of Ted Lasso. It's our nod to Ted Lasso after season two this year, as well. So enjoy it, share it, let us know what you think.

Chris McAlilly 2:06

[INTRO] We started this podcast out of frustration with the tone of American Christianity.

Eddie Rester 2:13

There are some topics too heavy for sermons and sound bites.

Chris McAlilly 2:16

We wanted to create a space with a bit more recognition of the difficulty, nuance, and complexity of cultural issues.

Eddie Rester 2:23

If you've given up on the church, we want to give you a place to encounter a fresh perspective on the wisdom of the Christian tradition, in our conversations about politics, race, sexuality, art, and mental health.

Chris McAlilly 2:35

If you're a Christian seeking a better way to talk about the important issues of the day, with more humility, charity, and intellectual honesty, that grapples with Scripture and the church's tradition in a way that doesn't dismiss people out of hand, you're in the right place.

Eddie Rester 2:51

Welcome to The Weight. [END INTRO]

Eddie Rester 2:53

We're very excited today to get a chance to talk with one of my Mississippi heroes, one of the icons of Mississippi journalism, and all sorts of other impact on our home state of Mississippi. We've got Marshall Ramsey with us today. Marshall, thanks for your time.

Marshall Ramsey 3:11

Thank you. Gosh, it's an honor to be on with you. And like we talked a little bit in the pregame chat a little bit, I'd listened to your podcast with David Magee. And it was incredibly moving and touching just like his book is and I want to thank you. Y'all do a really great job with this podcast.

Eddie Rester 3:27

Well, I appreciate that lot. I want us to dive right into the meat of everything. For the next few minutes, we're going to be a Ted Lasso podcast.

Marshall Ramsey 3:37

I'm all about that.

Eddie Rester 3:39

We'll talk about your career, some of the things that happened in your life. We want to get to that. But you have a real love for the TV show, Ted Lasso. Tell us, kind of what's the draw for you? What makes it powerful for you?

Marshall Ramsey 3:54

I like what you just did there. "What's the draw for me?" That's really good.

Eddie Rester 3:58

Oh, I didn't even realize I did that.

Marshall Ramsey 4:02

There you go.

Chris McAlilly 4:03

Eddie's full of these kinds of things, Marshall, it's just like walking. He just throws them out, all day long.

Marshall Ramsey 4:11

See? Now this would be like, you know, if I were Ted, I would just burst through the door to Higgins and go "YES!" I would do that because you nailed an unintentional dad joke right off the bat.

Eddie Rester 4:24

Right off the bat.

Marshall Ramsey 4:25

I gotta give you credit. Right off the bat. And I gotta tell you, um, you know, what happened was, you know, Ted Lasso had been out for a while, this first season, and my wife and I are at home and we just kind of flipping around on the TV and we said, "Well, here's this show. This looks clever." You know, I remembered the commercials and I thought, well, we'll watch an episode or two. And we went to bed that night at 2:30 in the morning because we went through the whole season in one sitting. And I think I've watched the first season six times, which sounds incredibly either obsessive or I need a life.

Marshall Ramsey 4:59

The show is so incredibly well written that every time I watched, I was picking up. So now the sixth time I watched it, I watched it after my surgery. So that didn't really count. But the point was, I was just sitting there catching new things every time. And by the time they got to the dark scene in the first season, I was like, "Okay, this is the best written television show that I have seen in years." And just, you know, we were talking just little bit beforehand. But I think the first season we needed because we were hungry for that, as a nation. It was kind of like when my Bush cartoons came out. And we can touch on that later. But, you know, I had a chance to be able to sit down with Jenna Bush on a stage with 1,000 people looking at me last Friday. And I was just telling her, I said, you know, I've seen things go viral before but you know, you get about half the people hating your guts on it. But this was a case where it's 99% positive, because I think people were hungry.

Marshall Ramsey 5:56

And I think that's the way Ted Lasso was in the first season. We needed Ted Lasso at that point. We also needed Ted Lasso season two, when we got it. I joked I said, first season, I wanted to be Ted Lasso. The second season, I want to be Roy Kent.

Eddie Rester 6:10

Right.

Marshall Ramsey 6:11

You know, because like there was a certain degree of Roy Kent being able to speak his mind in a very, as they say, with pretty language, as they say on the show. But I don't know, it just... There's so much in it to unpack that I don't... Okay, because I know you have better questions than I'm giving answers. But it really was a show that made me think about my own journey, and how I deal with my family and how I deal with my career and what's important to me. You don't usually get that out of good comedy.

Chris McAlilly 6:45

Yeah, you think about the way in which any kind of cultural artifact will intersect with or play off of a cultural moment. And I feel like your work as a cartoonist... I mean, I think cartoons are interesting in that they're these, you know, if a show or a sitcom or a comedy is a 30-minute kind of commentary on current events, I feel like what you're trying to do most of the time is to create this little cultural artifact that in some way enters a cultural moment. I wonder if you could just talk a little bit about, you know, some of the the different ways in which you try to do that, some of the ways in which you try to make that intersection play and some of the ways that you, I guess, maybe have intended or unintended consequences with your creations.

Eddie Rester 6:58

Yeah, it's so funny when people will dig up a cartoon from, you know, years ago, or months ago, or whatever. And they say, "You were wrong." Oh, yeah. Okay. I probably was, you know, but at that moment, that was a snapshot of that second, you know, I think I've done 7500 cartoons since I've been in Mississippi. I got here, December 16, is when I cross the state line, December 17, is when I started at the Clarion Ledger. I used to do 365 cartoons a year, I never, I was like, you know, never taking a day off. And now I do maybe 300 a year plus all the other stuff I do but so that's a huge body of work. And then when I go talk to people and show cartoons from my past, or whatever, I might show 50 cartoons, you know, so there are some cartoons that obviously have lasted better than some of the others. But at the end of the day, it is fun to look back.

Marshall Ramsey 8:35

And it's like my book, my 20th anniversary book I did five years ago is literally like a little history book, because it just shows you all the things that have happened in Mississippi. But you know, I think that's the beauty of art--that is what art does is it kind of allows us to sit back and reflect on what we're doing. And while I will say that what I do is maybe not high art, but it is art. And it's been pretty interesting seeing the effect of it. And I've been very lucky that I don't know if I've made a difference in Mississippi, but I think my cartoons have had some impact and that's pretty special.

Eddie Rester 9:13

Well, you've shown Mississippi and the world really at our best and at our worst. And as I think about you starting 25 years ago here in Mississippi, I mean, you've covered governors going back, I guess, to Kirk Fordice was here when you got here, all the way to 911. I mean some of the biggest moments and biggest stories. How did you as you began to draw, how did you find your voice? What kind of brought you to this ability that you have, to kind of reflect our humanity, our life together so well? Where did you find that?

Eddie Rester 10:00

You know, I think there are a lot of great editorial cartoonists out there. And I think a lot of them might have one pitch, and just we'll use a baseball analogy. They all have fast balls. They're funny or they're biting or whatever. And I think my ability is that I've got several pitches, you know. I mean, I can be funny if I need to be funny. I can be biting when I need to be biting. But the two years I was Pulitzer finalist were 9/11 and Katrina, because those were two years that truly, honestly, that's when empathy was required. And, you know, I don't know where I developed it from. I don't know. You know, I'm not saying that it's a superpower or anything crazy like that.

Marshall Ramsey 10:39

I grew up with an incredibly wonderful family, that, you know, we were about as normal on the outside as you could be, but we had some things we had to deal with. My mom was very beautiful and very talented, but she also had some mental issues and some troubles. And it taught me just kind of not knowing which mom I was going to have on any given day, and I don't mean to speak ill of her, I love her. And, you know, she's not with us anymore. But, you know, there were some days when I just didn't know which mom to expect, and that taught me how to be able to walk into a room and I can tell you the mood of every person in that room. It's just something you develop as a survival instinct as a kid, because you don't know if your mom's gonna have a bad day or a good day.

Marshall Ramsey 11:25

And so, that skill set is what allows me to be able to look at an issue and make one and one equal three. I've never said that my artwork necessarily is that great, but my ideas are pretty good, and I'm pretty consistent at coming up with them. I mean, I literally came out with a cartoon the day I was diagnosed with cancer. I came out with cartoons, you know, the day I had surgery. I managed to do a cartoon that day. I just come up with ideas, you know, on that. But I think that's probably it, is that just, you know, growing up in a situation where I was kind of a sensitive kid that's kind of taught me to be able to see issues from different sides.

Chris McAlilly 12:09

I think that I appreciate just the introduction of that character trait, the character trait of empathy. I think it is interesting to consider kind of how does one cultivate empathy in oneself or in one's children or in a church or in a community. But I hadn't considered that that would be a an essential kind of character trait that underlies good art, or good journalism, that it creates the capacity to look at a cultural moment or an issue that is that striking a wide variety of people, or it's something that society is kind of grappling with. And what we need is a whole range of different actors, or agents, or artists that are infusing the cultural moment with empathy in different ways.

Chris McAlilly 13:11

Is there one example, I mean, you mentioned Katrina, or 9/11, for folks who may be, you know... The strange thing about being in a college town is when I run into kids that were born after 9/11. It's just insane. I don't understand. But for folks who may not be familiar with those pieces of art, how did you try to cultivate empathy or create empathy as a mirror for those cultural moments?

Eddie Rester 13:38

Well, I mean, here's the thing. Like everybody on that day--and you're right, because I taught a cartooning class up at Ole Miss, and I don't think that... Probably most of my students were probably in high chairs when 9/11 happened. And, you know, my kids, my oldest son, he's a senior in college. He was in a high chair, and they have vague recollections of Katrina. So that was a long time ago. We could flash forward to today, to we have the pandemic going on, because that's, believe me, that has been a disaster, which has been very different than the other two, because it's not as obvious when you don't see it. It's not in your face every day. People seem to be dying quietly in behind curtains, you know. We're not getting that.

Marshall Ramsey 14:22

But so I'm sitting there in the newsroom, and I hear somebody yell across the newsroom "There's water on the second floor of the Beau Rivage." So at that moment, I knew that the Gulf Coast would never be the same. And I had this active imagination and so I'm imagining somebody probably in their attic grabbing a hold of their life trying to hang, which is exactly what happened down there. And maybe that's, you know, because I've got this ability to be able to see what disaster's gonna happen next, because of what happened when I was a kid. I can literally foretell any kind of disaster and anything. So I knew that what was going on at the coast, when I'm sitting down trying to come up with a cartoon idea, was horrible.

Marshall Ramsey 15:12

When I'm watching 9/11, and we're sitting there in the newsroom watching our 19-inch cathode ray televisions, watching the towers fall. And then they show a scene of the Statue of Liberty standing proudly before the smoke, I draw exactly the way I feel, which is I feel like if I were in the Statue of Liberty, I would be hunched over with my head in my hands, in complete shock and in tears. And so that's where that idea came from. And so, that's where the empathy plays in is that you have the ability to see what other people are going through, which is a blessing, but it's also a curse. Because sometimes I wish I were completely, and my wife might say I am, you know, self-centered and just focused about what's going on in my world. But I'm not. I'm always thinking about, because I remember one time I got a fight with a kid. And I feel like I held my own, and then I was worried that I tore his shirt. I mean, that's weird.

Marshall Ramsey 16:25

But like I said, it's that compassion that you have for other people. And I'm not saying that I have a halo or anything, but it's just how I see the world. And I think that ability has made me a better Christian and has made me a better human being. But it also can drive me crazy.

Eddie Rester 16:45

Yeah. I remember that 9/11 cartoon vividly. And several others after then. I was in Hattiesburg when Katrina hit, so.

Marshall Ramsey 16:55

That was a good time.

Eddie Rester 16:57

Oh, yeah. I mean, yeah, when we lost water, that was when we fled at that point. I mean, it was just... My dad called at five that morning to say, "if you leave now, you can still get out." And I said, "Dad, Dad, these come through all the time. This is gonna be no different." Always listen to your dad. But one of the things I was wondering, what for you has been your favorite cartoon or set of cartoons? Or, you know, you've done the the two that you were nominated for Pulitzers for--the Bushes, your George HW Bush cartoon, I believe hangs in their home. So you've had some cartoons that have really gone all over the world. But personally, which one for you speaks to you?

Eddie Rester 17:51

Yeah, that's a great question, and of course, it's almost akin to saying which one's your favorite child, but I will give you an honest answer on that. There was one I did two days after 9/11. It was made up of all the faces of Americans, and it created an eagle head. I just thought that was a great cartoon. For many year that was my favorite. Then did the Barbara Bush cartoon. And, you know, like I said, that was a complete catching lightning in a bottle moment, because nobody else touched on the fact that they had lost Robin. And the fact that when I thought of it--this was before she died--because my mom had just died of COPD. And so I knew when they said we're going to take her off of treatment, I knew that she wasn't long for the world. I thought about here she is, she has everything in the world. But she had suffered the worst loss of any, anything a parent could ever suffer, that she'd lost a child. So that was what I did with the cartoon.

Marshall Ramsey 18:45

And of course, you know, Elise Jordan, who's from Mississippi sent the cartoon to Jenna Bush, who put it on her Instagram. And next, you know, the Today Show has it on there. And this point, it's gone super viral. Right? Well, that's great. And I've got a stack of handwritten thank you notes from the Bush family. And it was wonderful. And you know, I've gotten to speak at George Bush's library, and that was wonderful. But then I started hearing from parents who had lost children. And it wasn't that they were telling me "Hey, Marshall, great job on a cartoon. It made me smile," or whatever. They said, "In 1953, I lost my son to leukemia, and I've lived my whole life missing him, and your cartoon gave me hope that I will see him someday."

Marshall Ramsey 19:31

And it reminded me how important my faith. And I heard over a thousand stories like that, and it just kind of reminded me that we're all artists, and y'all are artists. I mean, you do that with this podcast. You do that when you're interacting with people that you know, but we all have that ability to create something that changes somebody's life. Do I do it every day? No, I've probably only done it maybe five or six times in my life. But it just was a wake up call for me that I created these two cartoons that were that popular, which was great. But the fact that they made a difference in people's lives that much. And that to me, makes those two my favorite cartoons.

Chris McAlilly 20:13

I think that one of the things that just circling back to an earlier moment in the conversation where you talked about what makes you a, perhaps, a cartoonist or an artist that has empahty is your ability to see what other people are going through, and empathize with it. I was talking to a younger friend of mine, who, we were just in a conversation about what it's like to absorb the emotions of other people. And yeah, it's completely exhausting. And so there are, you know, conversations that can be had in the mental health space about having good boundaries and knowing what you can take in and what you can't. What you're doing is, you found a way to turn that into something constructive, and something that can offer, you know, something back to the world. I just wonder if you could maybe reflect on on that dimension. How do you as a human being, how do you as an artist, make sure that you're absorbing not too much, or keeping yourself in a space where you can be creative and constructive rather than exhausted and depressed?

Eddie Rester 21:30

Yeah, I think that's a brilliant question. And I think it's one that I've really had to think about the last year or so. You know, it's funny, because I first started drawing cartoons to get attention, to be honest with you. It was to fill that hole that I needed to fill. It's like every teenager, we find things that we're good at. I mean, I played football, too, and I was good at that. And then I realized, you know, there was a certain point where I was going to die. So I retired after high school, and I didn't think I was going to survive, playing at the collegiate level. But the cartoons, you know, that was a great way to get attention. But now, you know, it is a tool. The artwork isn't necessarily the destination. It is a tool for me to do a lot of things. And it does help with that. it does help when you when you notice that.

Marshall Ramsey 22:17

But last March, I had double fusion spinal surgery, which I do not recommend, unless you have to have it. It is a very difficult surgery to come past. And I was very fortunate, I had a good outcome and the pain that I was having has gone away. I mean, three years ago, I ran a marathon, and you know, I was having to relearn how to walk on that. So it made my world really small. And so by making my world really small, that meant that I was taking on a lot of what was going on in social media. And I found myself getting really, really angry and really depressed at some of the posts that I saw from people that I just generally thought were sane that were just not apparently and I think I started coming to terms with it when I was able.

Marshall Ramsey 23:06

Amy's like, "Put the computer down. Turn off Facebook. Don't look at Twitter. Just, you know, go look at the ducks and the birds outside." You know she was trying to, because I was just soaking this in. And I mean, over the years, just literally, I get so absorbed in the news. And you know, the news is laid out to get your attention, and it's getting out to tickle your amygdala and not necessarily get your frontal cortex engaged, so yeah, it can cause depression. And I think I was really starting to struggle a little bit this year, because we were coming out of the pandemic, and then the stupid Delta variant hit and I was like, "Oh, here we go again."

Marshall Ramsey 23:45

I think really, honestly, though, that was a good thing. And I wrote about it this morning, actually, I just kind of did a Twitter stream on that. I'm glad my world got small, because it taught me that when I'm seeing these posts from other people to remember, they're going through stuff too, and they're dealing with their own trauma. And I don't have to be upset. I can shut it out and get those boundaries, those healthy boundaries, like you were talking about. So I'm very careful now about what news I consume. Obviously, I have to be very well informed, or my cartoons are not going to have any kind of impact whatsoever. But I'm more careful about the stuff that I do consume.

Chris McAlilly 24:26

I think that the there... Who's, Eddie, who is the guy that we talked to a while back? We talked to him about Wendell Berry. But he also had a book that we didn't talk about, that we should we should circle back around to, on the news. And he was just talking about this reality of how the overconsumption of the news can create this depressive or kind of exhausted mood that makes it difficult to engage with the world. Do you remember who that was?

Eddie Rester 24:56

I don't remember what I ate for breakfast most days or the names of my children, so...

Chris McAlilly 25:01

Well, at the end of that book, I'll try to find it here in a minute. I'll try to Google that guy's name. But the takeaway of the book is what I see you doing on Twitter, which is engaging in basically like therapy walks, and not only going on those walks, but taking pictures of things that you see. I think, you know, sometimes getting out of social media, out of your head, or out of the news and just re-engaging with the natural world and with your body and connect it to a particular place can be a really healthy way to kind of get back into that creative and constructive mode. How did you learn that walking was going to be kind of a practice that you needed to engage to be in your best headspace?

Eddie Rester 25:46

Well, I was, you know, for the last 10, 15 years, I've been doing a boot camp every morning at four o'clock, you know, or get up at four and go do it at five, and then I've run marathons and all this stuff. Well, when you have double fusion back surgery, they tell you first thing, you know, when you first roll out of the bed in the recovery room, get up, walk. And, so you know, I'm one of those kind of people that I tend to be an overachiever when I get told to do something. And so by the second day, or by the first, well, yeah, second day, the day after my surgery, I had walked a mile in hospital. And so that was why I got into the walking, because I had to, because it was my therapy to help my back heel.

Marshall Ramsey 26:27

But then when I'm out there, I do the therapy walks. And you know, a lot of the therapy is for the muscles in my back as I'm trying to get everything to heal. But there's also, I found that it's this wonderful mental therapy because unlike running, which I love, I don't get the endorphins with the walking, but it slows me down enough that I start noticing the world around me a little bit. And it's almost like a walking meditation. And I'm very lucky where I live is very pretty, so I can take some really nice pictures. And I just like putting that out there, because I feel like that people need to breathe on social media a little bit. And it's been a very popular thing that I didn't really do to be popular.

Marshall Ramsey 27:05

I just thought it was like, okay, this is helping me recover, you know, I walked, I don't know, I walked eight miles yesterday. And so it's been a very healthy mental thing, too. And it's helped me on my faith journey, too, because you know, you see the sun come up in the morning, and it reminds you that you're not the center of the universe. You're not the biggest thing in the universe. And as soon as you realize that, that tends to help you recover. Because when you start thinking you're all there is, then you tend to slip into depression and all kinds of issues too. So yeah, that's that's kind of how that goes. And, I really enjoy that. I will say that, you know, here I am, I don't know, seven and a half, eight months out of my surgery, and I'm walking around pretty well. And I'm pretty fortunate.

Eddie Rester 27:24

Hey, before, I know you're about to jump in, Eddie, but I found that guy's name. His name is Jeffrey Bilbro. The book that he wrote is "Reading the Times: A Literary and Theological Inquiry into the News." And at the end of the book, he basically says, stop reading the news. Go walk outside.

Eddie Rester 28:12

Yeah, here's the thing, too. And this was something after, you know, 1/6 and all the stuff that has gone on post election, my wife--and I tend to try to watch, I'm weird. I'll watch Fox and then I'll watch CNN, and then I'll watch MSNBC. And then I'll watch, you know, because I bounce around trying to get everybody's point of view to see how this going on. I literally felt like my blood pressure had just about shot through my roof. And I realized, oh, no, there is some thought behind this on the other end. When you watch cable news, they want to get you excited, because when you get excited you watch it. So I just quit watching cable news, and I just started reading. And like, oh, okay, that actually engages a different part of my brain and, you know, makes me a little bit better informed. So anyway, to add another layer to that question. Sorry I'm so talky today.

Eddie Rester 29:02

I think this is what we miss with print journalism, is that we get, you know, I'm gonna sound like an old man here, but when I grew up, you read your morning newspaper. And then that was kind of your news for the day. And now we're so saturated, and like you say, the only way they get us addicted to it, or to keep coming back is to get us angry. And that's, you know, across the board, and so yeah.

Eddie Rester 29:30

Speaking of all that, I want to kind of pull back the lens a little bit. You talked a little bit about your back surgery, but you know, just some of the things that you've shared about your life through the years: you were there when print journalism collapsed. You have been very public about cancer diagnosis and your cancer fight years ago. And you faced a lot of adversity throughout your life that's come at you from some very different directions. I wonder if you could share a little bit about how you continue to remain upbeat and positive. Your outlook seems to--I know it's hard, but your outlook always seems to be, "Okay. Next thing. Let's figure out what the next thing is." How did that get built into you? And how do you sustain that?

Eddie Rester 30:18

My dad is Dave Ramsey. Not that Dave Ramsey, that Dave Ramsey is named for my dad because our dads are brothers. And so my first name is Thomas. Dave's dad is Tom. And so thus my dad was Dave Ramsey. Dad loved water ski. And when I was eight years old, he decided I needed to learn to love to water ski. I did not want to learn to water ski, but he kind of said, "Okay, we're gonna go out in the boat. I'm gonna throw you in the Tennessee River, and you're going to learn how to water ski." So I spent the day being drug up and down the river, and because I wasn't smart enough to let go of the rope, I drank a lot of river water that day. But about 5:30 In the afternoon, he said, "Okay, let's give it one more shot." And I did. And I got up, which surprised him, and it surprised me. And dad was, you know, he was 40. I was eight. But he was really eight, and I was 40. I was an old man and he was a kid.

Marshall Ramsey 31:13

And dad decided to turn the boat really tightly to throw me outside of the wake and make me fall down, because that's how my dad rolled. And I hit probably the biggest stick in the Tennessee River at that point. I was doing about 700 miles an hour and I hit that thing and I probably did seven cartwheels. And the ski hit me in the head and knocked me about half out. And I'm laying there in the water, you know, thankfully, my nose up, and dad pulls up next to me to check on me. And he starts poking me with the paddle saying "Hey, you okay?" And I'm just like, "go away."

Eddie Rester 31:47

True dad.

Marshall Ramsey 31:49

Yeah, no, he was definitely that was who he was. He was, to his credit, he was concerned, but he was just checking me with the paddle. And I said, "Go away." And he's like, "No, you're gonna grab the rope." And I was like, "Why?" And he said, "Just grab the rope." And I said, "I'm swimming back." And he said, "It's five miles, you can't swim that far." And I said, "Give me one good reason why I should grab that rope." And he said, "Because we're going to change your story about how you got back up, how you got up, not how you fell down."

Marshall Ramsey 32:19

Well flash forward 25 years, I'm laying in Baptist Hospital in Jackson and I just had melanoma surgery. And I was freaking out pretty bad because three doctors had missed it. And I'm very lucky to be alive. And I feel this pressure against my forehead and open my eyes, and there's my dad poking me in the forehead with his finger. And he looked at me and he said, "Get up." And I said, "I can't. I just had surgery." And he said, "I'll help you up." And I said, "Why?" He said, "Because we're going to walk around this hallway, and we're going to make your story about how you beat cancer, not how you had cancer." And that man lifted his 200 pound child up and walked him around the block.

Marshall Ramsey 32:57

Now you got to understand dad had cancer a year and a half before I had. So he knew what I was going through. And he realized the power. He realized the power in changing your story or reframing your story. And it didn't make it any less sucky that I had surgery or didn't make anything else, but he got me off my butt and got me moving. And so you flash forward to, you know, you mentioned the newspaper deal. When they made me part time, I just been a Pulitzer finalist the second time, turned down a job in Tulsa, Oklahoma. And suddenly I was making less money than I did when I started there. And so when they told me that I just laughed, and they're like, "Why are you laughing?" I said, "Because this is gonna be the best thing that ever happened to me." And it was because it forced me to do just like what dad did.

Marshall Ramsey 33:54

I mean, I learned new skills. I like to interview people. I'm curiou. I learned to write better than I did before. And I'm still doing the cartoons and now work for Mississippi Today being their editor-at-large. So the thing about resilience is, and a lot of this requires--you know, for me, it's important that I have the faith that I have. That is a big part of it. But at the end of the day, my dad gave me the gift, and my mom too, and like I said I spoke a little bit ill of her before and I don't mean to. I'm not mad at her in any way. It's just I am who I am because of who my parents are and the experiences I had. And that resilience that dad taught me, that's why I'm fairly positive.

Marshall Ramsey 34:38

And yeah, it's not sunshine and rainbows every day, but like Rocky said, it's not how hard you hit it's how hard you can get hit and get back up. And my sister had lost her husband to ALS. God, it was awful. Adam was a sweetheart. He was my age and to watch somebody your age wither and literally die a cruel death is terrible. And there was one day she called dad, and she said, "Dad, I feel like I'm facedown in the mud." And Dad said, "Well then, roll over. I'll be there in a few minutes for you. I'm driving to there to be with you." He said, "But roll over." And it's just kind of how we're wired because of that.

Chris McAlilly 35:20

I wonder if, I feel like part of what cartoons can do for us in journalism and then with the news is, I think part of what it does is it helped frame not just the cultural moments that we experience, but the news that we absorb. And I think particularly it gives, certainly there's empathy, but there's also humor. I think that, tying it back to Ted Lasso, I think that that's one of the threads. There's kindness there. There's empathy, but there's a heck of a lot of humor as well. For you as someone who as a cartoonist, as kind of that being a central part of your vocation and what you offer to the world, what does it look like for you to do that, to reframe the news and then particularly to use humor, as a, I guess, a mechanism within your art to help us see what we're going through in a different way?

Marshall Ramsey 36:23

Well, I don't know three months after my cancer surgery, I was having a pretty tough time with anxiety. And so my parents took me down to Destin, which was great. I had melanoma, so I had skin cancer. So they took me to the beach, which I was like, okay, just kill me. Buy a gun or something, it's cheaper than getting a condo. But anyway, so they're all out swimming and having a good time. I'm in watching Dr. Phil. And I finally decided I'm going to go for swim. And so I go out and this lady is staring at me like I'm freak because I have a six-inch scar on my back. And I just look at her, and I'm just cut up--I've got, literally he took eight other moles off. I had lymph nodes taken out. So I mean, I just looked like I'd run naked through a briar patch. And I looked at her and I realized she was staring at me. You gotta understand something, guys. Women do not stare at me. This does not happen often. And so it was just kind of like, uh... And she said, "I am so sorry. I did not mean to look at your scars." "Ma'am, it's okay. It was a shark attack. And it happened right where your little girls are swimming." And she grabbed her kids and she ran in.

Marshall Ramsey 37:31

And, you know, I get it. Sometimes people say, "well, there's nothing funny about cancer." And I said, "You're right, there isn't." But there's nothing funny about any of the stuff that goes on these days, because it's horrifying. But if you can poke fun, and you can find things that are humorous, it's the old proverbial spoonful of sugar, you know: it makes it a little easier to take. And it's just always been kind of to do that.

Marshall Ramsey 38:02

Now, that said, I always love the people that complain that my cartoons are biased. Well, yeah. Yeah, they're editorial cartoons. That's what they are. I'm not a straight-news journalist. That's not what I'm doing. You know, it's my opinion. I mean, I grew up in a very Republican household. And at this point, I am probably very independent, because I tend to get annoyed by everybody. But, yeah, it's how I see the world and I don't care if I make you happy, if you like it, or if you love it, or you hate it, or whatever the case is, as long as you think about the issue, then I've won. That's all I want.

Chris McAlilly 38:40

Sorry, Eddie, I know you jump in. But that reminds me, Marshall, you probably run into the legislator in the state, Steve Holland from the Nettleton. So Steve is also an undertaker and a funeral home director in Tupelo. I've worked a lot with him through the years. Talk about a reframe and using humor. Steve is the master of that in the face of death. And what everybody says about Steve is that, in that part of Mississippi, is something that goes along like this, "I don't agree with his politics, but he did a good job with with Mama." And so anyway, as we're walking into a funeral, he would poke me in the ribs and hand me a koozie. And I'm the minister, you have to remember, when we're walking in to do the funeral, and on the koozies say, "Holland funeral home will be the last to let you down."

Marshall Ramsey 39:41

Nice. That is such a Steve thing to do. Yes.

Chris McAlilly 39:44

Oh, man.

Marshall Ramsey 39:45

I mean, I love Steve. I mean, number one, there's probably no better honky tonk piano player on the planet. Love, love when he gets on that and he's like, "Hey, you want to go check out the crematorium? I'll let you do it." And he opened it up and it was still warm. I'm like, "Steve, seriously." But you know, like you said sometimes I didn't agree with Steve's politics on some stuff, but I always loved how Steve approached life.

Marshall Ramsey 40:09

I think, like I said, I kind of enjoyed Ted Lasso in that sense that there was a lot of really bad dad jokes, which I'm good at. I'm very good at dad jokes. And I think really, honestly, we have collectively lost our sense of humor as a nation these days. You know, it's like, if somebody disagrees with you, they're the devil and you hate them and everything else. And I grew up watching Looney Tunes, so I tend to think the sheep dog and the coyote is maybe a better way to approach policy, you know, that you argue during the day, and you clock out, and you shake hands, and you dust off, and you come back at it the next day.

Eddie Rester 40:47

Just think about humor and looping back around Ted Lasso. You know, the joy of that show--the second season, if you haven't watched it, the second season really tackles heavy subjects: mental illness, grief, death, fear, the brokenness of life, particularly generationally. But there's always humor somewhere on the edges of it that allows you to see in some ways it speaks to you that the characters are gonna be okay. But it's the humorless character, Nate, that struggles the most.

Marshall Ramsey 41:26

Yeah.

Eddie Rester 41:26

He has no release in life, because nothing can be funny. And I think, you know, that there's a lot of conversation today about toxic positivity, people who are oh, everything's gonna be fine, there's joy in everything, that it denies too much of life. But I like the way that you framed it. It's really resilience is what we're looking for. The ability to put one foot in front of the other. You don't worry 10 steps down the road, just turn over. Turn over. Grab the rope again. And I think that's, when we think about our world and think about a lot of people I think that's kind of where we are. We've gotten too serious. We don't know how to, because we've given up on all the positivity, but we don't know what resilience really looks like for us anymore, other than fighting, and that's not resilience. As you think about the people, you talked a lot about your dad, who else in your life kind of keeps speaking into you, that keeps you moving and motoring, who, for you, are those people?

Eddie Rester 42:39

One, Amy Ramsey. Amy Ramsey would be... Okay, my first job out of college was a high school janitor. One of the other janitor's husband was an Eastern pilot. He lost his job, and so she had to go work as a janitor. She came up to me one day and said, "How would you like to go out with my daughter? She just broke up with her boyfriend." And I said, "Your standards for your daughter are remarkably low, because I am not going to be a doctor." But she did introduce me to her daughter who was at the University of Georgia at the time. I have been married to her now for 28 years.

Marshall Ramsey 43:13

And Amy is from a Midwestern family. So she has a very Midwestern sensibility. She is no BS. She is not dramatic whatsoever. She has a very solid temper which one of my sons has inherited. I will give him credit on that. But she is a rock, and she is one of the most amazing people that I've ever come across. Because the fact that she's got two gears when she kicks into high gear, there's nobody who can outwork her. She's a teacher, and she could teach a penguin to fly. She's good. So yeah, Amy's a big influence. And I've had people that have come in and out of my life over the years, it seems like at the right time. And sometimes angels wear funny clothes, and may even be people that... You know, the person who made me part time is a friend of mine, because I realized he did me a huge favor and it was a business decision. And he did me a huge favor, like I said. I'm so grateful for him. So yeah, I do have very good friends that keep me grounded as well.

Eddie Rester 44:20

Marshall, I want to thank you for your time with us today. I want to thank you just as well for your commitment to our state of Mississippi and the ways that you continue to speak hope to us as well through your cartoons and your work at Mississippi today. I know you have a lot in front of you for the rest of the day, so I really appreciate you taking some time to be with us today.

Marshall Ramsey 44:44

Oh, my pleasure. And let me just end on this note. I am not a Mississippian by birth. I am one by choice, and before my children were born, my cartoons had one tone, but now that they are 21, 18, and 14, I have three boys. Those cartoons now are because I want a better state for them and for everybody else's children as well. And I'm very grateful for this state because even though it's got some problems that are well documented and we know about and are working toward, it is also a state full of grace and beauty and people that are absolutely lovely and had given me everything. And I wouldn't be sitting here talking to you, giving you incredibly long answers, if it were not for all the people that read my work. And I'm so grateful for them.

Eddie Rester 45:35

If you want to take a look at some of Marshall's work, go to marshallramsey.com.

Eddie Rester 45:40

[OUTRO] Thank you for listening to this episode of The Weight.

Chris McAlilly 45:43

If you liked what you heard today, feel free to share the podcast with other people that are in your network. Leave us a review. That's always really helpful. Subscribe, and you can follow us on our social media channels.

Eddie Rester 45:55

If you have any suggestions or guest you'd like us to interview or anything you'd like to share with us, you can send us an email at info@theweightpodcast.com. [END OUTRO]

 
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