An Old Crow Looks Back
Alas, I’ve been too long between posts– my apologies! š³š¦
I’ve been doing some writing on the Medium platform. A recent humor post was about an old crow looking back on his glory days as an extra in Alfred Hitchcock’s famous movie, The Birds, which starred Tippi Hedren and Suzanne Pleshette.
Here’s an excerpt along with a link to the full post on Medium.
Yeah, I was an extra in Alfred Hitchcockās āThe Birds.ā I used to hang out in Bodega Bay. I was dating a gull at the time. Just for a lark (ha-ha) I went to the casting call. Man, what a crazy scene! They strung up a clothesline about a mile long, and every feathered nutcase and his brother showed up. I was one of the lucky 28,000 chosen.
Iāll tell you a secret: a lot of the birds in the movie were fake. Mechanical birds, puppets, cardboard birds, stuffed birds. They even had a guy at Disney create animated birds. It cost us jobs, and itās tough for bird actors to get gigs to begin with. Of course if theyād had AI back then, they wouldnāt have used any of us.
They were good about serving us roadkill every day. I donāt know where they got the stuff, but man, thatād be a stretch of highway Iād like to frequent. I hadda send mine back a few times, but they were always good about warming it up.
*Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā *Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā *Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā *Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā *Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā *Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā *Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā *Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā *Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā *Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā *Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā *Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā * 
About Mark: Iām an illustrator specializing in humor, branding, social media, and content marketing. My images are different, like your brand needs to be.
You can view my portfolio, and connect with me on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Medium.
Questions? Send me an email.
Mark Armstrong Illustration Specializing In Content Marketing Advertising Editorial Infographics Animation Videos and Social Media 
Hi Mark, I enjoyed this. Ain’t nothing like an old crow crowing. (Or is that a rooster? š¤) Anyway š. I will check out Medium. I don’t do Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn anymore … vapid deserts, so Iāll give Medium a go and hope for intelligent life there. Either way, I’ll definitely subscribe to your feed. šYou always keep it interesting. šÆ
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Awk, awk!!– that was an old crow responding to your comment– namely me!! š¦āā¬š
Thanks, Steve, always a pleasure to see you. Yeah, give Medium a look. One thing’s for sure– Medium’s a lot easier to use and more intuitive than WordPress, especially given the latter’s switchover to its crazy “blocks” format (I’m still using its Classic mode; if they ever delete that, I’ll be bailing out!). Cheers, and thanks mucho for all your support!! šš
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I, too, will go if WP gets rid of Classic mode. Many people complain about how difficult the Blocks format is to work with, how they need a thousand-page service manual to use it, and how often the Blocks fail to work properly. Whereas Classic mode is easy because it was designed for the blogger to use … easy peasy. Throw in some HTML and CSS for decoration, and you’re good to go. I shake my head, wondering why Automattic and the WP “Happy Engineers” would change something simple to use to something difficult and buggy.
Anyway, I have been busy publishing my books in paperback and learning all the tricks of the trade there, so I haven’t been blogging much. But I will take some time off to thoroughly investigate Medium and all it has to offer. In the meantime, keep writing, my friend, and never lose that delightful sense of humor of yours. š
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Ha!– it does me good to hear someone else trash WP’s Block Editor. Block as in Blockhead, as dear old Charlie Brown would say!! If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it– ah, but it’s so hard to resist that temptation and show the world how brilliant you are!! š¤Øš
Good luck with the books! I’ve yet to publish one myself, and I admire anyone who takes on the challenge. It’s impressive, and I mean that sincerely. Thanks so much for your kindness and encouragement, Steve– I appreciate your friendship!! šš
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