People, I am in a hurry. We leave for Alaska in ten days. I have 20 days worth of things to do. Forgive the brevity, but I know all you want is the eye candy, anyway.

This…

…is not

• Al Gore
• Dan Rather?
• Howard Cosell (on a good day)
• Ronald Reagan!
• Jerry Orbach
• Marc Albert
• Howard Cosell
• George W Bush
• Howard Cosell
• Ross Perot. Purely by the ears.
• John Boehner
• This is Howard Cosell.
• I rather think this is Dan Rather
• Ronald Regan? He has a 1970’s newscaster vibe too.
• One of the Bushes . . . with a sagging chin
• Please let this newscaster know that is face is melting (can’t think of his name!)

A good many of you guessed Reagan. This is not Reagan. It is not even “Ronald Reagan if he had been an unsuccessful boxer,” though that answer delights me.

No, as three of you people correctly guessed, this is Ted Cruz.

 

In retrospect, this drawing is unfair.

And yet, Matthew Draws is not about fairness. It is about truth. This is a true drawing by me. Of who?

• I really hate to say this, but Michelle Obama? Sorry Michelle!
• Blossom all grown up?
• Loretta Lynch
• Oh wow a penny for her thoughts.
• I have no idea but I am very afraid.
• Serena Williams
• Dennis Rodman Hillary Rodham Clinton
• You know that toy that’s a plastic man’s face and you put your fingers in the back and move them around to make him make terrible faces? This is his wife.
• No idea
• Audra McDonald?
• Condoleeza Rice
• An unflattering Donna Brazile
• I totally know who this is.
• Sandra Burhhart or whatever her name is. She’s so annoying
• Stumped. No idea.
• eeek. she looks mean. My 7th grade Home Ec teacher?
• Cruella De Ville
• ?!
• Toni Morrison
• Snarl-mouth Scribble-hair. No freakin’ clue, dude.
• I think it’s a woman – Condi Rice??
• Ivana Drumpf
• No, it’s not bad. It’s terrible. Or I am.
• Sandra Bernhard
• Dunno, but she’s fierce!
• Oh gosh . . . I’m going to name her Leona.

Here’s the thing people, the worse I draw, the better your answers are. So where’s my incentive to improve?

Exactly zero % of you correctly guessed that I was drawing Judy Garland.

And here is a drawing I’m really rather proud of. But will that matter?

Let’s see.

• Lazy Eye Lena Dunham
• Monica “lip sperm” Lewinsky
• Amy poehler
• She’s so cute but I’ve no idea whatsoever.
• Monica Lewinsky
• Drew Barrymore (& Harvey the Invisible Rabbit to her left)
• Frances Bean Cobain
• Monica Lewinsky
• Kylie Jenner
• Jenna Bush
• Lena Dunham?
• Amanda Bynes
• What the fuck happened here?
• Jojo the Bachelorette?
• Drew Barrymore. At a hypnotist show.
• Caitlyn Jenner/this doll when it grows up: https://www.flickr.com/photos/starling67/4837784855
• Tina Fey
• Maria Bamford
• Um…Anna Farris with uncharacteristically voluminous hair?
• Definitely a woman. Amanda Seyfried.
• Ann Hathaway
• Hello. It’s me. I was wondering if after all these years you’d get to drawing me. -Adele
• maybe Cecily Strong?
• Maisie Williams? Maybe Adele?
• Honestly, I have no idea, but she needs an optometrist.

Darn it, people. Again, you delight me. Again, we failed to understand one another. This person is none other than Mindy Kaling.

Which brings us to #4. We have an opportunity to tie things up with a little  understanding or to have this go down as one of the least successful Matthew Draws of all time (depending, I suppose, on your definition of “success.”

• Oh! It’s that guy that plays guitar or something! What’s up with his forehead? Is he okay???
• Kris Kristopherson
• Jesse Tyler Ferguson
• Someone suffering, someone pretending to be Van Gogh, a cross between Ryan Gosling and Tom Waits with a beard.
• Ethan Hawke
• Charles Bukowski (in need of a drink)
• A hirsute waiter who just got a shitty tip?
• Huh
• Bearded, angry Brad Pitt? Bearded snarky Conan?
• Clint Eastwood
• Conan O’Brien
• Sean Maguire
• Werewolf Jack
• Van Gogh
• David Bowie. With a beard and a dapper tie. OR Richard Branson.
• Lyle Lovett experimenting with facial hair
• Brad Pitt
• Fernando Castillo Saavedra in “Destinos: An Introduction to Spanish”
• Ed Burns. No doubt.
• Gordon Lightfoot when his music career ended, and he had to cut his hair and work in an office.
• Jeff Foxworthy
• Conan the Barbarian. I mean O’Brien.
• Jon Stewart
• Scott Green…I think.
• I feel like I should know this one. I’m sorry.

I am sorry, too, my friends. And so is Benicio Del Toro, who wishes in vain that I had never heard of him and thus, never felt compelled to conjure his likeness.

My star rating this time around? 3.25. Which is, on one hand, awful. But which is, on another hand, a stunning success, given that out of all the answers issued on ALL FOUR OF MY DRAWINGS, only three of you were correct and a full of these resulted in zero correct guesses. Which leads me to believe your mediocre (as opposed to abysmal) ratings of my prowess suggest some glimmers of enjoyment of my drawings, if not recognition of my subjects.

And now for the BONUS QUESTION (cue mirror ball and “Take My Breath Away”).

If you were lost in the woods and had to skin a squirrel to eat with one of these people, who would it be and why? 

• Nobody looks like they could actually skin a squirrel, but I’ll go with number three because she looks like she actually might enjoy eating one.
• The last guy because he’s insane and would have the know-how to take down and skin something much bigger than a squirrel.
• Ethan Hawke looks pretty much like a scraggley wood squirrel, so I expect any such creature might mistake him for a long-lost cousin, so the capture would be quick and easy. And since he doesn’t look like he eats much, I wouldn’t go hungry.
• Howard Cosell, since he’d provide the best color commentary throughout the process: “And now the squirrel’s cautiously approaching the trap. Step by stuttering step he inches ever closer, oblivious to the hideous fate awaiting him. But what’s this? He stands erect, alert, seemingly cognizant of an alarming presence, a dangerous predator, or simply a droning, nasal, self-important voice. Oh, yeah, guess that WAS me who scared him away. Sorry…
• Obviously, the squirrel would have surrendered himself so The Gipper could eat. And obviously, I’d dine with him and ask him if he could get me into Canada or Switzerland if I needed to go expat on the fly.
• Either of the two on the far right. They look like they could kill a rabbit with their bare teeth.
• “Ted Cruz — have you seen him cook bacon on a machine gun? This guy would do all the work, and make it a point of pride to be sure we were fed and then rescued. Also, he’s the most likely to go get help, leaving me blissfully alone in nature to enjoy my roast squirrel.
• If I were sure about who #4 was, I might pick him. He’s certainly more attractive, and with the beard I’d likely appreciate his politics more. But I can’t be sure of his squirrel-skinning skills. “
• Clint. He seems like he knows his way around a squirrel.
• Would Lena Dunham eat squirrel?
• Werewolf Jack. Because he’s a good hunter
• Since I only have Reagan, Jojo the Bachelorette and Van Gogh to work with here, it’s really a toss-up.
• The third person because it looks like she could be easily distracted so I could get more squirrel meat for myself.
• Cruella De Ville—because this isn’t her first animal-skinning rodeo. We catch the squirrel with some acorns under a box partially held open with a stick that has a string tied to it. Squirrel goes in, we yank the string, Cruella Goes to work. Duh.
• #3 because her lazy eye would distract me from the fact I was eating a squirrel
• The guy from Destinos so I could practice my Spanish.
• Ed Burns seems like a resourceful chap. Assuming that # 4 is, indeed, Ed Burns.
• Definitely Gordon Lightfoot. He’s Canadian, and I feel as though they naturally would have squirrel capturing skills. It’s simply part of their north country upbringing.
• The squirrel would have been making a nest in Conan’s beard. He’d probably make the whole squirrel eating experience tolerably funny
• Sandra Bernhard certainly seems the most capable of rage hunting, that’s for sure. But Dan Rather would be fascinating. Jon Stewart would be the best company BY FAR, but I’m pretty sure we’d have to survive on berries. In terms of how I’d capture the squirrel, I would employ my usual one-two punch of interpretive dance and hypnosis. It might get weird.
• The last guy who I think is Scott Green is looking pretty were-wolfy (is he reliving his Buffy days?), so I would share the squirrel in hopes he wouldn’t eat me when he transforms.
• Number 2 looks like she’d be a fair hand at squirrel-nabbing. She’d just stand there and stare it down, and while it was frozen, hypnotized, in her gaze, I’d grab it from behind. Then I would, of course, let her do all the squirrel-skinning; not really my thing, you understand. I can make a decent squirrel stew though.

People, you delight me. These answers made my day. Thank you for riding this rickety coaster with me. I say we press on.

There will be a brief hiatus on the Matthew Draws front, as I am soon to depart for the rapidly melting permafrost. In the mean time, know that you are loved.