John Hare, This Is Kansas City illustrator, talks wings, cable cars, Hall and Oates and more in The Pitch Questionnaire

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Twitter handle: @JohnLHare

Hometown: Parsons, Kansas

Current neighborhood: Gladstone

What I do: I use art, design and imagination to visually interpret ideas. In other words, I draw stuff.

What’s your addiction? Listening to podcasts.

What’s your game? Tricking people into thinking I’m a good listener despite not being able to shut down my inner dialogue enough to actually listen.

What’s your drink? Lots of coffee and lots of water. It’s part of my elaborate self-sabotaging procrastination scheme that assures I’ll have to get up to pee 20 times during any given work period.

Where’s dinner? Wings Café, where the wings are big and the rubs and sauces are awesome. I highly recommend the “Slap Yo Mama” dry rub. Leo’s Pizza when I want some St. Louis–style pizza done right. Overall, my favorite place to go is Swagat Fine Indian Cuisine. Eating their food literally makes me happy. I’m talking goofy-grin, smiling-eyes happy. I’m happy right now thinking about it.

What’s on your KC postcard? Looking south across a busy City Market with the KC skyline in the background.

Finish this sentence: “Kansas City got it right when …” We beat out Leavenworth to build the first railroad bridge over the Missouri River. Oh, you mean recently?

“Kansas City screwed up when …” They got rid of the cable cars! Not the electric streetcars like the ones from the mid-20th century. True cable cars, like the trolleys of San Francisco. We had the third biggest network of cable cars in the country at one time. Sure, they were inefficient and dangerous, but it would’ve been thrilling to ride a cable car up that crazy looking Ninth Street incline (Google it) … unless it was one of those days the cable grip failed. That’s a bad day. Hmm, I’m realizing this would be a better answer for the above question. Nope … I’m sticking with it.

“Kansas City needs …” To keep an open mind.

“As a kid, I wanted to be …” A cartoonist, a writer, an astronaut, a pilot. Oh, yeah, there was a year I wanted to be a bachelor whose only job requirement was to wear a top hat and carry a cane. I have no idea what that was all about.

“In five years, I’ll be …” Plugged into the hive mind. Who knows. Hopefully not being a jerk.

“I always laugh at …” Self-deprecating humor.

“I’ve been known to binge-watch …” Game of Thrones, House of Cards, Louie. Right now, I’m binging on Master of None, the new Aziz Ansari series on Netflix. Occasionally, I’ve been known to binge on old Star Trek episodes, but it almost always means I’m slipping into a funk.

“I can’t stop listening to …” The awful cacophony of leaf blowers.

“My dream concert lineup is …” Opener would be Beck, middle would be Clutch, the main act would be a trio of Frank Black and the ghosts of Chopin and Charlie Parker. I have no idea what that would sound like, but I’m pretty sure it would be awesome. After-party would be the Devil Makes Three playing around a keg in somebody’s backyard.

“I just read …” Meditations by Marcus Aurelius. So here’s this powerful wartime emperor of Rome writing to himself … basically journaling … about what it means to be a good man and the daily struggles that go with that. Truly good stuff even if read in bite-size chunks.

What’s your hidden talent? Once a week, I spontaneously combust and rise from the debris as a new man. This is usually after my sister-in-law makes me nuclear-spicy Thai food.

What’s your guiltiest pleasure? Loudly and accurately singing along to most any Daryl Hall and John Oates song that might happen to be playing.

The best advice I ever got: The right thing to do is often the hard thing to do.

Worst advice: A timeshare seems like a good idea!

My sidekick: My dog, Marcus. He was around before we had kids, and he still kicks it like a puppy. Plus, his tail position is a remarkably accurate indicator of my mood. The whole family knows and exploits this.

What is your spirit animal? For most of my life, it’s been — appropriately — the hare from Aesop’s “The Tortoise and the Hare.” He’s known for stretches of laziness punctuated by the occasional burst of frenetic action resulting in a self-inflicted, second-place complex. Yup, that sounds right. Nowadays, I’ve tried to become more tortoiselike in my ways — always be moving forward, even if slowly. So I guess my spirit animal is currently a hare that identifies as a tortoise.

Who is your hero? Elon Musk. Big dreams with action behind them.

What is your nemesis? The fold of my brain that says, “You suck, why bother, eff it.”

What’s your greatest struggle right now? Balancing work and home life. Working from home can make that quite tricky.

My favorite toy as a child: Whatever toys my brother had.

My dating triumph/tragedy: I drew an ace early and got married young. That qualifies as both, right?

My brush with fame: When I was a tween, I started drawing comic strips for my hometown paper. Suddenly, two girls I liked started calling me. That was a big deal at the time.

My soapbox: We are tiny creatures sharing the exposed crust of a small planet in an unfathomably large and hostile universe. We’re truly all in this together. Find folks you can have completely unfiltered, honest conversations with. Say “hi” to your neighbors even if they might not say “hi” back. Hold the door open for strangers. Use your hands to build something. Pick up that piece of trash on the playground. I know it’s not yours but what the hell. Leave places nicer than you find them. Resist the urge to be a cynic.

What was the last thing you had to apologize for? No doubt it was for being late. I can’t verify that because it’s pretty much automatic for me to walk in and apologize for being late. Like blinking, I do it without giving it any thought. Great, now I’m focusing on my blinking.

Who’s sorry now? I’m not falling for this one. The moment I get cocky is the moment the shark jumps on the boat and eats me.

My recent triumph: Surviving an interview on live TV without inadvertently making a viral video.

Hare’s illustrations can be seen in the children’s book This Is Kansas City; see possumtrotkc.com.