josh pincus is crying

The challenge this week on sugarfrostedgoodness.com is “rock legends“.
Two of the greatest and most prolific drummers in the history of rock and roll are also two of the biggest unsung heroes.

Hal Blaine and Jim Gordon played with some of the most famous performers in popular music and played on some of the most significant recordings in modern music history. Hal Blaine, a member of the famed LA session group The Wrecking Crew, holds a current Grammy record. He played on six consecutive Records of the Year: Herb Alpert & the Tijuana Brass in 1966, for A Taste of Honey, Frank Sinatra in 1967, for Strangers in the Night, 5th Dimension in 1968, for Up, Up and Away, Simon & Garfunkel in 1969, for Mrs. Robinson, 5th Dimension in 1970, for Aquarius/Let the Sunshine In and Simon & Garfunkel in 1971 for Bridge Over Troubled Water. In addition, he played on recordings by everyone from The Partridge Family, Elvis Presley, The Carpenters, The Mamas and Papas, Neil Diamond, Barbra Streisand, The Byrds and Paul Revere & The Raiders. He was heard on the majority of The Beach Boys recordings (except for Pet Sounds, which was Jim Gordon. Dennis Wilson, the Beach Boys drummer, only drummed in concert). When Dennis Wilson recorded his only solo album, he hired Blaine to play drums. Blaine was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2000. He estimates that, in his career, he played on over 35,000 recordings.

Jim Gordon was one of the most sought-after session drummers throughout the 60s and 70s. He played alongside such artists as Donovan, Jackson Browne, Glen Campbell, Alice Cooper, Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, George Harrison, The Monkees, Carly Simon, Steely Dan and Traffic. He played the famous drum break in the Incredible Bongo Band’s “Apache“, later sampled by The Sugarhill Gang in their hip-hop version of the song. Gordon was a member of Frank Zappa’s Grand Wazoo band and he was the drummer for Eric Clapton’s Derek and The Dominos. Gordon wrote and played the renowned piano outro on “Layla“.
In 1983, after years of complaining of voices in his head, Gordon beat his mother with a hammer and stabbed her to death with a butcher knife. Gordon currently resides in a state medical corrections facility in Vacaville, CA

Call me a glutton for punishment. I participated in another portrait swap. This time, my subject was Patrick, keeper of the fifty-two fridays blog. This was quick, easy, fun and it produced great results (on both sides, if I say so myself!) Four days from start to finish.
Patrick’s got a cool, if somewhat angry, sense of humor. This is Patrick’s take on me.

Here’s my view of Patrick.

Now, I’m satisfied and I think I’m really finished with portrait swaps.

The challenge this week on Monday Artday is “cancer“.

Hippocrates was born around the year 460 BC on the Greek island of Kos. He became a famous physician and is regarded as “the father of medicine.” Hippocrates described several kinds of cancers. He called benign tumors oncos, (Greek for swelling), and malignant tumors carcinos, (Greek for crab or crayfish). This name probably comes from the appearance of the cut surface of a solid malignant tumor, with a roundish hard center surrounded by pointy projections, vaguely resembling the shape of a crab. He later added the suffix -oma, (a variation of Greek for swelling), giving the name carcinoma. Since it was against Greek tradition to open the body, Hippocrates only described and made drawings of outwardly visible tumors on the skin, nose, and breasts. Hippocrates believed that the body was composed of four fluids: blood, phlegm, yellow bile and black bile. He believed that an excess of black bile in any given site in the body caused cancer. This was the general thought of the cause of cancer for the next 1400 years. However, he had a belief that still holds true today.
Cancer sucks.

Once upon a time a tortoise and a hare had an argument about who is faster. They decided to settle the argument with a race. They agreed on a route and started off the race. The hare shot ahead and ran briskly for some time. Then seeing that he was far ahead of the tortoise, he thought he’d stop to have a cigarette and relax before continuing the race.

He stood next to a big, impressionistically-drawn rock and fired one up. The tortoise plodding on overtook him and soon finished the race, emerging as the undisputed champ. The hare finished his cigarette, was diagnosed with emphysema, lived out his remaining days in an iron lung and died. Oh, and he lost the race.

The moral is stated at the end of the fable as: “Smoking will kill you”.
Or something like that.

NOTE: I did this drawing last night. This morning I saw a commercial for Chantix, a new drug to help people stop smoking. They use the tortoise and the hare in their commercial. I had not seen this commercial prior to my illustration. Hmmmm…

This week’s challenge on illustrationfriday.com is “juggle”

I believe this defies explanation.
Even from me.

The challenge this week at sugarfrostedgoodness.com is “saturday morning cartoons”

Saturday morning cartoons currently suck. Childrens programming in general sucks. The hey-day of Saturday morning cartoons was the 1960s through the 1970s. They were the times of cartoon geniuses like Bill Hanna and Joe Barbera, Jay Ward, Hal Seeger and W. Watts Biggers. They were the times of voice artists like Paul Frees, George S. Irving, Mel Blanc, Bill Scott, Daws Butler, Hal Smith, John Stephenson, Alan Reed, Paul Winchell, Don Messick, Allan Melvin, Howard Morris, Henry Corden and countless others. These were television cartoon pioneers, setting the standard that would last for decades.
Every September, the three major networks would roll out their new prime-time shows. They did the same thing for their new Saturday morning cartoons. They would have sneak preview prime-time specials on the Friday evening before the Saturday premieres. These specials, with hosts ranging from The Brady Bunch kids, Burns and Schreiber and Lee Majors, showed clips of the upcoming cartoons to kids squealing with anticipation. I was one of those anxious kids, waking up at 6:30 am on “Premiere Saturday”. I was firmly planted in front of my family’s TV until 1:00 in the afternoon, usually with an overflowing bowl of General Mills’ “Frosty-Os” (the box featuring Tennessee Tuxedo’s pal, Chumley).
I loved these cartoons so much, I had a difficult time deciding which to draw. I chose Milton the Monster, Wally Gator, Bat Fink, The Hooded Claw, The Impossibles’ Fluid Man, Atom Ant, Chilly Willy and Hoppity Hooper. They sure don’t make cartoons like these anymore. They, most likely, never will.

The second of two challenges this week on Monday Artday is “cartoon self-portrait”

I have been drawing me for years. This is just another in a long line of self portraits.
I only wish I had that much hair.

One of two challenges this week at Monday Artday is “farm”

What’s your name? (we Peter and Paul)
What’s your age? (we 23)
Where do you live? (we live on the farm)
What do you do? (we plant weed)

One of my favorite 80s bands was Fun Boy Three. Born out of the Specials, Fun Boy Three was Terry Hall, Neville Staples and Lynval Golding. Hall had a torrid affair with guitarist Jane Wiedlin and the song “Our Lips are Sealed” became a hit for the Go-Gos and Fun Boy Three. They also had a hit with another collaborative effort, “It Ain’t What You Do (It’s The Way That You Do It)” with Bananarama. But, after three albums, Fun Boy Three was no more.

The song “The Farm Yard Connection” appeared on their second album “Waiting”. It tells the story of two Jamaicans who support their families by growing marijuana. Treating their crop like true farmers, they sleep in the fields so no one upsets their hard work.
They sing “If the lawman come and took away our seed/Bam! goes another week’s wages/Bam! goes our family’s feed.”

The weekly challenge word on illustrationfriday.com is “wedding”

At a traditional Jewish wedding ceremony, the bride and groom stand under a chupah, two cups of wine are poured and kiddush is recited over the first cup, the rings are exchanged, the ketubah is read, the seven blessings (Sheva Brachot) are recited over the second cup of wine and then a glass is placed on the floor, and the groom shatters it with his foot. This act serves as an expression of sadness at the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem, and identifies the couple with the spiritual and national destiny of the Jewish people.

Everyone knows the simcas and nacchus that a wedding brings! Two people that were made for each other are bound together, forever, until death do they part. They may come from different backgrounds, but in the end, they are made up of (more or less) the same thing (or things, in this case…..).

When Mary Shelley said “How I, then a young girl, came to think of, and to dilate upon, so very hideous an idea?“, she was NOT talking about marriage. She was talking about Frankenstein.

…absinthe.

Absinthe is a distilled, highly alcoholic beverage anise-flavored spirit derived from herbs including the flowers and leaves of the medicinal plant Artemisia absinthium, also called grand wormwood or Absinth wormwood. Absinthe is typically green (either naturally or with added color) or clear and is often referred to as la Fée Verte (’The Green Fairy’). Although it is sometimes mistakenly called a liqueur, absinthe is not bottled with added sugar and is therefore classified as a liquor or spirit. Absinthe is uncommon among spirits in that it is bottled at a high proof but consumed diluted with water to the strength of wine.
Traditionally, absinthe is poured into a glass over which a specially designed slotted spoon is placed. A sugar cube is then deposited in the bowl of the spoon. Ice-cold water is poured or dripped over the sugar until the drink is diluted 3:1 to 5:1. During this process, the components that are not soluble in water, mainly those from anise, fennel and star anise, come out of solution and cloud the drink.
The Lanfray murders of 1906 caused a petition to the Swiss government leading to its outlawing in Switzerland, and, as a chain reaction, other countries. By 1915, it was banned in a number of European countries and the United States.