josh pincus is crying

For 28 years, Max Manning taught sixth grade in Pleasantville, New Jersey before retiring in 1983. In those years, how many students knew anything about their teacher’s past?

Max was born in Georgia and grew up in South Jersey, just outside of Atlantic City. He was a stellar athlete on his high school’s baseball team. Word of his on-field abilities made its way to a scout from the Detroit Tigers and a contract offer was tendered. But the offer was rescinded when the team discovered that Manning was black.

Soon he signed a contract with the Newark Eagles of the Negro League. Nicknamed “Dr. Cyclops” because of his thick glasses, Max developed his sidearm pitching style and posted good numbers in strikeouts and wins. However, his baseball career was put on hold briefly when Max entered the Air Force in World War II. During his military service, he faced racial prejudice, with one incident landing him in the stockade for fifteen days. Later, he suffered a back injury in a truck accident and was discharged. Despite the injury, Max was determined to resume pitching for the Eagles.

Max returned to baseball and in 1946 he finished the regular season with a record of 11-1 with the second-highest league strikeout total. Pitching through constant back pain, Max helped the Eagles overcome the mighty Kansas City Monarchs to win the 1946 Negro League World Series. After the World Series, he barnstormed with greats like Satchel Paige, Bob Feller and Buck Leonard, but his physical ailments forced his career to an end.

On his wife’s insistence, he returned to school on the GI Bill and earned a teaching degree from Glassboro State College. He taught, and was beloved by students, at the Pleasantville Elementary School for 28 years. After retiring, Max kept busy with gardening and with his family until he passed away in 2003 at age 84. Just before he died, Max gave a lengthy and enthusiastic interview to the History Channel detailing his baseball career. I wonder how many of his former students watched it?

This week’s Illustration Friday challenge word is “capable”.

“The difference between what we do and what we are capable of doing would suffice to solve most of the world’s problems.” — Mohandas Gandhi

Mohandas Gandhi began a law practice in South Africa in the late 1800s, after several failed attempts at establishing a practice in his native India. He initiated his form non-violent protest while fighting for civil right in the expatriate Indian community in South Africa. He returned to India in 1915 and further strove for civil rights for the oppressed lower class. He mounted campaigns for women’s rights, religious equality and freedom, fair treatment of laborers and freedom from foreign domination — all employing his non-violent methods. He successfully rallied Indians against the British-imposed Salt Tax in 1930 and later spearheaded the Quit India movement to expel British rule from India. The effort resulted in the suppression of free speech and the imprisonment of thousands, but the British eventually left India, deciding that its people were “ungovernable”.

Gandhi devoted his life to peace and equality, while stressing its achievement through non-violent means. On January 30, 1948, as he approached the podium to address a prayer meeting, Gandhi was shot and killed by Nathuram Godse, a Hindu extremist.

Jill Banner was born Mary Molumby near Puget Sound in Washington. Her widowed mother moved around the country when Jill was a child until the family finally settled in Glendale, California. Jill attended Hollywood Professional School with classmates Peggy Lipton (of TV’s Mod Squad  and future mother of actress Rashida Jones), Carl Wilson (of the Beach Boys) and Mouseketeer Cubby O’Brien. The school offered classes in the mornings and allowed students to pursue acting jobs in the afternoons.

At seventeen, Jill landed her first movie role in the low-budget Spider Baby.  The future cult film starred Lon Chaney Jr. (in one of his last roles), Carol Ohmart (one in a long line of actresses touted as “The Next Marilyn”), Quinn Redeker (Academy Award nominated screenwriter for The Deer Hunter  ), horror movie staple Sid Haig and one of the last screen appearances by Mantan Moreland. Spider Baby,  filmed in 1964 but released in 1968 due to legal battles, told the story of the demented Merrye Family, three murderous, cannibalistic siblings under the watchful care of chauffeur Bruno (played by Chaney). Jill played Virginia, the childlike, spider-obsessed title character. The creepy, but rather bloodless, film was played as an over-the-top homage to The Munsters  and The Addams Family,  two popular TV shows of the time.

Jill next appeared with James Coburn as a hippie chick in The President Analyst.  This role enabled her to move into a comfortable position playing naive teenagers and strung-out hippies in weekly police dramas like Dragnet  and Adam-12. In the late 60s, she was part of an ensemble cast in C’mon Let’s Live a Little,  one of the last pictures in the “beach party” genre.

While in Rome filming director Christian Marquand’s psychedelic 1968 movie, Candy,  she met Marlon Brando, one of dozens of actors agreeing to a brief on-screen cameo (including Ringo Starr in his Beatle -less film debut). Jill and Brando, nearly thirty years her senior, became a couple. When they returned to the United States, Jill settled into a behind-the-scenes role, developing scripts for the Oscar-winning actor.

In 1982, Jill was travelling on Southern California’s Ventura Freeway when her Toyota was struck by a truck driven by a drunk driver. Jill was thrown from her vehicle and head-first into a cement divider. She fell into a coma and and died in the hospital, never regaining consciousness. Jill was 35.

This week’s Illustration Friday challenge word is “fluid”.

No matter what anyone says, Andres Serrano is an artist in every sense of the word (or at least by Andy Warhol’s definition). Like Ansel Adams, his medium of choice is photography and he photographs ordinary subjects in an artful fashion. Unlike Adams, Serrano finds beauty in decidedly different objects. Serrano’s prints share a commonality in their inclusion of human bodily fluids — blood, urine, semen, feces, mother’s milk — and a slant towards the controversial.

Andres Serrano has exhibited series of photos depicting corpses, burn victims, firearms, Klansmen and, most notorious, iconic religous symbols submerged in the photographer’s own urine. Serrano’s displays have been a constant source of contention. His works have been criticized, protested and even vandalized all over the world. Several examples of his work were defaced at a gallery in Sweden. His photograph Piss Christ,  depicting a small plastic crucifix resting in a glass of Serrano’s urine, was attacked with a screwdriver at a gallery in Australia. Despite the negativity, Serrano is a multiple award winner, including — but not limited to — honors from the New York Foundation for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Arts.

I have been drawing since I was a little kid. I have been receiving criticism for approximately just as long. I have maintained this blog for nearly five years and I have received my share of negative comments about my illustrations. And I don’t mind. I actually enjoy  comments from strangers telling me “that I suck” and “have no talent” and “my work is disgusting.” It makes me smile. I feel if someone takes the time to read and study something that I have created and it pisses them off so much that they need to tell me, then I have succeeded in holding their attention for more than a fleeting moment. And that’s quite an accomplishment in this time of major distraction. (Here is an example of one such episode from a few years ago.)

I’m sure Mr. Serrano is well aware of the people who oppose and vilify his style of expression, but it does not seem to stop him. In fact, I’d be willing to bet that it brings him the strengh and inspiration to continue.

I know it does for me.

After bouncing between the minor leagues and the bigs, Bo Díaz was traded to the Philadelphia Phillies in the ‘81 off-season. With the departure of All-Star catcher Bob Boone, Bo became the Phillies starting backstop. His game-calling skills helped Phils ace Steve Carlton become the league’s only twenty game winner in 1982. Bo finished the season with offensive and defensive stats ranking him second among National League catchers, behind the Expos’ Gary Carter.

Early in the ‘83 season, Bo accomplished a feat only performed by eleven other players in baseball history. With the Phillies down 9-6 in the bottom of the ninth with two outs, Bo hit a game-winning grand slam. He ended the season catching Steve Carlton’s 300th career win. In the final week of the 1983 regular season, Bo hit .360 (including a game in which he went 5 for 5), helping the Phillies to the post-season. Despite losing their World Series bid to the Baltimore Orioles, Bo was the Phillies’ leading hitter.

Knee problems and two surgeries later, Bo was traded to the Cincinnati Reds where, once again he became the starting catcher. In one game against San Francisco, Bo caught opposing second baseman Robby Thompson stealing four times, a first-time occurrence in Major League history.

Bo continued for as long as he could, but several more knee surgeries and a shoulder injury forced him to retire on July 9, 1989 at the age of 36.

For nearly twenty years, Bo played winter baseball in his native Venezuela for the Leones del Caracas.  In 1973, 20-year-old Bo caught a no-hitter thrown by pitcher Urbano Lugo. Thirteen years later, he was behind the plate for a no-hitter hurled by Lugo’s son, Urbano Jr.

In November 1990, Bo was at his home in Caracas, adjusting the position of a large satillite dish on the roof. The dish accidentally tipped over and Bo was crushed to death beneath its weight.

Senior U.S. microbiologist Frank Olson was a scientist at a lab in Fort Detrick, Maryland. Here, Frank worked for the CIA researching and conducting experiments with assassination techniques, biological warfare, terminal interrogations, and LSD mind-control. He was aware of highly-confidential information and he was uncomfortable with that knowledge. On Monday, November 23, 1953, Frank told his boss, Dr. Sidney Gottlieb, he wished to resign his position. On Saturday, November 28, 1953, Frank fell to his death from a tenth-floor window of the Statler Hotel in New York City. The official story was that Frank was unknowingly given LSD as part of a mind-control experiment. The drug caused uncontrollable paranoia and Frank either accidentally fell or purposely jumped from the window.

For 22 years, that was the “truth”, but Frank’s family wasn’t buying it.

Frank’s son, Eric, did extensive investigation on his own and, in 1994, Frank’s exhumed remains were reexamined. A number of cuts and abrasions were found along with a large hematoma on the side of Frank’s head and another large injury to Frank’s chest. The family threatened murder charges against the CIA and federal government. The government responded with an apology for their part in drugging Frank without his knowledge and an out-of-court settlement of $750,000.

Even as a youngster, Jesse Belvin was interested in music. He joined several bands as a vocalist early in the 1950s. Even an brief stint in the army didn’t hinder Jesse’s songwriting. His composition “Earth Angel” was a hit for The Penguins in 1955 and became one of the first songs to successfully make the cross over from the segregated Rhythm and Blues chart to the mainstream Pop chart.

In 1956, Jesse signed a contract with Modern Records, although he continued to record under pseudonyms for other labels. He co-wrote and recorded “Goodnight My Love”, on which the piano parts were played by an 11-year-old Barry White. The song reached #7 on the R&B chart and was used as the closing theme for Alan Freed’s popular radio broadcasts. In 1959, Jesse recorded an album of songs with a more sophisticated style, influenced by Nat “King” Cole. (The album was later cited as itself being influential for Sam Cooke.)

In February 1960, Jesse (along with Sam Cooke and Jackie Wilson) performed in the first concert played before an integrated audience in Little Rock, Arkansas. The show was protested and halted twice by whites yelling racial slurs at the black performers and attendees. Community members interrupted and screamed for the white teenagers to go home. The performers even received several death threats prior to the concert. After the show, Jesse and his wife were killed in a head-on car collision. It is speculated that the vehicle was tampered with, but no proof has ever surfaced. Jesse was 27 years-old.

The new Illustration Friday suggestion for inspiration is “popularity”.

“Popularity, I have always thought, may aptly be compared to a coquette - the more you woo her, the more apt is she to elude your embrace.”
— John Tyler, Tenth President of the United States

John Tyler knew of what he spoke, as popularity certainly eluded him. Tyler was the first person to succeed to the office of president following the death of a predecessor. When newly-elected William Henry Harrison stood before the crowd and delivered the longest inaugural address in American history, he refused to wear an overcoat or hat, despite the snow and cold rain that fell on Washington, DC. He wanted to show the country the same strength he displayed as a military general. Instead, he came down with pneumonia and died one month later. As per the line of succession as determined by The Constitution, John Tyler was sworn in as the new president of the United States.

Tyler was expected to carry on with Harrison’s ideals, but when he opposed his party’s platforms and vetoed several important proposals, the majority of his Cabinet resigned. Soon after, The Whigs (his political party), dubbing Tyler “His Accidency,” kicked him out of the party.

After a deficit of the federal government under Tyler’s leadership was projected, Tyler proposed to override the Compromise Tariff of 1833 and raise tariffs 20 percent. The defiant Whig Congress would not raise tariffs and Tyler was vocal in calling the act “unconstitutional”.  The House of Representatives initiated the first impeachment proceedings against a president in American history, spearheaded by Whig enemy Andrew Jackson.

Tyler’s pet project for the bulk of his term was the annexation of Texas, a proposal opposed by Democrat leaders Andrew Jackson and Martin Van Buren because they did not think the Union needed another Southern state. Tyler campaigned heavily for his cause, even forsaking his re-election. As his term came to a close, Tyler gave his support to an obscure, but pro-expansion, Democratic candidate named James Polk, who followed through with Tyler’s plan. Martin Van Buren didn’t receive enough support to make the ballot in the 1844 election. Polk defeated Tyler’s former Whig colleague Henry Clay  by a narrow margin and Texas became a state in 1845.

Tyler retired to his Virginia plantation and, in the last years of his life, supported the Confederate states in the Civil War. As a result, his death was the only one in presidential history not to be officially mourned in Washington. Historian Robert Seager II wrote, “Had William Henry Harrison lived, John Tyler would undoubtedly have been as obscure as any Vice-President in American history.”

John Tyler had an unusual method of wooing that coquette.

For eleven years, Rusty Hamer traded barbs with showbiz heavyweight Danny Thomas on the popular sitcom Make Room For Daddy.  Most often, Rusty got bigger laughs than his veteran co-star. For a kid, his comedic timing was impeccable and rivaled that of actors with many times his experience. Shooting had to be halted quite often of the set, as Danny was constantly reduced to uncontrollable laughter by the deadpan delivery of his young castmate. Rusty’s popularity led to guest appearances on variety shows and even a cross-over episode on The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour  reprising his role of “Rusty Williams”.

After 325 episodes, Danny decided to end the show, as he had grown tired of the role and wished to pursue other projects. Rusty appeared in a few installments of The Joey Bishop Show  (a spin-off of Make Room for Daddy ) and later the ill-fated Make Room for Grand Daddy,  but he soon discovered difficulty in landing more acting jobs.

Rusty had entered show business at age 6 and spent his entire childhood on a sound stage. He was tutored on-set and once Make Room for Daddy  ended, he found that he was not prepared and that he lacked skills to function in a non-show business lifestyle. He bounced around menial labor jobs. He worked briefly on an off-shore oil rig, as a messenger and eventually, as a short order cook in his brother’s DeRidder, Louisiana cafe.

On January 18, 1990, 42-year-old Rusty, depressed and living in poverty in a Louisiana trailer park, shot himself in the head.

Twenty-three year-old Debbie Boostrom auditioned, alongside hundreds of anxious and hopeful young ladies, to become the coveted 25th Anniversary Playboy Playmate. Debbie was unsuccessful, but a little over a year later, she was presented in the magazine as Miss August 1981. In the following months, she appeared in several Playboy videos and participated in some of Hugh Hefner’s celebrity events at the Playboy mansion. Eventually, with her brief, minimal fame fading, Debbie married and settled in Kansas with her husband. When her marriage failed, Debbie returned to her Florida roots and started a small business designing jewelry. Although she acted in a handful of infomercials, for the most part, she stayed out of the public eye.

On July 29, 2008, Debbie, now 53 and diagnosed with terminal breast cancer, put a gun to her head and shot herself.

(HERE’S my original sketch of Debbie.)