josh pincus is crying

This week’s Illustration Friday word is “round”.

Michael Larson was flat broke, unemployed and had few possessions. He did, however, have a lot of time. And he used his time wisely. With no job, he began watching game shows to combat his boredom. One show, Press Your Luck,  piqued his interest.

Famous for its simple general knowledge questions, big money payoffs and the irrepressible Whammy character, Press Your Luck  was one of the more popular game shows. Contestants answered questions posed by host Peter Tomarken and were rewarded with spins on the “Big Board”. The “Big Board” was made up of 18 lighted squares, each briefly displaying a prize of dollar amount in five distinct flashing patterns. Interspersed among the prizes were Whammies, little cartoon devils whose job was to wipe out a player’s accumulated winnings. From the privacy of his home, Michael watched intently (and later videotaped) episodes of Press Your Luck.  He stared and focused on the patterns of flashing lights and prizes on the “Big Board”. Soon, he realized that two squares never showed a Whammy. He figured if he could memorize the patterns, he could surely gain an unbeatable edge and never hit a Whammy. Of course, he would have to be selected to appear on the show, but to Michael, that was a minor detail.

In May 1984, after weeks and weeks of intense preparation, Michael used the last of his savings to travel to Hollywood from his native Ohio for a tryout. Executive producer Bill Carruthers was happy to have Michael as a contestant despite contestant supervisor Bobby Edwards’ distrust and reservations.

In the first round of his appearance, Michael only accumulated three spins and compared to his competitor’s combined fourteen. He even hit a Whammy on one of his spins. The second round was a different story. Michael refocused, answered several questions and finished the second round with seven spins, more than he needed.

When his turn began, his demeanor from Round One changed drastically. He grew silent and stone faced. Ed Long, another contestant, called Michael’s state “trance-like”. Michael furrowed his brow and, with the precision and concentration of a surgeon, he stopped on a square illuminated with a high money amount and an award of an additional spin. He repeated this action over and over again. Over the course of a regulation game (that CBS broadcast over two days, due to the length of Michael’s turn), Michael racked up $110,237, the highest single-day win in game show history (to that date). He also passed the CBS “winnings cap” and was not permitted to return, although he was the reigning champion. CBS didn’t want to pay Michael, accusing him of cheating. The rules were scoured and a clause could not be found prohibiting memorization of the patterns of the board.

Michael divided his winnings, setting aside a portion for taxes, placing some in a bank account and investing the remainder in real estate. He later discovered that his real estate deal was an elaborate ponzi scheme and he lost his entire investment. Then, Michael heard about a contest being run by a local radio station. A random serial number from a one-dollar bill could be matched for a $30,000 payoff. Michael began withdrew the remaining funds from his bank account in one-dollar bills. He would sit and carefully check the serial numbers of each bill, intending to re-deposit the bills if a match was not found. In December 1984, Michael and his wife attended a Christmas party. While they were out, their home was broken into and $40, 000 in bagged one-dollar bills were stolen. Michael accused his wife Teresa of having been involved and their already-fragile marriage ended.

In 1994, when the film Quiz Show  was released, interest in the Press Your Luck  scandal was reignited. Michael, recently diagnosed with throat cancer, appeared on Good Morning America  to discuss his brief infamy. A short time later, Michael became involved with a nationwide lottery fraud scheme and went into hiding. He passed away in central Florida in 1999 and it was only then did his family learn of his whereabouts.

This week’s Illustration Friday word is “vanity”.

You walked into the party like you were walking onto a yacht
Your hat strategically dipped below one eye
Your scarf it was apricot
You had one eye in the mirror as you watched yourself gavotte
— You’re So Vain by Carly Simon

Carly Simon’s 1972 hit “You’re So Vain” has been the subject of controversy for nearly forty years. The subject of the scathing ode to a self-absorbed lover has remained a mystery. In interviews, Simon has continued to be coy and vague when discussing the song. She has adamantly dismissed the speculations of numerous journalists and news commentators and other times has hinted that those same guesses could possibly be correct. Famous names from Simon’s past — session guitarist David Armstrong, singers Cat Stevens and Kris Kristofferson, even Simon’s ex-husband James Taylor — have  all been suspected as the object of Simon’s musical affront.

In 2003, Dick Ebersol, president of NBC Sports, paid $50,000 at a charity auction to have Simon whisper the name of the person in question to him and him alone. As a caveat to the privilege, he was sworn to secrecy. He has kept his word, only volunteering this insignificant clue: the man’s name has an “E” in it.

The general consensus is that the song is about a composite of three gentlemen — actor Warren Beatty (who called Simon to thank her for the song), Mick Jagger (who contributed uncredited backup vocals on the song, along with Harry Nilsson and Simon herself) and producer David Geffen (the then-head of Elektra Records, who lavished attention on Joni Mitchell, much to Simon’s disappointment) .

All obviously vain people, but Carly Simon ain’t admittin’ to nothin’.

This week’s Illustration Friday inspirational word is “silent”.

“Now hurry down, baby she’s the hippest street in town!” - South Street by The Orlons (1963)

The Orlons sure knew what they were talking about in their 1963 hit “South Street”. By the time I started hanging out on Philadelphia’s South Street in the 70s, it was still  the hippest street in town. Compared to the mundane sameness of Northeast Philadelphia (where I grew up), South Street may as well have been on another planet. Weekdays on South Street, the unofficial southernmost boundary of “Center City Philadelphia”, were nothing special or even out of the ordinary. The street was lined with businesses and a moderate amount of shoppers and browsers strolled the sidewalks. Weekends were a different story. After struggling through class after boring class all week long in high school, South Street was the perfect destination for blowing off some steam.

At George Washington High School, in the hallway chaos between classes, plans were made with friends for the weekend. Someone was given the task of securing the use of Dad’s car for the night. As night fell on Saturday, that car would make the regular stops at the predetermined time and an unsafe amount of passengers would pile into the vehicle for the 30-minute drive to our local Xanadu.

South Street glittered under the streetlights. The few municipally-placed trees were laced with twinkling lights. Storefronts were lit with harsh neon giving the store’s window displays an ethereal glow and loud, cacophonous music blared from each open doorway. A peculiar blend of smells drifted from the varied eateries, mingling into a fusion that was alternately enticing and nauseating. The narrow, uneven sidewalks were packed with people — in a weird approximation to Logan’s Run— none under the age of 30. It was an all-out assault on our sheltered, Northeast Philly senses — and boy!  did we love it.

After storing the car in a relatively safe parking garage (where we all chipped in for the fee), our first order of business was food and our first stop was Frank’s Pizza at the 2nd Street corner of South Street. This cramped, unassuming joint was jammed with a knot of patrons that was “in the know”  about Frank’s oven-baked tomato and cheese manna. This was not the assembly line shit I was served from any number of mall food courts. This was a time-honored, secret recipe masterpiece that Frank’s nonna had perfected in the Old Country many years prior to her waving “Hello” to Lady Liberty in New York Harbor. We could have stayed all night at Frank’s gorging ourselves, but there was plenty to see out on South Street. Once sufficiently stuffed with pizza, we’d peruse the risque greeting cards (giggling at the overtly homoerotic images) at Keep In Touch  right next door. Then onto Zipperhead and Rosebud to marvel at the fashionably-ripped leopard-print pants our parents would never approve of our wearing.

It was on South Street I got my first taste of that unique form of entertainment — the busker, or street performer. South Street was dotted with its share of  wannabe musicians and singers. A barefoot guy in a floppy hat banging on an out-of-tune guitar would be wailing for handouts just a few feet from a waif-like young lady doing her best a capella  Joni Mitchell and a pony-tailed young man waving a fanned deck of playing cards urging passers-by to “pick one, any one”. Each had an upturned hat or unlidded cigar box placed before them for donations and each was having a modicum of success. There were even some performers, like local legend Waco Smith, who had some notoriety and a small fan base. (Waco, who passed away in 2001, encouraged a young G. Love to sing). In addition to the musical entrepreneurs, there were others who used other methods to hustle a buck or two. One in particular was Flower Man.

Flower Man was a mysterious figure of slight build, clad in a ratty, secondhand tuxedo. His face was daubed with stark white greasepaint and contrasting ruby red lips. He had a wooden tray strapped to his front, that displayed his wares — a surplus of deep red single roses and an unruly pile of pale yellow tissue paper. He prowled the corner of 4th and South, in the shadow of Copabanana and Jim’s Steaks, silently — almost telepathically — offering his floral commodities to the sidewalk-clogging crowds. Usually my excursions to South Street were dates (sometimes double or triple), so, for me,  a purchase from Flower Man was standard. Flower Man made a little spectacle for each transaction — carefully selecting the perfect rose, snipping stray leaves from its stem and wrapping it in tissue with exaggerated flourish — all the while leering seductively at the female half of the purchasing couple.

I made plenty of purchases (for plenty of girls) from Flower Man. When I was in art school in the early 80s, I used Flower Man as my inspiration for several projects. In an Experimental Medium class, I cut, glued, scored and folded a variety of papers into a colorful paper sculpture using Flower Man as the subject. In a Silk Screening class, I hand-stretched a screen and fashioned several stencils for each color of a print, again, with Flower Man as the focus. I was so pleased with the final results of the screened prints — a vivid, six-color, hand-pulled design enhanced by its presentation on black paper — that I gave a few as gifts to family members. I even gave one to Flower Man himself.

I got married almost immediately after graduating from art school. Our first few years of married life were spent in a two-story rented townhouse in Northeast Philadelphia. Soon, we were able to move into a beautiful, old twin home with hardwood floors and loads of character, just outside of the city. Mrs. Pincus and I filled our home with an array of quirky antiques and kitschy reminders of our youth. My wife frequented numerous flea markets and thrift shops searching for that elusive thing  that would look perfect in that empty corner of whatever room had an empty corner. One day, Mrs. Pincus went to idly examine the new arrivals at a Salvation Army store near our home. After roaming the aisles, she noticed it was approaching “pick-up” time at our son’s school, so she gathered her selections and proceeded to the cash register to pay. The customer ahead of her was discussing a large framed piece of art with the cashier.

“Do you know anything about this?”, the woman asked the volunteer cashier, as she held the frame out for inspection.

“No. No, I don’t.”, the cashier answered.

The woman turned the frame over so the art faced her and, sequentially, my wife. Mrs. Pincus’ eyes widened and she was hit by a jolt of recognition. The frame, in this woman’s hand, in this arbitrary Salvation Army store, held a print that I had created years earlier. It was a silk-screened print of Flower Man.

An “Oh my God” involuntarily slipped from my wife’s lips and then she said to the woman and cashier, “I know the artist. It’s my husband.”

The pair were dumbfounded (as was my wife). “Really?”, asked the woman, now quite intrigued, and she re-examined the piece with the assumed eye of a seasoned art collector. Then, she quickly turned to the cashier, paid for the framed print — my  print — and hurried out of the store.

I don’t know how that print found its way to that thrift shop. I don’t know why that woman anxiously purchased it and made a hasty exit.

Who knows? Maybe I’m a really famous artist.

This week’s Ilustration Friday’s challenge word is “stripes”.

John Philip Sousa composed 136 marches in his lifetime. Sousa, the leader of the United States Marine Band, composed one of his most famous on Christmas Day 1896, as a tribute to his friend David Blakely, the manager of the Sousa Band, who had recently passed away. The rousing composition was “The Stars and Stripes Forever March”. In 1987, an Act of Congress proclaimed the piece as the National March of the United States.

Sousa wrote six verses of lyrics, heavy with heart-stirring patriotic imagery, to accompany his piece. Sousa’s words are almost never sung and are scarcely even known. Instead, most Americans know an alternate set that they are sure are the actual lyrics. You know the ones I’m talking about. The ones that open with “Be kind to your web-footed friends…” Thanks to one Mitch Miller, those words are forever linked to Sousa’s triumphant and lively tribute to his friend and his country.

Mitch was a musician, composer, producer and conductor. He orchestrated the music for Orson Welles‘ infamous War of the Worlds  broadcast in 1938. In the 40s, he was hired as a A&R man at Mercury Records, where he was instrumental in directing the careers of Patti Page, Frankie Laine, Johnny Mathis, Doris Day, Dinah Shore and many others. Mitch pushed his affinity for novelty tunes on the likes of Frank Sinatra, Tony Bennett and Rosemary Clooney, almost ruining their careers. In the 50s, he joined Columbia Records in the same capacity. There, he signed Aretha Franklin to a contract, but she soon left to join Ahmet Ertegun at Atlantic Records. She accused Miller of hampering her creativity. Miller famously passed on two performers based purely on his blatant hatred for rock and roll. Those two singers, Elvis Presley and Buddy Holly, signed on to competing labels.

In the 60s, Mitch Miller had one of the most popular shows on television, Sing Along with Mitch.  For an hour every week, American families tuned in to watch Miller lead a male chorale and several soloists (including Leslie Uggams and future Sesame Street  staple Bob McGrath). Mom, Dad, Grandma and the kids would cheerfully sing back at their television, while “following the bouncing ball” across the song lyrics on the bottom of the screen. Miller presented favorites like “I’ve Got a Lovely Bunch of Coconuts”, “Yellow Rose of Texas” and “When You’re Smiling”. He would end every show by leading the cast (and the home viewers) in a recitation of the silly “web-footed friends” lyrics set to the tune of Sousa’s majestic march, thus permanently altering America’s perception of the patriotic song.

Thanks Mitch. Thanks for everything.

This week’s Illustration Friday suggestion is the word “scary”.  (I did another illustration for the word “scary” in 2008. You can see that  illustration HERE. )

I love scary movies. I have loved scary movies since I was a kid. The problem is… they don’t really scare  me. The classic Universal Monster movies from the 30s and 40s were great, but I thought Dracula, Frankenstein  and even The Wolf Man  were cool, not scary.  When I was a teenager my mom introduced me to a great movie from 1944 called The Uninvited.  It was one of the first Hollywood films to present a ghost story in a serious manner. Previously, ghost stories were always played for laughs. The Uninvited  was eerie, but, unfortunately, it didn’t scare me. In the 60s, Hammer Films, a British studio, remade a handful of Universal’s pictures as full-color, blood-drenched spectacles with erotic overtones. I was hardly frightened by these movies, as my budding hormones found the abundance of heaving bosoms very distracting from the horror. The Japanese imports, like Godzilla  and Rodan,  didn’t do it for me either and The Exorcist  actually made me laugh.

In the late 70s and early 80s, a new genre of scary movies was introduced — the slasher film. The original Halloween, A Nightmare on Elm Street  and Friday the 13th  were all cleverly written and very entertaining. Sure, I jumped at each one’s climactic finale, but I was not what would be described as “scared”. (Don’t get me started on the awful sequels to these films.) Again, my mom pointed me in the direction of Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho  from 1960. Goddammit, if that bastard Hitchcock didn’t scare me at last!

Psycho  is the perfect scary movie. Why? Because Hitchcock manipulates the shit out the audience. Everything he does goes against the norm. SPOILER ALERT IF YOU HAVE NOT SEEN PSYCHO. First, he introduces the heroine as a thief. Then, he kills her — the film’s star — a mere 45 minutes into the story. Psycho’s  killer isn’t a terrifying monster. He’s a good-looking, well-mannered young man; the guy next door. He offers candy to an investigating detective, for Christ’s sake! At one point, Hitchcock actually has the audience worried for the killer’s well-being. Most importantly, Psycho has the twist ending that all other films wish they had. Oooh,  that Hitchcock!

Alfred Hitchcock secretly bought the rights the Robert Bloch’s novel for nine thousand dollars and then bought all of the individual copies of the book that he could find to protect the surprise ending. Psycho  was released to theatres with explicit instructions that no one was to be admitted once the film began and he implored movie audiences not to reveal the ending to friends. It was genius marketing. The film, shot in thirty days for $800,000, earned over forty million dollars.

I have seen Psycho  countless times and, although I know every scene and every line of dialogue, it still scares me. No other film comes close. Now, that’s  scary.

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

“And Jesus saith unto them, All ye shall be offended because of me this night: for it is written, I will smite the shepherd, and the sheep shall be scattered.”
— Matthew 26:31

This quote from the New Testament has Jesus basically telling the apostles: “When I die, you guys are fucked.”

This week’s Illustration Friday challenge word is “contraption”.  This is the second of two illustrations for the topic. Here is the first.

Elijah McCoy worked as a fireman and oiler on the Michigan Central Railroad in the late 1800s. He often tinkered in his home workshop trying to devise new methods for lubricating machinery. He developed an automatic lubricator for oiling the steam engines of locomotives and ships and on July 12, 1872, he obtained his first patent for the device. Elijah continued to work and refine his inventions, eventually holding over 50 patents for various lubricating systems. By the turn of the century, author Booker T. Washington recognized Elijah as having produced more patents than any other black inventor up to that time. Lacking the capital with which to manufacture his lubricators in large numbers, Elijah usually assigned his patent rights to his employers or sold them to investors.

Elijah continued to invent varied contraptions until late in life, including a folding ironing board and a lawn sprinkler. In 1922, he suffered injuries in a automobile accident. He was a long-time resident of the Eloise Hospital (later the Michigan State Asylum), where he suffered from dementia. Elijah passed away on October 10, 1929 at the age of 86.

Railroad engineers looking to avoid inferior copies of Elijah’s oil drip cup would always request it by name, and ask if a locomotive was fitted with “the real McCoy system”. The term “The Real McCoy”, meaning a genuine article, has become part of our lexicon.

This week’s Illustration Friday challenge word is “contraption”.  This is the first of two illustrations for the topic. Here is the second.

In 1970, 25-year old Steve Wozniak was working at a California company on their mainframe computer. He met a summer employee, 20-year old Steve Jobs and the two became friends. Jobs got an idea to sell computers as kits with fully assembled circuit boards. Wozniak was skeptical, but Jobs explained that even if the idea failed, they could tell their grand kids that they ran their own company. They joined up with Ronald Wayne, whom they called their “adult supervisor” and, with Wayne’s help and small financial backing, formed Apple Computers out of Jobs’ bedroom at his parent’s home. Wozniak worked diligently, assembling the computers of his own invention and design — individually by hand. The first ones were unusual-looking contraptions - housed in a wooden case with visible bolts and wood-burned lettering. When the computer was presented and demonstrated to the Homebrew Computer Club, a group of hobbyists in Silicon Valley, interest was piqued and soon Jobs was selling Apple Computer kits to local electronic retailers. Wayne wrote the owner’s manual for the first computer and designed Apple’s logo, but grew worried about his investment and, after considering past failed investments, asked to be bought out of his 10% share. Wozniak and Jobs initially paid Wayne $800 and followed that with a full buyout of $1500. Wayne was out of the picture.

Until September 2011, Ronald Wayne had never owned an Apple product. Had he kept his 10% share in the company, it would have worth over 35 billion dollars.

The Illustration Friday challenge word this week is “hibernate”.

“Grrr … just five  more minutes… okay?”

THe current Illustration Friday challenge word is “ferocious”.

This is Grim Ruthless, the most ferocious man to ever live. He eats termite-infested tree trunks for breakfast. He lives in a huge boulder that he hollowed out with his teeth and bare hands. His living room has wall-to-wall broken glass. He once beat up a dump truck for a parking space. He ripped a man’s lungs right out of his chest just for looking at him the wrong way. He juggles rabid porcupines for exercise.

And worst, most heinous of all…

He goes to the ”12 items or less” check-out line with 14 items.

Ooooooohhhhh.