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 …
As a child, little Sue Hamilton had aspirations of becoming a farmer, but sometimes things change. And things changed for Sue. After high school, Sue began modeling. A photographer with whom she worked sent a sampling of her pictures to Playboy. The magazine was impressed and contacted Sue. She was elated — never believing that, at just …
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 …
In the month following the capture of the Chinese capital of Nanking by the Japanese during the second Sino-Japanese War in 1937, thousands of Chinese civilians and disarmed soldiers were murdered and up to 80,000 Chinese women were raped by soldiers of the Imperial Japanese Army. As the years went on, many Japanese nationalists have …
Ten-year old Jay R. Smith made his debut as part of the “Our Gang” comedy group in Boys Will Be Joys in 1925. He was brought on by Hal Roach as a replacement for the popular Mickey Daniels. Freckle-faced Jay stuck with Roach Studios for five years, appearing in over thirty short films, until he …
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 …
Who knows what Suzan Ball’s career could have been? At 13, young Suzan Ball moved from Jamestown, New York to Hollywood to a home near Universal-International Pictures (a division of Universal formed from a merger to distribute lower budget films and British imports). Suzan, second cousin to comedienne Lucille Ball, landed her first acting job at …
I have ranted… I mean, related many anecdotes from my nearly thirty years as a professional artist. There’s one story that I have told numerous times, but have never put into print… until now. I was employed for almost five years in the advertising department at the main headquarters of a major after-market auto parts retailer whose …
Viv Stanshall hated being referred to as “eccentric”. He felt it suggested that he was putting on an act. He wasn’t. When he and band-mate Neil Innes first met, Viv was wearing checked pants, a Victorian frock coat, purple glasses, pink rubber ears and was carrying a euphonium. The Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band (originally “Dada” Band, …
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, just not scary. When I was a teenager my …
