from my sketchbook: kermit roosevelt

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From the moment I could talk I was ordered to listen/Now there's a way and I know that I have to go away

At 20 years old, Kermit Roosevelt — the second son of President Theodore Roosevelt — left Harvard University to accompany his father on an African safari. Upon returning, he re-enrolled and completed four years worth of studies in just two and a half years. While at Harvard, he was a member of the prestigious, though secretive, Porcellian Club.

Following in his father’s adventurous footsteps, he set out again in 1913 for an expedition into Brazil’s Amazon River Basin jungles. Once again accompanied by his father and Brazilian military officer Cândido Rondon, Kermit explored the rain forest and the River of Doubt, later renamed Rio Roosevelt. Over a period of two years, the party lead by Kermit, navigated and charted over one thousand kilometers of previously-unexplored land. Despite being poorly prepared and inadequately equipped, they fared and overcame adverse weather, health problems and even several deaths. The Roosevelts contracted malaria during the journey. Thanks to Kermit’s survivalist instinct (specifically his rope-handling and canoe-rowing prowess), he battled through his own sickness to save the elder Roosevelt’s life. Kermit chronicled the trek in his book, Through the Brazilian Wilderness.

After returning from South America, Kermit married Belle Willard, daughter of the U.S. ambassador to Spain. Their ceremony had been postponed by the trip to the Amazonian jungle.

Kermit was a decorated captain in World War I, serving in Mesopotamia (modern-day Iraq). He mastered the Arabic language and served as a military translator with the locals.

After the war, Kermit founded the Roosevelt Steamship Company as well as the United States Lines*.

In 1925, Kermit and his brother Ted Jr. embarked on a hunting expedition in the Himalayas. They transversed the Kashmir Valley and followed the ancient Silk Route into China. The pair returned with several trophies that are currently part of the collection of the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago.

With help from his friend Winston Churchill, Kermit became a Second Lieutenant in the British Army. He led battles in Finland, Norway and North Africa, until an enlarged liver (brought on by years of heavy drinking) sidelined his commission. He returned to the United States and sunk deeper into alcoholism and depression. His cousin, President Franklin Roosevelt, made Kermit a major in the US Army and transferred him to Fort Richardson, Alaska. There, Kermit formed a militia with Eskimos and Aleuts.

In 1943,  Dr. Sanford Couch Monroe discovered Kermit in his Alaskan residence with a revolver by his side and a single, self-inflicted gunshot in his head. The official cause of death was released to the public as “heart attack.” Kermit, who was 53, left no suicide note.

* * * * *

* In 1952 (a decade after Kermit Roosevelt’s death), the United States Lines built the luxury passenger ship, The SS United States. The ship is the largest ocean liner constructed entirely in the US and still holds the distinction of being the fastest ocean liner to cross the Atlantic in either direction. The SS United States is featured prominently in the films, Bon Voyage, Munster Go Home, West Side Story and Gentlemen Marry Brunettes. In 1996, the ship was docked at Pier 82 on the Delaware River in Philadelphia. Ownership has been transferred several times and restoration plans were made and postponed and efforts are currently being made to save the vessel from the scrap heap as the once-great ship rots and rusts away. 

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from my sketchbook: the dolly sisters

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Lord help the mister who comes between me and my sister

At 13, twins Roszika and Janszieka Deutsch emigrated to the United States from their native Hungary. The energetic and rambunctious sisters were kicked out of a strict Catholic school for their lascivious dancing. But, by 1911, the talented and strikingly beautiful twins were front and center-stage in the famous Ziegfeld Follies.

For the next decade, the newly christened Rosie and Jenny Dolly (so named by a show producer for their resemblance to porcelain dolls) performed privately for kings, princes and the upper crust of society, in addition to appearing on grand stages across Europe and the United States. They even managed to grace the silver screen in a half dozen films.

Rosie and Jenny were the objects of desire of many men. They both carried on a long affair with department store magnate Harry Gordon Selfridge, who was 33 years their senior. Selfridge (who coined the business credo “The customer is always right” and the holiday catch phrase “Only [number] shopping days until Christmas) lavished gifts of cars and jewelry upon the girls.

In the 20s, the Dolly Sisters took their act for an extended run in Paris. There, they staged elaborately-themed shows featuring beautiful costumes and over-the-top scenery. Jenny met notorious French gangster Max Constant. One morning, Max took Jenny for a ride in his car and plowed into a line of trees. Jenny was seriously injured. Her rehabilitation lasted six weeks and required 15 separate surgical procedures. Despite reconstructive plastic surgery, Jenny felt she was reduced to a “shell of her former self” and she fell into a deep, unshakable depression. Soon afterwards, the French government fined Jenny over 750,000 dollars for evading customs on her jewelry purchases. Physically scarred, despondent and nearly broke, Jenny hanged herself in her shower with the sash from her robe.  She was a few months from her 50th birthday.

Rosie lived long enough to see Hollywood tell her story in The Dolly Sisters starring Betty Grable and June Haver (Mrs. Fred MacMurray). However, Rosie attempted suicide in 1962, but was unsuccessful. Rosie eventually passed away from heart failure in 1970.

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from my sketchbook: sunny johnson

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Sunny, you smiled at me and really eased the pain.

Sunny Sue Johnson made her acting debut in a second season episode of the fluffy 70s crime drama Charlie’s Angels. She was next cast as “Otter’s Co-Ed” in a scene in Animal House that ended up on the cutting room floor. She appeared in a number of small roles on TV and in films in the late 70s and early 80s. Director Charles B. Griffith (best known for his work with Roger Corman on Bucket of Blood and the original Little Shop of Horrors) cast Sunny – the day before shooting began – in his horror spoof Dr. Heckyl and Mr. Hype opposite Oliver Reed. She followed that with a more substantial part in The Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia in 1981.

In 1983, Sunny landed her biggest role, and the one for which she is best remembered. She starred alongside Jennifer Beals in Flashdance, playing the lead character’s best friend, figure skater Jeanie Szabo. This role led to a four-episode stint on Hill Street Blues creator Stephen Bochco’s newest series, Bay City Blues, which followed the exploits of a minor league baseball team. The show, unfortunately, lasted only those four episodes.

On June 18, 1984, Sunny’s live-in boyfriend, character actor Archie Hahn, found Sunny unconscious. She was rushed to UCLA Medical Center where it was determined that a blood vessel had burst in her brain. Sunny was placed on life support, but was unresponsive. She never regained consciousness and passed away on June 19 at the age of 30.

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IF: tension

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Cap'n Carl

As a recent graduate of California State University, Northridge, Phil Hartman took his graphic arts degree and started a design business. He specialized in album covers and created designs for Poco, America and Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young. Then, he gave it up for a shot at comedy.

He joined the improvisational group The Groundlings alongside another comic named Paul Reubens. Phil and Paul created a character called “Pee Wee Herman”. Paul became the embodiment of the character, while the pair collaborated on sketches, a stage show, an HBO special and eventually a screenplay.

Phil began doing cartoon voices and appearing in small roles in movies until his successful audition for Saturday Night Live in 1986 made him a household name.  He was the show’s chameleon, able to don a wig and costume and become any one of a number of characters. The same year as his SNL debut, the twice-divorced Phil went on a blind date with aspiring actress Brynn Omdahl. They were married a year later.

Phil’s marriage to Brynn was volatile, mainly due to Brynn’s excessive drug use. Although she was a devoted mother to their two children, Brynn was frustrated by and jealous of Phil’s success. The couple fought regularly and Phil often sought isolation from his spouse when the arguing headed out of control.

On May 28, 1998, Brynn was drinking with a friend at a Buca Di Beppo restaurant near their Encino home. She headed home and, after entering the house, began a heated argument with Phil.  Tempers flared and tensions heightened as Phil threatened divorce if Brynn started using drugs again. He stormed off to bed. At 3 in the morning, Brynn entered their bedroom with a .38 caliber handgun and fired three shots into her husband while he slept.

She fled to a friend’s house and confessed her actions, although her friend did not believe her at first. She convinced him to drive back to the scene and when they did, he discovered Phil’s bloody and lifeless body. He called the police. Within minutes the police were escorting the hysterical Hartman children from the family home. Brynn had locked herself in the couple’s bedroom. Just as police were about to break down the door, Brynn stuck the barrel of a handgun in her mouth and pulled the trigger.

Phil was a few months shy of his 50th birthday. Phil’s children will inherit the comedian’s $1.23 million dollar estate, as well as an out-of-court settlement from a wrongful death law suit against Pfizer that blamed Phil’s death on Brynn’s abuse of the antidepressant Zoloft.

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from my sketchbook: bobby fuller

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breaking rocks in the hot sun

Thirteen-year-old Bobby Fuller loved Elvis Presley from the very first time he heard him. Bobby practiced playing the guitar and singing, trying his best to emulate The King. In the early 60s, Bobby formed a band with his brother and a revolving door of sidemen. They played local clubs and recorded a few songs in a small home studio, with Bobby serving as producer.

In 1964, The Bobby Fuller Four signed with Mustang Records in Los Angeles. Despite the popularity of the British Invasion, Bobby and his band stuck with the rockabilly sound of their idols, Elvis and fellow Texan Buddy Holly. The band recorded the Crickets’ tune “I Fought the Law,” written by Sonny Curtis, the guitarist who replaced the late Buddy Holly. (Nearly a decade later, Sonny would go on to write and record “Love is All Around,” the theme to The Mary Tyler Moore Show.) The Bobby Fuller Four cover of “I Fought the Law” hit number 9 on the Billboard Top 100 chart in March 1966.They followed the hit with another cover – this time the Buddy Holly song “Love’s Made a Fool of You.”

In April 1966, The Bobby Fuller Four appeared in the film Ghost in the Invisible Bikini, the final beach party movie for American International Pictures (and featuring Sue Hamilton). In the film, Bobby and his band backed 26 year-old Nancy Sinatra on the song “Geronimo.” Bobby also exercised his acting skills in a few scenes in the haunted house spoof.

Just four months after “I Fought the Law” hit the charts, Bobby was found dead behind the wheel of his parked car near his Hollywood apartment. His face and chest were covered with petechial hemorrhages (red marks on the skin from broken capillaries). The inside of the car smelled heavily of gasoline and Bobby’s hand rested on the the keys that were in the ignition.

The official cause of death was listed as a suicide, but friends and family still question that conclusion. Bandmate Jim Reece suspects a link to the Manson Family.

Bobby Fuller was 23.

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IF: liquid

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candy is dandy, but liquor is quicker

Everybody likes a good vomit story.

When I was in high school, my parents regularly went to a resort in the Catskill Mountains for the final weekend of March. While they were busy packing, I, too, was busy with plans of my own. I was making arrangements to have a couple of friends over for a weekend of drinking, drinking, drinking, and perhaps, if there was any time left, some drinking.

Before I continue, let me offer some justification to you young and impressionable kiddies out there who see ol’ Josh Pincus as some sort of role model.  When I was eighteen years old, the legal age for alcohol consumption in the state of New Jersey was eighteen. It was legal for me to purchase and consume alcoholic beverages in New Jersey. What’s that you say? I didn’t live in New Jersey and crossing state lines with alcohol is illegal? A technicality that, 34 years after the fact, I choose to ignore. The point is: I purchased liquor myself and it was (sort-of) legal. Okay? Stay in school, kids. And now, back to our story…

I invited my pals Scott and Alan to stay the weekend while Mom and Dad Pincus were away. We met at my house after school and, with my parents already gone since that morning, headed out to stock up on liquid refreshment. We piled into my car and crossed the Tacony-Palmyra Bridge from Pennsylvania into free-flowing, booze-soaked New Jersey. As we descended the bridge’s off-ramp, I navigated into the first liquor store parking lot. Alan and I beat a path toward the beer cooler, but Scott detoured into the aisles of bottled liquor.

“Where is he going?,” I asked Alan, as I watched Scott eye the decanters filled with amber and scarlet liquid usually reserved for people our parents’ age. Alan shrugged and continued on towards the beer.

We selected two (maybe three) cases of beer and met up with Scott at the checkout line. He was holding a flat, square pint bottle filled with what looked like cough syrup. The colorful, but decidedly old-fashioned looking label declared the contents as “sloe gin.”

“What the fuck is that?,” Alan and I both asked simultaneously.

“Someone told me this is really good,” Scott explained, “and it gets you drunk really fast.” We laughed at the promise, paid for our stuff and started back to my house.

Hours and several pizzas later, we were putting away the beer at a record clip. Scott decided that now was a good time to experiment with the sloe gin. He slid a fingernail under the protective paper seal that secured the cap and ripped it from the bottle. He spun the lid. Raising one of my mom’s everyday juice glasses, Scott tipped the mouth of the bottle and the viscous elixir slowly dripped out. It was thick and red and very unappealing

“Eeechhh!,” I said, “That looks disgusting! You’re not really gonna drink that shit, are you?’

Scott didn’t even wait for me to finish my question. He knocked back the initial serving and poured himself another. He followed that with two more, each one containing slightly more than the previous. Alan and I continued downing beers, several times turning down Scott’s offer to share. As the time ticked away, beer cans were drained, empty pizza boxes were tossed and soon we were all reeling to find a comfortable place to fall asleep. I fell across my bed. Alan crashed crosswise on my brother’s bed. (My brother found accommodations for himself at a friend’s house.) Scott stumbled and landed on the previously set-up folding cot at the foot of my bed. He was out like a light. I switched off my bedside lamp and the room was immersed in sweet, soothing, restful darkness.

Suddenly, we were awakened by an unmistakable sound. The unmistakable sound of retching.

Still groggy, I sat up in the dark and fumbled for the light switch. Alan muttered, “What’s going on?” I found the lamp and gave it a flick. The room was instantly illuminated. I looked down at the end of my bed and there was Scott. Eyes closed. Sound asleep. Mouth open and spewing — what looked like — gallons of red liquid. It was the entire contents of the sloe gin bottle that he had finished just hours before. I leaped out of bed and began to shake Scott awake.

“Hey man, ” I shouted, “Get up! Get up, man!”

Alan added, “I hope he doesn’t choke to death.” Nice one, Alan. That thought didn’t even cross my mind, but now that he brought it up, it was all I could think about! “Shit!,” I thought, “I can’t let my friend die here in my house. My mom’ll kill me!” Alan and I shook Scott more until his puffy eyes finally opened to slits and, with his mouth dripping with red vomit, he coughed out a confused “What?”

We helped Scott into an adjacent bathroom and wiped his face off with wet towel. He was sobering up and he seemed fine. Scott turned around and spotted the red-soaked sheets on the cot. A look of panic washed across his face. He sprang forward, ripped the sheets off the makeshift bed and headed back into the bathroom. He turned the faucet in the small sink on full blast and ran the sheets under the streaming water. Grabbing a bar of soap, he began scouring the sheets and the runoff splashed out in torrents of red.

“Oh, man, Josh,” Scott apologized, “your mom is gonna kill me for ruining these sheets.”

I explained that it was okay and that she would have been a lot madder if she returned from her vacation to a dead eighteen year-old.

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