from my sketchbook: jay stewart

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Wait until that deal come round, don't you let that deal go down
“These people, dressed as they are, come from all over the United States to make deals here in the Marketplace of America. Let’s! Make! A Deal!” – Jay Stewart

Jay Stewart broke into show business as a sax player, but landed a few announcing jobs after his graduation from college. Jay became the announcer on the fledgling Let’s Make A Deal one year after its premiere. Let’s Make a Deal  host Monty Hall called Jay “the best second banana you ever found in your life.” In addition to annoucing, Jay carried prize boxes and appeared on stage in various costumes when “zonk” prizes were awarded.

When the original version of Let’s Make a Deal  left the air in 1977,  Jay announced for other game shows like Sale of the Century, Joker’s Wild  and Tic-Tac-Dough until 1981, when the suicide of Jay’s daughter disrupted his career.

Jay returned to the airwaves in 1983, announcing on Pat Robertson’s 700 Club that he had found religion and it was helping him to deal with his daughter’s death. However, Jay never fully overcame her death and, coupled with chronic back pain from the years of heavy lifting on Let’s Make A Deal, he turned increasingly to alcohol. After a brief stint as an agent for other TV announcers, Jay committed suicide, shooting himself at his home in September 1989 just after his 71st birthday.

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from my sketchbook: surprised?

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There's so many people to see/So many people you can check up on/And add to your collection

Nothing surprises me. Nothing. Everyday, I hear about things people do and things that happen to people and I’m not surprised. I hear and read news reports relating supposedly shocking events and I’m still not surprised.

In 1983, beloved local Philadelphia weatherman Jim O’Brien died while skydiving. He jumped out of an airplane and, while attempting to help a fellow skydiver untangle his parachute, Jim didn’t allow enough time to open his own ‘chute and he plummeted to his death. It was sad. It was tragic. But was it a surprise? No. After all, he did  start off by jumping out of an airplane. It’s not like he slipped in the bathroom and his ‘chute didn’t open.

In 2001, professional race car driver and seven-time Winston Cup champion Dale Earnhardt died on the last lap of the Daytona 500 when his car hit the track wall at 180 miles-per-hour. Was is sad? No doubt. Was it tragic? Of course. Millions of NASCAR fans had lost a hero. Was it a surprise? Did I mention he was going 180 miles-per-hour?  He wasn’t taxiing Dale Junior over to the mall to giggle at girls on a Saturday afternoon.  

Steve Irwin, who gained fame as an adventurer and self-proclaimed crocodile hunter, was a likable and rambunctious character. He died in 2006 when he was snorkeling in Australia’s Great Barrier Reef. Steve was swimming just above a stingray when the ray’s barb raised up and pierced Steve’s chest, penetrating his heart. Was it tragic? Yes. Was it sad? For his family and fans, sure. Was it a surprise? No. After all, he was swimming just above a stingray. He wasn’t absent-mindedly referring to his shopping list in the supermarket when a stingray popped out of a display of nectarines and jammed its barb into Steve’s chest.

In February 2010, Dawn Brancheau, a 40-year-old trainer at SeaWorld, was killed when Tilikum, a six-ton killer whale grabbed her by the ponytail and dragged her around its tank until she drowned. This was the third incident involving this killer whale that resulted in death. Was it sad? Yes it was.  Was it tragic? It sure was, as the unfortunate incident was witnessed by two dozen straggler tourists as they hung back while exiting the seating area after a show. Was it surprising? If my job required regular interaction with something that has “killer” as part of its name, I’d rethink my career choice. Miss Brancheau had  to have known that she didn’t work with a “happy-go-lucky” whale.

 One day two weeks ago, I was coming home from the train station. As I walked up my driveway, I noticed that my next-door neighbor, a woman in her fifties, was high in a tree in her backyard, sweeping out a treehouse. I shook my head in silent disapproval. I was not surprised, however, because in the ten years that she has occupied the house adjacent to mine, she has been predisposed to doing weird shit. Once inside my house, I told my wife what I had witnessed outside. She rolled her eyes and a “what now?” expression crossed her face. Suddenly, the air was split by a shriek. My compassionate wife dashed outside to find our neighbor crumpled in a heap on the treehouse’s small balcony, one leg wedged and dangling between two slats. A 911 call was made and soon rescue personnel were working to free my neighbor as she moaned in a combination of pain and embarrassment. Was it sad? I suppose. Was it tragic? I guess. Was it a surprise? Well, she was  sweeping a treehouse. That’s a house  up in a tree!  She wasn’t tidying up the guest room when she tripped over the vacuum cleaner cord and fell out of a tree.

Last week, I saw a story on the news about an attack by a grizzly bear on some campers in Montana’s Soda Butte Campground, near Yellowstone National Park. The errant bear entered three different campsites, attacking two people and killing a third man after dragging him 25 feet from his tent. Was it sad? You bet! Was it tragic? Oh my goodness, yes! Was it surprising? If some uninvited visitors were sleeping in the middle of your living room, what would you do? Oh, before you answer – remember, you’re a 900-pound bear. Yeah, I thought so. These people weren’t mailing their electric bill and a birthday card to Gramma when a bear leaped out of the mailbox.

I understand the sadness to be felt when stories like these are related. I can even appreciate the feeling of “There, but for the grace of God go I”. Stuff like this can happen to anyone. Right? Well, I have no plans to ever skydive. I rarely drive over the posted speed limit. I don’t swim, but if I did, it wouldn’t be anywhere near stingrays. Or killer whales. If necessary, I will find someone more agile that I to sweep out my treehouse (by the way, I don’t have  a goddamn treehouse). Twenty-four years ago, I bought a house with the intention of keeping my family from having to sleep in the dirt, so you won’t ever catch me camping. I can guarantee that when my time on this Earth is through, I won’t pass on to the Great Beyond through the jaws of a grizzly bear.

Surprised? I didn’t think so.

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from my sketchbook: karen greenlee

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I love the dead before they're cold/Their blueing flesh for me to hold/Cadaver eyes upon me see nothing
Karen Greenlee worked as an embalming assistant at a Sacramento mortuary. She aspired to work in this field because of her life-long fascination with dead bodies. As a child, she visited — and later broke into — local funeral homes to observe and “interact”  with the corpses. Her obsession turned into infatuation and then into love.

Karen had “encounters”  with over forty corpses — some by entering mortuaries after hours, some by breaking into sealed tombs in cemeteries. She was caught “in the act”  on several occasions, but was merely chased away from the premises by funeral directors fearing bad publicity.

In 1993, Karen was caught driving a hearse carrying a body that should have been delivered to a funeral two days earlier. When police took her into custody, she was in a drug-induced daze. A search of the vehicle revealed a lengthy letter — inside the casket — in which Karen confessed her sexual relations with deceased males. She detailed being turned-on by the smell of a freshly embalmed corpse. She was sentenced to eleven days in jail and fined two hundred fifty-five dollars. Her crime was interfering with a burial and stealing a hearse and the body it carried. She received a relatively light sentence because, at the time, California had no laws prohibiting necrophilia.

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From my sketchbook: jesus on his day off

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I saw Jesus at McDonald's at midnight
I’ve done many drawings of Jesus. As a character and what he stands for, I love putting him in oddball situations. Some of my Jesus drawings have appeared on my blog (like Jesus as a children’s party entertainer,  Jesus as a hockey goalie and Jesus as a skateboarder) and some have just remained in my sketchbook.

Well, here is the drawing that started it all — Jesus on His Day Off. I drew this in 2006 and never posted it. I always got a kick out of it, though.

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from my sketchbook: roy sullivan

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Every boy wants a girl/He can trust to the very end/Baby, that's you/Won't you wait but 'til then/When I see lips beggin' to be kissed - stop - I can't stop - stop - I can't stop myself
Roy Sullivan, a U.S. park ranger at Shenandoah National Park in Virginia, was hit by lightning on seven different occasions between 1942 and 1977. He survived all of them. Roy was included in the Guinness World Records as the person struck by lightning more times than any other human being.

In 1983, Roy died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound over an unrequited love. He was 71.

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IF: double

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This week’s challenge word on the Illustration Friday website is “double”.
double your pleasure, double your fun
Identical twins Jeen and Sunny Han were born in South Korea in 1974 but lived apart until they were 3. When the girls were 12, their mother, a chronic gambler, moved them to California. She would leave the young sisters alone for days at at time while she went on gambling binges. Jeen and Sunny developed a strong bond during their time together. Their mother sent the girls to live with an aunt and uncle when she no longer wanted to be burdened with parental responsibility.

Both girls excelled academically and graduated high school as co-valedictorians. Sunny went on to college on a scholarship. Jeen, seeking money for college, joined the US Air Force. The twins grew apart and only spoke briefly by phone over the next several years.

Overwhelmed by the rigors of boot camp, Jeen sought a discharge from the Air Force. First, she explained that her father was ill and then, hoping to be expelled over policy, claimed she was a lesbian. Eventually, the Air Force relented and she was released. from service. Jeen found employment as a blackjack dealer in a Lakeside California casino. Like her mother, she became a compulsive gambler. She began stealing friend’s’ and family’s checks and credit cards to repay her debts. She was arrested and skipped out on her probation.

Jeen moved to Los Angeles to live with her twin sister. Sunny, having delivered failing grades for three semesters, lost her scholarship and was working as a receptionist. The sister argued a lot. Sunny broke Jeen’s nose during one dispute. Others were broken up by the police, where Sunny was arrested on an unrelated charge of credit card fraud. Sunny had stolen a friend’s credit card. While Sunny was in jail, Jeen stole Sunny’s car and used her identification to empty her savings. Upon Sunny’s release, Jeen was jailed for six months. She was put on work furlough and escaped.

Soon after, an angered Jeen recruited two teenagers to help her kill her sister. They drove to Sunny’s apartment, purchasing garbage bags, duct tape, twine, gloves, Pine Sol cleaner, and magazines on the way. The also brought guns. Their plan was to have one of the teens pose as a magazine salesman to gain access to the apartment. Then the other two would force themselves inside. This scheme played out perfectly, except the door was answered by Sunny’s roommate, Helen. They tied Helen up, but Sunny, hearing the disturbance from the next room, called the police on her cellphone. The police arrived quickly and arrested one of Jeen’s accomplices, but she left along with the other. Later the same day, Jeen was arrested when she attempted to used Sunny’s driver’s license to withdraw $5,000.

After  a year in jail awaiting trial, Jeen Han was tried for conspiracy to commit murder, two counts of burglary, possession of a firearm, and two counts of false imprisonment. The two teenagers were also tried as co-conspirators. Jeen contested that she merely wished to scare her sister, not kill her. The jury concluded that the items brought to the scene, coupled with Sunny’s roommate’s testimony, amounted to Jeen’s preparation to commit murder. During the course of the trial, an overly stressed Sunny Han attempted suicide by ingesting several dozen sleeping pills.

The two conspirators received sentences of eight and sixteen years. Despite her attorney’s argument that Jeen suffered from a personality disorder that predisposed her to extreme mood swings, Jeen Han was sentenced to 26 years to life. Three days after her incarceration, Jeen attempted suicide with painkillers she had hidden in her cell.

She will be eligible for parole in 2020.

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DCS: mel turpin

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I've been leaving on my things/So in the morning when the morning bird sings/There's still dinner on my dinner jacket/'Til the dinner bell rings
At 6′ 11″, Mel Turpin dominated the court as starter for the University of Kentucky Wildcats basketball team in the 1984 NCAA Final Four. He was the Southeastern Conference scoring leader and still holds the record for most field goals in SEC tournament play. At center, he was an aggressive player, scoring 42 points in a game against Tennessee.

He was the sixth overall pick in the first round by the Washington Bullets in the 1984 NBA Draft. Although there were high hopes for Mel, he was immediately traded to the Cleveland Cavaliers. But, Mel never achieved his full potential in the NBA. He struggled with fluctuating weight, earning him the derisive nickname “Dinner Bell Mel”. He was traded to the Utah Jazz and then back to Washington where, after five unremarkable seasons in the NBA, he called it a career. In a year that included future superstars like Charles Barkley, Hakeem Olajuwon, John Stockton and Michael Jordan, Mel Turpin was considered one of the biggest disappointments in draft history.

After his retirement, Mel worked as a security guard.

On July 8, 2010, Mel committed suicide by gunshot. He was 49.

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IF: breakfast (part 3)

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This is my third illustration for the Illustration Friday word “breakfast”.  Here is the first one and here is the second.
can we have kippers for breakfast, mommy dear, mommy dear
I get a kick out of seeing new parents cautiously checking the ingredient list on cereal. Not wanting to have their children ingest anything that would be harmful or contain empty calories, today’s parents opt for healthful choices for the most important meal of the day. Grocery store shelves are stocked with fruit juice sweetened organic grain-filled packages adorned with happy children enjoying a sunshiny day in a golden meadow. The colorful boxes of star-shaped marshmallows and sugar-coated crunchy morsels have taken a back seat.

When I was a kid, Saturday morning cartoons were regularly interrupted with instructions to “Ask Mom” to buy the latest cereal. Arrays of crazy characters were plastered on the fronts of every box of cereal, all vying for my attention. A good portion of Kellogg’s offerings displayed familiar Hanna Barbera favorites, but there was something compelling about those created specifically for the product. Animals, leprechauns, birds, spacemen, cowboys  they were all there. Sometimes a new character was placed on a lagging brand to invigorate sales. Kellogg’s Cocoa Krispies featured José the Monkey, Coco the Elephant, Ogg the Caveman, another elephant named Tusk, even popular cartoon mountain lion Snagglepuss briefly got in on the cereal-hawking act. Finally Snap, Crackle and Pop stepped in and took the chocolate version under its Rice Krispies umbrella.

Cap’n Crunch, the soft-palate shredding squares of corn, was introduced in 1963. Its popularity spawned a host of spin-off flavors that were part of the Cap’n Crunch family. Each new flavor featured a new character on its box, starting with the Crunch Berry Beast in 1967. Hot on his tail was pirate Jean LaFoote representing for Cinnamon Crunch, Wilma the Winsome White Whale for Vanilla Crunch, Smedley the Elephant for Peanut Butter Crunch (what’s up with these elephants?) and Harry the Hippo on boxes of fruit punch flavored Cap’n Crunch. Things got a bit out of hand when “Chockle the Blob” appeared on Choco Crunch. I didn’t know what Chockle was and I didn’t want to eat what he was selling.

There was also a parade of characters who made brief appearances in the cereal aisle because their namesake products were ill-conceived or just couldn’t compete with breakfast powerhouses like Tony the Tiger or Toucan Sam. One such mascot was Bigg Mixx. Much like the cereal he promoted — an obvious corporate grain snafu at the Kellogg’s production plant — Mixx was an amalgam of several species. One could pick out a buffalo, a moose and a deer in its makeup, but the creature and the cereal were equally frightening and it disappeared from shelves quickly. Other grain-based disasters were Sir Grapefellow and Baron Von Redberry, a pair of single fruit flavored cereal rivals. And the similar Crazy Cow, a boxful of multi-grain pellets coated in drink mix to flavor milk.

Sometimes the story of the cereal characters, as depicted in commercials, was more important than the product itself. Such was the case with Freakies, Grins & Smiles & Giggles & Laughs and the notorious Crispy Critters. Linus the Lionhearted was the cartoon mascot for Crispy Critters, whose show blurred the line between cereal commercial and children’s entertainment. Linus’ adventures were thinly veiled advertisements for Post products and the show was pulled when complaints mounted.

I miss Saturday mornings in front of the TV, plowing through two or three bowls of some brightly-hued, milk-drenched nuggets. I miss the day-glo neon colors of the supermarket cereal aisle. I fondly look back on the difficult decision of choosing a cereal based on its mascot, its shape, its marshmallow content and the “cool factor” of the toy buried deep inside its sugar-frosted depths. Sometimes I think that Cap’n Crunch and his friends are plotting an attack and will one day blow that low-fructose granola shit into the dog food aisle.


Pictured above: 1- Honey Nut Cheerios Bee; 2-Crunch Berry Beast; 3-Ogg the Caveman; 4-Jean LaFoote; 5-Quisp; 6-The Cheerios Kid; 7-Snorkeldorf (Freakies); 8-BooBerry; 9-Big Yella; 10-Sonny; 11-King Vitaman, 12-Toucan Sam; 13-Newton Owl; 14-Tony the Tiger; 15-Lucky

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IF: breakfast (part 2)

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This is my second illustration of three illustrations for the Illustration Friday word “breakfast”.  Here is the first one and here is the third.
the most important meal of the day
A month or so ago, WXPN‘s afternoon drive time DJ Dan Reed was coming out of a block of music and easing into a conversation with Lauren Valle who was about to give a rush-hour traffic report. The last song Dan played before the break was by neo-retro jammers Phish. As part of his regular banter with Lauren, Dan pointed out that the Phish tune boasted some “crunchy grooves”, and without skipping a beat, added that it sounded like “something my son would eat for breakfast”. A confused Lauren chuckled and proceeded with the traffic report. The conversation amused my wife and she asked me to create a box of Crunchy Grooves cereal for Dan. I did and I sent it to him. He got a kick out of it.

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