This week’s Illustration Friday challenge is “entangled”.
Margie didn’t want to get entangled in the madness of Christmas shopping.
So, this year, everyone got a homemade gift.
Hey Everyone! My annual compilation of eclectic Christmas music is now available!
That’s right! 23 songs (and a bonus track) plus a custom color cover in PDF format to print, all convenietly zipped and ready for FREE DOWNLOAD !
Just click HERE and let the holiday fun begin!
The current Monday Artday challenge is “feast”.
A feast means something different to different people.
The current Monday Artday challenge is “gratitude”.
Curt Flood spent most of his career as a center fielder for the St. Louis Cardinals. He led the National League in putouts four times. He won seven consecutive Gold Glove Awards. He also batted over .300 six times, and led the NL in hits in 1964. He retired with the third most games in center field in NL history, behind Willie Mays and Richie Ashburn.
On October 7, 1969, the Cardinals traded Flood, catcher Tim McCarver, outfielder Byron Browne, and pitcher Joe Hoerner to the Philadelphia Phillies for first baseman Dick Allen, second baseman Cookie Rojas, and pitcher Jerry Johnson. However, Flood refused to report to the Phillies, citing the team’s poor record, the fact that they played in dilapidated Connie Mack Stadium and, what Flood felt, racist fans.
With the backing of the Players Association and with former U.S. Supreme Court Justice Arthur Goldberg arguing on his behalf, Flood sought action against Baseball Commissioner Bowie Kuhn in a case that lasted from January 1970 to June 1972 at district, circuit, and Supreme Court levels. Although the Supreme Court ultimately ruled against Flood, upholding baseballs exemption from antitrust statutes, the case set the stage for the advent of free agency.
The emotional costs to Flood as a result of his unprecedented challenge of the reserve clause were enormous. Floods major league career effectively ended with his legal action, and he traveled to Europe, spending much of his time there painting and writing, attempting to deal with the pain and frustration of being away from the game he loved. In 1970, prior to the Supreme Court decision, Flood published his autobiography, The Way It Is, a book which outlined his moral and legal objections to baseballs reserve system.
At the memorial service for Curt Flood, who died of throat cancer in 1997 at the age of 59, dozens of former ballplayers gathered to pay tribute to a man whose sacrifice made him not merely a hero, but a martyr. Former major leaguer Tito Fuentes wondered why the current generation of baseballs multi-millionaires did not attend the service to pay their respect. “He was a great man,” Fuentes remarked as he passed by Floods casket. “Im sorry that so many of the young players who made millions, who benefited from his fight, are not here. They should be here.”
You call that gratitude?
This song by The Baseball Project sums it up perfectly. (Lyrics HERE.)
This week’s challenge on Illustration Friday is “music”.
“I don’t know anything about music. In my line you don’t have to.”
— Elvis Presley
The inspirational word this week on Inspire Me Thursday is “label”.
Someday, maybe I’ll go into business with my mother-in-law.
Hope Summers made her Hollywood debut at the age of fifty, beginning a career of playing essentially the same character. Hope was the older, genteel neighbor in countless Westerns, sitcoms and medical shows in the early days of television. She was featured as Hattie Denton, the friendly and helpful proprietor of the North Fork general store, in The Rifleman with Chuck Connors and she provided the voice of Mrs. Butterworth, the talking syrup bottle. But, Hope was best remembered as Aunt Bee’s slightly competitive, slightly gossipy best friend Clara Edwards in thirty-two episodes of The Andy Griffith Show.
In 1968, Hope’s familiar character took on a whole new dimension when she portrayed Mrs. Gilmore, one of the Satan worshippers attempting to corrupt poor Mia Farrow in Rosemary’s Baby. After her turn as one of the devil’s minion, try watching her in The Andy Griffith Show. You’ll never look at sweet old Clara in the same way.
Hope was still an active and in-demand actress at the time of her death in 1979 at age 83.
The inspirational word this week on the Inspire Me Thursday website is “tree”.
After years in the jungle, Tarzan never imagined he’d spend his golden years in a tree.
The Illustration Friday challenge word this week is “unbalanced”.
They don’t come much more unbalanced than Armin Meiwes. WARNING! His story is not for the faint of heart.
Armin Meiwes was an active member on the fetish fantasy website, The Cannibal Cafe. In December 2001, he posted a message seeking a dinner guest. After screening several candidates, he began more serious correspondence with fellow German Bernd Jürgen Brandes. Through a month of email conversation, Meiwes discovered, to his delight, that Brandes’ fantasy was to be killed and eaten. Meiwes was only too happy to oblige.
In March 2002, Brandes came to Meiwes’ home in Rotenburg. Meiwes gave Brandes large amounts of alcohol and painkillers. He then led Brandes to his bathtub to lie down. Once Brandes was properly anesthetized (but conscious), Meiwes cut off his guest’s male organ and fried it in a pan with onions and garlic. Meiwes served the cooked appendage to the two of them, as Brandes slowly bled to death. After they consumed as much as they could, Meiwes administered more alcohol and alcohol-based cold medication and left Brandes to die in the tub. Meiwes went into another room and read a Star Trek adventure book for three hours. Then, he returned to the tub, cut Brandes’ throat, and hung the body from a meat-hook. He began the task of butchering Brandes’ body for further consumption. He stripped, separated and bagged sixty-five pounds of Brandes’ flesh, which he stored in a chest freezer. He attempted to hide the bags under some frozen pizzas. Over the next ten months, Meiwes ate some of the flesh every day.
Meiwes was arrested in December 2002, after a college student contacted the police upon seeing advertisements for victims and details about the killing on the internet. Investigators searching Meiwes’ home found a videotape of the killing and approximately fifteen pounds of human flesh in the freezer.
On January 30, 2004, Meiwes was convicted of manslaughter and sentenced to eight and a half years in prison. Meiwes had admitted what he has done, although he debated the charge of murder, insisting that Brandes was a willing participant and was well aware of his fate.
Not satisfied with the manslaughter charge and the lenient sentence, a Frankfurt court retried Meiwes in 2006. He was found guilty and sentenced to life in prison.
Thirty-year-old Erin Fleming was hired as secretary to eighty-year-old Groucho Marx in 1970. The two began a relationship. She persuaded Groucho to perform a one-man show that proved to be wildly popular. A performance at Carnegie Hall was recorded and released as An Evening with Groucho. That, too, was a huge success.
Groucho’s son, Arthur, accused Erin, a failed actress, of exploiting an increasingly senile Groucho in pursuit of her own stardom. In Groucho’s later years, his heirs filed several lawsuits against her. One allegation leveled against Fleming was that she was determined to sell Groucho’s favorite Cadillac against his wishes. When Groucho protested, Fleming allegedly threatened, “I will slap you from here to Pittsburgh.”
Groucho’s health began to decline quickly in 1977 and he was in and out of the hospital for most of the summer. On August 19, 1977, Erin Fleming made this statement to the Associated Press: Grouchos just having a nice little dream now. Hes just going to have a nap and rest his eyes for the next several centuries. Erin left the hospital, leaving Arthur, Arthur’s wife and son in Groucho’s room when he died. The court battles over Groucho’s estate dragged into the early 1980s, but judgments were eventually reached in favor of Arthur Marx, ordering Erin to repay $472,000.
Erin’s mental health deteriorated in the 1990s. She used to go into Saks Fifth Avenue, try on clothes and put them on lay away, and never go back to finish the sale. She would twirl around Saks and sing to herself. She was arrested in Los Angeles on a weapons charge, and spent much of the decade in and out of various psychiatric facilities. Reports from later in her life identified Erin as homeless. She committed suicide in 2003 by shooting herself.
Charles Browning grew up in Louisville, Kentucky. He was a huge baseball fan and he was pals with his uncle, “Old” Pete Browning, a 3 time batting champ, who stole 103 bases in 1887. Charles’ Uncle Pete’s commissioning of a bat provided the start of the Hillerich & Bradsby bat company, famous for their Louisville Slugger model.
At 16, Charles changed his name to Tod and ran away from home to join the circus. He traveled with various sideshows and carnivals taking on many jobs. He worked as a talker (not a “barker”). He performed a live burial act billed as “The Living Corpse”, and performed as a clown with Ringling Brothers. He would draw on this experience as inspiration for some of his film work.
Later, while working in variety theater, he met director D.W. Griffith and began working as an actor. He appeared in over fifty films. In 1915, he was involved in a near-fatal car wreck. Tod was sidelined as he convalesced and he wrote scripts. He made his directorial debut in 1917. He directed twenty or so films (including one with Lon Chaney, Sr.) that were not particularly popular. In 1925, he reunited with Chaney for The Unholy Three, which was a huge success. He made ten more films with Chaney including The Unknown (co-starring a young Joan Crawford) and London After Midnight, both in 1927.
Based on his popularity, Tod was chosen to direct the 1931 horror classic Dracula. After Dracula, Tod began work on a film based on a short story by Clarence “Tod” Robbins, the screenwriter of The Unholy Three. The film was Freaks. It was the story of a love triangle between a wealthy circus dwarf, a gold-digging acrobat and a strongman. Tod cast actual sideshow “freaks” and the studio heads at MGM were apalled. The film contained many scenes that were disturbing for 1932. The studio demaded edits. It was released and banned throughout the world. Tod’s career was derailed. He directed four more films, including a remake of London After Midnight. He left the Hollywood scene in 1939 and became a recluse.
In 1950, after years of heavy smoking, he developed throat cancer and required tongue surgery. He moved in with some friends in their home in Malibu. He was found dead in their bathroom on October 6, 1962 at the age of 82. He had stayed out of the spotlight for 23 years.
