from my sketchbook: kirsty maccoll

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Sí tu me quieres, trae me la luna/No solo una parte pero la luna entera

Kirsty MacColl couldn’t get a break. She wrote great, heartfelt songs that were humorous, biting, and, at times, achingly sad. She had a lovely voice tinged with a slightly smoky British accent. But, major success somehow eluded her.

After a brief stint as a singer in a punk band, Stiff Records signed Kirsty to a contract. Her debut solo single “They Don’t Know,” released in 1979, was a huge hit in the United Kingdom, peaking at #3 in terms of airplay. However, a distributors’ strike prevented the record getting to stores. The song consequently failed to appear on the official UK singles charts, which were based strictly on record sales. Kirsty felt her follow-up single was not getting her record label’s full support. She left Stiff Records and the single was pulled from the release schedule.

Kirsty signed to Polydor Records shortly after leaving Stiff. She had a UK hit with “There’s a Guy Works Down the Chip Shop Swears He’s Elvis.” In 1983, Polydor dropped her just as she had completed recording the songs for a planned second album. She returned to Stiff. She recorded a cover of Billy Bragg’s “A New England” in 1985 that went to Number 7 in the UK charts. Meanwhile, comedian Tracey Ullman’s cover of “They Don’t Know” reached #2 in the US. Kirsty provided backing vocals on this version.

When Stiff went bankrupt in 1986, Kirsty was left without a recording contract. However, she was in demand as a backing vocalist, and she frequently sang on records produced by her husband, Steve Lillywhite, including tracks for The Smiths, Talking Heads, Big Country, Anni-Frid Lyngstad (Frida from ABBA), and The Wonder Stuff, among others.
In 1987, The Pogues recorded the alt-rock Christmas classic “Fairytale of New York,” originally conceived as a duet for Shane McGowan and bassist Cait O’Riordan. O’Riordan left the band before the song was completed. Producer Lillywhite asked his wife, Kirsty, to provide a guide vocal of the female part for a demo version of the song. The Pogues, however, liked Kristy’s contribution so much that they asked her to sing the part on the actual recording.

Kirsty was soon signed (and eventually dropped) by Virgin Records when Virgin was bought by EMI Records.
She divorced Lilywhite in 1994. ZTT Records released a ‘best of” collection of Kirsty’s songs, including a cover of Lou Reed’s “Perfect Day” as a duet with Lemonheads’ Evan Dando. Songwriter Kirsty was frustrated with the music business, with that fact that she was most famous for versions of other people’s songs, with repeatedly being dropped from labels and a lengthy case of writer’s block. She was ready to give up her music career and become an English teacher in South America.
Several trips to Cuba and Brazil restored Kirsty’s creativity. She released the Cuban and Latin-inspired “Tropical Brainstorm” in 2000 to critical acclaim. Kirsty learned how to speak Spanish with Cuban inflection (despite her British accent) for the album. “Tropical Brainstorm” yielded the hit “In These Shoes”. Kirsty was enjoying her first international success. A success she most definitely deserved.

Kirsty was devoted to her two sons — Louis and Jamie — and would spend long periods of time away from the spotlight to focus on raising them. After the successful release of “Tropical Brainstorm,” Kirsty took a much-need vacation to Cozumel with her partner, musician James Knight and her two sons. She intended to introduce her sons to scuba diving, an activity she loved. On December 18, 2000, she and her sons went diving in an area that was restricted to all watercraft. As the group was surfacing from a dive, a speeding powerboat, ignoring posted signs, entered the restricted area. Kirsty saw the boat right headed at them. Her son Jamie was in the boat’s path. Kirsty pushed him out of the way, but in doing so, she was hit head on and killed instantly.

Kirsty MacColl loved life, her family and her music and life just dealt her a shitty hand. Where’s the justice?

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IF: similar

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The illustrationfriday.com challenge word this week is “similar”.
ach yah, baruch hashem
I grew up in the greater northeast end of Philadelphia, PA. If you traveled a few short miles north, you’d be out of the city limits. That doesn’t mean that I was anywhere near the Liberty Bell or streets that Ben Franklin once strolled down. No, I lived in an area that was about as suburban as you could get without being in the actual “suburbs”. My parents moved into this sheltered area about a year or so before I was born, so this was the only house I lived in until I lived in my own house with my wife.

I lived in a neighborhood in which we were one of maybe four Jewish families. Not that we were ultra-religious, but I experienced my share of anti-Semitism growing up. There were semi-regular taunts from neighbor kids who were most likely parroting their parents’ unfounded bigotry. Most of my friends lived on the other side of Roosevelt Boulevard in a predominantly Jewish neighborhood. Not that they were any more religious than me, but there was an obvious difference between their neighbors and mine. Our house stood out like a Hebrew sore thumb around Christmas. Most houses were wrapped from lawn to roof in colored lights and blow-mold Santas. Our darkened house displayed a sad little electric menorah in the window, patiently waiting for my brother or me to screw in another orange light bulb as the evenings of Chanukah progressed. While our gentile neighbors searched for dyed eggs at Easter, my family went about our business as usual, except my mom made chicken soup and there was a single box of matzo in the kitchen next to the bread.

When I got married, I was introduced to two worlds which I otherwise would have been unfamiliar.
k'neah horah don'cha know
Orthodox Jews and The Amish.

My wife comes from an observant and very traditional Jewish family. Her family keeps kosher. They have an elaborate and lengthy annual seder, the traditional Passover meal. For years, my father-in-law made his own gefilte fish. At Chanukah, my mother-in-law shreds piles of onions and potatoes to make “from-scratch” latkes. Every year at Purim, my in-law’s dining room table is an endless blanket of homemade hamataschen.

When I was the newest member of this family, I was taken on trips to the lower east side of Manhattan and Borough Park, a section of Brooklyn with a ubiquitous Orthodox Jewish population. I was witness to a surreal world of huddled black-clothed families, rushing to their destinations, most with six or seven children in tow. These people looked like aliens to me. The men wore heavy black coats and large black hats. The majority had long, unkempt beards and heavy curled locks of hair hanging in front of their ears. The women all wore long-sleeved ankle-length dresses. The male children looked and dressed like the men. The female children, like the women. The stores bore signs in both English and Hebrew – some in Hebrew only.

My in-laws also owned and operated a general merchandise business in Zern’s, a rural Pennsylvania farmers market. Zern’s is a typical farmers market, if there is such a thing as a typical farmers market. In a shopping adventure to Zern’s, one could purchase fresh vegetables, funnel cake, fasnachts and several different cuts of unusual meat or meat by-products. You may also haggle with some of the merchants over their unique handmade goods. It was here at Zern’s that I had my second bizarre encounter since emerging from the protective cocoon of northeast Philadelphia. It was here I saw Amish people for the first time. I saw huddled black-clothed families, rushing to their destinations, most with six or seven children in tow. These people looked like aliens to me. The men wore heavy black coats and large black hats. The majority had long, unkempt beards. The women all wore long-sleeved ankle-length dresses. The male children looked and dressed like the men. The female children, like the women.

Hey wait a second! This sounds familiar!

The more I thought about it, the more I realized how similar Orthodox Jews and the Amish were. Even Peter Weir pointed it out in his 1985 film “Witness”.

They both are followers of a very conservative, very observant religious sect. Both groups are black clothing and facial hair obsessed. They both have rules about the use of electricity. They both are wary of outsiders infiltrating their territory and they think that if you are not one of them, you’re undesirable. Except for the mustache thing and the consuming of pork (and that bit about Jesus), they seem pretty similar.

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from my sketchbook: joe meek

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for they shall inherit the earth
Joe Meek was a pioneering record producer and songwriter acknowledged as one of the world’s first and most imaginative independent producers. His service in the Royal Air Force as a radar operator spurred a life-long interest in electronics and outer space. His most famous work was The Tornados’ 1962 hit “Telstar”, which became the first record by a British group to hit number 1 in the United States.

Meek’s other notable hit productions include “Don’t You Rock Me Daddy-O” and “Cumberland Gap” by Lonnie Donegan, “Have I the Right?” by The Honeycombs and “Tribute to Buddy Holly” by Mike Berry. Meek’s concept album I Hear a New World is regarded as a watershed in modern music for its innovative use of electronic sounds.

Meek was an intense and obsessive perfectionist. He manipulated recordings of instruments, including reversed, sped-up and slowed-down playbacks, to achieve the sound he was looking for. He was the innovator of a great deal of recording techniques that are today’s standards.

As with many musical geniuses, he was very eccentric. Meek was obsessed with the occult and communicating with the dead. He would set up tape machines in graveyards in a vain attempt to record voices from beyond the grave. In one instance, he captured the meows of a cat he claimed was speaking in human tones. He also had an obsession with Buddy Holly, claiming the late rocker had communicated with him in dreams.

His professional efforts were often hindered by his paranoia. Meek was convinced that competitor Decca Records would put hidden microphones behind his wallpaper in order to steal his ideas. He was prone to attacks of rage and depression, due in part to his drug use. Eventually, the hits had dried up and as Meek’s financial position became increasingly desperate, his depression deepened.

On the eighth anniversary of Buddy Holly’s death, Meek killed his landlady with a shotgun then turned the gun on himself.

The Honeycombs perform “Have I The Right” in the film Pop Gear.

The Tornados’ original version of Joe Meek’s “Telstar”.

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from my sketchbook: gig young

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yowza! yowza!
Spotted by a Warner Brothers talent scout while acting in a local Pasadena play, 27 year-old Byron Barr was off to Hollywood. After two years of bit parts, he starred opposite Barbara Stanwyck and Geraldine Fitzgerald in The Gay Sisters  in 1942. He played a character named “Gig Young”. He and the studio liked the name and Byron was renamed Gig Young. He appeared in numerous supporting roles throughout the 40s, leading to two Best Supporting Actor Oscar nominations in the 1950s — playing an alcoholic in 1951’s Come Fill the Cup and an intellectual drinker in 1958’s Teacher’s Pet.

Life imitated art. Young was an incorrigible and sometimes out-of-control drunk. He was married five times including a stormy six years to Elizabeth Montgomery. His marriage to Montgomery ended amid rumors of domestic violence. Nine months after his divorce from Montgomery, he married fourth wife Elaine Williams. Williams gave birth to Young’s only child, a daughter Jennifer, in 1964. Young proclaimed this a miracle, as he had undergone a vasectomy at age 25. However, after his divorce from Williams, Young publicly denied Jennifer as being his biological child.

In 1969, Young portrayed seedy dancehall host Rocky in Sidney Pollack’s They Shoot Horses, Don’t They? The character of Rocky was an acting tour-de-force for Young and netted him an Oscar, his life-long dream. Unfortunately, that win, coupled with his growing alcoholism, was the beginning of the end of Young’s career. He was fired from the role of the Waco Kid in Blazing Saddles because his excessive drinking caused him to suffer delirium tremens on the set. He lost the role of the voice of Charlie Townsend in Charlie’s Angels because he was too drunk to record dialogue. In the 1976 television film Sherlock Holmes in New York, Young’s drinking problem is visible on screen, as he steps on the cues of other actors in trying to get his lines out and appears to be in a fog.

In 1978, Young met script supervisor Kim Schmidt on the set of his final film, Game of Death with Bruce Lee. The two were married, although Schmidt was thirty years Young’s junior. Three weeks after their marriage, the couple was found dead in their Manhattan apartment. Young had shot Schmidt and then turned the gun on himself. Police found Young’s Oscar beside the bodies. It was later discovered that Young had been receiving experimental LSD from the controversial psychologist Dr. Eugene Landy, who was later professionally decertified for his controlling treatment of Beach Boy Brian Wilson.

Young’s will left his Academy Award to his agent, Martin Baum. Young left ten dollars to his daughter Jennifer.

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IMT: table

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The word for inspiration on Inspire Me Thursday this week is “table”.
Walking across the sitting-room, I turn the television off.
As a kid, I was never a fan of The Beverly Hillbillies.  I am a big fan of the Andy Griffith Show  and I liked Green Acres.  Petticoat Junction  was okay, if not only for the Bradley girls. But, The Beverly Hillbillies  never did it for me.

Until recently.

Viacom cable network TV Land added The Beverly Hillbillies  to their line-up of classic television shows. I started watching. I have come to appreciate the social commentary that The Beverly Hillbillies presented. The contrast between the backwoods country ways of the Clampett clan versus the modern hippie culture of the 1960s is priceless. The upscale snobs of Beverly Hills play as the perfect foils against the Clampetts’ genial modesty. The characters were unusual compared to other sitcoms of the time. There was patriarch Jed, who remained a humble mountain man despite having become a millionaire. There was Jed’s mother-in-law, the feisty shotgun-wielding Granny, who did the cooking for the family and was a self-proclaimed doctor. Rounding out the family was Jed’s daughter, the obliviously hot Elly May, who cared more about her “critters” than about the men who were throwing themselves at her and the hunky idiot Jethro, Jed’s nephew. The Clampetts lived in a huge, furnished mansion purchased for them (with their money) by their banker/investment adviser/kiss-ass Milburn Drysdale.

I understand that The Beverly Hillbillies  was not Shakespeare, but it truly worked on a different level that I originally realized. Plus, the show featured famous guests, like Louis Nye, Mel Blanc, Soupy Sales, Paul Winchell, Rob Reiner and Sharon Tate in early career roles.

On the day after Thanksgiving, I was watching an episode of The Beverly Hillbillies  that first aired in 1963. It featured the Clampetts preparing for a traditional Thanksgiving feast, including a live turkey that Jed needs to behead, but Elly has taken as a pet. Jethro and Jed are preparing the “fancy eatin’ table” for the evening’s dinner guests. Jethro explains to Jed that someone told him that the “fancy eatin’ table” is called a “billy-yard (billiard) table” and the room is called a “billy-yard room”. The naive Jethro then gestures towards a mounted rhinoceros head hanging on the wall. “That there must be a ‘billy-yard'”, he says. Jed and Jethro make plans to one day hunt for “billy-yards” and confirm that a sturdy table like this is needed to hold such a large animal.

Classic.

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IF: balloon part 2

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The illustrationfriday.com challenge word this week is “balloon”.
This is the second of two illustrations I did for the topic. Here is the first.
We can sing a song and sail along the silver sky
On Thanksgiving Day 1997, Kathleen Caronna was watching the annual Macy’s Parade at 72nd St. and Central Park West alongside her husband and her infant son. In 40 mile-per-hour winds, handlers marching in the parade lost control of the six-story high Cat in the Hat balloon. The errant balloon crashed into a streetlamp. A piece of the streetlamp broke off and struck Ms. Caronna in the head, knocking her unconscious. Caronna was in a coma for 22 days after emergency surgery. She suffered skull fractures, brain damage and partial loss of vision. She filed a $395 million lawsuit against the city, Macy’s and the lamppost manufacturer. In 2001, she settled for an undisclosed amount.

On October 11, 2006, a Cirrus SR20 plane piloted by New York Yankees’ pitcher Cory Lidle crashed into the Belaire Apartments at E. 72nd Street on New York City’s Upper East Side. Lidle and flight instructor Tyler Stanger were both killed. Their plane crashed into Kathleen Caronna’s bedroom.

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IF: balloon

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Panic bells, it's red alert. There's something here from somewhere else.
Just prior to turning nineteen, I went to Walt Disney World with three of my friends. This was my first vacation without my parents. I told about this trip in a previous blog post. My first day in Walt Disney’s Magic Kingdom was great. After spending a fun but exhausting day, my friends and I headed back to our hotel. Somnolent, we slogged the length of the sparsely-lit Main Street USA towards the Monorail that would take us to the parking lot. Just before we exited, I purchased a Mickey Mouse-head balloon for fifty cents (remember, this was 1980). There I was, eighteen-years old, springing toward the Monorail with a balloon string in my fist and a wide grin across my face.

We waited on the platform, in the thick and shifting throng, for the next Monorail to arrive. The sleek transport snaked into the station. It came to a silent stop and the hydraulic doors opened with a hiss. The individual cabins were fitted with futuristic bench seats, upholstered in undentable teal plastic. They were not unlike the back seat of my father’s 1968 Dodge Dart. They seated approximately ten passengers. My friends, my balloon and I chose an empty cabin and slid across the seat to accommodate everyone. A young couple and their son joined our cabin and occupied the bench seat opposite us. The boy was about nine or ten and he had a balloon, too. The balloon looked more age appropriate for him than it did me.

The doors to the Monorail shushed back into place and we began moving. I sat, holding my balloon and smiled at the young boy across from me as he held his balloon. Suddenly, without warning, his balloon burst. BANG! It hadn’t touched anything. It hadn’t bumped the low ceiling. It just spontaneously burst — BANG! We were all startled, but even more so, when the boy, just as  spontaneously, erupted into a spewing fountain of inconsolable cries and tears. His parents tried unsuccessfully to comfort him. Instantly, I spoke up and offered my balloon to the boy. “Here,” I said, “you can have mine.” His parents looked at me with expressions of relief and gratitude as I relinquished my balloon. His mom wrapped one arm around the boy’s shoulders and gestured to me with her other arm — her hand palm up and extended in my direction. “What do you say to the nice man?,” she prompted her son. The boy looked up at the balloon. Then, he looked at me with no expression on his small face.

“I wanted a red one.,” he said.

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IMT: albert einstein

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Last week, I resigned as a member of the weekly illustration blog, sugarfrostedgoodness.com. I had been a contributor and member since May 2007. The duration of my membership was not without its controversy (and I am all about  the controversy!) In recent months, however,  I have not been pleased with the direction in which the website was headed. It had gone from a great forum for artists to display their work to a preachy, needy, clingy “hugfest” proliferated by people who feel the need to impose their religious dogma on those who do not necessarily share their views.
I just wanted to draw.
So, I found another blog, Inspire Me Thursday*,  to which I will contribute. It works is basically the same as Illustration Friday and Monday Artday (except they post their word on Thursdays… get it? Of course you do!) Here is my first contribution for the inspiration “Albert Einstein”. Here we go, Inspire Me Thursday, hope you don’t piss me off. (*As of January 2010,  Inspire Me Thursday  is no longer an illustration showcase website.)
way to go, Eisenstein!
“Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I’m not sure about the universe.”
— Albert Einstein

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from my sketchbook: tiny tim

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The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn't exist.
When Herbert Khaury was five, his father brought a gramophone to their small New York City apartment. Young Herbert immersed himself in the music of the past. He would spend hours in his room listening to artists like Rudy Vallee, Al Jolson, and Bing Crosby.

He began singing and playing the ukulele in his naturally tenor voice. Soon, he entered into a local talent show and sang “You Are My Sunshine” in his newly discovered falsetto voice. It brought the house down. Bitten by the performance bug, Herbert experimented with different stage names like Darry Dover, Vernon Castle, Larry Love, and Judas K. Foxglove. He finally settled on Tiny Tim in 1962 at the suggestion of his manager at the time. In the 1960s, he was seen regularly near the Harvard University campus as a street performer, singing old Tin Pan Alley tunes. His choice of repertoire and his encyclopedic knowledge of vintage popular music impressed many of the spectators. One fan recalled that Tiny Tim’s outrageous public persona was a false front belying a quiet, studious personality. “Herb Khaury was the greatest put-on artist in the world.,” this admirer said, “Here he was with the long hair and the cheap suit and the high voice, but when you spoke to him he talked like a college professor. He knew everything about the old songs.”

Tiny Tim’s big break came when he was booked for an appearance on the wildly popular Rowan and Martin’s Laugh-In. Dan Rowan announced that Laugh-In believed in showcasing new talent, and introduced Tiny Tim. Tiny Tim entered, blowing kisses, and sang “Tiptoe Through the Tulips” to Dick Martin. For years, Dick Martin delivered the panicked outburst of “You’re not bringing back Tiny Tim, are you?” to Dan Rowan at the threat of a potential surprise visit. Tiny Tim’s performance led to many appearances on Jackie Gleason’s variety show, The Ed Sullivan Show and Johnny Carson’s Tonight Show. Tiny Tim released his first album in 1968, a collection of Tin Pan Alley classics that were beloved by him as a child.

On a publicity tour in 1969, Tiny Tim met seventeen-year-old Victoria Budinger. She asked for an autograph and Tiny Tim was immediately enamored, although he was twenty years her senior. After several more encounters with “Miss Vicki”, as he called her, Tiny Tim announced his engagement on The Tonight Show and Johnny Carson offered to have the wedding televised on his show. The wedding was seen by an estimated 40 million viewers. The cake was seven feet tall, and 10,000 tulips were used as decoration. The couple honeymooned in Bermuda. However, Tiny Tim and Miss Vicki mostly lived apart, and divorced eight years later. (Vicki resurfaced in 2002 as Victoria Lombardi, the girlfriend of convicted murder conspirator Rabbi Fred Neulander.)

Tiny Tim’s popularity began to wane as the years went on. He was a yearly fixture at at “Spooky World,” an annual Halloween-themed exposition in Massachusetts, just outside of Boston. He also made frequent appearances on the Howard Stern radio show in the early 1990s.

While playing “Tiptoe Through the Tulips” at a Gala Benefit at The Woman’s Club of Minneapolis on November 30, 1996, Tiny Tim suffered a heart attack on stage. He was led off stage by his third wife, Susan Marie Gardner. She asked him if he was okay. Tiny Tim replied, “No, I’m not!”, his final words. He collapsed and died after doctors tried to resuscitate him for an hour and fifteen minutes.

A self-proclaimed deeply religious man, Tiny Tim gave an interview to Playboy Magazine in 1970. In the interview he said, “I’d love to see Jesus Christ come back to crush the spirit of hate and make men put down their guns. I’d also like just one more hit single.”

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