SFG: b is for…

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The challenge this week on sugarfrostedgoodness is “B is for…”
right on time
…Buck O’Neil.

John Jordan “Buck” O’Neil was a first baseman and manager in the Negro Baseball Leagues. In 1937, O’Neil signed with the Memphis Red Sox for their first year of play in the newly-formed Negro American League. His contract was sold to the Kansas City Monarchs the following year. He remained with the Monarchs for the rest of his playing career. O’Neil had a career batting average of .288, including four .300-plus seasons at the plate. In 1946, he led the league in hitting with a .353 average and followed that, in 1947, with a career-best .358 mark. He played in four East-West All-Star games and two Negro League World Series.

In 1948, one year after Jackie Robinson broke the major leagues’ color line, O’Neil took over as player/manager of the Monarchs and guided them to two league titles in 1953 and 1955.

O’Neil left the Monarchs following the 1955 season, and in 1956 became a scout for the Chicago Cubs. He was named the first black coach in the major leagues by the Cubs in 1962 and is credited for signing Hall of Fame player Lou Brock to his first contract. After many years with the Cubs, O’Neil became a Kansas City Royals scout in 1988, and was named “Midwest Scout of the Year” in 1998. In 1990, O’Neil led the effort to establish the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum in Kansas City, and served as its honorary board chairman.

Buck served on the Baseball Hall of Fame’s Veteran Committee and because of his input, numerous Negro League players were inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame that didn’t receive enough votes previously.

When Buck’s name appeared on the ballot for induction, he fell one vote short.

“If you ever get to meet him/Love is what you’ll feel
Give it up/Give it up/For Buck O’Neil”
– “Buck O’Neil” by Bob Walkenhorst (Click the title to hear the song.)

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Monday Artday: cowboy

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The challenge word on Monday Artday this week is “cowboy“.
Yippee-ki-yay, motherfucker.
William Frederick Cody was an American soldier, bison hunter and showman. He was one of the most colorful figures of the Old West, and mostly famous for the shows he organized with cowboy themes. Cody got his nickname, “Buffalo Bill”, for supplying Kansas Pacific Railroad workers with bison meat. In addition to his documented service as a soldier during the Civil War and as Chief of Scouts for the Third Cavalry during the Plains Wars, Cody claimed to have worked many jobs, including as a trapper, bullwhacker, “Fifty-Niner” in Colorado, a Pony Express rider in 1860, wagonmaster, stagecoach driver, and even a hotel manager, but it’s unclear which claims were factual and which were fabricated for purposes of publicity. He became world famous for his Wild West show. “Buffalo Bill’s Wild West” used real cowboys and cowgirls, recruited from ranches in the West. At first, few people shared Cody’s admiration of the cowboys. Most people regarded them as coarse cattle drivers and used the term “cowboy” as an insult. The shows demonstrated bronco riding, roping, and other skills that would later become part of public rodeos.
As a businessman, he invested in projects that he hoped might bring economic growth to the West. With his earnings he invested in an Arizona mine, hotels in Sheridan and Cody, Wyoming, stock breeding, ranching, coal and oil development, film making, town building, tourism, and publishing. In 1899, he established his own newspaper, the Cody Enterprise, which is still the main source of information for the town of Cody today. Taking advantage of his celebrity status, Cody was an early advocate of women’s suffrage and the just treatment of American Indians.
By the turn of the 20th century, William F. Cody was probably the most famous American in the world. No one symbolized the West for Americans and Europeans better than Buffalo Bill. He was consulted on Western matters by every American president from Ulysses S. Grant to Woodrow Wilson. He counted among his friends such artists and writers as Frederic Remington and Mark Twain.

Phoebe Ann Mosey, better known as Annie Oakley, was an American sharpshooter and exhibition shooter. Oakley’s amazing talent and luck led to a starring role in Buffalo Bill’s Wild West show, which propelled her to become the first American female superstar. However, at the height of her career, newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst published a false story that Oakley had been arrested for stealing to support a cocaine habit. The story spread and newspapers everywhere reprinted the account. Oakley spent much of the next six years winning libel lawsuits against newspapers. She collected less in judgments than were her legal expenses, but to her, a restored reputation justified the loss of time and money. Annie continued to set records into her 60s, and she also engaged in extensive philanthropy for women’s rights and other causes, including the support of specific young women that she knew. In a 1922 shooting contest, sixty-two-year-old Annie hit 100 clay targets from 16 yards. After her death it was discovered that her entire fortune had been spent on her family and her charities.

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IF: the zoo…. again

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The challenge word this week on illustrationfriday.com is “the zoo“.
Orangutans are skeptical/Of changes in their cages
Upon seeing the word “zoo”, my first thought was an old joke. A guy works at the circus for ten years. His job is following the elephants around, sweeping up their shit. All day, every day, for ten years, all this guy does, is sweep up elephant shit. One day, his friend says to him, “Man you ought to think about changing jobs!” He answers “What?!? And leave show business?!”
I find it amusing that the two illustrations I did for the same word are both related to old jokes. Actually, I find everything amusing.

(The word “zoo” was the challenge word on Monday Artday in the beginning of October 2007. Here is the illustration I did then.)

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IF: superstition

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The illustrationfriday.com challenge word this week is “superstition“.
when you believe in things that you don't understand, then you suffer
Stevland Hardaway Judkins (his name was later changed to Stevland Hardaway Morris) born prematurely in Saginaw, Michigan to Lula Mae Hardaway on May 13, 1950. It is thought that he received excessive oxygen in his incubator which led to retinopathy of prematurity, a destructive ocular disorder affecting the retina, characterized by abnormal growth of blood vessels, scarring, and sometimes retinal detachment. Mrs. Hardaway instructed her other children to treat Stevland the same as any other child, and not to tease or over-assist him because of his blindness. The family moved to Detroit and Stevland began singing and playing instruments in church at an early age. He took to the piano, congas, and harmonica in particular. He was educated at the Michigan School for the Blind in Lansing, where he was trained in classical piano.
In 1962, at the age of 12, Stevie was introduced to Ronnie White of the popular Motown act The Miracles. White brought Stevie and his mother to Motown Records. Impressed by the young musician, Motown CEO Berry Gordy signed Stevie to Motown’s Tamla label with the name Little Stevie Wonder.
At the age of 13, Little Stevie Wonder had his first major hit, “Fingertips (Pt. 2)”, a 1963 single taken from a live recording of a Motor Town Revue performance. The song, featuring Wonder on vocals, bongos, and harmonica, and a young Marvin Gaye on drums, was a #1 hit on the US pop charts and launched him into the public consciousness. Dropping the “Little” from his moniker, Stevie went on to have a number of other hits during the mid-1960s. He also began to work in the Motown songwriting department, composing songs both for himself and his labelmates, including “Tears of a Clown“, the number one hit performed by Smokey Robinson & the Miracles.
In 1972, Stevie wrote “Superstition“. It reached number one in the USA, and number eleven in the UK, in February 1973. Stevie had actually written this song for Jeff Beck, but at the insistence of his own manager, Stevie recorded it first. Beck was instead offered “Cause We’ve Ended As Lovers“, which he recorded for 1975’s Blow by Blow. Jeff Beck played guitar on Stevie’s version of the song and later recorded his own version of “Superstition” with Beck, Bogert & Appice.

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DCS: clara blandick

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can't work on an empty stomach. here, have some crullers.
In the 1930s, Hollywood placed many actresses on the “goddess” pedestal. There was Barbara Stanwyck, Carole Lombard, Betty Grable, Jean Harlow, Lana Turner and many others. There were other actresses, appearing in hundreds of movies, who never achieved “goddess” status. Clara Blandick falls into this category.

Clara was born in 1876 on a ship, captained by her father, harbored in Hong Kong. Her parents eventually settled in Quincy, Massachusetts and she began her acting career at age 24. After numerous successes in many stage plays, Clara moved to Hollywood in 1929. Though she landed roles like Aunt Polly in the 1930 film Tom Sawyer (a role she reprised in the 1931 film Huckleberry Finn), she spent much of the decade as a character actor, often going uncredited. At a time when many actors were permanently attached to a single studio, Clara played a wide number of bit parts for almost every major Hollywood studio. In 1930, she acted in nine different films. In 1931 she was in thirteen different films. It’s impossible to make an exact tally of the films in which Clara appeared. A reasonable estimate would fall between 150 and 200.

Her most famous role was that of Dorothy’s Aunt Em in 1939’s The Wizard of Oz. Clara filmed all her scenes in a single week, for which she was paid $750. Although it was a small part, the character was an important symbol of protagonist Dorothy’s quest to return home throughout the film. After The Wizard of Oz, Clara returned to her staple of character acting in supporting and bit roles. She would continue to act in a wide variety of roles in dozens of films, including a surprised customer in the 1941 Marx Brothers film The Big Store and a cold-blooded murderer in the 1947 mystery Philo Vance Returns. Her final two roles both came in 1950 — playing a housekeeper and a landlady in Key to the City and Love That Brute respectively. Poor health forced Clara to retire soon after.

Throughout the 1950s, Clara’s health steadily began to fail. She started going blind and began suffering from severe arthritis. On April 15, 1962, she returned home from Palm Sunday services at her church. She began rearranging her room, placing her favorite photos and memorabilia in prominent places. She laid out her resume and a collection of press clippings from her lengthy career. She dressed in an elegant royal blue dressing gown. Then, with her hair properly styled, she took an overdose of sleeping pills. She lay down on a couch, covered herself with a gold blanket over her shoulders, and tied a plastic bag over her head. Clara left the following note: “I am now about to make the great adventure. I cannot endure this agonizing pain any longer. It is all over my body. Neither can I face the impending blindness. I pray the Lord my soul to take. Amen.” Her body was found by her landlady.

After researching Clara and her chosen method and ritual of dying, I have watched her in The Wizard of Oz differently than before.

She will never be remembered as a silver screen goddess.

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IF: scale

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The challenge word this week on illustration friday is “scale“.
adeiu, adeiu to you and you and you.
The Sound of Music portrayed the life of Maria Kutschera, a young woman studying in a Roman Catholic sisterhood, and her relationship with widower Georg Ritter von Trapp and as governess to his children. Details of the history of the von Trapp family were altered for the musical. Georg Ritter von Trapp lived with his family in a villa in Aigen, a suburb of Salzburg. The real Maria was sent to be a tutor to one of the children, not a governess to all of them. The Captain’s oldest child was a boy, not a girl, and the names of the children were changed (at least partly to avoid confusion: the Captain’s eldest daughter was also named Maria). The von Trapps spent some years in Austria after Maria and the Captain married — they did not have to flee right away — and they fled to Italy, not Switzerland. Maria von Trapp is said to have enjoyed the stage show but to have hated the movie: her standard response to praise was, “it’s a nice story, but it’s not my story.”

I took a slightly different approach for this illustration. This was created entirely in Photoshop.

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SFG: signs

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The challenge at sugarfrostedgoodness.com this week is “signs“.
And you will know my name is the Lord when I lay my vengeance upon thee.
I was looking for a story to illustrate “a sign from God“.
The story of Miriam was told to me by this guy, and it goes like this…
Miriam was the sister of Moses and Aaron. Her name means either “wished for child”, “bitter” or “rebellious”, but it might be derived originally from an Egyptian name, myr “beloved” or mr “love” or even Meryamun “beloved of Amun”.
Miriam was essentially the first racist. Moses’ wife, Tzipora, was a Cushite. In the Bible, a large region covering northern Sudan, southern Egypt, and parts of Ethiopia, Eritrea, and Somalia was known as Cush. It is possible (and probable) that people from this region had a darker skin color than the Israelites. She was also a Midianite. In the Bible, the Midianites are described as worshipping a multitude of gods, and therefore, not Jewish. Although no bad feelings or ill will was ever expressed previously towards the Cushites and Midianites, Miriam disapproved of Moses’ marriage and she didn’t make a secret of how she felt. God was angered by Miriam speaking Lashon hara (gossiping, or speaking negatively about someone), and she was struck with tzaraat, often mistranslated as leprosy, but manifesting as a whitening of the skin and covering the whole body with sores. After Aaron asked Moses to intercede for her, Moses uttered a five-word prayer: El nah refa nah-la — “O Lord, make her well,” and she recovered within seven days.

The moral of this story is (and I quote Captain Wow): “Don’t be talking smack about God’s friends.”

(Just as a side note: Illustration Friday posed the word “signs” as a challenge in May 2007. Here is the illustration I did then. When I did the drawing above, I did not remember doing one for the word “signs” before. I think it’s funny that I went in a totally different direction with this one.)

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