The Sweet Up and Down

This is the last part, I promise. I have a Lazy Sunday blog ready for Sunday and some recent developments I can now discuss although I'm not really prepared for them. I glad for the Spring weather though.

"I can dream about being Bugs, but when I wake up there's Daffy." Chuck Jones said this about how similar he was to Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck. Chuck Jones passed away in 2002 at the age of 89. He directed some of the best Looney Tunes cartoons, created the Roadrunner series and directed How the Grinch Stole Christmas. He knew how to make us laugh and we should be eternally grateful.

From there we move on to a subject near to my heart--Stull. Stull, Kansas is a tiny hamlet about 10 miles from Lawrence that reportedly had a haunted church and a gateway to Hell in the local cemetery. I say had because the church was torn down after standing for 135 years. The property owner arranged for the demolition after people expressed concern that the remaining two walls were a dangerous attractive nuisance. I actually traipsed around that cemetery and church a few times. It's because of Stull Cemetery and the church that I began getting into Kansas history and taking pictures to preserve the land and places I think need to be preserved. It's because of Stull I fell in love with where I am.

Shortly after Stull we come to another cemetery article about small, forgotten cemeteries that dot the Douglas County landscape. Then an article about the rebuilding of the Barber School, a one-room schoolhouse built in 1871 and named after Thomas Barber who was killed by a pro-slavery mob in the late 1850s. His body was displayed in the Eldridge Hotel and abolitionist John Brown is said to have uttered "This is the beginning of a civil war" upon seeing the body. The article was in 2003 and four years later the rebuilding is not finished...

Getting out of the history portion is a tribute to Christopher Reeve who, after being paralyzed in 1995 after a horse-riding accident, championed for spinal cord research and using stem cells to help reconstruct damaged nerves. Along with Michael J. Fox, they championed for stem cell research which was proven to aid in multiple afflictions. To make a donation to either foundation please visit the websites below. Also, Reeve portrayed Superman in the four movies between 1978 and 1987.

There are other things in there: tributes to other celebrities that have passed on, articles on historic buildings and other cemeteries in the area, a couple traffic warnings I've gotten, more Dave Barry columns, September 11th columns and stories and more Mutts comic strips. So many Mutts comic strips...

Donate to the Christopher and Dana Reeve Foundation
Donate to the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson's Research

Until next time, I remain...
~Brian

Well, I got yet another email from my publisher telling us that our royalty checks are on the way (I’m estimating I will get about $0, same as last time) but they always throw in some stupid and pointless story into the email about how wonderful their authors are. They like to brag about how these “famous” people are writing books exclusively for PublishAmerica but when you actually do the research you come to realize that those people aren’t really as famous as PublishAmerica leads you to believe. So for this belated Lazy Sunday you can do some research on some of the people PublishAmerica is so glad to have under contract.

Latasha Colander Clark is an Olympic Gold Medal winner for the 4x400 meter at the 2000 Olympics in Sydney, Australia. While she’s remotely famous I don’t know why a legitimate publisher wouldn’t want to sign her. PublishAmerica didn’t lie about this one.

Vanilla Fudge was a psychedelic band that recorded from 1967 to 1970 and were great admirers of the Beatles. Bill Pascali was lead vocals along with keyboards however he is listed as a “former member” but PublishAmerica makes it seem like he’s still with them and that Vanilla Fudge is still performing.

PublishAmerica also brags about having Marcia Miles under contract. They credit her as being on Walker, Texas Ranger. I looked up Marcia Miles and Walker on Imdb and found nothing about her. Maybe she was an uncredited extra or something. Please help with this.

Ronnie Sando is at least a lie that I can confirm. Ronnie Sando began singing in 1956 and was inducted into the Rockabilly Hall of Fame. So PublishAmerica actually got that right but unfortunately Ronnie Sando isn’t as big of a celebrity as you would think. You can also go to his own website and email him at ronniesando@gmail.com.

I learned about The Myriad from their MySpace page and learned that John Schofield was a founding member and the band’s bassist. Hell, the band was even named MTV’s 2007 Breakout champion. And from listening to their music, it’s not too bad. I like that bows and arrows are a major part of their concerts. So, why this bassist/archer wants to write books I don’t know but hopefully he won’t care when he’s essentially screwed without lube.

House music is a style of electronic dance music that was developed by dance club DJs in Chicago. Jesse Saunders is apparently the “father” of this kind of music that makes my head hurt. I honestly don’t know how Saunders is the father of this music as his Wikipedia is not very helpful.

According to PublishAmerica, Sid Feders is a four-time Emmy winner although it doesn’t say for what so I figured it was one of their technical awards that no one really cares about but once again Imbd shows no awards won for Sid Feders. Feders was apparently a producer for the TV movie Cloned (1997) but I’m not seeing any Emmys for either Sid or Cloned. My search went further because I know where to look for television information. Apparently Sid Feders has won Emmy awards but not for anything that people would actually watch as you can see.

PublishAmerica lists Ronald “Smokey” Stevens as a Broadway performer which, from what I found out, he is but what I also found out was that he hasn’t actually been on stage since 1985. Again, with the stretching.

The truly big name in PublishAmerica’s email of clouded truth is Agatha Von Trapp. Now the name probably sounds familiar because she is the eldest daughter of the Von Trapp family famously portrayed in The Sound of Music. At 94, apparently she is now persuing a career in writing. What I find odd is that they spell her name “Agatha” when Wikipedia lists it as Agathe.

Now this is freakin’ sweet. The next name on the list, Glen W. Hill, is a Disney animator who worked on The Fox and the Hound one of my personal favorites but has also worked on Fox’s Family Guy. You can learn about him and see some of his artwork at his website.

Now I am all for the Pulitzer Prize. I want to win a Pulitzer for something in my lifetime so when PublishAmerica announced that they signed a Pulitzer Prize winner I had to look it up. They signed William Coughlin who didn’t win the Pulitzer himself. A small newspaper called the Washington Daily News won the Pulitzer for an expose about their town’s unsafe drinking water. Coughlin was just the editor at the time.

So I’m glad I got that cleared up and I learned a few things. I’ll let you know how much my royalty check is because I’m sure it’s not gonna be much. So until next time, I remain…
~Brian

( You are about to view content that may not be appropriate for minors. )

Trey Parker? Alyson Hannigan? Olivia Newton-John? The only ones I even remotely agree with are Elijah Wood and Hal Sparks. What the hell. Thank God I didn't pay for this because this is a load of crap! Erroll Flynn? I'm disappointed in this. I need soda.

Until next, I apparently resemble...
~Trey Parker