Some Works [This post is under construction.]

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Dan Fontes 1958~2026 [This post just requires tags.]

     To my total surprise, I just learned two hours ago through social media, that one of my Facebook Friends had suddenly passed. Dan Fontes, an acquaintance of mine, and renowned Oakland and Bay Area muralist, was only sixty seven at the time of his demise. According to early news reports, cancer was the cause.

    Normally, I would always receive his semi-regular Facebook updates, and merely thought the recent lull in posts was because of other art or hobby-related activities momentarily taking up his priorities. I had no idea.

    And now he's gone.

    Dan Fontes and I first met at Cafe Van Kleef (CVK) in Oakland. In need of more steady income, I had just switched over from the Oakland Arts Department to work for Peter Van Kleef at Peter's fledgling art bar. Due to my freelance association with the City of Oakland, I was already aware of Dan's mural work and was more than overjoyed to finally meet him, when in 2003 he accepted Peter's invitation to add four figures to the mural hanging in the cafe (more on that in a bit).

    Dan and I soon struck up a casual friendship, and remained acquaintances over the years. That acquaintanceship extended to Facebook. And as I actually happen to live so very near to one of Dan Fontes' "Animurals", he and I would sometimes run into each other on the street. After my stint at CVK and returning to the Oakland Arts, I would also bump into Dan there, at a public meeting or art event, or his at his studio space, the one or times I dropped in for a visit.

    I always enjoyed our meetings, however fleeting.

    Speaking of one such encounter...

    Below is a series of pictures I took, when I chance to catch Dan restoring one of his murals beneath the 580. En route on foot to a weekly commitment in Oakland, where I was no longer a resident but still having business (just up Oakland Avenue in fact from where I use to reside) we crossed paths. My commitment it so happened, was smack on the opposite side of that same MacArthur overpass.

    Pleased to see each other, Dan and I chatted for a bit. Leaving his assistant to carry on, he then suggested and volunteered to descend the scaffold to take my photo, kindly obliging me with a photo pose in return before I had to dash off to keep my appointment.

     I had no idea then this would be our last public encounter. The date was Thursday, April 25, 2016.

Dan Fontes, when last we met, and I still had personal commitments in Oakland. Thursday, August 25, 2016.

       This final, in-person meeting happened to coincide with the start of Dan's 2016 'Animural' Restoration Project, slated for completion unbeknownst to me by Earth Day April 22, 2017.

That's not an optical illusion you're witnessing. The scaffold is actually leaning toward the mural. Thursday, August 25, 2016. Dan's assistant is Kristi Holohan.

     And as the target date neared, a flurry of flyers went out inviting one and all to come enjoy the day and Dan's art. Wholly unaware of the announcement was I however, no longer residing, as I mentioned, in Oakland.

The official flyer for the Giraffe Murals' Earth Day, April 22, 2017 opening,

 

  Yet, sure enough, as luck would have it, by pure chance alone, I just happened to take these next two photographs two days prior to Earth Day! Once again, I was on my way to my weekly engagement.

Spot the three giraffes in this panoramic view. Thursday, April 20, 2017

My favorite Dan Fontes’ “Giraphics”. Thursday, April 20, 2017

    Dan's murals are many, but in once particular case, I can truthfully state that I had a hand.

    Back to 2003 and Cafe Van Kleef. 

    Peter Van Kleef, the eponymous proprietor, had this large mural, which had already been reworked by a second artist to populate to the tableau with recognizable personalities. Hence the appearance of Jerry Brown (Peter's then neighbor), Pablo Picasso, Gertrude Stein, Vincent van Gogh, Jean-Michel Basquiat, and Andy Warhol. When in the fall of that year, the cafe officially got underway and was opened to the public, Dan was invited to add a few more notable celebrities.

Cafe Van Kleef Mural  -  Photo by Douglas Zimmerman/SFGATE 2023-05-11

    First came Frida, followed by James Brown. Dan simply overlaid Frida Kahlo, head and shoulders atop a generic guitarist in the bottom left foreground, taking good advantage of the ready-made forearms and instrument 

    James himself, got slotted in bright lemon-lime, to the right of Jerry, perhaps in an bid to brighten up the latter's dour demeanor. ;-)

Cafe Van Kleef Mural (detail)  -  Photo by Douglas Zimmerman/SFGATE 2023-05-11

    Then came the fourteenth Dalai Lama, Tenzin Gyatso, third on Dan's list. Dan was almost done with the Dalai when suddenly there was a problem and he stopped. Up to this point, for each of the individuals, Dan had been relying on a photographic referent, but for the Dalai Lama, he needed a twist and lacked a guide.

    That's when Dan turned to me as we were chatting, and asked me if I could literally lend my hand. Sticking a bar glass in it, he then pulled out his Polaroid and once he was satisfied of the pose, snapped a picture. A moment later, with the freshly developed print in hand, Dan once again resumed his painting.

With the help of Google’s machine learning (A.I.) to blur out the surrounding imagery, yep, that’s me in the mural: the fourteenth Dalai Lama, Tenzin Gyatso’s right hand man, er, um, uh… right hand!

    Not that anyone knows or cares - few do - but that's how I ended up literally having a hand in one of Dan's artworks and the story behind my brief stint as his hand model.

    A fourth figure was begun, but did not see completion. Craggy Keith Richards started to take his place at the extreme opposite end of the mural, but Peter and Dan had a falling out. Peter reneged on paying Dan the money he was due, and Keith was left uncompleted as a result.

    Fortunately, Dan and I remained friends. I only learned the reason for the parting much later. From Dan own lips. Sadly, knowing that one side of Peter, his spottiness with regards to monies due, I'm not surprised. Even I went unpaid. Were it not for Peter's wife, Cindy Reeves, who saw to it I eventually got paid everything in full, I would have been out on the streets.  

    But enough with the bummers and the prior puns already. All joking and some regrets aside, having had the honor to be of help to Dan is indeed, a memory I fondly treasure, and it's nice nevertheless to find a part of me unexpectedly immortalized. No big deal to Dan, but I have been more than well-rewarded.

Lake Merritt Mural Project (1988) Dan Fontes

     For all his kindness, his artistry, and decency, I am so saddened by Dan Fontes' sudden departure. I can barely believe it, and cannot even begin to imagine the heartbreak and anguish his long time, loving partner, Julie Lucchesi must be enduring. She was so very dear to him. Indispensable..

    Dan was a pleasure to have known and interact with, and I will miss him.

    To quote the recent remark of an admirer of his: "Rest In Paint".

-    -FIN-

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What's in a...

 ...HEY!

    While working on the previous post, I noticed something that had slipped my prior attention - mainly because I was not thinking that very hard about it. 

    In addition to my middle name Antares (the rival of Ares, id est, Mars) spelling "ant arse" with the switching of two letters, something I long knew. It can also spell "ant ears". And if I kept going, then I'd could also get phrases like "tan ears" and "tan arse", "ran east", "sane rat", "sane art", "sane tar", "sea rant",  "sat near", "are ants", 'rats Ena", so on and so forth.

Ant, Ares, arse, ears, tan,...

    Now that I've taken the time to notice, here are even other words embedded within like "eat", "era", "Etna", "Nate', "neat","net", "nets", "rate", "rates", rent', "rents", "rest", "Santa", "Sara", "sent", "sear', "seat", "snare", "Stan", "star", "stare", "stern", "tares",  "tase", "taser", "tea", "tears", "ten", "tern", "terns",  but which can make little or no use of the remaining letters to form a meaningful or coherent phrase.

     Okay... 

    So now that I have duly noted the presence of the word plays and smaller words possible, I can move on.  (I'm sure my obsessive-compulsive disorder hasn't exhausted them all - Stop that, OCD!)*

 

;-) 

 

-FIN- 

*I’m kidding about the OCD. I only have a touch of compulsive behavior; just a smidgen. Nothing full blown.

'Phantom Faith' Revisited

    Going over my earliest blog entries, there are a few poems in need of revision. Some, I have already tackled, but here is one from 2011-09-27 I have not, entitled 'Phantom Faith'. I was never really quite satisfied with the final two lines: "And thus is as God, Alike in aspect." That first part always felt clunky and clumsy. Here is my revision, "God. 'To the letter,' the wind interjects." which is closer to the meaning and mark, even if does add a sibilant to the very end..

Background: Cathedral of Christ, the Light in Oakland, CA taken 2010-12-29, by antaresrichard

 

-FIN-

Something Shared (backdated)

    This date on this Blogger post is obviously backdated as I'm actually uploading it to the site on the 22nd of April, 2026 

    To borrow from my April 20th Facebook post:with some minor forty eight hour alteration to number of elapsed days from two to four:

    I would have posted this [four] days ago on the occasion of my cousin and my sister's birthday, the 18th of April, but my other sister, my twin who snapped this image, had yet to upload it.

 

    Happy Birthday to Liz and Yvette, both! 

 

    Photo credit: Georgene

 

Elizabeth Aguilar and Yvette Klemm, nee Cano and Sanchez, respectively. 

    This year Yvette and "Cookie"* decided to celebrate their shared birthday together, (and for the first time I believe) so a group of us relatives gathered at Celia's Mexican Restaurant in Menlo Park, CA to mark the occasion!

Celia's Mexican Restaurant y Cantina

    Later in the day we reassembled at Cookie's place to continue the festivities. Featured in the video below and reading from left to right are Sam Cano, Cookie's brother; Georgene Randall, my twin sister; Cookie, Francisco "Paco" Aguilar, Cookie's husband; and Yvette Klemm, my other sis. I am, of course behind the lens. I deliberately elected to remain silent as my proximity to the mobile device would have caused my singing to drown out all the others. Besides, I have a rotten voice. ;-)

     Click on the 'Play' button as the short clip starts from black end fades to black. 

     We next enjoyed cake then retired to the living room where the birthday girls opened their many gifts.

Birthday girls Cookie and Yvette with Sammy in the background.

     A fun time was had by one and all, and we all promised each other to meet more often.

    -FIN- 

 

*"Cookie" is the Cano family nickname given to Liz as a child  

Amazingly,

    Amazingly, of the few bits of “woetry” I have penned over the last forty seven or so years, this treasure from 1988 I utterly failed to include in my eighteen years of blogging. It’s true, I have many lesser poems, which I have all but forgotten and remain to be recovered, but this was not one of them. I just assumed it was already posted. Boy, was I ever surprised to find the entry entirely missing instead! Completely overlooked! The whole damn time! With me, all along, taking for granted the opposite was true!

    I have yet to give it a title even, but long overdue, here it is in its final form.

 

The “yes” graphic above, is from the official music video of  Donald Fagen’s ‘New Frontier’ (1982).

 

                “We’re we to kiss,

                T’would not be once,

                But a thousand times,

                Or never.

                Each kiss,

                One thousandth of that breadth,

                Suffice to span,

                Forever.”

                -antaresrichard-

 

 

 

 

 

TARP & TCOH [This post is under construction.]

The Angry Red Planet & The Circus of Horrors Friday, June 23, 1961 Grand

Or maybe Thursday June 16, 1960 (Unlisted) Tower

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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TTM [This post is under construction.]

 The Time Machine August 18, !960

Leow Warfield Theater

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Limerence [This post is under heavy construction at the moment]

I have been planning over the past two weeks to do a couple of post about my movie memories: The Time Machine (1960) and I believe, The Angry Red Planet (1959) and it’s double feature The Circus of Horrors (1960) but have been too busy. Then I ran into the subject of this post and had to write about that first.

At roughly a quarter to eleven this evening, I learned a new word: limerence.  I word I did not know until now, but whose concept, critique, rationale, reasoning, criticism, diagnosis, accusation, argument, charge, I have struggled, yea, wrestled with over fifty seven years. 

Limerence is an involuntary state of intense romantic infatuation, obsession, and longing for reciprocation from a "limerent object" (LO), often characterized by intrusive thoughts, emotional dependency, and idealization. It differs from love by being more addictive, anxious, and, frequently, one-sided. Treatment involves therapy and breaking the addiction cycle. 

Symptoms of Limerence
    Intrusive Thinking: Constant, involuntary thoughts about the person.
    Emotional Dependency: Intense highs (euphoria) when10 interacting or anticipating contact, and deep lows (despair) when rejected or ignored.
    Idealization: Placing the person on a pedestal and ignoring red flags or incompatibility.
    Fear of Rejection: Extreme anxiety regarding the person's feelings.
    Physical Symptoms: Trembling, palpitations, or butterflies in the stomach. 

Causes of Limerence
Limerence is often driven by a need for validation or a desire to escape personal insecurities. It is considered a form of "love addiction" or a "lovesickness" that often manifests when the target is unavailable, feeding the anxiety-driven, obsessive, "got-to-have-it" nature of the attachment.

 

My one-sided “love”, my intense infatuation, my obsession, my addiction, I say I love Ruth, but is it love? Was it ever. Without reciprocity? Without her input?

An artist, I was very emotionally motivated, underpinned, driven. I felt everything intensely. A constant undercurrent of emotion buoyed my actions. Oddly enough, not necessary my surface reactions, I could seem emotionally unresponsive or even aloof incapable of emotional contact or immediate interpersonal expression. Part of me was broken, through lack of any physical interfamilial touch. Moody as opposed to immediate I was then but always suffuse with simmering emotions through and through deep within.I no social skills, lacking the social graces, socially clueless. Neurodivergent, awkward.

Clearly, as far as the psychological features are concerned I check every box. Exhibit all the classic symptoms 

If it waddles, and quacks like a duck…

But the is the opposite danger of pigeonholing 

Placing things into convenient categories. Writing off complex 

oversimplifications 

I think love can be a complex, incorporating a concophony of many emotions mixed intentions, conflicting life elements

I believe love can be one-sided among many other things as long it purposely works to consider the other side. As longs it sets their interests, their considerations, their life agency and independence as paramount over itself. 

Agape.

One-sided, perfectly healthy examples, of love do exist, that require no reciprocal return.

Yes my love, has the anxiousness, the exhilarations, but it also has the love at its core. A love making an concerted, life-long, deliberate effort, to learn and be all love, love can really be in practice each and every day. I want to love Ruth right. I want to love her truly. To do and love right by her in the purest sense I can.  To learn love, act and be love. Because I really do want to love Ruth. I love her. I honestly do.

I weighed my life, over and over. I fight for the only item that is the truest sense of me, it has never altered or diminished, my genuine feeling for Ruth. The sole me that is me. Always.

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Neil Sedaka (March 13, 1939 ~ February 27, 2026) [This post just requires tags.]

     [As I have already met my monthly quota for February, I will have forward date this post to the top of March.]

    Here however is what I posted to my YouTube Channel and shared to my Facebook page, shortly after learning of Sedaka's death, February 27th.

From Facebook:

About ten or so years ago, for my listening pleasure, I decided to blend the full version of Neil Sedaka's 1962 hit 'Breaking Up is Hard to Do' with his 1975 reinterpretation of the number, swapping out the brief reprise that normally begins the latter version.

Upon learning of his passing, I quickly assembled this video together. It's just four static shots over the two songs. Still, I trust you will enjoy the music and Brill Building sound.

RIP Neil Sedaka (March 13, 1939 - February 27, 2026)

The video I posted to YouTube (uploaded direct from the laptop to here):

And should anything go wrong with the preceding MP4 file, here is the link to YouTube...

And if that link should go screwy, here below is the URL address of the YouTube entry, so I've got myself covered three separate ways!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rNkVJbxCuqw


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Another Theater Tale [This post is under construction.]

    The majestic Fox Theater in San Francisco, and the one upcoming attraction whose display I never forgot! Amazingly, someone coincidentally took and preserved a record of that particular ad art that mesmerized me as a child of seven!  The year was 1961.

    Based on the information I was able to glean from the various online forums and sites dedicated to San Francisco history, 'Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea' was one of three summer films my family and I caught at the Fox that season.

     The attention grabbing artwork was already up ond the side of the movie palace by the time we all went to see 'The Parent Trap' playing a couple of weeks prior, but the moment my family stepped off the trolley, or walked the few blocks from Van Ness Avenue and Market Street, and I first laid eyes from across Market on the U.S.O.S* Seaview [Holy cow! Sixty five years later, and I just now caught the pun!!] there was no way this kid was was gonna let his parents refuse to take them, er, me to see the flick! Just look at that menacing squid! 

    Besides, my twin sister Georgene and I would turn seven just ten days before the opening. What a perfect birthday treat! I'm sure my sister was just as excited. However, of our two older sisters Yvette and Angie, Yvette the eldest was the who talked to me the most about looking forward to the movie.

     Boy oh boy, what a film it was! Although, the only downside was my having to "go" in the middle of the feature. My daddy wasn't too happy about that, as he walked me to the restrooms in that palatial theater. I well remember even on the way and back, trying to catch glimpses of the onscreen action through the various aisle entry doors we passed! Luckily, in those days, you could just wait to see the film play again and leave "where you came in" or in this case leave after watching the scene you missed the first time, although it did mean watching the second , now totally forgotten feature ('Sniper's Ridge') as well.

 

The Fox Theater (June 23-29, 1961) Courtesy of OpenSFHistory.org
Slide image color-balanced, touched-up, and cropped by me.

 Kudos to OpenSFHistory.org, the San Francisco Public Library, NewBank Inc., the San Francisco Chronicle (1865 - 2017) digital archive, and Blogger's San Francisco Theatres.

 

 

The following background information was copied directly from my image file. The raw text merely awaiting to be edited into this post:

From OpenSFHistory.org: The Fox Theater, June 1961 (sometime between the 23rd and 30th of the month when 'Snow White and the Three Stooges' was on the bill.

I forgot to save this touch-up (TU) image file to my laptop and Google Photos when I initially posted it to social media. 

Fortunately I able to retrieve the post and securely download the JPG to my device and Google storage.

Curiously, the reason I went searching to find the picture on my laptop was because my re-cropped and cleaned-up copy of the tarnished and scuzzy, original Open Sf History.org image, was in turn used by someone else.

Fair enough.

My version of the picture now sits on a Blogger site lovingly dedicated to all the San Francisco theaters that ever were, entitled 'San Francisco Theaters'.

Fox lineup from June 30 to August 31, 1961, and those films (✔) I saw at the theater.

✔ 'The Parent Trap'
June 30 to July 20, 1961

Walt Disney's 'Nikki: Wild Dog of the North'
July 21 to August 1, 1961

✔ 'Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea'
August 2 to August 15,1961

Jules Verne's 'Master of the World'
August 16 to August 24, 1961

✔ 'Alakazam, the Great!'
August 25 to August 31, 1961 

'Voyage to the Bottom of the Semantics'

Retro 1950s-1960s Sci-fi Fan Club
Manuel Antares Richard Sanchez

On Tuesday, February 24, 2026 at 9:58PM PST, posted the following to the Retro 1950s-1960s Sci-fi Fan Club Facebook group. It drew some flak for my imprecision.

Here's what I originally wrote: 

Sometimes, my mind is so-o-o quick [NOT] I frighten myself!

It only took me 64 years, 6 months, and 22 days to realize the pun behind the acronym for United States Oceanographic Survey Seaview!

😉

 

 

I did my best to correct myself eventually editing the final form of the post to read:

Sometimes, my mind is so-o-o quick [NOT] I frighten myself!

It only took me 64 years, 6 months, and 22 days to realize the pun within the acronym for United States Oceanographic Survey Seaview!

😉

My apologies. In pointing out my own slow-wittedness and making light of my decades old oversight, cleverness was hardly my aim. However, by not providing clearer information than I did, I made the post needlessly cryptic.

What eluded me all these sixty plus years, was the old, maritime distress code that could be read into USOS Seaview.
. . . - - - . . .

Yes, something that simple, trivial, or if you prefer, lame.

 

If I had my druthers, I would have struck through the preposition "behind" (something this text file nor Facebook can do) and left it in place, writing the post thusly [color highlights mine]:  

Sometimes, my mind is so-o-o quick [NOT] I frighten myself!

It only took me 64 years, 6 months, and 22 days to realize the pun behind within the acronym for United States Oceanographic Survey Seaview!

😉

My apologies. In pointing out my own slow-wittedness and making light of my decades old oversight, cleverness was hardly my aim. However, by not providing clearer information than I did, I made the post needlessly cryptic.

What eluded me all these sixty plus years, was the old, maritime distress code that could be read into USOS Seaview.
. . . - - - . . .

Yes, something that simple, trivial, or if you prefer, lame. 

 

Having to delete and replace "behind" altogether makes it seem as if the substitution "within" was always the way the original post read, and that the readers were somehow at fault for the initial confusion. They weren't, That error was mine.

    I did leave a concluding comment. It seemed germane.

    Voyage to the Bottom of the Semantics. My bad.

     Though in no way meant as an attack, this parting "thought" might nevertheless draw fire from those utterly contemptuous of anyone feigning any semblance of wit, however minuscule that wit may be, let alone attempting it.

    Oddly, a new memory just came back to me from the early to mid 1960's. My elementary school teacher once observing: "Oh Richard, you're always making mountains out of molehills!"

    ;-)

     Finally, another nod to MAD Magazine and its March 1966 take-down of the Sea Pew to periscope depth! 'Voyage to See What's on the Bottom!'

Mad No. 101, March '66, Page 13. Art by |||ort Drucker 

 *(United States Oceanographic Survey)

 

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MAD Magazine Memories My Murky Mind Mustily Maintains [This post is under construction.]

Today February 15, 2026 is my cousin Sammy's 84th Birthday

It's also my neighbor Darnell Moore's Birthday as well! 

Not that either event has anything directly to do with this post, save that... 

    Today is also the day I happened on TVintage.com where they have all 550 issues of MAD Magazine (minus the specials) digitally stored.

The third, Harvey Kurtzman logo design (1956-1964) I liked best.

     Growing up in the 1960’s, I simply loved MAD Magazine. A young budding artist myself, many a delightful hour were times spent pouring over the works and humor of MAD’s accomplished staff of illustrators: Sergio Aragonés, Dave Berg, Mort Drucker (my personal favorite), Al Jaffee, Don Martin, Antonio Prohías, Jack Rickard, Basil Wolverton, Wallace Wood to name a few. To this day I owe my quirky illustrative sense of the ironic to this publication.

     However, MAD didn't come life into my right away, and it took until my older sister brought an issue home from high school before I saw my first copy. When exactly that was, I began to wonder, as I downloaded this new discovered digital treasure trove. Was I eight? Or 9? Hmm.

    However was a way to help determine the date.

    My earliest recollection, you see, involved three distinct images. Two came from within the pages of the magazine, and the other was a cover. Find them, and I’ll have pinpointed the year I discovered MAD. Therefore, starting with the oldest memory, I'll tackle the one panel first, then the cover, and lastly the second panel.

    The first panel I recall was a parody of Captain Kittinger's historic skydive in 1960. Having, in my childhood, already seen the iconic photograph of Kittinger leaping from the gondola, I was then well enough familiar with it to instantly recognize its reproduction in MAD.

    I located the Kittinger recreation: From MAD Magazine, March 1961, Volume I, Issue 61, page 46:

The earliest MAD Magazine panel (highlighted) I can confidently remember.

    So I was at the very youngest, just over six and a half years old when I spied my first MAD, Mad itself was nine years old!

Below is the 1960, Kittinger freefall jump, fresh in the news, that MAD was parodying in the above panel. I have also provided some background information on the skydive courtesy of Wikipedia.

Captain Joseph Kittinger's August 16, 1960 freefall jump from Excelsior III (102,800 feet)

 

Wikipedia: "Excelsior III: On August 16, 1960, [Captain Joseph] Kittinger made the final high-altitude jump at 102,800 feet* (31,300 m). Towing a small drogue parachute for initial stabilization, he fell for 4 minutes and 36 seconds, reaching a maximum speed of 614 miles per hour (988 km/h) before opening his parachute at 18,000 feet."

*Like the MAD article said, 19 miles or 19.469697 miles to be precise.

 

 

        The second image, a cover illustration, was that of Greek-style, public edifice with Alfred E. Newman not holding up his share of the capital. This should be easy enough to find.

    Voila! Mad Magazine September 1961, Volume I, Issue 65! 

This is earliest MAD Magazine cover I can actually recall.

 

 Quid Me Anxius Sum?

What? Me worry?

Literal translation: What am I worried about?

Another Latin way to write the phrase: Quid? Sollicite me?

 

      The third image involved a panel depicting an outer space creature entering the airlock or view portal of a rocketship much to the alarm of the pilot. As a child learning to read, here too, is where the first MAD Magazine word I ever learned, having read it by my very self was 'Lummox", which at the time, I assumed was the name of the creature. It wasn't. 

     Nevertheless, here is that very panel!

    From Mad Magazine, April 1961, Volume I, Issue 62, Page 15: The art, would you believe it, is by none other than Wally Wood (Woody) himself!

The second panel and the very first MAD word (highlighted) I read on my own: Lummox!
Art by Wallace Wood

 

  Respectively, these are the covers for Issue 61 and Issue 62, but which failed to make an impression.

The issue containing the first panel of which I spoke,
but whose cover did not enter my memory.

 

The MAD issue featuring the "Lummox" panel.

 

    One thing I have to point out, in reviewing the 1961 issues, is that I recognize an earlier image from the January 1961 copy of MAD Magazine. It's Charlie Brown and Lucy as drawn by someone other than Charles Schulz. Is this recognition because my sister had that issue, and I merely forgot the illustration, only to remember on sight upon seeing it after all these years? Or is it because the fake ad from a later reprinting which MAD Magazine Special Editions were apt to do (normally featuring a loose collection of artwork and articles from its prior publications)?

    Here is the said drawing from the inside front cover of MAD Magazine, January 1961, Volume I, Issue 60.

Possibly the earliest MAD parody artwork I recognize today, 
though most likely it's from a MAD special reprint.

     The famous half right side up, half upside down, MAD Magazine, January 1961, Volume I, Issue 60

 

The double-sided, "upside-down" issue
featuring the above Peanuts parody. 

 

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Five Years [This post is under construction.]

From my Facebook feed for today:

On this February morning, the fifth anniversary of my sister’s passing, I just wanted to again remember her.
This studio portrait was from her high school days and senior year at Polytechnic in San Francisco.
The summer of love.
With love,
Richard
Pictured: Angelica Ingrid Alma Staley.

Angelica Ingrid Alma Staley nee Sanchez (1967)

This second image below dates to when, I don’t know. Steve Staley, her future husband, is the photographer however. During their courtship and throughout their marriage, he and my sister would often go on random photo outings to wherever - the location too, escapes me. Steve, a camera buff, loved photographing Angie every chance he could. I wonder if they were still just dating or already newlyweds, when this picture was snapped.

Angie, in the role of a photo subject, posing for Steve, someplace somewhere.

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The Roosevelt [This post is under construction.]

[NOTE: Due to the news of the untimely passing of one of my favorite comediennes, Catherine O'Hara, four days after I posted this fourth post for the month of January (2026-01-26) I have moved this minor entry to the top of February instead.]




From a 2026-01-26 reply to post from my ‘San Francisco Remembered' Facebook group.

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My very first memory, or possibly my second,* was there.

It was the Roosevelt then, and I recalled watching a clip from George Melies' 'A Trip to the Moon' followed a little later by Cantinflas' Passeportout. He was madly scrambling to catch a hot air balloon just in the nick of time. 

Both scenes were from the Michael Todd 1956 extravaganza, 'Around the World in Eighty Days'. 

I was two.

;-)

*The other memory competing for first place is the time an old, unused stove fell over and swallowed me whole!

This overview of the theater’s history by Tom Mayer is from Cinema Treasures:

This Mission district neighborhood theatre opened as the Roosevelt Theatre on September 22, 1926 with Norma Talmadge in “Kiki”. It had 1,006-seats and was designed by the architrectural furm Reid Brothers. In 1946 it was remodeled to the plans of architect Otto A. Deichmann. It retained the Roosevelt name until at least 1957. By 1971 it had been renamed Teatro York screening Spanish language movies. In later years the theatre was known as the York Theatre which was programed as a repertory movie theatre in the 1980’s.

The York Theatre closed as a movie house in 1993.

In the fall of 2001, the theatre was restored and reopened as Brava Women’s Theater Arts.

The theatre has retained its screen for movies but is now primarily a performing arts center.

Contributed by Tom Mayer

1951 look at the theatre from the San Francisco Assessor's Office

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Catherine O'Hara (1954 - 2026) [This post just requires tags.]

     It is with sadness I woke up today, only to learn of our having lost Catherine O'Hara, one of my favorite comediennes since I first learned of SCTV back in 1979. 

     She will join the ranks of her fellow Second City and SCTV alumni who have gone on ahead of her: John Belushi, Gilda Radner, John Candy, Harold Ramis, Tony Rosato, Robin Duke, and Joe Flaherty

 

     Here's what I posted on my Facebook today:

    "Just learned the sad news of comedienne Catherine O'Hara's passing, here seen in the foreground, downstage of fellow actress Andrea Martin, in one of my favorite SCTV skits, the infamous parody of Ingmar Bergman, titled 'Whispers of the Wolf'

 

 

Post script: Today, I no longer laugh..."

 

     Later in the day, I able to locate the aforementioned skit on YouTube. Hopefully, copyright won't impede its upload to this post. Otherwise I might have to see if I can re-upload it to my YouTube account and link to it there. Here goes. 

 

 

 

 

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Iced. [This post just requires tags.]

In less than a month.

 

 

Keith Porter Jr

Keith Porter Jr. Murdered by an off duty ICE officer just minutes prior to the New Year, December 31st, 2025

 

Rene Nicole Good

Rene Nicole Good. Murdered at point blank range in her SUV, January 7th, 2026

 

 Alex Jeffrey Pretti

Alex Jeffrey Pretti. Pinned to the ground and shot in the back some dozen or more times. 

These are the current deaths to say nothing of the more that have already died at ICE's hand.

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