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Those Nazi Bastards

This past 3-day weekend I watched two movies. Both are about WWII — the fictional tragic romance Atonement, and The Counterfeiters, based on a true story. In this scene, the forger Salomon Sorowitsch uses his artistic talents to curry favor and improve his condition in the Mauthausen concentration camp.

[flv:http://www.dograt.com/Video/2008/OCT/Counterfeiters.flv 448 252]

In this regard Sorowitsch paralleled Dina Gottliebova Babbitt, who survived Auschwitz by painting portraits for the Nazis, most notably the infamous Josef Mengele. Babbitt was later an artist at the Disney studio. Babbitt is still alive, and she’s trying to regain ownership of her Auschwitz paintings. In that effort she is being helped by two comic book artists — Neal Adams and Joe Kubert.

I knew an artist who escaped the Nazis. He was my drawing teacher in college. His name was Arno Maris.

Arno Maris

Arno had been a champion gymnast in his native Holland. He wasn’t a tall man, but he was powerfully built. As I recall Arno telling me the story, after the Nazis had occupied the Netherlands, he took a row boat and, in the darkness of night, headed out into the open ocean, with no idea what would become of him. As luck would have it, he was picked up by a Merchant Marine ship, and he lived to tell the tale.

“Those Nazi bastards,” Arno would say, with great emphasis. In my mind right now I can still hear Arno talking to me, in that unmistakable Dutch accent of his, calling me “Dock-less.” Arno Maris was an excellent art instructor, and a wonderful man.

Another side of K3

If you go through the conveniently categorized K3 posts, it’s obvious there are two different acts — one primarily for kids, and another for their parents. Here’s an example of the latter. According to Google, “Een Rustige Ouwe Dag” translates into “A Quiet Old Day.” A while ago I linked to another take of this video on YouTube, but the audio cuts out in places. This copy is OK. Does it sound to you as though they’re singing “Tom Hanks”?

[flv:http://www.dograt.com/Video/2008/OCT/K3EenRustigeOudeDag.flv 440 330]

This is how the studio version sounds. Very nice.

[audio:http://www.dograt.com/Audio/2008/OCT/K3EenRustigeOudeDag.mp3]

I’ve always been fascinated by what works and doesn’t work in popular music, but somewhere along the way, after getting out of the radio business, I stopped keeping up with much of anything new. A few bands caught my attention, including REM and Green Day (Eric can’t stand Green Day!), but for the most part I continued to enjoy the old stuff. Carol got me listening to Steve Earle and Lucina Williams, along with a local singer-songwriter here in Massachusetts named Lori McKenna, who’s had some national success.

Not that I feel the need to justify my appreciation of K3, but as a popular music act, I think they have it. The fact that I don’t understand Flemish is inconsequential.

Catchy songs and production values, with cute costumes and dances, aren’t enough. Thirty seconds of Wir3 performing a K3 song is proof of that. Karen Damen, Kathleen Aerts and Kristel Verbeke are why K3 has been successful for ten years, and seem to be more popular than ever.

Beam me up, K3!

One of the K3 tunes that seems to come across particularly well live is “Tele-Romeo,” where they sing “Hello, Hello.” Here’s the very amusing (well, I think so) studio video, with the girls mooning over some astronaut — wearing a motorcycle helmet! — who’s not on the Moon, but…. Mars, maybe? It even opens with Star Trek sound effects.

[flv:http://www.dograt.com/Video/2008/OCT/TeleRomeo.flv 480 360]

Titanic News

Sarah Palin Newsweek coverThe Fox News folks are upset over the unflattering photo of Sarah Palin on the cover of Newsweek. But what interested me the most in this week’s issue is the story of why the Titanic sank faster than McCain’s campaign is sinking now.

“It was negligence: the ship’s builders suspected that the ship’s hull was too flimsy, but they overrode the concerns of their engineer in a bid to get the Titanic on the seas in time.”

Special Guest Post: Paul Howley on TV

Coming up on Saturday, October 25th, 48 Hours|Mystery will feature the unsolved murder of Dr. Linda Goudey. As explained a while ago, Carol and I helped CBS News with the background research. Paul Howley has that beat. He’s going to appear on a TV show:

We’ve had an interesting and fun few days with our daughter, Cassy. Cassy got a phone call from one of her agents, offering her a job, acting in an “infomercial.” For those who don’t watch much television, an infomercial is a commercial that is disguised as an actual entertainment program that contains a sales-pitch for some product…in this case it was for a hair straightening appliance.

Cassy accepted the assignment and thanked the agent for the job. Cassy mentioned that she hoped this was just the beginning of a good relationship with this agent. The agent expressed surprise that her office hadn’t gotten her any other jobs before and promised to be thinking of Cassy a bit more when possible acting jobs came up. About two minutes later, another employee from the same agency called and offered Cassy a job as an “extra” on the hit TV show “Burn Notice.” (“Burn Notice” is an action-adventure-spy show that stars Jeffrey Donovan and Bruce Campbell, broadcast on USA Network at 9 pm on Thursdays.) This show was filming in Miami on Monday and the infomercial was going to be filmed in Coral Springs the next day.

Since Cassy was required to be at the filming location (a public park in Miami) by 6:30 in the morning (and we live about 2 hours away) we decided that we’d book a hotel about one mile away from the location and after Cassy got out of work (she works at a restaurant) at 8pm on Sunday, we drove to Miami. Cassy’s husband, Tom, was happy that we could go with Cassy because he couldn’t get time off from his job to go with her.

When we arrived, Cassy checked in with the production guy. Mal and I explained to him that we reaaally enjoyed “Burn Notice” and we had hoped that we’d be allowed to watch as Cassy worked on the set. He told us to wait around for a few minutes and when he returned he asked if Mal and I would be interested in being “extras” also. We’d each get paid $100 and we’d be right in the same area as Cassy, so we agreed to do it. We certainly had no intention of asking to be hired as an “extra” so we wore our normal clothes. Mal looked nice (as usual) but I was wearing a dark t-shirt and blue jeans (also as usual). The wardrobe supervisor approved of Mal’s clothes but there was a definite restriction…no blue jeans or dark colored t-shirts. Since the TV show takes place in Miami, the producers want “Florida” colors. She sent me to the wardrobe trailer to get more a more appropriate shirt. She’d make an exception for me so I could wear my blue-jeans. They gave me a hideous, faded yellow t-shirt with a Jamaica Yacht Club logo and palm trees on it. Really not my style.

Continue reading Special Guest Post: Paul Howley on TV

Paul Howley’s Life In Comics

The comments by “paul” you sometimes see here on DogRat are from Paul Howley, the owner of That’s Entertainment, the biggest and best comic book store in Massachusetts. In fact, Paul has twice won the Eisner Award for excellence in comics retailing.

That\'s Entertainment, Worcester, MA

Paul HowleyI met Paul Howley when I was in college, but not as a fellow comic book fan and collector. It was during the time in my life when I considered myself to be a Born Again Christian.

Paul was a member of The Freedom Farm in Bolton, MA, a meeting place for young Christians, and that was where we were introduced, during my freshman year of college. A friend who knew about my hobby pulled me over and said, “You’ve got to meet Paul. He’s really into comic books too.” Paul has no recollection of this, but that’s perfectly understandable, as he and his wife were regulars — they even lived there for a while — and I was just one of a lot of new faces.

Paul and I graduated from our respective high schools the same year, but we took very different paths in life. My entire focus after high school was to put myself through college in four straight years, and that was what I did. When Paul got out of high school he married his girlfriend, and with a loan from his parents he bought a house! Talk about getting a jump start on real life. I didn’t buy my first house until I was 32.

While in high school, on my own I started attending a Lutheran church. In college I hooked up with the Christian fellowship group, which was dominated by Campus Crusade for Christ. CCC was, and I assume still is, a very conservative group. I was even told that the “competing” campus organization, Intervarsity, represented at another school, was too liberal.

A student leader, representing the interests of Campus Crusade, visited me in my dorm room, and he spotted my comic books. One title in particular caught his attention — Tomb of Dracula, illustrated by one of my favorite artists, Gene Colan. This panel, from issue #16, concerned him.

Tomb of Dracula #16, page 23

“This is of Satan,” I was told. “You must give up comic books.” Good thing I didn’t have any EC horror comics from the 50’s in my room! Gene Colan’s corpse was rather tame compared to a ghastly Graham Ingels drawing.

I’m so opinionated and pig-headed, it’s difficult for me to comprehend how I could have been so impressionable and easily influenced back then, but I was. So I gave up buying comics. I was busy with many other things in my life, and money was short anyway, but in fact I was worried that I was under the influence of Satan. And then I met Paul.

At one of the Freedom Farm get-togethers I told Paul what I’d been told about comics by the Campus Crusade guy. Paul did a double take, and with an expression that can best be described as the way Seinfeld looks when hearing something incredibly stupid, he said the idea that comic books were of Satan was ridiculous. Paul saw absolutely no conflict between being a Christian and being a comic book fan. That was exactly what I needed to hear, and I went back to reading and buying comic books. Soon afterward I starting hanging out with my best pal, D.F. Rogers, and that was that.

Many years later, ten years ago, Paul brought Gene Colan to That’s Entertainment, and I was able to meet Gene and his wife Adrienne. I was unable to attend their next visit, because I was recovering from my eye surgeries for a detached retina. A few years ago, Eric met his favorite comic strip cartoonist at That’s Entertainment — Bill Griffith, who does Zippy the Pinhead.

Paul Howley is an entrepreneur who has succeeded doing something he enjoys. I admire that greatly. Being an independent businessman, Paul is, understandably, a Republican, while I’m a high tech salaryman Democrat. We’ve both had our ups and downs in life, but Paul and his wife have suffered the loss of their son, and my heart goes out to them.

Paul’s autobiography, told with honesty and candor, is available on his eBay blog. The earliest entry is part 9, but the first eight parts can be found on the store’s Web site. It may not be apparent, because I write mostly about my interests, and not much about my personal life, but reading “Paul Howley’s Life in Comics” was a big influence on my decision to start blogging two years ago, so that’s another reason for me to thank him.

Coming up next: Paul Howley’s TV Adventure!