I was just watching the CBS Evening news just awhile ago. Yes I am in love with Katie Couric…..you caught me. Seriously though CBS just had a story about cancer cures on the web. 145 million people search the web for answers to their health problems. The problem of course is that there is so much misinformation about cures, and therapy that some people are taken advantage of the entire situation.

I guess that I was lucky as I was diagnosed with cancer before the internet boom. It was in 1995 and I thought I had a constant bloody nose. I went to the doctor who did not like the looks of the inside of my nose (who would?) and sent me to a ENT doctor. After a biopsy, the consensus was clear———-I had cancer. Inoperable cancer as it was in the sinuses and had a stem near the brain. Only three people in the United States had had it and I was the only one alive with it. YIKES!

So I basically asked what’s next? One doctor said I should go to Madison or Iowa or even the Mayo clinic. Then the treatment would be as follows: They would make a slice in the back of my head, lift over my face, dig out the tumor, push back the face, sew me up and hope that I only lose 4 of the 5 senses…...

Yeah.

Don’t we only have 5 senses?

Losing 4 of them would kind of bite. I said if there were any options besides the reverse lobotomy-job they described. The “proper authorities” in this matter said no because this is how it always should go. Now remember that there were 2 other patients that had this type of cancer. And not to be a jerk but THEY DIED!!!!!!!! Now some hotshot doctor said I have to go through this because essentially “three times a charm”?

I hate to quote the Olsen Twins, but “No way Jose!”

I took extensive chemotherapy and 28 treatments of radiation. My chemo therapy on the second round (because the first round did squat) lasted a week at a time. I had to stay in the hospital for my doses and eventually I could take a pack of it and go “mobile” which if you ever had chemo before you usually get back in the groove of things and decide to climb Mt. Rainier and swim the Atlantic in all the same afternoon.  Chemo makes you restless and goofy and tired and icky and sick. I do not wish it on anyone.

But chemo kills cells. Period. And no matter how many cells that are healthy and doing fine that are lost, chemo kills the bad cancer cells that are growing in everyone’s body. Some people don’t know that. We all have these cells in our bodies and some never show up as the C-word at all.

Another c-word I had going was Chelation. Basically with all the toxins from chemo and radiation in my body, I needed that to get out of my system. So this is an alternative medicine and it worked for me. But everyone is different. Basically you are hooked up to a saline drip and for 4 hours you get this in your system and then you pee it all out. Does it work? Well I am still here.

In fact the original diagnosis was that I had 6 weeks to live. Well I am on my 13th year of recovery. The funny thing is that the week-long chemo sessions that I had to stay in the hospital for? They can now be done in one hour. So I truly feel that Cancer will be cured in the future.

Now in no way do I promote my particular way of handling cancer, because it is outdated and we know so much more about the disease. But I figured that this is my answer to Ms. Couric’s story. Yes, we read as a family every book on health and cancer fighters we could and yes we ate broccoli and cauliflower and drank Asiatic Tea made out of kelp. But I really think what cured me is faith in God and my family. I prayed with my mom, dad and my younger sister every night and I have to say this experience strengthened my relationship with God and my family.

So that is my miracle cure for cancer. Having faith in others and God. Sure the chemo and radiation and the tea and so on may have contributed to it, but I really think that faith is the strongest weapon we have when we are in the darkest of times.

I think I finally figured out this blog thing. I was looking over some old articles and I came to the one where I said this would continue and I never did. My fault. Mae Culpa to you!

For those that tuned in before or are just reading this, I had an article about how I draw caricatures and how I began. In a few words I will sum up the vast majority of the article: I was born, Mom gave me a crayon, I connected the dots, I then drew big heads little bodies, something must be wrong with this kid?, he hates fireworks, something is definitely wrong with this boy!, test his hearing, he seems okay, get him into kindergarten, no more big-headed/small-bodied people, continue on for 4 years.

Wow that was quick! Now I have to mention that during all the years that I was in school, I still loved to draw and create art projects. I had kids copy ME as to how I would draw things. In second grade I even told the teacher that the project she had doesn’t make much sense. In third grade I learned the “proper way” to drawing a face. Then, like in the movie 2001, the pencil I had in my hand turned into a rocket ship, or as I like to explain to people 4th grade happened.

Now this is way back in 1983. I was a skinny kid with big glasses and artistic ability to boot. I was not athletic in any way, I could barely handle multiplication and addition problems, and I was not a “ladies man” as you probably can attest to my skinny frame, big hair and bigger glasses. In short: I was geeky!

Now I think this happened in either early September or late September. It could have happened sometime in April, I really can’t remember for sure except that there was no snow on the ground and it happened in the afternoon. See back then if everything was taught for the day and you still had an hour in school, Mrs. Lorrigan, my teacher would turn on the black and white tv and have the students watch PBS. I guess that early in the afternoon nothing else was on and PBS was a sure bet to have something educational on at that time.

As we were drinking our milk, we watched a show. Now I don’t remember the name of the show. I have been trying to figure it out. It had a guy in a flannel shirt wearing overalls and a mustache. At one time I thought he was the original Lennox man. Anyway this guy would talk about a theme. We watched the show from time to time and while another guy red a story that was part of the theme (NO not Reading Rainbow, stick to the program!), an artist would draw the scene in pastels. Then magically the scene would move and it was pretty cool, except that it was on a black and white tv. yet I remember colors….hmmmmm….

Anyway, after snippets of the story (they never finished a whole story - that was the point, get you hooked and then try to find that book), the mustached man would come back to the show and talk about stuff. I really never paid attention to what he said as it usually was boring. But one day, as I was drinking the last remnants of my chocolate milk, mustached Lennox-imposter man talked about the presidents and how each had certain features that were recognizable. He showed cartoons of George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, John F. Kennedy, FDR and Gerald Ford (I guess it was an earlier show). Anyway he explained what those funny looking pictures were called: caricatures. My head almost exploded!

To be continued…....

Hello, I have been writing this blog now for two weeks. And I have seen that it has been viewed by people. Which is good. But I would like some input and questions asked of me and I will post the questions and maybe highlight a question for an entire blog! Wow! Yes it is true. So address the questions to me at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) as I don’t know how else you can contact me. But I will answer your questions and try not to embarrass you or myself in the process. In fact I have a few questions right here so I will answer them.

Jimmy from Manitowoc, WI asks:
Why do you have Illinois basketball players but Green bay Football players? What kind of freaky fan are you?

Well Jimmy, I am not a freaky fan. I am a die-hard Packer and Wisconsin fan of all sports. My cousin James Augustine played for Illinois and went to the 2005 Finals. He is one tall guy and I remember when he was a little kid how he loved basketball. I drew him as the starting center for Illinois as he was one and thought, I bet the other players would like a caricature too. So I drew the whole team. And they signed their caricatures and that was cool.

Jimmy from Oshkosh, WI asks:
Why do you have 2 Brett Favre caricatures?

Well Jimmy, I drew the first one in 2004 and the other one in 2006 and Brett aged a lot between the two. So I drew him as such. Plus the pictures I based the paintings on were different. I am just lucky to have them signed as Brett is notorious to ruin a caricature or picture for a fan. In fact the newer Favre signed his face on the original painting. So I kept the print.

Jimmy from Green Bay, WI asks:
When did you start caricaturing and collecting signatures?

Boy there are a lot of Jimmy’s in Wisconsin! I drew caricatures as a way to get my feeling back in my hands as I was going through Chemotherapy for cancer. I had so many caricatures that I thought, I could get these signed and looked up the addresses at the library. eventually I moved on to Autograph Collector magazine and then to StarTiger.com the place to find addresses of the stars. And Tigers I suppose….I must have close to 200 caricatures that are signed.

One final question:

Jimmy from Appleton, WI asks:
Are these questions you answered real?

Well Jimmy, I did make up the names and places but the answers are totally real as I have had many people ask me these same questions. So make sure to tell the other Jimmy’s to let real people ask the questions.

This is a basic concept of art that was discussed in high school. But it can be used in the grade schools too. When we first learn to hold a pencil we are “taught” the correct ways to draw. Basically the wrong way. We see an eye and we draw a football with a circle and then some spiderlegs for eyelashes and in our brain a conflict is brewing. The left side of the brain says"yep that is an eye,” while the right side is saying “it looks more like a football shape with spiderlegs for eyelashes and a circle in the middle.” As we age we start to listen to that left side more often and the right side is starts to sound like that uncle of yours that swears everywhere and says things like “I ain’t care.” You start to ignore that voice and eventually that voice disappears.

BUT

That is not why that voice is in your head to begin with and it can stay with you forever. Yeah the left side of your brain can figure out your checkbook and give 15% on a bill to your waitress, but the right side is the creative force inside of you. Plus why not use both sides?

So here is a project you can do that is easy and quick. Take a piece of paper and with a pencil just make some freehand loops and lines and such. Only for a minute. Then turn that paper over , close your eyes and then open them and turn over the paper. Now look for 10 things in your scribble. Look for a coffee cup, a horse, an acorn, anything. Try to be creative but use those swirls and lines to make the outlines of things.

Also have fun.

I think I am going to call it this because I can’t think of a better way of describing it. But here is the new edition of this compendium of caricature.

I drew James Garner as I knew he would be a good signer in the mail. I looked up the info on StarTiger.com and found out he had quite a quick turnaround. So I decided to draw him as Maverick although he had some other very good roles in other movies and TV shows.

The trick of drawing a good caricature is having good research. Thank God there is an internet because you can find any image of anyone on it. If they are famous. I found one of JG and drew him but his face needed to be longer and his eyes “squintier”. I knew I wanted a maverick outfit but how show it off. I thought of him at a poker table but the face did not jibe with that action. So I thought a walking action would work as maybe Maverick was having a great morning as the night before he won big. Low and behold I found a children’s book produced around the time of the show that had the look and feel I wanted.

So I used my airbrush and frisket to create the background with the finished caricature in oil based pencils. It was good but not great. So I looked and I thought if I wrote “MAVERICK” on the side, that would do the trick. The written word is a marvelous thing and lately I have been adding it to my caricatures. It,I don’t know why,seems to add class to the paintings. So I was about to write it when I thought, why not make the name and some cards spell it out? So I did and I created my own face cards with my older computer programs downstairs. It looked great, and I made a copy, sent it off to Mr. Garner and in about a month it came back signed.