Guess Who

Posted on by Thor

What to O.J. Simpson, George Zimmerman, Casey Anthony, The 45th U.S. President and The Duke have in common? They were all convicted a crime and got off.

Lo G and Colbonyx  are trying to send signs to the world that The Duke, their corrupt and greedy employer and CEO of a record label, is guilty for illegally supplying blood samples to Tim Nugget, CEO of a corrupt tech company called Manogen. The Duke was in a court case but was found innocent even though he wasn’t.

This is the premise for a series of illustrations I did for this local band. I branched towards caricature for the two band members in the series so things get a  bit distorted in a fun way.

Guess Who? is a two-player character guessing game created by Ora and Theo Coster, also known as Theora Design, that was first manufactured by Milton Bradley in 1979 and is now owned by Hasbro.

Each player starts the game with a board that includes cartoon images of 24 people and their first names with all the images standing up. Each player selects a card of their choice from a separate pile of cards containing the same 24 images. The objective of the game is to be the first to determine which card one’s opponent has selected. Players alternate asking various yes or no questions to eliminate candidates, such as:

  • “Is your person a CEO of a record label?”
  • “Is your person greedy?”
  • “Is your person wearing a top hat?

The player will then eliminate candidates (based on the opponent’s response) by flipping those images down until only one is left. Well-crafted questions allow players to eliminate one or more possible cards.

Zimmerman Not Guilty

Posted on by Thor

Saturday July 13th was the 40th World Wide SketchCrawl. I deviated from the planned itinerary and went up to Sanford Florida to see if there were people waiting outside the courthouse for the verdict in the case against George Zimmerman.  The courthouse was surprisingly quiet.  Dark storm clouds loomed heavy and grey. Just hours later, jurors would announce the verdict that George Zimmerman was not guilty. I didn’t follow the trial on TV but I was there when the first protests happened.  On the morning of the final deliberations, prisoners shouted “Justice for Trayvon” from their cells.

Zimmerman shot and killed the unarmed Trayvon Martin in a Sanford neighborhood. Zimnerman was a citizen neighborhood patrolman. He called a police dispatcher, saying that he saw a suspicious youth with a hoodie walking through his neighborhood. The dispatcher told Zimmerman to stay in his car, that police were on the way. Zimmerman got out of his car anyway, stalked Trayvon and shot him to death. The youth had skittles in his pocket.

The jury was entirely made up of women.  Though found not guilty, Zimmerman certainly isn’t innocent. It is unlikely that he will ever again walk the streets of Sanford on patrol. He is easily identifiable with his round face and small eyes. He is a pariah, and will likely disappear from public sight very much like Casey Anthony, the mom accused of killing her two year old daughter. Though found not guilty, she is still embroiled in law suits. She owes $800,000 and hasn’t worked since her case was settled. She filed for bankruptcy, but in March, a lawyer filed a motion asking for a Florida judge’s permission
to sell “the exclusive worldwide rights in perpetuity to the commercialization of Anthony’s life story.” Casey didn’t want any part of it. She had to pay $25,000 to settle the case and keep her story to herself.

George Zimmerman’s wife, Shellie, will likely be charged with perjury. She lied saying that the family had no money for lawyers fees when there was $135,000 in the bank. Money was being transferred out of George Zimmerman’s account in an effort to hide the money. This isn’t the last day in court for the Zimmermans. TV reporters kept asking people to express their anger, shock and resentment as if this is the only thing that is news worthy.

Spike Lee used Twitter to send out George Zimmerman’s home address during the trial. He got the address wrong and ruined the lives of an elderly couple,  David and Elaine McClain, who had to suffer the abuse of false public scrutiny. They have nothing to do with the Zimmerman case.  There were threats on social media and notes left on their doorstep.  They had to leave their home fearing for their safety. The woman suffered a heart attack after the stress and strain.  This false address is still being re tweeted endlessly. The Internet, rather than bringing people together is helping tear us apart.

The Verdict

Posted on by Thor

It was the start of a highly contested battle. In the morning I went for a run. I ran to close to a mail box and its metallic handle caught my T-shirt sleeve, ripping it. After writing several blog posts I decided to go downtown and surprise Terry by stopping by her office. Walking downtown I noticed the constant sound of helicopters. They were hovering by the courthouse and I realized that the Casey Anthony trial must have come to a close. I walked towards the courthouse. I knew that Brian Feldman had gotten into the courtroom so I texted him to find out what was going on inside. I didn’t know this at the time, but the verdict had been read several hours earlier. When I didn’t hear back from Brian, I turned off my cell phone.

A hot dog vendor next to the courthouse was arguing with a costomer at his stand. He said, “I can’t believe they found her not guilty of child neglect!” That was the moment when I knew the verdict. I saw a crowd of people outside the Bank of America building and I wondered what was up. News anchor Geraldo Rivera shuffled out of the crowd onto the street. A man rushed up to him and asked for a photo.

Across the street from the courthouse there was an empty lot full of news vans. I sat in the shadow of a fence and started sketching the channel 13 news crew. A female newscaster practiced for her report. Crowds of people rushed around shooting photos and home movies with their iPhones. A man walked by holding a sign that said “Murderer!” He raised it over his head pointing it towards the circus of news vans in the empty lot. The woman with him shouted out with a drawl, “Come out of there Geraldo!” She must have been angry about the verdict and blamed the messenger. Two bystanders shouted out “Hey Casey’s parents just got in that Black SUV!” The SUV drove off and they waved. The windows were tinted so I couldn’t see inside. An ant bit my hand and I flicked it off.

Terry and Amanda were meeting for Margaritas at Paxia. I decided to join them. As I walked away the sounds of the helicopters slowly dimmed. Here one day, gone one night.

Casey Anthony Case

Posted on by Thor

A little more than two years ago, when I first started doing a sketch a day, I found myself sketching at the damp uprooted woods where Caylee Anthony’s body was found. I also attended a memorial service in her honor at the First Baptist Church. For me the endless media coverage of the trial seems ridiculous in the face of the human tragedy that is being flaunted for profit.The empty lot across from the courthouse was over run with TV media trucks with their satellite disks pointing to the heavens. As I approached the site I bumped into Louise Bova who bikes past the courthouse every day on her way home. She pointed out that there were even more trucks parked in another empty lot across from where we stood.

I nestled myself in the shadow of the Bank of America building. In the courtyard behind me a musician was setting up the amplifiers for his guitar to sing to patrons at the bar. He began singing “Let it be” by John Lennon. For me the music was soothing, appropriate and somewhat comical relating to the scene spread out before me. A homeless man who I had just seen sleeping under an I-4 overpass walked on the sidewalk in front of the media trucks. He saw some trash and picked it up and put it in a trash basket attached to a light pole. Peter Murphy waved to me as he biked by. Moments later my phone vibrated and there was a tweet from Peter announcing that he had just seem me sketching. “Keep Orlando awesome” he tweeted.

To be honest I am not following the constant TV coverage of the trial. In the morning I asked a teacher who was watching all the TV courtroom drama what she thought. “Guilty” she said. There are lines of people that start forming at 4am and yesterday a fight broke out when someone tried to cut into the line. This kind of spectacle certainly doesn’t make Orlando look good. People keep suggesting I should sketch the trial. That would involve getting up at 4am and standing in line with those lunatics. I think not. If any media wants to issue me a press pass then I’ll be there in a heart beat.

As I sketched a tourist stood taking photos. He became curious in what I was doing. He told me his girlfriend used to live right next to the JonBenet Ramsey home. That was a case where a little girl who competed in beauty pageants disappeared. He was annoyed that such cases become a media circus while many other children go missing with hardly a headline and other children go hungry.