This boggles my mind. The art of George Vlosich III is something astounding, something baffling; I don’t understand why he’s chosen this medium! The artist Paul Klee was once asked about how he draws. He said he simply takes a line for a walk. The line George Vlosich takes for a walk goes on one insanely long nutty jaunt. And when you consider that all it takes is a single inadvertent bump for his art to be toast …

Vlosich uses an Etch-A-Sketch, and yes, it’s the same exact rectangular, red plastic framed model toy many of us had as kids. Each Vlosich Etch-A-Sketch piece takes considerable pre-planning and will typically take between 40 to 60 hours of patience, focus and attention-to-detail to complete. Remember, to draw with an Etch-A-Sketch, there is one line and only one line all the time. There’s little room for error, you can’t erase a mistake.

Probably the best thing I ever drew on one of those things was some pathetically lopsided cat. Vlosich produces refined images and precise portraiture and has since he was a kid. He started drawing when he was about ten years old. By the age of 18 he was being commissioned by the Topps Trading Card Company to produce a series of Etch-A-Sketch drawings as special inserts for their 1998 Topps Baseball trading card collection. He continues working today, still using the Etch-A-Sketch and it’s 5 x 7 screen, but Vlosich has also expanded his art to include painting and illustration, and has set up a design company specializing in advertising and logo design, sports memorabilia and apparel. Plus, he has a line of greeting cards. So next year for Christmas … someone send me one. I’d be damned pleased!

Rory Storm and the Hurricanes will probably always be remembered as the band Ringo Starr left, jumping ship to join that other Liverpoolian band; The Beatles. Wise move on Mr. Starkey’s part! But at one time Rory Storm and the Hurricanes were one of the most popular bands in the region, once placing fourth in Mersey Beat’s (a weekly magazine documenting the Liverpool scene) poll of favorite bands. The Hurricane’s recorded output was small, three tracks on two compilations:  “This Is Mersey Beat Vol. 1 and Vol. 2,” and a couple of singles: Dr. Feelgood b/w I Can Tell on Oriole Records in 1963 and America b/w Since You Broke My Heart released in November of 1964 on Parlophone.

Oddly enough, America was produced by Brian Epstein, manager of The Beatles, in his one and only crack at playing record producer. By 1967 the Hurricanes were breaking up, due in part to an ever changing line-up and their decision not to go with the eternally shifting musical plat du jour. Storm later became a disc jockey, a peculiar occupational choice since he spoke with a stutter.

Unfortunately, Rory Storm’s other claim to fame is a dark and murky tale. It concerns the mysterious circumstances surrounding his death on September 28th 1972 and the speculation that he and his mother died in a suicide pact together.

After his father’s death, Rory Storm returned home suffering from a chest infection. Reportedly he had trouble sleeping and wound up combining alcohol with sleeping pills. The next morning he was found dead in the house along with his mother. However, autopsy reports show that Storm hadn’t taken enough sleeping pills to kill himself.

Only in the middle of Hollywood would you ever find a 7 inch record like this. Yeah it’s a theme song from a soundtrack, but not from your typical movie, this 45 pop record is from the soundtrack of a soft-core pornography hit called "Diary of a Stewardess." Imagine the treasures we could have unearthed if only Amoeba hadn’t opened its doors on Sunset Blvd, but instead, opened for business deep in the heart of the America’s well lit, scantily clad, steady-cam ready, zoom in, action, work-it-a-little-slower-honey, bedroom community known as the San Fernando Valley.

Released in 1972 and sung by Bob Grabeau, Diary of a Stewardess b/w Fasten Your Set Belts (released on Segue Records and based in Canoga Park!) is an actual artifact of the valley’s 1970’s pop-porn culture, a culture that resurfaced with the 1997 film “Boogie Nights.”  I bet many of our Dads saw “Stewardess” in a triple bill with “Deep Throat” and “Behind the Green Door.” Okay … maybe not your Dad …

The song Diary of a Stewardess was co-written by the legendary Buddy Feyne, celebrated for his swinging hep-cat lyrics and penning some of the biggest hits of the '30s and '40s, including Tuxedo Junction, Jersey Bounce and After Hours. During his career he wrote more than 400 songs collaborating with legends like Raymond Scott, Al Sherman, Avery Parrish, Louis Jordan, Erskine Hawkins, Lester Young, and even Milton Berle. Feyne’s compositions might even be considered essential to the hipsters of that era, actually any era, as a matter of fact: Bee Bop On the Range, After School Swing Session, Aristocrat of Harlem, Cream Cheese and Jelly, She Works In Men's Pajamas - the list goes on and on.  Feyne also wrote the original lyrics to something called Dolomite that a certain bon vivant named Rudy Ray Moore re-navigated into his own signature song.