100th Anniversary of the Assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand

100 years ago today, Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife Sophie were assassinated by Yugoslav Nationalist, Gavrilo Princip. Because of this, Austria-Hungary issued the July Ultimatum, which was a pretext to an invasion of Serbia and led directly to the outbreak of World War I and ramifications that ran long throughout the 20th Century…

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… after the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife, Gavrilo Princip attempted suicide, first by cyanide, then with his pistol. He vomited the past due date poison and had the pistol wrested from his hand.

Princip was too young (only 19) for the death penalty, so received the maximum sentence of 20 years in prison.

Princip was too young (only 19) for the death penalty, so received the maximum sentence of 20 years in prison. The prison’s normally harsh conditions were made worse by World War I. Princip died almost 4 years later (before the end of the war) of tuberculosis. He was buried in an unmarked grave, but the burial party remembered the location. He was disinterred in 1920 and brought to a chapel (dedicated to ‘Serb Heroes’) at St. Mark’s cemetery, Sarajevo.

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So, we are going to have a Tango Picnic Party this evening in Cheesman Park to celebrate it all (too soon?)

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Neal Cassady: The Denver Years

The Neal Cassady The Denver Years Premiere Screening was a blast last night. I cannot describe the weird feelings going through my brain upon seeing my artwork in a film, up on a huge 15’x30′ screen, and even animated. I think it was some mixture of wide-eyed shock and nerves tingling like after taking a shot of incredible old Bourbon that made me want to jump out of my seat in the theatre and yell “This is GOOD! This is REAL! This is F*#@*KING AWESOME!!!“…. but proper decorum won out… thank god.

Many thanks and congratulations to Heather Dalton for giving me an opportunity to be a part of this project and to Daniel Crosier and Norman Dillon for making my artwork look so wicked awesome. Well done! Well done! (… and Chrysti Hagen for taking the photo!)

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Denver’s Black Leprechaun

… so the other day, I met a woman at the bar and she told me this story.

” I was on East Colfax by Franklin about to go into Blush and Blue when this man came up to me, complimented me on my hair, and told me that he was the Black Leprechaun. I was in a hurry to get into the bar, but he held me up telling me that he wanted to show me something. He started digging into his backpack, randomly pulling out thing and asking me to hold them, until he found a battered copy of the Westword at the bottom of the bag.

‘Look!’, he said. “I’m the Black Leprechaun and I’m in the Westword!!!'”

Yep… things are getting kinda meta when my 30 MILES strip about the Black Leprechaun is published in the Westword and he’s carrying it around with him. I would like to meet him again to get a photo of the whole thing, but the only way to do that is to get really drunk and start randomly wandering around Colfax. When the Stars are Right… I’ll run into the Black Leprechaun again.

Probably can get a new 30 MILES strip out of this.

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