Six Degrees of C. Everett Koop

Sid Williams and I were emailing the whole 6 degrees thing earlier, and the other night I was watching a VHS of a CourtTV episode where Michael Connolly the crime writer discusses the hunt for spree killer Christopher Wilder. (I had asked Sid to record the tape because Connolly is a very good cop writer; his connection to the segment was that he covered the Wilder story in 1984 as a reporter for a Florida newspaper, and reprinted in his recent book CRIME BEAT.) I always enjoy watching Texas tv commercials, just as back in the day, Sid's wife Christine was enthralled by our Spanish stations here, and I turned her on to SABADO GIGANTE with Don Francisco his ownself. The only tv show where the audience sings about Colgate toothpaste. Well, during the Wilder thing, an ad for HeartAlert comes on, and it turns out that "former surgeon general" C. Everett Koop endorsed the little hoobajoob, saying it is what has kept him going. I'm to lazy to check www.flymetothetomb.com for the exact date, but I think the Koopster died in the previous century. And that, my friends, is why I love Texas TV. Why bother getting someone alive to endorse the product. Maybe they have Sonny Bono promoting the Abdominizer thing. So what does this all have to do with the illo above? Back in the early 90s, Greg Loudon painted a huge amount of the AIDS AWARENESS trading cards, and #1 was C.E. Koop. I appeared in several cards, both as a junkie and as the same junkie sharing his bad needle with the gigantic-earringed yuppie girl. I really did have that seedy Ned Racine moustache back then, that corrupt lawyer William Hurt portrayed in BODY HEAT. So, tell me, have I missed anything, anything at all, in this early morning post of mine? (It is 2:13 CST, but again, my blog is set to Ulan Baator, Mongolian time. Just because.) Much to awake for my own damn good, Wayne