Red Olives

I used to work for a company called Fun Enterprises. It was a novelty entertainmant business that employed caricature artists like me, clowns, balloon artists, spin art..uh, operators. Basically, it was sort of high end carny stuff without the carny types working there.

For the most part.

I met many really great, talented people through the 13 years I worked for them. I also came across a lot of folks I never want to see again. Put it this way: If you've ever seen an episode of "The Office", well, those guys are way more together than most of the troops at Fun. Still, I do have a soft spot for Ken and Wade, the owners.

Anyway, a select few people sort of trickled down over the years to form a group I like to think of as "The Only People From That Time Of My Life I'd Ever Have Anything To Do With". We somehow or other ended up calling our once in a while get togethers "Red Olives Meetings". We hit a bar that serves Guiness, usually in Cambridge, bring the sketchbooks and shoot the shit.

The scary skinny guy on the left is me, then Mark Penta, who has a book coming out soon, then John Forcucci, Badass bass player and killer storyboard artist, and then Ken Kimbal. Ken is a true renaissance man who can do almost anything and knows alot about alot. I got into a car accident on the Cross Bronx Expressway with Ken as my copilot back when the Rodney King verdict had just come out. We thought we were going to be killed by an angry mob. As I recall, we were rushing home from a caricature gig in Philly.