THWARTED YET AGAIN.

It's 1:54 AM and my day is already ruined.

Why? The last of my role models has passed away.


RIP Ollie.

This is so absolutely frustrating. A month ago I set out to try to send Ollie a bit of fan mail. Reading about the Nine Old Men was what originally inspired me to get into this whole nonsense, and I thought it'd be a nice gesture. But, alas, I couldn't get any mailing address, and I've spent the last month searching online for any clue of where to send a letter.

Perhaps my frustration would be better explained if I gave you some back story:
I first found the book, Nine Old Men by John Canemaker, when I was in my high school's library back in 2004. I've probably said this before, but I could not put that book down. This went beyond inspiration... it was as if the heavens parted, and a rotund fat man in a tight ballerina tutu was lowered in on a rope and smacked me upside the head with a frozen leg of ham- beyond divine inspiration.

In 2005 I decided that this was what I wanted to do for sure. In 2006 I started to try to track down any of the Nine to send them fan mail. I knew from the book that there were only 3 of the 9 left- Ward Kimball, Frank Thomas, and Ollie Johnston. A quick search online revealed that Ward and Frank Thomas had passed away- Ward in 2002 (AFTER the book was written) and Thomas in... 2004?! Ollie was still around but I couldn't find anything.

A month ago I picked up Illusion of Life again and I thought it'd be a nice gesture to try at least say thanks (Pendleton Ward and Jay Baxter have both recieved fan emails from me... so why not one of my heroes?). I found one contact and I sent them an email asking where I could send a physical letter.

No response.

And then this.

It doesn't help that Chuck Jones, probably my biggest influence, passed away in 2002 as well.

Just... crap. Crapola. Crap on a log. My life seems to be FILLED with near misses and unfulfilled dreams. I mean, realistically speaking, there's nothing I really could have done. I was born on the wrong coast. I didn't know what direction I wanted to shoot for until AFTER they started dropping like flies. BUT if I weren't so wishy washy I might have had a slim chance of at least meeting them.


Crap. Shoot. Sonufa.