I learned he was once a boy scout:
http://www.scoutingmagazine.org/issues/0301/a-time.html
Helping a boy to discover what he needs from life is a special quality that endears Billy Jim to his Scouts. Listening to the boys, he believes, is the key.
"That's one of the things I take pride in—helping kids amount to what they want to amount to," Billy Jim says. "I can't do it for him. He learns to work for what he wants to be. That's my philosophy, anyway."
One boy he listened to in 1969 wanted to be an artist. He gave the Scout every job in the troop that required drawing or painting. Most important, he assured the boy that he could be an artist by working hard and believing in himself.
"He was able to give me enough confidence to go forward and follow my talent and follow my heart," says that boy, now grown up and working under the professional name of Brother Awest. Now an artist and production designer in television, movies, and music, he lives in Sierra Madre, Calif.
that he toured with The Minutemen:
"Brother Awest and His World Salivation Ministry (W.S.M.) opened in 1984 and 1985 for Sonic Youth and the Meat Puppets when they came to L.A. Soonafter, W.S.M. toured the U.S.A. (27 cities in as many days) as an exclusive opener for the legendary punk rock band The Minutemen.
and he got busted for child pornography in 2006
One-time kid show artist arrested in SoCal child porn case
Wednesday, April 5, 2006
(04-05) 12:17 PDT Sierra Madre, Calif. (AP) --
An award-winning children's television artist was arrested for alleged possession and production of child pornography.
Andrew West Reid Jr., 52, known professionally as AWest, had pornographic images of children on his computer and digital cameras seized from his Sierra Madre home, FBI spokeswoman Laura Eimiller said Tuesday.
Reid, who was arrested Tuesday while visiting someone in San Dimas, was also arrested in January by Pasadena police and charged with molesting a child, Eimiller said.
After an investigation in that case by the FBI and Pasadena police, Reid was arrested by federal agents on the child porn charges, Eimiller said.
Eimiller said Reid has worked extensively in the record industry and last worked in production design and art direction for children's television programming. Reid worked four years, until 2000, as the city's film coordinator.
"He kind of popped in on the scene, he was the film guy to go to," former Mayor Doug Hayes said. "I didn't know him that well. He was the film guy, that's all people knew him as."
AWest was an art director on the PBS television show "Jay-Jay the Jet Plane," according to the www.pbskids.com Web site. Reid won two Cable Ace awards in the category of Best Art Direction in a Comedy, Musical or Series for Shelley Duvall's "Rock 'n Roll Mother Goose" and for "Adventures in Wonderland," both on the Disney Channel, the Web site said.
AWest earned five platinum albums for his art direction and, according to the PBS Web site, lists Michael Jackson, Frank Zappa, Bob Dylan, Neil Young and Fleetwood Mac among his clients.
I really need to stop wondering about things.
Annie
