Artist chains feet in desert, loses key
BAKER, Calif. (AP) — An artist who chained his legs together to draw a picture of the image hopped 12 hours through the desert after realizing he lost the key and couldn't unlock the restraints, authorities said Wednesday.
Trevor Corneliusien, 26, tightly wrapped and locked a long, thick chain around his bare ankles Tuesday while camping in an abandoned mine shaft about 5 miles north of Baker, San Bernardino County sheriff's Deputy Ryan Ford said.
The Baker-area artist often sketched images inside mines in the Southwest.
When he finished his chain drawing, he realized he would have to seek help in Baker, the deputy said.
"It took him over 12 hours because he had to hop through boulders and sand," Ford said. "He did put on his shoes before hopping."
Corneliusien finally made it to a gas station on the edge of Baker. He called the Sheriff's Department, which sent paramedics and deputies with bolt cutters.
Corneliusien's legs were bruised, but he was otherwise in good health, Ford said. The artist did not have a listed phone number and could not be reached for comment.
And the drawing?
"He brought it down with him," Ford said. "It was a pretty good depiction of how a chain would look wrapped around your legs."
In a similar vein, I will be offering a set of high-quality lithographed prints I have created, illustrating "How String Would Look Wrapped Around Your Finger," "How Pants Would Look Wrapped Around Your Ankles," "How String Would Look Wrapped Around Your Pants," "How Chain Would Look Wrapped Around the Chain-Spool-Thingy at the Hardware Store," "How Leonardo Da Vinci Would Look Wrapped Around Your Refrigerator," and "How Your Money Would Look Tucked in My Wallet."
Operators are standing by. With bolt cutters.
Posted by Terry Oglesby at January 4, 2006 02:46 PMI once wound a string around my finger so tight that it cut off the circulation and my finger turned all blue and then white, Of course, I was only 7 at the time.
Sheeze! What you want to bet he gets a book contract out of his idiocy.
Posted by: Larry Anderson at January 4, 2006 02:58 PMBook nuthin'! I see a film treatment coming--"CHAINED IN THE DESERT! The Trevor Corneliusien Story!" It'll have Joaquin Phoenix in the title role, and instead of a desert, it'll be an artist enclave in Greenwich Village, and it won't be chain so much as a series of long-winded e-mails that he intended to send to his love interest, Reese Witherspoon, but for some reason they get misdirected to a gay Colorado cowboy who works for the NSA, and he thinks Witherspoon's character is a spy, so he tracks both of them down and takes them to Colorado, where he chains them together and feeds them chocolate pudding. Or something.
Posted by: Terry Oglesby at January 4, 2006 03:03 PMSir,
I see that you also have great novels just waiting for the light of day if you could only figure out how they end.
I do recommend "Walk The Line" even if it does make extensive use of poetic license in the telling.
Posted by: Larry Anderson at January 4, 2006 03:13 PMEnd?! They all end the way they should, with everyone riding off into the sunset on horseback, singing! Just like in Star Wars.
And yes, I do want to go see Walk the Line.
Posted by: Terry Oglesby at January 4, 2006 03:17 PMI thought those Broke Back fellers were sheep herders. Why'd they need horses?
Posted by: Larry Anderson at January 4, 2006 03:31 PMHe doesn't have a listed phone number because he spends that $35 a month on marijuana.
Posted by: megabeth at January 4, 2006 03:37 PMWell, Larry, if you don't have horses, there's really no use for leather chaps, now is there?
And MBeth, I don't know, but I have a feeling he wouldn't be nearly so energetic if he was smoking up the phone money. It takes a very clear head to be able to chain yourself up in the desert. Genius-level, I'd say. Much like Wile E. Coyote.
Posted by: Terry Oglesby at January 4, 2006 03:38 PMMight I suggest another subject for the Great Artiste? Something along the lines of "How a Guy Named Trevor Would Look if he Wasn't a Dopey 'Artist'and Had a Real Job with An Actual Benefit to Humanity"? It would probably be a masterpiece when compared to "Chained Up Moron Hopping Through the Desert."
Oh. And, having lived in Manhattan's East Village, I can state categorically that the Leather Chaps are not much odder than the other sorts of chaps hanging around that particular Sodom.
Poor choice of metaphor, perhaps.
Posted by: skinnydan at January 4, 2006 03:44 PMOr not.
Posted by: Terry Oglesby at January 4, 2006 03:46 PMI'm just waiting for the "artist" to come forth (or his estate) with the next in the series... Chains Wraped Around the Neck. I'm not sure prints will be made though.
Posted by: Tony von Krag at January 4, 2006 09:16 PMNo fair making me laugh this hard when I still have an abdominal incision!
And you will recall that I have some modest contacts in the film industry -- they tell me they may be interested in your proposed film treatment, assuming you are able to work in a few evil Republicans and a "Bush forced me to hop through the desert with my feet chained together" subtext. Have your people call my people.
Posted by: Grouchy Old Yorkie Lady at January 4, 2006 10:40 PMHmmmm--I'll have Chet the E-Mail Boy on this right away!
Posted by: Terry Oglesby at January 5, 2006 07:46 AM