Thrift Store Adventures

RIP: ART CLOKEY (and Gumby, Pokey, Davy and Goliath)

2010-01-08T23:56:00.000-08:00

Clokey passed today at the age of 89. You will be missed. :(

http://www.boingboing.net/2010/01/08/art-clokey-creator-o.html

MOST DISGUSTING THRIFT STORE FIND OF 2009

2009-12-31T18:19:00.000-08:00

Maybe even the most disturbing of the decade (though there were plenty of bloody/ pooped-on/ peed-on articles of clothing)

And even more disturbing than these "art" pieces I saw at the community college library last October. This one would look lovely over the couch.

Nancy was never lovelier...

Because, seriously, a box of freaking hands and ears and other body parts? You know, for kids!

Making them "stretchy" doesn't make them any less morbid -- this is like Vietnam War, too-long-in-the-freaking-bush, Apocalypse Now, Charlie Manson crazy shit, if you ask me.

I'd ask New Wave Cool Clinton what he thinks, but he's too busy being cool

Well, this square's gotta ramble. Happy New Decade, Yo.

DECEMBER

2009-12-24T21:20:00.000-08:00

Well December's here and almost gone already... Thanks to everyone still sticking with this blog. Hope it's still fun. Here's a few recent thrift store moments to share.

Jesus is the reason for the season...

And I wanna grow up to be this man. Too late!

This photo makes me feel oddly. I like old technology and stuff, but it has that creepy basement vibe, no?

Plot twist from the third season of Mad Men?

Is this reminds me of my ex. Don't ask me why.

Nothing quite sums up two hundred years of America like a dude with a gun and another dude in a space suit.

By the way, had the artist ever seen an astronaut? Looks more like a welder in fishing gaiters that dropped a load in his pants, but that's just me.

Ladies and gentleworms, the world's creepiest painting.

Dead guy in the laps of a bunch of women....

Painted in 1969 by "Hatty Hatch" -- part of the Manson Family, no doubt....

Apt, creepy title too.

What better way to say Happy Holidays than Mr. T reminding us all to be somebody. Fool.

POST TURKEY DAY THRIFTING

2009-12-02T20:58:00.000-08:00

So it's been a long time since an update. But I thought Id share some Thanksgiving thrifty moments with the 1.5 people out there who still stop by.

Happy time reading. Ah, the 70s.

Even happier. Ah, the late 70s.

We have a happy winner! Ah, the 1470s.

Holy smokes, look at the size of Dolly Parton's ENORMOUS BULGING pant cuffs. Huge. How was she able to walk right?

Scary faceless doll.

Scary anti-communist Iron Curtain speech liquor decanter. How wonderfully history nerdy, though.

Slight scary/ slightly jaunty drinking glasses.

The most perfect-ess drinking chair I did not buy for $20 ($20 freaking dollars!!!). Even my significant other thinks that was a brain-addled error.

Wish I could have a tiki drink here...

And a burger or better yet a meatloaf here...

Maybe I'll just get blotto at the lamp post...

And then stumble across the street to see... Good LORD, WHAT the HECK is THAT!?!

I'm going to be sick...

This may be the tiki drinks talking, but she's kind of cute, huh?

I wish I lived here so I could go lay down...

Or maybe here, cuz the green is greener. Although the back seat of my car seems bigger...

And just when you thought this post-turkey day thrifting adventure couldn't get any more heaven sent... a magnificent DOUBLE rainbow appears!

How lucky that one end sets at the Salvation Army in the distance, and the other end...

...over Goodwill. Hope your holiday thrifting is just as fortuitous!

SPOOKTACULAR GOODWILL POSTER

2009-10-26T22:18:00.000-07:00

I just had to share this awesome Goodwill Halloween poster -- wish I had a real copy to cherish. Here's hoping your thrift scores and Halloween scores are equally creepy.

DEAD, AND LOVING IT

2009-10-21T20:35:00.000-07:00

Hey out there. Still on my extended fatigue-fueled break, but I just had to share this in case any of you are still looking for that perfect Halloween costume. There's definitely something existential about this counterfeit school bag.

Why not take a cue from this accidentally profound knock-off. This October 31st, suit up in the cape, strap on the pointy-eared mask, grab your utility belt, and just go as yourself? Now that would be heroic.

GOOD LOOKING CORPSE

2009-08-22T22:55:00.000-07:00

Not hardly dead yet, just a moving a little slower lately. Actually, I'm going through a phase where I'm trying to get real world stuff done...

If my loyal readers can live with less witty commentary and just weirdo pics then maybe I can keep the bloggy woggy on life support until the real world recedes into the background again and I can devote more attention to the thrift store universe...

a place that is just as real but not as brightly lit to steal from an old, bad 80s TV show.

By the way, this was my favorite page of the "Read All About Dead 60s Rock Stars":

Keep on truckin'

IS THERE LIFE ON THIS BLOG?

2009-08-04T18:05:00.001-07:00

Ground Control to Major Enik....

FOUND ON THE SIDEWALK...

2009-06-28T20:51:00.000-07:00

I had time to snap this picture of a picture but not to flip it over and see who she is/was. Who throws out childhood pictures?

"KLAXON, KLAXON!"

2009-06-17T18:58:00.000-07:00

My father, who was a Cold Warrior, told me never to utter those words out loud in front of fliers on an airbase. Apparently their training impelled them scramble to the bombers whenever they heard these magic words, no matter if it was a nine year-old snot nose puke saying them. Imagine the awesome inner turmoil within me as I struggled to hold my tongue. What nine year-old wouldn't be tempted to send the adult world into an instant tizzy with a few banned words?

So those were the forbidden words that popped into my head when I saw this big beautiful Cold War sentinel rusting in the sun last month. I was on my way to Goodwill, so of course I pulled the car over and had to go check it out.

50 years ago it was the latest in technology, and the last line of Civil Defense in the event of a nuclear showdown...

And now it's little more than a perch for wild birds. Who like the rest of the squares, probably mistake it for an ugly cell phone tower.

My nine year-old self really wanted to scale that pole to see what was in the box -- likely just ancient leaky dry cell batteries, but think like gradeschooler -- it's probably got gold coins, hidden gangster loot, radiation badges, or at least an old air raid helmet inside.

But as I didn't fancy the idea of falling to my death when the rotted wood gave way or being arrested for terrorism/being a 30-something public jackass, I confined my curiosity the control panel on the ground floor.

Amazingly, most of the relays and transistors were left alone. Someone had stolen the cover panel long ago.

I wonder what the "blower" and "rotator" were for? Of course I flicked the toggles but there was no siren -- those Evereadys are long since dead.

Okay, who's the engineering geek out there who can tell me what this schemata means?

So I wonder if when the Berlin Wall came down back in 1989 the CEOs of the "Federal Sign and Signal Corporation" were all, "That's just F-ing wonderful! Now what do we do? What catastrophic and paralyzing fear can we make money off now?"

At some point it got a little hot and I slowly realized that, standing there in my summer shorts and socks full of burrs and barbs, I had wandered into a waist high field of wild grass smack dab in the middle of rattlesnake country.

Yeah, my inner 9 year old is pretty much in charge. I hope my Mom isn't reading.

SEXY SEVENTIES DIMNESS

2009-06-08T23:00:00.000-07:00

You all know that I love the 70s thisssss much. More reinforcement: even their room dimmers were funky nasty masterpieces.

"Shot in the Dark," eh? Who or what is being shot by who or what? I'm pretty sure this is a classic porn title.

You just know that there's going to be some getting-it-on as soon as sunglasses dude space-age dims those lights. And his foxy lady there can't wait to peel off his barber shop quartet shirt...

I could of course be reading this all wrong. Sunglasses dude may just be hyper-sensitive to light and his harried wife clings to the single thread of hope that the "Shot in the Dark" might allow him to finally have a normal life. Maybe he'll even be able to see his children for the first time. Dear lord, just for once let push-button technology give us peace in this world (Sob).

I like the dirty version better myself. At the touch of a finger tip, indeed.

SIGN OF THE HARD TIMES

2009-05-27T20:55:00.000-07:00

Desperate times, my thrifty friends, when the local second hand haven has to advertise that it is, indeed, still in business and the rumors of its demise are greatly exaggerated.

Soldier on, thrift store warriors.

TAFT ATE HERE

2009-05-18T23:36:00.000-07:00

1908 called. They want their president back. What better way for our stoutest president to campaign than via dinner plate?

Poor Taft, never wanted the job of President. You can see it in his eyes. "Please let me be Chief Justice of the Supreme Court instead of crummy old President. Leave me alone with my smelly old law books. Pleeeeease."

But when your best friend is Teddy Roosevelt and wants you to be president, you'll quit your belly aching and suck it up.

Now if only I could find a Theodore Roosevelt for President Plate. Now there's a mug that looks good on your fine china.

DARK DAYS & THE THRIFTY LIFE

2009-05-07T20:50:00.000-07:00

So Santa Barbara is on fire...again. The hills in the background are burning. Ash is raining down. There's an emergency helicopter pad set up across the street from the local Salvation Army now.

Standing inside, with the kitchen wares and bric-a-brac rattling as the choppers swooped over made it feel like I was thrifting in 'Nam.

Earlier this week it was a whole different disaster. Here's the notice posted at the St. Vincent De Paul's as I pulled open the door...

Yep, killer pig influenza. Ah, fond memories of thrifting during SARS.

Those paper masks won't save you, people. The bugs get right through... you can tell by the eyes, they get all glassy.

Heck most thrift stores are full of germs and dust. I for one am more scared of toxic cultural artifacts than tiny spores and embers.

Take this winner. This sounds like such a great date film. Some day you can tell your kids that your first film was super aggro, equally moronic (IMDB says: it's about a lost engagemnet ring. Huh?) and had crappy poster art that ripped off Reservoir Dogs.

This looks a smidge better. The tag line is so uber-meaningless as to be sublime.

Why watch terrible action flicks when you can view a dolled-up and glammed-out song-belting, 13 year-old Jodie Foster as a 1930s gun moll... in Chinese?

Bored by movies. There's always dangerous eggs to fear. Hideous eggy monstrosities. "The egg shaped thing" was my nickname in high school.

Why not just put on a good album. One question: if they love Jesus so much why are they shooting nuclear missiles at him? Some sort of atomic tough love?

You can always go play with your (ahem) Morph-O-Droids. Really. Morph-O-Droids? Were you guys even trying? And gee, they bear no resemblance whatsoever to Transformers. Especially the fun part.

Speaking of comic books and the 'Nam... Somehow I missed this crossover...

If Iron Man, Thor, and Cap' can bring the Vietnam War to a peaceful conclusion (by cracking skulls, of course) surely they can do something simple like putting out the flames that are currently ringing my town.

Tonight there are some real heroes doing heroic things out there. If you see a firefighter anywhere, anytime tell 'em enik said thanks.

THRIFT STORE CAVALCADE

2009-04-22T23:46:00.000-07:00

More pretty colors, bizarre ideas, and true wisdom from the thrifts. Better that Barnum's American Museum.

I would have totally checked out this book on "library day" back in grade school. Thrilling to the adventures of rock-em-sock-em paleontologists who spared no expense in finding the fabled coelacanth. Goosebumps. I was, and still am, a nerd.

My new catch phrase: dog plate. As in, Dude, that's so dog plate.

Vintage balls. Soooooo dog plate.

Game night, 1973 style. And you thought the seventies were all about boring coke snorting and wife swaps. Screw that, we're rocking the backgammon, mo-fo!

I smell a lawsuit. Which came first, the DC Cab or this LP? And if I'm not mistaken...

You can totally see Conway's Twitty. "Mr. T" indeed!

pretty. Looks like a crystal matrix table to me.

The bubonic plague never looked so jaunty. Why am I thinking Chuckles ?

Either it's the greatest most mind-blowing paradigm shifting book ever written or it isn't.

Wild horses in love. The painting. You can now die happy. Dog plate.

WHO WOULD WATCH THAT?

2009-04-06T11:12:00.000-07:00

An AV representation of cause and effect? Why is it the British have their own version of irritable bowels? Kinda nationalistic, no? And who would film it?

Nice cover image. Ruins the tension. No mystery whatsoever. Do I really need to watch the video now? I know that tree stands (whatever the hell those are) can likely lead to extreme death. By the way, who would film this guy falling off his birch perch? I wonder if they followed him all the way down.

Never trust a grinning American child with a shotgun. 'nuff said.

Special bonus video! Magic Trolls and the Troll Warriors?! Yay! 62 minutes of sickeningly sweet toy/candy/ game prommotional dreck! Woo-hoo! Quick, where's that irritable bowels video?

SPACE 2000!

2009-03-26T19:40:00.000-07:00

Like most people my age, I have fond memories of the summer of 1977. That was of course the year that all the great Star Wars knock-off toys came out.

Don't get me wrong, I am a big enough fan of the real Star Wars movies that I managed to hold on to most of my toy collection for more than 20 years... until last Summer's financial woes impelled a sell off : <

But there's something truly endearing about the bootlegs and knock-off merchandise that flooded the stores alongside and before the real stuff, and which, in my innocence, I happily collected and played with in conjunction with the genuine toys. It didn't make any difference that the colors were all wrong or the scale was out of whack. I have a particularly distinct and happy childhood memory of a Halloween spent in a fake Stormtrooper mask, which I still swear was way better than a licensed product.

Want more proof? If you haven't heard of the Turkish bootleg "Uzay" action figures, then you really should visit this site for a good laugh. Or go check out the Star Raiders line. This site has even more.
That's why I was so happy to recently spy these great SPACE 2000 bed sheets, which highlight the awesome silliness that most of the Star Wars knockoffs exhibited.

First and foremost you've got to have an R2D2 wanna-be. I love this guy's TV antenna head and submarine periscope face. "Awwwww...he's so ugly it's cute."

Then you also have to have a massively-improbable Death Star-ish piece of space machinery. Of course there's a little nod to 2001: A Space Odyssey thrown in there too.

Finally for good measure you have to have bunches of weirdo space ships and planets and space clouds (or whatever the hell those black things are) all jumbled and flying around in a visual cacophony. What self-respecting 8 year-old wouldn't want to sleep on these?

You also have to love how certain items of the real Star Wars universe are stolen, warped, and repurposed for the knock-off maker's own needs. Take this lightsaber married to an automobile battery and then refigured into a laser-blasting space ship. Genius, I say.

Bonus for parent: all the motley craziness also helps hides signs of junior's nocturnal incontinence. You know, from when Dracula and Sasquatch happen to peek into his window at night. It totally happened.
Well, I hope you enjoyed your visit to a long ago and far away galaxy that's not quite the one your remember. We can only hope that when the year 2000 roles around it will be this gaudy and chaotic, and this much of a ripoff.

XL-5000, I think I'll miss you most of all.

MARCH IS HARD

2009-03-15T01:53:00.000-07:00

It's been kicking my butt. But I'll be back to posting when it gets less hard. And less lethal. Promise.

WRITE YOUR OWN CAPTION

2009-02-27T18:13:00.000-08:00

CAN I BORROW $7500?

2009-02-15T00:16:00.001-08:00

I have a new love. It's a beat-up, gloriously oxidized 1971 Toyota Land Cruiser. Just look at that face. Can you blame me?

Oh, the chunky, solid, tank-like design. Even that pseudo-Afrika Korps/ Desert rats Tunisia-cum-Tuscon khaki tan paint makes me swoon. Pure 1971 magic. And thanks to the detailed specification plate welded to the door we know it was assembled in March of 1971 (a temporal moment near and dear to my heart).

Truth be told I don't even drive stick and I have no idea if this thing even runs without spewing blue smoke or blowing a gasket. Probably doesn't even go more than 44 mph.

But you're looking at this all wrong. That rust? It's character. The gasoline smell? Heady perfume. Even the ripped up seats look like they'll last through a nuclear winter. My actual ride, a more current late model Japanese-built auto, probably won't last another 5 years.

And correct me if I'm wrong: This is the perfect thrift scoring vehicle. And all I need is $7500 and change. That's a 15% discount off the sticker -- a bargain

You totally have to wear a Gilligan's Island sailor's bucket hat and cargo shorts to drive this thing -- maybe even goggles. Mmm-aviator shades. With a cooler of Fresca and Mr. Pibb on the floor.

Damn, that door could stop a bullet. A grenade. I have no idea why a steel "X" is fastened on there but I can't believe that up to now I've allowed myself to drive a car without one.

And hey I can learn to drive stick -- it comes with welded-on instructions... And it's not a foofy glove box -- an outmoded euphamism if ever I've heard one. It's a pocket. And couldn't we all use more pockets? Resovled: from this moment on I will refer to the golve box as "the pocket."

How can you look cross-eyed at vehicle with Dualmatic Selective Drive Hubs?

If this 4 Wheel Drive embossed emblem doesn't make you a little randy, well... I can't be the only one into midcentury automotive signage graphic design p0rn, can I?

Doesn't this window crank handle make you long for the days before wimpy power windows? When rolling down your windows while driving on the freeway was a challenge, like you felt like you accomplished something? Like fresh air was the reward for hard work?

So how about that loan? I'm good for it. And you can drive it on the weekends, promise. Otherwise this gem's just going to languish in a thrift store parking lot for months. Don't turn your back on the old girl. Do it for 1971.

OH GOD...IT TALKS

2009-02-02T21:29:00.000-08:00

Sticking with my latest theme of disturbing thrift store finds I bring you the hideous '"Blabber-Mouth Talking AM-FM Radio." Behold its 80s disquieting splendor.

Only two possible mid-80s venues where this thing was sold. Either Spencers in the mall or that adult book store in old downtown... you know by the bus station... behind Del Taco? Okay, sure, I'm the only one who knows where the adult book store is.

Vaguely (or not so vaguely) sexual, definitely disturbing. Was this for kids? Why does it remind me of Videodrome? Or maybe the Mac Tonight McDonalds guy?

Am I the sickest sort of person on earth (apparently, since only I know where the adult book store is) for envisioning this device being employed inappropriately by a prepubescent youth whenever Kim Carnes, Joan Jett, or Toni Basil came on the radio? (ouch!) And yes, that double entendre was most intended.

Even if it was used "normally" -- ahem -- about how long do you think it would take before a pair of plastic lips and teeth gnashing in robotic sync to talk radio or Kacey Kasem's top 40 became incredibly tedious? Wrong. 4 minutes, 12 seconds. Which is probably how long it takes for the heavy duty C-Cells to run out of juice or for the plastic gears to star screeching horribly.

Too bad the adult bookstore doesn't accept returns. I learned that the hard way, if you know what I mean.

So the colors, packaging, and general vibe all cry petroleum-based sex toy, but "Nasta Blabber" really clinches (or clenches) the deal. "Right of Nasta Ind. Inc"? That has some cult-ish pretensions, no? Did we narrowly avert some sort of mass mind-control conspiracy in 1985 when the Blabber Mouth radio failed to get on the shelves by Christmas. We can only hope.

Ooh, I gotta go now, Deborah Harry is on the radio... (ouch!)

THE 1970s: WHEN ROBOTS WORE UGLY JEANS

2009-01-20T00:42:00.000-08:00

I've commented a few times before about the sartorial splendors of the Seventies, but the thrift stores never fail to amaze and awe me by spitting up ever-more-funky cultural remnants of the the nuttiest decade ever.

Case in point: last week I came upon a mini cache of deadstock boys jeans from the era of Evel Knievel. Until then I had forgotten (willfully unremembered) the sheer ugliness and total uncomfortability of Toughskins. Fortunately my parents never forced me to wear forest green or cardinal red pants, but I've since had a flashback of wearing a pair of stiff denim monstrosities with reinforced knees and all the comfort of spun steel wool on the playground. That was right before I accidentally fell on piece of glass, ripped a hole in them, and rendered them thankfully ineligible for school wear. And that is the story I will swear to my grave. Ah, childhood.

What really caught my eye about these warehouse finds (other than their hilarious colors) was the original tags. "Husky" sizing (that can't still be the preferred term, can it?), the laundry-list claims about their indestructibility, bell-bottomed boys in innocent and yet slightly dangerous neighborhood hijinks -- that kid looks like he 20 feet in the air -- is he falling down or bouncing up?

But my absolute favorite tag was on this plaid nightmare. From a distance it seems like it just makes the same claims about wear and tear -- with a 70s kind doing the very 70s (pre-iPod, pre-Playstation, pre-fun) act of climbing a tree.

But look closer my friends. Past the claims of you-can-not-f**k-up-these-pants-even-if-a-nuclear-bomb-goes-off (by the way, what the hell was it about the 70s that was so damn dangerous to boy jeans? Other than random pieces of glass flying up out of nowhere to ruin a brand new pair of pants. I was there, it happened)

Anyhoo, that's not just a kid with a bullet shaped head and shiny silver sneakers.

It's a damn, dirty robot! Climbing a tree! With its cold steel claws and its beeping computer brain, scanning the landscape for humans to kill. Oh, and it's wearing rainbow stripe Brady Bunch bell-bottom trousers. Okay, I willing to concede that maybe he's a cyborg, but still: striped bell-bottoms?

How did this advertising campaign sell boys pants? "Hey, Moms! Your son, like this sterile iron machine, will never be able to destroy our pants!" "Does your boy remind you of the Tin Man? Now he can dress like him too!" "Robby the Robot says: Stylish jeans? That does not compute!"

It certainly doesn't promise comfort. "The Softest Jeans Your Shiny Metal Android Ass Can Buy!"

Maybe it's just a dumb kid in his Halloween costume -- right before he runs out of air and falls 3 stories to his death. At least JCPenny guarantees his 10 oz. denim pants will be ok.

Was JCPenny's hoping that 7-year-olds would select their pants based on whatever monster was illustrated wearing them? "Mom, I want the Frankenstein Flares!" The mind reels with possibilities.

Perhaps we'll never know. But one thing's for sure: these pants will outlive us all. Run for your lives! [Cue Terminator music -- or the theme to Forbidden Planet, if you prefer]

TOTALLY INAPPROPRIATE TOY THEATER

2009-01-14T17:28:00.000-08:00

Well, thrift store lovers, beings-as (a colloquialism from my Midwestern past) it's already 2009 and I haven't posted in a while, I just have to share two horrible toys I saw today.

Exhibit A: what can you really say about the ethnic and racial stereotypes and egregious cultural misconceptions that naked dolls in bags labeled "Indian Chief" and "Indian Princess" toys perpetuate? Maybe the less said the better.

Exhibit B: Not sure if this is worse, but it's pretty awful. Awful funny, that is.

Now when I was a lad "water worm" had a totally different meaning. I'm wholly sure the toy company isn't intentionally going down that path.

Then again what else could "Squirts up to 25 feet" and "Continuous stream" imply?

And what of "No pumping required?" Uh, at least the box art clearly doesn't really look like a, ah, you lad's worm... they wouldn't go that far.

Oh. Okay. Imagine that illustration outside of its context. Like a health ed textbook. Even in this context, "Tail will squirt water indicating when worm is full" is pretty hard to read in any other way.

By the way, for all the boys and men out there, I think that your doctor would agree that the advice "Do not overfill worm!!!" is quite intelligent, especially if you want to avoid any prostate issues in your later years. So my father tells me. When we talk about water worms. Which is not very often.

Okay, okay. This is a family website. I'm not a prude, but I don't think it's my job to teach young boys (with apparently fat, fleshy palms) how to shoot water out of their worms. And if you don't know that you need to "hold neck firmly and pull worm head back" to squirt it up to 25 feet well you're really coming to the wrong internet site. Seriously, there's a WHOLE world of water worms out there that would make your head spin.

Gross I know but I felt like sharing. Happy new year? :{

I RESOLVE...

2008-12-31T17:22:00.000-08:00

So another year in thrifting comes to a close. And while it was swell in many regards, there were a lot of things I just never got around to accomplishing. Because I've been horsing around like a circus boy on the Mississippi (that's an expression, right?), my posts to this blog have kind of slackened in the past few months.

Well, now's as good a time as any I assume to lay out some resolutions for the coming year:

Next year, i resolve to make some new friends. Preferably snappy dressers with plates of food.

I will travel as much as possible and see more people. And awesome bridges too, while I'm at it.

I will bear in mind that violets grow in secret places. Which I believe is a reference to thrift store mining. That or runaway prostitution. (Looks like she's at a thrift store to me, though.)

I will definitely turn down into up. And I'll start by tying all my sweaters around my neck instead of wearing them normally. Then I will seek out the see-saw.

I resolve to read more trashy novels. How about this: Marcus Welby, MD, hit TV shows, love in crisis, acid... it all floats my boat.

I promise to pay closer attention to the around me. And then read them like a book. And con them out of their life savings. Well, maybe not the last part so much, but watch yourself just the same.

I plan to tell 1000 giant jokes, gags, and cartoons.

And most of my jokes will involve women being peed on at 50s costume parties.

I resolve to learn the secret language of wolf dogs of the north, so that I might better understand my dog's sometimes strange behavior. It probably just his inner wolf coming out.

I also resolve to learn more about monkeys. And then regale complete strangers with tales of their daring-do.

Maybe I'll pick up a new hobby, like learning more about contemporary art. Especially art that involves living rooms of the 1970s.

Or maybe finally learning how to cook a decent meal. Especially meals that involve delicious and colorful 1970s cuisine. (Okay, I'll stop now).

Perhaps I'll adopt a new pet. And then let the dog, cat, and bull snake sort out which is alpha through blood sports. For entertainment. Instead of watching so much TV.

I resolve to call more people more often. Especially if the calls are toll free and involve a big yellow telephone.

I resolve to have some deep meaningful thoughts and write them down. But not here. This blog is strictly for my unintelligent ramblings on stupid crap that no one really cares about. Therefore, I resolve also to have a secret smarty blog.

And on that new secret blog I resolve to travel through time as much a possible. Or at least act more like Einstein.

Finally, I resolve to recommit myself to my solemn task of saving junk, lurking through thrift stores, and to keep bringing you guys the visual goods from my thrift store adventures.

Thanks for a great year, see you on the flipside!

THOTH, JUDGE OF THE DEAD SAYS...

2008-12-19T22:54:00.000-08:00

Don't judge me. This blog will soon return. I swear to Ra... or Ma'at at least.

RIP 4SJ

2008-12-06T00:03:00.001-08:00

1916-2008

Aw, hell. Sad news today, sci-fi and horror fans. Forrest J. Ackerman is no longer among the living. I was lucky enough to visit the Ackermansion and meet Forry about ten years ago. Not only was Uncle Forry the first fanboy, he was the first collector, and maybe even oe of the first dumpster divers. His house was a shrine of saved stuff -- like digging the original Creature From the Black Lagoon monster suit out of a studio garbage can. Maybe that where a lot of my thrift store passion came from. His Famous Monsters of Filmland will remain my favorite magazine ever. Consider yourself lucky if you every thrift a copy.

Thanks for the childhood memories, Dr. Acula. Tell Bela and Boris I said hello.

BIG TIME THRIFTY THANKS!

2008-11-25T20:46:00.001-08:00

This year, I'm giving thanks...

For my family and friends

For all my internet friends (that's you!)

For people who leave nice and/or weird comments on this blog (you again!!)

For still having a home (see last post)

For websites like this

For the time and energy to still be able to haul my butt to the thrift stores (while I should be doing my real work)

and finally, for bizzaralicious objects like the lasso-wielding kitty cowboy!!!

What are y'all thankful for?

TEA FIRE LAUNDROMAT

2008-11-15T21:13:00.000-08:00

So, as I was driving home on Thursday night I noticed that the hillside near my part of town was on fire.

As I drove down the freeway, carefully rubbernecking with the other motorists, I began to realize the fire was in the hills directly behind our place.

With flames visibly leaping a hundred feet in the air, the sounds of electrical transformers and eucalyptus trees exploding in the distance, and the air chocking with smoke, my mind rapidly filled with a host of anecdotes about people not evacuating when they should.

So after spending a tense hour or so rifling in my piles of junk for my great grandfather's World War One mementos and some family pictures, we loaded the pets in the car and bugged out for a friend's place and then a Motel 6 a town over.

[FILE PHOTO]

Because our dog was nervous and in a new place he naturally decided to urinate on our hotel room bed... twice.

So that is how, on the second night of the Tea Fire I ended up in the laundromat on the edge of forever.

Except for a few people who wandered in and out, the place was deserted.

The decor could best be described as mid-70s gentrified, one of my favorite decorating styles, I'll admit.

Adding to to the strangeness of the scene was the piped-in local radio station broadcast that interspersed reports about the raging fires in between classic rock tunes.

Of course, the paintings of faceless children...

and psychedelic cityscapes were a bit unsettling too.

Of course, there were some nice recent acquisitions as well. Call them post-rinse cycle surreal.

Some elements were less artistic and more pithy commentary on the decline of American school standards. "My School Suck" indeed.

All in all it was a welcome break, if a little weird, from worrying whether our home had been destroyed by conflagration.

We unlike some, were lucky though, and today were able go back home. Other than the overpowering smell of burnt beef jerky or smoked cheese, everything was fine.

But becuase that smell has permeated all our clothes, I see an ancient laundromat in my near future.

POST-HALLOWEEN PRE-THANKSGIVING CANDY DTs

2008-11-09T14:08:00.001-08:00

So am I the only one who's been grazing on left over fun size candy bars for the last week? Got to justify buying that 2 lb bag at Costco, you know. $20 sounded like such a deal.

I'm sure I could cut back and spread the treats out over time -- everyone knows that junk's so pumped up with preservatives that it'll last a week into the next ice age.

I was therefore actually kind of sad that the above ancient (28 years young) package of Sweetarts that I found in an old hunting jacket at an Oxnard thrift had long been devoured.

Sure, a Carter/Reagan-era Snickers might be deadly by now -- and I have an unpleasant memory of eating a mini Hershey's bar I found languishing under my friend's bed back in the 70s. But I seriously think I would have popped these antique Sweetarts into my mouth without a second thought. I have a funny feeling that Sweetarts will be the primary foodstuff of the post World War Three crowd, what with all the zombies and radiated cans of corn making grocery shopping difficult. If it's good enough for the old man in the cave, then it's good enough for me.

Plus, the potential psychedelic effects of finely aged pre-post-punk high fructose corn syrup would be a nice bonus, no?

Maybe I'm just loopy from all the chocolate.

!!SMILE!!

2008-11-02T22:25:00.000-08:00

Why? Well, for one, this endless election is almost over!

That means no more Joe the Plumber!

Maybe we'll finally end the endless war too...

Is it too much to wish that someone will fix our broken economy?

Here's hoping the new boss has some better ideas...

...that is unless we get mired in another 2000 recount headache (gulp!)

Okay, I guess it's true -- we're just exchanging one set of clowns for another.

In fact, I can't even remember the last president that I respected...

Heck, most presidents just kind of blur together, get all swirly, until you can't tell one from another. Who the heck are these guys supposed to be anyway?

One thing I know, if we get too complacent, we've got nobody to blame but ourselves.

So get out there and VOTE! ... and then go thrift store shopping. :)

SCARY THRIFT STORE PEOPLE

2008-10-21T20:26:00.001-07:00

It occurs to me that despite the numerous pictures I've put up here next to none of them have people in them. Mostly that's because most people, strangers, wouldn't want to be in some weirdo dude's photos -- especially some weirdo dude who's snapping photos in a thrift store, of all places. Especially, especially if the people the weirdo dude sees are as weird as the stuff the weirdo dude is photographing.

That's not to say I haven't met my share of nice people at thrift stores. Like the woman who tugged on my sleeve to tell me I dropped my wallet, or the guy at the counter who gave the 1950s bowling shirt for free because it didn't have a sales tag (even though the store's policy was to not let an un-tagged item get out the door).

Then again, I've run across quite a few un-photographable weirdos in my travels. Just last week I had the following conversation:

Me (trying to pass by a guy with prison tats on his face): Excuse me.

Weird Dude (grabbing at the clothing in my hands): You going to wear those clothes? They won't fit you.

Me: I guess not. They'll fit someone.

Weird Dude: Where's the men's underwear section?

Me (uncomfortable): Um, I don't work here.

Weird Dude (icily serious stare): I didn't think you did

...

Fortunately, the I'm-going-to-get-pummeled-by-some-crazy-ex-con moment doesn't happen all that often (only once or twice a year, I'd say).

But since we are entering my favorite holiday season, I thought it might be nice to feature a few thrift store people I've met.

Did I mention I love this time of year? Every Halloween it seems that so many interesting, colorful faces turn up in the thrifts. It's nice to see that such a diverse mix of characters can get together. Even if many of them are just putting on brave face, a mask if you will, to hide their true selves, it's still swell to see a big turnout even if they are a bunch of bums, artificial people, or clowns.

Of course, you will come across cliques in thrift stores. You know, the walk and talk and dress-alike crowd, with the same-haircuts and all. To me, that's bone dry and dull as graveyard dirt.

I always thought the great thing about thrift stores was that no two things were alike. But hey, I get it, there's a certain safety in numbers and sometimes two or three heads are better than one.

I actually like it when two totally different people can get along. Oh sure, you may have the glaze of the same religious beliefs, the same cultural backgrounds, the same basis way of facing the world. But it's nice to see friends who can rise above differences in color, personality, and the artificial divisions within totemic hierarchies. Maybe I've just been reading too much anthropology texts lately.

There are some unfortunate souls you meet who are somewhat plain, dull, dare I say wooden. Usually, these individuals spend their time at the periphery, less interested in the fantastic variety and adventure of thrift store culture, and just kind of stand there with a stick up their a**es.

Sure, you can dress them up however you want, but these types are just too stiff, too bland, too plastic to spend much time worrying about what's going on in their empty heads.

Scarier still are the types who completely lose their heads when they get inside a thrift store. I guess there's something about the junk, the randomness of the place that makes them lose their minds, check their brains at the door. I know for first-timers the uniqueness of a thrift store can blow their tops and they may start running around like a chicken with its head cut off. But when I see people acting like this I usually just think there's not a lot going on upstairs.

We all know, however, that thrift stores can help you find the real you, and be yourself, no matter how unusual that might be. Sure, that super outfit you just found might give you a feeling of superiority, like you have some sort of special powers, like the laws of physics don't apply. But when it's all said and done, it's fine to let your freak flag fly, even if it scares a few children a long the way.

Then again, sometimes even the kids in thrift stores are a bit creepy, hanging out in back alleys, wearing fedoras and trenchcoats...

Putting tracking devices in their friends backpacks. These kids today, with their stalking and espionage.

Now, after nefarious surveillance by preteens, you might say the company of a precise jogger would be quite welcome. But I'm getting a bad vibe from that runner there on the left.

Yep, just as I thought: Hitler in a track suit. Apparently, it's a fine line between precision jogging and fascist goosestepping.

At least most thrift stores don't allow animals. This one apparently allows hairy, ugly, bearded dogs. Niiiice doggy.

You know how they put those plastic collars on sick dogs so they can't lick certain areas of themselves? Maybe that why this little girl has bubble wrap all over her arms and feet -- so she can't lick them. That or she just digs the look. These kids today with their ridiculous fetishes for "regularly spaced, protruding air-filled hemispheres."

I haven't said anything yet about perverts. Unfortunately there's something about a second hand shop that seems to draw out the creeps. Exhibit A: slightly creepy mustachioed bowling man doing the old "oops, my pants fell down" gag...

Exhibit B: slightly creepy, embedded Mickey with a slightly inappropriate "come hither" look.

Neither one of these characters would be welcome in my home or even my outhouse. Not that I have an outhouse.

Almost as bad (or maybe just as bad) as the perverts, are the hucksters. You haven't been hornswaggled until you've been Bob Proctored. Born rich, huh? Tell that to my crushing debt. I guess its a nature versus nurture thing.

Something about this guys gives me the willies. Is it his bulbous nose? Nah, Jack Klugman and Karl Malden are tops in my book...

The thin lips then? Or the high forehead? The grandpa goggles? No...

It's something in the eyes. Freaky-deaky heebie-jeebies from that one.

Okay, after that parade of psychos, what we need is some law and order. Yeah, some good ol' rubber-clad, neoprene, shocking blue wigged, community policing. From a hot, amputee, hooker cop. You know, ta' clean up the joint, hose the place down, and maybe beat out a confession of two. Yeah. Hmm... haven't I met her sister before?

All I'm saying is there's plenty of thrifty people to be scared of year-round. That's why most of my shutterbugging is strictly of the merchandise and not the customers and clerks.

Maybe I'm wrong, maybe I shouldn't mistake a friendly smile for a ghastly grimace, or a warm hug for death's cold embrace. Maybe I should listen to what the rock-and-roll man says: "Don't fear the reaper." But if he's in the men's underwear section, just maybe go and check out the kid's books instead.

Happy Halloween!

GREAT LAMP OR WORLD'S GREATEST LAMP?

2008-10-09T19:55:00.001-07:00

Let the debate begin...

You may want to ruminate your consideration over this.

Talk amongst yourselves....

BEST WAY TO HEAR A HOOTENANNY?

2008-10-02T00:04:00.000-07:00

Here's my find of the moment. Further proof that the 60s were too groovy for words. Radios shaped like owls! What were our parents smoking? What were the Japanese manufacturers who mass-produced these smoking?

At first I thought this bird was just some funky shelf clutter.

But those grills gave it away. I suppose it could be a really attractive and rather impractical smoke detector.

So this is when the Japanese electronics revolution began. Would have been so cool if they stuck with the electronics-as-animals format. Just imagine doggy DVD players, Koala Bear camcorders, alligator laptops. Missed opportunity guys!

What's with the wavy lines? Is that the plastic stand-in for feathers? Looks more like bacteria.

The owl is fun to play with. Great whimsical details like the eyes that double as channel and volume dials. Too bad hooter here only spits back AM -- the first transmission I got was some talk radio show about sexual predators -- because the speakers are pretty killer for a old transistor job.

Is it just me, or is there a trace of the sublime in snapping a 9-volt in to place and getting noise to crackle of out 40 year old speakers? Plug and play for the Age of Aquarius. Far out.

ANYONE NEED A HUG?

2008-09-24T18:27:00.000-07:00

Just asking, cuz I have hugs to burn. And because I have the warm fuzzies for readers of this blog, I thought I'd give y'all first dibs. Any takers?

WE NOW RETURN YOU TO YOUR REGULARLY SCHEDULED THRIFT STORE BLOG

2008-09-07T21:42:00.000-07:00

Are you receiving this transmission? Sorry for the recent static, but normal programming was interrupted by trips, and books, and paying the bills. This interference was only a test.

But return with me now to those thrilling days of yesteryear, for some audio video fun, and no further commercial interruptions...

The thrifts can be a pretty confusing place when it comes to audio and video electronics. Usually they're piled in a jumble in a dark corner.

Oh sure, you can spot a fantastic 40s cathedral radio from a mile a way. (for the audiophiles, no, I don't think it worked -- there were plenty of spiders in the back too!)

But in terms of confusion, what with so many eras, this old school (grade school -- that is) turntable was labeled "CD Player -As Is" on the tag. Can't get that Slow-Jams CD to play? Well I think you're doing it wrong.

Now I can dig this solid state, transistorized, AM-FM radio receiver...

But I can't quite wrap my head around the AIR, W B, or PBH channels. And what the funk is squelch anyway? Do we want more squelch or less? It looks like they set it to medium squelch, that seems safe, I guess.

Too many technical choices for you? Then what about a leather-bound Silvertone 600 Transistor? If you think wood makes electronics classy, then you'll love horsehide.

Okay, I know I said no commercial interruptions, but A) I'm an f-ing liar and B) How could I not hit pause on the DVR, click a picture, and post this delightful picture for you. For some drug that stops you from pissing too much. Not for the discomfort, mind you, but so you don't have to deal with the bald, chubby pervert rubbing urine, excrement and other bodily no-nos onto his scalp. Thank god they have a drug for that. I can't wait to turn 50-something and worry so damn much about pissing around strangers.

Back to audio delights. From pee-pee perverts to Uncle Don's Play-land. Maybe I'll stick with the pee guy.

Given that watching gold is so freakin' boring and playing golf is often marked by sun-strokes and mosquitos' bites, I'm just wondering if this LP is trying to put you to sleep or keep you out of a golf-induced coma. If the latter, Larry Clinton better be playing something a little more up-tempo than what I bet a musician named Larry Clinton would play.

Who wouldn't want to turn their Hi-Fi into a "psychoacoustic device"? You had me at "better than booze and safer than pot." Was pot really that dangerous back in the day? "Hey, down in front! Hey naked lady, we're trying to watch our family slide show!"

Here's a fun one for your next record party. Do-you-want-to-play-a-game? Okay, get out on the floor and let's perceive if y'all have motor rhythm. I dunno, they look pretty stiff to me, especially the green people. Somebody get these kids some pot!

You know, I have attained a few honors in my day, bookmark award winner, honor society in 7th and 8th grade, member in good standing of both the G.I. Joe and the Back to the Future fan clubs. But I've never reached the pinnacle of skeezer pleezer. Maybe I should walk around with my shirt off more. Being an 80s black teenage rapper probably would help as well.

This picture I call Twilight of the Gods on Vinyl on Vinyl, Salvation Army 3:43 PM. Got a better caption?

Now the audio enclave doesn't have a monopoly on dazed and confused. Let's saunter on over into the video department.

Learn typing from a Viking DVD? For the kiddies? Is that the bone-crushing, village-torching, rape-everything-that-moves, let's-call-the-land-of-ice-Greenland-and-the-fairly-hospitable-place-Iceland-just-to-hide-from-the-Vikings kind, or the lovable-Hagar-the-Horrible kind? Just wondering.

Oh what treasures the thrifts stores yield. No only does one get three (3!) color episodes from Clint Howard's early TV career (swoon!), but what better video lesson could you order up for your kids than one that proves that grizzly bears make great pets for eight-year-olds?

So what do Fritz Weaver, Slim Pickens, Bart Starr, shrimp fishermen, old alligators, and the Green Bay Packers all have in common? They were all apparently whores for 60s primetime TV dreck. Sorry to shock all the Slim Pickens and Fritz Weaver fans out there. I think the cheese heads already knew where they were coming from.

(In a side note: you see tits briefly in Captain Ron. It's true. Parents be warned. Things I Learned as a Video Store Clerk #433)

Now, one thing you see a lot of is personal video tapes from the 80s. I usually try to snag them because for around a dollar you can get a cheap thrill by scanning for retro-commercials and other past memories. Things I have learned: George Plimpton was once the spokesman for Intellivision, William Shatner the shill for the Vic 20, and there were competing alcoholism detox companies that ran ads during ABC's Monday Night Movie (Dr No!) in Christmas of '82 here in sunny Kal-ee-fornia.

I collect content, but I bet there are those that go for the low-rent aesthetics of the VHS sleeves from this period. Take this prime example. Hmm, Goldstars are good, very good. STDs are bad, very bad. (When exactly did STD enter the lexicon for "crotch bugs"?) Early 80s packaging is so quaint.

Speaking of diseased private parts, RAKS sounds like a horrible and contagious rash. (Runaway Acne on your K--- Syndrome?) .

Billy: Hey, dad, it burns when I pee.
Dad: Young man, you have an acute case of genital RAKS.
Billy: Gee, Pop, does this mean I won't be able to play in Saturday's baseball game?
Dad: Not to worry, son, just rub some Techroma (R) with E195 (TM) on the affected area and It'll be fine.
Billy: Swell!
Dad: Oh, just lay off it for a few days and the swelling will go down.

This concludes this episode of Awkward & Hackneyed Fifties Theater.

Not that Quasar sounds much better than RAKS. Sounds like a 70s put-down: "Don't touch my disco record, you quasar!"

I know, I know it's supposed to sound spacey-space age. In fact, a quasar is, according to dictionary.com:

one of over a thousand known extragalactic objects, starlike in appearance and having spectra with characteristically large redshifts, that are thought to be the most distant and most luminous objects in the universe

Right. So Goldstar was taken already, huh? Hey, didn't Quasar make microwaves too? Maybe it was wristwatches.

So one also sees a lot of torturous exercise videos. You know, the Buns of Steel, Necks of Wood, Brains of Cement type. Usually a perky smiling leotarded dominatrix super vixen. Who will gleefully drive your ass into the floor with deep-knee-bends while bad 80s synth music sets the right ambiance. That's why those videos are now in thrift stores and not on your TV shelf. (Although a little Denise Austin every now and again was never a bad thing. Hubba-hubba.)

But in Sit and Be Fit I think I've found a workout I can actually stick to...

Yep, looks like my kind of exercise regimen. Except for all that crazy arm waving. A fella's libel to work up a sweat doing that! Watch out, grandpa, you're going to knock over that rhododendron!

So we've already established that I buy home-taped retro TV (the MPAA would call that piracy, I believe). But it's also hard for me to pass up bad sci-fi, especially the post-apocalyptic type. Especially, especially if the "future" is already our past. Escape 2000 indeed.

Now being reared on video stores (does anyone still go to a "video store"? Does anyone still watch "videos"? Oh, how the world has spun and left me here.) Anyhoo, having suckled on the teat of half-inch VHS, I early on knew that the promises held out by the box art on the cover of a sci-fi, action, and horror VHS tapes were seldom delivered once popped into the top-loader.

Dude, I can't wait till the ninja kick-boxes the giant devil snake and the undead Nazi army, just like it was on the box!

I really want to believe that Escape 2000 delivers the goods. I mean c'mon you've got Steve "Charlie Manson" Railsback. It's on the Embassy Home Entertainment label (Zapped! anyone?).

There's apparently a fantastic chase sequence with a shirtless Railsback (is he a skeezer pleezer?) a laser shooting F-15-ish future jet fighter (nice job drawing that one), an evil black helicopter (gotta have one of those), is that an evil tractor in the background? Ooh, a dark fascist pyramid, not to mention the post-apocalyptic zombies (or are they just scared of the helicopters and the dark pyramid and the bulldozer?). I can already hear the bad synth music. 99 cent rental be damned! Year 2000 (by way of 1984) here I come!

Now usually the veil of disbelief isn't pierced until the video is at home and spinning on the VCR heads. But with Escape 2000 you can't even get past the paragraph on the back of the box...

You see, the mother f-er isn't even set in 2000! No, the geniuses at Embassy Home Entertainment, synopsis writing division, chose 1995 for their rent me tonight blurb for Escape 2000. Wah? Who gives a shite about 1995? That's not an apocalyptic future. That's O.J. on trial, Oklahoma City Bombing, and bad Bryan Adams torch songs. Bad, but not the apocalypse. Colossal 80s VHS fail, guys.

Ah, well, you can always make your own entertainment. Skulls, food on the TV and rock and roll! I bet this garage band rocked. Or sucked. I can't decide.

Or, you could get even more back to the roots. Anybody see the Twilight Zone about the haunted piano? Isn't this it?

By the way: why do thrift store pianos always say DON'T TOUCH ? Are they worried about drowning out the sound of all the crying babies and the Jesus Loves Me-Muzak on infinite loop? Maybe I'm the type of jerk they wrote the sign for but I always touch the piano. Always.

And so should you, apparently. That is if you want to be a skeezer pleezer, and I know you do.

This now concludes this broadcast day.

THE GLORY THAT IS ME

2008-08-11T18:10:00.000-07:00

...is what I'm calling this found photo.

I'm not done being lazy but I just had to throw down the gauntlet, and respond to today's Boing Boing/ Big Happy Funhouse found photo post.

I dunno about all y'all other thrifters, but I rarely can resist snatching up found photos at the thrifts. Why pass up the chance to take home and enjoy someone else's emabarassing and painful family memories ?

KEEP THE FAITH

2008-08-05T21:14:00.000-07:00

This blog will return after some more badly needed classic American Summer laziness. Swear to the thrift store gods.

GAMES PEOPLE (DON'T) PLAY

2008-06-23T01:03:00.000-07:00

Summer's finally here, for moi anyway. And I can't think of a better way of squandering the sunshine and rainbows than sitting hunched over a musty, motley colored cardboard square, in a stuffy room, with smelly plastic game pieces slipping out of your sweaty palms, while you ponder a set of ridiculously complex instructions, and your bored friends/siblings/ cousins pick their noses or snooze through their headaches on the downstairs couch. Or is that just my favorite Summer memory?

If your Summer's shaping up to be just about that fun (what with the price of petrol) here are a few unlikely suggestions for your next game night.

Hey, hey! Everybody likes parties, right? And Oh-my-god, like I'm totally psyched cuz the whole friggin' class is going to be there. Yeah! Even the dorky kid with the greasy glasses who smells like feet and cheese! Rock on! Part-tay!

Actually, no. They're not going to be there, because there's no friggin' party. It's a sham. To borrow an 80s-ism: Psych!

In fact it's just going to be you sitting on the floor in your underwear and this douche and his shit-eating grin winking back at you from your VCR from 1986. Oh yeah, there's some crappy game that he goes with...

What-evar. Next!

How about a totally awesome computer game? Gee, I wonder how many bits, or bytes, or RAM, or mega-RAM this totally awesome digital computer game has.

Answer: none. I say this looks as dorky as space dominoes.

But wait, you say. Say it! You say: "Says here, this stragety, ur, strategy game is ahead of its time."

Uh-huh. Keep deluding yourself, buddy.

And you also say, because you can't stop babbling about this g-d game, because of the extreme boredom or the stultifying heat in the game room, you say, "Each piece is pre-programmed, yet I/we/you control every play!"

Bullshit. This game needs no batteries. Therefore no electronics. Therefore no computer. You've been scammed by the Grand-Master-Flash of all scammers: Milton-friggin-Bradley.

Now this game is good because it needs some batteries. Maybe, if were lucky the good kind: my man 9 volt, that phat rectangular mother. Waaaay better than puny AAAs, or D-cells that drip acid after a winter in the closet. 9 volt always brings the funk, fast and furious and...

Dude, the air's kind of stale in here, huh. I feel a little light headed. Open a window.

Oooh, an "electronic crime scanner." This looks about as fun as changing the channels with Grandma's oversize old-people remote control. Now that I think about it that is rather fun.

I can't believe I wasted 1979 and the better parts of 1980, 81, and some of 1982 playing this when I could have been watching Battle of the Network Stars or Inch High, Private Eye.

Not digital enough for you? This game doesn't take batteries, it takes quarters. And, oh yeah, a in depth knowledge of late 80s sports trivia. You know what? Wood paneling just makes electronics classy.

Four ridiculously simple buttons, a TV monitor with the colors blown out, and a cabinet that weighs only 78 pounds. Only 125 bucks? What a deal.

Editor's Note: Shockingly, this thrift store went out of business after only three months. Go figure.

Let's move on to the real board games, the ones that don't take on airs, or act all snooty and high tone with their batteries and computer fonts. How about a nice, down to earth, regular Joe game like Masterpiece: The Art Auction Game. Bah, bunch of rich pricks from the 1970s.

I know this is just a Monopoly-meets-Clue-wanna-be all duded-up. I don't know about you, but if I'm going to be forced to hang out with "a dazzling array of eccentric art speculators" and their oh-so "exciting, suspenseful...elite world of the international auction" well somebody better get murdered with a candlestick or at least a lead pipe. That's all I ask.

Not hoity toity enough for you? Well how about a fast paced game of ruining other peoples lives by inflating the stock prices of companies that aren't really worth any money? How about speculating the nation into five major economic depressions between 1857 and 1939? How about wearing those atrocious 80s white starched collar shirts, yellow suspenders, and a whole tube of hair gel? At least I think the game ends with an ulcer. Fun!

Speaking of sores in your stomach that produce juice that's really acid (sorry, inside joke), I've written before about this type of family game, designed to make one of the members (usually Dad) have a nervous embolism under the pressure.

The box art here looks like they're trying to hide something, no? Where are their faces? Probe sounds less like a fun Saturday night with the fam and more like an un-fun Tuesday night in Guantanamo Bay (or is Wednesday night torture night?). Probe, from the makers of Electrified Testicles and Vee Haff Vays Ov Making You Talk. "Game of words" indeed.

You want wacky, though? Well how much more wacky could you get than eating CRACKERS in your BED. Wacky! On second thought, that sounds disgusting and unsanitary. What's next, Pudding in the Shower? Donuts on the Toilet? Damn you, Parker Bros. for corrupting our youth.

Ninnies, numskulls, and brains? Is this a board game or my 7th grade placement test? Who exactly are the Parker Brothers and why are the Smessing with my head?

You saw what I did there, right?

Oh, but Gabriel has to be in on the act. This game makes my tummy hurt. Quick where's your bathroom... too late. Be careful not to step in the puddle of Galoob on the floor.

Speaking of games that make you nauseous, how about a game that's really like going to work. And what work could be better than the flipping burgers, scrubbing toilets, and getting paid $8.00/hr. variety?

This is just like Chutes and Ladders except with gas leaks, pork grease spilled on the floor, and armed robbery. Tee-hee.

Have you been to a McDonald's lately? What could possibly be "unacceptable" in fast food these days? Besides an errant thumb in the chili or chicken head in the McNuggets.

Now this could be anything. From a spastic shake machine to my explosive diarrhea. Fast food, the best friend of pathogens.

But don't worry, just like in the real world, if you can hide the roaches, bacteria, and sputum from the customers long enough you too can be employee of the year! Which means never being quite able to wash the smell of french fries off your body no matter how hard you scrub.

Hey, kids! Let's all sit down here at the dining room table and play a nice game of Blend and Build, whatcha say?

What's that, Cindy, Timmy? You want to know how to play? Well, it's really simple. Just your regular ol' linguistically-based word game, emphasizing world building with short vowel phonograms.

Hey, where ya going? You say your friend down the block has a Nintendo Wii? I say SIT THE FREAK DOWN AND PLAY! We're going to BLEND SOUNDS AND BUILD WORDS especially you two primary grade children! Now, stop crying and start blending and building!

Now here's a manly game. Fixing leaky pipes, for fun. No coins, mushrooms, Koopa Troopas, Goombas, or Italian stereotypes types. Just leaky, smelly, raw sewage dripping pipes. I kind of want to go home now.

No, not yet. No before you play "The Fun Game of Arithmetic." Children, one piece of advice: If you see Grandpa getting this one out of the closet, run the other way. There's no such thing as a fun math game! Don't get scammed like I did by Milton-friggin-Bradley! RUN!!

Ooh, CNN: The Game. Give us thirty minutes we'll bore your ass to sleep. So what do you cover starvation, pollution, disasters, massacres and Congressional bloviating? Well, I guess it's better than Fox News: We Make Up Bullshit and Pretend Like its News Game. Where is Ted Koppel when we need him?

As if one cruddy newsgame twernt enough, this one comes with as (hush-hush whispery voice) video tape. Oh my, a newsreel challenge! You know what's challenging? Keeping my eyelids open.

I wonder which is more fun: news-scooping or poop-scooping? Maybe it really doesn't matter.

No snide remarks here, at least about Klugman and Randall. Love the show, love these guys. But I just have to wonder -- how many more Challenge Yahtzee sets did their pictures on the box actually sell?

has anyone ever played Challenge Yahtzee? I'm dying to know if there's an anally-retentive strategy versus a slovenly style? Anyone?

Well if the bored, er, board games are doing it for you on a hot June day there's always fun with Mr. Hypodermic Needle and (hush-hush-hush) a videotape!

Yes, I found this in the kid's game section right next to the Little Nemo game and the Sesame Street puzzles. And no, I didn't leave it there. Couldn't have Cindy or Timmy sticking a spike in their arms like Jimmy Hendrix, could I?

But we all know there are worse ways to spend a Saturday night, right?

***

RIP: George Carlin
1937-2008

"Please Saw off My Legs"

PAY NOW, PARTY LATER

2008-06-04T07:50:00.000-07:00

So, here's another apology about the lack of recent posts, but this school quarter is still making me pay through nose.

But soon, my friends, I'll be back up to my old blogging abilities, and when that time comes I'll be as happy as a clown at his coming-out ball. See y'all soon, and save me a mint julep.

JUNKNTOWN JALOPIES

2008-05-04T01:03:00.000-07:00

So, how do you roll? To the thrift store that is? My feeling is that you could rock any car, bus, bike or wheel barrel as long as it's got room in the trunk for some precious junk. But I have been rather amazed at the variety of goodwill gas guzzlers sitting in the parking lot.

My own car? Just you're basic reliable Japanese econo-box. But from time to time it does send me demonic messages warning about the dangers of my thrifty addictions. Like this note to stay out St. Vincent DePaul's. Did I listen? Hells no.

Most thrift store people are, if not mildly friendly, rather respectfully pleasant. However there are a few that have very strong feelings about subjects, such as sports, that they feel especially compelled to share with other drivers. I wonder if he (she?) is the thrift shopper or is he just dropping off his grand-ma-ma.

I'm trying to think if there's any subject I feel so strongly about that I'd emblazon my car with an f-bomb. Maybe "I Saw that 1950s Lamp First F--k Face!" Na. Way too venomous.

Speaking of venom. I know some thrift stores are kind of like the inside of a dark and dirty garage, but sheesh. Actually, the exterminator who drove this spider sedan had just emerged from a Goodwill... so be careful reaching into that box of ancient Xmas ornaments. :<
Does somebody want to to tell Pedro that's not a guitar? His music teacher must have been a huge liar head. That or he's into Dadaism. "Ceci n'est pas une saxophone"

Okay, pop quiz. Can you spot the perfect thrift store vehicle in the picture? Answer: any car with a trunk and enough gas to haul your haul back home is just right.

But the one in the middle is tre bad ass, no?

And then there's the car you're driving just to be seen... at the thrift store. Totally not my style - I like to blend in, not stick, sift through the piles of junk in relative blissful anonymity. This dude obviously doesn't have those hang ups.

I don't think I could drive a car this nice and strange to the thrift store. I'd be too worried about who was messing with it while I was flipping for through the stacks of LPs looking for a Depeche Mode 10 inch -- or whatever cool kids who drive cars like this look for at thrift stores.

Now this is a classic thrift store 'mobile. A Caddy crammed with crap. And a little nest carved out in the front so at least they can turn the steering wheel. Now, I say this with all do respect: but for the grace of the old man in the sky go I. Hell, on a really good day my car is nearly this bad.

Volkswagen van at the thrift store: classic or Cliché? I will say we all probably owe a debt of gratitude to the hippies who once drove this VW for making clothes shopping at thrift stores so darn hilarious. Thanks you hippies.

Now, one can only imagine what wonders, what priceless joys were shoved into garbage bags and roughly thrown into the back of each of these workhorses. Any thrift store with a FLEET this nice must be rolling in the dough. I'm pretty sure I could never work at a thrift store -- as a stocker, cashier or truck driver. I'd spend all the time in treasure hunt mode.

Okay, this is a tiny cheat. But I was leaving a thrift store... and a Jack in the Box. But I just liked the scene of a totaled Italian sports car on the back of a flatbed. HAHAHAHAHA!

Was that mean? I like to think the guy that drives this car buys all his clothes new, if you know what I mean.

While I've never been in a fender bender in a thrift store lot (fingers crossed, no cooties, cootie protection, no touch-backs) I have been humble enough to heft my sacks of schwag down the street to the nearest...

Well it's better than hoofing it, no?

Here's hoping your shopping carts are full, that your favorite shady space if empty, and that your gas is less than $4 a gallon. Oh, and resist the urge to check out that cool 1960s bowling trophy you just bought until you get home -- don't thrift and drive.

STILL HERE, STILL WEIRD

2008-04-21T21:28:00.001-07:00

What I love about the thrifting life is that no matter how long an absence one has, the thrift stores still stay weird.

I promise that this blog is not in receivership yet. So let me just post a few wordless weird ones from time to time before I get me groove back. As Johnny used to say More to come.

TOO MUCH MONKEY BUSINESS

2008-04-01T23:23:00.000-07:00

Well, I'll be a monkey's uncle, I haven't posted anything of quality in some time. I haven't been monkeying around mind you, just trying to get back in the swing of things at school. My real love is being out there in thriftville, which is more fun than a barrel of monkeys. So fun, in fact, it's almost a monkey on my back, you know.

But real life has thrown a monkey wrench into the works. I'll be back in a few (days? weeks?) , but until then, ruminate on this: The higher the monkey climbs, the more you see of his behind - Gen Joe Stillwell.

RIPPED JESUS PIRATE SAYS...

2008-03-17T22:49:00.000-07:00

...Avast, ye Thrift Store lubbers, have a happy, salty sea dog of an Easter, or I will crush your head like a nut with my Kung-Fu grip.

Sorry If I've offended any Christians, pirates, or action figure collectors. I really need to get my Spring Break on.

I'VE GOT A MATCH...

2008-03-07T00:20:00.000-08:00

I'm always a sucker for the stapled bags of mystery in the bins, buckets, and dark corners of the thrift store. Could be anything in there, right? Mickey Mantle baseball cards, or secret decoder rings, or precious rubies...

Well, most of it is just garbage too tiny to sell separately, but occasionally you might find a that orange snake that came with the old Yoda action figure (the one you lost instantly in 1981), a heart shaped Chicago Cubs pinback from the 60s, an anti-rock-and-roll religious booklet about the evils of ZZ Top, or a nice rubber octopus, or some other similar silliness.

Not too long ago (my way of saying "When in the hell did I buy this?") I paid a buck and half for a mixed bag of matchbooks and boxes. Some are from the 50s I think, with with some great Googie architecture, some were swiped from Bill's Steakhouse last week. But all in all I think it was worth the price.

WHO WERE YOU WEARING?

2008-02-28T12:58:00.000-08:00

Thrift stores are mainly clothes. Contrary to popular belief it's not all used underwear.

There's something profound to say (though I'm not really the one to say it) about our obsession with clothes and their ultimately disposable nature. Then again, so many of the clothes on the Salvation Army racks was only just recently in the back of grandma's closet, where it hung for the last 34 years. Much of these outfit offerings are ugly, dirty, holey, smelly and/or just plain boring. But I fall in love every time I walk into thrift store when I look at the wonderful tags inside these cast offs.

In the interest of keeping this blog up to date, with my standard two posts a month, and because I just just got beat-up by my dentist this morning (my four wisdom teeth have just gone to the big tooth fairy in the sky), I'm going to do an easy, fairly comment less post, just highlighting these little tapestries sewn into the clothing we used to wear. Hope you enjoy. Just imagine you're in a very tiny art gallery... that smells a bit like moth balls...

A VOTE FOR THRIFT STORES...

2008-02-05T17:05:00.000-08:00

...Is a vote for scary fast-food crap you treasured as a child, which now disturbs your moral center and waistline, but for the totally-ironic thrill of it you now have a chance to re-own for just -- $10.99. Eleven bucks?! Screw you, Salvation Army! I vote to leave you here, Ronald.

Oh, but wait, I'd vote for Mayor McCheese. He's fiscally conservative and strong on defense. But I think Captain Crook has the evangelical vote sewed up.

No, neither thrift stores nor the McDonaldland gang are on the ballot. This post is just because it's already February 5th, I haven't posted anything crude or warped since mid-January, and something about Ronald's pose and look (like he wants to caucus you, heh-heh) just screams let the American political circus begin!

Be back soon, gotta fish $11 from under the seat of my Altima.

NEW YEAR, OLD BOOKS

2008-01-16T23:37:00.000-08:00

Hello again, dear friends. Hope you had a lovely 2007. I certainly did, due in large part to the extensive time I spent in thrift stores, with a photographic mission, a place to share these documented deliriums with people from all over the world, and of course help in relieving the terrible addiction of collecting stuff. Now, of course, that particular ailment will never be quite beaten (and truthfully, I wouldn't really want to completely overcome its ravages), but I hope this blog stands as testament to the myriad temptations I face on a daily thrift-going basis.

Were it not for my shutterbug therapy, nearly every item depicted would have gone home with me, from broken 50s vacuum cleaners, to Last Supper Clocks, to hippie board games. Anyhow, thank you blog readers for the support, and to you would-be enablers out there, well, thanks for trying to seduce me, Mrs. Robinson(s).

It has recently been suggested to me that I write a book about my junk store jeremiads, but I like the no-journalistic-excellence-required world of the internet. And I fear that if I was luckily enough to get published, most volumes would merely end up in crevices of a local Disabled American Veterans shop, wedged between copies of 1988: The Coming World-Wide Depression and #78: Bomb Shooters, A Mac Savage Adventure. There are worse fates, like ending up next to these books:

If someone had told me there was book about Electric Bread I would have guessed it was about some 60s garage psych band. But no! Mr. Chambers, it's a cook book! Something tells me bread and electricity don't mix. Tastes just a bit too tingly.

Editor: "How do we sell this sci-fi book Superbaby?
Art Department: "With a painting of an creepy alien planet, a giant Florence flask, a white dude in shorts inside crouching, and "Superbaby" in shocking yellow bubble script. Ya can't beat it!"
Editor: "Good, but... why not an Erlenmeyer flask?"

You had me at "Kinky sex" -- then you lost me with the "violent, compulsive reading" -- then had me again with the decapitated-head-LSD-trip-demons-cuddling cover. Tiny head indeed.

Not Eating: The Miraculous Weight-loss Plan!!!! Who'd have ever thunk that no food = skinny? Prisoners of war, that's who.

Society went wrong when we stopped putting optical illusions on self-help book covers. Actually, don't stare at it too long before you'll want to throw up. Too late?

Don't worry, you'r guardian angel will apparently clean it up. Or maybe that's not upchuck, but really the "golden treasures" strewn in your life path. What kind of drugs was Vernon Howard on? He should have totally written about that instead.

Not cosmically mystical enough for you? How about Psychic Politics? Worst-use-of-psychic- powers-ever! What do you expect from the author of that page turner Seth Speaks?

Worst-use-of-transcendent-spiritualism-ever! Sure, it's easy to be all Zen on a back country road pushing your Audi TT to 122 mph, but this author has obviously never been stuck on the 405 at rush hour in a beat up Ford Escort without air conditioning. Actually, it'd be nice to transcend that experience.

Still in a spiritualist mood? Here's your typical thrift store choice: the path to enlightenment through non-violence or a really groovy coming out party where Mandy totally gets kissed by Derek Rutherford III, of the Massachusetts Rutherfords. Can't decide? How about both? A Cotillion for Ghandi.

I didn't even have the backbone to open this one. I'll have to wait for the movie.

You now, I'm sure the subject of sucking the water out of vittles deserved its own article, or maybe a nice pamphlet. But a book? C'mon. No, really. I'm serious, hippies, don't write these anymore. just stop, okay?

I'll tell you hat the world needs more of: X-rated pianists. Or perhaps how-to guides about nasty ivory tickling.

What? You think I'm mis-interpreting "Easy Adult Piano"? Just look at the Red Shoes Diaries/ Cinemax After Hours font.

And what of the fuzzed out glamor-shots-style photography, the empty wine glass on the piano, the sweater cleavage shot, her 80s soft-core-porn makeup and hair-do (and totally bored look)? Am I the only horny one here?

Well, nothing kills a boner like Styrofoam art. Here's a whole handbook of things to do with earth-poisoning, animal killing, it-will-outlive-the-sun polystyrene.

Styrofoam (TM), brought to you by DOW Chemical, the friendly folks who brought you Agent Orange and Napalm. Mr. Florist here himself looks like the offspring of a plastic mannequin and a Styrofoam cooler.
Mmm... I could go for a big bowl of polystyrene right now. I wonder what the other 58 mutants are having for lunch?

But let's get back to a simpler time, before metallocene-catalzyed polymerization, where men and women knew only naked lust and fear and dark and brutal passions and sexually suggestive caves and wooden clubs and underwear made out of mud and leaves. Ah, the Pleistocene era.

She looks pretty positive for a woman with such a negative out-look on life. Miss Nobody From Nowhere -- feel sorry for ourself much? Sounds like something inane my sister would yell during a fight. "I guess I'm just the silent and invisible girl!" Why not focus on the positive, you're stranded in the alps with two J.C. Penny male models, how bad could it be?

On the other hand, the Spice Girls are always so upbeat. I don't really have the heart to tell them that one them is getting killed off. I hope it's Sporty Spice.

It's hard to imagine a time when $10 could buy something, anything, in Japan, much less pay for a whole day. Do you get the feeling this guide is suggesting one could party with geishas for less than a Hamilton? Ah, the 70s.

Another outdated travel guide. Fairly commonplace...

Except for all the handwriting on the inside. Apparently the previous owner was pretty anal.

Really, really anal. Either that or stranded on a deserted island and really, really bored.

Forget 1964, the coup de grâce and probably the oldest thing I've ever seen in a thrift store is this German bible.

Americans have a tendency to think that anything from the last 50 years is ancient...

But a book dating from the early 19th century is pretty-freaking-old. In 1813:

James Madison, author of the constitution, was still president.
Thomas Jefferson turned 70 and and Abraham Lincoln celebrated his 4th birthday.
The population of New York City was under 100,000 and Los Angeles hovered around 500.
The Americans went to war with Canada (yep, we did that) and burnt down Toronto, for which the British would later retaliate by burning down Buffalo, New York and Washington D.C. (yep, they did that).
The Russians invaded Berlin.
Napoleon wins a few loses a few, and then gets his ass handed to him at the Battle of Nations in Leipzig.
The Enlightenment was winding down (what with Napoleon, the Americans and British burning down everything) and Romanticism was just getting started.
The field of Toxicology was founded.
Puffing Billy, the world's The fastest steamed-powered locomotive raced along at 6 mph
Average life expectancy in the Western world was about 35 years.
Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice was first published.
Composers Verdi and Wagner were born.
Zebulon Pike (of Pike's Peak) died and Tecumseh (of Tippecanoe) was killed.
And somewhere in Germany this bible was printed only to end up in a thrift store in Goleta, California 195 years later.

!! HAVE A THRIFTY NEW YEARS !!

2008-01-01T00:01:00.000-08:00

In 2008, may the thrift store gods smile upon you, or at least regard you with solemn, stony, but ultimately benevolent silence.

Hope you're partying like its 1999! 1979 or 1959 are also good. 1929 and 1939, not so much.

See you soon!

HAPPY SECOND HAND HOLIDAYS

2007-12-22T02:51:00.001-08:00

Tis the season. Tis got here too damn fast if you ask me. Then again, if you're poor like me there's really no pressure to buy gifts. At least I have time to update this here pictures of junk blog. (Why does "blog" sound as dated as "groovy"?)

Lot's of great Christmas images -- I looked for Hanukkah and Kwanzaas stuff to, but I guess either the stuff doesn't end up in thrift stores (unlikely, as everything ends up in thrift stores) or the gew-gaws are just not as glaringly garishly what-the-fudge awful as Christmas falderal is.

Now thrifty Xmas exteriors are nice, rather subtle, idyllic even. Almost picture post card perfect, no?
But the closer you get, the more twinkly crap. Some of it even motorized.

Xmas stuff is ubiquitous in thrift stores all year long. It's no problem to find a Santa figurine on a hot July day in your nearest second hand store. But come Christmas time, well, as my wife says, it looks like Santa vomited candy canes all over the store.

Now, some places want to squeeze every dime they can out of their Xmas stash when the time rolls around.

Other places realize, "Sh-t, we'd better unload this crap now or it'll sit here until next July."

Plenty of great gift ideas, beyond the Christmas schwag. Like the world's ugliest lamp. Plenty of world's ugliest lamps if you poke around.

World's most awfully patriotic sweater? You know, f-ck the terrorists. If I have to wear this sweater, the terrorists have won. Perfect gift for a certain presidential candidate from NY, though, huh?

Here's the perfect gift for my wife. I wonder what state fair this was gleaned from? Damn, that's one sexy mustachioed Magnum. Only "69" cents -- heh, heh.

Course, if I only gave her some 80's glass stud, this would probably be my gift. I have to say that Bryant Gumble is rocking that man muu-muu. I bet that mug is full of whiskey or Goldschlager. Why else would he be out on the roof in a dress?

How about an army of plastic wrapped angels? Kind of reminds me of one of those CGI shots of stormtroopers from the last Star Wars epic.

Here's a great gift idea. "Doll Baby" -aka- "Disembodied head of a Cabbage Patch Kid-ripoff in a box." Just imagine the squeals of joy (or screams of sheer terror) of the little girl (or boy) unwrapping this on Christmas morning. Either way, it'd be fun. Tee-hee.

Normally, one creepy doll picture per post is enough. But I can't pass up a trio of doll coffins. Complete with racing stripe!

There's always the gift of music. Or in this case, crappy 70s pop that accidentally gets played on AM radio from time to time. Gosh, someone just never got around to unwrapping their gift from 1975, these John Denver and Perry Como 8-tracks. Let's hope they stay that way.

How about one, lonely, Charlie Brown mitten? Almost as sad as that pitiful little tree of his.

Why not purchase this horrible puking/ spitting cat lotion pump? The less said about this the better.

Nothing quite says crappy Christmas gift like crappy home made clothing. I would say it's an 80s flashback, but who wore this stuff? Silk Flower Sweats sounds like a tropical disease.

I don't know what's more wrong, the sweatshirt or the male model they chose for the cover. It's true, she's a he. Let me just zoom in a bit and you'll see...

See, if you look closely enough you can make out the adam's apple is just slightly big. It's a man, baby!

You could also go with some of the more familiar holiday related baubles. It's nice to see the nutcracker family branching out of the military profession. Is there a Dr. Nutcracker in the house?

Or you could spend the rest of your life unraveling these Christmas lights. Aren't these things like 99 cents a strand at Walgreens?

By the by, that Jack-O-Lantern was perched up on mount fire hazard before I got there, and then suddenly totally pitched forward the moment I took the picture. I could have been killed. Haunted thrift store. True story.

How about bucking tradition and going home with the relatively new mascot, Buster the Christmas Penguin? Nice of Goodwill to give us their suggested in-home display, huh?

Now, I love A Christmas Story and in general I have a soft spot for bobble heads as well. But, sorry, Ralphie makes one horrible bobble. Messy Marvin, on the other hand, would make one fantastic bobble.

But let's get back to basics. Creepy-ass Santas-a-plenty. Like this slightly suspicious St Nick.

He's got shifty eyes, I tell ya.

Or you could go with my most favoritest sad Santa evar. He looks like he's about to be crushed.

But don't you be crushed (nice seg-way, huh?), for Thrift Store Adventures will return in the New Year. Thanks for all of you who have visited, and left comments. There were 25 posts this year. Let's hope 2008 brings at least 26.

1970s PHOTO CUBE THEATER

2007-12-14T23:38:00.000-08:00

I seem to remember back when these crappy plastic photo cubes were ubiquitous on my family's living room coffee tables. Also, how they all turned yellow instantly because of the cheapness of the plastic .

I love the way-too-confusing instructions, the arrows flying every which way, the fact that it apparently takes two people to "operate" the cube (just go ahead and try to get both of your hands into that position) : "Place your left thumb and forefinger exactly 2/3 of the circumference of the square root of pi from the bisecting..." AHHRGHH, math, I hate that stuff!

And look closely, because I don't think that picture is going to fit -- Nope, that picture of Uncle Buddy on a mo-ped is going to get all f-ed up and Mom and Dad are going to get in a huge screaming match, and the babies will start crying, and suddenly "you've ruined Christmas!" Just you watch.

Let's assume they do manage to get a picture in there, it seems to me like rather a lot pressure to pick out those 6 perfect snapshots that exactly encapsulate (en-cube?) your domestic bliss.

That's why the geniuses at the photo cube plant in Hong Kong (by way of Sweden, from the look of all these whities) decided to give us some examples of what you should display in the form of pictures of anonymous people.

First, apparently, find an image of yourself or a loved one most likely to inspire a Stepford Wives analogy:

Hi, there! I'm Sally Cubenstein, and gosh darn, isn't life just super-duper great?

Then, find a picture that says:

Hey, there tall, dark and handsome. Wanna have sex in my UFO? The one I've landed somewhere in Siberia? We can do it right here, on this cold, modernist couch that resembles a hospital bed. Let me just finish reading this copy of Rolling Stone with a completely ominous black cover.

Then, of course, insert a Polaroid of your post-coital bliss in which you have also, of course, dropped acid:

Wow, Sally, this quite a UFO you've got here. Say, I like your groovy headband and, gee, your whole space-outfit. Is it just me or could you go for a tall, cold glass of lava lamp right about now? Wanna have raunchy sex again?

Not now, Sven, I'm too f-ed up!

Then slip in an off-center shot of your crappy polka dot rainbow mugs (what no mushroom paraphernalia?) and centerpieces taken on the bluuuuue table in the bluuuuuuuuuuuuuuuue room on the edge of bluuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuue forever.

Hey, how do we get out of here? It's so blue. I think I'm having a bad trip. My eyes are burning.

Just head for that crappy polka dot rainbow gravy bowl. The colors! The COLORS!!

Finally, end with a shot of you at 72 years old, fondly remembering shagging what's-her-name (Cubey? Stacey-Cubist-something?) in her UFO in Siberia, back when you didn't need a fistful of Viagra and hallucinogenics just to get your ass out of bed in the morning.

Oh, I think I'll just rest here until I die... Hey, you'd better not be taking my picture and sticking it in a photo cube, you little m-f-er! At least let me put on a non-1920s prison labor shirt and some pants, fer Chris' sakes!

Too late, grandpa, this Kodak moment has been encubed for posterity.

Ah, the 70s. What would a trip to the thrift store be without them?

THRIFTSGIVING pt. 2

2007-12-03T19:28:00.001-08:00

Part of my annual family get together, aside from gorging and disposing of vast quantities of cheap beer, is the much anticipated day-after trip to thriftlandia. Any trip that yields a velvety emotional Elvis is a good one.

As my cousin Zach postulated: maybe that's not a microphone but an onion.

Here is the winner of the Shiny Metallic Phallus! (c) Award. At first I thought this was some Big Lebowski reference, but then I saw the kid's expression as his Shiny Metallic Phallus! (c) thrusts into the sky, seeding the heavens, rocketing his payload into the ample bosom of space (eww) I knew better.

"Mixed Denim" sounds either like the name of a jazz fusion band playing in the corner of your hole-in-the-wall coffee shop ("Right, that was Mood Indigo and we're Mixed Denim and I'd like to give a shout out to my mom. And there's a special on banana-pumpkin mocha lattes") or the title of a blue jean magnate's autobiography (Mixed Denim: The Ned Wranglers Story)

Usually, my second hand slumming is a solo affair, but at thriftsgiving it's a family affair. Clearly they didn't know what they were getting in to.

Who knows, you might even run into a celeb on a thrift run. I pity the fool who doesn't buy his man-earrings second hand.

You know, there is an interesting thrift store-liquor store-donut shop nexus that I may explore at a later date.

Lots of liquor references this post. Just like a Hemingway novel, huh? Would you like a shot of Andrew Jackson or Mr. Bagpipes McHalf-head.

Something's not right with these two. It's almost too quiet. Nope, I wouldn't turn your back on this pair.

Now, this guy, Fright Sight Rath, or whatever, he looks like a fine, upstanding mummy. Mummies Alive! is kind of an oxymoron, though huh?

But wait a second! "Push my Leg!" and discover his "Monster Cobra Inside"? Yuck. Lots of phallic references this post, too.

"Honey, what time is it?"
"Well, dear, let me consult the doomsday clock. Looks like it's just about suppertime."
"Jesus, is it that late already?"

JESUS CLOCK a one act play by me.

Okay, lots of God in this post too. But wait, is this Our Lord Jesus Christ? Or...

Or is it...

You be the judge, but judge not lest ye be judged. Fight the power.

One thing this post hasn't had enough of is gay basketball. If you were hoping for some gay basketball, here you go. If you'd like I can turn the gayness up just a bit.

I think there's an album cover in this image somewhere. Like dead center. In the crotchal zone.

Well, eventually we all had to leave thriftlandia, mainly to by more booze. I can't decide which sign was more bizarre at the local grocery store. This one...

Or this. Great. Now I've got that song stuck in my head: "Shaving Cream, shaving cream; shave twice a day and you'll be nice and keen." And now you do too.

But it was not all fun and games and rainbows and scatological innuendos and phalluses (phallusi? phalluxen? A gaggle of phalluses? Eww).

No, my friends there was... MURDER! Murder most foul! Yes, Deborah killed an innocent (if pedestrian) bottle of Pinot Noir and got away scott free. Not pretty. Thriftstoring ain't easy.

THRIFTY THANKSGIVING

2007-11-21T10:07:00.001-08:00

So, while some of you are mounting your 4 AM shopping mall offensives of Friday, I will be asserting the alternate shopping doctrine of re-consumerism, with military precision (Salvation Army tactics, you know) at my nearest thrift stores. Strike that, there's no way in L that I'm getting up before sunrise on a vacation day after having ingested mass quantities of turkey, et al. Rule #233: any time of the day is a good time for thrift store shopping.

Happy stuff your face day, y'all.

INCIDENT IN A THRIFT STORE

2007-11-12T01:05:00.000-08:00

There have been a few good scores in my short thrift-going career. Some large pieces and some small. I haven't really had a score that combined both. That is, a big score that allowed me to display my little scores. Until last Friday.

Return with me now to those thrilling days of Friday, last week:

My first stop on thrift store Fridays, around 11:30 am. I was holed up in the cavernous Super Thrift Store which, oddly enough, lives up to its name. My arms were overflowing with soon-to-be-eBayed leather jackets, Hawaiian shirts, and 1970s ski sweaters (people buy anything) -- I must have been hauling around about 20 extra pounds (not including that graduate gut -- I'm working on it!)

I remembered that they had some over-priced mannequins in the back (200 bucks, last time I checked. Ha!), but I wanted to check if they came to their senses and slashed some prices.

I was stopped dead in my tracks when I spied a old-timey barrister bookshelf tucked away in the back. Dropping my armload in a beat-up armchair, I examined it more closely. Love these glass doors. I noticed it had that great water ripple waviness of antique glass. Then I pulled open one of doors. Cool, it slides back! Listen to that squeak! The ancient metal hinge mechanism inside, still doing it's job, and with style, another sign of age. Too cool.

But it seemed a bit wobbly. There's always a downside. Upon closer inspection, it was just because each cabinet separates for stacking, and whoever set it up out her didn't quite get groove A into slot B. Comes apart, huh? That means I could actually get this in my mid-size Japanese car. Hmmmm....

Then I sighted the old-school Hale labels inside shelf. What is that? 30s? 40s? Either this is an antique or a really nice repro.

How big is this thing, anyway? I grabbed one of the standard sized pieces of sheet paper that were scattered on of the tables -- stationary from an orphanage in Africa? (ahh, thrift stores). 8 1/2 inches by 11 inches, right? Seems about 12 inches wide, 35 inches long, 50-something high...

Then I thought about the overpriced mannequins. Does that say $399? Nope, $39.99. $40? Forty bucks!!! No way!

F*ck the mannequins, right, I had to own this. Even though we just lost 200 square feet in our last move, I know I had to own this.

Now, just to find somebody who works here. Nobody remotely resembling an employee walks by for five minutes. Okay, more like two, but this bookshelf was burning a hole in my brain. So, intrepidly, with one eye on the bookcase and one searching for a worker, I set out to find someone, anyone, who might get this prize secured.

Thrift store rule #99: the minute you leave something cool to go look for an employee to help you load it up, someone else will swoop in and buy (or break it. I have seen that, too That's Thrift store rule #99-A. Thrift store rule #99-B is if someone slobbers, pees, or poops on it -- I've only heard or smelled rumors)

Anyway, rule #99. This has happened to me countless time. Oh, the forces of chance love to play their tricks. By the time I came back, literally 74 seconds later, Irma and Floyd Bickleson (not their real names, but you all know I like to make up names), both in their late 60s, were about to carry Mr. Cool-Ass-Hale Barrister Bookcase (yep, I named it) out of the store. Somehow in the minute and a half that I've been gone, they saw the bookcase, found Orlando, the guy with the dolly, and tried to make their escape.

Thrift store rule #101: if you want it, fight for it. Hey, I can take these septuagenarians, no problem. Greatest generation, my ass. Put up your dukes, seniors.

Okay, not really, but I saw it first. And I wasn't about to let this antique go home with the lady with a Kool-Aid fruit punch mustache (no joke) and the old guy in the totally-un-ironic lemon-yellow Member's-Only jacket. Not today.

"Hey, I'm getting this. I saw it first," I blurted as if I was twelve.

"Oh, you did? Oh you are? Well, we seen it before you even came in here. Right?" says Irma, sounding like she was thirteen. Floyd just nods. He hasn't seen his testicles in 40 years.

My bluff didn't work. What do I do now? Sucker punch Irma? Start a temper tantrum? Cry? "How about we flip for it?" I offer, with a smile that says I'm a magnanimous son-of-a bitch, ain't I.

Thrift store rule #2,038: take the high road. Maybe they did see it first. Okay. And if they are part of the greatest generation, then the whole fairness-of-the-flipped-coin thing should resonate with them, I figured Seemed like a Great Depression, New Deal-type of thing. And if I lost, I could just walk away.

Only thing, my generation doesn't really carry coins anymore. And you can't really flip a plastic Washington Mutual ATM Card. Floyd's got to have silver dollar, right? He just shrugged.

Oh, but lovable old Irma scrounged around in her old-lady purse and came up with a penny. So it came down to a dirty, tiny, copper-clad Mr. Lincoln to decide the fate of a much contested barrister's bookcase in the Super Thrift Store at nearly noon on Friday.

Floyd let me do the honors and I launched the coin into the rafters. Too high, because I have to arch myself backwards to keep from losing the darn thing. Too much adrenaline, dude!

"Call it," Floyd chirps as the tiny Great Emancipator flies through the air.

"Heads," I request. The coins falls end over end. I lean back over old sewing machine and just barely catch it, slapping it audibly to the back of my hand.

Irma, Floyd and I stare with rapt attention as I reveal the answer of fate, the universe, and the thrift store gods...

To Be Continued....

!!!UPDATE!!!

Let's just say before (above) and after (below):

NOVEMBER IS EXPLODING HEAD MONTH

2007-11-05T19:27:00.000-08:00

...well, at least for grad students. I really used to like history and books. Now, I'm Ready For the River. Not actually but, after my head started exploding, I was reminded of this piece of 1920s sheet music, one of about 350 different pieces in a huge tub I bought at a Goodwill a while back, for $19.99.

It's about throwing yourself in the river when times get tough. On the cover you can see this forlorn little figure (obviously a political science or history major) contemplating taking the plunge. Should I finish reading that stupid book about constitutional law or should I sleep with the fishes? Hmmm... I guess your options were somewhat limited in the 20s.

I can't read or play music, but I think I'll resurrect this little lost tune. Follow the bouncing ball, kids: --I'm ready for the ri-ver, I want to drown my trou-ble... It's got a beat and you can harm yourself to it! Nice one for your upcoming Thanksgiving get-together, huh?

Anyhoo, back to the books, those damnable books. Stupid James Madison.

CRAP THAT GOES BUMP IN THE NIGHT

2007-10-23T22:08:00.000-07:00

Welcome kiddies, to the latest edition of Thrift Horror Adventures. Enter if you dare the dark and mysterious aisles of the severed-hand, er... second-hand shops. You know, your Ghoul-will's and Damnation Army's and what have you. Be forewarned, this crap may scare the crap out of you!

This was actually one of the first pictures I took trying to document the thrift store ability to shock and awe. I like to think this chair was either owned by the Troll King or the King of the Mole People. Maybe at least one of the Fraggles.

World's scariest fast food selection? No, not a thrift store item, but within walking distance of an excellent Goodwill.

Not so much scary as pitiable. I'm assuming the box says something like "Sad, debased Japanese business man doll." Anyone read Japanese?

I call this horrible masterpiece Black Hole Sun or maybe Los Angeles 2017 or Riverside: The Land of Dust, Smog and Meth. Hey, I can bag on the IE because I sucked it up there for three years. Now that is scary.

Scariest possible Saturday night activity. Like a low-rent Twilight Zone. You know, the one where the tape gets stuck in the VCR, and just keeps playing and replaying. What's more frightening is that somebody out there studies the history of salmon fishing.

You thought it was dead but, no, it's there, it's PIT! Oh my God it's the DELUXE EDITION! Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo! (cough) Ooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!

The one with the METAL BELL! Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!

Second scariest board game. Pyramid Power V. From the people who brought you dirty hippies, yoga, bean sprouts, and mushroom emblazoned kitchenware. Now, crystal power, that s**t's real. My friend said Jimmy Chu and his friends were totally using crystals and Ouija boards in his attic and they totally summoned this dead spirit of a murderer guy and suddenly all the electric fans came on... and they weren't even plugged in! [real conversation overheard on the school bus, circa 1986].

Do old ladies scare you? How about black and white photographs? Then don't stare too long at this giant framed black and white old lady portrait or else she'll come to life and visit you. Too late! She's gonna totally be there at the foot of your bed tonight. Or maybe when you get up to use the bathroom at 3 AM she'll be behind you in the mirror. Super sorry 'bout that. My bad.

Here's a trip down memory lane. I don't really remember the Mystery of the Green Ghost but I do remember reading it. Well, actually I remember my dad reading it to me at bedtime. Right before bed. And the dark. And the skeleton in the top hat in the basement and the sasquatch that lived on our roof (don't ask). Thanks, Dad.

Scariest abnormal cloud formation that totally looked like an H-bomb just went off. I took this a couple of years ago (on a thrift store run, of course) in some extremely humid weather in the IE. What surprised me more is that I seemed to be the only person who cared about the mushroom cloud of Armageddon. I guess radiation just isn't where it's at anymore.

Scariest threat-of-eternal-damnation-for-shoplifting-from-a-thrift-store sign. Why don't they just used video camera like everyone else. Doesn't the Almighty have better things to do? Might have been more effective if it read "GOD is listening... and so is SATAN!"

So instead of the deity of your choice ("ZEUS is watching!") privately eying your every move, how about some scary corporate big-brother outfit? And doesn't such an operation deserve a limited edition paperweight? I'd say it does. I love how Kyle (the seated guy in the maroon and blue polo shirt, of course) is pointing at some dark figure doing a dark deed on the video monitor. And Trish (cuz that's her name), is like "Code Red, someone just stuffed a Bonanza mug down the front of their pants!"

What the hell kind of party is this? is this like an Eyes Wide Shut thing? Eerier still, is that it was all like Liberace-esque versions of Glenn Miller music. Our grandparents were some seriously messed-up people.

AHHH!!! Scary stick doll!! RUN!!! Well at least you can shuffle away in a quick-like manner.

Scariest Stepford Wife hiding in the flowers on the cover of a organ player's record sleeve. Guaranteed.

Scariest juxtaposition ever? If I had a restaurant, I'd buy both of these pictures, fake their signatures, and put 'em up on the wall, by the fish tank, and the giant Buddha.

Scary 70s graphics. If I remember correctly (not always a sure bet) I think this was from 70's a back issue of Westways about the dangers of pot. Now, which one of these guys is smoking the pot I just can't remember. I gotta stop smoking the pot.

And what's more creepy than a large clown with a teddy bear, lollipop, and that look that says "You're next." Nothing.

I didn't take this in a thrift store, but at my couch, some weeks ago. Am I the only one that sees a death face in the folds of the curtain? No Photoshopping, scouts honor. Sometimes i think I'd like to live in a haunted house, but now when I've got to go to the bathroom an 3 Am. I've got to stopping watching the Ghost Hunters.

Happy Halloween, y'all.

I WOULDN'T EAT OFF THAT... If I Were You

2007-10-07T21:06:00.001-07:00

The first time I went in a thrift store as an adult (23 counts, right?) I was desperately looking for a ship captain's hat for a stupid Halloween costume (U-Boat commander... yeah, no one else got it either). Anyhow, I ran in this tiny little store, looked around at all the "crap," and of course I didn't find what I was looking for, so I left, disappointed. I didn't yet understand that thrift stores don't work like regular stores.

The second time I went in a thrift store was probably a few months later. This time I just browsed around at whatever they had there, and I remember finding a GAP sweater for $2.00. It didn't fit, but I was so shocked you could find a $40 sweater for two bucks I just had to buy it.

A few years later, the first thing I ever bought at a thrift store and then later sold (yes, I'm one of those eBay hucksters) was a railroad mug. I payed 49 cents for it and unloaded it for a whopping $4.

By that time I had realized there were goodies in every nook and cranny of the thrift store and I had better investigate it from all angles. The good stuff, of course, is interspersed between a lot of crap, some of it funny and some of it disturbing.

In the kitchenware section there's always plenty of stuff that makes you cringe or wonder if it will ever get purchased. Especially since our feeling of food and comfort are so closely linked.

Getting your picture taken on a city balcony and having it put on a plate probably seemed like a great idea that one time you went to Hong Kong with your seniors group, but here are the results. Can you imagine eating a Salisbury steak while staring down at an unflattering picture of yourself? Me neither. Apparently she came to her sense and sent this off to Goodwill for our viewing pleasure.

Okay, this is far cuter, to be sure, but what is exactly going on here? First of all, are we supposed to "eat your honey" while slurping it out of this juice glass? Or, if you're drinking apple juice out this glass, wouldn't it just confuse your taste buds? And what's with these bees? One looks confused and angry and the other is smiling while he falls over. How does that imply honey is healthy? Is honey healthy or just sweet bee snot?

This cup says to me: "I re-upped for your crummy war and all I got was the crummy coffee mug." Hope they at least got a nice tote bag or t-shirt to go with it.

Only slightly better than staring at yourself while you eat is staring at Lorne Greene and Michael Landon while you chug your hot cocoa out of a rusty mug. Yum. But, oh that Dan Blocker, he's so dreamy! I could stare at him all day. Hey, where the heck is Pernell Roberts? No love for Adam Cartwright?

I'm not a fan of mushrooms. Something about eating fungus. I can't really understand why images of mushrooms were so prevalent on kitchenware in the 70s. There is no way in hell I would ever drink from this pitcher. Can you imagine it filled with milk or orange juice? Excuse me while I upchuck a little.

"Miracle Kitchen Clamp." Yeah, right. Calling Dr. Mengele, Dr. Joseph Mengele. The only question I have is "Is it safe?"

What could be more patriotic than a bowl full of Cap'n Crunch and the pallid, glassy faces of the founding fathers with their cold, dead zombie eyes regarding the signing of the Declaration of Independence? How about not reducing your country's foundational moment to a Corningware pattern. Don't even get me started about the historical inaccuracies.

More patriotism on a plate. First of all, is this Lincoln's tombstone? Secondly, I realize a child made this (or perhaps a psych ward inmate), so I can excuse the coloring outside the lines, but it makes Honest Abe, the Rail-Splitter, the Great Emancipator look like a dirty hippie, maybe even Charles Manson-like. Not so good for the digestion.

What I love about this is tub for grease is how boldly it's labeled and that apparently every good 1950s kitchen needed a huge bucket of grease. Mmmmmm, just like Grandma used to make.

Some might say these mustachioed and decapitated chefs' heads are delightfully whimsical. I think you know by now how I feel about whimsy. I don't really trust their faces, either.

I will admit that these sake cups are cooler, but there's something creepy looking about ugly, grumpy, hairy old-men wrapped up like babies scowling back at you. I'm sure there's a traditional Japanese folk tale that explains everything, but I think I'd rather have the DTs.

Not a piece of demented kitchenware, but it does involve indigestion of a kind. I just love that both books were right next to each other. I wonder if the original owner found what they needed. Just a drop or two in Bob's coffee. That will teach him to mock my kitchenware. Maybe the cops are getting wise. The books said it was untraceable poison, right? Can they hear that incessant heart-beat from under the floorboards? It's Deafening!!!

These would be great on a coffee table, though, huh? Just to keep your significant-other in line.

Finally, what can only be described as a big , nasty, brown poop jar. Perfect for your Oreo cookies, Baby Ruth candy bars and Tootsie Rolls. Bon appétit!

DAMN NICE WIG YOU GOT THERE

2007-10-01T22:36:00.000-07:00

This one's for Roxanne over at Cheetah Velour who is asking about one's favorite celebrity endorsements, preferably of the D-list, "I guess they really needed that paycheck" variety.

Upon finding this box, I remember being amused that she would being selling wigs, gray ones at that. Then I thought, maybe I should put that on eBay. Then I kept walking.

Thanks, Roxanne, for giving me a reason to post this picture again.

MY STRANGEST THRIFT STORE POCKET FIND EVER

2007-09-17T23:42:00.001-07:00

I gravitate toward the clothes section(s) in the thrift store first. Manly because of the exceptional possibilities of finding something bizarre. Even when a garment doesn't seem say "buy me" sometimes it says "search my pockets." Which I then oblige, because if clothing is talking to you , you've already got problems, right? So why fight it?

In most pockets I find nothing or old candy wrappers. Sometimes a handwritten grocery list or movie ticket stub to Rocky III. Someone I used to know found $300 in a pair of old blue jeans. I myself have not found more than a dime. Occasionally, however I find something worthwhile, like a Boy Scout badge or a old Cracker Jack charm.

But hands down the strangest thing I've ever found in a thrift store pocket was this:

Inside the interior pocket of a US Air Force blazer from the late 1970s, no less. Of course I've blurred the agent's name and telephone number (because I don't really want to get a visit by the FBI). But I do have the number, tucked away, just in case.

Anybody out there beat that?

L' AVENTURES DE MAGASIN DE SECONDE MAIN DANS FRANCE

2007-08-30T22:03:00.000-07:00

-or-

Thrift Store Adventures, French Style

Or something to that respect, after all it's in my best I-just-cut-and-pasted-it-from-some-internet-translation-website-French.

First a disclaimer: whilst vacationing on the continent (a-hem), I did not actually set foot in any les brocantes or les dépôt-ventes or magasins privés de seconde main or whatever the French call their thrift stores. As any one with a village-idiot's grasp of French can tell, I cannot speak the language, and this makes it hard to search through the yellow pages, let alone use a computer. What's up with French keyboards, anyhow?

Also, the fact that the Euro is stomping the tar out of the dollar meant that what little money I had would be spent on important stuff like this:

And this:

What's more, it's no secret that I'm a huge history nerd, and well, France has a lot of really old, really historical, really cool stuff that makes history nerds like me drool all over themselves.

In Paris, history is everywhere. Like this sign near the corner pharmacist, that near as I could tell, relates that the building was once used for guillotine executions. Then again, most of Paris was once used for guillotine executions just pick a revolution. Kid's Fun Fact: Developed in the 1780s, as a humane execution device, the guillotine's last public use in France was in 1939. It's actual last use was in 1977, and it remained the official method of execution until 1981.

Not too far from that sign is the Cimetière du Père-Lachaise, final resting place of many famous personages, like the magician Robertson, the "Spielberg of the phantom-show" or phantasmagoria, whose cool-as-all-hell tombstone is above.

Oh, yeah, and Jim Morrison's buried there too. That one's for Jake, who owes me a Hamilton now.

Speaking of dead guys in France, I even got to see Napoleon Bonaparte tomb, whom I suspect the French still have huge crush on. Kid's Fun Fact: Napoleon was not short. By the standards of his day, he was actually taller than average. The English started the rumor as a kind of psychological warfare. Heck, just look at the size of his huge sarcophagus.

For instance. I did get about 25 feet from the Mona Lisa. As you can see, about 112 luckier people in front of me, mainly Americans and Germans, managed to get within 15 feet of her.

I got a little closer to Géricault's The Raft of the Medusa, but Lenny Bopubertine here wouldn't move out of the way (I don't know his real name, but he looks like a Lenny Bopubertine to me).

Kid's Fun Fact: Géricault achieved such detailed realism in his works because he kept real human body parts in his studio, culled from the Parisian hospitals and prison morgues.

Géricault is almost impressive as this painting of a monkey painting (a monkey?):

I assume this is the French equivalent of dogs playing poker.

The French have some really old stuff. Like the Code of Hammurabi stela above, one of the first written collections of laws, which is only about 3,760 years old. Kid's Fun Fact: Law #132 requires any married woman who is accused of adultery but not caught in the act, to "jump in the river for the sake of her husband."

Not that the French don't have a taste for modern day masterpieces...

Kid's Fun Fact: If you say "D'oh!" in France they'll bring you a pitcher of water. It's true.

Sometimes the old and new collide in strange ways. I visited a medieval town on a hill, with a beautiful scenic view of ...

Nuclear power plant cooling towers! Kid's Fun Fact: With 59 working nuclear power plants, generating nearly 80% of the nation's power, France is the world's leading nuclear power-reliant power.

Along with their unabashed embrace of our friend the atom, the French are also not shame-faced when it comes to sex. Duh, I know, said the blog reader. Ah, but this does lead to some disturbing juxtapositions. I'll never look at Dora the Explorer the same way again, that is when I'm not looking at Julia. Ooh-la-la!

So... As I was saying, while I didn't go into the French Goodwill, but craphound that I am, in Lyon I did find my way to the Broadacres, an indoor swap meet. Which is as good a place as any to see some French flotsam.

Now, if an American offered you a love burger you probably call the cops or bash him over the head with your purse. But in France, where anything goes, they're served up on roller skates and with a smile.

I've seen a lot of strange things at American thrift stores, like, say a human size cage:

...But I've never seen a spiral staircase. Somewhere in France there's a lighthouse that's really hard to get to the top of.

And speaking of head turners:

You also don't see a lot of daggers or hand guns or weapons in general inside thrift stores in the states. However, I did spend an extra half hour in a crappy Salvation Army because some joker was waving a gun around the parking lot. Did I tell that story already? How about the one about the loose tiger at the Bargin Town?

And the myriad of 8mm projectors I've seen just don't compare with this awesome 35mm movie theater projector. I wonder how many Jerry Lewis films it showed. Kid's Fun Fact: motion pictures were invented and perfected in France. Here's a copy of the first movie poster, with no mention of the movie itself!

Bonus Kid's Fun Fact: The Lumière Brothers as well as helping to invent modern cinema, also invented an early mechanical hand intended for use by the hundreds of thousands of injured French soldiers following the First World War:

The Broadacre also had some smaller technology...

Not a great picture, but you can make out the basics of this cute little pygmophone record player. 1920s version of an Ipod?

Just like a good thrift store, there was plenty of great bizarre stuff:

The old family pet or pest perhaps. Ever heard of the story of Gef the mongoose?

Your typical thrift store wall of sound...

A slot machine for crappy digital watches...

1960s atomic molecule ceiling lamp. Magnification!

I wonder if this is still a popular brand. Or did it suffer the same fate as Rumsfield potato chips and Cheney nuggets.

The French even have their bowling trophies. Lawn bowling trophies, that is. Why does this remind me of the dream sequence from The Big Lebowski?

Here's one way to keep people from stealing your bike.

Apparently, the swap meet even has it's own landing strip. Someday Snoopy will get that Red Baron.

Ooh-la-la! I'm not staring at your chest, lady, I'm reading it!

Ooh-la-la, Part dieux! I'm here to tell you that those playground rumors you heard in grade school about naked ladies dancing in France are all true! Except rumorers forgot to mention the armless-ness. Guess it just didn't rhyme.

Ooh-la -- wait, who the heck are these guys? From the French version of Miami Vice? Starsky and Hutch (and Huggy Bear)? Barney Miller?

While looking at this chemistry set, please take quiet moment to remember all the French ants that were killed by it.

And finally (yes, for all three of you who've made it this far), a visual medley I will call The Coolest Chairs in all of France:

That last pair is so Barbarella. Unfortunately, none of these chairs would fit in the over-head compartment on the airplane, so I left them in France.

All in all, an interesting experience. But, you know, after two weeks in Europe I couldn't wait to:

1. Eat a decent hamburger
2. Be able to actually read the signs
3. Get back to the American thrift stores

I feel a Chuck Berry/ Beach Boys song coming on. Peace out.

NOTHING TO LOSE YOUR HEAD OVER

2007-08-16T14:51:00.001-07:00

Well, it was a close shave but I am back in the USA and no longer in France, home of the guillotine. And I just wanted to let you all know that I will be-headed back to blog-land soon (heh-heh). I'll even stick my neck out and say you'll love the new pictures I've got. So don't flip your lid and sever this page from your links, this blog's not on the chopping block yet.

Disembodied mannequin heads are such fun. And it ain't even Halloween yet. I hope there's a few EC comics fans out there. See you soon.

FASCIST TENNIS, ANYONE?

2007-07-19T23:12:00.000-07:00

So I'll be on honeymoon for the next month or so, but I wanted to share something with you all. In the back of a tiny, shabby thrift I saw an old tennis racket. Looked like it was from the 1950s or older, with one of those old fashion wooden clamps on it to keep it from warping. I seen tons of these, so nothing special.

But upon closer inspection I saw this odd logo. And I thought is that flying fasces? Symbol of Mussolini's Black Shirts?

Okay, so I know it's an old symbol, that goes back to Roman times, and just happened to be on the back of out dimes before they put on the torch or liberty and FDR

But as I rolled the racket over, I saw the racket's name: The Dictator.

Which is kind of bizarre, right? I mean, wouldn't that kind of like be calling a pair of running shoes today the Suicide Bombers or the Al Qaeda Terrorists?

I'm not sure of how old this racket is, but I'd guess it's pre-WWII. The racket looks pretty old (yo can see some of th string rotten away in the first pic). Would anyone in the late 40s or 50s, who lived through the recent horrors of the war buy a tennis racket that glorified fascism? Probably not.

So let's say the racket is from the mid-1930s. That makes sense, stylistically. Check out this very fascist eagle that's on exterior of Santa Barbara's downtown post office, circa 1936.

Even the bas-relief murals on the inside post office have that stylish totalitarian, glorification-of-the-worker-drone optimism about them.

Certainly this style was part of the art deco aesthetic, I get that. And by the way, that last mural with Indians attacking the pioneers highlights the racially insensitive and pretty un-PC nature of the day. But to name the racket after a militaristic crank despot? Hindsight is 20-20, but was the sales department at Wilson's so blind to the naked ambitions of Hitler and Mussolini and the host of other dictators in the 1930s that this moniker seemed innocent?

And dictators weren't even that great at sports. Assuming this racket was made after 1936, then Wilson couldn't escape the dismal showing of the "master race" when the Olympics were held in Berlin.

To me, it just goes to show depths a company will stoop to sell you a product. Witness this 1980s supermarket meat poster obvious lifted from a Nazi propaganda poster.

I couldn't really find any info on the web about Wilson's Dictator, but if someone knows more I'd sure like to here it.