The Weather Outside is Frightful.

More Up-Close-ness

Plant parts at work.

The Sky And Everything Else In The World Is Falling

I wasn't going to drink tonight. I usually don't on Sunday to be fresh for work on Monday and seeing I pretty much knocked back 3/4's of a bottle of the Makers Mark last night I should lay low. I felt relatively fresh this morning considering.  I spent 7 hours decorating the Christmas tree today.  Approximately 300 or so ornaments, many Shiny Brights Brand, collectible from the 40's, 50's, 60's. I finally finished and sat at the computer to catch up on email and suddenly I hear a Whoosh! and the FUCKING TREE fell down.  I had lifted it back up and was crawling around on my hands and knees scooping up the broken devastation and suddenly behind me "Ohhh! Whoa! Whoosh!" my DAD TAKES A HEADER into the Widescreen HDTV reaching for something on the floor. He is crumpled on the floor looking no better than the broken bulbs off the tree.  I got him back up and secured in a chair and went back to cleaning up the tree. Lost about 25 or 30 bulbs. Sad. I am now drinking as I write. See the devastation below. That fucker is tied to the wall with wire now. The tree not my Dad.... but he is next.  It is no fun decorating a tree for the second time or giving your father a major snuggy by grabbing him by his belt to get him off the floor.

Martians With Emotionally Dirty Faces

So this past weekend I found time to watch 1964's Santa Claus Conquers the Martians continuing my quest of watching the entire Pia Zadora catalog. I have read here and there about how horrible this movie is but I have to protest a bit that it wasn't so bad. In fact, sort of thrilling. My enthusiasm for the film may reflect some on what kind of weekend I was having with the Octogenarians. 

Even in DVD form it has very strange color, in the acid tones that were so prevalent in 1990's advertising. I suppose no one feels this small Christmas gem is worthy of a complete restoration. The color in fact then lends itself to a sort of semi-feverish quality the movie evokes, that of disturbing and scary. The Martians look uncomfortable in their green skins, short shorts, tights, and hellishly hot looking helmets. All the children have the look of deer in headlights. The stock military and nuclear missile silo footage are the stuff of childhood anxiety attacks and nightmares. A scary man in a polar bear costume. Well, OK, not so scary, but the idea of people in animal costumes causes me angst. I get flashbacks to that bear or hedgehog costumed thing blowing that man on the edge of the bed, spied on by Shelley Duvall in The Shining.  Mrs. Claus is a busy body naggy hag. The idea of being kidnapped and swept away to Mars right before Christmas is everything that Christmas is not: home, coziness and the familiar. Mars is depicted as an emotionless, severe, rocky, fiberglass web covered planet. This drives the narrative of the need for Santa and what he stands for. Santa is the steady Eddie of jovial happy thoughts of excess and merriment.  There is a lot of sadness to this film. Intentional or not.

 I did not find it dissimilar to Christmas on Mars just released by the Flaming Lips, having the same sort of search for joy and hope in a sort of dystopian realm. Even with advanced technology, Space, the final frontier, ain't everything it's cracked up to be. 

THE HOT GREEN MENACE!


PIA FIGHTS FOR HER LIFE! 

POLAR BEAR ATTACK!

CAUTIONARY WORDS!

DOLLAR TRAIN

BALL     DOLL

PRODUCTION OF POLITICALLY INCORRECT PLAYTHINGS ON AN ASBESTOS TILE FLOOR!



SANTA AND THE MELANCHOLY YET CARING MARTIAN DADDY

Scenes From My Home Town.

Junky Saturday Afternoon

So Saturday I afforded myself some time to go and attend an auction at a local auction house. I made myself sit through 4 grueling hours and hundreds of wild life art prints with a smattering of junky junk in between all the ducks and pheasants and deers and bears and mountain men of print. I have had nothing but bad feelings about all that Ducks Unlimited feathers aflying stuff for the past 25 years. It really astounds me how people think they are buying art of any worth. Sure there is no accounting for taste. If you think it's a pretty picture or you get a certain buzz or fantasy boner for a big buck jumping over a stump that you would love to come across for real and plug with lead then so be it and so buy it, but the whole cult created for the purposes to make people like Terry Redlin or Les Kouba, to name just a couple and all the dealers millionaires is just horrible. It all stems from the fact that this country on a whole has forgone teaching the masses any type of art appreciation. Or am I just jealous? Sure but I still think that their art is really bad as far as paintings go. Really they are more conceptual than straight forward landscape painters, the concept being cash. They are in the same vein as Damien Hirst. Clever merchandisers. I can imagine that they spend more time signing these prints than painting. All these collectors should save up their money and just buy one actual painting by these guys if they like them so much. I suppose people think they could never afford a real painting but I saw people spend well over $2000.00 on a pile of prints they couldn't possibly have wall room for and are not worth much more than a scenic paper placemat picked off the table at a restaurant .

Ok, enuf of the anti-art rant. This is the bounty I came home with. I spent $12.00 and here are a sampling of the fine treasures I came home with. Lets talk more of my good taste shall we?

SO this little groovy thing is a CB lingo and code converter. You pull up the antenna and a line and the numbers on the left correspond with the definitions that appear in the slot at the top of the radio. On the back is a slang interpreter. It's life size to boot!





This strange little calling card or business card for CB sales. I'm thinking Witch Doctor was their handle. On the back is a number code interpreter.






Some dirty pink Poms with somebodies hair tangled in and a smaller clutch of Packer Poms.



Then I found these buried in a box of various sundries.
Man-Zan: Sample Rectal Itch medicine tins. Why, I ask, would anyone save these? They are old, but why even would an auctioneer offer them up for sale? I save a lot of things but I don't think I would save an empty tube of Preparation H. I suppose that depression era sort thought the tins would be handy for storage but Good God! They are slightly smaller than pictured maybe handy for storage of a snort of cocaine or one shiny penny. I hardly wanted to touch them. I think there is a pube stuck on the poopy looking one in the lower right. I couldn't get them open, not that I tried too hard to see if the sample was still in there, it wasn't like I was going to try it out. I will have you know I suffer no itching in that region. I am a fastidious wiper and do not suffer from hemorrhoids. I wash, I scrub it good. Praise be. I should offer them for sale on Ebay and see how much some crazy person would pay or maybe I will give them to my crazy friend Greta who would have no problem turning them into earrings.



"Put up"... PUT UP?...." with a collapsible tube with nozzle". Obviously that equipment didn't come in the tin. It sounds like an ordeal requiring mysterious devices. I just might PUT UP with the itch and scratch. Seems easier. Ish.

Beautiful Old Hat

Ok, I know I have posted about a million pictures of my Epiphyllum oxypetalum aka Night Blooming Cereus aka Queen of the Night but I had some buds set just before I brought it in the house for winter and they have been opening for the last few weeks so one night I decided to give one of the blossoms the light table treatment and came up with these pretty great pictures if i do say. The smell is so incredible I can't understand why Estee Lauder or Channel or Mennon or Old Spice hasn't bottled it. I would be stinkin' up the streets like an old whore if I could get my hands on some of it in a bottle. The closest thing it smells like to me sort of is ylang ylang sort of. Frikkin' the size of an extra large grapefruit the flower is. It is mesmerizing to look at and so romantic... only open for a night and then it dies......

Self-Loathing Trivet Misogyny or Keeping It Real In The Kitchen

I was digging thru the dumpster at the local junk store the other day and came upon this aluminum trivet. No wonder it was thrown away.



When I was young my mother had a number of these types of trivets on the kitchen wall above the stove. The one I remember the most said, "The hurrier I go the behinder I get." I remember asking my mom what that meant and I distinctly remember her explaining it didn't matter how fast she moved or no matter how much housework she did, her butt just kept getting bigger. Really. That is what my mom said to me. That is how she understood it. The word hinder, as in ass, still sorta puts in me in giggle fits as it did when I was young so "behinder" was even funnier. This is the self image my mother had of herself. I have followed suit. I am not quite sure if that is what it means or not? Basically I think it means the more you do, the more there IS to do but the image on that trivet and the coy play of words easily convinced a generation of farmwives they never worked hard enough under the guise of the midwestern work ethic.

I was searching around the internet and did find a few more examples of these trivets. There is no manufacturing name on any that I have or have found. I searched the statement "The hurrier I go..." and came up with a lot of Pennsylvania Dutch or Amish connections which I have a hard time believing but I suppose in those communities a woman knows her place. Blah blah blah or ha ha ha for that matter.

My dumpster trivet above is no less offensive. I showed it to my mom when I came home and she sort of hrrumped, rolled her eyes and looked the other way like she was remembering something bad. I love the touch of the lazy hillbilly man too. They are so politically incorrect on so many levels, I must start collecting more of these as soon as possible. As we have never thrown anything away in this household I am sure I can find my mother's self image spoiling collection somewhere.

The one below I remembered was hanging in our basement stairs. Why? I guess because there was a nail in the wall. Not so degrading, just your typical barroom crassness. Har har har. The type of bar were lips are busted for lookin' funny at or to someone.



Anybody out there know the history of these bad trivets? Oh and by he way, I was thinking Trivet Misogyny would be a really good drag name.

Life of Late Worth Living in Pictures

I haven't had much exciting going on as of late and have found myself laying on my bed watching a lot of movies and TV. That is my ceiling light and a picture that hangs over my bed. The early darkness as winter sets in always makes me feel this way. I have seen some great movies lately including Billy the Kid, Young @ Heart, The Virgin Spring and Cleo From 5 To 7 which I am ranking as one of the best movies I have seen this year. I love finding movies that are as old as I am that can be so incredible. Made in 1962. A very simple story with an underlying thread of anxiety running through it that compels you to the end. Beautiful to look at, to feel and a gorgeous final shot. Yummy. Can't get any better.

I have been making myself read the instructions for my camera.


Every once in a while I tune into Lingo with Chuck Woolery and Shandi, Miss USA 2004 who cohosts the show. Seen here.


My friend Jeff shows off his new shoes, UrbanTimberland's. The Purple Reign collection. Walking in style and light in the hiking boots. They could make doves cry.

Election Day