OMG, Sparkle Pony 2010 Year In Review! Part Two!

July:

• Irritating t shirt design tutorial is PSP most linked post of the year.
• Mysterious Bionic Woman polo shirt defies easy explanations.
• The story behind PSP's teen garage band better than the band itself. Audio proof provided.
• Nancy and Sluggo travel decades into the future, discuss peculiar disco diva (see below).
• Condi 'n' Aretha: the concert.

August:

• Massive retrospective of fun-loving Satanist Rick Rebel launched, Pony Pals™ shrug. Coworker: "I don't really get it."
• 1970s "word knit" fashion trend identified.
• Lurid 3D postcards kick open the doors of perception.
• Generality Theory used to explain the appeal of Glenn Beck.

September:

• Our collective heads explode as Condi receives an award for "contributions to U.S. defense and security."
• Terror Pony causes panic, LOLZ.
• Various gay Republican/Latino pairings pondered. (2nd most linked post of the year.)
• Condi's head on a stick!
• Cringeworthy horror/sex dolls... you know, for kids!

October:

• Ceiling O'Donnell is watching you masturbate!
• Honestly, I was just embarrassed to discover myself to be a member of the New Elite.
• Fisting 4 Jan Brewer.

November:

• Swastika-festooned shawl spotted on DC Metro escalator.
• PSP declares "House" to be the greatest 70s Japanese Dada/horror/comedy EVER.
• Is it possible to feel sorry for Dick Cheney? Pony Pals™ say NO.
• George eats Condi's nose in year's most nostalgic photo-op.
• Hat-obsessed congresswoman-elect knows just how to get this blog's attention.

December:

• PSP invited to test/review (demonstrate??) sex toys.
• Ha ha ha ha... ad says "hard on." Snicker.
• Fox News personality gives Aaron Schock formidable competition in the "gayest outfit on a Republican who unconvincingly pretends to be straight" category.
• Rambo coloring book excites, disturbs.
• No matter how sophisticated computers get, they will never be able to make Yogi Bear or Disney sci-fi movies not suck.

Happy New Year!

OMG, Sparkle Pony 2010 Year In Review! Part One!

Sparkleyear 2010 started with a "new" PSP after a four month break from the site. I decided to write about politics less frequently, because ew, featured more photography, and fired up my neglected scanner to unleash a torrent of puzzling paper detritus from my various bookshelves and junk drawers. New features were introduced, such as the Random Nancy Panels and the super-exciting exposé on vendor cart hot dog signage. At one point, the site became all-Arizona all the time in tribute to the fallen state's sudden, tragic celebrity, and good lord, that devolved into high school memories and prom pictures and Meat Puppets bootlegs, but also brought with it a trove of exquisitely beautiful and depressing photographs of the Grand Canyon State by Sparklesibling Andrew. And through it all, surprisingly enough, I still more or less kept track of Condoleezza's hairdo so you didn't have to. Personally, I think this blog has been its best ever over the past year, and easily ten times more self indulgent, as this very post proves! Here are what I consider to be the highlights:

January:

• Nobody will remember why these Parker Griffith cartoons were funny.
• What if Blanche Lincoln suddenly had super powers?
• An entire issue of a 1967 fashion mag for teens, including rare non-fiction by Thomas Disch.
• An entire issue of Tiger Beat from 1977 with bonus Leif Garrett reminiscences.
• Yearly Abortion Day photo journalism takes a scarftastic journey.
• Dukes of Hazzard activity book with incomprehensible story.

February:

• PSP admits to retarded problem.
• Sarah Palin Tea Party Convention Speech Bingo™ has predictable results.
• Mating of Dick Cheney and Marlo Thomas has predictable results.
• Condi and Spike Lee: together at last.
• Contents of Mork and Mindy lunchbox reveal awkward moments of PSP's past.
• PSP saving the world from Satan, one prominent paleontologist at a time.

March:

• Well, OK, yes I was a vandal. But my vandalism was cute!
• Amusing suicide memento.
• Reprint: article on big-eyed art featuring Tom Tomorrow, John Waters.

April:

• The explanation about Jesse James you didn't even know you wanted. I think this is the best thing I wrote in the last year.
• How to read a peculiar 70s polyester disco shirt.
• PSP reveals the hilarity of Googling the phrase "I don't mean this in a racist way, but..."
• Is the Waltons lunchbox the worst or best ever? Can't it be both?
• PSP warns readers of Arizona Month to come.

May:

• Sparklesibling Andrew's Arizona photos totally change the look of the blog.
• Series of rare Meat Puppets recordings posted to demonstrate Arizonan street cred.
• Excruciatingly 80s PSP prom pictures revealed.
• Good times had when breaking into a Joe Jackson concert with a mohawked punk.
• Ziggy finally dies.
• The horror of Kokopelli explained.
• Teen PSP attempts Mansonesque yearbook cover.

June:

• Hairdos and politics still an uneasy mix.
• Obvious gayness of Aaron Schock examined.
• PSP has mystical experience while contemplating pork products.
• New bubblicious site design impulsively revealed.
• Shoddy ascot journalism criticized.
• Arizonans discover "straw man" politics, take phrase literally.

Stay tuned for part two.

Real Food: Metro Breakfast

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Book Shelf: Favorite Ads From The September, 1976 Issue Of Playboy Magazine, Part Three

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Four full-page ads for CB radios! That's a lot of money being spent, and a good indication of the hugeness of the CB fad (1975-1978!) which was cresting right around this time. What I love about all these ads is the tone of utter seriousness which today comes across as totally ludicrous, like Pearce-Simpson's Hetro-Lock™ and Receiv-O-Slide technology described in the copy above. Hetro-Lock™ and Receiv-O-Slide! Filthy.

Below, I think Panasonic wins the design contest, which isn't surprising given their general excellence during the 70s:

CB radios, due to numerous regulations and conventions, were basically all exactly the same, so how to distinguish your product? Cobra tackles this challenge by inventing a mythical quality they call Punch:

This one is my favorite. Just look at how much assistance this helpless, stranded, foxy motorist is getting:

Looks like a tractor even came to help!

Book Shelf: Favorite Ads From The September, 1976 Issue Of Playboy Magazine, Part Two

For your consideration, three more denim leisure suits:

"Panatela" was Levi's' line of "contemporary" sportswear during the 70s. I've got a few representative pieces of Panatela monstrosities in my collection, and believe it or not, they're worse than this:

Another magnificent three-piece denim suit, "Seen in the best places," like the Hospitality Motor Inn in Atlanta:

Book Shelf: Favorite Ads From The September, 1976 Issue Of Playboy Magazine, Part One

You can click any of these for larger versions. So many denim leisure suits! The one above, though, is my favorite because of the grandeur of its three-piecedness. Sublime. And speaking of sublimely tasteless design, here's a two-page spread of ugly telephones, some of which have aged well:

Ah, the classic Princess. Still looks good to me! Next up, imagine the thrill of YOU getting to vote for Miss Muriel Cigars:

Psst: I hate to spoil it for you, but Susan Anton totally won.

More to come!

Culture Corner: Dumb Things Based On Dumb Things Are Dumb

There are two movies coming out this weekend, neither of which I intend to see. One, Yogi Bear, is an apparently terrible movie based on the equally awful cartoons. The other, Tron Something, is reportedly a not-all-that-great film which is a sequel of a film which wasn't all that great.

So anyway, I'm seeing a lot of writing about these two bad-to-mediocre movies, and I keep seeing two things already hinted at above that are bugging me. Here's an example of the first thing: Mike Hale, in the New York Times, says of Yogi Bear, "...this mostly live-action film is a bland 21st-century family comedy without a single moment that captures the wit, energy or sophistication of the original, which by now dates back more than 50 years."

What on earth is he talking about? The original Yogi Bear cartoons were not good! OK, they may make you nostalgic, or you may have loved them when you were six-years-old; you can claim that the voice actors were good, or mitigate their terribleness by claiming that they had low budgets and that Hanna-Barbera's limited animation technique has a charm all its own, but there is simply no getting around the fact that anything that ever had Yogi Bear in it constituted the art of animation at its worst. Wit, energy or sophistication? Not in evidence in Hanna-Barbera's product from the Yogi Bear era, particularly when considered in relation to what came before (the golden age of theatrical animation) and after (the renaissance of the art form in the 80s and 90s) it. It's alright to be nostalgic about it, I guess; heck, "Afternoon Delight" makes me nostalgic, but that doesn't mean it's good.

Moving on to Tron! The reaction I'm seeing to this movie so far is, "Awwww, gee... after all that hype, and with all the neat special effects, it's just not a great movie." Sounds familiar! Sounds like the original Tron! I was 17 when the original came out, and I remember thinking, "Cool computer animation. Too bad they had to waste it in such a corny movie." So why the surprise that the sequel is also, according to most reports, kinda hokey and dumb?

So anyway, that's what bugged me on the internets today.

Christians Want To Take Their Rainbows Back. I Say We Let Them

Joseph Cornell: Untitled (How to Make a Rainbow), silkscreen, 1972

Some dumb Christian group (a redundancy, I know) wants to reclaim the rainbow from the hairdressers, because they've made all the rainbows filthy and gay and Muslim or something. After all, rainbows aren't simple atmospheric phenomena, but were a promise from god to Noah and all the cute animals on his ark, what, 5,000 years ago when the dinosaurs drowned. Alas.

Please. Can we please just throw them this bone and let them have their goddamn rainbows? I, for one, look forward to never seeing anything this insipid ever again:

 

Who's with me?

Open Season On Michael Steele

This is actually getting a little painful. Previously, Republicans tended to be discreet when talking about the glorious ineptness of Michael Steele, either hedging their words or speaking off the record. No more; everybody is just piling on, terrified at the prospect of Steele leading the party for two more years. Politico, basically a GOP Pasquino, has two pieces about Mikey up today, one where big money donors happily go on the record about how they have no intention of giving money to the RNC if Steele remains in charge, and the other a mortifying listicle of his worst gaffes. Harsh!

Random Nancy Panel

Photoblogging: Damn Squirrels

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Michael Steele: Glutton For Punishment

Great news! Michael Steele is running again for the prestigious GOP Anchor Clown position! I was on pins and needles all day yesterday, waiting, waiting, waiting for the announcement. “Yes, I have stumbled along the way but have always accounted to you for such shortcomings,” Steele lied, as an excuse for his hidden agendas. "No excuses. No lies. No hidden agenda," he continued. Yay!

“I believe the worst thing we can do now is to look backwards,”  Steele said. Ha, OBVIOUSLY.

Richard Cohen's Tribute To Richard Holbrooke Mostly About Richard Cohen

How many words into Richard Cohen's eulogy to Richard Holbrooke does the name dropping start? Four words. Quincy Jones, Brian Stokes Mitchell, Glenn Close, Hillary and Bill Clinton... Cohen rubbed shoulders with them all! "From time to time," Cohen reveals, "we talked a bit about Afghanistan and Pakistan. I could see the situation drained him." One has to wonder which situation was more draining: Afghanistan and Pakistan, or having to talk to Richard Cohen? I'm not going to link to it, so here's a summary: I... I... I... Me... Me... Me... I... Me... My... Me... I... I.

Book Shelf: Rambo Paint With Water, 1985

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This terribly illustrated "paint with saliva-coated Q-tips" booklet was published in 1985 by Modern Publishing, a hacky outfit which still exists and still churns out hastily-produced, cynically licensed, shoddy dreck... you know, for kids! On the one hand, these Rambo drawings are just hopeless, but on the other, they suggest imaginary plots which could have made the Rambo movies quite a bit more interesting (Rambo discovers a hidden valley of dinosaurs!). Enjoy:

Oh, no, Rambo's shirt got burned off:

So manly:

Note that the same head drawing as the above is used here:

Rambo, in headband and poncho, confronts Sarah Palin:

This is what I mean about the plot for a much, much better Rambo movie:

Rambo finally finds love. THE END:

And finally, an ad for a magnificent selection of ultra-realistic toy weapons recommended for ages 3 and up:

John Boehner: Fashion Bully. Also: Fox News Personality Is Obviously A Hairdresser

I'm kind of ambivalent about this Politico article about how John Boehner is a freelance fashion critic, forever barking at reporters to polish their shoes or comb their hair. On the one hand, somebody so devoted to the tanning bed that his skin tone is somewhere in between a baseball mitt and a nectarine really shouldn't be throwing stones. On the other, Boehner IS always immaculately turned out: his suits are always perfect, as are his ties. But his sartorial perfection is incredibly boring and his suits are as invariably black or gray as his shirts are white. I don't think I've ever seen him even in navy blue, so in the end he comes across as a conservative fashion bully, and that hardly makes him unusual in Washington. I believe if I ever met him in person, he'd probably take a box cutter to whichever plaid sports coat I was wearing at the time.

This part of the article, however, is hilarious:

Boehner's disapproval of Bishop's throwback suit was tame compared with comments he made in 2009 about Fox News's Chad Pergram's black-on-black ensemble being "too metrosexual." Pergram described his outfit in a piece* he penned after he became a Boehner fashion victim. "My getup: a black and white houndstooth jacket, a black shirt, a black tie and black pants. I finished everything off with a black pocket square," he wrote.

Too metrosexual? Isn't that a code word for too homosexual? In the case of Fox's Pergram, I'd say unequivocally yes, as evidenced by this high-concept ensemble:

Haw haw! Too matchy! OK, so the topic of this post has changed from "John Boehner is a judgemental asshole" to "spot the homo Fox News personality." Fair enough; that's how the internet works, so let's proceed, leaving Mr. Boehner behind.  That same bio page for Pergram states that he lives alone in Alexandria with his corgi. Hellooooo Mary! I have a sneaking suspicion, though, that Boehner isn't the only person who apparently dislikes precious Mr. Pergram, because the bio linked above doesn't exactly say he lives alone with his corgi; it says this:

He lives in Alexandria, VA, with a vile Welsh Corgi named Hampton.

So not only is the corgi named Hampton, it is vile. Honestly, it really says that.

I think our work is done here.

*You have to read Pergram's self defense, in which he unconvincingly claims to wear John Deere hats in his off hours. More like clam diggers and Pet Shop Boys tour shirts, I'm guessing.