Junk Drawer: Cassette Covers I Made In The 80s, Part 4

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The bottom two are pretty self-explanatory. The one on the top left is for Cabaret Voltaire's "Red Mecca". The one on the top right is for the Rough Trade compilation album "Wanna Buy a Bridge", which is still, to this day, one of my all-time favorites.

UPDATE: Actually, the "Goo" tape isn't self-explanatory. Around 1983/4, Pony Pal Mr. Bad Trash and I would do, for fun, what we called "demolition dubs". We would buy 7" singles of the most annoying pop songs, and then we would make "dub" versions of the songs, "pause button edits,," if you will, using the singles and a cassette player, in which we would "scratch" repeat the most terrible parts of the song in a highly destructive version of 12" single mixes. Memorable examples of songs we used were "Jump" by Van Halen and "We Are the World". I really, REALLY, should digitize this cassette; haven't heard it in YEARS.

Junk Drawer: Cassette Covers I Made In The 80s, Part Three

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Up top, that's my ticket stub for a Residents show I saw in London in 1983. I really love the juxtaposition of the Monkees and Psychic TV.

Junk Drawer: Cassette Covers I Made In The 80s, Part Two

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The Gun Club cover looks like a different part of the same illustration I used for the Dream Syndicate cover in my last post. The "Disco" cover was MEANT to be ironic. The singing lady (some opera diva?) represents Roxy Music. The Salvation Army (later the Three O'Clock) cover comes, again, from my sister's stash of old American Girl magazines from the late 60s. Wish I had saved those (yes, I do occasionally throw things away)!

UPDATE: Ha, ha, ha, I got a note from my sister saying, "I still have those!" So I guess the "not throwing anything away" tendency runs in the family!

Junk Drawer: Cassette Covers I Made In The 80s Part One

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These ones are from my high school years, so 1980 - 1983. The Dream Syndicate cover image was probably clipped from Omni Magazine. The Devo image is a collage from my sisters' ancient copies of American Girl.

Junk Drawer: Bronze Ampersand

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I love this little ampersand (it's 1.5"), but what is it good for? Any ideas? Maybe I should put a pin on the back of it?

I'm also unsure of the era from which this little jewel hails, but I'm certain some of our more typestyle-savvy Pony Pals™ can offer a guess or two. The 1930s?

The background is a detail of a "The Crusher" vintage polyester shirt by Highlander, circa 1965. "Must not be ironed!"

I love this version of the ampersand because it so elegantly reveals the "et in ligature" origins of the symbol.

Favorite Icelandic Candy Packaging Design

 

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A colleague recently returned from a trip to Iceland, and brought with her boxes of Opal, the super-popular local candy. The candy itself was... not so good: little rubbery licorice pastilles which weren't quite gummy enough and had a sharp, medicinal taste.  The ultramodern box, however, was a big hit with me, and I was surprised to discover that the design dates, unchanged, to 1946, which makes me love it even more. You can see beautiful photographs of the packaging variations here, and the company's equally great-looking product page here.

Junk Drawer: "Tad" Dorgan Pin, Ca. 1914

This tiny pin, a little smaller than a nickel, is the only example of "TAD" merchandise of which I am aware. It was a premium for Tokio Cigarettes, and I've seen references to these being from about 1912, but the military uniform makes me think it's from WWI, probably circa 1914.

What the heck does it mean? I have no idea. Is it a foreign policy gag? Are those military encampment tents in the background, or are they teepees? If the latter, is it a joke about the cavalry's relationship with native Americans? Such a political statement would be uncharacteristic of Dorgan. More likely this is just yet another bit of Tad slang whose meaning is lost in the mists of time (UPDATED, see below).

Cartoonists and syndicates had a rather laissez-faire attitude towards merchandising in the early days of the comic strip. The syndicates' attitude was that no publicity was bad publicity, so they took little notice of companies making use of their properties, figuring it would draw traffic to the newspapers, and they certainly took no interest in controlling such use. Some cartoonists enthusiastically embraced the commercial opportunities merchandising presented, particularly R. F. Outcault, who made a fortune from Buster Brown's popularity. It wasn't until the Popeye and Mickey Mouse juggernauts hit in the 1930s (after Tad's time) that the syndicates took notice and asserted control over the gold mine they previously didn't even know was there.

I'm indebted to Richard Marschall, whose essay on Popeye merchandising in the last volume of Fantagraphics' essential Thimble Theatre reprints for the information above.

UPDATE: According to Pony Pal Mark Newgarden, Tokio issued several Tad pinbacks. The phrase was used on many different designs, probably a popular slang term at the time, and may not have had any direct relation to the illustration at all. Thanks again, Mark!

Junk Drawer: More Random 3D Postcards

Junk Drawer: 4 Random 8-Track Tapes

Junk Drawer: Waltons Lunchbox, 1973, Aladdin Industries

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I grew up in the suburbs but, ever since I can remember, always longed for the city. And so it was with a special dread that I loathed The Waltons, that goody-goody fake rural hell filled with boring people and their mundane woes. God, I hated that show. I was baffled by the idea that it was able to arouse feelings of nostalgia in people. Were they crazy?

Here's the other side, where we see the cretinous Waltons trying to get their truck unstuck, a job which would be considerably easier minus the seven passengers weighing it down:

On one side, John Boy Walton, the single most annoying character in 1970s television, and that's saying something:

On the bottom, let's all gather 'round and have a lot of fun watching Gramps getting his hair cut. THIS IS WHAT PEOPLE DID BEFORE THE INTERNETS:

On the other side, the house. It's nice enough, I guess, if you like that sort of thing:

And, finally, on the top, the littlest Waltons cavorting with vermin (I removed the handle for scanning):

It's a nice, embossed lunchbox. I can't imagine this one was very popular with kids, though, so it appears to be pretty scarce, judging from past eBay auctions. Retrocrush features it in their "worst lunchboxes of all time" lineup.

Inside this lunchbox is a full set of Mad Magazine trading cards (still available from Amazon!), a pharmaceutical company promotional key chain, and a Chapstick™.

Junk Drawer: Autofellating Mouse

Click for larger. All photos by Sparklesibling™ Andrew!

When I visited Tucson a little while ago, I was impressed to see that a new Value Village had opened right next to Sparklesibling™ Andrew's casita. Knowing this would be my only chance to step back inside a genuine, wonderful Arizona thrift store, my old stomping grounds if you will, I forced my father to drop what he was doing and go shopping with us. This was unfamiliar territory for Dad, but he instantly warmed to the experience when he discovered the book section (when he started looking at clothes, we knew we had to get him out of there).

It's not the big OMGs, the major "scores" which make thrift shopping so great, it's the little things, like this baffling ceramic mouse salt shaker with a backwards-facing head. Andrew and I stared at it, mystified, groping for the knowledge to explain the existence of this strange object. Perhaps lightheaded from the spell cast by what we had already christened Autofellating Mouse, we moved on to flip through records.

I can't see you! My head is on backwards!

Later, as if finally waking from a trance, I emailed Andrew, panicky, urging him to return to Value Village to rescue Autofellating Mouse, surely still waiting on the shelf, casting his obscure spells. And success! He was still there! And here he is again, in all his glory, in his new natural surroundings at chez Sparklesibling:

There goes the neighborhood!

Junk Drawer: More Stencils For Cheerful Property Destruction

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I told you on Monday about my stenciling adventures in San Diego in the 1980s (I heart you, statute of limitations). Here are two more. I've never been particularly fond of the Flintstones, but I've always loved Wilma's fabulous hairdo, so there you go. Here's a far better female cartoon role model:

That green paint must have been on sale.

Junk Drawer: Tintin Stencil For Cartoon Vandalism

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For a while in the late 1980s, my friends and I liked to go out at night and stencil the local dumpsters and power transformer boxes in Pacific Beach and Mission Beach, San Diego, with random, often esoteric cartoon characters and meaningless Dada phrases ("Fight Rot!"). We didn't do it all that often, and we were careful not to overdo it. I guess every city has one or two phantom stencilers. It was exciting and thrilling! Tintin was, for me, a natural choice, as I've been obsessed with Tintin comics most of my life, and his minimalistic character design lent itself naturally to the stencil medium.

The outline above served well enough on its own, but just to go the extra mile on this one, I cut separations for the face and the hair, so first you could spray this one in flesh-tone:

And then this one in orange:

Top it off with the outline in black, et voilà! A perfect, color Tintin!

Of course, when you're trying to evade police cars and angry citizens, you don't always have time to execute carefully color-separated vandalism, but whatever.

I wonder if any of our stencils are still "alive" in San Diego? If you live there and there's still a donut shop on Ingraham just north of Grand Avenue, check the back door to see if Wilma Flintstone (whom they carefully painted around at least once) is still there.

Junk Drawer: An Assortment Of Tucson "Punk" Flyers, 1980-1985, Part 1

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I wish I had saved more of these! I'll post the ones I can find squirreled away in various folders and notebooks. I drew in crayons on the one above, tsk. That's from 1980, and I only have vague memories of No Request, and none of Romeo.

The one above was drawn by Pony Pal™ Jeff, now the world's #1 Cindy McCain fan. I can't figure out the date for this one. 1982 or 1983 seems logical, but that would put the show on a Monday or Tuesday, which seems unlikely. I remember that Red Cross (later Redd Kross)always canceled whenever they played in Tucson, though, so that might explain it. All my friends and I worshiped Red Cross for being so trashy.

This is another one from 1980. There's Romeo again. The Serfers eventually moved to LA and became Green on Red. The Pills were a ghastly, horrible New Wave band who wore makeup and played awful, awful sub-Buzzcocks type pop junk. Oh, so bad. They tried really hard to "make it big."

This last one for now is from 1983 when, for a brief period of time, the University of Arizona mistakenly allowed chaotic local bands to play live at lunch for disinterested/befuddled/irritated students. Clean Dog were friends of mine, and were a great post-punk, post-prog noise rock band. That they never recorded an album is a terrible shame.

More to come!

Junk Drawer: Mork and Mindy Lunchbox

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Hey, watcha got in the lunchbox? This one is, for me at least, an interesting time capsule of the early 90s when I worked for Spike and Mike's Festival of Animation. I don't believe I've ever written about this period in my life; still too traumatized, I guess. I'm not going to go into it, but let's just say that you'd think two guys with rhyming names who put on a cartoon show would be fun, nice people, right? Well, there you would be spectacularly, sensationally incorrect. Let's move along.

1. Shitty quality paper Act Up stickers.
2. This is one of those why do I have this? kinda things. It's apparently a promotional yo-yo for the 1991 flop Karen Allen vehicle (!?) Sweet Talker. 
3. Smiley zipper pouch. I'll let you guess what I used to keep in it.
4. Giant-sized Lego! Bigger than a Duplo!
5. Hang-card for a bag of googly eyes. When I worked for the Festival, I always used to keep my jacket pocket full of googly eyes and a glue stick, because you never knew when you might see something which could be improved by these things. I really should get back into this habit. My other way of spreading random fun was to carry tiny plastic ants which I would surreptitiously place in diner sugar dispensers.
6. Classic Bicycle playing cards. Still available!
7. Airway bill for films shipped to the Valley Art Theatre in Tempe, Arizona. What a great theater it used to be! It's still in business, but no longer independent. I have very fond memories of the manager, Krista (interesting/depressing article!).

8. Now here's a really revealing look at my past: a pay stub from the Festival. Yikes.
9. Yay! This is a photo of one of my all-time favorite people! Meet Wendy Fonarow, my college (and thereafter) buddy and now the fabulous Anthropologist of Indie Rock™. OMG, the stories I could tell about Dr. Fonarow! I love you, Wendy! She's still so fabulous that I suspect she's got an aging portrait stowed in an attic somewhere.
10. Stupid, lame-o hipster belt buckle from an advertiser for the magazine I wrote for after leaving the film festival.
11. Phone messages from the always harried, abused Festival office gals.
12. Photo I took of my favorite building sign in downtown San Diego.
13. Dumb novelty plastic TV you look into to see kitschy vintage ads.
14. This is way, way older than the other items in the box. It's a camera shutter extension/single frame release made for movie cameras. For a brief period in elementary school, I fancied myself an animator and never completed a single film. I had fun, though!

Junk Drawer: More Lurid 3D Postcards

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More fun! I wish these things had copyright info on them. ALL MANUFACTURED GOODS SHOULD HAVE DATES STAMPED ON THEM. Anyway, the Japanese flamingos are gorgeous, aren't they? This one, featuring see-through Jesus hovering in front of a waterfall (??) is also, duh, from Japan:

Similarly hailing from the Land of the Rising Hello Kitty, these Xmas pixies:

And last but not least, a stirring remake (reboot?) of Millet's cornball classic, The Angelus:

My friend Bob, who mailed the above to me, wrote on the back, "I just broke my living room window by dropping the fan through it." Neat!

More lenticular fun to come!

Junk Drawer: 3D Postcards

All of these can be clicked for lots bigger!

In the mid-1980s in San Diego, Pony Pal™ Mr. Bad Trash and I got really into collecting lenticular 3D postcards. We found major stashes in some Tijuana gift shops, strange repositories of images which appeared to date to the 1960s. Others could be found at random at tackier stops across the country. And once our friends caught on, they sent what they found, thrillingly, though the mail.

The one shown up top was sent to me from Yugoslavia by my friend Sean. It's a Japanese card, though, as is this one, one of the examples we scored in Tijuana:

That's a strange postcard to end up in a Mexican convenience store, isn't it? So is this one:

This next one, despite its obvious origins in the late-1960s, was actually purchased at the Petrified Forest in 1986:

Even if you can't see the 3D-ness of these, I still love the way these scans look. I also appreciate that lenticular 3D will never die. More to come!

Junk Drawer: Random 8 Track Tapes

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The "Night at Studio 54" tape, by the way, is pretty great: