I MADE YOU A "MALLMART" BLACK FRIDAY SHOPPING FLYER (NSFW)

Click flyer pages to enlarge, SHOPPERS!


MINI VALUE VILLAGE WEIRD STUFF ROUND-UP!

I hope you are all enjoying the first night of Thanksgivukkah, or Hanugiving, or Eating Stuff x ∞. Today, I bring to you a few more odd thrift store items that, if you are very very very very very good, might be headed your way 'round December 25th. Or very very very very very bad...either way, really. Please to enjoy!

The only hint that "World's Best Mom" used to be "World's Easiest Date" is that heavy application of light blue eyeshadow. I believe this theory can be proved with science.


OH, IT'S UNUSUAL, ALRIGHT: HERE'S SOME DODGY TOM JONES IMPERSONATORS!

There are some musicians that just cannot be mimicked without making yourself look like a bucktoothed, daisy-wearing jackass in the process. I try to get in the head space, for instance, of those middle-aged men who find it their calling in life to get on a stage and ape the voice and mannerisms of Sir Tom Jones, Welsh pop legend. I mean, hey, you can give it a shot, but GOOD LUCK, BUDDY. If it were that easy to deliver on the massive voice and the sultry sexiness, every guy would be walking around booming out "What's New, Pussycat" with his shirt open to his navel, fighting off women with a backhoe. Let us now examine the efforts of a few of these Jones aficionados, as they gift us with their talents.


THE LAZIEST THANKSGIVING MENU EVER!

Are you like me, friend? Are you already totally burnt-out and SO VERY OVER the holidays? Are you dreading the hundreds of cheerful and savior-like human interactions that you will be faced with in the next month or so? Is their nothing left in your decorative gourd of a skull to even begin to contemplate all the presents and meals and do-gooding you are responsible for? Well, put your feet up, my slothful compadre, because I'm going to save you a whole lotta work this Thursday by providing you with...

THE LAZIEST THANKSGIVING MENU EVER!

You don't even have to battle the crowds at the grocery store! My thoughtful menu is cutting you a break by relying on items you already probably have in your home. You should be able to whip this whole holiday spread out on the table in just a few minutes, which gets you back to staring at a football game or hiding from your guests in your bedroom even faster! Let's begin to not prep!

1. Turkey: Take last week's leftover Safeway rotisserie chicken carcass from your fridge, quickly hack/pull any remaining meat off off it, and heat on HIGH in your microwave for six minutes, just to make sure it's nice and dry. If someone at the table gives you the stinkeye and says, "Hey...this turkey tastes like chicken," you should reply offhandedly, "Everything tastes like chicken." If you don't have enough carcass meat, embellish with cold cuts, and repeat that it is, of course, turkey.

2. Mashed potatoes: Go to your car. In the back seat, there are many crumpled-up McDonald's food bags. Gather all of them and bring into kitchen. Shake out all the old french fries remaining at the bottom of all the bags, and place in bowl. Smush them up with your hands and then microwave on HIGH for 2-3 minutes. If anyone at the table complains about their texture, color, or taste, inform the guests that this is a "rustic" preparation.

3. Sweet potatoes: Take half the McDonald's fries "mashed potatoes," whip with orange food coloring and several packets of Sweet 'n Low. Toss in some old Halloween candy, chopped, and microwave on HIGH for 2-3 minutes. Tell your guest proactively this is a Paula Deen recipe.

4. Cranberry sauce: Dig out all the half-eaten little boxes of raisins that your kids have left in the pantry; rehydrate with hot water for 1 minute. Mix with red food coloring and applesauce. Serve.

5. Stuffing: Take all the old, dried-out bread heels you have in the pantry and form it into small lumpen bites. Mix with a can of the matzo ball soup you've held onto for six years, all the leftover spices you have, that thing in the fridge that might be a half of a cut onion and might not be, a glob of I Can't Believe It's Not Butter, and microwaved bacon. Repeat, "Everybody likes bacon!" to yourself. 

6. Dinner rolls: Take the open packet of flour tortillas from your fridge and fold them into little square packets. Toast in toaster on medium setting. Serve as "Heritage Rolls."

7. Gravy. Boil several cans of Pabst Blue Ribbon beer with Bisquick and a crumbled leftover hamburger patty from one of the McDonald's bags until thickened.

8. Pumpkin pie: Press Pop Tarts into a pie pan. Grab all the kids' Snak Pak puddings (any flavor) and mix with orange food coloring; pour into Pop Tart crust and refrigerate. Tell guests one of the kids made it so they can't complain about it.

Needless to say, serve as much as you can on paper plates and guilt your guests into cleaning up your kitchen for you when you are done eating. Enjoy!


NOVEMBER, 1963

The life of a young child is shaped by the comfort of routines -- the growing understanding that when the sun comes up each morning you will be greeted with your mother's kind smile and a warm breakfast, you will play, eat, rest, rock in a chair, pet the dog play, eat again, read a book with your father and, as it becomes dark, you return again to your bed to sleep. The early routines of care and nourishment build trust and attachment, and all of our relationships to follow will be based upon these days, one way or another.

A profound disruption in routine has the power to make a lasting impact on a child, and this was the case for what may be the earliest memory I have. On this day, and perhaps for a day or so later, our house was oddly still and quiet, save for the television news remaining on day and night -- again, very unusual, as both my parents insisted that the TV be turned off if no one was in the room watching a program in order to "save electricity." The light coming into the house was minimal, typical for an early winter's day in Wisconsin, but the grayness seemed darker somehow. I cannot remember any lamps turned on at all.

The people talking on the television were very serious, and some were crying, and it didn't stop. There were no cartoons, no reruns of Ben Casey, no soap operas. Something very bad had happened to make so many grown-ups that sad. My mother and father and brother were so quiet. I padded around the house on my own -- not unusual -- but I felt worried and confused by what I was seeing and hearing. The same name kept coming up over and over again on the television, along with a face I had seen before.

If everyone else was sad, I thought, then I should be sad, too, and cried by myself in front of the TV, silently, until my mother scooped me up and carried me to the black rocking chair, where she wiped my tears and we rocked back and forth until the room was completely dark.

It was November 22, 1963, and I was 19 months old.


NEW VIDEO: "THE PREYING MANTIS" BY THE LEN PRICE 3

I am delighted to bring you this new found-footage video today, which I created upon special fab gear request for The Len Price 3, a kickass buncha garage-poppin' Brits you want on your radar screen, hepcats! Check out this beat-driven, bugged-up romance-gone-wrong story, why dontcha!
The Preying Mantis 
©2013 The Len Price 3 
You killed and ate your lover, 
Because you want to be a single mother, 
You calculate everything that you do. 
You jumped on your computer 
To find yourself an appropriate suitor. 
You calculate everything that you do 
Preying mantis, preying mantis, 
Who wants to be a preying mantis like you? 
Found a man with a suitable profile, 
Compatible with a professional lifestyle, 
You calculate everything that you do. 
Time passed you got what you want now, 
Cleaned up now he’s having a breakdown 
You calculate everything you do. 
Preying mantis, preying mantis, 
Who wants to be a preying mantis like you? 
Just a fool there for the taking 
Another heart, there for the breaking.
The Len Price 3, "The Preying Mantis" (2013) 



"The Preying Mantis" will be featured on The Len Price 3's newest album, "Nobody Knows," which will be released worldwide on February 4, 2014, which you should buy RIGHT ON THAT DAY! Keep up with the band HERE on their site or HERE on Facebook!


I MADE YOU A CHILDREN'S BOOK NOT FOR CHILDREN: "THE SUNDAY DRIVE" (NSFW)


SPAM POEMS 22

Good day
 
Consequent to the AUTHORITY TO REMIT ORDER 
given to please find attached correspondence 
for your attention.
 
All the best!
 
Kind regards,
Dr Ameer
Recommended by the Legal 2013


EIGHT MORE WEIRD RECORD COVERS FROM THE VALUE VILLAGE IN WOODINVILLE, WA.!

I had 20 minutes to kill, and I KILLED IT! Here are a few more bizzaroid album covers from our collective past! Please to enjoy!

"World-Wide Favorites," eh? Does he mean that he himself, ITURBI, is a world-wide favorite, or that he is performing songs that are world-wide favorites? Or both? Anyway, I call total BS.


TODAY'S CAR CONVERSATION WITH MR15 AND MISS ELEVEN ABOUT CARS

There is a stretch of road on the way back to my house from picking the kids up from school that vexes me every DAY. Every single DAY, as the two lanes heading south merge to one lane, I always stay in the left lane, for the CLEARLY MARKED SIGN says "RIGHT LANE ENDS - MERGE LEFT." And every single day, some BONEHEADED DING DONG stays in the right lane, forcing all the cars in the left lane to brake hard to accommodate this tool's inability to interpret a road sign or worse, total lack of caring about a road sign.

EVERY DAY! LAMENTATIONS!

Anyway, today as yet another asshat barreled his way past me to get another TEN FEET AHEAD, OH BOY, nearly causing another accident, Miss Eleven noticed something.

"Mom, why is it that so many bad drivers are in either very tall trucks or very low tiny cars?"

Mr15 laughed. I smiled.

"Well," I replied, "I think maybe their choices overall might be not so good. The cars are just one more bad choice."

"Don't they feel that horrible metal scraping sound when those little cars hit the bottom of the road? I hate that noise!"

"And monster trucks have a super-high center of gravity, so they tip over really easily," interjected Mr15.

"Yup," I agreed.

"Does anyone need to have a truck that tall or a car that low?" Miss Eleven asked.

"No. Neither one of them are safe for everyday driving." I replied.

"They are just trying to be manly," Mr15 opined.

"FAIL!" Miss Eleven yelled.




TAKE A PICTURE, WHY DON'T YOU! MY TEN FAVE SONGS WITH "PICTURE" IN THE TITLE!

As someone whose imagination has always been sparked by moments frozen in time, I really like when the subject of photography is brought into song lyrics. When done well, the composer brings across that bittersweet feeling viewing life held static while the clock resolutely ticks on; when done poorly, the song becomes maudlin or trite. Here are ten of my favorite "picture" songs, with The Kinks clearly winning the event. Please to enjoy!

SPAM POEMS 21

When you own a hot tub to be any different? 
Many kinds regarding bath tubs are available 
in the hot hot tubs 
bacteria tub 
we want 
to buy a spa product 

at home 
and enjoy spa everyday.

Even for only a few 

offer truly discounted tubs and spas 
are made 
with a patented energy efficiency 

system.


SIXTEEN WEIRD RECORDS FROM THE MERCER ISLAND THRIFT SHOP!

Another forage through the dusty vinyl thrift store bins, this time returning to lovely Mercer Island, Washington! I never cease to be amazed. Please to enjoy!

WELL. DANG, SIR.


LAZIEST ANIMATION EVER: "THE ADVENTURES OF PADDY THE PELICAN" (1954)

For most of my life, I have believed that the TV show "Speed Racer" must have been the the shoddiest cartoon animation I had ever seen. When it was aired on venerable independent Channel 18 in Milwaukee in the mid-to-late '60s, I was only around kindergarten age but even then thought it was so awful that I refused to watch it. (Catchy theme song, though.) But now I believe I have found a cartoon produced and animated by THE LAZIEST PEOPLE EVER: "The Adventures of Paddy The Pelican," dating from 1954 and based on characters from a Chicago WENR-TV puppet show. No one is quite sure if they were ever televised, or were shoved in a shame closet for 50 years. Only six episodes were made, and only two seem to have survived, both of which I shall bring you here today.

Where do I begin? A Super-8 film of someone paging through a kids' flip book of a dolphin jumping though a hoop would look like classic Walt Disney compared to this. Absolutely everything is wrong about it. The drawings are crude and repetitive, drawn by an artist who is possibly blind or asleep. The voiceovers sound like a couple of office dudes on a bender. The horrible laughing theme music with creep organ will give you nightmares FOR LIFE (sorry). It is stunningly bad, which of course, makes it wonderful to watch. Please to enjoy!



"Two Wet Bears" gives its ursine characters offensive "Amos & Andy" stereotyped black accents (one of them is even named Amos), and cannot be bothered to match the mouth movements with the sound AT ALL.

The Adventures of Paddy The Pelican: Two Wet Bears (1954)



I think people might question their own sanity watching this, or simply assume they have been drugged. I can't even follow the extremely-tenuous storyline, because I'm just so flabbergasted by the overwhelming crappiness of the overall effort. Wow!

The Adventures of Paddy The Pelican: Piggy Bank Robbery (1954)

I DON'T WANNA HOLD YOUR HAND: THE FIVE BANDS I HATED THE MOST WHEN I WAS A KIDDIE IN THE '60S

I can't remember a time in my life that wasn't just MUSICMUSICMUSIC. That's just the way I was born. My strong feelings for music and musicians went both ways, however -- when I was very young, I could love a band so much that my heart felt like it would explode in joy (The Beatles, The Kinks, The Rolling Stones, The Yardbirds, etc.) or I could LOATHE THEM so much that I would have to turn off the radio or record player or actually get up and leave the room because I would start to feel physically sick. If you read here on the reg, you know all my fave raves (the above plus my beloved garage bands, old and new), but I don't think I've ever mentioned the bands I could not tolerate when I was a child. Please to enjoy!

1. Elvis Presley


























BIZARRE LAWN DECORATIONS FROM KMART!

Ahhh! I forgot I had these pictures on my phone from our last trip to Wisconsin, when we went to Kmart in search of cheap beach toys. We did find floaties and towels and swim goggles, but more importantly, we found these very damn peculiar outdoor ornamentations. We marveled at them long enough to be disturbed, confused, delighted, and late to the beach. Please to enjoy!

I...OK, right away, I am at a loss for words. I don't understand. It's a Watermelon Bird. Who would want this? What does it SAY? Is this cute? If this were a real bird, it's entire front half would be chopped off and it would be DEAD.


HEY SHARP EYES, HERE'S A 16-MAGAZINE-STYLE "5 ERRORS CONTEST," STARRING WIMPS!

Do you remember when 16 Magazine, the long-running (1957-2001) teen fan mag, used to run the "5 Errors Contest" in each issue? I bet you don't, because I bet you aren't as old as ME. Anyway, it was a simple premise: find the five errors in a simple line drawing of  some heartthrob, like Elvis or the Beatles or Sajid Khan...or even Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention! I was compelled to do the 5 Errors Contest in all my copies so I could once again prove how brilliant I was to myself. I would send in the "WRONG" drawing with the errors circled as instructed, as did THOUSANDS AND THOUSANDS OF OTHER BRILLIANT GIRLS, and waited patiently for Georgia Winters to pick my entry and give me TEN BUCKS!

Well, that snooty Ms. Winters never did chuck me over a lousy sawbuck, which caused me to become disillusioned with achievement and start life anew in Davie, Florida as a rodeo clown. Only part of that last sentence is true. Anyway, today I made you what might be the shoddiest Photoshop rendering of a 5 Errors Contest ever, starring my dear band pals, wimps! Study the two drawings carefully, and then circle the errors on your computer, smartphone, or tablet screen with a crayon. Then scroll down and check to see if you were correct! NO CHEATING!!! Honestly, if you have to cheat to see these, make an appointment with an eye care professional immediately. You can click on the drawings to enlarge, Blindy McSeeberg.