Keg Foam

And now, another word from our sponsors...

2012-01-27T10:11:00.000-08:00

More vintage ads!

Get the party started with Gilbey's gin and copious amounts of blow.

Nothing entices you to buy soda like a nightmarish grinning spectre. Brrrr.

Yes, once upon a time America needed incredibly grim public service announcements to keep it from washing it's clothes in gasoline.

Judging by this gentleman's face, he's going to use that bottle to bludgeon the unsuspecting homeowner to death.

In spousal abuse or rape, you'll look smart in your Van Heusen shirt.

Mom blissfully unaware that her family plans to please Satan.

And finally, we have Al Capp's Dick Tracy parody character Fearless Fosdick fighting the frizzies and some dude who kidnaps women dressed as a fire hydrant.

Everything Old is New Again

2012-01-25T12:03:00.001-08:00

It's been awhile, but I've dusted things off, deleted spam comments and out of date links so ON WITH THE SHOW. More vintage ads!

Drunken skeet shooters claim the life of yet another whiskey mascot.

"Stop feeding your dog little girls and try PARD instead."

Nothing says "Elegant" like dumping canned hash all over your filet mignon.

"Okay guys, you can stop looking at my professionally cleaned rugs now! Seriously, it's starting to freak me out."

In case you were wondering where Lucy's distinctive later life voice came from...

Not an ad, but I couldn't resist throwing in this Walt Kelly cartoon I came across while looking for these. You ain't gonna see art this pretty on the editorial pages these days. (Click for a better view.)

"It's always darkest just before it goes pitch black": R.I.P. Robert Culp

2010-03-25T12:51:00.000-07:00

The keg pump is at half mast for the passing of veteran actor Robert Culp. A lot of people from my generation remember him as FBI Agent Bill Maxwell from The Greatest American Hero. I have to confess that I've never seen the show (At the time I was still taking superheroes too seriously.) but in more recent years I've become a fan of his earlier performances as "Kelly Robinson" on the groundbreaking 60's espionage series I Spy. (This post's title comes from one of his character's lines.)

Coming out during the post James Bond secret agent craze, I Spy was unique in many ways. As Culp's partner "Alexander Scott", Bill Cosby was the first African American to have a lead role in a television series. Also, while most TV shows depicted foreign countries by shooting on stages or around L.A., I Spy actually did location shoots in it's exotic locales. Finally, while similar secret agent shows were long on gadgets and camp, I Spy was fairly down to earth and gritty with it's humor deriving from the comedic chemistry between Culp and Cosby. Culp brought a breezy offhand charm to his portrayal of a spy posing as a tennis bum that seems way ahead of it's time. (It's also worth noting that Culp himself wrote several episodes, including the first.)

I should note that the full series can be watched online in it's entirety here. Goodbye Robert Culp and thanks for all the (As his character would put it) "Wonderfullness".

More vintage advertising fun

2010-03-24T08:54:00.000-07:00

I'm back with some more old school Madison Ave fun!

"I was curious" eh? I'd say these strapping young fellows are curious about more than beer! (I like to imagine that Salvatore Romano from Sterling Cooper worked on this one...)

Ladies, make sure your husbands are adequately thirst quenched with frozen lemonade lest they go on a crazy shooting spree to try and extract sweet, sweet bug nectar.

"Why, we've been waiting for a 17th century pelican with booze all our lives!"

Yes friends, throw out those fatty old grapefruits and embrace the slim-tastic wonder that is pure cane sugar.

So the next time a social conservative gets yakkin' about how things were so much more wholesome back in the day, you can remind them that in 1950 LIFE magazine ran ads selling cameras with the promise of recording accidental titty displays.

When Tony was Grrrrreat...

2010-03-18T10:35:00.000-07:00

Google Books is a controversial service to be sure, but one of it's cool features is that you can do text searches of old out of print magazines and pull up scans of the actual pages. For fans of vintage illustration and advertising this is PRIMO. Look for me to be utilizing this a lot in the future.

I thought I'd start out with some swell mid 50's ads featuring famed sugar cereal huckster Tony The Tiger. These days Tony looks about as bland as every other cereal mascot who's gone through airbrushy lame-ification, but this was not always so. Tony's original jazzier appearance was created by children's book illustrators Martin and Alice Provinsen. In focus group testing Tony beat out other potential Frosted Flakes spokesanimals Katy the Kangaroo, Zeke the Zebra, Elmo the Elephant and Newt the Gnu. (Zeke, Elmo and Newt seem to have vanished, but you an see Katy here.)

A few years back animator Nate Pacheo unsuccessfully lobbied the Leo Burnett Agency (Which has handled the Tony account since it's inception.) to go back to the original design in honor of Tony's 50th anniversary. Unfortunately they didn't bite, but you can see some of the cool concept art people contributed
here.

Not to keep plugging Google products, but with this post I've started using the Blogger Images hosting feature. All the images below are clickable to see larger.

While pitching kid's cereal to the opera crowd, Tony asserts that he's all heterosexual.

Man, here's one you wouldn't see today.

In this one Tony appears to be lobbying for Kid n' Play's gig.

Nothing tops off a bowl of cereal like cigar ash...

I Cry Like A Baby: R.I.P. Alex Chilton

2010-03-18T09:44:00.000-07:00

I was honestly all ready with a brand new cheery post involving cereal when I heard of the untimely passing of legendary musician Alex Chilton. You may or may not be familiar with his name, but even if you've never heard any of his music, I guarantee you've listened to artists who were greatly influenced by him.

Commercially Chilton peaked early. He enjoyed chart success as the 16 year old lead singer of The Box Tops with such hits as "Soul Deep", "I Cry like A Baby" and their Billboard chart topper "The Letter". (which would later become Joe Cocker's first U.S. top ten hit.)

I always thought it was weird how Chilton's voice seemed deeper and huskier as a teen than as an adult.

The cornerstone in Chilton's legacy was his next group, (The sadly ironically named) Big Star. Big Star specialized in jangly achingly beautiful power pop, and could count R.E.M., The Bangles, The Replacements, Wilco, The Gin Blossoms and far too many other artists to name as diehard fans. Probably most people are familiar with Cheap Trick's cover of their song "In the Street", which was the theme song for "That 70's Show".

I'd rate among their greatest accomplishments the song "September Gurls" which features Chilton's achingly earnest voice and lovely chiming guitar work.

After Big Star failed to find commercial success Chilton drifted off to CBGB and connected with the punk scene, then moved on to more jazz based material. He never quite matched his earlier successes, but lived to see an enduring legacy of fans. (Even though Chilton tended not to place much value on himself.)

I first became aware of him after he inspired one of my favorite bands to record one of their catchiest songs about him.

Yesterday, just days before a scheduled appearance by the reunited Big Star at the South By Southwest music festival Chilton was hospitalized complaining of health problems and died of a suspected heart attack at age 59. He will be missed.

Tomorrow: Funner post!

Japanese Kid Vid Volume 1: Ganbare!! Robocon

2010-02-25T07:50:00.000-08:00

When it comes to manic children's TV programming, it's hard to top the Land of the Rising Sun. The Japanese approach entertaining kids with a hell bent for leather attitude that takes no prisoners in the war to delight and overstimulate their youth. God knows if I'd watched this stuff when I was a boy you would have had to pry me off the ceiling with a rake, such would've been my cranked up state. I'm not to old to still get a kick out of this stuff, so I figured I'd share YouTube discoveries from time to time.

Here's a partial clip I found of the first episode of "Ganbare!! Robocon" (Translation "Do Your Best!! Robokon") The show featured Robocon, a student robot trying to help humans as part of his studies. It ran from 1974 to 1977 and was rebooted in 1998 as "Burn!! Robocon", the title of which suggests that Robocon wasn't very helpful at all and the humans seek revenge.

This is in Cantonese, not Japanese, but I don't speak either so I'll just have to guess what's going on. A Japanese lady opens the door all happy thinking it's the Domino's delivery guy with those pasta bread bowls she ordered. What's this? Ack! A robot! He'll probably ask if she's heard the good news about the Robot Lord and if she'd be interested in a subscription to to the Robot Watchtower. Undeterred when she closes the door Robocon rips apart their home only to be chased off by a cockroach, the natural enemy of germophobic automatons.

Robocn then retires to a picnic bench where he receives a transmission from a silver robot with a mouth like Carly Simon asking what the dilly-oh is. Robocon paces around like Hamlet for a bit, some pink plastic hearts in silver frosting glow off and on and he recites the English alphabet up to "G". More pacing and arm flailing and then Robocon drops to the ground and pops his hood. He's almost out of gas and going through withdrawals! Staggering around like Courtney Love with the shakes, he brazenly goes behind a refueling car and moves the nozzle into himself. This causes his eyes to go all Mr SexyFace until two somewhat homely kids stare at him from the back seat and make his eyes lose all control. ("Auggh! Those teeth!")

Moustache-san the gas pump guy catches wind of the scam and starts chewing him out. Robocon pops his hood and everyone marvels at his precision German engineering. The family takes off, apparently forgetting that the gas went into Robocon and not their car. As the family makes an ill advised attempt to push a mid sized car up a hill, Robocon comes over to help...or brutally murder them Terminator style if the scowl at the end of the clip is any indicator.

So that's all for now. Look for more mind-fudgery in the future!

Strange things happen to people who don't obey Muppets...

2010-02-22T06:36:00.000-08:00

For a soft spoken guy who played with puppets, Jim Henson sure had a dark side. For all that cutesy stuff with Elmo and Rainbow Connections and whatnot, a lot of muppetry has revolved around characters getting, shot, blown up or eaten. This was especially true in the early days of scrounging for commercial gigs. Back before they were busy covering Queen songs the muppets were the kings of the hard sell...the VERY hard sell, as in "Things will get very hard for you if you don't use our product!"

Consider the classic ads for the regional coffee brand Wilkins. In each spot, a Kermit/fetus creature (Also named Wilkins.) quizzes a gruff voiced gumdrop thing named "Wontkins" about his coffee preferences. Wontkin's failure to make a Wilkins approved response results in any number of terrible retributions worthy of the Old Testament.

Dangling from a window? Considering calling for help? If you didn't think to bring a loaf of Claussens Bread you're screwed.

Now you'd imagine that the worst thing that would happen if you dialed a long distance number in Virginia without dialing 1 first is that your call wouldn't go through properly. You would of course be making a fatal mistake underestimating the harsh justice meted out by Muppet Law.

Here the potential consumers come off relatively unscathed (But terrified), likely because A) They're actual human beings and therefore it would be a lot more gruesome to see them slaughtered and B) They immediately give in to the demands of the noodle pimping dragon. (The supermarket, on the other hand, takes a beating.)

So do what the Muppets tell you! And the same goes for me, as I'm often told that I look like a Muppet...

Gimmie an Uncle Charlie

2010-02-22T06:27:00.000-08:00

No, no, no...not the old guy from "My Three Sons", I'm using the nickname for Utica Club Beer. ("Uncle Charlie Lewis" if it's Utica Club Light. See what they're doing there?) Originally introduced in 1988, it was the first beer officially sold after Prohibition. Somewhat scarce these days outside of northern New York state, Utica Club is currently brewed by the F.X. Matt Brewery, which is better known for it's Saranac line of craft beers.

I used to drink Utica Club sometimes in college back in the mid 80's. I recall it as an unremarkable but serviceably inexpensive brew. I remember one of my punk rock pals calling me "Utica Club" because that happened to be my go-to budget beer when he met me. (College guys are all about the nicknames.) At any rate, Utica Club is less memorable for it's suds then for it's pitchmen Schultz and Dooley

Schultz & Dooley were first introduced in 1958 to Northeastern TV audiences as "Spokesmugs" for the brewery. Referencing two beer loving ethnicities, Schultz was German and Dooley was Irish. Both were voiced with mucho gusto by comedian Jonathan Winters. Physically the mugs were brought to life (In wood, not stein ceramics.) by accomplished puppeteer Bill Baird, creator of the "Baird's Marionettes" which made many show biz rounds back in the day. (Most likely you've seen his handiwork in the "The Lonely Goatherd" puppet sequence of "The Sound of Music".)

The concept of the talking beer steins was created by the Doyle Dane Bernbach advertising company. After failed pitches to other breweries, the then parent company for Utica Club WEBCO took a chance on the idea to try to increase lackluster sales. Their gambit paid off, with production rising 50% in just a couple of years. The characters were so popular they even raised the ratings of the syndicated shows they advertised on!

Unfortunately all things must come to an end. By the mid sixties market research showed that the characters were popular, but they'd ceased to be effective at actually selling the beer and were replaced by a new campaign set in a psychedelic rock club. (Not real popular with Utica Club's older blue collar base.) After a brief lackluster comeback without Winters' vocal stylings, ol' Schutlz and Dooley were consigned to marketing history.

Well, almost. The pair's functional designs lent themselves to the production of actual steins starting in 1959. Since then, they've been in pretty much constant production from one source or another. They're currently available online and through other venues. (We bought ours at the Vermont Brewer's Fest.) Not only are Schultz and Dooley available, but so are every other character who appeared in the commercials, as well as new ones who didn't.

So here's a couple of the classic spots. Feel free to enjoy a frosty one while watching.

Here he comes to save the day (Saturday morning to be exact...)

2010-02-18T09:46:00.000-08:00

There are moments in your life, not too many, where you are presented with something that is so at odds with the world as you've come to know it that it shakes up your fundamental sense of what is. I can flatly say that my first exposure to "Mighty Mouse: The New Adventures" was just such a thing. It stands out as a vivid memory from a weekend that I only half remember, and appropriately for the name of this blog there was a keg involved.

It was Super Bowl weekend 1988. At the time I was attending Ball State University, an institution who's main academic claim to fame at the time was reaching #18 on the Playboy list of top party schools.(Not undeserved!) Some of my friends were from a neighboring town to the school and one of them happened to have his folks away for the weekend. This of course meant ROAD TRIP and PARTY. (Sorry to let the cat out of the bag, but really it's time to tell your folks Dude...) We piled into one guy's girlfriend's minivan, got a full keg of some kind of beer (Given our financial resources and quantity-over-quality mindset, I'm inclined to say it was Busch.) and headed out to the highway as Judas Priest would say. It was a fun, if somewhat punishing time (I played the drums at one point...apparently.) and the weekend ended with us returning on Sunday rather beat. I wound up crashing at some point during the second quarter of the game thinking the Denver Broncos had it all locked up.

Saturday morning though, there was still some life left in me. We were all sitting around eating cereal, drinking beer (Balanced breakfasts are important kids!) and channel surfing. This being the 80's and Saturday morning, our expectations weren't that high. It was under this circumstance that we stumbled upon ""Mighty Mouse: The New Adventures".

What can I say? This was a time when Saturday morning cartoons tended to be like this or this, bland clunky edgeless affairs with all the charm of a prefab housing development. Instead, here was a positively manic surreal cartoon with jaunty, vaguely 60's-ish character designs. (If the style seemed familiar, I was probably half remembering the video for the Rolling Stone's cover of "Harlem Shuffle , which also involved Ralph Bakshi, John Kricfalusi and much of the same art staff.) The episode in question (Which we came into midway.) was "The League of Super Rodents" which revolved around arch villain "The Cow" (Brilliantly voice acted by Michael Pataki, who would later lend his talents to Ren and Stimpy spinoff character George Liquor.) challenging the League to a series of one on one fights. The action gets crazier and crazier as we go from a hamster trying to defeat The Cow with his "Scamper powers", to "Mole Mom" who fires little pink mole babies from her chest to all out warfare with a rodent version of "Sgt Fury and his Howling Commandos". Meanwhile Mighty Mouse is sitting out the fight, being actively vamped by the slinky "Madame Marsupial". Here's a trailer for the show in question:

This was pretty intense stuff for the time. About the closest precedent was Pee Wee's Playhouse, which probably helped pave the way. Thing is, the Pee Wee Herman character came from from a more adult background and the show was a softened, kid friendly version of the act. By contrast, I'd always remembered Mighty Mouse as a sort of square affair. Sure, there were some imaginative bits of cartoon surrealism here and there, but they mostly amounted to "Cats abuse the mice until their bland hero shows up and socks 'em." In the new cartoons, Mighty actually had some personality and edge to him and the whole proceedings had a whiff of danger to them. This was what was swimming through my hungover consciousness as I exclaimed "Holy s**t! What's going on with Mighty Mouse"?

So I was hooked. Unfortunately, the show only lasted a couple of seasons. Controversy arose over the episode "The Littlest Tramp" which had a scene where Mighty Mouse inhales a crushed flower, leading to media watchdog and all around friend to free expression Rev. Donald Wildmon to claim that cocaine was being snorted. So the show go yanked, but thankfully not before leaving a lasting mark. It wasn't just so much that "Mighty Mouse: The New Adventures" was edgy, but it was also an attempt to return to what made animated cartoons work. John Kricfalusi had cut his teeth working for just about every animation house in television, and was frustrated with a system that tended to marginalize the creative input of the artists in favor of bland, script driven kid-dismaying crap. He'd already had a taste of creative control during his stint on the 80's Jetsons revival, but obviously he wanted more. (I strongly recommend checking out his blog, which not only details his experiences in the animation industry, but is also a treasure trove of thoughts and advice about cartooning.) "Mighty Mouse: The New Adventures" represented a substantial move forward. It's hard to imagine not only "Ren & Stimpy" but "Dexter's Lab", "The Powerpuff Girls", "Spongebob Squarepants" and most of the other cartoons with personality that followed without it.

So after decades of unavailability the complete series is available on DVD. As trailblazers go, it still holds up surprisingly well. It is a bit uneven, although this is defined as much by it's highs as it's lows. Following an episode as wild and fully realized as "Night on Bald Pate", "Mouse From Another House" feels like a clunky throwback...even though it was still better than the vast majority of contemporary cartoons. Also, due to the increased costs of keeping more of the production in house, the show had to round out it's schedule with filler episodes featuring either classic Terrytoons edited into music videos, or rehashes of previous episodes. Still, in spite of overwhelming odds, the balance of wheat to chafe is quite high. (And the audio commentaries are great. The story of "Mighty's Benefit Plan" and why the episode features a dog that had been run over by a car is hilarious.)

Definitely recommended...even if you haven't been draining a keg all weekend.

Paperback Babylon vol. 2

2010-02-17T09:54:00.000-08:00

Just to prove even the blogosphere isn't immune to sequel-itis, here's a follow up to an earlier post sharing a taste of my Wife's grandmother's cache of sordid paperbacks.

Once again we've got Brett Halliday's hard boiled shamus MIKE SHAYNE. (Many sources refer to him as "Michael" Shayne, but that doesn't really sound two-fisty enough.) While not so famous these days, Mike Shayne had a pretty good run back in the day. Not only did the novels come out for almost half a century, but he was also adapted into radio, TV, comic books and a slew of movies. (The recent Robert Downey Jr./Val Kilmer film "Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang" was partially based on the accurately titled Shayne mystery "Bodies Are Where You Find Them". For several movies Shayne was portrayed by Hugh "Beaver's Dad" Beaumont!) It should be noted that Halliday had turned over the series to ghost writers by the time all three of the books here appeared, which makes some of the back cover praise for the last one here seem a little off.

Also, once again we have covers by the king of the paperback paint slingers Robert McGinnis. Man could that guy paint the dames! McGinnis' covers are the main draw for me to these books, and luckily he was extremely prolific. Unfortunately the book of his paperback covers I plugged last time has gone out of print and has apparently become an expensive collector's item, which sucks for you but is good for me should I ever become financially desperate enough to sell my copy.

So here's three more cover images and back cover blurbs. (With a little snarky commentary by me.)

TREASURE HUNT

THE FIRST CLUE:

A newspaper want ad, asking for a red-blooded American male who was willing to do anything, repeat, anything.

(Okay, does that sound like a Craigslist hookup or what?)

THE PLAYERS:

Michael Shayne, alias Mike Wayne, the big gambler from New Jersey; and Jane Smith, obviously using an assumed name, and obviously very young, very pretty and very scared.

(Note to the Jane Smiths of the world: WE ARE TOTALLY ON TO YOUR BULLSHIT.)

THE PRIZE:

Fifty grand

THE GIMMICK:

Murder.

(The back cover also notes "RICHARD DENNING stars as MICHAEL SHAYNE in the weekly NBC TV series". Denning notably played Lucille Ball's husband on the radio show "My Favorite Husband" which was kind of like "I Love Lucy" except Denning never sang "Cuban Pete".)

THE MAN IN CABIN THREE

at the Pink Flamingo hotel was drinking away his conscience, aware only of his $200,000 in stolen cash ... and the uninhibited young thing who hung around to help him spend it... until his time ran out and the syndicate dropped in.

(It's not in the Keys, but I did find motel in Florida with cabins and the same name. Looks cute enough, and I imagine staying there is even more fun if you imagine the guy in the cabin next to you is on the lam and getting drunk with an uninhibited young gold digger.)

MIKE SHAYNE joins forces with a strange ally-the baron of a Chicago vice syndicate-to solve one of his most startling and shocking cases.

MICHAEL SHAYNE'S 50th CASE

"Salute! True to the proud tradition of the bona fide detective story" -REX STOUT

"Here's a toast-with brandy of course-to Michael Shayne and another quarter century of crime fighting" -BRUNO FISCHER

"Fifty books...congratulations to Brett Halliday" _GEORGE HARMON COXE

(Okay, I'm calling it...George Harmon Coxe, creator of Jack "Flashgun" Casey, just phoned that one in. This is all like "Oh hey, fifty books. Looks like I lost that bet.")

"Brett Halliday never forgets the fair-play game of wits between author and reader. His last pages produce legitimate surprises that deserve a toast in nothing less than Martel Cordon Bleu" _ANTHONY BOUCHER

(Now by contrast, Anthony Boucher, founding editor of The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, totally brought his "A" game! He even upped the stakes over Bruno Fischer by toasting not just with brandy, but one of France's oldest and fanciest cognacs! Too bad he left out an "L"in it's name. An editor should've caught that...oops.)

"One of the truly impressive peaks in the whole range of mystery-suspense fiction" -WILLIAM P. McGIVERN

"Entertaining, fresh, intriguing" _BILL S. BALLINGER

And so we finish with Bill S. Ballinger, one time producer of "The Dinah Shore Show" and mystery writer, who is either describing this book or a bottle of beaujolais nouveau. Be good and stay well faithful readers, because as one later Mike Shayne short story title points out ""Three Strikes-You're Dead!"

The keg pump is at half mast....

2008-05-16T14:37:00.000-07:00

It was Black Thursday yesterday with two icons in the world of Steve passing from this mortal coil.

First off, actor John Phillip Law passed away at the age of 70. Law appeared in at least two of my favorite sixties movies BARBARELLA and DANGER: DIABOLIK! as well as other quirky treats like THE GOLDEN VOYAGE OF SINBAD and Otto Preminger's totally demented SKIDOO. (I'd forgotten he was in that last one, but it's hard to compete for attention in a movie when you're up against Jackie Gleason on acid and Carol Channing dancing around dressed like Captain Crunch.)

Law was a serious actor with chiseled good looks, but his career never quite kicked into high gear. Maybe it was those slightly crazy looking blue eyes. I mean, check this shit out:

Yow! Then again, I think Law's willingness to get a little nutty with it that added to his charm and made his movies so much fun. "I've had more kicks out of playing far-out things," Law told the Los Angeles Times in 1966. "It's like putting on a funny face and going out in front of people and going, 'yaaaaaa.' " Well put, and if he wasn't quite a household name, at least he had VIP status at the Playboy Club and a young Jane Fonda reached into his junk for her laser pistol. That's a pretty good resume in my book.

On the comic book side of things, cartooning legend Will Elder also passed away yesterday at the age of 87.

Elder is probably best known for his collaborations with Harvey Kurtzman, especially in MAD and on the LITTLE ANNIE FANNY strip for Playboy. (Maybe Hef is joining me in this overall mourning.) Elder pretty much defined the MAD style, what with his chameleon like ability to draw in different artist's styles, his flawless caricature and especially his ability to shoehorn an astonishing number of gags into a single panel. Elder oozed funny the way a southern sherrif oozes meat sweats.

Seriously, if you ever want to take yourself down a peg or two as a comic book artist, just look at Elder's work. Aside from the aforementioned MAD and LITTLE ANNIE FANNY there's also his work on TRUMP, HELP! and HUMBUG as well as some great movie posters and original paintings. The only thing Will Elder couldn'tdo as an artist was suck. You'd do yourself a solid by checking out the man's site.

Cats n' Dogs n' Webcomics Talk

2008-05-13T13:49:00.000-07:00

"...dogs and cats living together... mass hysteria!"

Dr. Peter Venkman
Ghostbusters

If Bengo and Pug's webcomic Scratchin Post is any indication, the good Doctor was completely on the money. If you're not getting enough insanity from your own pets, or if perhaps you want the insanity of pets without all the peeing and pooping involved in owning them, or if maybe you just want a plain old fun time check this baby out.

Also, if you're like me and you're always scratching your head trying to find a good source of talk about webcomics, check out Bengo's blog Floating Lightbulb for the what's up on what's going down.

Yates brings the AWESOME

2008-05-13T13:35:00.000-07:00

People who click links on my sites or are just plain hip to what's going down in this world should be aware of fellow Playground Ghost Chris Yates' madtacular webcomic Reprographics, (If not, FOR SHAME.) but I must also make sure you are aware that it is now available as a book type of deal called Set It To Awesome.

This can only be good news for people who enjoy fun and happiness and little one eyed aliens with twisty things on their heads. This is a perfect opportunity to enjoy Chris' adventures in the fresh aired wifi-less outdoors this summer.

P.S. Includes a guest strip by me.

Meow Yow

2008-04-05T08:07:00.000-07:00

A little delayed, but a new strip is up.

Available either here or with other fine strips at Jaded Publishing.

Today we sing with Heino, tomorrow we conquer the world*

2008-04-02T09:27:00.000-07:00

I first heard about the Teutonic troubador known as Heino from an interview with Jello Biafra in one of the "Incredibly Strange Music" books from Re/Search publications. (These books went a long way towards seriously effing up my musical sensibility.) Heino's considered something of a national treasure by older Germans and ironic hipster Americans. Heino is certainly a visually arresting figure, what with his tall, oddly shaped platinum blonde hair and his omnipresent dark sunglasses. (Heino suffers from Graves-Basedow disease, which makes his eyes buggy and sensitive to light.)

The most noticeable thing about Heino's music is that it is waaaaay fucking German. I mean we are talking Kraut-To-The-Infinite-Power. Even when Heino is singing one of his many songs about Central and Southern America, there is no doubt of his Deutschland-ness. Seriously, this Octoberfest music could make Utah Mormons drink beer. Heino's baritone will not be denied.

I have a certain affection for Heino, having once made him a guest star in an early comic. Below are a couple of tastes of the HEINO EXPERIENCE.

The men in this first video who are "Singing Mit Heino" have got to be the most dead butch em-effers ever...even the guy with the neck kerchief.

DRINK! DRINK! DRINK! VE VILL MAKE YOU DRINK MIT HEINO!

*The menacing quote used as the title for this post is from the David Letterman Show, on which Heino made an appearance.

Paperback Babylon

2008-04-01T10:23:00.000-07:00

One of our cherished inheritances is a good chunk of the collection of paperbacks my Wife's late Grandmother had built up. I think the original appeal was the cover art. I've become a big fan of the work of the talented and prolific Robert McGinnis who I consider to be the Gustav Klimt of the drugstore racks, and who did the covers of a large number of these books. (Pond Press not too long ago released a nice book collection of covers with a checklist.)

Also, it's just plain nice having the books around as objects, what with their slight whiff of paper decay and the conjuring up of mid 20th century America mass entertainment. (I like to imagine Tommy Newell's character Richard Sherman in The Seven Year Itch working for these publishers.)

Finally...THOSE BLURBS! Heaven's to murgatroid that's some racy-ass man fantasy! I wonder if the publishers ever realized that their product would have devoted followers who were older women living in Northeast Vermont?

Hey, despite not being an older woman, I suppose I should read one some time!

Here's a few covers from one of her fave series Mike Shayne along with the blurbs from the backs. Sorry I can't provide smell too, but I encourage you to huff any old paper you have lying around.

SHE WAS BOLD AND SHAMELESS WITH THE PROMISE OF FIRE AND LUST.

Not that Mike Shayne had any objections-who would when the lady has violet eyes, full lips and hair the color of cornsilk?

Still, with her husband dead of a heart attack only two days before, even tough, torrid Mr. Shayne was shocked when she whispered, "I want you."

Especially with the strong possibility that in this case the death of the lady's late husband had been a matter of murder.

IT ALL ADDED UP

First there was a murdered man-Mike Shayne's client.

Then there was the murder weapon-a filing spindle from Shayne's office.

And then there was the pair of dainty panties left behind-belonging to Shayne's secretary.

All the clues added up and pointed to the killer-Michael Shayne, private eye.

AN 18-KARAT DOLL WITH $200,00 IDEAS

She was beautiful, blonde, and willing, with all the right measurements and all the wrong morals. To a guy just out of stir, she was the kind of dream that had warmed him all those cold nights in an icy cell.

She had provided everything. The food, the drinks, and herself as the entertainment. Now to top it off, she wanted to stake him to a bankroll and cut him in on a job with a $200,00 take.

During his 13 years in the prison, there were only two things he had wanted. The second was the soft warm body of a dish like her-in his arms. But the first was the cold, dead body of Mike Shayne-in the morgue.

Uh-oh!

When you're hot, you're hot...

2008-03-28T10:06:00.000-07:00

Good news for people like me who are obsessed with defunct advertising mascots! (Hey! What's with the looks?) A news blurb courtesy of Cartoon Brew says that Renegade Animation has obtained the rights to the Funny Face characters and is working on a pilot for a potential cartoon series.

(This is a color version of a picture I did for the last issue of GRRL zine waaaay back towards the end of the 20th Century featuring Funny Face mugs.)

For those of you who have absolutely no idea what I'm talking about, some history: Back in the sixties Pillsbury (They of the giggling dough dude) were jealous of the bucks General Foods was raking in with Kool Aid. (Fun fact: Originally Kool Aid was a liquid concentrate called "Fruit Smack". No wonder Kurt Cobain used to use the stuff to die his hair...) Figuring to outdo Kool Aid's pitcher-with-a-face-draw-on (Later to be known as "Kool Aid Man") Funny Face drink packets featured a whole menagerie of cartoon characters, such as Goofy Grape, Lefty Lemon, Loudmouth Lime...and more controversially Injun Orange and Chinese Cherry. (These were later changed to the less racially divisive Jolly Ollie Orange and Choo-Choo Cherry.) Additionally, they created a barrage of merchandise featuring the characters, most popularly a set of drink mugs. (You can see a slew of Funny Face premiums and packages here at the wonderful Imaginary World site.) Unfortunately, although fondly remembered, Funny Face never did that well against Kool Aid. It didn't help that in the sixties is was made with cyclamates, and even after they were removed there was the perception among some that the stuff could still kill white rats.

So will the cartoon be any good? I admit I've never seen Renegade's TV shows Hi Hi Puffy Amy Yumi or the Mr Men show, but I do remember when Elmo Aardvark was running strong. That and other shorts of theirs I've seen were highly entertaining, so here's hoping...

In the meantime to whet your appetites (Or thirsts, as the case may be.) here's a couple of vintage Funny Face spots:

The sixties version with the original politically incorrect lineup.

The seventies version with less cancer and less appealing art direction.

ABC with two extra D's

2008-03-25T12:36:00.001-07:00

It's come to my attention that one of the hottest YouTube vids right now is a demonstration of French designer Marion Bataille's new pop-up alphabet book ABC3D , and that it's the brainchild of fellow Playground Ghost Colleen AF Venable, who also provides the hands! (She being the creator of the always fun-tastic Fluff In Brooklyn webcomic.) It's been blogged about on the New York Times webpage, and the book(Although not due to be released for 8 months.) has shot up to #160 on Amazon's rankings.

Check out the video below. If you want to pay back some joy, leave Colleen a nice rating or comment here to help Roaring Brook Press realize what a marketing genie they have.

Great Scott

2008-03-19T13:23:00.000-07:00

Whatcha Reading: The latest installment...

Okay, this one's serious old news to a lot of comic readers, but I've just gotten around to it..."It" being Bryan O' Malley's SCOTT PILGRIM comic.

For the uninitiated: the comic's titular hero is a scruffy Toronto resident who's the bass player for the band "Sex Bob-omb". At the outset of the series Scott (Who's 23) is having a rather chaste boyfriend/girlfriend relationship with the seventeen year old Chinese-Canadian high school girl Knives Chau. Scott's fairly satisfied with this slightly jail bait-ish romance...until American ex-pat delivery girl Ramona Victoria Flowers rollerblades into his dreams and then his life. Scott wants to date Ramona, but to truly secure her love he must defeat her Seven Evil Ex-Boyfriends in bizarre combat rituals.

If that last part seems a bit weird,it seems a lot more normal in the comic itself where slice of life romantic comedy brushes up against a surreal sensibility that's part video game and part manga. It's not unusual for characters to have bizarre super powers or generally subvert the laws of physics or common sense. Yet it all works somehow, or it least I think so.

These books are generally shelved with manga and there's certainly a strong influence evident, but O'Malley keeps the approach fresh and avoids the kind of paint by the numbers slavishness that bogs down so many Japanese influenced Western comics. His chops have grown impressively over the course of the series. The linework is lively and the images practically jump into your lap. And it's funny! O'Malley uses everything from dialogue to labeling to keep your face smiling while you read.

So consider me a convert. I'm already chomping at the bit for volume 5 where Scott must confront THE TWINS. (Eek!)

Saturday Morning Breakfast Psyche-Out

2008-03-14T11:44:00.000-07:00

A little shmear of somethings for your weekend...

In the late 60's/early 70's the two biggest cartoon cocks of the rock were SCOOBY DOO and The ARCHIES. The success of these shows paved the recipe for most of the cartoons that followed for years: Groovy Mystery + Teenagers (Mix of cool kids and neurotic cowards)+ Goofy animal sidekick + big musical number at the end. The musical numbers tended to either involve a band playing, people running around being chased by bad guys or some combo of the two. It's not surprising that these segments were popular with animation houses of the day, as they usually featured 50% or more recycled animation mixed with a lot of cartoon psychedelic foofah. Combine this with the sugar stimulated brains of the target audience and SHAZAM! Instant stupefication!

Here's a few musical numbers for you cats and chicks:

As we see here, the Hardy Boys realize that solving capers for their Dad isn't all there is in life... there's also rockin' out in front of screaming babes! Heck, check out the blonde number on stage go-go dancing her little rotoscoped heart out! (Warning, this clip is not recommended for epileptics...)

Next up, Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kids! Yes, you heard it right. There's no real relation to the Newman/Redford movie, although I'd like to imagine at some point someone said "The next time I say, "Let's play a gig someplace like Bolivia" Let's play a gig someplace like Bolivia!"

Note that at least in this case they give the extraneous rotoscoped blonde girl a tambourine to play with. "Look! I'm a musician!"

Finally, we have the opening segment of MISSION: MAGIC featuring...Rick Springfield! Yes, that's right, before Rick was breaking hearts on GENERAL HOSPITAL or singing about how much he'd like to cock-block his friend Jessie, Rick had long hair, wore sweater vests and lived in a magic land on the other side of a chalkboard with a little blue owl. CONSIDER YOUR MIND BLOWN. (Catchy tune eh?)

Have a groovy weekend!

The Sixties, Eighties style

2008-03-11T14:59:00.000-07:00

Okay, this Wednesday I figured I'd break from French music and posts some YouTube clips of bands from the good ol' YEW ESS AAY!

One of my favorite bits from an old issue of Daniel Clowes' Eightball comic where he was giving predictions of the future. One of his prognostications was that rather than have anything new, nostalgia for past decades would just rehashed endlessly. He illustrated this with an amusing fight between a guy who liked the Seventies version of the Fifties (Like "Happy Days") and a guy who prefered the Eighties version of the Fifties. (Like the Stray Cats)

I'm as guilty of this as anyone...but hey, it's fun! So I figured I'd post some examples of the Sixties as interpreted by the Eighties. It's weird to think of the juxtaposition of the two decades, as the Eighties seemed on some level like a refutation of the Sixties. It's worth remembering that inbetween New Wave, Hair Metal and Early Rap there was also a fair amount of 60's nostalgia. Tie-Die and paisley shirts made their brief comebacks, the Monkees reunited and the Grateful Dead finally had a hit single. Here's some examples of bands that made new music with an Aquarian twist, known under the all encompassing monker "The Paisley Underground":

First up, The Three O'Clock. These guys started out as a somewhat punkier outfit called The Salvation Army...until the well known charity group called foul. The band gradually developed a more psychedelic pop sound, sort of like the Lemon Pipers but with modern synthesizers. Like their contemporaries The Bangles the got a major labeol deal and had Prince writing them material. Unlike The Bangles, this effort (Which lacked a lot of their signature sound.) totally tanked and the band broke up. Check out lead singer Michael Quercio's bitchin' Partridge Family outfit. (He actually looks a bit like a teen idol version of "Z-Man" from the movie BEYOND THE VALLEY OF THE DOLLS.)

Next up is The Long Ryders. These guys were an example of the "Roots Rock" movement of the time that drew inspiration from bands like The Byrds and Buffalo Springfield. The band seemed poised for a larger audience, but took a hit authenticity-wise when they and fellow roots rockers The Del-Fuegos appeared in a series of Miller Beer commercials ("Miller's made the American waaaaay!") and they too disbanded before the decade's end. (Although they have recently reunited for some gigs.) Watching this vid, I can see they have the Peter Tork mop top hair shake down to a science.

Finally, representing the Garage Rock Revival, we have The Chesterfield Kings. Unlike the two preceding bands, The Chesterfield Kings never had a major label record...which ironically may be why they never broke up. Bands like these paved the way for the plethora of "The" bands of recent years, too bad they never saw all that cash.

Hogans scoop Emerald Isle

2008-03-08T11:24:00.000-08:00

Due to scheduling problems, this year we at Hogan Manor are having our annual St Patrick's Day party a week early. The luck of the Irish still persists though, as we are still having the traditional bad St. Patrick's Day party weather. (Freezing rain is a new twist.) That person you see skidding off the road may be one of our guests, so please treat them kindly.

If you never see another update here after tonight, blame the Jameson's.

Slante bitches!

Nous aimons Serge Gainsbourg

2008-03-05T05:33:00.000-08:00

It's wednesday, so how about some more French music? This time out the focus is on the late Serge Gainsbourg, who probably embodies the notion of the "Naughty Frenchman" more than a hundred "Lucky Pierre" jokes. Gainsbourg delighted in causing outrage, whether by singing a raunchy reggae version of the French national anthem or doing a duet with his preteen daughter called "Lemon Incest". Here's a few choice tranches of Serge:

Let's start out with Serge's biggest hit "Je t'aime... moi non plus". This orgasm laden number was too hot even for original vocalist (And Sege's one time lover) Bridget Bardot to handle. Serge eventually moved on to a relationship with actress Jane Birkin who agreed to handle oohing and aaahing chores. The song went on to massive sales and Vatican condemnation.

Next up is a song that Bardot DID agree to do. Not all that naughty (Not that you can ever be too sure with Gainsbourg. Those sound effects could signify almost anything.) but it sure seems appropriate for this site.

Finally, not a song, but a classic talk show incident that really sums up how Serge's head worked. (Not necessarily work safe audio-wise.)

Have a great wednesday and remember to cherchez la femmes....

Lay me among the swee' peas....

2008-03-04T05:26:00.000-08:00

The "Whatcha reading dept.":

Lately I've been reading a collection of "Thimble Theater" daily strips circa 1930-1931. For the less cartoon savvy, "Thimble Theater" was the strip that introduced "Popeye the Sailor Man" to a waiting world. Popeye wasn't there from the begining though. Elzie Segar's "Thimble Theater" first appeared in the New York Journal back on December 19, 1919. Originally the strip focused on Olive Oyl, her boyfriend Ham Gravy and her brother Castor Oyl. Popeye didn't join the cast until nearly a decade later on a January 17, 1929 as a minor character.

At the point I'm reading Popeye's been around for over a year and the strip's adventures largely revolve around him and Castor Oyl. (Starting out with the introduction of long time villainess The Sea Hag.
) What's interesting at this point is that while Popeye has started to take on a bigger role in the strip and evolve into his more familiar persona, he isn't quite there yet. He's got the familiar sailor suit, but his face is longer and it's made more explicit that he's old and missing one eye and all his teeth. (In one hospital sequence our politically incorrect hero smacks down and swears at a nurse who dares to bring him soup, demanding instead beef or salt pork. When the nurse complains that he has no teeth to chew with, Popeye asserts that "I kin gum it sumpin' arful-I got swell insides anyways-I even eat nuts!")

The early Popeye is something of a less heroic figure. He's brave, albeit in a somewhat scrappy sadistic fashion (He repeatedly tells one villain "Snorky, ya got a chin I loves to touch" before punching him.) but his superstitious nature leaves him deathly afraid of "Evil spiriks". He's also not the most honest of guys. Popeye frequently takes credit for Castor Oyl's detective work, and in one sequence he sets out to buy loaded dice for playing craps. (It's suggested that Popeye has a bit of a gambling problem.) He doesn't yet have spinach as a super powered backup, he's just really, really tough...at one point absorbing multiple gunshots at close range and surviving. Finally, it seems like Segar was still experimenting with catchphrases and whatnot. Although Popeye's already doing the familiar "Blow me down" bit, he also frequently talks about him or his opponent "Laying among the swee'peas" as a euphemism for defeat or death. (Segar would of course finally indulge his sweet pea obsession with a Popeye's infant ward.)

So it's some fun (If somewhat crude) stuff with an endearingly rougher edged Popeye. I'm reading one of the old 90's collections, but Fantagraphics Books has a a new set of reprints available. Just to remind you how everything turned out, here's the very first Popeye animated cartoon:

DIE WINTER DIE

2008-03-02T15:48:00.000-08:00

Ugh, I'm now getting over my second cold in one month (How I got this second one is beyond me, I'd just started a health regiment that week.) and I am happy to see February gone gone gone. Now if winter itself could join it. There's been enough snow to dismay a mastadon this year, and I am more than willing to put up with the inevitable mud and thawing dog turds if I can just see ground again. Under the circumstances, I suppose I should be thankful for my relatively small and stubby driveway. (I was amused though, that a "College student needing tuition money" left a flyer in my mailbox offering to shovel my driveway for 20 bucks. 20 bucks for less than a half hour's work? Shouldn't that be the goal after you graduate?)

With this winter being the worst worldwide in awhile, some people are saying we are now facing Global Cooling. I'm not convinced just yet that Al Gore has been punking us and it's time we all bought Lincoln Continentals, but if we are going to freeze to death I prefer the explanation in this vintage radio program. A conspiracy involving the northern lights and transdimensional cold craving woolly bear caterpillars who sing vowels? How wild is that?

By way of explanation, that show is an episode of "Quiet Please", a classic old time radio show created and written by Wyllis Cooper who also created the better known "Lights Out", series. Ol' Willis crafted plenty of weird and imaginative stories, including the best known "Quiet Please" tale "The Thing On the Fourble Board" which is probably one of the creepiest mixes of terror and romance ever. (Seriously)

Chilling radio on top of chilling weather. It's the sadist/masochist in me.

Yé-yé Yeah!

2008-02-26T11:36:00.000-08:00

What's that you say? Got the late February hump day blues? How about a steamy soufflé of swinging sixties yé-yé merveilleux-ness?

Yé-yé was the French pop movement that mixed influences from the British Invasion and the Girl Groups with a subtle dash of Jacques Brel and Francophone ennui. Yé-yé is considered to include non-French performers like Petula Clark, and it certainly had it's share of boys (Like Françoise Hardy's future husband Jacques Dutronc.) but it's probably the hoemgrown french yé-yé jeunne filles who are best associated with the scene. Here's three of the most famous:

Françoise Hardy

(Wheee! Upskirt action!)

Sylvie Vartan

(The Barbarella-esque art direction in this clip is AWESOME.)

Shiela

("Aqua Net, Je t'aime!)

For more info on this Gallic Go-go scene I recommend checking out the website Yé-Yé Land.

Stand by for ADVENTURE

2008-02-26T05:25:00.000-08:00

Okay, for a switch here's something that has nothing to do with booze. (Which isn't to say you might not enjoy booze with it...)

One of my fave obscure old cartoons is a little number called COLONEL BLEEP. I first became aware of the Bleepster back in the 90's when I read an animation magazine article on him. Colonel Bleep was having a bit of a mini revival, what with having the episode "The Treacherous Pirate" included in Speed Racer The Movie and two videocassettes having been released by Tapeworm Video. I missed out on all that at the time, but later managed to get a bunch of episodes on a bootleg video off of eBay. A lot of things don't live up to my anticipation of them, but such was not the case with Bleep.

Starting in 1945, the inhabitants of the planet Futura begin witnessing man's atomic age culminating in guided nuclear missiles. To the Futurans this means trouble, "Trouble in SPACE!" The "Futura Interplanetary High Command" thus sends Bleep to earth to do...something. With pretty much no explanation why or how, Col. Bleep hooks up with Squeak (A little boy puppet in a cowboy costume) and Scratch .(A bald caveman who was blasted out of his cave by an atomic explosion.) The three get a fly glass domed pad on "Zero Zero" island and proceed to have a bunch of far out adventures which don't seem to have much to do with nuclear proliferation.

Colonel Bleep was the first color cartoon made for TV, and color was pretty much it's one nod to lavishness. The need to economize can be seen in Bleep himself, his body merely a series of white lines perched on top of a circle. (Representing some kind of minimalistic alien unicycle I guess.) Bleep's bubble helmeted gumdrop shaped head doesn't actually omit speech so much as make a bunch of sounds resembling the warbling of an electronically treated flute. In fact, our heroes pretty much never talk, leaving the heavy lifting to the narrator. (In Squeak's case we are given the somewhat weak explanation that Squeak can't speak "Because as you all know, a puppet cannot talk for himself!" Independent thought and locomotion sure, but talking? Feh!) I can forgive all these attempts to save costly and time consuming lip synching on the strengths of narrator Noah Tyler's efforts. Dear God this man has heart! Whenever our three merry heroes are in trouble Tyler wails and laments the situation like a tortured soul (I like to imagine him rolling around on the floor tearing his hair out.) stopping just short of crying "OH THE HUMANITY!"

To compensate for lack of fluid animation, director Jack Schleh frequently has the characters spend their spare moments doing extreme squash & stretch poses climaxing in having them swoosh around the screen in a burst of sparkly stuff before returning to the spot they were standing in. It may not make any sense, but brother does it look WILD. That maybe best sums up Colonel Bleep's appeal. In an era before kid's cartoons were designed by committee and prescreened by educators, Colonel Bleep just seeks to get it's sugar soaked youth audiences rocks off with as much frantic action as humanly possible. The results are a hallucinatory revelation, to say the very least.

A couple of years ago Alpha Video released a DVD with some of the good Colonel's adventures so you too can thrill to Bleep's battles with Doctor Destructo, The Black Knight,Black Patch the Space Pirate or whatever other wonderfully cockamamie thing creator/writer Robert D. Buchanan could come up with to throw at them. For a taste of what to expect, click the link below for Bleep's first adventures:

Mardi Gras in the Big Freezy

2008-02-25T05:35:00.000-08:00

Saturday Burlington had it's big Mardi Gras celebration (Much like with the primaries, we're way later than everyone else.) highlighted by a parade hosted by local brewery Magic Hat

(I didn't have a chance to photograph Heather's Magic Hat sign for Number 9 beer but it basically looks like this.)

This is the 13th year these counterintuitively frostbitten shenanigans have been going on. It mostly amounts to a big float competition (With beads and candy being pelted at spectators.) and any nearby establishment serving alchohol being packed tighter than a refugee camp. Burlington being decidedly less laissez-faire than New Orleans, you won't see people staggering around in the streets holding gi-normous hurricane cocktails or flashing their breasts. (Aside from the inhospitable weather, the fact that the parade is to benefit Burlington's Women's Rape Crisis Center it MIGHT send the wrong signal...)

I was actually involved with a winning float back in the mid-late 90's. At the time I managed the local indie record store Pure Pop Records and they'd joined the Coalition of Independent Music Stores, a collective of non chain stores using their "Taste maker" status as a means of getting record companies to spend money on them promoting up and coming bands. (The music business was just starting to tank a bit. HAH! Just wait until the new millenium starts boys...) Anyhoo, Virgin Records was promoting a band called SILVERJET (Not to be confused with a current band out of Sheffield England.) and the store owner got the idea to use the label's money to construct a big silver jet float for the parade and put the band on it. (Also arranging for the band to play a few songs near the parade route.) He got a sculptor friend to build the float while sometimes American Elf character Kerrie Mathes and I did the detailing. When the big day came it was colder than a subprime lender's heart and the band refused to get on the float or perform at the event. PUSSIES! The fallout was that despite the band's non appearance, the float won the competition and the store got a full Magic Hat keg party. The band, on the other hand, quickly fell into alt rock glut obscurity and you can get their one major label release for a penny on Amazon. The moral: NO GUTS NO GLORY. One does not trifle with Burlington lightly!

(Not that I had any interest in freezing my ass off on the float either...)

And lo, there was BLOG

2008-02-20T08:54:00.000-08:00

Tap, tap, tap...is this thing on?

To quote Smokey the Genie from the Bugs Bunny cartoon "A-Lad-In His Lamp":

"I'm here! I'm here! Let the bells ring out and the banners fly! Feast your eyes on me! It's too good to be true, but I'm here! I'm here!"

Thus begins my new blog. I will assail your tender brains with the flotsam and jetsam of my world, a dreamy reverie of art, pop culture and booze. Drift down into the pulsing ripples of blogness, deeper...deeper...what's that gummy popping sound you hear? It's YOUR CONSCIOUSNESS EXPANDING. You're welcome!

So, to add another quote, this time from the incomparable Chuck Barris:

"We'll be right back with more STUFF."