Category: True Stories

Telephone Devolution 1967

Mail Call Letterpack – You get two players that play only the cartridges you can buy from Smith Corona and you can send a 3, 6 or 10 minutes letter. Just $70 a pair in 1967, these would be $450 in today’s dollars. How is this better than a phone? They say, it has no static and it’s cheaper!

Life, 1967

Make a 10 minute telephone call that will get to its destination in 4-5 business days, and in 4-5 business days you might get one back and can continue the conversation. Beats buying a reel-to-reel, and squelches telemarketers, too.

[Found here.]

1916 Hotness – Moriarty Playing Cards Cincinnati Ohio

Actresses featured in the Moriarty playing card series issued in 1916 by the Movie Souvenir Card Co. of Cincinnati, Ohio.

The back of each card is a reproduction in multiple-colors of the painting “The Chariot Race.” The ad card within the pack proclaims: “Get a few packs of “Movies”–A Veritable Picture Gallery of the celebrities of the Movie World, treated with such a genius that it is the greatest novelty ever made in Souvenir Playing Cards, and is complete for playing all card games.”

I pick 3, 10 & Q diamonds, 8 & 10 clubs as if it matters. (5 hearts is an obvious slut. Don’t mess with her for more than one night.)

[Found here.]

Saturday Matinee – Current Events, Helicopter Synch, Happy Shining, Big Splash and BB, SRV & EJ

15 Seconds.

Helicopter/Camera Synch. [via]

Happy Shining.

Big Splash.

BB King, Stevie Ray Vaughan & Etta James at the Ebony Showcase Theatre Los Angeles, 15 April 1987, with The Wicked Wilson Pickett‘s “Midnight Hour.” (Check out the amazing background of Nick Stewart, founder of the EST linked above.)

Great way to wrap up this edition of The Saturday Matinee. Have a great weekend folks, see you back here tomorrow.

First Grade 1963

Who’s that good lookin’ kid in Row C Column 1? He liked the good lookin’ girl at C8. Her name was Karla. That same year my family moved to a different school district.

I still remember some of the kids in that picture, even though I don’t remember their names.  A9 was funny. A5, B7 & D3 were trouble makers. C1, D1, and a couple of others got detentions the first day of school for having too much fun. True. We had a blast and thought we were being rewarded.

My mom was pissed because nobody called from the school to tell her that Bunky had been detained. She thought I’d drowned in the creek.

Several years later I recognized Karla sitting next to me in Literature Class. She’d transferred into my High School in our senior year, and was a jaw-dropping knockout. I could barely stutter out my name, but she said she remembered me. She said C3 grew up to be a complete rumpswab.

Any of you recobanize your photo?

11th Hour of the 11th Day of the 11th Month 1918

“Go Fish” Company Headquarters

Yep. They invented the game. I only hope the windows are operable. [Found here.]

Sledge

1956 Pobeda Sledge (Russia)

[Found here.]

Chicks Dig Guys Who Vote

This election is going to determine the fate of Our Nation. Are we going to emulate failed European-style socialism, or are we going to stand up, get bureaucracy out of the way and let the free-market engine of prosperity take us and the rest of the civilized world out of the doldrums that we’ve experienced for the past four years? In sailing terms, the US economy is in irons, and it shouldn’t have to be this way.

The very people who caused this geopolitical financial mess claim that people like me who oppose the economic self-destruction of this Great Country are racist homophobic women-haters, anti-science, knuckle-dragging drooling cavemen who want to destroy the environment and eat your babies in front of your God Denying Eyes. If you believe any of that crap you have no credible reason to vote.

By definition I’m a liberal. I want to change things. I want to elect officials who are fiscally conservative, morally sound, and who will protect our nation and allies from danger, both here and abroad, regardless of party affiliation. The Democrat Party offers none of that today, only lies, smears, cheap shots and half-truths. Throw the bastards out tomorrow.

The Chicks will dig you.

Bunk

Eileen & The Hot Links

Michael Jackson’s 1993 Patent is cool, but he likely got the idea from this guy.

Hominid will creep you out. [via]

Sea star suppertime.

Tattoo Spellcheck.

Nothing but Plague Doctors. Prior to medical/scientific knowledge about the causes of The Black Death, Plague Doctors risked their lives attempting to treat the infected while trying to protect themselves from the  “miasma.” The very sight of a Plague Doctor terrified people as he was a harbinger of death, and due to his specialty, a Plague Doctor was often forced to be a recluse himself.

I missed the debut of the The Butter Dance, but inadvertently featured it here. Don’t try this at home, or anywhere for that matter. After all *ahem* Melati Suryodarmo is a professional. [h/t kdub]

Retro Pron – 1890s.  Drool away me laddies. Drool away.

Saturday Matinee – Operation Ivy Mike, Zippo Tricks & Ohio Players

1 November was the 60th Anniversary of the first thermonuclear blast known as Operation Ivy Mike – 10 megatons set off on Eniwitok Atoll.
[h/t Soylent Green]

Papa Strutts was on the flagship USS Estes, and said that although they were miles away,  the shock wave blew out all the light bulbs on the ship. He’s an official member of  The Glow In The Dark Society.

Zippo tricks were a necessary evil growing up, at least they used to be a million years ago when we’d flip the cap on the downstroke and flick the wheel coming up, on our jeans. A quick 1-2 flourish. Zippos rock.

And that’s about as silly a performance of pure funk that I’ve ever seen. The Ohio Players, introduced by Helen “I Am Woman” Reddy in 1975.

That’s about all I can take for tonight. Have a great weekend, folks.