 |
| Click for big. |
4/29/16
4/28/16
Lionel Union Pacific Streamline - Neither skimpy, nor dinky (sic).
In 1934, if you could afford to buy your kid an electric train set, you were doing pret-ty well, sir. It was a year of decent economic recovery after the Great Depression, but it was still a time when a super cool train set was very much a luxury item... just ask ten year old Alec Baldwin!
No, not really. For starters, if this kid were Alec, he'd be about eighty years old now. But this kid sure does look like him. Regardless of this boy's chronological age, in this photo, he's becoming a man. How? He's having his first train boner. Look at him, man. And well might he. Any kid could be expected to have a bit of premature masculation when being given a badass tran set like this one. And Alec's dad would have a little boner of his own if he knew what the thing would be worth, just half a century later.
Of course, this Lionel Union-Pacific Streamliner is a brand-new, never-played-with example, and the kind of kids that never open their toys in the hope of auctioning them off in fifty years are A) virtually nonexistent and B) when they do exist, they're probably freakazoids.
Not our little Alec, though. you can tell by the look on his face that he's definitely going to play with his train.
Little Alec has more work to do. What kind of work? That's up to you, because we've made him into a Graphic Gift. He's dot patterned. He's got an alpha background. He's got the energy. He's come all the way from 1934 to find a home on whatever poster, email or graphic you think needs some enthusiasm. Give a big hand to Train Boner Alec! More importantly, let's give him a place on your hard drive. You're welcome!
What? You want more? Fine. Here's Train Boner Alec as a 1000 px avatar, to be used as your avatar on your chat platform of choice. Happy now? You're still welcome!
Of course, this Lionel Union-Pacific Streamliner is a brand-new, never-played-with example, and the kind of kids that never open their toys in the hope of auctioning them off in fifty years are A) virtually nonexistent and B) when they do exist, they're probably freakazoids.
Not our little Alec, though. you can tell by the look on his face that he's definitely going to play with his train.
Little Alec has more work to do. What kind of work? That's up to you, because we've made him into a Graphic Gift. He's dot patterned. He's got an alpha background. He's got the energy. He's come all the way from 1934 to find a home on whatever poster, email or graphic you think needs some enthusiasm. Give a big hand to Train Boner Alec! More importantly, let's give him a place on your hard drive. You're welcome!
 |
| Click for 10000 px. |
 |
| Click for 1000 px. |
4/27/16
The Cowboy Interruption.
Joke #1 - "Brad, table four has sent back their cheesy fries for the second time. Permission to blow a snot rocket in the their entree?"
Joke #2 - Brad's next sentence was interrupted by the sound of the door being thrown open. He whirled around in his chair and his face went white. It was Bone Dry Bud, The Man Without a Fly, and some say the orneriest buckaroo to never moisten a urinal cake.
Joke #3 - "Aha! I might have guessed! How could you, Brad?... and with Mr. Lincoln, no less! You knew he was on my 'celebrity free pass list'."
Joke #4 - "No no no. False alarm, Troy. I said 'I didn't expect a kind of Amish Exhibition'. Go back to work."
Joke #5 - "Nope. Those make your thighs look big, too. Try the culottes your sister sent you."
Joke #6 - "Sorry to interrupt, sir, but there's some rootin' goin' on. Some say there's some tootin', as well."
Joke #7 - "Sir, we need to order some real cards. The boys are tired of playin' Uno."
Joke #8 - "Sir, can I just work in the dish room for the rest of the night? The guys are makin' fun of my camel toe again. "
Joke #9 - "Brad, I think we need to cut off table three. They want me to play Frozen again, and the other customers are starting to complain."
Mat Black was the first to rustle up a mess of joke #10. Thanks, Mat! - "I'm the only hombre 'round these parts that can pull off the white shirt, vest and snap tie! GO CHANGE!"
Not far behind was MisterFancyButtonDowntheBackPants_2, with joke #11. nice shootin' Tex. "'Scuse the interruption Brad, but do I 'saunter in', or 'sashay in'?" "Carl says I 'sashay in' like a two-bit parlor floosie and I don't reckon I'm likin' the way that stinkin' bitch is runnin his mouth...and OH - MY - GAWD!!, is that my copy of '50 Shades' yer givin' to Mister Lincoln?!?!..."
[Commenter jokes will be added to the post. -Mgmt.]
Bonus punishment: You've probably done something bad this week. Teach yourself a lesson by listening to Cowboy Song, improvised by BlueWank. It takes a while to get going, and unfortunately takes a while to get stopping. Sorry, not sorry.
4/26/16
Squire Slacks - Ignoring is bliss.
Aaah, 1969. A magical year between the Swinging Sixties and the Mouth-Breathing High School Dropout Seventies. In this ad, we find a Freddie Mercury-Christopher Reeves lovechild trying to decide which of his artfully draped child brides he wants to ignore the most. What a time it must have been to be alive... and a conscious participant in society.
The ladies in this photo don't seem to mind sharing their groovy dude. One wife gets his shoulder, one gets his knee, and one wife is sort of cupping his butt cheek, but seems to be looking up at his elbow, wondering if she can possibly trade up. She's got ambition. I like her spirit.
You'd think Floor Wife would mind being stepped on by Shoulder Wife, but she doesn't seem to mind or even notice. She's only got eyes for the camera. Oooo. Who's Camera Wife? We'll have to wait till the April '69 issue of Esquire to possibly find out.
If you talk to other humans for work (probably) or pleasure (may god forgive you), you probably do it with a computer. If you talk to other humans on a computer, your chitchat service may let you choose a little self-portrait, so your chitchat combatants can see the face whom god may need to forgive. If you can choose a little self-portrait, you may want to add the faces from today's ad to your growing collection of avatars on your storage doohickey of choice. They're all RGB 1000 px square JPEGS, so there's probably not a system on the planet that could object to them... on technical grounds, at least. You're welcome!
Click each to big each.
The ladies in this photo don't seem to mind sharing their groovy dude. One wife gets his shoulder, one gets his knee, and one wife is sort of cupping his butt cheek, but seems to be looking up at his elbow, wondering if she can possibly trade up. She's got ambition. I like her spirit.
You'd think Floor Wife would mind being stepped on by Shoulder Wife, but she doesn't seem to mind or even notice. She's only got eyes for the camera. Oooo. Who's Camera Wife? We'll have to wait till the April '69 issue of Esquire to possibly find out.
If you talk to other humans for work (probably) or pleasure (may god forgive you), you probably do it with a computer. If you talk to other humans on a computer, your chitchat service may let you choose a little self-portrait, so your chitchat combatants can see the face whom god may need to forgive. If you can choose a little self-portrait, you may want to add the faces from today's ad to your growing collection of avatars on your storage doohickey of choice. They're all RGB 1000 px square JPEGS, so there's probably not a system on the planet that could object to them... on technical grounds, at least. You're welcome!
Click each to big each.
 |
| Freddy Mercury-Reeves, wondering where his mustache might have fallen off. |
 |
| Shoulder Wife, just happy with the scapula. |
 |
| Floor Wife, looking like she's wondering about being Camera Wife. |
4/25/16
4/22/16
Know Your Orchestra - Vorpal Horn
Original image fount at Shorpy.com, used without permission. We hope they don't mind.
 |
| Click for 1600 px. |
4/21/16
Up Your Decor - Like, wrist, man!
 |
| Everyone loves animals, and this interesting hallway makes sure that you see an animal staring back at you every time you walk out of your gift wrapped bedroom. "Good morning, Mister Most-of-an-antelope's-head! How are you today?" Every time you open up your pink and orange checkered door, it's like opening up a gift with a piece of a woodland buddy inside! Don't miss the grandfather clock with a strategically small face that makes you climb it just to see what time it is! There's your morning exercise, right there! You can pretend you're shinnying up a tree to escape whatever made your woodland wall-friends! |
 |
| You'll be thrilled to have the blues in this engaging living room by exciting new interior design up-and-comer Flavia Swumefort. You can luxuriate your evening away, leaning on the rich Corinthian column, or lounging in the rich Corinthian chair. There's even a side table upon which you can place a rich Corinthian object! Neat! You won't mind the hours you'll need to spend here, trying to figure out how to vacuum the walls and ceiling in this little slice of your blue heaven! |
 |
| "Good afternoon, Mister Bond!... at least I think it's the afternoon! Hahaha!" You won't know what time it is in this cozy dining room with walls covered in decadent black vinyl and chrome flashing. The recessed can lights in the ceiling will give you all the light you want... if that is indeed what you want! The warm invitingness continues with the snake skin chairs and intricate "Three Circles and Two Squares" painting. Your guests will simply be dying to be murdered at your next murder hosting... especially if your friends are snakes! Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha! |
 |
| Ho hum! What a boring room, right? No carpet on the ceiling, and the chairs are merely bright blue, Not a paisley to be seen! The only thing to keep you from killing yourself with boredom is the fab painting that ties the whole thing together! Let's get a load of that art in the next picture!... |
 |
| Load, gotten! Like, wow! Have you ever seen anything so complexfully simple? The arrows point to the wrist as if to say "Hey, man. Wrist!" Plus, they match the genuine velour ottoman and some kind of Chinese thing on the coffee table! Like, wrist, man! |
4/20/16
Fleischmann's Yeast - A modest promposal.
Well, it's another dramatized comic strip of shame and chastity, courtesy of Fleischmann's yeast again. This time, the victim of teenage brutality is "Harry", who can't seem to get any 1936 play.
Fleischmann's is also there to help us translate the "crazy jargon" of the time by "putting" "Quotation marks" around "strange" "new" "words" like the word "dates". You see, a "date" indicates an appointment at which time an event is anticipated to occur. When one is "courting the birds", a common method of "getting it on" is to meet somewhere in the physical universe at a previously agreed-upon time and place, with a varying margin of possibility of "performing lewd acts" upon one another. This custom, by 1936, had been ascribed the slang term of "dating", in which the participants were said to "have a date", as opposed to the more archaic and time-consuming term "have a prearranged appointment with potential for awkward adolescent groping and mouthing of body parts".
Thanks for helping us understand this with your judicious application of quotation marks, Fleischmann's!
Anyway, does eating brewer's yeast cure acne? Probably not. It is mentioned on "WebMD" as having been used to treat acne, but many things have historically been used to treat all sorts of things, and simply noting this fact does not constitute a ringing endorsement. Here in The Future, the most common acne treatments involve benzoyl peroxide, salicylic acid, sulfur, or topically applied vitamin A. All of these treatments score over the older yeasty remedy in that they A) have modern science in their corner, and B) aren't administered orally. By all accounts, brewer's yeast apparently tastes like hell.
But, humans sure do love beer, and yeast is a byproduct of the beer manufacturing process. So, you can't blame them for trying to find something to do with the stuff.
Aah, The Thirties. It was a simpler time when you could skulk around the house in an ordinary shirt and tie, instead of getting all dressed up in your sweatpants and pit-stained undershirt, like us poor bastards here in The Future. If we chart the arrow of this trend, one could imagine a day when not only the passengers on most airlines will be gussied up in flip flops and track shorts, but also the pilot.
"Sis" has gotten ready for her "potential groping and mouthing event" by getting dressed up as Chic Young's "Blondie", presumably to have dinner with Dick Tracy and perhaps some light criminal sexual assault.
Big Brother seems to pull plenty of tail by simply living his reality as Liza Minelli. It's a big world out there, bro. A pot for every lid.
A billboard I drove past the other day reminded me it's prom season, and that boys are expected to make a major municipal production out of asking a girl to go to prom with him. Prom season is a practice run for spending insane amounts of money on a single evening's amusement, crippling rejection, and the ritual of marriage. That means you need some clip art to help you get in the saddle on prom night. We've got you covered, buckaroo! Right click these Graphic Gifts onto your hard disk for sure-fire prom groping, while simultaneously rejecting the unreasonable, acne-free standards of beauty imposed upon us by The Big Mean Media. If you think a zit-covered face can't be beautiful, you're a monster, and should be beaten with a mop handle. You're welcome!
But first, a serving suggestion, just to help you get the idea how persuasive your "promposal" could be, writ large...
Fleischmann's is also there to help us translate the "crazy jargon" of the time by "putting" "Quotation marks" around "strange" "new" "words" like the word "dates". You see, a "date" indicates an appointment at which time an event is anticipated to occur. When one is "courting the birds", a common method of "getting it on" is to meet somewhere in the physical universe at a previously agreed-upon time and place, with a varying margin of possibility of "performing lewd acts" upon one another. This custom, by 1936, had been ascribed the slang term of "dating", in which the participants were said to "have a date", as opposed to the more archaic and time-consuming term "have a prearranged appointment with potential for awkward adolescent groping and mouthing of body parts".
Thanks for helping us understand this with your judicious application of quotation marks, Fleischmann's!
Anyway, does eating brewer's yeast cure acne? Probably not. It is mentioned on "WebMD" as having been used to treat acne, but many things have historically been used to treat all sorts of things, and simply noting this fact does not constitute a ringing endorsement. Here in The Future, the most common acne treatments involve benzoyl peroxide, salicylic acid, sulfur, or topically applied vitamin A. All of these treatments score over the older yeasty remedy in that they A) have modern science in their corner, and B) aren't administered orally. By all accounts, brewer's yeast apparently tastes like hell.
But, humans sure do love beer, and yeast is a byproduct of the beer manufacturing process. So, you can't blame them for trying to find something to do with the stuff.
Aah, The Thirties. It was a simpler time when you could skulk around the house in an ordinary shirt and tie, instead of getting all dressed up in your sweatpants and pit-stained undershirt, like us poor bastards here in The Future. If we chart the arrow of this trend, one could imagine a day when not only the passengers on most airlines will be gussied up in flip flops and track shorts, but also the pilot.
"Sis" has gotten ready for her "potential groping and mouthing event" by getting dressed up as Chic Young's "Blondie", presumably to have dinner with Dick Tracy and perhaps some light criminal sexual assault.
Big Brother seems to pull plenty of tail by simply living his reality as Liza Minelli. It's a big world out there, bro. A pot for every lid.
A billboard I drove past the other day reminded me it's prom season, and that boys are expected to make a major municipal production out of asking a girl to go to prom with him. Prom season is a practice run for spending insane amounts of money on a single evening's amusement, crippling rejection, and the ritual of marriage. That means you need some clip art to help you get in the saddle on prom night. We've got you covered, buckaroo! Right click these Graphic Gifts onto your hard disk for sure-fire prom groping, while simultaneously rejecting the unreasonable, acne-free standards of beauty imposed upon us by The Big Mean Media. If you think a zit-covered face can't be beautiful, you're a monster, and should be beaten with a mop handle. You're welcome!
But first, a serving suggestion, just to help you get the idea how persuasive your "promposal" could be, writ large...
 |
| Why would Jean go mouthing and groping with anyone else? |
 |
| Click for big. |
 |
| Click for big. |
4/15/16
Bass Shoes - Uuh, jealous?
"Wouldn't you like to be in his shoes?" It takes a second or two to realize the ad's not a parody or something. Then you remember "Oh yeah. I'm holding a magazine from 1971. Some people actually really for real dressed like this."
Also, this ad was found in Esquire magazine - always a publication that fancied itself a bit of a dandy. We'd be mistaken to let ads like this become our telescope into the past. Yes, some people dressed like this in '71, but this was far from the norm. If you were to head down the street in 1971's New York (not that I could have) to get a carton of cigarettes and a six of Schlitz, what you would not see is an army of Leon Redbones and Janis Joplins twirling around together.
The Phil Are GO! Reserach and Googling Team did a quick look for scanned snapshots of actual New York from 1971 that seemed fairly candid and normal. Turns out a handy post at Jeremiah's Vanishing New York had just the thing. Link to the post here...
http://vanishingnewyork.blogspot.com/2013/05/new-york-1971.html
...and images reposted without permission here. I hope they don't mind.
Not a Leon or Janis to be seen. A couple of double-breasted suits and more floral shirts than in 2016, but nothing nuts. That's "fashion" for you: always urging us to look like idiots and trying to convince us it will make us cool, instead of making us broke idiots.
But then every generation regards itself as the sole arbiter of cool, that future history will always identify us as the ones that finally got "cool" right, and that everyone before us were clueless fools. However, anyone old enough to have seen a few cultural laps around Lake Trendy will know that there's always something really stupid going on, but we may be too close to it to tell. Hmm. What's stupid right now? Are we too close to it to tell?
Let's have a look at the Supreme Arbiter of Cool, Esquire.com. Once at their site, it's pretty easy to find a page wherein they dictate to us the definition of "looking good for this spring", as shamelessly defined by their sponsor, Bonobos. Bonobos is one of the proliferating number of subscription clothing services. Yep. Subscription clothing services. How those work is this: You agree to let the service make you send them money each month for clothes, and they send you clothes every month. Some will let you send back stuff you don't like, and some have "agents" try to pick stuff tailored to your tastes, to minimize returns. Anyway, the important thing is you let them make you buy clothes every month. Clothes, it's important to remember, can be re-used, unlike food. You would think that this would mean you shouldn't need to buy new clothes on a monthly basis, but Esquire clearly wants you slavishly following the caprice of having The Newest Thing. Thinking for yourself is bad for (their) business.
Remember how great the Columbia Record Club was? Getting records you hate because they're on the charts that month, and forgetting to send them back in time so you're stuck with them? This is that, but with clothes. If you like exactly what the average person likes, you're golden. If you're even slightly eccentric or, god help you, a free thinker, fuck you.
Anyway, let's look at a group of models paid to wear the clothes they're wearing, as prescribed by Esquire and Bonobos as the clothes you need to be wearing:
Skinny pants barely long enough to touch your shoes seems to be cool this spring... until they decide it isn't. Apart from that, things look pretty normal, if a bit foppish, which is, admittedly, what we've come to expect from Fashion. You need to be a fop. Fop it up already, will you? If you're leaving the house to get a loaf of bread, you need a tweed blazer and maybe a socks / scarf combo that match perfectly. if you don't, you're a troglodyte and need to feel shame.
By and large, nothing here looks as simply stupid as the Bass Shoes pimp suit. This could mean that...
A) The Seventies simply had terrible judgment. That's an absolute truth.
B) There's something truly silly going on with The Latest Fashions for 2016 but we're too close to it to tell. That's worrying.
Instead of writing a paragraphs-long screed on the slavery to fashion, Flight of the Conchords took the clever route and wrote a song about it. Excellent soundalike parody of Eighties new wave bands in here. As always, FOTC make perfect satire look easy.
UPDATE: Diligent Associate Graphic Blandishment and Photoshoppery Cadet John S has done the world the service of popping this permanently-fashionable couple out of their New York scene and dropped them on a nice rectangle of alpha. Now they can trip the light methtastic anywhere you choose. He's also included a serving suggestion of where the real action was in '71, and where these two may have been dancing. Thanks, John!
The Phil Are GO! Reserach and Googling Team did a quick look for scanned snapshots of actual New York from 1971 that seemed fairly candid and normal. Turns out a handy post at Jeremiah's Vanishing New York had just the thing. Link to the post here...
http://vanishingnewyork.blogspot.com/2013/05/new-york-1971.html
...and images reposted without permission here. I hope they don't mind.
Not a Leon or Janis to be seen. A couple of double-breasted suits and more floral shirts than in 2016, but nothing nuts. That's "fashion" for you: always urging us to look like idiots and trying to convince us it will make us cool, instead of making us broke idiots.
But then every generation regards itself as the sole arbiter of cool, that future history will always identify us as the ones that finally got "cool" right, and that everyone before us were clueless fools. However, anyone old enough to have seen a few cultural laps around Lake Trendy will know that there's always something really stupid going on, but we may be too close to it to tell. Hmm. What's stupid right now? Are we too close to it to tell?
Let's have a look at the Supreme Arbiter of Cool, Esquire.com. Once at their site, it's pretty easy to find a page wherein they dictate to us the definition of "looking good for this spring", as shamelessly defined by their sponsor, Bonobos. Bonobos is one of the proliferating number of subscription clothing services. Yep. Subscription clothing services. How those work is this: You agree to let the service make you send them money each month for clothes, and they send you clothes every month. Some will let you send back stuff you don't like, and some have "agents" try to pick stuff tailored to your tastes, to minimize returns. Anyway, the important thing is you let them make you buy clothes every month. Clothes, it's important to remember, can be re-used, unlike food. You would think that this would mean you shouldn't need to buy new clothes on a monthly basis, but Esquire clearly wants you slavishly following the caprice of having The Newest Thing. Thinking for yourself is bad for (their) business.
Remember how great the Columbia Record Club was? Getting records you hate because they're on the charts that month, and forgetting to send them back in time so you're stuck with them? This is that, but with clothes. If you like exactly what the average person likes, you're golden. If you're even slightly eccentric or, god help you, a free thinker, fuck you.
Anyway, let's look at a group of models paid to wear the clothes they're wearing, as prescribed by Esquire and Bonobos as the clothes you need to be wearing:
Skinny pants barely long enough to touch your shoes seems to be cool this spring... until they decide it isn't. Apart from that, things look pretty normal, if a bit foppish, which is, admittedly, what we've come to expect from Fashion. You need to be a fop. Fop it up already, will you? If you're leaving the house to get a loaf of bread, you need a tweed blazer and maybe a socks / scarf combo that match perfectly. if you don't, you're a troglodyte and need to feel shame.
By and large, nothing here looks as simply stupid as the Bass Shoes pimp suit. This could mean that...
A) The Seventies simply had terrible judgment. That's an absolute truth.
B) There's something truly silly going on with The Latest Fashions for 2016 but we're too close to it to tell. That's worrying.
Instead of writing a paragraphs-long screed on the slavery to fashion, Flight of the Conchords took the clever route and wrote a song about it. Excellent soundalike parody of Eighties new wave bands in here. As always, FOTC make perfect satire look easy.
UPDATE: Diligent Associate Graphic Blandishment and Photoshoppery Cadet John S has done the world the service of popping this permanently-fashionable couple out of their New York scene and dropped them on a nice rectangle of alpha. Now they can trip the light methtastic anywhere you choose. He's also included a serving suggestion of where the real action was in '71, and where these two may have been dancing. Thanks, John!
 |
| Click for big. |
 |
| Click for big. |
4/14/16
4/13/16
4/12/16
Up Your Decor - Rods and cones, just clap your eyes, just clap your eyes.
 |
| This bold room allows you to wear any of your four dresses! On any given day, you can choose your royal blue one, your kelly green one, your mustard velour one, or your wooden one! Now That's coordination in the nation! The inset picture demonstrates that the couch unfolds to become a bed sort of thing that you can lie down on and possibly sort of sleep if you spine happens to be the right shape! Convenience! |
 |
| After a long day of dropping the kids off at the library on elephant back, you'll just love leaning back in your zebra wicker couch and letting the warming crackle of the houseplant ease the stress from your tired bones. Did you leave the elephant running in the driveway? |
 |
| Your kids have rods, right? How bout some cones? Check and check! Unless their conerods get their exercise, those shapes in their eyes will just go away! It's science, people! This little eyeball Einstien likes to take her cones out for a jog in this terrific orange, pink, and green bedroom! The staring eyes of the toys and other homunculi on the shelf get plenty of exercise, too, watching her sleep! Good niiiiiiight! |
 |
| Spring is green, stupid! This greentastic living room never lets your feet forget it, with its grassy shag carpet! The glass coffee tables make sure you don't miss a second of all the action taking place deep in your carpety lawn! Your eyes will simply love wriggling their toes in the green velour wallpaper! You'll think your eyes have died and gone to the park! |
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
