Certain-teed - A home I'll be proud to invade.

We here at Go! Towers don't happen to have any soldiers on staff, but we're all pretty sure that it has never been the U.S. Army's policy to parachute soldiers home after a war. In general, paratroopers are pretty much used for invasion. You know... dropping into a war zone.

And so it is that we are left to boggle at the narrative of this ad. Clearly, the soldier is an honest sort of man who appreciates quality construction and great weatherproofing when he sees it - even from seventy-five feet overhead, just before doing a drop-roll into the garden.

"Boy! ...What a honey of a roof!" he says. "It'll be a shame to set fire to it and apprehend the owners. But, we need to eliminate any possible pockets of local resistance. It's the job!"

With joyful detachment, he'll kick in the back door, pausing briefly to admire the new linoleum tile. "On the floor! On the beautiful low-maintenance floor! ON THE FLOOR! DOWN! DOWN! Tell me the spacing of the floor joists NOW! Are they 2x8's or 2x10's? This floor feels NICE AND SOLID! Feels like 12 inches on center, NOW! TELL ME NOW! Who was your contractor!? Can I have his CARD!? GIVE IT TO ME NOW!

 The woman in the yard seems pretty happy to have her house stormed. She's waving almost like she wants to be sure hers is the first house to have a grenade thrown through the patio doors. "Guten Morgen, Soldaten Freund! My knickers are moist with your imminent violation.Whatever you do, please don't force your way into mine bedroom on der second floor, first door on ze right. I'll be helpless to resist your advances. Oh jah, it weel be horrible, See you there."


Wait a minute and hold on a second also. Certainteed (They dropped the hyphen some time after the war.) describe themselves as having a presence in North American markets only. Their site has a French option, because the company is wholly owned by the French company Compagnie de Saint-Gobain SA The soldier's dialect ("What a honey of a roof.") implies a middle American upbringing, so he's very likely supposed to be American. Sooo...a French owned company and American soldiers. Ah! As early as 1943, Certainteed management must have had fantasies about Americans occupying France - possibly as liberators, possibly to set up a puppet government focused on quality building materials and top-notch insulation.


Man, global politics makes my head hurt. I'd rather go back to making up stuff for the lady to say, but with a corrected French accent...


"Allo! Monsieur parachute soldier! My valuables are all safely heedden away in my pantaloons! You weel never find them where I have hidden them, which is also where I keep my naughty bits, so please don't look in there. Yes, that would be verry unpleasant I would say! Perhaps you are looking for Monsieur Heetler, ah? I'm sure I have not seen heem, but if I had, I'm sure he would also be lurking somewhere near my varrious soft parts! Whatever you do, you'd better not set up a camp underneath my frock or I weel have to surrender at you! So don't even try, ah?"

Savings and Loan - Strange Meadow Lark

Joke #1: "*Gasp!* Oh dear! Honey, we've been robbed! I can't find my crystal candy dish!"

Joke#2: "...and police are still on the lookout for two men wanted for a string of armed robberies. Both are caucasian males. One is approximately six feet tall and has a beard. The other is just under ninety five feet tall and may be carrying a medium sized house. Both should be considered armed and dangerous. We now return you to Jack Parr already in progress."

Joke #3: "Bobby, remember what I said. After your program is over, I need you to go and mow your bedroom. And keep an eye out for that darn gopher. He's got my keys."

Joke #4: The lighter side of home foreclosure.

Joke #5: "..and not only are returning veterans eligible for discounted vocational training. America's soldiers can look forward to choosing from a variety of low-interest loans that they can use to buy a meadow, prairie, or sward."

Joke #6: "Honey, I've been thinking. You're doing well at the factory and we're making our bills without any trouble, so I... Well, I'll just come out and say it. Let's buy a wall!"

Joke #7: "There's nothing more refreshing than a G.E. air conditioning system, friends. Imagine enjoying your summer, cooled by the latest climate control technology. If you think you're ready to take advantage of our trial offer, just call this number and we'll send out a G.E. technician to demolish your house.This is a limited time offer. Don't wait!"

Joke #8: "Honestly, Barbara, if your sister 'just pops in' for one more unannounced visit, I'll... I'll... I swear I'll go and buy a door, install it and then lock it! Don't tempt me! I'm serious this time!"

Joke #9: "Oh gosh, I'm sorry Barbara. That casserole is coming back on me again. I need to go use the bathroom,  I'll use a tree farther away from the living room. I'm sorry about last time."


(Tip of the hat to anyone who recognized "Strange Meadow Lark" as a reference to Dave Brubeck's song of the same title, the album of which was mentioned on yesterday's post. Yeah, I didn't think so.)

Life Savers - Take five (of them).

In the opinion of the P.A.G. editorial staff, some pictures don't deserve jokes, but instead are really great and as such, need to see the light of day. These pictures are perfect for days when time is a little short. It's better than skipping a day. Behold, the life savers pep-o-mint roller coaster ad! I'm not sure why Blogger is displaying the "preview" version you see here so uglifully. If you click through to the big one, you can see it's much nicer.

 Looking at the loose, geometric linework reminded me of the album cover of Dave Brubeck's Time Out, which was painted by S. Neil Fujita. This kind of art was very much the rage in the fifties, and is beloved by me, as is this album.

On a lark, I checked the Life Savers ad for a signature and, hey, what do you know? "Erdoes". A quick Google search reveals that his first name was Richard and that he apparently had a thing for native American culture. That's great if you're in to injuns, but doing an image search on Richard Erdoes brings you lots of photos of people and not many examples of his work. I'll post what I did manage to find. I think I have a new favorite.

Al Hirschfeld on Hollywood.

"Who's Al Horsechild?" you say. It's "Hirsch-feld", and you ought to know his work if you're been alive more than five years and are not blind. If you don't know who Al Hirschfeld is, the first thing you need to do is punch yourself in the groin for being a clueless jerk... or blind. Actually, if you're blind, don't punch yourself, because your life is hard enough. Just try to find someone who doesn't know who Al Hirschfeld is and punch THEM in random locations until one of their shouts of pain sounds like "Ow! My groin!" Well done, blindey.

Here is a self-portrait by Hirschfeld. He made a name for himself doing these simple caricatures of (mostly) celebrities, characterized by swoopy ink lines and a very minimalist sensibility. Mostly, I respect him for two things: A) Being really good at caricature and B) having a style that you could recognize from the moon with your space helmet full of jam. I know, I know. "He never did a drawing big enough to be visible from orbit, let alone the moon." How bout this? Shut up.

Caricature is pretty hard. You have to identify what defines a particular face and exaggerate those features while omitting others, all without letting your distortions make the subject unrecognizable. Caricature is a pretty complex mental process. Almost all drawing relies upon the aforementioned discipline of judging and editing what you're seeing, but caricature demands a LOT of mental editing on the fly. Do it right and people see things in your drawing that they recognize, but never knew were in the face of the subject. "Oh yeah, I never noticed how feathery Hirschfeld's eyebrows were before!" Stuff like that.

You may have seen Hirschfeld's drawings on a number of TV guide covers, Johnny Carson's title cards and lots of other places from the forties through the seventies. One Simpson's episode even had a drawing of Krusty the Clown done in a Hirschfeld-esque style. I don't know if they actually got Al himself to do it (he was alive until 2003) or if it was a staff artist doing an imitation, but it was dead-on. I think the episode was "Krusty gets Kancelled".

In 1949, Hirschfeld did a series of drawings for Holiday magazine in which he made fun of Hollywood's various stereotypes. Low hanging fruit, I know. But when your magazine had Hirschfeld doing some drawings for an issue, incisive commentary just isn't important. Just give him an easy topic and let him work. Hirschfeld was sort of the "cartoonist laureate" of golden-era hollywood. If you wanted a funny drawing of some actor, Hirschfeld was the one you went to.

Anyway, here are the nine drawings, plus their captions. Please forgive the light photoshopping. Some of the captions were positioned in inconvenient locations, relative to their corresponding drawings, and I paired them up to make them sit better on the page. These are just thumbnails, since they can only be appreciated by clicking through to the larger version. Enjoy.

By contrast, here's what happens when a mortal tries to do a caricature. It's a drawing of Bo and Luke Duke as done by me a few years ago for a "drawing of the week" blog my friend had. I hate the Dukes of Hazzard and everything to do with the redneck south. I think my drawing benefitted from that hatred, as well as the fact that I was in a hurry because I felt that any time spent on the Dukes was a waste of time. Enjoy the contrast between Hirschfeld - an elegant master - and myself  - a rushed, angry oaf.

Little Ads - You are getting gullible... veeeeerrry gullible.

"Make a statuette from a standing view of your most loathed comic character. Express specific hatred for the screw eye at the top. Be careful when handling enormous comic book, as you may become trapped under it for days."

"Grover Squires says 'My hobby makes me $5 an hour cash profit." Disoriented grandpa says "Whaa? Who are you?'
FYI: $15 monthly payment in 1960 is the equivalent of $107.45 in 2009. Ouch!

Joke #1: "If it fails to work, just hypnotize yourself and tell yourself it worked."
Joke #2: "I am getting veeery sleeeepyyy. When I snap my fingers, I will be totally in my power..."

"Learn meat cutting. Dispose of pesky 'evidence'. Write today for free practice carcass."

"Para-Ven Auto-Blinds, from the makers of the Auto-Jacuzzi, Auto-Tuffet, and Auto-Porch."

"Hits like a rifle- kills rabbits, squirrels, other harmless creatures. Send $1.50 to Wham-O Mfg. Co., lovable scamp division, Box B8, Pasadena, California.

Brewing Industry Association - Please drink more please.

It looks like Rockwell. It smells like Rockwell. Hey, there's the signature. It IS Rockwe... wha? Douglass Crockwell? Who the hell is Douglass Crockwell? The first thing I thought was that it was Norman's son carrying on the family business and cashing in on dad's fame a ittle bit., but nope. Douglass Crockwell was no relation to the more famous Norman, and Douglass Crockwell was his real name.

He was a good painter, though, truth to tell, the magic of the photo-realists was slightly tarnished for me when I found out years ago that their paintings are almost always exact re-renders of photographs.

 Allegedly, Crockwell disliked the similarity of his name to Norman Rockwell's, motivating him to sometimes sign his paintings with his initials only. I'm a little skeptical of that, since the full version of his signature looks pretty similar to Norm's. I wonder if he resented the fact that he painted an awful lot like Norman, too? The argument could be made that this type of art was very much the flavor of the month at the time, and that if you were a commercial artist hoping to get any jobs at all, you'd better paint this stuff. But you know what? Haddon Sundblom did a ton of work for the Staurday Evening Post, Coke, etc., and I can spot his work a mile away. His work would never pass as Norman Rockwell's.

Anyway, apparently in 1951 the beer industry was worried enough about people not drinking enough beer that they felt the need to advertise for beer in general. That seems kind of funny to me. Ever hear anyone say, on a Friday night, "Gosh, I feel like I want to, sort of, just drink some kind of, uuh.... oh yeah! Beer!" Were people forgetting that beer existed? It does seem strange to think that, at that time, prohibition was just thirty years in the past, justifying the Beer Association's reminder that it's part of being free. For us, that'd be like alcohol being illegal in the seventies. I can't imagine getting through an episode of Laverne & Shirley sober.

The picture's kind of funny. What's grandma staring at? Is she staring off into space, wistfully remembering her days as a rum runner? Maybe she's fantasizing about stuffing that stupid apron into grandpa's mouth and burning her bra? Only jokes can tell...

Joke #1: Sadly, Grandpa wouldn't make it through the first chorus. now the kids would never know which river everything was "way down upon".

Joke #2: "You know, Mary, this wax statue of Grandpa was a great idea. I think the ukulele-playing robot version was worth the extra money. It's exactly how he'd want to be remembered. And Grandma doesn't have to sleep alone now."

Joke #3: "Lessee now. (Ahem! Ahem!) I'm, (uuh) goin off the raaails on a crazyyyy. (No, that's not it. ..)on a cray-zeee (cough!) crazyyyy! (cough) caray-zeee traaaaaaaaaaiiin! (Maybe another snort of that beer.)"

Joke #4: Grandma hated ukulele night. She'd get what she wanted, though. All grandpa's songs were annoying, except for that one tune by Billy Squier he played at the end of the night, right before bed. God, it drove her crazy with desire. She knew why Grandpa had the limp, and she wasn't going to let it heal any time soon.

Joke #6: "Beer: America's beverage of moderation. Always best served with cartoon cheese and sliced bull penis... an American tradition."

Remmington Auto-Home razor - Distracted driving, fifties style!

I know what you're thinking. "Sure I love talking on my phone while driving, but isn't there a way I can make even better use of the time I spend in my car - time which is otherwise wasted by uselessly paying attention to what the hell I'm doing?" You bet there is. As a citizen of the twenty first century, it is your birthright to do just about anything you want while cruising down the highway at 30 miles per hour with the lane stripe lined up squarely with your license plate... from basting a turkey to reading the newspaper to shaving. Maybe you think that such productive, efficient thinking is new? Think again, grandpa!

In 1957, you could buy a Remmington Rollectric shaver with their Auto-Home feature, which was a cord that plugs into your cigarette lighter. Hallelujah! Shave in the bathroom at work? Unacceptable! Shave before you leave the house like most people? That's for losers! The only sensible time to shave is while piloting a motor vehicle.

Hey, that gives me an idea. Why don't pilots talk on the phone while flying? Some flights can take a long time, and if driving on the phone makes good sense, why not flying? Doctors are busy people too. If you woke up during surgery, you would naturally be reassured to see your surgeon chatting away happily about last night's episode of Mad Men on his phone wile he's up to his elbows in your abdomen, because you would know that he's an efficient multitasker. Why'd you wake up in the middle of surgery? Because the anesthesiologist was exchanging recipes with her mom while dosing you with the Isoflurane, as is her right

"But wait," you say. "Maybe Remmington intended that drivers only use the Auto-Home shaver while the vehicle was parked? Maybe Remmington preferred that people keep their eyes on the road, so that they don't rear end a little girl on a tricycle? Wrong again! Remmington wanted it to be clear that you should shave while driving. They went so far as to include an illustration of a man behind the wheel, one hand steering and one hand shaving - both eyes in the mirror.

Here's an anectode from a friend of mine here at work. The following happened to him: While driving home from work, his car was struck from behind by another vehicle. Fortunately, traffic was moving slowly, rush hour being what it is. He responsibly got out of his vehicle to check on the woman who rear ended him, who had not gotten out of her car. Was she injured? She was unhurt, but looked annoyed, as if he was wasting her time. An unfolded newspaper was on the passenger seat. The woman had been reading the newspaper in traffic, but didn't seem ashamed or guilty about it. What a jerk he was, interrupting her newspaper commute by stopping his car. See? He's part of the problem. It's clear that if everyone read the newspaper while driving, traffic would flow much more smoothly, because no one would ever stop. It's jerks like my friend who wreck everything by looking at the car in front of them and stopping when traffic stops.

Also of note is the standard "Here's what we want you to think it does" diagram of the shaver's action. Every shaver ever since has been accompanied by a cartoon of whiskers being lovingly pulled up from the face and gently clipped below the level of the skin. Sometimes the whiskers are cut twice by a second set of blades. Sometimes they're cut by miniature elves and carefully sanded to a rounded point by little gnomes living in the head of the shaver. These cartoons are fiction. They may as well show a unicorn pushing the whiskers back into the pores with his horn. All mechanical shavers compromise a close shave in favor of convenience and lack of razor nicks. Any guy will tell you the same.

If you want a truly close shave, use a straight razor and Barbasol. Just be sure to do it while driving. If you've got leather seats, you can use them as a strop, to put a finely polished edge on your blade, just before you open your jugular all over your upholstery. You can then use your cell phone to call work and tell them you'll be a little late. I'm sure they'll thank you for making such efficient use of your time.