Victorian Porn Titles.

Time's short today. My office is being downdated with paneling and an avocado green coffee maker. So, today's post is just words. Please enjoy these Victorian-Era porn titles.



-The Bawdy Bussel of Lady Edith Crotchworthy

-Which Fanny?

-Ankle-Length Bloomers 3

-Rather Rubenesque!

-Soot Fetish Monthly

-Powderless!

-The Unbuttoned Shoes

-Well-Fed Maidens

-Such a Situpon!

-Gloriously Gap-Toothed 8

-The Fantastical Tales Mr. Johnathan Thomas's John Thomas

-Oliver's Twist

-The Gluttonous Guttersnipe

-The Lewd Extravagances of Doctor Horton Wienerbottom

Crosley - Smaller was good, then bad, then good again, then bad for a while, now good and bad.

A Whatley? Crosley. I know. I never heard of it either, but I'm not telling you that. I'm gonna sound like I knew all about Crosley. This is gonna be great.

You know how every time the price of gas spikes upward, the sales of compact cars do too? Well, during good old Dubya Dubya Eye-Eye (WWII) gas (and lots of other things) were in such short supply that there was gas rationing.

Enter Crosley, an Indiana-based car company founded by two brothers in 1939 that specialized in sensible, small, efficient utilitarian vehicles. Crosley came along right about the time that world affairs went in the pooper and suddenly Americans liked the idea of a small car that got 50 mpg. There were delivery-vehicle type Crosleys and the country-fried "Farm-O-Road" and regular runabouts like the one in todays ad. Smart, right?

Yes, you're right. That's smart. How smart? Hold your horses and I'll tell you. Crosley built the first American production car with disc brakes on all four wheels (Many cars today are still available with horrible drum brakes on the rear, jeez!). Crosley built the first American sports car, and coined the term "sport-utility". Wait, what? Hmm. Maybe Crosley deserved to be punished for that one.

So, why'd they fail? Well, Americans are nothing if not short-sighted, and once times got better after the war, we went back to chanting our old mantra "More is more!". As the chromed-out land yachts of The Fifties took hold, desire for the dinky and sensible Crosley dwindled.

Also, contributing to the corporate death rattle was the shittiness of the engine in the Hotshot - that first American sports car. The engine block, instead of being a, you know, BLOCK of iron, was made from brazed-together pieces of sheet tin. Engine life was kind of an issue. That's why in this ad, Crosley is so jazzed about their "CIBA", which somehow means "cast iron block". Welcome to the engine block party, Crosley. Glad you could finally make it. I'll take your coat. The drinks are over... - hey, you don't look so good! Crosley? Crosley? *THUD* Crooo-sleeeeey!

The manufacturing plant was sold to General Tire and Rubber in 1952. Ah well.

To this day, popularity of small cars moves in tandem two-step with the price of oil. The price of oil goes all crazy, right along with the general happiness level in the Middle East, even though America now imports twice as much oil from Canada as we do from Saudi Arabia. It's perception. You know how people startle really fast and calm down slowly? The price of oil does the same thing, and that's because it's keyed to how scared we are of the Middle East, and not much more.

Small cars are now getting some attention again, but huge SUV boats are still wildly popular, partly because manufacturers can qualify for a very green-sounding "Hybrid" badge if they tack on a ten horsepower electric motor, improving efficiency by 1 mpg. Job done.

Hey, nice Disembodied Floating Head! Well, sort of. She has a neck, so she's not THAT disembodied. Certainly no award winner. Lose the neck and you'll be a contender, doll-face. Maybe she really is just a severed head? Her boyfriend must own a car faster than a Crosley.

UPDATE: I think it's graphically suicidal to print the name of your company with a treatment that looks like it's been crossed out. "CROSLEY a FINE car."

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Marlboro Plaidorama - Manlygirl, girlyman.

Hey, you know how the stereotype of The Fifties is that they loved themselves some plaid? Well, Marlboro Sportswear was getting cranked up for The Fifties in 1949 with their Plaidorama ad campaign. What's the secret ingredient? Extra plaid!


For me, the corniness of The Fifties and Sixitied ruined plaid for me. My childhood was spent seeing reruns of Leave it to Beaver, Brady Bunch and Father Knows best - shows populated with apple-cheeked lads in requisite plaid shirts. At the same time, there was a cedar chest upstairs full of hand-me-down shirts from my brothers just waiting to plaid me up as soon as I fit into them. Bad luck for me that there wasn't a collection of Evel Knievel t-shirts ready to be worn, which is what I would have preferred.

Plaid existed before 1950, of course. It's super old, and in case you've spent your life up to this point with your head stuck in a barrel, it's generally associated with Scotland, where it could be generally used to distinguish one clan from another - or at least what region you were from. However, the earliest known tartan fabric was found in western Austria, Scandanavia, and even... China? Whatever.

So, as a kid, my understanding of plaid was that you wore it because it was there, and that "aw-shucks" dorks on TV wore it. Guess what? To this day I don't like plaid. I have a few plaid shirts, but they're of the ironic "Hey! I'm a rock-a-billy cowboy!" variety. I still feel like Eddie Haskell when I wear plaid. My girlfriend reminds me that plaid is very "in" right now, but I don't care. It was "in" before. It will go OUT again soon. In 1822, there was a "tartan craze" when George IV visited Scotland and brought Tartan popularity home with him. So you see, this bandwagon has been through town before.

In The Seventies, plaid was the livery of used car salesmen and wieners like Herb Tarlek, which did nothing to improve it's coolness. So, to this day, I prefer stripes. For a while, Braveheart brought tartan close to coolness again, but Mel Gibson's "personal interestingness" has put it back cultural short bus, I think.

Plaid cannot be taken seriously. To this end, I have painted two bike helmets in a plaid pattern, which I can tell you, isn't easy. Plaid doesn't want to work on a spherical surface. But, if you want it badly enough, it can be done. Hint: 90% masking time, 10% spraying time. It's possible  to finish a bike race in "dead middle" and still be treated like a hero by your competitors, and that's with a DIY plaid helmet.

Plaid definitely prefers to be applied to square surfaces, like the geek in this Marlboro ad. He's about as square as it gets.

"Hey Tad, your assless dockers really accentuate your ass!"

Exmess Card Solution, Part 2 of 2.

Here are the other five Exmess cards from nineteen something something. The P.A.G! Garage Sale Assault Squad reports that, when flipping through shoeboxes of ancient postcards like these, it's interesting to note that the ones with a picture of a person on them command a higher price. A picture of Santa (or Father Christmas) usually goes for triple.

Cards with a discernible print date are noted. Those without, aren't. So, let us know if any of you decide to rage against the Big Christmas Card machine and make your own using these perfectly good relics.

1912.

1926.

Exmess Card Solution, Part 1 of 2.

So you're gonna get Christmas cards made, or your family gives you the stinkeye like you're history's greatest monster. Hooray for Joyful Obligation and Judgement Season (JOJS)! It's a time of year when people have vague but definite expectations for each other. You won't know unless you fail. It's the best kind of test - the kind where you either pass and nothing happens or you fail and become a secret pariah. So, you stress out and bust your ass just to tread water. Whee. It's the moooost won-der-ful tiiime, ooof the yeeeeaaaarrrr!

But don't worry worry slightly less, because we've got your Exmess card solution, and it'll be cooler than some saccharine family photo with everyone wearing matching sweaters, or your dog with a hat on. Christmas cards from the turn of the (previous) century.

The Garage Sale Assault Squad raided the petty cash box this weekend and made an unauthorized purchase (They haff some 'splaining to do, Lucy!) of ten Christmas cards from roughly 1906 or thereabouts. It was a simpler time, when all we had to worry about was World War I just over the top of the next hill. People back then felt quaint, adorable emotions like "cheer" and "yuletide", whatever the hell that is. So, browse through these five designs and pick a favorite. Click the little one to see it full size (3.5 x 5.5 @ 300dpi) in a new window, and right click that MFer onto your hard drive for uploading to the printers. Tomorrow we'll post five more. This should leave you plenty of time to get them made and scribbled on, dodging just one of the many Joyful Obligation and Judgement Season bullets. You're welcome.

Christmas cards seem to have ballooned in size, right along with the P.I.T.A. factor of this holiday. This means that these cards are all of the slightly dinky 3.5" x 5.5" size. Do a Google search to find a printer online who can make you cards in this size. Not everyone offers it.

UPDATE: Looking at the back of these cards, it's amusing to note that, apparently, at one time you could get something delivered to the right person by simply writing "Mr. Earl Linderud, Stoughton, Wis." The  card addressed to Master Raymond Nolfe in Bronx, New York, however, needed a house number and street name. I guess larger cities needed more detailed address information, but in small-ish towns, a name was enough. Interesting, but true!

ALSO UPDATE: The printer will probably want to avoid cutting off the design at the edge of the card. This is called "bleed". The borders on these cards are generally pretty thin, and may look weird if it gets cut off. You may want to scale the design down a bit or do some Photoshop tricks to buy yourself some extra room at the edge of the card. I suggest maybe an additional border in a similar color to whatever is on the card.

1909.

1909.

1910.

1914.

1909.

Reminder: Seasonal Obligation Card cattle call.

There are still a few palettes of this year's Phil Are GO! Seasonal Obligation Card cluttering up the halls of GO! Tower. Get yours by sending us some kind of postal address and that's it. No salesman will visit. We don't have any sales that need manning.

[-Mgmt.]

Phone Wires

Joke #1 - The first Apple v. Samsung patent lawsuit stemmed from Apple's allegedly proprietary technology of "a huge gob of wire wrapped in a circular fashion", which forced Samsung to wrap all their wire gobs in a square configuration. Apple's victory secured their dominance in the mobile phone market well into the early 1950's.

Joke #2 - "Okay, I am now rubbing your fanny with a ten dollar bill. How does that feel? After your reply, one of my colleagues will begin describing a different explicit behavior, and we will await your erotic response. Thank you."  - Excerpt from the ruinous phone sex scandal at the Republican National Convention of 1949.

Joke #3 - A scene from one of Apple's very early "one more thing" product launches, in which it is revealed that the iPhone also serves as a potato masher. The crowd was described as "going positively apey" at this news.

Joke #4 - "Please speak very loudly into your receiver, Senator, as if there is no wiretapping going on at all, because there surely is not any of that going on right now, with this phone connection. So, you were saying...?"

Joke #5 has been brought to you by the number three, and by the letter MisterFancyHotBalls_2 - "A phone?!! How the hell did THAT get in there??"

[Commenter jokes will be added to the post.   -Mgmt.]

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