This little football choker is so delicate I only wear it once a year in honor of the Super Bowl which I pay no attention to other than hit a few parties where it’s always one of the most popular players in the room.
The footballs are stamped with the names of different colleges including Tulane, Notre Dame, Michigan, Purdue, Duke, Penn, Texas, Ohio, Army, Navy and Pitt.
I only wish the real thing looked as good as this plastic trinkets box that looks like I remember Hostess cupcakes looking like back in the day. Today the real thing has shrunken to abnormally small sizes, the signature white curlicue fading to a limpy brown color as God knows what chemicals keep the cakes fresh in their individually wrapped packages. With this said, as much as I once loved Hostess cupcakes I still keep hope alive that one day when I open this box the cream filling will miraculously be waiting for me in the middle.
I love sculptures like this, especially when they’re crafted by mechanics and stuck out on the street in front of their shops. I’m assuming that “Mofles” means muffler in some language. If not, there’s more that I love about this place than just the metal foliage.
I’ve been known to use a muffler or two in my handiwork as well. Here’s a movie camera prop I made out of a muffler and old vintage LPs for the 1987 MTV Award nominated video, “Right on Track” by Breakfast Club, which I art directed and production designed.
There were many versions of this game based on the popular TV series pitting two two-people teams against each other to guess words based on clues given by one teammate to another. The original show starred Allen Ludden and ran from 1961-’67 for a total of 1555 episodes. There were almost that many versions of this game as newer versions of Password having been on TV through 2009. Each version added new words except for later anniversary versions where they got lazy and used words from previous sets.
Made by Peak Productions for the Milton Bradley Company in 1962, this set is complete with two sets of password cards, two leatherette holders, a spinner and score pad.
I love the little leatherette holders with the clear red windows with magic powers that reveal the secret word which can’t be seen if you’re just looking at the card without the case.
The original Volume 1:
Password, 1962, with Dick Van Dyke:
Password,1966, featuring Angie Dickinson and her fabulous hairband:
Fantasia as Celie. Fantastic cast, many from the original Broadway production. Five years of my life into the making of this baby. I’m very proud of it. If you’re in LA come to the Pantages.
Corn is a popular motif in salt and pepper shakers but usually it’s the stalks of corn themselves. Here we have a happy corn couple, born of ceramic, ready to shake at human request. Despite the fact that most salt shakers have more holes than their pepper mates, this 3″ green textured guy and gal’s holes are as perfectly matched as their outfits. They were both born around 1950.
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As I was sitting here minutes ago swamped with deadlines and in a panic because I didn’t write my Kitsch O’ The Day post yet I got an email from my good friend and reliable Kitsch spotter, Tom Trujillo, telling me that I HAD TO watch this video, “Pardon Me” by Maxine Swaby. My first thought was we finally have a few moments of sunshine here in LA and this video opens up with brightly colored tulips so wouldn’t that be nice? My second thought was this isn’t so bad, a little lethargic perhaps but no big deal. My third thought was Maxine Swaby is leading me down a very subtle yet precious path of Kitsch because many of her notes hide somewhere under the melody, most of the shots and transitions are too literal interpretations of the lyric, and the energy of everything – Maxine, the shots, the color palette, et al – always stays so even keel you just want to show Ms. Swaby a picture of a clown or something that will make her laugh, give her a big shot of sugar so her hands won’t stay within the 3 inch range she confines them to, anything at all to add little ooooomph to the overall video situation.
This is by no means the kitschiest performance I’ve ever seen but it speaks to a middle of the road way of inducing Kitsch that brings about the undesired effect despite intentions otherwise. So many people say to me I don’t know what kitsch is. I say to them yes you do, it’s all around you. Just look at this video.
I keep this vintage 1950’s rain hat tucked in my purse regardless of whether it’s raining like in the days of Noah’s Ark as it has been in LA for the past week. Hi fashion for water emergencies, this quintessentially color schemed packet is always there to cover my head and stretch a smile across my face because it’s so cute I don’t mind that the skies are breaking over my head.
My favorite thing about the hat is that it says the style is “Polka Dot Design”.
I don’t see any polka dots. Do you?
This is actually a salesmens sample, evident from the “Your Copy Here” text on the back. The Amsterdam Company that makes them better keep a closer eye on quality control before they turn out that many non-polkadotted Polka Dot Style 412-P’s.
A more appropriate title for this ultimate kitsch rendition of The Carpenters legendary “Rainy Days And Mondays” is “Raining Or Not, I Can’t Find the Key”. The problem with the stupefyingly scale-jumping Leo isn’t his voice so much as his ears. He slips over and under keys faster than a greased cat, consistent in his own musical universe thousands of miles beneath the melody only to rise like a phoenix into an entirely different melodic universe drenched in its own never-before-heard key. To be fair, there are actually two bars where Leo sings in the right key. Unfortunately they don’t follow each other.
I love when Leo gazes into the camera at 2:08 and then closes his eyes and FEELS the song even more. I love how his mouth gapes open at 2:07 and remains in a state of quivering preparedness waiting for the lyric to appear until 2:11 when he finally switches to spectacular nose wipe choreography during the instrumental. I love that all of this is performed in a “Jesus Loves You” t-shirt. Perhaps so, Leo, but I wish he loved you enough to include a check for vocal lessons.
I shared many a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and Vernor’s with Sky King and Penny as nothing could separate me from the TV when they were puttering around the sky in their beloved Songbird in search of bad people, hikers and whoever else roamed the environs near their Flying Crown Ranch. I wish that Sky and Penny were roaming around the skies of LA right now zipping up the clouds so the rain and hail would subside and we could have our nice sunny LA back.
This is a teeny weenie little rubber stamp kit from the early 1950’s. I’m not sure what the tie-in to the show was but this wasn’t a show with a lot of swag so this is a rare piece of memorabilia indeed. I can’t completely make out whose stamp it was either but I’m happy to give it shelter now.
