Titled ‘A Shining Star’, this 24″x18″ Colorforms puzzle, 500+ pieces, allowed you to assemble MJ’s red leather Thriller outfit and face at its best. Ultimately, the biggest puzzle of Michael’s life may be how he died but when this jigsaw puzzle came out in 1984, as again now, there’s no mystery as to why he was the biggest Popstar in the world. R.I. P. M. J.
These little socklets were made by Bonnie Doon in 1972 after Billie Jean won her fourth Wimbledon win and became the first female athlete to win $100,000 in a single year. Billie Jean was one of the first female athletes ever to stack up endorsement deals, the first being Alice Coachman, an African American athlete who won a track and field gold medal in the 1948 Olympics and snagged a deal with Coca-Cola.
I know I missed the Wimbledon Woman’s Finals by one day but I would have been remiss had I not featured the death defying peanut butter and bacon hot dog recipe yesterday for the 4th. These Billie Jean sun socks soak up all the foot gunk produced pounding the court as well as all the toxins sweating out after an indulgent hot dog feast.
Garlic is about my favorite thing in the world. I drive up to Monterey a lot on the 101 and always pass 20-wheelers filled with the stuff coming from Gilroy, the Garlic Capital of the world. I match the speed of the truck for about 10 miles to luxuriate in fabulous garlic fumes…
This vintage 1950’s shaker, clearly distressed at the smell of what’s inside it, is NOT the look on my face but, rather, the plethora of friends around me who hate the stuff.
Did you know that garlic is a species of onion?
Garlic salt shakers were very popular in the 50’s, 60’s and 70’s. They usually came with a companion onion salt shaker.
Hooray for vintage Mary Kay anything! I serve Kool Aid out of this coffee urn, made by the appropriately named Poly Perk, at my all parties. Mary Kay and Brownie Wise, who invented the concept of Tupperware parties in 1950 and was the first woman to appear on the cover of Business Week, are two of my biggest entrepreneurial idols. I’m brewing coffee in the pink percolator as we speak and will toast finishing another Kitsch O’ The Day as soon as it’s ready.
An owner before me painted over the lettering that was probably dulled from years of Windex and Amway products. Usually I don’t approve of such restoration but the paint is very lumpy and sparkly and adds more of that Mary Kay flair.
Not that we don’t need a toast to Peace but the last inebriant a hippie or flower child was thinking about was liquor in 1968 when this Bourbon decanter was unleashed. The incongruity of which is what pushes this 86 proof Limited Edition Royal Enfield Porcelain booze vessel by Maloney into the higher echelons of Kitsch. As is inevitable when a trend as powerful as hippydom sweeps the world, all bastions of the old guarde attempt to hop on the wagon and cash in.
I’ve collected about five each of these bottles and I’m always amazed at the glaze job on the hippie’s face – as if a full can of mace exploded and left him with that Michael Jackson skin thing. I could understand if one of my bottles was messed up but the burn victim look is consistent on all five. Which means the quality control guy at Maloney was probably out back smoking a joint when the bottles came down the line.
I also love that the best thing the establishment could give the hippie to sit on was a garbage can:
To peace!
Really really nasty cheap packaging on this pack of gum and 6 “full color” movie cards put out by Paramount Pictures Corp in 1977. Six dark photos printed on incredibly flimsy barely card stock, the back of which looks to be a cut up overstock movie poster with nary a fact about John Travolta or the film printed anywhere. Boasting that the Super Bubble gum inside blows larger bubbles I doubt it very much as there’s only half a stick of gum included – not a even a full pancake of dextrose and corn syrup. Such a classic film is worthy of a finer chewing experience, altho the packaging catapults this to high Kitsch status.
I made this “Arnold Palmer Coat Rack” out of golf clubs and balls in 1987 for a Debbie Harry video, “French Kissing In The USA”, that I art directed in my house. I’m a big fan of using objects for purposes other than for which they were created. I sold a lot of these as well as a baseball bat and mitt version in the 80’s. I never golfed myself but still have hundreds of clubs, all picked for their sturdiness as furniture parts.
Here’s a link to the video on YouTube. I can’t even remember if the coat rack made the final cut but it was there among a zillion other things I custom built.
I could post a much clearer copy of the video than whoever posted this but YouTube retains its hideous policy of selectively notifying people to take copyrighted videos down, oftentimes leaving those who made the video empty-handed while allowing those who made copies off TV or DVDs unscathed. Greedy, greedy, greedy YT. Duck before a golf ball slams your profits in the head!
Just in time for the weekend comes this 1950’s plastic drink guide, the must-have bar accessory in any respectable Space Age home. Spin the dial and get recipes to Atomic cocktails like Between The Sheets, Blood & Sand, Gertie’s Garter, Millionaire Numbers 1 & 2 and Widow’s Dream. No tiki bar, rec room or man in gray flannel suit was without one of these back in the day.
Made of real Firestone tire rubber, these ashtrays hit their peak in the 1950’s but have remained a Kitsch accessory staple through the decades. Growing up in Detroit, they were as common in the city as potholes, given out as promotional gifts from every business that had even the remotest connection to cars or anything else mounted on tires.
This one’s a Firestone Steel Radial but there are zillions of different styles and brands of tires as well as glass, plastic and bakelite inserts, branded and not.
