Monthly Archives: November 2012

The Great War of The Left Breast Embroidery Mascots

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NEW CHAMPION: Big Butt Hairspray Lady with Guatemalan Flag and Guatemalan Umbrella Hat In
High Heel Boots Sort Of Starting to Bend Down. There’s a lot going on here for a simple
Left-Breast Embroidery Mascot.  I peeped this gem in a Discount Health and Beauty Aids Spot
near the Pomonok Projects on a classic 3-button polo shirt that looked like it might unravel if you flexed
your muscles, your tummy, or if you have big boobs that bounce too much.  I like the white threads that
show the waves in her hairstyle.  She also has a rather slim waist (for someone with such a nice, uh –
I mean — big — butt. This is something you ladies (and men) should not
shoot for or obsess over but is impressive nevertheless.
MORE ON LEFT-BREAST EMBROIDERY MASCOTS:
Former champion. The Lacoste Alligator is the ultimate classic and the pioneer of left-breast mascots.
He sealed their place in sportswear and casual-wear.  Born out of the game of tennis, he simply could not
be beat (until now), maybe because he just really seems like he belongs on the left-breast.  
The biggest jerk of the bunch is the Polo idiot on his dumb horse, forever swinging that dumb polo
shovel over his head.  My dad schooled me in Polo.  You jump off your horse when no one’s looking and
try to dig a big horse tunnel that leads to the other side of the finish line.  If you have enough cool
Halloween types on your team, you get them to make one of those horse-costumes where one guy is
the head and the other is the butt.  They pretend to be your horse while you dig, all the while
avoiding the polo-wizard that has the power to change your horse into a carousel-animal.  If you
lose, that means your horse becomes McDonald’s Quarter Pounders.  If you win you get one of these
ugly shirts.
Le Tigre made a hard bid in the 70s and 80s to knock the LaCoste Alligator off the throne.  He swore he was
sleeker and tougher and more new wave — but this tiger and his shirts were way cheaper than proper
LaCoste.  That being said, I love this one.

The Munsingwear Penguin, pictured here in a rarely stitched “filled-in” style.  Usually he was seen as a
one-color outline.  I always secretly pulled for the Penguin to rise up from the ashes and show
everybody what time it was, but a bunch of guys who wear fedoras rebooted him in the aughts and
made him seem lamer and uglier and more geriatric than his thrift store brethren from the 70s
that smell like moth-balls and all have way-too-big banana collars.

From the world of surfing: the Hang Ten feet.  Always liked it.  Always made sense.  Seen on some
of the most intricately striped shirts ever produced.  Still, a pair of dippy barney howlie footprints
in the sand is far too passive and dippy to take down an Alligator.

The Brooks Brother lamb is tied up and hanging from something and sucks.

Arnold Palmer, golfer, the man who’s beverage is still rocking the world, now on Arizona cans, had a
line of golf junk that bore the mark of this umbrella.  It’s dope, but ridiculous.

The Fila “F” is a design gem, also out of the world of tennis.  Fila would go on to become a terrible line
of guido/homeboy sneakers and get mistaken for Fubu.  I like the little square, but I almost feel like
it doesn’t really have a place verse the other Left-Breasters.  I put Fila here as the most powerful
representative of Nike, Adidas, Puma, and the rest of the sneaker mascots and symbols.  They need to
fight their own battles.

Lion and Rhino

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Mr. Parfenix plans to make these two illustrations into giant concrete statues for the front of our
apartment building.  He said they’ll be 12 feet high and that you’ll be able to climb inside their mouths
to get to a slide that slips into the sub-basement where he’s supposed to be building some kind of planetarium.

I’ll believe it when I see it.  Last winter, our radiator stopped working and he brought me a pile of
old Boy Scout blankets “just to tide me over… till the summer”.

Coloring Book Chronicles: Woody Woodpecker on Modern Art

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Woody, his niece, and nephew tackle a lot in this coloring book.
The Twist, A Day at an Amusement Park, a Camping Trip, and, my favorite: Modern Art.
And almost the entire book is lovingly colored in by Julie, who spells her name backwards on the cover.
Julie must have been dyslexic.  The take-away is that her coloring was still incredible.
Woody scopes out how much this stuff is selling for these days.
Woody hits Pearl Paint for supplies.  There’s so much potential in an Art Supply Store.
I can’t help but find it depressing.
Modern Art.  Paint With Feeling.  Use Your Own Style.

I’m feeling Woody’s cool black smock.
This is my favorite page in the entire book.
This is Julie’s painting, not Woody’s.
Then Woody gets creative.  That’s cool.

See how Julie made sure to add the signature paint to the palette?
‘Nuff Said.

York Pennsylvania Toy Extravaganza

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This sign says it all.  Me and Rubbish had to go pick up some supplies.

New West Hall’s got the joints.  Old West Hall’s got a lot of cars.  Mad Hot Wheels.

My favorite display at the show.  A 2$ toy rifle and a disgusting 70’s painting of some jerk.
The pegboard really brings it together.

Um… 10 DOLLARS!?  For a bullshit no-head, lost-his-foot late-in-the-game Micronaut asshole!?
Look, I know my stuff, I know that these later Micronauts are sort of rare, but at least slap a
Playmobil head on the poor fella.  Sculp homeboy a foot out of some Bubbalicious.
Do something.

Someone, once upon a time, made this Ronald McDonn-o out of Lego.  My man Mojo found it
like this and here it is.  It’s cracked out, yes, but it makes more funny sense than Ronald McDonn-o
did in the first place.

Mojo also found these excellent handmade puppets that came out of a studio where they made a
regional Kids Show!!!  

Mr. Walrus is one of the best and most unique toys I’ve found in a long time.
Mojo wouldn’t sell.

The puppets were made by Martin Puppets out of Princeton.

Another favorite thing I seen.  Even more shriveled up California Raisin Puppets.

I love the sexy thighs on this French-Fries-In-A-Cone mascot.  Plus, he’s obviously zooted.

Three In Brooklyn

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Jumpoff Chinese Take-Out that serves all Halal Meat and no pork.  What!?
Outside, we got a mailman trying on a knit-cap from table dealer.
Shout Out to the table dealers making that coin on cell phone cases.
Hope it lasts till they jam the signal into our heads and having an aneurysm is the only way
to break your phone.

One of the last of the old King-Fu spots.  You need Shuriken?  You need Nunchucku?
They got it all here.  They even got the old practice nunchucks that me and my boys used
to make each other bleed with.  They’re soft, but they’re not that soft.

Bleached Mickey D’s Awning.

Three In Brooklyn

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Jumpoff Chinese Take-Out that serves all Halal Meat and no pork.  What!?
Outside, we got a mailman trying on a knit-cap from table dealer.
Shout Out to the table dealers making that coin on cell phone cases.
Hope it lasts till they jam the signal into our heads and having an aneurysm is the only way
to break your phone.

One of the last of the old King-Fu spots.  You need Shuriken?  You need Nunchucku?
They got it all here.  They even got the old practice nunchucks that me and my boys used
to make each other bleed with.  They’re soft, but they’re not that soft.

Bleached Mickey D’s Awning.

Bill The Snowman: Family Photos

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Bill is the snowman that lives in my fridge.  He’s also my psychoanalyst.
Bill “hails” from a long line of sleet, snow-people, and ice-pops.

BILL’S GRANDFATHER:
This here is his grandpa Jean Baxtér.  Bax was a reefer-smoking beatnik and a fake 50’s Frenchy.  His real
name was Gene Greenmold but his friends called him Bax because his back had a tendency to melt.
So he was always having his back repacked.  So his snow-pals were like, How many backs are you gonna
go through?  The reason his back was always melting was because he laid killer, marshmallow-roasting farts.

Bax started the family profession by talking to the
local kids about their problems.  A lot of stuff
about not wanting to do chores and how
Howdy Doody secretly scared the hell out of them.
He told jokes and and did yo-yo tricks.
But Bax’s funny cigarettes were the thing that really kept him in business, though.  All the teenagers
pretended to come to him for counciling but they all just wanted to score.  If it wasn’t for the reefer, Bax
would have been a total failure as a beatnik.  He knew more about Tintin than he did Sartre.  
And if it wasn’t for this guy, Gary Peterson, who went on to be Bax’s greatest “patient”, Grandpa Bax would
never have been able to put a down payment on the refrigerator that I somehow own from the outside,
but Bill owns from the inside.

BILL’S UNCLE:

Bill’s uncle Cory.  Cory took great pride in his Fedora, which he stole from a door-to-door salesman
who worked for the Electrolux Vacuum Cleaner Corporation.

Cory was trouble.  He ran around with this kid,
who would later be known as the infamous
gangster Mikey Sausages.  
Even as far back as this picture goes, they were always on the make.  Later, when someone needed a welcher
disappeared, they’d go to Cory and Mr. Sausages, who had no qualms with freezing said welcher to death.

BILL’S FATHER:

Bill’s Dad, Brian Greenmold. A great man of snow. Proved than snowmen can be as good a psychiatrist
as any other fake psychiatrist. Advised all kinds of professionals and lunatics.  John Lennon
heard tell of Brian’s advising skills and sought him out for a 3 week session in the fridge that
resulted in the Imagine record and a super-nasty case of the frostbite for John.

Brian is pictured here with Lorraine Hodge, his greatest success.  Lorraine didn’t think so, but Brian
was able to convince her that she was actually a Triangle.  Brian knew he was dealing with a nutjob the
minute she stepped in the freezer – he knew a Triangle when he saw one.  “But I’m a little girl!” – Lorraine
would cry. Dr. Brian would ask, “Do you want to be happy? Don’t you want to marry a nice Triangle and have
little Triangle babies? You must accept yourself as you are!” Brain ran a series of mental tests that only made
him more sure that she was a Triangle, most of them based on the shape of her hood.

Lorraine did grow up to marry a Triangle.
A very nice Slice of Pizza that she met in a small
Italian Take-Out in Bensonhurst.  When she looked
into his eyes (two pieces of pepperoni) she
knew in her heart that 1. she was in love, and
2. that Dr. Brian was right, she was a
triangle. 

BILL’S MOTHER:

Bill’s mom, Gertrude Drifty.  Gertrude was a woman who loved sport.  Icicle Archery, Ice-fishing, Snowball-
Fighting. She won an Olympic Gold Medal in an Ice Cream Eating Contest.  She liked to stay trim, but
the dark truth was that she would go out to melt too much.  You’d catch her in May, leaving the fridge.
It’s like Snow-person Bulimia.  Meltorexia.  She also ran a small psychotherapy practice out of the
fridge, but she only took on patients with serious mental disorders.

Like this guy, Stan.  He swore that his mitten was
an evil demon named Chris.  It was Chris
that killed all the squirrels and his baby
brother Randy.  It was Chris that cooked
the family dog and served it in
sandwiches to his Sunday School class.
In addition to a successful career in the psychiatric arts, Gertrude’s patented Pot-Lid Berets became a fashion
staple for Snow-men and Snow-ladies alike.  In fact, that’s why Bill’s so lazy — he’s still got duckets
stashed away from his Mom’s cash cow.  The lids are still big sellers in Middle America.

Eventually, Gertrude convinced Stan to cut off the hand on which the mitten resided.  The mitten (Chris)
escaped and has been said to have caused many a calamity in the third world, middle earth,
and the land down under.

CROCHET PAC PEOPLES

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No characters ever deserved to be crocheted more than the Pac People.  I mean, whenever I play
Pac-Man, or Ms. Pac-Man, or Super Pac-Man, or Pac-Man Jr., I just want to reach my hand into the
video screen and give my Pac People a hug. 

Entertaining millions for more than 30 years, I know the Pacs are proud to be translated into
yarny, disgusting, stuffed animals.