You Don't Go In The Bathroom With Me!

If you don't get the Misfits reference, don't worry, this post isn't about poop...Hell, that song isn't even about poop, it's about murder. This post isn't about murder either, though. It's about the redecorating job I did on the bathroom at the bakery.

I wish I had pictures of this bathroom when Melanie bought the place. It was UUUUGGGLLLLLYYYY! It was a dark red, with gold poorly sponged over it, with 80's navy blue light house wallpaper half-assedly glued half way up the wall.

This is what I did with it...



On the two larger walls, I hand painted this design. I based it a lot on the background painting from shows like the Flintstones, the Jetsons, and Ren and Stimpy, along with mid-century(and mid-century influenced) hipster artists, like Shag, and Jim Flora. Also, cheap motels and gin and tonics. Yes, it took a very long time to get it just right...I was a total Nazi about it too, just ask Melanie.



The door was just a plain, light, cheap, wood office door. I redid it(along with all the doors in the bakery) in a 50's mint green, same as I used in the middle of all the squares on the walls. The trim is a gloss gray.



The trash can under the sink we picked up in Ypsilanti, MI. I forgot why we were there, probably on the way to Detroit for a show. I had seen these online and had it in mind when I did the bathroom, so I had to grab it the second I saw it. It isn't old, and was really cheap, like $10 I think.



The clock is a Lux(No Cramps relation). I see these a lot and for cheap. In fact, there's two at the local antique mall right now for around $30, if I remember right. I think we got this one for $15 or $20, I don't remember. I do remember that we bought it the day our apartment in Kalamazoo got robbed, and I was carrying it in when I noticed stuff was amiss. I'm guessing it's from the later 60's. It plugs into the wall, but I wound the cord up behind it, because it's an ugly, kinked up cord, and the clock is loud when plugged in, and I don't usually go to the bathroom to check the time.



I found this lampshade at this weird antique used mug/junk store that used to be in the neighborhood. The owner died, and I bought a ton of random crap off her son, who I think just wanted to shovel everything into a huge dumpster. I painted the blue squares on it though. The 70's green glass lamp used to belong to a friend of mine who had a bunch of cool late 60's/early 70's stuff...Lots of owl stuff, puke green chairs, things like that. She's one of those people, though, that just snapped one day, got an office job, stopped going to shows, stopped hanging out, married some random boring guy and started shitting out kids. What bummed me out the most is that when she changed lifestyles over night, she abandoned a couple paintings I'd done for her. Another friend of mine rescued them from the trash. What the hell. Anyway, I managed to save a few neat things she was tossing, this lamp being one.



Here it is turned off. The table it's on I picked up at a church sale for $3. The reading material is Atomic Ranch...Which I took WAY too long to find out existed.



I feel bad for going almost a month without a new post for y'all. I've been pretty busy/distracted/drunk. Here's some more posters I've done lately, I hope you enjoy them.

I wish I was in Florida for this...that's one hell of a lineup!



This one's for a show in Dublin, Ireland!



I'm going to this in a couple hours!



I wish I coulda made it to this one too!

H.O.A. Field Report: The Decline Of The Coldwater Car Show

Hey readers...sorry about the big gaps in between posts...I've been stupidly busy as of late, on top of my natural tenancy to procrastinate. And it might be a few more days from starting this post, until I finish it, because I think I might be coming down with some food poisoning. Great.

I've never missed a day of it, and as a Kid, it was like Christmas to me...I went to the Coldwater Car Show over the weekend, and it was a total bust. maybe only 100 cars...lowest turnout since they started having it in, I think '86. A lot of people were blaming the weather, and that was definitely a big factor, but so was the shitty management of the whole thing. It used to be run by a committee of local hot rodders...my dad was on it the first few years...but eventually, it was taken over by the Chamber of Commerce and a local bank...and every year they inject some more of their "bright" ideas into what used to be the best thing to happen in this town all year. Now it's just a sad shell.

Anyway, I brought my camera, and snapped a few pictures. I have a plea to the traditional hot rodder/rat rodder(God, I hate that term) community. Can you please stop this 20's/30's field car, re-imagined 50's lowrider, bullet-riddled, rust pile stuff?! It was neat the first dozen times I saw it, but now it's just stale and unimaginative(which is quite a feat for a radical custom).

I say this because this...



and this....



...are two different cars, built by two different people, who didn't know each other until this weekend. If you look real hard, you can see my Dodge hiding behind the American flag trash can.



Even though there were only maybe 15 cars in it, the for sale lot still had some decent stuff. This wrecked '64 Triumph caught my eye. How often do you see one of these smashed up like this?



...another angle



...and again.



this '57 Ford pickup would make an excellent Hoarder Of Awesome junk hauler! If only I had a spare 5 Grand. Of course, I'd paint it metal flake lime green, and put Cragar mags on it.



In one of the vendor barns, out of the wind and rain and cold, I found a booth with a guy selling a bunch of bootleg prints. All sorts of cool stuff...lots of biker flick posters, old dragster photos, Munsters press kit photos, Ed Roth ads, Hot Wheels...all sorts of 60's stuff. I bought this nifty Eve print for $6. I'm not wild about the 'love' flower added to the image, but whatever. The guy also had 5 or 6 crates of quite expensive, and quite fantastic, 60's surf and drag records. In middle of the pile, I found a Phantom Surfers record! I never would've thought I'd find that in Coldwater, over an hour from the nearest record store. The label said it was from the mid 60's, and I had to set the seller straight...and, of course, I bought the record once I talked the price down. How could I not, it had covers of "Eaffin' and Surfin'" from the movie 'Rat Phink A Boo Boo' and a song from 'Bikini Beach', my favorite Frankie and Annette beach flick! I talked to the vendor a while, and gave him a crash course in all things Mike Lucas. He was neat looking...like a Mort Todd drawing of creepy Lurch-type cartoon monster guy.



I really dig this Chevy gasser. I like the yellow Plexiglas windows a lot. I'm glad people are starting to bring this style back.



This Chevy truck is about as ugly as you can get, but I kinda like it...I don't know why.



Here's my baby. Okay, technically it's my dad's baby...but it's the first thing I ever drove when I got my license, and I drive it more than he does. He usually takes his '63 Corvette(he bought it in '68!) to shows, and I drive the Dodge. It's a '52 Coronet. I LOVE this car. This is it's bad side, with the missing trim, but like an idiot, I parked behind a trash can, so I couldn't get a good shot of the other side. It was just starting to rain when I took this picture, and about 10 second later, the sky opened up and started dumping buckets of water. I jumped in the car and shut the door, and the drivers side window fell off it's tracks and into the door! So I had to hurry home, getting soaked, with hopes my print and my record were okay in the back seat, and not getting drenched. What a way to end the worst car show ever.



One of the big reasons I've been neglecting my blog is all the art projects I'm in the middle of. I thought some of you might dig what I've been working on, so here's a couple posters I did over the weekend.

I'm DJing at the Nobunny show and I can't wait! My band opened for him last time, but he was really sick, and spent the whole show in his van...he still kicked ass once he hit the stage though. Nobunny is the best!



Keeping with the automotive nature of this post, here's what I came up with for June's Jacuzzi Boys show. I'm glad I FINALLY get to see 'em!



Finally, I went to a show Saturday night in Kalamazoo to see a band from Toronto called the Rocket Reducers. I didn't really know what to expect, but I was blown away! If you like rock n roll in a Teengenerate, Devil Dogs sorta way, GO SEE THEM LIVE!!!!!