Don't trust anyone under 30!

Hey-a, loyal readers! Like always, it's been a long time between updates. I've been up to a lot lately. One thing I did since last update was have an art show as part of the return of the amazing Chicago Blackout. I sold a lot of paintings, but this one was one of my favorites!



Another thing I did was turn 30. The Hemingers got to play a super fun show in Kalamazoo with Peach Kelli Pop for my B-day...here's a pic!



I finally got my hands on one of these nifty bird banks. I almost got one a couple years ago, but when I showed up at the antique store with money, it was gone. This one is in REALLY great shape, and still has a key to open the bottom and a scroll with a poem on it intact. It's made by Oy Mk Tuote Ab in Finland, in I'm guessing sometime between '65 and '72. Gonked Glooked Slurped wrote about these a year or so ago.



Here's another view of it on my cruddy living room couch.



I got this neat ceramic drunk monk bank from the local goodwill for $2. There's no maker's marks, and I assume it's just something someone made in a ceramics class.



This folk art PBR can man was at one of my favorite local antique stores. It's neat but when you lift his can....



....he has a wang! The rubber band is broken, but when you lift the can, he's supposed to get a boner. I had to buy it, 'cuz I'm nothing if not classy!



We picked up this nifty Stanley cabinet last summer in Lansing, and I never got around to uploading the pictures until now. Our friend Colleen wrote about this exact cabinet last year on her excellent Space Age Squirrel blog.



We had our eyes on it for a long time, but it was out of our price range. Every time we saw it, it got a little cheaper until we finally snagged it for $95.



It's at Melanie's bakery,and is currently LOADED with antiques...and the bakery now has a cooler floor. Right after we got this, my mom scored a pair of even better cabinets by stanley at an estate sale for $75. I'm jealous!



There are no manufacturer markings on this KILLER chair. We found it in Marshall, MI at another of my favorite antique shoppes. I now need a giant world map with red pins marking my next targets, and a long haired cat to pet while I plot evil deeds.



This picture is in the bakery basement, but it currently sits in the office. Any info on the manufacturer would be much appreciated.

Randomness

So, I know I have left my readers out in the cold for several months. I feel terrible about it. I've been super busy lately, putting together 2 art shows and doing a bit of traveling. Also, I was without a camera for a good chunk of time...but enough of my excuses...let's jump in it!

I honestly don't remember where I got these bobble head tigers. Maybe I'm getting Alzheimer's early. They were at one of the local antique stores a few months ago, I think, but I don't remember which one.



Melanie and I stopped in a nifty antique shop in Memphis while we were in town for Gonerfest, and she picked up this little purse with winking eyes. She has a couple similar coin purses that I'm sure were made by the same company, but I keep forgetting to take pictures of them when I see 'em...damn Alzheimer's.




Flip it over, and it's a guy. Tranny purse.



When we got home from Memphis, we were greeted by a new floor in the bakery.



My mom got me this cat for x-mas as a stocking stuffer. She doesn't know I know she got it at the local Salvation Army for $1. I think there's a matching dog around here somewhere...A bunch of my stuff's in boxes.



This Flip Wilson talking doll was my X-mas gift to myself. At $5, I couldn't pass it up...



...especially considering that when you flip Flip over, he becomes Geraldine, and hangs out with tranny purse.



This is Gaylord...he was made in 1962 by Ideal, and I found this one still with it's bone! My parents wouldn't let me have a dog when I was a kid, and I suspect that if I was a kid in 1962, they would have gotten me this instead and told me it's just as good as a real dog. That's what this toy was...something to shut your kids up when they beg for a dog...No wonder Gaylord's time in toy stores was short. The name probably doesn't help much.





These garage rocker dolls were in the same Memphis antique store as the tranny purse. I think they look like my friend Jules. I don't know where or when they were made, but they are pretty cool regardless.



I gave Melanie this poodle for Christmas, and it turned out that she had almost bought it for me. That happens every year. We got each other Charles Phoenix books, and my mom and Melanie both got me the "Cartoon Modern" book about mid-century modern animation.

I must've had tacos the day I took this picture, hence the Mexican Pepsi bottle lurking in the background.



This awesome sad eye cat picture was an x-mas gift from my mom.



Melanie got me another piece for my big/sad eye collection for Christmas...



...as well as her big sister. I dig the big eye/pin-up crossover! I also dig my bathroom's wallpaper!



Well, hopefully it won't be such a HUUUUUUUUUUUGE gap between updates next time.

Rubber Face Rebels pt 1

I wish I had a time machine. I used to see rubber faced mid-century stuffed animals at garage sales all the time when I was a kid for practically nothing...But as a kid, naturally, I didn't want people to think I was a girly man, so I never bought 'em...My loss. Ebay really started taking off right around the same time I stopped giving a shit what people thought of me, and the pool of dirt cheap vintage rubber faces had all but dried up at that point.

There were a lot of companies churning out these things in the 50's and 60's, but probably the most popular, and the most collectible seems to be from The Rushton Company, in Atlanta(1917-1983). Rushton also seems to have an above-average level of quality, especially in the hand painted faces. This Graduation owl came from the same antique booth as those wall plaques Melanie got me for X-mas, with the guy playing guitar, and the girl dancing. It was pretty pricey(not really, compared to what some of 'em go for on Ebay), but I talked it down to a nice price.



This brain damaged wolf is by My Toy. I'm guessing it's from sometime in the Eisenhower administration...when doctors were lobotomizing people left and right to cure mental disorders.



Close up!



This squirrel(?) was buried in a box of junk at an antique store, and picked up for I think $5, if I remember right. It's from Uneeda Doll Company, Brooklyn(1917-1991). Uneeda was a very prolific manufacturer/importer in the 50s-70s. They were one of the first makers of troll dolls in the early 60s, and also made the creepy "Plumpee" baby rubber squeak toys in the later 60's. Come to think of it, there's a certain creepyness to a lot of Uneeda's products, as well as rubber faces in general.



...The Uneeda squirrel was the inspiration for this painting I did.



This duck is another one from My Toy, and was made in 1964, toward the end of the rubber face era. It's got a wind up key in the back, to play a song, but it no longer works, and I have no Idea what song it played.



This skunk is one of my favorites. It's another Rushton...My only other Rushton. I wish the price on these would come down, because they made some REALLY stuff. I saw a wolf they made once that looked just like the old Warner Bros. cartoon wolf...I need one of those! I've used this guy in my art as well. He rules!



My neighbor was giving me funny looks while I took these pictures.



I got all this nifty stuff in the mail the other day from Amber, of the great 'I Heart Everything' blog. amongst all the hand made goodies is a real cool record player card in an envelope made out of used bingo cards, and a bunch of neat stickers...



...and the bottom 2 of these 3 magnets. The Von Dutch flying eyeball magnet was given to me by a local sign maker that made the Sign for the cake shop, after we got in a really long conversation about Ed Roth, Von Dutch, and George Barris...the big three! I've been meaning to send Amber a package in return. It doesn't help that I usually wake up around the time the post office closes for the day...



Until next time..

Raiding Dad's Stash pt Deux: Sniffin' Glue

Well, hell. I took a bunch of pictures of model cars my dad and my uncles built back in the late 50s and 60s, and my crap camera won't let me take pictures close enough to see detail. Everything looks fuzzy. I'll have to ask one of my photographer friends to help me I guess...so models have joined my Hot Wheels collection on the back burner for now. Thankfully, I have a scanner, so here's some neat model car box art, mostly from 1960-62. I have some of the accompanying cars, other boxes are empty or fulla parts. I found these in a leaky barn after my grandma died, and I'm really surprised they survived in such an environment as long as they did.

This first box is for the '36 ford 3n1 kit. This is the side of the box, because the front just shows the boring stock version. I have 2 of these boxes, and one and a half of the models. Both models were built as a hybrid of the 2 styles shown here, and both were painted blue. I assume one belonged to my dad, and the other to my uncle Christopher. Oh yeah, as always, you can click the picture for a better look.



This is the 40 Ford. The box is in great shape, and the graphics are killer. I have at least 5 of these in different stages of decay, but only one box. When my grandma died, there was model car stuff scattered EVERYWHERE(she had 4 sons that ALL built models!). Nothing was in order. I've spent time here and there over the years trying to sort what I have, but that's literally hundreds of thousands of mismatched parts. I'd like to restore some of these some day. Luckily, a lot of these got reissued over time, so restoring some, like the 40 Fords, wouldn't be to hard. Unluckily, the prices on new model cars are OUTRAGEOUS!



Here's a detail from the side, showing the totally bitchin' racing version.



The hot rod option on this 32 Ford Roadster is really killer...



...as is the racing version. I wish I had enough spare parts for this one. I only have a smashed to hell body, the windshield and one stock rear fender. Bummer.



I love how the hot rod version to almost every kit back then was just flame decals and moon discs. This kit is from the transitional period when competitors AMT(aluminum model toys) and SMP(scale model products...inventors of the 3 in 1 kit) were merging into one company. I have the body of this, and a 59 El Camino reissue, which I'm considering merging into one, one of these days.



I've got a lot of parts to this kit. So many, that I was starting a rebuild, but while doing a research, I found out that this version of this kit just got re-issued a couple weeks ago, so I'll probably just buy a new one when car show season starts in May.



Here's the side detail, showing some of the many possible combinations you can build with the available parts.



Well...there ya go. Not too informative, and I'm sure to my non-car crazed readers, probably rather dull...but I think it's cool, and I've got lots more to post in the future, including some models I've personally built, but I think I'm gonna take a break from car stuff on here for a little while. At least until the Coldwater car show. I dunno what to post next. My house is getting some major work done, so a lot of stuff is packed away for a while. There's a noticeable layer of dust on everything. I'm sure it's safe to breath this all in. Hmmm.....