Free Milk; No Cow Purchase Necessary

Oh, sure, it starts out innocently enough, the rush of adrenaline as you bare your calf to fifth-grade boys. But it isn’t enough. And Liquid Paper and Sharpies haven’t been invented yet, so you can’t huff them in the calm quiet of a restroom stall. But rebellion is in your blood, and you seek the thrill.

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Soon you’re smoking Pall Malls to see who can get esophageal cancer first .

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By college, you’ve gone all Sister Wives. 

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You’ve lost your self-respect. You consider relocating to Salt Lake City. But then Dorko McGoober here kicks you out of the tribe. You’re alone. All you have are your vices. You avoid your grandmother’s phone calls. You stop taking multivitamins. You rat your hair. You accept a date from a greaser, and it all goes downhill from there.

http://www.vice.com/read/raggare-love-hot-rods-and-rock-n-roll-000926-v20n2
http://www.vice.com/read/raggare-love-hot-rods-and-rock-n-roll-000926-v20n2

He dumps you after three weeks. You turn to the dark world of roller derby.

http://youthvoices.net/discussion/roller-derby-circa-1950
http://youthvoices.net/discussion/roller-derby-circa-1950

But your mood swings are unmanageable. You get into fights with that hussy, Rhonda. You have to be pried apart. The manager tells you they have to let you go; you’re no good for business. You’re washed up, kid.

http://cherylsrecipejourney.blogspot.com/2013/03/a-night-out-at-roller-derby.html
http://cherylsrecipejourney.blogspot.com/2013/03/a-night-out-at-roller-derby.html

And then you hit rock bottom. You take a job as an “entertainer” at Jack Ruby’s Carousel Club. You tell yourself it’s just temporary.

http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/ruby.htm
http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/ruby.htm

You look in the mirror, and suddenly 50 years have passed. Where did they go? What do you do now?

http://www.reviewjournal.com/news/las-vegas/burlesque-icon-dixie-evans-dies-age-86
http://www.reviewjournal.com/news/las-vegas/burlesque-icon-dixie-evans-dies-age-86

Don’t give away free milk, ladies. It’s a downward spiral.

When Steve McQueen Says You’re Hot, People Listen

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The 1964 yearbook staff at the University of Oklahoma had the juevos to ask Steve McQueen to participate as “Beauty Judge” for their beauty contest. He actually took the time to reply.

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Ask and ye shall receive. After all, years of girl-gazing did qualify him to judge. And he chose Miss Barbie Listen. Yep, that’s her real name.

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Can you blame him? Her hair is only perfect. Her dress and gloves are white as snow. And I think it was very diplomatic of him to name five girls in the tie for 4th place. Nobody wants to be the loser. But I imagine Barbie Listen comes from the school of Ricky Bobby:

you're last

Suck it, losers.

Catholic Girls Start Much Too Late

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“Catholic girls start much too late.” That’s what Billy Joel says, anyway. But these Catholic girls look decades ahead of their time; heads bowed down, as if texting or finding apps for their smartphones at http://www.howtopraytherosary.com.

Sunbeam59004Growing up, I knew very few people who attended church and absolutely no one who attended Catholic church. I don’t even know if there was a Catholic school within twenty miles. All I know of Catholic school are the horror stories adults have told about knuckle-rapping nuns and fear of the confessional. I admit there is something eerie about these kneeling, chapel veil-adorned students and the halo surrounding them.

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But I don’t know enough about Catholicism to condemn it, so I’ll leave that to Madonna. Sacrilegious is her middle name. In any event, this looks innocent enough.

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Like most high school students, these young ladies had the opportunity to dissect “reckless amphibians.” Perhaps that was a small outlet for raging teenage hormones.

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Uniforms prevented them from dressing hoochie-mama, and also made it more difficult to determine the poor from the middle class. Nobody was drinking Tab or Diet Coke or Monster; milk was doing their bodies good.

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Without the distraction of boys, it was easier to remain chaste and avoid temptation. If you played your cards right, you could wind up with the coveted prize. Hope they hooked a good one!

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Thirty-Five Cent Flick

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When I was young, there was a dollar movie theater in town, where you could view not-so-recent movies or rescreenings of Ishtar. I also recall going skating on Wednesdays for dollar skate night. But I am not old enough to recall paying a quarter and a dime for a movie. This I cannot fathom. How much was a Coke? A nickel?

An Image To Warm You On A Winter’s Day

(spoiler alert: this is not the warm image)

Yes, it’s Elvis’s birthday today. It is my intention to brave the blustery polar vortex and go to Chuy’s Tex-Mex to consume an Elvis Presley Memorial Combo in his honor. New Year’s Resolution be damned. It is my obligation as an American citizen.

http://Photos of Chuy's - Restaurant Images
This photo of Chuy’s is courtesy of TripAdvisor.

Mercy, that looks delicious! But today’s post is not about The King of Rock n Roll; it’s about The King of Pop. You see, my 12-year-old self would have considered it an epic failure on my part to not have been married to Michael Jackson by this point. That was, after all, my master plan. And probably that of a million billion other adolescent girls. And we all failed. Except ironically, for the daughter of the King of Rock. And Debbie Rowe, but she doesn’t count.

lisa

No matter that he no longer walks the earth. My 12-year-old self would be disappointed. He was the reason we hit “play” and “record” simultaneously on our jambox that sat atop the television on the night the Thriller video premiered. No, we didn’t have a VCR yet. He was the reason my best friend and I learned to moonwalk in our Bill Blass socks on my parents’ hardwood floors. He was the reason we wore our red zippered Beat It jackets (not ironically, of course) to school and then promptly retired them out of humiliation because for some reason, sixth grade white girls couldn’t quite carry the look. In our defense, we did weigh 115 lbs at that point, just like he did.

I think it’s safe to say that most current musical artists were influenced by Michael Jackson. I imagine his influence spread into other art genres as well. But I was not aware of the magnitude of this until my friend posted this glorious image on facebook today. Apparently she was googling “exotic flowers,” and this gem appeared:

mj

I know what you’re thinking. Sometimes words can’t express our emotions, our awe, our wonder. In that sense, this artwork is like the Grand Canyon. I was only an Art Major for two years before changing to a legit degree (just kidding, art majors), so I am clearly not the authority on this. But I can say that never has there been such a depiction of the soft femininity of flowers balanced with the rugged machismo of Michael Jackson.

Needless to say, there was an instant barrage of comments, including:

  • that’s a pretty young lady
  • Why? Why? Tell them that it’s human nature.
  •  i want this person to be my next family photographer.
  • Are those cornrows? Seriously?
  • i can give your whole family cornrows after your family photographs if you want that with exotic flowers in your hair…lol
  • Is there alcohol in your coffee this morning?
  • Looks like an Herbal Esssence commercial!
  • Much magical.
  • Does anyone else feel compelled to go purchase Summer’s Eve products?
  • I like how the photo looks wet…
  • Or sweaty
I felt it was my duty to share this beautiful artwork with my readers. You’re welcome. I hope your day is much magical.

It’s So Fluffy!!

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/earthpicturegalleries
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/earthpicturegalleries

Sometimes animals are so cute, I can’t take it. Here we see Mac, an orphaned coatimundi, playing with a stuffed toy version of his breed, although he appears to be conducting an orchestra. It’s hard to beat coatimundis on the cuteness factor.

http://www.thatcutesite.com/coati-babies-are-adorable-20-pictures.html
http://www.thatcutesite.com/coati-babies-are-adorable-20-pictures.html

This pic of these koalas is a perfect depiction of a mother’s love. “I’ll never let go! Even if I’m suffocating you!”

tumblr.com
tumblr.com

Koala mommies really love their babies.

http://www.cutestpaw.com/images/the-best-kind-of-bear-hug/
http://www.cutestpaw.com/images/the-best-kind-of-bear-hug/

Sometimes we love on the animals.

http://www.cutestpaw.com/images
http://www.cutestpaw.com/images

Sometimes they love us back.

http://www.cutestpaw.com/images/baby-elephant-greets-his-keeper-2/
http://www.cutestpaw.com/images/baby-elephant-greets-his-keeper-2/

And sometimes, they just use humor us to get hot coffee.

Maddie the Coonhound by Theron Humphrey

Maddie the Coonhound by Theron Humphrey

We agree, Agnes. We agree.

Clubhouse On A Rainy Day

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I got a new Saturday Evening Post  today, solely for the cover. Truth be told, I pick all my books by their covers. That’s how I judge things, especially if they have cute orange and white Penguin spines at the bookstore. I can’t pass that up. This cover, although Rockwellian, was actually done by Ben Kimberly Prins. I never heard of him, either.

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I’m not a rich white guy nor a member of a country club (I hear you, Travis Tritt), but I like the camaraderie depicted, the fact that they’re not bowling alone, that they’re spending time interacting with other humans face-to-face. The fellowship! And yes, I like their hats. It reminds me of The Great Good Place, a book about places in the community where people can gather, other than work or home.

I realize that art, in its reflection of life, is as subjective as music. None of us is going to like the same things. I don’t like abstract art because it looks lazy. Splashing paint, to me, is not a skill. If your canvas resembles a kindergarten fingerpainting, it does not impress me. But I realize that others enjoy what that chaos represents.

I see enough chaos on the news. I don’t want part of my walls taken up by something that I can’t figure out what the heck it is. I like everything to fit into boxes, so that I can stick an adhesive label on it. That’s called order. I don’t like guessing games. I do not like abstracts, Sam I am. But to each his own. Her own. Its own.

IT'S PAT, Julia Sweeney, 1994, (c) Touchstone/courtesy Everett Collection

Perhaps it’s an idealized version of life, a sterilized Americana, in an era in which I was not even alive. But I am simple. I like happy things. Beaches and thunderstorms!

Thunderstorm at the Shore
Thunderstorm at the Shore

Not this.

art

The yellow glow of a festive party!

Fireman's Ball
Fireman’s Ball

Not creepy, disturbing, nightmare-inducing, twisted-in-the-head stuff like this. If you like this, I bet you see dead people. I bet you spend a lot of time in the basement. And I realize this is pretty tame, but I can’t even post the gruesome, oversexualized, bloodied up images that pour forth from people’s jacked-up brains.

disturbing-visions-tiffanie-dye

So I leave you with two timely images for the New Year. This babysitter is drinking milk because calcium is good for her bones.

New Year's Eve Babysitter
New Year’s Eve Babysitter

And this couple, still awake at 2:52am, has the First World Problem of tackling a kitchen full of dirty dishes and leftovers.

New Year's Aftermath
New Year’s Aftermath

That’s how I like my problems: First World. And that’s how I like my art: easy to recognize.

And speaking of easy to recognize, happy 66th birthday to my favorite bartender, Isaac Washington. I hope your day is exciting and new!

isaac