Humor – Page 99 – I Don't Get It

Yucca Part Deux

All hail Nikki Hendricks, the North Texas 1946 Football Queen. Watch her ride “in royal splendor.” I think we both know which one is Nikki and which one wishes she were Nikki.

And here is a rare shot of Tina Fey’s grandmother, Dude Neville McCloud. That’s what it says, folks. Click to enlarge if you don’t believe.

Note the publicity staff “during a busy hour.” Mercy, how bustling. The supervisor checks for typing errors while one girl evidently knits and glares.

Below is the W.R.A. tumbling team. One of the support gals in the middle appears to have sprained her eye.

Hey, remember Time & Temperature?

Oh, how I wish I could have been a Trojan’s date to the Sadie Hawkins Dance. The one with the eyebrows, sitting on the haystack.

Let’s end with this portrait of the Baptist Student Union Council.

Just take a moment to really absorb the Doublemint Twins in the front row, Yes, F. Day and J. Day. Perhaps it was in honor of D-Day and VJ-Day? You can see the disdain all over F. Day’s face. But J. Day. Oh, J. Day. She looks like she smelled a fart.

Now look to J. Day’s left. Another set of twins! Dang, Baptists! Way to be fruitful and multiply. Janel and Janet Barr. I know, super creative, right? You just KNOW people rhymed her name with “channel” instead of the exoticish J’Nelle. That’s why Janel is fidgeting with her fingers. In the twin crapshoot, she got the bad name. And Janet is so over this. She threw off her jacket in a fit of rage only moments before the shoot. She’s all Oh, yes, please let me dress in identical clothing like those damn Day hussies. Like we’re toddlers. As if. Can’t people SEE we’re fraternal? Look at her. I bet she wasn’t Baptist for long.

The 1947 Yucca, Part I

Today we’re going back to 1947, to a post-war era at North Texas State University, when women looked like the Andrews Sisters and frat boys took preventative measures against osteoporosis.

I love the pretty print dresses on these ladies.

Even just one row from the yearbook can reveal a lot.

Let’s hope for his sake, that “Dwyane” was misspelled. But check out his two-tiered locks. And what about John’s tousled look? Sexy. I’m certain he knows his way around a tractor. And Fred’s sharp threads are pretty snappy. I’m afraid these ladies’ names have gone by the wayside. Any preschools catering to Margie, Betty, or Ada Jo these days?

Yes, Virginia, there was life before iPods and iPads. Youth culture existed free from technology. Before Supercuts and Starbucks, there were barber shops and coffee shops. Look at that TEENSY coffee cup! No blue tooth in sight. People were actually looking UP.

Such was life in “Collegetown.” Stay tuned for Part II!

We Always Wish For Money; We Always Wish For Fame

So I was jogging today on the hike and bike trail, to firm up my tush and increase my endurance. I listen to an MP3 player that contains every song I own, so there’s no telling what song is going to come on next, and that’s how I like it.

It’s actually pretty hard to find songs that match precisely the rhythm of the pace you desire. Most drumbeats are too slow. So when “Change” by John Waite came on, I was happily surprised that it matched my stride perfectly.

Now most people think of “Missing You” when I say John Waite. And that’s all well and good, except that I contend that “Change” is a far superior song, insofar as getting one motivated to jog. From the second the guitar riff starts, and John starts in, “People talkin’, and they’re sayin’ that you’re leaving,” the beat is contagious. It makes me want to juice up on Shasta and race Camaros around empty lots.

The single was released in 1982 with a vexing video that raises more questions than it answers, then re-released as part of 1985’s Vision Quest movie soundtrack. You can see parts of that one here:

Sweet half-sweatshirts on strapping wrestlers, Matthew Modine jumping rope, a punked out Michael Schoeffling (aka Jake Ryan) as a “half-Indian” motorcycle-riding hottie with daddy issues, Madonna before her pretentious British accent, all skank and lace. What’s not to love?

So Not Feeling 22

She’s on TV right this second, dancing in her new video, singing, “I don’t know about you, but I’m feeling 22.” And that’s great because she is 22. She doesn’t seem to DATE 22, but whatevs. It’s a free country.

Now, I’m not 22, so I don’t feel remotely 22. But here’s the thing I don’t get: I don’t feel the age that I am. I feel more like quadruple 22. Like a good solid 88. What’s up with that? It’s like middle age plus interest.

Now if I were 22, I might spin around dizzily and gloat about it as well. I graduated college at 22, so yay–one dream accomplished. Has it benefited me in any way? Well, that’s another post. I own a video of me at 22, tanned and fit, doing front handsprings in a blue gingham bikini on the back lawn of a lake house. So, yeah, 22 was pretty freaking great. Nicole Brown Simpson didn’t fare so well that year, but sometimes life sucks.

Taylor starts the song with these words:

It feels like a perfect night to dress up like hipsters
And make fun of our exes, uh uh uh uh
It feels like a perfect night for breakfast at midnight
To fall in love with strangers

Yeah, not so much for me. I have some reading glasses so that I can read the size 4 font on the Advil bottle, but I don’t possess any horn rim glasses, so I’m out on the hipster thing. And exes? Exes are something you bury deep in the recesses of the past, raised like Lazarus at the sound of arena rock songs, then quickly repressed again. Highway run… And breakfast at midnight? Well, that’s a good possibility, due to a decade of insomnia. But it won’t be eggs. Gotta watch my cholesterol. Hello, shredded wheat. And mercy, girl, don’t fall in love with strangers. Keep your knees together or you’ll find TROUBLE, TROUBLE, TROUBLE.

In the chorus, she sings, Everything will be alright if we just keep dancing like we’re 22. I did a lot of dancing at 22, but it wasn’t to pop country, Miss Swift. In fact, Shania Twain hadn’t even been invented yet. Back then, they showed videos on MTV. It was a very Gin Blossoms and Warren G time in history. When Tom Petty came on the radio, singing the verse, “Oh, my my, oh, hell, yes, honey, put on that party dress,” it was a joy. Pure joy. But you can’t dance to Mary Jane’s Last Dance. There was also a hit called Mmm Mmm Mmm Mmm. No lie. That was depressing. Can’t dance to that. And then there was this weird totally instrumental song that sounded like monks or something called Return to Innocence by Enigma. Can’t even sing to that. And lastly, the omnipresent little Lisa Loeb and all her nine stories, with her cat’s eye glasses, staring into the camera, singing Stay. Poutable, but not danceable.

So forgive me if I can’t dance like I’m 22. Or 32. But I have degenerative discs now, including torn and bulging ones. So I don’t know about you, but I should probably just sit this one out. Maybe in the new plush recliner. With a glass of moscato in my hand. Yes, that sounds like a plan.

The Princess And The Pee

This is all well and good if you don’t have to get up twice nightly to pee. I would worry my child would fall out the opening at the top and tumble down the steps to a painful injury. Even the bottom bunk looks painful. I’d throw my hips out just trying to crawl up into it, and then there’s no doubt my ankles would graze those drawer knobs at the bottom and bruise me up. And what about changing the sheets on laundry day? That would certainly tax the lower back. I bet it gets warm and humid in there as well, with no ventilation on the sides. And what if she has a nightmare and bolts upright, only to bump her head on that ceiling light? Really, this is more trouble than it’s worth.

Cow Or Camo?

Yes, it’s ugly as sin, but it still beats the daylights out of those damn omnipresent swooshes. I HATE swooshes! Swooshes belong on Nikes, not recreational vehicles. I had fully intended to prepare an entire dissertation on this scourge, but dangit–somebody already did. To see examples of other hideous RVs such as this one decorated by drunk Zorro,

visit: http://2penniesworth.com/2010/08/30/the-good-the-bad-the-ugly-rv-graphics/. Nothing says gas-guzzling cross-country road trip like some ugly decals. This is a travesty!

Eerie Homes & Gardens

Growing up, the closest I ever got to a haunted house was watching episodes of Scooby Doo on Saturday morning cartoons. As a teenager, I visited facsimiles of haunted houses, made purely for Halloween profit. But insofar as I’ve never seen a ghost, I don’t believe in them, nor haunted house. But if by chance, they do exist, I imagine they reside in spooky homes like this, with broken windows and dilapidated porches with rusted railings.

all photos from Shorpy unless labeled otherwise

This old Victorian mansion may appear innocent enough, with a fruit stand out front, and laundry blowing in the breeze. But you know there are some kidnapping milk carton victims trapped in that upper bedroom. Don’t you see their fingerprints on the panes?

You actually can see the child in the lower left portion of this tenement housing, so it’s a given those curtains upstairs are concealing various abducted persons. The ones out front are just a cover.

This plantation house is creepy even in brightest sunlight. No doubt the ghosts of former slaves are flying amongst the rotting shingles and crumbling chimneys. The boy sitting on the stoop is merely an apparition.

St Charles Parish, Abandoned Plantation 1938

This one looks more like a movie set, like the swamp scene in The Rescuers.

But this one gives me the williest of willies. It’s not the broken windows nor decaying wood; it’s the fact that it appears to be tucked into a hillside, maybe in the recesses of some mountain community, where subspecies and dialects exist that you and I know nothing of.

I bet it looked fine in its glory days, but it’s time for the wrecking ball. Make room for suburbia!

Manatee Insanity

Target should not have to apologize for stocking a plus-sized dress in “manatee grey.” If you get offended by that, you need to toughen up. Manatees ARE a greyish hue. Target has every right to label it what they will. People get pissy about the craziest things. I’m sure their intention was not to make plus-sized ladies feel like manatees, but guess what? If you’re in the “Women’s” section, and not “Misses,” then you ARE fat. So am I. Nobody has a cow when they call it “cow print” skirt. Suck it up, fatties. I do.

What Target should be apologizing for is not playing music in their stores, for making what was once a pleasurable shopping experience more like a visit to a ghost town or a cemetery. That’s what Target should fix. Turn the music on. And here’s another bone of contention: stop selling Starbucks coffee next to the watches and scarves. Yeah, their coffee is okay, but it’s not $4 okay. It’s about $2 okay. So how they’ve got the country fooled into dropping its disposable income into their cash registers is beyond me. Especially in a recession. I don’t get it. Trade it out for a Dunkin Donuts. At least you won’t feel raped when you leave the big red dot.

I buy my own coffee beans at the grocery store for $8.99/pound, grind it fresh in the morning, and it lasts over a week. It smells good, it tastes good, and it’s worth the price. But in the name of discipline, I’m trying to cut back, drinking more Sleepytime hot tea with honey, and less coffee with peppermint mocha creamer. I’ve got a nice big mug; small mugs don’t do it for me. The problem is it’s covered with snowmen. Cute, but not appropriate for springtime. So for Mother’s Day, I think I’d like this:

And so what if it looks like me in a jacuzzi? Sometimes I do resemble a sea cow. So does most of the country. Get over it.

Manly Mane O’ Glory

Three months into blogging, clearly there is plenty that I don’t get. My inability to grasp things may allow endless blogging fodder for years to come. Here’s one such item: The site http://www.menwholooklikekennyrogers.com/ has existed since I was in my TWENTIES. It was a hoot back then, if for nothing more than the sheer volume of men who actually did resemble Kenny Rogers. Please tell me how this site can remain up for soooo long, and yet there is no site yet devoted to Barry Gibb’s glorious lionesque mane?

If you don’t know who Barry Gibb is, I forgive you. I do resent, however, having to explain that he was the eldest of the three Brothers Gibb, which consisted of his twin brothers, Robin & Maurice, now both deceased. They peaked with the disco soundtrack of Saturday Night Fever, gracing the cover in tight white suits. Say what you will about disco (R.I.P.), but they sold a crapload of records, over 220 million. That’s more books than any of us can hope to publish. Combined. And they wrote all their own songs, as well as hits by other artists, including “Grease” and “Islands In The Stream.” No kidding.

But it’s not their tight three part harmonies that deserve a website; it’s the tresses of the elder brother. Barry’s hair was glorious from the get-go. Even in the late 60s, he was rocking Elvis sideburns with style (and a white suit).

Like Samson and his strength, so, too, was Barry’s sexiness connected to his lovely locks. Here he is all Farrah Fawcett, minus the Mexican blanket.

Is it any wonder children purchased these lunchboxes in droves?

Note the halo effect, as though he were the archangel Barry. Perhaps that’s just the heat generated from his Saturday Night Fever.

And just when you thought he couldn’t feather it anymore–BAM!–superultrafeathered. In combination with the brooding bedtime eyes, gold chain, and chest hair, you can almost imagine the puddles of testosterone seeping out of his pores.

And this? This is how Grizzly Adams saw himself in dreams.

Here we see the Bee Gees with younger brother, Andy, a solo artist in his own right, also deceased. Even with Andy’s good looks, his hair was still no match for the wild and woolly Barry Gibb. You can see it in Barry’s stance; he knows he is the alpha Gibb.

You know, this pic has got me wondering–if men receive their hair pattern gene from their maternal grandfather, how could one brother be bald and one brother be blessed with a thickness and volume of crown otherwise unknown to man? Don’t they all have the same maternal grandfather? I am vexed.

Time has thinned his mane and turned it silver, but a trace of its glory exists. Not enough for me to add it to this fine collection of pictures, but you get the point. You had a good run, Barry. Longer than most of us could ever dream of. And that’s no Jive Talkin’.

Smells Like Orville Redenbacher

At one of our favorite Mexican restaurants, the bathroom soap leaves something to be desired. Each time I wash my hands before eating, the smell emanating from my fingers makes me not want to reach for the chips and salsa. It’s like I need another soap to wash the smell of that one off. I have never understood this concept. Why would any eatery offer a soap that smells to high heaven, that reeks of Texaco restroom (which is the scent of cherry poop), that does everything to quell one’s hunger at a restaurant? Isn’t the point to increase one’s appetite? To that end, I have discovered this today. I think this would do well to increase the sales of not only appetizers, but buttered popcorn Jelly Bellies at the Walgreen’s down the road, once one departs said restaurant.

If I’d just scrubbed with that, I’d be sniffing my knuckles right and left. While we’re on the topic, I’ll share this trivia tidbit: El Senor Redenbacher died in his condo jacuzzi, after suffering a heart attack and subsequently drowning. Did you know that?

So maybe popcorn’s not your bag, baby. Perhaps you don’t want to smell like a cinema lobby. Well, sophisticated gentleman, this might be for you.

Mmmm. Forget Axe For Men; let me smell some merlot on his palms. And BTW, I hate the UB40 song Red Red Wine. I just feel like I need to put that out there, so that you know this pic is in no way an endorsement for such a wretched song, but more an endorsement of alcoholism.

And remember, The Mayo Clinic advises you to rub your hands vigorously for at least 20 seconds while washing, no matter how long the line of impatient patrons standing behind you. If we all work together, we can fight germs and bacteria.

So You Think You Want A Boob Job?

What ARE those? Isn’t Tori Spelling a millionaire several times over? Can’t she afford a nice rack? What was wrong with her old one?

And Victoria Beckham, it’s bad enough that your smile’s been broken for twenty years, but what sort of atrocity is this? You look like the rough draft of Madame Tussaud’s wax version of Kate Gosling.

I mean, don’t these women have access to the BEST of the BEST? What kind of botched job would I wind up with, if THEIR doctors are the best in their field?

Really, Jewel? That’s not very bohemian and down to earth of you. I thought you lived on a ranch with your cowboy husband; you don’t have to subscribe to the L.A. ideal. Honestly.

Oh, Tara Reid. I have no words.

My advice to starlets: don’t do it. But if you must, you must increase your bust, go small, like Cameron Diaz.

You’ll thank yourself when you’re 55.

Tranny Shoes: A Likely Story

I did some more investigating about Einstein (to go with today’s earlier post), and discovered this site, ireport.cnn.com/docs, where Ron Rothman explains, “Some of you might be aware of the relationship between the great scientist, Albert Einstein and my grandfather, David Rothman…Some of you are aware of their initial meeting and how Einstein came into the store looking for ‘Sundials,’ in his thick German accent really asking for sandals. My Grandfather mistook his asking for sundials and took him out to the back yard to show him the only sundial he had, his. Upon realizing his mistake, they proceeded to go back to the store where Einstein bought a pair of sandals that my grandfather had on the shelf…

“As Einstein came in asking for the shoes and after the misunderstanding about what he wanted, he was taken into the store to find that the only pair left which would fit was a woman’s size 11. Between the combination of Einstein’s embarrassment about the sundial incident and my Grandfather’s enthusiasm to make a sale to the great scientist, Einstein bought these beach shoes with grace.”

Fine. Whatever. But how do you explain him reclining in these (do my eyes deceive me?) stilettos?

And, P.S. Einstein, you do not look remotely like Burt Reynolds did in the Cosmo centerfold.

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