Category: Photography

That’s A Big Fat Nope

Naresh & Rajesh Bedi
Naresh & Rajesh Bedi

Hindu women in Shirala, India bow before a “Nalla Pambu” (good snake), a symbol of fertility. Call it what you will, but no snake is a good snake to me. I don’t care if it eats rats. I’ll take rats over venomous snakes any day. Per wikipedia,

The Indian cobra’s venom mainly contains a powerful post-synaptic neurotoxin and cardiotoxin. The venom acts on the synaptic gaps of the nerves, thereby paralyzing muscles, and in severe bites leading to respiratory failure or cardiac arrest.

Good snake, my butt. That snake doesn’t give life; it takes it.

Look, ladies, I feel you on the infertility front. I’ve jabbed needles of Ovidrel in my belly, popped Clomid, and spent hours at the fertility clinic while they spin out the wonky husband samples to find the best and brightest swimmers. More than once. It was expensive and unsuccessful, and it can destroy a marriage. I’ve tried nearly everything under the sun. But never never would I get on my knees, prostrate and in striking range of a cobra.

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“When Your Throat Feels Scratchy As An Old 78”

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To be honest, I had a 7-Up for breakfast (my tummy was unsettled), and I have to say that this colorful ad was more refreshing than the actual drink. The taste was meh at best (fake lemon-limey), and several hours later, life is certainly not a song. Unless the song is that “I’d like to teach the world to sing” ditty for Coke. I drank a Coke for lunch and feel infinitely muchor mejor.

But this ad is such fun. Her sassy response to his implied inquiry (“Actually, I do know how to work the hi-fi, thank you…), the conversation behind closed doors, her poofy braid pony, the Glenn Miller album askew on the wall, his tolerant look (like he should just humor her until the sun goes down and it’s time to trade green soda bottles for brown Hamm’s beer bottles), how his wool sweater looks as scratchy as the throat the ad references, and all the woody orange-yellows! Cheers!

Once Upon A Time, In My Wildest Dreams

El Rancho 1974
El Rancho 1974

Confidence goes a long way toward getting chicks, and this lion’s-maned manmeat has it in spades–or checkers. The trousers can’t be Sansabelt because there is most definitely a belt, in all its gleaming white glory.

It’s such a shame that I was in cloth diapers when these handsome hotties from 1974 were swinging and single. How could a gal ever choose just one?

Those mutton chops, that ‘stache, the white groin pockets, the button fly–it all means business.

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My stars, evidently the candy man can with his supersized camera. I feel like we caught him in the middle of a shuffle ball change.

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All I know is he mixes it with love, and makes the world taste good.

You Dropped Your Lip Gloss

credit: Chris Johns
credit: Chris Johns

The most vexing part of this picture to me is not the dangerous Footloose scene that comes to mind; it is the fact that it is midnight. Yes, this was the “midnight sun” in Anchorage, Alaska during the summer months of 1988. Broad daylight be damned, denimed young people were still making bad decisions, not the least of which was jacking up their trucks, as well as inviting passengers to sit in lawn furniture with the tailgate down. Courting disaster.

http://basementrejects.com/
http://basementrejects.com/

Where Sombreros Are Born

Ever wonder how it is that every full-service Mexican restaurant has ample sombreros to place upon each birthday patron’s head? Now you know.

Mexico City 1911, Underwood & Underwood
Mexico City 1911, Underwood & Underwood

These milliners are ankle deep in straw hats of different weaves. Do you own one, tucked into the back of your closet? No? Have you ever been the lucky sap beneath the hat at a Mexican restaurant? I have. At the place we patronize each Sunday after church, they chant a generic name to the birthday boy or girl. “Happy BIRTH-day, Panchito, Happy Birthday to you!” And then Panchito gets complimentary fried ice cream.

 

Swimmers Of All Sizes

Nat'l Geographic June '67
Nat’l Geographic June ’67

Elephants enjoy the sea at Sanary on the French Riviera. Visible in the upper right-hand corner is the big top of a traveling circus, which visited the port each summer.

Italian Campaign, 1943

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A burst from an American 155mm gun illuminates a poplar grove during a night shelling of German positions at Mignano Dec 2. Much of the fighting on the front has taken place at night. Germans say the Americans never sleep. 

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Champion Ratkiller DeGlopper

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In 1944, rats were ravaging farms, gnawing into sill beams, eating poultry and eggs and consuming livestock feed. Rats were estimated to destroy $45 worth of food a year, at a time when chicken and livestock feed were hard to come by.

Little Robert De Glopper was made of sturdier stock than children these days, and consequently made himself quite a profit at 3 cents per dead rat. Ten rats an hour would match the minimum wage of 30 cents.

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Can you imagine if today’s town clerks had to count rat tails?

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War bond prizes were given to the boy or girl who 1) killed the most rats, 2)the heaviest rats, or 3) the ones with the longest tails. Such fun before TV and video games existed! Even dogs and cats were cited for meritorious work.