Pocketful of Ginch

Encounters on the Road with Art

2011-08-11T13:59:00.000-07:00

From an antique mall in Wichita:
I don't know what he's staring at but I'm glad it's not me. Next, a treasure from the same Michigan City IN antique mall where last year I failed to buy the sad clown painting:

It's a painting of John-John Kennedy, bravely saluting his Daddy's coffin as it rolls by! If you click to enlarge you'll see that the artist has affixed a copyright to the picture, which is funny since she copied it straight off of a copyrighted photo. Intellectual property lawyers, I can feel you salivating out there!

And speaking of JFK, here's a velvet rendering of the unholy chimera he spawned with Ronald Reagan, from Terre Haute IN:
And back to Michigan City, where the same stall (I think) that had the sad clown now features this charming landscape:
Just and ordinary picture of a sylvan view? Not so fast! A closer look reveals that this rocky place is haunted by transparent phantoms!
Amazingly, I didn't bring any of these home.

Noir@theBar: the anthology!

2011-08-06T12:07:00.000-07:00

Here's the cover, by Matt Kindt, for the Noir at the Bar anthology, available exclusively through Subterranean Books: http://store.subbooks.com/product/noir-bar

And here's the trailer I cut for it: Play it full screen and turn it up REAL LOUD!

Book Trailer

2011-07-12T14:47:00.000-07:00

Here's the trailer for "The Adjustment," now available at your local booksellers. Take this and repost it everywhere you can!

Unfortunately BlogSpot won't let me post a video of this size directly onto the page, and when I try to embed the link it comes up blank, so you'll have to cut the link and paste it into your browser window (any of you BlogSpot users have suggestions for a fix?)

Be sure and watch full screen!

Baseball Card

2011-06-17T13:06:00.000-07:00

My favorite baseball artifact of all time, except for the Honus Wagner card I used to make my bike spokes make that keen sprockety sound. This is for all those people who take me to task, insisting that Americans of a bygone era did not use the kind of foul language I routinely put in their filthy, filthy old mouths. Click to enlarge, and savor its lack of couth. [UNMAILABLE. Must be forwarded by Express.]

Filthy, Filthy eBooks for your Perverted Pleasure

2011-05-31T15:25:00.000-07:00

It's been five months since I last bothered you, but I have important news: Two (2!)new e-books from Concord ePress, the electronic division of the Concord Free Press. The proceeds from these e-books go to support the Free Press's charitable mission in addition to helping pay my mortgage. The first, "Rum, Sodomy and False Eyelashes," is a collection of stories, including one previously unpublished and several that are hard to find elsewhere, and the second is "Rut," my dystopian novel published last year by Concord's Free Press division as a charitable giveaway. Only now you get a swell introduction by the very generous Gregory Maguire--author of "The Next Queen of Heaven" as well as a small cultural phenomenon you may have heard of entitled "Wicked." And there are other books in this début group, including one from Stona Fitch ("Senseless") and one by Matthew McBride ("Frank Sinatra in a Blender"--how can you resist that title?) Buy 'em all!

(And here are those links I failed to post yesterday when this first went up, you'll have to cut and paste them into your browser because for some reason this damned page won't let me post them as clickable links:

http://www.concordepress.com/rum sodomy and false eyelashes/

http://www.concordepress.com/rut/

FLAREGUN!

2011-02-28T10:27:00.000-08:00

Oh, yeah, baby, it's FLAREGUN time!

Finally, the Weirdest Gift I Ever Received

2011-02-11T10:36:00.000-08:00

Sorry for all the delays. I'd like to claim that I was busy but the fact is I've been too freaked out by the sinister vibes emitted by this anniversary gift from my wife to have much enthusiasm for taking the thing out of its box:

She told me I'd be creeped out by it. "I doubt it," I said. When I started unwrapping it, my first guess was that it was a piece of antique stereoscopic equipment. Then I thought: Welding goggles?

But no, the lens covers were perfectly opaque--metal painted black--and in any case the turrets held no glass. I was baffled, at least until my wife bade me read the card that came with it:

So that explains the sweat stains in the leather. How many men died wearing these, I wonder?

Help Butch

2011-01-27T13:15:00.000-08:00

I know I'm way behind on The Weirdest Gift I Ever Got, but here's my chance to do two Christa Faust posts in a row--the good Dr.'s dog Butch, damn near my favorite dog ever, has had some serious veterinary problems and Christa's expenses have been near-catastrophic. So be a pal and copy the link, paste it into your browser window and make a small donation.

And next week, the Weirdest Gift I Ever Received.

http://faustfatale.livejournal.com/252032.html

Four unusual gifts, in order of strangeness: Part Three

2011-01-15T10:54:00.000-08:00

Actually "Four Unusual Gifts" is misleading, since one big padded manila envelope from the redoubtable Christa Faust contained multitudes. If you're reading this blog you are probably familiar with Doc Faust, author of many fine tomes, most notably "Money Shot" and the forthcoming "Choke Hold," among many others. (And if you're not, get your ass in gear! I have spoken.) This envelope contained several choice morsels of (gulp) vintage erotica, mostly of the S&M variety and most of which I can't post on this blog without putting up an "Adults Only!" portal. To say that I was delighted upon opening this cornucopia of illicit thrills is to understate the case considerably. Penetrating commentary! And one of them ""Punished Peepers," with illustrations by the great Bill Ward, comes with a large, unidentifiable stain.

Next: the weirdest present I ever received, ever. Really.

Four unusual gifts, in order of strangeness: Part Two

2011-01-15T10:47:00.000-08:00

This one you should really click on to savor the detail. It's a gift from my close pal and confidante Megan Abbott, to whom I had recently confessed a liking for ladies with prominent teeth. I recently wrote a short story about a guy with a tooth fetish, so when she saw this she felt she had to send it along.

And now I ask myself: Is this a facet of my inner life that I would have shared with the world before the advent of this blog? No, I think it is not.

Four unusual gifts, in order of strangeness: Part One

2011-01-15T10:35:00.000-08:00

Every day I eagerly await the arrival of the day's mail, even though there's almost never anything for me. Imagine my surprise and delight yesterday, then, when I received three packages addressed to me, and all of them gifts. The above Natty Boh t-shirt was the least weird of the bunch, so I'm starting with it. It's from my friends Jeff and Jane of Baltimore, and I am delighted to wear it here. The other two will come up on the site in the next few days, followed by the weirdest of all, an anniversary present from my wife. It will freak you out.

I'm still here!

2011-01-06T08:42:00.000-08:00

My good pal Sophie Littlefield (for whom it's never a bad day for pretty) and I conducted a no-holds barred grudge match over at the Mulholland Books blog:
http://www.mulhollandbooks.com/2011/01/06/a-conversation-with-scott-phillips/#more-621

Cleveland

2010-11-19T11:55:00.000-08:00

You'd think that with my unfortunate resemblance to Drew Carey (that guy is the bane of my fucking existence) I'd stay away from his hometown. But I can't. I love the town and its history, and I recently spent a very pleasant few days and nights there as a guest of Mark and Amy Stone and their delightful children, looking with Mark into a seventy-five year old cold case. Here are some of my new friends:

This is Flo Polillo, or rather a replica of her head in the Cleveland Police Museum. Actual head's whereabouts have been a subject of debate since 1935.

Above is s replica of Edward Andrassy's head. Actual head was found, but had been separated from Eddie's neck; said removal appeared to be the cause of his decease.

Here's Rose Wallace's plaster stand-in, modeled from a cast of her skull and based on photographs. Identification was tentative and based on dental work.

Finally, this is an actual death mask modeled from the head of a fellow known only as "The Tattooed Man." Can you think of a better name? Give it a try!

Here's Doc Stone himself, looking over Kingsbury Run, the flats associated with the murders. Mark directed the great documentary "The Fourteenth Victim" (available on Amazon), about the case. You should all order it and get creeped out good and solid.

And finally, my new friend Itchy. Itchy is resting in this picture.

Irish Times Piece

2010-11-09T20:29:00.000-08:00

Damn it, you all know how I hate to blow me own horn but here's a sweet piece from the Irish Times written by the fine Irish crime novelist and journalist Declan Burke, known to his chums and enemies alike as either "Dec" or "Hambone." No matter which side of that divide you count yourself on, the article concerns the Concord Free Press and mentions me and a book I wrote entitled "Rut," which as we all know is both a noun and a verb. Go forth and sin no more.

The Silver Dollar in Ghent, Minnesota

2010-10-30T13:52:00.000-07:00

Last night I read with the amazingly talented Kyle Minor at the Marshall Festival at Southwest Minnesota State University in Marshall, Minnesota, and after the reading the festival's organizer, my good pal Anthony Neil Smith, took Kyle and me and a grad student in creative writing (Dan Vierck, remember that name) over to the nearby town of Ghent to the Silver Dollar, the first bar in Minnesota--not the oldest, but somehow the first. The distinction apparently has to do with a long-ago change in the liquor laws of the state, but no one could quite explain the exact nature of the claim.

In any case, they have one of the best old bar signs I've ever seen. Here's Kyle, standing before it like a badass.

Obscene Hummel Figurine

2010-10-08T12:52:00.000-07:00

This comes via filmmaker and all around good pal Mark Wade Stone. It belonged to his grandmother and dates back to circa 1939. All I can say about it is that it appears to me to be a little boy humping a flowerpot containing an anthropomorphic cactus. The mind reels at the Freudian implications.

Phil Lewis, 1925-2010

2010-09-30T13:55:00.000-07:00

Last month my uncle Phil Lewis died, and the weekend of the 19th I went to LA for his memorial service and career retrospective, organized by his daughter, my cousin Janet. The above mixed media piece isn't typical of his work, but I wanted to include it on the blog because it's such a great picture of Phil.

The memorial service was everything it should have been, laughing and crying and the palpable sense that Phil was present among us. And in a very real sense he was--the artwork that was his lifeblood from the 1940s right up until the end hung on the walls of the gallery, and almost all the people still alive in his circle were there.

David Thompson

2010-09-14T14:16:00.001-07:00

I try to stay away from real life as much as possible, on the blog and as a general principle. Today, though, I got the rotten news that my good friend David Thompson died suddenly, and I'm going to piss and moan for a paragraph. He was a bookseller and publisher and a friend to many dozens of people. He was married to a wonderful woman he loved very much, and he was as joyfully engaged with his work as anyone I've ever known, and he was only thirty-eight. Above is a picture taken the last time I saw him, when he made a trip to St. Louis to help set up BoucherCon 2011. He was one of the best people I ever met in the book business, and nobody had an unkind word to say about him.

I owed him an e-mail from last week. There were books I wanted to recommend that he publish. We had plans, goddamnit.

The amazing and hilarious Tim Gilbert and the art of shaving your junk

2010-09-03T11:35:00.000-07:00

Some of you Wichita hepcats may remember musician, actor and Kirby's Beer Store fixture Tim Gilbert, who decamped many years ago for London. Here's Tim explaining in a British TV commercial about pube-shaving (thanks to Michael Carmody for posting this originally):

the Basement Sublet....of Horror!

2010-09-02T12:43:00.000-07:00

This week creator/writer/director Joel Sanderson has posted for your viewing pleasure the entire "Atomic Brain" episode of the Basement Sublet of Horror:

http://www.basementsubletofhorror.com/

This is one of two episodes that I guest-hosted. In this one I play regular host Gunther Dedmond's meth-addled landlord. Here are some Basement Sublet trading cards, including the two associated with this episode:

And I get the card right after Herc "Carnival of Souls" Harvey!

Another Thrift Store Masterpiece

2010-08-30T10:54:00.000-07:00

Found this Sunday in an antique mall near St. Louis:

See how she's grasping that pink candle, like she's judging its size? Nuanced! Classy! And those breasts are the definition of perky. I think this might have come from Bob Guccione's yard sale. Here's a better picture of the middle section:

The subtle effect of the candlelight against the dark background evokes Delatour at his height--perhaps even Kincade--while the model with her wistful gaze seems to have wandered in from the saddest, most poignant 16-MM stag film ever made.

Random Scary Images

2010-08-12T10:54:00.000-07:00

Scary, Norman Bates-style stuffed Buffalo (Bison bison, for you sticklers):

Scary, decaying mannequin from a mining museum:

Scary Honey Wagon (that's a toilet on rails for use by the miners) from the same museum:

A Nostalgic Latex-Novelty Related Anecdote

2010-08-06T09:24:00.000-07:00

From a very old friend who wishes, understandably, to remain anonymous, a remembrance called forth from the past by the Proustian madeleine of my recent Novelty Dispenser posting:

"In 1971, when I was a naive 9 year old, I bought a "French tickler" from a dispenser, thinking it was some kind of novelty candy. Boy, was I disappointed--and bewildered. I mean, what a ripoff for 25 cents. But it had to have SOME purpose, right? So I kept it and put it in my sock drawer, until I could discern its purpose. Over the next few weeks, my father's suspicions were aroused when he realized I was asking a lot of pointed questions of people, including his parents when they came for a visit ("Gramma, do you know what a French tickler is?"). Finally, my dad asked to see what I was talking about.
He asked where I'd gotten it, gave some lame explanation of its purpose (so lame even a naive 9 year old could tell it was bullshit), then took it from me, saying that it was something a young boy shouldn't have.
Imagine my disappointment when I discovered it a few days later while emptying the trash. It was all stretched out and wet. I couldn't understand why he would have lied to me just so he could use it (whatever that use was)--all he had to do was ask me!"

Move over, Art Snow--F. Dressen's in town!

2010-08-04T12:27:00.000-07:00

Another Thrift Store (or "Antique Mall" for you fancy-pants types out there) painting for your amusement and edification, this one painted by one F. Dressen.

I didn't buy it--$95 seemed a bit steep--but I'm starting to regret it. It's at that perfect juncture between competent (Mr. or Ms. Dressen clearly possessed some technical skills) and crazy, and the sad clown's face is rendered well enough that it feels like an actual portrait of some morose Pierrot.

America's Finest Gas Station Restroom Novelty Dispensers

2010-08-03T10:50:00.001-07:00

So here's a souvenir of my trip to Michigan:

Near as I can tell it's supposed to be some sort of balloon. Any of you out there have any theories?

Back to blogging!

2010-08-02T11:52:00.000-07:00

All right, summer's winding down. I haven't traveled very much, but I did make a couple of trips to Wichita and one, very brief, to Michigan and Indiana. Here's a trio of photos I found in an antique mall near Benton Harbor, MI (and not far from Niles, MI, home of 19th c. baby farmer and camp follower Mrs. Almira Griffiths!):

My guess is that these characters are meant to be a city slicker and a corn-fed rube, and that one is about to con the other out of a suitcase (not necessarily the one we think). The photographic studio is the Locke Clute company of 79 Washington Avenue in Detroit, and the stamp on the back of the photos identifies the artistes as Leo and Earl James, Singers and Character Change Artists (and get a load of the spooky Burlesque Shroud-of-Turin Effect bleeding through the back of the card):

Finally, here's one of the brothers solo, playing a drunkard:

All three images are marked on the back in pencil: One, "Earl Jake no. 1; "Earl Jake and" and finally just "Earl Jake." Someone who didn't like Leo, or was Leo's real name Jake? Was Jake their real last name? And whatever became of them?

NEXT: Adult novelties sold in gas station restroom vending machines!

Hey, look! I'm collecting records!

2010-05-07T09:58:00.000-07:00

Filmmaker/journalist/renaissance man Jon Scorfina profiled me for the Riverfront Times's blog and revealed some of the more embarrassing items in my record collection:

http://blogs.riverfronttimes.com/atoz/2010/05/last_collector_standing_scott_phillips_author_ice_harvest_harold_ramis_michael_nyman.php

The Wayback machine

2010-04-09T10:12:00.000-07:00

In the eighties I managed a cafeteria in a dormitory on the Boulevard St. Michel in Paris. We only served a continental breakfast in those days, but earlier in the century the dorm provided three hot meals a day for its several hundred residents, and the abandoned institutional kitchen in the basement was a source of spooky fascination.
Rotting furniture:
Kind of a "Shining" vibe here.
A bin full of sawdust, for what purpose I don't know, unless it was for that time-honored tradition of absorbing vomit off the floor upstairs:
Drawers full of unused silver. Bet that drawer is empty today.
The building's main elevator would take you down there, but the only way down from the cafeteria was via a very rickety old spiral staircase, and it was dark as hell down there. I am not ashamed to admit that I was scared shitless every time I had to go down there by myself.

As always, click to enlarge! (Images copyright Scott Phillips, 2010)

More Shameless Promotion: Misadventure!

2010-04-03T11:13:00.000-07:00

Just out from McSweeney's: Millard Kaufman's last novel, Misadventure. Kaufman had a brilliant Hollywood career, helping to create Mr. Magoo, writing the screenplay for, among many other fine pictures, "Bad Day at Black Rock," and even serving as a front for his blacklisted pal, Dalton Trumbo. His acclaimed first novel, "Bowl of Cherries," came out when he was ninety, and sadly its follow-up is being published posthumously. But what a followup! Eddie Muller, the Czar of Noir, says:

"Millard Kaufman understands that in a noir world—like, say, Los Angeles in the 1980s—the only hope for sanity is a sense of humor. Having lived through the city's earlier and equally absurd mid-century mores, he is more than qualified to skewer and roast its later incarnation. For a man in his nineties, Kaufman writes with all the verve and venom of a precocious 25-year-old; his story is good—but his storytelling is a non-stop delight."

I believe the book was written circa 1980 (see Eddie's reference to its time frame) and updated shortly before Kaufman's death to set it between the two Gulf wars. Here's my blurb, which will, I guess, appear on the paperback, having been written too late to appear on the jacket:

"Though it's only Millard Kaufman's second novel, 'Misadventure' came after a lifetime of writing about the light and dark sides of humanity, and in it the dark side plainly has the upper hand. Fast, nasty and funny as hell, it's a brand new classic of the noir genre, and I wish the author had lived on to write ten more just like it."

Like I said, it's a gas! So head on out to your local independent bookseller and buy a copy already!

Shameless Promotion, part IV: the LINEUP

2010-03-31T10:37:00.000-07:00

Continuing my series of uncharacteristically selfless promotion of other people's projects (shouldn't I be feeling better about myself by now?), I present to you The Lineup no. 3. Editor and pal Gerald So was kind enough to send me a couple of review copies of this most unusual poetry mag, which he co-edits with Sarah Cortez, R. Narvaez and Anthony Rainone. What's unusual about it is that all the poems are about crime, and the poets here include Patricia Abbott, Wallace Stroby, James W. Hall and Reed Farrel Coleman, and the poems are pretty badass. If you like hardboiled crime writing, this is right up your sordid, trash-strewn, bloodstained alley.

You can buy it at http://www.lulu.com and you can get submission guidelines, author bios and more at http://poemsoncrime.blogspot.com

shameless promotion, part III: Heavy Rotation!

2010-03-28T09:16:00.000-07:00

Here's the latest thing from Mike Coykendall (http://pocketfulofginch.blogspot.com/2010/02/wow-stuff-in-mail.html):

It's a groovy little pop masterpiece on which Herr Coykendall plays bass and occasionally sings, and which he engineered and mixed to boot. He's backing up M. Ward and Zooey Deschanel, better known as She & Him. Ms. Deschanel is a pop songwriter of the first order, with a voice that calls to my mind such voices as Shannon McArdle (late of the Mendoza Line) and Miss Peggy Lee. And the thing has a sound to it that's pure confectionary joy. It's been in heavy rotation at home and work for days now:

She and Him, Volume Two, on Merge Records....buy it now.

And in case you forgot to buy this last time:

"The Unbearable Being of Likeness" is still available from www.fieldhymns.com
And of course he's an ex-Wichitan. So get out there and buy some records, kids!

The Grandfather Paradox

2010-03-24T10:38:00.000-07:00

Duane Swierczynski has written a number of hard-to-classify books that straddle various subsections of the crime, science fiction and thriller genres, all of them well worth your hard-earned dimes. His new one, Expiration Date, comes out March 30, and it's not only the best of the bunch, it's also planted square in the tiny, hard-to-hit intersection of science fiction, crime, horror, fantasy and probably a genre or two I'm forgetting right now. When I recommended it to a bookseller friend here in St. Louis I told her it reminded me of Joe Hill's "Horns" in its determined shotgun wedding of nuts and bolts quotidian reality and psyched-out gonzo fantasia, and it deserves to have that kind of commercial success.

Here's the gist of the thing, though it's impossible to do justice to it justice in this short space:

Mickey Wade is a recently terminated reporter for a Philadelphia alt-weekly who ends up in his grandfather's dilapidated apartment in the run-down neighborhood Mickey grew up in. Suffering from a blistering headache Mickey takes what he thinks is a handful of Tylenol from Grandpa's medical cabinet, and what happens next is either the most wacked-out time-travel story ever or the worst trip in the history of psychedelic medications. Duane is a lifelong Philadelphian, and one of the book's pleasures is the changing portrait of the town's lesser-known neighborhoods from the seventies up to the present.

So on the 30th head on down to your local independent bookseller and buy it. Duane's always-entertaining blog can be found here:

http://secretdead.blogspot.com/

Maybe someday he'll reveal the secret behind his nickname: Duane "Three-balls" Swierczynski.

Other People's Stuff

2010-03-16T14:53:00.000-07:00

I have been accused (by my own self, even) of using this blog for shameless self-promotion. And so my next few posts, in order to restore karmic balance, will be shameless promotion of my friends' work.

Today's subject is my pal Julia Clift, an amazingly talented painter whose work I just saw for the first time last week (though I've known her for about a year). Here's one she painted in Norway in 2009, "Monika":

And this one, also from last year, entitled "Camera and Lanterns":

Her website is here:
http://juliaclift.com/home.html

There's a lot of implied narrative in her work, not unlike Hopper or the photographs of Gregory Crewdson, the kind of work that rewards repeated viewings.

And she's a real keen gal, too.

Next: Duane Swierczynski!

Smutty Olympia

2010-03-12T10:23:00.000-08:00

I wanted to post this during the Olympics, but it didn't arrive in time. Still, a lovely little piece of erotica from the bottom of Grandpa's sock drawer:
And once more, rolled stockings! And with skates. That is a very specific fetish, my friends.

Kirby's '88

2010-03-08T13:11:00.001-08:00

I took these pictures of Kirby's Beer Store in April '88, shortly before leaving Wichita for good. Above is one I've posted before of a dissolute bartender.
And here's the legendary northeast corner, home of many a session of tonsil hockey and drunken loutishness. GLOBE OF FROGS!
And from the men's room, the ancient condom dispensers, for those who were about to be lubricated.
Remember that ceramic thing with the matchbooks? For a while people amused themselves by writing predictions in the matchbooks, as though they were fortune cookies. My favorite was "You will have a very disturbing wet dream about the disinterment of Miss Lucille Ball." Look! Regulars!
Many, many manhours wasted on the pinball machine, not to mention quarters.

The walls, covered with crapola.
That same dissolute bartender. Does that look on his face remind you of the sleeve of "Lust for Life?"
The TV, above the legendary jukebox. Note the print of Marilyn Mao.
More crapola, plus a view of that amazing jukebox, which contained among many, many other gems the 45 from my GI Joe astronaut circa 1968 of John Glenn's Mercury-to-Earth transmissions.

I hope you've enjoyed this trip in the way-back machine.

From the Bottom of Your Grandfather's Sock Drawer

2010-03-05T11:17:00.000-08:00

Here are two recent acquisitions. The first, above, is a promotional photograph of young actress, or possibly a dancer, circa 1925. It was taken the Theatrical Studio, at 359 N. Clark Street in Chicago. The bathing suit is interesting considering that she's also wearing shoes with rolled stockings (a big fad in the 20s; Louise Brooks made a film by that title, and I have another piece of vintage cheesecake coming featuring the same fetishy style.)

The second is a bit more risqué, though it's still quite innocuous by 21st century standards:
This one definitely falls into the category of erotica, expertly shot in luxurious surroundings. It's a tiny image, about two inches across; Grandpa (or Grandma, in some cases) would have had to hold it quite close to his face using his left hand. As ever, CLICK TO ENLARGE! You won't be sorry. (Carole P., I'm talking to you.)

Six Outrageous Truths, One Outrageous Lie, or Vicey-Versey

2010-02-23T11:43:00.001-08:00

All right. Usually I don't do this kind of shit, but the peer pressure is getting too intense. So at the insistence of Keith Rawson and Greg Bardsley I'm participating in a Meme. This one is "Six Outrageous Truths and One Outrageous Lie About Me," or else "Six Outrageous Lies and One Outrageous Truth About Me." You all get to decide which is which:

1. I used to know a guy, a friend of my girlfriend at the time, who claimed to have embalmed Lawrence Welk.
2. I once discussed the Manson Family murders and his 1977 rape conviction with Roman Polanski over dinner at a fancy French restaurant.
3. Groucho’s son, Arthur Marx, made this Grouchoesque comment about my first novel: “Very violent and disturbing. I read it in one sitting.” (That’s not verbatim, sorry, but that was the gist of it.)
4. My old cat Max was having a series of weird health problems, and finally the vet convinced me to allow exploratory surgery. As a result I owned the first cat diagnosed with Heliobacter pylori, the bacterium that causes ulcers in humans. Her veterinarian wrote and presented a scientific paper about her at some big vet’s conference. (The infection, oddly, was on the outer lining of her stomach, not the inside.)
5. The only bone I’ve ever broken was my skull.
6. When I was a teenager and still experimenting with masturbatory techniques, I made the mistake late one night of using dishwashing liquid as lubricant. The next morning in class I felt a very uncomfortable stinging situation in my pants and, upon retiring to the restroom, discovered that my penis had swollen to the size of a smallish grapefruit. Panicked, I got a sick pass and went home where, thankfully, the swelling subsided before I had to seek medical help for my difficult-to-explain condition. Big flakes of dried skin peeled off of it shortly thereafter, not unlike the aftereffect of a bad sunburn.
7. I once sat around in an LA hotel bar for a couple of hours discussing the music business with a very knowledgable gent, and when he left I asked the bartender “was that guy a record executive or a producer or something?” He looked at me, unsure of whether I was putting him on, then shook his head and said, “man, you’ve been drinking with Bobby Womack.” The great man came back the next night and told me he was helping the Stones pick a new bassist after the departure of Bill Wyman.

Leave your guesses in the comments and I'll reveal the truth in a few days.

Who Was Harry A. Wells?

2010-02-13T10:35:00.000-08:00

An enigmatic pair of coroner's snapshots I bought on eBay of a certain Harry A. Wells, deceased.
The first morgue shot is badly flaked, but the bullet hole in his chest is plain.
The typewritten notice on the back of the morgue photo, indicating that Wells was a Dillinger associate, doesn't match the rest of the caption. The only Harry Wells I've been able to associate with Dillinger (based on very, very cursory research) was an Indiana bank teller the gang robbed, not a member of the gang.
Apparently Harry was sitting on that short concrete wall when Officer Tom Cardwell shot him.

Jolly Coppers on Parade

2010-02-07T12:22:00.000-08:00

I bought these two photos on eBay. They were listed as being from a "Springfield funeral ca. 1900," and I thought that with a bit of luck I might have stumbled upon photos of Lincoln's funeral procession in Springfield, IL in 1865. They're not--the hearse is wrong, for one thing, the photographic paper and speed of the exposure are certainly from the age of the dry plate, but they're lovely pictures anyway, presumably the funeral of someone important in some other Springfield somewhere else. (Maybe Mayor Quimby's great-great grandfather, "Honety Fitz" Quimby?)

These cops look like they might be headed for a rumble with these cats here:
http://pocketfulofginch.blogspot.com/2010/01/will-of-landru.html

Wow! Stuff in the mail!

2010-02-06T10:24:00.000-08:00

Six days a week I wait for the mail to arrive, expecting something wonderful to materialize in my mailbox, like a puppy or a 1909 S-VDB Lincoln penny. Most days I'm disappointed, even humiliated by the contents of the box. Once in a great while, though, I have one of those big mail days that remind me of those days in my childhood when the newest issue of Jack and Jill arrived with my own name printed on the cover label and there was a dinosaur spread on the back page.

Today I received not one, not two, but three (three!) parcels in the mail, all of which require blog posts. The first was completely unexpected: Mike Coykendall's brilliant CD "The Unbearable Being of Likeness" (Field Hymns, Portland, OR). Mike came out of the fertile Wichita music scene of the '80s, and he produced maybe my favorite record of all time, "MARGARET!" by the Blivets. You need to hear it, and you can do that by going to www.fieldhymns.com.

NEXT: 19th Century Mystery Funeral Procession photos! And after that, Crime Scene and Morgue Photos of a notable 20th century criminal...

Tom Horn

2010-01-26T09:24:00.000-08:00

I just watched William Wiard's "Tom Horn" for the first time since it came out in 1980. Written by Tom McGuane and Bud Shrake and starring Steve McQueen in his next-to-last role, it's a lot better than I remembered. McQueen plays Horn as both childish, trusting naïf and casual killer, a man who never really understands the forces allied against him. It's beautifully shot by John Alonzo, with appearances from Elishah Cook, Jr, and Slim Pickens, it's one of the last of the great westerns of the period.

There's an interesting comparison to be made with Michael Cimino's "Heaven's Gate," another elegiac treatment of Wyoming's range wars. (If you've been avoiding "Heaven's Gate" all these years because of the critical drubbing it took over the issue of Cimino's profligate spending, do yourself a favor and check it out--it's a textbook example of contemporary critical consensus getting it dead fucking wrong.)

A Bad Day for Sorry

2010-01-22T09:35:00.000-08:00

I haven't posted any book stuff in a while, but since the last one I recommended got a well-deserved Edgar nomination (Megan Abbott's Bury Me Deep) I thought I'd mention another pal of mine who got a nod this year. Sophie Littlefield, who hails originally from Missouri, ventures into Woodrell country with A Bad Day for Sorry, a tale of revenge and bad luck and middle-aged country ladies bearing some serious fucking grudges. It's funny and nasty and all those other things I know you like, and plus the jacket art gave me a funny happy feeling in my pants. As did the book.

Have I said too much? I have, haven't I?

A blog you should be following

2010-01-21T09:08:00.000-08:00

My pal Jeremy Trylch, who's living in China with his wife and son, is now publishing short stories on his blog. He's a terrific writer and if you're following this blog you'll find things there to your liking:

http://jeremytrylch.com/blog/

"I Wouldn't Come Up Here and Lie to You."

2010-01-18T12:22:00.000-08:00

In Wichita Kansas on the night of May 3, 1921, Mortz (Moritz?) Schmidt came home to his wife Mary Francis (Frances?) and threatened her several times with a gun. By 7:30 on the morning of the 4th he was dead, and within two hours his widow was making a statement to the Chief of Police, the Deputy County Attorney, a stenographer and, oddly, a Special Agent for the Rock Island Railroad: (Click to enlarge)

Prohibition was in force at the time, which may account for the fact that no mention is made of alcohol having been consumed, but Schmidt's behavior certainly seems alcohol-fueled.
The opening statement indicates that the couple lived at 417 E. Douglas, but her statement indicates that the address was 417 E. Dewey.

Ambrose Bierce said there are four kinds of murder: felonious, excusable, justifiable and praiseworthy (a tip of the hat to Craig McDonald). This I would qualify as belonging to the last category. Almost ninety years on the story still feels very modern, thanks perhaps to the stenographer's accuracy in recording Mary Schmidt's distinctive phrasing. I'd love to know what happened to Mary after this. Does anyone know if Deputy County Attorney Sidney Foulston is any relation to recent Wichita DA Nora Foulston?

The Will of Landru

2010-01-10T11:40:00.000-08:00

Here's another picture I found in Wichita. Where is this, and what are these men doing? My first thought was that everyone was leaving church, but in that case where are the womenfolk? The seller suggested that it was a parade, but my impression is that it's mass hypnosis and they've been sent out on some sort of unspeakable 19th century mission by a local Svengali. They do bear a certain resemblance costume-wise to the people of Landru, don't they?

Uncle Fester Brings Relief

2010-01-09T11:13:00.000-08:00

This is another Wichita find. Jackie Coogan, still a huge child star in the wake of Chaplin's "The Kid," participates in a bit of publicity. The letterhead on the back of the photo is from the production company his parents Jack and Lilian Coogan ran. After Jack Sr.'s death Lilian married Arthur Berstein, and the pair chiseled Jackie out of so much dough that a Hollywood child labor law that was enacted shortly thereafter was known popularly as the Coogan Bill.

And he grew up to be Uncle Fester on TV. He's already starting to look a little bit like him in this picture, bangs and sailor suit notwithstanding....

Silver Naked Lady

2010-01-01T10:33:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year. Please click to enlarge this prime example of '30s studio "art" photography. The subject, clad only in g-string, headdress and copious amounts of silver body paint, is one Carella Alden, who I can only assume was a dancer at the time the picture was taken (it's addressed to a certain Aline, a dancer who retired to Wichita to open a dancing school.) All I've been able to determine about Carella is that she was later a successful author of books about Persian, Japanese and early American art, some of them for children. From a Wichita flea market that yielded a number of photographic surprises this December.

Wichita: Nu-Ways and Ghost Signs

2009-12-30T08:46:00.000-08:00

Nu-Way is a crumbly beef sandwich that's been a Wichita staple since the thirties. I stopped eating them years ago on trips home because they'd become disgustingly greasy at the suburban franchise outlets, which were also stupid-looking, fake-retro-fifties-diner-hellholes. So when my old pal Brian Curtis and his beautiful wife Mel (too good for him, but that's another post) suggested my brother and I meet them at the original West Wichita location, I thought I'd come along and drink a coffee while the others ate.
But I ended up ordering one anyway. Holy fuck! It was great. Moist but not greasy, made the original way with steam and onions and lean ground beef. Again, Holy fuck, Batman. I inhaled that bastard in the dingy splendor of the somewhat dilapidated building where the thing was invented. Apparently the franchisees decided to go with the greasy version of the sandwich (old-timers inform me that in the old days you could ask for dry or greasy) while the original owners opted for the dry. Here's Brian chewing:

Brian and Mel spent exactly two hours in Wichita; the Nu-Way was their main destination. Long live the Nu-Way.

And here's a lovely ghost sign I shot on the way back to the folks's house:

And now, the Deluge

2009-12-29T09:51:00.000-08:00

Came back from Wichita with a whole lot of weird stuff to post. First, here's an addition to the collection of Creepy Law Enforcement Figurines.

Strictly speaking, they're Pinkertons and therefore private security, but close enough. This was in a Wichita Flea market. Next, from another thrift store, my brother's major find of the holiday season
That's right, it's a ghostly image of Der Bingle himself. I love how he looks a little surprised, a little scared, and a little bit delighted to boot. And check out that hair! Click to enlarge and savor it in all its Crobyite glory.

The Elves Control the Means of Production

2009-12-15T16:37:00.000-08:00

It's been a while since I posted anything, but I wanted to take a moment and wish you all the happiest of holidays. In the spirit of the season here's a little virtual card for you all. See you next year.

An Amazing Movie

2009-11-16T10:36:00.000-08:00

I just had the privilege of being a juror for the New Filmmakers Showcase at the St. Louis International Film Festival and I'm pleased to say that the film we selected out of five entries was "St. Nick," directed by David Lowery and starring Tucker and Savannah Sears as two preteen runaways who move into an abandoned house and try to make it their home. Lowery has been compared , rightly, to David Gordon Green and Terence Malick, but watching the film I thought of Albert LaMorrisse's "the Red Ballon" and René Clément's "Forbidden Games." Apart from those two I can't think of a movie that captures so well a child's point of view, unsentimental and inventive. Moving slowly and with very little dialogue, it won't please everyone, but I predict great things from Lowery. Some distributor should pick this up fast.

Name this Comic

2009-11-09T14:34:00.000-08:00

Here's an inked page from the forthcoming, untitled comic I'm working on with Roger Petersen....ain't it purty? We're still looking for a title, something hotel-related....

boorishness at Bouchercon

2009-10-27T14:39:00.000-07:00

In the top photo, Victor Gischler leers as Anthony Neil Smith prepares to cop a feel from Stacia Decker, who seconds later will beat the living piss right out of him; next, David Hale Smith and Duane Swierczinski decide they've taken about enough shit out of me; and finally, Dennis Tafoya and Theresa Schwegel mug for the camera. This last was meant to be sent to their mutual editor, but I forgot who that was.

More Pencils from Petersen

2009-10-23T11:17:00.000-07:00

Still no title for this thing, but check out the throwing arm on old Belle, and the suave nonchalance of her middle-aged boy toy as he dodges that ashtray: "Lobby please, Dawson." These have since been inked and are being colored but I haven't seen them yet. Click to enlarge!

More Rathskeller!

2009-10-19T19:10:00.000-07:00

Top: Agent to the Stars David Hale Smith, Dapper Dan O'Shea, and the lovely Theresa Schwegel; 2nd, the chipper Anthony Neil Smith, old sobersides Victor Gischler, and Kieran "I Like Scaring Little Old Ladies" Shea; 3rd, parts of D. O'Shea and the always classy T. Schwegel; and finally the imperturbable Jon McGoran (D.H. Dublin, to the public). A good sudsy time was had by all.

Roger Petersen, resident genius

2009-10-19T08:33:00.000-07:00

Here's a xerox of a penciled page from my collaboration with Roger Petersen, inching its way toward pitchability. Click to enlarge and inhale its awesomeness. And if any good titles occur to you, pass them on...

Beauty and the Beasts

2009-10-18T14:43:00.000-07:00

Left to right: uber-agent Stacia Decker, old-lady-frightening writer Kieran Shea, mega-agent David Hale Smith, up-and-coming sicko novelist John Rector, and King of Comics Duane Swierczinski, from DHS's Bouchercon party at Indianapolis's Rathskeller, a building designed by Kurt Vonnegut's grandfather. More pictures to come soon, along with some pencil pages from Roger Petersen for this comic we're soon going to have to come up with a title for.

RAT TRAP!

2009-10-04T18:48:00.000-07:00

This is from 1985, an exterminator's window in les Halles in Paris. Les Halles was once the city's main food market, and was a real magnet for vermin. The rats in the window were caught and taxidermed...taxidermied...stuffed in the 1920s. I'm not sure whether the shop is there any more, but I've always liked the Atget-esque aspect of this picture. The scan is a pointed reminder to me that I need a better negative scanner, as I have any number of better prints of this same negative hidden away in dark corners of my abode.

The Midway, '80s style

2009-10-03T15:17:00.001-07:00

Took these pictures at the Kansas State Fair with my brother, circa 1986. Some nice carny stuff, most of which still lies buried in the vault. The top attraction had a particularly memorable barker, and my brother and I stood around for quite a while listening to him say "Timple of Doooom. Tim-pull of Dooooom! Timple of Doooom!" before we finally paid up, went inside and found that it was a pretty uninspiring reptile show. The memory of the barker lingers, though.

Click, as always, to enlarge....

Manneken-Pis

2009-10-02T14:04:00.000-07:00

These are two of a series of twenty slightly ribald postcards featuring the Manneken-Pis of Brussels, possibly the world's most disappointing tourist attraction. As the above cards show, it's a tiny statue of a little boy pissing into a fountain. No one really knows why it's there, though it's been suggested that it commemorates a kid putting out a fire in a similar manner. Anyway, since the early twentieth century these postcards have been on sale across the street. Mostly they feature older ladies--nuns, spinsters and unsatisfied wives--gazing longingly at the little bastard's junk.

Kirby's Beer Store

2009-09-29T12:38:00.000-07:00

Here's a shot circa 1989 of future Ph.D. Mark Munzinger behind the bar at Kirby's, back in the days when he and Richard Davies owned and operated the place. More to come, including some shots of the obscene men's room graffiti from that long lost era. Click to enlarge and savor the unsavory details.

JÄÄTÄVÄÄ SATOA

2009-09-27T11:48:00.000-07:00

Juri Nemmelin, my editor at the Finnish publisher Banaani Pokkari, just sent me this cover for my approval of their upcoming edition of "The Ice Harvest." Fucking lovely, innit?

What to Read Next

2009-09-17T10:16:00.000-07:00

Megan Abbott's "Bury Me Deep" (Simon and Schuster) is the best of her four books so far, no mean feat, that. It's based on the true story of Winnie Ruth Judd, who became infamous in the '30s as the Trunk Murderess. Megan captures the flavor of depression-era Phoenix beautifully, and supplies a plausible (fictional) solution to the question of whether Winnie did it and why. But the real triumph of the book is Winnie's fictional stand-in, Marion Seeley, and her intense relationships with the two women who will end up in those notorious trunks, and with Joe Lanigan, a wealthy businessman who charms the step-ins right off her.

So go to your local independent bookseller and buy the damned thing already.

BRUEN!

2009-09-15T13:42:00.000-07:00

Here's my good pal and yours Ken Bruen on the set of the movie version of his novel "Blitz," alongside star Jason Statham and director Elliott Lester. Despite the often depraved nature of his work I have never thought of Ken as anything like sinister himself; somehow, though, the priest costume suggests one of Satan's helpers.

Boring Postcard

2009-09-06T10:58:00.000-07:00

With apologies to the brilliant Martin Parr, who has published several collections of Boring Postcards that are worth checking out. This is a view of Wichita's famed Mid-Continent Airport circa 1970-75. I will try and be more diligent in posting than I have been lately.

Heartache Saloon, the Final Chapter

2009-08-21T11:13:00.000-07:00

After undertaking this ambitious scene here I pretty much gave up on the whole enterprise. If I weren't a lazy bastard I might have made it into something worthwhile.

And sorry for the bait and switch--the bloodshed promised in episode 4 happened off-panel.

Plots with Guns

2009-08-20T10:35:00.001-07:00

There's a new issue up at Plots with Guns featuring the amazing Frank Bill, the astounding Keith Rawson, and my own "Clyde Beatty's Prize Orang-Outang," an excerpt from my just-finished smutty novel Supply Sarge.

It's live now at

http://www.plotswithguns.com/

Next: BLOODSHED!

2009-08-17T19:12:00.000-07:00

Here's the penultimate installment (as always, click to enlarge). Soon after this I realized that no one gave a shit about it and I dropped it. Either the style is changing in a natural way or I was putting less effort into it. Still, the final page will be lovely, just wait.

(incidentally, the missing bit in the text box at the bottom should read NEXT: BLOODSHED!)

Repulsion

2009-08-16T14:28:00.000-07:00

Apparently I overheard this fellow complaining about a co-worker while on tour a few years ago at a fancypants hotel in Minneapolis. Yee-haw.

Have You Seen these Chickens?

2009-08-15T11:05:00.000-07:00

More vintage crime from Ventura County!

The Blog to End all Blogs

2009-08-14T08:32:00.000-07:00

Sorry for the scarcity of posts of late, had a hard drive disaster last week and I'm having to schlep the MacBook to and fro between office and home. In the meantime, check out filmmaker Mark Stone's website:

http://markwadestone.wordpress.com/

Read it or weep.

Have you seen these garments?

2009-08-12T18:32:00.000-07:00

From a collection of old police reports and ephemera from Ventura County, CA....hundreds more to come.

Wicked Wichita

2009-08-06T14:09:00.000-07:00

I have often been accused of exaggerating for shock effect the randy ambience of my hometown, but here are a couple of pieces of evidence in my favor.

First, here's a shot of the exterior of the old Rector's Bookstore in downtown Wichita, slated shortly for demolition. My old pal Krista D. was kind enough to go down and take this picture for me:

Rector's was the first bookstore I got to know really well. In the seventies it was also the first place I ever saw real porn, in the form of novels like these two gems, from Beeline Books:

(top image via Lynn Munroe Books)

It's hard for me to imagine how old hometown's city fathers allowed this kind of thing to be publicly displayed (this was in the days before dirty book stores opened in town) but I vividly remember bouts of furtive skulking amidst the racks toward the back of the store and devouring short bits of books like "Bondage Wife for Sale" before sweatily slipping them back onto the rack. Ah, adolescence.

The second delightful bit of kink, recently stumbled across, truly boggled my mind:

http://www.wffmunch.com/

If anything like this was around when I still lived there I was sadly unaware of it. Wichita seems like a lot more fun than it was when I lived there.

Noir at the Bar! Again!

2009-08-01T17:25:00.000-07:00

Keith Rawson, a sort of Canuck-Arizonan hybrid, was kind enough to plug tomorrow night's Noir at the Bar at his blog:

http://bloodyknucklescallusedfingertips.blogspot.com/2009/07/noir-at-bar-part-duex-aka-further-proof.html

Fanks, Keef!

NOIR AT THE BAR RETURNS! SUNDAY AUGUST 2ND!

2009-07-30T09:20:00.000-07:00

It's the return of Peter Rozovsky's Noir at the Bar!

Delmar Restaurant & Lounge

(314) 725-6565

6235 Delmar Blvd
Saint Louis, MO 63130

Doors open at 8 PM on Sunday August 2nd. Reading will be me, reading from my "Uncage Me" story, followed by Malachi Stone reading from his novel "St. Agnes's Eve," followed by Jedidiah Ayres reading one of his short stories, followed by the evening's headliner, Chicago's Theresa Schwegel, reading from her new novel "Last Known Address."

If you're not familiar with Schwegel's work you should be. She writes the best cop novels since Richard Price.

Be there or be square. I will repost this the day before.

More Heartache

2009-07-29T08:41:00.000-07:00

Chapter three. I remember an old horror comic about a cartoonist who farmed out the writing, penciling and inking of his strip to three different guys, each unaware of the others' existence. All the "cartoonist" was capable of doing was ruling panel borders (he ends up murdering all three, they rise from the dead and slaughter him and finish his last strip in blood instead of ink). Anyway, if only being able to rule panel borders is the definition of incompetent cartooning, then I've crossed that frontier, because as you will see with these strips, I couldn't even manage that.

Nice sexy leg, though, in that last panel.

Heartache Saloon, Chapter Two

2009-07-27T15:25:00.000-07:00

(Click to enlarge into semi-legibility)

The plot thickens, though only to the consistency of chicken broth. Rabbit-costumed Doris is modeled after a French woman I was half in love with at the time and never managed to get into the sack. As for the rabbit costume, this was 1990 and I'd never heard of furries, but clearly something in the universal unconscious was operating here.

Some sketches:

I'm an idiot.

burn, baby, burn

2009-07-26T20:31:00.000-07:00

From 1990. The burning bear's name is Smokes-in-Bed Bear. Sort of wish I'd finished this, sort of glad I never did.

EdCo flyer, 1996

2009-07-25T15:14:00.000-07:00

A lovely bit of promotional work from my brother Batfatty (that's him, holding up the head on the cover of "GRACIOUS LIVING"). These were ViewMaster reels he made from various stereoscopic expeditions. It's a shame I don't have the originals to post, they were beautiful, in the way that only a diseased thumbnail (see "Scotty Bob," above) can be.

Heartache Saloon, Chapter One

2009-07-23T15:08:00.000-07:00

(Click to make legible)

This is a scan of a copy of the first installment of Heartache Saloon, a comic I started (and ended) in 1990 when I was living in France. A couple of midwestern alt weeklies and music papers ran it for free (in some cases without even notifying me, having gotten it handed to them samzdat style by a third party). I cringe looking at some elements--particularly the lettering--but mostly it makes me wish I'd kept it up and learned to draw better. Dig the crayzeee perspective in that last panel!

The portrait of Poe is pretty good, though.

Uncage Me

2009-07-23T09:03:00.001-07:00

"Uncage Me," Jen Jordan's second smutty anthology (after "Expletive Deleted") is out this week. Filthy stories from the likes of Allan Guthrie, Christa Faust, Victor Gischler, J.A. Konrath, J.D. Rhoades, Declan Burke, Brian Azzarello, Steven Torres, Stewart Macbride, Simon Kernick, Patrick Bagley, Greg Bardsley, Stephen Blackmore, Tim Maleeny, Nick Stone, Martyn Waites, Talia Berliner, Maxim Jakubowski, Gregg Hurwitz, Blake Crouch, Bryon Quertermous, Pearce Hansen and yours truly.

A randier, more perverted group would be hard to assemble. Buy it and read it one-handed!

Birthday Suit

2009-07-22T09:44:00.000-07:00

This is the most explicit of a set of stereo views I got a few years ago on eBay. Sadly they're curved and don't scan in perfect focus...if anyone knows how to scan a curved piece of cardboard let me know. I also have glass stereo slides I'll post as soon as I figure out how to scan them.

Technicalities aside, she was a beaut, though, wasn't she? Eighty-two years ago, anyway.

Katherine Harris

2009-07-18T08:43:00.000-07:00

A sketch from early 2001. Despite the haggish depiction of Ms. Harris I will admit to finding crazy, heavily made-up middle aged right-wing ladies somewhat...fetching. Maybe it's those nostalgic hairdos they all seem to have. Maybe it's that buttoned-down, sexually repressed vibe that makes them seem like they might go wild in bed. Maybe I should stop thinking about it so much and just get back to digging that crazy Marilyn Quayle-style flip.

I look forward to your abusive comments.

Get a Haircut, Hippie

2009-07-17T14:43:00.000-07:00

This is my old Carte Orange, a Paris subway and bus pass holder. I'm guessing this is circa 1989, when I was in my late twenties and had a lot of hair. Too long in front to be a mullet, too long in back to be a real pompadour, it's my opinion in retrospect that I look like a douchebag. Not as much as in those press passes, though.

A SPECIAL MESSAGE FOR YOU UNDERNEATH THIS PICTURE

2009-07-16T11:29:00.000-07:00

(As ever, click to enlarge.)

Imagine the disappointment of the young blade who first opened this deceptive come-on, circa World War I--a message from star of stage and screen Fannie Ward! But on lifting the flap all he got was this:

Maybe not a deception on the scale of the subprime mortgage scandal, but still, what a pisser. Miss Ward was a native of St. Louis who became a big star in London and led a pretty wild life. She was born in 1872, which would put her in her forties when this picture was taken. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fannie_Ward

Tornado Damage

2009-07-15T09:22:00.001-07:00

June 1st, 1917....the fellow in the midst of the wreckage has a rather sanguine expression. Maybe it's not his house. Picked this up in a Wichita flea market a few years ago.

Happy Birthday Batfatty!

2009-07-09T10:33:00.000-07:00

It's Batfatty's birthday, so send him some Wighat. This is the back cover of the Viewmaster reel Batfatty made me for my birthday in '96 or '97. Be sure to click and check out the groovy birthday greeting from Eddie at the bottom.

That Goes Double for that Cocksucker Dieter

2009-07-07T12:42:00.000-07:00

Around 2000 I saw this guy in an upscale west LA supermarket. The hands-free phone era was new, and my first impression was that the man was a lunatic, shouting at some imaginary foe. After I figured it out I followed him surreptitiously around the store making mental notes, then went home and drew it on the crappiest piece of paper I could find. It still made me laugh when I dug it out of a box of papers the other day, though.

Failed Attempt at a Superhero Franchise

2009-07-06T09:58:00.000-07:00

The Rodent. A drawing from the early aughts arguably made better by my daughter's crayon work. The origin panel is similarly disfigured/improved:

Forgive us our Press Passes

2009-07-05T08:38:00.000-07:00

Been digging through some boxes in the basement (whence the "Victor Jory" drawing and many future posts) and found a couple of hilariously fake press passes my friend Clarence and I made when we were selling Polaroid ID cameras circa 1983, which would make me twenty-one or -two years old in the pictures. In the lower one, particularly, I don't look old enough to shave--no wonder I never got laid. Another co-worker used the camera to make a pretty good driver's license for some high school kid, but (wisely) got cold feet before he delivered the thing.

Early 2001 (CLICK TO ENLARGE!)

2009-07-04T11:12:00.000-07:00

This is my misinterpretation of a running joke of Batfatty's. In his version Victor Jory's head is a floating apparition that gives advice. In mine he's a mummified head in the basement of the White House, giving advice to a hapless lad who finds himself in over his head. Batfatty was annoyed by my usurping of his joke (hence the scrawled note at the side) and he'll be mad about my posting this, but it's a pretty good drawing, I think.

Harvey House

2009-07-02T11:54:00.001-07:00

This is an old Harvey House sign from Union Station in Wichita. A visit there last summer courtesy of my friend Patrick Ahearn, who's representing the building for sale, led me to put the Harvey House into "Supply Sarge."

Because You Demanded it:Poster of the Day

2009-07-01T10:19:00.000-07:00

KLAUS!

Everyone should pick up Herzog's new book "Conquest of the Useless," his 1979 diary of the making of this movie.

KLAUS!

Click to enlarge, you won't be sorry. This is a huge poster, Kinski's head is bigger than lifesize.

KLAUS!

shades

2009-07-01T10:16:00.001-07:00

These are the actual shades worn in the Tex LeBeauf episode of Joel Sanderson's Basement Sublet of Horror.

Poster of the Day

2009-06-30T10:50:00.000-07:00

Click to enlarge...French 4-sheet for "Herz aus Glas," or "Heart of Glass" in English (whence Debbie Harry copped the song title, by the way) or "Coeur de Verre" in French. This is the one where WH hypnotized much of the cast in order to get a dreamy feel. I've never seen this one, I'm sorry to say.

Next: KLAUS!

Poster of the Day

2009-06-29T12:26:00.000-07:00

Click as always to enlarge. I picked up this four sheet in Paris sometime in the early eighties. It's enormous and I have no place to hang it but someday I'll get all these framed (more to come). This is for the French release of "Stroszek," starring Bruno S. (hence the title "La Ballade de Bruno"), one of my favorites of all time. Shot mostly in Eddie Gein's hometown of Plainfield, Wisconsin! Apparently Herzog and Errol Morris hatched a scheme during the shoot to dig up Eddie's mother, a plan that came to nought.
And music by Chet Atkins and Sonny Terry!

Where Wayne lived

2009-06-29T11:18:00.000-07:00

Here are two pictures of the building on East Douglas where psycho ex-quartermaster/pimp Wayne Ogden lived briefly with his unfortunate wife Sally in 1946. The Tiki God in the second snap seems to be warding off his malevolent presence. (This is from my just-finished novel "Supply Sarge," which my agent found so offensive she won't be sending it out. Any suggestions would be most welcome.)

Book of the day

2009-06-25T15:57:00.001-07:00

Tutor from Lesbos, baby. A.P. Williams, Beacon Books. A Novel that will Astonish you with its Revelations about Warped Women!
Picked up in the Erotica section of Spivey's in Kansas City. Christa, are you salivating yet?

Batfatty's back!

2009-06-24T08:53:00.000-07:00

My brother Batfatty is posting again at "Batfatty vs. the Chocodiles" (http://batfatty.livejournal.com/) after almost a year and a half of silence. Here's his first post:
Our mother is very proud of both of us. Click on it!

Moler's Camera in Wichita

2009-06-23T15:20:00.000-07:00

The best job I ever had was working here in the '80s. My pals Bob and Penny Moler still run the place pretty much the way they ran it when I was here. This is old school retailing, and Bob's collection of old cameras and projectors gives it the feel of a roadside museum. Above is a general view of the store, and at left is a movie projector from 1913, rescued from a movie theater in Douglass, Kansas, that burned down in the fifties.