Oh, the Things We Saw in Burbank!

On last Sunday’s schedule: a visit to a Burbank warehouse where studios sell off set dressings they don’t need anymore, an estate sale that of Joni Mitchell (but which probably wasn’t, based on the fact that Joni Mitchell is not dead), and finally an awkward place. (All my adventures end in an awkward place, so final designation was not surprising.)

First, the studio dumping grounds, where the most recent dump was taken by State of Georgia, the thing that once was Raven-Symone's sitcom. I could have bought this for only $20! The shining bling effect on William Shakespeare's ear stud alone was worth $15.50, I say.)

There was also the following piece of wall decor, which I imagine appeared in the room of a would-be terrorist moments before Bones and Booth stopped him from executing his act of terror. Also, this clipping came from a giant newspaper that did not believe in line breaks or left-justified text.

I like this photo. I think it has composition. And also JFK. But all that stupid composition might distract you from the highlight of the photo, which would be the baby dolls who were made to be in a state of constant agonized horror.

Look, I'll cut out all that distracting composition so you can just concentrate on what is important. Those expressions? Those are ones of horror if we are lucky.

The following photo depicts the highlight of not only the shopping expedition but also 2012 so far. What is a graboid, you ask? Oh,  I am so glad you asked. Before you click this link, I will give you a hint: Reba McEntire probably has this sign somewhere in her condo.

Another thing was three things, which is confusing on a grammatical level. But the fact that those three things were three severed mannequin legs is confusing on a psychological level.

My friend Stephanie just bought one leg, both in case she runs into some bad luck at the factory and also so that she has a reason to say hi to Heather Mills the next time she runs into her. (You know that Heather Mills is the best one-legged celebrity? It’s true. Not that I wish there were more one-legged people, necessarily, but Stephanie and I agree that we wished we could have given the shout-out to someone better than Heather Mills.)

Okay, we have left the studio warehouse in this point in the day. I know, based on the painting, you might think that we had stumbled into the set dressing from a movie about a woman who lives near the beach, has an exaggerated feminine physique but also looked like a penis. (This is a self-portrait.) But no, we spotted this painting at the estate sale. Yes, this once hung in someone’s home. (I still think it's a self-portrait.)

WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED TO THE THIRD DOG?! WHY ARE THEY TRYING TO ERASE HIM? HE IS STILL SOMEWHERE, I AM SURE OF IT.

Alternate theory: It was actually the third dog’s estate sale.

Alternate alternate theory: It wasn’t a picture of a dog. It was another self-portrait of the penis lady.

Now we’re at the third location, a kind of thrift store crossed with a haunted carnival. But I think this will all seem funnier if you pretend we’re still at the estate sale. 

As you can see, Marge Simpson’s sunhat was among the items for sale.

This angry baby statue enclosed in a birdcage stood several feet taller than I do. That isn’t a joke. That’s a fact.

They put him on hold for me.

Given everything I have already showed you, it may sound surprising to hear me say that this golfball chair was one of the most perplexing items. I just want to know where a golfball-shaped chair would be appropriate. The chair is clearly too heavy and awkward to carry around at a golf tournament, where it would make you look awesome. And it would be crazy to put this near a tennis court. I just don’t know what to make of this one.

Painting the lawn jockey’s eyes blue and his skin a lighter shade of brown does not make him less offensive. It might even make it more offensive, just on grounds that someone might have understood that it looked “a little racist-y” and then attempted to undo that racism in such a half-assed manner. 

Not pictured: the coffee table I bought.

That’s it! No more stuff!

Buttercups in High Definition

Now I offer four strange things I saw but did not purchase at the sale at H.D. Buttercup. (And yes, non-Angelenos, that really is a store, and no, it’s nowhere as twee as it sounds.)

Lamps that suggested Marcia, Jan and Cindy Brady had they been scalped during the family trip to the Grand Canyon.

Rampant sexism!

A doll that I imagine was not designed to have a broken leg but whose facial expression made a hell of a lot more sense with the leg being broken.

And finally a small statue in the form of that extraterrestrial that either abducted me or is just a creep and has been hanging around my bedroom window.

Not pictured and not purchased: an affordable coffee table.

Bubbles Go In, Bubbles Come Out

Found and photographed at a thrift store in Ventura: something that clearly comes from an era when people cared less about child abuse.

My only reason to regret not purchasing this miniature model of a crime is that I can’t explain to you where the bubbles actually come out, though I feel like any of the potential bubble escape holes should make everyone uncomfortable. Also: Why two pumps? One for air and one for…? Perhaps we’re better off not wondering.

Previous documentation of thrift store merchandise I did not buy:

• Lonesome, Even With All That Red Hair
• Shrine of the Sea Monkey
  

Lonesome, Even With All That Red Hair

As I mentioned in a post yesterday, I took a quick trip to Ventura on Saturday with the intention of seeing something different. Ventura’s Main Street has more than its fair share of stores selling old things, and a lot of them are worth looking at, if only for reasons contrary to how the shopkeepers would have planned. Below is a visual catalogue of notable things I didn’t buy, for obvious reasons.

First up, a little number I like to call “horrifying doll.”

I don’t know if it’s the arms frozen in a modified version of the standard zombie pose, the expression of trace-induced murderousness, or the fact that the whole thing looks a great deal like Lucille Ball gone horribly wrong. The diablo-red statue in the matador hat — Devil Imp Ricky, if you will — isn’t helping.

Antique stores are great for exposing me to bits of bygone pop culture that I have never before had any reason to know. Apparently inhabitants of the Sid and Marty Krofft universe — of which I should admit I know fairly little — Kaptain Kool and the Kongs allowed me to say with complete honesty “I have no fucking idea who this band is.” And I don’t get to say that a lot, much less about anything famous enough to merit having its image placed on a jigsaw puzzle.

Something must also be said for the tendency to replace the letter “C” with the letter “K.” For added coolness? Instant edginess? Automatic anti-authoritarian cred? “We don’t need your cold, dead rules, man. We spell how we want… though we clearly do follow the rules of letters making the sounds they’re supposed to. “Qaptain Qool and the Qongs” would have been better, if only that “Paptain Pool and the Pongs” would have been a marketing nightmare.

Two jokes here, the first being the inherent awesomeness in a pricetag reading “old tool” and the second being the fact that the antique store owners also apparently didn’t know what the hell this thing was or what it did. Seriously, if anyone reading this can identify this implement, I can give you the phone number of this store.

Creepy Kitty has a lever in back that, when twiddled, causes his tongue to loll back and forth. That’s it. Thus, this object is a toy only in a sense that it can’t really be anything else save something with which to scare children. And no one wants to buy something called a “scarechild,” so “toy” it is. I’d like to say that Creepy Kitty evidences some progression from olden times as far as what children consider worth their time, but I feel like even old-timey children would have been perplexed by this thing, perhaps only finding solace in using it for a game of How Far Will This Fly If I Throw It?

And then we have the Kappa Doll. And by that I don’t mean to mock the lovely ladies of Kappa Kappa Gamma — who do have brains, regardless of whether they use them — but the mythical Kappa, who does in fact suffer from a giant hole in his head. I’m not a doll guy — thank God — so I have to wonder what advantage a doll might find in lacking a skull cap. Anyone?

I ultimately opted not to buy this painting of Dana Scully, re-imaged by an artist who apparently learned to paint by looking at art in Mexican restaurants.

Based on the title of this album, I am reminded of the beloved children’s game How Far Will This Fly If I Throw It?

I think I actually saw the movie that this is the soundtrack to. But I don’t remember any hearing any organ music in it, at least not in the literal sense.

I have no idea what the name of this Maxine Sellers album is referring, but I really hope it’s the title track. And I really hope the song appears on the track listing in its untruncated form, “Life Is Short, But It’s Wide (Talkin’ ’Bout Choads).”

Previous catalogues of things I did not buy at the thrift store:

• “Shrine of the Sea Monkey”
• ”The Countryside Is Overgrown”

Shrine of the Sea Monkey

Things I saw and decided to capture with the picture box machine in my phone.

This, one of the many copies of Dori Carter's Beautiful Wasps Having Sex at a thrift store. The title struck me as hilarious, especially when paired with the cover image, until I realized that it probably refers not to wasps — the things that sting with rear-end venom injectors — but WASPs — the things that sting with gin-sharpened cutting remarks. Note to the cover designer: Acronyms become invisible when all the other letters are also capitalized as well. Doy. For whatever reason, the Amazon page for Beautiful Wasps Having Sex says that people who bought it also bought nothing else besides X-Files merchandise. Perhaps the books WASPs actually have venom injectors?

Then there's this: a sign posted at a different thrift store. (It was a busy weekend, clearly.) I have to give the sign's author credit for being far more optimistic a person than I could ever be. Realistically, a record player sold ten years ago is probably gone for good, likely sold again to other thrift stores twice over by now. And there's something wonderful in (a) publicly displaying a photo of your now twentysomething-year-old son gleefully holding a pair of oversized pajama pants, (b) having the only available photo of the thing you're looking for crop out about a third of said thing, and (c) informing the public that, despite the carelessness with which you treat your apparently treasured record players, you've somehow managed not to accidentally sell your son at a thrift store as well. Am I the only one who's never heard of an Altec Lansing record player?

And then this, which marks the first ever time I've bothered to mention Miley Cyrus on this blog. It wasn't a deliberate attempt to ignore her. I just didn't have good enough reason to bring her up until I saw this magazine, whose cover accuses her of doing the very thing that is the premise of the TV show that brought her stardom. You have to admit it's kind of funny. It's like accusing Raven-Symoné of being sassy. No, wait that's probably true. It's like accusing Cody and Dylan Sprouse of living in a hotel? Does that work?

The Countryside Is Overgrown

Two things I saw at Catholic today but did not buy.

This horrifying mug. Because there's nothing I'd like least than a beverage container with weird Bart Simpson eyes and facial hair. The strange date of 1887 is clearly fraudulent and makes me hate it all the more.

This mirrored sign, which made me feel like I was having a stroke until Spencer pointed out that it's Dutch. I Googled the phrase — "Ooit'n normall mens ontmoet? En... beviel't?" — and found exactly one hit: Slightly Off Kilter, a blog kept by a woman who considers it one of her personal mottos. According to her, the phrase translates into English as "Ever met a normal person? So... did you like it?" I, however, prefer to think that it means "Taste metal in mouth... Can't feel right side of body."