Enjoying a bad glass of wine at the moment. Periodically I get down the box from the cupboard - yes, yes, BOX - and help myself to a ration. It’s the Traders Joe stuff. I think I bought the wrong one. This is distinctly sacramental. This is like the stuff Grandpa got down when he wanted a glass of wine, and he drank Mogen David. I’ve no idea why. And until now, I didn’t know -
Sorry, I WAS TODAY YEARS OLD to use the annoying phrase, when I learn that the MD in MD 20/20 stood for Mogen David. Mad Dog, we knew it as. I prefer something drier. This is too . . . candied. I’m sure the box will tell me that it has notes of currant and blackberries. Perhaps, but it would be E# an octave above middle C, and an eighth note at that. I would prefer something with a low tonic chord, but not one of those tannin-forward wines with an augmented fifth.
I suppose I’m stuck with it now, though. The whole box must be consumed. I’ve three weeks before it goes over, I gather. I’ve had other TJ box wines, and while I won’t say they were epicurean highlights, I did get the bladder out of the box and bagpipe the last drops from the bladder. But I’m not a Wine Guy. What’s more, I’ve never felt compelled to be a Wine Guy. It’s like golf. By all means, enjoy yourself, explore your joy to the limits of possibility; I’ll be over here with a scotch, playing pinball.
No, that’s a lie. I don’t think I’ve ever played pinball while having a scotch. But you know what I mean. I do wish I had a pinball machine at home, so I could work out some aggression. The ability to shove a machine around without tilting it, well, that’s a life skill. Damned few applications, though. Sometimes in a conversation you can tell when you’re pushing for a tilt; pinball tables give no such indication. They just tilt. No one’s ever surprised when they do. You brought that on yourself. You know it. Don’t hate the table. Don’t kick the cashbox.
That’s what the guys at the Valli used to do. Well, two. Wesley, who is dead, and Homeboy, who is not. When they tilted or had a straight drain on Eight-Ball Deluxe they would rear back and put a boot in the cashbox, which usually caused the machine to reboot. It would go dark-dead then struggle back to life, ready for more. Now that I think about it, the cashbox kick didn’t reset the high scores, or people would have done it all the time. Some little circuit buried in the underside thicket of wires and chips held that precious information.
Now and then a company rep came by to fix the machines, or just do maintenance, and he reset the high scores. This was always a blow to the record holder, and a boon to the pretenders to the throne, chasing the high when the game would tote up the score and deliver three definitive knocks to crown the new king. It was a marvelous moment. We all did it, at least once. At least once.
New assignment suggestion today: the worst buildings downtown. I would describe the facts - address, architect, year built, number of stories - then find an Expert to say why they were bad and how they could be better.
This is why modern office buildings have sealed windows out of which no one can jump.
Maybe there’s a story there. I could find a Window Expert.
But no no you say, you can’t quit, not without telling us when Borden absorbed the Drake line of snack cakes
Well, as it happens, I whiled away some time today on the highlights of Borden Annual Reports from 1949 to 1961. I have this:
One comments on this ad makes an interesting point.
These products tasted a lot better back in the day. They used better quality ingredients and didn't load them with preservatives. I do not think I am imagining this.
I think he’s right. When I imagine how these taste now, I imagine something spongy, unnaturally “fresh,” insubstantial, and ersatz. The company that owns the brand today also makes Little Debbie pseudo-food.
(Rabbit-holing)
Hey say now. Little did I know. Little Debbie wasn’t only a real person, she's, an executive at the company that makes Little Debbie cakes. At least as of 2021. Her bio page at the company 404s but other online sites say she's still there. Then again, Google AI search results told me today that Borden still makes Hemo.
On April 18, 1962, Drake Bakeries had a case heard in front of the United States Supreme Court.
And that’s all they say.
We return now to our study of the opening segments of Dragnet 1967. As cultural artifacts, mind you. Travelogues to another era, recognizable, familiar, and in many ways foreign. But not too many.
"What's left of 'em."
You saw that brief look of Central Receiving Hospital? This was it. Small. Knocked down a few years after this show.
Webb, and others, absolutely loved to show the communications room, and that little conveyor belt that ran cards along a narrow slot.
This one starts out with a guitar riff that's a steal from Gershwin's Second Prelude, but I'm sure George got it from somewhere else.
(Note: I must admit with guilt that these are a rerun from another site, but I'll tell you why when we're done.)
There is something wrong in these ads. In all of them. Something deeply askew, warped, or perverse. Laughing happy people have been the mainstay of cigarette ads since the start, but this is different. These are not happy people.
These are the damned.
Here's a mild example.
Her expression is about as close as they get to genuine happiness. If her eyes were open, it would be an expression of terror, perhaps. She may be surrounding to madness. Who wouldn’t? The man is wearing . . . the face of a snowman? How can such a thing exist? A snowman’s face is part of a dense packed ball, it’s not a mask, unless you carve it off somehow for some reason and put it over your own face for some reason, and in the process you become like no snowman ever looks.
The more you look at him, the more evil seems to gather in that mask. The more you look at her, you think the camera caught her the moment she was sniped in the spine.
It’s just off. Here’s the thing: it’s intentional. The entire campaign was intentionally constructed to create a mood of unease, and I don’t know why. Because it stood out? Well, it did that. Because it played on notions of sex and death? There’s no sex in these ads. They are resolutely unerotic.
This might be as close as they got to “sexy.” She’s got the look for 1985. We’ll get to her in a second. Look at him, his expression, how what seems to be amusement or delight curdles as you regard it, as if he is seeing something for the first time and cannot process what he is seeing. At first impression, it’s “oh what fun we are having you zany gal” but soon it’s “hey what are you doing I don’t get it.”
And neither do we know,, because what is she doing? Licking off some ice cream, of course! In a fun and spontaneous way because she is alive with pleasure. But her finger and her lips looks like some old obscene gesture from a remote part of Sicily. The more you look at her, the more it seems as if some guardian demon has interceded and is going to drag her back to hell, and this is the gentlest way he can assure her silence and compliance. She, upon feeling the finger in her swollen lips, knows exactly what it means, and closes her eyes in acceptance.
FOR THE SAKE OF PLEASURE LET US PUT OUR HANDS IN A FISHBOWL
Their hands, transformed into tentacles, summon a third hand. He knew this would happen. He knew she would be transported, at first, while her right hand fingers begin to extend and contort, and he studies her reaction with a calculating, remote expression, while maintaining the basics of a Pleasure Smile.
The women bray at each other in feral delight, in open conspiracy. They have secured THE MAN for the ceremony, and he even thinks this will be something he will enjoy - but his smile betrays a slight shadow of uncertainty. If only he could see what was here, where they led him - but no, he swore he wouldn’t take it off, that was part of the game.
The woman in pink, a Sister Newly brought to the Place, touches THE MAN to draw a tincture of that delicious mortal energy. She laughs with the others, but is a Sister Newly, so she cannot share in their ancient bond, and she draws her fingers away lest she seem presumptuous.
The demon ruptures her from within and behind, a horrible spasm of pain that guts and corrupts. Her male friend holds the back of her sweater so she does not fall forward, and closes his eyes so he does not see what he knows is happening. He was promised a reward for his part in this, but is beginning to doubt the cost.
GET AWAY she hisses at us between her teeth, the madness having flooded her mind completely.
What is she doing
How did it start
How will it end
Two legs pin a man’s head
A woman’s head rises from her crotch
Splay-legged man who is wearing a full long-sleeved sweatshirt on the beach in the heat raises a cigarette in approval and triumph
I think I reposted these just to draw attention to the Newport site in the 80s section, one of those dusty distant corners about which you may have forgotten. Or I was just looking ahead and didn't have enough stuff for the 80s this year! (Note: now, I do.)
That will do. Eddie's waiting for you to ante up. More Joe for those who toss me a fiver a month. Thank you for your patronage, and I'll see you hither and/or yon.
