Retrosnark

Let's get this out of the way: I'm sorry

I'm really, really sorry about the quality of tonight's posts. And I'm not doing the falsely humble bit, where I say something like that in hopes that you'll all go, "Oh, come on, Jim. These posts gave my life new meaning, such was their beauty, fiber, wisdom, and low-fatness." I'm really not happy with these posts. So you've been warned. If you read them, I don't want anybody blaming me when you die, and God asks exactly why you wasted these precious seconds of your life reading these posts.

That being said, here are a few "meh" posts from the Aug., 1965 issue of 16 magazine, which as we all know is the only magazine devoted to the squaring of the number four. Or something. They're in black-and-white, which makes them suck so bad your monitor screen may become concave, and they're not all that interesting. I'll try to do better tomorrow.

It was forty years ago today...

Really, it was. Exactly 40 years ago today, Brian Jones left the Rolling Stones. He left this mortal coil a month later.

I love the Stones, so I was tickled to see these crazy pictures that Mick Jagger totally dug up himself, as well as the yearbook dedications he totally wrote himself while he was totally NOT snorting Peru's GDP out of an inverted Bentley hubcap.

Let's look at a few of these captions, shall we? These Jagger-crafted captions.

1. Keef is "writing a love letter to some girl who was dumb enough to write him." Yeah. That's it. He's definitely not putting in an order for another tankerload of acid.

2. Here, Charlie has just swallowed a mouthful of boiling hot tea! Har har, you crazy rocksters. Mick thinks he'd better move, although I don't see the necessity, since Charlie has already swallowed the tea. Maybe Mick knows something about the effect of psychedelic tea leaves on the human GI system that Charlie doesn't.

5. Mick, don't worry about being able to hear the Beatles, worry about how your steering wheel got put on the wrong side of the car!

7. Seriously, in the history of the world, has any Englishman ever actually started out a sentence with "I say..."?

9. Yes, Keef really spent all of his hard-earned money on slot machines. Unless that lever is made of pure black tar heroin, somebody's pulling our legs.

10. First, nice heels and pistol-legged pants, Keef. Second, I'd wager that instead of calmly strolling his estate, Keef was actually frozen like that for days, afraid to move because if he did, the Minotaur King would shake the Raspberry Constellation from the hem of his Plutonium Shawl, and Keef would be doomed to forever play backup for Pat Boone.

16 Magazine, for all your philosophical needs

What things, you nerdy British accountant students/pop stars? What things are you going to reveal? I must know now, before I pass out and miss "The Ed Sullivan Show"!

This is why the Communists hate us, isn't it, Daddy? Because we can plumb the depths of Chad and Jeremy's limitless philosophy.

Let's see. Chad hates drummers who can't keep a beat, I guess because you can't roll out those chest-thumpers C&J were famous for without an ear-scorching backbeat. He also hates silly-frilly pink sweaters and blouses on girls, "ungraceful" cricket and football, and girls in lipstick. Hmmm. Interesting choices there, you studly, thoroughly heterosexual young man.

But he loves birds with very heavy eye make-up on, who have long straight hair and who wear boots with dark stockings. And cats. Oh, and the antique pocket watch his wife--really, it's his wife, whom he's consummated a marriage with and everything, and is seriously not a publicist's figment--gave him.

Moving on, Jeremy hates phones ringing. Which is to say, he hates phones, because if they don't ring, they're not phones. He hates girls who are spotlessly clean, preferring them to only use soap and toothpaste. Eww. Ewwwwwwwwww. He hates some of the prejudiced attitudes you find in the Southern states in America (and only in the South; there is no prejudice north of the Mason-Dixon Line. None. Don't even consider that.), but he also hates people who put labels on everyone and everything and easily slip others into some limiting "category." Evidently, Jeremy also hated irony, dictionaries, and thesauruseseseses.

IT'S NOT CREEPY! WE PROMISE!

At first glance, this ad looks fairly blah, although I do like the opening lines: "HOLD TIGHT, honey, 'cause you are about to get the kind of news that could send you so far into orbit that you might not make it back again!" (I can't read that without thinking of Judy Jetson and Jet Screamer, aka Howard Morris, who played Ernest T. Bass on "The Andy Griffith Show." Yes, I am obsessed with TAGS. Thanks for noticing.)

I was prepared to pass on this selection when I noticed something more than a little creepy, even after time-adjusting for this magazine being published with 1965 sensibilities. Look in that second column:
"IMPORTANT: In addition to your letter, you must submit a photograph of yourself taken recently. If you don't have one, you must get one."

Now, pardon my cynicism and jaundiced eye, but doesn't that just reek of all kinds of "Yeessh"? If nothing else, I have to figure the folks at 16 culled out a few young ladies who might not have been all that photogenic, which is pretty harsh, especially considering that their target demographic was slap full of said unphotogenic folks.

Secondly, I just get the feeling that there was also somebody, or somebodies, at 16 that got himself a big collection of photographs that weren't just locked away in the vault.

Like, Dreamsville, Daddy-O

I never knew that Maynard G. Krebs moonlighted as a copywriter for 16 magazine. Evidently, this girl's Dreamsville was populated by badly cut out heads of celebrities. That's got to be some kind of scary Rorshach test result.

I'm not dead

Sorry for the abrupt stoppage of postage, but the flamen tube was cross-threaded on the flange grommet, and then the Rhiemann blodgett was completely shot, and there were too many variables and not enough equations, and, well, I'm planning on resuming blogging tomorrow.

I assume that wrinkle in time is smoothed out now

Somehow, despite my best efforts, I found myself last night looking at the short side of the night, with nothing suitable for blogging, and no energy to do so. I'm not kidding, I seriously had to wrack my brain to remember what I had for lunch. Ergo, no blogging last night. I've once again credited all your accounts for the shortage.

In addition, I'm going to throw in a few cheesy seventies (but I repeat myself) radio hits. Howzabout C.W. McCall's "Convoy," Jimmy Buffett's "Cheeseburger in Paradise," AND--for a limited time only--Boz Scaggs' "Lowdown." (For my money, Scaggs is the best Boz in the biz.)

Tonight's a bit of a mixed bag. The first two selections are from the March, 1972 Good Housekeeping, while the rest are from the October, 1961 The American Home. Here's why: Sometimes, I come across a collection that doesn't really have enough snarkbait for a whole post, but does have a few good'uns, as we are wont to say in Alabama. And I've decided to clean out a few of those types, so you'll be seeing more like this. Hope you don't mind.

Please keep spreading the Retrosnark gospel. You can also check out my other blog, follow my Tweets if you'd like, become a fan on Facebook, and, if the mood strikes you, drop a penny or two in the tip jar up there at top left. I'd appreciate all five.

Whole lotta symbolism in that basketball net

AMC's ad company got the nice-enough-looking lady right, they got the shaggy, loveable dog right, and they did the best they could in terms of minimizing the exposure that Hornet Sportabout showed. No need in sickening people before they even get in the showroom, although I told Murray not to get the brown model.

But just look at that basketball goal. It's drooping down, and the net is almost gone, but the lady is unfazed by the eyesore hanging on the side of her carefully faux-aged, old red barnesque house. This is a house for people who don't care, just as the Hornet was a car for people who didn't care. The AMC people go ahead and tell you that you'll be on a first-name basis with the customer-service rep, for crying out loud.

Poor dog. I hope he at least got fed every now and then.

Somebody really should tell him

Here he is, tooling around the sand in his bronze dune buggy, surfboard in the back, four lovely sweet thangs with him, and no male competition in sight. Sure, he's a little dorky-looking, but beggars can't be choosers, and they are riding with him, right? Plus, he's got that David Gates and Bread 8-track ready, and that's just guaranteed love-getting music right there. Shows 'em his sensitive side.

What could possibly wrong in this target-rich environment?

No cord, but plenty of weight and low fidelity

Ain't technology great? Here's a phenomenal bit of sonic engineering from what appears to be a small Japanese company. It only weighs 3.5 pounds, and--amazingly--allows you to carry all the beauty of AM radio with you, no matter where you go! (Unless you go under a bridge, or inside, or on the wrong side of some lightning, or near a wall, or if you're not oriented just right.)

My position as a 2009 blogger affords me a little bit of snarking room, but this was actually a pretty spiffy little unit. That's some nice styling it's sporting, with the handle and cantilevered speaker lines, although it was a little pricey. In 2008 dollars, that $44.95 is $323. But hey, what's a few hundred dollars when you can take the stacks and stacks of red-hot wax wherever you go?

Note also the Pocketable Automatic Watch Radio, which was even more expensive at $49.95, or $359 in current dollars. But this little jewel turned itself off and on, AND came with an earphone! Singular!