You may recall a post from back in 2012 where I totally lusted over an amazing product I saw displayed behind glass at Comic-Con — a working replica of a Mystic Seer fortune telling machine made famous in a 1960 episode of the Twilight Zone starring William Shatner. The price of the Mystic Seer was exorbitant, so I sadly left the convention center vowing to someday own a Mystic Seer of my very own.
The memory of the Mystic Seer haunted me with no end. Questions loomed! Thoughts of mysteries revealed swirled in my mind! How could I possibly continue to live KNOWING that a Mystic Seer could be guiding my every decision? Finally, I broke down, scouring the internet for the Mystic Seer I had spotted at the Con. Amazon, of course, had an outrageously priced after-market version, but not actually having a Mystic Seer to which I could pose the question “is this a good deal?” I had no choice but to pass. Then, I spotted the Mystic Seer at Entertainment Earth for the same price that had tempted me at Comic-Con. I placed my order in July and waited.
And waited.
And waited.
Each month, it seemed, I would receive an email from Entertainment Earth updating me on the stays of my order: estimated release date is September 2013… estimated release date is October 2013… estimated release date is November 2013…. Without fail, release was always perpetually just one month away, until one day I received an email that said “your item has shipped.”
How exciting! And, yes, the happy day has finally come! I have a Mystic Seer of my very own!
Ask me a YES or NO question
Now that I have a Mystic Seer (which, by the way, only takes pennies, but what a bargain!) I feel as though I have the weight of the entire universe pressing upon my shoulders, as the prophetic powers of the Mystic Seer cannot be taken lightly! Oh, sure, I could be asking the Mystic Seer some of the trite questions posed on the instructions to the right:
Does she love me? (doubtful)
Will I become rich? (well, I can afford a Mystic Seer)
Is my future bright? (of course!)
But I believe it is my sworn duty to be asking the Mystic Seer questions that will reveal futures that will benefit all of humankind. My pledge to you, the regular readers of my blog, is to regularly ask the Mystic Seer important questions to guide our collective pop culture lives and actions. Who knows, the Mystic Seer may eventually have his own prognostication web site!
The first question posed to the Mystic Seer (which actually took place yesterday morning): Who will win the Super Bowl?
There you have it! The Mystic Seer CORRECTLY picked the winner of the 2014 Super Bowl!! If this is not proof positive to the Mystic Seer’s window into the future of the unknown, I don’t know what is!!
July already? Well boys and girls, you know what that means… Comic-Con! I’ve been attending the annual pop culture fest for more years than I care to remember, and owe a large chunk of my sublime collection of Weird & Unusual Things to exhaustive hours wandering the darkest corners of the cavernous exhibition hall. Without Comic-Con, many of my very best photos would not have been possible, as the exhibition hall has been the source of everything from Frankenstein flashlights and lascivious lobby cards, to plastic body parts and scandalous paperbacks.
How was the shopping at this year’s event?
Hold on tight as we snake our way through the costume-filled aisles and take a look at some of the wonderful things that tempted (and sometimes defeated) my wallet!
Original Beatle Bobbleheads — $950!!
Our first stop is at a vintage booth near the front of the hall where I spotted the above set of original Beatles bobblehead dolls from the early 1960’s. Those of you familiar with my photography have no doubt seen the smaller (and far more sadistic looking) version of these dolls in many of my conceptual art pieces (examples here and here). This figures are much larger, and actually bear a reasonable resemblance to the Fab Four. Best of all, they were RIGHT THERE on the faux velvet tablecloth where anyone could pick them up or tap their bobbling brows to watch them nod along to whatever Beatle classic that might be floating through your head. Under those circumstances, and with the really good stuff saely locked up behind glass… how expensive could these really be, right?
Try $950. There. On the table.
No, I did not buy them. But I did make their heads bobble. Ooooooooooooooooooo!
The Private Life of Helen of Troy — John Erskine, 1947 edition
Having just saved myself almost a thousand dollars, I was now empowered to seek out more reasonably priced collectibles and ventured into one of the dwindling few booths that still sell vintage pulps and paperbacks. There, I was very excited to feast my eyes on the incredible paperback to the right. Oh wow!! Just the kind of thing I would buy! Well, except for one problem, quickly corrected as I fumbled for my reading glasses to better make sense of the price sticker.
Another cool item that did not pass the wallet test, but I took a photo of the cover all the same for a couple of very good reasons:
It’s just so cool!
To collect as much information on the book as possible, as the search now begins for a more affordably priced copy.
The author… John Erskine! Coincidence of coincidences, John Erskine was the author of another amazing book that just so happens to be a feature player in my most recent photograph!! Is it any wonder that Erskine wrote The Influence of Women… and its cure, after putting Helen of Troy in a Victoria’s Secret catalog?
Quick! Run with me from this booth before reverse buyer’s remorse gets the best of me!
Onward we trudge through the sweaty masses and stumble upon…
Mystic Seer fortune telling machine!
OH MY GOD IT’S A MYSTIC SEER MACHINE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Just like that famous Twlight Zone Episode starring William Shatner (Are we going to live in this country?). They actually worked and dispense fortunes on specially printed Mystic Seer cards.
How long have I wanted—no, needed—a Mystic Seer machine of my very own? Wait, that’s not a Yes or No question and the Mystic Seer would be of no use. Let us rephrase: Would a Mystic Seer machine make my life even more wonderful than it already is??? The answer, of course, would not be the usual read-what-you-will mystic ambiguity; it would be a resounding YES!
Oh… but as you can see from the photo, the Mystic Seer was locked up in a glass case, and that spells dollar signs that would require an affirmative response to question number two on the boldly printed examples. Worse, to the left of this traditional red Mystic Seer was a limited edition silver model (signed by William Shatner, by the way!), and while any color but red could not possibly be trusted to lend guidance on one’s mystic journey, the mere presence of a limited edition model had to add up to big bucks.
In this case: Glass Case = $250 for the red model, or $500 for the limited edition.
So, no, I do not have a Mystic Seer sitting here beside me that—for the bargain price of a copper penny—would be able to predict whether or not you, the reader, are enjoying this post. I just have to wing it.
But I will, someday, have a Mystic Seer.
Creature from the Black Lagoon bust
It seemed as though collectibles from my distant youth were popping up to tempt me in every aisle of the exhibit hall. Everywhere I turned enticements plucked at the strings of my memory, calling out, “Hey! Remember me? You like me! You want me! Buy me!” There were DVDs of old TV shows, vintage toys, horror comics I remember buying (without telling my parents) off the rack in Mission Beach, and… our friend to the left: The Creature from the Black Lagoon.
Last summer I wrote a collection of posts on “Really Scary Things,” but completely neglected to mention the Creature! When I was a kid, the Creature from the Black Lagoon was the ultimate monster! All it took was one wide-eyed viewing of the original 1954 film on Science Fiction Theater—San Diego TV’s Saturday afternoon horror show—and I was hooked! The Creature was gross and scaly, and breathed through bellowing gills. His webbed hands were HUGE! The size of canoe paddles and tipped by razor sharp claws. He was inhumanely STRONG, and was relentless in pursuit of his startled prey. I thought the Creature was AWESOME! But he was also kind of scary because, you know, monsters could be real, and we happened to live up the hill from a large lake that didn’t look… all… that… different… than… the Creature’s Lagoon! So, yeah, I was fascinated by the Creature—but also scared and a little freaked out by the Creature. And isn’t that what makes all the best horror work?
Note!
Incidentally, just in case you’ve never seen Creature From The Black Lagoon, it may have the most immediately identifiable “monster movie” score of all-time.
Dunt-dunt-DUN! Dunt-dunt-DUN!
Yeah, that’s exactly how it goes. See for yourself.
Back to the scaly fellow above who was trapped in a glass case on the convention center floor.
When I was a kid I had a Creature from the Black Lagoon plastic model kit that I built and painted (badly), to honor my favorite movie monster. Really though? What am I going to do with a giant bust of the Creature? My home decor is adventurous, but tasteful, and I’m afraid a giant green amphibian cast would push me beyond “edgy” into full-on weirdness. Besides, I already have a small Creature on display in a bookcase along with his Universal monster friends.
I have no idea what he cost, but it was an easy decision to pass on my beloved Creature.
Original Major Matt Mason — Not for sale!
Another icon from my past is pictured to the right: Major Matt Mason, on display—and not for sale!—in the toys-of-yesteryear section of the Mattel booth. Matt Mason was an awesome toy figure created during the space race before man had actually landed on the moon. How cool was Matt Mason? He had a jet pack! That’s right—a jet pack! Everyone is always complaining that “we were promised jet packs.” Well, Matt Mason had one! Okay, in reality it was a doo-hickey that attached to his back that zipped along on a string… but if you had any sense of imagination, IT WAS A JET PACK!
Beside the jet pack, Matt Mason was cool because he had posable arms and legs. See the black accordion things in the photos? The accordion joints allowed his rubbery spacesuit to bend and remain in position. In reality, Major Matt Mason was filled head-to-toe with a substructure of stiff wire that sooner or later either broke (resulting in limp limbs) or poked through the rubber turning Matt into a saber wielding space maniac that could scratch and puncture the delicate flesh of his adolescent astronaut cadets.
Mattel had all kinds of Major Matt Mason figures and accessories on display in pristine condition. I rarely see Matt Mason figures anywhere—including Comic-Con—so it was a delightful treat to see him standing inside the glass case with his trusty space helmet at his side! Amidst the menagerie of space stations, moon suits and space sleds were a pair of Major Matt Mason accessories I had as a kid: the much coveted ATV Space Crawler and one of Matt’s space “buddies” (?!?) Doug Davis riding his Space Tractor. Each of Matt’s fellow astronauts wore a different colored suit and Doug Davis wore yellow.
The all terrain Space Crawler!
The equivalent of a moon Vespa
No, Major Matt Mason was not for sale, and that was probably a good thing, locked glass cabinet and all. After the Beatle Bobblers, the jiggling Helen of Troy, the Mystic Seer (whose demonic head bobbles, by the way), and the Creature cast, could I bear yet another incident of exhibition sticker shock? Or would the temptation break me? Would I make a mad dash through the hall, filling my arms with limited edition wonders, as gleeful vendors stripped fat rolls of greenback from my pockets? Surely, Comic-Con 2012 could not pass without me making a single pop culture purchase; could it?
To learn the answer to these and many other crucial, overly dramatic questions… stay tuned for Part 2!
I like filling my house with things I find visually appealing: art, toys, vintage radios, books, record albums, religious artifacts, and more. Before you envision a floor-to-rafters disaster of claustrophobic madness, allow me to interject that all my collections are tastefully displayed throughout my home as part of the natural living environment. So, you don’t walk into The Penguin Room or find walls of glass display cases filled with porcelain frogs.
Full Disclosure Okay, I do have a whole room of CDs, but that’s more a storage issue than it is an obsessive desire to turn my home into a museum. And, yeah, I do have all my robots crowded together atop a vintage bar, but doesn’t it make sense to display them there when a giclee of Mark Ryden’s Princess Sputnik hangs right above?
My preference for displaying collectables is to instead spread things around so that visitors are greeted with pleasant surprises as they move from room to room. So, in my kitchen you might find a bright red Philco radio from the 1950s, while the bedroom features a vintage Bendix from the decade prior. Each fits the decor of that room and allows individual pieces to standout and shine.
Classic Silvertone circa 1962. This one is in my bedroom.
Amongst my mélange is a collection of vintage record players that dot each room like bass notes on a rock’n’roll score. Reminders, no matter where I choose to spend my time, that music is always close and a very big part of my life. Note, by the way, my rather deliberate use of “record player” as opposed to “turntable,” which otherwise carries far more sophistication and glamor than the nostalgic pieces I choose to collect. The pieces in my collection were never intended to reproduce sophisticated music in lush auditory waves of perfectly balanced tones. No! These were audio workhorses meant to blast horrific sound through gravel-pitched grills that would shake the table, rock the floors and crumble your neighbor’s walls! Equipment that could be grabbed by the handle, hauled into the trunk of a car, and plugged into any waiting outlet for an instant party!
These are RECORD PLAYERS, dammit!
My collection leans heavily towards record players that would have been used by kids and teens—or maybe a renegade DJ on the go. Let’s take a look, shall we?
Decorated on all sides with alphabet block illustrations
To the left is a very early piece made by PAL, probably in the 1940’s, and—from the case illustrations—is obviously intended for very small children. I found this record player ages ago on eBay and it took YEARS to air out the rancid smell of cigarette smoke. If this wonderful piece could talk, I’m sure it would tell caustic tales of emphysema and the dangers of second hand smoke. I imagine a sour faced mom wearing slippers and a dingy bathrobe, angrily beating at a bowl of eggs on a formica counter, as an unfiltered Camel hangs from her lip dangling ash above her child’s breakfast. “Get in here and eat before I smack you!” she hacks. “And quit with that noise! You’ll go deaf!”
Tonearm pickup with built-in speaker
This wonderful piece only plays 78 RPM discs and “features” a speaker built right into the tonearm, and a needle that more closely resembles a small finishing nail than it does anything meant to gently coax beautiful music from the delicate grooves of a record. Ah! Music as soft and dulcet as the graceful treble clef embossed on the side. Pretty cool, but let’s take a closer look at that needle…
Close-up of the "stylus" (better suited for excavating vast caverns of bedrock)
Yikes! Something tells me that records didn’t last much longer than a single play before that single groove of glorious music was worn down to a wide gully of scratchy sound. And, remember, that steel-tipped bad boy is part of a “toy” targeted to 4 and 5 year olds. Kids were so much more resilient back in the day! So what if their record player was capable of puncturing flesh? And bone? (Whiny modern day parents…)
Newcomb EDT-12 CP in my library
In most rooms of my house you’ll find a record player on display, somewhere. Some are tucked into corners, some act as doorstops, and others function as pieces of mid-century industrial art. Take, for example, the record player on the right. It’s displayed atop a plant stand beneath a painting by Los Angeles artist Gary Baseman (and beside a shelf of vintage books and curios). I found this record player while on a business trip to San Antonio and knew it had to be mine, because:
It’s small
It’s portable
It’s yellow!
Best of all, there is a serial number and other bits of bureaucratic etching on the top surface identifying the record player as belonging to the San Antonio Independent School District. How cool! Real, authentic elementary school AV equipment! And where better place to display AV equipment than in my library, right?
This is a four-speed player (16, 33, 45, and 78 rpm) with a generously sized speaker built-in beneath the platter and tonearm. Underneath are little springy feet that absorb vibrations and prevent skipping. I believe this dates back to the mid 1970’s and it’s made like a tank, no doubt anticipating the clumsy roughhousing of pimply-face electronics geeks racing AV carts down the corridors of the local elementary school. It has a snap-on cover and I got it back to San Diego as my carry-on luggage on the flight back home.
Yes, it works! (And... it's yellow!)
So, if I have a AV-issue record player in the library, what do I have in the dining room? A jukebox, of course! And not just any jukebox like those fancy Wurlitzers that trend followers drool over because of the name, the bubble lights, and the Cadillac-reputation of the Wurlitzer as an icon of 1950 “cool.” But let’s face it, the Wurlitzer was a “country club” jukebox, made to fill time at the club when the band was on a 15 minute break. It played nice, safe, acceptable music for nice, safe, acceptable people in the community.
Rock-ola Super Rocket — the coolest jukebox ever
My jukebox is a 1951 Rock-Ola Super Rocket, the best jukebox ever because it inspired the design of Robby the Robot in Forbidden Planet. You weren’t going to find a Rock-Ola at the country club. Nor were you going to find one in a fine restaurant or the lounge of a respectable hotel. The Rock-Ola lived in pool halls, bars, bowling alleys, and juke joints. Anywhere dangerous music might be heard, there you’d find a Rock-Ola. The jukebox in the basement of the Delta house in Animal House was a Rock-Ola, fer christsake!
I picked up my Rock-Ola in Portland and it plays 78’s using two styluses mounted to the tonearm: one right-side-up to play the A-side, and one upside-down (with the record spinning in the opposite direction) to play the B-side. The machine is in fairly excellent condition, with the exception of two small star-like cracks on the see-through dome, which I suspect (or perhaps hope) are scars from a bar room brawl; punches and pool cues flying through the air as Bobby Fuller Four sings a lament of fighting the law (and, alas, the law won).
The Voice of Music 210 — made in the USA in 1953
Also occupying space in the dining room is the record player you see to the left—a beautiful little portable phonograph manufactured by the Voice of Music Corporation in 1953. I featured this record player in one of my fine art photographs, Red discovers there is more to life than living in a house made of straw, and have twice included it in large installations that demonstrate the three dimensional aspect of my work.
There are a few others scattered around the house. Some that work, and others that could use a bit of an audio tuneup. Click through the slideshow below to see more of these relics that double as accents of vintage home decor!
Thought I’d share a quick Halloween photo with everyone as I wait for trick or treaters to line up at my door (a long wait, as my street does not have sidewalks and I have no pumpkin out).
I took this picture of my candy bowl in the front entryway of my house. In the background is a wonderful painting by Ana Bagayan titled, The Irrationality and Inevitability of Being a Puppet, while in the foreground there stands a headless doll. Now, don’t go thinking that the doll head in the candy bowl is usually on the doll body. Noooooooo… The doll head usually sits atop the Pinocchio book on the left, ready to greet any visitor to my home.
Tonight, it’s sitting in the bowl, ready to haunt the dreams of any trick or treaters. And if you tilt the bowl just right, offering the bowl to the unsuspecting and impressionable child, the dolls eyes are peacefully closed. Ah! But with the slightest turn of the wrists, her glassy eyes slowly roll open to horrify the tiny tikes, just as their little fingers are about to grab a sweet bit of candy.
So, I had a birthday recently… and look at one of my presents…
Yes, Final Frame at the Cuius Deo Optimo Open is now a throw, woven from a billion zillion colored threads! It arrived in a totally nondescript gray envelope, without a single clue on the outside; only the tempting feel of something squishy inside. When I sliced open the package (oh so carefully, reasoning that something squishy might also be easily damaged) I was shocked to discover my photographic efforts forever captured on the surface of a warm blanket. Functional art to combat global warming… I love it!
Wind-up Dreams & Vinyl Nightmares 