The Most Talked About Motorcycle In America

Was leafing through the June 1949 issue of Science and Mechanics (The Magazine That Shows You How) and my eyes were drawn to this ad.

Not only because the bike featured in the ad has a fairly contemporary look (for a 73-year old model, it really sings), and not even because the ad depicts both a man and a woman riding the bike.

Nope, what caught my eye was the name of the bike. The Jawa 250. 

And the quote, "Look, the Jones have JAWAs too"

And the name of the company - The JAWA MOTORCYCLE Co.

And the logo. JAWA

By chance did George Lucas catch a glimpse of this ad sometime in his youth? 

The Misfortunes Of Corporal Rudd

Blaine Rudd forced himself up out of the chair and stretched himself tall. He walked around the empty bedroom and took a deep breath, which did nothing but irritate his nostrils with the smell of cheap stale perfume.

"That is that, then" he mused to himself. "She gets the lion's share of the money, a large bag of jewels, the entire tub of leftover artichoke jalapeno dip, and what remains of her dignity. I get..." He counted the money in his wallet and pockets. "...$287.35, a small puka shell choker, a fruitcake that has been on the top shelf of the hall closet for lord knows how long, and all the impossible to refold travel maps I've collected over the years."

He reflexively took another deep breath, irritating his nostrils again. 

"And so it goes", he thought to himself as he folded the last pair of his underwear and placed them in his small suitcase. "Nine years of enduring the worst morning breath in recorded history, and constantly lying about how enjoyable repeatedly binge-watching season 6 of One Tree Hill is, all for naught."

He walked sullenly down the hall leading to the front door, turned to take one last look at the home he had lived in longer than anyone had picked in the betting pool at work, and then quietly opened the door and took his first steps as an unattached, unobligated free man since...since forever he reckoned, being as how they had married while he was still living with his parents.

Little could he imagine that in less that 6 weeks he would be onboard a tramp steamer headed for Tasmania, in the employ of a wealthy Chinese shopping mall owner searching for her runaway husband.

Mainly due to his lack of imagination, which was part of the reason his ex-wife had left him.

Chinese Whispers Telegram

 She swore what she heard was from a reliable source

        Trustworthy, dependable, and irrefutable of course

Guaranteed to repeat faithfully what was said in confidence

Never gave anyone a single reason to doubt 

'cept if they possessed a single shred of common sense

        Every word repeated

        Word for word 

        How he cheated

        Word for word 

        Texts were saved

        Word for word

        Not a syllable deleted

The denials came fast and furious

       But  there was no denying the actions injurious

He says he was at home with the cat

Not that he needed to prove himself against such lies

There's not a soul walking upright goin' to believe that

        Every word repeated

        Word for word

        How he mistreated

        Word for word

        Texts never relayed

        Word for word

        The truth was slowly defeated

        

       

        

        

The Smallest Henge

Watched This Is Spinal Tap recently, and found myself wondering what a model of Stonehenge would look like if the entire monolithic structure was made to the same small scale as a section of Stonehenge that was created for a Stonehenge inspired stage set in the movie.

And then today I chanced upon this while walking along the shore of a lake. The world's smallest Henge.

Seriously, the tallest piece of driftwood used to create that Henge was maybe 5 inches tall, and the entire Henge had a diameter of maybe 30 inches.

It was, like the 18" foam model of a section of Stonehenge used in Spinal Tap, hilarious. 

Lakewood Museum Of Discarded Art The Unknown Abstractionist(s)

 Over the past few months I've encountered a number of unsigned abstract paintings in the thrift shops, garage sales, and dens of iniquity that I frequent. Almost all of them are obviously derivative, to the point that I won't have to explain to most people who they are derivative of (Hint: Think Opper, Brooks, Pollock, etc.) 

Here, for your enjoyment, is a small sampling of what I've seen lately.

One Afternoon At The Pharmacy

 A grim-faced woman walks into a drug store and asks the pharmacist if she could purchase a bottle of cyanide.

The Pharmacist, taking in the woman's countenance and angry tone of voice, asks what she could possibly need cyanide for.

Without a moment's hesitation she says, "I'm going to poison my husband."

The Pharmacist is understandably alarmed and exclaims, "What?! That's insane, I can't sell you cyanide so you can poison your husband! We'll both be jailed for life! That's not going to happen!

The woman calmly looks directly at the Pharmacist and removes a picture of a man and woman in bed from her purse and hands it to the Pharmacist. "That's my husband, and I believe the lady is your wife."

The Pharmacist examines the photo closely and after a minute says, "Well, this does change things. You should have told me you had a prescription in the first place."

Flagstone Reservoir