Sort Dice Good

After a hard day of smashing mugs and precariously stacking bags of scrap fabric at the Junk Store, I like to unwind with some smooth jazz and a fat pile of mixed dice. Nothing soothes my jangled nerves like making little piles and rows of dice.

There are so many ways you can group them. Color, size, material, number of sides, cleanliness, or any way I want them. Once I add any new additions to the collection, I then put them all back in baggies and jars and then back on the shelf until tomorrow. 

The latest in audio technology

Someday soon I'll take a picture of the 8-track playing Robot, but until that day comes we can all still rock out and rock on with this massive box of classic tracks.

It's all here, man. Cheap Trick, Deep Purple, Steppenwolf, Floyd, Zepplin, the Stones, the Beatles, Thin Lizzy, Ram Jam, Neil Young, and even some George Carlin comedy tapes. And if you think the Junk Store isn't equipped with the latest in stereophonic playing devices, you obviously aren't hip to the scene, man. 

Not only do we have a deluxe 8-Track player hooked into the sorting room Hi-Fi system...

but we're also rocking this fashionable "portable" two-speaker 8-track player with AM/FM radio antennae. Sure, it doesn't take batteries, but with enough extension cord (harvested from the office aisle endcap), you can carry the heavy tunes with you down the block, man.

Damn My Eyes

Look out! We've been seeing lots of good Eyes lately...

Do these go into the eyeball collection, or the rubber ball collection?
Eye N Eye N Eye N Eye N Eye


I was very  pleased to see the warning embossed into the back of this eye-bubble container.


Trip Out.

Doll's eyes: Worth their weight in gold.

And we conclude with the above image of the psychedelic eye bin from the Junk Pirate Archives. See you next time. I'll keep an eye out for you. And so on. 

Manifest Destiny (in magnet form)

We've got another collection on our hands.

Ever so slowly we are trying to accumulate and complete collection of all 50 state magnets. To up the ante a little bit, we are only including magnets that are shaped like the state itself (unless it is somehow really cool, then we'll include it. However, only state-shaped magnets will represent the actual state). USA! USA!

Heck, we'll even include some Canada, Mexico, or even Europe if they get donated.

Since Washington D.C. is technically not a state, we'll have to settle for this US Capitol shaped magnet. 

Connecticut and Illinois both currently have two representatives. 

I'm not too happy with Montana's magnet, but it will have to do for the moment. We're also having trouble getting all these magnets to fit together in the shape of the continental US since the magnets aren't really standardized in scale. That and I really have no idea which state goes where other than the the three on the West Coast. 

The Rules

So, as stated in the side-bar over there, and probably elsewhere, everything posted on this blog, and included in all Junk Pirate zines, has been willingly donated to the Junk Store where I work as my "day job", sorting piles of junk for resale or reuse and occasionally finding interesting tidbits to photograph or photocopy. "Made with and from items donated to the Junk Store". And as far as I know, nobody has ever donated an item with the intention of it being used in Junk Pirate.

I have, however, received specific contributions to Junk Pirate from friends or fans. Usually these are giving to me directly or mailed to me (often from prison). These I politely decline, or just ignore (occasionally I might keep them for my own personal found art stash), but they don't qualify as Junk Pirate material because they weren't donated to the Junk Store.

Now, there has been one or two item that reside in a fuzzy area: Like the cover photograph for Junk Pirate #11.

This is, in fact, a copy of a photograph I took myself. How could I justify not only allowing this to go into Junk Pirate, but putting it on the cover?!? Let me explain...

When you are a constant hoarder like I am, you are frequently re-donating items back into the flow as space or interests dictate. A few years back I was cleaning out the many, many boxes of leftover personal photographs and so I donated a lot of these to the Junk Store. Nothing too personal in there (I know better than that), but mainly leftover shots from the high school and college years. About a week after donating those pictures, a co-worker unearthed this picture and handed it to me as possible Junk Pirate gold. It took me a moment to realize I had taken this picture myself many years earlier.

Now, obviously this picture rules: Overweight metal guitarist with long hair in his face, a flying-V guitar, and high-top sneakers! Add in a finger covering part of the flash and some other dude's face coming in on the left and you have gold, my friends. 

So, the loophole I'm using to justify this image's entry into Junk Pirate was the quality that it was, in fact, willingly donated to the Junk Store (by me) without the intention of having it in Junk Pirate. If I had simply combed through my old photos and found this one, it wouldn't qualify. I know it is a controversial precedent, but I honestly did not realize I even had taken such an awesome photo until another Pirate had found it.

Along those lines, we have a new entry into the Tales From the Junk Store blog:

Yeah, it's a kind hippie "chillum" swirly-glass ganga pipe complete with hand-sewn and embroidered pillow bag. A Junk Pirate no brainer, right? Well, I know the deadhead girl whom owned this piece of paraphernalia really well. In fact, I even encouraged her to donate all her old hippie stuff to the Junk Store when she was clearing out her old storage unit. While I was simply hoping to score some old Fillmore posters or various Jerry memorabilia, I was stoked enough to see this toker in the mix. Now, I am confident enough that she did not intend for anything of hers to end up in Junk Pirate, and that is good enough for me to put it in Junk Pirate.

So I guess that is the rule: Items must be willingly donated to the Junk Store without the intention of having the items in Junk Pirate. Now that that's out of the way, let's all roast a bowl of dank nugs.

Royalty

Ahhh yes. Old school manual typewriters. I personally own a 1923 Underwood, which I use for all my non-digital correspondence. But you could do a lot worse than one of these:

A beautiful 1932 (date approx) Royal #10 Standard. Just oil this baby up, throw a new ribbon in there, and [kachunk-kachunk] your on your way to great typing adventures.

Clog Blog

Adventures In Cubed Eggs

This caught my eye from within the heap of dusty donations:

"Makes a square egg", eh? I was just thinking how I was getting sick and tired of my hard boiled eggs just rolling around all over my plate willy-nilly. Square eggs might just be the answer to this breakfast dilemma. So I busted out my employee discount privileges, picked up a sixer of eggs (also a sixer of beer), and could barely sleep through the night in anticipation of right-angled hen-fruit come morning time.
Boil 'em
Peel 'em and plate 'em.
Cram 'em (one at a time) into this orange plastic contraption and crank down the top.
Ta-daaaa... Breakfast is served.
And I failed to even show you the best part...

The box has an illustration of a chicken cursing from the pain of laying a square egg!

You can order yours right now for only 3 bucks right here. No promises on the cool retro cursing chicken packaging, though.

A quick inter-web search will find several egg-cubing videos, plus some photos sets and message board discussions. Apparently putting your egg in the fridge while it is cubing will help it retain the cube shape. 

I also want to point out that I have refrained from using any "egg" puns this entire post. And it wasn't easy.

The Bubbly

Here's a good way to kick off a dreary Thursday morning at the Junk Store...

While I, personally, prefer the larger 750ml size bottles of sparkling white wine, I'm not adverse to guzzling down 3 or 4 of these 250ml little guys. There's enough here for myself, The Mambo-Jahambo, Big Merl, and maybe even hook-up Babs with a lil' bottle to take home. 

No complaints about a box of champagne.

other Peoples Photos: In the Boudoir part 4

Whoa.

other Peoples Photos: In the Boudoir part 3

other Peoples Photos: In the Boudoir part 2

Other Peoples Photos: In the Boudoir part 1

Hiding amongst the massive piles of discarded snapshots, vacation slides, and underexposed prints are a few gems. This weekend we'll present a new photo every day from a small collection of b-roll cuts I like to call "In the Boudoir".

Soft focus, lacy undergarments, high heels, and eighties hairdos. And these pictures were all printed in frameable 8x10 size. 

a Slinky by any other name

Check out this gold plated "Executive Puzzle":

• Great Stress Reliever
• Unique Memo Holder
• Attractive Oak Base
• Engraveable Brass Plate

Give me a break! "Executive Puzzle" my ass! I know a Slinky when I see one. And exactly how is this a "puzzle" at all?!?

I actually think this would be a cool thing for some high-powered CEO to have on his desk. And employees would say, "Hey, is that a golden Slinky?". And the boss would say, "I'll have you know it's an Executive Puzzle and I use it to uniquely hold my memos. You're fired!"

We need to talk about your flair...

Nice Outback Steak House pin collection here.

Either somebody was a big fan of the Outback Steak House, or, more likely, somebody was forced to wear all these stupid pins as part of their uniform. 

Some seem promotional, while others seem like badges of achievement for sales or something. Either way... yikes.

We've got Grillers, not Gorillas! 

The Return of Hans

Hans is back? No, Hans never left. He simply donned a homemade Zodiak helmet, climbed the ladder and posted up on top of the collapsed white boxes like a big stuffed gargoyle killer, ready to tumble onto your neck when you were just trying to take down that extra box of audio cassettes.

 

Then Hans took his reign of Sorting Room terror to a new level by kidnapping an innocent girl-doll while sporting this frightening monster mask. That was a gnarly morning.

Currently Hans is going with the "mad scientist" look, complete with spooky grey streaked hair, surgical gown, test tubes, and an evil mustache/goatee combo.What persona will Hans take on next? Stay tuned.

get rich quick

 

Now we can quickly mine-sweep for bits of copper, lost arcade tokens, and perhaps even the occasional foreign coin mixed in amongst the rubble of the sorting room floor. 

Get Loaded

It finally happened... someone or something donated some abusable prescription drugs. 

Now, getting doped up on pills isn't my thing, but Top Cat and Big Merl were more than happy to divvy the loot. I'm just happy that something this wild and inappropriate and so long in the waiting has finally come in. And it isn't just the bottle...

There are at least 9 or 10 pills in there. So what if they expired exactly 8 years ago today. 

Garbage Pail Kids

When Jambo and I first created the Donation Manifestation Wish List, Garbage Pail Kids were at the top of the list. Not because I particularly wanted them, but it just seemed like the thing that would likely get donated to the Junk Store on a regular basis. Much to my surprise, other than one or two cards floating in here and there, we hardly ever see them. And we certainly don't see any from the first four edition. And you can just forget about wax packs. Maybe I'm just not thinking hard enough on it.

More info on the history of GPK's here.

Mini Arcade: Pac-Man

Not quite as awesome as an authentic Pac-Man arcade cabinet (or cocktail table) video game, this Coleco Mini Arcade LED Pac-Man will have to suffice for the moment.

From RetroThing.com: "At the height of the Pac-Man craze, video game craze, and handheld electronic craze, Coleco created mini versions of famous arcade games.  They started with Pac-Man, but it wasn't long before Ms. Pac, Galaxian, Centipede, and others joined the family.

It's rather impressive how much of the flavor of the arcade originals these little versions could capture within the limits of VFD (vacuum fluorescent display) technology.  The games were colorful (unlike battleship gray LCD, or red blip LED games), had a nice assortment of sound effects and music, and added simultaneous two player modes so that both you and your brother could crowd around your 9" high  personal arcade cabinet."

Here are some other great Pac-Man images I found on the interweb:

16 mil

A working 16 mm film projector with sound speaker. It didn't come with a film, but luckily enough we have been stashing a student film product called "Water / Ducks" for a few months for a situation just like this.

The bulb was working and the motor sounded decent so I threaded it up. Finally, the skills I gained in my five years as a film major at a private art college are coming in handy. 

We sat around and watched 10 minutes of ducks, ponds, fountains, flowers and other plant life in of the bay area projected onto a white marker board. Once I got the gate-loop set, the film ran smooth. There was no optical sound track, so we didn't get to test that, but it didn't even skip at the tape splices. I consider this a victory for the junk store and my film education. However, there was one problem...

The projector was no donated with a take-up reel, so we basically just let the whole film pile onto the floor as it ran out the back of the projector. For the rewind we just threw that sucker into reverse at the end and watched it backwards. 

Sonny Bono's Autograph!

Riding hot on the heels of Neil Diamond's autograph, like an out of control downhill skier, comes another awesome donation from a completely different source:

Now, us Junk Pirates of the sorting room are never above a fake-autograph prank or two (just asked the kid who bought the "Babe Rooth" autographed baseball), and this autographed LP came in less than 5 days after the last one that it seemed a bit suspicious. Let us try to get some random internet confirmation on this one:

Good enough for me. 

Out of respect for those who are no longer with us, we decided to actually nail this one on the wall instead of letting it get buried. RIP Sonny. Best Wishes.

Neil Diamonds Autograph!

Could it really be an authentic autographed LP from Neil Diamond. Let's take a closer look:


Ok, now let's compare it to another Neil Diamond autograph I randomly grabbed from the 'net:

Yup! Looks good!Update: Looks like somebody didn't appreciate me linking through to their Neil Diamond autograph. Trust me, it looked really similar to the one on our donated record.
Now what to do with such a rare and valuable item?Put it on Ebay?   No.Frame it and put it on the wall?    No.Sell it with the rest of the records and stoke out some Neil Diamond fan?    No.Smash the record and then lost the autographed cover under fabric mountain?    Bingo!Sorry, Lynne, but you should hold onto your valuables. 

The Fabulous Fever of Spiromania

A couple more Spirographs for the pile:

This one is a "Pocket Spirograph". Then we got this one:

While the exact same design as the Pocket, the orange and yellow color makes it the "Travel Spirograph". Here they are side by side.

I can't image there are that many more possible Spirograph variations available, but I'm sure more will come in soon enough. In the meanwhile:

More Cold Beer

Not literal cold beer (I wish), but another one of those Plug-Ins. Just to prove that I'm not just taking a new picture of this one, here they both are together.

Freedom Costs a Buck-Oh-Nine.

In case you started to think that these colors might start to fade (or run or whatever), we got another one of these in:

And in case you need to be reminded of what Freedom cost in previous posts (hint: it wasn't free), here is a patriotic recap.

"Well turn it up, Man!"

In honor of the 40th Anniversary of the Woodstock Music Festival, I present the Woodstock of my generation. No, I'm not talking about Woodstock 94, and I'm especially not talking about Woodstock 99. I'm talking about those awesome commercials for Freedom Rock!

From the opening chords of "Layla" to the dude's little guffaw when he tells you that the original hits are "by the original artists!" to the bright blue screen that tells you how to order, the commercial for Freedom Rock has been etched into my brain. All the song snippets have locked themselves into this order so that The Byrds "Turn Turn Turn" is inextricably mashed with Skynyrd's "Freebird". Heck, some of these song are only known to me still as 5-second snippets.

The gods of rock must have made sweet hippie love to the gods of donations because half of my dreams came true when disc 2 of Freedom Rock (albeit a bit scratched-up) arrived at the Junk Store.

In truth, Freedom Rock does not "have it all, man". In fact, this compilation is pretty awful and certainly not worth $24.95 (from 1987, which, with inflation, would cost $47.15 today). There are a lot of bullshit, not rocking, unfree filler like James Taylor swamping up the true rock classics. I'm still glad it came in though, if only for giving me a reason to post the Freedom Rock commercial on this blog.

A long time ago...

A collection of  Star Wars Pez dispensers. These are all "Jar Jars" (Star Wars merchandise released as part of the Episode I frenzy) but still worth a photo when they show up in these quantities. The candy was not included. 

Junk Pirate Archives: the Classics part 4

The Jammer got me all psyched up on collected plastic Jack-O-Lantern buckets. The fun thing to do notice is all the different tooth patterns that exist. Sometimes you have 2top-3bottom, sometimes 1top-2bottom. Sometimes they are triangular fangs. 

This is a classic photo, but lately we have taken to stringing them up on a bungee cord. We even got a neon pink one in. 

More Nintendo

Over the past few months a few more Nintendo Entertainment Systems have come in. All working, all with zappers.

Junk Pirate Archives: the Classics parts 2 & 3

Crazy Cones!


Perfectly Sane Cones!

Junk Pirate Archives: The Classics part 1

The Catch Me If You Can Drink Stirrer

and now, to kill a little time, the awesome title sequence from the movie:

D'oh!

For your amusement, may I present to you, from the Junk Pirate Archives...

The rotting corpse of Homer Simpson:

sip-sip-bang

I'm just cruising the Junk Pirate Archives this week and bringing out some classics from years and locations past. Not that there isn't a huge backlog of amazing recent items that need to come to light. I figured it would be fun to relive some traumatic donations and moments from back in the day.

Children's gun mug. 

Cause it's never to early to get used to the great feeling of a firearm in your hand. 

Drink it up, America

Oh my god! Somebody donated Captain America's Thermos.

Increased Productivity

A working portable DVD player. With AC power adapter. 

Yeah. That'll up the productivity around here. Now, if somebody would just donate a Blu-Ray player we could get this party started.

Vintage Vibrators

A quick glance through the Junk Pirate Archives unearthed this old photo of our collection of vintage vibrators. Guaranteed to get you where you need to go.

Junk Pirate News

I just realized this blog is over 1 year old now! Awesome.
With over 125 posts! Hot damn.
Please keep the comments coming. Or don't. I like them but really I do this for me.
Just for the hell of it here is a photo of the Heap from the Junk Pirate Archives:

In other news, the 2nd Junk Pirate Art Exhibition has been confirmed! It will be in Oakland (venue to be announced later) in March 2010. Here's a photo from the last show in late 2006:

Heat Zone

The first skateboard I ever owned was a Nash Heat Zone. Just like this one that was recently donated, except mine was neon pink and didn't have the rails or tail block or anything. Man, that was a crappy skateboard, but I was pretty psyched to get it for my birthday back when I was 8 or 9. I never really rode it that much and didn't actually learn skate until I got a street deck when I was 15 or so.
I think this photo [not donated, this is an actual photo of me] very accurately depicts what a poser I was.

What's a good Euphemism for "Dildo"...

The fact that an arts and educational non-profit resale store can amass this collection of dildos, vibrators, and other unmentionables from their daily donations is just all sorts of fucked. And this doesn't even include the vintage vibrators that at least have the decency to look less like a penis and more like a giant power drills that strap to your hands. 

M.U.S.C.L.E. Men

Millions of Unusual Small Creatures Lurking Everywhere. Tiny, 2" wrestling monster figurines in molded pink PVC gum, based on some Japanese anime or something. I really liked these things when I was 8 years old, and here they are again. My favorite was this little mohawk dude I called "Little Joe":

And apparently they were also available in other colors, although I only remember the pink ones.

I also really liked the M.U.S.C.L.E. Nintendo game. One of the better wrestling games out at the time.

You can get more info on these guys on wikipedia here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M.U.S.C.L.E.  

or this video will answer all your questions:

Roid Rage 7, the final Roid

Again, this isn't technically a Polaroid, but your mom technically isn't a whore because I don't have to pay her anything. 

Oh yeah. The Kodak Colorburst 100. This camera doesn't have a flash built in so you had to mound one on top like this guy:

And I'm sorry about calling your mom a whore. It's just that all these Polaroid camera posts were making me a bit nutty. 

Roid Rage 6

Land Camera. No pictures of water or sky allowed.

This one is a Polaroid 640 Land Camera. Hang in there, only one more to go.

Roid Rage 5

Next up:

In case the Polaroid One Step was just a little to slow for you, we have the aerodynamic Polaroid One Step Express. These came in a bunch of sporty colors, like gray and blue, gray and black, all gray, and (as seen here) the gray and green.

Roid Rage 4

Double trouble with two (2) different Polaroid One Steps. 

Roid Rage 3

The Polaroid SpecTra System SE

From the manual:

"When you press the shutter button, sonar waves (at frequencies beyond our range of hearing) are sent to the central part of the scene. A built-in computer measures the time it takes the sonar waves to reach the scene and the echo to return. This measurement is used to provide the correct lens setting."

Sonar? Now you talkin' science.

Roid Rage 2

This one, technically, isn't even a Polaroid. I don't care, I'm posting it anyways.

The Kodak Trimprint 920 (formerly known as the Champ Kodamatic). 

Roid Rage 1, Let There Be Roids

Every day this week I'm going to reveal another addition to our ever-growing collection of Polaroid cameras. Sure, I could just publish all the photos in one blog entry, but I figured I could pad the old post count a bit and keep things rolling all week.

So, the first entry features a 1-2 punch of the beige Polaroid 620 Amigo and Polaroid Onestep Flash with the side rainbow stripe (AKA the Polaroid Rainbow 600).

Damn, Polaroid made a lot of cameras.

Best promo item EVER

Are you kidding me? It's is one of those squeezy foam promo items. Those are pretty cool. And it is for the 2004 movie Seed of Chucky (co-starring Redman with a cameo from John Waters). That's even cooler. And it is of a giant sperm. Now that is really cool. But wait, it gets even better.

Yup. On the flip side it says "Coming Everywhere." Oh, man. That is just so awesome. I can't believe this movie didn't make more money than Titanic and Star Wars combined with promotions like this. A little online searching revealed another great Seed of Chucky promo:

Seed of Chucky promo condoms. With the tagline "Get a Load of Chucky". Not bad, but I'll keep my giant "Coming Everywhere" sperm, thank you very much.

Quisp

From the Quaker Oats website:

"In 1965, Quisp landed on Earth with his Quazy Energy Cereal – and the world's been a better place ever since, especially during breakfast. The saucer-shaped, crunchy corn cereal has delighted kids and adults everywhere. Bring Quisp to your house and home planet today. The crispy flavor is out of this world."

Welp, now the Junk Store is a better place because somebody just donated two empty boxes of Quisp. Only a nerd like me would even know what Quisp is and get all excited over a box a collapsed box of cereal. 

Now, if only somebody would donate a box of Quake cereal, then we could get this party started. If you really wanna get crazy, donate a box of Quangaroos. Whoa.

Pufnstuf vs. Shuvnstuf

When this HR Pufnstuf action figure came in, all I could think of is what might happen if this were to be purchased by the customer we know as HR Shuvnstuf. We call him this because he basically just cuts the line at the register, shoves a couple of dollars at you real quick, and takes off. This is actually a great haggling technique and a good way to avoid paying sales tax. Just cut a long line of customers like you are in a big hurry (although you've been browsing in the Junk Store for two hours), then say, "Here's five bucks for this stuff", then shove the cash at the clerk and stuff your ass out the door. Never fails.

Domino, motherfucker!

Dragon Dominoes through the ages:

The packaging sure has gotten drab since the psychedelic dragon days. Thanks, Milton Bradley.
and here is an image another cool old one I found online:

Get Belted with the PowerBelt!

As promised, today we will take a closer look at that amazing belt Hans was wearing in the last blog... it's the Powerbelt.

There it is. While it was clear at a glance that this was some sort of gimmicky exercise product, the Jammer and I fumbled with it for hours before just giving up and strapping it onto Hans. After some extensive internet research, I now realize that Hans is wearing his Powerbelt backwards. Your supposed to have those gizmos in the back, and then you grab the handles and pull the resistance ripcords while you run like cranked-up marionette. 

My internet research was further complicated by the fact that "powerbelt" is also a type of firearm ammunition.

You can get all kinds of Powerbelt info, testimonials, videos, and your chance to win your own Powerbelt at the official website here: Maximum Walking Fitness. 

The many faces of Hans

So I walk into work one morning, head to the sorting area, and nearly shit my pants when I turn on the lights to see this guy all up in my face...

Actually, he was holding one of those realistic looking water pistols. Well, after our shocking introduction, I came to be pretty good friends with this life-sized pillowy mannequin that I named Hans (although he goes by many other nicknames).

Hans is always willing (or unable to prevent) to be dressed up and accessorized with anything we're able to pluck from the donation heap. Here he is in an outfit I like to call "Busking-Patriotic-Frankenstein". Notice the leather chaps and the power-belt. More on the power-belt coming soon.

Hans gets some painting done with his fruit-picker. Always looking dapper in his fancy hat and festive birdman mask.

Getting folksy. I'm just now noticing that Hans is still rocking that green shirt.

Hans' latest incarnation is that of Darth Pantsless. Stay tuned right here at Tales From the Junk Store for more fashion updates. 

Flog Blog part 2

These kinds of donations are becoming way too common. Way too common.

Give 'em a hand

Lots of good hands coming in these days.

I call this one "Grabby".

Hand-bottles, not bottle-hands.

Some vain young artist made wax castings of themselves. 
Come to think of it, there have been lots of other mannequin hands and that kind of stuff that I didn't get pictures of. I'll have to keep track of those. 

Headaches

Sure, I've heard of Milton Bradley's Trouble board game, with the patented Pop-O-Matci dice bubble, but I've never heard of Headache. And here we have two different versions! Amazing. Basically, Headache is the exact same game a Trouble (which is basically just Parcheesi), but looks a little more exotic. Read all about it here.

I just love different version of the same thing. That is basically what Junk Pirate (and collecting in general) is all about... different versions of the same thing. 

Bow to your Sensei!

Here we have a nice looking "holographic" photo postcard of Jesus standing in a rose garden.

 

Take a closer look, and I could swear that Jesus is that guy who was Rex Kwon Do in Napoleon Dynamite, Diedrich Bader. Here is the best I could do getting a close-up image of Jesus (the texture on the card gave me problems) and then an image of Bader (as Lawrence in Office Space) I got off the 'net: 

Yup. No doubt about it. Now let's all celebrate with this awesome clip of Rex Kwon Do:

Happy Dippy Drinking Bobby Sippy Tippy Peace Birds

Just an all-time Junk Store classic: the "Drinking Bird" has been donated a few times in my tenure, and this time we are fortunate enough to have gotten two different styles within a few days of each other. A vintage, orange "Peace Bird" on the left and the classic top-hat, red-liquid "Drinking Happy Bird" on the right.

These things go by many, many names, but they all look pretty similar and operate on the same principles of heat escaping through evaporation on the wetted felt head, or something like that. You can read all about the thrilling physics behinds this novelty here. 

The drinking bird was invented by Miles V. Sullivan in 1945 and patented in 1946. He was a Ph.D. inventor-scientist at Bell labs in Murray Hill, NJ. 

My favorite part of is definitely the packaging on the Peace Bird. "Absolutely Incombustible".

I'll leave you all with this video I found:

Barbed from Back in the Day

Vintage barbed wire? Shabby chic? Why not?

D Y M O

A collection that seems to come around time and again, but can never really get beyond half a white box or so before they get sold off, is that of the labelmaker. Specifically, that of the Dymo brand labelmaker, although I'm not adverse to throwing a generic one in there should the opportunity arise.

I'm not talking about some fancy-ass Brother P-Touch with a keyboard and all that; I'm talking about the kind with the twisty letter wheel that embosses the words upwards on adhesive tape. Yeah, dog! I'll label the shit out of everything in the room with one of these. 

Look at this monster. Having this heavy duty steel labelmaker in my hand gives me the confidence to label things that have no business being labeled, like the telephone or water cooler.

You wanna kick it up to the next level? Well feast on this: somebody completes the ultimate circle of labelmaking by donated a labelmaker that has been labeled as a labelmaker! Brilliant!The above photo is one of my Junk Pirate favorites of the last few months.  

More Balls

Back (in a jar) by popular demand, the ever-growing ever-bouncing rubber ball collection. Keep 'em coming...

More balls from a previous post here.

Bring Home the Bacon

A "Boys and Girls Love Jewels" brand bacon keychain. From the "Love Collection". 

27 different cell phones

What I really want is some of those giant old cell phones from back in the day.

make money-money make money-money-money

A rare find indeed. No less than 14 bucks in silver dollars.

With all this donated loot, we could buy about 8 cups of coffee or 2 bowls of pho or almost 2 chicken sandwiches or 3 pound of salad or, like, 14 different chinese food servings. We're rich!

the Most Donated Book

While Apollo 13, My Best Friends Wedding, and Titanic battle it out to be "the most donated copies of a VHS video in the store at one time" champion, there is no contest as to which is the most commonly donated book...

Love It or Leave It

You have got to love all this over-the-top post 9-11 "patriotic" crap that's floating around these days. We're still getting lots of those flags that clip onto your car's windows. Now here's another patriot classic:

This T-shirt is extra awesome because of the "2008" date on it. This ain't so non-free freedom from back in 1997! This is 2008's freedom that isn't free here.

The "Freedom is Not Free" merch usually emphasizes the "Not" part somehow, as well. 

DVNF is the Disabled Veterans National Foundation. I want to be clear that my ridicule of these "Freedom is Not Free" products is in no way intended to disrespect veterans in any way. But, c'mon, there has got to be a more dignified way to show support for the men and women defending our country than "Freedom is NOT Free 2008". 

Leave a Message

The Jammer has done it again. Instead of just throwing a big bag of dusty old audio cassettes into the already overcrowded cassette drawers, or maybe the dumper, he checks them all out to see if we are lucky enough to come across any of these:

An old school answering machine message cassette. It is pretty rare to find one so clearly labeled (and this one was full on both sides!), and it is really, really rare to actually get a juicy message, but when it happens it makes this whole shit job worth while.

We have also gotten in the habit of plugging in an listening to any phones with a built-in digital answering machines. 9 out of 10 of these usually have messages still on them as well.

Burnt

Some crazy person out there is saving all of their used match sticks, cramming them into snack size ziplock bags, donating it to the junk store, and deducting it from their taxes.

Junk Pirate zine #17

Junk Pirate #17 is available right now. 22 pages in thrilling black and white. Heavy duty cover stock. Made entirely with and from items donated to the junk store. Featuring the already infamous "Sack O' Sauce in a Can O' Meat"! Available now at better zine shops for $3, or get your direct from our allies at Rowan Morrison Publishing and save a buck. ORDER IT NOW! 

If you don't want to pay for priority mail shipping for just one zine, throw in the Junk Pirate Volume One book. Featuring the best of issues 1-12 plus other stuff that will please you greatly. 

You've been Lumberjacked!

A top candidate for Junk Pirate toy of the month goes to this mini Bosch kiddie chainsaw.

Fire this bad boy up and it makes realistic chain saw sounds and has a real rotating chain. Perfect for re-enacting scenes from Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Who will survive their AM break (recently reduced to 10 minutes), and what will be left of them. 

If you think this toy is harmless, just check out this report from UC Irvine that discusses the "lifelong harm" that the Bosch Replica Chainsaw will do to your child's hearing at a whopping 95 decibels! Yeeeeeeeaaaaaah!

Antlers

A couple of antlers and a piece of the devil's skull. 

Mini Mint

Some tiny coins from the Mini Mint.

While this set of 6 little coin replicas is cute and pretty unique to the junk store, I think it is the little touches that make it blog worthy. 

First off, I'm all for things labeling themselves as "collectors item". Anybody could just spray about the phrase "collectors item" in promotional materials (I do it myself all the time), but it takes a special kind of marketing wizard to actually print "collectors item" right on the item itself.

Even better, is the use of the phrase "presidential", which I image is referencing the fact that US currency (and thus tiny replicas of US currency) has images of a president on it. In fact, I think I'm going to start referring to all my money as "presidential". Except, of course, the ten and one hundred dollar bills, which don't feature presidents. 

Come to think of it, I believe the Susan B Anthony silver dollar is part of this here Mini Mint Collectors Item, and she wasn't a president. What the hell?!?

And speaking of studpidly marketed Presidential Collectors Item coin sets, when is someone going to donate one of those cheap-ass Obama commemorative coin sets that Montel Williams endorsed?

Smokey Sue Smokes For Two

So, so, so awesome. An educational aid that is intended to show the damage smoking can do to your unborn child. It's basically a jar with a little girl doll head that has a squeezy suction bulb pump that can suck smoke from a lit cigarette into a submerged fetus in the jar. The smoke gets exhaled by the fetus. It doesn't really show anything but the how cool even a pregnant cabbage patch kid can look while smoking. I suppose that, if enough cigarettes are smoked through this device, the water gets a little yellow.

Seriously, I could spend all day feeding cigarettes into this doll's jar-body fetus. It is just hypnotic. 

You can buy yours here for over 200 dollars! Cigarettes not included.

The Pharm System

One of the best and brightest Junk Store collections is the Jammer's hoard of Pharmaceutical Company Drug Pens. He just loves to roll up his sleeves and dig deep into the pen drawer in search for Pharm Pen treasure. It seems like he can dig up a pharm pen or three every try. And that doesn't even begin to scratch the surface of all the other wonderful Promotional Drug products we have flowing in all the time. These doctors have it made. 

Zmax tape dispensers.
Tagamet Safe lock box
Chrol0mycetin (distinguished for its versatility) ruler, Evoxac paper, and a vintage Septra memo pad. We got it all.
This one is good: a Fortaz ruler with stencils of very stylized breast and penis. How did the medical profession get by before something like this was given to them.

Welp, it looks like it is all about to change. According to a recent article in the NY Times, all free doctor gifts from the Pharmaceutical industry have been banned. Yup, the party is over. This shocking blow was eased a little bit by this awesome picture that was linked from the article...

Now, that is a Pharm Pen collection. 

Game On

I'm never not excited to get some video game gear here at the Junk Store. Whatever you got; vintage Atari, handheld games, Nintendo cereal, or perhaps some fresh Xbox games... I'll eat 'em all up. Let us now take a look at some recent gaming donations.

Guitar Hero 1 for the Playstation 2. Complete with guitar, guitar strap, and game disc. Used, but still in the box. Guitar Hero is such an awesome game, except when you get stuck on some song that you've never heard of form one of these newfangled hipster emo "metal" bands and you just have to listen to that garbage over and over while you try to beat it. Still, when you finally get that song, man, it feels good.
Check it out. It's a generic Atari 2600 controller in the box. This goes next to this on the Junk Pirate shelf.
Sega Game Gear. This was a full color, cartridge based portable video game system that was completely obliterated in popularity by Gameboy. It's pretty beefy.

The motherload. A fat box of vintage Atari VCS (aka 2600) games. In the mix we also have some racing controllers, a bunch of manuals, a few Sega Genesis games, and a rare Atari 5200 controller! There was even an ultra rare Atari 7800 game cartridge. Not a bad haul.

a Jedi craves not these things

Star Wars talking Yoda doll. 

One vintage Star Wars item is worth about 100 new trilogy items (or "jar-jars" as I like to call them). Therefore, this talking Yoda, with Star Wars trivia and rambling stories of the Clone Wars at the press of a hand, will have to do for now.

Twelve Inch Double Faced

Another great collection, this time coming from the Jammer...
A fistfull of Flexi records. You know, those flexible plastic record sheets often with advertising promotion songs or Nat Geo recordings. They are often on clear sheets. Anybody know if there is anybody who still manufactures these?

 

Ghostbusters II back there.
Free demonstration recording and invitation.

SpaceSounds. Say no more.

link: the Internet Museum of Flexi-Cardboard-Oddity Records.

Damn you, Sausage Fingers!

Anybody who is anybody collects things in jars. Probably the most classic jarred collection would be the old dice jar. Started way back at the "old" Junk Store, we have kept a dice jar going in some capacity or another for years now. Regular white six sided, D&D, red casino dice, dice with letters on them, novelty sex dice, those backgammon dice that go 2-4-8-16-32-64... whatever you got, we'll take it from you and put it in a jar.

Then, one terrible day, old Sausage Fingers got an inkling to shit in my cereal and she up and dumped the dice jar into a white box (probably couldn't fit her fat sausage fingers in the jar) and tried to sell 'em. She also dissed the collection of Rubik's Cubes, Magic 8-balls, and some other good bits. 

Luckily, Top Cat spotted my dice and salvaged what he could. So I just packed-up all my hoarded treasure and brought it home. I'm happy to say the dice jar lives on back at Junk Pirate headquarters.

The Dice Jar stays... you go!

and here is a bonus look at some vintage dice jar action:

Balls

A portion of the ever growing (and lately forced into hiding) rubber ball collection:

I remember a time when they sold rubber balls in vending machines. It seems like they have lost popularity in the modern era. Maybe it is the 95% likely hood that a child will put it in their mouth and probably choke. Maybe it is these newfangled "video" games. Whatever the cause, the Jammer and I are bringing them back. Big time.

Preserves

Here is something pleasant:

You guessed it. A mouse. In a loosely sealed jar. Preserved in what I hope is formaldehyde or maybe 100% alcohol.  You would not believe the fight that took place over who got to keep this hideous thing. Of course, this isn't the first preserved-animal-in-a-jar we have gotten, just the first I got a picture of.

Black Widow and the Spider Wars

So one day Top Cat and the Jammer are unloading bucket after bucket of dusty hand tools (mostly screwdrivers and wrenches) from the truck when they discover this little guy chilling in one particularly crusty bin.

It's a fucking Black Widow spider. I kid you not. At first I thought it was just another false alarm, like when Racing Thoughts Simpson mistakes every bug for a Brown Recluse Spider. But, sure enough, there was the telltale red hourglass shape on the abdomen. After spending half an hour rounding old Spidey up and getting him (or her) into a jar with air holes poked into the lid and some fake plant matter for it crawl on, the rest of the day was spent hunting live bugs and flies for it to eat.

When Top Cat captured another, non Black Widow spider, it was thrown into the arena and thus began Spider Wars.

Surprisingly, the Black Widow was defeated and killed pretty early in the competition. Still, it was fun having a lethal arachnid as a pet for a week or so.

It can be a little hard to see in these photos, what with the glass distortion and the spider spending its time clinging to the lid, but I promise you that is a black widow.

Fountain of Yay-Yeah!

This is what we do with our work day. We take a broken fountain, fix the pump (it usually just needs some new tubing), add some rocks, and throw in an action figure or two, dump a cup of water in there, and  -ta-da- you have a tranquil scene of an ogre peeing his pants. 

Old School Video Camera

No, I'm not talking about Hi8, or regular 8mm, or even that strange VHS-C thing that had a mini-cassette that you then had to put into a larger cassette adapter. I'm not even talking about the full on VHS 1/2" cassette holding camera. I'm taking this one way back to the days when the video camera was a whole separate unit from the recorder, which was like a giant machine you had to carry on a bag strapped around your shoulder. If you are under the age of 30, you probably don't even remember these monsters. Well a recent donation is here to take us back...

It's the Panasonic Newvicon Omnipro Color Video Camera PK-957. From 1983. The only things missing are the microphone, a rhinestone glove, a baby-on-board sign, and  your trapper-keeper. 

Then, not a fortnight later did we get this donation...

It's another non-recording video camera. This time from Hitachi. 

6 Years without a non-recording consumer video camera from the 80s and then, wham, back-to-back.

Hot Plug-In : Cold Beer

Another good plug-in coming at you. Cold Beer. These night-lights are making me thirsty.

Mace in your Face

And now we conclude this lengthy exploration of the Junk Store arsenal with a recent contribution that has tremendous potential to go horribly awry: 

Yup. As if live ammunition wasn't terrifying enough, some smart person decided to include a half-used canister of pepper spray in with their donation of keychains, pins, and buttons. Mother fucking 10% Pepper Spray. And the Jammer was brave (or stupid) enough to give it a test sprits. Well done, people. Well done.

Full Metal Jacket

This is where things REALLY start to get all messed up. Live ammo. I shit you not, live ammo. What kind of disturbed individual donates hundreds of new bullets. How could this not end in a Junk Pirate or two getting shot?

We got your 9mm and 380 Autos. Plenty for everybody. 

A teacher could use this for an art project.

I know I like to joke about all the crazy donations coming into the Junk Store, but this one goes a little to far. I mean, bullet shells are cool, but live ammo?!? Are you people nuts?!?

Keepin' It Real

These guns may look real to you, me, and the cops, but I can assure you they are just toys... fucked up toys. The little metal cowboy revolver is a childhood classic, but these other two are good enough to get you rich quick or die trying.

This bulky blaster actually has one of those neon red tips that somebody (wasn't me, I promise) painted black. It even has a chamber that opens with fake plastic bullets when you really want to trick the cops into using deadly force.

Now this guy is just awesome. It is just a straight-up water gun. Other than the trigger and the little plastic cap that covers where you fill it, there are no moving parts. Yet, this is probably the most realistic gun in the entire Junk Store Arsenal. Damn it feels good to be a gangster.

Death by Crossbow

Here's something you can do on a rainy day. With just a bit of carved wood, a steel slat, a screw or two, some durable rope, a plastic trigger, and a heart of pure malicious darkness, you can launch sharpened pencils at your coworker's eyeballs. 

This thing actually launches pens and pencils with great velocity and haphazard wildness.

wild wild west

A couple of old school revolvers. And then the 21st century equivalent. Real steel with these, so you may not be able to riddle somebody with bullets with these guns, you can still feel safe knowing that you could bludgeon somebody with them.

It is the Future... the Year 2000

The weapons of the future. P-tew. P-tew.

Bang, Bang, Squirt, Squirt

A couple of clear water pistols. You fill these with cat pee and you have serious stopping power.

Brightly Colored Water Pistols (and a cap gun)

I always thought, wouldn't be a fucked up thing to manufacture a real, bullet-shooting gun that is painted in bright neon orange and green to make it look like a water gun.

Sharpshootin'

An interesting side note: the Shadowy Borg (aka the board of directors) actually decreed that we must keep all toy guns stashed away as it is Junk Store policy to not sell toy weapons to kids (even water pistols). Don't worry, young lads, you're just a few years away from being able to buy a real gun.

That takes us to two of the better recent weapon donations. In the same week we received a working pump-action bb gun rifle (oh, that was a fun couple of days), and a not working but visually stunning bb shotgun. God bless America.

The Flog Blog

This one is actually from the Junk Pirate Archives and was sold for $40 to some mild mannered nerdy guy shortly after this image was taken. We've gotten more whips donated than you would think probable, but this flogger was one of the best. 

The Sword

Not very sharp, and the handle has a tendency to fall off in the heat of battle, but a solid piece of steel for defending the loading dock from barbarians, rival junk pirates, and lurking can collectors.

Sling It

We've been lucky enough to get a couple of slingshots donated throughout the years here at the Junk Store, some even of professional grade. The broken windows of the abandoned building across the street can attest to this. But this one was worthy of photo...

We're talking David and Goliath shit here, folks. Actually, as a slingshot it isn't very good, but it will be sure to gain you some Ren-Fair respect hanging out of your backpack like an Elvish Dennis the Menace.

Cuttin' it up!

We'll mix things up for today's installment of "weapons to play with" and take a look in the toy blade department. We have a Rambo knife, a mini ninja sword, another tiny Rambo knife, and a big fake psycho killer kitchen knife. I left out all the larger medieval swords and Conan stuff, but you can rest assured that we are hoarding those too. I'm shocked that we still haven't procured any fake ninja stars. Although most of these things get played with and thrashed before I can even get a photo of them.

Extra props going to this guy. A brass knuckles water pistol. Nice.

Busta cap in yo ass.

Not bad. This cap-gun portion of the Arsenal has got just about everything you'll need for when the zombies come. You've got your colt, your saturday night special, a shotgun, a sub-machine gun, and even some fancy civil-war-era thing. 

Bonus points going out to the one on the lower left for being from the days when they made cap guns look like real guns. Not even a orange tip on that thing. It's made of steel, too. 

Click-Click... BLAM!

Why not start the year off right with a week full of potential simulated violence by delving into the heaping contents of the Junk Store Armory stash. All this week I'll be revealing some of the hoarded toy weapons (and maybe even a few real ones) that have come in over the past year. So sit back, crack a cold one, put some mellow music on the hi-fi, and prepare for war!

You can check in on other "weapons" postings right here, although I think there has only been one other one so far.

Our first look is at a cache of wooden guns that shoot rubber bands. Most use a simple clothesline pin as a release, but that one on the lower left has a nifty trigger mechanism. Watch your eyes.

Happy New Year

Happy New Year from all your pals sorting through all of your "great stuff" that "a teacher really wants" or "an artist could do something with". Keep those great donations coming in and don't forget to ask for a tax receipt.

See you next year.From Roadblock, the Jammer, Big Merl, Top Cat, the Driver, and even L-Dog.

Drunken Santas

I know I'm a few days late for this one, but let us look back on Christmas 2008, and of many years of Junk Store past with one of our favorite all-time Holiday Decorations (and there have been a few)...
From deep within the vault of the Junk Pirate archives I present to you the Drunken Santas:



Basically, these are just a couple of vintage Santa dolls with creepy plastic faces that are weighted at their feet, so they stand on their own but totally stoop over. Man I wish we still could bust these out every Christmas.

Happy Holidays everybody.

Time for some action

I think by now it is pretty clear to anybody following Tales From the Junk Store that I'm a pretty big fan of donations of toys. Action figures are some of my favorites. And while I'll never scoff at a vintage Boba Fett or, god willing, one of those clear plastic Tron figures from Tomy, what I really like uncovering are some of the random action figures that I have no idea where they are from. 

Exhibit A:



If anybody knows where this guy and his awesome bat-coffin-vehicle are from, leave a comment.

Put It In A Jar

While a couple of similar, but slightly differently shaped glass jars might be some boring shit to you, it was the most exciting part of my week. And then when a vintage jar of "Brim" showed up, I almost fainted from the excitement. We also received and awesome old empty Ovaltine jar, but I was to excited to take a picture. JARS!

Fill it to the rim...



Bonus picture from the Junk Pirate Archives of what you can do with a bunch of jars, a drawer full of used crayons, and the will to spend your day peeling the wrapper off of the crayons instead of working:

Pencil Holder

It is disturbing enough to think about who would purchase a novelty pencil holder (the dude moves his head, shouts, and moans when you push on the pencil), but then add the fact that this was donated to an arts and education reuse non-profit and your mind just shutters.

Burned by the Molten Lava

We got another one. This time it was green lava in a black lamp. Trip out, brothers and sisters.

Promo-Putty

We are big, big fans of promotional items here at the Junk Store. In fact, the Jammer has collected well over 50 different drug-promo-pens from different pharmaceutical companies over the past few years. But this is a new one:

A couple hundred packages of blue silly putty from the good folks over at Lyris (crack open some fresh ideas with email marketing software). Not quite as cool as if it were from a drug manufacturer, but it'll do. Especially when it all showed up ready to display in egg crates.

I don't know about you, but I got a hankerin' to crack open a fresh idea via email marketing software right about now. Or maybe I'll just throw an eggful of blue goop at a coworker.

"Art Supplies"

Man, there sure is a lot of sorting that needs get done at the Junk Store today. I'll just start by opening this big box here labeled "art supplies" and...

Aaaaaaaaaagggh!

Live Free or Die!

Patriot's Freedom Blanket. New in the bag. If you don't buy this from the Junk Store right now then the terrorists have already won.

Light 'Em Up

This large, handmade sign came in a while ago and we are just so overwhelmed by the whole thing that we still haven't figure out what to do with. It is made from wood and painted plexi and two strings of large xmas light strands. I was sure it wouldn't work but, sure enough, once a few boxes of extra bulbs came in I tested it out and it was 100% good to go. It currently resides in the heap next to the water cooler.

Rip It Up

Obviously, we're always on the lookout for skateboards and skate related merchandise here at the Junk Store. We'll take whatever you got: decks, wheels, brokenbearings, tech decks, toy store crap boards, broken boards, clay wheels, long boards, anything.

A while back on a special afternoon we unloaded two legit skates off the truck....

We've got a well worn but still tip-top cruiser from Black Label, plus a brand new blank deck. Pretty good score. I thought that maybe the skate-donation-Gods were smiling down upon me for a long-run, but we haven't gotten anything skateable since these.

Holier Than Thou

Boo-yeah! Coming straight outta the Holy Land and all up in your grill is the triple threat of religious relics to cleanse your dirty, dirty soul: Pure Olive Oil from the Holyland, Holy Earth from Bethlehem, and a vial of Holy Water from Jordan River to wash it all down. Enjoy these and I'll see you in Hell (from Heaven).

I Love Fisher-Price

You haven't lived until you have simultaneously played the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack on four different Fisher-Price record players.It has been a while since that old-school Junk Store shenanigan, but I'm gonna bring it back starting with this working model #825 Fisher-Price Portable Record Player.
These things are the best. They play at 33 and 45 speed, have a built in 45 hole adapter, 4" internal speaker, and a removable lid. They almost always work. The tan-white-orange color combo was manufactured from 1979 through 1984. From 1985 to 1989 it came in a white-and-blue style.  and now for some links:- First United Church of the Fisher-Price Record Player- awesome T-Shirt illustration- complete Fisher-Price phonograph product list (with photos)- video of Hall & Oats record being played (?!?)

Pass Out

In this amazing and popular board game, players roll and move around a board taking a drink when the board square instructs.

Each time a player passes the 'start' square he must take a 'Pink Elephant' card which contains a tongue twister. If he managers to recite the card three times successfully he gains the card.

The first player to obtain 10 'Pink Elephants' is declared the winner.

A large disclaimer at the end of the rules: "Not intended for use with Alcoholic Beverages."

Hot Dog Tuesdays

By far one of the best developments here at the Junk Store this year was a fresh-off-the-truck donation of a brand new novelty hot dog serving apparatus. Just throw some franks (or veggie dogs) in the boiling water, steam a few buns, open a pack of cheese, chop an onion with a hacksaw, steal some ketchup packets from Jack-in-the-Box, and you have got yourself a gluttonous feast for the ages. 

1400 pages of stolen time

I've decided to make the most of my working hours and read a book from start to finish...

Complete and uncut with 500 extra pages.

Other People's Photos - people standing in front of cars, part 1

Other People's Photos - baby in a box

Other People's Photos - proud moments

Other People's Photos - dinner with the gang

This photo is extra special because it was enlarged up to 8 x 10! These people look like they are having a really great restaurant experience.

Other People's Photos - get high

Other People's Photos - autumn grab bag

Give your thanks to the Junk Gods for donations like this one. A fat sack of vintage other-people's-photos. You just know with a stash this big, there have got to be a few good ones in there. This week, we're going to take a look at a few.
Stay tuned.

Other People's Photos - Happy Halloween

Burns 2008, Oh Fuck Yeah!

While to you this may just be another crappy 45 record from some one-hit wonder from the early 80s, to me this is an early relic of the amazing career of the actor who would go on to play Dr. Peter Burns on the greatest television drama of all times, Melrose Place.

Jack Wagner is known for his role as Frisco Jones on the soap opera General Hospital in the 1980s and 90s. He ascended to god-like status when he was added to the cast of Melrose Place in 1994 as the rival to Thomas Calabro's Michael Mancini. He currently stars as Dominick Marone on The Bold and the Beautiful. He was nominated for two Daytime Emmys (in 1985 and 2005).

Even more impressive, he has recorded five albums on which he sings and plays guitar (the most recently in 2005), and scored a #2 hit on the US pop charts (#1 for two weeks in the Adult Contemporary charts) in early 1985 with his hit song, "All I Need".

This record is the not-so-successful follow-up single, "Premonition". The B-side, "Lady of My Heart" did hit #76 on the US pop charts in the summer of '85.

Check outs: Jack Wagner fan site, Jack-Wagner.com
A Peter Burns sticker I made back in 98
"Did you think I was insane AND stupid?!?"

The music video for "Premonition"!!!

Play on, Players.

A few more bits of video game gear for the archives...
New, in box, Atari 2600 standard joystick...

and a working Gameboy SP with charger and several Pokemon games.
That'll kill some time.

The Trashman Cometh...

I just wanted to give a little shout-out to my buddy Morten Pivelfist, who was the inspiration behind putting Junk Pirate into blog format. He is a garbage man in "the City" and keeps us posted on the wonderful and horrible things people are throwing away in his blog: I Am Throwing Your Life Away. You can find it over at thankyoume.blogspot.com. Being a sanitation worker has got to be one of the hardest jobs out there (the hours alone blow my mind), so show some respect and tip you garbage man.

Fragile

A head made out of glass. Pretty cool. Amazingly, we've had this thing for a few weeks and it still hasn't shattered yet.

I'm Going To Be Sick

Some sick little monkey thought they would be clever and "donate" a chocolate cake to the Junk Store. Normally we welcome donations of food, but I'm going to have to ask that perishables be given in their original packaging. This jerk just dropped this plastic bag on us containing a cake and a cinnamon sticky roll.

The cake-donating-psycho is, in fact, the person known as the Taxman. I don't even have the time to go into this guy's long history of disturbing behavior. Completely unrelated to this cake fiasco, the Taxman has recently been banned from the Junk Store on charges of violent and threatening behavior, abusing his work release terms, wearing strange elbow pads, and generally being the creepiest person I've ever come across. I would not doubt this was a poisoned cake.

Get Blasted

These things are fucking loud.

Tell 'em who you came to see...

While I'll never frown upon a donation like a "We Want Eazy" b/w "Eazyer Said Than Dunn" 45 record, it would have been even better if the actual record was in the sleeve. Until then, we can at least admire Eazy's Eight Ball Posse jacket.

"We Want Eazy" was a single by Eazy-E featuring fellow N.W.A members Dr. Dre and MC Ren from his 1988 debut album, Eazy-Duz-It. The song was produced by Dr. Dre and DJ Yella. "We Want Eazy" appeared on his greatest hits, Eternal E. A 12-inch remix of this song was released as a single and appeared on rappers posthumous compilation, Featuring…Eazy-E.

More Great Finds

Some decent items from the past couple of weeks....
Vintage? Maybe. Wind-Up? Absolutely.
Repro vintage plastic bunny wind-up.
Speaking of plastic bunnies.
Mini walking robot that holds it's own wind-up key. Amazingly, the wind-up hole also serves as a twisty-style pencil sharpener and the shavings collect in the robot's head!
Speaking of pencil sharpeners, here's another one for the collection.

And speaking of "another one for the collection"...

Light 'Em Up

Not one, not two, not three, but four, count 'em, four awesome butane lighters coming in from a single hip donation. I tell you, folks in their mid-thirties that are moving and just cleaning out their drawers give up some of the best bits.

Here we have (from left to right), the "heart lock" that lights up, the "full house" that lights when you spread the cards, the "ass", which I guess is supposed to be sexy but really is just strange, and "the stripper", the best one, with light up nipples. 

PS3 game!

Hell, I would've settled for a lousy Playstation One game, but then the Jammer's eagle eyes spotted a mint condition copy of Rock Band for PS3 in the Education Section. I think you need all the guitar controllers and everything to actually play this game, but it is still pretty exciting to have a next generation video game come into the junk store. 

I honestly think this was donated by mistake. Tough shit, sucker. It's ours now.

Bear Booze

The donor of this beautiful bear bottle full of whiskey claimed it was "at least a hundred years old". Well, the 1977 date stamped onto the bottom suggests it might be not quite so antique. Still, a 9-year-old whiskey from 31 years gives us forty years of smokey whiskey flavor to enjoy. That'll get your motor running.

I'm gonna have to go ahead and ask you to come in Sunday as well. That would be great. MmKay.

A talking Milton Waddams bobble-head (actually, it's a bobble-waist) figure from Office Space. Push the button at his feet and the voice of Bill Lumberg (?) tell you he's gonna need you to come in on Saturday. This video I found shows a similar figure with Milton's voice.

In related news, we have recently been gifted a red Swingline. 

Part of the original Mike Judge animation that is the basis for Office Space.

Best Typewriter Ever?

We just may have a new front runner for the race of the best typewriter donation of all time:

That's right! It's the typewriter that types in cursive! Amazing.

Rock In - Rock On - Rock Over -Rock Out

This little Yamaha wooden combo amp just needed a little love and we were throwing down tasty licks by the end of the work day.

Print Gocco!!!!

Many moons ago, the Jammer spotted and laid claim to a brand new Riso Print Gocco B6 printing machine. New, in the box, all wrapped up, with inks and bulbs and screens and all that. It was a once-in-a-lifetime score. I'm sure he broke it or lost it or sold it for a bag of magic beans or something.

Then, earlier this year, the fates tossed me a bone and I pulled my own Gocco from the heap. I already own one, but if you think I'm letting this baby pass by then you don't know how we do it in the sorting room. This Gocco was yellow (mine is pale blue), in the box, with a few old screens and bulbs that probably don't work. Still a very, very amazing score. 

If you aren't familiar with the Gocco printing machines, they are basically an awesome mini toy screenprinting device from Japan. It can expose the light-sensitive screens and print with the same unit, and because it prints using downward pressure rather than a cross-screen squeegee pull, you can print multiple colors at once.

In recent years, the Japanese manufacturers of Gocco have discontinued the printing products, sending used Gocco printers and supplies through the roof on ebay. I think I'm going to send this one to an artist friend in Philadelphia. 

Link: the Save Gocco website

Now It Belongs To The Ages

We get a lot of art here at the junk store. Some of it is so bad that it is good. Most of it is so bad that it remains bad. However, this poodle painting, clearly, is fantastic.


Unsigned. No date. 

The old Pen Dispenser

A vintage dispenser of pens. Amazingly, there were still a few old pens lodged in there. Not amazingly, there was also a ton of dust, rust, grime, and mold. It is was manufactured by Jammer Corp! Well, Jamer Corp, anyway, but close enough.

life-size game of Jenga

We like to stack heavy cardboard boxes floor to ceiling. Some of the boxes are half-empty (hopefully those at the bottom). When things get precarious we secure the boxes with scotch tape. Top Cat and Big Merl almost got buried in an avalanche of cardboard and fabric scraps when this big boy took a tumble. I have to say it was well worth the risks.

another day, another pencil sharpener

If you are a big fan of my previous post about hand-cranked pencil sharpeners (see it here), not only are you in luck, you are also a big loser. It's just another wall-mountable pencil sharpener... get over it.

Monkey News

Two different styles of wind-up monkey toys came in just a few hours apart. Wind-ups are definitely a new collection that is happening. You gather 30 or 40 different wind-ups (preferably stored in a large glass jar), crank 'em up, set 'em loose, and you got yourself a party.

Spirograph

Get ready to have your mind fucking blown...

and if you liked the "Magic Graphic" kit, we've got a bonus generic "Spiral Art" for you...

Another collection of Spirographs can be found here.

NES with Super Mario

A Nintendo Entertainment System, with one controller, and the Super Mario Bros. / Duck Hunt cartridge...

The awesome looks-like-a-monitor-but-is-really-a-tv was purchased by The Jammer for $10 at the competing junk store down the street. You just can't beat a value like that. 

And what's really amazing about this find is that the game worked right away when we put the cartridge in. And, as anybody who still has an old NES around (or has used one in the past 20 years) knows, you usually have to blow on the game and click it around in the system for about 10 minutes before it works properly.

Junk Pirate Archive: Star Trek TV Tray

It has been a pretty slow week as far as blog-worthy donations go, so I'm gonna dig into the vault for a little something...

From the Junk Pirate Archives: 

Someone donated a near-mint Star Trek the Motion Picture tin TV tray featuring that lovable Mr. Spock... highly illogical.

Game & Watch: Bombsweeper

Long before Nintendo reinvented itself with the Wii and the Nintendo DS handheld, and even before the greatest selling video game system of all time, Gameboy, was created, Nintendo dominated the handheld video game world with its series of LCD screened Game-&-Watch games. These simple games are still fun and usually work if there isn't corrosion in the battery compartment. 

What we have here is one of my favorites: Bombsweeper from 1987. Recently, but before this blog was started, we also got in Multi Screen Zelda (1989) and Multi Screen Black Jack (1985) (in the original box)! Also in the Junk Pirate vault are Donkey Kong, Donkey Kong II, and the amazing Donkey Kong 3 Micro Vs. System (in the box) with little controllers that fold inside the game. A very regularly updated Game & Watch website with every game in the edition, can be found here. You can play an online Java version of Game & Watch Bombsweeper here.

Madballs!

After years of waiting and concentrating on manifesting it, I finally spotted an old Madball among a big bin of musty toys. It is Screaming Meemie, from the original Series One Toys by AmToy from 1985. This is in excellent condition considering it is 23 years old and made of foam rubber.

Madballs went through two series of 8 balls each, plus a series of 4 larger sports balls (called Super Madballs). They later spawned a comic book, a few cartoon episodes, and other toy products. The New York hardcore band, Madball, was, in fact, named after Madballs toys. A redesigned series of Madballs updates have recently been available in toy stores.

Madballs commercial from 1985

Madballs cartoon: Escape from Orb (part 1)

3 Lava Lamps in 1 week

We just got 3 (three) lava lamps in 3 non-consecutive days this past week. Two of them came form the same donation. The lights in all three worked, but only the red-and-black one got the molten lava flowing good. Not the biggest collection of Lava Lamps (one of the original "Plug-Ins") we have seen, but a good haul for one week.

Other People's Photos - taxi

The extreme Junk Pirate value of this photo is obvious at a glance.

Freedom Is Not Free

"Oh beautiful, for spacious skies, for amber waves of grain..."

Junk Pirate Archive: Dolls

From the Junk Pirate Archive come these pictures of a few of the better mint-in-box dolls we've seen. You got the Trailer Trash doll and the Drag Queen doll (both 1st Edition!) .

The link I used to have for these toys (trailertrashdoll.com) now leads to the "Redneck Warehouse" where you can get such favorites as the "Vintage Jeff Foxworthy Redneck Collection" and "Dancing George Bush Doll". God bless America.

the Odyssey 300

Holy crap! It's a 1976 Magnavox Odyssey 300, one of the first home video game systems to use a single dedicated microchip. It plays 3 games: Smash, Tennis, and Hockey (basically three versions of Pong) all with the use of only two knobs (instead of six like the Odyssey 200). Ralph Baer and Magnavox (the creators of the original home video game system, the Odyssey, in 1972) would go on to make several other Odyssey versions, plus even more versions only available in the international market.

This specimen comes in amazingly good condition for a 36 year-old machine, with the power cord, in the original box (with some of the original packing styrofoam)! Who knows if it works, and who cares. These systems are sleek and gorgeous and look better on the shelf than in use.

We have gotten some great old gaming systems here in the past: Atari 2600, Nintendo Entertainment Systems, a boatload of Sega Genesis, Coleco, and even an Intellivision, but I think the Odyssey 300 is the best score of them all so far.

You can see all the Odyssey systems at the pong-story website here.

Vintage Pencil Sharpeners

Old office supplies are the best.

Back in the day, stuff was made from hardwood and steel. These pencil sharpeners are many, many years older than me yet they still work better than any mamby-pamby, battery-powered electric ones they make today do. With a little elbow grease you could grind a new pencil down to a sharp nub in under 30 seconds. No classroom or art studio should be without one of these. Plus, once you get three variations of a similar thing happening you call it a collection and let the hoarding begin!

I especially love how there are variable hole sizes, in case of the rare instance when you need to sharpen one of those extra thick pencils.

Skull Mug

File this one under the heading Cool Mugs and Drinking Glasses That Are Shaped Like Things:

It's a pirate skull mug.

Pretty big, too. It probably holds about a pint and a half of grog. Maybe more. The fact that it is glass and not ceramic adds a couple of bonus points.

WorldWarOner

I forgot another important category of Junk Pirate donation treasure... weapons! Be it BB guns, machetes, switchblades, ninja stars, bullets, pepper spray, or just a good old fashioned broadsword, weapons always make good donations. You can never have too many instruments of death around in a pinch. Hell, even toys weapons are pretty cool, especially the old kind of water pistols that look pretty real before the law was passed that made them all have neon colors. Here is a picture from the old Junk Pirate archives of one of the many incarnations of the Junk Store Arsenal:

While this donation isn't exactly a weapon, it still qualifies as far as I'm concerned. An authentic wooden ammo-box that housed a World War One missile. Ka-boom!

Booze

No big deal. We got a couple bottles of wine products the other day. They both look WAY past their prime. We'll see if any of the crew is brave (or desperate) enough to step up to the plate with these bad boys.

Holy Water

Not one but two bottles of Holy Water from France.

Aaaaaaagh! It burns!

Simpsons Dice

Two new additions to the recent resurrection of the dice collection. These are both from different packagings of the Simpsons Trivia Game. There must be a dozen different packaging variations of this game, and apparently some are more classy than others.

On the left we have what is no more than a blank plastic cube with some little stickers on it. On the right we have the real deal, with boldly printed images of Chief Wiggum, Bart, Mr. Burns, Krusty, Moe, and Apu right on the plastic.

The Ravages of Aging as seen through note pads

Here we have five different note pads from Real Estate Agent V. Rodriguez (Your Neighborhood Professional). You can see get older in each one. My favorite is the one with her chilling with the "sold" signage.

Drink Beer - Make Plane

Another great piece of beer can art: a Budweiser airplane with bottle cap landing gear and a huge propeller that really spins!

This isn't even the first beer-can-plane we've gotten. It isn't even the second. In this classic image of the Giant Foam Head from the Junk Pirate archives we can see a couple of Fosters can-planes on the left. There were also others I didn't get pictures of. Drink beer and get creative, people.

I Want Your Skull, I Need Your Skull

While animal bones and skulls certainly are not a daily donation, they aren't nearly as rare as they probably should be. I'd say we get a skull or two in about three times a year. This is a pretty good haul for one box. Nice variety here.

We also get other bones, teeth, claws, and shedded snake skins now and then. We've gotten two horse skulls on separate occasions (one just appeared when no one was looking), and the greatest donation of all time was a skull... a human skull. I shit you not. That is whole different and crazy story. Here is an older pic from the Junk Pirate archives of the old bone drawer:

Skate to Create

What is so great about these two remote control "Extreme Skateboard" toys is that they came in with two separate donations about 5 days apart. The Jammer scrounged around for an hour to come up with six double-As and a 9-volt to get one of them running (7 batteries for just one of these things!!!) and all it could do were a couple of 360-spinners. We tried to make a little roll-in ramp but the skater just fell over... just like in real life. Extreme indeed.

Bottle-O-Bees

Did you know that the worldwide population of honey bees is dramatically disappearing? What is happening? Where are they going? What is driving them away? The mystery got even deeper when this bottle of dead bees showed up:

Actually, the donation was really just a crusty box of dead bees, but we put 'em in a bottle, cuz, you know, everything looks better in a bottle.
I tell you what, if you want to make your whack-ass collection of garbage stand out in the heap, put that shit in a glass bottle or jar. Putting stuff in jars took my Junk Pirate lifestyle to a whole new level.

I'm Coming Up So You Better Get This Party Started

So, being a Junk Pirate is basically about sorting through donations at the junk store all day. A good deal of the donations are straight-up garbage, and then the rest are sorted into reusable categories like books or toys or clothes or furniture and so on forever. But, from time to time, a real bit of junk pirate gold comes in. The Junk Pirate zine (and book) takes photocopies of all the cool images and photos and stuff and compiles them for fun and profit (believe me, there is no profit). So now this blog can fill you in on all the great finds that aren't really xerox-able. So as long as somebody is occasionally donating batteries from the digital camera, I'm hoping to update this blog regularly with the goods.

I've found it helps to get me through the working day to try to find an "item of the day". Sometimes it is clear what rules, sometimes I just have to pick the best from the pile of crap. The best items fall under a few categories:

• Stuff I need: not really interesting stuff, but something I've wanted or needed. Like, I could use a new wallet... and here is a new wallet.
• Stuff that looks cool: like a funny drawing, a cool poster, or a lava lamp.
• Stuff that is worth money: this rarely happens, but sometimes we get something genuinely valuable in the real world.
• Stuff that is old: vintage board games or stuff like that. This is more of a sub-category of things that looks cool.
• Food, drinks, or drugs: I think these items speak for themselves.
  
• Collections of stuff: show me one wind-up toy and you got garbage, show me two and you got some fun, show me 3 dozen and we have a winner
• Stuff that makes you think "what kind of fucking insane person would donate this to a thrift store?!?". This is the best stuff. Be it a dildo, a box of teeth, or a rotten bag of apples. Not something to keep, but well worth taking a photo of and posting it on a blog.

That is mostly how it works. Except there are lots of other fun bits and ways to goof off that might also get included. Realistically, I don't think I'm up for actually posting a new blog every day with some item, but I'll try to stay on it. Most likely you'll get about 4 postings happening all at once every week or so.

And if you think you know the thrift store I work at and who I am, just pretend you don't. It will be better for everybody involved this way.

Abandon All Hope Ye Who Enter

It's the Junk Pirate blog! Here ye can see the hand-picked treasures from the ever evolving heap o donations at the Junk Store. Armed with me trusty lads, the Junk Pirate team, and me digital camera, I plan to bring the pain and pleasure of the wildest, strangest, stomach churning-est, and downright awesome bits and pieces to you on a somewhat regular basis. If ye like what ye sees on this blog, buy the Junk Pirate book or zines! Leave ye comments below. Donate regularly to yer local thrift stores. Always recycle. Bookmark the blog. Never retreat. Never surrender. Arrrrrrr!