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 (AKA The Junk Pirate), 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 wrappers 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 (which has never been donated).    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
"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.

Update from the future: Looks like this blog has been neglected, despite my awesome promotional efforts. Dude still leaves images of "trash captures" on his Instagram account, but you'll have to sift through hundreds of daily pictures of his kids to find those. Maybe do a hashtag search for "#trashcapture" or something. 
Or don't, I don't care. Leave me alone.

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.

Damn you, EMI!

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.