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.