Dec 31, 2012

Signs of the Times - a look forward and a glance back


Welp, another year is in the books and I thank you for allowing me to share all the fantastic and sickening junk that has passed through my dry and rashy hands this past year.

This is the post where I'd like to give a clever and slightly veiled shout-out to all the good and bad things that took place in the Junk Store these past 12 months (damn you, Sausage Fingers!), but it is becoming a giant blur of exciting garbage, daily frustrations, and treasures-to-trash and I can't remember what happened when.
I fail to document more than half of it, I'm just about over a lot of it, and I wonder why the book deals and Hollywood executives with their big checks for my story options aren't knocking on my door yet. I blame everybody but myself.

Yet I'm resolved to get back up off the sorting room floor and redouble my efforts to get the zaniest shit up on the web (and perhaps into my home) regardless of how many health and safety codes I have to violate. This next year is going to be great and we're all going to get junk drunk on a regular basis! We don't need money or health cuz we've got hundreds of photos a weird collectable shit.

Like I've always said, there is no problem to daunting that we can roll up our sleeves, dig in our heels, and completely ignore.

So, if you have some time this afternoon, or maybe in the early morning and there isn't anything on tv, you can take a moment to check out the Junk Pirate Artwork Archive. Or maybe you haven't strolled through the Donation Hall of Fame yet. Perhaps peruse through the 450 older posts, and if you see something you like (or hate), leave a comment. Why not browse by category? And if you write a blog of your own, throw a link my way.

Or just sit there and enjoy some of these Signs of the Times from the Junk Store's past.
See you next year!







Dec 30, 2012

We ban the fake guns, and keep the fucking real ones!


I only made one piece of Junk Pirate art this whole year, but it's packs a lot of firepower.

Dec 25, 2012

Scary Christmas... and a Happy New Fear


In case last year's Holiday Nightmare didn't convine you to be nice, here is a different take of the Santa that ate your younger brother's soul.

click to enlarge

Dec 23, 2012

Here's Holiday Cheer


And old photo of an old (year-round) decoration from the old Junk Pirate Archives.

Dec 16, 2012

Food Drive: Haggis

We're having a food drive right now at the Junk Store (because we care) and some sadistic asshole donated this.

Dec 12, 2012

Time for Beer


It's always time for beer.
On a related note, check out this Hamm's Bear Bear watch. But it isn't a watch, it's actually a big wall clock shaped like an oversized wrist watch.
I guess I should've taken a photo with something else in there for size comparison. Looking at this photo is totally just looks like a watch. Not a that a Hamm's Beer Bear watch wouldn't be cool.

Dec 8, 2012

Promotional Sperm Comes Again


Another addition to a Donation Hall of Fame recognized collection (Best Promo Item): the squishy stress ball foam novelty sperms. A whole box of 'em.
We got these straight from the squishy foam promo novelty item factory. They were leftovers from some other job and they didn't have some company logo printed on them yet.

Because nothing plants seeds about your company, product, or event like a humorously oversized spermatozoa.

See for yourself:



Also, jiz, cum, and ejaculate.

Dec 1, 2012

No Cash Value


Just a small sampling of the multitude of coinage in the Junk Pirate Arcade Token Collection.

Nov 23, 2012

Let Me Stand Next To Your Fire

It's always good to have a leaky, vintage Flame Sprayer nearby for such common Junk Store tasks as:

Thawing Train Switches

Burning Rubbish

and Disinfecting Poultry Houses

Nov 21, 2012

Rise From Your Grave

 Holy shit! Sega Genesis game system complete in the box, with extra games and a second controller (cause Sega only package one controller with their system)!


This one is even from the pre-Sonic days when it was bundled with Altered Beast! It's donations like this that make the hundreds of hours of sorting disgusting used food packaging worth it.

"Welcome To Your Doom"


Nov 19, 2012

Nov 16, 2012

Mr. Peanut visits the Junk Store

One of the greatest vintage screenprinted boxes of all time.


It's your boy Mr. P-Nut.

Nov 11, 2012

Oct 31, 2012

Spooky the Reuse Ghost

Happy Hallowe'en


An all-time favorite reuse art project finally gets it's time to shine. It's Spooky, the Reuse Ghost.

Made from wire, a styrofoam ball, some google eyes, and stretchy fabric, this Halloween ornament was a favorite of ours. It kicked around the Junk Store for many months, repeatedly going missing and then being found on the floor somewhere in increasingly more dilapidated and dirty condition. I haven't seen Spooky in many years, but we'll always remember him fondly.

Oct 29, 2012

Spider-Mania vs. Horror Reptiles

Halloween is coming, so get out those cheap ass Junk Store via Dollar Store decorations...

This "Spider-Mania" package should be celebrated all year round. That crazy hag in the big blue t-shirt is just so awesome! Is she caught in a big spider web, or is she queen of the spiders?

I don't want to get a technical here, but I do believe that spiders are in fact arachnids and not reptiles. Either way, I am now referring to all spiders, nay, all spiders and insects as "Horror Reptiles".  I encourage you to do the same.

Oct 24, 2012

Junk Pirate Art Installations: Dark Side of the Window

If you're in the neighborhood, take a stroll down 40th and check out the latest window display at the Junk Pirate Headquarters. 


This psychedelic keyboard supertrip is as over as the summer of love, but since you didn't get to groove on it while it was happening (and even if you did), here it is. I was there, Man.

Oct 19, 2012

Viva La Tienda Basura


A delightful junk store painting of what appears to be Che Guevara neck deep in flames, perhaps burning in hell.

They might tell you to learn to paint, but I say "Fight the power, Man."

Oct 9, 2012

Ticket To Ride

The Jammer recently came up on a fat sack of partially used BART train tickets.

With remaining balances of anywhere from .15 cents to nearly 5.00 bucks on each ticket, we're talking a total value of several hundo once consolidated!

Score!

Update: The jokes on us. The Jammer went deep into the bowels of BART to find that office that will consolidate your tickets only to discover there is not a cent on any of them. 

Oct 1, 2012

Cock O' The Walk


This animation cell from came framed under glass, and the donators said that when they attempted to get it restored, some charlatan actually ruined it, so now they were donating it to us.
I looked at animation cell and could immediately tell that is was the back of the cell that was being displayed under the matt. Hand drawn animations are colored from the back so it just was all color fills without any of the details or outlines. I opened the frame and flipped it and here you go:


You can see that the restorer did do a shit job, but mainly just the yellowing and fading on the chicken girl's white fill. Otherwise this is an awesome piece of rare Depression-era Disney animation.
Thousands of these hand drawn and hand colored cells were created for every animation from that era. Nearly all of these cells (perhaps except from some of the popular feature films, and even then) got destroyed.


A little research (aka reading the back of the frame and then doing an internet search) revealed that this is a cell from Disney's "Cock O' The Walk", a Silly Symphony from 1935. It's on youtube, embedded at the top of this post.

Sep 29, 2012

Knight Rider Board Game


This 1982 Parker Brothers gem comes to you complete.
Best opening theme in television history:

Sep 20, 2012

Libros de Educacion


Loving the screenprinted covers of these Spanish language educational books.
If you want more awesomeness on your phone on the regular, follow my Instagram account at "thejunkpirate".

Sep 17, 2012

Space: 1999 - The Moistener(?)


The past never seemed so futuristic.

No idea what this thing is supposed to be. It's like a ink pad without the ink. I guess it is a promo moistener. That makes no sense.

Sep 15, 2012

...or Hardly Working

If the customers we serve wanted me to get off my ass and help with with their donations and questions and such, then they shouldn't donate working portable DVD players.


Sep 14, 2012

Quadraphonic Masterpiece


Introducing: the most awesome portable cassette stereo you have ever seen.

Sep 7, 2012

Nothing But The Code

Anybody who has had the privilege a glancing into the Black Out Closet of the Sorting Room this past year or so could not have ignored the shelves and shelves dedicated to hoarding a particular book... the most commonly donated junk store book there is...


Oh yeah, we've assembled nearly 100 copies of The Da Vinci Code in a little over a year. Welcome to the secret society dedicated to the protecting the sacred knowledge of the Junk Store.


No less than six different versions of Da Code. Two sizes of hardcover, and four unique paperbacks. These are all American releases. 


If reading hurts your brain, you can still follow the adventures of Robert Langdon via audio book. Three version on cassette, plus a CD pack.


Plus books about The Da Vinci Code. The Da Vinci Code Decoded (also in audiobook form), and a Christian book all about how the theories brought forth in this work of fiction are, in fact, bullshit. Take that Dan Brown.


10 different Da Vinci Codes in all (plus the books about The Code). With a new copy or two (usually of the hardcover or smallest paperback) being donated every week, we are up to our armpits here. And now you can be too...

Nothing But The Code, a Junk Pirate window installation, is happening at Book Zoo in Oakland starting on Friday September 7th (why, that's tonight!) and on view until Sunday, or while supplies last.
Mandatory FREE copy of The Code with any purchase all weekend.

Join me tonight around 7pm while we project the Ron Howard film version and drink beer while trying to plot how to wipe out that evil Priory of Scion... or are we trying to protect the Priory?
I really should read this book someday.