Reflections of 2011, plus the middle finger

Happy New Year from Junk Pirate and the entire Junk Store crew. 

2011 was chock full of fun donations, crap donations, inappropriate donations, overflowing dumpsters, additional middle managers, sassy coworkers and the negative yelp reviews they spawned, bizarre head lice accusations, superball obsessed volunteers, rats' nests redefining the term "Shreducational", free coffee hook-ups, out-of-control hoarding, one new Junk Pirate artwork, no new Junk Pirate zines, the departure of Top Cat, the inland banishment of Big Merl, the return of evil Sausage Fingers, the discover of the no-limits money grab for "admin" work, a Womyn's sale that no one understood, Soap-Wrapping special events that no one noticed, Terry Treats forever, and two really confused and frighteningly unprepared armed robbers.

Coming up in 2012... more of the same (hopefully minus the robbery), plus undoubtedly lots of unexpected surprises. 

Please, please, please subscribe to the blog feed and throw down a few comments here and there in the coming year. It really makes this all worthwhile to know you all are even slightly entertained.

Magical Musical Moments

Instruments of the future from the past.


By Mattel.

Scary Christmas

Uncanny X-Mas

I regret not stealing this shiny green vintage tinsel-tree back when I had the opportunity in 2007. Now every holiday season is just a tinsel-treeless reminder of what could have been.

Donation Proclamations Now Created Via Mobile Application

Thanks to a new "app" that appears to actually sort of work, I now have the ability to publish astounding Junk Store images and clever banter to this blog from my "smart" telephone while "on the clock". *

This should result in about, oh, let's say 15% more posts featuring about 65% less selectiveness of content.

 *This specific post, however, was not made using the Blogger app.

Home of the Braids

While we do get a lot of "tumbleweave" blowing through the sorting room on a regular basis, I do believe this to be an authentic human hair braid. Uggh.

All these hair donations are giving me authentic dry heaves. 

Gimme A Blog With Hair

Long disgusting hair
Shining, Gleaming
Stinking, Flaxen, Waxen

Jar it, Show it
Long as someone donated 
their Hair

Junk Pirate Art: Showercap

An all-time classic piece of Junk Pirate Found Art. A beautifully stylized, all red instructional illustration for use of what looks like a plastic bag helmet you wear in the shower.

Erectile Dysfunction

If this blog post gives you an erection lasting more than four hours, seek immediate medical attention.

If you need help determining how long four hours is, seek immediate Viagra promotional clock, which has a four hour duration marked out in translucent blue. 

If you find yourself still unsatisfied even after viewing the above Viagra promo clock image, seek these other excellent pharmo-freebies: the Viagra / Major League Baseball plastic mug ("I take Viagra." -Rafael Palmeiro) and a bonus Viagra pen.

Drum Solo

While I may be underwhelmed by the glut of donated crap guitars (see yesterday's post), I'm still pretty stoked to see some actual, man-sized drum gear. We never have any real drumsticks when we need them, so give me a couple a pencils and watch me get Gene Krupa on this bad boy.

Inversely...

Sweet Emotion

Honestly, we get so many guitars these days that I don't even get excited. If I have to hear my coworker's inept attempts to play Johnny Cash tunes one more time it's smashing time.

Ahhh, the life of a jaded junk store sorter...

And don't even get me going about these Guitar Hero and Rock Band guitar controllers. Apparently, no one is feeling the need to pretend-play along with Aerosmith's Sweet Emotion anymore.

Stop the Music!

A recently donated audio cassette came fully equipped with an orange, plastic "Stopper".
First off, check out the awesome, clear-green, 3M Highlander blank tape!
Now that we've properly recognized that, we can turn our attention to the Stopper. What the hell?!? Why would you need a physical barrier to stop your cassette. Was "reel spin" a big problem when cassettes are stored or transported.
I can't seem to find any information on the subject online.

Instajunk

If you are currently using a "smart" phone, specifically one made by Apple, you now have the option of "following" me as I post near-daily images from deep within the "secret" sorting structures of the "Junk Store". Just set-up the "Instragram" app (it's free), and add me, "thejunkpirate".
Apparently, you can only participate through the iphone app, not online, so get to it. Here is a sampling of some of the mysterious and downright nutty images you have been missing:

Of course, I'll continue to update the Tales From the Junk Store Blog regularly with more outlandish donations and cryptic anecdotes, but now you can also get you daily dose of oddball items in the palm of your hand. The future is here.

Spicy

A couple of recent Pepper Spray donations. 

It's always good to have a few of these on hand in case some of the more elderly donators get a little to rambunctious when they ask for a "senior's discount".

Or maybe a few of these Crusters decide to "occupy" the Sewing/Fabric section. A few spritzes of MK-6C will thin out there ranks.  

Artist Speeial Brush

Masterpieces

I don't know who this enigmatic modern painting master with the singular name of "Owen" is, but I do know there will never, NEVER be a better rendering of the Pretenders, ever.

Hag-tion Figure

Welp. It's finally happened.
A Craft Hag action figure.

Complete with lavender shirt, jangley jewelry, hag-bag, perma-frown, and messy grey hair.

Now all they need to do is make the deluxe 12" figure with authentic "reek-of-perfume" scent, removable-hag jacket, and pre-programed sound clips like "You're measuring the fabric all wrong!", and "You're prices used to be much cheaper."
Tan Volvo or light blue Prius sold separately.

Dialing While Intoxicated

It's the Jim Beam (or in this case, simply "Beam") 1928 French Cradle Telephone...
filled with 750 ml of 80-proof sweet brown. Aged to perfection since 1979, they heyday of bootles shaped like other objects.

Rush Order

Human Blood box (made of paperboard) for when it absolutely must get there by the end of the week. Personally, I usually ship my blood via media mail rate, so I can save some money.

Digital Music Players of Long Ago

This 19th century iPod showed up (complete with firewire connection) a while back and, low-and-behold, my computer is ancient enough to be compatible. So I loaded it up with all my favorite dinosaur rock classics (a whopping 2 gigs worth), ran it into the stereo through a cassette adapter, and now I'm rocking Mississippi Queen on repeat non-stop. 

The Graveyard

Let us unearth some more recent (or, actually, these are from a while ago and I'm just not posting things very rapidly these days) carnage...

Honestly, these are, like, just a fraction of the bone / skull / insect genre of donation that were getting. I rarely even bother to take pictures of them anymore.

Shello

Not as exciting when compared to some of these other taxidermy, bug, and bone donations, but still pretty odd when taken within it's thrift store context is this:

The Bear Over There

With this obvious exception, I think this "little" bear sits atop of the heap of taxidermy donations.

It was about 24 inches tall, came with a note that it is from Colorado, and sold within minutes of hitting the sales floor for more than $300.

Tony

Bam- You just got reprogramed, bitch!

Fish Heads Fish Heads

Another normal donation.

Buggin' Out