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:

Wow, looks like the Bono autograph that I embedded from another host got removed as well. Cher is spinning in her grave.
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! The rotting corpse of Upcycled Homer Simpson

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

The rotting corpse of Homer Simpson:

sip-sip-bang - the children's Gun Mug

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 a 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. Still, in the unlikely event that I'm being interviewed in a skating context and somebody asks me about my first skateboard, I'm gonna have to tell the truth: "Heat Zone".

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, Colorburst 100

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

Oh yeah. The Kodak Colorburst 100. This camera doesn't have a flash built in so you had to mount 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

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: One Step Express

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: One Step x 2

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

One Step forward, two steps back.

Roid Rage 3: Spectra SE

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: Kodak Trimprint 920

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.