Dan Burley : An African-American popular culture hero

OBIT OF DAN BURLEY FROM JET MAGAZINE NOVEMBER 8, 1962 SADLY OMITS DUKE MAGAZINE

Dan Burley is the most famous folk you never heard of. Why? Because he was an African-American man. Sorry, but that's just the way it was. (Is?) If you did a six degrees of separation chart for Dan Burley, it would include everyone of any importance in the music and publishing world, but yet again I'll ask. Do you know who Dan Burley was?

Well, let's see...He appeared in films with Duke Ellington, Billie Holiday and Louis Armstrong. He wrote music for Cab Calloway. In fact, one can trace his own piano playing right to the Beatles song Lady Madonna. Are you humming that piano run in your head yet? Thank Dan Burley.

Some people can do more than play. Burley was editor of Ebony Magazine way back in the 1930s. He married the first African-American woman to sing in Madison Square Garden. He invented the word Bebop, reportedly, and also created the Harlem Handbook of Jive. I mean, get HEP!
During World War Two, the USO show he organized was the black version of Bob Hope's entertainment for the troops.

He wrote for Elijah Muhammad.

He helped create Jet Magazine

He was personal friends with Ed Sullivan. NO ONE was friends with Ed Sullivan!

He had a radio show. No, he had TWO radio shows.

More importantly for our purposes here...Dan Burley published a GIRLY MAGAZINE!

He published the first serious African-American Men's magazine with sisters posing! DUKE! 1957. That's right...A skin mag with class and Beautiful Black Babes (Not to mention the writing of Chester Himes.) It was a high-fashion lifestyle magazine for the African-American man, a Playboy magazine for the Hood! As such, it SHOULD end my ten-part series on the African-American pin up and should also goose a real writer into a serious biography.

If you search Dan Burley, you'll find him identified as a sports writer. A Journalist. A Jazz Musician. A Poet. And yet he only lived 54 years. His Wiki Biography (which also omits his smut magazine) is HERE

Unfortunately, Duke Magazine lived for only six issues.

There's a few other interesting stories I'm leaving out...but it seems like a pretty high life.

Vintage Marvel Comic Book Covers recreated by an Anonymous Artist. Avengers Number One and Tales of Suspense Number 39

An ardent fan hand draws two legendary Marvel comic book covers! Shown here are The Avengers issue one 1963 and Tales of Suspense number 39. Faithful but quirky! These were purchased at an auction in the 1970s and saved for nearly 50 years. Shown here with the now pricy original covers. This enthusiasm for the early Marvel characters certainly led to the billion dollar empire today. Pair of amateur comic book covers, anonymous. Circa 1965 - 1970. Each 6" x 9" Collection Jim Linderman Dull Tool Dim Bulb

Unusual Polaroid Salesman Sample Photograph

Unusual Polaroid Salesman Sample Photograph c. 1947 - 1950 Collection Jim Linderman

Vintage Wooden Matchbox collection c. 1926

Selected pages from aVintage Wooden Matchbox collection c. 1926 Collection Jim Linderman

Art of the Homemade Flip Book

Three primitive "flip book" drawings unstapled for your pleasure. Anonymous, circa 1960. The unknown cartoonist created these 4 page sequential gag cartoons to show motion. Well, he tried. Anonymous homemade flip books, c. 1960 Collection Dull Tool Dim Bulb

An African-American Calling Card in Calligraphy Mance McDaniel Plantation Entertainer?

Elegant and a bit odd, what appears to be the calligraphic calling card of a 19th century performer. The name is certainly an unusual font. Mance McDaniel was a "Singin, and Dansing Comeden" and someone has written "plantation show" on the reverse of the card in pencil. I haven't found anything but maybe some of you deep divers into data will find something for me. I did find a reference that the name "Mance" has been derived from "emancipation" at times, so this could be an old time musicianer who entertained sometime around then? 19th Century Calling Card. Collection Jim Linderman

Antique American Folk Art Button Table Mat

A somewhat obsessive table mat with over 1,000 individually sewn buttons, circa 1940. 18" x 30" with irregular patterns. The piece is sewn over thin cardboard mailed from Sears to Maine...and an old spaghetti box! Hand-sewn folk art button collection sewn on a table mat. Circa 1940. Collection Jim Linderman Dull Tool Dim Bulb

Andy Warhol "Limited Edition Prints" by the USPS and Fred Collins

Two limited edition prints here. One is a limited edition print of sorts (a United States postage stamp) affixed to another print on an envelope. It is an individually hand-painted print mailed on the first day of issue for the Warhol stamp used to mail it. August 9, 2002. 

For some bizarre reason, it was reported the Warhol 37 cent stamp was unveiled at the Gagosian Galllery on Madison avenue. WHAT? Jeez, I wonder if "Go Go" had any Warhol works in the back room? Gauche! 

Fortunately another source says the stamp was first presented at the Andy Warhol Museum where it most certainly belonged. The stamp was originally a photo booth portrait, and it appears the Warhol Museum owns the original. It was actually a passport photo from the 1960s. The artist first made his own prints of the image in 1964 which were sold for "a few hundred dollars." A later edition (The Red Series) from 1965 were apparently given away. Read the story of one disputed print HERE in the Daily Mail. The average print run of a United States commemorative stamp is around 50 million. That is a lot of tiny Warhol works, but still limited. The annual limited edition Christmas stamps double that number and then some. 

How many were mailed on special envelopes like this one? Only Fred Collins knows. Mr. Collins made his living creating and selling first day covers. His website currently shows one available for $12.95, which seems quite fair considering it was painted by hand. The stamp carried a 37 cent face value and still does. It isn't a "forever" stamp, but is forever worth exactly 37 cents worth of postage. Didn't even change over the last eighteen years of economic turmoil. Or whatever. I don't know if Mr. Collins work fluctuates. Collins seems to have escaped any validation from the art world…but among "first day cover" collectors he is highly regarded.

The source for Fred's drawing was a photograph taken by Burt Glinn of Magnum Photos in 1965. Andy pops out of a sewer with Edie Sedgwick! She wore her hair "Warhol-style" but hers was real. Also shown is Chuck Wein. He "discovered" Edie at the office of their mutual shrink. Wein was played by Jimmy Fallon in the 2006 film Factory Girl! Right now, one has to pay a streaming service three bucks to see it.

Antique Folk Art Animal Carvings with Original Paint

Antique Folk Art Animal Carvings with Original Paint. "Make-do" mounted with wires. Collection Jim Linderman / Dull Tool Dim Bulb

Lisa Z. Sigel The People's Porn: A History of Handmade Pornography in America Book Review

Lisa Sigel is an audacious scholar. Her field of study is old as the species, but still appears to scare the pants off academia. None of us would be here if it weren't for sexual activity and that makes it one of the most important areas for study, yet Sigel's afterword details a harrowing pattern of denied fellowships, grant rejections and any interest at all from cultural institutions. Their eyes are closed. 

 The author writes that "there are no big grants or prizes for the study of pornography. Foundations, ever since the year of the Mapplethorpe (1990) do not fund general scholarship on pornography or erotica and most institutions will be penalized with cuts in federal funding if they inadvertently discuss erotic objects." Meanwhile, Facebook continues to figure out how to eliminate errant female nipples from postings through artificial intelligence.

 It might be a stretch, but in some ways this compares to the reluctance of art institutions to accept the work of folk and outsider artists. Nearly one hundred are illustrated here. They will certainly open some eyes, although most of the wondrous objects shown in The People's Pornography have yet to find any acceptance at all. That is except for those owned by a handful of adventurous collectors and the Kinsey Institute. One characteristic of all the work shown is their scarcity. Think of the amount of material tossed by horrified surviving family members if they came across some of the art shown here.

 Sigel takes on all manner of handmade and homemade erotic objects. They may look pornographic but all reflect true human emotions the makers struggled with. Or simply enjoyed. They display humor (hilarious gag objects intended to surprise) or extreme violence, such as the work created in prison by imaginations which might be out of control. Still, all exist and all are worthy of appraisal.

 Sigel also takes on what those here will recognize as "term warfare" as we figure out how to categorize and understand art made by the creative impulses of the untrained. Maybe there are outsiders and WAY outsiders. Just flipping through the images here will shock some. Well…many. Others might remember familiar "dirty jokes" traded among classmates. Although this is a scholarly and historical approach, Sigel manages to provide a highly readable narrative. She writes like other recent authors who popularize science (think Mary Roach and Caitlin Doughty). This book isn't just for the pictures.

 There have been several other books on erotic folk art. Milt Simpson, who recently celebrated his 95th birthday, published the lovely Folk Erotica: Celebrating Centuries of Erotic Americana in 1994.. Thomas Waugh's book Out / Lines : Underground Graphics from Before Stonewall provides scores of homemade gay pornography in 1982. Lisa Sigel's own article "Flagrant Delights" in Antiques Magazine July/August 2014 is also recommended. 

 Purchase The People's Porn: A History of Handmade Pornography in America HERE 

Lisa Sigel bibliography of books and publications HERE

Wood Carving Folk Art Puppet Head original paint circa 1950

Wooden Folk Art Puppet Head original paint circa 1950 Collection Jim Linderman / Dull Tool Dim Bulb

Meet the Press Leatrice Joy Original Press Photograph 1921

I don't get to use the word exhuberant very often, but this "edited" for publication press photograph certainly is. Nearly more paint than photo. From the flowers on the bonnet to the stripped tie, there isn't a whole lot of honesty left. Leatrice Joy was a glamor celebrity and silent film star. By the time this photo was taken in 1921 she was well on her way to fame with dozens of short films to her credit. Her first films were shot during world war one! She also lived to the age of 91,passing away in the Bronx New York. Leatrice among those credited with popularizing the Bob haircut. Joy came under a considerable amount of flak at the time for being kinda manly or something, but the cut allowed her to play both young men and women in the films. Gossip columnists were big liars then and now, but she does appear to have been one tough woman who didn't take much crap. During 1921 Her films included half a dozen lost features. The following year she divorced big star John Gilbert citing his alcoholism. Original edited by hand Press photograph 1921. Unknown Washington DC News? operation. Collection Dull Tool Dim Bulb

Antique American Folk Art Automobile Collection. Made by Hand Vintage Wood Carving Toys c. 1930 Original Paint

Antique American Folk Art Automobile Collection. Made by Hand Vintage Wood Carving Toys c. 1930 Original Paint. Each approx. 6" long. These from a large group which also includes several trucks, etc. Collection Jim Linderman

Antique Folk Art Paper Cut / Folded Paper Froebel "Kindergarten" Projects circa 1903 - 1904 by Kenneth Miles Litchfield, CT Collection Jim Linderman

Antique Folk Art Paper Cut / Folded Paper Froebel "Kindergarten" Projects circa 1903 - 1904 by Kenneth Miles, Litchfield, CT. The boy was around ten years old when these were created. Loose bound with a ribbon, each piece is 9" x 9". Collection Jim Linderman

Gorillas in Chains! Folk Art Real Photo Postcard

A handsome giant gorilla is shown in the Crescent City Totem Pole Park, and a rudimentary smaller version from my shelf. Real Photo Postcard Gorilla, c. 1940 and carved version of same. Collection Jim Linderman

How to Index and Catalog your Video Collection!

An amateur filmmaker (or video camera nut) indexes each one of his hundreds of films with a three-ring binder. Each one Hand drawn! No less then FIVE films on Cleveland, trips to the steel mill, Cape Canaveral, Amusement parks...and when WHOA! The final pages of the index look interesting! Set of homemade index cards, hand-drawn, with routine and risque file cards. Collection Dull Tool Dim Bulb

Outsider Art Journalism from Home! Douglas Levicki Amateur Homedrawn Newspaper from England

One of Douglas Levicki's handmade newspapers "The Enterprise Magazine" published (in his mind) in 1935. The reporter produced numerous issues in the 1930s, if only for an audience of his family. He covered British radio stars, reported on the latest neighborhood gossip and provided lots of puzzles and gags. It is unlikely any were printed for distribution, but the obsessive work stands today as a beacon of the free press...and no trash like Murdoch's tabloid junk! Select pages from The Enterprise homemade newspaper. C. 1935. Collection Jim Linderman