Sugar Ray Robinson was good. He entered professional boxing with an 85 - 0 record as an amateur. Nearly half of those 85 fights ended with a knockout in the first round. Credit where due, I guess...is that he invented the posse. The entourage. Everybody wanted to be in Sugar Ray's camp. I am sure all the fighters painted here have similar stories. I always hated Leroy Neiman and his garish sports paintings, but these are great. A young, aspiring illustrator named "J. Gallagher" did them around 1950, but that's all I know about him. Watercolor Paintings of the Greatest Boxers by J. Gallagher, circa 1950 Collection Jim Linderman
The star here is Babs Wingo. I am not sure if women wrestlers ever really took off, not being a fan of the sport today. Mostly grown men in superhero costumes playing to an audience with limited education. But I would have gone to see Babs. Babs Wingo was no better at faking a move than the male performers, but she was out there with a few of her sisters. What a phenom. Her wrestling career was in the early 1950s. At time when African-Americans were segregated and abused, Babs was traveling on the road and climbing into the ring. One article from the time calls her and her tag team "grunters" but all the reviews were great. "Girls please crowd at wrestling show with hold galore" reads one. What a show! Babs apparently weighed in at 150 pounds. Only 5' 3" and just 21 at the time. She also painted. I'd love to see some of her paintings. Coming from New Orleans, she would possibly have seen painters lining Jackson Square with work for sale. Did Babs wrestle in heels? Hmm. Life is good with diversity, even in the ring. Babs blazed trails. Here is a time capsule film. It's great Detail from a recently discovered wrestling poster c. 1950 Collection Jim Linderman
American Folk Art Construction in a Hardware Storefront Window which celebrates the local football team winning a big game. Real Photo Postcard collection Jim Linderman.
Handmade Folk Art Road Construction Toys circa 1940. Includes fence, barrels, numerous road signs and warnings along with red flags. Collection Jim Linderman
Three hand-colored and handmade postcards mailed in sequence in 1910. Newspaper comic panels of Happy Hooligan (or a Happy Hooliganish spin-off) affixed to a card, then personalized with color and written references to friends or co-workers. The address side encourages the recipient to "share with the mail boys at the Ambridge Bridge Company in PA. Odd, but industrious! Collection Jim Linderman. For similar, see the book (and e-book) Eccentric Folk Art Drawings of the 19th and 20th Century available from Blurb.com.
Drawing of Easter Egg decorating. Margaret Halpin, New York, Circa 1950 Collection Jim Linderman See also the book Eccentric Folk Art Drawings of the 19th and 20th Centuries HERE
Imagine a guy hauling a double trailer-rig, jacked-up on speed with one hand on the wheel and one in his pants. The CONCEPT is as bad as the vision...but here comes "Spanky" with a big load. Pun reluctantly intended. File these pornographic eight-track tapes under "Cultural detritus" which should have never happened.
Someone is driving at dark and listening to cheap, truck stop smut EIGHT TRACK TAPES!
Online, I find a few sources for information about pornographic eight track tapes. I CAN tell you there were at least 57 in this series, as I have both number 000 and 057 here. Collect them ALL. Local entrepreneurs likely churned them out in seedy neighborhoods along the highway.
These obscurities would fall into the "spoken word" category of recorded sound collecting, but I don't think the fellow who purchased these originally would have alternated the playlist with a stirring speech from Winston Churchill or Robert Frost reading his poetry.
Everyone understands by now that every advance in media is taken over by sex somehow. From the camera to the VCR and beyond. But eight tracks? Don't come knocking if the rig is rocking SOLO.
All three here were decorated by the same artist. I guess "cartoonist" is more appropriate. The scrapheap of popular culture has spit out yet another relic of horror.
Group of X-rated Eight Track Tapes. No date. Circa 1970.
A Tasmanian Devil smoking. Errol Flynn was literally the "In like Flynn" guy and it is estimated he slept with 10,000 woman. He drank "like Flynn" too and by the age of 40 was an alcoholic only offered roles playing an alcoholic, so he took to his boat and sailed the seas. I wouldn't say he lived as a swashbuckler, but he had a hell of a short life. The studio had plenty of reasons to drop him.
Eventually he began to accept the drunk roles.
Errol became a member of an elite club I fear is not too select, despite his fame. That would be the club which drinks a fifth of vodka or more a day. Wrong decision for anyone. The fifth became a quart, then two quarts. When he passed at the age of 59 he was one of those guys they say "had the body of an 85 year old man" about.
He was married three times. but who knows how many woman had his children over the course of his film career? So there must be offspring out there. Yup. Sean Flynn, his son, was quite possibly captured by the Khmer Rouge, executed and later became the subject of a song by the Clash.
Yes, Errol Flynn was born in Tasmania. He may have been a real-life spy. He may have been bisexual. Here he is seen in his handsome Hollywood days.
Amateur drawing of Errol Flynn, circa 1940 Collection Jim Linderman
One of my favorite finds is Fotofun! There were two...one for regular snapshots and one which produced real photo postcards (of a sort) Both are pretty scarce. Those of you manipulating photographs might be surprised to know W. J. Glassmacher thought up the gimmick in 1934.
Pair of Treasure Chest Fotofun Novelty Photograph beheading games! Laugh your HEADS off! Collection Jim Linderman
It's SURFA-TONE the Rubber Paint! In the "antique color" series here, I generally tell a bit of company history, but a brief search is all it took to learn there are too many variations of the "Tex" name in companies. This one was based in Newark, New Jersey and has probably morphed into some other company by now. The history is as murky as the waters around Newark. You know, as you drive towards the big apple you go through a dead zone of swamp before hitting the tunnel? That murky chemical blend THING?
Search for "Rubberized Paint" and that goofy "Flex Seal" product is what you'll find first. You know, the guy who paints the bottom of his boat and scoots over the alligators without springing a leak! I love when he dips his tools into it and makes a hand-grip like magic!
Now I suspect this product was invented for the parents of the baby boomers. They all got tired of rubbing crayon off the walls, so they sealed it off with this magic covering. I've run my fingers over the paint chips here, and it does feel a bit different. Oddly, the patter here claims you can wash off lipstick too! Who kisses a wall?
Surfa-Tone Wall Finish by Tex Products. No Date (c. 1960?) Mid-Century Modern Wall Covering pamphlet. Collection Jim Linderman
