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The esteemed Elmer Anderson. Or as he is known anywhere a stamp would reach, the GENUINE Elmer Anderson. Biographical information on the prolific post card Picasso is precious... but his primary genres have been identified:
Tit Jokes
Stinky Things
Why did I get Married?
Occupationals and Situationals (Bars, Fisherman, Doctors)
Animal Kingdom (Peeing Dogs and Unwelcome Storks)
And most notable, the renowned "Ugly People" series done at the peak of his Elmer powers in 1951. (Interestingly, the year before Mad Magazine debuted) Early Elmers were self-published with a plain reverse. As his fame spread, Elmer created a "stamp here" logo, presumably a self-portrait. All seem to have come from Waterloo, Iowa, certainly an artistic hotbed of the 1950's.
Group of Genuine Elmer Anderson Postcards, c. 1950 Collection Jim Linderman
(For previous entries in the World's Worst Cartoonist Series click blue subject heading, or use search box above)
The show Jackass aired on MTV for only two years, but they left big, self-inflicted footprints. The show originated from Jeff Tremaine's "Big Brother" skateboard magazine which employed Johnny Knoxville and later brought the world former Florida clown Steve-O and the single greatest television performer of all time, (except for the now sullied Kramer)....Wee-Man!To see the press release of whiny, disloyal Democratic senator Joe Lieberman's attempts to censor the show click HERE
Two Press Photos, New Jersey 1939. Collection Jim Linderman
I have trouble imagining the bitter rancorous old goat who came up this idea. "Prize Sap" indeed. At least they weren't mailed.
Set of Insult Postcards, 1945 Privately Printed in Chicago Collection Jim Linderman
Zoom: To simulate movement rapidly away from or toward a subject using a zoom lens. To cause text or other graphics in a window or frame to appear larger on the screen.Lite: To avoid copyright problems with "Light" or to indicate a beer, food, brand or physical object with no taste, substance or significance.Zoom Lite Real Photo Postcard c. 1950 Collection Jim Linderman
"This young member of the sect finds a little bit of heaven on earth, in the shape of a juicy watermelon slice"Original Press Photograph, 1953. Collection Jim Linderman
To Follow my blog of similar material, click OLD TIME RELIGION
Someone gave it a try but never mailed it in. This organization not only still exists, it is accredited! Known as the "Draw Me" school, they have an Alumni Gallery HERE.
Art Instruction Inc. Folded "post card" Application Form. c. 1935 with pencil embellishment. Collection Jim Linderman
The Newsweek double issue last week was devoted to true crime, supposedly. Whadda ripoff...is anyone doing any research anymore? I paid $6.95 at the airport and received a mere ONE PAGE from the genius James Ellroy...but several more from Vincent Bugliosi...a yawn every paragraph from this whitewash writer of decades ago who couldn't even take a literary punch from tough-guy Truman Capote. Then a few vintage mug shots, the likes of which photo collectors on Ebay found so long ago they carry about as much shock as a hearing aid battery. I'd rather look at the new ones they post on the Smoking Gun showing pimps smiling through police brutality wounds and gold grills. Please...the reason magazines are going under is because they now "write" them with press-releases from publishers and wire stories linked on Drudge the week before. Don't they even have any INTERNS who know what is cool over there? The real true crime is the price I paid for this snore which crept over me faster than my sonata.
Here, however, is the real deal. David Jacobs, shown as "the man I would most like to have dinner with" compiles tales of true crime when it meant hoodlums, hopheads, hepcats, convicts, jailbirds, reform school girls, hellcats, vixens and vice dolls. All are true stories swiped from the SOURCE...pulp magazines from the 1950's Detective Rags. Each morbid tale written with few words over 7 letters and a punk gets what was coming to him at the end of every damn one. Each story a GEM edited tighter than the lyrics to a Hank Williams weeper. From back when hacks pounded typewriters..that's right....typewriters... on speed and had to backspace to cross out the mistakes in between gulps of vodka and smoke. Back when the spouse was the spell-checker. I link to the fattest one here..355 pages of greasy gals with gats in their garters. Now that's summer reading!
Lurid heaven from David Jacobs.
Stecher "Betty's Painting and Cutout Book" and selected page c. 1920 Collection Jim Linderman
Small Press Art books seldom made the stores, an as a result your friends have never browsed them, as such they make perfect gifts! Three of the best and most unique 2009 Art books are available online and should be seen! The first two come from the new art house DULL TOOL DIM BULB run by Jim Linderman. The first Gals Gam Garters documents the anonymous scrapbook of a 1950s leg fetish. He cut out hundreds of women's poses, from the waist down, clad in all manner of stockings. Risque but with no nudity, the collaged pages were found in a dumpster 50 years ago and have been published for the first time. A secret but fascinating show for the risque retro fan. The second, also released by Dull Tool Dim Bulb, "Shy Shamed Secret Shadowed Hidden" shows the amazing vernacular vintage erotic photographs of Victor Minx, a pseudonym. The photos, collected over years, each show a woman in states of undress but hiding her facial features. They are extraordinary. The third, also from the unusual Jim Linderman archive, Take Me to the Water: Immersion Baptism in Vintage Music and Photography consists of dozens of antique photographs of folks being baptized. A staggering exhibit of humanity and just perfect, the book comes with a CD of old-time baptism songs and sermons compiled by the Grammy Winning Dust-to-Digital house. It could quite likely win them another this year. All three available online with a few clicks! None of these adventurous and unique books will have been seen by your friends, but ALL deserve your attention! All are well documented and reviewed online, with free preview pages, but seldom seen in stores. There is life in publishing still, but Barnes and Noble certainly do not carry them!
"Exhibit at Houghton Lake, Mich." (Real Estate Office) EKO Real Photo Postcard c. 1945 Collection Jim Linderman
It is "climate change" not "global warming." Every day I hear some misguided, misled and misinformed Fat Rush fan say "it's colder than ever...so much for global warming." First of all, Fat Rush is an ENTERTAINER, not a SCIENTIST... an increasingly dangerous one. Secondly, global warming means a change in weather patterns, not simply that it might get hot. Our weather is now the weather which used to be in Seattle, and I'm 2000 miles east of there. We've had a pounding "winter of a century" and a drenching "wet spring of a century" two years in a row, while California bakes and burns. The earth is a closed system. All that moisture changing from one physical and chemical state (ice) to another (rain) has to go somewhere. It seems to be going here. Admiral Byrd, shown as a penguin in an early child's game, traveled to the North Pole in 1926 and the South Pole in 1928. He wouldn't recognize either place today, and I think I know which way his political opinions would lean.Admiral Byrd Game Card, c. 1940 Collection Jim Linderman
Woodstock. It is curious to this day why the only band who actually both LIVED there and performed at the gig has to this day not had their set shown or released. Most folks don't even know The Band were there. At the same time plans were being made for the giant festival, The Band were living right down the road, practicing every day and in the woodshed with Dylan, another well-known, though reclusive resident I mentioned in an earlier post. Bob didn't make it, despite rumors he would. His backing band did...a full set of ten songs which have never been put on a compilation or added to endless reissues of "bonus" material on editions of the still essential film. In Levon's autobiography he claims it was because they forgot to turn Robbie's microphone off before the performance. (Personally, I like Robertson's voice, but he was no Levon Helm , Rick Danko or Richard Manuel) The set has been bootlegged, of course.
There is another angle to the story not told enough. While Dylan was healing up, drying out and raising a family nearby, very few pictures of him came out. Being fan, I was always glad to see the few that did, including a famous luminous shot of a 28 year old healthy gentleman Bob in pressed pegged pants leaning against an old car, surrounded by an aura of pink which ran on the cover of the Saturday Evening Post. A few more trickled out, notably the striking, in fact now legendary photos of the boys in The Band. They were credited to one Elliott Landy. I always thought Landy, who happens to have a last name which is an anagram of Dylan...were one and the same. By that time, serious Dylan students were used to his attempts at preserving a life by hiding his under myth, I always just assumed he picked up a camera and took the shots himself. Whoever did certainly had Dylan's artistic skill (or extraordinary access)
Well, Elliott Landy is in fact a photographer, and a good one indeed. Many of his photos have become both iconic and emblematic of the era. The most comprehensive catalog of his work has just been released, shown here, and the photos are beautiful, colorful, crystal clear. Although of the time, they somehow manage to avoid the psychedelic claptrap of the period (something The Band did as well) The set? Not The Band's best, which is still to say better than almost everything else.
The woman above? Placed there by the photographer to make the boys smile, something they didn't do enough. It worked!
Elliott Landy's Website
