At the Circus in Black and White

In the tradition of F. W. Glasier, Dull Tool Dim Bulb incorporates a new mini-series, "At the Circus in Black and White" I will post an amateur vernacular photograph of the sideshow weekly.

Untitled snapshot "Woman, Monkey, Man, Dog" anonymous c. 1950 Collection Jim Linderman

J. Charles Jessup, Convicted Preacher with a Triple-neck Mosrite guitar

Charles Jessup was married to a 15 year old girl while still married to his third wife. Rev. Jessup was a border radio fixture for years, sharing time on a mega-powerful station operating just across the Rio Grande (and outside of U. S. regulations) at the same time as Wolfman Jack. Robert Duvall cited him as an influence on his film The Apostle, and others have compared him to Elvis, but then Elvis was never convicted of mail fraud and using ill-gotten contributions from loyal listeners for cock-fighting.
Jessup barnstormed God's airways with mountain music, a squeaky voice and an insatiable sexual appetite. Taking in ten million dollars, he claimed was to help the Mexican people, he instead "llenarse los bolsillos" which is Spanish for "line your own pockets." And there are folks who worry about Mexicans coming here? Cars, Seaplanes, real estate...whatever supposed pleasures awaited his followers in the afterlife, he was taking full advantage of in the present.
Not to be outdone by his own brother's double-neck guitar, shown in a photo here...he ordered a custom made THREE neck guitar from the Mosrite Factory which surfaced a few years ago. I am not sure what he used to play it with, but perhaps his young wife can tell us. Amazingly, he continued to appear on other evangelist's programs after serving his sentence (at least one of which still operates in my home state) and they welcomed him as an inspiration! I include here several photos of Jessup and his posse with a scan of their 78 rpm record (which unfortunately I have not heard as God has not yet provided me with a working turntable, but he will, I believe)

JIM LINDERMAN'S LATEST BOOK IS THE BIRTH OF ROCK AND ROLL AVAILABLE NOW FROM THE PUBLISHER DUST TO DIGITAL AND AMAZON.  ALL KILLER, NO FILLER!  A MUSIC BOOK LIKE NO OTHER.
A double blog post here and on "old time religion"

Photo excerpts from "Heaven and Hell" "My Life's Story" "A Stirring Message on Death" all circa 1945-1950 by J. Charles Jessup, and "Preach the Word/I'll Meet you in the Morning" by Jessup Brothers on Jessup Brothers records, 78 rpm. All Collection Jim Linderman

Things to Build

Images from The Family Fallout Shelter June 1959 Collection Jim Linderman

Look Up

Chalk Drawing by William A. Bixler 1933
See also old time religion

Time to Bring in the Big Guns (Meet the Press)

Original Glossy Press Photograph 1953 Collection Jim Linderman

Bazooka Joe and the Tijuana Bible Eight Pagers (You're kidding, right?) NOPE

Wesley Morse created Bazooka Joe. Joe and his gang started about the same year I started, and every one of the bonus fortunes came true! But, as so often happens here at Dull Tool Dim Bulb, Morse had a hidden agenda. Morse also drew those "8-pagers" or Tijuana Bibles which showed prominent figures of the day hitting on gangster molls, waitresses and starlets! I guess Mr. Morse liked to work small and let Dad have a little fun too! Some half-dozen have been identified, Morse holds the distinction of being one of only two artists working in the tiny dirty genre to have been identified.

In the 1990's after Morse passed away, Joe got "wigger" pants.

Group of Bazooka Joe comics Collection the Neighbor Kid

NOTE: KIRK TAYLOR sent the following link to his GREAT site on the artist.
http://www.taylormorsecollection.com/

The Eccentric, Eerie, Erotic Outsider Art of D.H.

Often the artistic quality of an artist means less than the story. This is an example, though I find the paintings, of which there are hundreds and hundreds, charming and accomplished in a perverted way. Yes, they are severely cropped here. I've learned my blog provider has a different idea of appropriate than I do, so all I'm showing is the heads (when I can isolate them among the morass of limbs, hands and other body parts, most rendered WAY out of proportion) Trust they are, well...creative. All are unsigned. The best have a chalky white quality which looks like shoe polish, but I am afraid you won't be able to tell from these details.

D.H. produced huge stacks of these watercolors in his summer cottage. I suppose the family thought he was fishing, but when he passed away well into his 90's they were found hidden among a big box of Life magazines in the attic. An old story for fans of outsider art, but it never gets tired for me. A fevered brow, a driven eccentricity and a paintbrush gets me every time. Something about a family happening upon a huge body of unknown work is fascinating...and when it reveals Great-Gramp's secret obsession, all the better. Some of the work was destroyed. I don't want to know why. At the least, he had a delicate and consistent vision, you can tell his work from across the room...and all are marked with a playful, well-rendered eroticism. In some the participants are sprawled over poorly drawn modern furniture. They aren't primitive, but he certainly followed the adage most primitives do, that is that the most important part of a painting is made the largest. I am hiding the artist's name as that's the way the family wants it.

They seem to have been done in the early 1970's for the most part...but one of mine has a hand written tally sheet on the reverse tracking the results of the Mondale election. Fritz lost. All and every manner of partnering up you can imagine is there. The artist made no distinction between gender in the least, and if there is a personal preference, I sure can't find it.

So there you go. Another tale of a reclusive artist, painting for his own pleasure and piling up the work without a single sale or concern that it will. My kind of art. I did do a little research...the last line of his obit reads "he loved to carve and draw."

Group of watercolors by "D.H." c. 1970. Collection Jim Linderman

The Wonderful Whittling Exhibit of World's Greatest Whittler

My second post with the work of Gust Pufohl, so we know he loved his work enough to have had it documented with at least three real photo post cards (as if we didn't already know by the title of his exhibit scratched into the emulsion as a caption)

See wonderful whittling exhibit of world's greatest whittler Gust Pufohl Monona IA Real Photo Post Card c. 1923

Mid Century Modest Ranch Style House Design

Ranch. The Greatest Generation, AKA "squares"...had one thing right. Low, sleek, not much adornment and cheap as can be. A style which looks best with virtually nothing expensive inside or out. In the 1950's, ranch accounted for 9 out of 10 houses being built. After the mid-1960's houses started getting taller, but not better. They also started having manufactured materials rather than organic, staples rather than nails, dry-wall rather than plaster and were being built to last as long as the rat-ass shag carpet. There are millions upon millions of small, cheap, solid, simple ranch houses out there waiting to be fixed up without "elevated rooflines" to heat. And since there are no jobs left and none coming, I'm afraid...they make good places to hunker through the sundown on the union. These images are from a 1956 National Plan Service brochure. NPS printed the catalogs and let individual builders and lumberyards stamp them with their imprint. Most are a modest 1,000 square feet. Two cool sources. Atomic Ranch Magazine and Mid Century Home Style.

Modern Ranch Homes Brochure 1956 34 Pages Collection Jim Linderman

The Man Without Vices Obliterated by Bullets and Paint

General Arnulfo Gomez "El Hombre Sin Vicios" had shaved to prevent recognition, but was tracked down nonetheless. Condemned to death in Tepcelo at one in the morning and shot as the sun rose hours later. He had two requests. First, that his eyes be covered. Second, that the command to fire be silent. The commander had no problem with either. He raised, then dropped a silent hat to signal. Gomez...Fue aprehendido y fusilado por las tropas federales en 1927.

The Photographer is unidentified, as is the artist who cropped the photo with such a heavy hand the original image is all but gone. I imagine Mexican photographic facilities in 1927 were less than ideal. Was the film carried across the border to be developed and enhanced?

Gomez is a footnote in the troubled history of Mexico. He is mentioned on page 222 of "Mexican Suite: A History of Photography in Mexico" (linked at right)...I do not know if the working photographer who took this photo is mentioned anywhere.

"The end of Gen Arnulfo Gomez" Heavily embellished press photograph, 1927. Collection Jim Linderman

A Mysterious Man

Dave the Slave / My Favorite African-American Poet is a Potter from South Carolina named Dave

It's been a long time since I owned a piece of pottery made by Dave the Slave, but I can show you a picture of it. Doesn't look like much, I know, but you should see it in the collection it lives in now. A brown jug with the initials "LM" inscribed in the clay, salt-glazed. It holds a few gallons of water, but I never put any in it. I was made around 1840 in South Carolina when Dave was owned by Lewis Miles, he being the "LM" of course. Dave did the pot with his huge hands and he signed it with his owner's initials. I paid more for that piece of pottery than Mr. Miles paid for Dave.

The Jug was likely made to store or carry foodstuffs. Pickles maybe, or chunks of meat. They were made thick and baked to be strong enough to last a trip on your wagon as you skirted holes in the road. That this jug has lasted some 150 years is testimony to Dave's skills.

So the Poet in the post title? See, another thing about this jug is that it's maker, Dave the Slave, could both read and write at a time in South Carolina history when Black Men were forbidden to be taught either of those skills. He not only wrote his owner's initials on his jugs, on quite a few he wrote entire poems of his own composition, three of my favorites follow:


Dave belongs to Mr. Miles
Wher the oven bakes & the pot biles


I wonder where is all my relations
Friendship to all – and every nation


A pretty little girl on a verge
volca[n]ic mountain, how they burge


I hadn't thought of Dave or his work for a while. Then a rude, insolent White man from South Carolina decided to yell at a Black man who was addressing him and others from the podium before all three branches of our government. in fact, he was addressing ALL of us, not just those in attendance, and I was watching. I do not know how many times Dave was yelled at in his time...but I have some idea of how much it probably hurt.

My jug now lives in a private collection of African-American Art in the same room as works by Romare Bearden, James Vanderzee, Richmond Barthe, Elizabeth Cartlett and Augusta Savage. I'm glad it's there, it belongs. I was honored to own it for a while. More information on Dave, including all his poems on pots (though now called "vessels") is available if you look.

Things to Build: Boomeranger, Potato Gun, Giant Midget Plane and a Crisco Can Air Cannon

Images from Boy-Craft. 208 pages of Real fun, Real play and Real work for Boys 10 - 16 years old. Diagrams and more by U.S. Huggins, Frank Solar and Martha King. 1928. (A Masterpiece) Collection Jim Linderman

E.K Lund Preacher Artist Magician Centenarian

Lund's Scenic Garden of ten acres in Michigan included these life-size figures propped up among the pines. Mr. Lund was a minister, artist and professional magician. His best trick was living to the age of 100, but he died in 1999. The garden, which was located between Leland and Glen Arbor, MI has been dismantled.

Postcard circa 1960 Collection Jim Linderman

Jim Linderman website Books Links Sites Blogs Information

DULL TOOL DIM BULB Centerpiece of the Jim Linderman blog network. A blog about surface, wear, form and authenticity in art, antiques, design and photography. Dull Tool and Dim Bulb were the only swear words his father ever used. Items from the Jim Linderman collection of vernacular photography, folk art, ephemera and curiosities. Weird, wonderful, wicked, smart, essential and DAILY. http://dulltooldimbulb.blogspot.com/

TAKE ME TO THE WATER: IMMERSION BAPTISM IN VINTAGE MUSIC AND PHOTOGRAPHY 1890-1950 Photographs from the Jim Linderman collection with a CD of historic early recordings. Produced by Steven Lance Ledbetter. Essays by Jim Linderman, Luc Sante. Published 2009 by Dust to Digital. Reviews, Film, Press Releases, etc. A published hardcover book 96 pages with CD 2009. Site contains film, reviews, press-kit, links. Available from Amazon and direct from the publisher. http://jimlinderman.blogspot.com/


THE PAINTED BACKDROP
The art of the hand-painted backdrop in 19th Century American Tintype Photography, this book will open a new dialog on the relationship between painting, art and photography. With stunning illustrations from the Jim Linderman collection and essays by prominent writers. To be published in a limited edition with a target date of early 2010, this will be the first book available with the "Dull Tool Dim Bulb" imprint, a new small press endeavor striving to produce unique, beautiful and profound books for the artistic audience in conjunction with Dust-to-Digital. http://thepaintedbackdrop.blogspot.com/

old time religion Vernacular religious detritus from the Jim Linderman collection of photography and ephemera. Jesus is my jet plane and I have the Lord on speed dial. Old Time Religion is a natural line extension from Dull Tool Dim Bulb, where posts of this nature occur every Saturday night while the rest of you are sinning. Wake up, it is Sunday morning! Praise the Lord and Click to Enlarge! http://old-time-religion.blogspot.com/


THE WONDROUS WORLD OF FRANK WENDT
Behold the wondrous world of Frank Wendt. Late of the Bowery, New York City and Boonton, New Jersey. HEREIN LIE MARVELS of HUMAN and ANIMAL WONDERMENT! Astounding feats of photographic portraiture created by the illustrious Frank Wendt from 1890 to 1900 entirely for your pleasure and amusement. Your eyes do not lie. You will most certainly tell your friends and family. You will return again and again! Presented by Jim Linderman. Step up, Scroll down and Click to Enlarge!

Learning to Listen and Listening to Learn: The Beatles, Nostalgia, George and Disc Five

I was, of course, a Beatle fan...we ALL were, and according to the recent success of the perpetual reissue program, everyone is still. Fine with me. In retrospect (and 45 years down the line) they were and are all good guys. Simple as that. To this day, there is little better than a surprise from Sir Paul like the recent rooftop appearance, and he and Ringo continue to be modest, pleasant fellows at every turn. When John died, I spent two days listening to the radio and painted my house. 6 months later I moved to the city he was shot in and lived there for the next twenty-five years. I was too young to be obsessed with them, and spent more time listening to the Stones when I was older. I am not nostalgic in the least. There is always something new to find and feel. They'll be tinkering with that sound as long as there is anyone around to buy it, and I'd rather listen in mono anyway.

Just as everyone is either canine or feline, in my generation you were either Beatles or Stones. When I got a bit older, I realized both groups had taken their inspiration from others, and I've spent my time since learning more about their influences than the mop tops. Rather than buying the reissues, or humming along to one of the gorgeous Lennon-McCartney studio melodies, I'll keep digging for more obscure things I can learn from rather than just enjoy. When a billion people watch the same thing at the same time on TV it just scares me too.

As I write, I'm working my way through a five disc bootleg of George Harrison out takes. That's right, more than 5 hours of studio experiments with Eric Clapton, Billy Preston and other collaborators he worked with most of his entire recording life. It prompted my post. They weren't meant to be heard and they weren't meant to be released, but someone glommed onto them like the children outside the Ed Sullivan studio grabbed at the Beatle's hair. I don't condone bootlegs, but they are part of the world and my world. At this moment I am hearing the fifth version of an embryonic "Wah-Wah" in a row. It's a good riff and once in a while I lean back and listen closer...George seems to be getting it worked out fine, but for the most part I am just glad to be around to hear it for the first time.

Crazy Car Counterculture, The Concept of Customization and the Weirdo Shirt

In the late 50's, ads like this began appearing in Custom Cars magazine, this one from the May 1959 issue. "The Baron" is Baron Crozier, a pin-striping artist who painted drag strip cars. Roth is of course the larger than life Big Daddy Roth, creator of anti-Mickey Mouse Rat Fink (you'll remember him if you ever walked into a model shop in the 1960's) and other disgusting designs hated by mothers. Which was the whole point. Roth is still inspiring contemporary artists, though he blew his engine for good in 2001. These Weirdo-Shirts, which you can see were unique, one-of-a-kind paintings created on demand... not only launched Big Daddy's career but created something you pass a hundred times a day without thinking about it. Give-up? The printed T-shirt. Seriously. You can trace every damn t-shirt you see today right back to the Roth studios and this tiny little advert.

Although Big Daddy made millions on his designs, he always considered himself a hot-rod and bike designer more than cartoonist. His mission was creating the unique design in a world which favored conformity. The whole idea of customization ran against the cookie-cutter, rubber-stamp world he found himself in. After founding Chopper magazine in 1967, he had some serious problems with the Hell's Angels and regrets about the bad influence his work had on kids. He closed the studio and converted to Mormonism, but never gave up on his experimental road race designs.

There is a Big Daddy revival every few years. It is curious the last major one emerged out of the Seattle grunge world, as Big Daddy felt rock and roll killed the hotrod business. “Guys were spending more money on music—records and guitars and sound equipment—than they were spending on cars.” Roth wrote an autobiography, but it seems to be out of print...used copies are priced at far more than Ed sold his shirts for. Wait for the next revival.

Ad from Custom Cars Magazine May 1959 Collection Jim Linderman

Sir? SIR! You Forgot your VALISE!

A 1941 Bellboy race in Austin Texas. I believe the acceptable term today is Bellman (and i'm not even going to mention the name a reporter gave them on the reverse of this photo) but I love the action. I would bet on the only one with a foot touching the ground, as it is impossible for bellhops, page boys, doormen, porters or a concierge to fly.

Want to read about the most interesting bellboy in history? Google Ted Serios. I'm Serious.

Press photograph 1941 Collection Jim Linderman

Vending Machines Update!

A week ago I was all proud of myself for posting a vending machine which sold worms from back when. Well, a friend took the time (and probably went out of her way) to send the attached. THANK YOU JANET! (To date, no one has forwarded a photo of their local book vending machine, and the public terminals at your local Holiday Inn don't count)

Big Brave (Not Funny)

Want a project? Try to find out how many people lived in North America before the rest of us did. Estimates vary from 8 million to a whopping 112 million. Don't feel bad, it's only an "academic debate" according to the literature. By the way, there is no proper term for the people who lived in North America before the rest of us did. Well...there ARE, but there are nearly 500 of them and most are hard to pronounce. To see a few who used to exist on your land a few generations ago, click HERE. Once at the map, keep clicking until you find your Wal-Mart.

Postcard of "A famous landmark" No date Collection Jim Linderman