(Like a third of the country, I am dealing with frozen formerly cumulus cloud...so here is a post from my other blog from a year ago, "The Lost Art of the Tattoo Gag") You don't see too many tattoo gags anymore. At one time, the staple of the stapled joke digest, I guess the now all too familiar "tramp-stamp" on women's lower backs helped make the tattoo as a joke topic less funny somehow. I can also assure you if you DO laugh, you won't be seeing it for much longer. Either SHE will pull them up and leave in a huff, or HE will kick your ass.I'm not quite sure the relationship between the tattoo artist and the cartoonist. Both are certainly adept at drawing babes...but did Sailor Jerry draw cartoons? (His "official" site now seems to be owned by a booze company, so instead you get a link to wiki with no pictures.) Of course tattoo decoration goes back to Caesar...but then busty women were drawn on the walls of caves. Now that I think of it, maybe those early erotic cave drawings were primitive flash and the dens actually parlors.
Tattoos of dames are closely related to the hot babe nose art painted on the cones of WW2 Bomber Planes and pinups drawn on duffel bags. Most platoons had a fellow who could draw hot ones, and they often did in trade for a few cigarettes. It is also a quite common subject category in postcard collecting...both actual photographs of them and goofy cartoon sailors.Certainly the skill was, and is, interchangeable. Once you can draw a gal with gams, you can put it anywhere. A carny's arm, a sailor's chest or a biker's bicep in days gone by, or on the most friendly gentle person of either gender today, but for the life of me I can not think of a cartoonist who started as a body inker. Of course today there are hundreds of tattoo artists who create paintings and fine art as well.The stigma is gone. So is the once common "joke" about getting drunk and waking with a decorated arm, the muscles which could be tensed to make a dame on your chest shimmy, and the ship design which "sinks" as a fellow ages.If anyone out there needs a topic for a doctoral thesis, consider erotic body illustration and how it relates to girly pin-up gags of the 1950s and 1960s.by Jim LindermanDull Tool Dim Bulb Books HERE
President Obama has done many good things, but one of the best was awarding the medal of honor to Loretta in November 2013. Here is my medal, originally posted in 2011.
An unusual original source document in the form of a postcard. Loretta Lynn recorded her first Gospel album "Hymns" in 1965 (shortly before writing this note to fans Don and Doris.) Country performers are famously good to their fans, and hand-signed letters are still common, as are "meet and greet" appearances where the fans can say howdy...still I treasure this modest little document.
Despite the newspaper ad here, Loretta did more than perform at smorgasbords. She has had 16 records reach number one and had four children before reaching the age of 19. She has released 70 albums.
I am happy to be living at the same time as Loretta Lynn. She is a Honky Tonk Angel who isn't afraid to generate controversy, but has said "My music has no politics" and that her father was a Republican, her mother was a Democrat. You ain't woman enough to take her man, and if you think you are, meet Fist City.
One should go to Loretta's website HERE just to see the pictures in the new Coal Miner's Daughter" video.
(Also posted on the Old Time Religion Blog)
Hand-signed Postcard 1965 Loretta Lynn Collection Jim Linderman
Photographs taken out of an airplane window always let you down, and this is no exception, but the person who took it was happy...who wouldn't be excited flying so low over what is one of the oldest continuously inhabited places in the country?
Since 1100, The Acoma have lived atop the sheer cliff pointed out on the reverse...smart of the photographer as that cliff is precisely the reason Acoma Pueblo still exists and to this day has residents. Now it may be high...but this stuff is DEEP. Practicing beliefs which have sustained them since before, well...before virtually everything, the Acoma to this day forbid videotaping, drawing or sketching of their home. Tours which allow cameras can be arranged for a small fee, but access is controlled. Our early plane visitor avoided the fee.
If knowing descendants of a tribe which traces back to 400 years before the Spaniards came here doesn't make you feel humble, I'm not sure what would. I am going to suggest this snapshot dates to the early 1930s, but it really doesn't matter much...we are talking about centuries after all.
Acoma Pueblo from the Air circa 1935 Snapshot Collection Jim Linderman
I can find virtually no artists who specialize or specialized in painting under the influence of hypnosis. I wonder why? Every manner of altered state, disability or Psychotropic drug known has been used to influence artists...as has the old stand by booze, and I do not just mean a few snifters at the opening. Some painters were drunk longer than they painted. From what little I know about hypnosis, you would think it could lead to increased concentration, wacky influences, a driven disciplined approach, who knows...so why aren't there more artists giving it a try? Could it be that painting under hypnosis sucks?
Alter your mind and who knows what might result? In this case, what resulted is a mundane portrait with nothing trippy at all...do you suppose the artist barked like a dog or took his clothes off while under suggestion? "You are feeling VERY, VERY realistic, literal and perfectly representational today" This portrait is so straight, it could go right over the mantle in the boardroom (which it probably did,) In fact, it is so boring I would pass it by at the Salvation Army.
But wait! NO THUMB!Don't snap your fingers until he puts one in. Press Photograph 1963 Collection Jim Linderman
Dad may be good at "knockin' them back" but he isn't going to stand this one up. Can it be done? Yes, and you will often see signs at the booth reading "one win per person per season" to keep that BMX mini-bike hanging on the wall in back. But will YOU do it? Nope. Dad has the wrong thing going here, and I don't just mean his white socks. The pole should be as vertical as possible, not horizontal, and you must "push" the bottle up, not pull it. Complicated? Yes. It will take you a solid afternoon to work it out at home. How many of those who come upon it have done their homework? None. Especially not Dad.
Original Vernacular Photograph, Dated August 1966 Collection Jim Linderman
Thank you to all who came to the opening of Take Me to the Water at the International Center of Photography in New York City this week! It was a pleasure to see so many old friends and to make so many new ones. The exhibit was curated with great skill by Erin Barnett, Assistant Curator of Collections and is presented beautifully! Very much appreciated, and I hope ALL have the opportunity to see the exhibit, which will run from January 2011 to May 2011. I have been told additional images which were donated, including many larger images are available on the ICP website.Also showing currently at the ICP are three astounding exhibitions! Wang Quingsong's "When Worlds Collide" "The Mexican Suitcase" (rediscovered negatives of Capa, Chim and Taro) AND of particular interest to followers of African-American culture, history and photography, a striking show of vintage photographs created by Alonzo Jordan from Jasper Texas, all three shows not to miss. In my humble opinion, any one of these exceptional shows are worth traveling for, to have all four up at the same time in the same institution is truly remarkable. More information on all these shows is available at the INTERNATIONAL CENTER OF PHOTOGRAPHY WEBSITEPair of anonymous baptism photographs. Arkansas 1927 Collection Jim Linderman
A flapper in the flag struts her patriotic stuff 50 years before Abbie Hoffman was arrested for doing same.Anonymous snapshot, circa 1920 collection Jim Linderman
Imagine my surprise when I learned this 90 foot cement tribute to an imaginary mish-mosh of Native American Tribes not only still stands, but it is listed on the National Register of Historic Places! (Not the more exclusive register of Historic LANDMARKS, but still) I thought I had just bought yet another photograph of a long forgotten goofy thing. Goofy it may be, but it was carefully restored and repainted by the Kansas Grassroots Art Association. That it is in Oklahoma seems not to have mattered to the Kansans. It is claimed to be "The World's Largest Concrete Totem Pole" (um...yeah, duh) but maker Ed Galloway cheated...he built it on a giant five foot tall turtle barely seen in the photo.
This Press Photo dates to 1947, just about near the time Ed claimed it was finished. It was even given an unusual amount of respect at the time from the press...note the text on the reverse says nothing about Ed's mental state, though if you look really close you CAN see they titled the caption "Monumental Joke." They also call it "grotesque" and infer it was made to trick future paleontologists. However, as Ed is passed away now, I can question his sanity! What crazy Okie would build a giant cement totem pole?
Whether Ed's mind was fit as a fiddle is questionable, but he made fiddles too...400 of them, though many were stolen out of the Fiddle house he also built next to the totem to hold them a few years after he passed away.
Ed's pole is estimated to weigh 134 tons. The big goobers on the side here also still remain. Ed mixed up his tribes a bit, putting some traditional Northwestern motifs down in the Sooner State too. In fact, the Indians Ed is depicting in his gravel and stone monolith are in a way responsible for the State's nickname, as after having driven them all further west (or 6 feet underground for good) the territory was opened up for all (All Non-native that is) in a giant landrush...and the cheaters who snuck in early received the more charming name of Sooners.
Ed Galloway was born 20 years before Oklahoma became a state, and started building his thing thirty years after.
Original Press Photograph 1947 Collection Jim Linderman
