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
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.
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)
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
Frank Wendt has always been unfairly placed in the shadow of Sideshow Freak photographer Charles Eisenmann, his mentor. Wendt took over the Eisenmann studio on the Bowery in 1893 and ran it for five years before moving it to New Jersey. He continued making pictures there for a number of years, some quite extraordinary. In 1979, just as interest in collecting circus freak photos was rising (in part as interest in Diane Arbus was rising as well) a book on Eisenmann was published which dismissed Wendt's work as "perfunctory" and that the production of those years has all but been "obliterated." Au contraire! As we are just learning, MANY exceptional images remain. The photos here are certainly not obliterated.
Wendt specialized in the unusual, of course as you can see. But he had a wider clientele than Eisenmann. He shot all manner of performers, not just the strange. In fact, some of his most beautiful work is normal looking actors and child performers, who would use his cabinet card photographs as trade cards, mementos and such, frequently selling them to admirers for a dime each. Often the performers autographed the cards on the reverse, personalizing them to fans and the freaked. In the case of the carnival performers, vital statistics were often provided though frequently exaggerated. In fact, Wendt would take his pictures to emphasize the particular trait or deformity being marketed.As traveling shows passed through New York and New Jersey, they would stop to replenish their stock. Sometimes Wendt would republish Eisenmann's work on his own cards, but frequently a new photo was taken, and the same performers often appear in later pictures, with different imprints or logos on the cards.
I have posted work by Frank Wendt on this site before, they are worth looking at.As research continues, I plan to expand on the story with a book and exhibition.
Frank Wendt Five Original Cabinet Card Photographs circa 1890-1900 Collection Jim Linderman
Marian was born Flora May Spore in Michigan and became the first female dentist in Bay County, Michigan. After her mother died in 1919, she had a major transformation. She gave up her dental practice, moved to Guam and began painting. According to her sister, she had never shown any inclination towards art until that time. Like all aspiring artists, she soon rented a studio in Greenwich Village. Having her own style, self-taught, she laid the paint on deep, building the canvas up so thick at times it looked like sculpture.
A good story, but now it gets weird.Apparently Spore could somehow channel dead artists and attributed her skills to the spirit of her late mother. She explored her ESP talents with Dr. Prince of the Boston Psychic Society. Her paintings became a sensation, being exhibited at the finest galleries in NYC. The American Weekly printed a story titled "Pictures my Mother sends me from the Grave." No less than anti-spiritualist Harry Houdini was taken with her work and said, I am not kidding, “It is a great exhibition. I am certain of Miss Spore’s honesty. I have never excluded the possibility of supernatural intervention from my belief. I have been engaged in the exposure of criminal fakers… there is no question of that here. Miss Spore has something beautiful and is conveying it to her fellow men.”
With her success as a painter, which at the time was apparently extensive, she opened a soup kitchen for the hungry on the Bowery. Now 1/3 artist, 1/3 soup kitchen worker and 1/3 socialite, Marian met Billionaire Irving T. Bush, another whole story as big as the painting shown here...who married her in Reno one hour after the divorce from his second wife was finalized.
Now, at least seemingly, the artist has been forgotten. The last time her work was shown was a retrospective in 1946, the work has not been seen in public for over 60 years. I for one would love to see it. She wrote a book about her spirit paintings entitled "They" in 1947. Except for the incredible, detailed, extraordinary wiki profile HERE, on which I relied completely for this article, the remarkable work seems to have vanished into thin air. In fact, a Google search turns up only one photo of the artist and none of her work.
I found the photograph here at an antique show, it was taken in 1938. I've cropped it, labeled it...and I will be more than happy to share the entire photo and credits with any art scholar who can show me more of the work! There is a SERIOUS book tale and exhibition here...anyone want to do the work? I don't have the energy.
It was fashionable among my peers growing up to lambaste Jack Webb. At the time, he was busting happy hippy hedonists on TV but they looked like the GOOD guys to me. Of course, this was the second incarnantion of Dragnet, the one with the future Sherman Potter of M.A.S.H, one Harry Morgan, who was raised in Muskegon Michigan just 12 miles north of here. ( By coincidence, so was young James Osterberg, nee Iggy Pop, who just might be the winner of the second Dull Tool Dim Bulb Lifetime Achievement Award™ but that is another story or two) In retrospect, it turns out Jack Webb was not only a cool dude, the fellow you saw walking around on TV stiffer than a cast-iron Viagra pole was exactly the same fellow in real life, and how many actors can you say that about?
Big Jack was born in 1920 and suffered from asthma his whole life. A trait I identify with, but you never saw jack turn from the camera and take a puff of albuterol. He was born in a slum in L.A, so he comes to his toughness through authenticity. He was a crew member of a B-26 bomber during the big one, and that assignment had just about the highest mortality rate in the war. So Jack was tough as nails as well as stiff as one. After the war he commenced his lifetime advocacy for the rule of law and hatred of the nefarious. He first played hard-boiled detective Pat Novak on the radio, where he delivered with sound waves as flat as his crewcut. Later, he played a character in "One out of Seven" who stood up against racial discrimination long before it was fashionable.
Of course, Dragnet is the stiff stuff of legend. There were two, the first black and white from 1951 to 1959. From this came "The story you are about to see is true, the names have been changed to protect the innocent." The second, the one I grew up laughing at, started in 1967, in glorious anti-psychedelic color, and ran 3 more years. How many actors can you think of who starred in two TV series, both with the same name...with virtually no acting talent?
Jack spread his dragnet over some serious tail as well! He loved Jazz and played the cornet, so he romanced and married the most luscious MOR jazz dame of all time, Julie London. It was the first of FOUR marriages (including another hot score not of a musical scale, Miss USA Jackie Loughery)
At the time of his passing, Jack was working on another revival of Dragnet. Remaining true to his tight moral standards, he turned down the role of Dean Wormer in Animal House. When he hung up Badge number 714 for good, the flags of Los Angeles were ordered flown at half-mast.
So how can you get close to the now dead legend? First, read his book The Badge, fabulous true crime stories he wrote in 1958. Tough as shoe leather but easy to find on Amazon. Second, see if your hands measure up to his on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Third, listen to Jack's silver chords on the Rhino records compilation of singing actors. Fourth, watch his 1962 short subject The Commies are Coming, The Commies are Coming. (which features hot little minx Billie Jo from Petticoat Junction) also available on Rhino. 30 minutes of red-baiting bliss. Finally? The stunning minute long tirade below. Take THAT Hippie!
Illustrations hand-embellished additions to Jack Webb's Safety Squad Coloring Book, 1956. Collection Jim Linderman
