Snapshots circa 1950? Collection Jim Linderman
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Woman Haters Club Albion Clough Royal Robertson Spanky and the Three Stooges
Painter, picker and professional woman hater Albion Clough of Maine strums up some attention here in a circa 1940 real photo postcard. His stuffed friend announcing the next meeting of the Woman Haters club is "Brother Bill" and the paintings are for sale, but I can't find one today. I haven't checked Sotheby's online yet. Clough seems to be playing one of those cheap Roy Rogers type guitars, but he later obtained a lovely resonator.
In the late 1930s, Clough appeared in a newsreel or two. He claimed his woman hater club had 100 members, and apparently a championship convention was held on occasion to pick the best woman-hater, but Albion always won.
To see his brother, active 40 years later, one Royal Robertson, click HERE. I am afraid Robertson out-hated and out-painted Clough, but they certainly would have gotten along. I'd have visited Albion too, but I wasn't born yet. Albion Clough passed away in 1944. More information on the hermit appears HERE.
The famous Little Rascals episode of the Women Haters club (titled Mail and Female) appears, in part, below along with the Three Stooges short Women Haters Club (which was shot entirely in rhyme!) made in 1934. I am not sure if Clough saw either.
World's Champion Woman-Hater Albion L. Clough Real Photo Postcard Collection Jim Linderman
Baldy Wetzel and the World's Longest Honky Tonk collection Jim Linderman
Baldy Wetzel, or Charles "Baldy" Wetzel played in speakeasies, tent shows, and for phony doctors selling snake oil. What he also did is shown here...setting the record for the longest continuous piano performance. 48 and 1/2 hours. That is one considerable piece of honky-tonk, but Baldy played for well over 50 years, so what's a few days?
As you can see, Baldy was hurting when the photo was taken. Not only do his friends place a wet compress against his neck, one helper massages his foot sore from damping the foot peddle.
Baldy started out in Pennsylvania and was playing 42nd street in the 1930s. Soon he added musical director for Ziefield Follies and George White's Scandals. Baldy was Paul Shaffer before there was a Paul Shaffer. He was proud to claim to have led the first dance band to feature a vocalist. He passed away in Toledo at the age of 79 in 1970.
Original Photograph circa 1930 (Inscribed to Fritz Savers from "Baldy" Wetzel) collection Jim Linderman
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The Devil Rock of Contested Canada? Real Photo Postcard
CLICK TO ENLARGE THE DEVIL!
Lake of the Woods has 14,552 islands, 65,000 miles of shoreline and one devil. Here he is, on a real photo postcard with no date. The United States owns part of the lake, Canada owns the rest. It is the 6th largest lake, and once in a while the two countries used to argue over ownership, but I guess things have settled down. I do not know who owns the devil today, but he is still there.
Communities which rest on the lake include Obashkaandagaang Bay, Anishnaabeg of Naongashiing, and Anishinabe of Wauzhushk Onigum. The devil is in the spelling, Google thinks I did them wrong. If you are planning on a vacation, the link is HERE.
Devil Watching Gap Lake of the Woods Real Photo Postcard, no date Collection Jim Linderman
The Entire "Top Ten Picks of 2011" Music List from Dull Tool Dim Bulb Boddie Recording Company
No, that is not a Jamaican sound truck from Kingston in 1965, it is Cleveland, Ohio a few years later, and it is just one more reason to be shamed you wasted your youth listening to the "top ten" on the radio.
So here it is, the entire "top ten" music releases of the year list from Dull Tool Dim Bulb for 2011.
You can trust me, and the entire box will cost you less than $40.
More information is HERE
Rock and Roll Pulp
I'm working on something, so no words today. Great image though. Have your ears eat THIS, iTunes.
Civil War Amputee Tintype Photograph and a Naive Dream
The first amputee of the Civil War was James Edward Hanger, an unfortunate 18-year-old who promptly commenced carving his own replacement leg out of wood scraps. Three months later he was walking down the stairs on an artificial leg of his own construction which hinged at the knee.
His invention not only made him rich, the Hanger company he founded to help other amputees is still doing the work, 150 years later.
The number of American soldiers who have undergone amputation surgery in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars is well over 1,000, a horrendous figure, but one which pales compared to the Associated Press estimate of more than 100,000 civilian deaths in the conflict. I resided in Manhattan during 9/11 and even the cab drivers knew Iraq had nothing to do with it. They told me.
As an optimistic youth, I fully expected war to become obsolete after we left Vietnam. I am sorry I was so wrong, and that dream seems now more elusive than ever before.
Anonymous tintype photograph, circa 1870? Amputee and friends. Collection Jim Linderman.
Vernacular Photography Linderman Style Vintage Photographs of Arcane Americana Book and ebook NOW AVAILABLE
Tooting my own horn here, my book of vernacular photography turned out really well, and since I hate to waste any new material on the blog during the holidays, I'll take the opportunity to shill baby shill.
VINTAGE PHOTOGRAPHS OF ARCANE AMERICANA is 120 pages of the real thing. That is, far less than pristine found photographs of what Americans do best: be really, really strange with a camera near.
If you have even the most remote interest in things unusual, and don't mind being surprised every few pages, feel free to order it up. I've kept the price as low as I can.
Paperback is $28.95 and the Ebook is $5.99. Indicate which you like on the Blurb order form HERE. There is also a free preview of the book.
While I am on the subject, all my books from Blurb, I believe, have been converted to ebook format for the iPad and iPhone. $5.99 each. See full list HERE.
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Candid Press from Chicago, Blogger First Amendment Rights and Media Credentials with a Recognized News Affiliation
It would be ironic and unwise for a blog named "Dull Tool Dim Bulb" to criticize any part of the "legitimate" press, but a recent court decision which found bloggers do not have the same first amendment rights or protection as journalists gives me a little pause. First, because even with my limited creds, I personally may have more journalistic experience (and I might even suggest integrity) than a good chunk of the journalists working today, and second because the so-called legitimate press is so damn questionable.
Not only that, according to David Ardia, co-director of the University of North Carolina center for media law and policy "There is no accepted definition of journalism or who is a journalist," The judge ruled against the blogger because she "failed to present evidence that she had any media credentials or affiliation with a "recognized news entity," or that she had checked her facts or tried to contact the other side to "get both sides of the story."
Hmm...Does Jimmy Breslin have a journalism degree? Did Studs Terkel or Mike Royko, both who were unfortunately based in the same town as the Candid Press above? If any of them do, they can easily prove it, which is precisely why I am phrasing it as a question rather than "reporting" it... I don't THINK they did, but they are free to sue me if they feel otherwise. Excellent reporters in every respect? Yes. In fact all three personal heroes of mine. But does the fact that they received a paycheck from a media conglomerate give them first amendment rights I as a citizen do not have?
Because Glenn Beck cashed a check from Murdoch for his chalkboard conspiracies mean he has more rights than I? (Can I say Murdoch again? I use his empire as an example because if ANY media is conglomerated-up with big time credentials, it is his, and we KNOW the journalistic standards he maintains.) I am inclined to send a few issues of the Candid Press, which enjoyed first amendment freedom, to the judge in the recent ruling.
Disgusting, ugly, sexist, offensive, putrid, obscene (to me anyway...) and gross. But fully protected by first amendment rights?
Ayup!
Chicago's Candid "Press" ran a long time and consumed plenty of forest. I might not have a degree in journalism either, but I suspect most of my pieces here would stand up pretty well if presented to a veteran fact checker at the New Yorker alongside any issue of Candid Press. I have a pile of them here. Don't take me up on my offer, I can't afford a lawyer.
Candid Press was so disgusting, I'd leave the second city over it in shame, except that I lived in Manhattan with Al Goldstein's Screw and survived. Al had first amendment rights because he was a fat, slob pig with media affiliation?
Who else has the credentials of media affiliation? Veteran journalist and not Pulitzer prize-winning beacon of truth Rush Limbaugh and George Noory, the voice of a late-night talk show I enjoy, but which "reports" on Big Foot, ghost sightings, voices from the dead and chupacabra on a nightly basis. I love Coast-to-Coast and so do many others apparently, as it airs nightly on no less than 25 radio stations in MY STATE ALONE...but does that give them any more rights than I have as a citizen? Hell, Bill O'Reilly HAS a journalism degree and he is wrong more often than a paid witness or a chiropractor.
Candid Press was a piece of pink-colored newsprint crap and completely devoid of the humor they tried so hard to provide. They claimed to be America's Largest Selling Adult Weekly. Well B.F.D. It stunk. The giant pile I have of them on the floor here still stink nearly five decades later. If they were protected any more than me simply because they dropped a pile at the corner news stand every Wednesday to stink up the hog butcher to the world, then we have a problem.
I know far more excellent journalists today who blog than I do judges. Many of them blog instead of receive a paycheck because big companies which provide "media affiliation" helped create a generation (and every future generation) who would rather watch ads on hand-held devices and flat screens than read. I can't claim to speak for our founding fathers (as judges and politicians do on a daily basis) but I think they intended first amendment rights to apply to all of us, not just those with a press pass and job re-phrasing press releases for the Huffington App.
World's Largest Gourd ? (Nice Gourds) Vegetable Folk Art Crafts
CLICK TO ENLARGE THIS WOMAN'S GOURDS
I think of them as the warts of the earth, but some folks really love gourds. For example, look at the gourds THIS lady has! NICE GOURDS!
An undated snapshot which reads on the reverse "Note size of the Bottle Gourd" and I guess you should.
More information on the Wild and Wonderful World of Gourds is HERE. (For example, the full story of New Guinea Penis Sheath Gourds, Can you get high on Yerba Mate (?) and the Amazing Wild and Squirting Cucumbers.
Original Snapshot circa 1930? No Date Collection Jim Linderman
Is Zat You Santa Claus ?
According to the notes on reverse, Santa is one Gene Crawford. Thanks Gene!
Christmas Party Group Photo (No date, circa 1950?) Collection Jim Linderman.
Satchmo Bonus Follows.
Michigan's Knapp Family R.I.P Real Photo Postcard collection Jim Linderman
The last surviving member of Michigan's Knapp Family passed away December 7, 2011. Arlene was the bass player. Her obit, and a tribute, is HERE by Laura Misjak in the Lansing State Journal of December 9, 2011. Let's see if this post receives as many comments as my post on Rem Wall and the Green Valley Boys, another obscure and deserving Michigan band, which has so far received 29 comments.
Michigan's Knapp Family Real Photo Postcard, circa 1940 Collection Jim Linderman
JIM LINDERMAN BOOKS AND DOWNLOADS FROM BLURB.COM
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Vintage Photographs of Arcane Americana by Jim Linderman and Blurb Books
A disparate group of demented images which share only one thing in common. All appear in the brand new Dull Tool Dim Bulb book (and Ebook for iPad) VINTAGE PHOTOGRAPHS of ARCANE AMERICANA:THE JIM LINDERMAN COLLECTION which is now available. Some 200 photographs which took ten years to collect and two nights to put together into a book!
Sorry typo fans...no text!
The download, in crisp digital format is only $5.99. The less sharp physical paperback book, 150 pages, is $28.95. If THAT isn't an argument for the death of the book, I don't know what is.
ORDER HERE TODAY! (Free Preview too) Once there, click at right to order.
All Photographs collection Jim Linderman
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Miniature Make-Do Folk Art Tack and Pin Box with Birds Drawn by Hand
A tiny "make-do" handmade folk art box for holding tacks and pins. Only three inches wide and two inches tall, the box is constructed from cardboard, the "handles" are small brads. I presume made by a child, possibly as a gift for the parents? Circa 1920 or so. Scarlet Tanager, Baltimore Oriole and Goldfinch.
Miniature Homemade Folk Art Box collection Jim Linderman
Linderman Books and Ebook Downloads available from BLURB.COM Here
Man Plays With Himself Trick Photography Real Photo Postcard Collection Jim Linderman
Wilson and Graham Birmingham, Alabama Real Photo Postcard Trick Photography circa 1920
Collection Jim Linderman
Dull Tool Dim Bulb Books and Ebook Catalog HERE
The Art of Sewing Cards (Sewing Card Set No. 48-558)
Lillian Ethel Wandel (4th Grade) completed Sewing Card 1927 Collection Jim Linderman
(More Sewing Cards HERE and HERE from Dull Tool Dim Bulb)
Jolly Ollie of the 101 Circus At the Circus in Black and White #30
Jolly Ollie 538 Pounds Real Photo Postcard Collection Jim Linderman
AT THE CIRCUS in BLACK and WHITE is a continuing series on Dull Tool Dim Bulb This is Entry number 30.
Joe Bonomo Interview with Jim Linderman "Conversations..."
I was flattered to have been asked by author Joe Bonomo to answer a few questions on his site No Such Thing As Was. The Complete interview is HERE.
“Every passion borders on the chaotic,” writes Walter Benjamin in “Unpacking My Library,” “but the collector’s passion borders on the chaos of memories.” This observation informs the work of collector, archivist, and Americana yay-sayer Jim Linderman. At his wide-ranging, comprehensive, and lively blogs Vintage Sleaze (“The true and untold story of smut in America”), Old Time Religion (“Vernacular religious detritus”), and Dull Tool Dim Bulb (“Surface, wear, form and authenticity in art, antiques and photography”) Linderman acknowledges the obscure at the same time that he elevates it.” Continues HERE.
Joe Bonomo's books include Conversations With Greil Marcus (Literary Conversations Series, forthcoming), AC/DC’s Highway to Hell (33 1/3 Series), Jerry Lee Lewis: Lost and Found, Installations (National Poetry Series), and Sweat: The Story of The Fleshtones, America’s Garage Band. I've published numerous personal essays and prose poems.
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