Gasoline is up to four dollars a gallon! It’ll be up to FIVE dollars by Christmas! In five years, we’ll be looking back on these times as a golden age as we pay up to TWELVE DOLLARS A GALLON for the noxious liquid! We’ve all heard the wailing. Well, it can’t bother me too much, because not only are my wife and I still filling up and driving all the way to the next town for a freaking vegan cheeseburger (shades of Presley), but we still squander stupid amounts of treasure on useless crap that we find in second-hand stores. Was it the exhaust fumes or the post-lunchtime torpor that caused me to decide to spend ten dollars recently on a plastic bag filled with European postcards?

“Food for the beast,” I justified — yes, this blog’s gotta eat too. And as I sorted through the piles of dusty, faded paper, I wracked my brain for an appropriate criterion for which to separate out a handful large enough to be representative and yet small enough to fit into my limited blogging window. Old shit? Well, it’s all old shit. Buildings? Castles? You’ve seen ‘em. Pictures of humans dressed up funny? Maybe next week. Stuff that no longer exists? I can barely translate the inscriptions on the back; think I want to research them all?

But as I went through the stack, what began to jump out at me was not the huge lumps of wood and rock at the center of the frame, nor the quaint folk ephemera, but rather the tiny specks of vintage steel clustering in the lower thirds. Yes, it was the beautiful old cars evoking the ache this time. Back in mid-sixties Europe, they already had a feel for scarcity, and sized their vehicles accordingly. And why not? Hell, in some parts of the continent, thanks to sensible and far-sighted tax policy, gas is already pushing up towards the ten bucks a gallon ceiling. Which means the beauties in these pictures are already more of a historical oddity than our trucks and SUVs are on their way to becoming.


 

God bless America’s secularized public school system for teaching generations of students the proper habits of good citizenship, public safety and personal hygiene. But don’t count out the scores of church schools who had their heavy hands in the game as well. Sure, they had a lock on the materials devoted strictly to religious instruction, but devotional institutions of learning also showed an interest in seeing that their students’ time on earth was as long and trouble-free as possible. And though classroom filmstrips might be more likely to, say, celebrate the studious habits of a young Abe Lincoln, they didn’t shy away from a good old traffic safety fear fest either.

Cathedral Filmstrips’ “Bicycle Safety” is kind of like a “Mechanized Death” for the Saturday morning cartoons crowd. Not gory by any means, but definitely designed for extreme impact — in a Saturday morning cartoons kind of way. The art itself is entirely in the style of the classic matinée short. The harassed citizens pop their eyes and flap their tongues comically. The foolish children show their agony with stars, corkscrews and tweety birds. But the underlying message remains grim: those deviating from cycling best practices face grievous injury, possible death and certain ridicule.

I wish I could you who’s responsible for the wonderful drawings in this filmstrip, but I fear that’s something best left to the experts over at the ASIFI Animation Archive. Though I’ve enjoyed that site for years, I was reminded of it once again after the recent demise of Will Elder. But thought I came for the Elder, I stayed for the Fearless Fosdick.

It is unknown if this is the result of tight deadlines, an overbooked client card, or just lack of interest on Davis’ part. Perhaps turn of the century America didn’t resonate as deeply with him as did the civil war era. Or perhaps he was simply drawn less to Roosevelt than Lincoln. Certainly, he is not alone. Despite his central place in the presidential pantheon, Roosevelt remains a controversial figure. One of the architects of the modern presidency — larger than life, media-friendly, and the central figure in his own bona fide cult of personality — Roosevelt is both lionized as a “trust busting” conservationist and pilloried as a jingoistic war monger.

In his article for the Ludwig von Mises Institute site, “No More ‘Great Presidents,’” Robert Higgs goes so far as to call Roosevelt a “proto-fascist.” Bemoaning the swollen place of the presidency in the current political scene, Higgs outlines the role of the executive branch in an administration which “governs best by governing least.” Which hurts a country more, he asks: a term dogged by political scandal (as in the case of Grant or Harding) or one perusing a murderous agenda (i.e. Lincoln or Franklin Roosevelt)?

Happily, in our present day and age, we aren’t forced to choose between either of these over-simplified polarities. Nowadays, corruption and imperialism are two great tastes that seem to go great together. Fortunately for Davis’ young audience, his illustrations indict Roosevelt for political sins no greater than ambition and big game hunting.



I tend to steer clear of downtown Phoenix these days. It seems every time I venture down there, I discover another of my old favorites consigned to the scrap heap or worse, a target for “renovation.” The cheerfully run-down squalorous downtown Phoenix of my childhood is all but gone, a victim of the kind of people who have always complained that there’s not enough to “do” in Phoenix. Our downtown has never reflected the cultural aspirations of these folks who envision a shiny urban entertainment mecca full of fun for the whole family and free from spontaneous structural failure and those annoying homeless people. But now that they’re finally getting their way, I hardly recognize the place any more.

My wife and I don’t have much reason to go downtown very often, aside from the odd sporting event or circus protest. But she dragged me to a particularly galling theatrical performance one evening recently, and afterward we were restless from sitting on our hands for two hours. The night was warm and pleasant, and somehow, my wife got the notion that we might find something open up the street. So she forewent her usual fear of the empty after-hours desolation of the area and suggested we walk a little. As luck would have it, the Irish bar in the Hotel San Carlos was still open. While we drank beer and ate french fries, a group of college football fans watched the home team finish up a game across town.

As we headed back towards our car, we saw the old Professional Building at Central and Monroe, sitting empty as it has for the past two decades. But something made me stop and cross the street. As my wife’s paranoia began to reawaken, I peered conspicuously through the cracks in the boarded up windows. Sure enough, the ground floor showed signs of being recently gutted. As I looked left and right for some sort of posted zoning documentation, my wife began to make noises like it was time to go. When I began to move around the corner and towards the back alley, she grabbed my arm and hurried me towards the parking garage.

Fearing the worst, I returned home and hit the net. Sure enough, renovation was indeed slated to occur. Our once proud bedrock of former financial stability will soon be a holding space for upscale lodgers besotted with gourmet chocolate and high-end champagne. What’s more, I also discovered the old Hanny’s Building was undergoing a similar fate. I admit, I greeted this news with mixed emotions — I didn’t even know the Hanny’s Building was still standing (I told you: I don’t go downtown much any more).

Don’t get me wrong. I’m delighted that these wonderful old giants will not be sacrificed to make way for downtown’s “invigoration.” I hate to see what to me represents an important part of my city’s past scraped away just because a theater or fast food chain is desperate to maintain the unrealistic runaway growth they’ve conned their stockholders into expecting. But I’d rather these beautiful buildings stand abandoned forever than be thrown under the wheels of a doomed business plan. But that seems to be the way things inevitably go.

Anyway, the next chance I got, I grabbed my trusty point-and-shoot and went downtown. I need to start doing that a lot more.



Georgia native Davis’ interest in the Civil War era crops up throughout his career. In addition to his EC war comic output (where his occasional stories about the Civil War included one about Abraham Lincoln), he also took a later stab at a humorous war daily about a Confederate soldier named Beauregard. His work for the 1965 “Step Up” book, “Meet Abraham Lincoln” reflects his passion for the period as well as his extensive research. His attention to detail is found everywhere, from the intricate backgrounds to the exquisitely rendered interiors. The detailed pen and wash drawings are much more ambitious than the flamboyant brush work more commonly found in his canon, but they none the less display a playfulness of caricature indicative of a book aimed at young readers.

Lovers of Lincoln lore will enjoy these illustrations just as much as comics fans. They trace the myth of America’s greatest president: his humble origins and his nascent talent for public speaking, his early ambitious pursuits and the courtship of his wife, his elevation to the highest office in the land, the war precipitated by his election, the historic tracts which cemented his place in history and, ultimately, his demise. Davis lovingly illustrates the story with the energy and sense of drama that betrays the hand of a true believer. His stirring battle panoramas are marred only by my rather clumsy attempts to edit out the binding gutters.

“Meet Abraham Lincoln” is still in print. However, the Jack Davis illustrations no longer accompany Barbara Cary’s text. They have been replaced by new drawings, which, needless to say, in no way match the vision of one of this country’s greatest and most prolific illustrators. But take heart, Davis fans! All you have to do is scroll down and get to clickin’.

It’s finally starting to cool off around these parts. Soon enough, I’ll able to once again take actual road trips to parts of the state I haven’t seen yet. But the internet still continues to offer an adequate substitute for real experience. I’ve recently found a few great sites that are new to me at least.

Aaron Walton’s Western Mining History site is probably my favorite, if only for the sheer perversity of its presentation. Clustered around its prominently displayed Google ads, the site’s photo galleries offer exquisite views of dilapidated small towns throughout the western United States. Its brief tour of Miami, Arizona is a real treat. The town’s hovels, back alleys and shuttered buildings are lovingly exhibited without commentary or any trace of irony, as barren as the streets of Miami themselves. Meanwhile, Globe and Bisbee look positively opulent by comparison.

I had varying degrees of success finding photos of the others towns in my personal pantheon of destinations. I enjoyed Jeff Knapp’s photos of Superior, even if they were all in black and white. The Library of Congress American Memory page has a lot of great pictures of Tombstone from the mid-20th century, before the place was tarted up for the tourist trade. But you’ve got to use their cumbersome search engine to find them. All I could find about Yarnell were pages about the Shrine Of St. Joseph, of which this one is my favorite.

None of the above, however, can match Prescott’s Sharlot Hall Museum site for sheer volume. Stretching from the mid 1800s to the present day, exhaustively documented and annotated in most cases by by accompanying articles, the collection has no rival that I’ve found. The also voluminous Arizona Memory Project, to which the Sharlot Hall Museum is a major contributor, comes awfully close though.

Readers as equally bitter as I am about the modern state of things might enjoy whiling away a few hours lost amidst these fantastic photo collections from Arizona’s past. The rest of you can get a quick fix from my latest batch of postwar postcards from the fine folks at Curt Teich:



I remember a couple of shows that I once had on tape, but they are long gone. One was called “This is your wretched Life” where an Ethiopian –Azumbu was his name, was told about his life, and he had to guess the identity of significant people in his life based on their stories. One “participant” related how they thought they found some food, but it was only dirt. Another told how the wind came along and blew the dirt away and then they didn’t have anything to sit on, and finally, how they ate someone’s shoulder. Gruesome stuff! Another show featured a family who was lost in a strange neighborhood and there weren’t any Circle K’s and they didn’t have any snacks, so they had to eat the baby. The last one I remember was called, “The Bensons: America’s favorite migrant working family”. They basically ate meals from a sewer pipe… I would never have thought anyone else would remember these guys, but I’m glad I was wrong.

Alan wllll be happy to learn that while “This Is Your Wretched Life” is still in the wind, the other segments he remembers are present and accounted for. There’s also a 4th Grade class presentation called “We Remember Kent State,” and a not as gruesome but equally delightful visit by Verne and Craig to a local bar, where they cheerfully abuse a waitress. They heap on plenty of abuse on everyone throughout these programs: minorities, women, children, animals, gays, lesbians, consumers, sports fans, and of course, their employers. But perhaps my favorite routine is their simple assurance that what we’re listening to is “brand new material.”

The recordings themselves are far from brand new, however, and sound in fact like they’ve seen a little abuse themselves. Carelessly archived, hastily edited and probably even injudiciously noise-reduced, these poor old shows are suffering a final indignity: compression into the popular MP3 format. So take the audio quality under advisement.

If you’re an acquaintance of my Mystery Benefactor, sent here for the goods, I bid you welcome. While you’re waiting to complete your download, take a little time to discover some of our other Phoenix-centric content. We’ve got old menus and newspapers, and even a great album by one of Phoenix’s top disco bar bands from the late 70s. More importantly, you’ll find lots more “Love Workshop!”


Download “The Best Of Love Workshop” Part One

Download “The Best Of Love Workshop” Part Two

Learn more about “Love Workshop”

JP Morgan Chase & Co. owns the building and is willing to save the bank…if the neighborhood will play nice and let developers rezone and make over the bank’s yard with four-story condos and luxe shopping…The neighborhood wants nothing of the kind: no more condos, no demolition…

Preservationists lean in favor of giving up the green space in order to save the bank. “In order to keep this icon,” Councilman Tom Simplot said, “they need to develop that green space. They are not going to be able to save the building if they don’t give it up.” But wedging condos onto the lawn, said Frank Henry, 73, the building’s celebrated architect [sic], is “like taking a painting and cutting off a corner of it.”

The empty land has been a pawn before. The bank was the first commercial development in that area, and the space was offered to placate neighbors. Now, it’s the only grassy expanse on a heavily commercial intersection that has grown up around it. Neighbors insist that the bank made a promise to keep that land green, but according to Chase and city zoning officials, no formal record requires the space to remain open.

It’s just a shame, Henry said. “The whole park and the building are all one thing, one composition. The geometry of it all was together…” When Henry was dreaming up the building in the ’60s, he was making an anti-war, anti-establishment statement. He took his inspiration from the circle so that he could combat the boring square box. “I always thought that the circle, the curved line, the curved space is so beautiful,” Henry said. “It’s always changing.”

(Note: Walt Lockley informs me that Frank Henry was the designer; Weaver & Drover were the actual architects.)

I have house guests this week, relatives visiting from out of town. But when I read the article, I had to drag them out in 110 degree temperatures to get my pics. They’re not great: it was afternoon and half the building was in shadow. But I managed to stitch together some nice panoramas. The Modern Phoenix web mag offers much greater detail on the subject.

Of all the VNB buildings left in the Phoenix area, this one is the jewel. It combines space age aesthetics with desert motifs, playing nice with civic responsibilities in the bargain. It’s even got two bronze nudes which I can only assume are the work of John Henry Waddell. I still remember when it was built in 1967. I’ll miss it when it’s gone, and the best intentions of various factions notwithstanding, I full expect it to go away soon.

UPDATE: Here’s an audio interview about the bank with Phoenix architecture critic Walt Lockley, plus a link to his site.

The three stamps in the “For Defense” series were actually issued in 1940 to help convince the public of the inevitability of American participation in the war. Once that inevitability finally arrived, the very snappy purple cheerleading number came out. Nowadays, you can get these attractive designs on eye-catching tee-shirts, sure to please both the ironist and the patriot on your gift list. And they have no cancellation marks.

Britain, on the other hand, was having its own problem managing public buy-in. Specifically, could the country stomach a monarch that not only advocated fascism but willingly consorted with a divorcée? Not so much, as it turns out. A quick abdication was engineered, but not soon enough to stop the presses. So a very sharp series of Edward VIII stamps saw light of day, featuring a crisp stark profile that would have even satisfied his friends and family over in the Third Reich. The public liked it as well, but since they all horded their copies hoping they might be worth something someday, it is in fact extremely common.

Using the profile of your own local strongman has long been a widely accepted practice among the various developing postal entities here on earth. But if your country’s political climate is unstable and your man isn’t as strong as initially hoped, sometimes it’s better to hedge your bets. I like the route taken by the Togolese Republic. When in doubt, you can always celebrate the availability of the coconut while you wait out the political storm.

Since our entertainment was taken care of, all we had to do was map out a short list of vegan restaurants in the city. These were our anchor destinations, around which we planned our urban hiking adventures. Unfortunately, we left our Trimble-compatible mobile phone at home, so Geocaching was out. But naturally, we brought along our camera. For as terribly hayseed-like as it may seem, there’s nothing I like better when I’m in the city than a good long gawk at all the tenements. There’s something about a code-straddling subsistence-level multi-family dwelling that starts something fluttering in my breast. I don’t even mind if it’s just a crumbling old boarded up office building, as long as its got that hungry look of potential flammability about it.

Of course, to truly capture these mighty beasts in their own habitat, I’d have to live among them. But one look at the state of my complexion after a mere three days on the street tells me this option is out of the question. The slow buildup of toxins would surely kill me. So you’ll have to forgive my piddling and rather scatter shot approach. Still, I think the cumulative effect of the photos is stirring enough. I’ll leave the detailed documentation to those better equipped for more extended efforts.