Those X-Ray Glasses Were A Big Gyp.

But the Joy Buzzer made some people jump during a handshake, and the Whoopee Cushion got reactions, some of them not particularly pleasant. I sent away for any number of pranks and gadgets from the Johnson Smith catalog of my callow youth, checked the mailbox often for their arrival. Fake dogpoop. A set of metal plates that, when dropped, would approximate the sound of breaking glass. Or metal plates dropping. A microphone that, when properly hooked up to the big Zenith radio in the living room (few had TVs in those days), could be used to broadcast martian takeovers and all points bulletins for family members mistaken for bank robbers. It had a long wire so you could hide behind a couch and say, authoritatively, "We interrupt this broadcast to bring you an important bulletin." Those subjected to this lame-ass tomfoolery would exclaim, "Oh my, I wonder what this can be..."  

The fake dogpoop worked all too well. Fleet, the boxer, who I loved, was jerked by his collar and escorted outside before I could tell them. I blurted, "No! It wasn't him, it was me!" which got me a strange look from my aunt and grandmother who were trying to imagine their 12-year-old summer visitor doing that on the living room rug. They apologized to Fleet and gave me looks which contained, "How long is he here for?" I, of course, explained the novelty item and my aunt said "Funny like a crutch."

My grandmother lit a cigarette and started playing Chopin on the baby grand, which she did to lift her spirits, cigarette dangling from her lips, eyes squinting against the smoke.

I decided not to try the dribble glass on them. Save it for friends during a round of RC Cola. The fake vomit could wait for my sister. Squirting lapel flowers, rubber knives, cigar loads, a book on vemtriloquism, another on hypnotism, midget radios, and much more to suck away the savings of little boys who wished to annoy the world.

Johnson & Smith, you made my world a livelier place. And I see you're still in business today, a rock, a verity that is contributing to the exasperation of America from the sunny shores of California to the rockbound coast of Maine.  Onward, proud bearers of the flag of nuisance. Go forth and pester. Joy-buzz the joyless!

Some revelations about John the Revelator.

Curtis Stigers & The Forest Rangers have a rockin' good version on Songs of Anarchy, seasons 1-4

I first heard about this years ago, as a piece of music, a call and response song or spiritual but can't recall the artist. Maybe Son House, maybe Leadbelly, but it was a scratchy old recording. There were many versions, and I bought a Gillian Welch album on the strength of its name, Time The Revelator, but it wasn't even close, though a really good album. JTR sticks in my mind anyway.

It's a gospel piece about the Apostle John and the book of Revelation, a powerfully written apocalyptic book of the Bible, from which authors and singers have borrowed for eons. Spooky preacher movies come to mind, guys in flat top hats and long black coats, crazy eyes. Vengeance swooping down.

Johnny Cash singing "When the Man Comes Around." lyricizes scenes from Revelation, as do any number of songs, books, movies and stories. Pale horse. Vengeance is mine sayeth Robert Mitchum, Clint Eastwood, Walter White.

Hmm. Maybe it's Maybelline. Maybe, it's just JTR dressup time. Spooky interesting cover.

Anyway something serendipitous happened to bring JTR to the recent forefront for me: I heard a snatch of John The Revelator from the album Songs of Anarchy (music from Sons of Anarchy) by Curtis Stigers & The Forest Rangers, so I hunted it down, got the CD. Pretty nice. Maybe a week later I got an email from Black Lawrence Publishing about a book titled John The Revelator by TJ Beitelman. Looks like I'll have to get this book, being hooked solid by a high-octane poetic excerpt. And the hook was set by a review that said it was "a little Tom Sawyer. a little late Barry Hannah, Oliver Twist via Quentin Tarrantino." The juxtaposition of Barry Hannah, a hero of mine, and Tarantino promises Southern Gothic black humor and a heap of crazy-ass smackdown, and who can resist that?

Beitelman is a poet/novelist and can be found online at www.tjbman.com and www.try101.org  The book is available at Black Lawrence Press www.blacklawrence.com, and also, of course at Amazon. His website is worth a visit and a look at his impressive accomplishments. And it looks like he's working on the screenplay for the book.

Toy Show.

First Friday in June, 2014, that's the new date for G-shows at The Hilliard Gallery in the Crossroads, Kansas City; used to be May but was offered my druthers so jumped on it. Weather's so screwy it might snow in May. Anyway, it's a toy show. Toys of the Dystopian. That chopper frame you see is the start of one of the toys. The motor is sorta TBD, but that supercharger under it will be part of it--it's out of some Ford beast that is no longer around. I'll add some other motoriffic stuff so it looks like one kick and you're off to get bugs on your goggles. Unsafe at any speed, maybe even standing still, until I get it braced right.

I was a little leery of welding that old tank, so I put a mild molotov cocktail in it and WHUMP! It didn't get blown outa shape, so on the piece it went. That chrome seat is off an old 1940's Exercycle, a deluxe deal back then, and made like a German tank. Needs a chain; the one on it suffered some trauma.

It's just about half-finished, so wait'll D Day, the 6th of June. The Hilliard will be transformed into a demented kid's toy-room, a palace of playthings for the peculiar. In other words it'll look like shows of the past. And, as usual I have no real idea of what will be in it, except for this bike sculpture and a standing rocket I'm working on. I may get a model to stand near the chopper and hand stuff out--that'd be cool. Maybe blotter acid. What do you think?  I know this Parts Wagon will be in it. It's a pedal toy. And I've been thinking of an outlandish iron-wheeled turtle with stuff on its back. Beyond that you know as much as I do. Save the date. D (for dystopian) Day, the 6th of June.

Parts wagon. Parts from everything. There's even a headset for groovin'. Horns play Stairway to Heaven.

The Second Happiest Day. (The day I got the Cord 810)

It was a Glenn Pray Cord and people were given to calling it a kit car, but it wasn't: It was a production car made in Oklahoma, by Mr. Pray in a factory setting to very precise standards that Gordon Beuhrig approved. He made about 100 of them before calling it quits. And they were marvels of engineering and technology for the time. Some people marveled that they even ran. But they were advanced; the body was 3-layered "memory plastic." They ran one through a brick wall, then used a 500-degree heat gun on it, and the body returned to its original shape. Really. It needed painting, and the windshield and headlights had to be replaced, and the frame was damaged. But the memory plastic remembered. They fired .22s at the door, and were able to heat-gun the marks out of it. So they said, anyway.

I think this one was number 70 off the line, and when they were brand new they were around $5,000. That was probably what a loaded Cadillac cost at the time, in the 1960's. The price included airfare to Tulsa, then it was up to you to drive it home. My folks flew to meet their Cord, drove it back to KC where it sat in that garage. It was not a joy to drive. And my mom didn't drive a stick shift any more. I inherited the car years later in a state of some disrepair. My euphoria would soon dissipate.

It was fast, with its supercharged corvair spyder but no real shakedown had ever proven the cars, so with a mixture of parts ranging from Chevy to Citroen, it had problems that were never really resolved. Wiring was a bete noir that tested the most seasoned mechanics. The carb was a Weber side draft and that was a challenge to keep clean and operating. This factory model had air conditioning which issued from a large cannister that sat atop the engine, and we finally removed it for good. The little moon hub caps were from a  Harley Davidson ServiCycle, and the steering wheel was a Studebaker banjo type if I recall correctly.  It was a handsome automobile, suicide doors, front wheel drive, beautiful dashboard and instrumentation, sleek lines hearkening back to Gatsby days. But it needed about 10 grand to make it right.

When you goosed it up to supercharger speed, that would boost it noticeably, but the suspension was not marvelous. It was okay on a straight line, roaring along. Until smoke started pouring out from under the dash as it did with me halfway to KC from Iowa. I pulled over and it seemed to smoke less--I couldn't find anything burnt under there, and drove it on home. Maybe too strong a fuse or something, but It ran and the wiring smoked only occasionally. You got used to it.

What one didn't know about the car could, indeed, hurt them. Turning tightly in a cramped space, say parallel parking, subjected the tires to a deep scoring by sharp frame flanges, and that could result in a rather perfect blowout at high speeds. We spied that on a lift and ground down the edges, so the flanges couldn't reach the tires.

The Cord and I were not on great terms. It cost me money daily, and many refused to work on it. So it went to Texas, to a Glenn Pray Cord fancier. So the second happiest day was getting the Cord. The happiest day was getting rid of it.

The 1949 Hillman Minx. I could'a had a V8.

It was blue and had turn signals. The signals were "arms" about a foot long that flopped out of the body about window height on one side or the other to show which way you were turning; they were lit at night. Sensational. Very strange. This particular Hillman was my first car, and I'm pretty sure I was steered into it because it wouldn't go very fast. The day I got my license I put 300 miles on that underpowered British sled. It was used, quite used, worn out in fact, and it began to fall apart from day one.  I can't remember how many miles were on the odometer, but it had to have turned over once. Hillmans were used as taxicabs in Great Britain, so it was probably a pretty staunch little vehicle to start with.

Mine had a crank, for cold weather starts, and that was helpful but you needed someone to choke it and pump the accelerator. The thing is it was a four cylinder, and I was like, "I coulda had a V8," slap my head, but heck it was a car, it was transportation.

It didn't wow girls, though I remember dating in it. I slunk through Winstead's Drive-in to the derision of the rodders.

I tried to beef it up some by getting the head shaved, but didn't know English bolts turned the wrong way, so snapped off about five of the soft iron mothers trying to get the damn head off in the first place. We had to tap those bolts to get them out of the block. I learned to swear bigtime working on that crate.

Okay, new head gasket on, bolts in place, torque wrench ready. All bolts finger tight. Torque 'em all at 65lbs. Next, hook up the accelerator cable. Where is it? Hmm, trace it from the accelerator, through the firewall, toward the block, up, up, oh no, must be an optical illusion. It looks like it's between the head and the block. Oh my. Oh my goodness. Rackafratzz mofronkator. Res ipsa loquitur.

Okay, new gasket, polish head surface, bolts ready. Etc. Finally got the Hellman running. No that's not a misspelling.

I get in to drive to school next day. Lean back in the seat. Snap! The seatback breaks in two and I'm sitting on half a seat. You can't even work the clutch or brake that way. I could go on, but it was not soon enough that a 1949 Ford flathead V8 entered my life and changed it for good. We lowered it 4" in back, pipes, cherry bombs, dechromed it, heads, cartbs, ignition, primer paint job. Here i come, Winstead's. I even got into one of those awful 50's hot rod movies. More about that some other time.