Halloween Hits: "The Martian Boogie" Brownsville Station (1977)

 

 Listen Here

 As played frequently on The Dr. Demento Show around Halloween back in the day. Enjoy.

Vintage Fireworks

Happy Fourth of July from (and Happy 2nd Anniversary to) History's Dumpster!

 

Happy Mother's Day

 

"I.O.U." Jimmy Dean (1976)

Happy Cinco de Mayo!

Ahhh...Cinco de Mayo. The day we Americans celebrate Mexican Independence Day by throwing parties, quaffing margaritas, tequila or Modelo beer and enjoying a fun super tasty South of The Border feast.

But that's not entirely correct. There's lots of fun parties and the alcohol does flow freely. The food is always marvelous and super tasty.

Yet Cinco de Mayo is not Mexican independence day. That's September 16th. Cinco de Mayo is in fact, more of an American holiday than a Mexican one. And one that deserves more recognition than it gets.

Cinco de Mayo's roots begin during the French occupation of Mexico. Mexico at the time was in a real mess. They had 15 years of wars (The Mexican-American War, The Mexican Civil War and The Reform War) and everybody was getting tired of it. Finally in 1861, Mexican President Benito Juarez told Britain, Spain and France to hold off on their debt collection for these wars for two years until they can financially reorganize and get the country back on track.

They sent armies to confront Mexico and collect their debts regardless. Britain and Spain negotiated and backed off. But the French, under the rule of Napoleon III would not hear of it and another war began. Napoleon III wanted to turn Mexico into a French territory and since the Americans at the time were in an ugly civil war, he thought he could establish a strong enough foothold in Mexico, which he could then use to invade America (which was still a very small, very rural country at the time.) By using the Confederate South as proxies.

Napoleon sent 8,000 troops to attack Mexico's 4,500 troops at Veracruz. But on May 5, 1862, the much smaller Mexican army sent the French into retreat. The news reached the border communities of America where people celebrated the news.

While there would be more fighting, a major turning point had begun. Had Napoleon III defeated the Mexicans at Veracruz, the Civil War could have ended very differently.

So Cinco de Mayo is very much an American holiday. (More on Cinco de Mayo)

It was the expanding Latino communities that brought the holiday across America. But it was beer companies in the '80s that helped bring Cinco de Mayo into the American mainstream.

Because if there's one thing everyone LOVES, it's to party.

Happy Cinco de Mayo!

Happy 4/20 Day!

 

 (PASSING THE VIRTUAL HASHPIPE TO YOU.....)

 

Photo: The Night Owl

Photo: Welcome To The 70s

Photo: Inside The Rock Poster Frame

Barnaby Becomes the Easter Bunny (Hallmark, 1974)

Side 1

Side 2

Happy Easter!

The Easter Egg Cake

(Click to enlarge)

Vintage Hormel Easter Ham Magazine Ad From 1974

Plastic Easter Grass

 

Like the similar shiny silver plastic tinsel for Christmas trees....

THIS evil crap (Luckily metal tinsel was replaced by shiny plastic in the 1970s.)

Plastic easter grass (and tinsel) are indisputably the worst holiday decorating products EVER.

Namely because by April, you're STILL picking out the strands of Christmas tinsel that shedded off the tree and now gums up the roller of your vacuum cleaner.

But plastic Easter grass is much worse. Because that stuff doesn't stay in one general area. If you have little kids, they throw that stuff everywhere. And just as you're trimming the Christmas tree once again, out of the corner of your eye in an overlooked edge of the wall, you see a shiny strand of green transparent plastic that gets your blood pressure up.....

Today however, biodegradable paper is often preferred (one ugly side effect of plastic grass is pets eat them. And plastic doesn't digest.) or even edible candy Easter grass.  

Chick Chick Easter Egg Colouring Kit From 1910

1953 Mattel Tin Musical Wind-Up Easter Egg

Dudley's Easter Egg Colouring Kits

Remember Dudley the Easter....whatever it was....?

In the 1970s, you pretty much had two choices for Easter egg colouring kits. The cheap and traditional, but lame Paas kits (or the similar Chick Chick kits.)

 Or the more expensive and more interesting Dudley kits.



Dudley kits had more artistic variety, such as swirls and glitter.

But Dudley always resembled some 40something bachelor guy sitting next to you in a sports bar that you probably talked to after a few strong drinks. Not so much a cute fluffy bunny rabbit we associate with Easter.

Perhaps noticing this, the makers of Dudley gave him a makeover, Now he doesn't look like a fat cross-eyed buffoon.

 
But really, the "new" Dudley is.....Well....A little too cutesy?

Corned Beef & Cabbage

 

It's the quintessential St. Patrick's Day dinner food in America, one as mandatory as turkey on Thanksgiving. But how did we come to eat corned beef and cabbage on St. Patrick's Day?

It actually might surprise some that this really isn't an Irish dish at all. 

The original Irish dinner actually used bacon in place of corned beef. And not the bacon strips that are a mandatory staple of American breakfast tables. Or even salt pork. 

In the 19th century, Irish immigrants to the United States began substituting corned beef for bacon when making the dish. Corned beef was more plentiful and cheaper than the bacon used to make the traditional Irish dish.

To make corned beef & cabbage is really simple.

You'll need:

-  3 pounds corned beef brisket with spice packet

This is a corned beef brisket.

This is not.

-  10 small red potatoes 

-  5 carrots, peeled and cut into 3-inch pieces

-  1 large head cabbage, cut into small wedges

 

Place the corned beef in a large pot or Dutch oven, add water (just enough to cover the brisket.) Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and let simmer for 50 minutes per pound. Add cabbage, potatoes, carrots and onions in the last half hour. Slice across the grain.

(Don't forget the horseradish, Guinness beer or Bailey's Irish Cream!)

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

  

 

Kawaii Crush

You know, it's the creepy weird crap they make for little girls these days that really makes me take back every bad thing I ever said about Holly Hobbie.

Or at least Holly Hobbie never wore outsized animal carcasses over bubble gum pink hair. And some of you also have young daughters who have begged you or Santa for this.  

Now look, I know we live in edgier times. But what the hell is Kawaii Crush?

I had to investigate.

Oh dear. For those of you who just ate Christmas candy, you're probably going to need an insulin shot in 4-3-2-1.....

And who sings this soundtrack? Maroon 5? (I can't tell anymore through all the AutoTune they use in commercial pop music these days.)

Finding no answers from YouTube (and Wikipedia has no current entry on it.)

I went to Kawaii Crush's web site.

A Flash video popped up with "What is Kawaii Crush?" above the player and feeling a bit of relief, I watched my relief turn to horror as apparently, these dolls or whatever are, are supposed to be cute and they have cute crushes on cute kitties, cute pandas, cute birds and cute bunnies and cover their craniums in cute cuddly carcasses of cute critters. They live in a world where everything is cute and everyone has a crush. ("Even on candy!")

They have names like Sunny Bunny Hop Hop, Katie Cat Meow Meow, Owlena Hoot Hoot and Amanda Panda Pop.

It's enough to make Hello Kitty look like G.I. Joe.

Fortunately, the web site had a "Grown Ups" link. Unfortunately, it has the only information a parent needs to know from a toy company: Like, Follow, Subscribe and BUY!!

I stopped right here. This is about as far into Kawaii Crush cuteness as I could go without going into catastrophic diabetic shock.