Anyone who knows me knows I love bowling. It’s not the sport itself but, rather, the accessories that go along with it that make my heart sing. I have no idea what this little mini pin was made for – I’m guessing a standalone trophy – but I found two of them and wish I had more. I used the first one as the end of a banister going up my stairs:
I don’t known what The Fun Club was but I want to be a part of anything with that name. I also love anything that’s formally printed up where someone can’t resist the urge to embellish it with their own personal painting touch. The ‘Tom’ (or is it ‘Glom’?) and the ‘218′ add such an elegance to the pin.
Nowadays, this little pin’s only job is to stand around and look pretty. Every now and then I hear it being batted around the house by the cats. I know it’s the bowling ball that’s supposed to roll but I hope this pin has some sense of the energy of its big brother bowling pin heritage and can enjoy its journey skidding over the hard wood floor, even though it’s been hit by a cat and not a ball.
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Categories:
Awards,
Games,
Kitsch,
Kitsch O' The Day,
Toy
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Most people have a laptop or desktop computer and, if they’re lucky, a few terabytes of storage. I have 42,000 terabytes, the ever-growing result of owning one of the first networked houses in LA and being terminally digital dependent. I put the network in in 1991 when I connected all of my then three Macs and got online. This was still in the day when 97% of the world’s population and 99.9% of the entertainment industry either never heard of the Internet or thought it was the dorkiest medium possible and would “never catch on”. But I was clear that for me it was the road to ultimate self-expression, a way out of being under the thumb of media conglomerates who controlled when and how I could express myself via my career. I was always a vociferous documenter and archivist so once that network went in my house it grew by leaps and bounds to this very day when my “laptop” looks like this:
Categories:
Gadgets,
Games,
Kitsch,
Kitsch O' The Day,
Technology
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This game felt especially fitting because it’s supposed to teach you how to play by ear. Not only did I never learn to play by ear but I never learned to play period. Which makes the fact that my songs have sold over 50 million records a very kitschy thing indeed! I don’t suppose this game will help me, though, as there are no instructions included. I was never good at following instructions with anything anyway which is why just about everything I do is so spontaneous and free form. Which is what I loved about Pomplamoose when everyone started sending me links to their version of my song,“September”. I sent them a message and asked them if they wanted to write something together, something I never do, but I thought they were so fresh and casual and inventive that it would be a good match. From the looks of their videos it looked like they already knew what this game had to teach.
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Memorabilia,
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Pomplamoose,
September,
Songwriting,
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I can’t remember any game more popular than Cootie when I was growing up. But forget about the game itself, I loved playing with the little plastic body parts. I’m quite positive that the full-on-plastic-soaked-saturation of the pink Cootie legs is where my love of that particular color came from.
Categories:
Animals,
Art,
Celebrity,
Games,
House,
Kitsch,
Kitsch O' The Day,
Transportation
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I never really watched Murder, She Wrote during its run on CBS from 1984-1996. I was in a very heavy songwriting and technology phase and although I always had the TV on – or should I say TVs as I had 28 of them at the time, one against every wall in each room so I wouldn’t miss a moment – I never had the sound up. All I ever watched then anyway were comedies. I didn’t have the patience for any of the more complex murder shows. To appreciate and understand what was going on in them I would have needed the sound up and once that happened it became more about me listening to the score and looking at the hairdos and fashions than actually following the plot. Following the intricacies of a murder case demands concentration. Just like trying to figure out how to play the Murder, She Wrote game does:
Categories:
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Friends theme,
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Yesterday, iconic TV host Art Linkletter passed away. Even as a little kid Art seemed a little square to me but there’s no doubt that he pioneered many of the formulas of today’s TV shows with segments like celebrity guests, cooking, talking to kids and audience quizzes. His big two hits which between them ran from 1952 to 1970, House Party and People Are Funny, were massively popular. This ‘party game with cards’ spun out of the latter and continued in people’s living rooms what was so popular on Art’s shows - getting everyday people to do dorky stunts like trying to cash a check written on a watermelon and make fools of themselves, oftentimes ending up with a pie in the face for failing. It’s obvious that Linkletter’s tactics are still very much alive on TV today.
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I was already onto more sophisticated teenage fare like Hullabaloo and Shindig by the time Green Acres, a hokey journey into the countryside by two rich city slickers, came on the air in 1968. But the hokier still theme song always stuck in my head so I was well aware of it. And there evidently was more to that theme song then there was magic glue or whatever it took for these “stay-on” clothes to stick to Eva Gabor/Lisa Douglas and Eddie Albert Jr./ Oliver Wendell Douglas (no garments for Arnold the pig) cuz they sho ain’t stickin anymore. Despite the directions, no amount of rubbing will get any of the 36 costumes that drop like dead flies as soon as you remove your hand to “stay-on”.
Categories:
Celebrity,
Forgot to Categorize,
Games,
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Kitsch O' The Day,
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Well, the obvious tunes I would name are “September”, “Boogie Wonderland”, “Neutron Dance”, “What Have I Done to Deserve To This?” and I guess “I’ll Be There for You”. The rest of my favorite tunes are here. But if I have to credit an early source of inspiration for being in the music business and then becoming a songwriter it would have to be the TV show, “Name That Tune”, upon which this game is based and which I watched religiously as a wee nip.
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Kitsch,
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Memorabilia,
Music,
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The only thing I really understand about this game is that Shari Lewis and Lambchop have absolutely nothing to do with it beyond appearing on the cover. Perfect on the Kitsch scale but less than satisfying as a “game” as there are no instructions enclosed (another excellent sign of Kitsch). I guess you hold the cards up and try and get the answer but if you’re unsuccessful you place the cheap little piece of plastic with holes punched in it over the card and it miraculously reveals the answer.
Categories:
Celebrity,
Educational,
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Kitsch,
Kitsch O' The Day
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There were many versions of this game based on the popular TV series pitting two two-people teams against each other to guess words based on clues given by one teammate to another. The original show starred Allen Ludden and ran from 1961-’67 for a total of 1555 episodes. There were almost that many versions of this game as newer versions of Password having been on TV through 2009. Each version added new words except for later anniversary versions where they got lazy and used words from previous sets.
Categories:
Forgot to Categorize,
Games,
Kitsch,
Kitsch O' The Day,
TV/Radio
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