Before YouTube there was the Xerox machine

The other day while I was sorting out and tossing old papers, I realized that I’m old enough to remember some stuff that has gone the way of the Cold War.

For example, I can still recall the putrid smell of purple mimeograph fluid (and the uncontrollable urge to sniff a fresh copy even though it smelled like puke).

Most of all, I remember what it was like to fuck off at work before email and the internet. Back when office correspondence came to you in a brown reusable envelope with a red string closure, nearly everyone below the rank of area manager had some sort of “copier joke” tacked to the wall in their work area.

These were usually tattered sheets that had been copied over and over so many times they were barely readable, covered in defects and spots like an octogenarian’s DNA.

At one point they were ubiquitous. You could travel from one business to another one on the other side of the country and there’d be the same blurry page taped to the side of a filing cabinet. I remember wondering who could have drawn the originals and exactly how old were they? Copiers date back to the late 1950s but the mimeograph was invented back in the 1870s.

While digging through my old papers, I ran across a small stash of these. Most of the ones I had inadvertently saved were just simple text with jokes like “Stress is the body’s reaction to resisting the natural urge to kick the shit out of someone who desperately deserves it” or compilations of made up corporate sounding acronyms that spelled out variations of the word “shit”.

There were two of these though that were universal. No matter whether you were in a government office or a warehouse you’d see these two taped up in all their yellowed glory to some cubicle.

The first of these was Snoopy’s work week. He starts out dancing on Sunday and progresses miserably through the week, slowly improving towards the weekend. Girls always had this one.

The only one of these more common than the “Snoopy at work” was “Never give up”. Say those words to anyone who remembers the first brick cell phone and this is what comes to mind:

He must have really liked that car

Here’s a vintage photo of unknown origin of a guy who went to extraordinary steps to save his car from a flood. I’m assuming the car did not run or he would have just driven it someplace safe.



I hope all that water didn’t loosen up the soil and cause the tree to fall over from all the weight hanging off one side of it . It would be a real bitch to do all that and come back and find your flooded car with a huge tree on top of it. Note the house on the right is completely flooded out.

South Africa’s contribution to a more irritating world

So last night I decided to go down to “Plaza de Largartos” in El Paso to see “the grito” or the traditional cry of independence of Mexico. It was being held in El Paso this year instead of Juarez because Reyes Ferris, the mayor of Juarez (who wisely lives in El Paso) decided that it was too insecure to host the bicentennial Independence Day celebration of Mexico from Spain in Mexico and the whole thing was moved across the border into the US.

After driving around for an hour around the area cordoned off by the El Paso police (who unlike the various Mexican police are doing their jobs instead of shooting at each other) I finally parked and started walking toward the celebrations.

I knew from 4 blocks away it was going to be unpleasant. The sound wafting around the buildings was familiar and I knew immediately that the 2010 World Cup has forever changed the world into a less enjoyable place. That irritating bleat of vuvuzelas was growing louder as I got closer. Seems some enterprising soul had gathered up all the leftover red white and green horns unsold after Mexico got knocked out of the World Cup and remarketed them as holiday noisemakers.


The typical vuvuzela owner is a kid about 3-4 feet tall or 5-6 feet tall at the end of his horn, which puts the damn thing right at ear level. After about 30 minutes of being deafened by every third passing kid, I knew it was time to leave and went to Taco Tote to watch the whole thing on TV. Definitely the right decision since they weren’t selling beer downtown and the national fireworks in D. F. were stunning.

Today is the 200th year of independence of Mexico from Spain, which our local narcos celebrated by adding some red to this green and white taxi on Ave. De Technologico.

"Viva Mexico!"

1950s Fiat dealer in Vermont - Make that California

Here's a cool shot I ran across of a Fiat dealer in Vermont in the late 1950s (Note- A reader of this blog I pretty much trust states that this dealer was in California, not Vermont). The blue car in the front is a Autobiachi based off the Fiat 500. Even nicer is the Fiat Jolly in the showroom. Originally sold with wicker seats and a canvas "surrey" top these car are highly desireable today and a mint example can fetch north of $60,000 at auction.

Not bad for a Fiat 500 with roof chopped off!

"I'll take the 2 fer deal!"

Islamic gay bar at ground zero?

So it seems in the furor that has erupted over the building of “something by Muslims” near the site of ground zero in New York , conservative blogger Greg Gutfeld has come up with his own novel response to this.

He has proposed the building of a "islamic freindly" gay bar next door. I guess the logic behind this is that Muslims find homosexuality to be an affront against Islam and would be equally offended as he is to building “a mosque” next to the former site of the World Trade Center.

Here’s his entire proposal, including the part about not serving alcohol in his bar since Muslims “don’t drink”: http://www.dailygut.com/?i=4696

However, I can’t get over some conservatives proposing opening a gay bar. This has got to be a first or at least the first time they’ve been willing to admit they consider gays more “American” or “normal” than Muslims.

I suppose there’s a master ranking of “hated people” tacked up on the walnut panelling in some smoke filled backroom of the RNC national headquarters up in the Hamptons or something.

I’m curious though, what does a conservative gay bar look like anyway?

Do you open the door and walk into a tiny room full of coats?

Little known facts – Washington really is the evil empire

Sometime back in the 1980s a contest was held for children to design grotesques for the National cathedral in Washington DC. Third place runner up was kid named Christopher Rader, who drew a picture of Darth Vader. This was accepted and immortalized in stone on the cathedral.

The statute was designed by Jay Hall Carpenter and carved by a guy named Patrick J. Plunkett and sits on a gablet on the northwest tower.

I know it sounds like something I just made up but I’m not that good. May the force be with you.

Topiary abuse

#1 reason not to piss off your landscape crew:

El Huerfano

There’s lots of stuff in America that people just don’t know about. Not big enough to garner national notoriety but interesting nevertheless. As a service to my fellow Americans, when I find this stuff I’ll tell you about it here.

Driving north on I-25 in southern Colorado is mostly a boring exercise spent looking at endless rolling plains with far off mountains it the distance. However near the town of Walsenburg is a curious rock formation erupting from the grassy plains.

Named “El Huerfano”, or “The Orphan” by Spanish explorers in the late 1700s, it is a volcanic cone of large blocky gaseous basalt several hundred feet high.

The butte was used as a marker by early travelers and first appears in Spanish documents in 1818. The area was incorporated as part of Mexico in 1821 and large tracts of land were granted to favored individuals and many small settlements and ranches were established near El Huerfano. Many of the towns and landmarks around it still have Spanish names. The area became part of the United States in 1848.

This drawing, based of an 1853 photograph made by Soloman Carvalho (photographer to the Col. John C. Freemont’s 5th western expedition), shows Huerfano Butte looking pretty much the same as it does today, minus the four lane highway running past it.

There’s not much in the area so the Colorado highway dept. constructed a pulloff on the side of the interstate so you can stop and view the little orphaned mountain in the middle of nowhere.

It’s located a few hundred yards off the highway on what looks like private ranchland but there’s really no one around for miles to stop you from taking a closer look. A dirt road runs beside the rock formation that you can go down to get closer.

So you think your kids need a British nanny?

OK, this is a direct rip-off from the New York Daily news. I don’t claim any responsibility at all for writing this but how could I not share this. Unaltered and as reported on their website http://www.nydailynews.com/

A 30-year-old British woman's death, when using a sex toy while watching a porn movie, was probably caused by her state of arousal, officials said.

Nicola Paginton, a children's nanny, was found dead in bed - naked from the waist down - in October as the porn movie played on her laptop, according to the Daily Mail.

A pathologist and coroner said during an inquest that Paginton died from a sudden heart arrhythmia, likely caused by "her activity before death." the paper reported.

Police had been called to Paginton's home after her employer, Sarah Griffths, went to her house when she failed to show up for work. She and a neighbor saw Paginton lying on her bed with her cat sitting on her chest.

Supercalfragalistiexpialidocious!!!

Car bomb pandemonium in Juárez

Just when you thought things couldn’t get any weirder in Juárez the narcos ramp it up a notch. Yesterday someone ran a small car filled with explosives (said to be a Ford Focus by local news Chanel 44) into two pickups full of Federal police on the main thoroughfare in downtown. The explosion at the corner of Sieptembre 16th and Bolivia street killed two police officers and a medical technician. The blast also injured seven more officers (these guys ride standing up in the bed of the pickups) and two bystanders.

According to Channel 44, the attack was in retaliation for the arrest of an member of the “La Linea” drug cartel. Channel 44 reports that this individual was responsible for collecting protection & extortion money for the police (exactly what group of police wasn’t made clear). They also report that each person reporting to “35” had to bring in $16,000 pesos (about $1500) each month!

Later in the day, this “narcomanta” appeared painted on a nearby wall (messages are usually left at the scene of murders and public placement of torture victims to communicate to the rival cartel). It says; "What happened on 16 (de Septiembre avenue) will keep happening to all the authorities who keep supporting El Chapo. Sincerely - the Juarez cartel. We still have car bombs."

As if the residents of Juarez didn’t have enough crap to worry about, now they must add car bombs & IEDs to the list. I guess narcos go to see “The Hurt Locker” too.

Update 3:34 PM:

After investigating the crime scene, athuorities have determined that about 22 pounds of C4 explosive was detonated with a cel phone from nearby. Borrowing a page straight out of the Al Queida terrorism handbook, the narco dressed up a body in a stolen police uniform and called the police to report a victim first. Once the police showed up to investigate the bomb was detonated. This shows a fairly sophisticated plan of attack using techniques developed by insurgents in places like Iraq and Afghanistan. One only has to wonder how and from whom they learned these techniques.