Goodwill Bonanza pt 2/3

thunder. Thunder. THUNDERCA-oh crap. wrong rallying cry. forgot where i was.



try this one on for size. GOO! as in, "the next 'GOO'dwill store i hit up on my three store bonanza in one day, several months ago." we'll just say "GOO!" for shorthandsies. it's easier.



sweet little ceramic mamacita for like three or four bucks if memory serves, totally made me want to snap on my bandolero and play some flamenco guitar like the guy in those old antonio banderas talk show sketches from saturday night live who would stand in the back and scream "SENOR PLEASE NO ISA TOO SEXY" every time chris kattan would threaten to take off his shirt, even though no one has ever said that in real life when chris kattan threatens to take off his shirt, which he probably does all the time. i loathe chris kattan, although not nearly as much as i loathe andy dick who, to his credit, wrote a fucking delightfully nasty little song about chris kattan that he performed on the howard stern show a million years ago and still persists in my head to this day. the part i remember went:

chris kattan
chris kattan
you horrible little troll of a man

i still sing that to myself every time i see a movie poster for "monkeybone," which is surprisingly often.

what the hell was i talking about? oh, right, little mexican woman statue. pardon me, y'all. it's late.

BITTER/BOOKS AFTER DARK



this made me laugh hysterically. i love the off brands that make cheaper versions of the regular products that are already popular (jansport backpacks, in this instance) and their entire marketing strategy is that people won't be paying close enough attention to notice that the brand name is SLIGHTLY different, they'll just focus on the fact that it costs half as much and not notice that it's made by 9 year olds in korea (as opposed to jansport which is made by 12 year olds in bangladesh, much better).

(the preceding statements are retarded, deliberately inflammatory comments made by the author and are not indicative of the beliefs, attitudes, or opinions of any employee or authorized agent of bitter/books, LLC, any of its parent companies, or subsidiaries. for the record, though, we do love to rape goats.)



a french puzzle shaped like an italian food, made by a company named after an african antelope? what the hell, did the United Nations just take a shit in my brain?



i wish real bowling pins laughed at you and cracked jokes as you knocked them down. even though none of the things that these pins are saying on the side of the box technically qualify as "jokes." apparently the quip-masters behind this particular piece of electronic entertainment didn't quite grasp the concept. if i built this game the pins would say things like:

"a skeleton runs into a bar, and says 'give me a beer, and a mop.' a mop."

"a man is standing in line at the train station behind a priest. the priest walks up to the ticket window and tries to ask for two tickets to pittsburgh, but he stumbles on his words and asks the lady for 'two pickets to tittsburgh' instead. eventually the misunderstanding is resolved and the priest takes his tickets and sits down on a nearby bench, very very embarrased at his freudian slip. after the man purchases his tickets he walks over and sits down next to the priest, and in an attempt to comfort him says 'don't worry about it, father, people misspeak all the time. why, just the other day i was sitting at the breakfast table with my wife and i needed some salt from the other side of the table. i meant to ask her to pass the salt but instead i said 'i hate you you horrible bitch, you ruined my life.''"

or my personal favorite:

"why is a mouse when it spins?"



this is a rare occasion when i'm damn near flummoxed. this picture almost nearly speaks for itself. it's an animatronic rapping o.g. santa. complete with holiday bling, and all. bear in mind, this picture was taken in fucking AUGUST. i want to say someone actually pressed the button when i was within earshot just to see what song it was, but thankfully that memory's passed me by in the intervening months, so i couldn't say. thank god for small miracles.



i bought (sort of) these SWEET polarized aviators which i've been wearing ever since. they kind of make me look like my dad, but the older i get the more i realize that there are worse things in the world. my dad actually looks pretty damn pimping most of the time. except when he decided to start wearing uggs. i love you pops but that was, is, and always will be a mistake.



i also bought these boot shoe things which were MY SIZE FOR A CHANGE and SO money i couldn't resist. i haven't had a LOT of occasions to wear them yet, but a good pair of shoes is a good pair of shoes and i firmly believe in buying things that you grow into. not to get too soapboxy here but i really feel like that's one of the coolest things about shopping at thrift stores, is the opportunity to be confronted by something (whether it be an article of clothing, or an album, or a piece of art, or a fucking kitchen appliance or something) that really challenges you and forces you to step outside of your comfort zone. i know i might sound like i'm dressing up the emperor here but it's the god's honest truth, in my personal experience anyway - you find things you didn't think you were going to find, and they make you think about things you didn't think you were going to have to think about. it's as simple as that. i bought these shoes because i loved them (and because they were hells cheap) and i'll find occasions to wear them and if you had asked me to envision a pair of shoes that i wanted i wouldn't have picked these but i saw them and they were great and i knew they were what i wanted. does that make any sense? i hope not.



one of the really cool things this particular goodwill (on stage road out in bartlett, fast becoming the hotspot for the thrifting experience in memphis tn, much to my disdain) is all the framed stuff they have. it's priced accordingly, don't get me wrong, but it's mostly one of a kind shit, like this weird bar scene framed photograph thing. here's a closeup.



this is an amazing amazing image, and it was framed pretty well, and having spent a fair amount of time on all sides of the bar myself (in front of, behind, underneath, and on top of) i could really relate. i was sorely tempted to get it but i didn't, for a lot of reasons. it was nice to see it though, and i'm sure it's blowing up someone's wall right now somewhere, and i feel pretty good about that.



this one was a damn heartbreaker though. i've loved marilyn monroe for a long long time, and specifically the lesser-seen images of her, and this is a great one, and it was HUGE and it was really framed well, and it was fifty bucks, and i just didn't have fifty bucks. as much as i love marilyn and the immense weight that her relatively brief life carried in the popular culture of our country, the way her legacy plays itself out in every tawdry fucked in the head reality show contestant desperately yearning for self redemption and self transformation and self purification through the constant unblinking eye of fame and recognition, she wouldn't have paid fifty bucks for this picture and so neither did i.

that's all i got for this one, sweets. be back soon with another varietal probe for your parietal lobe. in the meantime...

love

d

ps

almost forgot. "the higher, the fewer." that's why a mouse is when it spins. in case you were curious.