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The More They Stay The Same
From the Slope of Hope: I wanted to do a post that had nothing to do with Greece or charts, just for a change of pace. Because I don't know about you, but after the past 72 hours, I'm exhausted!
One of my favorite "fun" books is a 1995 offering called Hey Skinny!, which is a collection of full-page color ads that were published in comic books in the 1940s and 1950s. I've thumbed through the book many times, but it dawned on me that even though we live in an age where a product released a month ago is "ancient history", these artifacts from six decades ago still speak to the same immutable human desires (which are basically to acquire resources and protect them). There are analogs for just about every product in this thin volume.
Take this little gem, for example:
Boys like so shoot stuff. They always have. Back in those days, blasting your friends with a machine gun assured you "sure 'nuff action". In the modern era, we have offerings like Call of Duty (and dozens of imitators).
Well, how about uber-modern stuff, like 3-D Printing? Being able to create your own plastic products at home is something unique to our time, right? Those primitive kids back in the 50s weren't so lucky, right? Well, not so fast........
So being able to crank out worthless little knick-knacks could be done during the Obama administration or the Harry Truman one. (And be sure to check out the chart of DDD to see how well the 3d printing fad is doing).
Chief among all desires among adults, however, is to be able to earn money and then keep it away from the tyranny of that sumbitch boss of yours, right? These days, you can find dozens of books about making money with Etsy or YouTube or any other creative outlet. The cold reality is that, as with musicians, authors, or any other creative folk, a tiny handful of them make really good money while the overwhelming majority scrape by on next to nothing (or less).
So what was the "Make Your Fortune on YouTube" sixty years ago? I'm glad you asked:
I suppose if we have to point to any progress we've made, one can at least take comfort that I won't be knocking on your door any time in the near future, trying to sell you a cheap pair of shoes from a catalog. You're welcome.
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Jeezus h krist. I didn't realize everyone here is now in that stage of life where ear and nose hair maintenance is a daily chore.
I miss cap guns..miss that cap gun smell..good times.
Amazing what has been done to the perception of firearms and kids over the past few decades - carefully, cleverly and determinedly.
At this time, on this planet, guns are one of the only CURES for psychopathy.
...and if employed by the right trained vigilante, with an excellent 'wet work' record, for banksters.
I sold seeds.
http://mentalfloss.com/article/57958/6-get-rich-quick-schemes-vintage-co...
Did not earn bicycle.
I also sold seeds -- lots of them.
I received a deluxe Fishing Tackle box loaded with all manner of fishing tackle -- all of which I think was manufactured using the above 'PlastiKit' 'cause it was all crap.
When I was a kid I worked hard for three weeks selling news paper subscriptions for the Toronto Star in a new Subdivision in Mississauga. I earned enough points to qualify for a new hockey stick. When I got the stick from my supervisor, I eagerly took it into my basement where we were practicing slap shots, took one swipe with the stick and broke it clear in two at the ankle. Never again....
Don't use credit cards, don't even use point cards.
Back in the days when the government and the media were not at war with the middle class and white people.
Oh yes, I remember it well.
U can slam media all you want but at least they know their fastest growing market is not white people. When Roe vs Wade passed, it gave white women the license they needed to stop having children in the quantity or quality required to replace themselves, while hispanics out produce them 7 to 1 and blacks 8 to 1.
If you had a business and wanted to serve a growing market, what would you do?
That F500 Fury is fine if you are white. If you were black and roaming the street with it you'd be shot by the cops in 11 seconds...
Today no matter who you are, just try and walk down the street with a faux machine gun, even if you are dressed in a suit and tie, see what happens.
This is how racism thrives: thru idiots like you.
Is that an Aeroplane as a front sight on the cap machine gun? Must be a really potent weapon then. Once the kiddo runs out of shots, the plane will takeoff and fry your ass with its Hellfire missiles.
I'm waiting for a troll;
" My brother in law's 2nd cousin from his fathers first marriage makes $3589.53 a week, just sitting in front of a computer. Click on the free link, and I'll show you how to afford a brand new 58 Buick LeSabre!"
And oh yeah, that cracker with the plastic Tommy Gun wouldn't last 3 minutes at the park.
One thing that has changed is engineered obsolescence. We have gotten sooo much better at that. ;)
Hey Tim,
I live in the South Bay also. I went to HanaHaus a few weeks ago. What's the over/under on how long that ridiculous place will stay open?
I don't know about all this nostalgia. I grew up in the very nicest part of Oakland; when the wind blew one way, you could smell the Fleischmann's Yeast Factory, and when it blew the other way, you could smell the Sulfuric Acid from the Battery Factory. And if you actually went to sleep at night, you'd wake up at 12.30 AM when the ninety car Freight Train high-balled by and made the windows rattle. Our main sport was fighting your way to school in the morning, and then fighting your way back again in the afternoon.
Yeah, and many of the homes in my home town were found to be built on uranium mining tailings.
As a 13 -14 year old, to make money, I bussed tables at the Holiday Inn on the weekends for a bunch of hung-over adults. My friends and I read Hustler, Penthouse, Playboy, Gallery, and Chic magazines that we had stolen from under our parents' beds. Our parents weren't goody-two-shoes selling shoes for extra money in the 70's. They were swingers and drunks pretending to be rich instead of actually working to become rich.
Dna test?
,Respectively.
I miss Jack Paar.
"Bill! A new toaster!"
I guess women were easier to please back in those days.
My mother saved green stamps for that sort of junk.
Children of the Depression with modest expectations.
SIGH.... I remember this kind of stuff and very fondly I might add......
The old boy still likes to get on the rye and tell me tales of his younger years. I can't blame him for getting nostalgic. I often have a hard believing anyone survived to procreate with all that freedom you guys had. Voluntary insurance, the ability to buy a house without a mortgage, you didn't even have to go to college!! All you had to do was show proficiency and be a decent human being and the world was yours....
I dunno Tim, I kinda think things have changed.
It helped havng our economy intact after winning WW2.
Our enemies actually surrendered to us and the war was over. Not like today where we have a nigger point to a calendar and tell us and our enemies the troops come home on the day circled in red....
Don’t forget… (like Carly Simon sings)
That was nice :)