'Do the World a Favor'

Time Travel: Dream Salon

I only wish this commercial weren't so damned short!


Thanks Gene.

Rat Fink

photo by Apollo Sputnik, Downtown Los Angeles Artwalk, March 2009.

The Well-Dressed Man

The Playboy Archives are up online - partially, anyway - and predictably, one can get lost for hours. I've barely begun to tap the surface of what's there. This reminded me of TJB: classic, timeless menswear. I love it!



And the ads, of course, are fabulous:

Whatever Happened? Bette tells us.

And yes! That's the same instrumental music from Baby Jane. The mind boggles.

The Drag Queen Machine

Moore Eulabelle!

Mark and I have long been obsessed with Eulabelle Moore. She's not an easy actress to be obsessed with, because she only had one memorable role - but oh! What a role! See how it warped us here. Moore steals the film, no easy task when you're competing with the world's first monster musical. Eulabelle may play a maid with the name of "Eulabelle" (does a low-budget film mean no imagination too?) but she is downright hilarious and even if you think you can't take it anymore, watch it just for Eulabelle.


Sadly, the only other traces of Eulabelle Moore that turn up are her in roles of maids, like here in Broadway's "The Male Animal," with Martha Scott and Robert Preston in 1952. What a shame - and in both photos she is carrying a tray.

The Clapping Song

You know I had to use Pia's version because I love her. I once saw her on a triple bill with Sinatra and Don Rickles. Wow.

As Brian wrote in his comments on "Just Wrong Songs," the "wubba dolly" theme is repeated in "The Clapping Song":

My mama told me if I was goody
That she would buy me a rubber dolly
My Aunty told her, I kissed a soldier
Now she won't buy me a rubber dolly



Enjoy.

Just Wrong Songs

"Wubba Dolly"
I was having my morning tea with Chester the Pooch and we heard this little ditty. Pooch promptly buried his head under his favorite velvet pillow. Imagine if they recut this song by, say, Hannah Montana, today:



My mommy told me
If I was goody
That she would buy me
A wubba dolly

So don't you tella
I kissed a fella
Or she won't buy me
That wubba dolly

I know
I've been up to tricks
Oh-oh
I'm in a fix

I want that dolly
Indeed I do-o
But what a fella
I want him too-o

(band members:
Is it the fella or the dolly or the dolly or the
fella or the fella or the dolly for you?
Is it the fella or the dolly or the dolly or the
fella, what are you gonna do?)

I'll be a goodie
Just watch and you'll see
And she will buy me
A wubba dolly

(male voice, sounding like an imitation Louis
Armstrong:
Oh yes I'm sorry
About the dolly
Because we told her, woo-hoo
About this feller)

Boo-hoo
Oh why did you?
Oh boys
I wouldn't do it to you

Why did you tella
I kissed a fella
Now she won't buy me
A wubba dolly



(band members, with children's voices:
We didn't tella
You kissed a fella)
Oh goody-goody - and now she'll buy me
That wubba dolly

Oh look here comes my mommy
And just look what she's got me
My mammy bought me
A little bitty wubba dolly

(male voice, same as before:
She sho' did, she sho' did!)

The Ice Cream Blonde

I was once lucky enough to get a private tour of Thelma Todd's apartment. It is completely intact, and her ghost is rumored to haunt the place.

Altovise Davis

It figures!

Mark and I joke around about the "Gloria Stevens Figure Salon," which was in our local mall in the 70s. We imagined what was inside and how glamorous it was. I've pretty much always belonged to womens-only gyms - I just don't like working out around men, no offense - even though it's not very glamorous. In fact, the large Russian women who frequent my gym during the day are the farthest thing from it. Still, I just don't want a man to see me in the chrysalis stage. Butterfly, yes.

PS. I just did a little googling and what do you know, the Gloria Stevens Figure Salon is now the Women's Fitness Studio.

Move Over, Darling!

What exactly is a "lust sniper" anyway? Does he kill lust? And if he's a sniper, wouldn't he do it, say, from a window across the way, not from an open door? And why is this couple carrying on from such an odd angle right behind the door? If you look at the catapulting woman and the position of the socks ... I mean, I'm bad with math (I can measure high heels - what more do I need to know?) but even I know this position in relation to the door is just wrong. Which reminds me of a favorite album cover, yet another "carrying on in a cramped apartment situation" - the Porter Wagoner classic, "The Cold Hard Facts of Life":

I have blogged about this often. Note the plastic still on the lamp! The door's about to hit the coffee table, too.

The Way I (Wig) Walk

Go check out my bud Devil Dick's selection today:

It's Never Enough, Dahling

-courtesy of Paul Slava.

$1500 on the Italian!

(L - R: Mr. Peenee, TJB, Thombeau (partially hidden), Donna Lethal, and Muscato bid on the latest shipment of houseboys, 1937.)

Yes, Virginia, Santa Hates You.

When Things Go Boom.

Poor Rita Johnson.


She was born Rita McSean in Worcester, Massachusetts and attended the New England Conservatory of Music. She began acting on Broadway in 1935 and started her film career two years after that. She had a memorable role in the RKO black-and-white film noir They Won't Believe Me (1947) playing the doomed wife of cheater Robert Young. She also was memorable in Here Comes Mr. Jordan (1941) and The Big Clock (1948). Johnson's film career came almost to a complete stop after a 1948 freak accident (a hair dryer fell on her head) that required delicate brain surgery. Her screen time in movies after that was limited due to her reduced mobility and powers of concentration. She also suffered as an alcoholic from the time of her injuries until her death in 1965.

A Dowager Reflects

"Who shall I disinherit before tea?"

Cobina's Hocking Her Jewels

Cobina is finally tossing her rocks. Normally I don't condone old ladies selling their goods to pay their nuthouse and hooch bills, but I have my eye on some of these myself - take a look! Besides, you'd be helping poor Clifton out. He can't support that poor woman all by himself, what with Pigtails, Rusty, and the gang. Just the Schwab's bills alone.

If you don't know who I'm talking about, visit the gang here.

The Bavarians

There's some Eastern European gentlemen who moved into my building about a year ago and have seized the American way of life with both hands. They barbecue delicious smelling steaks almost every night, and as soon as it gets warm, lay on the lawn to sunbathe, using paper towel rolls as pillows. I once tried to warn them that many of the building's dogs used their sunbathing spot as a toilet, but they didn't mind. They wear a lot of sports gear and just the other day, I spotted a surfboard! My building manager can never keep their ethnicity straight, simply referring to them as "The Bavararians." Yesterday, one was sunning his newest tattoo: a giant Indian mantra down his entire back, while the other lay back on his paper-towel roll.