Fun and Exciting Employee Training...

This post is dedicated to the 99%… the bold, the many, the ones who work in the service industry for humiliating employers. 

I recently came across this employee handbook while in Missoula and had to purchase it, as a wedding gift for a friend (of course), and upon reading it realized, that amidst the typos, grammatical errors, there is a lot of wisdom to be had from working as a Hooters Girl. 

For example, everyone should be "Camera Ready." And we should all probably know food safety or at least have some passing knowledge of it for some occasion during our lives.

Well, there isn't much more that I can add that the actual text of the manual won't say for me. To read the actual text, just click on the image to humongify…

Our Grandparent's Smut...

Another recent ephemera find was an old tabloid pamphlet filled with mail-away smut advertisements.

It humors me to think that in the era before pornography shops, this was how gentlemen got their rocks off. I would love to have a "Marvelous Movie Vuer" just as a relic of that time. If anyone know where to find one, or wants to send one to me as a gift, I would be more than happy to accept it as a gift. You know, for historical research purposes.

Apparently, these mail order novelties would be shipped to men in anonymous brown paper-wrapped parcels, delivered as discretely as possible. I can imagine that any parcel showing up in brown paper soon became noted as pornography to a select few, but maybe we were more naive during this era.

But times changed. Stag-loops for a quarter and adult theaters popped up (pun intended), and with the advent of video cassettes, porn was available in giant, oversized VHS boxes. This of course was replaced by the ubiquitous DVD. And now we get our porn through the internet. 

They Saved Hitler's Brain…By Putting it on a Plane

Due to the demise of a certain Libyan leader with an impossible to spell name a few days ago, I thought it would be timely to post this recent ephemera find.

This article clipping was discovered in a giant tome of a medical text in Missoula, Montana a few weeks ago, along with a ton of other fascinating other clippings about menopause, polio vaccines, cancer, and rocket science. The picture it painted of the tome's' previous owner was scattered, at best. 

If anything, we learned that conspiracy theories are improbably old. We all have heard the "They saved Hilter's Brain" well, now we at least can easily speculate how. So much for the Boys from Brazil. 

If certain fringe groups got ahold of information like this old article and took it to heart, it would stir up even more Islamophobia. The absurdist reality of the story is that people honestly believed it, and believed it enough to see it printed, believed it enough to cut it out of a newspaper, and believed it enough to save it for decades stuck inside a book. 

People may wonder why the Unibomber chose to live in Montana, this is a reasonable partial answer to that question...

The Miracle of America Means More Montana Manequins

The Miracle of America is not only having the opportunity to ride bombs and think about American history. It is a chance to walk through that history with life-life representations of the miraculous individuals that make America and Montana, well, Miraculous.

Take, for instance, Annie, this aptly named mannequin, who has subjected herself to the tortures of electronic hair enhancement for the sake of beauty.

Or this nameless soldier, with a chiseled face, who likes to have things pinned to him such as medals, ribbons, and 3x5 notecards showing his service to his country.

And we can never forget the glamorous flapper mannequins of the 1920s, those who brought us the love of jazz, interracial sex, and bootlegging. It is a little known fact that all mannequins made during the 1920s were actually vessels for contraband alcohol. This the real reason why most mannequins are hollow today. Back in the 20-30s, each mannequin would have a cork at the bottom allowing bootleggers to pour in whatever type of home made concoction they wanted. If you have ever wondered why you don't see mannequins that date before the 1930s, it was because the FBI sent men out to smash most of these whenever they were found, thus ruining one of the best ways to conceal liquor in the era of prohibition.

And of course, no walk-thru museum is complete without a mannequin with an inexplicable shit eating grin. 

Yep, unbeknownst to you, this mannequin has actually been taking up skirt pictures of your daughters while you weren't looking. And that is another Miracle of America--the mannequins are so life-like they do creepy things when you don't know it.

Ride the Bronze Buffalo: What is the Miracle of America?

What is the Miracle of America?

Good question? One that I have often asked myself since learning my basic American history about how the first Pilgrims landed on Plymouth Rock, escaping evil tyranny in England. Yes, we all know that the first thing they declared their right not not pay taxes to high ranking wealthy officials named George, declared their right to own all the weapons in the world because they could, and then have Thanksgiving.

But how miraculous is that? Not very if you ask me…

You see, I look for modern day miracles...Like that finding that potato chip that looks like Alf when every other chip is crumbled in the bag. Or when they decide to do remakes of classic television shows like Small Wonder.

But in Polson, MT, you can experience your own tiny bit of the Miracle of America, and its true meaning tied to the history of this country by straddling a bomb and re-inacting scenes from Dr. Strangelove.

Now that is a miracle that even the Pope can't explain.

Dream a Little Dream...

Today's lesson is one of exhaustion and why falling asleep after reading comic book blogs and eating mediocre cajun food is a bad idea:

Someone decided to drain the 55,000 gallon swimming pool at the children's hospital/college dormitory, and Batman is on the case to investigate. Well, Batman and Me, both in broad daylight. And because of the flood and supernatural forces the 300 year old douglas fir has spontaneously started dying causing it to rot which will disturb the foundation of the children's hospital. Good thing Superman showed up and found the evil CEO who's suitcase surrounded him in a giant robot/bomb that started drilling into the side of the hospital as well planning to destroy that too. It was unfortunate, because thousands were gathered for their fundraiser event celebrating both Christmas and the raising of a million dollars, so many lives were at stake. And for some reason Superman and Batman couldn't diffuse the bomb in time. And the giant inflatable teddy bear that was brought in for the children, the one that was ten-stories tall, was mistakenly filled with hydrogen and propane gas instead of inert helium.

Of course the bomb exploded/CEO…and the douglas fir died…and the children's hospital was completely flooded. But the individual at the center of it all, a young white guy with no name and no history, was visited by a blue ghostly figure who told the young man not to drown himself today. And Batman and I were on the case to figure out who the blue ghost was.

And what we have is the worst pitch for the New 52's Brave and Bold straight from an exhausted nursing student deprived of comic books.

Happy Birthday to a Buddy

While I am off on my dates, this is a birthday post for my buddy Bryan.

Stay solid my friend...

One Last Thought...

Before I leave posts today, I need to put up one more tribute.

It features things that make this country great: music, boy scouts, firefighters, competition, and that "Stick with it attitude" that only America can really possess. While two English Poet/Musicians, the Richard and Fred Fairbrass composed this work, I think it needs to be applied to all of Americana.

So I hope everyone appreciates the following song. May it become the new anthem for future 9/11 memorials, reminding us to "Stand Up," because we need to as a country.

Things that Don't Exist Anymore...

I found this image a few years ago while combing through my parents' old photographs.

I left Washington DC two days before everything happened, was in New York the prior week, traveling through subway tunnels that no longer exist. It's odd to think about. And to be honest, I don't think about it...

A Nissei, second generation Japanese American, designed the World Trade Center. But because he lived on the East Coast, he avoided the internment experience of the Japanese of Washington, Oregon, and California. We lose sight of these aspects of history.

The collective consciousness of America has also forgotten how much New Yorkers hated the buildings when they were originally erected. But that doesn't matter any more. Much like the polyester pants and flip hairdos of the people in the photo, such thoughts seem like idle folly of an irresponsible era.

Montana Loves Mutants

A lot of people saw X-Men: First Class this summer. It had a ton of mutants in it. Like the one that could read minds, and the one that could do stuff with metal, the sexy lady that could change shapes, and a blue furry thing.

But in Montana, Mutants are real. Like really real. They don't need CGI or Hollywood budgets under the Big Sky. Eugenics--You Got It!

Take, for example, this two-headed calf. Four eyes, better to see you with.

Even the children in Montana fully embraced the love of mutants. The children of Montana played with them as toys as evidenced by this two-faced doll, showing that Homo Superior and Homo Sapiens could potentially co-exist in harmony.

Now whether these particular mutants had extra special powers beyond being able to see in multiple directions and eat two meals at the same time is beyond me. But, I'll be damned if this doesn't prove that this place is kind of cool. Or something.