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. 

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.

Why Typography is Important...

Letters are a simple and oft overlooked aspect of life. No, not the postmarked missives that occasionally dot our mailboxes in between bills, catalogs, and fliers for discount carwashes; but the actual characters that form the alphabet.

This can but no more clear than when we place two letters together and they blur creating new and unintended letters. CLi for example have been used recently to form the basis of visual pun of sorts for a British magazine best represented with this image.

Needless to say, I don't think I need to spell out what the visual pun is. Same can be done with typing out the word FLiCK. Basically, this was an old letterers trick in the era of hand lettering in comics. The printing process would often smear the "Li" into a single letter making it appear as a "u" leading to all sorts of fun.

That is why I can't help but think that the following product was an intentional classier attempt at this sight gag:

And this is why I love going to antique shops...

When There Isn't Enough Time...

Some signs say it all...

Knotty Wood...Naughty Wood

Southern Oregon is a land of contrasting taste, opinions, and art. On one hand you have the high class Shakespeare Festival in Ashland on the other you have the a gallery dedicated to strange wooden growths in Kerby. So before we get too far into the realm of high versus low art, it makes sense to explain what a burl is and why people would use it to make wood sculptures.

Basically, you can think of a burl as a tumor on a tree; when you see a lump on a stump or a limb, and it is filled with knots and strange shapes, thats a burl. Ultimately, it changes the texture of the wood grain giving a more decorative look. And well, a more suggestive look in some situations.

In Kerby, Its A Burl (yes I know, they made a typo with their name) highlights this woody malignancy with all of the glory that showing wood can provide. They have long pieces of wood with knots. They have glorious woody holes. 

And they have wood carvers able to shape and shave these pieces into whimsical pieces of nautical erotica. It's hard to see in this photo but the craftsman took time make sure the nipple and areola of the mermaid was well defined.

They even let you know, that "You are the Babe," if you were unaware. 

Ahem...

In anycase, Its a Burl [sic] is a unique complex of wooden art, tree houses, and the esoteric workings of hippies that never quite left the acid behind. It is kind of refreshing to see this in a land where the Tea Party reigns supreme and meth is more popular than God, Jesus, and Country. 

Welcome to the Land of Frustration

Today I present the easiest road map for a man to understand, the arduous yet short trip down the road to sexual frustration. Why is this path so easy to understand? Well, every path you choose leads directly to yourself. It's kind of like a mirror to the soul, but with less introspection and more woeful masturbation.

Fear of inadequacy? Straight path to you and your sexual frustration. Deep seated emotional conflicts; Another direct express way to you. We could go on ad infinitum until your inner being and all self confidence is chiseled away the you grind your teeth at night in anguish reduces your mouth is reduced to soft pulpy masses. Ahem...You see if you get lost on this path, all the arrows point directly to the direction of your problems and the direction to where you will turn your sexual frustrations...yourself.

Boobs!

This post is in honor of a dear friend who will be getting married this weekend. You see, when you gather a bunch of art and history nerds together in one place for a bachelor party, it is highly unlikely that a great deal of debauchery will occur. However, creative explosions of random oddness do happen.

Since our mild-mannered temperament pretty much forbids our geeky group from hiring strippers, we did the next best thing...we drew pictures of boobs for Mr. Soden.

Hopefully he will have enough of a sense of humor to allow me to post these. I did tell him they would be blog fodder.

There are a numerous variations of breasts depicted. Abstract scribbles, realistic, minimalist, squid. Okay, so the squid-angel-microphone-boob-thing was mine. I can't really draw so that is the best they get.

So as a congratulatory send off to Khris and Heather, I must quote Portland's greatest mayor ever, Bud Clark, and wish you both "Tits Up!"

Delaying Sexual Death...

In our modern world, there is no need to delay sexual death, for with modern medication, your sex life can be practically immortal. If it is dead, it can be resurrected like Frankenstein's monster with a couple of zaps of electricity with pretty much the same gruesome effects. 

Yes, sexual death occurs for everyone. Sometimes it happens swiftly; sometimes it is a slow drawn out process that we try to avoid with pills, porn, and/or prostitutes. According to this little diagram of sexual death, by 90 if your body isn't dead, your pecker probably is past its prime. But is there a way to stop this from happening? Can sexual death be halted?

Well, the illustration above doesn't really tell us how to accomplish such a task, so we must regard it as completely unhelpful. Instead, we have to turn to the best source of information out there tabloid media. It is a proven fact that there are no better ways to learn how to live than by learning by the unfortunate mistakes of celebrities. In this case,  we turn to the life lesson learned from actor David Carradine. If you want to delay sexual death, don't practice auto-erotic asphyxiation. Besides being a very unsexy way to go, auto-erotic asphyxiation really speeds up sexual death and, well, physical death. And in that case no one is a winner. 

Other than that...maybe you can eat oysters or something...I don't know. I think the joke on this post ran out about ten sentences ago. 

Tom and Jack Grew Differently

Shame...abject failure...humiliation...All those and more can be experienced when encountering puberty.

Just look at this short tale of Tom and Jack.
But know that while they explore each others' naturally developing young bodies, it's natural.

Completely natural.

And now onto other digressions.

And Now We Present: Why You Can Make Babies...

So Sally and Billy, what have we learned? After a week-and-a-half of learning all about sex and that accidents are the causes of babies, now it is time to learn why you, yes you specifically, can't make babies.  Sure all of the mechanics of making babies is pretty easy, and it can be quite fun, but then problems might happen.


Simply put, when a man and a woman come together to try to make a baby, the accidents that need to happen happen, and then those accidents aren't accidents aren't accidents at all. Confusing? I thought so. It all seems so easy, and at times it can be very easy, easy enough that people in Gresham can do it and do it repeatedly. But sometimes, making babies doesn't work.

Sometimes the reason why a man and a woman can't have a baby and have to hire a woman from Idaho to smuggle them from Haiti is because the woman is sterile. But what does sterile mean? It means a variety of things as graphically illustrated in the pictures above. Do you know if you are sterile, Sally?

Other times, a man is to blame. Often, men are to blame, but this time men are to blame for a variety of reasons. If a man is impotent, it means his stallion has been sent to the pasture or that his horse broke a leg and had to be shot. This is very unfortunate for the man. Sometimes a man turns to unique fetishes to try and revive the spark that magically stimulates the nerves from his spinal cord to his penis to cause and  erection, but often this is gone. And with this gone, no babies will be made. Think about it, Billy. Are you an impotent man?

You see, Sally and Billy, if making babies were easy for intelligent people then GOD would have made babies so they could be assembled with airplane glue, jumper cables, and instructions provided in PDF format. However, GOD only made making babies easy for people who shouldn't create babies. Why, because GOD has a cruel, cruel sense of humor...A sense of humor that your feeble minds will never understand.

How the Male Brain Works...

While this illustration is supposed to present the mechanics of stimulation versus the mechanics of impotence, I think it pretty much summarizes how the male brain operates. As a male, I can attest to the scientific validity of this schematic; for it is true--the male brain is connected directly to the penis via the spinal cord.

This would explain why men lack many levels of higher cognition and how the nature of "The Beer Goggles" effect.

It is also vital to know that inside the virile male body, there are actual lightening bolts that change the penis to be erect. This is referred to as the "Frankenweiner Stimulation Factor" and it is generated from the base of the spine through the prostate to the male external genitals. So if you ever wondered where the phrase, "Something sparked between us..."came from, look no further.

Little Sally, This is What Happens When You're Pregnant

Hi Little Sally. Little Billy just learned all about sex, but what does that mean for you?
Well, let's just say that your body is changing. And with those changes, you will no longer be a little girl any more; you will be a woman. Being a woman means many things. To some it means becoming a doctor or a lawyer, to others it means becoming a cocktail waitress or a secretary. But to boys like Billy who have just learned about sex, being a woman makes you an object. Yes, an object. Sometimes you will be an object of affection, while other times you will be an object of attraction. Sometimes those objects are referred to as Vixens, Babes, Sexy Things, and One Night Stands.

Now Sally, I bet you want to know how you become pregnant. Well that happens by accident. But before the accident can occur. A man needs to have an erection. Erections occur when a man who has learned about sex excited. Scientists like to call this event, "Having a boner." It is kind of like the picture of growth cartilage, but only a little bit different.

Men eventually lose their erection after spending time with a woman for two minutes. The man then falls asleep and then the woman must wonder if an accident has occurred. And why does she need to worry about accidents? Because accidents cause pregnancy.

Once your accident begins, your body gets a little angry at you, and it begins to change. Now Sally, I bet you are scratching your head just like little Billy did, but don't worry it will all make sense. You see, you body is angry because it now has to host a little parasite that will slowly drain away all of your nutrients, your soul, and your finances away. We like to call these babies. But don't be afraid, everyone loves babies.

And when you are pregnant, you turn fat because you have a thing crawling inside you like in those science fiction movies that your mother won't let you watch. And everyone will find you unattractive. But it is all okay. This last for just nine months.

After nine months, you can sell your baby to missionaries from Idaho. They will in turn make your baby work along side other stolen or sold babies in the peat bogs of Canada. And that is how the new economy will work. 

Now do see how accidents can be a good thing?

Menstruation: A Space Odyssey

What we have here is an image never released to the public from the Hubble Space Telescope. It is a little known fact that in space, actually on the other side of the moon, there is a giant floating uterus with its own orbiting moon to keep it in cycle. Hard to believe, but it's true. If you remember the space fetus from the Arthur C. Clark books and film adaptations, well, somewhere I have to expect a giant obelisk to appear over the great lunar horizon.

Continuing with the science fiction motifs, we have another illustration that seems to mimic the traveling of spacecraft through asteroids, alien colonies, or the psychedelic light shows of traveling at warp speed.

Space and sex...two final frontiers that many men have little knowledge of and have little chance to explore.

Exciting...Daring...Biological!

The caption of this illustration pretty much states it all: "Why Man Has Nocturnal Losses of Semen."

And as much as I want to make a joke about semen right now, I figure it would leave a bad taste my dear readers' mouths. 

But if that wasn't titillating enough for you, here is a "Picture Story of Various Causes for Sexual Excitation and Erection."

So what have we learned? Well, exciting food and drugs can do marvelous things for you and ruin your bed sheets, for better or worse. And despite convention, a brain is required for a man's sex parts to work. And probably, more importantly, a spine. Gotta have a spine for a number of reasons. 

Other lessons, the late Jazz age, pre-WWII hair styles are pretty attractive. And don't forget that fur collars are parts of exciting and alluring dreams.

Pyramid Schemas...

Continuing with the recent theme of sexual education posts, I present the following illustration for The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Sex. I believe the original publication of this text book was around the mid-thirties, and the various illustrations are true highlights of medical artwork.

The following is one of the more creative pictures illustrating how both partners should, um...blossom (?) at the same time in during coitus. The sad, wilted flowers are the result of the hasty gentleman.

Try as I might, nothing humorous can really be stated about the illustration. The simplicity of the diagram illustrates the concept pretty clearly and without too much outward awkwardness and overt sexual language. It could be a schema outlining how to be successful as a banker, lawyer, parent, or any feat that requires skill and timing with other parties. Or a person can use the illustration to present the rising and falling action of a narrative. And isn't that what sex really is? A really strange story of making things...come together.

Hey Little Billy, Are You Confused?

The best thing about old educational pamphlets are the illustrations. And how, perhaps, the easily lend themselves to creation of a narrative. Take for example Billy.

Billy has just learned about "sex." But what is sex? Well, Billy, that is just a wonderful question for your adolescent mind to ask. But before you ask your friends what sex is, why don't we tell you right now.

Well, for some fetishists, sex involves large feathered animals, as shown in your imaginings. Yes, the stork, is partially responsible for you. That's right Billy. In fact Dad is running home right now. He has some time left over from his three-martini lunch. And while you are at school Mom and Dad and the stork will be having fetish filled copulatory acts and soon you will have a little brother or sister.

You see Billy, this is completely natural. Elephants have sex. That is how we end up getting more ivory for your piano. Birds have sex; that is how you get eggs for your omelets. And I know that you love omelets. Dogs have sex. Remember when Rex was trying to jump over the neighbors poodle last week but kept having trouble. Well, he was actually having sex. And even cows have sex. And now you know where the veal we eat every single night comes from. 

Sometimes people like to have sex for fun. Sometimes people like to have sex for people to watch. Sometimes people have sex for people to photograph. Sometimes people have sex for science. All of these things are quite natural, Billy.

Remember when you went to the museum and they had all of those models? People had to have sex to create those. But through the magic of science, those men and women had sex with pieces of plastic and it created plastic babies, placentas, and embryos that could be ethically harvested and hung on walls in the museum. Did you know that some men and women like to have sex with pieces of plastic? Well, Billy, it is absolutely true. If you look in Mom's hosiery drawer you may find a piece of plastic that she sometimes has sex with when Dad is on business trips or golfing with his friends.




Are you still confused, Billy? Well, hopefully you won't be much longer. You see, Billy, men and women have sex because they have the proper boy-parts and girl-parts for having sex. For boys, that is a penis. The picture above shows one. The penis has millions of a sperm that swim and make babies. Billy you don't need to worry about how. It just happens. Sometimes on purpose and sometimes on accident.

It may seem overwhelming Billy, but that is what makes sex fun. The sense of adventure, the possibility of accident.

And Billy, that is what makes us human.

Manuals Education: Facts Aren't Enough

A few months ago, I happened across four strangely titled pamphlets while I was examining the wares at a antique shop in Missoula, Montana. I figured by the title of the book I had come across a pleasant little Christian handbook of some sort, one that has pictures of happy white families and drawings of nuclear holocausts. But I was surprised to find a stack of early sixties era sexual education manuals. 

The text doesn't really need much explanation. In fact, almost all of the booklets are pure comedy gold. It is unfortunate that the authors didn't intend the works to be so.

Click on the images to enlarge the text for your reading enjoyment. Of note, the section on scribbles on the bathroom wall, taking care of pets, and finding sex objects in the child's possession provides much amusement. However funny these books may seem and despite their archaic portrayal of gender roles, it is probably more accurate and progressive than the education manuals that are out there today. That would probably be because the authors of the manuals were the AMA and not a text book company subject to the whims of Texan school boards.