xtcian

A magnet on my refrigerator from the Jell-O Museum, which I actually went through; it was great!

Something I flipped past the other night on TV: The Oakridge Boys singing "These Colors Don't Run" in front of a Patton-sized American Flag.

my grandmother had "quitbitchINthekitchen" in needlepoint above her stove. she meant it too...

i'd have to go with Prarie Home Companion's 4th of July show. the kind of thing I used to laugh at my Dad for watching and now find totally enjoyable.

I love over Labor Day weekend -- when one of the channels (Sci Fi?) does the "Twilight Zone" marathon. I don't know if this qualifies as kitsch, but can spend the whole day with Rod Serling.

a cross stitch (of course) in my grandma's living room, columbus ohio, that reads "thank god i'm a buckeye and not just some nut!"

luckily i escaped columbus to attend UNC and now claim both buckeye football and carolina basketball :)

From the 1984 Olympics in LA (which were boycotted by the Russians), I received a hat (like the kind Andy Capp wears in the comic strip) in red, white and blue. It bore the official Olympic seal and, if you unbuttoned and flipped up the top, it read:

"F--K RUSSIA"

(the U and the C were included)

Funny how times have changed.

The needlepoint in my mom's house that says "when life gives you lemons, make lemonade"

My mother's cross stitch which said "If it is to be, it is up to me." I put it away when I realized that my perfectionism needed no more encouragement.

Since we're on the topic of homespun wall-hangings: I recall a Kmart-issue (some kind if indestructible mulitcolored ink pressed onto a stretched burlap background) framed sentiment in my dad's first bachelor apartment (cheap, six-month-lease arrangement where my brother and I slept on mattresses on the floor) which stated: "I like it so much here I could just S&*T!"

Seems like it must have been in the bathroom...though my memory has it on the "living room" wall. It mortified me (profanity was outside my universe at the time) and I would try, try, try not to look at it as I walked past. If it happened to catch my eye, my face would burn for several long minutes.

GFWD--the hat--TOO MUCH--I just guffawed aloud in the coffeeshop. Where I'm supposed to be getting work done.

OMG, I used to cross-stitch so many bathroom things as a kid for family members. Like, "If you sprinkle when you tinkle, please be neat and wipe the seat" Or one that I thought was particularly risque for my 10 year old brain "Conserve water, bathe with a friend." and it had 2 people in the tub of unidentifiable gender.
And speaking of the Russia hat, who remembers that song about Iran back in the hostage affair, that that guy sang "We could take our bb guns, and blow your buns to the sun, just our boy scouts could wipe you out. Some day soon,Khomeini, you'll burn one flag too many. Uncle Sam's got his pride, and you're bout to feel his clout" And then he would do this hillbilly moan that went on and on but was mocking a muslim prayer. WHAT WAS THAT? And why do I remember it?? I do remember it having to do with the 4th of July but that's about it.

John Denver singing Colorado Rocky Mountain High. As kitschy and as fabulous as it gets.

Annie, I thought I saw you down here in the ATL about two weeks ago. I could have sworn it was you, even though I didn't see the tell tale hoola hoop. I was not certain until I had already gotten a little too close to your doppleganger with that anticapatory wide-eyed stare. By then it was too late not to look like a big loon. When I was younger, I would have been mortified at the mistake and would have stopped to explain to the person that I wasn't crazy. But now, eh, I don't care. Besides, since she really does resemble you AND lives near my house, I'm feel certain that I will mistake her for you again.

Coincidentally, you also came up in my ming again this past Saturday night while listening to XM radio on our DirecTV. A song came on and I excitedly asked our party guests to tell me who the artist was because I recognized the song. Turns out it was Missy Elliott and the song was the one from the first hooping video you sent out to the list.

With you in my brain so much, it's only fair that I made you guffaw in return, thus drawing looks of derision from your fellow coffeemates. Sometimes those folks look so serious they need a good laugh.

Have a good holiday, Annie, and everyone else on this list. We are going to a party to have the very traditional American meal of . . . tacos.

God Bless America!

I didn't mean to type: "I'm feel certain" or "my ming".

One mistake is bad grammar and the other mistake is a misrepresentation . . . as I don't really have a dynasty.

Lee, I just read your entry. I had the 45 record for that song and it was called, "A Message To Khomeini". Funny song, in the style of Ray Steven's THE STREAK and like Weird Al Yankovic BEFORE he hit the scene.

panda express, self-help books, public service announcements

nyc subway maps, baseball, costco

vanity plates, tanning salons, mixed drinks

My mom has a funny cross-stitched item that says: "I like cooking with wine, sometimes I even put it in the food"

Was that Khomeini song the one which said "The Ayatollah is a [sic] assaholla"? And chorused "Bomb Iran" to the tune of "Barbara Ann"?

I remember roller skating to that song. At the roller rink.

Now that's American.

*sigh*

Just wanted to let Ian and the rest of the west coast xtcian-ers know that HOBEX will be out in CA this week. We'll be opening for the SNZippers in SF, San Diego, and Santa Cruz on the 5th, 6th and 8th.

Re: kitsch - we saw some really bad t-shirts in Key West shop windows this past weekend:

"tell your eyes to stop looking at my t!ts"
"f*ck you, you m*therf*cking f*cky f*ck"

etc.

That was it GFWD! Who sang it??

Annie, not the same song. But yours sounds crazy, too!

My family cross stitch items were all about food. Tells you why we all suffer from the great American pastimes of obesity and eating disorders. Here's two in our kitchen growing up -
Ewe Aren't Fat, Ewe Are Fluffy (imagine the cute cross stitched sheep) and A Minute on the Lips, A Lifetime on the Hips.
A bet French people don't have sayings like that in their homes!

Some guy at the kiddie park where we take our six month old was wearing a t-shirt that said, "Fuck you, you fucking Fuck". And I've never thought this shirt was even remotely funny, I've always thought it was just the height of stupidity, but wearing it at a kiddie park where you're surrounded by people under the age of six... that's just Punk, pure and simple.

My grandpa had a screened-in porch with astroturf and patio furniture that was connected to his garage and workshop. On prominent display was a clock that was permanently set to 12:05, and had a caption that read "Absolutely no drinking before noon."

It's a real shame you don't have a dynasty Greg. Keep working on it.

Speaking of all this cross-stitch reminded me of the large framed cross-stitch sampler which hung over my bed when I was little. It had pictures of flowers and sunshine and butterflies and angels. The message stitched on the sampler was the old prayer:

Now I lay me down to sleep
I pray the Lord my soul to keep
And if I should die before I wake
I pray the Lord my soul to take

What the hell was that all about? I mean, it is a familiar Christian prayer and all, but it scared the hell out of me as a kid. As soon as I was able to read, I would read it every night and then proceed to have nightmares about the Boogeyman trying to kill me and dying in my sleep. Ick.

Oh, and I also had a big poster of Tom Jones, with the caption "What's New Pussycat?" hanging in my room, right next to the Tales from the Crypt sampler.

Yeah, I had a big crush on Tom Jones. Remember his variety show?

OK you asked for it: from WFMU BEWARE OF THE BLOG:
http://blogfiles.wfmu.org/DP/2007/05/148_1_Roger_Hallmark_-_A_Message_to_Khomeini.mp3

OMG!!!! Kent!

LFMD -
My husband had the same cross stitch sampler with the prayer on it done by his mother back in the 1960s that we now have in my daughter's room. And, yes, it's creepy, but I try not to think of about it too much and just think of it as an antique now!
It wasn't until I was a parent though that I realized what that prayer was really saying. I don't think as a kid I ever noticed it.
You know, now they've changed that prayer to say something nicer - like the Bugs Bunny cartoons it's been edited to a G rating. No wonder our world is screwed up - look what we grew up with that no one thought twice about?!

Oh My God, Kent, that was hilariously awful. How did you find that?
Khomeini, You-ol'-meanie!
I have got to go do something more meaningful with my time!

As I pack our swim bag for a day at the pool tomorrow, a sign that once hung on my grandmother's pool comes to mind . . .

WELCOME TO OUR OOL. NOTICE THERE'S NO P IN IT.
LET'S KEEP IT THAT WAY.

classic.

When I was a kid, Atlanta's motto was "the city to busy to hate"--I'm not kidding. I guess "on slow days we race-riot" was already taken?

Kent, Thanks for the memory jolt; OMG, that song was immensely popular in western NC and like Annie I remember it is a redneck's strut skate round the local rink, though I preferred to watch the real rollers flow to something more along the lines of 'Funky Town' or 'Electric Ave.'

Truly, how far have "We", (as "one nation, ..er under...(not sure on the exact prepositional relation to God)"), ..um come?

Happy IDay!! Big sparkler!

Agh...ugh...just listened to about the first 45 seconds of that "song" Kent found--my stomach is turned. I couldn't go on.

GOD.

Coozies. Definitely drink coozies. I love collecting them from all over. They have silly pictures and dumb sayings, and I just can't get enough. I particularly like the ones that fit over bottles and have little zippers. Like, Dress your Bud Light, Junior.

That Ayatollah song is excerpted in a screenplay I wrote a few years ago, which I keep meaning to give my agent...after she reads my novel...and my other screenplay, and...oy. Whata business.

just got back from 3 days in bridgton, maine, where i went to summer camp for ten years...and we've been in and around that area for as long as i can remember in the summer. we went to the 4th of july parade, which included "vintage" cars - some wonderful true gems and others that, i suspect, had been sitting on someone's lawn since the 70s. the shriners, the community band, being pulled in a flatbed, the ladies club, the red hat society, the fire engines, the veterans. i can't think of anything more americana than that. perhaps you had to be there...

linoleum. we have actual original old school one-sheet linoleum in our house right now because it was never remodeled and i am still strangely fascinated by it. i went to a floor covering store recently as i was thinking about redoing the kitchen and came back with brochures for new and improved linoleum. when i was a kid my grandmother was always telling me the linoleum was damp and she said my first word was linoleum. not entirely sure if she was joking, linoleum is an awesome word. also, even though i like linoleum i definitely do not like it's distant cousin wallpaper.

no cross-stitch in my life, but the lure of thin white lace bottom curtains in the windows is strong for me, i guess that is irish-americana.

a screen door that slowly closes with a wssshhhhh sound or slam also have that same strange appeal.

and i do also like weird clocks, i remember my dad's mother had one of those clocks shaped like a cat whose eyes and tail moved back and forth. i can see myself owning one of those cuckoo clocks or one where little figurines of german kids come out on the hour and edelweiss plays.

Happy 7 day!

Sign in my childhood kitchen: Apple pie without the cheese is like a kiss without a squeeze. (That has always confused me because I've never seen apple pie served with cheese.)

Apple pie con queso is a New England thang; I've only had it in Vermont. Inexplicably (or not), apples wedges with superimposed cheese make a GRR-reat snack.