YOU KNOW, FOR ADULTS

We collect all sorts of things at the Museum of Stuff. Our interests are wide and varied, our patience for browsing is as plentiful as our trade credit, and the gas tank is always full.

I have boxes and boxes of old paperbacks stacked neatly in my storage space. Mysteries mostly, and cult authors, and items I purchased simply for the provocative cover art.

I love it all, but I get the biggest kick out of collecting vintage erotica.  Nothing classy, nothing written in French, nothing with any historical value or intellectual appeal. 

I'm talking about the poorly written, slightly seedy tomes from publishers like Connoisseur Publications, Art Enterprises, Inc., and Magenta Books.

You know, the "wink-wink, nudge-nudge" garbage they used to keep under the counter at newsstands and liquor stores, the stuff they used to hawk out of the back of men's magazines, the guilty pleasures your grandfather kept out in the garage or in a plain shoebox hidden in the bedroom closet.  

It's uncultured culture.  Plenty of booksellers specialize in it, and collectors are happy to pay premium prices.

I refuse to shop online, which means I add to my collection the old-fashioned way. It's mostly slow-going, but I've found some interesting pieces in the last month.

It's ridiculous, I know, but I couldn't be more proud.

  

GOOD AS I BIN TO YOU

You can't always count on the dollar bins. Sometimes they give, sometimes they are unforgiving. 

I flip through record bins everywhere I go. Thrift stores, bookstores, record stores. Everybody knows this. Naturally, I expect to find the best records in the record stores and the worst records in the thrift stores, but that's not always the case. 

Remember that Robert Mitchum record I snagged at a local bookstore last week? There were boxes and boxes of $1 records stacked on the ground but I was meeting my son for lunch and didn't have time to crawl around thumbing through vinyl.

Today, I made time.

Harpo by Harpo Marx (Mercury Wing MGW 12164, 1964)

Delirium in Hi-Fi by Elsa Popping and her Pixieland Band (Andre Popp) (Columbia WL 106, 1958)

Homer and Jethro at the Convention (RCA Victor LPM-2492, 1962)

The Mermaid Theatre presents Lock Up Your Daughters (Decca LK 4320, 1959)

Bill Carty Blasts Off! (Stereoddities CC-1, 1961)

Relaxing Body and Mind  by Milton Feher (Folkways Records FX 6191, 1962)

Havana, 3 a.m. by Perez Prado and His Orchestra  (RCA Victor LPM-1257, 1956)

At the Drop of a Hat by Flanders and Swann (Angel Records 35797, 1959)

Totally Bananas by Rose and the Arrangement (Twink Records TLP 1001, 1981)

Lots of no-brainers here. Lots of records considered, lots of dollars paid.

The last time I saw a Harpo Marx record, it was marked $50. Too rich for my blood, friends. A buck I can handle. Not only did this one immediately go in the "yes" pile, it forced me to look at every dollar record in the joint. The moment you find something good, you're screwed.

The next record I grabbed, Delirium in Hi-Fi, caught my eye thanks to William Steig's cover art. Turns out the record is pretty important in its own right.  Andre Popp, the French fellow who wrote "Love is Blue," composed the music for the album and Pierre Fatosme created the sound effects.  They released their team effort under the name "Elsa Popping and her Pixieland Band." Don't ask me why. Maybe it's a French thing? 

An unusual album, to say the least. 

I've never listened to Homer and Jethro, not ever. I bought this album strictly for the Jack Davis artwork.

Lock up Your Daughters? Never heard of it. I have heard of Lionel Bart, who wrote the songs for Oliver! According to the liner notes, Lock Up Your Daughters is based on Henry Fielding's Rape Upon Rape. Great premise for a musical, huh?

Normally, I'm not a big fan of rape but I can overlook almost anything so long as the songs are catchy.

Check out Bill Carty's face on the cover of Bill Carty Blasts Off! and tell me you wouldn't pay a dollar for this platter. Impossible, right?

Richard Swift's excellent The Atlantic Ocean (Secretly Canadian, 2009) contains a song called "A Song for Milton Feher." I never really thought twice about who Milton Feher was (or might be) and then this Folkways record materialized in front of me. 

Apparently, there was a Milton Feher School of Dance and Relaxation and if you listen to Milton's recorded voice and follow the instructions in the 8-page booklet, you'll not only learn how to relax, you'll learn to sit correctly, improve your posture, and breathe without effort. Definitely worth a buck.

Perez Prado? 'Nuff said. Let me hear you say "¡Dilo!"

Flanders and Swann. One guy plays piano, the other guy's in a wheelchair. Hilarity ensures. 

Totally Bananas looked like a lot of fun. I'm a sucker for novelty records, obviously, but Rose and the Arrangement didn't exactly ring any bells.  Neither did cuts like "Last Tango in Pahrump" or "The Cockroach That Ate Cincinatti." But unlike you, I am willing to gamble with one hundred pennies. I am willing to take a leap.  

Got home, saw the latter song was a huge hit on Dr. Demento's radio show. Pulled the record out of my shopping bag. Saw the endorsement from Demento himself, five whole paragraphs, on the back of the album.

Sometimes it pays to read, especially when you're in a bookstore looking at records.

COME BACK, SHAYNE

Most of my Dell mapbacks are in storage, but I picked up this little honey the other day.

Counterfeit Wife by Brett Halliday (Dell 280, 1947)

A customer asked me once why I kept referring to a particular book as a mapback.  "No reason," I said, "except for the fact there's a map on the back!"

True story.

MERCER-FUL HEAVENS!

Say what you want about Robert Mitchum, but I dig that guy, especially his turn in Charles Laughton's adaptation of The Night of the Hunter (1955). I've seen that thing a million times and I'll see it a million more.

I also like Mitchum in Out of the Past (1947) and his genuinely menacing Max Cady in the original Cape Fear (1962), but I've never embraced The Friends of Eddie Coyle (1973) the way others have. Never oohed, never aahed, never awed.

But I'll tell you something else. I like the fact that Robert Mitchum sings. I picked up his calypso record (Calypso is Like So, 1957) when it was reissued on cd in 1995. That's when all the cool cats were rediscovering lounge music by Esquivel and Les Baxter and Martin Denny and Arthur Lyman. Guilty as charged, officer.  Take me away in chains!

But I never saw any Robert Mitchum on vinyl until today. The purchase set me back a whole $3.50.

That Man, Robert Mitchum . . . Sings (Monument SLP 8086, 1967)

My love of Bobby Hebb's version of "Sunny" has been well documented in these pages. Mitchum's is somewhat less spectacular, but I love it just the same. 

Why?

Because it's tough guy Robert Mitchum and he knows the words to "Sunny" and he's singing them into a microphone.

The results are sublime.

This album also contains "Ballad of Thunder Road" and "Little Ole Winedrinker Me," both of which made the pop charts that year. I'd offer a detailed track-by-track review, but my record player is already packed up.

But here's the real reason for this particular post: check out the liner notes from acclaimed songwriter and co-founder of Capitol Records, Johnny Mercer.

Hmmm . . . I guess those comments make Mercer something of a "free palomino" himself, eh? 

YOU KNOW, FOR KIDS!

Albert Kanter's Classics Illustrated series popped up in 1941, beating Cliff's Notes to the marketplace by 17 years.

No child alive would mistake The Three Musketeers for Fantastic Four, but Kanter knew what he was doing presenting world classics in comic book form. By 1962 (the last year of original material) the series spanned 169 issues and moved 200 million units.

Here's a taste:

REAL SIDES

Just how up in the air have things become?  I've decided to let my hair grow.

Chalk it up to boredom.  It's nothing serious, no cry for help. I have a reading next week and I fully expect to look like I always do when I step up to the microphone. My hair experiment will very likely end up in the sink.

I had dinner with Leslie last week and she complimented me on my haircut. I shook my head. "This is the opposite of a haircut," I said. "I'm actually letting my hair grow."

She returned her gaze to our Hot & Spicy Sichuan Prawns.

So it grows.

FAKE SIDES

Sounds For Sick? People (Shell S 1711)

I found this in the bins and immediately thought it was a joke. 

Back in the 1960s, a company called High In-Fidelity Records issued a bunch of novelty record covers (sleeves only, no vinyl inside) with titles like Songs For Swinging Mothers, Music for Mixed Emotions, Music For Casual Affairs, Music For Half-Assed Friends, etc. Nudity was strongly encouraged, but not essential.

Each empty sleeve had an insert that read "I Bought This Album For You As A Gift . . . Sorry I Couldn't Afford The Record."

Sounds For Sick? People was a real record, compiled by Dr. Herb Breger and issued on his own Shell Records. Breger was a dentist, but that didn't keep him from issuing music by The Ivy Three, The Delacardos, The Pyramids, and The Daddy-O's.

The music looks like a mix of standards ("St. James Infirmary," "I'm Beginning To See the Light," and "Dry Bones") along with tunes like "Ulcer Alley" and "X-Ray Eyes."  

I'm kinda glad my record player is already packed up.