Happy Birthday...

...Barbie...March 9th, 1959, The American Toy Fair in New York City.

The original #1 1959 Barbie doll (full name: Barbie Millicent Roberts; hometown: Willows, Wisconsin) was 11" tall and the first mass produced toy doll with adult features.  Prior to her introduction, dolls were typically babies or children.

However, Ruth Handler, co-founder with her husband of Mattel in 1945, noticed her daughter (Barbara!) playing with paper dolls cut to look like adults.

That, I suppose, it's what's known as inspiration.  Well, that and an already in production German doll known as "Lilli"...

...based on a cartoon strip that ran in a German tabloid, "Bild".

Look familiar?

Even if you don't understand German, I'm sure you can get the gist of the cartoon strip...Lilli was a racy, high end call girl type, and the one panel cartoon always showed off her long legs, curves and her wit.

In one she's wearing a bikini and a German policeman has just told her bikinis are not allowed in public so she'll have to take it off, to which she replies, "Oh?  And which part would you like me to remove?"

The comic strip was so popular they made Lilli dolls that were marketed to men and sold in tobacco and liquor shops...they were made to be hung from the rearview mirror in your volkswagen...

So the entrepreneurial Ms. Handler bought the rights to Lilli, tweaked her a bit (not much, obviously) and marketed her to American girls.  (In fact, Mattel became the first toy company to advertise specifically to kids when they bought commercial time on the Mickey Mouse Club show.)

Let the controversy begin...some folks said it was great that girls had a beautiful role model that worked as an airline stewardess, doctor, pilot, etc...

...while others bemoaned the emphasis on physical beauty and material possessions (you have to admit, she had a hot ride and lived in cool digs...)

No matter what your opinion is, Barbie was a smash success.

At a time when you could buy a gallon of gas for 25 cents and the average annual wage was $5,000...

...you could buy a Barbie doll for $3.00 and they've sold millions of them through the years.

Of course today you'll need a few more greenbacks if you want to own an original 1959 #1 Barbie.  Depending on condition and accessories, you'll shell out anywhere from $7,000 to $12,000.

Ladies, kind of makes you wish you'd held onto her and taken a little better care of her when Mom gave you one back in 1959, hey?

Anyway, happy Birthday Barbie...

...looking fine at 59...but p.s., you can do a lot better than Ken...

later, mcm fans...

At Last, Welcome...

...to one of the two ugliest months in Michigan...and yet, I am almost inexpressibly pleased we are finally exiting what has felt like a very long winter and MARCHing steadily toward Spring.

Yes, winter has a severe and pristine beauty all its own...

...but I am so over it now...and even though March is the ugly duckling of the calendar, yet it blossoms into verdant spring and segues into gorgeous summer...

...can't wait...

(November...the other ugly month)

Was looking at old photographs the other day and came across one of my all time favorites...

Karen's dad snapped that pic as I carried her across the threshold on our wedding day...going on thirteen years ago.

Her dad's in heaven now, but every time I see this picture I remember him taking a couple of steps back to frame the shot, clicking the shutter, then lowering the camera and smiling at us as Karen and I took our first steps into married life together.

Wonderful, wonderful memory...

It was a long week at work, starting with system issues last weekend and progressing through the usual maintenance and deadline excitement...

...but it ended on an interesting note...was contacted by an old acquaintance from many moons ago about providing some IT advice to an up and coming company he's been part of for a couple of years now.

It was an enjoyable meeting and took me back to when the company I'm with today was a tenth of the size it is now...and how much fun it was helping to build it through the years.

Well, mostly fun...at the time a lot of that "fun" came disguised as stress in the form of unreasonable demands and crushing deadlines (see above illustration).

But here's the thing...most of life is educational if you're open to that concept.

A few things in life are downright revelatory...but most of those revelatory moments are perceived at first as bad, even catastrophic.

Yet it's from those defining, challenging, revelatory moments that a clear choice is presented:

You can either fold up shop and quit, or else you can form new ideas, embrace a stronger resolve, take a new direction, commit yourself to persevere and ultimately, achieve success.

I can tell these guys are at one of those crossroads, and I'd bet the mortgage they are going to take the high road to success.

And while I shan't be a part of their story, I was able to connect them with someone who may end up being part of their team.  If I was twenty years younger, I might be envious...

Watched an absolutely fabulous movie last night...

...and yes, some of my opinion is based on my love of train travel...couldn't pick a better setting in my opinion...on the other hand, I've seen the 1974 version of this story and while it's enjoyable, it's nowhere near as well done, as visually rich, as thoroughly entertaining as this version is.

For once - for once! - an A-list ensemble cast is not wasted in a sprawling, disjointed mess - which is, let's face it, what usually happens...even if the disjointed mess is still acceptable fare as it is for example in It's A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963).

This is well acted on every level, and the credit has to go to Kenneth Branagh who both stars as the brilliant detective, Hercule Poirot, and directs this wonderful movie.

A "ripped from the headlines" murder mystery when it was written by Dame Agatha Christie back in 1934...

...based as it was on the Lindbergh baby kidnapping and murder...it has become over time perhaps her best known novel.  Indeed it has been translated into film at least 4 times, and this one is arguably the best.

Even if you're not a murder mystery fan, do yourself a favor and give this a look.  Branagh is superb as the quirky, genius detective, doomed as he is to always and only "see the world as it should be...so when it is not, the difference sticks out like the nose in the middle of a face...it makes most of life unbearable...but it is useful in the detection of crime...eh...would you mind straightening your tie?  just a little...eh, thank you..."

And if you are a murder mystery fan, take note...Mr. B drops a strong hint near the end of the adventure we might be treated to a movie version of Death On The Nile.  If Kenneth Branagh will star and direct again, I'll take my tickets now, please.

But today, a beautiful, sunny Saturday beckons, so...

later, mcm fans...

On Being A Man...

...in a pajama boy world...The Redux.

A while ago I wrote about one of the distinctives of being male...that of shaving your face.

Ok, stop staring ladies...that's my #4 son, and he's taken...happily married with a couple of kids.

I will say whenever people happen to see us together they invariably comment that it's just like seeing twins.

"Why you two could be brothers!" they exclaim in wide eyed amazement, at which point I pay each of them the $20 I promised for lying so convincingly.

But as is my habit, I digress.

So where were we?

Ah yes, discussing the manly art of shaving...

As I'm sure you remember, having committed each of these fascinating blog entries to memory, at that time I waxed eloquent about the nostalgic superiority of shaving with a straight razor.

And I truly do enjoy my morning ritual, from stropping to lathering my face with a badger hair shaving brush, to deftly removing whiskers with my 1920-something Geneva Cutlery straight razor.

But here's a guilty confession...due to a work schedule change that requires me to drag my aging carcass out of bed at the ungodly hour of 4:30 am...

...my 7 days a week homage to the way Granddaddy used to shave has been relegated to only 2 or 3 days now.

Yes, in spite of my admonition to all of you to slow down and not live life in such a mad panic all the time, I'm guilty of not taking my own advice.

I just can't seem to squeeze my preferred method of defoliating my face into my schedule that many hours before sunrise.

Besides the time crunch there's also the very real issue of the neural network that passes for my brain not operating at anything close to full capacity at half past ridiculously early in the morning.

I'm lucky if I remember to put my underwear on before I pull on my pants.

Shaving with a straight razor?  Fuggeddaboudit...

So...what to do?

Well, how about an electric razor?

Dear ol' Dad used one back in the day from time to time, as have many of my acquaintances through the years.

Why an electric razor?  Why not a simple, ubiquitous, disposable multi-blade drug store quality razor?

Well yeah...if boring and uninteresting is the look you're going for, truck on down to your local dollar store and pick up a bag of throw away razors.  You'll have the manly art of shaving reduced to an annoying afterthought in no time.

Besides, didn't you ever see Santa arriving on a Norelco electric razor?

It's tradition my man.  Rudolph, Yukon Cornelius, The Abominable Snowman and Norelco electric razors.

So if you can't - or the good Lord in heaven forbid, don't want to - shave with a straight razor - but you do still want to embrace the art of manliness, read on.

My choice of electric razor?  After reviewing a number of options online, and in spite of the special place in my heart Santa and his Norelco will always have, I opted for the Remington F5-5800...

It's a no frills, budget friendly choice but receives high marks when compared to more expensive options like a totally decked out Braun shaver, which is a couple of hundred dollars more expensive.

Norelco also makes a good electric razor, but like the Braun, a little too pricey for my taste.


Switching gears, apparently we unwittingly sponsored a turkey trot on our back patio recently...

...wasn't present when this event took place, so I have no idea who won.

That's going to have to do it for now...as always, thank you for checking in with the bottom 50%.  We do appreciate it, no matter what news reports say.

later, mcm fans...

'Twas A Happy Birthday...

...for my beautiful wife!  Not allowed to say what number it is or I might have to spend the night shivering in a snowbank, but she looks 20 years younger than her chronological age...I've taken to introducing her as my daughter when we're out and about, since that's what everyone assumes anyway.

Karen with a homeless octogenarian that wandered onto our property earlier today...

To celebrate I took the day off from work...

...and Karen wanted to visit Curragh's Irish Pub in downtown Holland...ethnically confusing I know, but apparently the Dutchies here carved out a small patch of land for the fighting Irish, as long as they keep the mayhem confined within the four walls of the pub.

Music and Drink at Curragh...and so there was.

A very enjoyable lunch in the warm environs of an authentic Irish pub...why even the leprechauns were friendly.

We sat by the warm fire and enjoyed some good food and drink...

...then motored back home and celebrated with chamapagne and cake...

...a good time was had by all...I mean both...

The definition of Irony...

...wishing someone happy birthday while reminding them of our ultimate destination.

As the keeper of the MOTD (message of the day), I've been accused more than once of manipulating what saying shows up when to suit my nefarious purposes, but I'm innocent I tell ya...a friend born on Groundhog Day sent me the above but I assured him that particular MOTD was just how the cookie happened to crumble...don't know if he believed me or not.

So #1 son Micah and two of his sons, Marcellus and Isaiah, came over last night and completed the demo of the ceiling in our guest room:

A lot of work due to the wire mesh and stucco that was used when putting the ceiling up many moons ago.  Thank you gentlemen for all your hard work!  Next step will probably be to deal with some electrical issues here...need another light or two, a switch placed by the door, and a few more outlets in the room.  Gonna hafta sell a few thousand books to finance this project...

Now that the kitchen is finally complete, Karen decided she wanted a Western Electric Sculptura rotary phone in there to complement the look...

Got this very cool phone from Ericofon, a great website filled with classic phones.  If you have any interest in these communication icons from the past - whether long past or recent - I highly recommend you visit this site.

Richard Rose is the proprietor...he's very knowledgeable and a nice guy, too...he even supplied phones for the Mad Men series:

Check out his site...www.ericofon.com...you'll be glad you did.

Here's a cool Lawson clock I have by my bedside:

These date back to the 1930's, though this particular model is probably from the early 1950's.

Love its art deco stylings, and it is often identified as a KEM Weber design.  More likely it's the work of a couple of designers named Ferher and Adomatis.  Let's see if Alex Trebek knows that...

On a somber note - and in memoriam of this day Don McLean famously tagged as "The Day The Music Died" with his 1972 megahit "American Pie" - Karen and I watched two movies last night...The Buddy Holly Story and La Bamba...

Besides being great movies with outstanding performances by (brace yourself) Gary Busey as Buddy Holly (yes folks, that's actually him performing and singing in the movie) and Lou Diamond Phillips as Ritchie Valens, they are of course tragic, representing as they do great musical potential cut down in its youth.

As someone trained in flight (commercial pilot's license with an instrument rating), I am just sick at heart over how totally unnecessary their deaths were.

 After enduring freezing temperatures on broken down buses for days on end, Holly was finally fed up with the horrible traveling conditions of their Winter Dance Party Tour.

He decided to charter a plane for himself and two others in the hopes of getting to the next stop in Minnesota early enough to sleep in a warm bed for once. 

So shortly past midnight on February 3rd, 1959 the air charter company's 21 year old pilot and his three passengers took off in a 1947 Beechcraft Bonanza V-tail...

...into deteriorating weather that soon became IMC (instrument meteorological conditions).

Almost inexplicably, the pilot was only VFR (visual flight rules) rated and was flying into a growing snowstorm...in short, they had no chance and died within six miles of the airport, slamming into an Iowa cornfield at 170 mph in a downward turn to the right.

The three passengers - Holly, Valens and Richardson - were thrown from the cartwheeling plane; the pilot died entangled in the wreckage.

Sometimes stuff just happens...you take every precaution, do all the right things, but within God's plan it's simply Time.  Those events are still difficult to take, but what can you do?  The best laid plans...

But when fools rush in where angels fear to tread and the predictable ensues...those are the true tragedies...the senseless waste of Life's Grand Potential.

One of Holly's band members gave up his seat on the flight so JP "The Big Bopper" Richardson, who was suffering with the flu, could fly instead.

That band member was country music hall of fame member Waylon Jennings.

When Holly found out Jennings had given up his seat to Richardson, he jokingly told him "I hope your ol' bus freezes", to which Jennings replied in a similar vein with "I hope your ol' plane crashes".

Had he only known.

and on that sorrowful note...

later, mcm fans...

Get Your Kicks...

...on Route 66...that's an actual photograph of yours truly in my 1956 Corvette taking a quick Marlboro Man style break on my cross country tour of "The Mother Road".

Ok, so I'm lying and that's not me...and I don't own a corvette...or smoke cigarettes...and I've never traveled (as an adult) on Route 66...

...but you have to admit, it is a pretty cool poster...great view...and a very nice ride.  I'm 50 shades of green with envy.

Some more Route 66 nostalgia...

...don't forget the sunblock and water.

I did travel on Route 66 as a kid...in the back seat of the family station wagon on vacations...but never this far west.

Giving equal time to another favorite mode of transportation...

...the golden age of train travel...beautiful.

And of course, have to give a tip o' the hat to my favorite airplane...

...the beloved Ford TriMotor.

Pretty wild about this one, too...

...a real workhorse that greatly advanced the commercial aviation industry.  Plus, it was a tail dragger, as all the best planes in the world always are...a classic from back in the day when air travel was enjoyable and exciting.

Post 9/11 it's just a pain in the hind end and has all the elegance and ambiance of herding livestock into cattle cars...mooooo...git along little dogie...

Shifting gears, here's a very cool pic of my granddaughter Tionna:

She's a member of the Navy Ceremonial Guard, seen here shaking hands after one of their events with some of the brass.

She has another one coming up at the White House very soon.  Say hello to The Donald for me.

Very proud of you, young lady!

In the continuing saga of our home restoration, we had to tear down part of the ceiling in our guest room this past week...

Had a nasty leak that pretty much trashed that part of the interior ceiling...much to our surprise, there was no insulation at all overhead!

This room used to be a carport at one time, and somewhere along the way they enclosed it...when they did I guess they decided to keep it as a three season room and didn't worry about R-factor.

Many thanks to Micah, Marcellus and Isaiah for their hard work doing most of the heavy lifting and cleaning up the mess after!  Now we have to get it dried out, put some insulation up there, and patch the enormous hole...always something...

On the plus side, we had the finishing touches in the form of floating shelves installed in our kitchen this week:

Still need to paint them of course, but you get the idea.  Pretty excited to see this project finally drawing to a close.

Just overheard my 19 year old stepdaughter Sarah talking with Karen about a couple of co-workers...

Karen: "How old are they?"
Sarah: "They're old..."
K: "How old?"
S: "I don't know...really old...like 40 maybe...?"

And on that instructive note...

later, mcm fans...

MCM TV...

...heaven...that's my 1959 GE Slimline (formerly) black and white TV, retrofitted with a Philips color tube by Justin Rubsam...

...shown here in his workshop putting the finishing touches on my set.

Justin owns Stellar TV out of Sacramento, CA.  Check out his site, as he gets involved in some very interesting projects.

A recent endeavor found him providing 11 TV sets for David Copperfield's private museum of magic.

Mr. C is highlighting the influential magicians from his youth in separate displays on period correct television sets; enter Justin and his expertise.

In the "considerably less exotic" department, my set is being shipped back and should arrive in my friendly confines sometime next week...pretty excited about that.

A view of the innards...

Justin had to deal with the electronics as well as the design / carpentry aspect of the case to get all this to fit / work...plus he upgraded it with an HDMI connector so it will easily hook up to our DirecTV system.

Should be perfect for our living room near the fireplace...tune in for time travel back to I Love Lucy and The Jackie Gleason shows (neither of which I ever watched)...probably more likely to watch some old movies on cold winter nights by the warm fireplace.

Hatari, anyone?

"DANGER!" in Swahili...

Pursuant to all our furniture rearranging, Karen has populated our art deco display case with part of her Cameo Rose china collection:

...really looks spectacular...I know her mom would love it if she could see it now.

Other than that, nothing much new to report...stuck here at the north pole, though we are experiencing the famous January thaw at the moment...

...wishing the thaw could be followed by Spring but sadly we're a couple of months away from that.

There were a couple of years, several years back, when we were fortunate enough to enjoy a winter getaway to someplace warm...but in recent years work has conspired to make that an impossibility...too many "crisis projects" that make being gone for a week in December / January / February impractical...but I miss Palm Springs...

...and the Desert Riviera Hotel...75 degrees and sunny in January...oh yeah...the owners, Rick and Martha, are fabulous folks who make you feel right at home...

I miss them and luxuriating at their lovely hotel...have to make a point of getting back there soon.

But for now, it's a Wednesday night in the not so frozen north, 1/3rd of the way through January, so...

later, mcm fans...