Saturday, December 5, 2009

Dunk 'n Dine

Here's a random photo from the pile that has gotten cooler with age. Dunk 'n Dine in downtown Atlanta, circa 1990. I'm pretty sure the Dunk 'n Dine chain is no more. The one on Cheshire Bridge road lasted the longest, and became too self-aware to be a real diner any more. In this photo - I was just thinking that $6.95 seems a little steep for a plate of diner shrimp in 1990, no?

Dunk-n-Dine

Saturday, November 28, 2009

Peanut Pie In The Sky

As this Thanksgiving pie-time wanes, so must Part 1 of the Jimmy Carter novelty song project come to a close. And "Peanut Pie In The Sky" is the perfect song, crass and depressing, to go out on.

It's 1980. Carter is losing. Such awkward phrasing, this "trying hard to stay inside" hook. No funky ad hoc novelty band name here. (Just a list of four theater majors with a jug of chardonnay and a contract from a morning zoo crew to make a Carter-is-losing song?) The label tells us that this is from an album called "The Last Of The First Family." Scared/Interested.

The drum machine signals an entry into the cold inverse-Kremlin Reagan era.

President names hold weight.

I hope to run a Part II of the Jimmy Carter song feature in the future - there are more out there! Until then, I will get back to the original blog plan of small groceries and lost songs of all types.

Enjoy Kurt Kilpatrick, Marilyn Eastman, Teri Rini, Karl Hardman:



Peanut Pie In The Sky



Update: just found out that Karl Hardman produced the original Night of the Living Dead film in 1968, and starred in the film along with Marilyn Eastman as the bickering older couple whose daughter was catatonic after being bitten by a zombie!

Sunday, November 8, 2009

From Peanuts to President

You thought I was done...Nope. Two more stunners before I am through with the Jimmy Carter novelty record project.

Today's entry is the kind of real-deal recording that will bring tears to the eyes of perfectionists and Plains residents alike.

This is an ultra-obscure (autographed!) record by Max Culler, written by Gail Davis. I'm not sure where this is from (BMI gives the current address for Rusty York publishing in Greensburg, Indiana), but it will sure make you feel good about "the great state of Georgia".

The only Gail Davis I can find with any creative credentials is the one who portrayed Annie Oakley on TV in the 1950s. Wikipedia says she lived until 1997. Might she have been struck with populist Carter pride in 1976, and written this song? The flip side, "The Hurt Is Slowly Going Away" is also sung by Max Culler and written by Gail Davis.

OUR COUNTRY'S PRESIDENTIAL RACE...YOU GUESSED IT, JIMMY WON:



Jimmy Carter

Wednesday, October 14, 2009

Redneck Power, the book

Does somebody have a copy of this I can borrow?


Sunday, October 11, 2009

The Ballad of Billy Carter

I've been going easy on you-all so far. Now it is time we get stuck in the deep stuff. As the Billy World Turns. Your stern must be made of stiff stuff to plow into these waters. It's the Ballad of Billy Carter!

The pain in Plains is dulled by the Grain.




Ballad Of Billy Carter

Peanuts...oh oh oh oh, Peanuts. Doodle doodle doo!

Yeah, that'd be FRED SMERDLEY & THE DIXIE PIXIES.

Billy Carter model truck

Sunday, October 4, 2009

Eatin' Peanuts & Drinkin' Billy Beer

The Jimmy Carter Time! train rolls on...

When we talk about artists who have never gotten their due, we usually mean artists whose releases failed to capture an audience. On this record, Bobby Mann did not get his due from the outset, as his name is not even on the cover of the record.

Harkus 'Pig' Robbins and Hank Williams produced...not that Hank Williams.

In this song, Jimmy and Billy Carter serve as mere signposts to the narrator's divorce, letting us know that it must have occurred some time in the late 70s. The Carter presidency provides a rare opportunity for a sad-sack character to drown his sorrows country-style, while still maintaining a presidential flair.



Eatin Peanuts 2

Bobby Mann

Saturday, September 26, 2009

Two '76 Debate cut-in records

Here are two shockingly raw cut-ins from before the 1976 election. The great thing here is that, unlike all the later novelty records, the word "peanut" only gets mentioned once! (Listen for the Henry Kissinger character.) One early Jimmy Carter media scandal at play here is his apparent admission in a Playboy interview that he "lusted after hundreds of women."

At this point the Iranians had not yet taken American hostages, and nobody knew about Billy.

In case you don't know what a cut-in record is, it's when the DJ pretends to have an interview with a famous figure, whose answers are all given in the form of audio samples of lines from hit songs.

Bonus points: Name the songs that appear in BOTH of these cut-ins! There are at least three.

Road Hog And The Neon Cactus
"The Presidential Debate"


What a great band name! You wish it was a lost psychedelic masterpiece.

You'll notice this "song" was "written" by Don Imus. All these popular song samples? This thing is a copyright nightmare. Perhaps the only thing that could save them is the de minimis doctrine ("we only used a tiny bit!"). And you can't spell "Don Imus" without "De Minimis".


Jimmy Carter

If you want to really go wild, play them both at the same time!

Super Stu / Allen Dennis & The Disco Turkeys
"The Great Debate"


Band name: they should've just dropped "Allen Dennis" and gone with SUPER STU & THE DISCO TURKEYS.


Jimmy Carter

Wednesday, September 23, 2009

If A Peanut Farmer Can Do It (So Can I)

Saved the best for first! I hesitate to call this a 'novelty record' because it really works as a spiritual, dually on the mind and body.

Ed Townsend passed away in '03. He was a music industry veteran, with a solid career of solo and collaboration projects from the mid-50s to the late 70s. Townsend had a proto-disco solo Lp called Now on Chicago's Curtom Records in 1976. His main claim to fame was close participation in writing and arranging with Marvin Gaye on the Let's Get It On Lp.

"If A Peanut Farmer Can Do It" is a musical cousin to "Let's Get it On", but takes us to a righteous place where we recognize reward for the common man's perseverance. Still, you almost expect to hear the line, "We're all sensitive people...with so much to give."

Right now some folks in Georgia have been flooded out by the Eight Days of Rain, and this is the kind of uplifting message we should send to them.

This 45 looks as if it was pressed at the same plant as "Truck Drivers Don't Eat Duck"

But all I want you to do is look back over nineteen seventy-sixxxxxxx...



Jimmy Carter

Sunday, September 20, 2009

...and Billy Carter Time too.

In focusing on pop culture responses to the Carter presidency, you just can't leave out Billy. He gave us so much to work with, Georgia style. Billy left us for a higher plane back in 1988. But we will celebrate Brother Carter's memory in novelty song.

Here he was in better years selling his beer:

Billy Beer Ad

It's Jimmy Carter Time!

Get ready.

This goes out to all you hard workers, travelers, pleasers, and boozers.

It's Jimmy Carter Time. I will post as many Jimmy Carter related novelty records as I can find. Just a warning: get your ears on straight. A majority of the country has been trained to hate on Jimmy since at least late 1980. But an undercurrent of love remains. I will show the records of love and hate. Tim Tuten of the Hideout, if you are out there, I would like you to write a testimonial about President Carter.

Jimmy official

Thursday, September 10, 2009

Mitchell's Shoe Peg

A classic can of corn.

I will say that I object to the inclusion of "sugar" in the ingredients. If the corn is of enough quality, no sugar is necessary.

Mitchell's Shoe Peg

Thursday, September 3, 2009

Too Late To Make A Will

I'm getting up early a couple days a week to go to a Trusts & Estates class where we will talk a lot about wills.

Here's a sad song about the perception of diminished testamentary capacity. This is another little Mississippi record. The man singing the song sounds absolutely lucid ... but is that really his voice singing, or are we hearing his inner voice? Like in a Johnny's Got His Gun situation? His body reduced to rubber and string.

The children, just in the next room, rudely argue over the old man's estate, disputing share percentages. Tommy wishes to have immediate access to the estate.

"Through these veins cold water flows."

The band, recorded in an iron lung down the hall, performs the duty of playing sounds while the man is singing.

BARNEY HUGHES




Barney Hughes

Saturday, August 29, 2009

...the sticker

Life moves fast. My blog moves slow.

A guy over on waxidermy just scored "Truck Drivers Don't Eat Duck" with a sticker. I'm impressed. Thinking of options - places that sticker would look really good.

Rather than spending the time or money to seek out the sticker, I'm considering just getting the words "Truck Drivers Don't Eat Duck" printed on novelty business cards - the kind you can't tear in half. A sure conversation piece at the counter of a Flying J diner near you.


Thursday, August 20, 2009

Truck Drivers Don't Eat Duck

This is a peculiar novelty on the theme of truckers keeping it real. First, consider: when was the last time you were offered "Duck Under Glass"? Second: I don't think this is the same Ray Parker that sang "Ghostbusters" or "A Woman Needs Love". This Ray Parker sounds kind of like the Cleveland character from Family Guy. (He's about to get his own spinoff show.)

The banjo patterns push this song along, suggesting a steady roll on a sunny midwestern highway. The key changes are idiosyncratic, but the lead guitarist makes taste, not waste, when finessing the leaps. The on-cue backup singer zombie ladies somehow legitimize the whole project.

I like how this particular tune is on Rush Street Records. I think if you were driving an 18-wheeler thru Chicago, Rush Street and the Mag Mile is the very last place you would park your rig and look for a diner.

Imagine a techno remix with the Aflac duck shredding.




"Truck Drivers Don't Eat Duck"

Saturday, August 15, 2009

May You Rest In Peace

In keeping with the bones-in-a-hole theme, here is a song a wife sings to her still living but effectively dead husband: "For here lies a man who wanted nothing but to watch TV."

A piney plea from the middle of a miserable marriage, the song relates a woman's attempts to use special effects, such as lingerie or wine, to rekindle lost flames of passion.

The thing is, Liz sounds a little ... burly here. If not burly, then thick of neck, wiry and tough. Alright, she sounds kind of like a dude.

The 25 cent price tag is damn near welded on to the label, I couldn't get it off. Under that it says "api" - the full name of the record label is api ATTEIRAM. You'll notice that "atteiram" is the word Marietta, backwards. And that's pretty much what this record is, a backwards masked married-with-children Marietta chick shoveling woo.

The Atteiram label is known mostly for Bluegrass releases. The label was later sold to that voracious and prolific Nashville reissue record monster, Gusto / Starday.

Enough talk.

Liz, tell em what you did:



Liz Howard

Wednesday, August 5, 2009

The Hole That Holds The Bones

Here's a lost song that may really test your mettle. Fight your way to the end to hear the microphone-shattering Elvis-in-Vegas style climactic apex. Diaphragm!

This sounds like it could be a Song Poem, but Phil Milstein's fabulous Song Poem Archives site yields no info on the label, singer, or song. The whole shebang appears to be ungoogleable. I did find one record dealer offering a copy for $3.

Who is this Simon Smith, who sings like the best male singer in your suburban church choir? A week spent at his grueling engineering job results in some oddities in diction and phrasing, but on Sunday he really lets it fly. (just my imagination)

Also you'll notice the song uses the outdated and questionable device of telling you what the "yellow man" and the "red man" have done. Still, I am proud of my purchase. With a title like this, would you have left it in the store?





Hole That Holds The Bones

Saturday, July 25, 2009

My New Hero



CNN and others are reporting that a retiring Army Colonel, Henry Moak, opened and ate a Vietnam War-era army ration can of pound cake at his retirement ceremony.

A 36 year old Can of Pound Cake.

WITH A CEREMONIAL SWORD.

"To most people's surprise, the opened can revealed a still-edible yellow cake. The ceremonial sword used to cut Moak's real retirement cake was also used to dig into the can and cut out the cake.

Moak took a bite and put up his thumb, "It's good, it's still kind of moist," he declared."



Already having served his country until retirement, Col. Moak took things to another level here. I am not a scientist, so I don't understand how any product with eggs in it wouldn't be deadly 36 years later. What happens inside a can that is properly sealed for the battlefield? Apparently time stands still, is what happens.

When I was a kid, in the early 80s I went through an "army phase" - I had old army clothes and toy machine guns, and liked to run around in the woods pretending. Once, my mom took me by Brock's Army Surplus and I bought a set of rations, which included pork-n-beans and pound cake. They were good then, but they may have been less than ten years old then. And I never ended up joining the Army.

Can you say that you've ever eaten an antique?

Saturday, July 18, 2009

Laughing & Smiling

It takes a tough man to make a tender love song. A man tough as nails. Perhaps even a man named M.H. NAIL. This record represents where I want to be when I am as old as this guy sounds - fronting a small, liquid country band in Mississippi, singing songs about my wife. The American dream, writ large, and shakily. One of my favorite records:




H.M. Nail

Monday, July 13, 2009

Beans & Franks

73 cents at Wal Mart. This is the budget brand there, comparing to Van Camps Beenie Weenies, which are running around 90 cents right now.

I think these prices are kind of high.

These are not really "Franks." The Frankenfurters title should be reserved for an upper tier of shaped meat. What's in these and in beenie weenies is really slices of Vienna Sausage, those tubes of pale death in a can.

I also got some low-fat Vienna Sausage. 43 cents. It's for research: I'm working on a song called "He Was A Weenie From Vienna, She Was A Carolina Cracker." Not really.

The Phillips can puts me on a Greyhound Bus in a new pair of shoes:

Beans & Franks


When the pestilence and tribulation times come, I will fuel myself with such cans of Beans & Franks as this. Then I will fight off the marauders and the six-foot flesh-eating caterpillars. I always keep at least one can of beans & weiners in the trunk of my car.

Wednesday, July 8, 2009

Funky Grasshopper

Continuing with the BUG theme, here is a dance routine that will knock your socks off. You will jump so much, you won't know what hit you. I have a special relationship with Grasshopper themed dances. Also, the word "grasshopper" is an effective mantra. I say it thousands of times to myself every day.

The "Bug" in this song is also represented by a sound effect - in this case what sounds like a de-tuned E string on an old guitar with a primitive whammy bar. The guitar track in this song should be an inspiration to excitable, tone-deaf amateur guitarists everywhere. You don't need to be even in the neighborhood of In Tune, and you too can do the Funky Grasshopper. "Do the handle high."

If you have three hours and want to know everything in the world about Hugh Boynton and this record, see Soul Detective's amazing research. The most interesting thing is that this record was apparently either recorded at Capricorn Studios in Macon, Georgia, or at Muscle Shoals in Alabama, by recording new vocals and a rough mix over somebody else's song that was already released as a single!

The Funky Grasshopper! We're doin' it.



Funky Grasshopper

Friday, July 3, 2009

"The Bug" That Made History

A little challenge: look at this record label and guess what this song is about before you listen to it. "The Bug" That Made History (1977):

"The Bug"

Now listen to the song and see if you were right:



(If you want to know what I thought it was going to be about, look in the Comments!)


This 45 appears to be the work of an ambitious husband-wife team:

Featured singer: Mary Ann Walker
Record label: The Walker
Songwriter: Myran Walker
Publisher: Myann Walker

I hope they didn't blame each other when this failed to become a hit! Maybe it was just for fun - sounds like they had a good time recording it. The family that records novelty songs together, STAYS TOGETHER.
Check out those analog synth squiggles that are supposed to represent "The Bug".

The incredible Sonovox

Thanks to my friend Mark for telling me about the Sonovox - that's the instrument he thinks is at the beginning of "Night Lover" (posted previously). The Sonovox is kind of a precursor to the talk box tube (Pete Drake "Forever", Frampton Comes Alive, etc.). This video clip is from the end of a 1940 comedy called "You'll Find Out."

I try to avoid unnecessary hyperbole in speech and writing, but...

THIS IS THE BEST VIDEO I'VE EVER SEEN. (don't miss the little dog!)




Mark also recommended a few other cool Sonovox videos, see his comment in the "Night Lover" thread.

Wednesday, July 1, 2009

Bargain Day, Half Off

Double Coupon Day back from vacation with a humorous topical number - we're going out of business, selling out at cost. It's a bargain day and everything's half off!

The Carlisles is Bill Carlisle's group from the 50s. He was a jumping, grand ole opry shucking and jiving, double-entendre novelty song writing fool. There's only one joke here, but somehow it don't get old. It's all in the timing.




Bargain Day


Update: Thanks to Anonymous for figuring out that he says "men's long handles," referring to a union suit. (The butt flap is half off?)

Wednesday, June 24, 2009

Cub Foods - Bin Ladin connection?

I just got my haircut at Supercuts and the hairdresser lady and I got to talking about grocery stores. She claims that Cub Foods closed down soon after 9/11 because "Osama Bin Ladin was a major stockholder." He issued a general threat about wrecking the economy and devaluing U.S. currency, and within the week, Cub Foods employees showed up to work to find the stores shuttered with no notice.

Anyone know anything more?

A quick look at the Cub Foods wiki only reveals a string of dull-sounding mergers and acquisitions reports involving parent companies SuperValu, Albertsons, and Cerberus Capital Management, revealing only, for example, that some Cub stores were "divested ... to avoid market concentration issues."

Folks miss Cub Foods for their noticeably cheaper prices, especially for major purchases common to large families or folks who get paid once a month.

For me personally, Cub was okay for some things, but I of course much prefer the old-style small groceries. Some of the Cub stores were so damn big that you could get exhausted. You'd get a workout when you realized you forgot a produce item but you were already all the way over in the beer aisle, in another zip code. I wonder if they used re-tread tires on their shopping carts?


Monday, June 22, 2009

Detroit ugly, Detroit beauty


My sister and I share a fascination with Detroit. The city's woes have exposed the rundown and the wrong, laying bare a failure of the industrial organization of life. On the other hand, holes and problems necessitate solutions. Necessity is the mother of invention. Many real people still live in Detroit, persevering in spite of citywide setbacks.

Two interesting articles last week:

The WSJ printed "Retailers Head for Exits in Detroit" - another doom and gloom story, reporting among other facts that Detroit hosts not even one big-chain grocery store. But wait! It's ALDI to the rescue. ALDI continues to open stores in Detroit and a spokeswoman for the chain says ALDI is "very bullish" on Detroit. The last ALDI I went into stocked only canned, frozen, and boxed goods, i.e. Dry Goods, and no fresh produce. This article claims Detroit residents will go to farmers markets for fruits and vegetables.

Make sure to look at the companion photo slideshow, titled Detroit's Retail Exodus, featuring some great photos, some of which are reminiscent of the work of Detroit Blog, more on which below. See photo 7 for a glimpse of the indie grocer Family Fair Food Center. I imagine this store carries three different brands of three-ounce tins of Potted Meat. For a hilarious product review of a can of Potted Meat Food Product, see Steve Don't Eat It Vol. 1 at The Sneeze.

CNN printed "Got $100? Welcome to your new Detroit home" - This is an exciting piece about poor artists who get houses almost for free and then renovate them according to greener standards. The photo at the top of this post is a house some artists got for a hundred dollars, before they began renovations.

My sister and I became fascinated with Detroit a few years ago while discussing play-money houses. We had a little "contest" to see who could go on realtor.com and find the cheapest house. Detroit was the winner. You could get a house for a dollar there. What house do you get for a dollar, or a hundred dollars? Probably a house with back taxes or liens owed; a house whose entire plumbing and electrical utilities have been stripped by looters for recycling money; a house likely infested with generations of insects, mold and mammals; and likely a house in a neighborhood that doesn't exactly feel safe, even for those used to being urban pioneers in other cities.

But just think. If enough reasonable people renovated these abandoned houses, the city could flourish in a GM and Ford-free future. In a parallel universe, my sister is living in a renovated solar-paneled bungalow in Detroit. (But it would have to be a distant parallel: for one thing, I don't think she could live any place where the temperature regularly hovers around 10 degrees F. at night for several months out of the winter.)

And finally, a note about the continued vitality of Detroit Blog. In its current state, the blog is a champion of grassroots community and dogged determination, showcasing the barely-noticeable-from-the-street little businesses that continue to serve their neighborhoods. These people do what they do for real good reasons, day in and day out, regardless of what interlopers and jackasses like me write on the internets.

I kind of miss the old, grumpier, alcoholic, abandoned-skyscraper-exploring Detroit Blog. Once the (anonymous) guy began writing his articles for the Detroit Metro Times, he reined things in a bit, and toned down the bitterness. The change in perspective was good, though, as he became a more involved community reporter. The focus is now outward and optimistic, instead of inward and suspicious, and I can only imagine the struggling city is a little bit better for his work. Righteous!

Detroit Blog once did a great run of articles on one of my favorite topics: what happens to the greatest works of mankind when they are abandoned and left to nature. How long does it take for nature to reclaim "civilization"? Of course this question is now answered in a CGI wank-fest on the History channel's Life After Humans series. But Detroit Blog was there first, reporting on trees growing in and on skyscrapers, "urban prairies" where tony neighborhoods once stood, and wild animals living in and around downtown.

For a succinct description of the phenomenon, with some great photos, see Detroit Blog's "Wild Kingdom".

Thursday, June 18, 2009

Awesome can of peas

This Argo label is formidable. Elegant and stark, it hearkens back to sturdier decades, or even simpler centuries.

I can't quite put my finger on why, but when I look at this can I get the feeling that I'm also getting a steak, and a steak knife with it.

70 cents at the IGA store. I'll have to do a contents review later.

Argo Peas

Wednesday, June 17, 2009

Night Lover

What in the Wide Wide World Of Sports was that sound?

My friend Matt thinks it sounds like a harmonica, but I think it's pedal steel thru a talkbox, ala Pete Drake.

Now we're in some out-of-the-way country. A man's tale of an easy lady whose "love will never stand the light of day." Really, there's a good chance it's just sour grapes or self-flagellation on his part.

But look at that label. Nice hand-drawn melons!





Night Lover

Buying A Car Ukranian Style

The best album cover I've seen all year. Re-posted from Hawthorne Wingo over at waxidermy.

Chicago Radio Preachers 1998

In 1998 I taped some AM radio scan sessions on cassettes. I stayed an extra minute at particularly engrossing sounds.

This is a miracle save. I was looking for something else and found this!

This couple is tight. Listen to their style. I have no idea who they are, only that they were broadcast in Chicago in the winter of 1998/99. And that she calls him both "Teacher" and "Prophet".

If you had any doubt that water puts out fire, listen to this flow:







Saturday, June 13, 2009

Under Control

The more you know, the more you know you don't know, you know?

For my inaugural music post, here's an ode to self-deprecating self-confidence.

I think Howard Perkins had it "Under Control".




Under Control

Quinn-cidence?

So I told you in my First Blog Post about how I was going to name the blog Striped Light, and then I changed my mind and called it Double Coupon Day.

Well, my friend Quinn told - reminded - me that when he posts on the International Hits Blog, his screen-name is Doubl Q-Pon Deigh.

International Hits is a solid little record label in Atlanta. You can read Doubl Q-Pon Deigh's updates on such singers as Harvey Milk and Cordero. Look at the second post, just below Total Ronnie Obvious's post.

Hold on a second, they're plaing Stone Temple Pilots "Plush" on the radio right now and all the sudden I want to go to the pool. Okay, it passed.

So I've read "Doubl Q-Pon Deigh" before, but I always read it as "Double Q ... Pon Dee." Seriously. As in "Deigh" rhymes with the girl name "Leigh" or the city "Raleigh." Quinn points out that "Deigh" sounds "Day" as in "sleigh" and "weigh."

So now, there are two dudes running around on the internet with the same name, only spelled like one of the dudes is Cajun or something. I swear I didn't try to steal Quinn's handle. I swear, it's great minds that think alike.

Note also, that both of us have, like junior gang members, taken some of the shine from our friend Double B. When Pardner plays, now there's Double B, Double Coupon Day, Doubl Q-Pon Deigh, Hoo-Law and Faceless Drifter.

Incidentally, today is Quinn's birthday. Sa-lut!

...<:::>...

Thursday, June 11, 2009

A trip to ALDI



I went to the super-discount grocery store ALDI this evening. It's kind of like part grocery, part welfare office. There are giant propaganda signs, printed in pleasant colors and put up all around, explaining how you are saving money by bagging your own groceries, and how they have such low overhead. Note, however, that printing giant colored signs and purchasing hanging hardware and hiring labor is all part of the overhead. You see what I mean? That's like when a radio announcer says his station is "LESS TALK." Yeah, well you just talked when you said that. You could've talked even less.

In case you've never been, if you want to get a grocery cart, you need to bring a quarter. The carts are equipped with a locking system, and they're all neatly chained together outside the store. To unlock one, you use your quarter as a key. Stick it in the slot, and it grabs your quarter but you can still see the edge of the quarter poking out of the device. This is important, because it's a reminder: you get your quarter back. When you're done shopping, you lock the cart back up neatly and your quarter pops out, and you go along your merry way. There is a big sign, orange with white lettering and a giant photo of a quarter, explaining that you get your quarter back, and that this system helps keep the carts organized and the parking lot clean.

ALDI's cans of Happy Harvest brand Mixed Vegetables (think Veg-All) are running 62 cents a can here. I was hoping for something like 45 and 59. Regular grocery store brands are running around 75 cents a can, and premium brands, like LeSeur Peas, are running $1.30 and up, just for context. Comparing the 75 cent grocery generic with ALDI's 62 cents, that's 13 cents difference. You, the wind tunnel, better be buying a lot of cans if you're going to really see any savings, especially if you have to drive or take a bus out of your way to get to ALDI. I am now building up a modest Emergency Food Supply, so I will be buying a lot of cans. Of course I don't prefer canned dinner, but there may come a spell when we can't get fresh. Example: gas shortage. Trucks won't drive tomatoes up from Florida; I've got a can of diced tomatoes.



If you want to see a great blog post about ALDI prices, check out Frugal Mom at Everything Alabama:
http://blog.al.com/frugalmom/2008/03/aldi_update.html


Tonight, I only bought about six cans because I showed up at 7:55 and they close at 8:00. I didn't even get a bag, I just threw everything in my trunk.

In spite of what you hear on the TV, times are actually really good right now. We're just into June and my tomato plants are already five feet tall and bearing fruit. Gasoline is plentiful, and we have our choice of stores at which to purchase cans to stock up for the bad times.

./.

Wednesday, June 10, 2009

Food Depot commercial

This thing is awesome. Here's a low budget commercial for a regional discount grocery store. The woman singing the jingle at the end must have been an unpaid intern or somebody's relative. I imagine that longstanding favors were cashed in.

You can see from the few YouTube comments that this ad has a small cult following. In my house, my wife calls me in the TV room if I'm not there when this commercial comes on. It is a big deal.

To be clear, I am glad the lady that you hear was chosen to be the singer. I am a fan of individuality, a citizen's open access to the airwaves, and regional accents. You, the wind tunnel, may claim that she is an "amateur" or that the commercial is sloppy. Well, I would rather hear her than most professionals. She gets the job done. Singing "leave on a happy note..." and that is exactly what happens. I leave on a happy note.






From the comments:


mycuriosityshop wrote:

"
Start at .024 for the whacked out vocal

"Leave on a happy note, watching your savings grow"....

actually as "performed": le wone uh appie naute watching yur sabings gwow at feuuuud deepoep"

And RandomentalTV weighed in:

it sounds like shes saying

"leap on a happy nut, washing your savings crow at foodie pope"
.
.

Tuesday, June 9, 2009

First blog post


Well, I finally did it. I made the blog. I am shouting into a goddamn wind tunnel!

The liberating thing about shouting into a wind tunnel is that you can shout anything you please.

A friend recently lamented that some of our indie CD releases were like more "rain in the ocean". Meaning, difficult to attract attention to one drop, and possibly meaningless.

When I was a child I stood on the edge of a small fishing boat on Lake Oconee and was told "don't piss in the wind." Pissing in the wind is like the evil cousin of "rain in the ocean" - "rain in the ocean" is your existentialist friend who could use some cheering up, maybe a trip to the batting cages. "Pissing in the wind" not only invalidates your purpose, but actually attracts negative attention, covering your clothing with dots of boomeranging urine. Imagine you're standing there in the batting cage, and instead of a baseball, out comes a steaming yellow stream. Or, when you release a CD, and months later the distributor ships back hundreds of unsold, bent, pawed-over copies which threaten to bury you on your front doorstep. I hope this blog is not like that.

Originally I thought about calling this blog "Striped Light" - after one of my favorite Captain Beefheart lyrics. I wanted to use a word in the title that I have a hard time pronouncing, or have had to re-train myself how to pronounce. Ever since a kid, I have said "STRI-pid", using two syllables, sort of like how you say "stupid". I have now re-trained myself to say "stripe'd" in one terse syllable. It's not that I care if you think I sound like a hillbilly, it's that I don't want some minor pronunciation flaw to detract from the great stories I tell. As I regale you, the wind tunnel, with wilde tales of my exploits, keep your ears on the prize, for there is a punch line.

As I kid, for Coupon, I said "kew-pon," while the voice-overs on local TV grocer ads mostly seemed to say "coo-pon." I think my whole family said "kew-pon," as did lots of others. No one way is right, I'm convinced.

To this day when I say "double" people think I'm saying "devil," as in, rhymes with treble. The rub is, I pronounce "trouble" just fine. So - I'm serious - if I am talking to you about a Stevie Ray Vaughan album, I will say "Deble Trouble."

Which brings me to Double Coupon Day. A most exciting day. I can certainly pronounce "day." But before I get to "day" I will come at you like a feral, sideways hillbilly with the DEBLE KEWPON, approaching the automatic doors with ragged envelopes bursting at the seams with my clippings and printouts. I am ready to do this blog. I call that a Bargain. The best. I ever. Had.