Some totally rad mid-70s ABA photographs

The American Basketball Assocation (ABA) was formed in 1967 to compete with the NBA. It was absorbed into the NBA in 1976. They left an amazing legacy in the form of sweet logos and player photographs. Check these out.


The logo of the San Diego Conquistadors.



The logo of the San Diego Sails.

The New Jersey Americas. The Spirits of St. Louis. The Baltimore Hustlers.


The San Diego Conquistadors, commonly called "the Q". The Conquistadors became the San Diego Sails, who folded midway through the 1975 season.

The Memphis Sounds in huddle.

The San Diego Conquistadores in their away jerseys.

Wilt Chamberlain didn't play for San Diego. He just coached them.

A jersey from the San Diego Conquistadors.


Daniel C. Jones of the Memphis Pros in rebound.


There are more photographs here and here.

Mariners Jersey

Check out the eyelets at the neck.

The logo of the San Diego Mariners

The Mariners existed from 1974 to 1977, the heyday of the short-lived and poorly named World Hockey Assocation.

More Hockey

Murray Keogan was a forward for the Phoenix Roadrunners.

October 16, 1975

The San Diego Mariners played the Indianapolis Racers at San Diego Sports Arena. The Racers won 3-0.

Trash

A key element of the economy is the extraction of further value from our waste. This is largely confined to China, but I think you can expect it to be a big part of American culture in the future. There are two ways to get more value from an item once it has outlived its usefulness: You can salvage material from it, or you can find another use for it. You can recycle it or repurpose it.

When I was a boy my dad gave me a cardboard box full of mismatched model airplane parts, (these are referred to by the very nerdy as “greebles”). My mom called them “toy gravel”. Let’s be clear -on their own these parts were useless. I couldn’t build a complete model, or even one resembling a complete model, but there was enough of them that I could use them as landscapes for Lego men, or just to add spice to a space battle. They literally covered the floor of my room like sand dunes. Despite their basic uselessness, I thought they had potential. They were my favorite toy, until my mom got so sick of having them jammed into her feet whenever she walked into my room that she made me get rid of them.

I love detritus in the aggregate. I love thrift stores. I love junk shops. I love garage sales. If you gave me someone’s trash I would probably lovingly sift through it.

There’s a stage near the end of any item’s lifecycle when its usefulness is coming to an end but it still has a bit of potential, but it’s only when these items are gathered in one place that I can see this potential. This is the value of thrift. A bent spoon on the side of the road is trash. A drawer full of utensils at Goodwill, that’s the start of a kitchen.

I am aware of the injustices which lead to and result from a system that allows a billions of water bottles to accumulate in one place. But I am aggressively uninterested in a catalog of tragedies. I want to know enough about an injustice so that that I can then modify my own behavior appropriately, but nothing more. I’m interested in figuring out a positive method of using them now that they’re here. Plastic trash is the toy gravel of the world. What can you create with it? This is a fascinating, valuable question.
-
I was coerced into writing about this by P.t.s.o.Q.S.

He went full cleveland. Unbelievable.

" A sub-genre of the leisure suit culture is the "full Cleveland". A
full Cleveland is a leisure suit combined with a white belt and white dress
shoes."
-Wikipedia

Because I can't find a picture of someone in Full Cleveland, heres an organic cotton leisure suit for a little boy. The suit costs $90. What?

Enabler

This is a definition I can never keep straight. What I hear commonly referred to as an "enabler" is usually a "drinking buddy."

Enabling refers to dysfunctional approaches that are intended to help but in fact may perpetuate the problem.

A common theme of enabling in this latter sense is that third parties take responsibility, blame, or make accommodations for a person's harmful conduct (often with the best of intentions, or from fear or insecurity which inhibits action). The practical effect is that the person themselves does not have to do so, and is shielded from awareness of the harm it may do, and the need or pressure to change.

A common example of enabling can be observed in the relationship between the alcoholic and a codependent spouse. The spouse believes incorrectly that he or she is helping the alcoholic by calling into work for them, making excuses that prevent others from holding them accountable, and generally cleaning up the mess that occurs in the wake of their impaired judgment. In reality what the spouse is doing is hurting not helping. Enabling prevents psychological growth in the person being enabled and can contribute to negative symptoms in the enabler.

A lady.

Been thinking lately about how a collection reveals aspects of the collector's identity which the collector might not be conscious of.

One of the interesting things about the internet is that it allows you instant access to hundreds of scrapbooks. It used to be a matter of privileged social access to see someone’s collection of photographs and clippings. When I was a teenager I wallpapered my bedroom in photographs I found interesting and various compelling images I’d clipped from magazines. I would lay in bed and be mesmerized by the walls.I thought it was about aesthetics, but I now see that it was about building an identity. But it also allowed anyone who entered my bedroom frightening access to my goals, worries, and ideals (insofar as those can be divined from pages clipped from Spin and National Geographic).

Now you can see everyone’s scrapbook-papered walls. You can see everyone’s collection of images. Go to any image-heavy blog (like virtually everything on Tumblr) and browse the archives. What patterns are emerging? What types of faces appear again and again? What subject matter? Sometimes the blogger becomes conscious of the pattern: “I guess this is now all about girls with big eyes.” “Here’s your daily picture taken with a vintage Holga .” "Yet another picture of Obama." It doesn't take very long to see the patterns emerge. They're about romantic and aesthetic ideals, or personal goals, or fears, or worries, and half the time the collector doesn't even know it.

A photograph is a sealed object upon which the viewer is invited to impose his or her interpretations. Said interpretations are subject to change. It’s like a snow globe, except instead of shaking the globe up; you shake your mind up. Part of the reason people enjoy photography is that it grants them access to a world which they can control through their interpretation, and which can influence their interpretation.

I’ve been looking at this photograph again and again over the past two weeks and I am beginning to wonder what my interest in it means. She looks calm, mature, and reserved, but I’m imposing those qualities. It' just one of hundreds of melancholy black and white found photographs I've posted. They're usually rural, usually damaged or old, and usually a little bit mopey. Exactly what does my interest in these photographs indicate?

Maybe this will help

A friendly reminder: every boring, frustrating, and impersonal form you have ever filled out was written and designed by a human being. Maybe it was their birthday that day.

Sometimes I get really overwhelmed when I think that even these bland, dull, functional documents were written by real people, and that these people had families and friends and hobbies and problems.

I also produce a lot of faceless material.  Do people think the same about me, albeit indirectly?

The Brigade

I've been having daydreams lately of a bucket brigade that spans the ocean. I do not know what is in the buckets, but an shipborne bucket brigade is the only way to transport it.

The brigade girds the world like a belt of wood and sails. Hundreds of thousands of ships anchored near the equator. They are arranged end-to-end, the prow of one almost touching the stern of hte next. On each ship stands a long row of men passing the buckets. Other men wait their turn below. They pass the time playing cards or writing letters. The men on the brigade rarely associate with the crew.

The sailors in the crew are dedicated and nimble. They rarely disrupt the brigade. The watchmen in the rigging have the most difficult job: they must keep the ships close together during good weather, and far apart during bad weather. The men on the brigade will perform their duties until the last minute.

An ad hoc culture arises between neighboring ships. The man at the prow of one ship and the man at the stern of the next can become ambassadors between the two ships, if the two speak the same language. Men travel from ship to ship to explore and meet others. No one will miss his shift, but a man can travel far on the brigade in half a day’s journey.

The navies of the world have been repurposed to man these ships. Some of the ships still bear the marks of battles. The men on the brigade rarely stop to speculate about who won the war. Sailing vessels need room during a storm. You can tell which men have been on the brigade the longest because they have the firmest stance and the longest reach.

This line of ships has become a new feature on maps. Navigators must consider it when planning journeys that pass through the shipping lanes of the world. Ships may only pass through the brigade line during stormy weather. They will not cut the line unless they must. After a few months, navigating the line is taught formally in naval academies. After a decade, the existence of the line is taught in in non-military schools by geography teachers to students who have grown up taking it for granted. 

No Fear slogans

Hey, check it out. I don't know if these are actual No Fear slogans, but they sure fit the spirit.

IF YOU'RE NOT LIVING ON THE EDGE YOU'RE TAKING UP TO MUCH SPACE

WHEREVER THE FEAR MAY BE LOOK IT IN THE EYES

LET THE ASSKICKING COMMENCE

THERE IS NO RISK INVOLVED IF YOU'RE GOOD

THE OLDER I GET THE BETTER I WAS

HE WHO DIES WITH THE MOST TOYS STILL DIES

LIVE FREE OR DIE. NO FEAR.

FACE YOUR FEARS. LIVE YOUR DREAMS

REALITY IS IN FACT VIRTUAL

YOU MISS 100% OF THE SHOTS YOU DON'T TAKE

NO SCRAPES, NO SCARS, NO PROOF! NO FEAR.

AT 200 MPH YOU HAVE NO FRIENDS!

-from JOEL'S NO FEAR PAGE!

The Ecstatic Virgin

At what point does an object become valuable to one as more than the sum of its usefulness? This isn’t about economics. This is about mentality: I expect that before such a sense of over-significance can be expressed, it exists in one’s mind independent of the object at hand. I am saying that an obsessive mind does not need an object to obsess about. The object is a convenient target on which to focus the energy, but the energy is always present. And, in the same way that an object can be a target, a system of morals can be the funnel through which to direct that energy. A mental system provides goals and guidelines that direct one’s energy. The girl directs her energy towards the cross.

My shelves are emptier than the others because I am afraid of overestimating the significance of objects or ideas. This is why I have given so much away that others have used, or kept or hoarded.


I keep very few things now, but all of them are talismanic, overvalued. Every single one has potential or memory attached to it. This is not ironic or tragic. This is the result of an obsessive desire to downsize one’s possessions colliding with a basic inability to correctly estimate the value of objects. There's a tiny jar of toasted sesame seeds in my pocket that I haven't eaten yet because I like looking at it and thinking about it too much.

I do not know when a hobby becomes an obsession. I am interested in where one draws the line between a productive obsession that moves one forward and a destructive, illogical obsession. I do not know if this is a false dichotomy or not.
 -
There's more here.

Christian T-Shirts

THE CLEVER

THE PUNNY
They're dumb but memorable, just like most of the advertising out there. 

THE CONFRONTATIONAL

These are about being a tough guy.

I like how this one looks like a Rob Liefield drawing.

For the NASCAR crowd.  The art looks like what you'd find on a little kid's ski jacket.

 

THE ANTI-WORLDLY
These say "I'm so tough I don't have to have sex. Or use money."

THE AGGRESSIVELY PIOUS

These are the ones that remind you you that Christianity isn't all free spaghetti dinners from the Lutherans.

Christian Outfitters?

A visual pun involving pencils and nails that ties into a reference about teachers.  I assume this is about that story about Jesus coming bearing a whip or an axe or some other non-teacher-y tool?

I especially dig this one because it would fit right in at Hot Topic.

THE VISUAL

THE WAY OVERDESIGNED
Speaking of mall stores, They wouldn't be out of place at Zumiz or Wet Seal. 

THE CUTESY

This is by far my favorite category.

THE CLIPART
I found these all on some really badly designed and obscure t-shirt websites.  I'm guessing they don't sell very well. Who's going to wear an ugly-ass t-shirt like these?

THE I DON'T GET THESE

THE CONFUSING
These either send mixed messages or mix up cultural references in such a weird way. It's really unclear what they mean. 

This kind of ravey lady makes me think of Gossip Girl and The Phantom.

This clip-art Latino dude is bowing before a gigantic Celtic cross. I guess it's about prison or weightlifting?

 

THE RHETORICALLY SUSPECT

If I was smarter, I'd use these t-shirts  to illustrate logical fallacies. I didn't pay attention in school, though, so mainly I just scratch my head when I see them. 

THE REALLY SPECIFIC
Thes are for people who need to broadcast two types of cultural identity."I'm proud of being a drummer, and especially proud of being a Christian drummer".

THE I THINK I'M OFFENDED



"Minority rights start here."

I had gotten used to anti-abortion rights activists talking about the "holocaust" of abortion occuring in the US.  But piggybacking onto the American civil rights progress is a new one.


THE THESE MIGHT NOT ACTUALLY BE EVANGELICAL SHIRTS
 
Shit, this is just pro-Christmas.



And if it wasn't for the scriptural reference, this could be anything on Bustedtees.com



Oops, this is a Christian Audigier t-shirt. 





The BEST

Eat Dog or Die!

I strongly suspect this refers to an obsolete form of competitive eating.

Two men. Twenty puppies. Ten million viewers. Who can eat them fastest?




(The secret to speed-eating puppies: Don’t chew!)

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Clickez-vous pour aller à chez Seth.

No Fear

No Fear is dope as hell.


Do you know how long I had to search to find that truck bumper image from a couple days ago?  At least ten minutes on Flickr. I mean, in the grand scheme of things, it barely took me any time at all. But on the internet that's an eternity. 

I'm having even more trouble finding pictures of early No Fear brand clothing. I spent four hours a few weeks ago on Google looking for a reasonable facsimile of vintage No Fear. Two of those hours were on Cafe Press. Do you have any idea how horrible Cafe Press is?

To be clear: I'm referring to the period when No Fear was almost exclusively known as a seller of ribald t-shirts.

Today, No Fear focuses on Mixed Martial Arts, surfing, and motocross, competing with ultimate fighting/lifestyle brands, but there was a point when No Fear sold nothing but cheap white t-shirts with sports-oriented witticisms on them.

If that doesn't jog your memory, perhaps remember No Fear popularizing the saying "He Who Dies With the Most Toys...Still Dies" in the 1990s.


So cool. So B.A.


Maybe you don't recognize this incredibly corny statement of nihilism.  I'm absolutely positive you recognize the No Fear Glare:

The infinite variation of No Fear logos is proof of multiverse theory.

I believe No Fear was also the originator of the image of a rooster and a housecat facing off, where the rooster is calling the cat "pussy" and the cat is calling the rooster "chicken". It's now so common to be basically a public domain joke, but at one point that was clever. They had many, many other t-shirts. You can probably divine the level of cleverness yourself.

Here's one subset of No Fear t-shirts:

No Fear Hockey
No Fear Football
No Fear Basketball
No Fear Skiing
No Fear Snowboarding

No Fear t-shirts  followed a set formula in the 1990s: append the name of a sport to the phrase "No Fear." Below this logo, a barely competent drawing of a guy practicing that sport for whom something has gone very, very wrong. Underneath, a description, preferably involving humorous wordplay, of how badly you can be hurt if you fuck up in said sport. (These are the t-shirts I cannot find images of.)

No Fear applied their brand of humor to a wide range of sports and activities, kind of like Big Johnson, another t-shirt brand who became popular in the 90s.

However, while Big Johnson illustrated a range of activities because they needed new and exciting avenues in which to make dick jokes, No Fear didn't seem to have any sort of guiding philosophy. They made their jokes, and the only unifying factor was the font and the worldplay.

For a while, it didn't seem like No Fear was a single brand. They were just being tough and slightly witty for the sake of being tough. They were throwin' punches, but without any strategy.

A mid-period No Fear basketball t-shirt.

So that first list makes sense. It coheres:  Football, basketball and hockey are activities undertaken by people who base their identity on athleticism and a very specific form of competitiveness.

But there are other No Fear t-shirts too:

No Fear Track
No Fear Tennis
No Fear Skateboarding
No Fear Cross Country

These are not macho sports. These are not areas in which you need to advertise your lack of fear. Who the fuck needs to be macho while running?

I stopped noticing No Fear after I left the Midwest, except as bumper stickers on trucks or as understated logos on the white t-shirts of part-time bouncers. I guess they were in decline. But after a while, there were No Fear t-shirts that extended out of sports and recreational activities. This was probably their mistake, because it led to the Religious No Fear:

This is a fake No Fear logo. There are lots of variations of these, and they're easy to confuse with the real thing. This is because of two things: A distinctive visual identity (the No Fear font is easy to identify, but also easy to fake), and a lack of content focus. (Actually, for all I know, this is a real No Fear logo.)

Adding a religious element to a logo is very often linked to Calvin Pissing-style degradation.

They seem to have abandoned the bumper sticker market in favor of the extreme sport market - you see No Fear stickers alongside Tapout stickers so often a biologist would assume they had a symbiotic relationship. They're also sponsoring the metal band Lamb of God, which is something I would never have thought the 1990s No Fear would have done. That's a fairly logical, if slightly confusing brand evolution. Mountain Dew did more or less the same thing.

The problem: Like a corny, macho Tiger Mussel, the No Fear ultimate fighting and No Fear religious logo t-shirts have killed off the 1990s breed of No Fear. Not only do they not exist anymore, they're not even documented. if you have pictures of early to mid 1990s No Fear t-shirts, link me!

Modern No Fear Shirts

 

 

Pottery on a Wheel

A potter making pot on a potter's wheel, 1902.

A man in a bowler hat, vest, bow tie and apron presses the brake of a potter's wheel with his foot, Van Briggle's Art Pottery, Colorado Springs, El Paso County, Colorado. The belt-driven flywheel spins and the clay in his hands is still. Mugs and vases line interior shelves behind him; an armature is by the window.
- loc.gov




I’m learning how to use a potter’s wheel this spring. As far as I can tell, using a wheel is fundamentally a problem of human position. Your hands are the tools and putting them in the right relationship to one another in order to achieve specific angle is most of the problem. The rest of the challenge is in your application of weight: it must be modified in order to achieve a consistent pressure. These things can be learned. It feels like a martial art on a very small scale: Your fingers go through pre-defined sets of poses that make sense only within the context of the task at hand. These things can be learned by rote. After enough time spent doing anything, your muscle memory takes over.




The rest of the problem is one of relating to the clay. The wheel moves at a variety of speeds which are modulated by your foot. On its own, it would be a machine whose behavior you can predict easily, sort of like a car or bicycle. But you also have to deal with the fluid dynamics of the clay, whose physical behavior is difficult to predict except on a more or less intuitive level. My teacher’s advice is "Respect the clay," and although corny, it makes perfect sense.




The clay responds to your hands in a fickle but predictable way, sort of like horse that is still being trained. Sometimes it does what you want, sometimes it doesn't. If your hands are too firm, the clay reacts harshly. You can only work it so long before you weaken it and must set it aside. It needs rest.

Perhaps too intentional.

The problem with images which include architectural decay, old furniture, and a vaguely prelapsarian rural setting is just that: You can break them down into their consituent elements and replicate those elements.  You can apply this criticism to any still image. 

It's easy to replicate a scene, but prohibitively difficult to replicate an event. So there are more old-fashioned weather-beaten images like this that are posed than there are unposed and spontaneous old-fashioned weather-beaten images.

I'm suspicious of "The Mole People"

It's the evolutionary bait and switch in the copy that makes me real leery about this movie.  Science fiction films promise so much and deliver so little.  My gut instincts tell me that guy with the buggy eyes isn't a monster from a lost age, that the tagline promises falsehoods.  It's way more likely he's the product of some mad scientist attempting to cross-breed moles with human beings, or to forcibly evolve shrews to be his atomic slaves.  The chances of that guy being the two  descendent of a mole are pretty small.  He's just some poor mutant son of a bitch cowering in the caves eating earthworms.  Wouldn't it be awesome if he wasn't? What if he was part of a sentient species previously unknown to humanity, one with a long and storied archeological record? But let's not get our hopes up: He's probably some janitor who got to close to the lab, or a mental patient whose family checked him into the wrong experimental wing.  I'm suspicious. I've been hurt before.

Let me check my suspicions against wikipedia:

In this movie, archaeologists John Agar and Hugh Beaumont stumble upon a race of Sumerian albinos living deep under the Earth. They keep mutant humanoid mole men as their slaves to harvest mushrooms, their primary food source, since they can grow without sunlight. The Sumerian albinos' ancestors moved into the subterranean after the cataclysmic floods in ancient Mesopotamia. Whenever their population increases, they sacrifice old people to the Eye of Ishtar, which is really natural light coming from the surface. These people have lived underground for so long that they are weakened by bright light which the archaeologists brought in the form of a flashlight. However, there is one girl who has natural Caucasian skin who is disdained by the others. They believe the men are messengers of Ishtar, their goddess.

When one of the archaeologists is killed by a mole Person, Elinor, the High Priest realizes they are not gods. He orders their capture and takes the flashlight to control the Mole People, not knowing it is depleted. The archaeologists are then sent to the Eye just as the Mole People rebel. The girl goes to the Eye only to realize its true nature and the men had survived. They then leave for the surface. Unfortunately, the girl dies after reaching the surface, when an earthquake causes a column to fall over and crush her.

Shit. This actually sounds awesome.  Sometimes the movies deliver, I guess.
-
Seth may be more charitable.

I love r0kbot

Twitter is pretty awesome.
 My favorite things about twitter are twofold: You can

 ....get a quick laugh from minor comedians and misanthropes. 

fireland: I guess I developed a taste for prison toilet wine in ... um, college. Where I did NOT stab anyone. This date isn't going very well, is it.

apelad: There is no restaurant named P.F. Changes.

Juniorwad: You're as cute as a severed puppy dog tail. Or a premature baby's buttocks. Or a tire fire rainbow.

rigamarock: the poisonberg uncertainty principle: not knowing the difference between vince neil and bret michaels

sexyfacts4u: She blinded me with science! Specifically a class IV chemical laser.

caylenb: just about everyone hears "just how stupid can you be" as a challenge

(If you can't make a joke in 140 characters, get off the stage.)

You can have deliriously weird interactions with the otherwise inaccessibly famous: 

 P. Diddy
Courtney Love
MC Hammer
John Mayer
Shaq

These are all the real people. Their identities have been confirmed via various sources.  Inputting 140 characters is an insignificant enough expenditure of energy that it's often the famous person themself twittering and not their publicist.  (t's a real pity the Britney Spears twitter is written by publicists, and a huge surprise that Kanye West doesn't write his own.)

The best thing is seeing just how these people interact with their  fans.  I had no idea Shaq was so friendly, or that P. Diddy was so positive. I'm listing musicians and athletes because they're entertaining, but we're not even touching on the writers, activists, and businessmen on twitter.  

The above are amusing.  Up next is something potentially amazing:

r0kbot

  
 

Name not a human

Bio teach me twitter

As near as I can tell, r0kbot takes twitter messages from its followers and combines them into new messages.  It's the cut-up method applied to bite-sized chunks of the internet. There's no website linked on r0kbot's twitter profile, and I don't think anyone's claiming responsibility. Every once in a while there's a twitter message that looks it might have originated from a human being, and might be about the r0kbot account, but I honestly don't know. 
 
If you've ever read a cut-up novel, you know that they're delirious, full of some sort of meaning which can only be divined once the novel is over. They're full of strange ideas and weird interlacings of the banal and the disturbing.  A cut-up novel is usually equal parts innovative, repetitive, boring, and wonderful.  

But because they've got no plot, they're also distressingly easy to put down. A r0kbot twitter is less than 140 characters like all twitters, so attentiveness is not a problem.  And because r0kbot draws from the same base of his followers, there's an amazing consistency of tone.   

Sometimes there are gems.

r0kbot: The realization that i could hate you so bad if you work for your life.

r0kbot: You are the moments that you and i can relate.

r0kbot: A dog is a party.

Sometimes there are things that look like they're gems, but are ultimately just confusing.

r0kbot: Yes, i'm dubious of the un body charged with the 3.2 mp camera. Checking out an't home theatre later.

r0kbot: Mortgage lending slumps 28%: " total number of people on the tip of my beard. It hurt like a fruitcake waving @ machines.

r0kbot: A house is a flying machine, a vessel which flies through the window so a new anti-missile weapon - a high-powered laser fired from the ...

r0kbot: Urine is a panic button for everyday life where you can take with you.

r0kbot: God is a sword to a man who can make his immovable wisdom and clears away the important parts.

r0kbot: I have respect for all things as they are weird.

My Neighbor Totoro is kind of the Japanese magical realist equivalent of To Kill A Mockingbird

The film follows two young children who have moved the Japanese countryside with their father. Their mother is in the hospital, and they are preparing the house for her. The house is old and in need of some maintenance, and the movie deals with the few months in which they repair and clean the house. The time and place is not stated, although it is clearly summer. The mother is seriously ill, although what she is sick with is not clear.   As they clean the house and explore the countryside, they find fantastical, impossible creatures.  There's very little cloying sense of wonder in the children's interaction with these cartoonish creatures.  It's all presented oddly seriously, as if discovering and befriending gigantic fairy-tale creatures is part of every child's summer. 

The reason why it works is in the background, which is always rendered realistically.  Against this backdrop, two children negotiate the dreamy and ill-defined division between the real and the fantastic.