Birmingham Bound: Road to Roadshow Part Two (Behind the Scenes of Antiques Roadshow)

Good morning!

So I told you yesterday my big trip this weekend was a visit to the Birmingham taping of Antiques Roadshow. If you're a major fan of the tv show, you probably think you know how the show is made, as it looks pretty self explanatory-- people bring in antiques, appraisers appraise the antiques, antiques of particular merit get some center stage screen time. I'd have to to say the thing I was most surprised about when I actually got to the Birmingham-Jefferson Convention Center was that I had no idea how the whole process went down! I tried to Google it before I went because I like to be a LSAT-taking level of prepared before I embark on any new endeavor, but couldn't find much info...so I hope this will be helpful to future Roadshow junkies who are going for the first time, like I was.

Step One: Get Your Ticket

I'm not sure how many times I applied to get into Antiques Roadshow, but I do know I was heartbroken last year when they came to Knoxville and, in spite of using my mom's, dad's, sister's, grandma's, mine, AND MATTHEW'S email addresses to better our odds in the lottery, my luck was cold. Usually in the spring, they open up an online page where you can apply for tickets. There are apparently always more people asking to go than there's room for, so they select however many people they can via a lottery process rather than first-come, first-served basis. You can check online a month or two later after they dole out the tickets to see if you were one of the happy recipients, and this time, I was!

Around May, they sent me two tickets in the mail in a nondescript envelope from WGBH Boston that I almost tossed, thinking it was junk mail (see one of the tickets at the top of this post). Inside, the billets bear a holographic little treasure chest and an entry time...you're instructed on the ticket not to arrive more than 30 minutes prior to your entry time.

We got to the Birmingham Jefferson Convention Center, parked in a remarkably clean underground lot (I am so used to the Texas Chainsaw Massacre like conditions of the lot across the street I sometimes park in that I was honestly impressed), and set off for the North Exhibition hall with tickets in hand.

Step Two: Gain Entry to the Event

When we arrived at the event location, Matthew and I were unsure of exactly where the North Exhibition hall was...thankfully, there was a veritable caravan of people wheeling Little Tyke wagons or makeshift dollies, and husbands hauling Queen Anne side chairs across their bodies generally heading in that direction, so we joined the stream of hopefuls. Once inside the building, they ask you if you have any firearms to declare (this is the kind of party I like to go to, natch), scan your ticket, and put you in the first line, which looks roughly like this:

Mad Windows Paint skills at work here.... I wish I had added all the junk they were carrying!

Because of the graduated entry times, the line is long but moves pretty quickly. While you're in line, you have plenty of time to read the program that they give you, or watch old appraisals on the big screens in the lobby. See me elbowing Bub in the ribs, "Look! That...ugh, I bet that's like ten grand. That's at least ten grand worth of diamonds. AND THAT'S NOT ALL HE HAS?! Dude has like eight different pieces from Tiffany! I'm saying twenty grand now. [long pause, as I nod along to the appraiser's remark, then a sharp intake of breath] THIRTY FIVE THOUSAND DOLLARS?! I hope he parked close to the building in the parking lot that day!"

It was kind of neat ogling what everybody else brought-- I kept trying to look-not-look at a woman with an Art Deco lamp, and another with a Charles Dana Gibson looking illustration of a turn-of-the-century woman in an Indian headdress...it's so neat seeing really QUALITY antiques up close because you can tell they're special. The Gibson picture looked about a million times more rich and vivid in its pen and ink original than it would in a copy I could see in a book, and wasn't I just the jealous bones about that. Here's Matthew standing in line patiently with one of our items (recognize the hankie?):

Pages from the program, explaining the general gist of the program:

After about an hour in the waiting area, we were ready for our closeups!

Step Three: Enter the Arena

This is where it gets crazy-- after you wait in line to get into the main exhibit hall, it's this huge space with people EVERYWHERE. People at the desks at the end of the line give you line tickets for your individual items-- while I didn't draw quite enough lines, each ticket corresponds with a line. Here's my ticket for the Collectibles line:

Each ticket puts you in a line-- since there were two of us, we had four tickets total (Dolls, Collectibles, Jewelry, and Textiles). You kind of just have to jump into a line wherever, then two or three people at a time from the line are ushered into the "inner circle" where the actual filming happens. This sounds logical, but in the actual place, I felt like a deer in the headlights everytime. And pretty much literally, as said inner circle was lit up like Christmas with these huge television lights! I told one of the volunteers we were making conversation with that I often watch the show and go, "What are those dang people looking at?!" as people crossed behind the featured appraisal to get to their item table, looking mesmerized and slack jawed. I told her I was going to get that back in spades when the Birmingham episode airs... I couldn't help but look helplessly at the cameras and lights each of the four times I entered the filming area!

You're not supposed to have your phone on in this area because it can interfere with the recording of the audio for the tv segments, but here's an image I borrowed from PBS's website. See all the lights??

Things to think about, line-wise...some of the lines (Asian Art, Dolls, Photographs) had literally no people in them. Others, like the Militaria line, stretched a hundred people strong back to the entrance! I guess the sons of the South in Alabama were stronger on their War of Northern Aggression memorabilia than say Chinese lithographs, which only makes sense. I kept wanting to see what everybody else had, but unless it was some oversized Chatty Cathy type doll (which one woman was lugging bravely through the entire three hours I was there), most items were kind of in bags or wrappings or obscured by someone's holding them. Boooo.

I was standing in line for I think textiles, just openly staring at host Mark Wahlberg at one point...he was doing a series of advertisements for the local PBS station and a number of the intro's that the episode would start out with. He stood in the middle of the melée in a little suit and looked exactly like he does on tv! I know, I know, why wouldn't he, but it was very surreal to see tv from inside the tv rather than outside of it. He turned at one point, looked me square in the eye, and winked! I thought if it was me, I would be sitting there in my tv makeup and well coiffed hair going "Could you please stop staring at me while I'm trying to do this gd promo for the eightieth time?", so I thought it was cool of him not be annoyed at someone obviously gawking at him while he was trying to do his job.

He's looking at the camera like I was looking at him last Saturday!

I also saw Rafael Elege, fellow Tennessean, doing what he does best-- examining old civil war rifles. I'd been looking all over each time I went in to see if I could spot him, only to realize he was directly next to the textile table I waiting at. I guess Mark Wahlberg distracted me. The only other appraisers I recognized from the show are ones whose names I don't know-- there was a lemon blonde haired guy in a midnight blue suit that I think does furniture, and a mustache-waxed mustachio'd man who might work in collectibles. I was hoping that rangy, tall dude who appraises graphic design pieces (like big format advertising from the fifties' or Andy Warhol poster prints from his college lecture appearances) would be there, but if he was, I didn't see him. Heck, he could have been there and I might not have seen him for all the lights!

Step Four: Get Appraised

I'll go into greater detail with this tomorrow as I show you what I brought to the sale and what I thought of the appraisals, but after you get inside the main filming area, you wait behind one or two people for your turn at the front with the real-live appraisers. I kept thinking about the "game show" like aspect a lot of people seemed to be taking this appraisal event as.... I'd got it in my head, narcissistically enough, that the fellow show-goers would be more like me: I mainly wanted to know more about an item I already knew a little about, and, well, wouldn't it be nice if it turned out to be worth serious hard cash. Most people whose appraisals I overheard (and one lo-o-o-o-ong winded guy on the phone [which is against the rules!] in front of me in the collectibles line) had brought in an item they didn't care much about and were waiting on tenterhooks to see if it was worth anything or not. While I didn't get any million dollar appraisals, two of the appraisals left me knowing a little more about the item! And it was a thrill getting to see the mechanics behind how the show works. I just wish I'd gotten a chance to see more of other-people's-appraisals in person... I think someone had brought an Elvis suit in, but I guess we'll have to wait until the showing to spot that and me looking like a Beverly Hillbilly in the background, haha!

Step Five: Try to Score Swag

At the end of the event, there are booths for the local PBS affliate, Liberty Mutual Insurance, and Subaru. PBS was giving away copies of their schedule (boooo), Subaru had a model of a sixties' car that was pretty cute and gave away little plastic shopping totes, but Liberty Mutual definitely showed the best spirit of showmanship of the three. Their agents had a spinning wheel you could give a turn to try out for several prizes, including a plastic mason jar type lidded glass with their logo on it, a "mini toolkit", and a t-shirt. EVERYBODY wanted the t-shirt (which they weren't selling at the event, it was just given away by the insurance company). The lady in front of me, who had scored the toolkit, actually loudly complained about the lack of t-shirts for sale. I spun four times, landing on "spin again" three times, and the last, on the t-shirt! I literally let out a little giddy "YES!" as the spinner stopped on the appropriate wedge. Matthew said afterwards, "I could see you were mentally adjusting each time for the exact amount of torque it would take to get that t-shirt. We might have athletic kids yet!" I was proud!!

So! Have you been to the Roadshow before? Did you realize how much w-a-i-t-i-n-g there is to do? What would you take if you were going to go to one of these events in your city? What kind of criteria would you consider before deciding which was the most valuable of your collectibles? Let's talk!

One more Roadshow centric post tomorrow with my items and their appraisals, along with some gab about the appraisal process, right here on the blog tomorrow, then it's back to business as usual! Have a fabulous Tuesday, and I'll talk to you then! Take care.

PS: Thanks for your kind comments and empathy over my dog bite! I got some antibiotics going now which will hopefully help me not turn into a werewolf. I might live!

Birmingham Bound: Road to Roadshow Part One

Good morning!!

Wow, what a weekend! I told you I was getting into something crazy these past few days, and if you're following me on Instagram, you know that that crazy thing was the Birmingham leg of the 2014 Antiques Roadshow tour! I have wanted to go to the show pretty much since they've had the show, and now, friends, I have. While I'm not going to be retiring on any of the items I brought, I did have a whale of a time, and I'll give the whole scoop of the event tomorrow, I thought I would start off the week with the activities that precursed my getting winked at by Mark Wahlberg (yes, that happened-- yes, it was amazing).

Friday morning, we woke up bright and early to go to the Minute Clinic and make sure my leg wasn't going to fall off-- at my brother-in-law's birthday dinner on Thursday night, I was greeted at the door by Noah, his old dog Monster, and his new dog General. I don't know if it was my charm bracelet jangling, the sound of the doorbell, or my stupid face, but something sent General into a blind canine rage. He gnashed his teeth at me, barked twice, and bit the uppermost part of my right leg pretty good before I literally slung Matthew in front of me to keep the beast at bay. Eugh! Talk about completely crazy right out of the gate! Somehow, in my twenty-eight years on the planet, I had never been bitten by a dog up until this point, but there you go-- something to cross off my bucket list. Noah was ashen-faced with remorse, said the dog had recently had all its shots, and had never done anything like that before in the several weeks they'd had him... I just bring that out in people. At any rate, Matthew patted my hand to get me through the "I'M GOING TO DIE NOW, AREN'T I?" phase of the malady, and we stopped at one of the in-the-CVS locations. The nurse practitioner was super nice and told me just to keep the one part of it bandaged and it didn't look like anything I would die of. Phew!

After that wild start to the weekend, we went on to the next order of business-- there was a slammin' estate sale just around the corner in Crieve Hall, and I couldn't help but pop my head in.

Look upon this, people:

I promptly did a Gomer Pyle "GAW.LEE." at the sight of this General Electric stove and cabinet system. One, it looks like it just came out of the box in 1965 (when the house was built); two, it's GORGEOUS. Three...it comes with these matching cabinets, which, you probably thought were just Youngstown style metal cabinetry.

Think again!!!! This is the refrigerator and freezer for the kitchen! COULD YOU DIE?! The two panels on the left are the refrigerator, and the single panel on the right is the freezer. AND IT STILL WORKS. There was still a Marie Callender spaghetti dinner, some frozen peppers, and a quart of Fudge Revel ice cream in it at the time of the sale. 

The switches for the stove range:

There was also this early microwave, which reminds me of my favorite scene in the whole of the movie American Hustle. "I told you not to put metal in the science oven!". Due to my near deathly fear of inadvertently setting fire to my house, even without metal, I couldn't in good conscience buy this twenty five dollar relic, but oh my God, high fives to whoever did.

Downstairs, there was a forlorn basement that had once had a much more vibrant life...look at this shuffle board design built into the floor tiling! JUST LIKE IN THE MAGAZINES.

Here's me in the basement, trying this on for size and not looking pleased because I couldn't tell if Matthew was taking the picture or not and it was about ninety degrees OUTSIDE of that coat, and much hotter inside of it! ("Long-sufferin' Bab" would be the name of his Delta blues song, bless him). But I did end up buying this 1930's velvet coat for $15 because it was missing the buttons and "not real fur", in the words of the woman running the sale. This is the same style coat as my beloved (and real fur) flea market find, so I'm thinking it might be from as early as the late twenties'. I have a stash of buttons I've saved from otherwise destroyed coats in one of the drawers of my vanity at home, gotta get to making use of that come winter on this beaut.

The night before, as I was drinking Lemonkickers (lemon juice, lemon vodka, sprite = heaven) and googling "how you can die from a dog bite", I found a whole spindle of blank cds in the desk drawer, which prompted me to burn nine cds for the road. I've been using Freegal, a downloads service the library subscribes to where you can get seven songs a week for free, to fill some holes in my music collection, and thus we ended up with the following: four Bruce Springsteen records (Born to Run, Darkness on the Edge of Town, Nebraska, and The River), one and a half Journey records (Escape and some of Frontiers), a mix cd of mostly the Zombies and early blues songs, a Sophie Tucker compilation, and a "best of" George Jones cd I've been working on. The Possum was in the cd player when I took this picture, but here's the rest of the spread, on one of the five Vera cloth napkins I found at the estate sale (a dollar apiece!).

Here's Bub doing the driving and looking particularly regal:

The ride down was pretty uneventful-- we listened the Boss and drank coffee and gabbed, and three hours later, we arrived in Birmingham! When we got to the hotel, they'd accidentally booked us in a room without a jacuzzi tub (#firstworldproblems), so we ended up getting a room with a completely more-than-we-needed suite and said jacuzzi tub for the same rate as a regular room. We're already winners!

Here I am taking a selfie while Matthew investigated the tub situation. Note, regular tub. I love going on trips like this where something goes wrong and Matthew "takes care of it" without me even having to talk tersely to anyone. It makes me feel confident that when we have little guys, he'll be a good dad on these kinds of family vacations for years to come.

Alabama sunset-- wasn't this beautiful?!

We went shopping downtown before the Roadshow on the second day. There was a record store up a long flight of steps called Charlemagne Records, and I had to snap a picture of the actual cassette tapes they still have for sale. Unlike record albums, I'm pretty sure magnetic cassette tapes have a shelf life which these have exceeded. Ever since I invested in an 8 track of John Lennon's Walls and Bridges in high school, left the room for a second, and came back to a lurching, dirgelike version of one of the songs, accompanied by the tape spooling out the side, I have no faith in tape-format music (even though 90 min maxell mixtapes made up a good 60% of music collection up until college). Yet here they are! Even in the theft deterrent cases!

There was one kind of frou-frou antique mall I didn't like much, and then another that was more my speed a block or two away, but VERY. EXPENSIVE. For what it was, anyway. I contented myself to window shop and take as many pictures as possible of things I would like to buy, such as this Couroc tray set (with real constellation patterns inlaid! $65):

Did I spy, with my little eye, a FREAKIN' Drexel Precedent chair? YES I DID. With one of the cables in the back broken, this cheery-though-not-original-print on the cushions, and the $125 price tag, I passed. But not without a little heartache.

This hat and ermine stole might have belonged to the same woman, if the hat had been anything less than $40, I would have had to buy it...do you see all the feathers and frippery dripping from its velvet brim? I looked good in it too, but was too bashful to take a pic. $75 and it stays in Alabama.

I thought it was chintzy of them not to throw in the photo with the stole it depicts! The stole was $195 and the picture an extra $25. Shame!

A much more reasonable place was What's on Second, an oddities and antiques boutique on Second Avenue. Prices were exactly on point for a retail vintage/antique place, and there was stuff e-v-e-r-y-w-h-e-r-e. They used to have junk stores like this on Second Avenue here in Nashville. My dad used to take Sus and me there in the summers where the places were exactly like this-- air conditioned (kind of) on the main floor, slightly less air conditioned on the second floor/former office area from when this was a 1910's store, and if you had the courage to hit the third floor/former inventory area, prepare to be steamed alive, as it was completely unairconditioned and hotter'n seven hells. 

The thing I was most impressed by? This 19th century needlepoint of George Washington. Can you imagine some Victorian era woman carefully shading in the eyebrows of our nation's first president with black thread? If it wasn't $400 (and believe me, it WAS four hundred dollars), I would have had to have this. But I'll content myself with the photo of it. I'm trying to get more brave about taking pictures in public...you wouldn't believe the number of things I see out on my travels and just fail to document, and that's a darn shame for someone who blogs five days a week, amirite?

Last but not least, this grimy parking meter IS NOT DIGITAL...I haven't seen one like this since they replaced the downtown ones to digital in the late 90's. You put your quarters in, then turn the knob-- an "EXPIRED" flag briefly appears before the mechanism notes the number of minutes you've paid for. Nostalgia! I didn't notice that a bird had left its mark on this meter until after I took the picture, but here it is in high res for you, sorry not sorry.

Well! That covers all the things we did up UNTIL Roadshow-- tomorrow, I'll give you the top to bottom skinny on what goes on at a taping of Antiques Roadshow. It was really fun!

Until then, what do you think? Have you been to Birmingham or Alabama on vacation? What are some of your favorite things to check into when you're out of town on a weekend getaway? Which of those treasures should I have broken into the piggy bank over? Let's talk!

That's all for today, but I'll see you back here tomorrow with my AR rundown. Until then, take care!

Photo Friday: A HEAVENLY Ski Chalet Edition (circa 1960's)

Good morning! 

Matthew and I are popping out of the house this morning on a rare shared day off for the beginning of a top secret adventure? How top secret? Well, not very, because I'm going to tell you all about it on Monday, but for the moment? Strictly hushhush and on the QT. However! In the meantime, why not get a gander of these photos from a 1960's (I think?) ski chalet. CAG Photography put together a lovely album of photographs for their parents' 50th wedding anniversary (cheers!) and these were among the snaps of their happy family. As usual, go check out their photo stream if you like what you see! I appreciate them for posting these so I could borrow them for Photo Friday.

You guys take care, don't actually go into shock on account of how jealous you are of these low lying couches and disc chairs, and I'll give you a scoop on Monday! Take care, find good stuff! We'll talk then. :)

-Lisa

Midcentury Music Motherlode: Ultra Lounge Compilation cds on Spotify (1996-1997)

Good afternoon!

Getting a late start on the blog today, but you know I wouldn't leave you hanging...and boy-oh-boy did I find something worth telling you folks about this morning. :)

I spend a lot of time at work in my cubicle listening to headphones while working on book repairs and sorting not-on-shelf slips. Ah, the life of a reference associate. Things can get mondo repetitive, so I usually try to switch up what I'm listening to (music to silently pantomime "I can't hear you" at my coworkers when they address me). Favorites right now are the excellent What's the T podcast with RuPaul and Michelle Visage, Dave Van Ronk's Inside Dave Van Ronk, and episodes of 48 Hours Mystery (that's about what you'd guess I'd be listening to, isn't it?). Sometimes, though, if I'm reading during my lunch hour, I like to completely zone out with instrumentals. Arthur Lyman more than came in handy at this before, but I thought to branch out this morning into other mid century party music. "What was the name of those cds I used to get from here..." I thought, knowing that the physical copies here at NPL had long since been absconded with, but that there was a particular series of lounge music and exotica that was top notch. It was then that I discovered OH MY SWEET AND DEAR LORD EVERY CD OF THE ULTRA LOUNGE COMPILATION SERIES IS UP ON SPOTIFY. Hallelu!

From a 1958 ad for the Magnificent Magnavox console radio...I have the same one except in mahogany!

Ultra Lounge was a series of 18 cds released by Capitol Records in the late nineties', specializing in "genres such as exotica, space age pop, mambo, television theme songs, and lounge" (as per the Wikipedia entry on the set). SIGN ME UP, right?!

From the (now defunct, but accessible via Internet Archive's Way Back Machine) website in 1997:

The neon above the door reads Ultra-Lounge. By walking through the door you step back in time. Not too far back. Just a few decades. Back to a time when "revolution" meant watering down your scotch with ice. Back to an era when "evolution" meant taking out the olive and putting in an onion. When Generation X was a secret atomic weapon aimed at the White House by double agents and long-legged Russian girls whose names only Matt Helm could pronounce. 

This is a place clothed in the skins of leopards and sharks. An era bathed in high-octane hi-balls and swimming in elixirs made more potent by garish garni and dangerously curved glassware. Time here is viewed through the seductive haze of slow-burning gazes. Lipstick-kissed cigarettes ashtray-dance with cigar stubs and cherry stems. The atmosphere mambos to a soundtrack of cool. Rumbling saxophones, jazzy vibes, over-heated Hammonds, and the sexy chill of a brush across a cymbal. 

Polyester is new in this age, but not so dominant that it is cliché. In fact, these acrylics are very easy to care for-- even the ties are wash-and-wear. Think: Kramer-In-Fashion-Wonderland. This is THE spot. This is the Ultra-Lounge. Hey, isn't that Rod Serling lurking behind the cash register? 

Welcome to the Ultra-Lounge. Make yourself comfortable. Shake or stir yourself a cocktail, slip off your shoes and relax!

I mean, I'm ready to party after hearing a pep talk like that. Give me my skins of leopard and shark! Where's my hi-ball? Do you remember how many HORRIBLE Walmart and Target cds with titles like "Sounds of the Swingin' Sixties!" you would come across back in the day, where they just slapped whatever out-of-copyright wackadoodle songs they could on one cd, with maybe a single song you've heard of? This is like THE OPPOSITE OF THAT. The collection feels carefully curated and right on target for setting up an evening of Rat Pack like revelry.

Remember when websites looked like this? A vintage website about vintage music!!

To the left of the page, you can see the cheeky little subtitles of each installation of the series--Cha-Cha De Amor carries the subtitle From Mamboland to Bossa Novaville.  Saxophobia is not just Saxophobia, but Saxophobia: A Horn-A-Copia of Sax-ual Delights (you know someone was cracking UP when they came up with that). Did I mention Yma Sumac is on this compilation? Well, I have now. If that doesn't speak for the awesome kitsch and canny song selection choices of this compilation, I don't know what does.

What's really cool about the series is how you can become familiar with artists a little off the beaten path from your every day vintage cocktail compilation. While there are well known smoky-lounge favorites like sultry Julie London or snazzy Louis Prima, you also have Alvino Rey, a bandleader who got his start in big band and ended up in exotica, and  sax virtuouso King Curtis (not to be confused with my life's role model, the Wife Swap star of the same name). I know I sound like one of those old Time-Life informercials, but besides combing through old record bins, print discographies and movie soundtrack listings, I'm not sure how you could come up with such a comprehensive overview of the lounge and cocktail genre. 

I kind of got a kick out of looking at how the website for this series changed over the years-- it makes me a little nostalgic for about ten to twenty years ago! See this one, a little more updated (with flash animation!) for 2004, but not much:

And here it is in 2012:

Adorable, right? But what am I talking your ear off about, it's time to get to the business of listening to the music itself! I'm sure there was already a playlist of this somewhere on Spotify, but since I wasn't able to find it, I threw together my own of everything from the series. You all: SIX HUNDRED AND FORTY EIGHT SONGS. That's 34 hours and seven minutes of Kennedy era realness. And I intend to listen to all of it, haha!

                                               

How about you? Made any marvelous musical discoveries on Spotify or the internet lately? What's your summer jam right now? Which mid century artist do you think is sorely underappreciated? Tell me all!

I gotta get gone, but will see you back here tomorrow for Photo Friday! Have a great Thursday; til then.

Vintage Horror T Shirts (Ebay's Got 'Em, We Want 'Em)

Good morning!

What's the T, people? I am bleary eyed at the non fiction service desk, I will tell you what. We went over to some friends' house to play Mario Kart and talk trash last night, and while we had a whale of a time, 11:45-bedtime-me is way more irresponsible than 9:45-bedtime-me, vis-à-vis the fact that when I woke up, cartoon like, to strains of one of those classical morning songs and rays of sunlight streaming through one window, it was EIGHT THIRTY. Had I set my alarm? Who can say. Had I woken up a full hour and a half later than I usually do on a work day? Absolutely. Was I supposed to actually be at work at 8:30? Uh, yeah. I parked in the $10 a day lot (instead of my usual shuttle spot) and managed to get in the door by about 9:05, but daddurn it, that is the first time I have been significantly I think ever in my four years here at the biblioteca. Ah, well.

Speaking of pulse-racing drama, however, how about vintage horror/sci-fi t-shirts? I am loving some of these vintage graphic designs almost as much as I love the movies they represent!!

VTG 1991 ALIENS movie t-shirt, horror science fiction cult classic 1980's film

As usual, I was looking for something T-O-T-A-L-L-Y different (to the point that I'm not quite sure what it was) yesterday when I fell into a veritable wormhole of these seventies', eighties', and nineties' movie tie-in t shirts. It's interesting to me that there's an even split here between the kinds of items we're looking at-- half are in the "sold to people who love the movie" category (in the back of Rolling Stone by mail, in your local record store, etc), and another good half I think are promotional items from the movie's release. I love the idea of these new-old t-shirts being in a box somewhere in someone-who-used-to-work-for-the-movie's attic like "Oh, those?". Perfect example: Matthew's dad, who was a musician in LA in the 80's, was going through some stuff in closet storage when I noticed some t-shirts that were being used almost-as-packing for some items in a carboard box-- what where they? A promotional t-shirt from the LA premiere of Mel Brooks's Young Frankenstein and another from a Boz Skaggs concert in the mid-seventies'. To someone who worked in that industry, I guess it's like "Oh, yeah! I remember that. Cool, huh? Wow, that was a long time ago", whereas to the rest of us star-struck plebians, it's like "OH MY GOD. IS THIS REAL LIFE." (he let me have both of them, because he is a good father-in-law).

Deadstock 1991 PREDATOR 80s horror movie

What might have started out as "Here, wear this shirt when you're working in the production office of this super low budget movie we're trying to put together with scotch tape and dreams" or "Hey, give these away at the movie opening, maybe we can create some buzz" turns into a rare, tangible object of movie history. Looking at these, I'm reminded of the behind the scenes featurette on the dvd of The Fog. Thing I have probably mentioned 1,000,000 x: I am a HUGE "John Carpenter in his prime" fan. HUUUUGE.  I think the handful of movies he made in the late seventies' and early eighties' have STILL set a cultural high water mark for horror movies in general (and are good enough to generally excuse his 1983-2010 output...Orson Welles didn't make Citizen Kane every time he got behind the lens, either). I could tell you about how much I love The Thing until I was actually blue in the face. My little movie loving brain was sent into overdrive listening to Carpenter and ex-wife/muse Adrienne Barbeau talk about how family-like the cast and crew of these iconic movies were. There was a lot of "Yeah, this guy was my roommate's boyfriend, and the sound guy was dating so-and-so's sister, and then we all went up to Santa Monica for Memorial Day" type stuff that I just cannot see "young Hollywood" doing today...all very "We're all trying to make it in the movies, let's help each other!" and things haphazardly falling into place, rather than the kind of impenetrable front and implacable sang froid it feels like you have to have to be in the business nowadays.

PHANTASM movie promo t shirt TALL MAN cult horror

At ANY RATE-- how about going to work every day in your "SEND MORE COPS" Return of the Living Dead t shirt? I want one that has the Tina quote "YOU'VE GOT TO LET ME EAT YOUR BRAAAINS." That whole movie is golden, really:

RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD vintage 1985 t-shirt

I have always loved spooky scary stuff, but it wasn't until I was out of college and teaching high school that I got mondo into 70's and 80's horror movies. I was reading a book called, appropriately enough, Horror Films of the 1970's, by John Kenneth Muir...it is a FABULOUS reference guide/gateway drug to the genre. As I was taking down copious "what to watch" notes in my composition book, a fellow member of the English department who worked across the hall said, "Oh, are you into horror movies? Have you seen any Argento?" Having had a bad experience with Suspiria (which is, of course, a super-accomplished movie in the horror canon, but not one I particularly "liked"), I tossed my chesnut lack-of-curls and said, "Yeah, I didn't really like him as much as I thought I was supposed to." Undeterred, my colleague went, "Ok, but have you seen Deep Red? Opera? Tenebre?" These would all soon be titles I myself would be spouting to others when they asked me about my interest in horror movies, because the guy was SPOT ON, and I was a complete convert. He ended up lending me those, Phantasm and Phantasm II, Zombi, and a whole slew of movies that had otherwise flew under my radar. God bless him.

Vintage Hellraiser Pinhead t-shirt, medium

Without that book, its companion piece Horror Films of the 1980's, and my co-worker/cinephile's gentle nudge over the edge of a VHS horror treasure trove I never knew existed, I might not be overly familiar with the movie Monkey Shines, which is actually a VERY GOOD George A. Romero helmed horror movie about a paraplegic man and his overly-attached helper monkey. 

Vintage original 1980's Monkey Shines horror movie t-shirt, small

Or Maniac (1980), which was remade in 2012 with Elijah Wood as the titular maniac. I haven't seen the new version, but it would be hard to top the skin-crawlingly creepy and gory original.

VTG MANIAC 1980 ORIGINAL MOVIE PROMO T-SHIRT 80S CULT HORROR FILM TOM SAVINI

Well nigh perfect Night of the Living Dead shirt? Yes, please. Could watch this for days (and the 90's remake is just as good!)

Night of the Living Dead Zombie Hands T-Shirt Vintage 1980s S

Little Goldblum love up in this piece:

1986 THE FLY cult horror movie t-shirt vtg unworn 80s David Cronenberg

Can't help loving Norman Bates...while the original is a masterwork, I still think the franchise is solid in a drive-in movie kind of way. I used to watch the mess of out of them back-to-back when USA network would run them in block succession in the summer when I was a kid. "No-o-o-orman....?" Have you seen Psycho II, III, IV?

Original Psycho II Movie Shirt Horror 1983 Norman Bates Vintage Rare T Shirt m

WHY IS THIS IS $214.99? I love how the $14.99 is just more torment-- get your two hundred bucks for that shirt AND two free pizzas, why don't you.

XS  vtg 70s 1978 DAWN OF THE DEAD george a romero ZOMBIE MOVIE t shirt

Gregory Peck/Lee Remick realness:

Vintage The Omen 1976 Donner Rare Horror Movie 666 Logo Promo T-Shirt Deadstock

The aforementioned Zombi was the first Lucio Fulci movie I saw-- while they're all gleefully over the top, this one, with Mia's sister Tisa Farrow in the lead, is still the most coherent and horribly enjoyable if you ask me.

RARE VINTAGE 80's LUCIO FULCI ZOMBIE HORROR CULT MOVIE ZOMBI T SHIRT

ALSO remade, ALSO a solid original to begin with. Two words: speedboat death.

RARE VINTAGE 80's I SPIT ON YOUR GRAVE HORROR CULT MOVIE T-SHIRT

Anyway! I gotta head for the hills, but tell me what you think! Which of these shirts would you almost spend that much money on? Have any horror movie favorites? Do you know anyone who used to work in the movie or music industry and just got tons of free promotional shirts a gal like I would drool over (just making conversation here, no ulterior motive...)? Let's talk!

That's all for today, but I'll be back tomorrow with more vintage madness. Have a great Wednesday! See you then.