The Crap We Wade Through...

Will someone please explain all of the owl/mushroom themed crap at thrift stores? It's not like one company said, "hey, owls & mushrooms are cool, lets do that" it seems that EVERY giftware company in the 70's was releasing stuff with that theme. What's the deal?

and on this topic, what has everyone else seen way too much of?

-Z

I've been noticing a lot of Bigmouth Billy Bass (annoying singing fish) in the thrifts lately. These items had very little lag time between retail and thrift -- maybe they should have been released direct to thrift stores to save everyone involved a lot of trouble.

and on this topic, what has everyone else seen way too much of?

I actually saw a nicely Witco-ish three-owl plaque that I liked yesterday except that the eyes were concentric ovals of grungy orange felt.
As to other crap we wade through, around here its actually getting better now that the evil reign of beany babies, action figures and hot wheels seems to have subsided leaving more room for things not made last week.
I do see too many pseudo American Indian sculpture and prints...you know, WASP-featured women with slightly darker skin dressed provocatively in skins while a wolf howls nearby, that sort of thing...and fake "old" iron figural stuff...probably made recently and speed-rusted.
In general I can't complain as I am seeing more mid century mod stuff and with it, occasional tiki. All in all, I'm having a hell of a good time.

Strangely, the owl and mushroom topic has been debated here before! Check out this link...

http://www.tikicentral.com/viewtopic-new.php?topic=6986&forum=5&start=0

Like...the Owls and Mushrooms are a signal to others in a conspiricy, man...like that Married with Children episode in which the wives sent the men out with mismatched socks as a signal to other wives. Owls and mushrooms...owls...nocturnal attackers...mushroom...atomic cloud...Oh sh*t!

This is a great topic and it happens so often to me when I'm looking for cool records. It becomes a little bit of a chore when you constantly file through tons of records at thrift shops, etc. only to find the among others, the same Mitch Miller, Johnny Mathis, and Barbara Streisand LPs. I guess these guys sold tons of records that ultimately NO ONE cares about anymore. Talk about disposable culture. I was just in a Goodwill store in some ass backwards town in Connecticut a few weeks ago that had shelves stacked with records. I thought fer sure I would be scoring, but there was nada one cool record in there. Just the same old thing; Kenny Loggins, Huey Lewis, and oh yeah.....MItch Miller!!!!

[ Edited by: donhonyc on 2004-03-14 12:37 ]

Happy. Pigs.
The happy pig has been an icon for 50 years. My daughter usually keeps a running count of them as we go through a day.
I have a friend who started an owl collection. He has a 2-owl end table lamp that is larger than any real owl ever was. It's just way over the top.
It's like a cheesy Twin Peaks thing with me. I see that ceramic owl and think "The owls are not what they seem."
With records, I seem the same "Victory at Sea" everywhere and some Firestone Christmas record with no picture, just a ribbon and wreath on it E-V-E-R-Y-W-H-E-R-E.

On 2004-03-13 13:07, Feelin' Zombified wrote:
Will someone please explain all of the owl/mushroom themed crap at thrift stores?

If I collected ceramic owls instead of all the other kitschy crap I accumulate, my life would be a whole lot easier. :D

On 2004-03-14 18:13, cynfulcynner wrote:

On 2004-03-13 13:07, Feelin' Zombified wrote:
Will someone please explain all of the owl/mushroom themed crap at thrift stores?

If I collected ceramic owls instead of all the other kitschy crap I accumulate, my life would be a whole lot easier. :D

Somewhere out there, owl and mushroom collectors are wondering, on OwlCentral, "I wonder where all of those awful, ugly, rude, Hawaiian Tiki God mugs we used to see everywhere have gone to? Thank god we don't have to wade through THOSE anymore!".

On 2004-03-14 19:13, tikibars wrote:
OwlCentral

:lol: The hardest I've laughed all month :lol:

thanks, I needed that

-Z

I read a lost somewhere of the top 10 records forund at thrift stores. Though it varies by region (a lot more Anne Murray here I suspect) there is a lot of the same names I recognize popping up! Mitch Miller, Huey Lewis, 101 strings, the Jane Fonda Workout, Culture Club, and countless oom-pah bands for some reason. And of course, WHIPPED CREAM AND OTHER DELIGHTS!

Oh yeah, how could I forget the endless supply of Herb Alpert and Tijuana Brass LPs I see in all the thrift stores. So forgettable I forget to mention it here. Figures!

On 2004-03-15 05:57, tikifish wrote:
I read a list somewhere of the top 10 records found at thrift stores.

here's my list. I see these so often I don't even see them anymore.

Pat Benetar - Crimes of Passion
ABBA - Voulez Vous, Arrival
Loverboy - Get Lucky
Dr. Zhivago Soundtrack
Billy Joel - An Innocent Man, The Stranger, Glass Houses
Leo Sayer - Endless Flight
Supertramp - Breakfast in America, Even in the Quietest Moments

also: the complete oeuvre of Nana Mouskouri and those Funk & Wagnall classical records that were a grocery store premium.

shawn cassidy self-titled lp!

On 2004-03-15 05:57, tikifish wrote:
I read a lost somewhere of the top 10 records forund at thrift stores.

Stuff I usually find:

• Melachino Strings (Music for Dining, Music for Reading, Music for Relaxation, etc.)
• JFK tribute records (recordings of his speeches, usually)
• First Family (comedy record)
• Welcome to the LBJ Ranch! (another comedy record)
• Freebie Christmas records from tire shops (Goodyear or Firestone, I can't remember)
• Time-Life classical records
• Mickey Mouse Disco
• More than anything else: ANDY WILLIAMS

Several years ago there was a cereal premium which was a plastic bank in the form of Snoopy laying on his doghouse. It was shrink wrapped to the outside of the box because it was too big to put inside. We used to see those everywhere and the game we played while mall hopping was to see who could find the one with the highest price tag. I think the record was $23. Lots of people think that Peanuts character stuff was manufactured in the year which is on the piece but those dates are the years in which the characters were copyrighted by Chas.Schulz.

You know, I don't see too many "Whipped Cream and Other Delights" anymore. I think the album's ubiquity on the thrift-store circuit (not to mention the detournement of the image) has catapulted it into some kind of weird hipster limbo, such that it can no longer occupy the same category as thrift store albums.

What I've seen way too much of:
Books: None Dare Call it Treason, mid-1970s gardening/fix-it/cosmetics guides, mid-1980s schlock novels, Michener, Hemingway, old Nat'l Geos.
Records: You'd think, by looking at thrift store album selections, that no one in this country listened to anything besides over-produced 1980s country, 1950s crooners and really, really bad and obscure heavy metal.
Bric-a-brac: Do you ever, searching for tiki items, just scan over the melange of bric-a-brac and feel sort of depressed? Jumbled together, it's incomprehnsible -- odd shaped pieces of wood with meaningless writing or illustrations on them, glass bulbs filled with fake dried flowers, endless seas of forlorn tourist sovenier coffee mugs ("Orlando!""Santa Fe, 1985"), chipped reproduction beer steins, tacky brassware and silver so deracinated that it doesn't even tarnish. Why did anyone buy it in the first place? Who thought it was cute? Did somebody give it as a present? Did the person who donated it to the thrift store feel guilty because of that? And don't even get me started on the art. Sure, the matadors and sad children are great kitsch, but what about all the really, really awful kitsch art? The mass-printed seagulls-and-surf in ultra-muted pastels? It's repulsive. Only the promise of an occasional triumphal rescue of a tiki object from this morass keeps me coming back.

And those Batman Returns, Flintstones movie drinking glass tie ins also seem to never go away. I think it was Roger Ebert who said something to the effect, that you know you're watching a bad movie when the plot can be summarized on Happy Meal premium.

As a vintage clothing collector, I see WAAAAAAAY too many "Princess" shirts and patriotic t-shirts

On 2004-03-15 16:16, laney wrote:
As a vintage clothing collector, I see WAAAAAAAY too many "Princess" shirts and patriotic t-shirts

Silicon Valley thrift stores are full of t-shirts promoting obsolete software.

I see a lot of old Bay to Breakers shirts around here too.

The thrift shops I frequent all have a million dusty vinyl copies of Frampton Comes Alive, and yes, those Mitch Miller and Firestone Christmas albums. If I had a nickle for every Frampton album Ive seen...

Barbara Striesand - A Star is Born.

I see a lot of Highland bagpipe band records too...
And LOVERBOY! Of course!

-Squeezy bottles
-Endless woven baskets
-Corporate picnic/run/party shirts (XXL)
-Framed posters from the 80's (roses, cars, pianos, women in big hats sipping things out of long straws, James Dean, etc)

One of the cooler things I have been finding lately is sticker collections that little girls have outgrown. I buy the photo album full of stickers and voila, fun decorations to put on my packages I send to my ebay buyers - googly eye stickers are the best!

There are no Barbra Streisand records on Southern California Thrift Shops, I think she has people buy them all up... I do find lots of badly scratched '80s R&B Pop & 101-strings knockoffs.

On 2004-03-16 11:41, freddiefreelance wrote:
There are no Barbra Streisand records on Southern California Thrift Shops, I think she has people buy them all up.

I spotted TONS of 'em at the "Out of the Closet" thirft store on Fairfax recently. :)

I can't go to a thrift store without seeing a mug/stein that says "Class Of 1986" on it.

-Z

On 2004-03-16 11:47, cynfulcynner wrote:

On 2004-03-16 11:41, freddiefreelance wrote:
There are no Barbra Streisand records on Southern California Thrift Shops, I think she has people buy them all up.

I spotted TONS of 'em at the "Out of the Closet" thirft store on Fairfax recently. :)

I think "Out of the Closet" is where Barbra's Record Rescue Rangers donate their swag. :wink:

Unicorns.

Those glazed posters with the guy riding a white winged horse and the horse has little harpoons in him holding him down. The other one is the one with the wrecked futuristic city/citadel with all the naked people milling about.

Little sombrero wearing guys sleeping against a cactus.

Paintings of sailing ships that make the one over the Simpson's couch look detailed.

I have a friend that started collecting the little statuets shown above. He has done research and found they artists are two brothers. One tame... one kinda raunchy. Anyways they are a dime a dozen so he gets them. He's thinking of doing an art-car with them. Much like this guy did with the excellent album from Herb Albert: http://www.deuceofclubs.com/whip_it2.htm

he's in http://www.artcars.com but the site isn't loading right now

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=3711438735&category=20149

The Holy Grail of the collectors on OwlCentral...

I'd buy it, but the price is too high :wink:

-Z

Hee Hee...

http://cgi.ebay.ca/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=3903700275&category=29460

I never thought I'd see the day.

What a waste of a piece of palm. Can't get palm here but sure would be tempting to carve over the owl if they didn't want 140 fricking bucks for them. As a seller, I think I would have tried to sell the first one before I carved 4 of them which is the quantity they have available. I'd rather have a dead stuffed owl. Come to think of it I'd rather have no owl at all. HOOT HOOT

I’m feeling a little weird now. Maybe sitting down and telling this will help settle my nerves. My boss had me running errands all over town today so I thought I’d combine it with a thrift store marathon east to west across the greater metro area.

The thing with the owls was mentioned recently so I knew I’d notice more owls than usual today. That’s to be expected, just the way the subconscious mind works. It started off normal enough. Macramé owls, ceramic, wood, & marble owls. Owls woven into baskets, owl thermometers, and pastel plastic owl patio lights. As any veteran thrift shopper knows, that’s just the tip of the iceberg when it come to owls.

But the odd thing was, the longer I shopped, the higher the owl to non-owl ratio climbed. But the mind will play tricks on a weary shopper so I stopped to fortify myself with some Fritos and a chocolate long john.

At the next place I made the standard methodical & meticulous search of the ceramic bric-a-brac section. I made a second sweep just in case I missed anything good. And the second time there were MORE owls than had been there before! And some of the owls that WERE there before, with both eyes wide open, were now winking one of their eyes!

I drove away reassuring myself that I was simply losing track because so many owls come in pairs, and not just the salt & pepper shakers. But decorative owls are inanimate objects and cannot procreate. I simply have an overactive imagination and was possibly influenced by a story my brother tells of being attacked by a giant albino owl while walking thru the woods at night. He tried to run away but his backpack kept snagging on branches. He tried to shrug off the backpack but his arms became entangled like a straight jacket. He was helpless and the owl could have easily pecked his eyes out, but at that point it just flew away.

Last stop, Antique City & Craft Market on Merriam Lane in KCK. A flea market, not a thrift store, shouldn’t be so dense with owls. But it was. I told myself to just give up and go home but was strangely compelled to go on as if I were being drawn into some kind of fifth dimensional owl grand finale.

I spotted the owl in booth 022 from the next aisle over. He almost defies description. Perched on a sword with wings spread wide across an orange and yellow sunburst. Closer examination showed that some rather bizarre artiste went to quite a bit of trouble with this owl. He seems to be made of feathers and cement and plastered over with some kind of gunk. The sunburst around him is encrusted with what appear to be plastic grapes coated with gold glitter. His sword perch is adorned with a chain and an extension cord. I don’t know what these embellishments symbolize and I’m frightened to guess.

The insidious personality of whoever created this owl seemed to be oozing forth. I could see him laboring madly in some hidden holler, a big grizzly man with missing teeth and a bushy, crab infested beard. I took a cautious step back & peered around the rest of the booth. Ah, an owl painted on a saw, not so scary. That’s when I noticed the beavers, and the skulls. Made of cement and other items and coated with the same mysterious gunk as the owl. The beavers striving to appear normal but the madness peaking thru. I suddenly had the distinct impression that I was gazing upon the work of two lunatics, not one.

It was 5:00, I was the last customer remaining in the store. I left in a daze, completely forgetting to go back to booth 039 for the monkey pod fish. As I scanned the lot for my car I noticed an incredibly rusty vehicle. Not just rust spots but every square inch of the metal given over to corrosion.

There was someone in the car. Two someones. They had big bushy beards. As I crossed the lot their heads turned in unison to follow my path. Their shoulders didn’t turn, just their heads. I glanced up once again as I slammed my car door shut. One of them winked.

KCTiki~

I love that story! I could imagine this in a film short!

Since the demise of the 50 cent thrift store tiki mug, I've been living on a steady diet of 50 cent thrift store mystery-thriller paperbacks. I think it's starting to get to me.

Wow KC!
I think you better check the expiration date on your "chocloate long john"...
Aloha,
:tiki:

I call these guys the Brotherhood of Odd Fellows, and they are top of my fridge.

[ Edited by: tikibars on 2004-03-23 21:01 ]

Holy Moly, TikiBars!

That's a lifetime supply of Quiznos commercials ya got there!

Hmm I've never seen any of those guys at our lodge meetings.

I don't recall if I mentioned this before, but my wife has started to collect the owls and mushrooms. Infact we are thinking of making a psychedelic mushroom bathroom.... or something.

On 2004-03-23 21:22, Unkle John wrote:
Infact we are thinking of making a psychedelic mushroom bathroom.... or something.

themedicinecabinetismelting!~

Oh my god, you have an Ookpik!

It's been mentioned before on Tiki Central (Can't find the thread, tho') but there's actually an Owl Bar in San Francisco near the Tonga Room. The whole bar is full of pottery/plastic owls of every description. No doubt Owl Central ends it's crawls there.

Trader Woody

Trader Woody:

Down that path lies madness. Some things are best not thought of.

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/owlcollectors
http://www.owlpages.com/links/collections.html

and from
http://www.owlpages.com/articles/burt_herald.html :

Dear Burt,

My house is filled with paintings of owls. Every pillow on my davenport boasts an embroidered owl. The fancy soaps in my bathroom are shaped like little owls. I have owl pajamas, owl slippers, an owl door knocker, owl oven mitts and an owl weather vane. An owl clock hangs in my kitchen, above a cookie jar in the likeness of an owl. And my favorite band is The Who. My family says my owls are driving them batty, and that I am nuts for collecting them. What should I do?
Signed,
Hanging Out in Hooterville

Dear Hootervillian,

You should get yourself to Bunte Auction Services in Elgin this weekend to bid on one of the dozens of owl figurines that are part of the late Ann Landers' estate. The owl collection of the famed advice columnist (a bit of a wise, old bird herself) boasts nearly 100 owls - including life-size wooden carvings, glass and cloisonne figurines, clay and iron statues, delicate silver replicas and small, cheap versions (think ones made of seashells or pine cones) that fit under the category of garage sale knickknacks, bric-a-brac and gewgaw.

Once proudly displayed in Landers' lavish, 6,000-square-foot Gold Coast apartment, the owls currently roost in the Bunte warehouse at 755 Church Road in Elgin, where they will be auctioned at 11 a.m. Saturday and Sunday alongside other Landers items. (For details, phone 847-214-8423, or visit the http://www.bunteauction.com Web site.)

The heavy glass owls made by Steuben and Val St. Lambert, and the porcelain figures from Beswick and Boehm will sell on their own merits. But how much will one of Landers' myriad run-of-the-mill owls fetch?

"Because they are hers, we have no guess. The value is in who owned it," explains Kevin Bunte, president of the auction house. Many of the cheaper owls will be lumped together for the sale, but Bunte figures a bidder could land an owl from the Landers' estate for around 25 bucks.

He already is getting bids by phone and e-mail.

"A man from Minnesota called and said, 'If I left a bid of three or four hundred, could you pick out an owl for me?' " says Bunte, who agreed, and even stipulated that he wouldn't let the man's wife know.

Bunte's favorite of the Landers owls is a silver salt holder that features a tiny spoon in the shape of a mouse. If you can overcome the visceral reaction of seasoning your meal with the help of dead rodent plucked from the beak of an owl, it is pretty cool.

To suggest that any owl is anything but cool would ruffle feathers of owl collectors worldwide.

"Owl collecting is a lot more popular than people realize," e-mails Deane P. Lewis, an Australian who runs the Web site owlpages.com and links to other owl sites, such as the Belgian international owl magazine at http://www.chez.com/chouettemag.

"Many collectors are almost 'addicted,' and can't help but buy every owl they come across," Lewis says.

"I get almost any owls I can get - wood hand-carved ones, ceramic, stuffed, whatever there is," e-mails Indonesian collector Rodney E. Johnson, whose Web site is http://www.jakarta-owls.com. "I love the creatures (called burung hantu or "ghost bird") so much. They do no harm, and only make the world a more diverse and beautiful place."

"I started collecting owls over two years ago because I identify with the symbol of wisdom," e-mails Jim Cooke, an analyst programmer who lives in Maryland with his wife and Chihuahua. His niche is owl bookends.

A gift of owls when she pledged Chi Omega sorority in 1958 at the University of Tulsa drew Ann Hearne of Arizona into the world of owl collecting. Her prizes range from hand-painted English statues and Malaysian pewter owls, to a whimsical sugar and creamer set.

But it is German Heidi Stuhlmacher (see her collection at http://www.stuhlmacher.de) who tops the list with more than 8,000 owls.

"There's a market for just about anything," says Bunte, who notes that his auction house recently has sold collections of pens, paper dolls and cat figurines. He is confident the Landers owls will sell, as well as a 6-foot wooden egret from her collection.

But remember: If you spend all your money on Landers' owls, you'll head home with no egrets.

bwahahahahahaha! (or should that be hoot! hoot! ?)

On 2004-03-24 07:57, Trader Woody wrote:
It's been mentioned before on Tiki Central (Can't find the thread, tho') but there's actually an Owl Bar in San Francisco near the Tonga Room.

It's called The Owl Tree. It's on Taylor; I think it's right across the street from Tiki Bob. I've always been afraid to go in there.

Martiki, can we please stop there during the Crawl? Pretty please?

On 2004-03-24 10:55, cynfulcynner wrote:
It's called The Owl Tree. It's on Taylor; I think it's right across the street from Tiki Bob. I've always been afraid to go in there.

I got dragged in there by a pal of mine about 4 years ago. It was... amusing.

Tikifish: what's an ookpik... which one is it?

The Owl Tree, or to be formal about it, "C. Bobby's Owl Tree" is right across the street from Tiki Bob. It is fantastic inside- (this may only make sense to Californians/Nevadans) looks just like a Tahoe area vacation house that gets filled with all the leftover 70s furniture from your real house. The owl collection is spooky. The highly gruff old barkeep takes a while to warm up, but some friendly banter and a decent tip, and he'll talk to you.

No, the tiki crawl will NOT be stopping at the Owl Tree. If 50 of us walked in there, we'd be introduced to the business end of the barkeep's shotgun in a hurry.