Author Archives: The Old Wolf

Vintage or Elusive Candy

Posted on by The Old Wolf

Love. Gone forever.

Love. Not easy to find in some parts of the country.

Still available, but at $1.00 for 10

Wowee wax whistle. A favorite at Hallowe’en time.  Gone forever.

Teaberry gum. Still available. Long my favorite in high school.

A movie theatre standby, as ubiquitous as Raisinets. Loved these little guys.  Still available.

B-B Bats. A favorite at the penny candy store, often bought in conjunction with Sugar Daddy bars. Still available.

Chunky. Still available, although the original used to be wrapped more tightly, and cost 5¢ back in the day.

So many more, and most are listed elsewhere on the Interwebz.

And now, let us pause for a moment of silence:

Third from the top – Sara Lee All Butter Chocolate Brownies. Came in a frozen tin; you took the cardboard lid off, and there was a little paper cutting guide, which I routinely ignored, cutting myself massive slabs straight from the freezer. I pester Sara Lee to bring these back on a regular basis. Perhaps they will someday – after all,

was successfully resurrected from the dead because enough people clamored for it.

I’ll keep clamoring.

The Old Wolf has spoken.

[Edit: Ooh, I forgot one.]

Used to get these when I’d go ice skating in New York. They were my favorite, sort of a cross between a Milky Way and  a Three Musketeers. Gone forever.

The Old Wolf has spoken again.

The Lost Cartoons: Most found, one still elusive.

Posted on by The Old Wolf

Edited to reflect the fact that all the lost cartoons but one have been located.

The New Yorker was a constant guest in my home as I was growing up in New York City in the 1950’s. My parents were both actors, and it seemed like it was always there, along with Variety and any number of other publications. Of course, at that age, I was interested in the cartoons most of all, and developed a deep and abiding love for the work of Charles Addams, although there were others I became familiar with as well, including W. Steig, O. Soglow, Jules Feiffer, to name just a few.

I have this picture in my mind. I can see it as clearly as if it were on the desk in front of me. It’s done in that pen-and-ink with grey wash style so popularized by Addams, and it shows the interior of a warehouse at the Heinz factory. A worker on a ladder way, way up at the top of a rack finds a single lonely can, the shelf lovingly labeled “58.” I don’t think I’m making this up, but I have never, ever, been able to find that cartoon anywhere – even with the miracle of the Internet.

I came close, though. Gluyas Williams, a wonderful cartoonist in his own right, depicted the scene in his series of industrial crises, but it’s just not the picture I had in mind.

Click the image for a larger size.

Closeup of the offending product!

Yes, this was funny. But it’s not what I had in mind. If anyone out there knows what I am talking about, or has seen or has a copy of the panel I have described, drop me a comment here. I’ve already had success with one or two other “lost” cartoons, including this gem by Howard Shoemaker (thanks to Mark Breeding for the awesome find):

My favorite Jerry Amerongen of all time (thanks to Mark Stanley for knowing the artist and the collection it was found in):

(I love the old lady strung up by her thumbs, it cracks me up ever time I look at it. Banks are really like this…)

And the iconic “retching jackal” by Al Jaffee, recently found in his wonderful biography after decades of wishing I could find a copy.

Yeah, it’s twisted – but then so is MAD Magazine, and I loved it as a kid.

There’s one more. This one I know exists, because I used to have it in my collection, but what happened to it I’ll never know. It would have been in Datamation, or one of the other comparable trade pulps, in the mid-1980’s. (See edit below)

This is a Xerox series 2700 laser printer, but when attached to a Wang OIS word processor, it was OEM’ed as an LPS-12 or an LPS-24, depending on the engine speed.

EDIT: On February 2, 2018, the Internet finally disgorged the cartoon I had been chasing for decades. Found in PC Magazine, November 15, 1988:

Laser Printer Mr. Bond

EDIT: This one surfaced thanks to reddit. It’s not really off-color, but perhaps just a bit risqué: another one that I had remembered for decades and never been able to find again, located for me by redditor /u/Haze793:

Tulane or Yale found by Haze793

Know what you’re eating

Posted on by The Old Wolf

According to an article at Nation of Change, in three months, Californians will vote on Prop 37, the California Right to Know Genetically Engineered Food Act, and the Grocery Manufacturer’s Association is teaming up with Monsanto (in my opinion, the most evil company on earth) to block its passage. Now, I’m not one for hyper-regulation and nanny-state laws, but this is one I can get behind. One of my Facebook friends pointed me to justlabelit.org, and there I expressed my support for a GMO-food labeling effort. Here’s what I wrote to the FDA:

“Dear Commissioner Hamburg,

Europe has long been ahead of us in labeling, and rejecting, genetically modified foods. I’m personally not sure whether I trust GMO’s or not – the bottom line is that they haven’t been around long enough, and sufficient research on long-term effects of human and animal consumption of GMO’s has not been done. That said, I want a choice. I want to know if the food I am eating has been genetically tweaked, or if animal products were raised with GMO feeds. Please require foods to be so labelled. Yes, it’s a complex issue. Yes, it will cause administrative headaches, and probably result in increased prices in some areas. To me, it would be worth it for the opportunity to protect my health. Thank you.”

Don’t get me wrong – this isn’t a knee-jerk, technology-is-bad, save-Mother-Gaia response. I love science, it amazes me and blinds me on a regular basis. Scientists worldwide are examining the issues of using genetic manipulation to increase food yields, and asking all the right questions about long-term effects. In my case, it’s just a gut-level sense of hesitation about injecting GMO’s into the food supply before all the data are in. The human genome is just so mind-blowingly complex, and for all the amazing progress that’s been made in the area of genetic manipulation, we’ve barely scratched the surface. At this point it seems the pinnacle of incautiousness to be injecting unknown factors into the human system, where one wrong change could possibly cause an unforeseen cascade reaction thousands of times more complex than an elaborate domino fall.

So yeah – let’s keep doing the science. Let’s see what we can do to feed the world and raise the human condition. But in the meantime, let’s also have the courtesy to let consumers know what they’re eating, so that they have a choice. The fact that food producers and distributors are putting their economic interests before the health of those who consume their products is mightily disturbing, and I join my voice with those who oppose their callous greed.

The Old Wolf has spoken.

The Incredible Increasing Traffic Ticket

Posted on by The Old Wolf

Found at Divine Caroline

That’s right, you’re not seeing things. A basic $200 fine for not having proof of insurance almost quadruples in Sacramento County, with much of California using the same tactics to fill empty coffers, and other states doing likewise. And you thought King Einon’s road tax was bad.

The Orange County Register explains in detail where the fees go, but that’s not likely to make you feel any better.

“Soaking traffic violators for the cost of state programs has a long history in California.

The first penalty assessment was set in 1953 at a rate of $1 for every $20 of base fine. In those days, for example, a $60 fine would be subject to a $3 penalty assessment, for a total due of $63. The extra $3 went to pay for drivers’ education programs in schools.

The legislature apparently found this funding source irresistible. Over the years, penalty assessments have grown to $26 for every $10 of base fine. Today, a $20 fine is increased by $52 in penalty assessments.

But wait – there’s more. After the penalty assessments are tacked on, there is a 20 percent surcharge, or another $4 on a $20 base fine. On top of that, there is a court security fee of $30, plus the conviction assessment of $35. And don’t forget the $1 night court fee, which you pay whether you go to night court or not.

All together, the penalty assessments, fees and surcharge jack up the cost of a $20 ticket to $142.”

So for the love of Mogg’s holy grandfather, be careful out there. The law of averages states that you’ll probably get pulled over by a revenue-hungry officer for something at some point, whether you did anything wrong or not, but be careful and don’t give them the excuse they’re looking for.

The Old Wolf has spoken.

Toxic Hoses

Posted on by The Old Wolf

I love to garden. And when you’re out working in the hot sun, there’s little that’s more refreshing than getting cancer a cold drink from the garden hose.

Wait, what?

Needed a new hose the other day, so I trotted down to the local hardware store to pick one up. Found a good-quality, non-kinking hose, and when I got home and started unpacking it, I saw something that disturbed me. A lot.

I hadn’t noticed this little “advertencia” on the front at all – notice how it’s not terribly accentuated. On the back was a new sticker added:

Lead? Harmful chemicals? In my hose? Even if I didn’t drink from it – which is beyond stupid – what makes these people think I’d want to spray that water on my veggies?

So I took the infernal thing back, and went looking for a drinking-water safe hose. Turns out the only thing I could find was a flimsy little marine/camper hose, and all the thing does is kink, kink, kink – but at least the water it dispenses is safe for human consumption. Nothing else was for sale… no other options.

I had been meaning to post about this for a while, when today I came across this article from Time magazine, and I saw that other people were thinking about it as well.

Thinking about the least common denominator in society, how likely is it that people are going to read these notices? I mean, I just barely happened to see them. I might have hucked the hose wrapping into the trash without a second thought, and I’ll bet most people do. And everybody drinks from a hose… I mean, sheesh – it’s what we do.

The irresponsibility of this is mind-boggling. I talked about it with my hardware store (they carry stuff from the DoIt suppliers, and that little font change is because otherwise it looks like “Dolt,” which based on the overall quality of that brand may actually be more appropriate) and they told me that’s all they can get. From where I sit, these products don’t belong on shelves anywhere. You can’t tell me that modern technology can’t manufacture a durable, kink-proof hose that’s not full of carcinogenic chemicals… it seems like sheer laziness and gross insouciance to me.

So if you weren’t aware of this, at least read the labels carefully the next time you bring home a garden hose, especially if you have little ones who will be playing in the garden. Do your research – there are choices out there. I sincerely doubt this is a matter of enough national importance to get our lawmakers to take time to look at, but that’s a shame – because they should – it’s a crime to market something so ubiquitously that you know is going to make people sick.

The Old Wolf has spoken.

None of the above

Posted on by The Old Wolf

The Twitter Political Index.

This very unscientific measurement is intriguing in a way, because it reflects my own state of mind with regards to the upcoming election. I voted for our current president because the alternative had Palin in the mix, and the only Palin I have good feelings about is Michael, and you know, Obama rocketed to success on hope and change and wow a black American president, and now four years later his relative inexperience is translating into allowing a sharply divided congress to screw us all over on a daily basis which seems to be the only thing they are good at, and yes this is a run-on sentence and no I don’t care.

Then there’s the presumptive challenger. Unless the convention pulls a real surprise out of its hat, the GOP nominee will be Mr. Romney, and I thought he looked pretty solid and that his business savvy would be just what our nation needs to pull us all out of this horrible depression, and I use that word deliberately, but then he opens his mouth and all these terrifying things keep falling out of it, and I’m left wondering what’s wrong with our country that we can’t field two candidates with a sense of honesty and decency and fair play and who want to build a world that works for everyone and not just the people on their side of the aisle, and I realize that our political system is broken and I’d like to throw everyone out and start over and this is going on too long and I still don’t care.

I won’t give up. I won’t give in to despair, because my grandchildren deserve better, but I have to say that for this year, I’m not hopeful – and the Twitter index seems to state that most other folks aren’t either.

The Old Wolf has spoken and spoken and spoken.