December 1, 2005

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  Time for a PhotoPost! I am always amazed at the amount of hits I get both with my website “The Betty Boop Pages” and my Webshots Gallery “The Betty Boop Museum”. There are 8555 hits on the site, and 20,348 hits and 369 downloads on the Museum, which is a photo folder of 89 shots I took around the “museum” which is really a couple of bookcases or hutches in my “media room” and bedroom containting my Danbury Mint Betty Boop collectibles. I took the photos on the Webshots gallery when I first got my latest digital camera early in 2004. Just last night, I snapped some more photos of just one or two “sections” of the Museum for this PhotoPost. Most of the photos below are of displays in two Ikea bookcase units butted up together, and placed against one wall of my “media room” which is “my” living room in my house. My roommate uses the “real” living room, and I use a bedroom in the back of the house where my bigscreen TV and la-z-boy recliner are situated.

  
  

  Click on any of the Photos for full size images.

  
  

  

  
  

  This is a graphic with an overlay of two of the large porcelain dolls “standing” in front of the bookcase units which comprise the largest “museum display case”. Most of the figurines are displayed behind glass doors, so I don’t have to dust them. I stopped the creation of the museum because I was maxing out credit cards during the renovation of the media room two years ago. There is still lots of work to be done. BTW, since my old vintage 2001 computer is slowly dying, creating composites like this one, which used to be a “snap” takes forever, because of the long rendering times.

  
  

  

  
  

  This is the top shelf of my computer desk, and these figurines are not behind glass (and need a dusting real bad, but I shouldn’t mention that. It’s just a “reminder” for me in print.) Millennium Betty has dropped her torch, I see. Boop Breeze and Cheerleader Betty are to her left. These are the large porcelain dolls. The smaller “Malt Shop Betty” on the right is one of the 30 or so collectible figurines. The Danbury Mint made it clear by introducing new figurines every couple of months or so that the “colleciton” would never be finished. I will never try to see what these collectibles are worth now on ebay because I never intend selling them, no matter how poor I get to be. The skull is one of those Mexican porcelains, and is rather new, but is the same kind of “head” I used for my “Croaker” art project back in the 70s and 80s.

  
  

  

  
  

  Here is a composited photo of the nearly complete top section of the main display case. The South Park collectible plush dolls were purchased in a credit card promotion. The left part of the case contains Dolls, model autos and trucks, and various toys I have collected through the years. The bottom shelf that you can see in the photo contains just some of the hundreds of laserdisc movies I have. Roger Rabbit collectibles and MikeVideo tapes are in the right section. The large three ring binders directly underneath Kenny are my original poetry volumes containing some 600 handwritten poems all time and date stamped and filed chronologically.

  
  

  

  
  

  This is a detail of the top left shelf, including my favorite “Betty Rider” figurine and in the background, my very first Betty Boop collectible, a candle holder, purchased in 1982. I have always  been very particular with my collectibles. They have to look like Betty Boop. A lot of the Franklin Mint’s collectibles didn’t entice me., but Danbury’s artist, Syd Hap, is truly inspiring with his creations. I didn’t post any photos here, but I also have three sericel originals created by Myron Waldman, an original Betty Boop cartoon illustrator. One of them is about 32/500 and is “addressed” to me. The sericels cost about $500.00 each when “new” and of course are collectibles, so they increase in value with age. Mr. Waldman is still alive, and is in his 90s. The original short cartoons were made in the late 1920s and 1930s.

  
  

  

  
  

  A shot of the complete top shelf of the main display case. The rubber “head” of Dennis the Menace is from a hand puppet I had when I was about 8 years old. Most of the Betty Boop collectibles were  bought right after my breakup with Pat in the late 90s but I sitll have some of the actual “toys” I played with as a kid, which I’ve carted around during my 20 moves around the Southland during my life.

  
  

  

  
  

  The middle shelf contians some of the “fashion dolls” , a turquoise 1955 Chevy Nomad station wagon (The second family car we had was a 1955 Chevy Bel Air station wagon with this same color scheme.) a Good Humor Ice cream truck, a Plymouth Prowler, some asst. Betty Figurines, a restaurant guide to Nantucket Island, where I spent vacation in 1999, and in the lower left is a current photo of my ex girlfreind Pat taken a couple of years ago, and given to me when I had Thanksgiving with Pat and her mother and stepfather in 2003.

  
  

  

  
  

  This is the “Roger Rabbit” section. When the “Roger Rabbit” movie came out, I was among the “first in line” and I bought some little figurines, the plush doll, and the porcelain “hope chest” with Jessica and Roger (which came from Disneyland). I also have some posters, although they are not displayed. I’ve been waiting for a “sequel” for a long time. I still get a kick out of the Roger Rabbit movie. (Betty Boop makes an appearance as a waitress or cigarette girl (senior memory sorry) and she’s in black in white, which I thought was neat.)

  
  

  

  
  

  This is a photo of the top of the HDTV, with some of my boxed DVD sets, the center speaker, and on top of the speaker is my latest cold cast resin colletible, of Disney’s Cinderella Castle, purchased when Liz and I went to Disneyland for the 50th Anniversary this year. A small Tinkerbell hovers over the castle.

  
  

  

  
  

  I’m including a photo taken last year, of one of the shelves in my bedroom, which hasn’t been put behind glass yet. The mug is a silver goblet from one of the Renaissance Faires with my initials engraved on it. It is sitting on a sheepskin “rug”. To the left, you can hardly make out my possum skull, which is “blowing” an original Oscar Meyer weiner whistle from my youth. Some Betty Boop cards my girlfriend Ruth sent me back in 1975 are in the background. On the sheepskin are some of my turquoise jewelry.

  
  

  

  
  

  Thought I’d finish this PhotoPost with another current “self portrait” called “Optimism” completely created last night. The photo of me is an “arm’s length” self portrait.I didn’t set up the tripod. The background is an altered photo of fall trees with an edge enhancement from the Picture Publisher program. I think I’ll alter this one for my next Profile Pic here on Xanga.

  
  

  

  
  

  I thought I’d also include a photo taken by Liz’s brother Santiago at Liz’s family’s on Thanksgiving. We had just finished the feast. This was shot in the kitchen, which is decorated with sunflowers everywhere you look. Liz has caught the flu, and she suffers from Type II Diabetes as it is, so she’s a bit under the weather. Perhaps you might go over to her site The Queen of Swords and wish her get well wishes. It’s just no fun to be sick!

  • 9:52 am
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