March 28, 2009

• Photopost: The Betty Boop Museum, 2009

  

  I like to call the areas in my home where I display my collectibles as "The Betty Boop Museum". My Webshots folder entitled "Boops in my Bedroom and Media Room" from 2004 has received over 91,000 views and 840 downloads. I just uploaded about 200 photos into a new folder entitled "The Betty Boop Museum 2009" Here on WhenWordsCollide I will showcase some of the more interesting photos. The title card is derived from a photo of one of the curio cabinet shelves.

  

  This is one of the self portraits I snapped this morning in preparation for my new profile pic.  I'm wearing one of my favorite shirts, and standing in front of my closet door in the bedroom. Every surface in my new home is fake wood paneling, including the doors.

  

  When I lived with Joel, he got tired of looking at "all the Betty Boops" I displayed in the living room, so I moved all my collectibles out of the shared part of the house and back into my bedroom and media room. The webshots gallery linked above from 2004 were the first photos of my nes "Boop Museum" after I purchased curio cabinets from Ikea and displayed everything behind glass. Now that I live alone, I can display Betty and her friends in all rooms of the house. Here is a Betty Boop porcelain teapot in the kitchen.

  

  Homer Simpson is whooping it up in his underwear in front of one of my mother's "Goldy Boxes" from when I was a kid. Homer is a fabric patch I found when Mike lived with me. He told me it wasn't his, and though it wasn't mine, I like Homer, and thought he would make a nice addition to the Betty Boop museum. He's a cartoon, after all. The little Tivo mascot I got at the Consumer Electronics Show back in 2002.

  

  Here is a corner of one of the curio cabinet shelves. The flyer on the wall is a party handout for one of my friend's parties. I used to draw the flyers for quite a few friends' parties in the 70s. The "Little Tootle" knob was on my toy box when I was a kid. Kokopelli dancing in a rock formation was bought at a truck stop in New Mexico when I visited Regina, an internet girlfriend, in 2000. The Texaco truck is a Danbury collectible. To the right are my father's business cards when he worked as a salesman at Burns Chevrolet in Huston, Idaho, back around the time I was born.

  

  An interesting item in this photo are my ex roommate Joel's Chrometta2 harmonica, which I never saw him play. (I sold his saxophone for 10 bucks before I moved, and still have the Fender guitar which he bought from our mutual friend Jim. I might sell the guitar on eBay.) On the left are a restaurant guide and map from when I visited Nantucket in 1999. In back of Betty lounging at the pool is a program for Kenneth Branagh's "Hamlet" which I saw at a single screen theater when it was only being shown in one theater in New York and one in L.A. back in 1996.

  

  The prayer center. These plaques are some that I "won" for memorizing Bible verses in Sunday School while a child. I've moved a number of times in my life, but the things which make up my being have been carried from apartment to house to apartment. I only began displaying these plaques a couple of years ago, when I found them in an old unopened box of stuff.

  

  When I moved in with Joel in 1995, I decided to start collecting refrigerator magnets whenever I went someplace, and these are the ones I have so far, 14 years later. These were boxed up recently, and just unpacked and displayed in my new home.

  

  In the lower left hand corner of this photo is my mother's Marine Band harmonica, which I enjoyed hearing her play many times as a child. I even tried to learn how to play harmonica myself, but I never could get the hang of playing any instrument. This shelf in the "Betty Boop Museum" has some of my drug paraphanelia from the 70s, including a ceramic painted bong on the right, a marijuana leaf lighter, pipes, hemostats, and to the left of Star Spangled Betty, a speed pipe. I don't recommend recreational drug use to anyone, but it was a part of my past, and I've saved a lot (no drugs of course, they were smoked up long long ago.)

  

  The Betty Boop snowglobe on the right was given to me as a gift from Liz, my last girlfriend, a couple of years ago. On the base of the Groucho figurine is a silver bullet, which I believe is real, and my CSF and high school pins, still in their display cases. The crossed swords were originally served skewering cherries in mint juleps I bought when visiting Disneyland. On the wall, to the left of Jesus, are some of the many top ten song lists I wrote up during the early 70s, from L.A. station KRLA. "Sweet Mary" by Wadsworth Mansion, was #1 on the top ten sheet displayed.

  

  I have so many collectibles I can't display them all behind glass. This is the top of one of my cabinets. There is a model car, painted gold, which I assembled as a middle schooler. It rests on top of a box of VHS tapes containing all the Betty Boop cartoons ever made. Behind Jessica Rabbit on the left of the photo is a hand drawn black and white art study of me done from a photograph and painted by my friend Jim in the 80s.

  

  I posted a photo of this section of the Betty Boop museum in my last photopost. Between Betty in the bath and Dennis the Menace's head (from a hand puppet) is a high school graduation photo of Kathy, with whom I fell in love back in high school.

  

  This is the shelf directly above the one in the above photo. The cars are part of my Danbury Mint collectibles. On the left up against the wall is the Roget's College Thesaurus I've had since I began writing at the age of 14. On the shelf below it is a lighter my father got during WWII. The troll is dressed as a jockey and was a giveaway at one of the horse tracks I attended with Pat in the 90s. The Class of 72 reunion booklet is backed by some of my drawings from the late 70s and early 80s. Another party flyer, for my own "60s Acid Flashback Party" is on the wall to the left.

  

  I positioned Betty about 45 degrees and shot this photo looking toward my "captain's chair" this morning. You can see my plethora of remote controls on the table to the right of the chair.

  

  I have four or five Budweiser Delivery truck models from different years. This is a 40s truck, sitting on some of my oversize movie books. Also you can see some of my anti smoking mini billboards I put around the house when I lived with Joel to alert him that he should quit smoking.

  

  Here's looking at the top shelf of one of my videotape/DVD bookcase units. I got the white mugs at the Excalibur Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas in 2001. The Mickey Mouse jar used to have Christmas candy canes inside. On the extreme right is Mr. Peanut, and he's the first "collectible" to go into the museum since I moved. He was full of peanuts and I got him at Big Lots.

  

  Lastly is a colleciton of buttons and badges, displayed in a Triple XXX beer serving tin. Instead of taking photos of the Betty Boop Museum,I should have done some yard work today. I bought a hedge trimmer and some weeding tools, but it got too hot, my hip and leg are hurting like mad, and I haven't taken many photos since I've moved! I hope to get to the yard tomorrow. I'm already making plans on what I want to do concerning landscaping. It doesn't seem like I've been here for over a month now!

   

  • 6:38 pm
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