love this guy!

ten one-of-a-kind modified toys by Li’l Champ! each at the bargain rate of $10 each postpaid!
click through to see them all:
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maybe this is crazy, but were the California Raisins invented to counteract a grape boycott?

over the years california grapes suffered 3 boycotts: The first ran from 1967 to 1970, and ended when growers signed their first contracts with the United Farm Workers. The second grape boycott began in 1973 and received more widespread support than the recent one (with a 1975 Harris poll indicating that 17 million Americans were boycotting grapes). This boycott ended two years later, after the Agricultural Labor Relations Act was passed, allowing farmworkers to organize and bargain for contracts. in 1984 UFW co-founder Cesar Chavez called for a third boycott, as a way of focusing on the spraying of dangerous pesticides, and although UFW called the boycott successful, it lasted for 16 years (!) until november 2000, far less wham bam than previous efforts.

So the California Raisins were unleashed on the world in 1987, 3 years after the start of the last boycott, and were, duh, super successful, spawning a cartoon show, toys, live shows, all kinds of bullshit. even as a kid i always wondered why they even existed– i never saw an ad for bananas, for example. so is this why they made the ads? are the California Raisins like, scabs? i mean, outside of the fact that they look like huge scabs? does anyone have the numbers on california table grapes sold from 1984 - 1987? this coul dbe a good term paper for someone (someone that would subsequently owe me something for the idea, possibly fair trade organic chocolate bars, possibly lots of them).

also, buddy miles was the voice of one of the raisins, you may know him as the annoying guy on that band of gypsy record. what’s up with that?

anyway, we have this historical statue, it’s, i don’t know, $4.

oh, and sorry about all the capitalization weirdness, i obviously copied the statistics from another webpage (here).

every week or so i paint everything on this shelf a different color, trying to figure out which is the color that sells the best. so far it isn’t lavender, bright green, sky blue, or mint. the shoes look pretty sweet though– right after i painted these i painted my own:

that’s tite, rite?

carolyn made this sign for the window, something she heard someone say once. to her, i think both a cat and a dog are beloved animals, so this is like “if it’s not a rainbow it’s a popsicle” or “if it’s not revenge of the nerds, it’s short circuit 2″. but me and carolyn are different people, i always read it as like in wild style where fab 5 freddy says, “they’re showing up at your spot, rocking your style, and they’re making bank on it? scooby doo…”. it’s like the part where he says “scooby doo”.

we miss you carolyn! i have no idea what i said on the phone the other day though, swamp thing was on, everything got out of hand. uh, rabbit rabbit!

picture by mike benedetti. thanks mike!

to borges, the tiger was a fascinating but ungraspable animal, pure sensuality, and no language. the blue tiger, as an image or device, is even worse, like a tiger that has been tigered- double obscurity and exponential obsession. colors only seen in dreams, uncountable stones, a belief which has as its fuel the desire for an impossible refutation of the belief. this best way to describe the blue tiger pictured above, however, is “appropriately false”– a strategically flawed reminder that a living tiger is an infinite amount of unknowable features, none of which are herein represented.

blue tiger- $3

jorge luis borges “the other tiger”

pshaw is one of my favorite working comic artists right now (he drew “mr fat day” amongst other things), and he sent us a bunch of awesome comics to give away, warning us that we were not allowed to sell them! recently i found this plastic piece of another toy that looks a lot like a pshaw drawing, so i’m selling it to dan nadel for $30. actually, i’m just putting it next to all my other action figures. i think it’s a piece from a play-doh accessory.

pshaw.net!

the countess is this great lady who likes cute stuff, and is going to be hosting a weird + cute snack event at the store in february. she’s on tour right now with her band “frenching action”. countess, i don’t know if you saw this darling little ceramic junebug, but i’m putting it aside for you, because you really want it.

cute shit - on hold for the countess in exchange for snacks

i don’t know who can’t finish a lollypop in one go, but for those who can’t there exists a whole host of candies with their own built-in savers. the candy inside this weird hatchet-wielding scotsman is completely disgusting, which has to be one of the most-often-true non-self-reflexive statements in the history of the english language.

candy scotsman- $1

i realize that it’s weird that this probably cost $.50 new and now the candy is half-sucked and the price has increased by 100%. i also realize that it’s weird that water expands when it freezes and that conditions on earth were perfect for life to arise.