A recent visit to Prehistoric Gardens (flickr link)

- Please follow link to my flickr set: 'Prehistoric Gardens, 3.29.09'
(29 photos)

Prehistoric Gardens is a roadside tourist attraction nestled in lush rainforest next to
U.S. 101 on the Oregon Coast Highway,
just a few miles south of the small town of
Port Orford and Humbug Mountain State Park, not quite 50 miles north of the California border.

Since 1953, visitors here have wandered among an assortment of full-sized dinosaur statues that look quite at home in this primeval paradise.

I was a toddler when my folks first brought me by, one Summer vacation en route to Grandma's house, long, long ago.

My innate love for 'dinosaur stuff' was fostered by further visits over the years, in an age when there was much less fodder available for the young dino-enthusiast.

Since the onset of my adult (?) years (also long ago), visits to Prehistoric Gardens have become much less frequent.
Twice a decade, maybe, if I'm lucky.

For me, it's still a thrilling and magical place.

The dinosaurs are like old friends, and it's always great to check in with them again, to see how they've changed (and so, how I've also changed) and to see what remains just the same.

Yes, the dinosaurs are still the big draw, but what really makes the place precious to me (and many others,
I'm sure) is the verdant setting.
All the best shades of Oregonian green, soft coastal air, and a spectacular array of rich and thriving foliage. At its very least, a perfect tonic for the road-weary traveler.

Things were quiet and soggy there during this most recent trip through. I was excited to see some of the dinosaurs dressed in new colors since my last visit.
As I once again walked around and said hello and grinned and breathed, I once again shot a batch of photos. I was very aware that I was likely shooting new versions of the same snapshots I'd taken several times before, so I tried to concentrate just a wee bit more upon the setting and not merely the subjects.

- Please follow link to my flickr set:
'Prehistoric Gardens, 3.29.09'

Hope you enjoy.


A few links for your further investigation:
- Also on flickr, TimSpfd's Prehistoric Gardens photo set has splendid shots of the park from 2002, featuring much better views of the dinosaurs than I've provided here, sporting that previous round of 'extreme' paint jobs. He also provides further PG flickr links of interest.

- Mary H's Prehistoric Gardens Fansite has some great pictures that go back further still to even earlier color schemes.

- Prehistoric Gardens listed at
Roadside Oddities and at
Roadside America.Com.

Report From The Road: Archie McPhee is Alive and Well and Living in Seattle

This past weekend I was tooling around various Seattle neighborhoods with a cousin of mine.

It's been many years since I've visited Seattle, and so it'd been just as many years since visiting
Archie McPhee, the retail outlet for the Accoutrements line of novelties and the Archie McPhee catalog.

It had turned into a lovely and warm sunny Sunday afternoon as my cousin drove me around.

First we went to Seattle's Fremont District ('The center of the universe; set your watch back five minutes'), saw the Lenin statue, the Fremont Rocket, and looked at the constant stream of people going to look at the
Fremont Troll residing under the Aurora Bridge and Highway 99.

I was surprised - - but not shocked - - to see how the neighborhood had grown since I was there in the '90's.

(click on images to ENLARGE in a new window)

From Fremont we headed over to Ballard (and the inevitable burgeoning 'FreeBall' district) and Archie McPhee's - - home of assorted plastic animals, the Edgar Allan Poe action figure, bacon-scented air freshener and flavorless 'Nihilist' chewing gum.

I knew that I was a little concerned about what I'd see this time around.

Back in the day, the stuff from Archie McPhee's was ever-so-slightly 'outside', their catalog and store even more so, and so a trip to that original store was a unique experience - - not just for the shopping, but simply to witness all those oddities under one roof.

Since then, all across the U.S. it seems like inside any gift shop or card store or kooky boutique you can't swing a rubber chicken without hitting a few of their products.

Upon entering the store, my worries dissipated.

Yes, absolutely, you'll see an abundance of all the boxing nuns, pig launchers and devil duckies that you can see anywhere - - but it's their festive and random presentation of those items alongside all sorts of other oddball 'surplus' goods that make for a fascinating retail experience. (In their neighboring annex, too. So many decorating ideas!)

Glass urinals. Motorcycle chains. Mailbox slots. Metal casters. Plastic letters. Different sizes of traffic light lenses. British Royal Mail jackets. Ball bearings.

Seeing that stuff right alongside bins of super balls, plastic moose, pez dispensers and other novelties did my heart good.

Yes, it may be hard to imagine some of the situations where a person might need some of these things, but you can say that about many retail establishments, and that may not necessarily be the point of visiting the Archie McPhee store.

Next time you're in Seattle, Washington and in need of a 'retail-outlet-as-museum' experience, I urge you to visit and see for yourself.

Reasons To Be Cheerful: week of 05/30/08

Greetings from Enterprise, Oregon!
My travels continue. I spent a few wonderful days in Spokane, Washington, where I discovered that it's grown up and increased it's coolness considerably since I last visited back in '92. Who knew?

I stayed at a friend's place in the Browne's Addition neighborhood and enjoyed morning walks around the eclectic and historic homes and the proximity to Spokane's downtown and Riverfront Park.

A roundabout route headed back to Boise has taken me into Wallowa County, in the northeast corner of Oregon.
Amazing scenery in a quiet and idyllic location off the beaten path.
This is where my Dad grew up, and I'm happy to say I can see what he saw in it.




































Travels continue next week, when I'll be heading off to Seattle and that neck of the woods.

Meanwhile...

1. Several showbiz folk have passed away recently, and it affords some brief opportunities to remember their work.

An interesting assortment of passengers aboard the trams headed for Judgement City; In addition to Harvey Korman and director Sydney Pollack, we've also just lost contemporary folksman / activist
U. Utah Phillips, jazz organist supreme
Jimmy McGriff, and composer Earle Hagen.

(I still maintain that there's a way to combine Hagen's famous 'Harlem Nocturne' and his theme to 'The Andy Griffith Show' into one
whistle-accented southern-noir tune.)

One departure I just heard about was that of film actor
John Phillip Law.

He died a couple of weeks back, at age 70.


- Follow link to John Phillip Law's obituary at The Independent

Law is best remembered for the small splash he made in some memorable 1960's and early '70's films that have attained cult status, including 'Barbarella', 'Skidoo', 'The Golden Voyage of Sinbad' and in the title role of 'Diabolik'.

For me though, he'll always be Kolchin, the young Russian sailor of 'The Russians Are Coming, The Russians Are Coming' in 1966.

As a kid, as much as I'd laugh at my older sister and her friends for swooning over how 'dreamy' he was, it wasn't hard to see what they meant.

John Phillip Law sort of disappeared after that period, though mostly it was from American screens as he found more regular work in European film.

It was a huge treat to see him show up in Roman Coppola's 'CQ' back in 2001, as that film was such an homage to exactly the sort of fare that had made Law famous.

2. Speaking of late celebrities, please take a trip over to Bedazzled! for a look at Merv Griffin's headstone and an embedded mp3 of his cautionary drug anthem 'Have a Nice Trip'.










3. Some very welcome impending release news came through recently from TVShowsOnDVD.com, stating a September arrival for a DVD set collecting the first two seasons of the diabolically funny 'Duckman' animated series, going back to the mid-nineties.

Hurray! Can't wait!

4. Skipper Bartlett, everyone's pal, and like, the mayor of Like...Dreamsville has broadened his blog scope.

Skipper has extended an invitation to join him now in
The Rumpus Room.
A first peek at it's early stages reveals plenty of eye-candy. Currently on view is plenty of retro space-age stuff.

Follow the link and check it out! Blast off!

Reasons To Be Cheerful: week of 05/23/08

Greetings from Klamath Falls, Oregon!

I'm holed up in my hotel as I write this, happy to be off the road and out of a buffeting wind.
My seasonal hayfever has been acting up, too, so at the moment I'm all for road-tripping at a leisurely pace.

It's my time for travelling just lately, with many loopy journeys ahead. It gets confusing in description...

Having left Idaho a few weeks ago to return to my native SF bay area for some reconnaissance, the path now takes me off to Spokane, Washington, to celebrate a special friend's special milestone birthday. I should arrive there Friday or Saturday.

From Spokane, an interlude back in Boise will then take me off again to Seattle for a niece's graduation from the University of Washington, with hopefully some sidetrips to Portland, Oregon and
Vancouver, B.C. while I'm roosted in the neighborhood...

Thursday morning I hit the road from Redding, California, after checking out their truly impressive Sundial Bridge located at the Turtle Bay Exploration Park on the Sacramento River.

Completed in 2005, the footbridge is a successfully elegant blend of art and architecture, affording many interesting views of it's many swooping angles. - - And it's a functioning sundial, too, even if it only comes close to being accurate a few days a year...















As I made my way north on a truly gorgeous (if windy) day,
Mt. Shasta continued to loom into view at various points, its peak often obscured by clouds.

(click on image to ENLARGE) ▶

What else has been appearing along my path this week?
Let's see, now, as I recall...



1. 'Lost parrot tells veterinarian his address'.

The perfect tiny feelgood human interest story, and apparently it's even true.

2. Slated for release on DVD in September is
'Ken Russell at the BBC',
a 3-disc set showcasing some of the flamboyant British director's early television work, prior to his 1969 breakout with 'Women In Love'.

It sounds intriguing; 6 historical biopics presented in a unconventional style intended to shake up the staid normality of the genre as traditionally seen on the BBC up to that point.
Oliver Reed stars in two of of the films.

For details, follow the link above or click over to
Britmovie - the British Film Forum.

3. I received a friendly note with greetings from Mats in Norway, who has kindly shared some obscure music he's found - -

"On a flea market I stumbled upon a black, Dymo-labelled tape that said "Swedish women's songs", presumably from the '70s - - the golden age of hardcore feminism.

"I knew that listening to something like this nowadays could be pretty amusing.

"Being a Norwegian
(which is similar to Swedish)
I understand the lyrics, and they turned out to be very tragic, often with raw, explicit language.

"In example, one song's lyrics is simply:

'You can get knocked up, my mother said
but I only f*** when I 'm in love
you're in love once a week, my mother said'
(song # 1 on the mixtape)

"While another one goes like this:

'There once was a guy that would
have children right away
but he didn't have time to stay
so now I'm a single mother'
(song # 5 on the mixtape)

"And all of this is accompanied with sad, upbeat or just beautiful, flute-heavy melodies.
"So, even if you don't understand Swedish, the songs will be worth a listen :)"

- Follow link to the anonymous 'Swedish women's songs' mixtape.

My favorite track so far is #8, 'Karar og karar för hela slanten'...

Many thanks, Mats! An interesting mix, even if I don't understand the lyrics. (Or perhaps because)

An intriguing balance of plaintive & melancholy with raucous and raw.

It reminds me a bit of what the DELAY 68 label has tried to accomplish on their
'Folk Is Not A Four Letter Word' CD compilation and other projects.

Can anyone out there share any info on the details and origins of this collection of songs?
Drop a line, thanks!

4. The amazing one-man-band rockabilly madman Hasil Adkins rocketed out of this life back in 2005.

During his early days of home recording back in the 1950's - - before he'd decided that if you want a strange job done well you do it yourself - - he submitted many of his songs to some of the top country artists of the era.

Click over to WFMU's Beware of The Blog and view
The Hasil Adkins Rejection Letters.
Included are images of notes received from Johnny Cash,
Ernest Tubb, and Hank Snow.
Their loss was our gain.

(Via Bedazzled!)

For more Hasil around the web, see also:

- The official website, Hasil Adkins.Com

- Hasil Adkins bio page at All Music.Com

- Several of The Haze's tunes can be heard at the
Hasil Adkins MySpace page, including my all-time fave,
'No More Hot Dogs'.

At YouTube, an Adkins documentary:
'The Wild World of Hasil "Haze" Adkins', Part 1 of 3
'The Wild World of Hasil "Haze" Adkins', Part 2 of 3
'The Wild World of Hasil "Haze" Adkins', Part 3 of 3

A Sunday afternoon pilgrimage to Kimono My House

Located in Emeryville, California, for over 20 years, Kimono My House is a very special store specializing in Anime & Sci-Fi Toys.

Though I am someone intrigued by the vast world of Japanese animation and fantasy culture, I remain largely ignorant of many of the details of that world.

- - And so for me, a trip to Kimono My House is like going to an odd museum full of fascinating and cryptic curiosities.

It had been a good long while since I last visited.
Mid-'90's, maybe?

The intrigue begins as you climb a couple of flights of stairs until you emerge outside onto the roof of the nondescript warehouse building where you'll find the store perched.



The sensory overload begins as you enter the door.

Speaking personally, my lack of knowledge regarding most of the items within only serves to enhance the experience.

If I understood all of what I was seeing would it hold the same wonder?



































































































































An Ultraman soap dish and Ultraman bathroom air freshener, a glimpse of McDonald's employee dolls and the mysterious 'Boyfriend Tom', a truly spooky and incongruous
George Burns, a shelf load of Gameras, and SO much more.

What does it all mean?






















































































































































































































































































































































































































































And finally, after much searching and wonderment, a few small choice bits of swag that needed to come home with me.

Essential items, all. ▼