No wonder I have been scared of primary colors for the last twenty years…
Doesn’t the little girl on the right look like Punky Brewster?! I SO wanted to be Punky Brewster…
Ad via: 1989 ad for Vivid laundry detergent – Found in Mom’s Basement
The other night, I dreamt that Sugar was on my chest, purring. I was petting her and I was so happy to see her. I held her face in my hands and lovingly noticed that funny mark on her cheek.
I knew in the dream that she had been dead for over twenty years and that knowledge woke me up. When I looked around the dark bedroom, there was no cat on my chest and I was alone in the bed.
I closed my eyes and tried to re-enter the dreaming world, but she was gone.
This is the cigarette ad that made me start smoking.
I SO wanted to be that girl. I had a sweater just like that. I wore big earrings just like that. I even had that haircut. In fact, I STILL have that haircut after twenty years and a multitude of hair fashions. I prefer my hair cut into a bob better than anything else.
I learned very quickly that Capri Super Slims didn’t fly off the shelves quickly enough. I bought a few incredibly stale packs that made my stomach turn with nausea and I switched to Benson and Hedges Deluxe Ultra-Light Menthols. I said that phrase so many times back them to 7-11 clerks that I can still recite it without fail.
I still haven’t found the ad that made me switch to those…
Fortunately, I caught such a bad case of bronchitis that it bordered on pneumonia. As I labored for breath, I realized that when I got older, it would ALWAYS be like that for me if I didn’t stop smoking. Since I couldn’t smoke when I was sick, I never started again.
I found this old commercial for Count Chocula and Fraken Berry cereals:
When I was a kid, my dad would never let me get these cereals, so every year when they become available, I buy a box.
Of course, my tastes have changed and I can’t stomach Count Chocula anymore. I usually have one bowl for dessert one evening and the rest is eaten by Kristen when she visits. The last third of the box is usually thrown away some time in April when I realize that it’s too stale to eat.
Here’s to buying another box of Count Chocula again this year!
This craft project is truly awesome on so many levels that I am blushing at its greatness!
If you want to make your own Barbie of the Undead, you’ll have to fine tune your Sculptey Skillz, but it’s totally worth it!
Today, Mike and I are celebrating our wedding anniversary. I was looking through old photographs a few months ago and came across this grocery store receipt in our wedding album. It was from the first time we went to the grocery store together. It made me smile to see it. I remember saving it because I thought it would be fun to see how different prices were, but the cost of things hasn’t changed all that much. Lynn Wilson Burritos are still three for a dollar. A small bottle of Tabasco sauce is still about a buck.
What’s fun for me is to see WHAT we bought. That magazine at the top of the list? It was a Weekly World News. Mike and I used to get them EVERY week just to read about Bat Boy and Ed Anger’s weekly rants. I don’t know when we stopped getting the Weekly World News at the grocery store. It’s not like I consciously thought that I shouldn’t buy it. It’s just that we stopped buying it and reading it together. I heard that they weren’t going to print the Weekly World News anymore. Is that true? Are they still around today? I should really check the magazine racks next time I’m at the grocery store.
It looks like we bought twelve Lynn Wilson Burritos. Mike and I survived on them when we were first married. In fact, our freezer is still stocked with them. I haven’t eaten one in months, but we ALWAYS have them. Mike will eat one or two and then the rest of them get covered with ice crystals. We’ll throw them away and buy twelve more. It’s like our eating habits have changed, but our BUYING habits haven’t.
To go with the burritos, we bought a bottle of ketchup, a bottle of Pace salsa and a tub of sour cream. I had never eaten Lynn Wilson Burritos with ketchup. That was something that Mike introduced me to. I was a salsa girl, even back in 1990 before salsa was filled with cilantro and papayas. I had never eaten burritos with sour cream either, but it was an added bonus that made it feel like a treat.
I remember that it was really important to me that we have a fully stocked spice cabinet. I thought that buying the spices was really expensive, but it was worth it to me. Of course, back then, a fully stocked spice cabinet meant that I needed:
Now, our spice shelves rival any other food in the house. Not only do we have several shelves right above the stove, we have a cupboard shelf full of them. If I were to make a list, you would think I was joking.
I’m kind of proud to see the Granny Smith apples on the list. I had no idea that my insane preference for those apples over all others happened when I was so young. I thought my apple phase happened much more recently, but it looks like I had that preference even back then.
I used to drink Diet Shasta out of 2 liter bottles because it was cheaper than any other soda. Now, I can’t even imagine buying Shasta soda. Somehow the idea of drinking generic brand soda has been equated with being poor. Shasta doesn’t taste all that different than the brand names, but because I drank it when I was poor, I don’t want to buy it now that I have money. I don’t know why that correlation never happened with Ramen noodles or macaroni and cheese, however.
Speaking of Ramen, I’m surprised that we didn’t buy any that first day of our marriage. At my wedding shower, some people bought us kitchen staples, like baking soda, flour, etc. I think a flat of Ramen was one of our gifts. That’s the only explanation I have for not having any Ramen. I looked through the bridal shower photos and I did find this one of Kraft Macaroni and Cheese, but I didn’t see any Ramen. I’m sure there was some, we just didn’t get a photo of it.
On a side note: God, I LOVED that shirt. I wish I still had it today. It was my FAVORITE shirt of the Eighties. Look closely and you can see that I’m wearing my St. Germaine Swatch. It matched that shirt perfectly. It may be why I loved that shirt so much. I know I have photos of Stacey wearing this shirt (borrowing my clothes when she wasn’t supposed to). I think this shirt represents the Eighties to me far more than any other piece of clothing I owned.
Finally, when you look at the date on the receipt it’s dated 08-19-90. It was LITERALLY the day after we got married that we went to the grocery store. I remember it feeling so great to go to the grocery store with Mike. It was like we were a REAL married couple. Writing on the marriage license and having a wedding didn’t nail that idea home as much as going grocery shopping with him.
Happy Anniversary, Mike! If I could do it all again, I wouldn’t change it for a minute.
When I was in junior high, Levis 501 shrink-to-fit blue jeans were the coolest thing to wear. I remember skimping on all my other clothes just so I would have enough money to buy a few pairs of 501s.
These commercials are what were playing on MTV all the time:
This one has Stanley Tucci:
This one shows how we used to wear them: a little rolled up with white socks and penny loafers. I think we were all trying to look like Back to the Future.
In the end, Levis 501 NEVER fit me well. They always had a horrible loose bit at the back that would poke out and show the world my undies, no matter how tightly I cinched them with a belt. They might have been shrink-to-fit, but they never fit me.
One of the good things about moving is that all your stuff is unearthed and moved around and old dusty boxes are opened and investigated. Take this for example:
This was stuck on my filing cabinet in the basement with four magnets. Magnets so strong that it actually STAYED on the filing cabinet despite the moving and traveling in the moving truck.
What you are looking at is a relic from almost ten years ago. Mike bought me a Spirograph for my birthday many years ago. Not a brand new Spirograph, mind you. He found an old one on eBay that looked just like the one I had when I was a kid. It felt like Christmas all over again when I opened that present.
When I was a kid, I tried over and over again to recreate the patterns that were shown in the little idea book that came with the Spirograph, but I was never able to do it. Apparently, all I needed was twenty years of refining my fine motor skills, because as an adult, I was easily able to do all three of the patterns that had plagued me as a child.
When I completed all three of those patterns, making them look JUST like the ones in the idea book, I was so proud! I remember putting them on the filing cabinet when we lived in West Jordan. Suddenly, it’s ten years later and I find myself admiring my handiwork again.
Thank you, Michael for such a lovely gift so many years ago. Not only did it bring back all those memories of my childhood, I was finally able to check a “To Do” off my list.
When I was in junior high, the show that I NEVER missed was Solid Gold. It was on Saturday evening and I made sure that my butt was in front of a television, no matter where I was just so I could watch Solid Gold. Just watching this video of the opening credits brought back all those memories with crystal clarity.
We didn’t have MTV, so I couldn’t watch music videos whenever I wanted, so the next best thing was Solid Gold. I remember seeing Michael Jackson’s video for Billie Jean on Solid Gold and I fell instantly in love. I remember watching Boy George and Culture Club performing Time (Clock of the Heart) on Solid Gold and I couldn’t believe my eyes. He sounded like a man, but he looked like a woman. It was my first experience with any sort of transvestism without it being a joke. Boy George looked exactly like a woman and no one was even phased by it.
Imagine my surprise when I realized that I could see that performance again on YouTube:
I fell in love with the blond guitar player on the left (Roy Hay). I knew lots of girls who had crushes on Boy George, but he never really did anything for me.
I also remembered Marilyn McCoo performing the most popular songs. I thought maybe that this was just a false memory, but no, she really did sing songs karaoke style when they didn’t have a video or live performance to show. Here she is singing Human Nature, by Michael Jackson.
Of course, I loved the Solid Gold Dancers. I wanted to be them so much that I chose dance for my gym credit every year of junior high. Watching the Solid Gold Dancers gave me new ideas and a bunch of wishes for a different body. Here’s a video of the dancers in all of their glory.
It’s funny how much one television show affected me. Looking back, it’s fully of sloppy choreography and lip syncing, but back in 1984, it was the coolest thing EVAR!
The Communicatrix has an excellent entry about how to deal with jealousy.
Her idea is to look at it like this:
Oh good, that thing is done.
Instead of being jealous that someone has done something so totally cool and you wish you could be that person, you breathe a sigh of relief because you can check that thing off the list.
The first time I experienced this feeling was in 1992. Mike and I had been trying to write a song called “Heart of the City” that never really expressed how I felt about going to downtown Salt Lake City. I felt a connection to the city that I just couldn’t express. I felt COMPLETELY frustrated and impotent to explain myself.
Then The Information Society released “To The City.” In three minutes and thirty seconds, Information Society did what I had been so unable to do. They made a song that conveyed EXACTLY how I felt about driving downtown on the weekends. At first, I felt angry because they beat me to the punch, but within a couple of days, I felt the release of it all. I was GRATEFUL to them for writing the song that I just couldn’t write.
Over the years, my jealousy has abated a lot, but I’m not impervious to it. It’s funny to hear Colleen write about a method of dealing with jealousy that I encountered long ago, but never even thought of sharing it with others. Thanks for reminding me, Communicatrix. I needed that kick in the pants.
Plaid Stallions asked us to tell our best schoolyard BS story.
My story seemed a little long and I needed to include pictures, so I’ve written it here:
Chris Buttars was the bully who bothered me in the fourth grade. He called me a “Jehobo-Witness” every day at school. Sure, I was a weird kid because I was a Jehovah Witness and my dad wouldn’t let me pledge allegiance to the flag or celebrate any holidays, but don’t you think that should have been punishment enough? I guess Chris didn’t think so and inflicted daily insults to the suffering I was already experiencing.
In fourth grade, Charlie’s Angels trading cards were popular. I don’t know why. It doesn’t seem to make sense to me and I don’t really believe this memory, but for a couple of months, the coolest thing were Charlie’s Angels trading cards. One day, I got this card in my Charlie’s Angels set:
At first glance, I thought the man on the right was Charlie. My mom pointed out to me that, no, it wasn’t Charlie. It was Bosley. I kept pointing to the words on the card. They said, “The best boss an angel ever had!” That MUST mean that the guy in the picture was Charlie, right? My mom finally convinced me that I didn’t have a rare Charlie’s Angels trading card that showed the elusive Charlie.
When Chris Buttars was looking through my trading cards to see if there were any he wanted to trade with me, he found the card that fooled me and flipped out. He made the same mistake I made, thinking that it was Charlie who was on the card, not Bosley. I played it cool and said that it was a really rare card and I’d never trade it. Suddenly, he was offering me his entire pack of Charlie’s Angels cards for it. I told him no. He started handing me his Pittsburgh Steelers pencil (unsharpened) in addition to the pack of his cards. I told him no. He started offering me money, but I stopped him.
All I wanted was two of his cards (his best, but that was more than I could bear to take without guilt) AND he had to stop calling me a Jehobo-Witness. He agreed, the trade was made and he went around the classroom showing off his “rare” Charlie card.
Everyone believed him. No one noticed that it was Bosley. And Chris Buttars only called me a Jehobo-Witness one more time after that, but I threatened to take back the rare Charlie card. He never teased me again.
Charlie’s Angel’s Trading Card via: Bubble Gum Cards: Charlie’s Angels
For more Charlie’s Angels memories, read this:
I was looking through some old photos and stumbled across some funny photos that I had forgotten about. Back in 2005, we took a trip to Vegas. While walking through Mandalay Bay, we noticed that there were two conventions being held there: the Professional Bull Riders Expo and the China Manufacturers Alliance.
They were both having their after parties in the same place. At first, we didn’t know what PBR was, but this sign explained it.
Mike pointed at the signs and said, “That looks like a bad idea…”
I love this commercial of Fisher Price Little People toys.
My grandma had the school, airplane AND airport. Stacey and I played with those things for HOURS at end and FAR past the time when we should have been playing with Little People. I LOVED those things!
Here is the postcard that Swatch sent me to announce the 2009 Swatch Club watch:
The postcard is advertising the new Swatch Club watch called Street Club.
Looks pretty cool!
I saw this commercial for the Barbie Townhouse and it reminded me how much I wanted it.
I don’t remember how much it cost, but I REALLY wanted it. My dad made me an awesome dollhouse instead with five rooms and a carport for my Barbie Starvette. There was even an outdoor patio.
I’ve looked through all my photos and all of Stacey’s photos and we don’t have one picture of that awesome dollhouse. Not one.
I tried to draw a picture of it, but I can’t get the perspective right. My little drawing doesn’t convey the awesome magnitude of how cool this house was.
The long top room had a slanted roof because it was the attic. I always imagined Skipper staying up there and it represented my room in my mind. The two middle rooms were bedrooms. The room on the right had a door that opened up to the patio over the car. Each of the four rooms had a real window. The main floor had a kitchen and a front room. The front room also had a door that opened up to the front of the house. The roof had shingles. The front of the house had a porch. It was seriously AWESOME!!!
When I was done playing with the house, I gave it to Stacey. When she was done with it, she gave it to a Jehovah Witness family she knew that had a whole house full of girls. I’m sure that toy was just as loved by them as it was by us.
I wish I had a picture of it…
I love this photo of the Summer Pimps here:
When I was a kid, all the grownups wore clothes like this. It all reminds me of my childhood. I remember looking through the Sears Catalog for toys and finding clothes just like this all the time.
The guy on the right has the most awesome pattern on his outfit. I took a bit of it and made it blue. I couldn’t get enough of the pattern to tile, however. Here is what I came up with.
Maybe someone out there has better Gimp Skillz than I do and can make a tile-able version of this pattern. That would be totally cool!
This postcard from PostSecret seemed ingenious at first.
It reads:
I have a new signature for when
I am unhappy to sign that particular thing —
I add “sfu” after my name, and it makes me so happy!
Jane Doe “says fuck you!”
taxes, rent, car pmt, insurance
When I saw this it made me smile and I thought maybe I would add an “sfu” to the end of my signature when I didn’t want to sign. Then I tried to think when I would use it and I was stumped.
Would I have used it for those two years when Mike and I had to pay for a car that had been totaled by the insurance but wasn’t paid off yet?
No… I didn’t really blame Key Bank for the accident or the insurance that didn’t pay off the car.
Would I have used it for my house payment when Fairbanks Capital was harassing us and interfering with the sale of our home to pay off the IRS?
No… I hated Fairbanks, but I was grateful to have a home over my head, despite its burden.
Would I use it NOW to pay the IRS every month for their fees and interest on our tax debt from the first Dot Bomb?
No… As burdensome as the taxes are to us right now, I am still grateful for the libraries, and the roads. I’m even grateful for the soldiers that keep me safe from Somalian pirates and terrorists.
The more I thought about this PostSecret card, the sadder I got for Jane Doe. Instead of being grateful for what the taxes, rent, car payment and insurance pays for, she is just angry that she has to pay it. I wish I could send her a warm hug so she could feel the gratitude of having a country that protects her, a roof over her head, a car to drive and the financial protection of insurance (however flimsy it may be).
I don’t think I’ll ever be signing anything “Laura Moncursfu.”
PostSecret‘s beneficiary is the National Hopeline Network. It is a 24-hour hotline (1 (800) SUICIDE) for anyone who is thinking about suicide or knows someone who is considering it.
Sometimes I post things here so that I have a record of them somewhere. My great-grandmother died last month and I found her obituary online.
Dora Klem, 104, of Rosemount, died March 9, 2009. She was born Aug. 12, 1904.
She was preceded in death by husband, Nicholas, and son, Jarvis.
She is survived by children, Walter (Donna), Zonia (Raymond) Wilson, Benjamin (Patricia), Olga Lee, Boris (Constance), Eugene (Kathleen) and Antoinette (Ray) Jones; numerous grandchildren, great-grandchildren and great-great-grandchildren; many nieces, nephews and friends.
Visitation and a funeral service were held March 14 at Good Shepherd Evangelical Lutheran Church in Burnsville with the Rev. David Tiarks officiating. Arrangements were made by Henry W. Anderson Mortuary, Apple Valley.
Here is a photo I took of her when I was fourteen years old in 1983:
Left to right: Eugene, Dora and Jarvis Klem
My mom loved this photo of me and Stacey.
The only problem with it was that my underwear was showing. Through the power of Photoshop, I am now able to share this photo with the world. No more white undies showing here. I surgically added a few inches of length to my skirt and it’s no longer inappropriate.
It’s just a nice afternoon with just me and Stacey watchin’ Sesame Street.
I love this photo of Stacey and I.
That day, Stacey and I had put on a parade on our street. We dressed up Stacey in her swimming suit, put the Fun Fountain hat on her head, a veil over the clown hat, and clown makeup on her face. Then I pushed her up and down the street in the wheel barrow. I took a photo of her in the wheelbarrow, but I don’t have a copy of that picture. It must be in Stacey’s book.
That was such a fun day in my memory. It was one of those days when the weather was nice, there was no school or parents at home and we could basically do whatever we wanted.
Plus, Stacey looks super cute in this photo…
Back in November, Maka sent me a CD with the photos and the biographies from the last Kearns High School Reunion.
You can download them here:
Kearns High School 20 Year Reunion Photos: Powerpoint document – Right click and choose “Save As…” to save this on to your computer.
Kearns High School 20 Year Reunion Bios: Word Document – Right click and choose “Save As…” to save this on to your computer.
Kearns High School Memory Lane: Powerpoint document – Right click and choose “Save As…” to save this on to your computer.
To view these documents, you need Microsoft Office or Open Office.
There is also a bunch of photos on Flickr from the reunion taken by Catrina Crofts Leffel:
It was a lot of fun to look through these photos and see how much people have changed (and stayed the same). Sometimes I forget how great it can be to be nostalgic.
I LOVE this video of celebrities talking about their childhood and Barbie.
Kevin Sorbo blew her up into a million pieces with firecrackers. Lisa Edelstein (from House) sent in for a Miss America Barbie Doll and held onto the anger for two years when she never showed up. Michelle Kwan used to make her Barbie figure skate and gave her a haircut.
It all just made me smile to see this.
I think the reason I’m so reluctant to enjoy current science fiction is because I’ve been betrayed so many times. I will fall in love with a television show and it will be canceled three shows into the season. Or, I’ll love a show and it will never get resolved until the network finally cancels it three seasons and too many questions into the plot.
Case in point: there was a show that came out when Mike and I were first married. I think Babylon 5 and Star Trek Deep Space Nine had just started, so that would put it about 1993 or 1994. One of the big three television networks (ABC, I think) thought it would be a good idea to jump on the sci-fi train and came out with a show of their own. It was called Star Raiders or Space Raiders or Space Riders or something generic like that. I asked Mike about it and his fantastic memory found it. Turns out it was called Space Rangers and it was aired on CBS.
I LOVED the show.
It was like an early version of Firefly (another sci-fi show that got canceled WAY too early). There was a guy who had a ship and crew that did odd jobs around space. There was one particular episode where he was trying to impress an alien. He had to compete in a some sort of fight. Before the fight, he said a great speech and tossed his father’s antique coin to the alien. The alien caught it, but the metal in the coin reacted with the alien’s skin, causing burns. He was taken away for trying to hurt the important alien.
That’s the only episode I remember and I’m even sketchy on that one. I couldn’t find ANY record of the existence of this television series that was canceled three episodes into the season. Only Mike was able to dig the show out from the dregs of Google. Here’s what he found:
Yet that vision of the alien catching that coin and the metal searing into his flesh is etched into my mind with a laser. No one on the planet remembers that alien but me and Mike.
THAT’S why I wait until a show is canceled to start watching it. Then I know ahead of time whether it was worth the space in my memory or not.
They aren’t lost to obscurity. You can watch them at NetFlix:
I did and I took these screen shots of the scene with the silver dollar. Here’s Boon talking about the coin. Yes, that IS Claudia Christian (of Babylon 5 fame) playing the part of Marla (ex-girlfriend of Boon and trade negotiator).
He tosses it to the alien, who catches it. You can see the smoke rising from his palm.
Not even Marla knew that silver was poisonous to V’lons.
The scene was pretty much EXACTLY what I remembered it to be. All in all, Space Rangers was corny and didn’t take itself too seriously. Babylon 5 and Deep Space Nine both were much more serious than this light piece of sci-fi history. CBS axed it earlier than it deserved and that’s EXACTLY why I tend to be gun shy with new science fiction shows on television.
I’m wishing you all a Merry Christmas!
One of my favorite toys when I was a kid was Tuesday Taylor. I really thought it would be cool to change her hair from brown to blonde, but she pretty much looked like Cruella DeVille the whole I time we played with her.
Both Stacey and I loved our Starr dolls:
She was so poseable and came with so many accessories, she really wiped Barbie off the map for a good year. Plus, her hair was PERMED, just like all the cool kids.
I also liked my Beauty Secrets Barbie.
Her hair was so long that it was easy to do lots of different hairdos with her.
Of course, there’s always the love for the Little People:
This set has the elusive “naughty” little boy. The one in the orange hat has a frownie face. I always thought he was a naughty boy just because he had a frown on his face.
Then there was the beloved Star Traveler:
I played with that thing until it was worn OUT. I owned it until just a few years ago when I gave it to The DI. Some little girl had a VERY happy day that day at the thrift store. Whenever I miss it, I look at these photos.
Then there’s Tuggy Tooter.
He wasn’t really MY toy. He was a toy at my grandma’s house. Here he is in action:
I also loved my Fisher Price Record Player.
The cool thing about this is that it was completely child-powered. No batteries needed. The design was ingenious, actually. On the player head, there was a simple music box. The notes were plucked by the lumps on the record. Whomever designed that little record player deserved a huge reward for saving the world from batteries!
You can see all the photos I’ve found here:
After The Young Ones, MTV showed The Comic Strip Presents… It was a silly little show with many of the same actors as The Young Ones. It’s still not available on DVD, but you can see almost all the episodes on YouTube.
Stacey’s favorite episode was The Slags. I felt like a hero the other day when I found it on YouTube:
I love how Adrian Edmondson plays a cool Rutger Hauer in this episode. The whole thing reminds me of a cheap rip-off of Bladerunner. This episode was just as bad as I remember it, but I it makes me happy to watch it.
By the way, is that Emma Thompson having her baby stolen (Part 1 at 7:12) and then finally exploded with a grenade in her shopping cart (Part 2 at 8:18)? I’ve watched that scene about ten times now and I can’t tell if it’s her or not?!
Should have just checked IMDB in the first place:
She’s there, playing the part of “Young Woman.” That’s freaking AWESOME!
This is a clip from the BBC show called The Young Ones. MTV used to play episodes of The Young Ones and I used to watch them religiously. This clip is called Doctor Martin’s Boots. It was the first time I had ever heard of Doc Martins. I scoured the shoe stores of Salt Lake City fruitlessly looking for the elusive Doctor Martin’s Boots.
In 1987, I finally found them in one of Mike Pinkston’s skateboard magazines. I could mail order them for $75. I had never mail ordered footwear before and I was not about to pay seventy-five bucks for shoes, no matter how cool they were. Instead, I just bought myself a pair of steel-toed work boots on clearance at K-Mart and pretended that they were Doc Martins.
When they finally showed up in Salt Lake City, they were STILL too expensive for me to afford on my college budget, plus my old boots had always been good enough to fool the dorks in Salt Lake City. Weren’t REAL steel-toed boots more punk than Doc Martins, anyway?
It wasn’t until years later when I was married to Mike that I found my first pair of REAL Doc Martins at a price I could afford. TJ Maxx had them on sale for $45. It was a lot of money at the time, but I was willing to pay it to finally have a pair of “Doctor Martin’s Boots.” Of course, by then I was nearly graduated from college, married two years and well on my way to losing all the punk that was in me. All that’s left now is these boots, dusty from disuse.
It finally snowed here. Maybe I’ll wear my Doc Martin’s to shovel the walk…
In the early days of Swatch, they created these watches for a special event that never took place. Instead, they gave these rare watches to Swatch employees. There were only 500 in existence, so collectors are willing to pay upwards of $3500 for one.
Swatch eventually came out with a consolation prize for those of us who didn’t get one of these rare watches. It was also called Velvet Underground. I have one here:
Still, I can’t help but want that exotic original piece of history, but there is NO WAY I’m paying nearly four thousand bucks for a twenty year old watch, so I decided to create my own.
Firstly, I started with Big Eclipse. Instead of its typical black band, I put on a white band. The face isn’t neon pink, but I’m not trying to defraud anyone. I’m just trying to make a Swatch that’s cool and that I love. A black face with white hands is good enough for me.
The parts I needed was some lace, needle, thread and some quilt pins.
Next, I removed the buckle and strap holder. This is easier for some brands of bands than others. I used the Swatch tool to pop the middle pin out.
I cut the lace to be slightly longer than the watch. Honestly, I should have given it a tad more length than this, so if you do this, make sure you cut a little more than I did.
The original Velvet Underground had a seam along the back, so I did the same with mine. I pinned the lace together along the back with quilt pins.
Once it was pinned securely, I trimmed the excess lace, leaving a quarter inch seam allowance on the back.
With a needle and thread, I sewed up the lace along the back of the watch. I kept the pins in until I was sewing right next to them. Don’t take them all out before you start sewing. It will make your job harder.
The completed seam looks like this. I didn’t have quite enough to go over the buckle area of the watch like I wanted. There is just barely enough to get there. That’s why you should cut more lace when you do it. Notice that there isn’t a hole for the battery case. I installed a fresh battery, so in five years, when this one runs out, I’ll have to carefully cut a hole in the lace, just like the current collectors have done to theirs.
The final step is to reattach the buckle and strap holder. The strap holder needs to go OVER the lace and then the buckle is attached. It’s nice finishing touch, I think.
You can see the final product here:
It looks great on my wrist, which is something I would NEVER do if this were a REAL Velvet Underground.
This project took me less time than it took me to wait in line at Joann’s to have the lace cut and sold (about thirty minutes). Have FUN!!
Before Andy Warhol was a famous Pop Artist, he was just an ordinary graphic artist. It looks like the Andy Warhol Foundation is milking his early work for all they can get by releasing those sketches on watches.
It’s really a shame that Andy Warhol was too greedy to do a few watches for Swatch. Their watches are of such great quality that they’ll last far longer than these cheap Swatch knock-offs.
If you ever wanted to design your own Swatch, here is a template to do it:
When I was in high school, I never considered designing my own Swatch, but now that I have been scanning eBay for Swatches for the last two months, I wish that Swatch would allow me to design my own Swatch and enter an contest or something. They allow “real” artists to do it all the time. Why don’t they open up the creation process to their customers all over the world? It would be a great advertisement and they could have a huge selection of new Swatch designs to choose from. Sure, most of them would be CRAP, but every once and a while, a REALLY good one would come along.
Swatch REALLY doesn’t understand the new marketing, new media and crowd sourcing. It makes me kind of sad when I think about it…
Ever since I got this Swatch, Jade:
I’ve been racking my brain how to do the same thing for my beloved Lazuli Swatch:
The only suitable band I could find was for Poolhof, but the band has silver highlights instead of gold, which wouldn’t match with the gold flecks and hands of Lazuli.
So, I decided to buy a Jade band AND a Poolhof band and switch the metal highlights on the ends of the flex bands. Here is how I did it. (Continue Reading…)
In addition to finding Swatch advertisements while I was looking through those old Seventeen magazines, I found a lot of companies who stole Swatch’s style.
Awatch was another brand of watches that stole the Swatch style in the mid-Eighties. Unlike the others, they were smart enough to name their watches, just like Swatch did. Instead of Tennis Grid, they had Fashion Grids.
Even Timex jumped on the bandwagon. They released an entire line of watches macking on the Swatch line.
Back in 1986, I worked in the jewelry department at K-Mart. We carried these Timex watches. I was so tempted to buy the one with the sunglasses on the bottom row. Kind of wish I did, now…
No Excuses was another brand that released watches that were suspiciously similar to Swatch.
Armitron has built an empire making watches that look like the watch du juour. In 1986, their watches all looked like Swatches.
These type of watches aren’t technically counterfeits, but they are still slimy. My “real” counterfeit Swatch is FAR more valuable than any of these watches would be now, but all of them are garbage compared to legitimate Swatches.
I took a trip to the Salt Lake City Library. They have all the Seventeen magazines on file, bound in large, blue books. I snapped a few photos of some Swatch ads from the Eighties.
I love how those old school Swatch Guards look. Why did they stop making them?
Swatches featured: Yamaha Racer, Calypso Diver, Dotted Swiss, and Tri-Color Racer
This is the first Swatch ad I remember ever seeing. By then, Swatch had won hearts with their fruity smelling Swatches.
When am I going to find that sweatshirt on eBay?
Swatches featured: Sheherazade, Mc Swatch
I don’t remember seeing this advertisement when I was a kid, but it was right there in the old Seventeen magazines that I read every month.
Swatches featured: Sir Limelight and Lady Limelight.
Another advertisement I never remember seeing, but I KNOW I read that magazine, so I must have seen it. It didn’t make an impression on me, however.
Swatch featured: Sir Limelight
This advertisement is the reason why I bought Sir Swatch back in 1986.
Swatches featured: Lancelot, Sir Swatch, Valkyrie, Lionheart
I wish I could have had a chance to buy some of those Swatch clothes…
Going through those old Seventeen magazines was a fun walk down memory lane. I was so surprised how much of my choices in clothing were from the advertisements in that magazine. The day I discovered Seventeen magazine, I went from being a dork in high school to having a fighting chance. I am grateful to them to this day.
When you’re named after a movie, it’s a good idea to see the movie. I kind of wish Laura had been more heroic in that movie, but it was really cool seeing Vincent Price being a good guy for once. If you had asked me ten minutes ago, I would have SWORN that David Niven was in that movie, but it looks like that part was played by Clifton Webb. It’s funny how memory does that.
No one has ever asked me if I was named after this movie. I think the only two people on the planet who have seen it are my mom and me.
I wonder how many other Lauras have been named after this movie.
Via: Found in Mom’s Basement: Film Noir Movie Posters from the 1940s
Here is the Kearns High 1987 Video Yearbook. There are only about 1500 people in the world who care about this, but I thought I’d post it here for them to see.
Download this video for your iPod
At the 14:20 mark, you can see me selling Kearn High Towels. I don’t know why they thought those little towels would be better than t-shirts, but we sold an awful lot of them. I still have one stored in my basement. I really need to do something about my hoarding instincts.
P.S. If you look really closely, you can see me wearing my Sir Swatch, complete with the old school Swatch Guard.
I found this little guy on eBay and won it for only $20. The reason it was such a good deal is because it was missing its battery case on the back. I replaced it and gave it a new battery and it runs perfectly.
On a side note, this design is similar to the arms of Edward III. Flipped and colors switched and you have the same thing. The lions are more stylized, of course, but it looks very much the same. The funny thing is, it’s Richard I that is called Lionheart. His coat of arms is red with three lions down the middle, though. Edward III came two hundred years later.
I always liked the design of this watch, especially the fleur-di-lis on red. When I was in high school, my grandma gave me a huge pile of old costume jewelry that she had left over from her days running an antique store. I had a little collection of fleur-de-lis pins that I used to wear.
This Lionheart watch would have gone perfectly with those pins. Now that I’ve brought them out of storage, I think I’ll wear them all together this fall.
I saw it on eBay. It was a damaged Swatch from the 1987 Spring Collection:
Despite the non-original band and the missing battery case, the bidding was out of control. When I first noticed it, it was $35 and within a day it had jumped up to $63. I looked it up on Squiggly.
They were selling a new one in the box for $357!! What?! Why is this watch worth so much more?! My Mackintosh that I had just sniped on eBay was only worth $97 NIB (new in box), so why was this one worth so much more?!
I found an explanation on the Squiggly forums:
The Swatch X-Rated or more commonly know as the swatch X watch is in such high demand for one reason, Straight Edge, a Subculture closely tied with punk/hardcore music, Straight Edge, is a label / lifestyle in which a person chooses to live life for themselves free of addiction,and societal pressure its very large subculture fueled by music, Straight Edge people tend to be proud of their decision, and this is where the x watch comes in. the symbol for Straight Edge is the X, and this watch has become a collectors item among the community, popularized by bands. there are even knock off versions of this watch.
Drew was right. He included a link to the knock-off:
It all came flooding back to me in memories. Back in 1986, I had a friend named Doug who played in a band called Better Way. They were punk rock and played at the Spoken Word a couple of times. They were also WAY Mormon, so they didn’t drink, smoke or do drugs. All their songs were about leading a clean life.
Their band died the same death that a lot of bands in Utah die: all their members went on LDS missions.
I don’t know where Doug is today. I wonder if he ever picks up his guitar and remembers his old days. He was Straight Edge before Straight Edge was cool.
In the end, that Swatch on eBay sold for $92.05. I wasn’t the one willing to pay so much for a broken watch, so I’ll have to be happy with my memories.
I have been looking at my St. Germain Swatch for nearly twenty years now and I’m beginning to wonder what it means. What did Swatch mean naming it St. Germain? Sure, I know what the watch means to ME, but for the first time, I’m wondering what the designer of the watch was referring to.
There are a number of saints with the name Germain and many of them are French. Considering the words on the face are French, I thought there must be some connection there. But which saint would it be and what does any of them have to do with the images on the watch?
Patron Saints Index: Saint Germanus – Nephew of Saint Patrick. Missionary monk in Ireland, Wales and Brittany. Bishop on the Isle of Man where several locations are still named for him.
Patron Saints Index: Saint Germanus of Auxerre – Imperial governor of part of Gaul, based in Auxerre. Patronage: Auxerre, France
Patron Saints Index: Saint Germaine Cousin – Born: 1579 at Pibrac, France – Daughter of Laurent Cousin, a farm worker, and Marie Laroche. Her mother died while Germaine was an infant. A sickly child, she suffered from scrofula, and her right hand was deformed. Ignored by her father and abused by her step-family, she was often forced to sleep in the stable or in a cupboard under the stairs, was fed on scraps, beaten or scalded with hot water for misdeeds, real or imagined. – Patronage: abandoned people and peasant girls
Patron Saints Index: Blessed German Gardiner – Educated at Cambridge. Secretary to the bishop of Winchester. Martyred with Blessed John Larke for refusing to recognize the spiritual supremacy of the King of England.
Of all the references available, I believe Saint Germaine Cousin to be the best fit for this watch. She is the patron saint of abandoned peasant girls. What better visual representation of that than the lonely woman in the coat and the forest?
Then there is the lengendary Count of St. Germain, who is rumored to be immortal (or maybe even a vampire). He is represented quite often in literature, including Neil Gaiman’s The Sandman.
One of the representations of the Count of St. Germain is a French television program called “Le Collectionneur des cerveaux” or the “Collector of Minds.” I found a YouTube clip of the movie that has been dubbed into German:
Chess playing robots and piano virtuosos aside, I don’t really believe that the Collector of Minds was the basis for my St. Germain watch. For all I know, they were merely referring to the city, St. Germain in Quebec. They speak French there, don’t they?
In fact, the closest representation of the watch from independent sources is this:
Here is St. Germaine of Cousin alone and cloaked under a sprawling, but leafless tree. Very similar to the St. Germain watch from Swatch. Am I close or have I been thinking about my watch for FAR too long?
Can anyone out there direct me to what Swatch was thinking about when they designed the St. Germain watch?
I received this nice email from one of the readers and I think he’s totally correct!
Email Dated 10-14-08:
hi Laura
many thanks for featuring that classic French-style Swatch on your blog. I remembered my own one morning and googled “tu es hasard”, one of the few combinations I remembered (the other was “tu es vertige”) and yours was the single result.
I also loved my watch, which I owned from about 1989-92 I think. It seemed so expensive, classy, mysterious and pretentious. The original strap broke, and then it stopped working entirely.
It reminded me, back then, of Wim Wenders’ film Wings of Desire, and also of some academic theory I was reading at the time — and re-read today, which put me in mind of the watch. Jean Baudrillard wrote, in The Ecstasy of Communication, of the new cold universe, of “hazard, chance and vertigo”. It seemed more than chance and coincidence that those were two, or three (translated) of the terms on my watch, and it made the object seem even more “adult” and intelligent.
However! I think you have mistranslated, or I have always misunderstood the watch. I believe the watch is saying, with the small hand, “you are chance”, “you are vertigo”, and the long hand ALWAYS says “I want you”.
I don’t believe “je te veux espoir” and the other combinations are any kind of grammatical French, and that they do not mean “I want you hopefully” and so on.
That is, I think the watch can only say 12 things: “You are chance, I want you”, “You are hope, I want you”, “You are dreams, I want you”, and so forth.
But thanks again, because I really wanted to see that watch.
Email Dated 10-16-08:
hi Laura
Yes, I’d be very glad for you to include my thoughts about the watch., with my name if you like. The association with “Wings of Desire” is pretty tenuous as the watch evokes 1940s Paris more than 1980s Berlin (I agree with your correspondent that the name is meant to evoke the place, Paris St Germain, and probably a “Casablanca” feel), but I think it was the figure in the long coat, in black and white (or grey-green and white?) that reminded me of Wim Wenders’ film.
This photo may make the visual connection clear.
The parallel with the terms discussed by Baudrillard is also entirely coincidental I’m sure, but it added to my feeling that the watch was very adult, sophisticated and profound. In fact, I didn’t mention that my first serious girlfriend bought me that watch, perhaps for my 21st birthday — which is probably why it would not be fitting to have it again now, because it was something of that specific time and point in my life. I remember feeling that the watch face and strap were like a kind of romantic lost world, which I could immerse myself in by looking at them.
I also enjoyed your discussion of the Mondrian/”Studio Line” style watch, which is so wonderfully 1980s! I remember that advertisement well, and I also bought the product (specifically, the mousse) because of the advert and the Mondrian design. I’m sure if I smelled it now, the distinctive fragrance would immediately recall that time.
Like many things from the 80s, I think it may be better in memory, but your site provided some great nostalgia.
Please feel free to post this mail as well on your site, as it gives a bit more context to my experience of the St Germain watch, and the associations it had for me at the time. It is good to know that the watch meant so much to someone else, as well.
best wishes
Will Booker
Here is another example of France in the Thirties that reminds me of this style of art.
Via: WIL WHEATON dot TUMBLR, ckck: Colonne Morris dans le brouillard. Paris,…
The Swatch Club forums asked us to share one of our Swatch Moments. Here is one of mine:
Clark Edvick took me to the concert early. We waited for the Thompson Twins to take the stage. There was a HUGE Swatch hanging from the ceiling of the Salt Palace, counting down the moments before they would perform.
When they sang “Lay Your Hands On Me” we all threw our hands at the stage in unison. I had never seen the video, but Clark showed me how to do it. I watched the Swatch tick the evening away.
It was 1986.
P.S. Clark, if you’re out there, thank you for taking me to see the Thompson Twins. I hope your life is wonderfully full now and I’m wishing you the best that this world can give you.
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