"There were still remaining some few prisoners who were not wounded. These were asked by L'Ollonais if any more Spaniards did lie farther on in ambuscade? To whom they answered, there were. Then he commanded them to be brought before him, one by one, and asked if there was no other way to be found to the town but that? This he did out of a design to excuse, if possible, those ambuscades. But they all constantly answered him, they knew none. Having asked them all, and finding they could show him no other way, L'Ollonais grew outrageously passionate; insomuch that he drew his cutlass, and with it cut open the breast of one of those poor Spaniards, and pulling out his heart with his sacrilegious hands, began to bite and gnaw it with his teeth, like a ravenous wolf, saying to the rest: I will serve you all alike, if you show me not another way."

-from The Buccaneers by A. O. Exquemelin

Labels: action, blood, crooks, culture, cutlass, damage, death, earrings, history, pirate, popeye, swindlers, time, yaaaaaaH

Why, remains of misbehaving children and the severed feet of those who failed to tie their shoes properly of course....

Labels: bandages, blood, knife, phonecam, photography, wonder, wood chipper

Happy Birthday, M.K. my M.B.
In your honor, here's a tribute to something you hipped me to:

The Life of Riley starring William Bendix:


You, falling asleep to it in your room night after night, me, wondering about its staying power. I was too young to grow up with radio, but it was easy to see this was expert writing suited to the medium. "What a revoltin' development!" became part of the phraseology around here, and Digger O'Dell one of the ghosts that haunted our senses of humor.

But William Bendix wasn't good as Riley because he got lucky. He had a prodigious career, and if you never experience him in anything else, see him in Lifeboat if you haven't yet. It was post-Riley that I reexperienced his performance for the brilliance that it was.


This picture links to archive.org's complete listing of episodes in .mp3 format


This picture below is a link to 174 streaming episodes of the Life of Riley. He's bound to do a couple of his meat commercials in there somewhere.


Here's his IMDb listing
Here's a (it's amazing!) tool that shows when he'll be on U.S. TV next
And here's his Wikipedia entry


Happy Birthday, and....................poopoopeepee!!!!!

I know, I know- less words.

Labels: 1953, 1957, 50's, ads, advertising, adverts, anniversary, archive.org, awesome, birthday, blood, comedy, fun, funny, Los Angeles, public domain, time

The birch I cut should lead to another Magic Wand. I loved the birch and it had some emotional meaning. I saved a little immature branch, because when you sanded the white ones, the finish was ruined. I'm thinking wound copper spiral and embedded baby tooth this time.

Here's the first one I did:


It's from the tip of our Christmas tree from a couple of years ago.


Sanded and varnished for magical look and feel.


Dot of my blood permanently on the business end.


A piece of sea glass from the beach Crail, Scotland - the wand is bored through in order to capture sunlight.

All in all when you point this you're really pointing something.
Look for the birch one eventually.

And lastly, don't worry, I don't believe in magic; Penn Jillette has killed believing in anything for me. Ecch- it's like Camus.

Labels: baby teeth, birch, blood, Christmas, Christmas Tree, copper, magic, Penn Jillette, sea glass, Teller, wand