A Store for Pop Culture

I'm going to go off-topic a little this post (though hopefully in a way you'll still find entertaining). My friend Dean Wesley Smith has just opened a new store out here on the Oregon coast (in Lincoln City, to be specific) devoted to pop culture collectibles. We're talking all manner of nostalgia goodness here, but primarily toys, comics, marbles, and jewelry. It's shaping up to be a pretty amazing store, and you should definitely check it out if you're ever anywhere near Lincoln City. (Pop Culture Collectibles, Streetcar Village, 6334 S. Hwy. 101, Lincoln City, OR)

The store is located on the far south end of Lincoln City in Streetcar Village. Streetcar Village is an institution on the coast, a fun collection of antique stores and an auction house, unmistakable because of the antique streetcar grafted onto the front of one of the buildings.

The interior of the store is something of an accomplishment in itself. The storefront had been unoccupied for a long, long time. It had suffered extensive fire damage back in some dim bit of history, and the wooden floor had settled for that you could have used it for a skateboard park. Well, to be honest, that floor is still kind of a fun-house, but it's better than it used to be, and the interior has entirely new wiring, lighting, floor, ceilings, door, and interior walls, courtesy of Dean. And when I say that, I don't mean that he hired a contractor. He was his own contractor, and did a substantial percentage of the work himself. It was a back-breaking marathon of construction.

I got to watch.
These pictures were taken several weeks ago, when the store was still early in stocking. The front section of the store is primarily toys, games, and jewelery (including a large selection of vintage watches and some bead art). Up here you'll find everything from collectible teddy bears to Transformers. You'll might even find a few GI Joes if you look around.
This is another look back towards the front of the store. The tarp is the corner covering a last bit of construction that was still being cleaned up.
This is looking toward the rear section of the store. This will eventually house tens of thousands of comics, a huge selection of Hot Wheels, vintage marbles (Dean is something of an expert on antique marbles, and he has some amazing stuff). The alcove in the back is the office and eBay area. Dean is an eBay power-seller under the name "Pokerhat."
Here are the Hot Wheels shelves. These have since been completely filled with some gazillion cars. There's also a good selection of mint-in-package Hot Wheels and other die-cast available. The cases in the foreground will be filled with marbles going all the way back to the Civil War, and you can see a selection of fast-food character glasses as well.
This is the early stages of getting the comics out. This is a huge job. Dean has an incredible inventory of comics, and his section is going to be filled to the brim, and still won't hold but a fraction of them. The racks on the wall will display some of the rarer and more expensive items.

More of the comic section. The bins on top and the file drawers underneath will all be completely filled with comics. The ramp connecting the front and rear sections makes a good place to test out Hot Wheels cars.
More of the toy section. This is a lot more crowded since this picture was taken.
Okay, disclaimer here. Dean's an old-friend, I have some stuff in here on consignment, and there's also a section of my wife Chris' bead-art in a case up front, but heck, I'd think this place was cool even if I was a disinterested stranger. Plan your entire vacation around it. Yeah.

Weekend finds

I confess, I do love to shop. This Saturday I drove into Salem, Oregon, to see my niece's last high-school play (she's about to graduate) and managed to slip in a few hours of shopping time. Not only did I find the solar yard lights and the new TV stand I was looking for, but I also snagged a couple of good 1/6th deals.

The first was a Goodwill find, a huge set of plastic bags taped together which obviously had all or most of a Power Team lookout tower. I've been looking at these for a while, but they've never quite seemed worth the expense to me. But when I saw this bag marked at $12.99, I obviously couldn't pass on it. I grabbed it and ran for the checkout without examining it further. There were clearly some helmets and weapons and other items in there, but I just considered it gravy and didn't inspect closely.

Only later did I untape the two bags for a closer look, and discovered that, not only did I have the tower, I also had a Power Team "Military Life" play set! While the tower seems to be missing a couple pieces (the weapons, which I probably wouldn't have mounted for AT duty anyhow), the Military Life set seems complete, and many of the accessories were still in unopened bags! The bunk had never been assembled, and a clear rubber band still held the locker closed (with the bag of soft-goods still inside). I already have two Military Life sets and have been thinking about getting another, so this is excellent. The local AT now has a serious bunk-room available.



My other find was at Big Lots. Most of the Power Team (except for some Trailwalker sets on a high shelf) stuff was gone, and Joe was missing in action. But I did spot a stack of boxes, and the name "Dennis Miller" caught my eye. Sure enough, it was a stack of 12" talking Dennis Miller figures, all marked at $5. The figure looked like crap (a decent head on a sub-Ken doll body) but for $5, the suit looks good. I took home two.

Add this to the "Unknown Soldier" and Donald Trump I picked up at Tuesday Morning, and suddenly I have a bunch of excellent suits available for kitbashing.

The Dennis suit isn't as nice as the Donald's (not quite as crisp, Velcro closures, and the shirt has no sleeves under the coat) but it's decent, and unlike Donald, Dennis has real socks and shoes (Trump's are molded on). But both are excellent for the bucks, even if you toss the figures straight into the trash.

Overall, a good Joe day.

Moving past Angry Joe Day

Well, Angry Joe Day 2006 was a great success. Thanks to everyone who participated, either by entering the contest, donating prizes, or just in spirit. The plan for now is, if Joe isn't back on retail shelves by March 1, 2007 (and right now, there are no prospects that he will be), then we'll do this again next year.

Remember, this isn't just me, this is all of you. Feel free to take Angry Joe Day and make it your own. Find your own ways to celebrate. Start your own contests, whatever. All I ask is that you keep it in the spirit of fun in which it is intended. We don't want to piss Hasbro off, we just want to remind them that there are people out here who still care, maybe make them smile, and hopefully one day have somebody in charge say, "what the heck, let's give it another try!"

I also wanted to take a moment to talk about "Tanker" Dave and his great 1/6th vehicle contest. If you haven't gone over to his site to check out the winners, you should. Dave asked me to help with the judging, and let me say that it was hard. The quality of all the entries was very good, and the top finishers were just amazing. Congrats to them all, and a big thanks to Dave for sponsoring the contest.

Well, the good thing about the AJD photo contest is that it saved me from a month of posting much of anything of my own. The bad thing is that it's been forever since I posted anything of my own. Time to change that. Several new items have arrived here lately.

Most significantly, I found some thrift-store trains for my friend Eric, who buys, sells, and restores toy and model trains. When I called him, Eric reported that he'd seen some Joes from an estate being unpacked at a place he knew, and that he was going back that day. He was a little vague about what they might be (he really doesn't know GI Joes), only that they were 12," old, and some had fuzz. He set off to the store to see what he could do.



I live 60 miles across a mountain range from Eric, so I couldn't just bop over there to see what he'd found, and in fact, I wasn't able to pick them up for about a week. What I found was a grocery bag with five, nude, fuzzhead Joes in various states of disrepair. Several had pretty good fuzz, one had intact kung-fu grip hands, and among them was a decent looking talking astronaut with a semi-working talk-box. There was also a bag with an assortment of uniform items (some AT, some home-made, some undetermined) a few accessories (the silver astronaut boots, a mystery tape-recorder), and a bag full of incomplete (but mostly dressed) Megos. I don't recall exactly what I ended up getting these all for after we were all done, but I think it was about $25!

You see two of the guys in the picture. The sweater and shirt are GI Joe from the bag. The pants are from the bag and may be from the same Jungle Survival set as the shirt, but they have a zipper, not a snap. I'm speculating that mom put the zipper in, since some of the other uniform items included were (nicely) home-made. The faded camo pants are childhood vintage from my spares-box. The boots are all modern.



This is may Talking Astronaut, pulled apart for cleaning and repair of the talker. I still haven't figured out how to remove those nasty stains on the body, but they shouldn't show when he's dressed (I need a white jumpsuit though). I seem to be making progress on repairing the talking mechanism using instructions I found here. I'm really looking forward to getting him fixed and back-together.

I am a total novice, by the way, at the business of cleaning and repairing old Joes, so any tips and advice would be appreciated.


Finally, while I was in "the big city" to pick up my new-old Joes, I hit a few Goodwill stores in search of 1/6th stuff. The first store (one where I almost find something) came up empty. The second turned up only a Storm-Shadow from the two-pack minus missing everything except his uniform. I was standing in line at the checkout when I happened to look up near the front of the store, where some baby strollers and similar items were displayed, and was amazed to see a Hasbro M8 Scout-car!

I jumped out of line and trotted over. It was missing the turret and cover for the crew compartment, but that was okay. It saved me from any temptation to keep it stock, and not convert it into an AT vehicle. Question was, how much? My wife was waiting in the car (working on her ALIAS novel on her laptop like a good writer with a deadline) and I'd already spent Joe money that day, so I didn't want to press my luck.

I rolled it around, looking for a price tag. Finally found it under the nose. $3.99! Score! Well, she might justifiably use the "where will you put it?" complaint, but price would not be an issue.



Oh, and let me leave you with one last bit of kitbashing. I was doing some reorganization today, and spotted this guy in a box looking 85% as you see him here. I barely remember throwing him together a few months back. He was just a bunch of stuff thrown together with no real plan. The major armor pieces are from a Hasbro 12" "Batman Forever, Mr Freeze" figure, the same one who provided the head for my infamouse "Der Governator" figure. The base figure is a Max Steel Ultra Action body with a HOF Storm Shadow (I think) head in a black jumpsuit of unknown origin. Tonight, I swapped the black combat boots he'd original been wearing for some sci-fi looking Max Steel boots, added the arm armor, and fiddled with his headgear (he's actually wearing an Action Man helmet over a Spy Troops hard mask over Storm Shadow's molded mask.

No, I can't tell you who or what he's supposed to be, but he looks kind of cool.

Goodwill Hunting

Okay, so by the calendar, I missed a day. But given that I posted twice on each of the two previous days, I don't consider myself too off-course. Now, on to business...

I have a hard time driving past a thrift store. It's an especially good time to visit them now, with one-sixth action figures harder to find in stores, and their popularity with kids well past the last peak, it's easier to find GI Joes in Goodwill than Wal-Mart these days.

I've been finding lots lately. Mainly I find nude or partially dressed figures, CC Joes, some SA Joes, and other figures of interest like 21st Century guys and "Super-Action" body Max Steels.

It's rare to find a completely dressed figure, much less a completely equipped one, but this guy I found yesterday comes close.

I consider him one of my "best-ever" Goodwill finds. Not only is this a Joe that I wanted, and missed at retail, but he's all (or nearly all) there. Price (you can still see the tag on his chest), $2.99.

Now, to shop regularly at thrift stores is to be both a archeologist, and an anthropologist, studying among the ruins of late 20th, early 21st century western civilization. After a time, you start to notice things. Actually, I think it would be most instructive for toy designers to study thrift stores, searching for clues as to what children keep, and what they discard, how they play with toys, and how they break them.

What can we learn from studying this amazingly intact specimen?

1. It was almost undoubtedly played with by a child. Though he didn't love it to death, it also wasn't (as is sometimes found) an unwanted gift, taken from the box but otherwise hardly touched. I like to think it was loved enough to be taken care of well (thus its intact accessories), but possibly the child played with for a while and then lost interest.

In any case, this contradicts the idea that the high-end, more realistic GI Joes went only to adult collectors. I'll attest from the bits and pieces I find, the kids usually get them too.

2. The left arm joints were all twisted around backwards. I find this (or some variation of "twisted limb syndrome") on almost every dressed Joe I find at a thrift. The kids can't figure out how those hidden joints work beneath the clothing, and they get them twisted around. I remember this frustration with my own childhood Joes. It's a problem that goes back to the original body style.

Note that this doesn't happen with "super-action" Max Steels, as the joints are designed differently than Hasbro bodies, and are nearly kid-proof despite the double knee and elbow joints. Hasbro never quite got that right.

3. The oxygen tank was obviously removed and replaced. It seems like the shoulder straps may have come out of the buckles, and the child couldn't figure out how to replace them. So he strapped the tank on upside-down, hanging down the leg. This is almost logical, and kind of looks cool. I've since refixed the tank on his back, but having struggled with the buckles, I understand the kid's frustration.

4. Note the thing in the figure's left hand. I believe this is a projectile from a Spider-man figure, and this is strong evidence that the child actually played with the figure. It also shows that kids still mix-and-match their toys. What did it represent to the child? Was it a tool, a weapon, a torch, or a flashlight? We'll never know, but in these pre-fab-out-of-the-box times, any shred of young creativity I can find gladdens my heart.

How did Joe end up at Goodwill? Also impossible to know. Maybe the family moved. Maybe mom cleaned the kids room and threw out "extra" toys (don't you hate it when moms do that?). Maybe the child outgrew the toy, or even lost it somewhere.

We can't really know. All I can say, is Joe is safe now, and will be well cared for. Someday, when I'm not around any more, the toy will move on. And maybe someday, when that kid is 40 or 50, that kid will remember that long-lost toy with a nostalgia and longing.

And maybe, if he is very lucky, he can have it back.