Live Forever!

Official logo of my 50th birthday, 2019. 

Drawing by Kate. 

Found Note: Fuck You and Fuck Love

Note found in a public library:

Fuck you and fuck love.

1,000 Years of Dracula

AI-generated nightmare inspired by a child's spontaneous utterance: 1,000 Years of Dracula.

Horror!

The Hives Forever Forever The Hives

The Hives @ the Observatory, Santa Ana, CA; Sep., 2012.

I patted lead singer, Pelle Almqvist, on the back when he walked out through the crowd.

Yelp Avatar

2019

Every Meximelt

Personal ad placed in the Valentine's Day edition of a local newspaper (Bloomington, IN; Feb. 1992). It is a message from Larry to Laura Lynn. I'm guessing Larry was a Taco Bell employee and Laura Lynn was a customer.

At one point, Larry had apparently taken a photograph of Laura Lynn during one of her visits to his establishment & published it in the local newspaper along with a personal message of love. 

Laura Lynn,

You don't know me, but I love you.

I work at Taco Bell.

I was thinking maybe you love me too,

because you're there so much.

It's your smile I see when I melt the cheese on every Meximelt.

Please be mine.

Larry

[Originally posted on I'm Nacho Steppinstone, Mar. 9, 2004]

The Great Outdoors

That time I locked myself out of the house while sweeping leaves off the back patio.

Jah Love

Wall art in Los Angeles, CA.

The Plaid Brothers

 Jonnie and Todd Gilliom: The Plaid Brothers.

“We’re on a mission from mom.”

Found: Marilyn

Found while browsing one of my mother's old yearbooks.

Marilyn was apparently hell on wheels at Lancaster (Indiana) High School in the late 1960s.

Pyramid of Force

I found this carved into the road; I think in Laguna Beach in 2013.

I used to call it the pyramid of death, but I think it is actually the pyramid of force.

Pyramid of Force.

Force

Kill All Police.

Kill All the people. All seven billion.

Death all Police.

wtf?

Pokéfreakout

While I was catching pokemon on the beach before work, I looked up from my phone and saw this:

Reality glitch.

How Now?

One of many treasures Ericka has collected over the years is her set of "Colonial Cats," a series of cat dolls released when she was a little girl. Each cat doll represents one of the original 13 American colonies. 

 RE: post title - “How Now?” is one way colonial Americans greeted each other.

Bozeman Radiator Disaster

Here's a good radiator disaster pic:

Catching our antifreeze leakage in cooking pans.

It was in Bozeman, Montana, during our 1994 drive from Indiana to Alaska, when we sprang a radiator leak. We managed to limp into a Napa auto parts parking lot just before the engine overheated completely. We parked and let everything cool down, catching the leaking antifreeze in pans because we were afraid Napa might kick us off their lot if we flooded it with coolant.

As bad as that seemed, things only got worse from there. Among other disasters, our camp stove decided to give up on us too.

Laura with our faulty camp stove.

Things escalated fast after that. I was trying to help Laura with the stove when I managed to set a can of kerosene on fire. I looked down and saw the fluid around the spout starting to ignite. Without thinking, I hurled the can—straight at the Napa store building. It exploded almost immediately on impact.

Here's the result:

Fire at the Napa store.

I guess I was just thinking in terms of throwing it AWAY from the van and opposite of the van was Napa.

That got the store staff riled up more than antifreeze in their parking lot ever could have. Multiple staff members immediately came pouring out of the building wielding fire extinguishers. My first thought was to take a picture (above).

When brother Todd saw the explosion in his rear-view mirror, he just threw the van in neutral - coasted right over all those pans of antifreeze.

Laura fell down and peed her pants from laughing so hard.

It was freaking hilarious.

[Originally posted on I'm Nacho Steppinstone, Feb. 10, 2004]

Life, Jim Thompson

 “Life is a bucket of shit with a barbed wire handle.”

– Jim Thompson, Texas By The Tail

Jonnie the Clever Child

In 1970, I got my hand stuck in a chair and couldn't figure out how to pull it out. Instead of helping me, my parents took a picture and captioned it, “Jonnie the clever child." wtf.

Jonnie the clever child.

Ice Cream or Nuke?

Ice cream or nuke? Thanks AI!

Happy New Year, 2018

 Out with the old, in with the new. 

I'm Awesome

Ericka got me this awesome card. I love it.

Text inside reads, "You're Awesome!"

Yes!

First Santa

Anikka’s first visit with Santa Claus; Dec 2021. 

Santa wasn’t actually being scary immediately. Anikka just started crying like crazy when he welcomed her. He did the scary pose real quickly and on the fly for the benefit of a photo when her back was turned to him. He just did that for a second and I’m glad Ericka was ready with the camera.

Mesa Verde

With Ericka at awe-inspiring Mesa Verde National Park, home of the cliff dwellers; May, 2015.

Easter, 1992

Sitting across the street from a church, eating easter candy.

Easter, 1992.

(L to R: Johanns, me, Jason S., Brother Todd).

Midwestern Working Class Badasses

This was taken in a restaurant/bar where I used to work in the late 1980s, I was taking a picture of something and the guy in the middle goes, "Hey - take a picture of me and my brothers."

Midwestern Working Class Badasses.

I don't know why he directed me to take their photo. This was before digital cameras and email. There was no photographic instant gratification. Film had to be developed before you could see the pictures. So there was no way the photo was intended for their personal viewing. I guess he just wanted a record of their "brotherhood."  So, I'm posting it here for posterity.  

This is kind of how I imagine everybody looking in the old west. Then, they may have been heroes, or would have at least had a lot more influence, good or bad, in a less civilized era.

Note: The guy on the right is flipping the bird with both hands. "Fuck the World." haha

Green Porcelain Beauties

Breathtaking green urinals at the Los Angeles Theater. 

They don’t make them like this anymore. If they did, they would probably charge more to use them.

Dreaming of a Plaid Christmas

 Jonnie and Todd, the Gilliom Bros. - Christmas in the 1970s.

Birth Announcements

Baby announcements for Anikka and Llyr, posted on social media:

Anikka Kathalyn.

Llyr Liev.

Supplement to "My Experience Falling Through a Bathroom Ceiling"

Referring back to my earlier post, My Experience Falling Through a Bathroom Ceiling, I’ve always wished someone had taken a photo of the moment. Thanks to the magic of A.I., I’ve now created a rough approximation of what it might have looked like to see me crashing through the ceiling of a high school restroom.

1.) First try - I look like Gary Neuman, but thought this image suffered from the lack of  falling ceiling debris. It also missed the detail that I was wearing a suit jacket.

2.) This is more like it. It included the broken ceiling and showed me coming down on top of a toilet. Also, I look like Ryan.

3.) I look like Brother Todd in this one - kick open the door!

4.) This one captures my confusion pretty well, though the toilet is halfway up the wall.

Anyway, I guess you would have had to have been there.

Found Note: My Grandparents Think I'm Gay

Note found in a public library:

My grandparents think I'm gay.

The Golden Lion

I got this when we saw Dick the Bruiser wrestle for WWA at the Fort Wayne Coliseum in the late '70s or very early '80s. I've kept it for the next 40 years, so may it be preserved digitally forevermore.

Tim Golden

The Golden Lion

WWA

Vending Machine Rant

One night in the Nautilus Marine break room, a tall, bearded, drunken hillbilly staggered in to buy something from a vending machine. He was dressed in a camouflaged jacket and rubber boots. He claimed the change machine short-changed him 25 cents which triggered what can only be described as a complete reversion to savagery.

I recorded his comments in a journal I was keeping at the time:

"A tall bearded hillbilly...claims the dollar bill changer only gave him 75 cents back for his dollar. His initial comment was, 'Hey!...It only gave me 75 cents!! But, hey!...That's all I need!' After he finished his snack though, he started beating on the change machine and yelling for somebody to 'Call the fuckin' cops'. 

He tried to write on the wall that the machine owed him money, but his pen was dry; so he hurled it against a nearby table and sat down with his face in his hands. Soon, he started to demand that somebody, 'Call the fuckin' cops'!!"  

"He says, 'If I robbed a liquor store, they'd call the cops on me; but this machine can rip me off a quarter and the cops don't even care.'" 

"Now he's swaying a lot. He can barely hold his head up straight. He's saying, 'Fuck America' and 'God Damn America' over and over and over again. Now he just added, 'God Bless Alaska'!! He'll be asleep soon." 

"Oh! He got a second wind. He's raving (to nobody in particular, just in case anybody's listening) - 'I live like an animal!...I'm a savage!!...If you don't believe me, if you think I'm full of shit, just live with me for a year - I'll show you how an animal lives'!!! ... 'I've been sleeping by railroad tracks and under trucks for years, usually with no heat"! [Jonnie comments: "ha ha, "usually"?] 'We're living in the end times...and when the cities fall, I'll be thriving'!!"

Packing Crew, Nautilus Marine; Valdez AK, 1991.

[Originally posted on I'm Nacho Steppinstone, Sep. 27, 2004]

Red, White, & Brown

Dropped (not by me) on the sidewalk in Laguna Beach, California.

Red, White, & Brown.

Hulk Hands Birthday Party

Orange, CA; Aug., 2004.

Recently, I gave my Hulk hands a holiday vacation by the swimming pool to pay them back for all the good times they had given me. 

Bedtime Tingler

Chuck Tingle might have restored my joy of reading.

Publisher's summary for "Bigfoot Pirates Haunt My Balls":

After years of having their natural habitat encroached upon, bigfeet are finally forced to leave the forest and head out into the open ocean. At first, we think that it's the last we’ll ever see of them, until bigfoot piracy becomes rampant across the Seven Seas.

When the most notorious bigfoot pirate, Lorko the Black, is killed off the coast of Santa Monica, a man named Andy begins to feel a mysterious throbbing in his balls. After a trip to the doctor, Andy soon learns that what seemed like a coincidence is actually an acute case of haunted balls, and the only prescription is a bigfoot ghost pirate gangbang!

Now, that piques my interest. Who cares about Merry Christmas, Alex Cross?

Bad Brains

H.R. from Bad Brains, Santa Ana Observatory; Nov., 2012.

Bad Brains.

Shriner Autograph Collection

In 1988, I attended the annual Tarzan Zerbini Circus in Fort Wayne, Indiana, an event hosted by the Mizpah Indiana Shriners. Upon entering the arena, each attendee received a program filled with advertisements and information about the circus. The opening pages featured yearbook-style photographs of various Shriner officials, many of whom were present at the event that evening.

After the circus ended, I decided to stick around, program in hand, hoping to collect their autographs:

As esoteric as they may appear, the Shriners were all pretty down to earth guys...not very mysterious or confounding at all.

 

The only autograph missing from my collection is Mick Ulmer, "Oriental Guide;" so if anybody knows him, hook me up.

Comments from original post on I'm Nacho Steppinstone:

"And they really DO look all mysterious and oriental!!! Absolutely NOT like average office guys only with stupid hats on,nooooo." - Sandra

"Hey, Jonnie- Mick Ulmer lives right here in Bluffton, Indiana. That is, he used to." - Andi

"WOW!!! Does he live in a castle?" - Jonnie