Mom and dad were concerned by Jasmine, both about her new look and her territoriality. But young girls need to express their inner boy band.

In Kindergarten, half the girls in Jasmine’s class wore their favorite princess costumes to school. Not Jasmine. Even if she, like, owned the rights to Princess Jasmine by unassailable playground logic. No, that was her Donnie Walhberg phase, she really went for the edgy, dangerous look back then. Over time, she softened a bit on Donnie, and moved on to other, more gently benign singers. But she still wore her leather jacket, well into the fourth grade.

Frankly, I’m a little surprised that her parents bothered to laminate this heartthrob. Really, they only last so long, I wouldn’t go investing in an acid-free mounting board, if you catch my meaning.

Maybe I’m reading this wrong. Maybe in some cultures, it’s considered appropriate to mount a mid-adolescent teen idol to a little girl’s room, to scare away the fairies. I’m not sure that actually works, Justin Beiber’s obviously some sort of twisted changeling made from an enchanted stick. So, scratch that theory.

Savers on South Lamar, Austin

Okay, Goodwill, let’s just pause, step back a bit, and address some quality control issues, okay? Just a few…little…things. This goes beyond “make sure the Easter Bunny has a head when you sell them,” and far, far past “the box with the picture of the small personal stereo should ideally contain a small personal stereo, and not just be a box, because we cannot sell just a box, no matter how good our intentions are we are NOT trying to sell the flash.” No, this is a very basic, very simple concept.

If you sell a plate, rinse off the plate, okay? Seriously. We know it’s used, we don’t need a demonstration.

“Hi, I’m Nelma.”

“Hi, Nelma. You’re in a safe place here.”

“I’m with the group because…”

“Let it out, Nelma. Let the pain out.”

“sniff.”

“It’s okay, baby, you’re with friends here.”

“I came here because I have a perfectly flat face and a perfectly flat head and my hair’s done up like Wolverine and I’ve stuck blueberries to the side of my head.”

“That’s good baby, you’re with friends here. We all got flat faces and flat heads and Wolverine hair and blueberries on the sides of our heads. We got to stick together.”

“I love you all.”

“We love you too, Logan.”

“Logan?”

“I mean, Nelma.”

…So, Goodwill?
Yes?
This is about that thing we were talking about before?
Thing? We were talking about a thing?
Yeah, the, uh, thing about washing plates before you sell them.

Uh…why? Were you talking about something like that?
Yeah, just like, five paragraphs ago. Before the crazy snub-nosed victorian girl with the salad bowl for a hat.
She was pretty cool.
You’re changing the subject.
No, I’m not. You never said anything about washing plates. I totally didn’t hear that. La la la la.
You’ve got your fingers in your ears, Goodwill.
Do not.

Okay, just…never mind.

You know, it’s been like five years and I’m not sure where “Plate with Food” came from. I have a vague recollection of thinking it was the most disgusting thing I’d seen at the Savers on South Lamar, but I was proven wrong later. Pretty pretty princess…which, really, isn’t a plate, but it was round, and that’s kind of on topic, right?…from Texas Thrift on I35 and 51st, Princess Wolverine from Salvation Army on 183 near 620, Austin.

So, I was puttering through Savers, and I saw a rabbit. The strange thing was, it was weirdly faceless, a blank staring thing like out of a “Doctor Who Easter Special” or something, where hordes of faceless rabbits animated by concrete space Mods attack the planet (or something equally absurd). It was, in fact, a picture frame, but seeing it all pictureless was a little scary, unpleasant, faintly surreal. Not unlike high school cafeteria pizza, possibly a little less edible.

I thought “yes, this would be a lot cuter if there was a picture in it.” Obviously, that was the designer’s intent, why not honor them? It’s not meant to be faceless. Give it a mouth. Give it eyes, let it see. Give it a nose, let it twitch.

In view of that impassioned plea for anthropomorphics,  just one face was appropriate.

Heeeere’s Johnny!!

But this opened up a whole world of possibilities.

How about eternally semi-young quasi-diva, Cher? Or gonzo journalist Hunter S. Thompson? Those would be some AWESOME easter eggs. The colors would be fantastic. And the candies…well, just don’t eat the little red ones.

Or take it down a political angle with “Hope” Obama, and “The Gipper”?

I’m personally in love with bunny Reagan. I would have totally voted for ANY candidate in a fluffy bunny suit.

Hi, Chris. Your cold, deathlike stare is really impinging on the spirit of this festive upcoming holiday. Oh, I fear you, and I would fear you as a rabbit, too. The bunny suit would mean you had plans.

How about fresh-faced adolescent teen heartthrob, Justin Beiber, and for maximum contrast, gaunt writer of the weird and fantastic, the always horse-like H.O.P. Lovecraft?

Or maybe…plumber’s crack?

Would YOU like to Be the Bunny? Let us know, and the management will add it to our Easter Rabbitacular!

Savers on South Lamar, Austin

There’s a lot to be said for reality TV. Or at least you could spend a lot of time trying to list all the programs. I’m not sure why you would want to do this, it’d be a bit like rolling a boulder up a hill while roller skating, but maybe you’ve got your own thing going on, everybody needs hobbies.

But I do like Gordon Ramsay. He’s charmingly hostile, has a puckish exterior, and probably knows his way around a spaghetti alla puttanesca, for example. But do I like him this much?

Is he really all this? Is Ramsay “Damsels with floral wreaths following behind him, singing his praises and scattering flowers in his wake, while cherubim and seraphim in constant chorus endlessly repeat ‘Hosanna in the highest, blessed is he who comes after local news on Wednesdays’” great?

Yeah, probably.

Here’s the sad part. I came in next week on my usual pilgrimage, and that same parade of vestal virgins, angels, and possibly a creepy little lawn gnome were prancing about, beatifying a resin-cast frog in a bikini top. So, I have to say, they’re either fickle, or easily impressed.

Most Holy Bobble-Headed Ramsay’s miraculous apparition seen by this lowly mortal at Savers near 2222, Austin.

Actually, probably not, this really isn’t about Michael Jackson, though it certainly begins with Michael Jackson.

And it’s waaaay too easy to let the Michael Jackson jokes flow like a mighty river. No, Michael just contextualizes this.

For more context, this IS from the Blue Hanger, that great burial ground where Goodwill sends its crappiest crap to the compost heap. As far as I can tell, crap is thrown, hot-potato style, from store to store–sometimes you can follow a single piece of horrible pottery to three different store locations, even coming full circle to its original home. When something is deemed unsellable–and it’s AMAZING what Goodwill can sell–it’s sent to the Blue Hanger, loaded unceremoniously into a bin, and sold for next to nothing.

So, an incomplete Michael Jackson puzzle-poster, from his mid-80′s glory days when his skin was pretty close to his original color, and Bubbles hadn’t become a running joke yet. On that note, I never heard about the llama. You know, I think I’d respect him, even fear him, that much more if the llama had been the running joke.

Anyway, this is not the time to mock the dead. Particularly on Memorial Day. No, this is really about satanic blue butterflies.

I remember this list. It’s like the list from Kill Bill, where Uma Thurman methodically picked off her foes from the bottom up. Whoever it is just recently marked Rusty off their list–with a star, which I can only infer means “all his family, loved ones, and everyone he holds dear,” and has been working methodically ever since Kevin and…ah…Romain? Ramum?

No clue. All that we do know is that Mad Dog is the Leader. Whether this means that Mad Dog is the last one to feed to the evil blue butterfly god to appease his endless anger, or that Eddie and Mike are the last ones living on Mad Dog’s personal hit list, no-one can say. But I wouldn’t want to be Mike right now.

Found at North Austin Blue Hanger on McNeil