Vintage CC & Ginger at the Tiki Bar

It’s a December Friday night in the sub-tropics of South Florida. While most of the country is getting frosty with the start of winter, here it’s 72° with a light, cool breeze. The wife is out of town on biz, and I’ve got the Tiki Bar to myself.

So I’m doing an old fashioned MAN’S Night. Yeah, swingers, just like in the ’50s…I’m grilling a giant ole T-bone on the grill, am working on some hobbies in the garage, and have just poured myself a cocktail at the Tiki Bar on the lanai. There’s Miles Davis playing in the background, and the party lights are on. It’s like I’m in the movie Picnic, except Kim Novack ain’t here.

If you put your mind to it, you can live like it’s the atomic age. Here’s my kicks tonight:

The Project:

Like all collectors of vintage finery, I have a few things that need a little TLC. Case in point: My father’s 1953 Roadmaster Luxury Liner Bicycle. There’s a whole story that goes along with this bike, which I will roll out in a future post. The short version is he had it in the ’50s, gave it to a cousin in Philly in the early ’60s, managed to get it back in the ’70s and restored it. Then it got stolen around 1980…and by some krazy miracle we got it back two weeks later. In the mid-’80s to restored it

My old man's ’53 Roadmaster Luxury Liner

myself, and have used it since. A few years ago one of the tires blew out, and it’s been sitting in the garage since. Well, it’s time for a new restoration, and yesterday I fixed the tires and took her for a spin. With that knee-action front suspension, she sure takes the bumps nice. Tonight I’m re-doing the seat with original-style leather. Sure is easier than working on the ’53 Chevy!

The Dinner:

1.3 lb T-Bone steak on the charcoal grill, with baked potatoes, chopped spinach and grilled buttered onions on the side. I’ll eat out on the lanai by the pool tonight, under the light of the Tiki Torches. I think I’ll put on some Martin Denny while I dine.

The Cocktail:

I have a few bottles of liquor from the 1950’s and ’60s, given to me by some very generous kats. Tonight I’m imbibing a 1966 Canadian Club and Ginger Ale on the rocks. I first heard of a CC & Ginger in a Mike Hammer novel…he orders a few through the story, mostly at neighborhood watering holes in Manhattan. I haven’t seen a tap room that looks like it belongs in a Micky Spillane novel in about 20 years…I’m willing to bet dimes to donuts very few still exist, none in the Sunshine State…so I have to make due on my own. Just looking at the bottle makes me feel like I’ve gone back in time 50 years, so I’m in the groove.

Night Cap:

When the steak settles and I’m too beat to play with the bike anymore, I’ll settle in with some time with the groove tube, then when I get bored of that I’ll pick out a few tunes on the tenor sax, which I’ve been neglecting the last few nights. Time to crank up the A Train and take a ride into Bluesville.

So that’s my plan for this fine dark. The conversations will be one-sided, or maybe with the parrot or the cat. But that’s oke, I can dig a little time away from the little lady…as long as she’s back tomorrow

-Tiki Chris Pinto, AKA Mack, AKA Zoot

The Roadmaster and my ’53 Chevy, both up in the air and needing repair...kind of like me...

How to be a Hipster in 1958: Read COOL Magazine, Man!

Don’t be a four-corner square, Jack. You want to know what all the Cool kids are doing? They’re hip to COOL Magazine, America’s Coolest Teenage Rag!

This copy my Mama bought new in 1958. It features a spread on George Burns’ son, Ronnie, plus Platter Party ideas, cool threads for tigresses, and a scribble on how to lay down a kickin’ kiss.

But my fave part of this rag mag is the Hipster’s Dictionary. Man, any zotep zombie can be a real keen jelly bean if they read this magazine! Just memorize a few hip phrases like “let’s buzz around the barrel” (let us partake in the eating of food) or “Let’s take a treat on the main beat” (let us congregate where all the ‘in’ people are) and you’ll go from a moldy-minded miser to a zoolie hipster with the most in a flash, Jack! There are several pages from A to Z of hipster lingo, plus a few columns of phrases so you’ll be really in the know.

Now, I want you kats and kittens to knock me your peepers for a few ticks, while I lay down this jazz. And when you get to a mugshot you dig, click on it, and it will blow up to actual size so you can read the feed without flippin’ your wig, dig?

COOL Magazine: The Hipster’s Dictionary, Definition of Hip, Hep & Hipster

There are a lot of kats who zonk out over hip, hep, hep cat and hipster. Well, here’s the definitions straight from the source, the Cool Mag Hipster’s tome from 1958:

“HEP: An archaic word meaning “in the know”, replaced by “Hip”.

HEP CATS: Cats & Kittens who read this this publication*

HIP: Up to date, cool. A person who knows what’s going on. Replaces the word “Hep”.

HEP CAT: Hip Cat and Hep Cat not used very often. Replaced by the word “Hipster”.

HIPSTER: A cool cat or kitten who knows what’s going on.”

*They meant COOL Magazine. I mean Tiki Lounge Talk, dig?

So, essentially, you’d be a real Hep Cat for reading COOL magazine, and that would automatically make you hip, but a Hipster would never be called Hep because he’d be too hip for hep, are you hip to this jazz? Groovy. So what that means is that even in 1958, swing-era Hep Cats were still considered cool Jives. And since jive changes with the ages, we kool bachelor-pad-type hot-roddin’ Tiki bar-boozin’ Swingers can feel free to lay down our riffs with hip, hep, or whatever the hell we want without flippin’ anyone’s wig, dig? Fantabulous!

COOL Magazine…How to Plan a Successful Platter Party

Now, I know all you kids out there really want to have a cool party like the one in the photo, with your beer-guzzling teenage brother (on the left) and funny-looking nine-year-old cousin who whines a lot. Well, our prayers have been answered. Angela, the swingin’ tigress Special Interests Editor at COOL Magazine, has laid down a scribble with all you need to know. She hits on such important subjects as having hot spaghetti with your pizza, giving little prizes like dented hubcaps, and making sure you have plenty of groovy records of Rock ’n’ Roll, Bop & Lindy to dance to. She is also very sure to pepper the article with lots of jive terms from the Hipster’s Dictionary. Imagine that!

COOL Magazine: Fashions for Spring & Summer, 1958

Those of you who are into retro and vintage clothing will flip for this. Our friend Angela once again graces us with her far out knowledge of what hip kittens want. But this time she drops the jive and writes like she’s got a byline in Harper’s. In fact, the whole spread looks sorta out of place in this rag. You’d think COOL Magazine would have spread with dolls dressed in Capris and off-the-shoulder tops, or blue jeans and leather jackets. Or black sweaters and thigh-high boots. Or, I dunno, leopard leotards. Anyway, if you click on the image you can blow it up to read all about it. Can you say “early product placement”?

COOL Magazine: Part of the spread on cover boy Ronnie Burns

This kid actually got a 16-Page spread in this issue of COOL. Imagine one star getting that much print today, huh? Especially since he was an aspiring star, the son of George Burns and Gracie Allen. (If you don’t know who they are, well, you better Google ’em). Even with all this press he never really made stardom, but he gave us a great bunch of pix that show how a cool boy of the late 50’s should be. See him working on his Corvette sports car (I suspect that’s the first time he saw under a hood in his life), clean his gun, read on the patio, swim, play ping-pong with his shirt nicely tucked in, and go Christmas shopping with his mother…just like…eh…all the…um…cool kids…yeah. (Why ain’t he smoking?)

Fun Advertisements in COOL Magazine

This rag is riddled with ads, as you might guess. Of course Marketing was in its baby stages in the ’50s, so they still didn’t really have the whole “We cater to the teenage crowd” mindset just right, just yet.

This allowed for fantastic placement of ads for things like “Record Jamboree”, featuring hit albums of Polkas, Honky Tonk Piano, and Ragtime…you know, the stuff hip teenagers love to listen to. Or maybe the ever-popular “20 Towels for 5¢ Each”; that’ll have the kids sending cash and stamps by the handful. Of course there are a few ads that make sense, like those for losing weight (even in the ’50s) and subscribing to one or more of the publisher’s mags. Then I came across two jewels, two ads that made my day. The first was an ad for the “Magic Art Reproducer”, the second for “40 Model Cars”. I flipped like a burger when I saw these, because, in my collection of junk, I have these little trinkets, on display in my home. I don’t have all 40 of the bouncy rubber cars, but I have the caddy that’s in the ad. It’s times like this – going through a 50+ year old magazine that my mother kept all her life and gave to me, then finding ads for stuff that was fun, cheap stuff then, but are hard to find collectibles now, and knowing I have some of that junk (some of those toy cars I’ve had since I was a kid, and they were old then) – it’s times like this that I just have to sit back and say, “Wow, baby. That is some far out, frantic jazz.”

Ad for the Magic Art Reproducer, and the actual one I have at home.

Ad for Rubber Toy Cars, and a shelf in my home with six of those cars.

My Favorite 60’s Toys – The 1918 Model T Ford Bar Car

There’s no denying…the heyday of the cocktail reached its peak during the 1950’s to mid-1960’s in the United States, and hasn’t

been the

same since. Oh sure, Sex in the City may have brought back the Cosmopolitan, and Mad Men may have reintroduced us to the Martini and the Old Fashioned, but the

sophistication…the rituals…of cocktail life iarelong gone, except for us fortunate few.

For a swingin’ bachelor or hip chick in the rat pack days, no pad was complete without a bar, or at least a decent set-up and a couple of cut-glass decanters of your favorite spirits.

Bar Car 1918 Model T Ford Sedan with brushed bronze finish, spoked wheels & rubber tires.

Those who had the lettuce and the elbow room to juice a full bar did so with the utmost hipness, from wild, hand-carved Tiki bars to crazy mirrored jobs hidden in a rotating wall, combined with the Hi-Fi, TV set, or even fireplace. Those kats who were livin’ lean, spreading out in a one-room studio flat or just scrapin’ for space took another route…enter the Portable Bar.

These little babies took on many enigmatic forms, from fake tabletop TV sets to large, floor-stand globes (see upcoming posts). But one of my favorites was one of the simplest…the mini bar in the shape of a car.

Bar Car Model T Ford Sedan, showing Bourbon medallion and shot glasses.

From what I’ve been able to glean over the last several years (including a many-year stretch on the fringes of the antiques and collectibles biz), these were popularized in the 1950’s, and had a decent run through the 70’s until the coolness ran out. (I blame the hippies, Nixon, and aggressive beer company advertising for the demise of home bar, by the way.)

Man, were these bar cars nice. I’ve had several over the years, and can tell you they all have a few neato things in common: They all contain shot glasses, they all have at least one decanter for booze, and they are all music boxes. When you pick up the bottle, the music plays…anything from ‘How Dry I Am’ to holiday tunes like ‘Sleigh Ride’ or ‘The Anniversary Waltz’.

Every one I’ve ever seen has been made of nicely detailed pressed metal, either painted steel or brushed aluminum or brass. The decanters are usually cut-glass (or a reasonable facsimile) and the inside is almost always covered in red velvet or something close to it.

1950's Rolls Royce Bar Car. This was a very expensive model. Unfortunately this one was used as a toy. Were it in better condition and complete, it would be worth hundreds $$$.

Depending on the original cost, nice details like spoked wheels and rubber tires, convertible top, and working lights adorned the cars. And a little tag denoting the contents…usually Bourbon or Scotch…was included to hang from the neck of the bottle.

These little beauties were top-shelf items back in the day, and were built to be expensive-looking additions to a well-appointed home’s décor (although they were generally frowned upon in uptight society, and found themselves adorning swingin’ joints like you or I would have dug).

Bar Car Tin Lizzie Roadster with original box. The headlights are shot glasses, giving it a sort of Mr. Magoo look.

Of course by the time I was old enough to enjoy them (for the car part, as it would be a couple of decades later when I’d start to imbibe) they were generally known as something you’d find in Grandpa’s house, or on the coffee table in your odd-ball uncle’s apartment uptown, you know, the uncle older than you dad who never got married and had black velvet paintings of naked women over his bed…The uncle who paid more for a record player 10 years before you born than you paid for your first car. HE’s the guy who had the bar car sitting at a place of honor in his bachelor pad, and drank a cocktail nightly from it, J&B on the rocks, or Johnny Black, or Canadian Club & Ginger because he was the hippest cat in the neighborhood and that’s just what he did. Well now your uncle is pushing 70; he’s got a condo in Boca and all his old stuff is in storage somewhere in Philly. Give him a call. That bar car can be yours, along with his original Modern Jazz Quintet records and that 1965 Grundig.

Bar Car Tin Lizzie with the top down, showing the bottle.

Bar Car Tin Lizzie with Mr. Magoo shot-glass headlights. The crank winds the music box.

Bar Car Tin Lizzie (Model T Ford). Note the steel wheels.

Bar Car Model T Ford Coupe. This is a newer (70's) model with plastic fenders.

Bar Car Model T Ford Coupe detail.

Bar Car Model T Ford showing three shot glasses on the trunk.

The Real Model T Ford

“Which Witch?” Game, 1971 - One of my favorite vintage Halloween Toys

In earlier posts, I talked about some of my favorite Halloween toys from the 60’s & 70’s…The Mystic Skull Game, Coffin Bank, Candles, etc. I saved one of the best for last…Which Witch? from 1971!

This masterpiece of cardboard fun came from an era when board games were no longer relegated to the flat world, and rose up in glorious three dimensions. Games like Mousetrap, Operation and Hungry Hungry Hippos transformed the single-layer concepts into mechanical miracles of light, sound, and moving parts. And marbles. Which Witch? is an engineering marvel that must have taken the brains at Milton-Bradley many LSD-laden hours to conjure up.

It starts with a typical game board, covered in 60’s style cartoon graphics of the floors of four rooms (in what is apparently a haunted-type house infected with three witches). Next, cardboard walls rise to form the four rooms: The Broom Room, Spell Cell, Witchin’ Kitchen and Bat’s Ballroom. In the center is a chimney which (witch?) doubles as the means to the demise of snoopy little children who enter the abode. (If you pick the card that says, “Ghoulish Gerty Drops It Down The Chimney”, you have to drop the ruby red marble down the top of the roof;

the marble can go in any of four dimensions and wreak havoc on the ill-fated children). In the Bat’s Ballroom, the final room, sets a staircase. The first meddling kid to reach the top of the stairs and land on the “Charmed Circle” (without being turned into a mouse or knocked off his keister) wins the game!

Two young-girl pieces and two young-boy pieces (made of plastic and very 50’s Nancy Drew/Hardy Boys looking) try to make it through these danger-ridden rooms, desperately attempting to avoid the hidden traps and spells. The fear of being hit by a broom, pushed down the stairs, crippled on loose floorboards or plain old hit-in-the-head with a giant ruby marble doesn’t seem to thwart our intrepid explorers. They roll the die and move their spaces, pick a witch card and hope for the best.

I remember playing this game with my mother (something of a witch herself) when I was a young kid. Once, I spent almost the entire game as a mouse. That’s no fun, because you don’t get to move. Another time I got knocked over like eight times in a row. The worst part about this game was that since it was made of cardboard & plastic, it didn’t last. Putting the cardboard walls together meant twisting, bending, and ultimately tearing the parts. My original game died an illustrious wrecking-ball death in the 1970s; I was lucky enough to come across one cheap a few years ago to replace it. You can still find them on eBay for anywhere from $20 to $100, depending on condition (and the market). These are only going to get rarer and more expensive, so if you dig this sort of thing I’d recommend finding one soon!

Happy Halloween!

MY FAVORITE 60’s HALLOWEEN TOY: THE MYSTIC SKULL GAME

Hey, Bone Daddys & Halloween Kittens! Did you know the Tiki Scene was so hip in the 50’s & 60’s that Ideal Manufacturing came up with a board game with a Tiki-VooDoo Theme??? Dig it, from 1964,

MYSTIC SKULL
THE GAME OF VOODOO!
…with the mysterious moving skull!

Ohhhhh man! This is one of my all time favorites. The graphics on the box are kookie, a little scary, and wreak of mod-tiki art from the middle of the last century. The game itself is as krazy as it looks, too, with VooDoo dolls, pins, a couldron and of course the MYSTERIOUS MOVING SKULL.

I had one of these when I was a kid back in the 70’s. Always loved the box. When I was 32 and we were moving to Florida, I decided to sell it (couldn’t take everything with me). I remember I paid $.100 for it around 1977. I sold if for $40 before moving. When I got to Florida, I missed it so much I started looking for a replacement. I found one on eBay a year later for $15, and scooped it up. That’s the one you see here.

The Skull hangs from a mysterious plastic branch that sticks out of the couldron. When it’s your turn, you stir the couldron with a bone, and the skull mysteriously begins to shake, rattle and roll like krazy! Old Bone Head decides your fate as you encounter snakes, spiders, shrunken heads, and of course ZOMBIES! I tell ya, just checking out the graphics of this game will transport you back to the days when life was game and games looked like they were made by the same kats who drew Mr. Magoo. So if you dig Tiki, try to get your hands on a MYSTIC SKULL Game. There’s a couple of em on eBay right now..but mine ain’t for sale, baby!