I. Need. This.

Treffen George Jetson . . . .

Electronics today come in basically one style -- black plastic crap. If you're lucky, you might find some various-color plastic crap. In the heyday of mid-century modern, that's not how radio- and TV manufacturers did business.

Especially not the Germans.

This is a Kuba Komet console TV-radio-phonograph. This is art.

If there is a holy grail in mid-century modern design, this might be a contender for the title. I want this. I may need this.

I know I can't afford this. Word is that if you find one today -- and the Kuba Komet was insanely pricey in West Germany when it was new (from 1957-62) -- it'll set you back about $10,000.

And that's enough to make your bank account go kaput.

So much better without the Hellfire missiles

So . . . what does one see after flying a drone tricked out with a GoPro camera into a fireworks display?

This.

"This" would be pure awesomeness, as captured by videographer Jos Stiglingh in West Palm Beach, Fla., some time back. Watch in high definition and full screen; you won't be sorry you did.

And, for the record, how did he not get his drone blowed up good? That would have been bad.


HAT TIP: New York Daily News.

Vintage vinyl o' the day

You don't have to ask me twice whether I want to buy -- $2.50 . . . cheap! -- some flaming red vinyl.

I almost don't care what's on it, though in this case, I lucked out. It's classic David Rose, from a 1962 promotional album put out by Montgomery Ward in honor of the venerable department store's 90th anniversary.

This was one of nine put out that year by Ward's, which called the special releases the Nine Top Artist Series. Obviously, with artists like Rose and his orchestra, Lawrence Welk, Artie Shaw, The Ink Spots and The Three Suns, these LPs did not represent the Nine Top Artist Series for Teenyboppers.

Click on album covers to enlarge

But speaking as someone who was a toddlerbopper in 1962, I still think it's all pretty jake . . . er, cool . . . er, groovy . . . er, exemplary.

WHAT I ALSO think is pretty exemplary are my memories of great old department stores like Monkey Ward's, as everyone called the late, great company back then. It was one entity of what I guess you could have called the Holy Trinity of Retailers -- Sears and Roebuck, J.C. Penney and Montgomery Ward, founded (if you do the early-'60s math) in 1872.

Ward's succumbed to modernity in 2000 but was sort of resurrected in 2004 as an online retailer by a company -- itself since acquired by yet another company -- that bought the name and intellectual property of the gone-bust giant. Meantime, Sears and Penney's are hanging on by their fingernails, mere shells of what they once were commercially and as cultural icons.

THE MUSIC with which Montgomery Ward celebrated its success once upon a time remains, though. Music, unlike institutions, never dies.

Though time marches on and memories eventually fade, the music plays on. The music plays on.

And it plays on 3 Chords & the Truth. Be there this weekend. Aloha.

This was an entertainment center

Did you know there were wireless remote controls in 1940?

There were -- for your top-of-the-line Philco radio-phonographs.

Did you know there were phonographs that worked kind of like modern CD players?


IN 1940, there were -- on your deluxe Philco radio-phonographs. The electronics giant's Beam of Light record players were as easy on your 78s as they were hard on your bank account at the end of the Great Depression.

When you dialed up the phonograph on your radio-frequency remote, the tone arm would come down on the record, a lightweight sapphire stylus with an attached mirror would lower onto the record and reflect a light beam off of the moving mirror to a photovoltaic cell, which would modulate electric current into electrical impulses that would be amplified and . . . voila!

Music.

If you love old electronics like I love old electronics, it doesn't get much cooler than this. The miracle of modern technology -- 70-something years ago!

And the glowing tone-arm head just looks cooler than hell. The whole thing is just cooler than hell.

'And may God's love be with you . . .'

Canadian astronauts rock! No, really.

The Canadian Space Agency collaborated on this high-flying remake of David Bowie's "Space Oddity" last month, but I only just now got around to watching the music video, which needed absolutely no special effects to take your breath away. And Chris Hadfield can hold his own as a musician.

Reliable sources tell me NASA wanted to beat Canada to the punch in extraterrestrial music videos, but the project was $6 billion over budget when the sequester hit, and the coup de grace for the space-station version of "God Bless the USA" was when Lee Greenwood balked, saying there wasn't "no way in hell" he was "gettin' in no damn pinko-commie spaceship."

Mr. Music, please!

What is happening to me?

This is PARENTS music! Old-people stuff. Like, it's completely L7, maaaaaan! And it's what I'm listening to this evening.

Well, I like it. I think it's cool. And, in case you haven't looked in the mirror in the last 20 years or so, Self, you're old people now. And according to, well . . . everybody . . . you're pretty L7 yourself.

Because that just sounds pretty Dobie Gillis right there, Maynard.

On the other hand, you want to know one of the benefits of advancing age? It neuters the stranglehold of "cool" on the brain, thereby freeing the mind to consider things that once would have cost one no small measure of social status.

And chicks.

So screw it. I'm middle aged, and I'm married . . . and reliably informed by She Who Must Be Obeyed that I don't need to be getting any more chicks. Do they still call the fairer sex "chicks"?

Don't answer that, because I don't care.

Now back to Henry Mancini and, perhaps, an adult beverage.