Bad News From the Past: Bleader, Chicago Reader

Stop The Presses!

Cliff Doerksen — Thu, 09 Dec 2010 14:25:00 -0600

Detroit News, May 30, 1931. It used to be so much easier to get your name in the papers.

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Jesus Christ Super Spud

Cliff Doerksen — Thu, 09 Dec 2010 10:30:00 -0600

Baltimore Gazette, April 21, 1836. Maybe you thought that the Risen Savior only recently began manifesting His image on foodstuffs. I wonder what the owner of this amazing tuber did with it.…

Laughter And Beauty

Cliff Doerksen — Tue, 07 Dec 2010 10:48:00 -0600

Say what you like about National Socialism, it was God's gift to newspaper caricaturists.

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Die By Pie

Cliff Doerksen — Mon, 06 Dec 2010 09:30:00 -0600

Baltimore Sun, March 26, 1892. Taking the uneasy way out.

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Absolute Death Test

Cliff Doerksen — Fri, 03 Dec 2010 10:45:00 -0600

New York Times, September 14, 1914. Lemme get this straight: Upon the injection of this Lovecraftian substance into a freshly dead person, his or her eyes turn into “superb emeralds, set like jewels in their sockets,” and then it turns out no funeral is necessary after all. Could this “Icard” (transparent anagram for “I, Drac”) be any more brazen in his campaign to take over Marseilles with his private army of the undead?

Still, it would all make a great ad for the glossies.…

Paging Mr. Tarantino

Cliff Doerksen — Thu, 02 Dec 2010 07:29:18 -0600

Haverhill Daily Evening Bulletin, March 22, 1889. Odd, skeletal bit of reportage. Did the fact that the combatants were Japanese substitute for a motive behind the fracas?

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Winter Kill

Cliff Doerksen — Wed, 01 Dec 2010 07:42:39 -0600

Baltimore Afro-American, October 19, 1923. When black people started beating feet out of the agrarian South in favor of the northern industrial centers, the Southern establishment tried to stem the outbound tide of cheap labor with pseudo-Darwinian blather to the effect that northern winters were fatal to the African-American constitution. Black papers like the Chicago Defender and the Baltimore Afro-American were continually calling bullshit.…

Love For Sale

Cliff Doerksen — Tue, 30 Nov 2010 11:45:00 -0600

Chicago Inter Ocean, February 15, 1877. "Deaf, demented, and hideous in appearance": that's dandy phrase to keep in mind when building your online dating profile. As for the "grand supper," I commend 17-year-old Miss Johns for summoning some Bridezilla spirit under what must have been depressing circumstances.…

We Shall Not See His Like Again

Cliff Doerksen — Mon, 29 Nov 2010 11:30:00 -0600

Georgia Weekly Telegraph, June 10, 1881. It speaks well of Hinkleton that a citizen as eccentric as William Weller could nonetheless achieve prominence there.

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Grave Mistake

Cliff Doerksen — Fri, 26 Nov 2010 13:13:00 -0600

Chicago Tribune, December 6, 1892. If you died in a hospital in 1892, it meant that you were dirt-poor and had absolutely no other options than to let local physicians practice on you. The latter could then market their improved skills to better-off clients who wouldn't be caught dead entering a hospital.…

Final Cut

Cliff Doerksen — Thu, 25 Nov 2010 11:45:00 -0600

New York Tribune, November 20, 1921. Yet another iteration of the left-over turkey gag from Clare Briggs. Note that nobody ever seems to have complained about leftover mince pie.…

It's Not You, It's Me

Cliff Doerksen — Wed, 24 Nov 2010 11:58:00 -0600

Wisconsin State Journal, September 9, 1880. That "D.T." stands for the Dakota Territory, which in 1889 would be split in twain and admitted to the Union as North and South Dakota. We're looking at a dandy Deadwood subplot here.…

Shell Game

Cliff Doerksen — Tue, 23 Nov 2010 13:46:00 -0600

Wisconsin State Journal, September 9, 1880. An oyster train was a fast-moving west-bound freight job loaded with ice and fresh-caught crustaceans, probably from Maryland, which was to oysters as California is now to medical marijuana.…

Clerical Terror

Cliff Doerksen — Mon, 22 Nov 2010 11:17:00 -0600

Wisconsin State Journal, September 14, 1880. It was extremely subtle, but if you knew how to read between the lines, the Wisconsin State Journal had something of an anti-Catholic bias.…

Child Labor

Cliff Doerksen — Fri, 19 Nov 2010 15:16:24 -0600

Chicago Tribune, November 23, 1920. The oppressed youngster in this Clare Briggs cartoon is applying a multi-bladed chopping device to a piece of boiled beef which, once minced, will be combined with the above-mentioned apples and raisins and a whole lot of other stuff, then baked into a gooey mince pie, which dish at the time enjoyed equal billing with roast turkey on the Thanksgiving menu.

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Thou Anointeth My Head With Acid

Cliff Doerksen — Thu, 18 Nov 2010 10:45:00 -0600

New York Times, June 23, 1907. Armed with “squirt guns” full of acid, the bourgeoisie of Alliance, Ohio, terrorizes a camp meeting of glossolaliac holy rollers. Why?…

Feast on the Beast

Cliff Doerksen — Wed, 17 Nov 2010 13:13:00 -0600

Atlanta Constitution, December 1, 1919. What would Thanksgiving be without jokes about turkey leftovers? Personally, mind you, I've never seen such a thing as too much turkey: As long as it lasts, I'm happy to re-purpose the surplus as turkey sandwiches, turkey pot pie, turkey noodle soup, turkey sorbet, whatevs.…

Eating Ass

Cliff Doerksen — Tue, 16 Nov 2010 16:00:00 -0600

Atlanta Constitution November 24 1919. The fatty rump of the turkey is no longer prized as a delicacy so much I think. Back in the day, it was variously known as the Pope's nose (among Protestants) and the parson's nose (among Catholics).…

Was He Colored Red, By Any Chance?

Cliff Doerksen — Tue, 16 Nov 2010 11:41:59 -0600

New York Times, October 27, 1851. Matadors don't square off against their opponents until the latter have been significantly worked over by the picador, whose job it is to fuck up the bull's neck muscles. This makes it significantly easier to dodge and eventually murder the poor critter, whose range of vision is thereby sharply limited.…

Unless You Wanna Cross the River Styx

Cliff Doerksen — Mon, 15 Nov 2010 16:34:30 -0600

New York Times, October 20, 1851. From what little I know of her, Miss Hayes strikes me as a girl chock-full of moxie, but the point still stands: Don't jump after the ferry-boats.

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Could You Be More Specific?

Cliff Doerksen — Fri, 12 Nov 2010 12:27:49 -0600

New York Times, June 1, 1867. Given that he was standing pat with 80 whole cents in his pocket, the poor blighter inferably meant misery in the sense of "great mental or emotional distress" rather than "distress or suffering caused by need, privation, or poverty."

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Walking On the Beaches, Lookin' at the Peaches

Cliff Doerksen — Thu, 11 Nov 2010 11:00:00 -0600

Chicago Tribune, August 25, 1895. Christ, what a slut.…

No Guts

Cliff Doerksen — Wed, 10 Nov 2010 09:19:38 -0600

The New York World, February 4, 1926. It’s a Catch-22: If Caspar were the kinda guy who likes tripe, he’d also have the stones to stand up to waiters.…

Name Game

Cliff Doerksen — Tue, 09 Nov 2010 08:30:00 -0600

Boston Daily Globe, January 13, 1926. If you've ever typified some wimpy dude as a "Caspar Milquetoast," you were unwittingly quoting the work of cartoonist H.T. Webster, whose nationally syndicated strip "The Timid Soul" chronicled —without a shred of sympathy— the tribulations of this passive and chinless nebbish. Seems wholly in keeping with the sad bastard's luck that he should be forgotten even as his name lives on.…

Baby, It's (Probably Not) You

Cliff Doerksen — Mon, 08 Nov 2010 07:07:07 -0600

The Trentonian, August 3, 1995. The Lindbergh baby is America's answer to the lost Dauphin of France: Over the years there have been any number of nuts and hustlers claiming to be the kidnapped son of aviation hero and Nazi sympathizer Charles Lindbergh. But unlike this candidate, most such pretenders have tended to be—like the murdered tyke—blond, blue-eyed and, uh, male.…