JB's Warehouse & Curio Emporium

  Feeling nostalgic this holiday season, I'm diving into Christmas records that my family owned when I was a kid, starting with a late 1970s dive into Columbia Records' vaults, Christmas Pleasures. Click here for side one .  Mitch Miller and the Gang - Winter Wonderland       Ah, Mitch Miller. On the one hand, the man had an ear for hits, turning Columbia Records into a pop powerhouse during the 1950s. He helped shape the role of a record producer, transforming it from a passive to active role in the studio. On the other hand, he had a fondness for schlock, and resisted signing rock acts, leaving Columbia behind in that genre until the mid-1960s. And then there was Sing Along With Mitch . Growing out of a series of albums that started in the late 1950s, Miller welded large vocal ensembles with old-fashioned tunes that listeners could sing along with. They sold well with older audiences, leading to an NBC television series which ran from 1961 to 1964.  How...

"It remains not only acceptable, but in fact popular, to dump on Christmas music. It is the boring, predictable music-nerd equivalent of foodies who go out of their way every November to point out that “turkey sucks, actually” (which is, for the record, a lie). Holiday music is, by definition, the only genre that’s cordoned off into a little sliver of the calendar, and, even then, people argue that the sliver isn’t sliver-y enough." - Rebecca Alter, " Christmas Music is the Best Genre of Music ," Vulture, 2020. How I feel about holiday music depends on the day, the song, and the interpretation. Sometimes I'll hear a truly wretched Christmas song and wish some Scrooge had blown up the master tape. Other times, a good song can lift my mood and make me appreciate the season. Or, like many people, Christmas music will invoke childhood nostalgia . In my case, that means the handful of records my family pulled out when we decorated the Christmas tree. One of my favour...

When I hit my teens, I started imitating my father’s interest in building a healthy music library. It started with an occasional cassette, then the gift of The Beatles 1962-1966 (aka “The Red Album”). During a stop at Sam the Record Man on a grade eight trip to Toronto—a stop I insisted the group I was with make, even if it cut into others’ precious time at Yonge Street head shops—I bought my first large haul of pre-recorded music, some of which is now laughable but was influenced by peers at the time—Poison’s Open Up and Say...Ahh!  anyone? In early 1990, my father clipped an article from the Detroit News listing record stores worth investigating on future cross-border trips. Both of us, along with my sister, would rapidly expand our collections thanks to at least two stores listed in the piece. Twenty-three years on, most things associated with this article are gone. Nearly all the stores profiled. The massive tape collection I built up. My father. Yet, along wit...

Quick, name things you feared as a child. For me, it was comic books, films, or TV shows involving transformation sequences or body horror. These scared the beejezus out of me, even if the transformation was merely implied and not shown, such as a deceased Chevy Chase going back to Earth as adorable mutt Benji in Oh Heavenly Dog (a movie which scared Roger Ebert , for other reasons).  At home, I couldn't handle the transition from Bill Bixby to Lou Ferrigno in The Incredible Hulk . Hearing the Hulk theme music was the cue to scoot elsewhere. Why this shook me up was a good question - maybe I thought it was horrifying that a poor schlep could turn into a raging beast, that he was going through something so unpleasant I didn't want it to happen to me.

While sorting through mounds of childhood stuff at home over Labour Day weekend, I came across a stray card from O-Pee-Chee's Raiders of the Lost Ark trading card set featuring one of my favourite scenes from the movie. The back of the accurately sums up the action on screen. I saw Raiders during its first run at the theatre (whatever name it was operating under that point) in Fort Malden Mall. Given that a year earlier I had run screaming out the Capitol in Windsor when Chevy Chase became Benji in Oh! Heavenly Dog , it's a testament to see how far I'd come in a year when I took in the melting Nazi scene with no problems (other than the dude with the medallion burned into his hand looked like Dad, a resemblance which his high school students reminded him about for the next year or two). From then on, Dad had few worries about taking me to a theatre to see anything that wasn't Muppets, Disney or child-centric. The Raiders card set was one of the first non...

Advertisement, Toronto Life , September 1972. More about this ad on Torontoist . The Old Spaghetti Factory was a staple of my childhood. Most visits to my grandparents included at a trip down to the Esplanade to sit amid the bric-a-brac while my family ate many garlic butter-smeared pieces of bread and slurped down the headline dish. It was an ideal place for my parents to bring me and Amy: colourful, child palate-pleasing, and cheap. The recipe seems to have worked for families and tourists for the past forty years, even if patrons like the little tramp can no longer load up at a salad bar.

I don't have any pictures on hand of the house on Second Concession/Fryer Street when we lived in it, but here's a shot taken from the front yard circa 1973-74. The quarry is till there, but part of the field is now occupied by an elementary school. Amy sent me a link a couple of days ago showing that the house we grew up is up for sale . I figured it was a matter of time, as the property has been vacant for awhile (the 8-1/2 x 11 piece of paper taped in the middle of the front window indicating a number to call if you noticed something funny was going on was the tipoff). It sounded as if several additions were made after we left the house twenty years ago, including a backyard pool, fireplace and a hot tub. None of these added touches appear to have increased the property's value—when I asked Mom how much we received for it, the figure was a few thousand more than the current price. The sale price likely reflects the downturn in the economy down there as much as any pot...

Swiss Chalet had served up its rotisserie chicken to diners in other parts of Ontario for a quarter of a century by the time it opened its first locations in Windsor in 1980. One sign a proofreader may have been asleep on the job—it's Dougall Avenue, not Dougal Rd. The Dougall location was a frequent dinner destination during childhood. Our orders varied little: Chalet Salad (chicken chunks mixed into shredded cabbage) and a side of fries for Dad, quarter chicken breast dinners for the rest of us. Maybe a chicken sandwich once in awhile. Fulfilling my role as a human garbage disposal unit, I drank anyone's leftover Chalet Sauce that hadn't been used to coat chicken, fries or the half of a hamburger bun that came with dinner. It was fun to dunk my hands into the finger bowl filled with water and a dainty shred of lemon at the end of the meal (sorry Swiss Chalet management, but wet wipes are a wimpy substitute). My grandmother sometimes accompanied us and I wonder if a me...

Every year before Dad (and later Amy and I) had to return to the classroom, we’d visit my grandparents in Leaside and spent one day of the trip at the Ex. While the rides were fun, the Food Building and its array of cheap/free delights from local and major vendors was often the highlight. The odds are good I was running around (or tethered to my parents with a leash around my wrist so that I wouldn’t disappear into the crowd) the Food Building in 1980 when Canadian Grocer magazine prepared a special report/advertising section about the fair. Even in 1980, it seems patrons were dismay by the dwindling amount of freebies exhibitors handed out each year. In an effort to bring back the “good ol’ days,” the CNE Food Products Association gave away over 10,000 food and food-related prizes on Food Products Day (August 20). Coupons were handed out that made patrons eligible to win items ranging from candy bars to Cuisinart food processors. Pipers were used to draw people to the coupon boot...

I recently flipped through a long-abandoned index of mix tapes and stumbled upon a milestone that happened ten years ago today—the last weekday afternoon radio show that I hosted in Guelph. The excuse I need for a long entry on my broadcasting days... *** You might say I would wind up on the radio one way or another. As a kid I taped mock radio programs on my Fisher-Price cassette recorder, complete with fake ads and song intros. I imagined it would be fun to have a studio at my disposal, with an endless tower of records to play in a WKRP in Cincinnati setting. The radio station was always the same (CHJZ - no idea what the letters stood for), as was the advertiser ("Harrison, we're the quality people"), who sold ACME-like products with a gravelly-voiced pitchman named Doc. *** I first volunteered at CFRU early in my first year at U of G. I figured that organizing the scattered stacks of vinyl in the station's record library would give me a good idea of wha...

CLOWNS! CLOWNS! AAAAHHHH! The boy in front is keeping his cool in the face of clowns preparing to promise him a balloon and floating paper ships , have him as the main course for dinner, or other nefarious deeds. Phobia of clowns wasn't a childhood problem, as encounters were few and far between. I even went out as one for an early Halloween outing, with emphasis on cute over scary—no grotesque face, just dabs of red on my cheeks. The only time I was disturbed by a clown-like figure occurred when I was barely school age. It happened on the lone trip Dad and I made to the CNE without the rest of the family, which also provided my first long distance train trip on the Windsor to Toronto run. Wendy's had a booth on the grounds with a woman dressed as the burger chain's mascot (the chain had been in Canada for a few years— its 500th store opened in Toronto in 1976 ). As we approached her, unease set in. Something about a girl with yarn for hair, an old-fashioned dress and ...

I usually post vendor-derived recipes and food advertisements where one wonders if the people in the test kitchen had their taste buds surgically removed. Today's dish is far more appealing, with its only drawback being your prejudices towards Kraft dressings (though note that no dressing has touched the salad yet, unless there's an imperceptible coating of oil and vinegar). These are the Kraft bottle designs I remember from childhood, especially the gondolier used for Italian—mamma mia! Of the others pictured, Catalina, Golden Caesar and Thousand Island appeared most frequently on the table. I dimly recall cameo appearances by French and Roka (blue cheese), unless I'm simply remembering seeing the bottles in store. My favourite childhood salad dressing wasn't Kraft—mix a Catalina-style dressing and bacon bits and you had Henri's Bacon and Tomato, which we stocked up on during runs across the border. Toss this with my preferred salad of iceberg and celery and y...

My first visit to David Mirvish Books was during some forgotten childhood trip to Toronto. If we were in town on a Sunday, Dad would drive down to Markham Street to pick up that day's New York Times —whether this provided an excuse to browse or that he couldn't purchase a copy at Sunnybrook Plaza is a question I can't answer. While he checked out the art bargains, I scurried off to the children's section as I did in most book stores. I don't remember anything specific about going there other than liking the airy feel of the place. After moving here, I dropped by regularly to check out the deals. It was usually one of my first stops upon returning from A'burg at Christmas, to check out the year-end sale. I rarely left empty handed on those occasions, usually picking up a cheap Taschen book or three. I figured something was up during their annual post-Christmas sale, when boxes of art magazines from the 1960s and 1970s were placed in the middle of the sto...

There's a local reading series called Grownups Read Things They Wrote As Kids that allows people to do just that: expose to the public odd pieces they wrote during their formative years. I haven't attended one, but the concept inspired me to dig through the storage tub of early literary masterpieces back home. Among the goodies I found was a script written around grade 2, Zama's Talking Bird . Memory serves that this was a group assignment meant to follow up a story in one of our Gage readers. The play is credited to three writers but I suspect I devised most of it, since its structure and narrative pattern resembles other works from the same period...unless I absorbed the thoughts and writing rhythms of peers. Revisiting my early writing, the more I'm convinced that: My imagination was healthy I was aware of what certain type layouts should look like (plays contain acts, etc) Warner Brothers cartoons were my formative creative influence My destiny should ha...

Today was a milestone for the official Warehouse Motorized Transportation Vehicle (trademark pending)... What has this dedicated vehicle experienced in its seven-year journey? * One tree landing on its hood * One mystery trunk crunching in a Boston subway garage * One flying front bumper in Guelph * One 180-degree skid into a ditch off 401 * One link in a five-car chain reaction in Burlington * Trips to far-flung locales like Santa Fe, Calgary, Salt Lake City, Winnipeg, St. Louis, Montreal, Maine and Malvern * Numerous rides home given to friends * 78.7% of the non-fiction books-on-CD collection of the Toronto Public Library As Mom would say, "oh that poor car." I generally use it for out-of-town adventuring or grocery shopping, but admit I use it more than I should for running to in-town events at the last minute. The effect of high gas prices seems to be eliminating regular shopping trips I make to the outer edges of the city, which are now special events....

A large domed centre court with a long set of steps that were ideal for kids to run up and down until they ran out of breath. A nearby carousel when running lost its charm. Restaurant chains such as Friendly's , Frisch's Big Boy and McDonald's that were suited for young'uns. A department store named after the king of the jungle. Welcome to wonderland for a kid on a family vacation in Toledo, Ohio in the late 70s/early 80s. *** The death notice has just been signed on another element of my childhood. As of June 30, Southwyck Shopping Center in Toledo will shut its doors permanently . Opened in 1972 on the west side of Toledo along US 20 (Reynolds Road), the anchors by the time we shopped there were Montgomery Ward and Lion , a local department store chain which operated two locations in the mall (the main store on the east wing, a home store on the north end that replaced an earlier tenant). My parents usually had good luck shopping at Lion, while my ma...

6:30 p.m. last night. Dithering time. I had indicated that I would show up for a pickup soccer game over in Riverdale friends had organized, as long as it wasn't pouring rain out. I listened to the number of drops hitting the air conditioner. After contemplation, What would it hurt to drive down to the game site in Riverdale and see if anyone was there? At worst, what would be a week's delay for the first time I would kick a soccer ball in a decade? *** After discovering I was hopeless at baseball, my parents signed me up for soccer when I was 9. The teams I played for varied in ability - the only incident I remember was a game where I was on defence and wound up being the only one to chase after an opponent on a breakaway, while my fellow defenders carried on a conversation. The game lost its appeal when Dad forgot that he was supposed to sit on the sidelines, not attempt to coach me in the middle of the action. It may have come unconsciously, since he coached basketba...

This pretty much sums up my day - kind of slumbery, except for a short roadtrip into the 'burbs in search of pickle curry spice mix (it was an excuse). When I was kid, I was fascinated by hotel directories, mainly due to the maps. We usually had the latest Holiday Inn guide kicking around, as it was the chain we tended to stay at. We often picked them up at the downtown Windsor location, which burned down ages ago. Located on the Detroit River, one had to drive down a long ramp to get to the lobby. It also included an Odeon movie theatre, which we rarely went to (the last movie I saw there was Lawnmower Man , which wasn't my choice but since friends were going, why quibble?). This campaign appeared in early 1980s directories, usually as bookends. Source: Sports Illustrated , November 30, 1981

1,159: PLUNK YOUR MAGIC TWANGER FROGGY! Growing up, my father was full of wacky catchphrases, mostly gained from radio or TV shows from his childhood. This must be a genetic trait, as it takes little prompting for my sister and I to run off lines from, say, SCTV or Kids in the Hall . One radio show that seemed to stick with Dad was Smilin' Ed's Gang (aka The Buster Brown Show , after its sponsor). Running from 1944 to 1953 and hosted by Smilin' Ed McConnell , it featured stories and an array of animal characters . The latter included Midnight the Cat, who always said "Nice" (or,as Dad put it, "'Niiiiice', says Midnight"), Squeaky the Mouse and, most infamously, Froggy the Gremlin , a malevolent doll with a repetitive speech pattern. What got me to thinking about this was an entry at News from ME , which included a lengthy clip from Smilin' Ed's successor on television, veteran character actor Andy Devine (Smilin' Ed moved th...

A post sometime back about my memories of Woolco also spurred memories of Bananas magazine. Little information about Bananas online, other than its editor was Jovial Bob Stine, who later cashed in for Scholastic as R.L. Stine, writer of the Goosebumps line of pre-teen books. Bananas mixed entertainment features, music reviews and MAD-style humour. A strong KISS fixation runs through the late 70s issues. The magazine ran out of steam in the early 80s, after it switched its focus to video game articles and humour - judging from the later issues we had and those for sale on eBay, Bananas peeled its last in '84. Amy and I found most of our issues at Woolworth's - earlier ones (including the very first issue, c. 1976, with features on Chico & The Man and Mad cartoonist Don Martin) at Southland Centre in suburban Detroit, late 70s/early 80s in Leamington. I'm guessing the chain had a remainder deal with Scholastic, as back issues of Dynamite! and related mags wer...