Simple Times

Were we ever pie-eyed and naive enough to believe the future would be filled with such wander and amazement that we would be traveling to the moon for vacations, watching huge extravagant machineries creating grandiose achievements in biomechanical homebuilding?





Did we have outlandishly huge block parties that left our neighbors passed out in lawn furniture, petunia beds and diving boards the next day?





Did we fall prey to the stylish marketing campaigns that told us we couldn't dare live our lives properly without cups of coffee, orange juice, batteries, the wonders of metallurgists and radioactive televisions?













Uncle Carl's secret sauce burgers

We did.

How do I know? We left relics of the past that is now gone forever.





You couldn't get away with that image without paying a couple of million dollars in restitution. Now, we lock our doors when we leave to go to the grocery store. We have car alarms that sometimes cost as much as a used car. We have security systems installed at home that equal the value of that used car with the alarm system.





I look back at these posters and placards from a long forgotten era and ask myself "did we really live life this way"? Naive, complacent, comfortable?





Yes. We did.

Judging by the Alice's Diner massacre-to-be waitress manning the cash register with Miss Audrey Hepburn Look-Alike 1961 buying the necessities, we were blissfully unaware of the world around us. As long as we had our beers, our cars & what looks like 2 gallon jug of apple juice, we couldn't have been happier with the way the world was forming.

We lived in a world where the aspirin bottles didn't come with tamper proof lids. We lived in a world where our cars were considered "screaming metal death-traps" and paid to put extra shiny pieces of chrome-plated maim devices on the dashboard within easy reach. For fucks-sake we ate butter as if it were healthy for us.




What we didn't realize then was how we needed to prepare for what was going to turn our lifestyle from picture perfect to real world in no time. We couldn't fathom that we would one day have to turn our backs on everything that was right with the world and accept that there were people out there trying to undermine what we had fought so dearly for in the 1940s.

I see in all of these vintage stock pieces a world before corporations. You don't see anything here that was some major corporations drive to become the industry that causes the world to turn. You don't see conglomerates vying for your dollars.



You see their marketing campaigns to get you to buy their product by reaching for your heart strings and other emotional ties. They show you what your world would be like to buy their product. Looking at Thelma and Helouise above, you see that they're not trying to sell you a lifestyle you can't afford. They're not trying to tell you to charge their bilge on credit. They're trying to just get you to buy their gas.



Simpler times indeed.

Where do I find a time machine? I want to live one day in that utopia we forever lost.