I Want To Believe

We have a stack of early, early biker magazines that we circulate through the bathroom reading rack every summer. People experiencing the afteraffects of our barbecue have their spirits lifted and their attention distracted by the bright colors... and all the pictures of extra-fluffy 70's snatchola sprinkled throughout the pages. Old Easyriders, and other biker oriented rags like Supercycle and Outlaw Biker, are always good for a hoot. The goofy snapshot they provide of the subculture during that era is entertaining as hell. Easyriders magazine is where I first indulged what blossomed into my present shameful obsession with crap fiction and 'outsider' writing, in fact...although in the case of Easyriders, 'outsider' hardly begins to describes it. Aside from the rare article, on the main Easyriders constituted an excellent example of what public-funded education turned out around the middle of the 20th century.

Not only is the writing...charming, the advertisements themselves make up a whole subgenre of stinky bad potty toilet that just can't be conveyed using mere words.


Yes, I was glad I was sitting down when I ran into this one.

This comes from ish #58, published in April of 1978. As you can see, while the rest of the nation supped from the lip of purulence that was disco*, certain sectors of the American public had only just entered the 1960's and were still experiencing some difficulties adjusting to the whole 'groovy' thing.

My entire being wants desperately to believe that the girl with the a-cup roo guards there is a very young, pre-op Cher. Yes I know Cher was older than that in '78 geeze Louise. You ever heard of negatives? Remember them? Ok then. Keep up.

Seriously. Take away the heavy false eyelashes and the nose job, and you have a young lady that looks suspiciously like the Armenian titwillow. I am dead serious. If any of you are rabid Cher fans, I want you to take a long and serious look at her very earliest, earliest work, the stuff from back when she was a tender teenlet doing JC Penny's ads and shit like that. Yes, I know this ad flogs a company in the Midwest. That really means nothing. Back before Svenga I mean Sonny took over her career she could have done a shoot and signed one of the standard rip-off models releases of the day; and her image could just as easily have ended up on a can of Japanese underpants as anyplace else, depending on who bought it from the photographer.


I don't know who the mook sucking in his cheeks is though. He could have used a shop vac and it still wouldn't have distracted anyone from the fact that he was a good four months along there. Look at that chub chub. Don't you just want to blow farts all over him until he pees?

God it would be SO rad if it were the mayor of Palm Springs, wouldn't it??

Do read the copy. It's happening.
I am totally using the 'Guam' threat. Seriously. Fuck with me, man, you BETTER be in Guam. Yeah thats right.

This is the whole page. Yeah, that's a windjammer! Remember power hitters and and cold tokers and shit like that?

..God, you're so old.


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*not that I have anything like an opinion about the 70's. ahem.