Who is Father Geek (aka J. Jay) who is to play your host on this page, this labyrinth of pixals, paper and plastic; brass, tin and heavy metal; ink, toner and paint that will overflow this electronic page over the coming weeks, months, and hopefully years. Well, I was born into a middle class family of 4th generation Texans 8 months before we dropped the bombs on Hiroshima & Nagasaki. My father was an officer in the Army Air Corp and I spent most of my first 2 years in the backseat of a cream colored 1940 Chevy traveling the great American west from one air base to another.
At age 3 we set down roots in San Antonio, home of the Alamo, The Majestic Theatre and the Buckhorn Saloon, the headquarters of the 4th & 5th Army and the "West Point of the Air". I led that storybook, 1950's TV family life, joined Boy Scouts and earned my Eagle with a bronze palm. I played every inning of every game thru 4 years of Little League baseball. My mother was president of the PTA and I made pretty good grades. I played in the band from 6th to 12th grade and drove a 4 door turquoise 58 Chevy my senior year.
I was the 1st of my friends to have a TV (B&W, 13") in his bedroom (1951), and I went to alot of movies in SA's giant single screen film palaces and at the many drive-ins around town in the days of 50 cent admissions, 5 cent bus rides, candy bars and cokes, & 10 cent hot-dogs and hamburgers. I earned my spending money by charging 50 cents an hour to do yardwork, plus 5 cents a turd to cleanup after the hundreds of dogs that freely roamed the streets. Later as a teen I opened a bicyle custom shop with a friend in his parents garage. Basically we'd take off the kickstand, chain-guard & fenders, raise the seat, turn the handlebars upside down and collect $15.00, plus keep all the parts. For another 10 bucks we'd add a paint job. No store bought bikes back then had the now common "off road look", buuuut that's what all the guys wanted, sooo we did a brisk business.
In 1965 I enrolled at the University of Texas in Austin and it's been my home ever since. I had vague, but fleeting, thoughts of becoming a lawyer and I was a member of UT's varsity debate and public speaking teams. Like most of my generation I was politically active. In Texas at that time the power had rested with the Democrats since reconstruction so the revolutionary thing to do was be a Republican. I joined their youth wing. I majored in Speech & Sociology, then Advertising. I became a professional political underling, working for candidates and in the PR dept. at Republican State Headquarters on the 7th floor of the Littlefield Building at 6th and Congress here in Austin. I was on Nixon's staff at the 68 convention in Miami. My future wife (1860's North Texas ranching family) was the social chairman of the political club that I was the PR man for. We started to hangout, and watch movies together. We enrolled at the UT Film school and our politics started to shift to the left.
In 1969 we formed a high-octane, mind-numbing lightshow performance company (complete with pyro effects & 20+ projectors)called "Mind's I", working with all the pop rockers of the day (did 40+ shows with a little ol' band from Texas,ZZ TOP), and shooting some commercials & short musical films in 16mm for clubs around the state (way before MTV). We began collecting posters (movie & rock) & comicbooks as we traveled throughout the southern USA. Did alot of the big classic "POP FESTIVALS" from the west coast to the East.
Our Son arrived at the end of 1971 and we opened a pop culture collectibles store ( N. E. Mercantile Co. Inc.)based out of Austin. We crisscrossed the country doing festivals and collector shows 25 or 30 times a year until he started public school in 2nd grade, we had begun to collect movies, cartoons, and trailers on 16mm. I bought a VCR in August of 1976. We started sculpting bronzes and setting up at "Rennie faires", ("Leather Phantasies & Heavy Metal Realities")and a sister came on the scene in 1981.
In 1984 we divorced after 18 years together. She got the kids. I got depressed. Life goes on and by the Spring of 1989 I had pulled myself together and my son moved in with me. We re-entered the collectibles marketplace as "Jay's 20th Century Esoterica". Then in 1992 my Ex died in a tragic firestorm out on the North Texas plains at Lake Kemp and I suddenly had both my kids back. What is it that Goldblum says in that big dino flick? Oh yeah, "Life finds a way."
After aintitcoolnews.com took off in the late Fall of 96 I decided to never SELL another part of our pop culture collections, no matter how high the offer, not because I'm rich (I'm far from it), but because I'd much rather have my HULK 1, or KISS ME DEADLY poster than a shoebox full of money which is much more common and far easier to come by.
Well, that's a peek at the primal ooze that formed the bio-hard-drive that is to be your host on this page as we journey together thru the refuge of the 20th century popular culture mirror that it has been my pleasure to archive all these years.