Captain Hugwash & Salvador Darling

Do you ever have that feeling of being at sixes and sevens and not quite knowing which way is up?


Of not being sure from one day to the next exactly what is going on?

That is decidedly the way things are around the shack at the moment, with the movie so close now that we can smell the paint drying on the sets, but still no money in the bank - and my ongoing project to conjure up another little dude-type personage also occupying my mind. Do we have a movie or not? Am I pregnant or not? Who knows! In any case it is playing havoc with my blogging motivation, hence the prolonged radio silence around here.


I bought this preposterous eighties jacket ages ago because it amused me, and because I had grand plans to write a long and elaborate post on the imminent global "strong" shoulder pandemic, from the perspective of one who lived through the last outbreak. As a veteran of a time when t-shirts, bathrobes, school uniforms and even tank tops had great wads of shoulder padding stuffed into them, I feel like I have some useful survival tips to pass on. For a start, looking at these photos it becomes apparent to me exactly why people in the Eighties had such big hair - it was to stop their heads looking teeny tiny in comparison to their mega-shoulders!


Silk top $5 op-shop, Black satin pants $20 Bardot sale, Tony Bianco patent leather platforms $12 op-shop

Sadly this post won't actually be the magnificent shoulder boulder expose that I envisioned, the fact that my photos are decidedly crappy is a bit of a stumbling bloke*. I tried desperately to get a decent picture of this moderately "shoulder-enhanced" (yes, I actually read that in a magazine) black silk top, even resorting to huddling in our shower cubicle in an attempt to scrounge up as much light as I could (don't look too closely, there's probably mould on the grouting):



Back in the eighties I was a little surfie chick, and the big-shouldered look was at odds with my wardrobe of broderie anglaise crop tops, chambray ra-ra skirts and fluro pink short shorts. I used to cut the pads out of my tops and dresses, and keep them in a plastic bag in the bottom of my wardrobe. I sometimes see those bags of shoulder-pads in op-shops, if you see one then snatch it up, because now is the time to stockpile them again - especially the ones with velcro - as I forsee a time when the haberdashery aisles of Spotlight will be emptied of shoulder pads, and people will be hoarding them and guarding them jealously (not to mention selling them for grossly inflated prices on Ebay).



Somewhere in the gloom there, I am demonstrating exactly why the velcro shoulder pad evolved. I am wearing a top with padded shoulders, and then a jacket with padded shoulders, and the padding situation is getting out of control. The stacked pad effect results in a turtle-like neckless look, which is fine on 200 year old denizens of the Galapagos, but dire on me. If, however I unstick the velcro pads in my jacket then, hey presto, the double pad dilemma is solved!


Uh oh! I spy polterwang...

Of course the velcro pad presents quite enough difficulties of its own - they have a tendency to wander, and even escape, leaving the wearer with sadly lopsided shoulders, and sometimes a rogue third breast as well. This mutant tuxedo/biker jacket ($10 op-shop) has velcro shoulder pads, it also has:

- Fringing
- Lace
- Brocade
- Zips
- Elaborate silver buttons

In a word, insanity!


Look closely and you can see the giant fringing on the back.

In the eighties I wouldn't have worn this in ten million years, but now it's nuttiness appeals and I feel all kind of fuzzy and nostalgic when I stroke its fringing and unzip it's pointless zips. It's a funny thing how stuff can gain a warm patina of nostalgia like that - I bought this (objectively hideous) Moschino shirt the other day ($3.50 op-shop) which I would probably have burnt in disgust if it had fallen into my clutches in the nineties. The label represented all that I (in my magnificently disdainful youth) considered naff and tasteless. It's still naff and tasteless, no doubt about that, but now I find that unabashed silliness quite appealing and playful. Look at the print of slot machines full of little smiley faces and peace signs, it's like a pug puppy - so ugly that it's adorable!





On the subject of adorable things (what a segue), please enjoy these photos of the little dude in pirate mode, with hat stapled together from copy paper and cutlass cut from cardboard salvaged from our recycling bin. Such are the desperate measures I am forced to take when confronted by early morning demands for pirate hats and swords from Captain Hugwash** himself!





This is one of his other alter-egos, Salvador Darling:



This is what pirates/surrealists eat for lunch:



This is what a toddler play area looks like after a pirate/surrelist comes through on a pillaging rampage and creates an installation:



And this is what I look like trying to blog amongst the chaos:


Note rabbit-in-the-headlights look of harried blogger photographed against will by fiendish husband.

Actually our shack is usually pretty tidy and pleasant and nice, but things can degenerate rapidly with a little dude on the loose, is it any wonder I sometimes lose the will to blog!

xx
Skye

*Yes, I know it's really block, that's just one for the fans...
** Yes, I know it's really Pugwash, but Hugwash is the little dude's interpretation, and I like it!