In my early teens growing up in LA I couldn’t wait to have a car so I could go exploring. Public transit sucked, and getting around on a bicycle, though liberating, was dangerous. I was too young to actually appreciate how much better getting around by bike was until I had a car at my disposal and the novelty wore off, another digression for another day.
I remember one day a friend of mine had heard that there were t-shirts available at a record store in Westwood, about a 7 mile (and one hour) trip by bike from where we lived. You have to understand, we were young, and the height of fashion for us was a shirt featuring a famous Los Angeles intersection immortalized in a song played on a (then) local radio show hosted by one Dr. Demento. No one but a true insider would understand why were were proudly wearing Pico and Sepulveda t-shirts, and that’s just the way we liked it.
We had a vague sense of where we were going — it was a pretty straight shot up one of two Boulevards that followed the 405 freeway — but on our way home we somehow managed to find ourselves on a side street and landed in Santa Monica. Lost and disoriented, we stopped to find a bathroom and get directions. We went into a bookstore and while my friend found a friendly shopkeeper to direct us I found something wondrous and fascinating on display.
A calendar.
No, not a calender, but something more, something wholly subversive and delightful, something I was sure should have been illegal. It was called The Wretched Mess Calendar, created by one Milford Stanley Poltroon, and it was hilarious. Each month was renamed to some sort of theme, and every day was some sort of invented holiday. Most of the holidays were puns or a play on words or a turn of a phrase — what more could a boy want. I was in heaven. Illustrated with clip art and copyright free photos from the early 20th century, it was an exercise in anarchy, as good as any American Dadaist tract. And before we left to find our way home, I bought it.
Inside, there were all sorts of comments and jokes in the margins, but the centerfold held three things so magical I can practically still see them as clearly as if the 30-plus years since haven’t passed. One was a section of Yak facts, all of which were totally invented (“Yak’s prefer mozzarella cheese”), and another element was a calendar made entirely of Sundays with the instruction that it was there if you ever needed a month of Sundays for some reason. The last tidbit was a single poem, a piece of nonsense so perfect that I marveled at what sort of mind could conceive such a rhyme. It went like this:
There’s a little man inside my head,
He’s wearing purple hose.
He uses my eyes to see out of
And throws garbage down my nose.
Oh, but that’s not all. You see, there was another little ditty on that page as well, that had to do with hose and a nose, but with entirely different results:
Late last night Old Man Mose
Stuck a length of garden hose
In his ear and out his nose
“Freshens the mind,” said Old Man Mose.
Who was this poetic genius, and how is it I could never find anyone who had ever heard of The Wretched Mess?
Milford (Stanley) Poltroon was, to the best of my internet abilities, the pen name of a former West Coast advertising man named David Franklin Bascom. Details are sketchy. He may have quit advertising or he may have retired (a 1912 birth date is listed, which would have placed him in his 60s when I first discovered him) and took up fishing; wrote a couple of joke books on the subject of fishing (How to Fish Good and The Happy Fish Hooker) and apparently either had a syndicated column or a magazine (or both) called The Wretched Mess News.
The calendar, and later when I discovered copies of the Wretched Mess Catalog and News, were done in a style not unlike the zines of 80s and 90s. Offset print on colored paper, they represented the same sort of aesthetic I aspired to as a sixth grader when I had hoped to start a publishing empire with my collection of illustrated puns. It wasn’t until after I left college that the ‘zine world opened up and, for a brief time, I participated in the folly. The echoes of Milford (Stanley) Poltroon and his Wretched Mess enterprises could be heard in all I did.
I don’t mean to suggest here that Bascom/Poltroon was a brilliant poet. What I have come to understand was that he was, in essence, my touchstone, further proof that adults weren’t all serious. When you’re a boy on the cusp of puberty with a sense of the absurd and a fear of mediocrity, it’s a comfort to know that there’s still hope to grow up to be absurd.
It’s my birthday today. When I grow up I want to be an inspirational absurdest for another generation.
Poetry Friday is hanging out with Mommy’s Favorite Children’s Books today.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY DAVID!!
Happy Birthday! And I am one who thoroughly enjoys nonsensical poetry (and other things that make me smirk).
Happy birthday!
But, um, not “up your nose with a rubber hose”, please. Funny that both of the ones you shared had to do with noses.
Hooray for absurdity! Hooray for nonsense! Hooray for bicycles, wretched messes, noses and hoses! And (not belatedly, since I live on the West Coast) Hooray for Birthdays, David! [That’s four exclamation points, so I must mean it.]
I totally remember the Wretched Mess Calendars. I had a friend who gave them to me each Christmas in the late 60s and early 70s. They were delightful, and I think of them often. For some reason I especially remember the month of December being called Distemper. How I wish I’d saved them! I found this page by doing a Google search in hopes that, perhaps, the company still existed, and they were still available. Thanks for being the only other person I’ve ever encountered who remembers these.
I remember the Wretched Mess calendar, too. Always got my dad one for Christmas. It’s too bad they’re not still around!
My favorite Wretched Mess holiday was Helena Handbasket Day. I also loved National Apathy Week. Still celebrate it.
I loved the Wretched Mess catalog, and bought a few things from it. Then it sold out, allegedly to a relative of Poltroon, and became a semi-legit business in Mountainview California. (Previously West Yellowstone, MT.) And it got boring.
I still remember fondly a device they sold for catching moose. It was nothing but a large metal arrow on a chain. The description for how to use it was hilarious. Something like “Approach moose from rear. Lift tail. Plant arrow firmly. Run in opposite direction, as moose held in this fashion are unlikely to be friendly.”
Here is an obituary for the author of Wretched Mess: http://community.seattletimes.nwsource.com/archive/?date=19940308&slug=1899115. And yet it’s someone named Pratt, not Bascom? What the heck?
I had a copy of the wretched mess calendar almost every year from high school to college. Such memorable days such as Sunky, monky, tunky, wunky, thunky, funky and Spiro,National Betty Crocker burns her buns days, Sir Neville mariner chases St. Martin out of the field. Absolutely hilarious, but started to get predictable. Did have occasion to meet Ormly Gumfudgeon in Pasadena, California when he gave a seminar for my fiance’s mass media class. Showed his hand calculator, which was a piece of wood with holes for the fingers, and the floating decimals were small dots in a glass bottle of water. Seems a shame that someone couldn’t continue the zany approach. Didn’t they also add another month called Milf?
Hi All,
I loved Wretched Mess Calendars and wish there was another. I still have one that my closest friend gave me.
We called each other now and then while in college and would guffah over and absurd day.
My favorite was’ Aristotle took his pants to the tailor and the tailor asked Euripedes?’ We had a lot of great belly laughs.
Long live Wretched Mess Calendar.
I am glad that my recollection of the catalog isn’t a phantom. I’d love to see one again. The concept of the moose anchor still cracks me up. BTW, I just sold all my vinyl after I digitized it, and one of the songs I recorded/sold was Pico & Sepulveda by the Roto Rooter Good Time Christmas Band.
I remember the Wretched Mess News & their calendars. They also had great envelopes, back when people wrote letters. I found some stuck in a drawer–actually that’s why I googled WMN and found you–I was wondering if they still existed and if I could get more. One envelope is a brown paper bag with snails on it and it says “US Snail Mail” – long, long before that term or even computers were in existence.
Milford Poltroon was maybe not a genius but he was a very funny person. Milford Stanley Poltroon, aka Dave Bascom, grew up in Mt.Shasta, California. After a career in advertising he retired to Hegbun Lake, just outside of West Yellowstone, Montana. Dave and his wife, Mary, lived there happily for many years. As best as I remember, Dave sold the Wretched Mess to someone in Mountain View, California around the early 1980s. Without Dave’s creative drive and sense of humor it was never the same and the only saving grace was that they still ran Dave’s old ads and sold his old joke gifts. I can’t recall what year Dave died, but it is rare to find someone with his intellect, talent and humor. Dave was a darn good fly fisher, he could hold his own when it came to tall-tales, and the hilarously painted canoe that was occasionally spotted in the old Wretched Mess was named the “Queen Mary” after his wife. Dave was a private person, I doubt that he would have liked to have said so much about his private life so I will leave my comments with I am glad to know that there are so many people who still enjoy ol’ Uncle Milf’s Wretched Mess….
Like other commenters, I found this by googling — similarly wondering if anyone else in the universe remembered Wretched Mess News. I, too, have fond early-adolescent memories of the early-1970s calendars. I, too, found them delightfully subversive and anarchic. My humor-loving dad used to get them for me for Christmas. One of my proudest achievements, at age 13 or 14, was having one of my submitted days or weeks accepted for the following year’s calendar. (Damned if I can remember what it was anymore.)
I too remember the Wretched Mess Calendar and had hoped to find one somewhere for sale or perhaps with pages posted online. I tried to explain the calendar to my husband, and only managed to make him want to see the real thing! Would anyone be willing to post pictures of calendar pages online please??
Does anybody remember the poem “I have a little puppy, he goes in and out with me. What can be the use of him is more than I can see. He piddles here, he poo poos there, he potties all around. He’d rather use my carpet than Mother Nature’s ground. I’m gonna give him one last chance to potty where he should….then I’m gonna deck him with a hefty piece of wood!! ?
Cathy Dahle, Havre MT
I also grew up in L.A. and remember Wretched Mess, the calendars, not the rest of it. Thanks, for affirming my fond memories!
Judith K. Dial
Hi David, interesting to find a poltroon fan. If you’re interested West Yellowstone Montana, Yellowstone Historic Center has a large archive of Milford’s material. Hope you get a chance to enjoy it. June is a wonderful time to visit.