Frankie's Apartment

Astoria Carvel

I was digging through Frankie's drawers looking for a few bucks to buy lottery tickets,
when I found this photo of the old Carvel in Astoria (now gone).

Scrap Metal Cart

Now this is a shopping cart!
Looks like someone's building another Junky Robot.

EMPRESS

Empress your friends in Japan with a Vinyl Calliope Whistle.

Some Dogs Have Curly Hair

Frankie accidentally ate my vintage Snausage puppy treat from the 80's last week & turned into a dog.

PINBACK - I HAVE SEEN THE FUTURE

And all that TIME-TRAVELLING ruined my PINBACK!

Pinback: OFFICIAL Street Pretzel Enjoyment League Badge

This is the badge for the ordinary member. You should see the Lieutenant Badge and the Captain
Badge and the illest badge of them all - The Empress Badge.

Pinback - Funky Design Bullshit

Wacko Funked Out Cheezoid Brands tried to work Pinbacks into the sell-factor on JEANS
in the late Eighties/Early Nineties. But kids would just flow through Macy's and Bloomingdale's
and steal the pins. Same thing happened with hang-tags that were stickers. Kids would just yank
'em off. I don't know if this Pinback is really one of those funky pins that came on a baggy
Girbaud-rip-off -- but I like to think it is. Either that or a funky "brooch" for one of those
weirdo Aunt types from the period that encouraged your drawings, polaroids, and thoughts on
what was cool on the radio.

Pinback - ALL WHITE

All White, Cream, or BLANK, depending on how you look at it.

Pinback - Geosphere

This is for all those Buckminster Fuller heads out here.
Technically, this isn't a PINBACK, it's a FOLDIE.

Pinback - Hayden Planetarium

From the Walter Cronkite Era of Narration. The Planetarium that Woody Allen and Diane Keaton
chill at in "Manhattan". The Planetarium that was demolished in 1997. The Planetarium that
was built in 1935.

Pinback - The Stars

Oh How I Love The Stars. The Silver Print on these joints was always good! Circa the 1940's. Could be 30's!!

Frankie Cartoon Poses

If you've been watching Frankie's Apartment for the last 11 or so years, you know that at one point, I (Frankie) made myself a newspaper pirate hat to wear in the studio and show everyone who was boss. But, since I manufactured the HAT out of a VERY SPECIAL and HARD-TO-FIND page of VINTAGE SUNDAY FUNNY PAPERS, something incredible happened. For a while, this Newspaper hat used to TRANSFORM me into a CARTOON, so that I could do talk show interviews and give BIG, HAMMY cartoon reactions. Basically it was so that my eyes could bug out of my head when people said something insane. After a while though, my "Cartoon Self" started appearing completely SEPARATELY from me. Like, he would join me at the breakfast table, or try sneaking into the bed with me and my wife.
He would just start to MANIFEST himself right from my HAT when I wasn't using it. It was a SPIDER-MAN BLACK COSTUME situation all over again. The "magical funny papers" that I made the hat out of turned out to be a "symbiotic alien" of all things! A symbiotic alien that could communicate with me telepathically and take the form of whatever he wants! Unlike Spider-Man's Black Costume (which later becomes the evil VENOM), my Cartoon-Self/Hat-Person-Alien is actually a WONDERFUL GUY. If anything, I'm the bad one and he's the super-mensch.