Here at Junkyard Clubhouse we love all things junkyard, and right at the top of our list are Junkyard bands.

And Fat Albert has one of the rockin’est Junkyard bands ever. The groovy kids record blog Way Out Junk has gifted the Internet with not one, but TWO rips of classic Fat Albert and the Junk Yard Band albums: Creativity and Rock N’ Roll Disco.

The famous junk yard band is organized when the kids are unable to afford musical instruments

Listening to these records will convince you that real-life junkyard instruments can sound just like the smooth sounds of studio musicians! Actually, while the pictures of the Junkyard band are pretty sweet, there’s not much in the way of classic Fat Albert music on either of these albums. The Rock N’ Roll Disco in particular is pretty bad. Hmmm. Now I’m wondering why I even bothered bringing it up. Here, watch the opening of the Fat Albert Show instead.

This picture made my head fall off:

Baby kitten OMG

Via Cute Overload, natch.

I just had a yummy treat that I personally invented over 25 years ago (along with probably tens of thousands of other pajama-clad sugared-up kids): lego-shaped Eggo waffles.

The waffle bricks didn’t really have the precise engineering of real Legos, so they really didn’t interlock at all, and in my toaster I could only cook two sheets of Legos at a time. So I decided to keep the Legos together and use two waffles to build a rectangular Eichler-style ranch home. How did it come out? Delicious! Check out the Lego Eggo website this morning!

Golden Gate Bridge, at its very spookiest:

Fade to White, Golden Gate Bridge – © 2007, Anastacia Campbell

Anastacia Campbell is a Bay Area-based photographer, and her stuff is great. You can order prints direct from her website. If you like what you see, be sure to vote for Anastacia at the Blogger’s Choice Awards — she’s been nominated for Best Photography Blog!

Alright boychiks and goyim, get ready for some righteous reverb from the chosen surfers:

Meshugga Beach Party at Forbidden Island Tiki Lounge

Meshugga Beach Party played at Forbidden Island Tiki Lounge’s first anniversary party this weekend (which was a blast, by the way… here are my pics). I hadn’t heard of them before, but quite a few folks in the crowd had. From my photo above, you probably have them pretty well figured out — they perform traditional Jewish folks songs as surf tunes. And they perform in full Hasidic regalia (those beards must get awfully itchy). But the best part: they’re really good. I’m not a surf music aficianado, but I run in a pretty surf-savvy circle, and there was high praise for Meshugga Beach Party all around.

There’s a great set of 8 bit video game inspired art from an art show called “I am 8 bit” on Flickr. Check it out.

[via Wonderland]

For your Friday afternoon/evening enjoyment, a fine selection of strange videos. Have a spectacular weekend — we’re headed to Kaleidoscope tonight, and Forbidden Island on Sunday. I sense radness in our immediate future.

I stumbled upon The Girls Productions website quite a while ago and I instantly fell in love with their art style. They keep a blog where they keep us up to date about their new art, and they recently posted their Mario Bros. inspired piece for the I am 8 Bit show. Check out their blog and all their wonderful artwork!

Miniature Fabergé Chair, sold by Sotheby’s

Last night in a fit of sleeplessness, I came across this chair, which was just sold under auction at Sotheby’s. It’s just a smidge over 2″ tall. It was created by Fabergé sometime between 1899 and 1903. I think it’s just stunning. I don’t know if it’s 2.8 million dollars worth of stunning (that’s what it sold for), but I do find myself utterly enchanted by it. I’ve always been on the wee side myself, which I think makes me a bit drawn to all things undersized.

It’s the work of Fabergé workmaster Michael Perchin, and is based on furniture designed in 1839 by Leo von Klenze for Tsar Nicholas I for the new Hermitage in St. Petersburg. It’s crafted out of gold and enamel, with the surfaces ground to resemble the grain in mahogany. The front is a removable drawer. Miniature furniture by Fabergé is very rare; other similar pieces, including a miniature table and desk, are in the collection of Queen Elisabeth II.

It got me started looking through the famous eggs that Fabergé made for Russia’s royal Romanov family from 1885, right up until everything went kerplooie for them in 1917. I thought that I’d looked through the Fabergé eggs before, but it turns out I hadn’t — I recognized a few of them, but I definitely hadn’t seen all of them, and didn’t know exactly how intricate some of them were. I always thought of them as little boxes, but I had no idea the wide variety and creativity in their construction. For instance, I wasn’t aware that some of them had clockworks, and even automotons — chirping, wing-flapping birds!

Peter the Great Fabergé egg

The history of the eggs is very interesting, particularly seeing them in the context of what was happening in the Romanov family through the years, how World War I impacted everything, and of course the whole Rasputin brouhaha. After the Bolsheviks took over, the eggs sort of scattered to the four winds, and some of them are still missing, or have parts missing. The ultimate Easter egg hunt, I suppose.

The eggs are the very definition of ornate, and at first glance are just too much. However, these haven’t been executed by clumsy hands — no Bedazzler atrocities here — every detail is so finely crafted, so mind-bogglingly precise, it’s hard not to get sucked in. Find some pictures that let you really zoom in on the detail — it’s breathtaking. No really — I found myself holding my breath even just looking at them on a computer screen, I’d probably seize right up if I ever got to see one in person. I can’t think of anything else that I’ve ever seen that has so much care and fine detail in such a compact space, just for art’s sake. Nobody is making things like this anymore, and that’s a shame.

The Fabergé eggs have been documented pretty well on the Mieks site, including lots of great up-close photographs from different angles, and even some video (the video of the Clover-leaf egg in particular makes a big difference — photos can’t capture how delicate and translucent the egg is).

I’m so excited about this, I might not be able to sleep tonight:

When I was a tyke growing up in Seattle, Sea Galley was the height of fine dining, as far as I was concerned. On our birthdays, my brother Bob & I got to choose any restaurant in the entire city for our special birthday dinner. The answer was always Sea Galley, much to my parents’ chagrin.

In my eight-year-old eyes, Sea Galley was fancy. It had enclosed booths, and nets, and nautical bric-a-brac everywhere. It was dark, and mysterious, and it felt like you were being led through a maze when you were led to your table. And there was a salad bar. It was the first place in town to have a salad bar (as far as I knew), and it felt extravagant. The salad bar had baby corn. Baby corn! We’d never seen baby corn before, it was so dainty and adult. And they let you have all the baby corn you wanted! It didn’t even count as part of your meal! What a magical place!

The kids’ menu was shaped like something — I don’t remember what exactly, probably a diver’s helmet — and it included a list of non-alcoholic tropical beverages with crusty, sea-dog sounding names. As far as I’m concerned, Sea Galley is at least 70% responsible for my love of tiki bars, even though it was nautical, and completely tikiless. Since my love of tiki bars is a fairly massive part of my life, I still have a lot of reverence for Sea Galley.

There are two places I’ve been in my adulthood that look a bit like Sea Galley, and they’re both in Los Angeles (it’s no coincidence that I adore L.A.): Bahooka in Rosemead, and the Warehouse in Marina del Rey. But I see them with adult eyes, and while I love them, the mystique is not quite there. There is only one restaurant that still gives me the same sense of childlike awe: the Mai-Kai in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. I’ve searched high & low to find my adult Sea Galley, and the Mai-Kai is it, no doubt.

Right about when I was in the fourth or fifth grade, Sea Galley started a new advertising campaign, advertising their crab legs.

Dancing crab chefs at Sea Galley, from Sanderson Studios

We’ve got crab legs!
Sea Galley!
We’ve got crab legs!
Sea Galley!
We’ve got snow-snow-snow,
king-king-king,
Dungeness, too!

Get your crab legs!
Sea Galley!
Get your crab legs!
Sea Galley!
We’ve got crab legs!
So come get… your… crab leeeeeeeegs… TONIGHT!

This compelling bit of lyrical artistry was sung by a trio of half-chef, half-crustacean people, who literally had crab legs. And they danced. And they REALLY wanted you to eat their crab legs. I remember it being a pretty big deal — they did a whole series of commercials, and I remember all of us kids lining up Rockette-style in the schoolyard and singing “we’ve got crab legs!” complete with high kicks. I think there is an entire generation of Seattle children who cannot see crab legs without singing the song, at least under their breath. I know I can’t.

By the end of the ’80s, Red Lobster rolled into town, and ruined everything. By that time, I had finally moved on from Sea Galley, so I don’t know what kind of shape the restaurants were in towards the end. It’s probably best that I never saw what became of my beloved Sea Galley.

Hanford has heard all about the glories of Sea Galley, and has heard me sing “We’ve got crab legs!” enough times that he now sings it unprovoked himself. Can you imagine my joy at actually finding the commercial on YouTube today? Probably not. Unfortunately, the quality isn’t very good, but you can still sort of make out some of the nets & other nautical decor. Bebeya, thanks for making my day.