Sunday, March 15, 2015

NEW PDF AND "TECHNICAL DIFFICULTY" GIVEAWAY/MAN-O-PAUSE IS NOW ON FACEBOOK!!

It was inevitable, wasn't it?  Still under construction.  Please don't mind the  mess, and "LIKE" us here:

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Man-O-Pause/714963528621349?ref=aymt_homepage_panel

Additionally, since there was something wrong with our first Issue 1 PDF link, I found two highly collectible signed and numbered copies of Issue 1 in a stack of papers at home, and offer them as a "we're sorry" gift to you. Be the first two replies to this post, and I'll send them to you "bagged and boarded". Don't put your address on the public reply. We'll PM you after you win.
Actually, the new, working PDF can be found here:

ISSUE 1 PDF
 

Sunday, March 8, 2015

FREE ISSUE 1 PDF (Limited Time)!

The winter weather wasn't kind to MAN-O-PAUSE Issue 1.  No sooner than I had declared it "done", delay after delay occasioned resulting from the snow, ice, and the sudden temperature falls.  We refused to cancel the publication.

If you look around. Basil and I are sprinkling 55 free copies of the issue in and around Louisville and Southern Indiana.  Each is numbered and signed by the two of us.

For the more computer-oriented reader, and for anyone else who couldn't find a hard copy, here it is, the winter issue.  It's timely, with only 12 or so days left in the season.  We hope that it entices you to buy the second issue, a special publication which I consider a "labor of love":

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B0j6rORadcuCd1dKYkpRckxWMVU/view?usp=sharing

Sunday, March 1, 2015

MAN-O-PAUSE CONTRIBUTOR ROBERT REED TO BE FEATURED ON "PSEUDOPOD"!!

Contributor Robert Reed's short story, “Killing Puppies for Aunt Jenny”, published in our first issue, was recently selected to feature on the well-regarded “Pseudopod” horror fiction podcast in the coming months.  Watch for it at http://pseudopod.org/

Mr. Reed may either be contacted by email at:  robert.reed.author@gmail.com  or on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/AuthorRobertAReed?pnref=lhc

Congratulations, Robert!


Sunday, February 22, 2015

"NOMEL"-LOOKING FOR THE CREATORS OF "NOMEL" TOOTHPASTE AND MOUTHWASH.


Roughly from November, 1988 to January 1989, I noticed a primitive advertisement being infrequently broadcast on local television.  The film stock was grainy, and I remember something about a family forming a conga line and dancing in or around a large bathroom setting to the product jingle.

The product being sold was a line of (weird-for-the-time) lemon-flavored toothpaste and oral care products called “NOMEL” (“Lemon” spelled backward).  From what little I remember from 30 seconds of fuzzy advertising, “NOMEL’S” selling point was that it was “all natural” (Baby Boomers were just beginning to mainstream health food products in the late 1980’s), presumably an alternative to the harsh, chemico-minty brands of toothpaste which dominate the marketplace to this day.

All that I remember about the jingle was that it was a rip-off or rewriting of Ary Barroso’s classic song “Brazil” featuring that “Dunt-dunt-dunt/dunt-dunt-de-dunt-dunt” tropical rhythm. The few lyrics I remember go something like this:
NO-MEL/Nat-ur-all-y/

To freshen breath and clean your teeth/

NOMEL is what you need . . .”

As a college student who was somewhat required to study advertising, the raw, low-budget quality of the spot suggested to me that someone with a lot of imagination and little money was out there daring to directly compete with the mammoth personal care product companies by formulating, manufacturing, and marketing (of all things) their own local toothpaste brand.  As a casual fan of kitsch, it was mildly amusing cheezy fun, like some scratchy old advertisement from the 1960’s.

Moreover, this NOMEL thing had a D.I.Y. weirdness to it which appealed to the Punk Rock fan in me.  At that time, it seemed that toothpaste and mouthwash were the exclusive province of large corporations (Tom’s of Maine, as far as I know, wasn’t yet sold in Louisville).  There was “Indie” music and “Indie” publication, but who had ever heard of an “Indie” toothpaste?  It is this peculiar brand of fearless creative energy which we promote at “MAN-O-PAUSE”, particularly in my own personal mission to turn passive fangirls and fanboys into active innovators and artists.

That winter of 1989, I looked through my local drug and grocery stores in a semi-frantic attempt to try this weird lemon toothpaste, but no one else had so much as heard of it.  Soon thereafter, the advertisements disappeared from the television.  Did NOMEL ever make it to retail shelves?

I wish to interview the people who created and marketed “NOMEL for a possible front cover   NOMELissue.  IF YOU WERE INVOLVED WITH THE MAKING AND MARKETING OF NOMEL” ORAL CARE PRODUCTS, AND ARE RECEPTIVE TO AN INTERVIEW EITHER ON OR OFF OF THE RECORD, OR IF YOU HAVE ANY TUBES, BOTTLES, DISPLAYS, ADVERTISING, OR OTHER “NOMEL” EPHEMERA FOR DONATION OR REASONABLE SALE, PLEASE CONTACT ME ON THIS BLOG, OR OTHERWISE AT:

P. KERZEY
c/o MAN-O-PAUSE Magazine
P.O. Box 234
Floyd’s Knobs, Indiana 47119



Please include “NOMEL” in the subject heading of your communication, if pertinent.

Thank You,
P. KERZEY, CO-EDITOR

Sunday, February 8, 2015