What's the Story, Morning Glory?

The mystery of the Parkville Phallus


Rock hard peter, Parkville style (photo by Amy Davis - but not the Baltimore Sun's Amy Davis!)

When Amy drove off to work Sunday morning, she was greeted by this huge dick drawing sketched in chalk on her apartment complex parking lot. It made her smile. It made me smile when I saw it later. I'm sure it made everyone smile because, well, everyone loves a big dick! They're a load of fun!

But who, we wondered, left this festive Sunday offering for the Parkville apartment-dwelling community to feast their eyes on (and tread their tires over)? Kids? Juveniles? Pube-escents? And why this tomfoolery before Halloween, still a full week away?

It made us both think of the UK's Huffington Horse etching and, while this was no Huffington Horse, it was certainly hung like one. Rather, it was more like an asphalt crop (cock?) circle, a mystery appearing at the crack of dawn to make onlookers wonder who created it and what was its purpose.

Having just seen Werner Herzog's latest documentary, Cave of Forgotten Dreams, the night before at The Charles Theater, we marveled at the pavement penis as if we were Herzog and his cast of archeologists deconstructing the prehistoric Cheval Cave drawings. "Vot does this primitive representation of the male genitalia tell us about sexual mores in the new Millenium?" Herzog may well have intoned upon seeing this giant dick. "Does it point tovard der sun, that giant egg-shaped source of all life on earth, as if to fertilize it with man's essence, or is it a severed organ, representing Modern Man's increasingly marginalized and metrosexualized presence in today's vorld?"


Balls of Confusion: the situation gets hairy down below


Amy keeps an eye on her Parkville Parkin'lot Phallus to be sure the erection doesn't last longer than 4 hours (thus necessitating emergency medical assistance from Balto County road crews!)


"Story of my life - I always get the shaft!" Tom laments

We may never know the Parkville Pee-Pee's origin. But it made me pine for the days when Baltimore's Woodbourne neighborhood truly had wood. Yup, it made me think of The Penis Tree.

Related Links:
The Penis Tree (Baltimore or Less)

Naughty Bits

I recently cleaned off some of the crap hanging on my refrigerator...much of it was nasty.

Carousel Coupling at the City Fair

Anybody remember this infamous incident in the annals of Baltimore Babylon? I must have xeroxed a copy of the newspaper ad...


The infamous 1987 City Fair cartoon, fullsize


Close-up of coupling carousel couple

The only Internet mention is the one below by Sun columnist Dan Rodericks:

"In 1987, promoters of the Baltimore City Fair published in The Sun and Evening Sun an amusing advertisement that included a Where's Waldo kind of cartoon showing the crowd at the fair, and a couple coupling on a carousel. Yeah, the last part was a little joke by the art director, whose agency apologized and reimbursed the fair for the ads."

The Bad Taste of Mr. Goodbar

Am I the only kid who remembers this naughty candy tale?



The Penis Tree


Pee-pee Tree puts the schwing into Spring

Credit where credit is due: It was Senator Theatre Manager Gayle Grove who first alerted me to this topiary curio on nearby Woodburne Avenue. She had seen it while walking with her Mom, but knew that I would appreciate more than her mother, who looked away in disgust. I did, so much so that I went back with her one day to document this risque topiary creation for Atomic TV (check it out on the "You ASked For It" episode).

When we approached the house, a little kid came running out saying, "You wanna see the Pee-Pee Tree?"

"Sure," I said. "Did you do that?"

"No," the kid said, "but my brother did. You wanna look at it?"

The excited youngster led us into the back yard where he regaled us with his brother's garden art. When we asked him why his brother did it, he shrugged his shoulders. "I dunno, guess he just like pee-pees."

He seemed elated when we suggested setting up a hose or sprinkler at the tree's base so that water would shoot out of the top. "Yeah," he screamed, "so the Pee-Pee Tree can pee itself!"

Then a neighboring kid came over to play army and the little brother and the kid with the guns ran around the Pee-Pee Tree like some modern Pagan reenactment of a scene from The Wicker Man.

Only in Baltimore!