April 16, 2001

Pretty slick haul today, a couple of disco compilations by that poor mans K-tel label Adam,  Kansas, David Essex, Bowie, Pink Floyd (I’m missing the gene that makes you worship Pink Floyd.) Wings, (I still have my Wings prismatic belt buckle form the 70’s and take that band very seriously. So if you see me wearing it don’t laugh, I’m not being campy or ironic.). To round it off I snatched a live album by the band that stole Woodstock- Sha Na Na. This group can defiantly be taken as camp. I use to think it was odd doing a style of music from 20 years ago and even going as far to dress like the Broadway version of Grease. Although, last month in Seattle I saw pockets of Mohawked punk rockers on the street doing the same thing.

When Sid Vicious died a lot of people thought that was the end of punk rock and yesterday Joey Ramone passed on. Is that the stake in the heart? Can’t these white suburban kids find a more current rite of passage into adulthood. If your going to sin make it original.

Are you a prose or a poem?

April 22, 2001

Give up? This stuff was called Koogle and it hit the stores in the mid 70’s. According to the label it was made of Vegetable oil, Sugar, Dextrose, Salt, and Artificial flavors. But I just knew it as peanut spread that came in chocolate, vanilla, cinnamon and banana varieties. People tried it once and according to legend every refrigerator in America had a jar in it with just one big spoon mark inside.

One thing you get from yard sales is rediscovering your past but with retro food once it’s gone it’s extinct. How many 70’s morning meals consisted of Carnation Instant Breakfast, Spacefood Sticks and Wonder bread and Koogle? I’m curious on sheer quantity the lost recipes are in the Kraft vault waiting to be rediscovered? If I had the dough I'd like to make a deal on buying up this old gems and recreating them. Just because something is DOA in the 70’s doesn’t mean a new demographic will reject it. I want Quisp and that braided candy bar Marathon.

The best thing about Koogle was its marketing. It featured a Sid and Marty Kroff giant plush toy with wobbly eyes. Even the jingle had the phrase "Koogly eyes" in it. (I did a google on Koogle and no one seems to remember how it went. I have half of it stuck in my brain with more useless fragmented knowledge).

 Anyone got some Nutella?

April 29, 2001

Today was one of those yard sales that you only dream about, somebody get my hand out of the warm water.

So I was driving down one of these long forested driveways where usually some fat inbreed sits out front playing the banjo and when I got there the stereo in the garage was playing country tunes from and 8 track tape! Then I looked around and among the old radios was a portable Elgin 8 track player that splits in half and becomes a stereo. These are the Sherman tank of portable players and if you have a strong arm and a car battery you could clear a beach with the full metal sound.

But in the back of his garage were 8 of those count 34 holders filled with tapes an more surprisingly was there were 2 other people digging through them before I got there.

Then the proprietor said, "You guys like 8 track tapes? I got 900 of them in the back." So I got the grand tour and was impressed by his varnished shelves and alphabetized order. I’m still looking for an effective display for my tapes other than Safeway bags piled in the basement.

So then came the 8 track upshowmanship (Remember he started it by saying he had over 900.) dialog. Him "I have 900 tapes" Me "Well, I have over 2000," Him "I have 12 players" Me "I have 32" (last count). Then I wanted to see how deep he was into tapes and dropped terms like sensing foil, pinch rollers and pressure pads. Then lost him. Point, set and match.

So the booty was that Elgin portable and 38 tapes such as a few boots. Obscure Fleetwood Macs, 3 Clapton’s, Sweet, 2 Bowies, One of the boots was called Gallery of Memories 1972 and the strange thing was 1/3 of the songs are on a tape I was listening to on the way there called Meet The Brady Bunch. On The ride home I was interchanging the versions of American Pie, Day After Day and Baby I’m a Want You. Cover bands don’t get any better than this.

May 7, 2001

Loads of sales this weekend but nothing much to brag about other than the obligatory tiki mug. 8 track wise I found one of those players that looked like it was fished out of the water after they drained the lake in a crime scene and 10 so-so tapes. But the guy saw me rummaging through them and said that it was sold as a set. This line is beginning to irk me. I’m going to start putting all my garbage from the week in a lot with a copy of Superman number 1 and let it go as a set.  I’ve also noticed that lately tapes aren’t as throw away as a year ago when people are buying them at yard sales for ebay. Is nothing sacred anymore?

 Records can be fun with collectors because all the garage sale people go after Beatles and Bob Dylan and brag about their finds. I’ve heard these tunes too many times and get more pleasure out of Julie London or Frank N. Stein and the Ghouls. I’m hoping to develop and aesthetic that one-day includes Ray Coniff 8 tracks, Happy Meal toys and polyester pants. They’re would no shortage and I’ve love to get in a maniac state by a JC Penney label. Other than that I’ve been slowly getting into “retro” scents. So far I’ve found a half full bottle of Hai Karate cologne, 007 Talk powder. Tiki Aftershave Balm (I love the smell of this stuff), and Bamboo After Shave. Most of them smell like the familiar stand by Old Spice but once in a while at a time when my body chemistry is right the scent is very unusual and I’ve had several complements. Anyone else do this stuff and have any suggestions?

May 12, 2001

I knew this day would one day come, It’s irrigation festival day. So in this rural light town from dawn to dusk it celebrated rain, neat huh? The climax of the observance was a 2 hour parade down the middle of the street with all the typical floats that you’d expect to see in a smallish town. I grew up in a large city before moving here and because of pop culture etal whenever I see a parade I look at it is a premonition of something violent about to happen. Images of Walter Bremmer, or Steve McGarrett searching for a hidden time bomb amid the crowd always come to mind for some reason. No such luck this year, among the floats were the irrigation queen, those wacky shrines driving the mini cars (Who started all this and why?), Players form the local high school play singing (It was Annie, of course). But what made me do a double take was someone got permission to have a mobile spectacle calling attention of virtues of home born children and it was filled with calf like toddlers with placards around their necks with the phrase "Home Born" on them. If I knew this I would have tried to get an 8 track platform up there with a giant paper mache Weltron Player and an endless loop queen tossing tapes at the people.

And if you think this is out of character for this small town, I just found out that this week kicks off a national cross dressers convention in the next town 15 miles away. I may have to hit that tonight. It certainly beats hanging out in the Indian Casino on a Saturday night.

May 21, 2001

I’ve noticed in one yard these yard sales have become incredibly competitive and somedays driving 5 miles to see baby clothes is very disappointing. But because it’s a new season and many of my friends have taken to this "Spring Fever" and are coupling and since I’m being ushered out of the picture I feel I should do my part and present the descriptions of the latest rouge gallery of my garage sale nemeses. Every few months the faces change but the modis operendi remains.

Personally, I keep a low profile at sales "he who travels fastest travels alone." And the 10 min I spend gabbing about the weather could be better spent dashing off to a kooky estate sale, Martha Stewart has nothing on me.

Here’s the short list:

The Hunched back Couple- I see these people everywhere, they’re in their 80’s and while the husband’s testosterone levels are waning the wife is becoming more masculine with her post menopause mustache and leads him across town. I might think would be cute but one day I was walking to my car and this octarian was pissing on my front tire. And since assaulting a senior citizen is a felony now I could only put a curse on him and his oversized SUV as I left. If you thought old man stink was bad…

The Woman and Her Unhappy Kid- This lady has a bout the same zeal for thrifts and yard sales as me and I just discovered she has an ebay handle. But she always breaks thrift etiquette and drags her miserable kid along. I mentioned it before but I’ll say it again. "Never bring a child to an estate sale" They get in the way, knock things down, and are only there because mommy can’t afford a baby sitter. She also breaks the ebay etiquette code by putting "L@@K" on her listing, how gauche

Granny- I call her this because she owns Grandma Attic (a posh vintage store). There’s nothing wrong with getting your stock at thrifts but my gripe is here scary appearance. There comes a time in life when hair dye is not going to make you look younger and you’re only fooling yourself. This woman looks and dresses like Elvira with AIDS.

I never liked the concept of hip "sexy senior citizens" and when my time comes I plan on being a reclusive eccentric and gray as a mule. I think it will be fun to play the role. Most people take old people toys (Walkers, support hose, heating pads) for granted but I think I could get fetishy about them and give them new meaning. I already wear my pants a little to high.

May 29, 2001

One thing about living in a tiny town is when ever you met someone new it like playing the 6th degree of Kevin Bacon game. I’ll give you a few recent examples. I have a friend who went to Canada and met a girl there who use to live here and here father still lives here and I know him because he works on my car. Yesterday I met a guy in the coast guard who works with someone who is a good friend of one of my many unemployed pals.

The bad thing is it’s so hard to do anything anonymously. I sort of miss vanishing into a city and going to a bar where nobody know your name. But the good thing is you’re forced to be nice to people or you’re going to be very lonely on a Friday night with only you’re attitude to keep you company.

Now that I’ve set the stage, yesterday I went to a sale of the usual garage sale knick-knacks of clothes, books and worn out children toys. But this woman looked strangely familiar and I couldn’t quite put my finger on it and while I was flipping through one of the books saw the last name of one of my classmates. I put two and two together and realized this was her sister. So I took the information and confronted her and was dead right. So I put on the charm and in 2 min she asked me what I was looking for and I said "8 Tracks". She had a few.

So now I’m the happy owner of Alice Cooper's Easy Action, Billion Dollar babies and the Spinners Live. Nice to have connections eh?

June 6, 2001

I’ve noticed that the best thing about a recessed impoverished area is you get an automatic license to be an underachiever. I’ve never has a job with any real responsibility and always prided myself in not working at a place that’s too good to walk out of if it became intolerable. Back in Hawaii I use to sit back while everyone I’ve know had a better job than me complete with car payments and long term mortgages and found it amusing. But the rules have changed here. An entry level Safeway job is the big time, a video clerk will make you the envy of your peers and a waiter at restaurant is like being a CEO. Not slacking is rarely an option and most are just fine with that.

This town has the oldest demographic in Washington. People move here to retire and not to bring employment so it ain’t going to improve. Hell I’d settle for an Internet connection that is more than 28.8 bps. It’s interesting asking a senior citizen about Sequim and hearing them praise the smallness and "Gods Country" element. But most younger people complain about the old fogies and when you ask them what they did this weekend and they answer "nothing" it’s not to far from the truth. And the newspaper in this town does everything to report every happy story without looking at the whole picture. For instance the cult of celebrity here is big as with every place else and last year Barbara Streisand was visiting and people still bring it up. But last month Sequim’s number on resident big shot Robbie Kenevil went on one of his many drunken sprees and got arrested for fighting at a bar. And not burb in the papers I think this town is just itching to have a prank do to it to break the monotony.