Freaky Saturday

Park decided to take a break from the concert scene this week -- sorry Johnny Winter at BB's! -- and work an event purported to be a haven for music/movie/sport memorabilia called the "Gotham Super Collectors Show." Instead it was kind of a haven for the strange and unusual. If you weren't talking to yourself or making jokes to others that they weren't getting, you were apparently doing it wrong.

The show was tucked away at the Holiday Inn on the mid- to upper-West Side. And since 'ark said it once hosted a contingent of Clapton fans in town for a gig, it appears the establishment is used to having weirdness around. I should have known it right off the bat when the organizer, a not-too-distant relative of Cousin Itt, showed me to my table. And when the neighboring dealer came over to look at the stuff as we were putting it up, but sans the usual pleasantries and/or courtesies -- aka a smile or introduction.

But that's mild, baybee, compared to what came later. One of the first happeners-by hadn't washed his hair for at least a month and looked offended that we had no comic books. An introverted Rain Man-esque type in a Giants coat looked very uncomfortable until a woman in a veryyyyy mini Santa Baby skirt showed up. He sat by her for hours. I'm trying to figure out who that was now, since she looks nothing like "Scream Queen" Debbie D nor the "First Lady of Wrestling" Missy Hyatt, both of whom were on the bill.

No wonder the show tanked. Not that it was the fault of former "F-Troop" actor Larry Storch (cough, cough, mothballs!) nor Brutus Beefcake (the 'roided wrestler), because both gamely sat at quiet tables in the room all day. There was a Gandolph, OK, he wasn't Gandolph but he was dressed to the nines in some kind of wizardry wardrobe -- minus the hip sneakers. Of course he was speaking in "fantasy" world language. Near the end, Gandolph started peeling pieces of his costume away. You'd look back and one thing would be different. Look again, and one more thing and so on until he was almost normal. And late in the day, an orange werewolf showed up and kept trying to massage me with his lobster-claw gloves on. 'Ark laughed pretty heartily at that ... but as you can see by the photo, not so much when it was his turn.

Our first customer of the day was a very chatty, very bag-laden lady who had unfortunate scars across her forehead. She thinks people should marry animals to lower the divorce rate. That's just one of the gems we gleaned in her couple trips to our table. But hey, she bought stuff!

We had a pretty good mix of stuff -- DVDs and CDs, hockey and baseball cards, movie photos and vintage concert shirts. We sold enough to recoup our table fee, but I think we could have done really better at a stronger show.

Back to the freaks though. One of the ones who spent extensive time at our table ... and I'll at least give him that since many glanced and decided against checking it out before their eyes even saw everything on it. Hey people, you spent $10 to get in. It's a small show, do yourself a favor and get your money's worth!! Anyway, before I get too off-track like 'ark does ;), this gentleman was looking through movie photos when he said, "These are all from the 20th century. My work is from the 21st century." And "I'm not going to be around much anymore due to my financial situation. So I might not be here next time, except if I come here anyway."

Why the small turnout? Well one of the first things we learned that day was that an enemy of the promoter had emailed people telling them the show was canceled. We were advised to look out for someone who looks like a Green Beret because he has been banned from shows and there's no telling what he might do if he got into ours.

But I'm hesitant to give the Green Beret too much credit. For music and sport collectors who may have previously been to the Gotham, they probably didn't see a need to return. So that left well, what we got. Basically none of the dealers seemed to make out like bandits. So we took it as we got our money back, plus there was an entertainment component we hadn't been expecting.

Oh wait, I almost forgot to talk about the Yankees fan. A young man with a suitable amount of Yankees apparel on happened by, so I started pointing out different Yankees things I had. He seemed to like different things, but at one point he stated, "I'm not giving these guys any more of my money." And then boom! He just ran off. I can appreciate him sticking to his guns like that.

We'll still keep our stuff together and wait for a music or movie show to pop up in the future, then just try to hold us back! 'Ark was glad for the opportunity to have a "starter" show for us, but then again he didn't know about my years of sports card dealer experience as a young 'un. I think I impressed him ... again.

Picture-perfect holiday

The big holiday for my family has become Thanksgiving. My sis and I take pains to make sure we're off the day -- which usually include working Christmas Day. It's become a tradition to have a big dinner at Lorrie's house, which includes lots of food and laughter. This year, the tradition was extended to a weeklong whirlwind trip with car and plane travel, a special and long-awaited reunion, football, food, hockey, ice skating, shopping and again lots of laughs. Lots to be thankful for, to be sure.

A thousand words couldn't take the place of these individual moments. But I usually save the bulk of the actual pictures for another tradition, the family calendar. Although I'm not there to see it, I love hearing about everyone perusing it and enjoying the serious photos as well as the funny ones. And it's something that keeps on giving for a whole year -- well at least for my mom and myself, since we're the ones who use them.

Anyway back to the trip. It started in New York. Right after a hard night's work, I hopped the subway to JFK to catch a plane to Richmond. The plan -- and it worked to perfection -- was to meet Clapton buddy Susan in Savannah on Friday night, see my long-lost Little Sister Jessica on Saturday, go to my first USF home game on Sunday and then make our way to the other side of the state so Mark could finally meet the rest of the family.

We motored on down, sampling pecan rolls along the way and making a pitstop at South of the Border. As anyone who ever took the long summer car trips between the North and Florida knows, the Border billboard signs start out dozens of miles before the stop and grow more voluminous as you get near. There were a few less this year, and even fewer people at the stop. The employees outnumbered the customers. Talk about out of season!

We had arranged to meet Susan at Sam Snead's restaurant in Savannah. The late legendary golfer put together a nice shrine with a sharp menu. Even on an upset stomach, I couldn't help trying to pack away the prime rib special. And yes, for those in the know, Susan did spill her water! It's so endearing ... and wet!

The next day, Park ventured onward to Florida, arranging to meet Jessica -- I was a Big Sister to her Little Sister many MANY moons ago while on the West Coast of Florida. In fact, the age she is now is the age I was when we first met. Yikes! When I saw her striding around the corner, I started hopping up and down. Lots of squealing, lots of hugging and borderline tears. Mark (and the valets) were eating it up. Speaking of eating, more good grub!

Jess looked stupendously fabulous and we just talked and laughed. Which of course led Mark to wonder how we could have been apart so long if we're so in sync. My answer was that I just expected to see her again someday, to have these kind of moments again. She needed here time and space to become her own person. Guess what her own person is? A journalism major at the University of South Florida! Great choice, I say! Except her minor is Theater and mine was Dance. Black sheep!!

The next day we went to the Big Top Flea Market. Every time we thought we were done, another row or extension we hadn't been down popped up. Found lots of cool things, including some rocking additions to the lighter collection (a submarine, a grenade, a laster, a frog and an Oreo). We went to one of my old haunts, Vinyl Fever (OK, it's in a new location) and then met Jess and b/f Darnell for yet even more good food at the Columbia Restaurant, which opened in Tampa in 1905.

Then on to Raymond James Stadium to see our USF Bulls. They had struggled in recent weeks, so it was great to see them get off to a fast start. Three quarters went by before anything else happened. Jess seemed to like my derisive chant to UConn "Compass! Compass!" since they ran side to side more than up and down the field.

Next day it was on to the homefront. Mark had met my sis, but not my mom nor my bro. We went to Mom's where both were waiting and it quickly dissolved into boys vs. girls. In other words, he fit right in. "Did you just call me 'ark?" he inquired of Mom at one point. Mom made one of my childhood favorites for dinner, veal parmigiana, and we scarfed that down. Inside with Mom, I missed most of the fun when Mark and Jeff went outside to try the cigar he had bought at the Columbia "just to try it."

The next day we went to a flea market in Boca Raton where the only thing we found was a compass lighter, blue to remind us of UConn. The most hilarious moment was when we were looking at one particular outfit with a longer shirt and a short-sleeve shirt under it. The woman kept changing the prices, and raising them, even though we were rapidly losing interest. "That's $32 ... no $42." I said "How about $52?" as we walked away. Not the right way to play it in this economy.

Wednesday was a day full of ice. In Florida, as 'ark likes to point out. We picked up my whirling dervish of a nephew, Shane, and took him ice skating. Even Mark was going to try it out. Shane and I zipped around the ice with his child bar, but they didn't have them for adults, so Mark mostly stood at the boards until a nice instructor showed him how to do a couple of basics. The boys wrapped up the morning by having a snowball fight with the snow that was piled outside the rink.

We met up with Sis and hubby Keith ... back to boys vs. girls ... and headed south NOT to Miami. Played games at Dave & Busters -- the funniest part was a trivia game that only gave prize tickets for the top three. When two more people joined us, they couldn't crack the top three. Completely shut out!

Speaking of that, the Devils had quite the shutout going on for most of their game against the Panthers later that night. But Florida scored twice in the final three minutes to tie up the game. Things got worst when Pinhead Salvador took a penalty for clearing a puck into the crowd, but that infraction was killed off and Johnny O. scored with less than a minute left to send us (and a sizable portion of the crowd in Sunrise) home happy.

Mark had to head back to Virginia on Thanksgiving Day (female co-workers wanted to shop Black Friday, of course!) but he left his cookies (literally!) behind. The Schectors and Benders had a great dinner with lots of laughs ... and extra salt. Mere hours later, me, Sis and Mom trudged off to the mall to start shopping. Yay, I got another rockin' Hendrix hoodie cheaply ... boo, the Lucky Brand watch I wanted wasn't on sale nor could we get either of the two salesladies we asked to part with the little sunburst guitar that was part of the display.

And then hours after that, I was on a plane and darn if I didn't just about fly over a week's worth of memories.