Snake America: Issue Eight
Errata: Reader James says, "The SLB is the precursor to the 23, I think, and the more important shoe in this lineage. ... It had a neoprene sock." I concur. Two pairs went on eBay for a few hundred bucks a while ago, but I heard from a source that the seller made his wife win because he wanted to get more money for them*.
Snake is a regular email (twice a week-ish) where I write about eBay auctions, videos I've seen, ephemera, errata, the #RockofAges hashtag on Instagram in 2012**, people who just discovered Horween...
Nice wetsuit:
http://item.ebay.com/301104408121 - This old couple--actually four people, more on that later--has been selling items for awhile. Per every auction description:
PS .... yunnow , 10 years ago ....... ebay used to be more fun ...... sigh
They're at least a decade deep in the game--sometime before eBay stopped hiding bidder feedbacks and after they stopped letting you leave reviews without transactions***. The woman always has her eyes closed and the guy's beard has grown a lot over the last couple months. My favorite auction of theirs this past year was a Fire King Jadeite starter set, in green, though it may have been only one of those giant soup bowls or something with a smaller soup bowl inside it. I find their auctions, or they find me, since their stock is mostly Midwest refuse. Either of them makes the preview photo in the search--worth a click. I really can't get down with the item in question, a Japanese raincoat-fishing-suit from the 1940s, since I'm not obese enough****, nor do I have enough tattoos. Pulling off prewar waterproof tan overalls is one thing--I can do it--but I would not wear a 60/40 jacket even if President Obama himself were spitting on me. The couple--actually four people, more on that later--model the clothing themselves and operate out of what appears to be a hectic space: a Hefty garbage bags flanks their right, and they each wear hats. The wall is too cluttered to accommodate a Felix clock or calendar. A guy I know lives with his parents and has a foot and a half of stuff on his bedroom floor everywhere, like a hayfield, with a rut path from his door to his record player to his bed, like a country road. So be it. Their reliance on ellipsis in auction descriptions, like a Liz Smith column or something... Is enchanting:
the leather is so soft ...... and these were so seldom worn that anyone could use them for horse shows ........ a real western cowboy look ...... and i got a real deal on them ...... so i can pass it along ....... these are gently / hardly worn chaps ..... it for any cowgirl in any country (Chaps, going for nothing)
it is 74 1/2" high ..... the mirror frame itself is 63" by 27 1/2" ...... an inch of bevel ...... old glass too , there are a couple of places in the mirror that are not perfect , but shame on anyone who " fixes" it ........ the bird claw feet are 18" apart .... toe to toe 41 1/2" high to the birds topknot .... or helmet ..... sometimes he looks like a warrior ....... . (Mirror going for a ton)
THANK YOU ....... ;) (Erotic statue by Rollin Karg, sell price $425)
The blurbs are more agreeable than most forms of English. (ALL-CAPS auction descriptions of military surplus on sale from accounts in Phoenix, presumably veterans, are equally warming but hard to read.) They're a four-person team. Scrolling down the photos in the original auction resembles a zoetrope about to go terribly wrong. When he's raising his hands to show how tall she is, they're both smiling. They insure at their own cost. The fishing pants are made out of Japan in a World War II era. They jacket, set against the light, has cracked. It can't be waterproof or breathable. It can't be good for fishing. I read what I remember to be a Harvard Magazine article mentioning a young, deceased alumnus who, during the course of his studies hosted a fishing show on Canadian TV which he taped summers and weekends. Like in the 1980s. I can't find the article or a mention of the deceased anywhere online for the life of me. I asked around when I was in Canada a few years ago, and was told it was Bob Izumi, but he isn't dead or a Harvard graduate.
Am I tripping? In the article it said he'd drive up to Northern Ontario on weekends to record his fishing show, which seems as far-fetched as the premise itself, but could yet work since it's only 11 hours to North Bay from Cambridge. If he left Thursday at 6, he'd make Nipissing by breakfast. It'd be too late to fish but he could scout and shoot. He'd probably need to bring a friend to drive through Sunday night. I think clamming on Cape Cod would be easier, but there's no Walleye there.
Nice gig:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u4AwHYeEEAA - Pretty cool Sonny Sharrock video where he's probably playing like three blocks and weeks away from Judge or YOT or something gigging at CB's. ... I don't dig the political sentiment too much, but he's playing a Les Paul, which is an anti-disestablishmentarian instrument. Reader "Fat" Rich found a video of Guns N' Roses live at The Ritz in 1988, and says "it's better than" YOT live at The Anthrax, from the same time. It's from across the street where Sharrock played, I think. A couple years apart, too. Melvin Gibbs, who played on Rollins Band's Weight (USA, 1992), is on the Sharrock video. Guns' lineup is better since Gibbs went to Berklee. Sharrock did the Space Ghost theme song and played guitar on the 1986 remix of Japanese punk band The Stalin's' 1984 album, Fish Inn (1984, 1986, Japan). The record without Sharrock is better.
Nice conveyance:
This backhoe is for sale on Craigslist out of the Financial District. Do backhoes have keys? Where's it parked at night? Is it next to that restaurant, which looks like 640 Club, whose address is 640 – 61st Street West New York , NJ 07093. Is it actually in the Financial District? Can he take it through the tunnel? There was a BBQ restaurant on 23rd my sister and I ate at once and liked, and when we tried to go grab dinner there again a couple months later, we couldn't because someone drove their Hummer through the restaurant window and into it the week after we ate. Then it shut down and opened again. The Daily News news story comments said it was a cover-up in re: the driver, but they may have been deleted*****. I never ate there again -- the end.
Hate mail, requests, corrections, tips, hollowed-out corn muffins, Necrocomicon e-books and vintage no-Xplode can be sent to me here. Thank you for reading.
Snake
* While eating at Ben's Chili Bowl. From their About page: "And just ten days before his inauguration on January 10, 2009, President-Elect Barack Obama visited and ate lunch here. ... In 2007 we switched to a trans fat free fry oil. ..." -- they should enumerate numbers above 9. Also: re: the wife thing, I tried to win a roommate's sneakers once as a joke and I got banned from bidding for a week and he got banned from selling for a month, so I sold them for him.
** Rock of Ages (USA, 2012)
*** Sample feedback from an (different) old roommate to his friend, in high school: "This is the best dildo ever lol"
**** I plan on running this theme into the ground ... the aesthetic ideal for vintage clothing is absolute rotundity (and maybe spikey hair)
***** Daily News' food coverage is pretty good...