More email from the mentally ill southern jackass. I wrote to him that his first email was "The number one most fucked up thing anyone has ever said to me in my life," and he responded:
glad message was received correctly, i like #1 ratings, u jews killed your own, CHRIST, and you need to be accountable for that. sorry for making you feel responsible..
jews killed their own messiah, CHRIST JESUS, that is the crime, i will stand on JESUS CHRIST as thec SON OF JEHOVAH, GOD, you stand on anyone else, and let's see who stands!
Anyone know how to send an email worm?
I'm messing with his head and telling him I'm Irish and he's inbred.
Friday, March 26, 2010
The Jew Fear, Part 2
So, this is an entirely different aspect of the Fear.
Guy today posted this in L.A. Craigslist:
http://losangeles.craigslist.org/sfv/clt/1661989835.html
Notice, he's from Mississippi. These are incredibly rare cards and I'd lay odds at 1000:1 that they're fakes. If they're not, the guy is selling them for nothing, which is what one might expect from some inbred white fucktard from Mississippi.
So, I wrote him an email asking what he would offer in terms of a guarantee of authenticity, given that there are so many fakes of these (quick historical note, in 1914/15 these were surprises in boxes of CJ. There were a zillion and none of them have survived. Mice nibble the sweet goodness right out of em).
Seems like a reasonable question, right? Anyway, here is the actual quote I got from this fucking pig:
"I don't sell to Jews."
I shit thee not. If you would like to harass him, that probably wouldn't be a bad use of your time.
Guy today posted this in L.A. Craigslist:
http://losangeles.craigslist.org/sfv/clt/1661989835.html
Notice, he's from Mississippi. These are incredibly rare cards and I'd lay odds at 1000:1 that they're fakes. If they're not, the guy is selling them for nothing, which is what one might expect from some inbred white fucktard from Mississippi.
So, I wrote him an email asking what he would offer in terms of a guarantee of authenticity, given that there are so many fakes of these (quick historical note, in 1914/15 these were surprises in boxes of CJ. There were a zillion and none of them have survived. Mice nibble the sweet goodness right out of em).
Seems like a reasonable question, right? Anyway, here is the actual quote I got from this fucking pig:
"I don't sell to Jews."
I shit thee not. If you would like to harass him, that probably wouldn't be a bad use of your time.
Sunday, March 21, 2010
The Last Time this Happened, Part 2
A few months passed. We crept toward the dread of the 2004 Presidential Election, my band slowly devolved into a joyless task of herding (mentally ill) cats, and I continued to not work. In September, the Ad Agency Guy called to offer a second week of sign sitting, this time at a slightly higher day rate in Minneapolis. Although I longed to finally see the home of all my boyhood heroes, I had booked what turned out to be the last tour I ever did (and a complete and utter nightmare on all accounts), and had to turn it down. The wife not happy with that, but held her tongue, probably sensing that my protracted rock and roll adolescence was FINALLY winding down to oblivion.
Very surprisingly, as I thought I had heard the last of this, I got ANOTHER call to have a go at a sign in Seattle in mid-October (the Red Sox were just completing they're playoff comeback against the Yanks), and jumped on the chance. Evidently, they could not find a local desperate idiot, so offered to put me up in a hotel, give me a substantial per diem, and this time it was only 2 3-hour shifts/day instead of a dawn to dusk marathon.
Seattle in late Fall is wet and freezing. Also, the sun doesn't come up in earnest until at least 6:30. This meant driving across town to a 5th story rooftop across from the baseball park downtown in complete darkness, taking a few steps down a ladder (no repelling this time, thank god) and waving in pitch blackness to cars so far below that NO ONE knew I was there (well, until the very last day, but we're not there yet). In Portland, I got a few honks and waves. This time, I might as well have not been there.
The whole week must have been nothing more than fulfilling the contract, because this time, they didn't even bother lying to me that this was a big event. No one from the agency came to see me even once. I was completely on my own. This meant shedding pieces of the uniform as the week went on, i.e., Shirt/tie/slacks/dress shoes/glasses turned to Shirt/tie/jeans/sneakers/no glasses by day 2. Also, I was up so high that no one would have been able to spot me wearing an iPod all day, so I spent a lot of time with PJ Harvey.
Did I mention wet and cold? By 7AM, I was soaked with that wet, misty crap that passes for rain in Seattle, shaking and chattering. Being cold, of course, is a powerful diuretic, which plays prominently later, so stay tuned. To pass the hours, I performed a HIGHLY scientific experiment of counting Kerry vs. Bush bumper stickers and found that King County was about 8:1 Kerry. I also began writing a mocumentary film script in my head for an entirely-optimistic, wholly-unsuccessful actor who spends an entire summer on billboards, slowly loses his mind, woman, and dignity, and ends up throwing things, including poop, at passing cars. I have notes somewhere should you be interested in buying this brilliant idea.
The in-between hours were pure bliss. I wandered the streets of Seattle, mainly Belltown and the Pike Market areas, went to the library, ate pretty well, and took naps. Lovely time, but then back up on the board for the evening shift, during which the predominantly red taillights turned to white headlights, and still no one saw me. My friend SKloos thinks that this was my subconscious creating a waking dream for me to see that my long and unsuccessful music "career" had now become a grotesque caricature - me jumping up and down in public, trying to be noticed, but being ignored by all. As always, he was probably right.
AHA! But then I was noticed on Friday afternoon! Safeco Field had been a giant, empty parking lot and unused grass park all week, but on Frday, around 2PM, cars started to amass. After about a half hour, I started to realize that something odd was going on: every car was filled with white men. Not one woman, not one person of color. At first, I was thinking Gay Pride Mariners appreciation night, but where was the Rainbow Coalition? Why only Whitey? AHA! This had to be one of those "Promise Keeper" type things where massive numbers of mentally ill men get together to watch feats of strength and speak in tongues!
Reflect upon the salient details:
a. I have curly hair and look like a Jew (or some would say, a half-black Jew)
b. These guys, not so much
c. These guys probably not the type to be cool with folks who don't remind them of them
d. This was still in shouting distance of 911.
It was only a matter of time. A group of them started to amass at the base of my billboard's building, pointing up at me and shouting words I couldn't make out over the din of the traffic (but, I was pretty sure had nothing to do with "Hey! That guy is pretending to be DEX, but he's wearing sneakers! What a fraud!). This crowd grew in size over the next 10 minutes or so, before I heard the unmistakable sounds of cops behind me. They suggested that I put my hands up over my head and turn around, and low and behold, TWO pistols were pointed at me.
What followed was one of the most farcical bad cop/worse cops routines I have ever seen, with the heavy played by a LINEBACKER of a lesbian cop. This woman had done so many roids that her Adam's Apple heaved lustily with the thought of pushing me off that rooftop.
HER: WHAT ARE YOU DOING UP HERE?
ME: Hi. This is my job. I've been up here all week. I'm DEX. Get it?
HIM: Sir, we received complaints that someone suspicious was watching the people going to the event from up here.
No. You probably shouldn't be listening to those freaks -
HER: YOU'RE THE FREAK! (swear to god. this is a quote).
ME: I'm going to very slowly reach into my pocket and get my cell phone and you can redial the last number to my employers.
And so I did. And so they did, and that was that, except the kicker:
HER: WHAT DO YOU HAVE IN THOSE BAGS?
ME: I don't really think you want to see.
HER: SLOWLY PICK UP THE BAG AND TAKE OUT WHATEVER IS IN THERE!
ME: Okeekoke (sounds of rustling papter bag and removal of 2 full-to-the-brim bottles of my urine).
HIM: I'd suggest you want to throw those away, Sir.
And they left, and I decided that was the end of this adventure, left an hour early, and drove home in the rain to Portland, where my wife got a pretty big kick out of my tale.
Very surprisingly, as I thought I had heard the last of this, I got ANOTHER call to have a go at a sign in Seattle in mid-October (the Red Sox were just completing they're playoff comeback against the Yanks), and jumped on the chance. Evidently, they could not find a local desperate idiot, so offered to put me up in a hotel, give me a substantial per diem, and this time it was only 2 3-hour shifts/day instead of a dawn to dusk marathon.
Seattle in late Fall is wet and freezing. Also, the sun doesn't come up in earnest until at least 6:30. This meant driving across town to a 5th story rooftop across from the baseball park downtown in complete darkness, taking a few steps down a ladder (no repelling this time, thank god) and waving in pitch blackness to cars so far below that NO ONE knew I was there (well, until the very last day, but we're not there yet). In Portland, I got a few honks and waves. This time, I might as well have not been there.
The whole week must have been nothing more than fulfilling the contract, because this time, they didn't even bother lying to me that this was a big event. No one from the agency came to see me even once. I was completely on my own. This meant shedding pieces of the uniform as the week went on, i.e., Shirt/tie/slacks/dress shoes/glasses turned to Shirt/tie/jeans/sneakers/no glasses by day 2. Also, I was up so high that no one would have been able to spot me wearing an iPod all day, so I spent a lot of time with PJ Harvey.
Did I mention wet and cold? By 7AM, I was soaked with that wet, misty crap that passes for rain in Seattle, shaking and chattering. Being cold, of course, is a powerful diuretic, which plays prominently later, so stay tuned. To pass the hours, I performed a HIGHLY scientific experiment of counting Kerry vs. Bush bumper stickers and found that King County was about 8:1 Kerry. I also began writing a mocumentary film script in my head for an entirely-optimistic, wholly-unsuccessful actor who spends an entire summer on billboards, slowly loses his mind, woman, and dignity, and ends up throwing things, including poop, at passing cars. I have notes somewhere should you be interested in buying this brilliant idea.
The in-between hours were pure bliss. I wandered the streets of Seattle, mainly Belltown and the Pike Market areas, went to the library, ate pretty well, and took naps. Lovely time, but then back up on the board for the evening shift, during which the predominantly red taillights turned to white headlights, and still no one saw me. My friend SKloos thinks that this was my subconscious creating a waking dream for me to see that my long and unsuccessful music "career" had now become a grotesque caricature - me jumping up and down in public, trying to be noticed, but being ignored by all. As always, he was probably right.
AHA! But then I was noticed on Friday afternoon! Safeco Field had been a giant, empty parking lot and unused grass park all week, but on Frday, around 2PM, cars started to amass. After about a half hour, I started to realize that something odd was going on: every car was filled with white men. Not one woman, not one person of color. At first, I was thinking Gay Pride Mariners appreciation night, but where was the Rainbow Coalition? Why only Whitey? AHA! This had to be one of those "Promise Keeper" type things where massive numbers of mentally ill men get together to watch feats of strength and speak in tongues!
Reflect upon the salient details:
a. I have curly hair and look like a Jew (or some would say, a half-black Jew)
b. These guys, not so much
c. These guys probably not the type to be cool with folks who don't remind them of them
d. This was still in shouting distance of 911.
It was only a matter of time. A group of them started to amass at the base of my billboard's building, pointing up at me and shouting words I couldn't make out over the din of the traffic (but, I was pretty sure had nothing to do with "Hey! That guy is pretending to be DEX, but he's wearing sneakers! What a fraud!). This crowd grew in size over the next 10 minutes or so, before I heard the unmistakable sounds of cops behind me. They suggested that I put my hands up over my head and turn around, and low and behold, TWO pistols were pointed at me.
What followed was one of the most farcical bad cop/worse cops routines I have ever seen, with the heavy played by a LINEBACKER of a lesbian cop. This woman had done so many roids that her Adam's Apple heaved lustily with the thought of pushing me off that rooftop.
HER: WHAT ARE YOU DOING UP HERE?
ME: Hi. This is my job. I've been up here all week. I'm DEX. Get it?
HIM: Sir, we received complaints that someone suspicious was watching the people going to the event from up here.
No. You probably shouldn't be listening to those freaks -
HER: YOU'RE THE FREAK! (swear to god. this is a quote).
ME: I'm going to very slowly reach into my pocket and get my cell phone and you can redial the last number to my employers.
And so I did. And so they did, and that was that, except the kicker:
HER: WHAT DO YOU HAVE IN THOSE BAGS?
ME: I don't really think you want to see.
HER: SLOWLY PICK UP THE BAG AND TAKE OUT WHATEVER IS IN THERE!
ME: Okeekoke (sounds of rustling papter bag and removal of 2 full-to-the-brim bottles of my urine).
HIM: I'd suggest you want to throw those away, Sir.
And they left, and I decided that was the end of this adventure, left an hour early, and drove home in the rain to Portland, where my wife got a pretty big kick out of my tale.
Friday, March 19, 2010
A Brief Mathematical Truth
The poorer the neighborhood, the more the seller wants for his valueless cards. This is a direct, mathematical correlation.
The Last Time This Happened...
The last time I went through a long period of under/unemployment was while I was living in Portland, OR. I sent resumes out every day and hear back maybe once a month. I moved up there with my long-term SF job, but when the dotcom bubble burst, I was covered in soap shrapnel and left on the banks of the Island of the Jobless with my wife, the grad school chick. There just were no jobs to be had. Different situation than today in L.A. in which there are great jobs here and there, but WAY too many applicants for each. Portland was a great rainy cave to hibernate for several years. It is the largest den of slack I have ever encountered. Makes for truly great conversation in the coffee houses, but not much in terms of career development.
At this point, the whole baseball card angle wasn't even a twinkle in my mind's eye. Thinking back, we might still be living there if it had, cost of living being as low as it is. I spent my days drinking coffee, puttering in the recording studio with occasional clients or alone with my guitars, and perusing the barren landscape of the Portland Craigslist job boards.
One particularly desperate afternoon, May 2004, I checked out the "Creative" section in "Gigs." Unlike L.A., this section gets at most 10 posts/day, and they almost never involve pay. On this day, however, there was a promising lead looking for actors for a corporate job. I had ZERO acting background, but figured that a guy like me who has played in bands in nothing but my underpants on several occasions should have the gumption to fake it through a casting. So, I called, got an appointment and showed up a few hours later. The room was filled with guys holding headshots who had been sent by their agents. There were all dressed business casual with horn-rimmed glasses. It looked like a Weezer fan club meeting. Me? Jeans and T-shirt. I didn't get the memo. What the hell - they had magazines and snacks and coffee. In Portland, any excuse to drink more coffee is a go.
I eventually got called in and met with a big blonde guy in his early 40s from an ad agency in L.A. and his assistant, who ran the video camera. They gave me the rundown, which was that the "Dex" Yellow Pages, which had been running a series of pretty damn funny TV commercials featuring a character actor you've all seen elsewhere anthropomorphizing the yellow pages. He'd be crammed into a cabinet above the microwave and someone would open the door and ask him where something was and he'd give way too much information very quickly before being shut back into the cabinet. So, the company had hired this agency to create a week-long event in which an actor would spend a week living on a billboard in NW Ptown, waving at cars, being interviewed on radio spots, and showing how to do something on camera every day, e.g., bonsai or guitar repair. "Dex Knows..." Food from the best restaurants in town would be brought up to Dex to sample and comment on, etc., etc.
So, long story short, I got the gig. Yes, this surprised me too. Looking back, the first three choices must have turned it down, but being as broke as we were, I took it; only, it had changed and morphed before the date. It seems that in the 11th hour, the corporate dickheads who own the Dex pages started to worry about their corporate identity, blah blah blah, and scaled the whole project down to me up on a billboard (one of the side of a building types, not a free standing one) for a week waving at cars while clutching an umbrella to prevent 3rd Degree sunburn (this kindness was granted to me on the 3rd day after my desperate pleas finally stopped falling on deaf ears) and risking life and limb getting on and off the board because no ladder had been erected. I had to repel up and down the wires and hook of the pulley system that raises the board up the side of the building while wearing a pair of dress shoes they insisted I wear because it was what the actor wore on camera. This made it about 50x more life threatening. Maybe 1 out of every 500 cars that drove by realized I was up there and honked clearly thinking a crazy person was on a billboard for no apparent reason. I am SURE that not one of them said to himself, "Hot damn! That guy is wearing those same Kenneth Coles as that funny guy on the teevee!"
On the first morning, there was a 30 second live radio spot for a local AM, and THAT'S IT. I was on my own, frying, singing to myself (I wrote 2 songs from my "Walk under and on" record entirely in my head and then came home and figured out on guitar), and losing my mind. No food was provided from Portland's finest eateries. Instead, a few times a day, I would shimmy down the pulley system, appealing to deities long since abandoned, and grab whatever was most edible at the crappy corner market in the bottom unit of the building. I would also use their restroom, but the rest of the day had to resort to a system of emptied water bottles. The more times I had to get up and down off the thing, the more chances of dying horribly in a public spectacle. To avoid sunstroke, I was guzzling as much water as I could, and it would go through me in that June afternoon sun in minutes. The trick is to get the water bottles with the wide mouths, but that's as much info as I'll offer on this subject.
I was up there for 8 hour stretches Monday - Friday, after which I was lobster colored, dehydrated to the point of considering hospitalization, etc. This was the weirdest week of my life. WELL, until I did it AGAIN in Seattle in October, but you'll have to wait until the next episode to hear about that...
At this point, the whole baseball card angle wasn't even a twinkle in my mind's eye. Thinking back, we might still be living there if it had, cost of living being as low as it is. I spent my days drinking coffee, puttering in the recording studio with occasional clients or alone with my guitars, and perusing the barren landscape of the Portland Craigslist job boards.
One particularly desperate afternoon, May 2004, I checked out the "Creative" section in "Gigs." Unlike L.A., this section gets at most 10 posts/day, and they almost never involve pay. On this day, however, there was a promising lead looking for actors for a corporate job. I had ZERO acting background, but figured that a guy like me who has played in bands in nothing but my underpants on several occasions should have the gumption to fake it through a casting. So, I called, got an appointment and showed up a few hours later. The room was filled with guys holding headshots who had been sent by their agents. There were all dressed business casual with horn-rimmed glasses. It looked like a Weezer fan club meeting. Me? Jeans and T-shirt. I didn't get the memo. What the hell - they had magazines and snacks and coffee. In Portland, any excuse to drink more coffee is a go.
I eventually got called in and met with a big blonde guy in his early 40s from an ad agency in L.A. and his assistant, who ran the video camera. They gave me the rundown, which was that the "Dex" Yellow Pages, which had been running a series of pretty damn funny TV commercials featuring a character actor you've all seen elsewhere anthropomorphizing the yellow pages. He'd be crammed into a cabinet above the microwave and someone would open the door and ask him where something was and he'd give way too much information very quickly before being shut back into the cabinet. So, the company had hired this agency to create a week-long event in which an actor would spend a week living on a billboard in NW Ptown, waving at cars, being interviewed on radio spots, and showing how to do something on camera every day, e.g., bonsai or guitar repair. "Dex Knows..." Food from the best restaurants in town would be brought up to Dex to sample and comment on, etc., etc.
So, long story short, I got the gig. Yes, this surprised me too. Looking back, the first three choices must have turned it down, but being as broke as we were, I took it; only, it had changed and morphed before the date. It seems that in the 11th hour, the corporate dickheads who own the Dex pages started to worry about their corporate identity, blah blah blah, and scaled the whole project down to me up on a billboard (one of the side of a building types, not a free standing one) for a week waving at cars while clutching an umbrella to prevent 3rd Degree sunburn (this kindness was granted to me on the 3rd day after my desperate pleas finally stopped falling on deaf ears) and risking life and limb getting on and off the board because no ladder had been erected. I had to repel up and down the wires and hook of the pulley system that raises the board up the side of the building while wearing a pair of dress shoes they insisted I wear because it was what the actor wore on camera. This made it about 50x more life threatening. Maybe 1 out of every 500 cars that drove by realized I was up there and honked clearly thinking a crazy person was on a billboard for no apparent reason. I am SURE that not one of them said to himself, "Hot damn! That guy is wearing those same Kenneth Coles as that funny guy on the teevee!"
On the first morning, there was a 30 second live radio spot for a local AM, and THAT'S IT. I was on my own, frying, singing to myself (I wrote 2 songs from my "Walk under and on" record entirely in my head and then came home and figured out on guitar), and losing my mind. No food was provided from Portland's finest eateries. Instead, a few times a day, I would shimmy down the pulley system, appealing to deities long since abandoned, and grab whatever was most edible at the crappy corner market in the bottom unit of the building. I would also use their restroom, but the rest of the day had to resort to a system of emptied water bottles. The more times I had to get up and down off the thing, the more chances of dying horribly in a public spectacle. To avoid sunstroke, I was guzzling as much water as I could, and it would go through me in that June afternoon sun in minutes. The trick is to get the water bottles with the wide mouths, but that's as much info as I'll offer on this subject.
I was up there for 8 hour stretches Monday - Friday, after which I was lobster colored, dehydrated to the point of considering hospitalization, etc. This was the weirdest week of my life. WELL, until I did it AGAIN in Seattle in October, but you'll have to wait until the next episode to hear about that...
Friday, March 5, 2010
A Quick Note on Names...
I just sold a Phil Rizzuto autograph card to a guy with the last name Krapovich. At some point, you just have to bite the bullet and change the old country name. Maybe Krappo or Krapper or something more Americanized.
In fact, what's wrong with Brown? That would work.
In fact, what's wrong with Brown? That would work.
Wednesday, March 3, 2010
Bunning Update
So, it turns out that I didn't have his rookie 1957 card, but did have an autographed "Super" from 1964. I have listed it thusly:
Autographed Topps Super card of Jim Bunning, Phillies Hall of Fame Legend and all around Senate asshat...
Autographed Topps Super card of Jim Bunning, Phillies Hall of Fame Legend and all around Senate asshat...
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
How Jim Bunning Assholedom Effects Me
One thing that happens when you spend a lot of time buying and selling cards, is that the entire thing is de-mystified. They look like dollars, not something you want to admire. Cards that as a kid I would have flipped over just look like entries on my spreadsheet now.
That said, I do have a small collection consisting of Dodgers, some of the top Hall of Famer types like Mantle, Mays, Aaron, Williams, Koufax, and Hall of Fame rookie cards. This last category is the only thing I've spent any money on. It's a finite group, so not an endless money sinkhole like collecting sets or autographs, and cool in a museum sort of way.
One of these is my 1957 Jim Bunning rookie. Honestly, I know nothing about the guy as a player, but WHAT A FUCKING ASSHOLE this assclown is as a Senator. I think I have to unload this card just to make sure it doesn't infect the rest of my collection. Seriously. You reading this, Bunning? Go fuck yourself in the earhole.
Thank you...
That said, I do have a small collection consisting of Dodgers, some of the top Hall of Famer types like Mantle, Mays, Aaron, Williams, Koufax, and Hall of Fame rookie cards. This last category is the only thing I've spent any money on. It's a finite group, so not an endless money sinkhole like collecting sets or autographs, and cool in a museum sort of way.
One of these is my 1957 Jim Bunning rookie. Honestly, I know nothing about the guy as a player, but WHAT A FUCKING ASSHOLE this assclown is as a Senator. I think I have to unload this card just to make sure it doesn't infect the rest of my collection. Seriously. You reading this, Bunning? Go fuck yourself in the earhole.
Thank you...
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