Hi, there...

My name is Joe and I specialize in new and used parts for older European motorcycles. Sometimes I sell stuff for friends but it's usually my own. I'm a flea market hound and while I try to stay within my niche (great buyers, by the way, everyone pays and is generally nice), I experiment on occasion. Most of my experiments fail. Nos toilet tanks? No more. Wedding dresses? Please try elsewhere. Flea market ladies footwear? Don't know enuf. Vintage roller skates? My skills are apparently limited. However, my short foray into prosthetic limbs went swimmingly. Anyone out there with a fiberglass arm or its like is welcome to contact me.
Some years back my buyer buddy turned me on to eBay; not from a selling standpoint but as a buyer. My buddy hardly ever sells anything and collected beer crapola. He was so impressed (this was '99 or so) with what his collectibles were worth. So I took a look.
I just wanted to get rid of a few things. My days of motorcycle shop ownership were long past, but I still had lots of physical remnants that I'd been storing for fifteen years. In the days before the dot-com bubble burst, what the stuff brought was astonishing. I gave a few things away due to ignorance, but by and large I won. Everybody won. And we're still winning, in my opinion. (...and I have more sales stuff now than I ever did...)
eBay was the first internet entity/resourse that brought home to me the power of the internet. Five years ago I realized that the idea of worldwide flea market was something that could never exist without the net. Nor would the net prosper without ideas as innovative yet deceptively simple as eBay. I wish the company wouldn't nickel and dime me so much, but really, they could charge double if they wanted to. There's nowhere else to go and no one that does it better.

POETRY CORNER

This month's selection...

ROOMMATES

They're gone, they're gone
I am so happy
I tossed them out like human trashey
Roommates are extra super crappy
They're gone
They're gone gone gone

They're gone, they're gone
Their shit's gone too
They loved it here but I'm not blue
The deerhead is history, the artillery too
'Cause they're
Gone gone gone gone gone

They're gone, they're gone
My kitchen my own
Salt-assault pork chops, slain veggies no more
I don't do their dishes, I don't do their chores
They're pasado, past tense, gone gone

They're gone, they're gone
My bathrooms are mine
I can use my two toilets
At the same time
I can shower whenever, anytime's fine
And their long hair and soapscum are gone

They're gone, they're gone
I won't miss them too much
I see them quite often for laundry and such
But they wake up in elsewhere so I can't much begrudge...

I'm singing a tune as I make up the beds
I'm clicking my heels as I dust for cobwebs
I'm dancing like Kelly as I bake up some bread

I'm so fucking happy they're gone.

Rave/Revile POTPOURRI

There is no particular order ... At least not yet.

Revile (FCC Airwaves)

The Machine (this is a rant, you might like to pass it by in your own interest)

I've so bloody had it with the mainstream media. When Clinton signed the Communications Act in '97 (how could he do that??), within three years three companies controlled, and now control, everything seen and heard on radio and television by 80% of the people in the United States. It was bad enough before, what with having to listen to the same tired songs for the ten-thousandth time on the radio. Now we have non-stop cable coverage of Michael Jackson's trial or Janet's boob or whatever fuckup of the day instead of reporters delving deep into unpleasant subjects, like...Why are we in a war we I believe we cannot win (oil), Why is it so important to scrap Social Security when government overspends its funds every year anyway (Wall Street lobby), How could a presidential candidate be painted as a coward (and have it stick) for going to Vietnam (Rove/Cheney are in power), How could a sitting president not be labelled a rich-boy awol shirker for deeds during stateside military service you know he commited in his youth (Cheney/Rove are in power, and they're damn good at what they do). We are being intentionally put to sleep. No new music except what they decide. No news except what they decide. No language except what they deem proper and not obscene. When Howard Stern moves to satellite I will likely follow him there. I will continue to pay for HBO because it is among the 10% of everything that is NOT crap. But I want more. I want The Anarchy Channel. It's time for the '00's to make the '60's look like the '50's. Wake up, ya'll.

Rave (Film)

A Boy and his Dog (1975)

Based on a novella by Harlan Ellison, a subversive work starring the then-teenaged Don Johnson. The story revolves around the post-apocolyptic travels of a guy and his pooch, the dog being telepathic and quite a bit sharper than Johnson's character. The earth's surface is a wasteland they scavenge but Johnson is lured into a seeming paradise society below ground (following a babe, hormones over loyalty, the dog can't come) that becomes a living hell. He escapes, but not without a price. I'm making it sound dreadful but it ain't and the ironic ending is howl-funny.

Rave (Author)

Harlan Ellison

Most of his stuff is out of print, but of course with Ebay that means nothing. A tremendously prolific writer, he mostly published short story collections of fantasy and horror, with many essays thrown in. Lots of it involved bad relationships between man and woman, some of it very bad (he was married at least four times). "Love ain't Nothing but Sex Mis-spelled." "She's a Young Thing and I Cannot Leave her Mother." "The Pain God." "The 3 Most Important Things in Life (Sex, Violence and How to Keep Your Job." Perhaps the titles will give you get some idea if he's for you or not. During the sixties Ellison also wrote a lot of TV, his best in my opinion, was "Demon with a Glass Hand" for the Outer Limits. The collected volumes of the column "The Glass Teat" are considered the definitive criticism of the radical changes made in broadcast television during the '70-'72 period. Ellison's work is studded with such gems. Seek him out.

Rave (Film)

Bad Santa (2003)

Seriously, the funniest Christmas movie since A Christmas Story. Billy Bob Thornton plays a drunken loser of a thief who hires on as a Santa every year in order to case the department store and later rob it. He eventually finds a sort of redemption befriending a little fat kid, but that road is not an easy one. The dialogue is sharp as a scalpel. This movie was written. Surely destined to become a cult classic. Keep an eye out for the robber dwarf's Asian wife, and try to determine which animated TV character she plays. I'll fill you in if you can't figure it out.

Revile (Footstuffs)

Cheese America

Cheese, cheesy, extra cheese, cheesier, the cheesiest Nacho Goodness. Christ, cheese-flavored corn flakes are just around the mind-bend, folks. And what in God's name is Nacho cheese anyway? My understanding was that it was what the Louisiana shopkeeper yelled at the thief as he was getting away. "Hey man, stop! Dat's nawt cho cheese!"
Hey, I'm not like a complete cheese bigot. Ham and swiss on rye? I'm there. Cheesecake? Nothing better. But you put a slice of American orange (the horror) on anything edible, hot or cold, once it's in my midst I shall throw it to the hounds. They love that crap.
By the way, an extra revile: All You Can Eat ANYTHING! Smorgasbord. Home Town Buffet. Would you like to Supersize that? (Oh, sure, dead as dirt now, but McD's will find another way to stretch that stomach cavity, wait and see.) Have you looked at us on the news, people?? We're tubs!

Rave, sorta (Film)

Alien vs. Predator (2004)

It didn't suck. Typical well-done special effects, decent pacing, uninspired dialogue, storyline not completely ridiculous if you like this kind of thing. I snuck into the theater knowing it was going to blow. I felt a little bad afterwards.

Rave (TV)

Buffy the Vampire Slayer (and the Angel spinoff to a lesser but still significant extent)

I am 40-some years old. I've seen a lot of TV. I have loved lots of shows. And I never saw an episode of Buffy until the series was officially over. Reruns were, and are, played consecutively on FX and perhaps another cable channel or two, which is where I discovered it.
Taken as a whole, the show is the best thing I've ever seen on TV. The humor is amazing. The story arcs (the year's major story is always concluded at each season's end) are brilliant. The actors are terrific. The characters' development over the show's seven year run (plus five years of Angel) will break your heart. Buffy's original premise was that while the protagonist had to deal with actual monsters every night of her life, being a teenager in love and in high school was worse.
Definitely a cult hit, my favorite kind. Most of the shows are better than 90% of all theatrical films I see. And there's nearly 130 hours of it. (But I warn you. The show can be a big-time emotional downer. Don't watch too many of the episodes from the last years at once. You will experience uncontrollable weeping, and might have a nervous breakdown. )
Still, God bless Joss Whedon.

Revile (Music)

The Strokes

Any record, who cares. All bad. Bad clothes, bad hair, dumbass music, unintellible lyrics. The sixteen bucks I spent on their debut crap CD (after Rolling Stone nearly licked their toes) is gone forever and I listened to the vile piece of plastic exactly once.
Garp.

Rave (Film)

That Thing You Do (1996)

Written and directed by Tom Hanks. One fantastic song, during the course of the story, propels a few kids from a small town in Pennsylvania to the Ed Sullivan show in 1964. The name of the band is the Wonders ( as in One-Hit-). This movie is so sweet. The central tune (played over a dozen times in the film) never gets old. I still love it. And I love this movie. Rent it.

Rave (Author)

George R.R. Martin

If you are at all into fantasy/sf then this is your guy, if you have not discovered him yet. I first read GRRM in a early eighties issue of OMNI magazine. The story is called Sandkings. It's more of a horror piece than anything else but what it is mostly is great storytelling. GRRM's latest series is called A Song of Ice and Fire. The first title is A Game of Thrones. If the first chapter of this book don't hook ya, just let me know and I will send you a fabulous '60's-era Milne Bros. key fob, collectible in all western states! I don't expect to have to do it, though, no sirree!
Seriously, this guy's artistry and sense of humor will astound you.

Revile (TV)

Reality Television

Hey...No one was more devoted to the first edition of Survivor than I was. Nothing like it had ever been on American network TV. That was almost five years ago and RealTV, now, in my opinion, has turned into a national embarassment.
Why?
Because millions are tuning in to watch reality embarassment. If real people aren't made to look bad then tickets cannot be sold. Well-scripted, well-acted fictional television is losing, and losing large, because RTV is so much cheaper to produce.
Run away, stay away, crapola, crapola, please, please. Real writers and real actors are paid a good sum for a good reason. Ordinary Joe's are willing to subject themselves to nearly anything just to be famous for 14 minutes. (I should know. I sent in a tape trying for Survivor 2).

Rave (Film)

Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975)

Hands down, the funniest movie ever made. Made for peanuts by the English troupe while at the top of their comic powers, this picture is one solid howl after another. Only the very ending is a bit weak. All else is gold.
"Are you suggesting coconuts migrate?" "None shall pass." "Bring out your dead!" "Brother Maynard! Bring out the Holy Hand Grenade!" "What do you mean? African or European swallow?" None of these quotes likely make much sense to ya'll. Get the movie. They will.

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