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Tired of Traveling? Fly Teddy Bear Air!

20 Aug

August 20, 2010

Mr. Blog will now take a break and come up for air from his total immersion in the worlds of American Chopper and Scrappers. Consider this a mental health break, though judging from the content you may still wonder about Mr. Blog’s mental health. Enjoy.

I consider myself reasonably well-traveled. In the States, I’ve been to Las Vegas, Chicago, Atlantic City, San Diego, Boston, Houston, Cleveland, Philadelphia, Washington D.C., Orlando, and of course my hometown of New York, not to mention smaller destinations up and down the East Coast including a bunch of places in New Jersey better left unmentioned. Outside the U.S.A., I’ve been to London, Paris, and Edinburgh.

I’ve taken thousands of pictures. When I went to London, the digital era hadn’t quite hit and my uncle, who worked for Fuji Film, hooked me up with 35 rolls of film which I packed in my carry on. I didn’t realize that the carry on would have to go through an x-ray machine, and I was terrified that it would ruin all that film. This was pre-9/11, but just my luck, JFK had an attempted hijacking that morning, so when I barely opened my mouth to take a breath so that I might start forming the idea to argue with the guy behind the scanner, three guards with rifles took a step towards me, so I shut up fast and put the bag in the machine.

The guy running the scanner told me that modern x-ray machines were lower strength than older ones so my film would be fine. I didn’t believe him. I spent eight hours on the plane worried that I would have to buy more film. I got off the plane at Heathrow where I had to put the film through a second x-ray scan and, surer than ever I ruined the film, asked no one less than the pilot of my plane (!) about the film, and he assured me that in all his travels, he has never had a single roll of film ruined by a scanner. I was reassured, somewhat, but of course that fact that as a British pilot he was most likely half drunk at any given time didn’t give me total satisfaction.

On the way home, with the 35 rolls full of pictures, and another 15 that I bought in England (yes, in two weeks I shot fifty rolls of film) the already twice-x-rayed film was scanned again at Heathrow, again at LaGuardia, and you know what? It was fine. I got some great pictures. (Had the film come out all over-exposed I would not be sane enough to type this blog.)

Of course, I do have some regrets about my vacation shots.

I know what you’re thinking: I took no shots whatsoever of any teddy bears or stuffed animals.

From Germany, http://www.thelocal.de/society/20100805-28975.html

Cologne woman hits plush pay dirt with tours for teddy bears

Even stuffed animals need a holiday every now and then, according to a Cologne woman who runs a travel agency catering exclusively to teddy bears and other plush toy friends.

“It sounds crazy to many,” said trained retail saleswoman Ulrike Böhmler, admitting that she has always had a certain affection for stuffed animals.

She still has her first stuffed bear, a gift from her grandmother worn ragged by 35 years of cuddling. For some people, such plush toys remain a sentimental object for an entire lifetime, she says.

This kind of love inspired the mother of two to start her own business three years ago when she suddenly found herself unemployed.

“Back then I said in jest that I would offer teddy bear tours if I couldn’t find anything,” she said, explaining that a friend in Munich had put her up to the idea.

But the joke turned into reality and she founded “Teddy-In,” which now offers trips for toys to Hamburg, Munich, Barcelona, Rome and even Romania where the animals can follow Dracula’s fictional footsteps.

Customers book via email or letter, then ship their stuffed animal to Böhmler, who says it can be “comical” when some boxes arrive with air holes punched into cartons for the inanimate toys. She then guides the toy on its holiday tour, taking photographs along the way.

When they return the animals are sent back to their owners refreshed and with a set of vacation photos to share.

“For many it’s a very original gift idea,” said Karsten Morschett from Teddy Tour Berlin. “Lots of people can no longer take trips on their own due to health problems and send their teddy on holiday instead.”

If I have serious health problems and cannot travel, I wonder if I will really be concerned that my Boo Boo Bear enjoyed the Riviera?

It makes sense though, in a stupid sort of way. The stuffed animal is an avatar, same as you have online. You can visit Copenhagen virtually on your computer, or through your old Bert and Ernie dolls. And this way, you have some really strange, fetishy pictures to show for it.

And seriously, who wouldn’t want a set of photos featuring Sesame Street’s Count von Count touring Dracula’s Castle? I mean besides me.

Stuffed doll: $25. Tour of Romania: $1,500. Pictures of your stuffed animal on vacation while you stay home watching Jerry Springer: Priceless. And stupid. Get off your butt and take a trip yourself!

One word of caution.

While they will happily take stuffed animals, teddy bears, and plushies on vacation, furries are not welcome.

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My Review of Scrappers: Brooklyn’s Jersey Shore

5 Aug

August 5, 2010

Spike TV debuted their new reality show the other day and it really hit home.

My home.

Scrappers follows a bunch of Earthy guys who tear metal out of abandoned buildings and sell it junkyards. Sound exciting? Well, it was to me. You see, I live in the area they filmed in.

I had s sickening feeling in the pit of my stomach from almost the very first shot. One of the “scrappers” was standing on a rooftop, and behind him was the building where I worked for nine years and the gas station where I filled up a few days ago.

After that it was like a drinking game- take a drink when you see someplace in your neighborhood. Take a drink when you recognize some homes in the background. Take a drink when you see some stores you pass all the time. Take a drink when the guys stop in at a bar just 2 minutes from your house. Had I been drinking, and I wish I was, I would have been wasted ten minutes in.

That would have made the show more bearable.

Scrappers follows a couple of “crews,” guys who toss scrap metal into the back of their vans and sell them for a few bucks at a scrap yard. Know the old expression “one man’s junk is another man’s treasure”? On this show it is literally true. They dig through construction sites and abandoned homes to pick out brass fittings and aluminum.

The show makes no bones about how it wants to stereotype these guys. They are all Italian, their businesses are called “crews” and the show’s theme music is Dean Martin’s “Ain’t That a Kick in the Head.”

Hmm. Italians. Crews. Rat Pack music. Do the math.

The Scrappers are not presented in the best light, though I am not sure what the best light could possibly be.  For example, one “crew” has a guy who sleeps late everyday and seems to have the same number of brain cells as Grandpa has teeth. He also seems to have trouble doing basic things, like talking and walking. He and his partner bicker like an old married couple.  Another crew has trouble getting a refrigerator out of an apartment. “Mamaluke!” the owner keeps yelling, and of course he was wearing his wife-beater undershirt. I was waiting for him to offer them some sausage and peppers.

Three guys from a scrap metal crew couldn’t get the fridge down the stairs, despite the fact that it obviously fit or how could it get up there to begin with? They took the doors off, they took the grill off the back, they ripped it apart, one scrapper who wants to be in MMA even punched and beat up the fridge, and still they couldn’t get it down the stairs. Why not? It was obvious to me- there were four guys already on the narrow staircase- there was no room for the unit! Get three of those guys out of there and you’ll get it done!

Another crew couldn’t close the door of their van because the scrap was too big.

A member of the same crew wouldn’t take a mother-load of free scrap because the guy giving it to them was wearing a tie.

But hands down, the lowest of the low, the “Situation” and “J-WWOW” of Scrappers, are these guys, Dino and Mimmo.

Would you allow these guys to touch your junk?

These are the guys called in when the better guys need somebody to do their grunt work. Between then they have the business sense of a worm. They were paid $100 to haul away some old bricks. They could not sell the bricks and had to take them to a junkyard, where they paid $160 to dump them. A full day’s work, net profit: a loss of $60.

The way Jersey Shore proved to the world that every stereotype about the Jersey shore was true, I’m afraid Scrappers will do just that for Brooklyn. Soon everyone will believe that Brooklyn is full of guys like the scrappers, who can’t find an address around the corner and have trouble filling buckets with bricks. Do I know guys like the scarp crews? Sure. I also know doctors and lawyers. Even bloggers, heaven help me.

I also know guys like Dino and Mimmo, heaven help me.

I prayed all night that this show gets cancelled. Fast.

But then I saw this:

Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz declares August 2nd Scrappers Day.

That man may have just lost my vote.

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