Tag Archives: Mr. Blog’s Tepid Ride

Mr. Blog Meets The Scrappers (part two)

7 Sep

September 6, 2010

The thing I really missed on my first blog about the Scrappers at the 18th Avenue feast was a picture. I really wanted you to see the dirty tent, to see the bikers, to see Frank Noots wasted. Unfortunately, I didn’t have my camera and I left my cell phone in the car. So I decided to go back later in the week and get some shots. That was Sunday.

I returned on Wednesday, camera in hand, and it was wrong, all wrong.

The big Scrappers booth was filled with young Italian women cooking trays and trays of sausage and peppers, calamari, steaks, and it all smelled great. Not a scrapper, not a bad t-shirt, not a Mimmo in the place.

Where were they? They were in a tiny booth, five feet wide at best, crammed between the food tent and a booth selling ganja t-shirts and necklaces. But it wasn’t the same.

I was in the Mirror Mirror universe, where Spock had a goatee and sold scrap.

This booth had lights, a sound system blasting music, Spike TV Scrappers posters, and a big video screen showing Scrappers. Instead of surly Teamsters it was full of kids, aged eight to twelve, wearing Scrappers shirts and laughing with the crowd, which swelled all around the booth. A woman was quickly selling shirts as fast as she could. The crowd was buying them like they were going out of style. Though I couldn’t see him through the crowd, I was told Dino was there high-fiving fans.

I knew that either I was being punked, or I’d turn around to see Rod Serling in an apron selling calamari.

Only one thing remained the same- Frank Noots. He was there, but  sober(!), wearing an official black shirt like you see on TV, and working the crowd.

(OK, two things were the same- the t-shirts still sucked.)

And also like last time, I didn’t get a picture, but this time it was because the booth was so crowded I couldn’t get a shot.

What happened between Sunday and Wednesday? Where did the phony scrappers go? Why were they in the other people’s tent? Did they muscle out the Italian food for the weekend? And why were there no real Scrappers there on Sunday at all?

To quote the Wise Old Owl, the world may never know.

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What does Tropicana have against me?

5 Sep

September 5, 2010

I’m not sure what the Tropicana corporation thinks of me.

Take a look at this picture of container of orange juice.

 

Maybe it isn’t the best picture of a container of orange juice you’ve ever seen. You can’t even see the label, but if you look closely, you can see this:

The jug has a clear line running done the back. The object is so that you can see how much juice is left in the container. Very nice.

So am I am idiot or a genius? I can tell how much juice is left just by picking it up. I really don’t need a handy indicator. Does Tropicana think that little of me?

You may simply think I am nit-picking, and maybe you are right. This isn’t exclusive to orange juice. Motor oil containers have the same thing on the back. Maybe the oil can is sticky and you don’t want to pick it up to see if it is full. And the 128 ounce orange juice is Tropicana’s heaviest container, so maybe some older folk can’t or prefer not to pick it up if they don’t have to. I get it.

What really bugs me is this:

Do I really need this spelled out for me? Was I staring at the jug and wondering what the orange level through the clear line meant? Couldn’t I have figured this out for myself?

When the day comes that I am totally befuddled by a container of orange juice, that’s the day you can take my fingers off the keyboard and make sure I am surrounded by nothing but soft objects.

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