Art is every where

More to come

I went to a book sale today and bought a bunch of great books full of illustrations.  One of them was full of Ati Forberg's kick ass cool illustrations.  I'll be sharing more on my Tumblr.

You know what's crazy mad fun?

Live professional wrestling.

You know it's fake, everyone else over the age of eight in the audience knows it's fake, but it's so much fun and such a spectacle, even the bottom of the ladder local matches I saw last night, you get hooked and you can't help but whoop and holler.

The performers do it for the love of performing, none of them is making any kind of money to speak of off it, so they really put their hearts in to it.  They interact with the crazy fans, who are just as much fun to watch as the wrestlers, and they put on quite a show.

I highly recommend going to see some live professional wrestling.  It's a piece of genuine Americana that you'll really love if you stop being such a snob and give yourself over to it.  It's in the same category as roller derby, once you go, you'll love it.

Spotted while driving

I pray this was part of a skateboard incident gone horribly wrong.

Pompadour alert!

I'd like to be able to say that this dude wasn't buying off brand intimate area personal lubricant, spices made in Bosnia, and Christmas CD's that featured the song stylings of people you never heard of, but I can't.

Corner store

Up your apples!

Yesterday we decided to escape all this house buying and selling business and get out of town for the day, so we went over to the 62nd annual Apple festival in Hendersonville, NC, North Carolina it turns out is the 7th most apple producing state in our nation and most of those apples are grown in the Hendersonville/Henderson county area. This was the first time we've been to the festival, we usually go to the beach around Labor Day but since we're in the midst of all this real estate business we decided to stay home this year.

So off we went across the mountain to the fruit based fete in the little, yet growing, town of Hendersonville. We like Hendersonville's downtown area and luckily that's where the festivities took place so I knew where to go and where to find parking.

Once we got to the big "do" we hit the ground running.

Gratuitous apple shot.

Despite the sunny and mercilessly hot weather the streets were packed with all sorts of people. To my surprise there were many people in the crowd who were openly supporting one Presidential candidate or another. I'll admit I was worried when I saw a slew of people wearing McCain stuff. But my fears calmed down when I saw just as much, if not more Obama stuff being sported by all sorts of people. What struck me was that this is what average McCain supporter looked like:
But us Obama people looked more like America does. We looked more diverseand braless than the Bush McCain supporters did.

Of course Sparky and I slapped on an Obama sticker each and we also bought nifty "Obama '08" bumper stickers as well. And despite her longstanding prohibition against it, Sparky actually had me put one of the bumper stickers on the back bumper of her car later that day. And let me tell you it looks damn good on there.

Sprinkled through out the crowd were some celebrities. Fat Elvis perched under some shade and sang to all of us.

Rudolph the red nose reindeer also showed up but some dumb ass redneck shot him.

And hypocrite evangelist Billy Graham showed everyone his nudes:Speaking of Christians, no outdoor festival would be complete without a bunch of those wacky folks spreading their message of love for their fellow man
and the good news about the return of Jesus.
Ah, there's nothing like a good jolt of religious insanity to remind me why I'm an atheist. It made my heart happy to see a gaggle of goth girls ferociously baiting and debating these idiots about what is and what isn't wicked and sinful. You go girls!

There were all kinds of booths set up at the festival. Some were informational, some charitable, but most were filled with people selling everything from hand made crafts to art to food. These gals in the Scandinavian products booth were cute as buttons. We purchased a few small fish and fishing related prints, we got a print of a rainbow trout for Saprky's dad and I got a small print of some fly fishing flies. Sparky also bought a hand made piece of local pottery. And yes, we also partook of some of the food that was for sale. We tired an apple slushie and some of this crazy gal's fudge.

I wish I could say we tried this:
Or had some of this:

But we had neither and since we didn't I probably won't have to have another coronary bypass for a few more years.

We only hung out for about two hours because the heat was so oppressive but all in all we had a nice time and I'm sure we'll do this festival again some time in the future. And if you want to do it as well it runs through Labor Day. It's held on Labor Day weekend every year so mark your future calendars as well.

And now I'll give the last word on the 2008 Apple festival to this blue GOAT:

"Baaaaaa."

"It's like Halloween for grown ups."

We did our bit to help the folks on the Tree Streets make their mortgage payments this month by buying some stuff at the annual Tree Streets yard sale.
I'll give you a full report with more scintillating action packed photos later and of course there'll be more photos of the event on my Flickr account as well. But now our whirlwind day continues and we're off to some friends house for supper.

Busy day

It's going to be a busy day for Sparky and I today.

We're off to the farmer's market to score some fresh produce and hopefully some good goat cheese. Then we're off to the event that the whole area excitedly waits all year for, that's right kids, today is the annual Tree Streets yard sale! Then after we do the epic yard sale thang, we head over to a friends house for dinner. Yay for free food! Yay for friends who invite us over for dinner!

I hope all of you have a good day and I'll leave you with this scan of quite possibly the creepiest postcard I've ever bought.

That's the "Fields Lounge" in the Copeland Oaks Retirement home in Sebring, Ohio. How odd is that? Imagine getting this card in the mail from one of your kids with the message on the back,
Hey Mom and Dad, I hope you dig this room because that's where we're putting your ass when you get old and go all senile on us.

Love ya!

Mean it!

Sincerely,
Your Kids.

If I knew I was going to spend the last days of my life in that hellish looking place I'd walk in front of a bus.

And on that fun note let's end this post now. See ya later alligators and remember you're having more fun than my hit 'n' run cousins are right now!

Fore!

It's going to be in the mid 70's, sunny, and not very humid here today so I'm going to do something I have not done in months, go play golf. I'll probably shoot about 75 on the front nine but who cares. You kids have fun on the series of tubes known as the internets today. I'll leave you with this creepy ad from that 1950's Punch magazine I bought:

I'll see ya later my peeps.

My name is Dr. Monkey and I'm a vintage magazine addict

Have you ever driven by a store for years and years and said to yourself that one day you'd stop in and see what they had for sale at that store? Well today was the day that we stopped at "that" store. For us "that" store was an antique/flea market store just off Interstate 26 just outside of Erwin.

Let me tell you people, this joint is a wonderland of a store that's stuffed full of everything.
It's got all kinds of knick knacks, odd food items, junk, and most every kind of this and that ever made. But for me the best thing about it is it's got tons of vintage magazines and paperback books. But these aren't the usual vintage magazines that you find in stores like these, the usual being scores of Life, Look, Newsweek, and Time, no siree. I found a bin full of 1950's era Vogue magazines, two of which I bought.Is that not a wildly cool cover? We're going to frame it soon and hang it in our new place. The great old mags didn't stop at just Vogue, I also found a Punch magazine from 1953. It's chock full of great British cartoons and ads and I may end up framing that cover too.

Earlier in the day I bought these magazines at an antique store in Erwin for a dollar each:

I actually got three Argosy's. Two of the Log, which was a magazine put out by the Naval Academy.And finally I bought this copy of True.

These purchases would not have been so bad if I had not bought those vintage mags yesterday, which I blogged about here. I'm staying out of antique and thrift stores for the mext month. Maybe. I swear.

Eating out with Dr. Monkey

One of the consequences of putting our place on the market is having to be out when people want to look at it. As a result of having to be out when realtors show our place we have eaten dinner out more in the past month than we have in the past few years. I like to eat out from time to time but anymore since I know most of the food served in restaurant around here is not organic or naturally grown, I'm kind of leery about eating it. Also I like to cook and I've gotten pretty good at about a dozen or so dishes and so I prefer to eat at home where I have some control over what kind of foods I cook.

Since I do have a few local readers I'm going to devote the rest of this post to mini reviews of some of the locally owned restaurants we've eaten at in the past few weeks.

Mardi Gras Cafe (on Oakland)-Avoid this joint. The food is so so at best. Everything they make seems to be deep fried. I had a oyster po' boy with fries and it was pretty bad. The ambiance in this place stinks as well.

The new German restaurant downtown-We ate there tonight and I can't remember the name of it but I can tell you I was pleasantly surprised. The food we had was very good, I had the grilled chicken in Riesling sauce with mashed potatoes and sauerkraut and it was quite tasty. Sparky enjoyed her meal as well. They've done a great job with the decor in the place, it has an old world but still cozy feel. I'd eat there again.

China Garden (next to Blockbuster on Roan Street)-If you have not tried this little Chinese place then you are missing out. It's a small restaurant and unlike most every other Chinese restaurant around here they don't do a buffet, there's no room for one. They make your order while you wait and they do it quick. The food is a bit on the salty side, that's to be expected with Chinese food though, but it's still damn good. I recommend the chicken in garlic sauce with steamed rice.

Scratch Bakery and Foodworks-I can't say enough good things about Scratch. They make great breads, desserts, smoked meats and fish, sandwiches, and other stuff. They also make great pizzas in their wood fired oven. They are only open from 11 to 11 on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, so get there when and if you can.


As far as the big chain restaurants go, if you've eaten at one, you've eaten at them all so I'm not going to review them here ever.

Bele Chere, mon amour

The last full weekend in July means one thing in Asheville, NC and that one thing is the street fair/festival called Bele Chere. We've been attending Bele Chere on and off for about 10 to 12 years now and we've grown to really like it, provided the weather is not scorchingly hot and dismally humid. Since the weather recently has been neither, we decided to hook up with our friends Todd and Donna and take in this the 30th edition of Bele Chere. While we waited for Todd and Donna to arrive from Knoxville Sparky perused some of the artists booths and I got to see a fabulous show put on by Baton Woman (I have no idea what her real name is). Baton Woman is a gal who is in her mid to late 30's, she's rail thin, and very energetic. I was innocently snapping photos faster than a Japanese tourist when I heard her loud music coming from her portable tape player. Then I turned and I saw her doing a kick ass baton twirling routine. She was tossing that baton high and catching it, smiling and showing off all the while. It was a treat to see her work her baton magic. By the time she finished she was beaming with joy. She smiled and waved to the five or six of us who watched her and I started applauding because she put on one heck of a performance. I tossed a buck and some change in her tip bucket and I told her she was great. You could have powered a small city with the wattage of her smile when she heard me say that.

Our friends Todd and Donna finally showed up and we all started taking in the artsy/craftsy booths, the public service booths, the hippie vendors booths, and of course we suffered through some bad music: This flute guy was playing some serious screeching shitty stuff. I wanted to ask him if he took requests and if he said he did then I was going to request he stop playing but alas I did not. I settled for making snide remarks about his awful musical stylings with my buddy Todd. Speaking of music, we watched this guy with a drum walk up and start to jam with the three other guys. They smiled and let him sit in for about half a song but when he his drumming started to drown out their playing they ran him off.

We walked around for a good couple of hours taking in all that Bele Chere had to offer before we succumbed to hunger. I was perfectly willing to eat the fare from the street food vendors but my companions wanted to go inside where there was air conditioning and have a sit down meal. Thank goodness I followed them into this restaurant. The food was fantastic, I had shrimp and Cajun sausage with a brown gravy over polenta cakes, and despite the surliness of our waitress the whole experience was nice. I'd definitely go back there but not if that cranky gal was my waitress. As the day wore on the temperature went higher and the ones who suffered the most were little fair skinned white kids. In the above picture the woman in the wheel chair was trying to comfort the squirming kid in the stroller but as you can tell he was hatin' on her efforts.
One of the great things about Bele Chere is how community activist organizations use it to spread their messages. PETA has a booth, the ACLU, various conservation groups, and all kinds of political organizations have booths as well. This year I was glad to see that the Obama campaign had booths all over the place and they were registering voters right and left. They also were not content just to sit there so they'd send out people into the crowds to ask if anyone wanted to get registered. I had about three of their people at various times ask me if I was signed up to vote. I looked for Bush McCain backers and Republicans who wanted to get people registered to vote but I found none. How shocking.

On the fashion front, this look was not as popular this year:But the gals who are still using it are still cute as buttons.Thankfully the "wok hat" look was confined to this one gal.

Most of the artsy types had signs up asking people not to take photos of their art and I complied, with a few exceptions. One of the exceptions was this artist who makes metal fish and mermaids. I love this guy's work. When I hit the lottery jackpot I'm going to buy some of his art.

Since I'm back on artists there were a couple of neat performance artists that we got to see.These two little gals, ages probably in the range of 10 to 12, act was to recite song lyrics in unison and then they'd just suddenly freeze and glare at one another. Then after a moment or two they'd start up again in unison. It was kind of unsettling to see them but after watching for a minute or so their act became kind of cool.This chick is one of a cadre of young people who dress up like statues and beat on a drum. They'll stand stock still and then every three minutes or so they'll beat out a rat-a-tat-tat and then freeze again. If you toss them a tip they'll bow as a way to say thanks for your generosity. Some of them, like this chick, do it well and they have great make up and costumes, but some who do this really suck at it.

Of course no outdoor gathering below the Mason Dixon line would be complete without some Christian kill joy trying to ruin everyone else's good time.These pricks stood on a street corner and tried to make the rest of us frightened enough to join them in their delusional religion that's based on fear, obedience to the patriarchy, and death and dismemberment. And they were joined by a couple of asshole who spread the "good news" about how all of us who do not believe as they do are going to burn in hell because we don't take the metaphor of Jesus as seriously as they do. Oh well, some people are never so happy as when they're ruining it for the rest of us.

On the plus side there were some celebrities at Bele Chere this year. New York Times columnist, bestselling author, and Bush administration apologist Thomas Friedman had a booth where he tried to tell anyone who would listen that we need to give the war in Iraq another six months before we even think of pulling out and he also preached about how much we should all love globalization even though it's ruining our economy, our food system, and our lives. As you can see his booth was not well attended at all.

Douchebag Man was also in attendance at this year's Bele Chere. Never heard of Douchebag Man? Aside from his biggest super power, which is being a huge douche, he also has the ability to bore small children and to cause apathy and indifference in adults. Perhaps he was there on behalf of the McCain campaign.
And finally we spotted a member of the Loyal Order of The Water Buffalo dancing to the strains of a Zydeco band, that's him in the fuzzy blue hat. I tried to get a better shot of him but his dance moves made that impossible.

All in all we had a lot of fun at this years Bele Chere and you can see all the other pictures I took over there by clicking here. I'm already looking forward to going to next year's edition of Bele Chere.