September 2, 2003
I’ve been to a number of outdoor fairs recently. I am not sure why; as a general rule, I find outdoor fairs about as exciting as Tony Armstrong reading from "Robert’s Rules of Order" in the middle of Dotty’s Casino.
Nonetheless, I have been to a number of them (such as Reno Gay Pride and, this last weekend, the troubled mass of humanity that is the Venice Beach Walk in Southern California), and here are some thoughts I have:
-- Howard Dean is everywhere. Say what you will about the man’s politics, but you have to admire the grassroots organization he’s put together, vaulting him from nobody to somebody really quickly. While he is not the liberal that many folks are making him out to be, he does have some stances and traits that set him apart from the moderate mush that makes up the rest of the Democratic presidential slate. If he keeps this kind of bottom-line support going -- just try to find an outdoor fair of any sort (that allows political candidates, etc. in) without a Howard Dean table -- then things could get VERY interesting in this upcoming election year. (I find it tragic that other presidential candidates don’t have similar tables at outdoor fairs. You KNOW Rev. Al Sharpton's booth would be a hoot.)
-- Henna tattoos are everywhere, too. I understand the attraction -- having a temporary tattoo to celebrate something or to take a tattoo test-drive, so to speak, has its attractions -- but, good lord, hasn’t this fad used up its 15 minutes of fame yet? At Venice Beach, literally every eighth booth was for henna tattoos. This is overkill.
-- Just imagine the pure outdoor fair power that could be harnessed if someone figured out how to combine Howard Dean with henna tattoos. Gosh, it’s scary.
-- A skinny young man flexing does not an attraction make. I didn’t see this happening in Reno -- thank God -- but I saw at least two young men doing this in a feeble money-making effort at Venice Beach. They weren’t even particularly muscular or attractive. It was pathetic. It makes me wonder what growing up in Southern California is doing to mess up the youth there.
-- You can make money selling crap. It amazed me to see people at Venice Beach selling -- and, at least in one instance, buying -- sage leaves. Yep -- they were selling the stuff that grows wild, everywhere, even if you don’t want it there, in Nevada. It was stunning. There’s a market for this crap? There are people dumb enough to buy this and burn it? It doesn’t even smell good. It doesn’t make you high. All it does is make the general area smell like toasted Tonopah. Bleargh.
-- Staying in the category of people who buy and sell worthless crap: What in the hell is the attraction of getting your name written on a grain of rice? Seriously. I have yet to find one person adequately explain to me why anyone would ever be interested in such a thing. And even if you were on powerful enough drugs to have a burning desire to have your name put on a grain of rice, what do you do with it? You can lose it easily; a confused bird could wander in and eat it; it could be confused with a maggot. A maggot with your name on it. Lovely.
-- There’s a cottage industry of folks selling T-shirts with witty/disgusting/sexually charged statements on them. Yet, unless you’re hanging around a frat house way too much or something, you rarely see people wearing these T-shirts. Where do they all go? It’s an interesting question.
And now, it’s September. That means summer is almost over, winter is on its way and the outdoor fair season is coming to an end. Now THAT is something to celebrate.
Jimmy Boegle is a fifth-generation Nevadan in exile in Arizona whose family has acres and acres of sage for sale if anyone’s interested. Jimmy’s column appears here Tuesdays, and he can be reached via e-mail at jiboegle@stanfordalumni.org.