The Moose in the Closet: Jilly from Philly, Horizon and Summer Money Attempt # 1 (Variant Source)

I was hoping Real Player had a service where you can send somebody a song. I was going to do this thing where I’d send a song to the first five people to post in an attempt to promote an artist that’s been housing me lately. Let me start by saying that I love R&B. I really love it, but the good shit from the 60s and 70s. Al Green and Marvin Gaye and Aretha Franklyn. When Alicia Keysfirst came on the scene, I knew by the second song on SONGS IN A MINOR she was sent to resurrect R&B. I thought she was the most talented R&B performer since the 70s and I was in love again. And then I heard Jill Scott recently and oh my damn, that girl is so talented. So, what I was going to do was send people a Jill Scott song but I can’t do that. So take my word for it, please, if you want to make love to your lady right, buy Jill Scott. I guess if you want I can send you a song to sample but I’m not just going to post it. I don’t mind stealing from U2 or some shit like that but not from artists that don’t make dizzy amounts of money.

As for a comic plug, I just saw the first page of Ritual Homicide (our new book), full color, and it is stunning. You are going to flip. And I also saw something else that I can’t talk about yet. By an artist that will make you lose your shit working for a project that will make you find your shit again just so you can lose it. Stay tuned folks.

__________________________

When I was 14 I got a job at the video store. I quit that the summer before college to work at my father’s print shop. Once in college I worked at the Late Night Café. The following summer I was back at the print shop. Sophomore year I got shifted to Student Manager and worked the weekend shift in the dining hall while beginning my RA job halfway through the year. The summer between sophomore and junior year I decided not to work – it will be the only time since I was fourteen in which I spent more than a week (not including vacation) not working, up until right now at the age of 27.

R tried to get me to work with her family’s catering company. It would be under the table, one night a week and I’ll pull about 120 bucks in that one night, enough to last me the week. I did one shift which entailed getting to R’s house at noon, preparing the food, loading the van, driving out to Connecticut, cooking the food, setting the tables, serving the food, cleaning up, packing the van and then driving home, usually getting to my parents place at around 3AM all smelly and nasty.

Fuck. That.

I had a plan to make enough money to last the whole summer.

Mother Fucking Flea Market.

Carroll Park has a monthly flea market. I’d buy a table, sell a bunch a shit, and make about a grand to last me the summer. Why not? I already proved that I was one hell of a salesmen, this made perfect sense.

So I used my money from working the catering gig to secure me a table – I think it cost fifty bucks – and I hauled all of my comics, books, video games, tapes, etc down to Carroll Park, prepared to make my summer booze and drug money.

I kept my prized items on the table, in plain site. My autographed copy of Firestarter. My Genesis. My Deathmate #1 Gold Cover variant (I haven’t really followed comics in years, no idea they were in a sorry state). All of the shit that was gonna make me bank.

I did end up selling the Genesis for twenty bucks. No-one agreed to my $40 price tag for Deathmate #1 Gold, though. And one person showed interest in Firestarter. I told him it was first edition. He showed me that it wasn’t and offered me five bucks for it. I begged for twenty which he refused to pay. I still have the book.

The kids’ books I sold went well, a buck a book. Of course, I sold all of my sisters’ books but she wasn’t reading them anymore anyway. I was trying to get rid of my comics according to an old Wizards’ price guide but I eventually had to make it a buck a book and once I did they sold OK. I sold some poor kid a broken He-Man action figure for fifty cents. Some sneakers, some clothes…I didn’t do horrible but I wasn’t pulling in the money I expected to make.

At the end of the day I counted my money and realized I hardly made a hundred bucks. Deduct the cost of the table and I made jack-shit, really. It was obvious the flea-market solution wasn’t the answer to my summer financial woes - I was forced to work one night a week with R’s family.

I got that settled before she left for Europe. While R was out touring the world, I was deep frying a whole fish and garnishing it with parsley. I even got Max in on it at least once, maybe more times.

You ever see those vans that drive up and ten Asian guys poor out of the back, ready for work? Imagine that with a six-foot-three white guy thrown in the mix.

Labels: mitc

Jilly from Philly, Horizon and Summer Money Attempt # 1 (Variant Source)

Thursday, June 09, 2005

0 Comments

Previous Posts