Bargains

I took a trip to the Rose Bowl Flea Market today. It's held the second Sunday of every month, rain or shine (mostly shine), but I haven't been in years. The last time I went I got a really good, really greasy corn dog from a vendor I would have been suspicious of if I'd seen him on the street. The best street food is like that, just the good side of too scary to try out.
   I expected to see a lot of the same kind of stuff from many vendors, you usually do in a flea market, but I also expected to come across a gem once in a while. An odd, quirky, cool little piece of something that you can't plan for but you know it when you see it. I didn't see it.
   Not to say that the flea market was a disappointment, you don't go to a flea market expecting Earth-shattering revelations, but I did leave feeling a little flat. Maybe it's because I couldn't find anybody selling corn dogs.

A few observations:
   The ticket-taker girls were all wearing black leprechaun hats and green sunglasses in honor of St. Patrick's Day. None of them seemed particularly enthused about the whole business.

   People will eat barbeque at 9 AM. I seen it.

   Bald dudes with tattoos on their heads gravitate towards one another. I think it's a new kind of speciation. Now they have to find chicks with tattoos on their heads to have little tattoo-headed babies.

   When the crowd gets very thick you get stuck behind people. I have been forced to amble along at the pace of a woman shopping for bargains, or to put it another way, as close to a dead stop as you can get without rolling backwards. Men know what I mean and sympathize. Women couldn't care less.

   At the front gate they play hurdy-gurdy music, or calliope music, or carousel music, whatever you want to call it. I thought I recognized a calliope version of 'The Trial' by Pink Floyd, which has calliope music in it. An amazing meta-reference for a flea market. Then they played the calliope version of 'Waterloo' by Abba and lost me.