Live the punk rock life. Here's one way.

Punk Rock Flea Market #4

Sunday, December 14, 2003

He promos and dances as good as he likes. This year's PRFM had even MORE vendors and attendees this year than last. Ben Sisto, PRFM Founder and organizer, sold out of spaces rather early on as a matter of fact! This is a great thing coz it means more people know about it! Yeah Yeah!! This year everything was goin' full tilt early on too. We got there at noon and there was already music playing and all the tables were set up and ready for their customers. But even though there were more vendors I, personally, didn't think offerings were as varied or as interesting as what we saw last year. BUT it was still really cool!!!

First off it is really a wonderful thing to be able to go shopping in an alternative environment, buying alternative and or handmade things and be amongst other weird and alternative types. So that alone makes it a really great reason to always go every single year (or every single time if Ben decides to do more than one a year as he has talked about!).
This is a great example of what we can do in the Punk community to be independent. What do we care about? Do we want to support big corporations who pay minamun wages and little or no medical benifits to thier workers (us)? Let's find ways of exchanging dollars on our level and helping ourselves like this flea market.

If your record is a clock, then your time is up! Interesting tables were Shell's Bells this gorgeous girl had bracelets and necklaces made out of vintage bake-lite Mah Jong tiles, vintage dice and guitar pics. She even had dog collars (actually for your pets) with dice embellishments. Then there was the Grip Art table…lots of stuff made out of those dangerous looking but soft a squishy pointy rubbery stuff. This vendor had lighters, earrings, bracelets and necklaces made out of it. Lots of the stuff were in red and black and were pretty cool looking. Julie & Julie had, among other things, clocks made out of vinyl L.P.s.

There was art, lotsa art….Mr. Reusch was there keeping very busy selling all his many years of originals of 'zine and book illustrations and the like. Jim Sweet had T Shirts cards and posters as well as originals of his art. There was a Japanese table that offered music by Koh Yoshida (they even let you listen to the cds first!), Hand made bags and artist's books,collages and paintings by Kazumi Ikura. OK, one table was trying to sell their color theory class exercises! Hey, I know I suffered through that class with Rob Moore. But they DO actually make nice little pieces of art I must say!

Can't see too good here, but Sweet's work is very detailed.

Artwork by Jim Sweet

BGN

All very conceptual and accomplished work

The Japanese table

One theme that seems to run through all the PRFMs is stuffed…creatures. I'm surprised really but it is true. There were lots last year and this year as well….A very cool woman going by the name of Haptotrope (haptotrope.com)had stuffed creatures that weren't representative of any particular species that exists in the world but were really neat, some did resemble kitties and snakes but others were straight from that strange place called the artist's mind such as Mr. Hornethead and others. This table also offered bright leather wallets and custom sized leather strap bracelets and awesome handmade clear file folder organizer thingies of various sizes…sort of art-punk Martha Stewart or something! Cool.

Nice, but were do you stick them...oh, oh.

By My Paper Crane

Toaster purses. Stick all your bread in there.

By My Paper Crane

Another stuffed 'creature' table was the impressive My Paper Crane offering Dead Kitty Purses, Toaster Purses and Tamp On Dolls among lots of other interesting and very well made goodies. Their slogan is 'always handmade, never boring" and that's correct kiddies!!. You must go to the website and check out all the offerings there…they are worth the price. And those prices are extremely reasonable as well!!
Across from My Paper Crane was a table of hand knitted scarves and erotic novelty items such as vagina soaps and racy magnets. Then there was Speedy Marie's Strip Tees by Lazy Susan. Neat t-shirts all with fake Strip Joint names and slogans on them. She shared her table Cheap Date Jewelry which was lots of fun too!!
I saw another great T-Shirt table that was selling these black t-shirts that said "I hate people" but they only had 'em in Size small baby-t's and gigunto regular adult X-large! ARGH!! I wanted one!! If anyone knows where I can get one please let me know!!-miss Lyn)

Everything you need to wear when you go out.

Cheap Date Jewelry and...
Speedy Marie's Strip Tees

Betsy Badges

Haptotrope    Of course there were tables of band buttons, like Repeat Press and Launch It Over Productions and not to miss Betsy 'Badges' Sherman who's been doing this since 1978 or so. Lots of music: cds, vinyls, 8 Tracks, Tapes…Blowfish got 6 casssettes at 3 for a dollar including Public Enemy and the Meat Puppets. Five CD's for a dollar each...Nick Cave single, Chinstrap and then The Nines CD for 50 cents (Sorry Evan).
   There were record stores and labels (Bridge Nine) represented and Tommy White Trash had some Unnatural Axe Records and the new video of the Axe's House of Pain with some footage of the Creeper Movie, the Blowfish scene actually.
    There were tables of books, I got a book on travel book on Paris 2002 for $5 and saw a vegan cookbook but didn't want to shell out the $8 being cheap as I am!

And there were various 'zines represented…my personal favorite being "the world would be a much better place if everybody wore tight pants" 1) Because I truly believe this to be the truth and 2) because their stuff was really funny. Check out the website at Boyssuck.com

I hate people yet I make tee shirts for them ! We of course have to mention the fantastic Vegan Baked Goods table…all loving prepared by Ben's mom, so we hear! There were brownies, oatmeal cookies, chocolate chip cookies, ginger cookies, sugar cookies, cornbread and banana bread. Striving to be a vegan I think it is ALWAYs wonderful to be able to eat stuff like this and still feel guiltless so I bought a whole bunch and wolfed it down on the way home!!! YUM YUM YUM!!! I got 2 brownies and about 9 cookies for THREE bucks…ugh man, what a sugar high!! But well worth it!

So there was lots and lots and lots and lots of really awesome stuff there. Hopefully we will be able to keep you updated to every new Punk Rock Flea Market that happens!! You can also visit HoneyPump.net for info on when the next PRFM might possibly be and how to get a table etc….until next year…Miss Lyn.