The Daughter nursed a minor head cold last week. I thought I had dodged that particular bullet. Today…not so much. Ugh! And I really meant to get some writing done today, too….
You never know WHAT is gonna come through that door.
A few months ago we subscribed to Netflix, so we could watch streaming shows and movies now that we had high-speed interweb. Netflix has been something of a mixed bag – more on that another time – but we found some shows to watch on Netflix that we’ve missed owing to our not being a cable teevee household. One such show is the History Network’s Pawn Stars.
This show, for those unfamiliar with it, takes place in Las Vegas, at a pawn shop owned by a guy named Rick Harrison. Working with him is his father (called “the Old Man”) and his son (called “Big Hoss”) and a guy who is mostly played for comic relief (called “Chum Lee”). And what happens on the show is pretty straightforward: people come in with stuff that they try to sell, leading to some work identifying the items, and then the price haggling (if Harrison and company are interested in buying it). Basically it’s Antiques Roadshow with some more personality to it, where money actually changes hands. Instead of someone being told that the gewgaw they’ve just brought in is really valuable and then they say, “Wow, I’m gonna keep it forever!”, here we have people saying, “Great! That guy said I could get $10,000 for it, so I want $10,000 for it.”
Pawn Stars is a lot of fun on several grounds – the guys on it are an entertaining bunch, the haggling is entertaining, and the items themselves are often fascinating. There are also “before-after” things, too, when Harrison and company buy something that’s a wreck and then get it restored. These segments are so fascinating, actually, that their preferred guy for restoration now has his own show. (We haven’t seen this yet, but it’s called American Restoration. When this shows up on Netflix, we’re there.) Where the focus in Antiques Roadshow is on the stuff, here the focus is more on the people and the connection they have with their stuff. Sometimes there are sad little vignettes, when people who are clearly down on their luck are trying to make a buck by hawking their stuff, and they get less than they clearly want; sometimes there are triumphs when someone discovers that an item they got someplace for very little is worth a whole lot. And then there are the people who don’t know that what they’ve got are fakes. (One guy, in an early episode, has promised his wife that he’ll make a lot of money selling his antique gun…which turns out to be fake and worth about fifty bucks. Ouch. Lots of curse-word beeping on that guy’s reaction!)
Firearms of all sorts seem to be the most common types of items brought in on the show, but this is all very interesting – you learn a lot about the history of firearms by watching this show, and they seemingly never buy an old gun without taking it out to the wilderness and firing it. Exploding stuff is cool! For me, the most amazing item was a guy who came in with a big hunk of gold coins all melded together – it was part of the treasure from a shipwreck off the coast of Sri Lanka, discovered by Arthur C. Clarke and a diving buddy of his years ago, that turned out to be one of the richest treasure ships ever found. Harrison did not end up buying the treasure lump, but this whole transaction was amazing. (Clarke wrote a wonderful book on the finding of the ship, The Treasure of the Great Reef.)
This particular transaction raised the standard question: is Pawn Stars for real, or is it staged? I suspect that it’s a mix of both; there’s no way it could be one hundred percent ‘real’ and look as professional a production as it does. There are times when the influence of producers shows a little too much (such as when the second season starts and suddenly every episode had to have at least one conspicuous reference to Subway restaurants). But really, I don’t care – the personalities are engaging (Harrison and company come off like a terribly fun bunch to hang out with), the show is fun, and the stuff is real. Well, usually, anyway.
Rick Harrison has a new book out about the whole pawn shop experience, called License to Pawn. The book is a fast, breezy, and extremely entertaining read. It’s worth noting that Harrison and his family have been in the pawn shop business for years, and that what’s seen on the show is just a small part of what really goes on in a pawn shop. The Harrison family has seen its share of seedy characters throughout the years, and there are a lot of wonderful anecdotes in the book that detail the colorful people who have come through on occasion. The show never depicts the dark underbelly of Las Vegas, but it’s clear that Harrison and company have seen a lot in their years. There are even some haunting tales, including one poor fellow, socially awkward, whose main hangout in life was the pawn shop until he finally had to be forbidden to return after he sexually harassed a female employee and died soon after. And there’s probably a fascinating show in itself to be made from the life of the person who has to staff the shop’s overnight window (bulletproof glass, of course).
The book has chapters by the Old Man, Big Hoss, and even one by Chumlee, which strongly implies that Chumlee’s not quite the big dumb lug the show makes him out to be. Each one is refreshingly up front about their own strengths and weaknesses; Harrison himself is proud of how smart he is, but he’s also willing to admit that he was an awful student in school and that he can’t resist some particularly crackpot schemes to make a quick profit. (One such scheme involves nickels. Lots of nickels. Believe it or not, Rick Harrison thought he’d make money by investing in nickels.) There’s something about Harrison that is inherently likable; he comes off as the kind of guy whom you could consider a great friend even if you disagree with everything that comes out of his mouth. (Could be the fact that at one point in the book, he admits to being completely uninterested in fashion and declares a preference for…overalls!) Big Hoss and Chumlee have had drug-related struggles in their past, which they write frankly about, and my personal favorite anecdote in the book comes from Big Hoss’s chapter. Here it is:
I’m sitting on the stool inside the shop at the night window and a woman walks up and asks me, “Do you buy gold teeth?”
“Yes, ma’am, we do,” I tell her.
She’s looking at me through the window, and she doesn’t look like a drug addict or a desperate person. She’s in her fifties. She’s dressed reasonably well, her hair is groomed, she’s not dirty. (Those three descriptions qualify as high class for the night window.)
She says, “OK, good. Do you have a pair of pliers I can borrow?”
Stupid me, I think the two questions are unrelated. I think she’s asking to borrow pliers for reasons that have nothing to do with the question of the gold teeth. I’m thinking maybe she needs to fix her car, or maybe give them to a guy she’s with so he can fix the car.
It was late. I probably wasn’t thinking straight.
I grabbed a pair of pliers from under the counter and told her I’d need a driver’s license to hold so I make sure I get my pliers back. She nods and hands her license through the slot. No big deal to either of us.
About a half an hour later, she’s still nowhere to be seen. I’m thinking it’s awfully strange that someone gave up their driver’s license for a pair of pliers at three in the morning in a pawn shop in Vegas. Then again, it is three in the morning in a pawn shop in Vegas, so maybe it’s not so strange.
Anyway, she finally shows up at the window with her mouth full of toilet paper. She drops a gold tooth and the pliers through the slot.
A gold tooth covered in blood.
For $40.
So now I’m wishing I hadn’t given her the pliers. If I had been thinking, I would have realized why she wanted the pliers. The idea wasn’t to refuse the pliers out of any moral judgment – she’s got to do what she’s got the do. I just shouldn’t have supplied her with the means to do that.
I’m looking at the tooth, thinking, “Well, Big Hoss – now you’ve got to buy it.” After all, she did go to the trouble to bring it to me.
Somehow this one vignette tells you so much about what happens at a pawn shop in the middle of the night in Vegas. You have it all – desperation, weariness, and a certain moral recognition that the desperate need to be afforded whatever dignity is in our power to spare.
Now I just wish Netflix would get some new Pawn Stars episodes available for streaming….
(images via)
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A Random Wednesday Conversation Starter
Most US Americans don’t have maps!
But if they did, they should own this map. I want one! Seriously, if you’ve never given much thought to the lot of the poor cartographers in our lonely society, read the article. It’s fascinating stuff.
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For Lynn
Six and Ten
Well, when the NFL season began, I predicted a finish of 7-9 for the Buffalo Bills. They seemed intent on proving me wrong, jumping out to a 5-2 record, with impressive come-from-behind victories and finally beating the New England Patriots for the first time since 2003. But then, the wheels well and truly came off the season, and they finished 6-10. They were one game worse than I figured, so that’s not too bad a job of prognosticating on my part, huzzah! But why does it feel as crappy as it does?
Well, it’s not just what happens but how it happens. I figured the Bills would just kind of limp through the season, looking a bit better than last year, when they were in a lot of close losses on their way to 4-12. I figured they’d win two and lose three, win one and lose two, win another two and lose another three, and go in that way to 7-9. Instead they opened 5-2, looked great doing so, and then they promptly went on a losing binge where they got blown out most weeks and going 1-8 the rest of the way. Ouch.
Also, before the season began, it was expected that the defense would improve but the offense would struggle. Instead it was the offense that was the bright point (comparatively speaking). The defense actually got worse, shockingly. They got decent to promising play from their rookies (especially top pick Marcel Dareus), but it was the complete failure of the second-year guys, taken a year ago, to step up which really sealed their fates. Torrell Troup was constantly hurt. Arthur Moats and Alex Carrington never did anything consistently. Danny Batten, whom a lot of fans thought showed promise in two training camps, showed no promise at all in the regular season. The defense regressed, which means that the next draft — yeah, here we are, talking draft again — needs to be heavily skewed to defense. Ugh!
Everybody knows that the Bills desperately need to improve at outside linebacker. Their pass rush was horrible this year, and regular readers will know from my rants for years in this space that pass rush has not been a strong suit for this team since Bruce Smith was here. Seriously, though, the outside linebackers here are disastrous — no pressure and constantly getting burned by tight ends. And if it sounds like I’m exaggerating when I say that the Bills have not been able to cover tight ends for fifteen years, well, think back to Bills-Patriots games back in the late 90s, when the Bills would put the Pats in third-and-long situations all day, only to have Drew Bledsoe throw first-down passes to Ben Coates. Ugh, again!
So there it is. I could say more…CJ Spiller finally showed promise when he got on the field, so maybe his pick last year wasn’t a complete disaster. (I still think they should have taken Brian Bulaga.) Stupid penalties aside, they need to get Stevie Johnson extended so he stays here. At some point they need to think quarterback-of-the-future (not now, though, unless someone inexplicably tumbles to the Bills’ likely draft spot in the seven through nine range).
I do get the feeling that the Bills could be a threat next year if they add a few of the right key players. Problem is, I seem to say that every year, don’t I? Ugh the third!
Random thoughts on the rest of the NFL:
:: I don’t see the Patriots winning the Super Bowl. Their defense is awful, and their offense, while prolific, is one-dimensional. They have very little running game, and their passing game is one receiver and two tight ends. Yeah, Brady is all that and an entire pallet of Doritos, but if the Pats get to the Super Bowl, their most likely opposition is either Green Bay or New Orleans, two teams which can answer New England, score for score. And New England will have to get past two better defenses than they usually face to get to the Super Bowl, so Brady might get knocked around a bit — and he’s not a guy who responds well to getting knocked around. I’ve said it before, but if I’m coaching a football team in the Super Bowl and it’s two minutes left and I only have one timeout left and I’m starting this drive on my own ten yard line and I’m down four point so I have to score a TD or lose, I don’t want Tom Brady as my quarterback.
:: When picking games, here are some factoids to remember. In the last twenty NFL seasons, only three Super Bowls have featured both conferences’ top seeds. Additionally, over the same span, the top seeds of both conferences are only 18 for 40 in reaching the Super Bowl, with AFC top seeds missing the Super Bowl 13 our of 20 times. And of the last twenty Super Bowl champions, only nine have been top seeds in their conference. So if you must bet on the top seed, you’re better off betting on Green Bay than New England.
:: The Colts are going to go from Peyton Manning to Andrew Luck. Wow. What timing on the crappy season, eh? As for Manning, I get into discussions with friends as to whether I’d trade for him. I would not, unless it’s a pretty low draft pick…no way I give up a 1st or a 2nd for him. Maybe not even a 3rd. Manning is old (he’ll be 36 when the next season starts), and he’s coming off a season lost to a neck injury. And if he came to Buffalo, he’d get hit more than he’s accustomed to and he’d be playing outside. At best, a Manning trade simply delays the inevitable drafting of a QB of the future. I love Manning as much as anyone, but I wouldn’t roll the dice on him right now.
:: Having lived through the 1999 Bills, I am not at all convinced that Tim Tebow is the Real Deal in Denver. Yes, teams really do win because of defense, and Denver has a pretty good one. Plus, I must admit, I find Tebow’s evangelism highly obnoxious, and I don’t really care that the Super Bowl ad he did last year for the James Dobson folks was all nice and warm and fuzzy — using kittens and puppies in an ad for James Dobson is still advertising for James Dobson. Sorry, but there it is.
:: Oh, and finally: Aaron Maybin. During the year there was a lot of kvetching over the Jets’ signing of Maybin and their ‘resuscitation of his career’, which was much ballyhooed round these parts. It was seen by many as another sign of the Bills picking the wrong player, and then failing to get what they could out of a player who could still be productive. Well, Maybin had six sacks at one point…but then, in his last four games, he posted only two tackles and zero sacks, to finish with the same six sacks. Big whoop. And I saw several of Maybin’s sacks, and they’re all coverage sacks, which he got by running as fast as he could around guys while the Jets’ secondary — one of the best in football — kept opposing receivers bottled up. I did not see some great reawakening of a possibly dominant player in Maybin; nor did I even see some brilliant bit of coaching that squeezed production out of a guy given up for dead. These are the same coaches who couldn’t make Vernon Gholston work, the same coaches who were caught on video tripping opposing players as they ran the sidelines a year ago, and the same coaches who were led by a guy who guaranteed a Super Bowl win before failing to even make the playoffs. The Bills have made a lot of dumb personnel decisions over the years, picking the wrong guys and letting the wrong guys go and such. Picking Maybin was a bad move. Letting him go was not.
:: Oh, a Super Bowl pick? Uh…Green Bay over Baltimore. I think.