After I get done writing this little ditty here, I need to go on Craigslist to look for a job.
I’m currently an unemployed comedian, meaning that I spend most of my time working on some aspect of “comedy,” while earning very, very little money doing so.
My savings is running dangerously low, and while it may be enough to tide me over for a week or two, it certainly isn’t enough to get me through to April 19th.
04/19/08, is the current release date for the Air Jordan V / AF1 Fusion.
They’re beautiful. The Air Jordan V holds a special place in my heart. It was the first pair of Jordans I ever owned. I had to buy them myself as I was informed by my Catholic mother that spending $125 on a pair of shoes was a sin. At least that was why I couldn’t have the Air Jordan III or IV. As a junior high kid in Saginaw, MI, scraping up a hundo and a quarter is a bit difficult without the help of mom or dad.
But the V’s would be mine. Because I heard that my friend’s fancy pants lawyer dad was buying up lots of kids’ baseball cards for cash. What a class act. Waving lowballs of crispy green bills in the faces of broke little kids who know their cards are worth more, but can’t resist the thought of more money than they’ve ever had in their entire life.
So I crammed a backpack full of boxes and binders, got on my broke dick Kent 10-Speed, and swung over to Mr. Weiland’s house for a sit down. He flipped though the hits of the late ‘60s, ‘70s, and ‘80s, trying to hide his greedy excitement as he paused occasionally to browse numbers in the newest issue of Beckett.
“I’ll give you a hundred bucks, there’s not a whole lot I can use in here.”
I’d heard enough lawyer street jokes to know he was lying.
I told him I’d have to “ask my parents,” and went a few blocks away to a school playground, rearranging the cards, and removing precious Dale Murphy Rookie cards, Mattingly MVP Donruss, McGwire USA Topps, and the like. Making sure to leave enough bullshit 1987 Topps Jose Cansecos to make things appear on the up and up.
I went back and told him, “My dad says I should ask for $120.”
He knew that was more than fair (even with my adjustment, it still wasn’t), but acted like he was doing me a favor as he peeled six twenties out of his money clip, taking literally a lifetime of a pastime from a little kid, all for the price of a nice steak dinner.
I went home, put the remaining precious cargo into hard cases and stashed them in my closet.
All of those cards are still comfortably stored in a safety deposit box in Mid-Michigan.
And because the bottom dropped out of the market, the majority of those, and ones that were acquired by Mr. Weiland, aren’t really worth a hill of beans.
But they were then.
They were worth these:
Mike Burns is a severely hunky comedian from Saginaw Chicago New York Los Angeles, MI. He recently has written about John Goodman and Burger King’s Rodeo Cheeseburgers. You can see more of this dreamboat at myspace.com/mikeburnsmikeburns and read his column here every other Tuesday.
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