Songwriters: Perry Farrell, Pete DiStefano, Martyn LeNoble,
Stephen Perkins
Original Release: Good God’s Urge
Year: 1996
Definitive Version: None
I like to have new music to
listen to whenever I travel anywhere. For my trip to L.A. in 1996, I bought two
new albums: Dust by Screaming Trees and this album. I bought Porno for Pyros’
first album and liked it enough to give this one a try. I also had gotten into
Ted, Just Admit It from the Natural Born Killers soundtrack, so, as I said, I
was ready to graduate to Jane’s Addiction when I arrived at LAX.
For the first half of my
trip, I rented a car to drive to Anaheim for the National. I had never driven
on the L.A. freeway before this trip, but because the National opened at 8 for
press, the timing of my departure and perhaps the direction worked in my favor.
I also left late, like at about 7, so I didn’t have any serious traffic issues
going either direction that I recall.
The only thing I remember
about my drive was that the Anaheim Convention Center was down the street from
Disneyland, so I passed the entrance along the way, which was kind of cool. I
only had ever seen Walt Disney World in Florida.
The Anaheim National was my
third National, and it quickly became the National whereby all others would be
judged. St. Louis was massive, but this was ridiculous. Between all the big
sports and card companies that had exhibits, the National took over the entire
convention-center floor to the point where the autograph-signers were cosigned
to the basement.
I followed my usual buying
strategy of first writing down table numbers, what cards they had and prices,
and going back to the best ones later. But my strategy went by the wayside
almost immediately. It might not have been the first table I encountered, but
it was one of the first. The guy had a box of 1958 baseball singles, three for
a buck.
No need to write that one
down. I just pulled out my wantlist and started blowing through the box: You
can’t pass up three for a buck on 1958s, which were in decent condition, on the
possibility that someone else might have them for four for a buck (which no
one, of course, did). By the time I was done, I had more than 100 cards—a
serious dent in making that set attainable.
The rest of the show was
like that. Although I didn’t have any huge finds like I had the year before
regarding the Rose rookie, I had more overall success. I took $1,000 to spend
on cards, same as in 1995, but I came back with more cards than I had from St.
Louis—more than 1,000. Not counting purchases of multiple sets at once, this
was the biggest haul I ever have had at a single card show.
But I had more than just
cards. I bought a whole bunch of stuff for the growing Baseball Room—pennants,
books, tchotchkes. I bought a foamy Hideo Nomo K at the Dodgers game, and a
1989 All-Star Game program from the Angels game, so my suitcase was a lot
fuller on the flight home.
And the flight home was the
best. When I fly, I prefer to sit in the back, because I’d read that in the few
plane crashes where there were survivors, the survivors far more often than not
were in the back of the plane. Anything that increased my infinitesimal odds in
such a situation seemed worth it to me.
But again my strategy worked
to my benefit on the long second leg from Phoenix to Columbus (good ol’ America
West), because I had the entire last row of seats to myself. That meant I could
spread out ALL of my card bounty on the trip and admire it. Now THAT’s a great
way to wind up a card show.
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