They wouldn’t stop and pose, but they were happy enough to let me take a photo.  Except for that 12-year-old in the back. I buy funny erasers from his father’s discount shop and the kid gives me the same look when he’s at the register.

The leader of the pack, obviously.

Not the worst but still Sad.

Note: All the parking tickets on the dash.

Sparkle Plenty is not only one of the most average laundromats in the world, she’s also a pretty average rapper. Sparkle Plenty came up back in the day and swears to Jesus that she was a member of the original Juice Crew. I believe her! Since then, she’s tried to make it as a solo, constantly changing her rap flow to sync up with rap’s current verbal oppression.  Her Wu-Tang approach got old fast, while her Mase style hit perfectly. Only problem there is that we didn’t even need one Mase.  Then she flipped her Dirty South stuff, which kept people cleaning their clothes inside of her, but now she’s really struggling with this Young Money shit.

Sparkle Plenty.

Sudsy’s snoozing in the back of this spectral run livery service, en route to an antique sponge market in Westchester.

Meet Geordi LaForge, from Star Trek.

To make the LaForge visor he used an old girl’s “banana” hair clip.

And a pair of old punk rock sunglasses.  I wouldn’t be surprised if the visor on the show was made exactly the same way.

Geordi didn’t flinch when I asked for his autograph, which he signed, “Geordi LaForge”.

Back when I was just a young guy with no wife and no furniture, I lived here.  First day I moved in, I met my “neighbor” Rubbish James Garbagetruck III, who swore to me he wasn’t a rat, he was just a small person who’d gone prematurely gray (all over his body).  He convinced me to throw him a pizza party, which raged for 24 hours, at the end of which he declared, “I’m moving in!”

Little Fuzhou’s community bulletin board takes Craig’s List to school. A scattering of personal ads, apartments for rent, and mopeds for sale, but mostly it’s people looking to buy or sell Used Synthesizers and Homemade Karaoke Kits.

I hate to blow up his spot (though I am a RAT after all) but Apollo’s not really missing, per se. He’s been playing cards in Mr. Parfenix’s basement in a high stakes Gin Rummy match (Parrot’s game of choice) that’s been going on for over a week straight. And I’ll tell you 2 other things, Apollo’s definitely chilling and he’s the polar opposite of gentle. That prick threw a sleeve of saltines at me when I told him that there’s only 4 Aces in a deck. You do the math.
 

 
Phone numbers have been blocked out to protect the innocent.