Denio's review

Everything I know about the Denio's auction I learned from Ella. My first tip is to park across the street at Auction Town. It's much easier to get into and to find your car in later. Auction Town is looking like even more of a ghost town these days. Hardly anyone had bothered to set up booths. Auction Town is also home to Walt's mini-donuts, which CANNOT be missed. Walt sits patiently in his stifling hot mini-donut trailer while a continuous tape loop blares "fresh, hot mini donuts. 5 for a quarter 18 for a dollar and 6 for 5o cents. stop on by and take a bag home". Just while I was standing waiting for my donuts (Walt is very slow and won't be rushed) this loop was hammered into my brain and pretty much still is. You can watch Walt fry the donuts and it's the coolest thing. It's like a tiny donut factory. Walt is such a nice man, and seems so happy to be selling donuts that it's really inspiring. After you scarf down some donuts and a small coffee for a quarter (you read that right), head right on over to the world's best tamale stand and stand in line for your breakfast tamale. Don't try to come back for a lunch tamale because the place will either be shut down or out of tamales. The chicken and chile and cheese are both great, and the dessert tamales are good too. Try the pineapple. The taco stand right next to Walt's is decent, too, and won't make you sick despite appearances.

After that we did a lot of auction wandering, Miller got a brew but as I was driving I skipped my normal trifecta of weed, brew, and corn dog. The most annoying thing was this guy with tons of records, but they were all water damaged and many of them were actually stuck together and MOLDY. After at least 15 minutes of browsing I asked his prices. He said "they start at two, some are more". I said, "even the moldy ones" but he ignored me and cranked the Bonnie Raitt (I dare not ask how much the Bonnie Raitt LPs would be. They're probably priceless). In order for my time to not have been spent in vain I took up a perfectly common Joni Mitchell LP to purchase (despite the fucked-up cover), and said "two dollars, right". He gleefully crowed, "actually it's five, but thanks for finding it for me". Infuriating. Does he rent a booth just to deny people his records? I wonder what else he does for fun. Maybe he stands on marathon routes and denies people water. Later we found the rad record guy and I got the same record for less than a buck, and in good condition. Fuck you, other guy. I got a Jewish rap record from 1992 from a guy called "A to the D". His hit is "Renegade Jew", with the words "the renegade Jew is comin' after you". Crappy. I also got a Bauer pot and weiner dog planter from the 50's. Thumbs up.

The weirdest thing we saw was a collection of framed film stills. I spotted it because one was from "something wicked this way comes", which I like (both book and movie). After further examination I discovered that all the film stills, framed articles from People magazine, etc. were of a little person named Peter Risch. He was also in Ghoulies and a pretty well-known documentary called "I am not a freak" about people who are very different in appearance in some way. It was obvious that all this stuff belonged to him and had ended up jumbled in a box on the ground at Denios. I looked him up in Imdb. Here's his page: http://imdb.com/name/nm0728209/
He died in 1989, but I couldn't find any more information about him or his death since it was pre-internet.