As I get older, I realize I’ve found several personal Holy Grail’s in my life…
Music - Cream (Eric Clapton, Jack Bruce and Ginger Baker). As I’ve posted in in another thread, I’ve been listening to the same Cream songs for over 40 years. I spent years searching out music comparable to Cream (Jazz, Big Band, Blues, Hard Rock) and have come to realize that the less than 3 short years they were together they created a legacy that for me is incomparable. Recently even Clapton acknowledged that the one time in his career he was really happy and satisfied with his music was in 1968 with Cream.
Action movies - Typical guy, I loved action movies always looking for the most over the top action. In 1991 I thought I saw it all with the mini-gun scene in Terminator 2. Shortly after, I saw John Woo’s The Killer starring Chow Yun Fat and have never watched Terminator 2 again. Yes, there was more gunplay in Woo’s A Better Tomorrow II and Hardboiled, but The Killer was a perfect combination of action and both RO and BRO(mance).
Horror movies - In the 70’s and 80’s I spend hours haunting (no pun intended) the local video stores for the ultimate horror movie. Shorty after I watched The Killer, I saw the original A Chinese Ghost Story by Ching Siu Tung and was not only completely entranced by the movie, but the lead actress Joey Wong Jyo Yin (Wang Tsu Hsien) and at some subconscious level compare every horror movie to this classic.
True beauty and love - The first time I saw Joey Wong Jyo Yin on TV, my then girlfriend was right beside me. I felt a pang of guilt because I feel in love with Joey at the moment. Nearly 30 years later, women have come and gone in my life, but Joey’s beauty still reigns supreme in my heart.
Collectibles - One of the greatest memories of my youth was probably never in my hands, but I finally have a real one that I can look at and hold. I’ve been looking for over 25 years for one in good condition and recently paid $70 for a single Coca Cola Harlequin can (the one with multiple diamonds on the can instead of the wave). The logo was used only for a few years between 1969 to the early 1970’s and was emblazoned on everything from cans and bottles to clothing and beach towels. I think Coke was only available in bottles in Hawaii during that time, but the image of the logo and can has been on my mind for decades.
For me, there have been a few. The clearly defined ones, not coincidentally, were the ones I achieved. Back in the 80s, I searched for and eventually found a mint copy of Amazing Spider Man #1not his first appearance, Amazing Stories #15; I wanted the first 100 issues and had found all the rest but number one took brokers and chasing leads in the pre-internet days. I sold it after about a decade, having lost interest in comics.
The other was a watch made in the 80s by Porsche Design, a black automatic made of titanium. Took some lurking on watch forums and eBay, but I got it (and still have it). For awhile my Grail watch was a Heuer Monaco, but I realized how rarely I wear the ones I’ve got now and stopped buying watches.
The current grail is that perfect motorcycle - good power, decent range, light weight, reliable modern tech but vintage looks. I’ve got a 1974 Moto Guzzi 850T but man it’s heavy and takes tinkering. The current V7 doesn’t have enough power, though it ticks the other boxes nicely. The Triumph Bonneville’s a bit heavier than I’d like, the Yamaha SR400 is under-powered, the new Kawasaki Z900 is over-priced. What would be perfect is the Kawasaki W800, but it wasn’t sold in the US; the W650 needs more grunt.
She wanted a copy of So Long and Thanks for all the Fish, by Douglas Adams, so off we went to Half Price Books. I wandered off into other areas of the store while she looked for her goal. A few minutes later she called me over to show me what she’d found:
A copy of the book, signed: “To Lightnin’, Best Wishes, Douglas Adams”. :eek:
I found a working toy Ghostbusters trap in an antique mall. I grew up playing Ghostbusters with my brother and I was decorating my yet-to-be-born son’s room in a Ghostbuster’s theme. I wanted a proton pack and a trap for it. Still haven’t found a proton back in decent condition, but I found that trap. I think I like it more than he does.
This ‘game’, which was called ‘Running Wild’ in the Sears Wishbook catalog. It doesn’t really do much, other than the bbs just roll from one level to another, but I lost mine years ago.
A copy of Craig Harrison’s 1981 novel The Quiet Earth, the basis for the 1985 movie of the same name.
A copy of Rod Serling’s take on Dicken’s “A Christmas Carol” Carol for Another Christmas (1964). Not so much a deal now that TCM airs it every couple of years, but at the time it was a big thing to have it.
A kitchy old guitar amplifier. It had a stylistic weirdness that awakened dormant DNA in my brain, I had to have it. It took a couple of years of ebay and auction lurking to finally find one come up for sale.
That’s a fabulous story! Too bad it didn’t say “To Mrs. Lightnin”! Still freaking sweet though.
Mine: my 1974 Ford Club Wagon window van. I’d wanted a van of this vintage ever since high school, and I had the good fortune of having the mintiest specimen fall into my lap in the year 2000. I’m happy to report that owning it is as much fun as wanting it had been. My wife and I camp in it regularly and have had it on both coasts. At the time we bought it, nobody appreciated it as a classic, but in the 18 years since, it’s become quite the attention getter when we drive.
Not exactly earthshaking, but I found a very nice EQ for my home stereo system. Just what I wanted after my Audiosource shit the bed. Grabbed a Peavey Q215f at a church rummage sale for $2.
Works great! Never have to fuck with it after the power goes out.
The plastic model kit of the Space Needle issued by Stalco for the World’s Fair. Super rare.
I was at a sci-fi model club meeting one evening when a newbie walked in, with some kits he wanted to get rid of. A Space Needle was one of them. We rapidly made a deal.
Just last year, while doing some research for a series of Kansas City Royals-related articles, I discovered the existence of baseball cards of certain former Royals whom I thought never had any, and of whom I had filled their slots in my baseball card collection with photographs instead. Over the course of the summer, I managed to replace all of those photos with genuine baseball cards, the most difficult “get” (which, I guess, would be the titular holy grail) was a 1972 Puerto Rican League card of Mike Jackson (pitched a little for the Royals in 1972-1973, not the better-known and many-carded Mike Jackson who pitched from 1986-2004, primarily for the Phillies, Mariners, Giants and Indians).
Last year, one of the other volunteers, who is notorious for wanting to overprice everything, pulled a beyond-coffee-table sized book from 2009 about the Vietnam War out of our self-service bookstore and said, “I think this is worth more than 50 cents.” I agreed, and looked it up on Amazon, guessing that it would be worth $50 or so.
It wasn’t.
Despite being relatively new, it was still worth close to $1,000. :eek: :eek: :eek: I listed it on our Amazon account for $750, and sold it within a matter of days. Our profit, after shipping and Amazon’s fee, was about $650. Someone obviously didn’t know what they had!
At the beginning of the year, when the woman who handles the shipping totalled up our sales for 2017, she e-mailed me thinking there was some kind of error, because it seemed awfully high. I reminded her of the $750 purchase, and she was satisfied with the explanation.
Here is a Holy Grail of freeking music waiting to be shipped to your door: http://furpeaceranch.com/store/index.php?cPath=55
(After you pay for it, and shipping too. I didn’t claim it was a miracle.)
