Squid Row

So I learned on Sunday that the Alternative Press Expo will no longer be at The Concourse on 8th Street… because they are bulldozing the venue in favor of condos (now the duct tape holding stuff together in the bathrooms makes more sense). This news made me very sad in that the quirky wooden warehouse has come to be MY quirky wooden warehouse. I’ve been to many a gift show and APE convention there…. and will miss coming back to that particular neighborhood for the convention. Now I know that change is good… and things will be different but maybe GOOD different… but this makes me sad.

Of course, we all whispered about where APE would be found next year…. At Moscone Center? CROWDED but closer to the Cartoon Art Museum…. OUt of San Fran altogether?…. it happened to WonderCon, which moved to Anaheim. Maybe TO San Jose? It’s be alright, I suppose.

So the new venue for 2014? They just announced yesterday… Fort Mason, which is currently closed for the Government shut-down nonsense. Let’s hope that this sort of thing won’t resurface next year, yah? Poor APE will be out on the street…. or EVEN MORE out on the street.

Okay, complaining aside… Um… no wait, more complaining… Sunday wasn’t a great day in the sales department. Overall, this year was a disappointment in the sales department. Meh. So maybe I will take next year off… and do Stumptown (which I missed this year)… and Big Wow in San Jose. As a tooner, I like to mix things up.

Anyhow, back to Sunday… Alex and I had moved in on the 1/2 table of the neighbor who didn’t show… so we had room to draw. This didn’t really matter, because we had no takers… but Alex drew up a silly idea that we’d bantered about…. it started with sprinkled donuts (a gift from my minions)… and we laughed at the idea of sprinkles in Alex’s bushy beard… this of course, lead to pirates and Captain Sprinkles… and so this could not go un-drawn… the catchphrase “Let’s PLUN-der!” in a bit of a gay-fella voice is now ingrained in my mind FOREVER!

I didn’t really roam the halls of APE this year, as I might have explained before. I like to BE AT MY TABLE… and it is a good thing I did, or else I would have spent the profit I made this year. On my last potty run, I saw the Steampunk messenger bags that would have seriously set me back. I did pick up lots of freebees and flyers at the “FREE Table”… bookmarks, flyers, postcards and mini comics…. a tradition I love.

So tomorrow, more APE pictures… more thoughts and less complaining. Smiles…