Dammit Ralph,
Do you know how hard it is to find a postcard these days? I’ve gone out and looked everywhere within range, I make special trips. I’ve gone out of my way. I hit the bricks and I asked all around— the lady at the card shop, the street vendor, the grumpy, nonverbal newsstand guy with the cigar, the diner waitress, the paper boy. Nada. Not one damn postcard. One guy in a big swanky card shop, the kind with candles and teas and teddy bears and helium tanks, looked at me funny when I asked him if he had postcards. At me!?! He was the one standing there in pressed chinos and name tag with his hands stuffed into his apron pockets. You’d think I asked for elephant shoes or something. He went so far as to suggest that postcards are a bad investment. Something north of ten Grand, like $11,800 (he was strangely specific) just to get into the Postcard Game. This makes no sense to me. I don’t understand. Is the mafia into postcards now? What happened to Jai-Alai? What planet am I on? He had mylar balloons with Hello Kitty, PeeWee Herman, Astro & Elroy Jetson… His shop had carpeting. Carpeting, Ralph, wall to wall! It was huge, there were aisles. There were greeting cards for any and every occasion. You name it, some for a birthday on Halloween, for a 53rd wedding anniversary, for a bowling league championship, a happy divorce, a hole-in-one, get-well cards for a broken ankle, ruptured spleen, hand surgery, a torn ACL, Thank You cards for your lawyer, for your masseuse, condolences for your interior designer’s deceased parrot. He had milk chocolate hearts, dark chocolate reindeer, white chocolate rabbits… But no postcards? Simple question, right? “Do you have postcards?” is all I asked. I expected to see a couple of those spinning racks just inside the door. I didn’t want to discuss the the merchandising floorpan or the economics of the retail postcard business. But now I’m in it. I bought a whole roll of postcard stamps last week at the Post Office, some international, and now I can’t find a postcard. That’s almost $70 in postage that I’m holding. I’m not eating as well this month, Ralph, and I had to skimp on popcorn and beer and the ballpark. I can’t go more than five innings and I’m out. Dry, Ralphie, dry. And no, they didn’t have any postcards at the ballpark either. I checked.
Do you think Lono’s place is also fireproof? All I want is my peaceful anonymity and nine inning’s worth of cold beer and peanuts now and then and a reliable way to send my friends a poem or message and a cheap way to ask for emergency money. But the natives of this nervous society are continuously restless now and have reached a sustained pitch of orneriness. You know how I like to stay out of the way and I try to never think out loud but now I think everyone’s finally realizing they’ve been duped and even the most die-hard corn-clubbers are running out of cardboard and twine to prop up their delusions and suspend reality.
I don’t know, Ralph, but this letter will have to do for now. All I’ve found so far are blanks. Blank postcards! But I’ve had no time to paint out here on the road. Ye Gads, must I do everything myself? When I get Back East near the coast I’ll continue my search. Surely there must be postcards to be had on The Boardwalk or a Gift Shop in The Lighthouse. Right? Is that too much to ask?
OK— write, Ralph, when you get the chance and if you could, send a half-tray of watercolors to Lono’s Hideout. I may be rationing beer and water these days but I use sea water to paint.
Aloha,
-H