Who Do I Think I Am??

This one's about a guy and his dolls.

Good evening everyone...I'm back from a little break after September's "30-Day Blogging Challenge ON HIATUS" , waiting patiently for them to select the winners. Wish this guy some luck!

Anyway, it's also been a slow couple of weeks since I last got on here. Slow that is, until today. See, your friend here managed to get himself on local radio for a short interview .

It wasn't about the recent trend of elderly people driving their cars into buildings (no, that's another topic for another time). It wasn't merely me calling in to voice my opinion on something sports- or politically-related. I felt compelled to lend my expertise on a certain individual. He is known as "The Mannequin Man".

The Mannequin Man lives a few minutes away from me, and one of the local radio stations, https://www.wedg.com is doing a feature where they visit 10 towns in the area and are asking listeners to submit restaurants, people and places of interest. The drive-time crew is coming to my town this week, and they were apparently inundated with calls suggesting they check out Mannequin Man's house. Jess the CWC texted me while I was shopping for dinner and said I needed to call The Edge and tell them of my dealings with him.

Here's his back-story...there's not a lot of info out there about him. http://maryniewski11.wordpress.com/2010/03/23/story-idea-2/

Basically, he has all these mannequins all around the house that he dresses up for holidays and whatnot, and he displays them in a large window in the front of his house. It's a nice story. But I know you're asking yourself, "Why did he call this radio station about this guy?" Because I know there's a lot more to his story.

He's a regular at my Walgreens. In the two-and-a-half years I've been there, I've developed at least 30 rolls of his 35mm film. He's in nearly every holiday. And yup, those pics are of his mannequins. Posed. Sometimes they're holding a cigarette or a glass of wine. Sometimes there's two or three of them. And sometimes, they're naked.

Now, that's not much of a big deal. You can go to any store and see naked mannequins anywhere. But he's gone through the trouble of, ahem, decorating the areas of their private regions, to seemingly make them more life-like. He painted boobs and vaginas on them. One even has what appears to be a small piece of carpet pasted on her, simulating the pubic region.

To his credit, 99% of his pictures are tasteful. The models are posing in various shades of nudity. They're not simulating sex acts or appearing in pornographic gestures. I guess it toes the fine line between art and porn. He's more Playboy than Penthouse when it comes to his "work". But you have to admit, there's a sort of "ick factor" when it comes down to it. What kind of guy adorns mannequins with adult genitalia? I'm not a person who is easily bothered by much, but this is kinda creepy in a funny way. I don't mind doing his pictures, but I know some employees over the years have refused and left them for other people to do, and I understand.

Here's a 2-page forum posting about him. Sadly, it's really all the other information I could find about him... http://www.speakupwny.com/forums/showthread.php?t=29400

So how did I end up on the radio? I had to be the jerk that blew him in. Click on the link below to open a flash player from WEDG's website that has an interview with a reporter that did a story on him (that I haven't been able to find). Skip to about the 12:15 mark to hear what she had to say about him. I follow her segment at about the 17:50 mark (under the name "Photo Tech X") with my take on him. It's about three minutes long, and quite informative. Plus, I'm on the radio!!

http://www.wedg.com/FlashPlayer/default.asp?SPID=22412&nID=0

So now you know what goes on at Mannequin Man's house when the curtains are closed.

MUSICAL BREAK:

I don't want to know who sings this song, or what the title is. Or what a young Kim Catrall is doing in this cheesy '80's movie about a guy who falls in love with a mannequin. I just want to play it one time and forget this trash ever existed.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Pt5M5Ls2z4

VITAL STATS:

Bullet points...my how I've missed you!

Like I said, still waiting on those blog contest results. One way or another, I'll probably enter again when it opens up in November. And like I said, probably.

If the NFL season ended today, the Buffalo Bills would own the number one seed in the AFC playoffs. Nice thought in October...let's see how they look in January.

Yesterday was the 5th anniversary of a weather event around here known as "The October Storm", a huge wind/rain fest that turned into a lot of snow and left people without power for days; some almost a week. There's a nice little story about it here: http://www.wivb.com/dpp/news/erie/WNYers-remember-October-2006-storm. It's one of those things that you'll always remember where you were and what you did during it.

That's all for tonight folks. I'll try to be around a little more often; now that I don't have people telling me what to write about, it's a little more challenging to come up with things to write about. Oh well, I'll manage. Take care, and GOODNIGHT NOW!!