What’s the best $10 you ever spent? Issue #28

We asked some of our favorite mens to give us the lowdown. The answers were as varied as the dudes themselves.

By Venus Zine Staff
Published: June 1st, 2006 | 12:00am

FINDING MY VOICE
Del the Funkee Homosapien's first album, I Wish My Brother George Was Here, because it was the first album I heard where I felt I could truly identify with artist. I had finally found my voice.
— Murs

LIKE A KICK IN THE PANTS
One time I went to this place in Harlem on 126th & Amsterdam Avenue that I'd always wondered about because it has a huge sign out front that says "Live Poultry." One day I decided to check it out. There were floor-to-ceiling chickens in cages everywhere. It smelled like an elephant house, and there was an old Dominican man sitting in the back watching a TV that was more static than anything else. I think a lot of the smell was coming from him, actually. I asked how much a chicken was, and after about 20 seconds, he blurted out, "$6." He really didn't need to say it as loud as he did. I said "$6?," and he said, "$7." I said, "$7?," and he said, "$7." I thought for a second and asked myself, "Is this like for some crazy voodoo shit, or is it cheaper to buy it live, take it home, cut its head off, and serve it for dinner?" I thanked the man and left.

I walked down to the riverside and went to the Fairway market. They were selling roasted chickens for $5.99 a piece. I thought that was a hell of a deal, actually, considering it was cooked and ready to eat. But I realized I didn't like roasted chicken that much because it's always so damned greasy. So I bought two of their pre-made sushi rolls for about $10. Eating them while I walked back to the 125th subway was more of a hassle than it was worth, because applying soy sauce and wasabi is a pain in the ass on the move.

Nevertheless, it struck me as I walked, like a kick in the pants, that for five years I'd been regrettably ordering the chicken with broccoli combination platter from China Place because I'd thought it was the only food in the area. I finished the sushi and smiled. I was going to start walking to Fairway for dinner from now on. This worked for a little while, but I forgot how lazy everyone in the band is, and we soon returned to ordering China Place. Their chicken with broccoli combination platter is $6. — Hamilton Leithauser of the Walkmen

I bought at a flea market a VHS movie that turned out to be my favorite, L'homme Qui Aimait Les Femmes, by Truffaud with the coolest French actor, Charles Denner. — Phoenix guitarist Christian Mazzalai

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TO THE POINT
Edith Massey 7-inch vinyl of her anthems "Hey Punks Get off the Grass" b/w "Big Girls Don’t Cry." — Antony

$10 TO SAVE A LIFE
Right after the tsunami blasted Asia, I went to Sri Lanka to do some reporting. My first day there, I met this hippie, dreadlocked pot dealer from Eugene, Oregon, named Mickey who'd flown over with 10 grand in cash hidden in his bag. His idea was to give money directly to the people who most needed it and cut out the aid organization middlemen.

It sounded like a horrible idea to me — you can't just go into a refugee camp and start throwing $20 bills into the air. But in the week that followed, I traveled with Mickey up and down the devastated East Coast and watched him work wonders. He'd go from tent to tent in the camps, asking people what they most needed, and taking careful notes for rice, water, clothes, medicine. Then we'd drive a couple hours to the nearest village, Mickey would drop a few hundred bucks on supplies, and we'd go back to the camp and quietly leave the stuff with one of the camp leaders, and then zoom away. The Red Cross was doing all it could but couldn't provide this kind of individualized help.

One night, at a rural marketplace outside the city of Batticoloa, Mickey ran out of Sri Lankan currency. That morning, luckily, I'd tucked 10 bucks in rupees into my sock. I pulled out the money and passed it to Mickey, who used it to buy a six-month supply of asthma medicine for an old-timer we'd met that afternoon. This guy had lost his wife, his house, and everything in it when the waves struck. But he still had a 2-year-old granddaughter to look after, which was tough without his medicine, since his condition had gotten so bad he could barely breathe. Back at the camp, Mickey pressed the asthma medicine into the camp leader's hand. "Dude, he needs this shit right away," Mickey told him. We watched from the van as the camp leader hurried over to the old-timer's tent and disappeared inside. A moment later, we heard the old-timer's excited voice, shouting in Tamil. Then Mickey started up the van and we headed south. — Davy Rothbart, point guard of Found magazine