Gar? Yar!

The International Seafood Show occurred from Sunday through Tuesday. I went in on Sunday. The show is both grating and fun for me. I am not a big fan of wading through rivers of people in confined spaces. But the thing that kept me from freaking out at the show was the consistent awareness that we were in the Expo Center, which is something like 250 square miles in area, so there would always be places where people thinned out to tolerable concentrations.

There are some nice things about the show. First, I am with my friends and we make it a fun time. It is also an opportunity for vendors to make connections and support business. Other friends and colleagues are usually there and the event offers the chance to catch up with them. But one of the benefits of the show is sampling all kinds of food, from all over the world, and to see and meet all sorts of organisms.

Take Joel, for instance. He is some kind of organism and this was his first time attending the show. He was immediately attracted to the various species of marine life being served and shown in display cases. The Louisiana gar that he fell in love with ended up in his basement making fish prints. See his expression of love, lust, and delight below.







Another organism of interest is CJ. Of course, he’s famous now and most of you already know lots about this species, the CJificus Huskonia. But what you might not know is that you have to feed him, like a parking meter, to get him to work right. Finding the coin slot can take time however. But at the show we found it and Cory did his best to add extra minutes to C. huskonia.





The show is full of other sights, ranging from delightful to repugnant. One specific event crippled both Joel and me. As I was waiting for Joel to get through the long line in the men’s room, pondering the instructional signage in front of the entrance (see below), I was briefly unaware of mystical events taking place inside. Joel emerged not relieved but in a twisted fit of laughter. I instinctively asked what was going on. All he could do was to feebly raise one finger, about shoulder height, and say: “Dude, just …..…just wait…….…ohhh shit…” So I waited. And in a few seconds a man resembling Joe Pesci (Joe Fish perhaps) emerged from the restroom with a little hitchhiker….a souvenir of sorts.







Ah, life.