Philly AIDS Thrift

We are using an old phone waiting for a new phone because an android update murdered our current phone. Perhaps you know the feeling. So we found this pic in our photos. Probably from 2 or 3 years ago. Musta been Easterish. The most exciting "Blow-Up" detail (God we love that movie) is seeing store superstars Scrapmetal Mitch and John Bigfoot Carson just barely recognisable in the doorway. What were they up to? It's a mystery! The second thrilling thing is the vision of a maskless and social clumping world out front of our store...we shall see it again someday.

What nobler title could there possibly be than "Queen of Hammer" (we should be dubbed "Child of Hammer"). We regularly have Hammer videos donated here and Barbara is so often on the cover. Usually looking a bit frightened but otherwise terrific. Rest well, Queen.

Winter is just kicking in. You deserve a gentle, grandma meme. You're welcome.

Last week we had the Miss America crown, this week we have her boat.

Some people buy things in thrift stores, take them home and let them be. Other people not so much.

Here's a melancholy fact we just learned. All four Beatles were together for a photo shoot at John's house on August 22nd, 1970. It produced this photo, which is the last picture of them all together. They could barely stand being around each other when it was taken (can you tell?) A month later they were all at a business meeting at the Apple offices in London, but no one knows the exact date. It was somewhere between September 15th and 19th, 1970. But whatever the date, it... was the last time all four were together in the same room. They met up as two or three maybe a couple dozen times (everybody loved Ringo, he kept in closest contact with other three) over the next ten years before John's murder, but all four were never together again. So really it's two things we learned...no one knows the exact date of their last meeting, and in those ten years after they stopped recording together as a group, their four paths never crossed. Ringo got married the April after John's death. The three surviving Beatles were there, and almost certainly John would have been, too. So today's lesson: make that call, pay that visit, re-build that burned bridge. You know who we mean. Yeah, that call

We will let X sing us outta 2020 and welcome in the re-roaring twenties.

We're doing our first ever HALLOWEEN ISLAND this coming Saturday, October 24th, from noon to 6pm... An entire island full of costumes and Halloween accessories. It'll help tame the line outside and give everyone a chance to shop for their Halloween alter ego at their leisure. HALLOWEEN ISLAND will magically appear where 5th street meets Bainbridge just 100 yards from our front door at 710 S. 5th Street, for SIX HOURS ONLY, from noon to 6pm.

These are pictures from BOTH our stores. When we surpassed THREE MILLION DOLLARS in donations to date to Philly area HIV/AIDS service orgs, it was both our locations that got us there. PAT @Giovanni's Room (12th & Pine Street), is always a big part of eveything we do. If you've never visited us at 12th & Pine, make sure to drop by soon. It's truly a charming store full of interesting things. And their online book portal, QUEERBOOKS.COM, is the best online source of LGBTQ books in the world (yep, we said it). But also you can pretty much find any book of any kind that's in print there. Did you know that? NOW YOU DO

More pix from our sold-out night at the drive-in when Philly AIDS Thrift, Beetlejuice and Adam took over the Navy Yard to celebrate our 15th Birthday and our THREE MILLION DOLLARS donated to date.

Our sold-out, drive-in movie night, Philly AIDS Thrift presents "Beetlejuice", is going on now at the Navy Yard. And oh yes, we hooked up some food trucks. Thanks to the Philadelphia Film Society for working with us on this. We should do it again. More pix tomorrow.

Just in time for something or other.

We get in the most amazing donations. Long journeys here, in distance and time, for all of these.

We will be back out on PAT's DOLLAR ISLAND (@5th and Bainbridge) THIS Saturday, October17th, from noon to 5pm (weather permitting), where you will find an entire magical, bargain island full of ONE DOLLAR CLOTHES, with fill-a-bag specials all day long. You will think you washed up on the golden shores of a discount paradise. And you will be right.

Four days of Birthday Cakes and Sales for our 15th year on earth. We've already slayed the Thursday and Friday cakes This is Saturday's cake, just hanging out and acting nonchalant. He is taking one for the team tomorrow. We love you and will miss you, sweet BIRTHDAY CAKE. (We're gonna call those perimeter objects balloons, please accept that so we can all just move on).

Philly AIDS Thrift (710 S. 5th Street) and PAT@Giovanni's Room (12th & Pine) are proud to announce we have now surpassed $3,000,000 in total donations to date to Philly area HIV/AIDS service organizations. THANK YOU to all the Shoppers, Donors, Voluntreers and Staff who got us there. NONE of this is possible without YOU! Those of you who remember our original store around the corner on Bainbridge know how small and hardscrabble our beginnings were. We just happen to be cele...brating our 15th anniversary on the same weekend that we reached the THREE MILLION DOLLAR mark, so we're thinking back to the fall of 2005 and how DIY and penny-pinching it all was back then. Now we only pinch nickels and dimes :) True Story: We were closing in on $3,000,000 right before the lockdown hit, we thought we'd be celebrating this last spring, but here we are back in business and now we've busted through $3,000,000 in the early fall instead. You know what? We'll take it! Thanks again to EVERYONE who helped us get this far. And THANKS for SHARING.

Our jumble of great stuff always makes its own kind of found art. Note especially the full-sized, repro Frank Lloyd Wright, stained glass window. It's one of the Coonely Playhouse panels. Priced at $299.99. This Sunday's SALE is everything over $100 is 25%OFF. That's part of our Birthday Weekend sales. So if Frank is still here on Sunday (a BIG if), he'll be 75 dollars cheaper.

This is a fine predicament. Tickets to our Drive-In movie night with "BEETLEJUICE" at the Navy Yard are almost 70% gone, baby, gone. So you kinda better not hesitate even a minute more. Click and you're halfway there: http://filmadelphia.org/eve/philly-aids-thrift-beetlejuice/