Antiques Roadshow Comes to Javits Center

I first heard the words "antiques roadshow" after inquiring into the Friday night plans of a "man" I once "dated." He informed me that he and his roommate were going to hole up in the apartment and watch an airing of PBS' pride.

"Well, it is a two-hour special," he added defensively.

"Is that your way of telling me you're a homosexual?" I countered.

The answer was no. However, back in 1999, it was most certainly his way of clueing me into a cultural phenomenon that had, by that point, nearly reached its zenith. Or so I thought, until I tried to score tickets to the Roadshow's Bastille Day Javits Center pitstop. The Ticketmaster RSVP line for the hour-long program (now taping its sixth season), on which Joe Sixpack is invited to experience the thrill of victory but more enjoyably the agony of defeat during a free tchotchke appraisal, was busier now than it was for Madonna's upcoming tour. By the time any normal human being could get through, one found the show had sold out in a matter of minutes.

Having no other choice, I called Marnie Goldman, a publicist who works with the Roadshow. As a journo pal remarked so insightfully, "We shit on publicists, because there's no one else we can shit on."

Thanks to Ms. Goldman, my boyfriend and I got press passes. We packed up all his stuff?I already knew everything I owned was from the 70s?and headed toward the water, hell bent on doing this thing for every hipster in New York who couldn't. We'd wait for hours to get precious family heirlooms appraised, maybe learn a little more about our own history and, let's face it, take a shot at getting on tv.

Inside Javits, after having our items assessed by category, we went to the "toys, dolls and games" table, i.e., the place where pudgy, fortysomething men in ponytails and turquoise jewelry decide the fate of your 100-year-old Black Forest Steiff bear. Our first shot at the idiot box, an FAO Schwarz joke set from the 50s, complete with dribble glass and rubber third eye, was a hit. A few other middle-aged appraisers with ponytails walked away from rusty model cars and over to where our middle-aged, ponytailed appraiser, Noel Barrett, was congratulating us on this item; he then spent five minutes reminiscing endearingly about how he had owned such a toy as a lad, no doubt before hawking it in high school for a Grateful Dead ticket and his first bag of Mexican weed. "How sweet," I said, and thought: "That's right, burnout. You're not going to see anything cooler than this today, so just cut to the chase and tell us we're going to be on television."

We overheard people on walkie-talkies calling for camera operators, but apparently none were available. That's all right, Mr. Barrett told us, he would look at our other stuff. My boyfriend then pulled out what we considered to be our secret weapon: an original Mr. Potato Head, in which eyes, nose and mouth were affixed onto a real potato (a detail one friend dubbed "shockingly ghetto"). Mr. Barrett felt the need to call in the "Mr. Potato Head expert." A middle-aged man with a ponytail and a zany Hawaiian shirt appeared, and told the assembled crowd with some aplomb that he'd just been commissioned to write a piece on Mr. Potato Head for the Houston Chronicle. He took time off from grandstanding to dismiss our Mr. Potato Head as being not from the 20s, but the 50s, and only worth "about 25 bucks."

Somewhat affronted, we, as the saying goes, packed our toys and went home. Or we started to, when I spotted an "interview segment," wherein a person and his antique are singled out to appear on tv, being taped. Ms. Goldman had warned us to stay away from those areas, but I, dead set on at least being one of those assholes milling about in the background, took off. I was sidetracked by the sight of several Roadshow celebrities, among them the eerily Aryan, identical twin appraisers Leigh and Leslie B. Keno (who, I was later informed by a possibly bitter acquaintance at Christie's, were "real bitches"). In the Keno-dominated "furniture" section, all the appraisers were in suits, the antiques considerably more dignified; in short, I felt the distinction immediately. The Keno twin I'd wanted to meet was busy with a French Rococo end table, but I happily recognized the pinstriped, Brooks Brothers-issue buttondown, the slick "Rascal" four-speed wheelchair and Machiavellian grin that could only signal the presence of debonair appraiser Wendell Garrett.

Mr. Garrett, a man of some years and experience, is the kind of New Englander you associate with an upper-class British accent, until you realize he doesn't have one. I asked if he wouldn't mind answering some questions, in a probably vain attempt to satiate "his public." Mr. Garrett's eyes grew wide and wild, and I was flooded with an image of the Firing Line host his bedside manner evokes.

"I think I get much more out of it than I give," Mr. Garrett offered, after being asked to describe his relationship with the Roadshow. When probed about any unpleasantness associated with his coveted position, he commented, "I suppose the absolute worst part is when you run into people who only come here because they want to be on tv." He said that he tried to let those individuals "down gently," as opposed to flipping his mane and crowing about his latest assignment for the Chattanooga Choo-Choo.

After his many appearances on the Roadshow, is it free drinks whenever he and the Rascal hit a bar these days? Mr. Garrett smiled again, and said no, but admitted that since his tenure on the Roadshow began, he has often been approached on the street, which he humbly attributes to "the chair." He told us that the most exciting find in his 50-odd-year appraising career came during its infancy, when he assessed the chair John Quincy Adams had died in. He then graciously condescended to tell us that he had just read the new McCullough biography of his father, John Adams, and of his full expectation that it would "take the Pulitzer."

It was very agreeable morning, we decided while clutching our treasured box of junk and heading toward one of the taxis waiting outside the Javits Center. On our way across town, we wondered if McDonald's was still serving breakfast, and how much the Roadshow baseball cap Marnie Goldman had given us would go for on eBay.