York Sunday News from York, Pennsylvania • 57

INSIDE 11 IJjJj 0 MOVIES: Follow the path to friendship by F3 TELEVISION: True to life? Get real TV F5 SOCIAL NEWS: Weddings engagements and anniversaries F9 ESWSCHtMII Entgrtinmfoi editor Phene (717) S44-UTS 1444 JANUARY 14 2001 The Fine Print (Feel the love) JMI'-fl ill York Sunday News A i i 'jj ii By KAREN MULLER For the DispatchSunday News IJOUVIii IlfiliiftWMV IK) ii liiULriMiliii (sVtfililftllMifi INjflUty M'HltillfsIkftJ rtliMrVK'K'VY ir" WekoaMto "Tamptaftoa The concept behind this new reality show having four couples enticed by hot-to-trot singles in the Canbbean is completely without any redeeming social value and we are so Entertainment Weekly the sickest thir ever seen and only on once a Saloncom And those were the good reviews Regular readers and you know who you are know that the Fine Print staff has a strict philosophy about TV Bad TV is bad but really bad TV demands VCR programming skills Truth be told we also have a thing about that hilarious combo of reality TV and known as We may be cynics on the surface but romantics at heart There has been a parade of pundits pooh-poohing and tsk-tsking this latest sleazefest from Fox but you know they were all watching and be watching this week too Why? For the same reason that people slow down for fender-benders and enjoy old Bugs Bunny cartoons According to the Nielsen figures the 16 million or so viewers who tuned in to was second only to the audience for that Hollywood liberal fantasy known as West Wing' by only million viewers in its time slot (This can be explained by noting that watching the trials of Josiah Bartlett after eight years of Bill Clinton is not a story we can believe for one solitary second) Which proves one thing: Americans love a good fender-bender PHOTOS BY BILL KALINA ove over Robert Ripley York County has i 1 Martin Grams Sr And believe it or not he loves strange things Shrunken heads Dozens of buttons found in stomach A Borneo blow gun A velociraptor claw The largest belt A lock of Marilyn hair Even a medallion for the holy rite of exorcism This 43-year-old Delta magician and businessman has during the last 20 years hoarded hundreds of and unusual each of course with a story behind it The items come from all over the world and are often donated to Grams when word gets out collecting But choosy about what he keeps He only accepts authenticated items and he want any he said no matter how many been offered For the last two years he has packed his collection in trunks loaded it into his van and taken the show on the road as The Museum of the Really Strange Three or four times a week he excuses himself from his magician supply company in Airville Magic Workshop to transport and set up his evergrowing collection for schools businesses and charity functions visited groups in Pennsylvania Maryland New Jersey Ohio New York Delaware Virginia and Washington DC we got started die phone started to ring he said you go here? Can you go Vlad and cross Some of Martin really strange Al lighter and a inexplicable success story a real page-turner By KAREN MULLER For the DispatchSunday News JB hile other high school kids were flipping burgers at or pursuing the usual part-time jobs Martin Grams Jr was writing Grams who lives in Delta has turned out one book after another since his 1 995 graduation from Kennard Dale High School His first work Twenty Years of Thrills and was published in softcover by Nebraska-based Morris Publishing in 1996 details the chronology of an old-time horror series which ran from 1942-1962 first on radio and later on CBS television Many popular Hollywood actors including Bob Hope Lucille Ball and Frank Sinatra made an appearance on the show many in roles the audience would not expect Grams said Now 23 the son of magician and museum curator Martin Grams Sr and his wife Mary Patricia Grams Grams travels to book signings and appears at conventions when he working on lot of strange like strange Grams said many places can you go to see these things close-up? To me it brings a lot of He proudly displays the skull of a giant New York City subway rat shot in 1999 How the rat ever grew to about 49 inches long no one is sure he said The fang from the largest rattlesnake An exorcism 15-foot-long medallion formerly owned by a Florida snake handler and his wife joined his collection after Baby bit and killed the handler Grams said On loan from a New York collector is 15th-century prince Vlad ring and cross Nicknamed the and the inspiration for Bram Tepes impaled his unfaithful mistress and kept the cross around his neck as a reminder her infidelity A gruesome dried and pickled hand is also on display Grams claims the 125-year-old of was lopped from the body a hanging thief and used as a good luck charm by 18th-century English burglars who believed the talisman bestowed upon its owner the power to unlock doors Remember the rumors of President John Sge STRANGEF2 It Billed as only traveling museum of its the show is headed overseas in April for its first European tour with stops planned in Paris 1 London Amsterdam and possibly Vienna museum is also featured in author Sandra book Hall ofFameandlOl Other Off-The-Wall scheduled for release in 2002 by New York publisher Citadel Press Everywhere he goes he said people tell him really collect Items include the of animal donated by a California family was not just whistling the lesson boys girls: Drugs are everywhere every neighborhood in every with every kind of people yours not fun and not comfortable but truth Ruth Now pass the popcorn Critics have anointed an exhaustive take on the drug war as the second coming of cinema that stink up the joint at the end of a year where most required the super-duper nose for real Well yet one more wet sloppy from a grateful reviewer because is not only the best of the Leslie a of of See GRAMSF2 £: SSisro ffiQ C0 love GFasGues Gneadl-dDOD iviGGii BuiiyftGn stag war Gripping movie cut the hard stuff with fluff Stool is koonn The Washington DC public school system has a problem with truancy So in order to encourage the kiddies to come to class they developed an ad campaign for city buses to get the message out that kids should come to school Unfortunately there were no English teachers around to proof the ads Signs reading Public Schools Wants Go To Class a have -caused heart palpitations among anyone vaguely familiar with grammar not to menbon tremendous amounts of embarrassment for the system itself Even though officials were scrambling to get the signs in the $41 000 campaign replaced the Washington City Paper uncovered this tongue-incheek list of slogans that make the cut DC Public Schools: never too late to comb School sucks Being stupid suck more DC Pubic Schoo's: Come Grow With lay Hockey-Stay in DC Public Schools: We Need No Sources- Entertainment MfeeMy Satan oom Washington City Paper the fine print tyorkdlspatchcom 4 U- Looking for a really creative way to tell your significant other how deep runs your love? The York DispatchSunday News wants to help just in time for Day WTiat looking for is men or women in serious relationships who want to let the world know there no mountain high enough Write us ith your name and the name of your intended intended as well as a little background on your relationship like how long been together how you met etc Then well we want to give it all away Just call Ixslie Gray Streeter at 854-1575 exL 437 8:30 am- 5 pm Monday-Friday or e-mail her at lstrectcryorkdispatchcom and tell her all about it 2000-2001 Oscar contenders it been great in any year Steven Soderbergh who most recently made the also-Oscar-hopeful has perpetrated a whammy a serious look at American drug policy the Mexican drug cartel parental negligence racism disaffected rich youth and the scary scary lengths people will go to for the love of money (cue the Isley Brothers) In the hands of a lesser more hacky director been preachy clichcd and movie-of-the-week corny and with some self-serious artiste Streeter My father is sort of a self-styled movie philosopher prone to giving deep thoughtful Yoda-like assessments that elude the casual observer meaning that we always understand what the heck talking about until we think about it later and go me in the head! For example according to Daddy was not so much about the perils of committing adultery with crazy people as it was about he said relationships whatever that meant And A Will was not so much about finding yourself as it was about friendship So when he called me to say that the very excellent was more educational than entertaining I was intrigued After seeing it I can tell you that Daddy Dixie and In school Even the arrived movies plugs kiss Gray it could have been slow boring and See TRAFFIC7F72.