Tall tales and true stories aren’t for sale at the Flea Market, but stand around long enough and you’ll hear plenty of both. Whether part of some elaborate sales pitch, an honest attempt to relate, or just a little self-indulgent bragadoccio, tongues wag and yarns are spun. Shooting the shit is considered an art form amongst the aisles, booths and stalls of these country-fried strip malls.
Gathered here are a handful of such stories, each as incredible as the characters relating them. A perfect example is Retired Irene, who has criss-crossed the States in her beat-up van, hopping from flea market to flea market. Witness her paranoid racism, her otherwise sweet disposition and the disastrous side-effects of her home remedy for poison ivy.
Irene is just one of the many white trash wonders and backwoods savants you’ll meet in this collection of footage shot over a single weekend at four separate Flea Markets scattered throughout the Ohio River Valley somewhere around the year 2000.
-Adam Barraclough
(The Poo Syndicate is a collective comprised of: Aaron Zimmerman, Adam Barraclough, Jesse Clark, Stuart Mohr, Craig Rife, Marc Barraclough, Jake Dillon, Kenton Mohr and a variety of other friends and Appalachian weirdos.