In the market for a pile of tasseled silk pillows? A pair of matching swan figurines?
Or perhaps you hanker to collect the tchotckes of disgraced former pols. Ex-U.S. Congressman Mark Foley has opened a furniture consignment store in West Palm Beach, the Post reported yesterday. The shop, at 1930 N. Dixie Highway, is next door to the abandoned Carefree Theater and across the street from the Animal Rescue Thrift Store, in what you might call a "transitioning" neighborhood. The building that houses the store is new and still looking cheerful -- if rather vacant -- but when we showed up around 11 this morning, the only people on the street were heavily tattooed and slugging undisclosed beverages from paper-bag-wrapped bottles.
Foley, who left office when his randy emails
and IMs to underaged pages were discovered in 2006, doesn't appear to be burning the candle at both ends with his new business venture. The store, Celebrity Consignment, (we assume Foley himself is the "celebrity") was closed, no hours were posted, and no telephone number is listed in the West Palm telephone directory. But a glimpse through the front windows was revealing. Foley has apparently cleared out his D.C. digs and put the contents up for sale, a poshy assemblage of stuff you might call "Republican Colonial."
There are many beds: king, twin, and brass, draped in satiny-looking crimsons. There's a bunch of heavy, highly polished furniture decorated with gold leaf. There's cut crystal. A couple of framed musical scores (Blue Skies is one). Some decorative balls made of wicker. Fake kumquat trees. Exactly the kind of stuff you'd want to furnish an upscale rental with, if you had any hope of renting out your upscale rental. For a gay man, Foley's decorative sensibility is closeted. The only hint of his kink is a conventionally romantic Steve Walker painting of two guys with their arms wrapped around each other, gazing out at the sea from under a jaunty umbrella.
Foley's new hobby is fine with us; at least unlike his talk show persona ("Inside the Mind of Mark Foley" airs on WSVU-AM (960), the ceramic swans and potted kumquat trees know how to keep their traps shut.
