Perhaps you've met Potatohead and his trusty puppet, Golden English, in Westport. Potatohead (who says his name is Joel M. Hinson) usually shows up on high-traffic weekend nights, cross-legged, in front of the sushi restaurant Matsu or Kelly's Irish Pub. Sometimes he has to jockey with the Jesus freaks for space. Potatohead arrived in Kansas City on a bus from San Francisco. On the West Coast, he'd strung together an Old English can, which he found on the street, with some shreds of an old T-shirt to make a puppet. Then he discovered a toy skateboard sitting on a bench in front of a public library and knew that it had to go with the puppet. "It's more fun like that, more fun to play with," he says. Then Potatohead crafted a puppet-sized skate ramp out of an old box. Now Potatohead skates his puppet around the sidewalks of Westport, with a green hat turned upside down to collect change. "It's better than ÔPlease, can I have your money because I'm destitute,'" he tells us matter-of-factly. He looks critically at Golden English. "I think this is an A. Get rid of the sharp edges and put 'em in toy stores, you know?"
