Age ain’t nothing but a number. Don’t urinate on me and tell me that it’s raining. And you can’t put shoes on a jackass and call it a race horse… You may have heard these before, you may have not. Either way, these fortune cookie phrases are metaphorically applicable to many things in life, including the auction business.

More and more people find and read this blog every week. Lately, I have been concentrating on the “life and humanity” part of my tagline, offering social (or anitsocial) commentary on a plethora of subjects. However, after disappointing several people over the last fortnight regarding merchandise they had wished to sell, I have been inspired to expound a bit about “the auction world.” For I have destroyed enthusiasm, obliterated hope, and shattered the lives of some who thought that they had treasures, the likes of which would produce the monies to finally finish that addition on their homes, buy that classic car they always wanted, or at least have one hell of a night at a strip club.

I recently finished watching a thirty-seven-episode anime called Death Note.  It is very new.  In fact the last three episodes aren’t even in English yet, forcing me to read whilst watching TV.  I normally hate subtitles outside of Star Wars, but this animated series (and yes it’s for adults) was so engaging and so brilliant, [...]

We all know the story of how Leonardo da Vinci used his time machine to travel back to the Jerusalem of antiquity, where he burst in on the Last Supper, forced Jesus and the Apostles to one side of the table, and placed them all into unnatural postions.  After snapping several Polaroids with a Kodak [...]

There are some less-than-fully-functional people out there, who believe that Jesus and Elvis were and are the same person.  Well, come on now.  It could be possible.  After all, there are some very peculiar and uncanny similarities between the two of them.
Jesus was the King of the Jews.  Elvis was the King of Rock-n-Roll.  Both [...]

Last Sunday, I never made it to our radio show on WILK.  My father and brother were left to make jibes about me having to fix my front end.  I was at a friend’s garage replacing parts on my car so it would pass inspection.  Well, apparently I missed a hell of a show.  If you listen frequently, you know [...]

Wikipedia defines a fad as “something that becomes very popular with a small group of people for a short period of time.  A fad is unpredictable, short lived, and without social, economic, and political significance.”  However, I have created a shorter, more poignant definition for the word fad by using a backronym.
“What is a backronym?” you ask.  [...]

They are trinket-like creatures, disguising their true and hellish nature within cutesy forms such as cowboy boots, antique cars, historical busts, and fluffy animals.  Their scents are overpowering, for within their bodies lies not blood, but an eau de cologne sprung from the very depths of hell.  They lurk in attics, in basements, huddled together in [...]

Imagine that you’re a wedding planner and that a lovely young couple with a large check book appointed you their event coordinator over a year ago.  Month upon month you spent, artistically designing every moment–every second–of what you’re sure will be the season’s most splendid nuptial.  Your talent and vision will come to life.  You’ve exhausted every [...]

At this very moment, there is a hole in my jaw.  It is not from smoking, and no… someone did not finally try to assassinate me.  Indeed, the hole in my mandible is from having a wisdom tooth forcibly removed this past week.  Yes, the tooth was rotten.  It was broken.  It was absessed.  It [...]

Once upon a time, there was a German nun named Maria Innocentia Hummel who made cute little drawings of children that were turned into post cards.  Then, along came a man called Franz Goebel who, in 1935, transformed these cartoons into kitschy figurines.  They are still produced today.  Each has its own title.  They are [...]

And now the Top Ten (or Bottom Ten) most unsellable items at auction…

Of course they could be made into aquariums, atriums, and liquor cabinets, but they can’t be made into a decent sale.  Console TVs are bulky, weighty dinosaurs that will soon return to earth from whence they came.  With the advent of flat screen, flat panel, LCD, plasma, and High-Def, everyone is looking to hang their [...]

No matter how good business is, I still get those phone calls where I have to be the bad guy.

At any auction you can see a number of people working to make the sale possible.  Of course you see the auctioneer, chanting and taking offers.  You see the ringmen, pointing out merchandise and calling bids.  You see the cashier, handing out buyer numbers and processing payments.  You even see the person behind the snackbar, [...]

Those of you who frequent our auctions have, at one time or another, seen us pull an item off the block even though one or several bids have been taken on it and the item did not have a specific reserve. Although this is a rare occurence during one of our sales, it has caused [...]

You’re at an auction, pressed shoulder to shoulder with other bidders, and the auctioneer is chanting away.  It comes without warning and you nearly jump out of your shoes.  HYEP!  It is a noise unlike any you have ever heard.  HYEP!  You hear it again, but from another location.  HYEP!  It sounds again from the [...]

The British Comedy team, Monty Python, once performed a sketch in which the audience learned that “a nod’s as good as a wink to a blind bat.”  Although this may be well and good for a blind bat, it does not apply to an auctioneer.  Throughout the years, auctions have made appearances in movies and [...]