Although never surpassing Hitler’s SS in fashion, Mussolini’s Blackshirts were certainly just as terrible and tyrannical. As a student of history, I thought that a black shirt could never cause as much trouble, pain, and general consternation as it had in the days of Fascist Italy. I was wrong.

My fiancee started a new job. Her uniform, which she had to acquire for herself, consists of black pants, black shoes, and a plain, black, button-down shirt. The pants were no problem; she already owned several pair. The shoes proved to be simple as well. We found them in Payless. It took all of five minutes to try them on and buy them. The shirt… Well… Add a mythical power and a menacing villain, and Spielberg has his next Indiana Jones movie.

High gasoline prices have affected everything from food to liquor to porn. Buying a bucket of microwave popcorn and a gallon of Mad Dog 20/20 and renting a skin flick used to be a cheap date. Now, it costs upwards of $37,000. At the current minimum wage, one would have to work over 5,100 hours to cover such a venture. But ridiculous petrol prices are not only destroying the love lives of unromantic idiots. Indeed, the raping we are experiencing at the pumps is also ruining the natural beauty along our highways and biways. Once urine free, our roads are becoming littered with plastic bottles full of pee.

For nearly three years now, I have been one half of a very satisfying, loving, and all-in-all terrific domestic partnership with a very lovely woman. If two people were ever fated to spend the rest of their lives together, surely they are Niki and I. However, until we created our blissful home together, I never realized how forgetful I am and how many things are a direct result of my shortcomings. In other words, I never understood how many things are my fault…

The moth is a blight. The moth is an annoyance. The moth is one of Nature’s superior idiots. Yes, just like manufacturers sometimes produce consumer products that are subpar, the Great Architect seems to have dropped the ball in regards to the moth. This is evident for two reasons: First, clothing and foliage apparently taste the same to the moth. Now, I don’t know about you, but I imagine that my life would be impacted negatively were I unable to determine whether I was eating a salad or a pair of pants. The second, and perhaps the more damning display of the moth’s stupidity, is its total obsession with light. During summer evenings, everyone’s porch lights are swarming with hordes of fluttering drones that range in size from tiny to freakin’ huge. Why?

“It would be wicked to give it a zero because it does show some very basic skills we are looking for, like conveying some meaning and some spelling.”  That’s what Peter Buckroyd, a British high school English teacher, told the Associated Press after he awarded a student 2 points out of a possible 27 for [...]

“Absolutely everything I have, I take nothing with me.”  That’s what Ian Usher told the entire world when he decided to auction off his entire life.  Mr. Usher, a 45-year-old British businessman, had been living in Perth, Australia with his wife Laura.  On June 29, the final bid was taken for all that he had and [...]

This week, I find myself within a maelstrom of distraction.  Before the publication of this article, many others hatched from my over-taxed brain only to be snuffed out by lack of inspiration, much like newborn sea turtles are gobbled up by birds before they can cross the beach and enter the ocean.  Yet, fear not!  I will not leave [...]

Would you put a porta-potty inside your home?  I certainly wouldn’t.  Call me unreasonable, but when I have finished my business in the bathroom, I take great comfort in the ability to flush it away.  However, were it a hundred years ago, and I did not have indoor plumbing, I would have an outhouse in my [...]

What would happen to a chipmunk that was too stupid to eat a nut?  It would die wouldn’t it?  Likewise, if a shark was too dumb to keep swimming, it would surely perish.  Indeed, if any animal upon this Earth lacked the necessary brain power to survive, Nature would eliminate it so it couldn’t breed [...]

Would that I were a cartoon super villian.  For much like “Family Guy’s” Stewie Griffin, I too have the desire to be our globe’s ultimate authority.  However, not being a cartoon places a tremendous handicap upon this ambition.  Because I don’t have billions of dollars, I do not have a secret chamber built into my [...]

All in all, I am a just man.  Within all of my rantings and ravings, I have asked for neither the impossible nor the unreasonable from humanity.  I have never expressed anger or wonderment over anything overly intellectual or scientific.  Indeed, it would be unfair–and extremely boring at that–to use this blog as a vehicle to [...]

Indeed, the Apocalypse may be nigh, for people have lost their bloody minds.  An asteroid wiped out the dinosaurs about 65 million years ago.  Mathematical chance should have already sent another rock of devastation to wipe clean the slate of Earth’s theater.  I, however, believe that there is an alien ship patrolling our solar system, [...]

As my father has gotten older, that particular area of his temper that kicks into action when confronted by a dumb ass has changed from angry finger pointing and thundering, harsh words to a quiet, sarcastic, kind of amused grace.  Indeed, rather than shouting at the every day idiot (known scientifically as homo-idius abiectus), Dad offers them [...]

Everyone lies.  If someone tells you, “I never lie,” then that person is lying.  Sometimes it is necessary to lie.  In war, lives may depend on a well executed feint.  Other times, it is advantageous to lie.  After all, bluffing in poker is nothing more than relaying an untruth through betting.  Lies, lies, lies.  Everyone lies.
Most [...]

“Son of a bitch!”  He had prepared one cigarette already, anxious to light it up and enjoy its robust flavor, when his camera-owning friend had convinced him to roll another.  In mid-lick, the behatted man was told to “hold that pose for the next ten minutes.”  Hence, the 19th Century pre-smoking process was forever preserved, so future generations [...]

Forrest Gump explained, “Life is like a box of chocolates.  You never know what you’re going to get.”  Well, that little fortune cookie excerpt also applies to answering the phone at Rebecca’s Auction Gallery.  Every time it rings, I never know what I’m going to get…
The woman that called that blustery March afternoon was extremely [...]

Philosophy, analysis, and logic cannot always find answers for the asinine.  Certainly, there are situations and moments that escape explanation and can only be appreciated or gawked at for their pure absurdity.  “What the hell?” is a rhetorical question used when there are no answers and an exclamation of disbelief is needed.  If my father or wife had written this [...]

Ever nearer grows that sweet, sweet conclusion called insanity.  My mind swirls and turns, knowing not which way lies the path that can liberate me from the evidential crumbling of common sense and the death of humanity.  With each new achievement, with each new advancement, and with each new gadget, we seem to lose a [...]

A family can be an awful thing, especially when its members are petty, spiteful, and downright ugly.  Too many times in my adventures have I seen a situation where a parent or grandparent has passed away and the surviving relatives encircle the estate of the deceased like ravenous buzzards.  Right away, sister fights sister, brother [...]

Think about some monumental figures of history: Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, Jesus of Nazareth, Richard the Lionheart, Joan d’Arc, Martin Luther, George Washington, Napoleon, Ulysses Grant, Eleanor Roosevelt, Adolf Hitler, Bill Clinton… The list can go on and on.  Indeed, I can add hundreds, even thousands of names to that list.  The annals of time remember [...]

Moses is said to have transformed his staff into a snake, Jesus  turned water into wine, and YouTube morphed Chris Crocker into a celebrity and earned him an entry into the annals of Wikipedia.  Moses… Jesus… YouTube: Members of a legacy of miracle workers of which we, the Savo Auctioneers, are a not a part.  Indeed, despite the rumors… despite the [...]

Very rarely am I rendered speechless.  More than most of the time, I have a well timed, well spoken, intelligent, smart-ass retort to any comment of question sarcastically offered me.  Very rarely am I rendered speechless.  However, there are moments when my tongue freezes, my brain spins its tires, and I just gape or stare [...]

Several weeks ago, I climbed my soapbox to bitch about those who wander into the gallery at zero hour and ask where the auction takes place.  This week, I would like to tell you, my valued readers, about the cousin of the aforementioned dimwit.  For a similarly stupid, yet somehow more ignorant creature wanders into [...]

It’s an hour before auction time.  Previewers are buzzing about the gallery, inspecting this and that, writing down lot numbers, and munching on hotdogs.  As I move among the customers, greeting them and shooting the shit, I see someone wander through the front door whom I haven’t seen before.  I let him walk around for [...]

I pray every day that when I’m old enough to start losing my mind, as all great geniuses do, that I have enough money to be considered eccentric rather than just plain old crazy.  For example, one of my goals–or fantasies–is that by mid-life I will have a gigantic house upon its very own mountain.  [...]

We, the Savo Auctioneers, haven’t a videophone.  Neither do we have a crystal ball, nor do we have clairvoyance enough to know exactly the item someone may be trying to describe over the phone.  I know… go figure. 

When I look upon the magnificence of the Empire State Building or the majesty of the Nicholson Bridge, I wonder how the generation that created such wonders in the first third of the 20th century could also create some of the dumbest, most asinine, ball-busting houses ever made.  I become bewildered at how an American society with [...]

Be not despondent and abandon your mortification.  For my goal, which I pray that I accomplish each week, is to make you laugh or just smile a thoughtful smile, even when I am ranting and being mean.  Hence, I beg you to judge me not.  For I cannot help that stupidity vexes me to be [...]

It is my belief that the first sign of the Apocolypse came with the invention of the telemarketing firm.  Looking for a way to inspire evil thoughts and foul language in God’s children, Satan erected buildings filled with cubicles and telephones.  The Dark Prince then assembled armies of demons to sit in these cubicles and [...]

There are things in life that are said or done to us that change our perspective forever.  Sometimes that’s good.  Sometimes that’s bad.  Sometimes it’s just plain funny.

It was the summer of 1999… the summer that we moved Rebecca’s Auction Gallery to Olyphant.  I was alone at the gallery, setting up for the approaching auction, when two women (I’ll call them Dense and Denser) walked in to have a look.  All seemed normal.  Dense and Denser perused the inventory, making ignorant quips and clucking [...]