THE AUTHORING AUCTIONEER

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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.

“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 all that he was. As soon as the buyer pays him, Mr. Usher claims he will walk out of his house with nothing but the clothes he’s wearing, his wallet, and his passport, and head to wherever the winds blow him to begin a new life…

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 such architectural visionaries who erected monumental infrastructure could allow some of their contemporaries–mere baboons with hammers–to construct familial living quarters with five-foot high basements, 22″ doorways, and six-foot tall bedrooms with 20″ square cutouts in their cranium crunching ceilings as the means to enter the “attic.”

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 a facetious smile, one in which his lips press tightly together and his cheeks puff out a bit from the over-exaggeration of the expression. Of course, when face to face with the most dangerous of the species (homo-idius summus), Dad can still pull out the big guns and growl like a proper Italian.

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 that Dad opens each episode of “Cash or Trash” with a monologue about something that makes him laugh, makes him angry, or makes him seek answers to rhetorical questions.

“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 could be grateful for the mass production of tobacco products…

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 away like chickens. I gave them a few minutes to walk around before greeting them. I asked if I could be of any assistance.

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 battles brother, cousin assaults cousin. Each tries to outsmart the others to get the biggest piece of the pie, or indeed, escape with the whole thing… pan and all.

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 myths… despite the half-whispered conversations, we are not alchemists. We cannot turn garbage into gold.