Well, dear readers, here is breaking news: Tomorrow is July. Can you believe it? Where the HELL did June go? June busted out all over and that was that. Well, let me just say that it is my fervent hope and prayer that July will be a month filled with health, wealth, happiness, creativity, and all things bright and beautiful. Meanwhile, it’s still June and yesterday was a bit of a lazy, hazy, crazy June day.
It began when I got up at eight. I did stuff, then got ready, then moseyed on out to Calabasas to attend an auction. I got there around ten-forty, filled out the paperwork, got my bidding paddle, and joined about fourteen other people in the little auction room. The last time I attended an auction at this jernt they were in a completely other jernt that was much better set up. In any case, down I sat and the auction began around eleven-ten. First up was a ton of photos – for my money they don’t have enough variety. For those not interested in photos (like me) we have to sit there for ages – mix it up – have a little this’a and a little that’a, with an emphasis on the latter. And it was slow as molasses. The auctioneer was a lifeless drone and dragged everything out so long that you wanted to bop him in the head with a bopping thing. 98% of the bidding came from the phone and Internet, with only a couple of people in the room doing an occasional bid. Now, it is my belief that every single person in that room except me was a dealer or representing a dealer. I don’t know when auctions devolved into a contest between dealers, but I find it noxious.
A lot of the early stuff came from the estate of Marvin Paige, who I’ve known for years and who I hadn’t realized passed away – like two years ago. There were two big lots of 5,000 photos each – the bidding on those two lots alone took almost twenty minutes, which is simply outrageous for an auction. The job of the auctioneer is to keep it moving, keep it fun, keep it exciting, but mostly move it along. The woman in front of me, again either a dealer or representing one, was furiously bidding on those two lots, as were lots of phone and Internet folks. Each lot, with the buyer’s premium, sold for almost 40K. And the woman may have won both lots herself. Finally we got past the initial batch of photos into the scripts. And those went nuts in a lot of cases. The woman was bidding up stuff vociferously, some of which she won and some of which she didn’t. Then we were back to photos and in the first hour they’d only gotten through 35 lots out of 560. There was no way what I was interested in was coming up before six in the evening, doing the math. So, I bailed. By the time I bailed I’m guessing that silly woman had spent over 100K.
I came back to the City of Studio and went directly to Jerry’s Deli, where I ate a breakfast burrito. After that I came home, logged on to the online version of the auction and spent the afternoon watching that whilst doing other work and getting word we have one of our two males for the Kritzerland show. Whilst waiting for my item to come up (I was right in that it didn’t come up, in fact, until around six-thirty), I had a very long and very lovely telephonic call with someone whose voice I had not heard for fifty-one years. It was really fun to catch up, chat, laugh, and I look forward to having more conversations.
Then the costume sketches began. Sketch after sketch did not get any bids. Then a couple got low bids, and one, from Shane, went for a bit over a thousand bucks. Then my item came up. Of course for that one they had absentee bids which, sorry, I don’t believe. Why? Because according to their own damn online site it had NO bids, zero. Then suddenly there were absentee bids? I couldn’t believe it and it smelled to high hell – or is it low hell – or is it high heaven? Anyway I stayed in it, bidding, until it simply was ridiculous – it eventually sold for $950 – an Edith Head (unsigned) sketch of Glynis Johns from The Court Jester. I really thought it was going to go for around three hundred bucks, like most of them, but alas, between the absentee, me, the phone and the other Internet people it just kept going up and up. So, I didn’t get it.
I did watch until the end of the first session, which was seven-fifteen. They need a new auctioneer – this shouldn’t have gone past five. And there are two more days of it. After that, the helper came by to get some invoices, and then I did a jog. My intention is to be very strong about jogging and do one every day for the next eight weeks. After that, I just relaxed.
Today, I may or may not check out session two of the auction. I’ll eat, jog, hopefully pick up packages, and then I have a two-hour meeting about a little show at The Federal that I’m overseeing as a favor to the fellow who books our shows. It’s his tenth anniversary of club stuff and he wanted to do a tribute to Rosemary Clooney, with whom he worked for several years. Because I know the two singers I knew they’d be much more comfortable with my eyes on the show, so it was my pleasure to volunteer. After the meeting I hope to have news of our final cast member for the Kritzerland show, and then I can get everyone their music and relax for the next three-and-a-half weeks until those rehearsals begin. Well, not relax, but not think about it, other than doing the show order and writing the commentary and getting it up on Facebook as an event page.
Tomorrow I have a conference call in the early afternoon, but that won’t take long. Otherwise I have work to do on the ALS benefit. Saturday is open during the day, and then the Shermans and I are going to see a dinner theater production of Mary Poppins – we both know people in the show and they’re thrilled he’ll be there.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, eat, jog, hopefully pick up packages, have a two-hour meeting, and relax. Today’s topic of discussion: A favorite topic here – what are the best items you’ve “won” on eBay, and what recent things have you gotten? Let’s have loads of lovely postings, shall we, whilst I hit the road to dreamland, as we bid a fond farewell to the lazy, hazy, crazy days of June.