Well, dear readers, it is late and I must write these here notes or there will be hell toupee. But has anyone noticed that this is the final day of September? How can that BE? But that means that tomorrow will be a new month, a little month I like to call October, and it is my fervent hope and prayer that October will be a month filled with health, wealth, happiness, creativity, and all things bright and beautiful. And now, the notes.
But first, a small rant and roll. Can someone explain to me what in tarnation has happened to eBay? Does anyone actually sell stuff anymore or is it all dealers who have literally made it impossible for regular folks to sell because there are so many listings from dealers in every category. You can’t find things in searches because of these people – and I must tell you that many of them owned mom-and-pop stores and saw a quick and easy way to save themselves paying rent and simply put their entire stock on eBay. I mean how can you find anything when there are a billion items for sale? How can you sell anything when there are a billion items for sale? eBay was so much fun when it began – when it was still small, owned by the people who started it as a Pez site. You could find the most fun stuff and no one was out to gouge anyone – things sold at reasonable prices, occasionally a seller would get lucky and there’d be a bidding war (that usually happened with original art), but it’s become kind of a cesspool now, mostly with Buy It Now prices so that there’s no actual bidding. The place is overrun with dealers so of course when an actual bargain hits, they are all over it instantly and then a few days later they list the same thing for ten times what they paid for it. I find it disgusting. And of course the place is loaded with dealers who are either stupid or plain dishonest, who wouldn’t know a first edition if it hit them in the face, who wouldn’t know a copy from an original – those people should be drummed off eBay, but I’m sure they get lots of dopes who buy their crap.
There was a time when I was on eBay a huge amount of time, buying any silly thing that was interesting to me. Most of that was still when I was at Varese, earning a nice salary. I bought my first piece of original illustration art on eBay and I still have it and it’s fantastic. But it was sold as an original Lyendecker because some dope added a signature to the painting – certainly not Leyendecker’s signature – I found that out when I had it appraised at Illustration House. They told me that while it was a fantastic piece it was most assuredly not a Lyendecker. Well, at least I had good taste. They had six original Leyendecker’s for sale that year and showed them to me, and a week later one of them was mine.
I’ve gotten great stuff from eBay in those early wild and wooly years, from antique radios to little penny candy vending machines, to illustration art to first editions and scripts. I’ve also sold many things on eBay, very quickly because I had quality stuff. For a lark, I put up four things two weeks ago. None sold because none got many views – the largest number of views anything got was somewhere around sixty-seven. Well, you don’t sell with that number of views. Ever. In the old days I’d put something up and it would have hundreds of views. But there are simply too many things, too many items, in every imaginable category. It’s a cesspool of overpriced stuff sold by venal dealers. End of small rant and roll.
Yesterday wasn’t much of day, mostly due to the fact that I slept until two o’clock in the afternoon – ten hours of gloriously glorious sleep, which I really needed. Once up, there were e-mails to answer and telephonic conversations to be had. Then I picked up a tiny package and an important envelope, then at four I moseyed on over to Barone’s for my meal o’ the day. It was kind of a perfect Keto meal – a small salad with creamy Eyetalian dressing, and shrimp scampi – five shrimps in lemon, butter, and garlic, with some vegetables on the side. The calorie count of scampi is extremely low and friendly, around three hundred for the size shrimps I had. And yet, I haven’t lost a damn pound, not that I would know if I have or haven’t. The food was excellent and I was hugely garlicky for the entire evening.
Once home, I wrote more commentary and finished everything but four songs, then took a break and sat on my couch like so much fish.
Last night, I watched a documentary on the Flix of Net entitled Quincy – not about the TV show, but about Quincy Jones. It’s quite heartfelt and interesting but it really goes on for two long at just over two hours. But I enjoyed it.
After that, I finished writing the commentary, so that’s out of the way. I had another telephonic call, some Swiss cheese that had holes in it, and listened to music, of course.
Today, I’ll pretty much relax and not do any work. I’ll eat, watch stuff, listen to music, and that’s about it.
Monday we have our first Kritzerland rehearsal, which I’m looking forward to, then on Tuesday we begin our A Carol Christmas adventure with three evenings of music rehearsals. We also have our second Kritzerland rehearsal, stumble-through, and then we do our sound check and show. So, a very busy week.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, relax, watch stuff, eat, listen to music and relax. Today’s topic of discussion: It’s free-for-all day, the day in which you dear readers get to make with the topics and we all get to post about them. So, let’s have loads of lovely topics and loads of lovely postings, shall we, whilst I hit the road to dreamland, missing the way it was when eBay was young.