Comic Gold Blog

I’m embarrassed. I don’t know what to write. Is it possible to have writer’s block after
only 13 columns? Steven King comes up with a bestseller while going out to get the paper in
the morning and I’m stumped. George Will has written a column every week for years.
And he actually has to check his facts!
I never knew it was so hard to be glib and falsely high minded. I have nothing. It’s a poor excuse,
but I’ve been really preoccupied this last week with my stand up act and the new design of
Comicgold.com. The website that reaches and informs sometimes six or seven people a week.
No column? How can I not have a column? Every time I see a movie, I have a better idea for an
ending and now when I really need it. Nothing. Actually, from now on, I’m referring to these A
Dogs Lunch columns as essays. Liz, who designed the new high falutin look of my website,
suggested it and I like it. Actually her father did, but I like the elegance it connotes. If elegance
can actually applied to a series of essays that seem to mention beer and pornography a lot more
than they mention Benjamin Franklin or true love.
So here’s what I’m going to do. In the absence of creativity, I’m going to fall back on truth. True
stories that are more subtle and entertaining than almost anything I can make up.
It’s NCAA tournament time so I was thinking back to the week Indiana Hoosiers coach Bobby
Knight was finally fired last fall. He’d accosted, maybe that’s too strong a word, an Indiana
University student who passed him on his way out of the gym. He grabbed the kid to lecture him
on civility. Bobby Knight, who’s bullied and humiliated people for years, lecturing on civility.
How beautiful is that? Next Puffy Combs is going to teach a course on handgun safety. The
funniest scene surrounding the firing was Knight standing at a chalkboard, wearing shorts, and
diagramming his “meeting” with the young student. He even brought an assistant coach in to add
to his bizarre press conference. That coach usually breaks down the other team’s offense. That
day he broke down Knight’s breakdown. When you’re standing in front of a bunch of grown ups,
drawing X’s and O’s to represent your altercation with some undergrad who’s not old enough to
have beer in his dorm room, instead of zone defenses, you need to realize how really
embarrassingly out of control you really are.
Awhile ago, the city of Richmond decided to honor it’s native son Arthur Ashe, a man who
personified dignity and open-mindedness. How to honor him? How about a statue? Good idea,
but where did they put the statue? Right beside the statues commemorating heroes of the
confederacy during the Civil War. Am I the only one who thinks around here? It’s not that hard.
You don’t put the memorial to a civil rights leader beside the memorials to uncivil rights leaders.
Now I got a great one for you. This is the silliest story I think I’ve ever read. This baby proves
that G-d has a sense of humor and perfectly sums up the depth of bigotry and irony in the world.
After Israel left their security zone in southern Lebanon and returned to its own borders, some
Israeli cows continued to innocently cross the border to graze on Lebanese land. The Lebanese,
never ones to miss an opportunity to complain about Israeli arrogance, alerted the local UN
peacekeepers of the encroachment of the “Zionist” Israeli cattle. Can’t get any sillier right? Here’s
what really makes this story a gem. The peacekeepers they complained to are from the Indian army. They’re Indian. They’re Indian so they revere cattle, and they wouldn’t dream of touching
the cattle let alone herding them back across the border.
Sometimes the truth is so entertaining, clearer and more lyrical than anything we can think up.
Maybe I shouldn’t apologize for being stumped this week. Who needs creativity with stories like
these?

I’m the king of the on-line auction. I don’t know how it happened or when I became
obsessed but I must admit that I am an online auction junkie. It’s like a whole new world
has opened up to me. I don’t just see objects or possessions anymore. I see INVENTORY.
“Hey, I could get six bucks for that Pez dispenser.” “Pull over at this truck stop. They’ve got a
great price for books on tape.” I finally have an excuse for all the pornography that I buy - I’m
just stocking up for my St. Patrick’s Day Sale! E-bay is the cyber version of, “I got whatchu need
big man.”
 
It’s easy. Just find all the junk you’re never going to use, write up a snappy caption, and let the
bidding begin. It doesn’t even have to be your own stuff. I just got a small fortune for my mom’s
copy of An Officer and A Gentleman. She won’t miss it. Until I joined E-bay, I never knew just
how many Louis Gossett fans there really are. Don’t tell my sister, but she has her records from
high chool in my parent’s basement. Do you know what you can get for the first Crowded House
record? I’ve sold tapes, videos, CD’s, golf clubs, pagers, office equipment, and T-shirts. Like
Wal-Mart, I pride myself on having something for everybody. Yesterday, I sold an Edna Hibel
numbered Christmas ornament and a XXX video called Paradise In My Pants. Where else are
you going to find that kind of variety?

You know what doesn’t sell? Books. I hate to say it. On tape, yes. Books on tape fly out of my
apartment/distribution center, but not books the old fashioned way, on paper. ‘How to Write a
Screenplay’, nothing. Old college textbooks, zip. Tom Clancy, forget about it. Maybe if Clancy
had written Red Storm Rising…In My Pants, then I’d have a mover. 

One thing I love about E-bay is that it’s not an on-line flea market. I hate flea markets. I’ll bet I
hate flea markets more than anyone else on the face of the earth does. I just can’t make small talk
with some smelly bastard while buying a pack of a dozen tube socks or someone’s old Playboy
with Bo Derek on the cover. But on the Internet, you don’t have to talk. Sometimes you answer a
couple of questions about an item, but it’s never face to face. I like any business you could run
from a cave, albeit a cave with a modem. I did have one customer who got to me. A guy who’d
just lost his leg, and I guess, just wanted someone to talk to. Talk about brilliant, where else but
with an on line auction can you make yourself feel good by encouraging a guy who needs to use
a prosthesis and get rid of the copy of Robocop you haven’t watched since college. I know what
you’re thinking-too bad I hadn’t laid on a supply of fake legs. I’d be rich by now.

I’m going to clue you guys in on a little dodge of the shop from home industry. We all make
money on the shipping. There I said it. You see, I know about a little known discount postal rate
called Media Mail. Charge $3.00 to ship, spend $.50 on the mailer and another $1.30 on the
postage and baby you’re going home with and extra $1.20. I told you I’m obsessed. And get this,
I just got a big roll of bubble wrap. The days of wasting $.50 on padded mailers are over my
friends. I even like wrapping the packages. It’s kind of therapeutic. You don’t have to be funny
when you’re centering the mailing label. My use of packing tape, while not as respected as the
more well known Asian artform Origami, is in itself worthy of a museum exhibit. I put so much
tape on my boxes they’re practically waterproof.
My great grandfather Poppa Goodman came to this country by himself when he was 14. He
started working for a peddler named Goldstein and eventually ended up taking over the guy’s
route along the Chesapeake Bay when Mr. Goldstein moved west. A hundred years later, I’m sort
of doing the same thing. Although, I doubt Poppa Goodman had a Playboy’s Wet And Wild tape
slung over his mule beside the cast iron skillet.