Randomonium

Pavlov's dogs lead to auctions for Democratic facial hair, dinosaur poop

By: Ruben Casas

Posted: 5/9/08

Never mind the annoying girl in your class who feels that she, out of the whole class, needs to say something every time the professor poses a question. Sure, raising your hand to (1) re-establish your major ("I'm a psychology major") and (2) tell everyone just how Pavlov's dog informs this conversation about the effects of damming rivers in the Pacific Northwest is a clear sign of attention-neediness. But it's still not as attention-needy as former U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Allen Greenspan offering to have tea with you for the small price of $11 million.

This trifle goes into the Things That Are True heap. That you knew who Allen Greenspan was before this doesn't. But most Americans don't know Greenspan, for that matter, so don't feel too bad. I wonder, then, who would pay that much to sit next to a guy who signed the checks written by the U.S. Government. Or who thought that having tea with this dude was half as cool as starring in a movie with Johnny Depp, or getting a tennis lesson from Andre Agassi, which are two things also up for auction. Johnny Depp doesn't stand a chance, I'm sorry to say. But what do you think, oh illustrious psych major?

Of auctioning off the trite and inconsequential, we hear that the head of Germany's Social Democrats, Kurt Beck, has offered to auction his facial hair - a nice, full beard covering his fleshy jowls - for charity. That he is actually serious about anyone taking him seriously goes into the Things That Might Be True stack, since he told reporters that his self-sacrificing act "must be serious and not turn into a spectacle."

Having a benefit dinner? That's not a spectacle. Holding a telephone drive where Jerry Lee Lewis tries to be funny (and after 30 years still doesn't realize he isn't)? That's not spectacle. Getting out your checkbook and writing a check to a specific charity? That's not a spectacle. Offering to perform personal acts of hygiene for money (even if you plan to donate it to charity)? That's spectacle. That's how yesteryear's sit-in becomes today's will-you-give-me-money-if-I-shower?

To say that today's charity auction-themed "Randomonium" is actually an anomaly - that people actually do have their priorities straight - goes into the Things That Aren't True At All pile.

It's true: people would actually take home a pile of really old dino dung than a really cool rock from outer space - and they're actually willing to pay thousands of dollars for this isht! A Bonham's auction sold a 130-million-year-old piece of dinosaur crap for $960, while a 4.5-billion-year-old meteorite went back home with Marvin Kilgore, the University of Arizona's Southwest Meteorite Center curator who discovered it. Kilgore would have had no reason to be surprised that a piece of crap commanded more attention than his rock if he read "Randomonium" regularly.

Ruben Casas

diversions@dailybarometer.com