Gentleman of Leisure: eBaying Under the Influence

Gentleman of Leisure is writer, erstwhile lecturer and notionally overeducated Martin Marks's PAPERMAG column on the things he likes and why.    

Ah, January! A new year, fresh beginnings, resolute resolutions (not all the adjectives can be good), and, of course, the start of National Sobering Up Month here at the Gentleman of Leisure Institute for Higher Learning of Useless Things and Various Other Even More Useless Things (Dynasty XII Middle Egyptian, for instance, or perhaps Post-Amarna representations of sun deities; I wish I was joking). And so, I thought January might be the perfect time to write a column dedicated to my continued, firmly held belief that my computer should be armed with a breathalyzer, especially when it pertains to online purchases. 

In the long, long ago, back when actual money occupied my checking account (instead of the tumbleweeds and faint whiff of mothballs that currently issue forth whenever I go to the ATM), there was a little known website called eBay. During those heady times, any old Joe Piscopo armed with a Paypal account could log on and bid to purchase many a useful thing, all with the click of a button. The unfortunate downside of this wondrous new technology? One could also purchase many a useless thing -- sometimes in alarmingly large quantities -- with the selfsame click of the aforementioned button. And may the Lord help a man should he find himself returning home late one evening to discover his computer turned on after a night that started out with a moderate glass of red wine at some gallery opening or store event and somehow ended seven hours later at a Trinidadian restaurant off Nostrand Avenue, a sizeable portion of goat in one hand, a 1.2 liter bottle (or "40 ounce," as the kiddies tend to call them) of Schlitz in the other, one's shoes long since abandoned behind the closed doors of the last C train, and with Tamarind sauce caked down the back of one's shirt.


How did that Tamarind sauce get on the back of one's shirt? What happened to one's shoes? Why is one's hair all sticky? Why does one's person smell of barbequed goat? Pay little heed to these questions, for, if the computer was on, then three to five days later a far greater mystery arrives by way of parcel post express....    

This is all to say that whenever this particular Gent o' Leis puts on his Pinot Noir goggles, his eyes tend toward only the most useless sundries. ("Waffle irons! I don't own hardly enough waffle irons!") Thus, despite my writerly aversion to anything termed a "charticle," what follows is a brief survey of a few gifts that Drunk Martin has bought for Sober Martin, all by way of the limitless magic that is the internets.    

An Hermès ashtray with a Duck on it.  An Hermès ashtray of one's own, placed atop a neatly arranged stack of art books, might be one of the classier things in life. However, on account of the drink, I must not have been looking too closely at the "Click Here to Enlarge Image" image when I finally decided to buy one of these tobacconalian baubles, for I ended up purchasing an ashtray that was lime green, and decorated with several mallards on a lily-strewn pond. Needless to say, I keep it filled to the top with Werther's Originals, ensuring that there's nary a feather or beak in sight.    

A Painting by Mitjili Napurrula.  On a trip to Australia, I walked into a gallery and was instantly drawn to a large, vibrant canvas depicting an Aborigines dreaming cycle. This painting was the work of Minnie Pwerle, an artist who lived in cosmopolitan downtown Utopia, Central Australia (think the Chelsea Art District, but with no buildings, and far more kangaroos). Figuring that I shouldn't be too hasty, I waited. Unfortunately, I didn't know that Ms. Pwerle was, at that time, 94-years-old. And apparently that wasn't a spry 94-years-old, because she passed away a short while later.    

But Ms. Pwerle's untimely passing (and the subsequent skyrocketing prices of her work) wouldn't get me down -- especially not when I was 17 sheets to the wind! Thus, I went online and found another Woolloomoolooian delight. Several weeks later, I was the proud owner of a Mitjili Napurrula original, which, in order to establish its provenance, included a photo of Ms. Napurrula at work. The painting took a prominent place in my living room (pictured above), while the photo of Ms. Napurrula (also pictured above) keeps me company whenever I get lonely at night. She's the Australian Aborigines Grandma Moses I never had!    

30 American Apparel T-shirts (It may have been closer to 40).  One of my more practical besotted purchases, I probably returned home one night only to discover that I was fresh out of t-shirts. A teetotaling simpleton with less problem solving abilities might have opted for the far more mundane solution of gathering up all my dirty laundry and hauling it down to the Laundromat. Instead, I opted for Plan D (D for Drunk), which was to boot up my laptop and buy a junk lot of white American Apparel T-shirts. I may never go without a clean shirt again.       

Several bottles of Gucci cologne.  The discontinuance of any "go to" toiletry brand might be traumatic enough, but add some red wine to the mix, and it becomes a sloppy, catastrophic mess. I was at a house party when I heard that my favorite wintertime cologne was being phased out. To cut off any rush for the now limited supply, I left the party, went online, and bid. And bid. And bid some more. Now, I have enough of this woodsy cologne to overpower the stench of drunken sin well into the next decade! And, as this column may or may not indicate, there's a lot of drunken sin about.    

The October 16, 1997 edition of Rolling Stone.  Was this for a writing project? Had I become drunkenly nostalgic for the Euterpean muses that were Salt n' Pepa? In all honesty, your guess is as good as mine.    

Sheepskin rugs.  It was very cold one winter, and the idea of being coated in a blanket of fleece certainly did have its appeal. Turns out that keeping a small flock of Little Bo Peep's finest on one's bed is also really, really creepy. Despite the convenience of not having to conjure up any counting sheep for those nights when I couldn't get to bed, the fleeces were moved onto the sofa in my living room, allowing me to gleefully declare to any overnight guests, "Yes, Dr. Lecter! The lambs have stopped screaming!" (Don't even ask.)    

So there you have it. The Gentleman of Leisure guide to eBaying under the influence. Feel free to use the comments box as a confessional for any items you may have purchased while besottedly browsing the interweb. And now, it's time for the French word of this week's column:   

 Bureau.    

(Didn't expect that one coming, now did you?)