Too Legit To Quit
It was an auction where the winning bids were actually legitimate. (Translation: the items weren’t listed on eBay.) And the haul was quite substantial. According to news reports, a recent auction of Grateful Dead memorabilia netted more than $1.1 million.
I’m related to a Deadhead so I am not surprised by the auction’s success, though I am a bit taken aback by some of the items Lawrence “Ram Rod” Shurtliff collected over the years. Some of the more noteworthy items included a 1975 cream-colored Travis Bean electric guitar played by vocalist and lead guitarist Jerry Garcia, which fetched $312,000. Then there was a leather guitar strap worn by Garcia on stage more than 30 years ago–it sold for $20,400 – four times the estimated selling price. If you think that’s amazing consider that a flight case containing Garcia’s picks, unopened guitar strings and other accessories sold for $16,800.
Shurtliff (who passed away last year) spent decades collecting the auction items during his tenure with the group. According news reports, he started as a truck driver for the band in 1967 and went on to become president of the group’s board of directors when the Dead incorporated in the 1970s.
A Sad Commentary On Society
If you are a firm believer in the sanctity of marriage then this next story may cause you to let out a couple of sighs. One exasperated sigh and one sigh of relief.
Earlier this week a Chicago law firm erected a billboard that read: “Life’s short. Get a divorce.” It featured a tight shot of a man’s bare chest on one half, a partially clothed woman on the other, and the name and phone number of the law firm across the bottom. (Okay, sigh.) Basically, insinuating that if you are unhappy in your marriage there are other options—for example, looking for solace in the company of others who are not your spouse.
Fast-forward to yesterday… apparently the billboards caused such an uproar among Chicagoans that city workers ripped the ad down. (Okay, now, a sigh of relief.) According to news reports, the reason the ad was stripped from the side of a downtown building wasn’t because of the racy pictures, or even because it drew scores of complaints from other attorneys who said it reflected poorly on their profession. A city alderman told reporters that the reason the massive sign is no longer up is simply because the law firm did not have a permit to hang it from a city building.
Despite its hastened removal, the sign did what it intended to do. According to the two attorneys who had the sign erected, business has spiked in the last week.
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