Wham-bam-thank you Amsterdam
by acdickson
Greetings, from a luxurious houseboat on a quiet canal in Amsterdam. It's nirvana, pure bliss, and a much needed, well-deserved respite from the last week.
The last week? 6 seminars in 6 nights. Susan and AC were lucky enough to be invited to the Noorderzon theater crossover festival in Groningen. Nestled in the northern part of Holland, Groningen is a nice spot. A college town of about 200,000, it's easy to walk from one side to the other in half an hour and is jammed with shops, bars, restaurants, and bikes. Like most cities over here, it's ringed by a beautiful canal.
The festival was modestly described to us as 'little' by the festival director. Ha! We arrived on a Saturday and wandered in our jet-lagged haze across town to the vast city park. The festival had taken over. We turned up at 10pm and couldn't believe our eyes. Thousands of people eating, drinking, listening to live music, watching street performers, streaming in and out of theater tents. It was crazy! It was the town's big summer festival, only with a heavy dose of performance art.
The AC show set up shop in a Spiegeltent, essentially a mirrored cabaret tent that travels to wherever the fun is.
The tent had a handsome bar at one end, a lavish stage on the other, and tables and chairs for a few hundred in between. A more than adequate place to spread the eBay gospel.
The week run went quite well (or "quite all right" as the Dutch like to say.) I was a bit surprised when we were asked to do 6 shows. I didn't expect there would be enough audience, after all, AC isn't exactly a household name in Holland, and eBay is just gaining a foothold over here after buying the competition Markt Plaats. http://www.marktplaats.nl/
But come they did. Every night a few more, until the last 3 shows were sold out completely. At first I thought the Dutch audiences were a little shy, but by week's end AC was talking just a bit slower, leaning on the jokes that worked the best, dancing with an extra pep in the step, and wouldn't you know it the audiences rose to the occasion. By the 5th night, people didn't even bother to raise their hand to talk or ask a question. They just spoke up. Which is how AC likes it.
The festival was a freaks come out at night kind of thing. The first shows didn't start until evening and most of our shows were at 10:30 pm. We'd usually finish up about midnight, grab a dinner in our dressing room and mosey back into the tent for a drink. Around 1:30 the tent would fill up again for the nightly artists and festival crew late night party. Every night. Until 6 or so. AC and Susan, needing our beauty sleep, never made it past 4.
It was more than quite all right.
And now Amsterdam. In many ways the anti-Los Angeles. You don't need a car, it's super compact and everyone bikes. Water is everywhere, in the air, in the canals. Someone I met said prophetically that it's the city of future. When we run out of oil all cities will resemble Amsterdam. You'll bike everywhere and use the canals to move heavy stuff. I could get used to that. The living is easy.
AC and Susan have passed the time walking to Indonesian restaurants for ten-course meals, looking for bargains at vintage stores (polyester ties!), enjoying the photo museum for a spectacular exhibit of American photography, and strolling along the canals in quiet, cool parts of town with not a red light or tourist in sight. And did I mention that the coffee is amazing?
We get on a plane momentarily and head back to the anti-Amsterdam.
Pictures coming!
Posted on August 30, 2006 | Comments (4)
Tori Spelling's Life for Sale
by acdickson
Thankfully, AC reads news magazines like In Touch or we'd all be in the dark about the latest tell-all sell-all saga. For those of you with better things to do than follow the lives of the formerly rich and famous, let me get you up to speed. Beverly Hills 90210 stalwart Tori Spelling was recently willed a mere $800,000 of her late father's $500 million estate. Appears her mom is holding onto the rest.
Coincidentally or not (she claims not) Tori is putting sellers like AC to shame. She's selling off her entire wardrobe through an eBay user who goes by the tag syes.
AC did his research and it looks like well over a hundred dresses, purses and other assorted finery from the usual suspects (Prada, Gucci, Marc Jacobs, etc) have already sold. Still, over 50 pieces are currently for sale, like this pink Yves St. Laurent gown which is currently clocking in at close to 3 bills with as many days to go. And something tells me that Tori's lifetime supply of please wear our brand to the award show/charity dinner/polo match loot is far from exhausted.
AC has to admit, he's a little jealous of Miss Syes, otherwise known as Sharon Yost, professional estate sale executor. When AC moved to Los Angeles, he figured being an eBay PowerSeller was his ticket to entree into a celebrity posse: "I'd like you meet my bodyguard, my personal trainer, my astrologist, and my personal eBay PowerSeller, AC. Any and all autograph requests go through him."
Alas, it hasn't happened. But I can live vicariously through Sharon. Appears she recently sold off pieces from the estate of the late great mid-century female magician Aree, Queen of Hearts, and now Tori Spelling; who could be next? I wait with bated breath.
In other news, I'd recommend checking out my friend Mr. Outrageous eBay Auction's new blog that tracks the very best of eBay pulse aka the hottest auctions around.
My current favorite is this young lady who's offered to hold her breath for a length of time in relation to the eventual high bid. I suppose the doing it in a short pink skirt part is the draw if you go in for that sort of thing. What's nice is that this blog has the most watched auctions not just overall, but within categories. Scroll down to see the most-watched cars or pieces of sports memorabilia. Some serious money is changing hands.
Bookmark it, kids.
Posted on August 11, 2006 | Comments (3)
Summer Vacation
by acdickson
It's been an eBay-free summer for AC. Other business has allowed/forced AC to shut down the store. Which isn't a bad thing. First off, summer is a notoriously slow time for eBay sellers. Swimming, road trips and beating the heat are just a few of the reasons shoppers put off eBay shopping until the back-to-school rush. And I'd be lying if I said the routine of posting auctions, emailing buyers, packing up items and going to the post office hasn't been nice to get away from awhile. And finally, with eBay recently jacking its fees yet again, I don't mind shutting down sales in convenient, silent protest.
In case you haven't been paying attention, the minimum insertion to post an auction is up to 35 cents from .25. And eBay now takes a final value fee of 8% from store sales, up from 5.25%. Don't forget that auctions that sell get a final value fee tacked on, and store sales have an insertion fee. And old man PayPal gets a piece of most of your sales to the tune of 3.3%. So it adds up. Still, AC believes there is plenty of money in them thar eBay hills.
Any eBay sellers out there who want to vocalize their annoyance can sign this online petition. 27,000 sellers and counting.
Sellers who want to be called whiners for being annoyed at the fee increases can get an earful from Terry Gibbs. For those of you who don't know Terry, he's a piece of work. While AC is a seminar man with a closet full of antique postcards, Terry is the go-to guy for all things model railroad and a juggernaut when it comes to musings on the philosophy of online auctions. Serious sellers might consider getting on his email list; he's got many a trick up his sleeve so long as you don't mind his sometimes-superior tone and the constant hard sell for his $20 downloads. I mean "E-books."
As for AC, I'm getting back in the eBay saddle.
Why, you ask? AC and the lovely Susan Beal are headed to Holland as the AC Dickson: eBay PowerSeller show makes its Dutch premiere later this month. Next stop, the Noordorzern festival in Groningen, Holland. If you have any friends in or around the Netherlands, please let them know.
The festival looks remarkable, with performances from past PICA TBA festival artists like DJ Spooky and Daniel Bernard Roumain, and some of this year's roster on tap as well, Stan’s Cafe and the Nature Theater of Oklahoma to be exact.
Posted on August 3, 2006 | Comments (1)