Tuesday, May 22, 2012

Pssst.... Wanna buy one of Babe Ruth's shirts?

I know, I know, if you have $4,415,658 and you want to spend that much to win the auction for a New York Yankees uniform shirt that Babe Ruth wore somewhere back around 1920, you have a right to do it.

Yeah, you read it right, that price was over $4.4 million.

But I have a right to say that I think it's wrong to spend that much money for a shirt, even if The Babe did wear it. Hey, Abraham Lincoln's favorite beard comb? Now maybe that's worth 4.4 mil, you know what I'm saying?.....

Back to the shirt. I'm guessing that the person who bought the shirt probably can't fit into it, so it's probably not like it's a wearable item, and it certainly wouldn't be business casual attire or anything….

But utility is not the issue. I'm just saying that I'm exasperated, and I'll be honest, a little angry, to know that somebody, somewhere has $4.4 million to spare, and can't think of anything better to do with it.

To whoever bought the shirt: it wasn't a proud thing you did.



And ditto to the screamingly unimaginable person who spent $120 million recently to buy the 1895 Impressionist painting "The Scream," by Edvard Munch. Here are two comments on that from theweek.com:

"Today’s art market is mostly about hype, said Abigail R. Esman in Forbes.com. As this record sale shows, the fabulously wealthy private collectors who now dominate the art world care less about owning the world’s great paintings than they do about being 'the one to pay—or to acquire—the highest price for them.' Their obscene spending perfectly illustrates 'the gaping inequalities of our age,' said Michael Casey in The Wall Street Journal."

To whoever bought "The Scream": buy an ad in the New York Times and explain why you did that.
I dare ya.







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