January 26, 2007 INSIDE Real Estate . 31 Open Home Guide . 36 Section 2 www.PleasantonWeekly.com PLEASANTON WEEKLY LivingLiving Going once, going twice, SOLD! Local auctioneer ith the popularity of eBay, most people only think of auctions as an online process. But not Bob Kenny. A former Pleasanton resident and keeps tradition alive W current member of the Pleasanton Rotary, Kenny is a professional auc- tioneer and his selling skills can be seen at a variety of events around town. Although he has done commercial auctions in the past, nowadays Kenny mostly does auctioneering at fundraisers for nonprofit organizations like the by Rebecca Guyon Pleasanton Tulancingo Sister City Association, East Avenue Middle School in Livermore and the South Lake Tahoe Rotary Club. “In fundraising, having the live ficult blow at the time ended up And selling all that stuff is no next because you know you have be a need for auctioneers. auction is fun entertainment,” being a blessing in disguise. Kenny easy task. Auctioneering incorpo- a buyer ... sell something logical “I think people like human con- Kenny explained. “People like to returned to auctioneering, taking rates many skills, such as math, next.” tact,” Kenny said. “EBay is effi- dress up and go out, give to charity. a job with Valley Auction and did communication and quick deci- Everything in an auction goes cient, but it’s not entertaining. Also, The auction makes it more fun.” his first professional auctioneering sion-making, Kenny said. quickly, too. In one auction, a per- when I sold something, my name Kenny, 59, first became job in 1982. He worked with Valley “You have to have a flow son can sell 150 to 200 items in was on the store and in the phone acquainted with the craft of auc- Auction for years, mostly doing going across the auction box,” he three hours, meaning an auctioneer book—my children went to local tioneering as a child growing up residential estate sales. He even explained. “If you put up a lamp is moving about an item a minute. schools, my wife and I were part of in Lafayette, Ind. auctioned off his parents’ estate and no one wants it, don’t put up Although some may think of the community, so it was more of “I grew up in Midwest where when they passed away, an experi- another lamp; put up a chair. If you live auctions as a thing of the past, a community event rather than the auctions are quite common,” ence he described as, “melancholy, sell a bedroom set, sell a mattress Kenny believes there will always coldness of the computer.” ■ Kenny said. “Instead of garage but a privilege.” sales, an auctioneer sells your Some of the most exciting auc- things in your yard.” tions Kenny did were for the Bay It was at one of these yard Area Sports Hall of Fame. sales that Kenny, then 17 and “It was at the Oakland Coliseum newly mar- after a Warriors ried, bought “I think people like game,” he said. more furniture “The crowd than he could human contact … eBay came down afford. Instead is efficient, but it’s not and I was on of skipping center court. out on the bill, entertaining.” They lowered Kenny told the —Bob Kenny the scoreboard auctioneer he over my head couldn’t pay for his items, but and showed the items on the screen would still like to keep them. The as I auctioned them off. It was auctioneer was impressed with pretty hot under there, but it was his honesty and offered him a job exciting.” as a way to work off the bill. He He did other events for the Bay did everything short of the actual Area Sports Hall of Fame, as well, auctioneering, from responding to and met several famous athletes bidders to carrying the furniture such as Al Davis, Steve Young and into trucks. Peggy Flemming. But at the time, auctioneer- Although Kenny has moved on ing wasn’t Kenny’s calling, so he to doing nonprofit auctions, he said instead moved on to a career as an auctions in the business world are air traffic controller. Kenny worked still common. in that profession for 12 years, but “Car auctions are still there and lost his job in 1981 after President storage facilities need a way to Ronald Regan fired all the air traf- liquidate items—those are com- fic controllers in response to the mon occurrences every day,” he Rebecca Guyon strike. However, what was a dif- said. Local auctioneer Bob Kenny makes time to attend weekly meetings of the Pleasanton Rotary at The Pleasanton Hotel. Pleasanton Weekly • January 26, 2007 • Page 25 Moulding Living QUALITY AND VALUE • Since 1976 The Most Complete Selection at Completely Affordable Prices 8" Columns Now Showing 8’ $139 10’ $159 Letters From Iwo Jima deep into the slopes of Mount ★★★★ Suribachi and its surround- Rating: R for graphic war violence ing area. Typical of the war 3-1/4” genre, the slice-of-life Imperial Base 3-5/8” In Japanese with English subtitles Crown 2 hours, 20 minutes. Army includes a smart and 2-1/4” 38¢ 56¢ Base 2-1/2” brave leader (the elegant 26¢ Crown The second of Clint Watanabe), a brutal offi- 43¢ Eastwood’s World War II cer who rules by the whip sagas is clearly superior to instead of the brain (Hiroshi his flat companion piece, Watanabe), an upper-class “Flags of Our Fathers.” celebrity (Tsuyoshi Ihara), and Unspooling from the per- the lucky grunt Saigo (J-pop spective of the Japanese, star Kazunari Ninomiya). the battle scenes against They face dysentery, claus- U.S. troops for control of the trophobia, dwindling supplies volcanic island are searing. and eventually the aware- And images are as caked ness that the Imperial gov- with beauty as with blood. ernment has deceived and The present-day discovery abandoned them —as U.S. of a cache of letters trig- Marines storm the black- gers the flashback to 1944. sand beach. Fear and grace Iris Yamashita’s first script, under pressure define the developed from a story co- men, giving this war drama authored with “Million Dollar its grave tone. Sporadic Baby” and “Crash” scribe Paul Haggis, quickly comic attempts to lighten the mood ring false. establishes Iwo Jima as part of Japan’s sacred Bursts of battle horror punctuate the austerity homeland and a key strategic position in the of Eastwood’s vision. Cinematographer Tom Stern Pacific Theater. Embodying the honor and war- replicates the chaos of combat with his handheld rior code of the Imperial forces, Gen. Kuribayashi camera, often situating the viewer inside pillboxes (Ken Watanabe of “The Last Samurai”) plans a unexpectedly torched by flames or tight passage- do-or-die defense. He and his troops write letters ways rocked by artillery and aerial bombardment. to loved ones at home, which serve as first-per- War is hell. son accounts of the preparations and doomed Eastwood triumphs in making you understand attempt to stem the American attack in February and identify with the Japanese entrenched in a no- of 1945. win situation, instead of caring more about those A gunmetal-gray palette sets the somber tone, raising the flags of our fathers. perfect for what will amount to a suicide mis- sion inside the maze of caves and tunnels dug —Susan Tavernetti Ready to Rent Idiocracy because of increas- Fox Home Video DVD ing financial and 1hr 24mins intellectual insecuri- Director: Mike Judge ties while the rest, well, procreated For all the future movie dystopias that have terror- exponentially. By the ized our imaginations, there is none more disturbing year 2505, corpora- than the one presented in director Mike Judge’s tions have spon- “Idiocracy,” which predicts the future to be a disquiet- sored most of the ing, elongated Costco, Gatorade and Carl’s Jr. com- government agen- mercial presented in a continuous loop on TNT or the cies and Costcos USA network. This dystopia is so disturbing that it have grown to the just about saves the movie by helping it mask its own size of cities. Joe faults, namely a rambling narrative that is strangely finds himself faced derivative of the cartoon “Futurama” except this time, with a society that the man from the past is the smartest guy on the is literally wallowing planet. The movie is also a nice return for the director in garbage because Mike Judge, whose absence from the movie screen recycling was too has been felt since 1999’s cult “Office Space” which, expensive and lets Carl’s Jr. kiosks make character for anyone who as ever had the pleasure of working decisions. His only saving grace is his earned logic in a corporate environment, is coda. and common sense that the society of 2505 sees “Idiocracy,” like its brother in predilection as either effeminate or threatening. When the presi- “Talledega Nights,” knows how to uniquely parody dent gets a hold of him, however, he employs Joe not so much middle America values, but the cor- to save the planet without having a clue on what porate sponsors that try to dictate them. The plot needs to be done. is one of a stranger in a strange land: army librarian “Idiocracy” works largely due to its star and co- Joe Bauers (Luke Wilson) is picked for a medical author Luke Wilson whose easy-going manner is experiment because he is the most average man always a welcome turn. Wilson, even more so than in the armed forces (when asked if he should lead, his brother Owen, wears the mumbling, laid-back follow or get out of the way, he picks the last).