- Hi, I'm Tig Notaro, and I'm a bit of a slow talker, so...
I thought I'd come out of my comfort zone and head to
West Virginia and learn how to be an auctioneer.
Wish me luck.
I met with Brian Shafer. For the past 25 years, he's been
traveling the US doing charity auctions for people in need,
and has one of the best cat needlepoint collections I've
ever seen.
Brian, what are some of the terms I need to know,
to be an auctioneer?
- Client, that's who you're working for
- Client, that's who you're working for - Client
- Client
- Uh huh.
- The most important thing you need to know as an auctioneer
is the chant, and that's the actual fast
- Heyy, badda badda badda ba
- That's it.
- Do you wanna buy this for five dollars, do you?
- That's correct.
- Can I hear you, like, auction off...
- Your watch.
Ladies and gentlemen, we're gonna sell this Rolex, whad'ya
Ladies and gentlemen, we're gonna sell this Rolex, whad'ya gonna pay, how about 2000 dollars, now 2500, 3000 dollars!
gonna pay, how about 2000 dollars, now 2500, 3000 dollars!
How about 3500, 4000 dollars, who'dyagibidda four?
I've sold it, 3500 dollars.
- Wow. Do you think it's worth 3500?
- People ask me all the time, say, "can you appraise this?"
I say sure, about ten seconds after I sell it.
- Brian, if you had to auction me off, what attributes
would you use to kinda sell me?
- Wow. Um...
- What about the hair, I mean, I have good hair...
- You got great hair.
- OK... so let's start over
- OK, well... I'd say she has great hair
- Sold, duuuuuuuuuuh - What else is there?
- Uhhhhhhh, sold.
At what speed do you have to be talking, where people are
like oh, this is an auction?
- Well, it's not necessarily speed, what they do do, is
communicate numbers...
- Do do?
- Do do? - They do do, that's right, they do do. (laughs)
- They do do, that's right, they do do. (laughs)
- (laughs) let's stay on track, Brian.
- Yeah, that's right, I'm sorry.
They talk fast enough to where they can sell a lot of items
quickly, and they abbreviate terms.
Um..
Like, who would give me five dollars?
- And then you go "whood'yagimme ten"
- That's it.
And then you shorten it: whodagibbeda. Whodagibbeda...
- Whodagibbeda?
- Whodagimmeda. Whodagibmeda...
- Whodagibbeda.
-That's...
So you went to school, and your teacher said, "That's right,
say whodagibbeda"?
- That's called a filler word.
- Whodagimmeda ten dollars, now whodagimmeda 15 dollars,
now whodagimmeda 20 dollars.
- Whodagibbeda 3, now 4, who would gimme 5, now 6,
who would gimme 7...
who would gimme 7... - Is this someone else's... little word?
- Is this someone else's... little word?
- No. Well, I'm sure somebody uses it.
- I wanna come up with my own thing, though.
- We'll have to come up with one.
- What about "heytigganow"?
- That's great. Heytigganow one, heytigganow two,
heytigganow 3, now 4, now 5, now 6, heytigganow 7.
So you switch it up to where they do not get bored of that,
and then come back to it. -Keep the audience
It was time for the last phase of my training, so we went
outside and did the exact same thing standing up.
- You've got the basics of the chant down now.
Using your filler word "tigganow", start at ten, tigganow
20, go up to 100, and what we're gonna do is we're gonna
time you, and see if you can get it done in 10 seconds - go!
- Ten now, 20 now, 30 now, gimmenow 40now, caminnida
- Ten now, 20 now, 30 now, gimmenow 40now, caminnida tigganow, 50 now, tigganow, 50 to 60 now, tigganow, 70 now,
tigganow, 50 now, tigganow, 50 to 60 now, tigganow, 70 now,
tigganow, oh boy.
- 11 seconds.
- That was 11 seconds?
- 11 seconds.
Alright - do it again: go!
- Tigganow 10, tigganow 20, tigganow 30, tigganow 40,
tigganow 50, tigganow 60, tigganow 70 - dammit.
- You're not throwing baseballs, you're just back and forth.
- OK.
- Go!
- Ten now, 20, to gimme ten, da da tig, tiggada 30...
- Go.
- Ten now, 20 now, 30 now, 40 now, 50 now, 60 now, 70 now,
80 now, 90 now, 100 now.
- Four seconds.
- Hooooooo.
- Hooooooo. - That's awesome.
- That's awesome.
- I'll see ya at the auction.
- We got this.
- One red car coming towards me, telephone pole on the
right, blue truck right in front of me, we got a graveyard
up here on the right, no, that's not a graveyard, that's
just someone's front yard and it's got flags in it waving
in the yard theeeere's a farmer's market, that's one
farmer's market, one gas truck...
Oop, sorry...
- [Brian] Alright whaddayawanna pay, whodagibbeda 5, now 7
dollars, whodagibbeda ten, ten, 15, now 20, I've sold it,
thank you sir.
(applause)
Ladies and gentlemen, one of my new best friends, Tig, would
you come up here please?
(applause)
wanna use the headset?
- Thank you.
I just learned today.
- [Brian] Hey, look at this!
This is a 9/11 flag, never forget, look at this.
Now Tig's gonna sell this.
- [Tig] Never forget, let's start it out at 20.
Can you gimme 20, can you gimme 20, tiggabe 20, 20 20, 20,
20, 20, uh - yip - ten. Ten.
How am I doing?
Uh... ten... five... now five - oh, five!
OK, five, six.
Can you gimme six, six... oh, six, yeah, this is going up.
Uh, six, now seven. - [Brian] Yup!
- Seven!
- Seven! Can you gimme 8, can you gimme nine, uh, tig'llbee nine,
Can you gimme 8, can you gimme nine, uh, tig'llbee nine,
tig'llbee ten, ten!
Can you gimme 11, tig'llbee 11, tig'llbee 11, tig'llbee, uh,
did we just sell it?
- [Brian] You can.
- Sold!
(applause)
- [Brian] Fantastic
- That went really well.
It didn't go as well as I had hoped, and I forgot everything
It didn't go as well as I had hoped, and I forgot everything and I realized I started saying a word that was never even
and I realized I started saying a word that was never even
you know, up for discussion, I just started saying
"tig'llbee"... uh, yeah, I panicked.
It was a tough crowd.
I'm gonna go back in there, I'm gonna drop tig'llbee, and
then I'm gonna up the ante, with a couple more items that I
think are gonna really pull in some cash.
Brian?
- Yes?
- Yes? - I think I'm ready to give it another shot.
- I think I'm ready to give it another shot.
- Are you really?
Okay!
Ladies and gentlemen, here we go.
- I've got something - a bachelor, my personal assistant,
Thomas, come on in?
- [Brian] Come on, Thomas
- Right here, Thomas is a single guy, I'm gonna auction him
off, you know, maybe you're not looking for a bachelor,
maybe you're looking for a best friend.
Sir, in the hat, you looking for a best friend?
(laughter)
Don't answer, think it over, I'm gonna start Thomas off at
2 dollars, (laughter)
can you gimme 2 dollars? 2 dollars for Thomas, 2 dollars.
2 dollars for Thomas, that's good with kids, has a mustache,
Thomas, you wanna take your shirt off?
See if we can really get some sales going here.
(laughter)
Alright. 50 dollars for Thomas, right here, 50 dollars...
(laughter)
- [Audience Member] Thomas, put it back on
- [Audience Member] Thomas, put it back on - 50 dollars to put his shirt back on.
- 50 dollars to put his shirt back on.
(laughter)
- [Brian] Yup!
- (laughs) sold, right there at the back, 50 bucks to put
his shirt back on, and he's your new best friend.
(applause and laughter)
- [Brian] You challenged yourself really well today.
You set a high bar, and I think you did well.
- I'm gonna keep practicing, and get better and better, and
one day, really blow the roof off of this church, and...
- That'd be great. There's a tradition, when you become an
auctioneer, you gain the rank of colonel.
When I graduated Nashville auction school, I got this,
When I graduated Nashville auction school, I got this, this is really important to me.
this is really important to me.
I got this when I graduated, and now, you have graduated,
and you are now a colonel.
- (laughs) oh, my gosh!
- That's yours.
- That is so - this used to be yours?
- It was mine. I've had it since I graduated auction school.
So we had your name put on it.
- Colonel Tig Notaro - Thank you!
- You earned it, you did really well.
- I feel like Luke Skywalker saying goodbye to Yoda.
- I'm gonna die now, I mean, what is that!?
- Yoda lived to be over 900 years old.
- I don't wanna be bent over, walking with a cane, that's
not, I don't wanna live 'til I'm 900.
- Even with three claws? - No. No!
- Okay. Let's get outta here.
- Okay. Let's get outta here. - Live long not. Not me.
- Live long not. Not me.
- (laughs) here you are, Yoda.
Tig'llbe one, tig'llbe two, tig'llbe three, tig'llbe four,
sold! (laughs)