Oh Looooord, My GOD! When I in awesome wonder…consider all the worlds thy hands have made. Worlds like…this blessed Elvis lamp! I’ll bow in humble adoration to this holy décor! How great thou art! HOW GREAT THOU AAAAAARRRRT!!!

Ahem…ok, I may be getting a tad carried away, bloodying my knees, genuflecting to this sacred Elvis kitsch. But can you blame me? Gaze upon its splendor! For years, I’ve suffered from an unending shame for not owning an Elvis bust, despite considering snatching Nick Cave’s own from his exhibition Stranger Than Kindness or shattering the window of the late Great Jones Café (RIP) for a hunka-hunka-heist. But an Elvis bust AND a lamp with a pink lampshade?! Glory, glory, hallelujah!!  If the sheer treasured trash aesthetic weren’t enough, this magnificent lamp once belonged to the late filth elder Paul Reubens. I know that because it’s part of Julien’s Auction’s Paul Reubens’ Big Auction happening tomorrow, and I keep returning to its online lot, again and again, hoping I can magically scrounge up more than the $4,000 needed to win. Anyone want to buy it for me? I’ve done so much for youuuu, dear readers!!

This illuminated Elvis is not the only reason I’ve been drawn back to Paul Reubens’s auction website for weeks now. While sure, there’s plenty of memorabilia from various Pee-wee productions to satisfy any fan, including lots of crumbly Claymation figures, what has me all hot and bothered are the lots upon lots of typically tossed-off born-to-be-cheap trinkets—Alvin and the Chipmunks figurines, books of Topps stickers, an Oscar Meyer Wiener mobile, Cher dolls, garden squirrels, a gremlin…it’s endless. Some look as if they were swiped directly from the maximalist tack of Pee-wee’s Playhouse, which means YOU, too, could turn your house into a playhouse and hopefully Miss Yvonne will visit! Others, though, must have come from Reuben’s reported fourteen storage units!

Now, not everything is here. I’d, of course, like to bid on the vintage Physique Pictorials, other muscle mags, and vintage erotica that led to the 2002 raid on his Los Angeles home. But that’s sadly nowhere to be found. The closest to his art collection seems to be the wonderfully John Waters-esque hair-hopper portraits scrounged from a thrift store, artwork that, along with his tchotchkes, he apparently considered essential American history. In a New York Times article on his estate, Prudence Fenton notes that Reubens was on “a mission to preserve Americana,” a notion that makes my synapses fire! I just love the thought of plastic robot toys and James Dean pins as precious American artifacts. And you know what? He was right! And why aren’t museums clued into this tasteless historian logic? I’d much rather peruse an exhibition of Reubens’s novelty glasses (of which there are many, many, many!) than yet another rich fuck’s tired art collection!

Last time I sifted through another late filth elder’s estate, I did eventually obtain (albeit not from an auction) David Lynch’s “A Spineless Chicken Shit” poster. So maybe if I pray hard enough after putting this wish list into the world, I’ll get a mountain of fake hot dogs! A girl can dream! If not, I’m going to hope Pee-wee was right when he remarked, “Why don’t you take a picture? It’ll last longer”:

Paul Reubens’s photo portrait

Outside of Pee-wee drag, Paul Reubens could be a captivatingly odd-looking dude. It’s the shaved head, which is strangely intimidating for a man most famous for playing a honkingly enthusiastic overgrown child in a grey suit and red bow tie. That’s why I need to add this Paul Reubens pic with his penetrating stare to my collection of weirdo portraits that alarm the monthly exterminator. What I love most is the hazy multicolored backdrop that looks as if Paul wandered into a Sears Photo Studio or, even better, joined the line of children on school picture day. Turn your head a little to the left, Paul!

Pee-wee’s ‘Big Holiday’ suit 

What is the point of grabbing a haul from Paul Reubens’s hoard auction without nabbing one of Pee-wee’s suits? Of course, I have no self-control, so there is no way I wouldn’t immediately slide into that itchy-looking boxy jacket and flood pants. The only suit I’ve ever wanted to don just as badly is David Bowie’s Thin White Duke-era garb at the Brooklyn Museum. Would I have immediately become interested in fascism and restricted my diet to peppers and milk…and mountains of cocaine? Perhaps, just as I wouldn’t be able to stop myself from blasting one of Pee-wee’s nasally laughs in his—or impressing a crew of bikers with my jerky “Tequila” dance! The only thing that’s missing is his platform heels!

Pee-wee’s Big Adventure signed biker pic

Speaking of “Tequila,” I’m not one to get all excited over signed production pics. I mean, who cares?! But I’ll make an exception for Pee-wee and his newfound biker buds because this is my favorite Pee-wee scene. Going to a scary biker bar, almost getting stomped, and then winning the crowd over with a glass-shattering boogie? What more could you want in life! Goals!

Pee-wee’s Big Adventure replica bicycle 

In the pedestrian vs. biker war in NYC, I am firmly pro-pedestrian. Fuck those snide bikers! I hate bikers on the sidewalk. I hate bikers who ride the wrong direction. I hate bikers who blast through red lights. I hate anyone on an e-bike. I hate Citibikers who apparently never encountered a bike before they decided to take a ride through the busiest city in the United States. Granted, part of my problem is that earlier this year, an East Village dude-bro slammed straight into my ankle when taking off the wrong way at a Citibike dock. “My bad!” he said. Though I luckily escaped with only a swollen ankle and a disgusting bruise physically, my hatred grew. However, I feel like I could be converted if I had my own Pee-wee bike. Imagine battling for space in those mean Manhattan bike lanes with the UberEats delivery guys and the red light-racing New Jersey commuters in this shiny red bicycle. I wouldn’t give it up for all the money in the world. Not for a hundred million, trillion, billion dollars!!

Mermaid lamps

Squinting at the small lot pictures on Julien’s website, I first thought these sculptural lamps were poodles. Instead of Kash Patel’s favorite Las Vegas haunt, the Poodle Room, though, these mermaid lamps, with the mer-man’s shiny golden shorts and the mermaid’s matching bikini top, recall tacky tiki bar décor. I’ll take it!

Food Figurines

I really only want this hoard of food figurines because of the puking ice cream cone. A hungover soft-serve swirl dry-heaving after a night out is something I absolutely need in my kitchen. Ok, the buck-toothed onion (?) is adorable too.

IHOP crap

Yeah. Yeah. I know that IHOP isn’t Waffle House. Less brawls. Less splattered and shattered maple syrup dispensers. Less chairs and pans heaved between the kitchen and the customers. But the tables are still sticky enough and reflective of a kind of low-rent Americana that I’m impressed by the high-class trash aesthetic of IHOP cufflinks. A perfect pairing with your thrift store-purchased Doug Stanhope-like garish 1970s suit!

More salt and pepper shakers than one human ever needs

Sure, sixteen salt and pepper shakers seems like a lot, but who can resist those Village People macho men shakers?! OR the squirrel shaker! Squee!! That’s for me—and for Paul. In Matt Wolf’s documentary Pee-wee as Himself, we see Paul feeding the adorable, demanding ground squirrels around his California home. I, too, am a nutty squirrel person. I’ve never felt so close to Paul! A man after my own heart. So, really, the only reason I covet this collection is for that perky little squirrel. But I also enjoy that drowsy world in the star-covered chair, which reminds me of Taeer M.’s art.

Fake foods and a bonus Planet of the Apes plate

I’ve always been partial to the kitsch sublimity of plastic fake foods, but I really fell in love with the art after visiting the Looks Delicious: Exploring Japan’s Food Replica Culture exhibition at London’s Japan House in 2024. Sure, I realize Paul’s more Americana collection, with so many hot dogs, is not quite the exacting tradition of shokuhin sanpuru. But I am just as impressed by how disgusting some of these foods appear. What are sprinkled on the top of those tacos? Gummy worms? And why does the pizza look so wrinkled and weathered? It’s like I found old leftovers in the back of my fridge! And where do I even begin with the carrots? Or that tiny mystery bowl?!

Pipe Cleaner figurine collection

What can I even say? Talk about naïve outsider art! In what magical place did Paul find these?! These masterpieces made me think that not enough “fine” art uses pipe cleaners as materials and inspiration. Now, who wants to buy me some tropical $500 pipe cleaners? Christmas is coming!

Novelty thingies

When I visited delightfully trashy weekender destination Brighton this past summer on yet another Nick Cave-related pilgrimage, I popped into Blackout Shop, a store filled with delightful novelty crap and global goods that I had marveled at from afar thanks to Warren Ellis’s Instagram. Blackout did not disappoint. Though I ended up purchasing sacred heart earrings instead, I was most taken with the boxes of mini trinkets—tiny babies, tiny Jesuses, and a pink dollhouse sink. I really wanted that sink, but I kept imagining having to explain that one to customs. Or losing it somewhere along the way. This is all to say, I get Paul’s obsessive novelty purchases, which are on display in this Big Auction, with several lots filled with random gewgaws and thingies. In fact, these hauls are so random I barely know what I’m looking at. A famished brontosaurus? A punching toy? Kazoos? Some sort of robber mask? A coonskin cap? A pirate hat? A bunch of pumpkins? I’d really like to find out, so fuck it!  I’ll take it all!

Claymation Elvis

Paul Reubens’s Big Auction offers quite a lot of Claymation figures from Pee-wee’s Playhouse. While I should desire more of these for artistic and fanatical reasons, something about the texture of the old clay weirds me out. It’s either going to be gummy and wet or crumpled and dry. And I don’t want to deal with either of that! Yeeeeuck! However, I’ll make an exception for Elvis. I’ll ALWAYS make an exception for Elvis!

Christmas decorations

While I love the consumerist excess, aesthetic overload, and seasonal psychotic breaks of Christmas, I actually never decorate my own apartment for the holiday. I’m with Melania. Who gives a fack about Christmas stuff! I could fix that with one fell swoop by snatching up this ho-ho-holiday haul from the Pee-wee Christmas Special, which is already an annual must-watch. I mean, Cher! Grace Jones! Fake popcorn garlands!

Novelty glasses

You think, whew, that’s a lot of novelty glasses. Well, this isn’t even the only lot of glasses! But it’s the one that I need for those stripy New Wave sunglasses alone! I was also looking for a good pair of SIN glasses!

Thrifted photo portrait

The Big Auction includes quite a number of these beguiling thrift store artworks. While I did giggle at the dour businessman and toothy couple a few lots down, this peroxide beehive babe is the one that really calls to me. I mean, who IS she, other than a hair-hopper straight out of a John Waters flick! I see her, and I just want to belt a Connie Francis song! Pretty little baby!

John Waters signed Shock Value

Speaking of our preeminent filth elder, he makes his way into the sale with an inscribed copy of Shock Value. “See you in HELL.” Could you ask for a better inscription? I also appreciate the shaky lettering, as if it was scrawled by a mentally unstable fan.

Prison art

Julien’s Auctions really couldn’t come up with a better description than “PRISON ART”?! Surely, there is some researcher who could rustle up information about these incarcerated masters! I need to know the story here. Who was making Yoda tributes while in the clink? Sure, these are nowhere near as deranged as the prison art I really covet—Charlie Manson’s trash spiders, like the one I saw at the Museum of Death in L.A.—but this Yoda masterpiece will do in the meantime.

Pee-wee Mickey Mouse ears

I’m totally enamored with the Plus Size Park Hoppers.  If you don’t know who they are, please immerse yourself in their Instagram content, where they provide tips about which restaurants on the Disney properties feature size-inclusive chairs without arms and where you can find the tester ride seat before you cram your butt into a roller coaster. Not only are they helpful, but those girlies have a good time! I obsessively watch their videos and stories as they go on scavenger hunts on Disney cruises and revisit the same damn old Disney rides. While I used to sneer at childless Disney adults, who are the only ones that can afford the expensive tickets, resulting in Disney amusingly marketing to millennials with themed cocktail bars and Instagram foods, these girlies have changed my mind entirely. I want to run around the Magic Kingdom with them! Trade friendship bracelets at Epcot! Dance to Taylor Swift! Hell, I’ll even wear a pair of those dumbfuck Mickey Mouse ears in the shape of donuts. But I’d much prefer Pee-wee’s Mickey Mouse hat. Wait for me before you go on Spaceship Earth!!

Giant undies

Who couldn’t use a pair of gigantic underpants?! Even better, they look skidmark-free!

Ken dolls

I’ll admit, I’m a little upset this collection of Kens doesn’t include Cock Ring Ken, but gold lamé-shorted Sport and Shave Ken is fey enough that he’ll have to do. I’m curious about these other Kens too, some of which I don’t recognize. Malibu Ken is so prevalent that he’s a bore. But who is his Spahn Ranch Ken buddy next to him? Is he on his way to Gary Hinman’s house? Doctor Ken looks like he’s about to fix a Beverly Hills housewife’s botched plastic surgery, while Business Twink Ken looks like a child dressed up in his father’s clothes. And I don’t even know where to start with the outfit K-hole Rocker Ken is wearing.

Gay dolls 

Reubens didn’t publicly come out until the posthumous documentary, but we can’t say there weren’t signs, like this collection of gay dolls. While I’ve seen Gay Bob before, I wasn’t aware that there were multiple gay dolls, like Billy, who was billed as “The World’s First Out and Proud Gay Doll,” except Bob was created two decades beforehand. Oopsies! Sorry, Basic Bob, I much prefer Billy, who resembles Jean-Paul Gaultier, especially in his Querelle drag. And I have to also mention swishy Tom Comet, who looks like he belongs rifling through the woo-woo prints of Saint Germain in a New Age store in Mount Shasta.

Gay DVDs

While we’re on a gay rampage, I don’t have a DVD player…or really anything to play these on…but where else am I going to find a DVD collection that includes both Kenneth Anger AND Paul Lynde?!!

Retro Telstar Predicta TV

Maybe I could find a way to hook a DVD player up to this far-out TV. Groovy! My brain tingles at its old-school futuristic aesthetic. How disappointing is the future now that we’ve arrived in it? The 21^st century sucks! Everything is all slick black screens, rather than retro Space Age quirk. Sure, Elon premiered a flying Tesla recently, but that was mostly a stunt. Our real future, autonomous AI swarms, have no aesthetic other than the heaps upon heaps, petabytes upon petabytes of whining conversation they spew whenever they take over small websites as message boards. I’m just waiting for the AI agents to hijack Filthy Dreams, which, let’s be honest, would be the funniest thing that could happen to our lovely site. I don’t care; I’ll be watching Female Trouble on this TV.

Elvira stuff 

Of course, it would only be right to swipe some Elvira stuff from Reubens’s sale given his friendship and collaboration with Cassandra Peterson. While the Elvira Christman ornament is certainly a draw, the real clincher is the card that includes a photo of the twosome in what Julien’s Auction describes as “a vampiric embrace,” but I’d call it making out! Hot!

Lost Highway script

What is THIS doing in here?!! Did David think of Paul for a role in Lost Highway? Imagine Paul in the Robert Blake role of the Mystery Man freaking out Fred Madison at a party. Fred gets on the horn to his own home and hears, “I know you are, but what am I?!” A different film entirely. Better? Maybe!

Christmas cards

These are just as collectible as John Waters’s notorious annual Christmas cards. Pick a favorite. Mine is Pee-wee’s reflection in the Christmas ornament.

Bigfoot sculpture

Sure, this Bigfoot sculpture would probably block the remaining floor space in my cramped Alphabet City apartment, but I still think it’s worth it. Actually, it reminds me of some giant gewgaw that Joe Rogan would have at his studio, alongside a werewolf sculpture, pictures of Hunter S. Thompson and Elvis’s mugshot, and Joe’s infamous creepily long nipple ice bath. I refuse to let testosterone-fueled Austin podcaster masculinity scare me away, though. Bigfoot is a diva, and she deserves a monument in her honor. I particularly like her grumpy walk. This is how I feel when I see influencers lining up for expensive matcha or overhyped pizza.

Medical marijuana card

I’m not a pot smoker. Weed either makes me feel completely devoid of thoughts, empty, like my brain no longer works, or rabidly paranoid. EVERYONE KNOWS!! (Knows what?) So I tend to avoid it completely. No, thank you! I like having thoughts. That, however, doesn’t mean I don’t want to put my grubby non-smoker hands all over Paul Reubens’s medical marijuana card, a historical artifact from pre-legalization California.

Slippers

My feet are sweating just considering scampering off with these, but hideous giant fuzzy slippers are an underappreciated piece of Americana trash culture. The standout here is the roaring pair of T.Rex slippers. I envision both amusing and alarming neighbors with these as I stomp down to get packages.

Accordion

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about Ethyl Eichelberger’s unique choice of instrument—the accordion. The courage and creativity it took to drag that thing onto the stage of the Pyramid Club and caterwaul is impressive! After watching a Nelson Sullivan video of Ethyl at the Pyramid’s 6^th birthday party, I started considering: Maybe I should learn the accordion! The only way I’d ever really act on that thought would be if I got my greasy mitts on Paul Reubens’s own!

Cowboy artwork 

I know this wish list is dragging on and on, but look at this thing. It’s hideous! It looks like it belongs in a rundown bar in Wyoming. I love it!

Two sculptures

Oh, sweet, another mermaid and….what the fuck am I looking at?!! What is this mangled, menacing bunny sculpture? It scares me. I must have it!

Novels 

I went to Whore Island, and everyone knew you!! Just kidding! While there are many lots of Paul’s books on offer, including Shakespeare plays and Hollywood gossip, this is the grouping that calls to me. Not only because Confederacy of Dunces is one of my favorite books, but just read this description from My Home on…Whore Island:

 “A day comes in every girl’s life when she tosses a few condoms in her purse, throws caution to the wind, and says, “Let’s Do This!”

Well, maybe not every girl, but when Randi Michaels finds out her boyfriend has cheated on her, she decides to turn the tables and take control.

Giving each playmate a nickname as she goes, Randi tackles her Who To Have Sex With list. From a movie theater to a steamy shower, a night club to the front seat of car, some encounters are fun, some are funny, and some never should have happened.

Ignoring society’s double standard and going against the grain, Randi learns a few things about herself, what she wants, and how to get…Mr. Right Now.”

Complete filth. I’m in!

Various toys 

And last but certainly not least, this blasély lumped-together grouping of toys has probably the best item of this entire sale—ok, other than the Elvis lamp. No, it’s not Alf. The Nancy Reagan bear is such a mind-blowing, awe-inspiring piece of conservative kitsch that I want to reach through my screen and grab it. Imagine snuggling up at night with the Nancy Reagan bear! She could make friends with my Trumpy bear, and we could all read horoscopes together! I know Nancy was all Just Say No to Drugs, but Nancy sewn into a bear, like she’s being sacrificed in Midsommar, surely looks like SOMEONE was taking drugs when they made this!