Subdi-what?

I really don't understand the concept of building subdivisions. Even the word itself: what are they dividing, and what is it (sub) below? To be fair, I am a conservationist, or, more over, I am against destroying nature for building, especially something I don't get the concept of. Even more so, in these times of the housing collapse and people not having as much money, how does it make sense to build new huge amounts of homes? I just don't get it, what happened to just building one house at a time? I mean, is it less expensive to build houses in bulk? Build 9 houses get the 10th free? I'm pretty sure that the price of building 50 houses at once is the same as building 50 individual houses at different times. One thing I understand is the concept of supply and demand. So, given that logic, I would be lead to believe that right now, somewhere, there are 50 displaced families in desperate need of homes, and the only way for them to find shelter is that we build 50 houses in a small area immediately, that's really the only way it makes any sense to me. The fact of the matter is, though, that right now, I am more than certain that there are 50 and more homes available (though spread out) in my town. I should say at this point that I am talking about this because there is a proposed subdivision to be built, consisting of over 50 homes on a piece of pristine wetlands. Anyway, back to the question of what subdivisions are for. So, I just do not get it, what advantage does the builder have to build so many homes at once? Especially with the economic climate being the way it is, it would not make any sense to build all the houses before you have buyers for all of them, right? I mean, obviously these people are first buying the land, then they are having to pay for all the land surveys and engineering designs of infrastructure and then they have to clear the land and buy all the materials for the house and then pay for the labor to build the house. So, why would they be putting up all these huge amounts of money unless they knew they could sell the houses? You're not going to sell 50 houses right now at one time, there are 50 families just dying to buy, (I'm sure it will be) close to million dollar homes. And that's beside the point, I still don't get the purpose of a subdivision, is it to create a small community? Do they want to pretend they're building a little town, where people can all live close together and exclude themselves from our larger community? Is it a form of community, are these subdivision builders really modern day philosophers trying to create little Utopias? I highly doubt that, the most realistic explanation is that it somehow creates large sums of money, but I just don't see how. I guess the most obvious answer would be, well if you can make alot of money building one house, you can make 50 times as much making 50 houses. Alright, but I still don't get why it has to be built all at once; I can see buying a piece of land and having it zoned into separate lots and first you build one house and when someone buys that, you start building the next house, so that you always have one more house that's in the works while the last completed house is for sale. But it doesn't make any sense to have an inundation of the market of houses when you have no buyers. I'm a pragmatist and a conservationist damnit. Build two houses at a time, that's the most I'll allow. But start one before the other. Then when the first house is done, try to sell it and by the time it's bought, there'll be one house ready to be sold again, but don't build 50 at a time; it makes no sense financially and is just stupid and ugly. I hate all these clusterfucks of houses. It's so much prettier to have your own yard secluded from other houses. I'd love to look out my window and see forests and trees, not my neighbors three car garage. I mean, in reality, I'd love to see no houses there at all. And, oh, if you're going to build houses, could you actually put some consideration into the design for the love of God? I'm sick of seeing all these four-story faux-Victorian ranch style houses with the wrap around roofed porch. No Victorian-era millionaire had a three car garage, or was living on a ranch, so shove it. There's no consideration put into architecture anymore. Architecture's real goal should be to create a building that fits into the local style and fits the environment the best, with the least impact. Houses shouldn't stick out like sore thumbs, it's one thing to have a Victorian style house in the middle of a town, that makes sense. But why are there Victorian mansions in the middle of the woods or in a farm pasture? It just doesn't work. The problem is they design the houses first, then find places to put them, when it should most definitely be the other way around. I see the same exact house being built in the suburbs of Salt Lake City as being built in Connecticut. You're telling me those locales geographically are the same? Culturally the same? No, not at all, there was no consideration or thought put into it. It's just the same old mass-production mindset that is completely devoiding our world of taste and class. There's no craftsmanship in anything anymore, it's just mas amplitudes of the same fucking boring shit. If you built a subdivision of well-thought-out individually designed, built-from local materials houses, then I wouldn't give two fucks. But just to see these monstrosities sticking out like giant cocks and turds dotting the land is so insulting and offensive to the beautiful land they are now occupying and belittling. The end.

That's Entertainment!

I wonder why it is that we have it all when we’re too young to actually appreciate any of it. Is it so we can live the rest of our entire lives with regret? Nothing like living everyday with guilt, sorrow, remorse and emptiness. I would do anything to have all the people I’ve cared about still be alive and with me, I regret not spending more time with them all and taking for granted their existence. I squeeze out some of my Gogurt on the ground for my deceased homies. That’s a very pessimistic interpretation. The optimistic interpretation would be that we learn from that experience to appreciate the people we have now and the people we will have in our lives. We know that they’re not going to be around forever, so maybe childhood is just a learning experience for adulthood. All these hoods. Wah wah wah, sad sad sad. All alone, gotta strike it out on my own and become the person that other people will someday miss and wish was still in their lives. Oh, yeah, that’s really uplifting, nice life goal pussy emo. But, in a way that is nice, I’m saying I want to mean something to people and, I guess, be a positive influence in peoples’ lives, otherwise why would they ever miss me? No one is going to be wishing some homicidal psychopath was still in their lives, so in a way the sentiment is nice, I’m saying I want to be a good guy to those around me and enrich and better the lives of other. Hooray. Hooray for Hollywood. Let’s bring back that old school Hollywood glamor. I wanna wear ermine and fox and sable, JK! that’s one aspect of Hollywood I am glad is gone, I’ll wear synthetic dead animals instead. Ersatz dead fox wrapped around my glamorous neck and shoulders. Oh, darling, you look simply fabulous, wherever did you get that corpse? Yes, bring back some good old ENTERTAINMENT. Where storyline is secondary, and talent is PRIMARY. Dancing! Singing! Joke-telling! Piano-playing! or any instrument for that matter. The storyline just is enough to incorporate all our acts of talent showcase and that’s all it’s good for. A little simple love story, maybe a love triangle, boy loves girl, boy gets in argument with girl, girl meets new boy, original boy has to win girl back from new boy, that’s ok because the new boy turns out to be a pompous asshole, the original boy and girl put on their fabulous act to everyone’s great entertainment, and that new boy somehow gets terribly embarrassed and ridiculed off the face of the planet and original boy and girl go off together and promise to never leave one another again. Goodnight folks! That’s entertainment! The world is a stage, the stage is a world of EN…TER…TAINNNNN….MENNNNNNNNNNNNT!!!

Giant

I just watched a movie called Giant, it came out in 1956 and stars Rock Hudson, Elizabeth Taylor and James Dean; it also has a young Dennis Hopper, really surprised me when I saw him. I had heard good things about this movie, and it intrigued me, probably the title. It’s quite a terse title loaded with symbolism and meaning; leaves plenty of possibilities. This was the first movie I had seen with Rock Hudson, but there was something very familiar about him; maybe it’s because he looks like Carey Grant; no! Gregory Peck , I thought it was a mix of Carey Grant and Dean Martin, more Carey though, but it's definitely Gregory Peck he reminds me of. Anyway, both Elizabeth Taylor and Rock Hudson were terrific, they really made the movie. I had always heard such great things about Elizabeth, but I had always assumed Rock Hudson was more of a B-List actor who starred in silly Sci-Fi 1950s movies with giant radioactive dung beetles crushing cities or things like that. As for James Dean, I had only seen one other movie with him (Rebel Without a Cause) but that was quite awhile ago and I’m not sure how I felt about it. He has a very unique style of acting. He’s always looking down at the ground or away from the camera, and sort of mumbles. I suppose that is what made him so appealing to women, he was very aloof and mysterious, something always seemed like it was eating away at him on the inside and he just would never let you know what it was. Anyway, I didn’t really like his character in this movie, it really pissed me off; which is to say he probably is a good actor to make me feel such strong emotions toward him.

This movie was incredibly depressing and very long. It starts off with Rock Hudson going to buy a purebred horse from Elizabeth Taylor’s family in Maryland. Rock Hudson owns an enormous cattle ranch in Texas and is descended from a long line of prosperous cattlemen who have handed down the ranch, the Benedicts is their family name. Well, Elizabeth and Rock fall in love while he’s there and they get married, so they end up going back to his ranch in Texas together. Oh, and the horse Rock buys is Elizabeth’s favorite or something. Anyway, they go back to his house and he only lives with his sister (who in today’s culture would obviously be acknowledged as a lesbian) and a few Mexican servant girls. His sister doesn’t like Elizabeth too much and what do you know she also doesn’t like her horse. So one day she goes out and tries to ride Elizabeth’s horse but no one can ride it but Elizabeth because it’s too wild and she ends up getting thrown off the horse to her death. But! Not only that, the horse breaks its leg and Rock has to shoot it. That’s where the depression begins. Anyway, James Dean is a guy who works on the ranch and he thinks Elizabeth is the hottest girl ever and instantly wants her and he also obviously doesn’t like Rock too much. Needless to say, apparently the only guy that Rock’s sister ever had the hots for was James Dean, because she left him land from the ranch in the will. So James goes off with his land and then discovers oil and to make a long story short, he has this weird obsession with the Benedict family, about how they always had it good and were rich and he’s super jealous and obsessive over them and of everything they got, including Elizabeth Taylor. So, James strikes it rich in the oil business and eventually becomes the richest man in the world basically and builds hospitals and airports and has it all, but he’s a weirdo drunk guy who gets in fights all the time still. In the preceding years, Rock and Elizabeth had two daughters and a son. Since James can’t get Elizabeth, he winds up coming around trying to get one of Rocks’ daughters, who incidentally is named after Rock’s dead sister who left James the land which made him rich. So blah blah blah who gives a fuck anyway, at first the daughter likes James but then she sees that he’s really a fucking drunk miserable piece of shit.

The moral of the story is, true wealth is not in the amount of money you have, but family and friends and the people who love you. That is true wealth. James ends up becoming richer than Rock but he never is happy. Rock has a big family with grandchildren even by the end and plenty of friends so he wins! Also, the issue of racism toward Mexican-Americans is throughout the movie. Elizabeth is really nice to the Mexican servants when she moves in and everyone is like “what do you think you’re doing? you’re not supposed to be nice to them. Stop it.” But, she won’t, she even makes the white doctor go around to the Mexican living places to help their sick. Then, later, Dennis Hopper, Rock and Elizabeth’s son marries a Mexican girl. When she isn’t allowed to go to a beauty parlor, Dennis blows up on James who owns the parlor, but James knocks him out, so Rock goes and assaults James. Later, Rock goes out with his Mexican daughter-in-law and wife and daughter and Mexican grandson to a diner and they don’t want to serve them, and he gets into a huge fistfight with a really big chef guy who owns the place. So, the end. Don’t be greedy, don’t be jealous, focus on loving your family and being good to your friends, treat everyone like people regardless of their race, and, oh yeah, women are people too, even Mexican women or any race of women. Also, Rock’s son (Dennis Hopper) wants to be a doctor instead of running the ranch, which totally depresses Rock because his long line of tradition is going to end and he feels like a failure. But, hey, another moral, even though life may not turn out the way you wanted it to, you can still be a success; so, don’t be blind to what you do have because you’re so caught up in what you don’t have or what didn’t happen. If life doesn’t turn out the way you planned it doesn’t automatically mean you’re a failure. You could have succeeded in other, possibly even greater ways. Amen.