…with Phoenix being the most beautiful and the most affordable, of course.
If you’re stuck at home with nothing to do but surf the internet, the movie linked below will show you a better way of living…
Author: Greg Swann (page 52 of 209)
Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker
Setting attainable goals and tracking them daily works wonders. The new month presents you with the opportunity to prove that to yourself. Here’s a calendar for February.
I bought my house out of hock yesterday, for the second time. I took that photo last Friday, looking up into a tree in our back yard, in anticipation of the event.
It’s springtime here in Phoenix, mid-seventies every day. That lighter green stuff is pollen, richly redolent with the sticky scent of vegetable love. There were stiff breezes on Saturday, and that pollen came cascading to the ground like green snow.
I love this house, this land, this home. I’d hate to lose it. Not so easy to hang onto it, lately, but it’s very much worth it to me. “Beloved over all,” says Kipling, and I’ll defend it with everything I have within me.
Here’s the political issue that matters: Government is crime.
When your local City Hall tells you which trees you must plant in your yard, that’s a crime against you.
When your state taxes your income in order to give your money to people who did not earn it, that’s a crime against you.
When the federal government dictates the specifications of the products you can buy and the tariffs you must pay to obtain products you want still more, that’s a crime against you.
We are not a family composed of 300 million strangers, we are each one of us individual human beings, each with our own minds, our own lives, our own families, our own hopes, dreams, wishes and plans. When the government impedes your life in any way — that’s a crime against you.
We don’t need to reduce this or reform that, we need to rid our civilization of this systemic criminality.
That is the message we should be hearing from the newly-elected presumptive friends of human liberty. If the new Congress is not committed to individual rights, then it’s just more Collectivism-on-the-Cheap: All the intrusiveness but even less satisfying!
Nobody is going to change anything overnight, nor very dramatically very soon. But if we don’t start making dramatic changes in the way we govern ourselves, we will succeed only in enslaving ourselves and our children.
That is what we need to focus on: Ridding our society of all criminal intrusions into the lives of individuals innocent of all wrong-doing.
So-called technological and economic “miracles” will result, of course, but that’s irrelevant. It is wrong to prey upon individual human beings, no matter what the nature of the predator. It is no less an abomination to be enslaved by a democracy than by an aristocracy or a dictatorship. It was freedom from all forms of tyranny that the American patriots fought to win for themselves and their children.
If you want freedom, demand freedom — which can only mean individual freedom. Demand that your governments stop committing crimes against you and your neighbors.
If you’re not willing to do this, you and the people you elect to represent you Read more
The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court makes a slam-dunk argument for free-market dispute resolution. Meanwhile, think twice before you lend money. You may never see it again.
A Ramblin’ Gamblin’ Willie story
“Mark Twain said, ‘In the first place God made idiots. This was for practice. Then he made school boards.'” There was a smattering of uncomfortable laughter throughout the school gymnasium, accompanied by pained looks from the dais, where the school board sat. “I’m not here to talk to practiced idiots. I am here, though, to stand up for Huck Finn.”
And yes, Uncle Willie was giving a speech. Wearing a jacket and tie, no less — finest quality thrift shop haberdashery. I was shuffling through Jefferson, Oregon, shuffling my way to somewhere less moist, when that gray and soggy city was struck by the national craze to ban Twain’s “Huckleberry Finn” for using the N-word.
The N-word, in case you were wondering, is “nigger”. Not “north”. Not “nitrogen”. Not even “nebulous nincompoop non-communication”. It’s “nigger”. I think it says something rather profound about the life of the mind in latter-day America that we have become used to conversing in meaningless euphemisms. “Intestinally deficient,” to say the least of it.
Anyway, you know the story; it shows up in the papers five or six times a year. Some snotty little proto-teen decided that blowing off her homework was a human rights issue, and some sleazy little ‘educator’ made a media circus out of it. It is a testament to the progress of the Politically Correct “idea” that it is now possible to be a jackass by proxy. I showed up just as the school board members, hand-crafted idiots made with pride by a skilled and practiced god, were gearing themselves up for the predictable denouement.
“And why wouldn’t I stand up for Huck?” I asked. “In some ways I am Huckleberry Finn. In some ways we all are. And, like Twain, ‘I have never let my schooling interfere with my education.'” More laughter, maybe a little better humored.
I had a copy of “Huckleberry Finn” in my hand and I was gesturing with it like a TV preacher with his bible. I said, “You can ban this book if you want to. You’ve got the power and I can’t stop you from using Read more
This is my all-time favorite New Year’s movie (Netflix link):
More than you know
More than you know
Man of my heart, I love you so
Lately I find
You’re on my mind
More than you knowWhether you’re right
Whether you’re wrong
Man of my heart, I’ll string along
You need me so
More than you’ll ever know
That’s Michelle Pfeiffer’s opening song from The Fabulous Baker Boys, (here is a clip of her singing it) and it rapturously encapsulates the very best of four distinct art forms. It’s gripping film-making, with great performances by all three principal players, Beau Bridges, Jeff Bridges and Pfeiffer. The piano, portrayed by Jeff Bridges, and and the song, actually sung by Pfeiffer, are very effective together. But the song itself exhibits in a very simple fashion the essence of lyrical song-writing: From the first verse to the second we change from ‘I need you’ to ‘you need me.’ And that in turn, like a page torn from Sophocles himself, provides the argument for the entire drama. This is what integrity means in art: Every different thing is the same one thing.
And the whole film is done brilliantly. It’s easy to get lost in Pfeiffer’s sultry performance, but I think Jeff Bridges’ laconic, sardonic, taciturn embodiment of Jack Baker is an excellent exploration of the practical consequences of self-loathing. The story is dark, almost seedy, but the plot is redemption, which is my favorite yarn. And despite a few short lapses into cheesiness, writer/director Steve Kloves delivers a gritty and credible resolution. There are no villains, nor any genuine heroes, but everyone is a better person by the time the credits roll. I score that a victory for the forces of the light.
The Fabulous Baker Boys is particularly appropriate for New Year’s Eve, because the timeline of the film runs from Christmas through New Year’s. Kloves uses this to the story’s huge advantage, which matters a lot to me. In particular, the big romantic blow-off of the movie occurs on New Year’s Eve. It starts when Michelle Pfeiffer’s Susie Diamond character sings a very provocative version of ‘Makin’ Whoopee’ to Jack Baker — (here is is Read more
Yikes! The end of the month is upon us. The end of the year is upon us. I have no good opinion of New Years Resolutions, by now, but I think the world of chipping away at your goals day-by-day. Here’s a calendar for January to get your New Year off to the right start. Set some goals and track your progress. You’ll be amazed at your results, if you will just follow through one day at a time.
December 2010 Blizzard Timelapse from Michael Black on Vimeo.
This particular blizzard is in New Jersey, but it’s a lot more fun to see it from here. I’ll do my best to make a video the next time it snows in Phoenix — if I live that long.
I’m very grateful to have y’all in my life, the folks who read and comment here, and especially the people who write at BloodhoundBlog. Here’s wishing every hard-working dog a Merry Christmas and a healthy, happy and very productive New Year!
A Ramblin’ Gamblin’ Willie story
“Luigi!” The beautiful blonde girlchild tore her way across the packed airport corridor.
“Oh,” said her mother, a beautiful blonde womanchild. “Great…”
There is only one Christmas, isn’t there? Holly and mistletoe. A golden retriever by the fire. Mom bastes the bird while dad carols with the choir. Icicles cling to the branches of birch trees and fat, wet snowflakes tumble down, lit by the yellow glow of gaslights. Horses nicker and children giggle and lovers nestle and sigh. We’re all dreaming of a white Christmas — and we’re all dreaming.
And why not? Over the ghetto and through the industrial park doesn’t sound like a very nice way to get to Grandmother’s house, even though the highway really does go that way. There are no trails of tail-lights at Christmas, glinting and glowing in the drops of muddy drizzle on the windshield. The snow is white and windblown into drifts, not plow-piled and gray with soot. The children don’t squabble, the drunkards don’t wobble and the lovers don’t quarrel or cry.
Even at the airport there is only one Christmas, the Christmas-card Christmas of a world without airports.
Luigi was sitting across from me and he leapt up to meet the little girl as she crashed into him. She was seven or maybe eight, really too old to be picked up, but he picked her up anyway. She hugged him tightly and they both had a sudden wetness in their eyes.
He set the girl down as her mother approached. She nodded to him in a way that might have been curt, except the honey gold ringlets of her hair fell forward and robbed her of her haughtiness. She said, simply, “Brendan.”
He answered with a smile that was good-humored at the mouth and mocking in the eyes. “Best of the season to you, Chloe.”
The little girl shook her head furiously, her own white gold ringlets redeeming her mother’s haughtiness with an imperiousness of her own devising. “He’s not Brendan, he’s Luigi. And she’s not Chloe, she’s Princess Daisy. And I’m not Jennifer, I’m — ”
Luigi said, “This announcement wants herald trumpets, I Read more
A Ramblin’ Gamblin’ Willie story
“Salve, caudex,” the big little boy said to his father.
“Salve, caudex,” the father replied.
The boy turned to me, a stranger, and said, “Salve, caudex.” I smiled at him and he confided, “That means, ‘Hello, blockhead’.”
We were sharing a bench at the mall, as one must at Christmas. When I had sat down it was just the father and me at opposite ends of the bench. But then the big little boy — too young to be big, too tall to be little — had come bounding out of the toy store across the way.
He was his father in miniature, seven or eight years old but very tall, very lean. His hair was brown and a little shaggy and his eyes were gray and very bright. He had his father’s large hands and long fingers, and it won’t be long before he has his father’s prominent proboscis. He walked fast and talked fast and he moved his body with a blinding abruptness.
“You like it, don’t you?” his father asked.
“Boy, do I! I think that’s the best video game system ever! That’s what I want for Christmas!”
“How interesting.”
The boy spun to me and said, “That means, ‘I don’t care’.”
I said: “I’m sorry?”
“When he says ‘how interesting’, it means he doesn’t care.”
“What it means,” said the father, including me, I think, because he felt he had to, “is that you have said nothing to motivate me to act. You haven’t asked for anything, and you haven’t given me any reason why I should honor your request in any case.”
“It means he doesn’t care.”
“Attend me, sir,” the father said.
“That means, ‘Listen up’.”
“Attend me, sir. I think you’re right. I think it is the best video game system ever. At least the best so far. Have I told you lately how much I despise video games?”
“He hates video games,” the boy confessed.
“I hate video games,” the father confirmed — to the boy, not to me. “And yet you love them. And a Christmas gift should be what you love, not what I love — what you love, even if I hate it. Read more
A Ramblin’ Gamblin’ Willie story
“Okay, so one day we’re driving, and we’re just about to get on the freeway, and I look up and the sign says, ‘Squaw Peak Freeway.'”
The Kid said that. Maybe eleven years old, tall and thin. Tousled brown hair and the most beautiful gray eyes I’ve ever seen. He was talking to the Mom, mid-forties, fair and tall. She had long brown hair and eyes of a gentle, laughing green.
She said, “That’s what the sign says.”
“But my whole life I thought it was called the Pipsqueak Freeway. That’s what Dad always called it. That’s what he still calls it.”
The Mom was laughing silently, trying very hard not to laugh out loud.
“It’s not funny! I asked him why he called it that and he said he named it after the mayor.”
The Mom was still trying not to laugh.
“Oh, sure. Very funny. Every day after school we used to stop at the Post Office, and I was seven or eight before I found out that it’s not really called the Edgar Allan Poe Stoffice. I didn’t even know who Edgar Allan Poe was.”
The Mom was stopped short by her laughter. She stood there behind her shopping cart trying to catch her breath.
“You think it’s funny. I think it’s funny sometimes, too. But I never know when he tells me the name of something if that’s the real name, or if it’s just something he made up.”
“You have a lot of room to talk,” said the Mom. “The other day I said I needed to get four quarters and you spent the rest of the day telling people that I want to put warts on forks.”
“The Fork Warters, semi-notorious villains from the nether reaches. Or maybe they’re just a really bad rock band.”
“You see? You sound just like him. Where is your father, anyway?”
“He took off. He said he had Santaclaustrophobia.”
The Mom said nothing, just smiled and pushed her cart along the aisle.
They were Christmas shopping at Costco, which used to be called The Price Club before some genius decided that made too much sense.
Do you know about Costco? It’s Read more