Real Estate
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The American Dream and Missy Elliot’s Bidet
By
Charles Hodges .
06.14.09 //
Real Estate
// The American Dream and Missy Elliot’s Bidet
By
Charles Hodges .
06.14.09 //
Real Estate
In the past decade, the softcore porn channel known as MTV has only produced one show that has peaked my interest in any way, shape or form. That show is MTV Cribs. Cribs is one my favorite shows of all time. It is beautiful, voyeuristic materialism at its best, and, therefore, at its worst. Cribs is the American Dream in broadcast format.
And we fucking love it.
We love the fact that Jermaine Dupri has a bottle of Dom sitting next to a stack of Lunchables and two boxes of Capri Suns. We whole-heartedly agree that the polar bear rug really ties together the second foyer in Sebastian Bach’s guest house. And, finally, what in this entire world can make us lust after the good life more than Missy Elliot’s bidet?
Our culture has voted these celebrities into this position with the dollar. Does Chyna need two jacuzzis? Absolutely. Does a thirteen-year-old Lil’ Romeo need a vintage impala? Fuck yeah. Does Hanson need a lifetime supply of Honey Combs? They are growing boys.
Cribs is the measuring stick that celebrities hold each other up against. And here’s the thing, as Cribs has gone on throughout the years, the houses have started to look more and more alike. Corona’s and frozen pizza. An all white living room that never gets used. A pool with a custom built waterfall. Friends hanging out, playing video games, waiting for the cameras to leave so they can light up that strawberry blunt that they hid underneath the leopard skin ottoman.
Cribs is a microcosm of our entire culture. We worship celebrities. We worship things. Cribs allows us to worship celebrities’ things. It allows celebrities to worship other celebrities’ things, so that they can eventually become a celebrity that is worshipped by other celebrities. Spank me with a Burberry tote bag; this is out of control.
Wealth can be a self-perpetuating disease to people who grow up in a culture that champion the concept of “more”.
Almost every single person on the show was once poor. Now, through their own talents and “hard work”, they are rich. Isn’t this the American Dream; that through our own efforts we can will ourselves to success?
But what has this success gotten these celebrities? They are famous, but they are all prisoners. Cribs shows us their cell – a beautiful, comfortable, paid-for-in-cash cell. Our celebrities belong to the world’s most elite penitentiary. They cannot go to the gym. They cannot take a quiet walk with their pet. They cannot pick their nose at a stoplight, without seeing it on a magazine the next day at the grocery store.
So, is this the pinnacle of achievement in our culture? Is this the realization of our country’s idea of success? Is this our culture’s manifestation of the American Dream? If so, then maybe it is time to wake up.
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Real Estate Agent Alternatives
By
Joey Camire .
06.13.09 //
Real Estate
// Real Estate Agent Alternatives
By
Joey Camire .
06.13.09 //
Real Estate
The worst part about real estate is the real estate agent. They are the conniving, manipulating, used care salesmen of the subdivision. I mean really, they’re probably worse. Think about it, used car salesmen are widely disliked. In every poll that asks “what is the least trusted profession,” you can always find them at the top. Real estate agents, for all intents and purposes, are using the exact same play book, only they are scamming you out of way more money! That actually needs some additional exclamations!!!!
Have you ever watched HGTV… I mean… whatever, there are some good shows. The reason the shows are good is because they teach you all of the little lame tricks the real estate agents have up their sleeves. For example, if your car were scratched a used car salesman might cover it up with nail polish. Not a long term repair, but hopefully you don’t notice the damage before you purchase. If the grout on your tile is moldy or mildewy your real estate agent will tell you to use grout paint. Not a long term repair, but hopefully you don’t notice the damage before you purchase. Just watch a show like “Flip This House” and you will never want to buy a home. I’m recommending HGTV shows, what has my life come to?
With all that said, In the old days claiming property was a whole hell of a lot easier. You stuck a flag in it. Mine. It was the original calling of “shotgun”, only with massive amounts of land. “Ooooh, that’s a nice plot of land, let me claim it with this stick and fabric.” And this worked with just about anything, we’re even talking celestial bodies here, I mean the U.S claimed the entire moon with this method! So this got me to thinking, what other methods could we use, instead of real estate agents and brokers to gain property. Here is my list.
Stickers – It’s like a modern day sticky vinyl version of a flag. This is actually how I claimed this computer I’m typing on right now. I highly recommend this technique.
Tagging – What better way to say something is yours than to vandalize it?
Pee On It – An oldie but a goody, this technique has worked for millennia. No one want’s anything else I pee on. Let’s keep this one alive.
Family Double Dare – We could think of Mark Summers as a sort of real estate judge. If you want to own a property you can offer up a “Physical Challenge” to the current owner. Just hope they get the nose, no one ever finds the flag up the nose.
Rock Paper Scissors – No fairer method exists than best two out of three. Plus, I think Meatloaf wrote this song about it so it must be legitimate. The guy is a genius.
Staring Contest With Current Property Owner – Your whole life you may have thought that wearing contacts was a disadvantage… not anymore.
Write A Fake Contract – It worked for the Jews, it can work for you too! Though trying to get a whole country may result in years of religious war. Start small, try a duplex first.
Dance Off – This only works if you got game!
Pogs – If this could settle most childhood disputes between the years 1994 and 1996 then I think it could settle a simple real estate dispute.
Wizards Duel? – I don’t know, I was pulling at straws by this point in the list making process. But hey, maybe it works for you? I don’t know. I don’t know what fucked up things your in to.
Regardless of which one of these real estate garnering techniques you decide to use, they are all better than the standard method of using a real estate agent. Unless of course that real estate agent was Mike O’Malley, and the way that all claims and disputes were settles was via the AGROKRAG or the SUPER AGROKRAG or the MEGA AGROKRAG depending on which season of Guts you prefer (I think he get’s drunker as they go along). Look at it this way, every contract signed also comes with “A glowing piece of the radical rock!” And I think that would make it worth it for me.
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I’m On A Boat…
By
Alex Aloise .
06.12.09 //
Real Estate
// I’m On A Boat…
By
Alex Aloise .
06.12.09 //
Real Estate
…But not with Andy Samberg. I don’t even like that song.
As you read this, I’m cruising through the southern Caribbean with my family and my future Mrs. So unfortunately, my head’s not really in this one this week.
But since the picture is there, if you haven’t seen it, check out Cruising. It’s about Mr. Pacino portraying an undercover police officer who must infiltrate the NYC gay S&M club scene in the seventies. Infiltrate it deep.
Cruising is fantastic. (The actual boat thing, not the movie. The movie’s a solid 8 on the so-bad-it’s-good-o-meter). I just get to relax on a giant boat all day every day. There’s like 12 bars. All sorts of food. There’s even an ice rink and a movie theater. ON A BOAT!
The other thing about Cruising (the movie now, not the boat thing) is that it was way ahead of it’s time. No one had had the chutzpah to tackle this type of subject matter before Mr. Pacino and Mr. Friedkin. Very ballsy, both in subject matter and on-screen content.
I can’t get enough of cruising (both the movie and the boat thing). The only thing better than being on this cruise would be if they played Cruising in the movie theater. Holy shit.
One thing you have to be careful of when it comes to cruising (on a boat) is the places you get to visit. I ventured into the wrong part of St. Lucia the other day. Whoa buddy. But then later, I accidentally wound up in the nicest part of the island. It was beautiful. I told my dad he should invest in some land down here. He told me I was dumber than Steve Burns (Mr. Pacino’s character in Cruising) when he told the cops to look into Skip Lee as the possible killer. Then the cops made Skip masturbate in front of them. And he wasn’t even the right guy. Boy, was Steve’s face red.
But enough about Cruising and cruising. I’m gonna go play with some monkeys.
Real Estate.
This is the story of Pedro the Penguin.
Pedro wasn’t just any Penguin. Pedro was an Emperor Penguin.
Like all the other Emperor Penguins, Pedro lived in the coldest place on earth.
The place was called Antarctica.
From the day he was born, Pedro looked just like all the other penguins.
But there was something different about him.
Pedro was an angry penguin.
It was a trait inherited from his father, Pablo Penguin, who left home before Pedro was even born.
If Pablo Penguin had been a man, he would have been the type of man who had a serious drinking problem, beat his wife, and frequented $30 prostitutes in Albuquerque motel rooms.
But since he was a penguin, his behavior was just the result of a chemical imbalance in his brain.
And he had never been anywhere near Albuquerque.
Anyway, Pedro was a mean little bastard.
He enjoyed pushing all the other penguins around, especially when they got too close to him.
You see, Pedro was very territorial.
He was, as they called it, “personal real estate-obsessed.”
And the one thing the other penguins learned quick was, you don’t fuck with Pedro’s personal real estate.
Wherever he was standing or wanted to be standing, it was his spot.
“Yo mothafucka,” Pedro would often squawk, when another penguin was in a spot he wanted. “You best be getting yo’ furry ass off ma’ personal real estate.”
Sometimes he added the characterization of “bitch” to the end of those sentences.
This went on season after season, year after year.
Every day Pedro would be mean and territorial, and every day the other penguins would scurry out of the way and take the abuse.
Until one day a brave young penguin, several years younger than Pedro, decided to take a stance.
His name was Pepe.
It was a name the other penguins would come to remember for many year later.
One day in late September, as the drips of the icicles signaled the end of the harsh winter, Pepe put together a posse of five of his finest penguins.
And together they fucked Pedro’s shit up.
For nearly two hours, they beat him senselessly.
When he cried out, they beat him harder.
Only when he stopped struggling did they finally get off him.
And so, weakened and bloodied, Pedro stumbled from his precious personal real estate, and toppled, exhausted, into the water.
Then Pedro got eaten by a seal.
THE END.
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I can make a multimillion percent return.
By
Ben Cheney .
06.10.09 //
Real Estate
// I can make a multimillion percent return.
By
Ben Cheney .
06.10.09 //
Real Estate
Fake estate. It’s not like real estate, which consists of grass and dirt and is determined by acres and square footage and is ruled by neighborhood associations that set ridiculous limitations about mailbox colors and floral arrangements. Unlike real estate, fake estate doesn’t have any dimensional limitations to it. It can be as large as you want and you can put whatever you desire on it. You can have a roller coaster or a living space or a superstore or a dinosaur playground. Its contents are totally up to the owner.
And it’s cheap too. While a waterfront plot on a lake in Southwest Virginia costs $1 million per acre, the average piece of fake estate only costs about $10 per address, no matter where it exists.
In fake estate, location and size don’t matter. In fact, the raw property isn’t actually what determines the value. It’s the content of the estate that matters. Buyers don’t purchase fake estate with the intentions of tearing down existing architectures just to use the precious land for some other vision. Instead, the existing architectures of fake estate is what makes them valuable or not.
Consider Google.com or Amazon.com. Their plots of fake estate are worth billions of dollars. Why? The contents of the fake estates. The businesses that have been built on these plots have created enormous value for the owners. Without these digital architectures, these plots of fake estate would probably still be available on GoDaddy.com for $10.
This is what sets fake estate apart from real estate. Of course there is the real vs. fake, tangible vs. intangible, brick & mortar vs. digital aspect. But what makes the largest difference is that fake estate doesn’t naturally increase in value. To make fake estate valuable, the owner has to build something on that estate that people give a damn about. In its raw form, fake estate is nothing more than a chunk of cyberspace. But when watered with a little entrepreneurship and smart business skills, fake estate has the ability to grow into a multibillion dollar piece of property, affording the owner a multimillion percent return.
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We need a new plague
By
Jordan Childs .
06.09.09 //
Real Estate
// We need a new plague
By
Jordan Childs .
06.09.09 //
Real Estate
Click to enlarge.
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We’re frequently left choking on our own rage.
By
Tristan Smith .
06.08.09 //
Real Estate
// We’re frequently left choking on our own rage.
By
Tristan Smith .
06.08.09 //
Real Estate
Bargaining. Some people thrive on it. Teeth come out. Pauses get awkward, punctuating hot exchanges where both parties stare, push and pull back, joke and bite.
In many parts of our lives, the practice has been eliminated. We delegate the (for us) unpleasant business to lawyers and stock brokers, fathers and about-to-turn-16 sons.
But sometimes we need a new place to live. And sometimes we don’t think the price is right, Bob. And when that happens, we have to bargain. Hard.
Beyond our hard earned money, the set of numerals that justify our hard work, at stake is something more: our sense of self-worth. There is nothing, -notttthhhiiinnggg- worse than the feeling that floods your gut and heart after someone rips your face off. Paying full price for a bushel of partially-rotten fruit. Being upsold the molten chocolate cake when all you wanted was an oatmeal cookie. Having your plumbing repaired. Ever. These are the times when bargaining is our burning torch in the woods. Just be careful not to set yourself on fire.
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