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Renters

After yesterday’s blog purge I felt a whole heap better.  I can now concentrate on my lumpy testes and getting my life back in order.

I spent 30 minutes virtually decoupling myself from the timid Beast of Westchester.  Facebook, Skype etc.  Of course I forgot that he owes me money from the UK tax refund but hopefully he will just do the right thing and send it to me.

The number of people who read my blog doubled yesterday.  Why?  Very odd.

How exhausting!  The entire thing with him from beginning to end was exhausting.  Relationships?  Who needs them?  Well, I for one would like one that works.  As I said before, we packed a twenty-five year relationship into the last eight months.  I really had no intention of publishing yesterdays incendiary blog but he sent me such a vicious email the only way I could be assured of never seeing him again was to tell it as it is.  He’s an idiot, I was all washed up yesterday afternoon.  I really wasn’t feeling very mean-spirited in light of my testicle problem but he riled me into action and out came Anthony (my angry alter ego) to protect my honor.

After I published the blog I met Sharon and we headed over to the Pacific Design Center where the Weinstein Company were premiering their new documentary,  The Pat Tillman Story.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hWmqogu3mZw].

Good God, if that couldn’t shake me out of my mad head nothing would.  What an incredibly sad story.

Pat Tillman the sporting star was used in life and death by the US government to support an unpopular war.  As the genius filmmakers made clear, the US Government probably wishes they hadn’t messed with the tenacious Tillman family.   You have to love them, the mother and father are probably the most patriotic, considerate, intelligent people you ever met.  They were the sort of people you want to believe all American are.

Watching their faces as they testified in congress, tangling with the likes of Donald Rumsfeld, Karl Rove and George W at the very pinnacle of government, laughing in the face of the toothless Congressional oversight committee.  It was a ghastly example of how ordinary, good Americans have been trampled and continue to be trampled by their very own government.

I will never forget listening to the young man who saw his best buddy Pat Tillman have his head blown off his shoulders just feet from where he stood.  The blood trickling out of Tillman’s neck like a drinking fountain.

I chatted with that brave young man after the film and was filled with admiration.  I have no reason to complain about anything when I meet a man like that.  He had the best line in the film, he said, “Afghanistan reminded me of Arizona but (pause) the people looked a bit different.”

I do hope that you all get to see The Tillman Story, that you get to meet Pat as his parents and friends remember him and hopefully be as inspired as I was after seeing this remarkable film.  It was very hard not to cry.

Before I went to sleep last night I thought how beautiful Pat Tillman was, not just his beautiful face but what made him really beautiful was his compassion, sensitivity and unusual intellect..a perfect example of how one can never ever judge a book by its cover.

His beautiful face and brutal death make him an example of what a hopeless, desperate, unnecessary war this is.  The waste of life and resources and time and ideals.

Yet, the oligarchs continue sending these young boys to their deaths, profiting from sorrow, emotionally blackmailing an entire nation in the name of patriotism, trading on their love for the American flag and nobody will lift a finger to stop it…this absurd ‘war on terror’.  Such nonsense.

Before I got caught up writing yesterdays blog I had planned to write about the people who rent my Malibu house.  The good and the bad but after I received his vicious email events overcame me.  Here is a snippet of what I will take time writing about at a later date.

The renters.  When it comes to renting the house through VRBO there are far more Dodi, Richard or Jan’s (appreciative and complimentary) than there are Irene, Vikam or Dave’s (unappreciative and demanding).

The good renters love the house and realize that they are getting a great deal for their buck.  They write glowing reviews in the visitors book.

The bad renters, with exactly the same house, same EVERYTHING seem to feel duped.  They think the house is dirty, they complain about the modern art, that the TV is too small.  They complain that there are personal effects in the house, that a hose is not wound properly.  They demand their money back without ever checking their contract.  Worst, is when they break things and never ever like to pay for what has been broken.

They seem to forget that they are getting the house for up to 7 people for $250 a night rather than the houses they can see below them for $3,000 a night.  They also forget that I have rented that house to hundreds of renters and most of them are perfectly happy with their experience of the house.

There is one particularly insane woman in Hawaii who tried duping me…bad move.  As we know very well I am not easily crossed.  Bad boyfriends or bad renters..they are all the same to me.  More about Hawaii woman at a later date.

Listen, the complainers, thankfully, are not as frequent as the those who just love it there.  Who, when they leave, leave a sweet smell behind them, who obey the rules and don’t smoke or throw clandestine parties or break stuff or try claiming that the house was not as described.

It confuses the hell out of me when people just turn on their heels and leave the house without even staying one night.  Thankfully that has only happened twice in the three years that I have been renting.

I slept late this morning, made coffee, took the little dog for a long walk.

Jennie and I had a luxurious conversation.   She is in good spirits about getting into University.  And so she should be, she is a remarkable young woman.

Oh yeah, before I forget…who is Adam Patch you ask?  Don’t worry, I didn’t know either.  Check the Beautiful and the Damned by F. Scott Fitzgerald and you’ll understand the literary allusion.  A 1920s socialite and presumptive heir to a tycoon’s fortune…you’ll see that the timid man and I had more in common than even we realized.

Am I being snippy?

3 replies on “Renters”

ach dody you took the words(much more eloquently) right out of my mouth.
some times you love some one who is so ..toxic to you, and you dont see it..until the damage is done.
D deserves some one who loves him unconditionally.
and D, many of us know the war is a futile example of american government at its worst. destroying lives like it was nothin more than dryer lint.
how can one change that?
sure you can vote, and for what? more asshat greedy bastards? oy

Duncan,

Again, I’m so sorry for your pain but you are and will be okay. I think that God sends us the relationships that we’re ready for and you weren’t ready for someone quite on your level. You could tell from your previous writing that you’re very guarded and with good reason. But now that you’ve got your sea legs, you can venture away from hugging the coast and can set sail for the horizon and head toward the sunrise under full sail. You will find your soulmate. Believe it. Please.

Congratulations to Jennie! She is one stand-up lady. Her professors and fellow students will have to bring their A game, ’cause Jennie’s up to bat. 🙂

I saw Pat Tillman’s father on “Anderson Cooper 360” last week talking about the documentary and his feelings about how senseless his son’s death was and how the military and the PR vultures had tried to use the family. How despicable it was that the military was only interested in preserving the cover-up of what really happened and continuing the PR circus boosting the war, that started when Pat Tillman enlisted. A “Mother Jones” article came out on the eve of the wikiLeaks of military documents, detailing how we set up the conditions for the Taliban to emerge because their forerunners were fighting the Soviets in Afghanistan. We trained them and gave them arms and materiel. Pakistan, our erstwhile ally, where they had had base camps during the war with the Soviets, then used them as a cat’s paw against the interests of India in Afghanistan. All while we stood by and watched. Meanwhile the Saudis have been supporting the most fundamentalist of Muslim sects, the Wahabis, who export their xenophobic version of Islam in madrasas and mosques that Saudi money helps build. (Fourteen of the nineteen hijackers were Saudis.) But instead of dealing with the sources of the support for this insanity — our “allies” –, we invade Afghanistan and then Iraq. (And I don’t mean by military means. God knows that if we could deal with Khadafi diplomatically, we can find a way to deal even with Iran.) President Eisenhower said in 1953, “… Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. The cost of one modern heavy bomber is this: a modern brick school in more than 30 cities. It is two electric power plants, each serving a town of 60,000 population. It is two fine, fully equipped hospitals. It is some 50 miles of concrete highway. We pay for a single fighter plane with a half million bushels of wheat. We pay for a single destroyer with new homes that could have housed more than 8,000 people. This, I repeat, is the best way of life to be found on the road the world has been taking. This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron…” And we, the sheeple, have marched to the drumbeat of war from Viet Nam to Iraq, with few even questioning whether it was the right course.

And heroic, patriotic young men like Pat Tillman offer up their lives for the lies of a morally bankrupt government. But I believe that his spilled blood and the blood of so many others will be avenged. The Tillmans will have justice and so will we all. The wikiLeaks are just the beginning. The whole rotten fruit is going to break open and spill. And maybe finally, we can pull ourselves down from the cross of iron that we’ve allowed the military-industrial complex to nail us to.

I am a relentless optimist because this country and the world ARE progressing. When you think of how recently, historically, that women got the right to vote, that Senators in this country have been elected to Congress by popular vote, that blacks have had the obstacles to the exercise of their right to vote removed, we have come a long way. We still have an entrenched oligarchy to deal with but if a group of 13 ragtag colonies could rebel against an empire — and win — WE CAN DO ANYTHING WE SUMMON OUR COLLECTIVE WILL TO DO. We simply have to remember the colonial slogan that “If we don’t hang together, we will hang separately”. Us and the rest of the world. We cannot continue to let demagogues and Judas goats interested only in their own power and monetary gain to bamboozle us and turn us against each other. We need to wake up, get out of the damn malls and man the spiritual and political barricades. WE HAVE THE POWER. We just need to BELIEVE that a better country/world is possible. IT IS.

Blessings,

Amanda

Darling, to think the bad renters could think you are unclean, as you know I am squeaky clean.. nobody could be more tidy than I am and more of a nag.. Duncan, don’t get sad, of course your beautiful house in Malibu is adorable. It is lovely and light, spotless and with an attractive balcony and surrounded by wild land. It’s painted white and you have style. If somebody writes offensively to you turn the other way and let them.. I have very happy memories of you. Untarnished.. if you are tricky, well nobody said you were boring. Keep that head high.. Lots of love AMANDA

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