I showed the house for the first time yesterday. A Persian man who lives not far from here.
He was looking for a cheap house as an investment. I really don’t care who buys it.
I spent the morning rearranging.
I rearranged the furniture so the dining area is set above the sitting room on the terrazzo plinth. It looks great. I used the black leather chairs that I bought for ElCerrito Place. I tried using the Morrison chairs but they looked too complicated. Compromised the aesthetic.
I am going to sell my Jasper Morrison dining room chairs. They are now stacked outside looking really forlorn, they need to go else where..where they can be loved.
Had tea with JA in West H’wood yesterday. Everybody is in such a funk. Things have ground to a halt. Is this just on the West Coast? Nobody knows how to crawl out of this hole? Maybe we don’t crawl out of anywhere but learn to live with new parameters.
Popped in on Trevor at the bottom of the canyon to see the young doe that the coyote had savaged in his garden. It was all gnawed at. Its tongue sticking out. Trevor’s wife was a bit pissed that I had made the effort to see the dead deer but not their new baby. Sorry Jen.
Meg Whitman the ex Ebay CEO is running in the Gubernatorial race here in California against Jerry Brown. She has spent over $119, 000, 000 of her own money on her campaign. She becomes the largest self-funded political candidate in history.
Yet all of this might come to naught if her ex-maid and nanny of nine years Nicky Diaz Santillan swings the vote. Nicky’s story is a familiar one in California. An illegal immigrant (undocumented) who worked hard for Meg and her husband is cruelly let go when she asks for help to become legal.
“Thown away like trash.” she sobbed on TV.
The latino population in SoCal will take notice. They know what that feels like. To be part of a family, whether Witman’s or family USA only to be thrown away when things get tough.
The economy in this part of America has relied heavily on the cheap labour that these illegal immigrants offer. Making the rich richer, they are hard-working, uncomplaining people. I have employed Spanish-speaking men at the local labor exchange and they work tirelessly in scorching heat, lugging great hessian bags of garden waste up and down the mountains like donkeys. I don’t ask any questions. Nor do my neighbors.
These latino workers have no expectations, except to be treated poorly by white folk like me. They don’t have much choice.
When they do not get treated poorly they are grateful and go the extra mile.
The truth is, frustrated white people in the USA very begrudgingly gave up their slaves so having illegal Mexican immigrants who do as they are told for very little somehow placates their desire to be slave owners.
White people may say they are pissed off by illegal immigrants yet I don’t know any one of them who would be prepared to do what these people do. Washing up, gardening, busing, etc. Menial tasks. White people wouldn’t know how. They don’t know how.
We tried to import a bunch of colourful faces into the UK to do the same during the 1950’s but they opened corner shops and restaurants and got richer than the people who imported them. Anyway, we had colonial apologists who refused to see these people used like American white people use Latinos.
Thank GOD for bouts of socialism.
I could bang on about the racism that exists here but I can’t be bothered.
White people are hurting. They have lost their jobs and their homes. There is no industry. They can’t seem to relearn working skills and get humble and wash dishes for other white folk. The dream is dead. Arianna Huffington is on TV telling people that America is a Third World Country, that the middle class is over and that the American Dream has been compromised.
Similar circumstances existed in Germany before the second world war. Crippling debt (war reparations) unemployment, hunger, desperation, hopelessness. Do not underestimate the gruelling effect of hopelessness..regardless of how comfortable you are if you feel hopeless your view on the world changes. It gets easy to blame the immigrant, the jew, the gay…the innefectual black President.
I pray that I am wrong but given the current state of the USA, these extreme economic circumstances I am guessing that the people of America will, come the next election, elect a far right, socially conservative Palin type President who will irrevocably damage the entire world. We are desperate for strong, innovative, modern leadership yet it seems that only the far right have the balls to serve what the people hanker.
We are witnessing the cynical destruction of the USA as we, and millions before us, dreamed it. It is a crying shame.
By the way. Rich Sanchez the latino CNN host fired this week for saying that Jon Stewart was pompous and that the media was controlled by the Jews. Well, that’s how it was reported. Not quite the way he said it. Actually he said he felt bullied by Stewart, looked down upon. That people like Stewart look down on latinos..and he’d be right. I am sure what he felt about Jon Stewart may very well be right.
I rather like Rick Sanchez. Isn’t it amazing that Sanchez can get fired for saying two rather obvious things (one an opinion and one true) and that Glenn Beck gets to say terrible shit everyday but nobody lifts a finger?
Willie just took a huge dump on the carpet…nice. Thankfully I know how to clean a rug without resorting to calling a maid service.