I just remembered a long-passed moment, this morning, as I was showering. As I’ve mentioned before, I get CRAZY flash backs of obnoxiously random shit whenever I allow the hot water to blast the back of my neck whilst getting my morning scrub on.
It’s like there’s a hot-water-activated random memory generator button on the back of my neck. Perhaps I’m some sort of mutant?
That’d be pretty nice, actually. I believe that knowing I was a mutant would make other life experiences that much more refreshing and new. But I’d need to know what I was a mutant FROM. From a duck? From a bowl of porridge? A bad racist joke?
So the hot water was beating the shit out of my neck when this vibrant scene blasted across my internal etch-a-sketch:
I was running from someone, although I can’t remember exactly who, and I broke into the street. Just as my feet hit the hot, evening pavement of my old Alief street, I was almost hit by some brown Japanese model car. A poorly-bleached blond yelled out her car window, something along the lines of “hey you stupid little boy, stay out the fuckin’ street! I don’t want to hit any damn kids!”
I kept running. My shoes were pretty new, so I felt like I could run fast. Dusk was coming. It was near Halloween, just like it is now, when kids get all excited about the coming of “the seasons”, where all the cool projects involving hand turkeys, baked Christmas ornaments, and costumes arrive in quick succession. Plus, even though the Houston heat was still stifling, there was a scent in the air that always preempted cooler weather and extended stays away from school.
I was happy, laughing even, when I almost got hit. I did a sort-of-hop over the front driver’s side quarter panel of the woman’s auto, and kept on truckin’. My pursuer stopped. The woman cursed and drove away.
I have no idea was happening that lead up to that event, or what followed it. Hopefully the hot water will remind me.
Wednesday, October 25, 2006
Monday, October 23, 2006
Shared Consciousness Sucks
I’ve never been much for reading up on the exploits of others. Or the philosophical rantings of whoever. Most of the time, I feel like writers get all tangled up in their own pretexts that it just takes too damn long for them to make a point.
I realize how hypocritical this is, but it doesn’t change how I feel about the lot of it.
I remember in college, there were two instances where I felt almost robbed of my own intellectual radar strength. The first time was when a dear friend INSISTED that I read Rand’s Atlas Shrugged. It’s a pretty thick piece of politifiction, and I had never been interested in either politics nor fiction, so I shrugged Shrugged. But he continued to insist. At times, it felt like pestering. He felt very strongly about me reading that goddamn book. He kept claiming that I’d “really enjoy the concepts she expresses” about the form and operation of modern industrial civilization. The political ramifications of money votes. The “doers” versus the “critics”. All that anti-socialism jargon and whatnot.
So I cliff-noted that motherfucker. Just breezed through the little pamphlet in some bookstore I happened to be wasting time in.
Bitch took a huge sampling of my own observations, and had already molded them into a fiction template. Senseless entitlement. Relativism. The fair rule of the moneyed class. It was all there, amongst a trippy 1984ish plot. She stole my life philosophies right out from under me. Long before I was even born.
I never read her entire work. I was afraid to learn of what else I hadn’t actually thought up on my own.
I preferred to continue living under the delusion that I was capable of truly original conceptual constructs. Delusions are fantastic.
A couple of years down the line, and I had grown tired of my own conservatively righteous views concerning the purpose and meaning of civil society. After busting my ass for a couple of years, working for The Man while trying to play His Game with the whole College Thing, I started to turn proletariat. Never a Red Star, “kill the scientists!” variety of labor defender, but definitely more “progressive” in my thinking.
Coming from Alief in Houston, where there were very few, if any racial or socio-economic divides between peoples, I was not fully aware of how prevalent such divisions are in the rest of the US, and the world. In Austin, these divides were more apparent, and as I moved along through my little life, they made me increasingly upset.
Then I took an Econ course that revolved around Marxist theory. Motherfucker had already come to all the conclusions I was building in my head at that time, and synthesized those theories into several brick-like volumes: Das Kapital, over a hundred years before I was born, round about the time that slaves were being freed here in America.
And I was JUST finding my own way around to his theories. His 100 yr-old + theories, which were based on even OLDER theories that I hadn’t even come close to self-discovering yet.
As much as I enjoyed melding Marxist theory with modern-day capitalism, and all the philosophic snafus that pepper that process, I was highly miffed at the feeling that once again, I had been robbed of my own purely original experience.
The cogs in my head were simply churning out a reasonable facsimile of what someone else had already tired to produce, long before I became a genetic experiment. I was re-treading someone else’s tires. Following pre-marked trails. Inadvertently re-tracing the lines on someone else’s masterpiece.
It bothered me to the point where I stopped reading philosophy altogether (except for a handful of works on the theories of consciousness and dreams, because that shit’s badass) for fear that it would cause me to stop bothering with my own philosophizing. After all, what’s the point in trying to figure things out on your own if there’s a host of popular theorists who’ve already done it for you? Just read their ramblings and act like you thought that shit up all by your lonesome. Like every other book-smarty Psycholar out there.
But I couldn’t do that. Not to myself. Plus, I’m too lazy to read all that shit and again, it takes too goddamn long for any of them to break through their pretext fortresses to make a fucking point.
[again, hypocrisy observed]
I decided that it was the process that I was more interested in. The process of forming opinions is actually more interesting and important to me than the resulting opinion/theory. So I stopped reading other peoples’ opinions and theories and just set out to form my own. In its most vibrant mode: by way of life experience and reality warping.
And up until 15 hours ago, I was pretty pleased with my results thus far.
Last night, I watched the Bukowski documentary: Born Into This…
………
………
Motherfucker. Now I KNOW I don’t have an original bone in my goddamn body. But I’ve decided that I don’t care. I guess I can go ahead and read Johnny Cash’s autobiography now too. Fuck it.
I realize how hypocritical this is, but it doesn’t change how I feel about the lot of it.
I remember in college, there were two instances where I felt almost robbed of my own intellectual radar strength. The first time was when a dear friend INSISTED that I read Rand’s Atlas Shrugged. It’s a pretty thick piece of politifiction, and I had never been interested in either politics nor fiction, so I shrugged Shrugged. But he continued to insist. At times, it felt like pestering. He felt very strongly about me reading that goddamn book. He kept claiming that I’d “really enjoy the concepts she expresses” about the form and operation of modern industrial civilization. The political ramifications of money votes. The “doers” versus the “critics”. All that anti-socialism jargon and whatnot.
So I cliff-noted that motherfucker. Just breezed through the little pamphlet in some bookstore I happened to be wasting time in.
Bitch took a huge sampling of my own observations, and had already molded them into a fiction template. Senseless entitlement. Relativism. The fair rule of the moneyed class. It was all there, amongst a trippy 1984ish plot. She stole my life philosophies right out from under me. Long before I was even born.
I never read her entire work. I was afraid to learn of what else I hadn’t actually thought up on my own.
I preferred to continue living under the delusion that I was capable of truly original conceptual constructs. Delusions are fantastic.
A couple of years down the line, and I had grown tired of my own conservatively righteous views concerning the purpose and meaning of civil society. After busting my ass for a couple of years, working for The Man while trying to play His Game with the whole College Thing, I started to turn proletariat. Never a Red Star, “kill the scientists!” variety of labor defender, but definitely more “progressive” in my thinking.
Coming from Alief in Houston, where there were very few, if any racial or socio-economic divides between peoples, I was not fully aware of how prevalent such divisions are in the rest of the US, and the world. In Austin, these divides were more apparent, and as I moved along through my little life, they made me increasingly upset.
Then I took an Econ course that revolved around Marxist theory. Motherfucker had already come to all the conclusions I was building in my head at that time, and synthesized those theories into several brick-like volumes: Das Kapital, over a hundred years before I was born, round about the time that slaves were being freed here in America.
And I was JUST finding my own way around to his theories. His 100 yr-old + theories, which were based on even OLDER theories that I hadn’t even come close to self-discovering yet.
As much as I enjoyed melding Marxist theory with modern-day capitalism, and all the philosophic snafus that pepper that process, I was highly miffed at the feeling that once again, I had been robbed of my own purely original experience.
The cogs in my head were simply churning out a reasonable facsimile of what someone else had already tired to produce, long before I became a genetic experiment. I was re-treading someone else’s tires. Following pre-marked trails. Inadvertently re-tracing the lines on someone else’s masterpiece.
It bothered me to the point where I stopped reading philosophy altogether (except for a handful of works on the theories of consciousness and dreams, because that shit’s badass) for fear that it would cause me to stop bothering with my own philosophizing. After all, what’s the point in trying to figure things out on your own if there’s a host of popular theorists who’ve already done it for you? Just read their ramblings and act like you thought that shit up all by your lonesome. Like every other book-smarty Psycholar out there.
But I couldn’t do that. Not to myself. Plus, I’m too lazy to read all that shit and again, it takes too goddamn long for any of them to break through their pretext fortresses to make a fucking point.
[again, hypocrisy observed]
I decided that it was the process that I was more interested in. The process of forming opinions is actually more interesting and important to me than the resulting opinion/theory. So I stopped reading other peoples’ opinions and theories and just set out to form my own. In its most vibrant mode: by way of life experience and reality warping.
And up until 15 hours ago, I was pretty pleased with my results thus far.
Last night, I watched the Bukowski documentary: Born Into This…
………
………
Motherfucker. Now I KNOW I don’t have an original bone in my goddamn body. But I’ve decided that I don’t care. I guess I can go ahead and read Johnny Cash’s autobiography now too. Fuck it.
Friday, October 13, 2006
2 For 10
From my second writing project. Day 8.
-----------------------------
Noon. Time had come to leave Vegas, and all of its spicy vices. We packed up our things, and made our way out to the Mirage garage where The Beast had been hibernating.
She started right up. No fuss, no trickery, no threats. The sun was out, and the breeze was cool, so we wanted the top to be down as we rolled out of town. But no. No such luck. Somehow, somewhere between the strip and the gas station where we chose to gas up while on our way out of town, the convertible assembly shut down completely. Actuator failure, or something equally technical and unfixable with the tools we had on board.
So no more convertible top. No more hair blowing in the breeze. No more of the suave coolness that is exuded by a ’65 Lincoln convertible as it pimps its way along the highways and byways of America. On a lighter note, no more of my crap would be blowing out the back, and the trunk was then fully available for our luggage. No more compromises in the name of being badass.
The Beast had the deciding vote on our coolness, and we had been vetoed with a heavy fist.
I was far from worried about the lack of rag-top functionality, but it did manage to force me into cataloging the ongoing issues we seemed to be having with The Beast.
“So, let me get this straight. The top doesn’t work.”
Vance, with mild resignation, “yep.”
Me, with a brief gust of enthusiasm, counting on my fingers, “the dash lights, the fuel gauge, the speedometer, the drive indicator…” there were probably more issues than that, but those were the ones I could gather together and tally off on my digits.
Vance interjected, obviously hoping to curtail the list of his dream car’s failed components. “Right. None of them are functional.”
“Fucked. All of them, yes?”
“Yes. But the kicker is the top. As long as we don’t get pulled over for anything stupid, we should be fine without all that stuff. It’s such a beautiful day though. Too beautiful to have the top stuck up.”
It was a beautiful day. The sun was beaming down on us, only too happy to accompany us as we headed east to Arizona.
-----------------------------
Noon. Time had come to leave Vegas, and all of its spicy vices. We packed up our things, and made our way out to the Mirage garage where The Beast had been hibernating.
She started right up. No fuss, no trickery, no threats. The sun was out, and the breeze was cool, so we wanted the top to be down as we rolled out of town. But no. No such luck. Somehow, somewhere between the strip and the gas station where we chose to gas up while on our way out of town, the convertible assembly shut down completely. Actuator failure, or something equally technical and unfixable with the tools we had on board.
So no more convertible top. No more hair blowing in the breeze. No more of the suave coolness that is exuded by a ’65 Lincoln convertible as it pimps its way along the highways and byways of America. On a lighter note, no more of my crap would be blowing out the back, and the trunk was then fully available for our luggage. No more compromises in the name of being badass.
The Beast had the deciding vote on our coolness, and we had been vetoed with a heavy fist.
I was far from worried about the lack of rag-top functionality, but it did manage to force me into cataloging the ongoing issues we seemed to be having with The Beast.
“So, let me get this straight. The top doesn’t work.”
Vance, with mild resignation, “yep.”
Me, with a brief gust of enthusiasm, counting on my fingers, “the dash lights, the fuel gauge, the speedometer, the drive indicator…” there were probably more issues than that, but those were the ones I could gather together and tally off on my digits.
Vance interjected, obviously hoping to curtail the list of his dream car’s failed components. “Right. None of them are functional.”
“Fucked. All of them, yes?”
“Yes. But the kicker is the top. As long as we don’t get pulled over for anything stupid, we should be fine without all that stuff. It’s such a beautiful day though. Too beautiful to have the top stuck up.”
It was a beautiful day. The sun was beaming down on us, only too happy to accompany us as we headed east to Arizona.
Thursday, September 21, 2006
The longest most boringest post ever
HOLY SHIT. I’m gonna rant about some BORING ASS SHIT. This is more for my own mental well-being than it is for you to bother reading. McSweeney’s is probably hilarious today. Go check that out instead.
Here in good ol’ Tejas, we don’t have state income tax. Most people cheer this, claiming that income tax is a socialist demon that needn’t exist in a state as independently great as ours. But really, we all hate the idea of income tax because if you added that to the exorbitant property tax and insurance rates here, we would magically OWE money for every day we slaved our lives away.
In that context: If you ever buy a home in Texas, there is something you will need to understand about that ownership:
DEDUCT EVERYTHING AGAINST YOUR INCOME THAT IS ALLOWED BY LAW FROM YOUR INCOME TAX. EVERY GODDAMN THING.
“Oh really?” You may be asking yourself. “Why bother with the headache of line items all over the place? I just Turbo-Tax that motherfucker and BAM! Done and DONE!”
Well, I’ll tell you why. Quite simple really: if you own property and you take the “standard deduction”, you are a sucker, a mark, an idiot, and there is a thick-as-thieves line forming at your doorstep to prove it.
DE-fucking-DUCT EVERYTHING YOU CAN.
It’s the ONLY way you’ll ever recoup all the fees, taxes and service charges associated with home ownership. The ONLY way. Because there are actual economic calculations involving the average amount of money that will be drained from an owner over the course of owning property in Texas. State/city/county/school taxes, Home Owners Insurance, utilities access (different from regular taxes), PMI, loan interest, various closing costs, appraisal fees, improvement application fees, re-construction application fees, and basic construction or recurring maintenance costs. The results of these calculations are extremely important to government and business alike (home sales and NEW home sales are two of the most watched measures of the domestic economy, and many believe they’ve been propping up our limping dollar for the past five years).
Not to impede anyone else’s campaign to purchase property, but there is a substantial vampire element that exists around every single inch of land ownership. The base assumption is that if you own land, you a) are responsible for all civic needs in all strata of civic need-dom wherever your property exists (theoretically, this responsibility translates to taxes based on your portion of “value owned” within whatever civic area). So, if the civic area decides that it needs some big-ass expensive shit that you don’t want, you’re pitching in regardless, for the greater good, whether you can actually afford to or not (roots of gentrification). And b) you are a willing teat for the throngs of little baby businesses that require your cash-laden milk. Just like death, it's coming. And you'll pay up goddamnit. One way, or another.
If you rented an apartment next door instead of owning your home, you would not be paying any of this directly, but your rent would probably go up proportionately to the owner’s increase in cost burden. So, in effect, whoever has the money to begin with, pays it in the end.
My current vampire element is PMI insurance. This is an obnoxious little fee which is borderline impossible to get around. The idea is this: if someone gets a loan to buy a domicile (not necessarily a house on land, could be a condo in space), the bank making the loan wants some reassurance that the buyer is serious about the purchase, and is responsible enough to take care of both the land and the loan payments. If the buyer can produce 20% of the cost of purchase (NOT 20% OF THE VALUE OF THE PROPERTY, because the bank will assume purchase price to be the “real value”, even if the price is WAY under market), then it will make the bank comfortable with the partnership, and it won’t require some loan service insurance, which is what PMI is. If you skip payments because you’re irresponsible or you keep losing jobs or develop a crack habit or whatever, the PMI bearer jumps in and covers the loan payment for you. Technically.
I’ve never known anyone who actually got to use this service because as soon as you cease making payments, your shit goes under lien, and is eventually repossessed, whether you have PMI or not. So it’s not an actual insurance.
It’s a fucking “you don’t gots enough cash up front for this shit” fee.
Now it used to be that once your principal payments (itty bitty portion of your initial interest-weighted mortgage payments) knocked that loan-to-purchase-price ratio to less than 80/20, the PMI would cease. Well, that 80/20 can move around based on all kinds of black-box factors, never in favor of the owner, to prolong the “necessity” of the fee. But IF you magically get the ratio in your favor, and IF you’ve owned your property for more than a year BUT NO MORE than five (five? How the fuck is someone going to pay 20% down on the principal of a mortgage when 90% of their mortgage payment goes to interest? Eh? Good scam), and you’ve had NO late payments in the last two years (basically: EVER), then you qualify to have a REAPPRAISAL (the fee doesn’t just “disappear”). And this reappraisal can ONLY be done through the bank’s “preferred” reappraisal service. “Preferred” makes it sound like there are options, with some being more “preferred” than others, but this is not the case. Here, “preferred” translates to “only”.
Lucky for you, according to the material sent to you by the bank, that reappraisal only costs $300 for an average single family home on an average size/shaped plot of land in an average area of town. If your property falls out of any of the those “averages” (80% of all properties in existence fall out of such averages) then it will likely cost more. But since they don’t specify what any of that means, you won’t know how much your reappraisal will cost until you request it, and then some dude comes out to wander around with a clipboard.
Oh, and you have to request it. Otherwise, it is likely that they will just continue charging the PMI fee forever, and you’ll never meet “Chuck” from Waco and his nifty, yet sometimes broken tape measurer (the only tool apparently necessary for granular property appraisal).
After the request, the bank sends you a fee notification which states that it will cost $350, not $300. You’ll likely ignore this, thinking “inflation’s a bitch!” but this dismissal is the start of your downfall. Forms accompany the fee notification. So you fill out the long forms with lots of information about you and your property, and then fax (fax? Seriously? Is this 1987 or what?) over payment information. BEFORE any reappraisal process begins.
They call a day later to set up a physical appraisal.
Then the dude shows up at your crib on the appointed date, and pokes around for a whopping five minutes. Scribbles shit on Xeroxed forms and doodles some floor plans. He’ll probably use your bathroom. Then he leaves.
A week later, you’ll get another letter telling you that it’s $500 instead of $350 because your property is outside one of many “averages”. Big surprise.
Defeated and deflated, because in the midst of the time that has already passed during this process, the cost for reappraisal has jumped 66%, AND you’ve paid yet another PMI. Awesome.
You go ahead with the hike in reappraisal fees because hey, they’ve probably already finished the damned thing and were just waiting to juice you for even MORE cash. Painfully evident.
Once you fax (again with the goddamn faxing) your agreement to the higher cost, you call the bank to get an e.t.a. on when the reappraisal will be done. They tell you 10 to 14 business days (two to three weeks) before they receive the report from their “preferred” appraiser. Then they’ll “process” that report between 7 and 10 business days (two more weeks) and get back to you. IF the reappraised amount puts you ABOVE the necessary value ratio, they will begin the process for the removal of PMI. If not, they’ll simply collect the $500 and tell you to go hate-fuck yourself. Sucker.
You won’t even ask how long the “process for the removal” might take, because you already know it’ll be “x to 10 business days”, pushing into at least two more PMI payments in the interim, and you just don’t give a shit anymore. But you do ask whether or not they would refund any PMI payments made between the actual DAY of the reappraisal (a good month or two before they decide on the fate of your PMI payment plan), which is the real day at which the new value was calculated, and the day they notify you that there is no longer a need for this fee.
They will tell you no. You will ask why not. They will tell you “because we already collected those payments before the decision was made.” To which you’ll respond “well then I don’t see your company’s motivation to expedite this process.” And they’ll reply, rather cheerily that “we don’t want you to be paying PMI any longer than you need to, so we would get rid of the payment as soon as possible.” Fried, and amazed at the ridiculousness of such a dumbass statement, you’ll retort “well, that doesn’t make any sense considering YOU decide when YOU get to stop collecting this fee from me, and you won’t be returning any you collect in the interim of this process.” Noting your sliding interest in the whole thing, they’ll craftily say “sir, we don’t want you to be paying anything you don’t have to, so we’ll stop collecting the fee as soon as we know that.”
With your mind wandering off to lunch land, tired of trying to figure out why it is that you must endure this bullshit graft, you decline further discussion of the matter.
And go take a long poop to cleanse your soul, realizing that you WILL pay up, one way or goddamn other. But you’ll keep trying. And collecting all those receipts and tax write-off notations for this year’s dance with the tax man.
Some people believe that getting what is called a 80/20 loan* will get you out of paying PMI. And it will. But it will replace that PMI fee with higher interest loan fee, which will be either equal or more than the PMI fee in the long run. And it will be paid to the same bank and its “preferred” coalition of fee collectors. Best case scenario for you, the budding real estate impresario: a wash. Worst case: you’ll pay MORE in the net, but think you’re so smart that your bigger brain got you around those pesky tricksters! But no. Not even close. Awesome.
*this is a two-part home purchase loan scheme where you put NO money down on a purchase, put 80% of the thing into a long-term regular mortgage loan, and then borrow the other 20% at a higher rate (because it’s technically a signature loan) to fill in for the 20% necessary to avoid paying PMI. Theoretically this might work, but it never actually does.
Here in good ol’ Tejas, we don’t have state income tax. Most people cheer this, claiming that income tax is a socialist demon that needn’t exist in a state as independently great as ours. But really, we all hate the idea of income tax because if you added that to the exorbitant property tax and insurance rates here, we would magically OWE money for every day we slaved our lives away.
In that context: If you ever buy a home in Texas, there is something you will need to understand about that ownership:
DEDUCT EVERYTHING AGAINST YOUR INCOME THAT IS ALLOWED BY LAW FROM YOUR INCOME TAX. EVERY GODDAMN THING.
“Oh really?” You may be asking yourself. “Why bother with the headache of line items all over the place? I just Turbo-Tax that motherfucker and BAM! Done and DONE!”
Well, I’ll tell you why. Quite simple really: if you own property and you take the “standard deduction”, you are a sucker, a mark, an idiot, and there is a thick-as-thieves line forming at your doorstep to prove it.
DE-fucking-DUCT EVERYTHING YOU CAN.
It’s the ONLY way you’ll ever recoup all the fees, taxes and service charges associated with home ownership. The ONLY way. Because there are actual economic calculations involving the average amount of money that will be drained from an owner over the course of owning property in Texas. State/city/county/school taxes, Home Owners Insurance, utilities access (different from regular taxes), PMI, loan interest, various closing costs, appraisal fees, improvement application fees, re-construction application fees, and basic construction or recurring maintenance costs. The results of these calculations are extremely important to government and business alike (home sales and NEW home sales are two of the most watched measures of the domestic economy, and many believe they’ve been propping up our limping dollar for the past five years).
Not to impede anyone else’s campaign to purchase property, but there is a substantial vampire element that exists around every single inch of land ownership. The base assumption is that if you own land, you a) are responsible for all civic needs in all strata of civic need-dom wherever your property exists (theoretically, this responsibility translates to taxes based on your portion of “value owned” within whatever civic area). So, if the civic area decides that it needs some big-ass expensive shit that you don’t want, you’re pitching in regardless, for the greater good, whether you can actually afford to or not (roots of gentrification). And b) you are a willing teat for the throngs of little baby businesses that require your cash-laden milk. Just like death, it's coming. And you'll pay up goddamnit. One way, or another.
If you rented an apartment next door instead of owning your home, you would not be paying any of this directly, but your rent would probably go up proportionately to the owner’s increase in cost burden. So, in effect, whoever has the money to begin with, pays it in the end.
My current vampire element is PMI insurance. This is an obnoxious little fee which is borderline impossible to get around. The idea is this: if someone gets a loan to buy a domicile (not necessarily a house on land, could be a condo in space), the bank making the loan wants some reassurance that the buyer is serious about the purchase, and is responsible enough to take care of both the land and the loan payments. If the buyer can produce 20% of the cost of purchase (NOT 20% OF THE VALUE OF THE PROPERTY, because the bank will assume purchase price to be the “real value”, even if the price is WAY under market), then it will make the bank comfortable with the partnership, and it won’t require some loan service insurance, which is what PMI is. If you skip payments because you’re irresponsible or you keep losing jobs or develop a crack habit or whatever, the PMI bearer jumps in and covers the loan payment for you. Technically.
I’ve never known anyone who actually got to use this service because as soon as you cease making payments, your shit goes under lien, and is eventually repossessed, whether you have PMI or not. So it’s not an actual insurance.
It’s a fucking “you don’t gots enough cash up front for this shit” fee.
Now it used to be that once your principal payments (itty bitty portion of your initial interest-weighted mortgage payments) knocked that loan-to-purchase-price ratio to less than 80/20, the PMI would cease. Well, that 80/20 can move around based on all kinds of black-box factors, never in favor of the owner, to prolong the “necessity” of the fee. But IF you magically get the ratio in your favor, and IF you’ve owned your property for more than a year BUT NO MORE than five (five? How the fuck is someone going to pay 20% down on the principal of a mortgage when 90% of their mortgage payment goes to interest? Eh? Good scam), and you’ve had NO late payments in the last two years (basically: EVER), then you qualify to have a REAPPRAISAL (the fee doesn’t just “disappear”). And this reappraisal can ONLY be done through the bank’s “preferred” reappraisal service. “Preferred” makes it sound like there are options, with some being more “preferred” than others, but this is not the case. Here, “preferred” translates to “only”.
Lucky for you, according to the material sent to you by the bank, that reappraisal only costs $300 for an average single family home on an average size/shaped plot of land in an average area of town. If your property falls out of any of the those “averages” (80% of all properties in existence fall out of such averages) then it will likely cost more. But since they don’t specify what any of that means, you won’t know how much your reappraisal will cost until you request it, and then some dude comes out to wander around with a clipboard.
Oh, and you have to request it. Otherwise, it is likely that they will just continue charging the PMI fee forever, and you’ll never meet “Chuck” from Waco and his nifty, yet sometimes broken tape measurer (the only tool apparently necessary for granular property appraisal).
After the request, the bank sends you a fee notification which states that it will cost $350, not $300. You’ll likely ignore this, thinking “inflation’s a bitch!” but this dismissal is the start of your downfall. Forms accompany the fee notification. So you fill out the long forms with lots of information about you and your property, and then fax (fax? Seriously? Is this 1987 or what?) over payment information. BEFORE any reappraisal process begins.
They call a day later to set up a physical appraisal.
Then the dude shows up at your crib on the appointed date, and pokes around for a whopping five minutes. Scribbles shit on Xeroxed forms and doodles some floor plans. He’ll probably use your bathroom. Then he leaves.
A week later, you’ll get another letter telling you that it’s $500 instead of $350 because your property is outside one of many “averages”. Big surprise.
Defeated and deflated, because in the midst of the time that has already passed during this process, the cost for reappraisal has jumped 66%, AND you’ve paid yet another PMI. Awesome.
You go ahead with the hike in reappraisal fees because hey, they’ve probably already finished the damned thing and were just waiting to juice you for even MORE cash. Painfully evident.
Once you fax (again with the goddamn faxing) your agreement to the higher cost, you call the bank to get an e.t.a. on when the reappraisal will be done. They tell you 10 to 14 business days (two to three weeks) before they receive the report from their “preferred” appraiser. Then they’ll “process” that report between 7 and 10 business days (two more weeks) and get back to you. IF the reappraised amount puts you ABOVE the necessary value ratio, they will begin the process for the removal of PMI. If not, they’ll simply collect the $500 and tell you to go hate-fuck yourself. Sucker.
You won’t even ask how long the “process for the removal” might take, because you already know it’ll be “x to 10 business days”, pushing into at least two more PMI payments in the interim, and you just don’t give a shit anymore. But you do ask whether or not they would refund any PMI payments made between the actual DAY of the reappraisal (a good month or two before they decide on the fate of your PMI payment plan), which is the real day at which the new value was calculated, and the day they notify you that there is no longer a need for this fee.
They will tell you no. You will ask why not. They will tell you “because we already collected those payments before the decision was made.” To which you’ll respond “well then I don’t see your company’s motivation to expedite this process.” And they’ll reply, rather cheerily that “we don’t want you to be paying PMI any longer than you need to, so we would get rid of the payment as soon as possible.” Fried, and amazed at the ridiculousness of such a dumbass statement, you’ll retort “well, that doesn’t make any sense considering YOU decide when YOU get to stop collecting this fee from me, and you won’t be returning any you collect in the interim of this process.” Noting your sliding interest in the whole thing, they’ll craftily say “sir, we don’t want you to be paying anything you don’t have to, so we’ll stop collecting the fee as soon as we know that.”
With your mind wandering off to lunch land, tired of trying to figure out why it is that you must endure this bullshit graft, you decline further discussion of the matter.
And go take a long poop to cleanse your soul, realizing that you WILL pay up, one way or goddamn other. But you’ll keep trying. And collecting all those receipts and tax write-off notations for this year’s dance with the tax man.
Some people believe that getting what is called a 80/20 loan* will get you out of paying PMI. And it will. But it will replace that PMI fee with higher interest loan fee, which will be either equal or more than the PMI fee in the long run. And it will be paid to the same bank and its “preferred” coalition of fee collectors. Best case scenario for you, the budding real estate impresario: a wash. Worst case: you’ll pay MORE in the net, but think you’re so smart that your bigger brain got you around those pesky tricksters! But no. Not even close. Awesome.
*this is a two-part home purchase loan scheme where you put NO money down on a purchase, put 80% of the thing into a long-term regular mortgage loan, and then borrow the other 20% at a higher rate (because it’s technically a signature loan) to fill in for the 20% necessary to avoid paying PMI. Theoretically this might work, but it never actually does.
Monday, September 11, 2006
As I Do Every Year.
Frozen
That’s what the Big Apple has become.
I am writing this email to let those who I have yet to verbally contact. I am alive, and well (other than a slight cough). As for the others in my midst:
Those who are definitely safe:
Allen
Chuck
Minna
Robert
Carolyne and John
Those that I'm not yet sure of:
Erik
Lisa
**If anyone has heard from these two, please let me know.
My cellular phone was barely of use before the one decent cell tower toppled to the Manhattan street-top (it sat upon the World Trade Center Tower 1, the first to be hit, second to fall), now it has become a paperweight. So, many of you have yet to speak with me. I'm writing an email instead.
I was nowhere near the towers as they were attacked. I just finished up my packing, preparing to catch my noon flight out of La Guardia Airport. I was making myself a nice, health-free egg, cheese, and raspberry jam sandwich as the news was announced.
For those of you unfamiliar with where I've been staying: Greenpoint, Brooklyn (Northern Brooklyn). Greenpoint is too far from the Financial District of Manhattan for me to hear any of the explosions. I watched the live film of the first hit: Tower 1 was on fire, when another plane appeared out of the corner of the screen. The newscasters became hysteric, and I had the misfortune of viewing the second hit on live TV. "Surreal" is a useless word to describe how it felt to watch that. Confused, shocked, confused, distressed, confused, angry, confused, doubting, confused as hell. While "WHAT THE FUCK??!!!" is not a proper, or acceptable way to describe a feeling, it fits best.
From there I ran outside to the Pulaski Bridge (a bridge between Northern Brooklyn and Queens, just across the east river from midtown Manhattan) to see if this was really happening.
The view was fabulous. What I was viewing was not.
The smoke from the fires stretched for miles. The bridge was packed with honking cars, and cursing or crying people. Strangers were hugging and praying, if they weren't too busy listening to radios.
After a few minutes, the mood of the crowd seemed to be turning a bit nasty. The traffic was thick, cellular phones weren't working, news was coming in that other strategic locations were under siege... it was an emotional pressure cooker. On top of all that, there were very few police on the bridge. It felt like the beginning of Bedlam. I left out of discomfort.
As soon as I returned to the house, reports came in that a third plane was in route for another Manhattan landing. I ran like hell back to the bridge to see if this was true. I don't know if another plane was indeed on its way, but upon reaching my viewing spot, there was a muffled BOOM and Tower 2 crumbled to the ground like a kicked sand castle. People began crying, praying, screaming, grabbing the chain-link fence that lined the bridge, and running around like lunatics. Cars were flying down the only open lane on the three-lane bridge, honking and careening as if suicidal. The sound of sirens, in every direction.
About 15 minutes after that, Tower 1 dropped in much the same manner as its "twin". Most of us just sat there, staring at rising clouds of dust which ruthlessly pushed north from ground zero. The insanity ended. Everyone tried to comprehend that the World Trade Center had instantly become nothing but a memory, right in front of our eyes. The only noise was the continued sound of sirens. Everyone slowly dispersed. I walked home, looking only at the ground. I didn't want to cry. I didn't want to see anyone else cry.
We don't have cable, so we only watch the local CBS station. They constantly talk about how well the city is pulling together to get through this. They aren't kidding. Based on my previous experiences here, that bridge should have erupted in raw violence. Instead, everyone prayed for each other's loved ones, asked where they could go to donate blood, and discussed the ramifications this event will have on US relations, worldwide. For once, I was impressed with the intellectual side, and capacity for compassion shown by New Yorkers.
The Polish inhabitants of my neighborhood are in "WAR MODE". The neighborhood is pitch-black. Not a single light was on after 9:30pm. Quiet... Our neighborhood is playing night-time hide-and-go-seek with terrorists, holding our breath and remaining perfectly still, so as to not give away our position. I suppose they are worried about another air attack. I don't blame them. But I'm more worried about the potential for certain elements in this city to take advantage of the fact that most authorities have their attentions on Manhattan, leaving the outer boroughs vulnerable. This city was built, maintained, and will proceed through the acts of opportunists.
If Brooklyn survives itself the next two nights, along with the possibility of subsequent attacks, I'll be thoroughly impressed by the strength of those living in New York on September 11, 2001.
The only memories of this that I would like to purge are those of the desperate souls who found it more fitting to plummet 100 stories to the pavement rather than succumb to the inferno. It was reported that some were jumping in pairs, man and woman, holding hands, all the way down. I hope CNN chose to leave that footage out of their reports. It will visit me in my dreams, to be sure. I'll be back in Austin, soon. I'm just glad I booked a flight for noon out of La Guardia today, instead of earlier out of Newark.
>> Craig
That’s what the Big Apple has become.
I am writing this email to let those who I have yet to verbally contact. I am alive, and well (other than a slight cough). As for the others in my midst:
Those who are definitely safe:
Allen
Chuck
Minna
Robert
Carolyne and John
Those that I'm not yet sure of:
Erik
Lisa
**If anyone has heard from these two, please let me know.
My cellular phone was barely of use before the one decent cell tower toppled to the Manhattan street-top (it sat upon the World Trade Center Tower 1, the first to be hit, second to fall), now it has become a paperweight. So, many of you have yet to speak with me. I'm writing an email instead.
I was nowhere near the towers as they were attacked. I just finished up my packing, preparing to catch my noon flight out of La Guardia Airport. I was making myself a nice, health-free egg, cheese, and raspberry jam sandwich as the news was announced.
For those of you unfamiliar with where I've been staying: Greenpoint, Brooklyn (Northern Brooklyn). Greenpoint is too far from the Financial District of Manhattan for me to hear any of the explosions. I watched the live film of the first hit: Tower 1 was on fire, when another plane appeared out of the corner of the screen. The newscasters became hysteric, and I had the misfortune of viewing the second hit on live TV. "Surreal" is a useless word to describe how it felt to watch that. Confused, shocked, confused, distressed, confused, angry, confused, doubting, confused as hell. While "WHAT THE FUCK??!!!" is not a proper, or acceptable way to describe a feeling, it fits best.
From there I ran outside to the Pulaski Bridge (a bridge between Northern Brooklyn and Queens, just across the east river from midtown Manhattan) to see if this was really happening.
The view was fabulous. What I was viewing was not.
The smoke from the fires stretched for miles. The bridge was packed with honking cars, and cursing or crying people. Strangers were hugging and praying, if they weren't too busy listening to radios.
After a few minutes, the mood of the crowd seemed to be turning a bit nasty. The traffic was thick, cellular phones weren't working, news was coming in that other strategic locations were under siege... it was an emotional pressure cooker. On top of all that, there were very few police on the bridge. It felt like the beginning of Bedlam. I left out of discomfort.
As soon as I returned to the house, reports came in that a third plane was in route for another Manhattan landing. I ran like hell back to the bridge to see if this was true. I don't know if another plane was indeed on its way, but upon reaching my viewing spot, there was a muffled BOOM and Tower 2 crumbled to the ground like a kicked sand castle. People began crying, praying, screaming, grabbing the chain-link fence that lined the bridge, and running around like lunatics. Cars were flying down the only open lane on the three-lane bridge, honking and careening as if suicidal. The sound of sirens, in every direction.
About 15 minutes after that, Tower 1 dropped in much the same manner as its "twin". Most of us just sat there, staring at rising clouds of dust which ruthlessly pushed north from ground zero. The insanity ended. Everyone tried to comprehend that the World Trade Center had instantly become nothing but a memory, right in front of our eyes. The only noise was the continued sound of sirens. Everyone slowly dispersed. I walked home, looking only at the ground. I didn't want to cry. I didn't want to see anyone else cry.
We don't have cable, so we only watch the local CBS station. They constantly talk about how well the city is pulling together to get through this. They aren't kidding. Based on my previous experiences here, that bridge should have erupted in raw violence. Instead, everyone prayed for each other's loved ones, asked where they could go to donate blood, and discussed the ramifications this event will have on US relations, worldwide. For once, I was impressed with the intellectual side, and capacity for compassion shown by New Yorkers.
The Polish inhabitants of my neighborhood are in "WAR MODE". The neighborhood is pitch-black. Not a single light was on after 9:30pm. Quiet... Our neighborhood is playing night-time hide-and-go-seek with terrorists, holding our breath and remaining perfectly still, so as to not give away our position. I suppose they are worried about another air attack. I don't blame them. But I'm more worried about the potential for certain elements in this city to take advantage of the fact that most authorities have their attentions on Manhattan, leaving the outer boroughs vulnerable. This city was built, maintained, and will proceed through the acts of opportunists.
If Brooklyn survives itself the next two nights, along with the possibility of subsequent attacks, I'll be thoroughly impressed by the strength of those living in New York on September 11, 2001.
The only memories of this that I would like to purge are those of the desperate souls who found it more fitting to plummet 100 stories to the pavement rather than succumb to the inferno. It was reported that some were jumping in pairs, man and woman, holding hands, all the way down. I hope CNN chose to leave that footage out of their reports. It will visit me in my dreams, to be sure. I'll be back in Austin, soon. I'm just glad I booked a flight for noon out of La Guardia today, instead of earlier out of Newark.
>> Craig
Thursday, September 07, 2006
Tribute to the [Original] Jack Black
This time the lights will shine on to him like the gods themselves aimed wildernessed lanterns to catch him, the snipe. The drifter from days of rail riding, scripts, and bonfires fueled by gallons of confusing gin. In and out of the houses, property under arm, talking of clouds and the wherewithal to transcend those filthy walls, built around himself with more robusted gusto than the prison cells he has squared off against on so many occasions.
The constructed confines of the confused mind.
Six bucks and a pocket watch need to be stowed for future times where hunger will be his most common bedfellow. The broad expanses that exist between track lines are the gaps where his life takes its cues. These are the places where the beggar becomes king. These are the places where property is but a concept used only to describe their means to their ends. Other people’s property. Other people’s available property. The trade for the means, the gin, the opiates, the soup, and the rope. That’s what the concept boils down to out there. And those are the only measures which require thought. Those are the points he works to make. At least until yesterday.
This morning is different, and he knows it. There has never been a real sense that the beginnings of his days have ever been the beginning of anything really significant. Just another short-lived opportunity to build a short-term opportunity.
Or to shoot it into his veins.
But today has its very own feel. Something different. Something about the lights, those lights that will find him and show him for what he knows he really is. The ‘him’ he’s been running from for so long. The ‘him’ that will not be understood when they come calling with their incessant “who”s and “how”s and “why”s. He knows he will be lost in their attack. Their push for answers to questions he has never bothered to ask himself. How can a man answer questions they’ve never posed to themselves? How can this be done? How did it come to this?
Worse than that, they’ll ask about the stains on his hands. And he’ll have to ask himself about those stains on those hands. The hammed hands of a man who has spanned his time with no damned plans.
The constructed confines of the confused mind.
Six bucks and a pocket watch need to be stowed for future times where hunger will be his most common bedfellow. The broad expanses that exist between track lines are the gaps where his life takes its cues. These are the places where the beggar becomes king. These are the places where property is but a concept used only to describe their means to their ends. Other people’s property. Other people’s available property. The trade for the means, the gin, the opiates, the soup, and the rope. That’s what the concept boils down to out there. And those are the only measures which require thought. Those are the points he works to make. At least until yesterday.
This morning is different, and he knows it. There has never been a real sense that the beginnings of his days have ever been the beginning of anything really significant. Just another short-lived opportunity to build a short-term opportunity.
Or to shoot it into his veins.
But today has its very own feel. Something different. Something about the lights, those lights that will find him and show him for what he knows he really is. The ‘him’ he’s been running from for so long. The ‘him’ that will not be understood when they come calling with their incessant “who”s and “how”s and “why”s. He knows he will be lost in their attack. Their push for answers to questions he has never bothered to ask himself. How can a man answer questions they’ve never posed to themselves? How can this be done? How did it come to this?
Worse than that, they’ll ask about the stains on his hands. And he’ll have to ask himself about those stains on those hands. The hammed hands of a man who has spanned his time with no damned plans.
Friday, August 11, 2006
Now They Done Fucked With My Freedoms
GODDAMNIT. Fucking terrorists have seriously ruined life for the rest of us this time. When they were just bombing buildings and randomly murdering whoever they felt would forward their shitheadedly self-absorbed “Me-me-me! Look at me! I’m being repressed!” cause, I honestly felt comfortable ignoring them. Sure, my card could get drawn at any old time, and I could be killed by some chick whose family needed the cash, or she was developmentally disabled and easily convinced, or perhaps she even met me one time at a Burger King back in 1995 and didn’t like the cut of my jib.
Whatever.
I was cool knowing that there are (still) random assholes out there who have nothing better to do than complain about their plight with explosives as their voice. Humans are really, really stupid that way. Plus, we’re extremely self-destructive, even without the whole “martyr”, “I’M THE VICTIM HERE”, “by any means necessary”, “jihad, bitches!”, or “Operation ____-ing _____” as a catch phrase.
But this whole no-carry-on-luggage thing is total bullshit. Total. Bullshit.
The “terrorists” have crossed the line now. Shit’s gotten personal. Mad-personal, yo. [That’s ghetto-speak, only used when one is “fittin’ to RAISE UP!”.] Do these terroristas have any idea how often the jackass companies, who own the planes their trying to destroy, LOSE my goddamn luggage? Once is too often. But anyone who has traveled would be ecstatic if they had only ONCE experienced the maddening dealings with douche-balloon airline carrier agents over how exactly one’s luggage could manage to end up in a more interesting destination than the owner did.
Having had some important shit get re-routed on a couple of occasions, I started carrying anything of actual value (if you actually GET your luggage back, and find it has been pillaged, you’re pretty much shit out of luck unless you complain for fifteen years and the value of your crap is below their pain threshold: the approximate value of a used Timex Ironman watch) in a carry-on so as to avoid getting stuck in a foreign country with NOTHING but my dick in my hand.
This is solely because airlines LOSE luggage. It’s somewhere in their Corporate By-Laws. Their charter with Federal Aviation. It probably has a well-known and well-worn term in their industry: “Baggage Attrition”, "Cyclical Mishandling", "Fuck It Man, Reading Isn't Fundamental" or some such nonsense.
Shit. And now the foreign “terrorists” are in cahoots with the domestic "air carriers", combining forces like the Wonder Twins of Fucktard Evolutionomics in a concerted effort to send my shit to Trinidad every time I fly to Chicago. And I can't even bring a fifth of bourbon onto the flight anymore? Have you ever tried to drink enough of those $5 thimble-sized bottles to ENJOY a shit-stank flight on Northwest Airlines? Have you? That's easily four million dollars in cash you'll need to be carrying with you, and you can no longer carry it in a goddamn bag.
Thank your Allah, Baby Jesus, Fred Flinstone or whoever you cry to every night, for me.
Fuckers.
Whatever.
I was cool knowing that there are (still) random assholes out there who have nothing better to do than complain about their plight with explosives as their voice. Humans are really, really stupid that way. Plus, we’re extremely self-destructive, even without the whole “martyr”, “I’M THE VICTIM HERE”, “by any means necessary”, “jihad, bitches!”, or “Operation ____-ing _____” as a catch phrase.
But this whole no-carry-on-luggage thing is total bullshit. Total. Bullshit.
The “terrorists” have crossed the line now. Shit’s gotten personal. Mad-personal, yo. [That’s ghetto-speak, only used when one is “fittin’ to RAISE UP!”.] Do these terroristas have any idea how often the jackass companies, who own the planes their trying to destroy, LOSE my goddamn luggage? Once is too often. But anyone who has traveled would be ecstatic if they had only ONCE experienced the maddening dealings with douche-balloon airline carrier agents over how exactly one’s luggage could manage to end up in a more interesting destination than the owner did.
Having had some important shit get re-routed on a couple of occasions, I started carrying anything of actual value (if you actually GET your luggage back, and find it has been pillaged, you’re pretty much shit out of luck unless you complain for fifteen years and the value of your crap is below their pain threshold: the approximate value of a used Timex Ironman watch) in a carry-on so as to avoid getting stuck in a foreign country with NOTHING but my dick in my hand.
This is solely because airlines LOSE luggage. It’s somewhere in their Corporate By-Laws. Their charter with Federal Aviation. It probably has a well-known and well-worn term in their industry: “Baggage Attrition”, "Cyclical Mishandling", "Fuck It Man, Reading Isn't Fundamental" or some such nonsense.
Shit. And now the foreign “terrorists” are in cahoots with the domestic "air carriers", combining forces like the Wonder Twins of Fucktard Evolutionomics in a concerted effort to send my shit to Trinidad every time I fly to Chicago. And I can't even bring a fifth of bourbon onto the flight anymore? Have you ever tried to drink enough of those $5 thimble-sized bottles to ENJOY a shit-stank flight on Northwest Airlines? Have you? That's easily four million dollars in cash you'll need to be carrying with you, and you can no longer carry it in a goddamn bag.
Thank your Allah, Baby Jesus, Fred Flinstone or whoever you cry to every night, for me.
Fuckers.
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