Helicopter crash landed on "my" building

[James Thomas Rook Jr.]

...... I forgot to mention the acrobats, jugglers, and veiled belly dancers ....

[JW Insider]

On 6/21/2019 at 8:52 AM, James Thomas Rook Jr. said:

Money does not impress me, but if I had enough of it . . . .

Not that I understand your reasons for the locomotive/circus, but the line "money does not impress me" reminds me of a group of us (6) driving in a rented van just a few hours ago. As it turns out, due to a "Grammys" connection, I am right now in a hotel in Beverly Hills for the wedding of a singer/songwriter who is also a dear friend of my daughter. Actually the father is the more internationally famous singer/songwriter (Bill Withers). The wedding was in the same hotel and the reception is going on right now and will last until about 1 am. It's a completely "worldly" wedding, very tasteful but ostentatiously expensive.

At any rate, as we are driving through a Beverly Hills residential area to get here (from the Beverly Hilton past the Beverly Hills Hotel) we were in a neighborhood where the average house cost $50,000,000 and we passed up one that was for sale. My daughter joked that it was for sale for only $35,000,000. I told her she should be embarrassed for even knowing that fact, because it meant she had looked it up earlier. (She had passed it up yesterday because she drove here last night for a rehearsal dinner, and it caught her eye, so she looked it up later just for fun.) 

Personally, I can't imagine having anywhere near that much, because of all the good friends who would definitely be getting chunks of it. (Of course, having 35 million doesn't mean one could afford a house that costs that much, because over the next few years it would cost ANOTHER 35 million for maintenance and taxes. Missing this point has bankrupted many an entertainer, athlete or lottery winner who lost/stopped their income immediately after such a purchase.)

You can make beauty even more beautiful with money, and the beauty can be impressive, but it isn't necessarily worth the extra expense because purely natural beauty can be just as pretty, even if less "concentrated." My wife and I visited the Huntington Library on our first day here on Wednesday. (Our 39th anniversary.) I visited it alone several years ago to see my first major exhibit of the Dead Sea Scrolls, and I was surprised to see that this "library" is actually a set of art galleries and exhibitions set on the property of one of the top botanical gardens in the country. It's a huge place of beauty and many of the hundreds of different species of flowers and trees and other plants are discreetly labeled so you know what you're looking at.

But the worldly attitudes toward money became very apparent at the hotel. We went up to the pool on the roof, and felt very out of place. Most of the visitors are merely "on display" never intending to go in the water. And, for some of the more female-looking types, I doubt their tiny thongs would even hold up if they got wet anyway. It's as if even people with a lot of money can't just be comfortable with it, even in laid-back California. They still have to make a showy display of it, speaking very pretentiously, holding their drinks pretentiously, etc, etc. They hope other persons will be just as impressed with their expensive style as they are with their own. Seems no one is really satisfied.

[TrueTomHarley]

11 minutes ago, JW Insider said:

We went up to the pool on the roof, and felt very out of place. Most of the visitors are merely "on display" never intending to go in the water. And, for some of the more female-looking types, I doubt their tiny thongs would even hold up if they got wet anyway. It's as if even people with a lot of money can't just be comfortable with it, even in laid-back California. They still have to make a showy display of it, speaking very pretentiously, holding their drinks pretentiously, etc, etc. They hope other persons will be just as impressed with their expensive style as they are with their own. Seems no one is really satisfied.

“How does it feeeel, to be on you own, 

with no direction hoooome,

like a rolling stooone.”

[JW Insider]

11 minutes ago, TrueTomHarley said:

“How does it feeeel, to be on you own,

Me missus wants to open up the castle in Capri. 🏰 Mmmmmmmmmm. 🙄

[Melinda Mills]

1 hour ago, JW Insider said:

Personally, I can't imagine having anywhere near that much, because of all the good friends who would definitely be getting chunks of it. (Of course, having 35 million doesn't mean one could afford a house that costs that much, because over the next few years it would cost ANOTHER 35 million for maintenance and taxes. Missing this point has bankrupted many an entertainer, athlete or lottery winner who lost/stopped their income immediately after such a purchase.)

Many persons don't have the thinking ability  to come to the conclusion mentioned in the last sentence.  They usually learn by trial and error (often refusing to listen or without asking for advice from those with experience) and the aftermath is usually worse than when they were living a simple unpretentious life.

One has to examine himself/herself also as to why we might wish to share this kind of experience, as that in itself could also be a showy display. Are we too secretly impressed with this state of affairs?  The heart is treacherous.

[TrueTomHarley]

3 hours ago, JW Insider said:

At any rate, as we are driving through a Beverly Hills residential area to get here (from the Beverly Hilton past the Beverly Hills Hotel) we were in a neighborhood where the average house cost $50,000,000 and we passed up one that was for sale. My daughter joked that it was for sale for only $35,000,000. 

"A week later I was working on Pretencia Pond Way with Tom and Pearl Pearlsnswine, and also Bill Ding. I was already off to a bad start. It’s always dicey working in the same car group with Tom Pearlsnswine. I knew he’d do something outrageous. He always does. More than once I’ve vowed never to work with him again, but I always repent....As we cruised by the massive homes of Pretencia Pond Way, where the only Bible to be found in many is Consumer Reports, I watched uneasily in the mirror as Tom’s brow darkened. He began to mutter under his breath and presently erupted: “I don’t know how it happened! The pigs have escaped from the barn and they’re in the farmer’s house!” He is such an idiot!"

- Tom Irregardless and Me

If I ever rewrite this, I will include the detail that Pearlsnswines live in the trailer park. Actually, I think I have included that somewhere.

[James Thomas Rook Jr.]

Sorry for the strange type style, but I am down in the basement of my Super-Yacht, in the money bin where all the gold coins are stored, with my picture on the front, and Warwick HQ on the back, trying to get the bulldozer unstuck from the escalator landing up to the pontoon helicopter landing pad/olympic swimming pool.

I try to lead a simple life, but it is so hard to get good help, nowadays!

 

[JW Insider]

4 hours ago, Melinda Mills said:

One has to examine himself/herself also as to why we might wish to share this kind of experience, as that in itself could also be a showy display. Are we too secretly impressed with this state of affairs?  The heart is treacherous.

Hmmm. You probably found some good counsel for me on that one. The beauty of some of these places really was impressive to me, especially the Huntington Library (Gardens). And so was the wedding, with "bowers of flowers" and other decorations everywhere. Also, I was not just "secretly" impressed either, as I gladly admitted it out loud. And, of course, I am also secretly impressed that all this "free vacation" for a week, cost me no more than the plane flight, as everything else was paid for -- through no merit of my own.

(I paid for the plane ticket because my wife and I were coming out here anyway for an "anniversary trip" -- which mostly means that I am out here installing an automatic "lift" in the back of my parents' car so that my mother doesn't have to push my father's electric wheelchair/scooter up an aluminum ramp at a too steep an angle anymore. [She's afraid to just put it in gear and let it drive up the ramp by itself.] My father usually uses a walker, but for assemblies and other places with a lot of walking, he uses the scooter.)

[Melinda Mills]

Nice to hear of the work you did to facilitate your mother's comfort.

Sometimes just attending one of these functions is a high point in one's life in that under normal circumstances one might not get to experience it.  In 2001 I got invited to my uncle's wedding (not a Witness) (he got married for the third time to a socialite). It was the best spread I ever saw.  It was in a garden with water pools with lights shining in the water, and food stations every couple of yards - items of the richest quality. So I always remember it, and can also say I was really impressed.  That same year I  had two other very impressive invitations - one theocratic, one in connection with secular work - which I would not mention here. I always remember them. I am still wondering how I was selected.

In God's new system these things would be regular occasions, I believe, but we might still show great appreciation for an invitation to share with others. 

[Anna]

7 hours ago, JW Insider said:

I told her she should be embarrassed for even knowing that fact, because it meant she had looked it up earlier. (She had passed it up yesterday because she drove here last night for a rehearsal dinner, and it caught her eye, so she looked it up later just for fun.) 

One of my hobbies is "looking" at houses on real estate websites. Of course the ones I like to browse the most are the ones in Beverly Hills. My favorite ones are the mid century modern, inside and out. Not too keen on the pretend Tuscan villas. Some houses are so terrible inside, it's as if these people have the need to buy everything and anything just because they can. But evidently they can't buy good taste....

[Anna]

7 hours ago, JW Insider said:

Me missus wants to open up the castle in Capri. 🏰 Mmmmmmmmmm. 🙄

 YAWN

 

[JW Insider]

5 hours ago, TrueTomHarley said:

A week later I was working on Pretencia Pond Way with Tom and Pearl Pearlsnswine, and also Bill Ding. I was already off to a bad start.

We had an elder who would tell uninterested people who lived in beautiful houses that after Armageddon he was going to live in their house after they were gone. He was such a cut-up that he could get away with these antics, but still . . .