TRUE GRIT, ORIGINAL, TELLURIDE COLORADO, JOHN WAYNE IN RIDGWAY COLORADO

The opening scene in the original John Wayne classic western, is filmed at an old homestead building on Hastings Mesa, 33 miles from the ski resort of Telluride Colorado.  It was also filmed in Ridgway, Ouray, Lizard Head Pass, and the train scene in Silverton Colorado.  If you haven’t visited these towns, it is a must visit, your roadmap in life will change.  In the opening scene, which is quite lengthy, there is a shot of the Sneffles mountain range from the homestead home, which still stands to this day.  The mountain vista, shows an area on the south end of the Sneffles, that contains 3 avalanche chutes, and a mystical high mountain basin to the left.  Birdman had seen this movie in Fishermans Wharf, San Francisco, in the late 60′s.  He had no idea he would end up pioneering the ski mountain at Telluride, and lived the life of adventure on the ski patrol, raising a girl who had True Grit, hiked, and camped in the 100 miles of wild mountain country around Telluride.  He owned land a half mile from this homestead, and always remembered the scene of John Wayne at the end of the movie, jumping the cross fence, by the homestead home.  The Sneffles were landlocked by the Marie Scott ranch, 10 miles of magnificent high country.  She was a cow girl of 82 years, an eccentric looking lady, 4’11″ tall, with large rouge cheeks and real western clothes, and a real old cow girl hat.  She would occasionally appear at the San Miguel county courthouse in Telluride, an amazing sight for anyone lucky enough to be there.  Birdman recently watched the original True Grit movie with his daughter who grew up in Telluride, a lucky girl, amongst other lucky girls who loved the mountains.  The movie brought back endless memories of wild hikes in areas of the National Forest, that were rarely hiked by anyone.  Birdman had a clear memory of a hike that he took, from his land on Hastings Mesa, that two hours later, ended up in the high basin filmed in the movie, above the Marie Scott ranch.  The basin was mystical, since no one ever hikes into it, the terrain is too rugged and remote.  As he approached the basin he saw one of the most amazing wildlife phenomenon he had ever seen, through his binoculars.  There were 45 head of giant antlered mule deer, bedded down at the top of timberline in the high country basin.  The antlers ranged from 30 inches to 40 inches, and looked like the magnificent red stags you occasionally see in a painting of the Stags of Hungary and Czechoslovakia.  As birdman approached, the entire herd slowly got up, and walked up the mountain, like mountain goats, never to be seen again.  The John Wayne movie, that is shown quite often on the western movie channel, can bring back memories to those who lived the early days, pioneering the ski town of Telluride.  Watch the original, the scenery is the best there is in the high country of the American West, and it takes true grit to live there.

ASPEN, JUDAS DUCK HEDGE FUND MANAGER

The greed punks of Wall street have done it again.  At a recent talk to the University Club in Manhattan, a Judas Duck hedge fund manager, told his audience to “Buy a home now, buy two if you can, buy three, and buy one for your relatives.”  Then, with an ultimate display of hubris, he exclaimed to the gathered clapping seals, “These homes will definitely go up in value.”  There was a roar of laughter in the audience and one guy who probably lost millions of dollars listening to these hedge fund jerks before the meltdown, stood up and yelled “Judas Duck”!! at the speaker. Not one other person in the audience knew what a Judas Duck was, but laughed anyway at the combination of words.  I am surprised that the speaker did not yell out the words “Iconic Opportunity” to the assembled group, using the Madison Avenue, “In” word being used by desperate salesmen, with limited vocabularies.  This hedge fund speaker is either too dumb to pour urine out of his wing tipped shoes, or he has now found a job as a real estate agent in Aspen Colorado.  The guy then flew to Aspen and dropped out of a plane with his golden parachute, and closed on a home for 24.5 million greenbacks.  This story has become a common theme after the meltdown on Wall street.  First you rob the street, the American public, then you use the big getaway to Aspen to Buy a trophy home, throw your suit in a town dumpster, and buy some ski bum clothes.  The new Aspen Red Onion Saloon is full of these new greedheads, expatriates who brag about the Big Heist and getaway, like ski bums in the old days used to brag about their powder skiing exploits in beer gulch.  Some smart people are offering 50 cents on the dollar for homes in Aspen, and getting them.  This guy apparently  is either dumb or he wanted to up his bragging rights at cocktail parties on Red Mountain, so when he mentions he bought a home for 24.5 million, the heads of every gold digger in the room whiplash in his direction like a pointing Labrador dog.  The beat goes on, the drum beat of greed, arrogance, hubris, where some are impressed.  Who will lead us out of this phony mess?  Perhaps a new novelist, sent from the gods,  will launch us into a new era , along with deep insights like a Mark Twain or a Faulkner or a Thomas Wolfe from Asheville for our century, and replace the amateurs and escaped bank robbers, with some real wisdom.  This new style of living will not be found from the hedge fund guys at the Red Onion.

SKI TOWN ECONOMIC DISASTER, ASPEN, TELLURIDE

“The real estate business in ski towns has not stalled, it has vanished.”  This quote came from the CEO of Intra West Corporation.  Their land sales after 2007 went to zero, and their ski town business totally vanished, with condo sales becoming a thing of the past.  They have attempted to enter the beach resort business, with very little growth.  They were a major warning to all ski town corporations.  The recent Outiside Magazine article on ski towns, quotes the environmental expert for the Aspen Ski Corporation as being very worried about the future of the business, he is concerned about global warming and lack of new skiers.
 Intra West Corporation owned 6 major ski areas in 2008, when their sales dropped to zero, and they eventually sold most of their ski areas, and are now considering filing chapter 13 bankruptcy.  The Meltdown disaster in Telluride and Aspen is almost as bad.  Despite the hype artists and con men like the Judas Duck Telluride Association of Realtors, who came out with a rosy analysis recently, the agents in both of these towns are hurting badly.  The foreclosure list is a who is a has been of local brokers.  Debt on properties recorded at the clerk and recorders office of San Miguel and Pitkin county, looks like Armageddon is near.  How can an agent who made $100,000 per year up to 2007, and now makes 20% of that if they work twice as much and are part of the few, pay off a million dollar note and trust deed in their lifetime on their homes.  Is the Big Getaway planned?  Millionaires are leaving Aspen in droves, and are taking jobs as cab drivers and pizza delivery in major cities around the nation.  Wal-Mart applications are loaded with ex brokers.  Who is impressing who, with the estinaspen.com report that shows the sales each week, at 30% to 60% discounts to asking prices three years ago, and homes have been on the market for 3 year.  Volume in both ski towns is down 50% to 75% or more from 2007.  During the Gilded Age, ski town brokers could make huge commissions, own a home, and ranch and one or two investment properties, and travel anywhere in the world after a $146,000 commission with 3 hours of work, after a visit and referral in the local post office.  Landman knows of one agent who is down to $2.28 and cannot get food stamps due to a recent rare commission, and owes the IRS $125,000.  MLS? Who needs them?  How about SRP for ski towns, from the US Treasury.  A Stimulus Relief Package would require around 5 billion, along with SBA loans targeted to agents, around the nation, agents that have seen their lives destroyed by the greed heads on Wall Street.  Please step aside California, you had your chance for 60 years.  Two major hotels are under foreclosure in the Telluride Mountain Village, with more coming soon.  One hundred and ten properties are currently under foreclosure.  Bankruptcies are up 500%.  Wall Street punks working at the major large banks, did an amazing job of destroying the ski town USA real estate business.  Is there any way out of this mess for these family survivors of the Category Five hurricane, that hit in 2007 and continues endlessly?  Read my Economic Survival blog.

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MARILYN MONROE

BirdMan announced today to Wacko Wally that he was voting for Marilyn Monroe for every office, and Theodore Roosevelt in 2012 as a write in vote.  Wacko in his usual look of amazement shouted, “Why!!” BirdMan says, “Marilyn Monroe in her heyday was ten times sexier than todays sex symbols in Hollywood and Washington,  and most of the male vote goes for the hot lady, they are tired of politics as usual.”  “Marilyn would win easily over anyone, and we saw how well she could sing at JFK’s birthday party.”  Wacko yells “Why Teddy Roosevelt?”  BirdMan says, “Roosevelt set aside 350 million acres as National Forest land, we need more open space and public land, less ski areas”.  “He also would put the thieves on Wall Street in orange suits, and clean up the thieves in Congress.”  “He would also send the rough riders to the southern border to take on the drug thugs.”  Wacko was beside himself at this point, and tried to change the subject.  He says “You know, General Motors just dropped the Pontiac brand, for good, and $Bills black Pontiac should be placed in an auto museum.”  BirdMan says, “I agree, what a sad day for the American auto industry.”  They both headed off to vote in Wackos old jeep, a tire blew out and the engine blew up in the San Miguel Canyon.  Wacko says  “I wish Marilyn and Teddy Roosevelt were here today, we could use their help.”  End of conversation, a 6 point bull elk runs by from out of nowhere and runs across the San Miguel River.  Wacko exclaims, “There goes my elk for the season”.

THE ONLY REAL ICON IN AMERICAN HISTORY, GABBEY HAYES

In my previous blog regarding the blatant incorrect usage of the word ICON,  I suggested keeping a watch for the word, and gaining an insight into the user.  Lately I have seen the word used to describe the Golden Gate bridge, Madonna,  a jazz musician from New Orleans who started in a whore house, Clint Eastwood, Clint’s poncho in “The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly”, Budweiser beer and the brewers downfall and buyout, the wife and mother in Leave it to Beaver, and dozens of other nonsensical objects that have nothing to do with the Websters and Oxford Dictionary definition of correct usage, nor the original Greek and Latin origins, meaning “a likeness.”  A real estate agent in Telluride Colorado recently used the word icon to describe a parcel of dirt, a ranch, trying to tap into the modern marketing ploy which uses the word icon to describe autos, clothing lines, porn stars, sex symbols, actors, sports figures, writers, every judas duck marketing guru uses the word to gain some kind of recognition for their product.  It is part of the subtle brainwashing that Norman Mailer referred to in one of the last interviews with his son in the book, “The Big Empty.”  Mailer expresses the idea that corporate America has used subtle brainwashing techniques that are far better than those used by the Soviet Union, who could not sell atheism to the masses.  One of the worst examples of this pathetic display of the bad use of the English language, was in the late summer of 2010 when Chris Matthews of MSNBC described the Gulf oil disaster as an “Iconic catastrophe.”  It cannot possibly get any more sophomoric than that.  Has Matthews ever read  a book, has anyone ever seen him read anything?  I maintain and declare today, that there is only one icon in the entire history of America, aside from the religious images of Christ, seen in churches, painted on a wooden back ground.  Gabby Hayes, the western movie actor was and is now declared an Icon.  He had an unbelievably quick draw against the bad men in the movies, he walked in 4 directions at once, he looked like a hobo that just got off the train in the 30′s from a northbound out of Oklahoma, and he stuttered when he wanted to confuse outlaws and other cowboys.  If you saw one of his movies, as he walked through a barroom one night after a day of chasing outlaws, his image somehow flashed in the mirror behind the bar, and he had a profound similarity to Jesus Christ, full beard, angelic expression, and it flashed on a panel of wood on the wall.  Gabby Hayes, American western movie actor Icon, the only one that was real and lasting. 

 

ASPEN AND TELLURIDE SKI TOWN CELEBRITIES

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Birdman worked at the Elk Camp ski lift at SnowMass Ski Resort in the early 70′s.  There was comic relief  about 9 times a day, and some of the comedy came from famous television and movie stars.  The most hilarious was the day that Buddy Hackett careened off the top of the lift with a ski bum, engaged in a ferocious argument, and slammed into the skier, knocking both to the ground and a few other tourists.  Hackett got up, with his goggles wrapped around his neck, full of snow, and cursed the ski bum, waiving his ski poles in the air.  Jack, the lift operator ran over to calm things down, and a skier going up the next lift fell off his chair, attempting to watch the action, and slid down his partners legs, holding on 20 feet off the ground in front of the deck on the restaurant, loaded with tourists.  Jack found a ladder in a shed, leaned it against the lift cable, climbed up to the hanging victim, and helped lower him to the ground to the cheers of the watching tourists.  Buddy Hackett howled with laughter, and headed up the mountain.  A few weeks later, Birdman saw Lucille Ball attempt to get off the same lift.  She looked like a cave woman gathering lunch, with skies flying in every direction and slid into some tourists in a large pile.  The ski crowd at the deck enjoyed that pileup, with roars of laughter.  Birdman observed the following legends in the movie business.  Rock Hudson was seen in the early 60′s, walking around the base of Aspen Mountain, he looked like he just walked off the movie set of Giant, and still dressed to impress Elizabeth Taylor.  He wore a classic Bogner ski parka, which were highly coveted later on by the Telluride Ski Patrol, when the old style went out of production.  Birdman talked to  Buffy  and Jodie from the family TV series in the 60′s, in the infamous Red Onion Saloon, downtown Aspen.  They had gown up by then, and the conversation was quite interesting.  They no longer were little children, and were awed by the characters that hung for years in Beer Gulch, the famous Red Onion, where millions of pitchers of beer were gulped down to the Neil Diamond Tune, Cracklin Rose.  Birdman later saw Jack Nicholson wandering around Aspen near his West End home, and years later, talked to Jack in the Sheridan Bar in Telluride.  Birdman was amazed how many drinks old Jack consumed at one sitting, while he talked to local characters, Jack was an amazing character, and went through a gamut of facial expressions, that floored and scared everyone present.  Birdman also observed Clint Eastwood in Telluride walking in his famous long stride towards Colorado Boulevard, it reminded Birdman of his walks in ”The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly.”  He wore brown, hush puppy shoes, classic California walking shoes.  In Telluride, Birdman was hiking with a lang agent on Horsefly Mesa, and bumped into Darryl Hannah, who was walking a dog on a new adjustable leash.  She was unkempt, and looked like she had just crawled out of a sleeping bag from her tent.  She started whining about a road that a local developer had built too close to her 650 acres.  She started with one of those abrupt, conversation ending statements about the environment, with no real solutions.  Birdman could never believe how someone who owned 650 acres, given to them by their father,  Jerry Wexler, in the midst of multi millions of acres of National Forest land, could complain about anything.  She fit in well with locals in Telluride that whined about everything.   Bring a ghetto child to the mountains, and watch their eyes light up with joy and delight.  One of the most interesting Hollywood characters the Birdman witnessed in a panel discussion at the Telluride Film Festival, was Sterling Hayden, who talked about living the alcoholic life of adventure, and was a joy to see in person, the last of the era of Hemingway type men who drank, a brawler,  and hunted in Idaho and Africa.  Now we get Tom Cruise who is a sciontology, moron, how romantic and manly is that.  The days of Clark Gable, Errol Flynn, Allan Ladd, and Gary Cooper are over, the end of an amazing era, in Hollywood screen history.  Now we get computer animation, not the real deal like the movies, Mogambo, King Solomons Mines, or Shane.  Birdman hunted pheasants for several years outside of Montrose from Telluride, with Mike Carroll who was a professional hunting guide in Kenya for 27 years.  Carroll had hunted with Robert Ruark, author of Uhuru, and Hemingways son, the African Game Warden, and shot the charging elephant for the beginning scene in King Solomons Mines.  He lived the dangerous and adventurous life of a hunter, in Kenya, where now you cannot step foot in a wild game area.  Carroll was known in Kenya to finish off charging leopards that can leap 70 feet through the air, with a sawed off 10 gauge Purdy shotgun.  One girly man B movie actor from Tour of Duty, e on a dove shoot with Birdman and was disgusted by everything, including the air he was breathing.  He lived in smog filled Los Angeles and complained about the hunting of everything, and the pollution in the mountains.  How swell to hear a whining actor, mental midget, who lives near the freeway where pollution from rubber tires makes the air taste and smell like a Gary Indiana tire manufacturing plant.  “We are living in the Age of Amateurs, celebrities who have taken over the public dialogue instead of the wise writers of old,” Mailer says in his last interview with his son in “The Big Empty” book.  Were also living in the age of B movie actors, without wisdom, who show up in ski towns way too often.  Hey, is anyone looking for a trophy home, in Aspen or Telluride, where Daryl Hannah slept naked and upset in her dreams about the environment?

LIFE IS THE SATURDAY THAT ALWAYS COMES, BUT NEVER QUITE MAKES IT

“Life is the Saturday that always comes, yet never quite makes it.” Gene Shepherd, quote, WOR radio, Birdman travelling on the Jersey turnpike on the way to Greenwich Village in 1962.  The Saturday that Wacko Wally, $Bill and Hal and Al experienced at Babes Goose Farm near Cairo Illinois in the mid 70′s more than made it.  Wacko Wally was upset when he observed Hal and Al, two hit men for the Chicago mob, making their breakfast in the motel next door, heating an egg on a bunsen burner.  Wacko also became nervous when he observed two sawed off ten gauge shotguns as their weapons of choice leaning against the motel wall.  Later in the goose blind, Wacko appeared in a WWII camo outfit, with a camo cap right out of an Army surplus store in Cairo.  $Bill looked like the Beau Brummel of the sporting world.  A flight of greater Canadian honkers appeared from the north.  Wacko got ready and loaded up.  Hal (7’2″) and Al (5') were hunkered down in the adjacent blind.  As the geese set their wings into Wackos blind, he lowered his 3″ Belgium Browning auto loader, and Wacko layed 3 rounds into the group.  The air filled with an amazing assortment of paper wadding and shell fragments, that drifted over to Hal and Als blind.  Hal took 5 shots, highly illegal, and layed out 4 honkers.  Al lifted up a hidden Thompson machine gun from a camouflaged violin case,  and destroyed 6 more.  $Bill checked Wackos box of shells.  It had a tag on one that mentioned a garage sale in 1957.  Not a feather came down, only a bundle of wadding and paper from the huge explosion.  Wacko, years later was seen as the MC at a Ducks Unlimited banquet, with a dead green head mallard, hanging out the front of his fly.  An amazing number signed up for DU memberships that night.  From Travels With $ Bill, to be continued.