The Junky Awaits His Fix

No, this isn't about drugs—well, not really. Not literally. This is about the money-changers, and what they're hoping for, and probably won't get ...

From Ben (Bernanke, tomorrow), and then Mario (Draghi, September 12th).

All these free market folks hoping for a little government boost, to help keep their markets (which would otherwise be sinking like bricks) afloat, the price of gold rising (as the dollar and the Euro get further watered down), and to perhaps (for the more earnest) stimulate growth in our otherwise intractably moribund economies.

One thing I agree with the Libertarians on: you can't stimulate growth in a debt-soaked culture by adding more debt to it. As with someone who has already rung up his credit cards to the limit, one can raise the limit to keep him going (and out of your hair, your basement, your wallet) a little longer, but that does not solve the problem. Still, if you don't want him in your basement, or stealing your stuff, and  by raising his limits on a card or two you can keep him at bay for a little while longer, maybe, among a bunch no hope solutions, it isn't the worst.

Still, don't call it a strategy for growth.

And if you're Paul Ryan—a pretty much lifelong employee of the taxpayers, don't forget—don't act like fixing the problem is as simple as telling the guy to live within his means. Especially when you're still insisting that he keep up his bar bill at the place where you tend bar, and keep buying his leased vehicles from your dad's lot, this on a salary that isn't what it once was, and that you have no intention of increasing. Your thinking is pure goofiness, too. You, in particular, should get your head out of your ass and understand that this fellow isn't going to go gently into that good night ... though he could be closer to living in your basement than you might think.

Anyway, back to Ben and Mario ...

Here's what I think: those waiting for Ben to save the day are going to be disappointed, in the near-term, if not the long-. In a mere two months we here in Ben's local economy vote for the next president of that local economy, and Ben Bernanke, given the not terrible situation the economy is in at the moment compared to, say, Europe, or where it was when we were voting for the last president, isn't going to sully his office any further for the moment by doing a solid for the political classes. Moreover, he must be tired of everyone looking to him to solve a situation that he isn't going to be able to solve without a great deal of political (read: fiscal) help of the sort he isn't getting (and let the voters, in November, decide why), and a minimum of another decade of patience from the population he nominally serves (especially if you're a banker), even if certain politicians who may or may not know better would like us to believe otherwise.

But don't get me started.

Mario Draghi, of the European Central Bank, on the other hand, might do something. Timmy Geithner (the Secretary of the Treasury—a position the European Union doesn't have, which, some would say, is a problem) has been seen skulking through Europe lately. Perhaps he and Mario, and some Germans, have talked. Mario doesn't need to worry about a conflict of interest vis-a-vis the upcoming American Presidential Election, he just needs to worry about the Germans, who, if you know anything about the Germans and the Greeks and their history going back to, say, 1940, might give you, as well as Mario, a dispiriting pause.

Still, tough love isn't isn't all it's cracked up to be—especially once you've let the fuck ups in the door. They have their pride, too ... and we've all made our mistakes.

And memories are long.

Still, right now, if I were junky looking for a quick fix, I'd be looking to Mario more than Ben.

Stay tuned!

Akin, Mitt, and How One Gets Legitimately Raped

I know I'm a little late coming to the subject, and frankly, haven't been paying that much attention to the details, but over the years I've found that paying a lot of attention to the details when it comes politics really isn't very helpful. So long as you paid attention for too long at some point in your life, you pretty much know everything you need to know. Many would dispute such a claim, and yet I would maintain that the story with politics is much like the story with soap operas—

"General Hospital," for example. My wife had a little down time the other day and happened to land on GH, which she hadn't checked in on in over a year, she claims, and lo and behold, within a couple of minutes she was gasping: some character who'd done something over a year ago was doing it again, this time with a brunette ...

Anyway, handicapping politics, it's like riding a bike ...

Go back to any of my pre-elections blogs back in 2008. I was right about practically everything. Obama was going to win. He'd beat Hillary Clinton, for Christ's sake! He was going to clean up on John McCain, especially after the financial crisis hit ...

Obvious, and I'm not even that smart, or plugged in, and yet ...

Last January, I predicted that Romney would eventually emerge as the nominee for the Republicans—obviously—and that he would get trounced by Obama in the general election in November. Again, to me, for any number of reasons, this is obvious—as it is obvious to most thinking Republicans, who are privately very concerned that this year's ticket is going to not only lose, but be a flat out disaster for the party.

My Democratic friends, on the other hand, are mostly doing what they always do: wring their hands and worry that over half the voting population is going vote for someone like Mitt Romney. This despite the fact that Mitt Romney, not to mention the earnest Ayn Rand disciple who voted for nearly all of Dubya's budget busting policies back when it was popular to do so, Paul Ryan, are even poorer candidates than McCain and Palin were—which is to say that more gaffes, and yet not as fun, or funny, is a bad follow-up to 2008, and is going to lead to a result, regardless of what the economy does, that is going to cause some soul-searching in the Republican Party.

At least it should.

But hey, we were going to talk about rape, right? Not listen to me pontificate about politics.

Fine. So here's one reason (bear with me) why Romney, from a political standpoint, isn't the sharpest knife in the drawer: after being for a woman's right to decide what kinds of things happen or don't happen in her  womb before he was against it, he is now, according to my Twitter feed, straight from the convention, supposedly, in favor of women having a limited amount of say over what happens or doesn't happen in their wombs, but only in the case of rape and incest.

A much more reasonable stand, supposedly, than that radical right-winger Ryan, who thinks, and is on the record as saying, that abortion should be outlawed categorically. Never mind if Uncle Ned had relations with your 15-year-old daughter, whether he raped her, legimately or illegitimately ...

And here is where, I'm sorry, we have to pause, briefly—again—to define some terms that even if you had paid a great deal of attention to politics and pundits of late, you might still be confused on just what constitutes legitimate rape as opposed to the other kind.

Thus, so we are clear, legitimate rape is the kind that involves people like Freddie Krueger (is that how it's spelled?), which is to say, real monsters, killers, forcing themselves on you. In fact, most women who are legitimately raped either die or are left for dead afterwards, and that's how you know they were legitimately raped. Kind of like with the witches in Salem: if they didn't drown, they must be witches.

Which brings us to illegitimate rape. Which is basically the kind of rape that happens when you survive it and can still talk coherently and don't have any cuts or bruises or serious amounts of blood running out of somewhere. For instance, let's say you meet a big professional athlete for the first time and you think he's kind of cute, and therefore, since you didn't spit in his face or tell him to fuck off right away when he started chatting you up, you probably led him on, and then, well, he doesn't just want to have sex with you in the one hole, but all the others, too—and he's fucking huge, right? Well, unfortunately, that's still illegitimate rape, and he doesn't go to jail, and still gets to play his sport and make millions and be well thought of again, because, let's face it, you tried to kill yourself a couple of times in the past, over totally unrelated issues, but still ... if he'd really raped you, he'd have probably strangled you too, so you wouldn't tell anyone, right?

Or here's another example: let's say Biff and Muffy—Biff is a college freshman, and Muffy, say, is a high school senior—really like each other A LOT, and really want to do it, but unfortunately Muffy's parents, rather than buying her a horse, or sending her to a convent, bought her a pretty expensive promise ring, with diamonds and her birth stone, with the idea that if they bought her this ring she wouldn't have sex with anyone until she was married, and practically passed out after the reception ... and well, she could fuck then but not before.

Anyway, turns out the two one night when Mom and Dad are out having sushi, or maybe off in a hotel somewhere fucking themselves, can't control the rage of their young hormones, and then the condom breaks, and holy moly, lo and behold, in a couple of months they've got a situation on their hands. And Mommy and Daddy are pissed. Especially Daddy. And let's say, for the sake of argument, that this is off in the future, and that contrary to all my smug predictions, Romney and Ryan end up in the White House, and they appoint a couple more anti-abortion judges, who overrule Roe vs. Wade, and now we're back to either flying Muffy to Europe, or Canada, or to the Bahamas or Bermuda, or getting out the hanger, or ... Muffy taking a pass on her first year at Princeton to have a baby that would one day grow up to know that he or she came about because the condom broke, and Dad—Biff—well, he lost interest, funny how that works, or ... Muffy could come to understand, after significant pressure is applied by both her mother and father, but especially by her father, who has made a lot of fucking sacrifices and saved a lot of fucking money so she could go to Princeton and not be raising a kid straight out of high school, in their house, that Biff in fact raped her.

And from there ... Mother and Father and Muffy take the case to the newly established, tax-payer funded, Abortion Tribunals, where it would be decided based on standards hammered out after a great many committee meetings, by a select group of experts appointed by someone who may or may not have a womb or a vagina, and who, themselves, may or may not have either, or agendas, or be having a particularly good day for that matter, whether or not the accused—Biff—did in fact legitimately rape Muffy, thereby, possibly, allowing her to go off with a signed, notarized document allowing her to get a legal abortion done right here in the United States, if not necessarily at Planned Parenthood.

Which is why I like Ryan's approach better. If it's all about killing and love of the unborn, then you have to love Uncle Ned's fetus, too—and Biff's.

Even Freddie's.

And if you aren't willing to tell your daughter to suck it up and remind her that she after all shouldn't have had sex in the first place, let alone let Ned anywhere near her, or Biff play with her boobies (which she ought to know leads to other things), that she should have been more careful not to be in the wrong place at the wrong time with monsters and condoms that don't break, without pepper spray or a .357 magnum ... and really, if she wouldn't have been born a girl in the first place none of this would be happening, she could lose interest, maybe write a check or two and walk away all the way to Princeton if she was lucky, but ... unfortunately, the law's the law, and too bad for you, Muffy ...

Seems fair, right? Consequences, baby. Tough love!

Still, while I can't say I'm an expert on the matter, and don't follow the subject as passionately as many do, while I'm busy raising boys, not girls, I'm inclined to think—in fact, go figure, it seems obvious to me—that if you aren't willing to look some young frightened girl in the eyes and make such pronouncements, that you ought to keep your mouth shut when it comes to someone else's young frightened girl ... and to women generally.

But what do I know? I haven't check my Twitter feed for hours ...

And wasn't Ayn Rand an atheist? All that Christian nonsense getting people to care for people they shouldn't and making a mess of things? Didn't I read that somewhere, back when I was paying more attention?

Politics, and Other Things Americans Hate

There's an article below the fold on the front page of today's Denver Post, that begins: "Americans already hate politics ..."

Yes, and we hate violence, too.

This is why we have an election cycle that is nearly as ongoing as the painting and maintenance of the Golden Gate Bridge.

Because we hate politics.

This is why, days after breaking our previous record here in Colorado for people slaughtered and otherwise shot up in a single building at more or less a single moment, we are wondering, if just wondering, whether or not it is particularly unusual for a young man ostensibly interested in the neurosciences (rather than, say, the commandant of the local wing of the National Guard) to have purchased and kept 6,000 rounds of ammunition in his apartment. Many who don't hate violence like we do might just assume that owning 6,000 rounds of ammunition if you're not, say, a Russian in Stalingrad in 1942, or a German soldier stuck in a pillbox on Normandy Beach in 1944, isn't anymore crazy, necessarily, that buying and stacking up in your home 6,000 rolls of toilet paper, or 6,000 cans of dog food, or Spaghettios, or 6,000 condoms (assuming you're not an Olympic athlete).

But we wonder, and we wonder hard. Because we hate violence.

Yet ... we don't jump to conclusions. We shake our heads and sigh. We consider the damage that might be done to individual liberties, not to mention our "well-regulated militia" that, along with Homeland Security, the Army, the Navy, the Marines, the Air Force, the Coast Guard, the National Guard, the FBI, the CIA, the NSA, as well as our various local and regional police forces, guards our way of life (that, unfortunately, for whatever reason, seems to include the occasional random slaughter of persons in the wrong place at the wrong time by someone frequently deranged and armed to the teeth), the slippery slope we might be descending were we to let the government tell us, willy-nilly, that we can no longer order 6,000 rounds of ammo, to put in clips as big as a hat box, over the internet, or even a counter at some store.

After all, what are they going say we can't have next?

Best, perhaps, despite our hatred of violence, to leave well enough alone, for fear of unwittingly making our already deflationary economy worse. Gun merchants need to make living, too. Just like the owners of diners in Iowa and New Hampshire. Journalists ... imagine what would happen to those already beleaguered souls if we decided to wrap up our hateful politics in a few weeks, like they do in Canada? Where they pay higher taxes than we do, but don't complain as much about them, even though they have socialized medicine run by the government, because basically Canadians are too nice and polite to complain, much less be flat out hateful, like Americans ...

Who hate paying taxes, and hate politics. But don't take anything our taxes pay for, or our guns and ammo, away, or you'll know what real wrath looks like.

As Mitt and Paul, I suspect, will soon find out. If they don't already know ...

Did I mention that the story below the fold came out of Dubuque, Iowa? Probably someone who owns a diner ... who's had it with the politicos, all the grousing, the vicious attacks and lies. So different than the previous elections, when the candidates couldn't have been nicer, and the expense accounts were bigger.

Away in Nova Scotia

We're back now, after spending the last ten days in one of my favorite places. My wife grew up in Cape Breton, and for two idyllic years—1996 and 1997— we lived in a flat on the first floor of an old house within walking distance of practically everything worth walking to in Halifax. In those days I drove a 1986 Toyota pickup that I may have started three times a month. In those days I lived like my idea of king on thirty thousand dollars a year; I learned to scuba dive, bicycled the Cabot Trail, wrote for six hours every day, read all of Dostoevsky one winter and all of Tolstoy the next. Donna, in those days, waited tables, and would come home shortly before midnight and I'd have a fire going and we'd watch old reruns of "Law & Order" (Michael Moriarty lived in town in those days, got kicked out of so many bars that he had to move), and then she'd go to bed and I'd stay up until 3:00, reading, sleep, wake up around 10:00, have coffee, eat, write, work out, walk the dog, head down to the pub where I had my own stein waiting, have some dinner, listen to some music ...

We tend remember things better than they were, but those were good, well above average days. After living in the midwest all my life, I didn't find the winters to be that cold (and I had a toasty warm LL Bean parka for the cold, blustery days). The summers were short, but beautiful—memorable and rich in the way of things that end up being short. I liked the foghorns in the harbor late at night, the wind blowing so long as I was inside by the fire ... the rain, the green, the water, all of it ... it didn't matter, I grew up in Iowa, weather doesn't make or break my day.

There are a lot of reasons I could come up with for why we don't live in Nova Scotia. Family is an argument for and against it, to what degree depends on the day, and my mood. Most notably, it would be harder, and a lot more expensive, to go back with what we have now than it was to come here with what we had then. Moreover, we live, by improbable fortune, in a community in Colorado—Louisville, not full of itself yet but getting there one has to think—that is not only one of the best places in the country to raise a family but, increasingly, a cool, cat's meow kind of place to hang out as well (with many years still before it becomes the thing it never wanted to become). The school system is great, and so are our doctors, our dentists, our insurance agent, the people we buy coffee from, our karate school; we live in a great neighborhood that we joke (though not by much) has a waiting list to get into, have great neighbors, a great house that's too big for us now that we're down to four, and that I wish I could hire a maid to help clean, a handyman to fix, a butler to keep organized, but still ... a great place, by any reasonable measure.

And yet year after year, visit upon visit, I continue to miss Halifax and the Maritime Mode ...

Probably (I tell myself) because life hasn't been anywhere near that free of strain since. There's no living like a king on thirty thousand a year anymore. No reading until three in the morning. No scuba diving off the shore in cold, bracing water, followed by pints and cigars at Tom's Little Havana (where one can't smoke anymore, not there, not anywhere). I look back and think I could have gone forever writing on thirty thousand a year, but not when the need was ninety, not for as long as we had to with everything that happened. A smart guy, I keep thinking, would have known that, and accepted it, a lot sooner, and found something more financially sensible to do with his life rather than stubbornly persisting with a novel in nearly impossible conditions, in a civilization that has largely given up on novels, where the fashion is more to push oneself to the limit physically than to, say, read a challenging book (or even one like mine) in one's spare time—that is, if one has spare time, if one is that divorced from the fashion of the times (here in America at least) and still has that thing we used to call spare time.

But one may as well cry over spilt milk ... over his lost hair and the new ones growing out his nose and ears, over that May/September romance with the girl who really wasn't that special by conventional measures but that for some reason you've never been able to get out of your mind.

Halifax ...

Would it be quite a lot different now? Would a smart guy conclude that we're better off leaving our memories of that sweet life long ago alone, and focus rather on being thankful for the many fortunes we have right before us? Probably. Almost certainly. I suspect so ... and yet I suspect I'll always wonder, and continue to miss those late night fires, the cigars, lugging that diving gear over the rocks and into the cold salty water, the foghorns off the harbor as I closed my eyes and fell asleep.

The Weather, or How I Learned to Love Climate Change

I don't follow the weather that closely, and wouldn't say climate change is one of my "subjects," not in the same sense that the health care insanity is (don't get him started!!). I don't typically go on about climate change like I do global finance and our utter dependence on, and mostly willful ignorance of, their psychopathic marionette activities. I come from Iowa, where the weather just comes every day, usually in some tedious form, but where, nonetheless, 100 year floods now come every 10 years, so everyone, every generation, can enjoy them. Kind of like Colorado and fires.

As for climate change, I don't so much "believe" in it as consider it a cure for the normal human irritation with boredom. Like when we broke up Ma Bell, or deregulated the airlines. Life can be merciful that way. Give you these things to keep you from sleeping the day away, from being in a constant state of wonder and doubt. Things like, for instance, puberty, or mental illness. You don't hear someone with a twelve-year-old daughter going on about how he isn't really sure that anything notable is happening to his little girl who used to be so sweet and loved watching "Arthur" and thought ponies were so cute, but now, well, she wants a fucking horse, and he's thinking it might be a good idea to get her one, real soon, despite the fact that the picture, the evidence, is still equivocal ...

No. If you heard that kind of talk coming from someone, especially a father, you'd think he was a full-on idiot. You'd pay for your drinks and get out of there. Just like you would if someone sat down next to you and started going on about how the moon landing was staged in a hangar in the desert, and fossil records are evidence of God's perversity, and Elvis Presley and Jim Morrison and Osama Bin Laden and Hitler are still alive and in fact share a duplex right beside Marlon Brando's old place in Tahiti.

Similarly, when the temperatures hit 100 degrees about as often as they didn't this last June, and fires raged across the state, and now, here in July, we hear talk—unironic talk—of our moving into the monsoon season that apparently has always been a standard feature of Colorado weather in July, I don't need to do a thorough Google search to think ... cra-zy, not boring. Thank you! Finally ... a weather system that isn't just nice all the time but is at long last off its meds, that has some pretty serious issues, having lived with its crazy family for a little too long now.

But hey, it's great, right? Charlie Sheen has a new show. I finally got around to buying an air conditioner to cool the master bedroom in my 4,000 square foot house that was built without central air back in 1988, because back then no one thought you needed central air in Colorado. What the fuck for? The weather was great here. Nice and sunny in the morning, with a nice little shower late in the afternoon.

Boring!

About as exciting as a balanced budget and peace on earth. Imagine what that would be like day in and day out. Watching fucking "Arthur" every day, listening to your daughter talk about ponies.

Still, we complain. Not more than two weeks ago I called my wife on the cell phone, for instance, in a very stressed state. Honestly, I felt I was about to lose my shit from being stuck in my 4,000 square foot house in Louisville with the shades pulled after, I don't know, the fifth straight day in a row of 100 degree temperatures and my throat feeling like an exhaust pipe. I started going on about how these MFs in the energy industry were making money hand over fist while the taxpayers were paying to put out the fires and how maybe, just maybe, if we took, say, half of Congress and buried them up to their necks in the open space and slathered their heads with gluten-rich, genetically modified foodstuffs to attract the coyotes and prairie dogs and maybe even a few people who would otherwise eat a burrito from 7-Eleven, well then maybe we might get some folks waking up in Washington ... which is to say I was talking crazy. Until I went out to the hardware store that very same afternoon and spent some money on an air-conditioning unit for our master bedroom. After that I was just fine. And now, after all that fuss, it's raining, hard. After all, it's July. It's monsoon season.

Heat, burn, douse. It's all good, natural, I see now, sitting here feeling pretty stupid looking back.

Kind of like that summer I rode my bike up Loveland Pass and thought, golly, if I don't get to the top pretty soon I'm going to kill myself; but then, when I got to the top, I got to ride down the hill so fast I nearly shit my Spandex. Which was fucking awesome.

And pretty soon, I bet, we'll have mushrooms growing in our yard again. And when we get bored with that, maybe the wind will start up again.

Wouldn't it be cool if it snowed in August?

Happy Bloomsday!

yes because she never did a thing like that before as make a nasty naughty bloody caesar for me to go with breakfast tomorrow god bless her on fathers day dreaming of lauren becall putting her lips together and blowing off on a cloud to look at saint larent couture at the museum with sensei all tough and soft feeling the pink deep in our bones and the kids and the greek fest and moonrise kingdom with the guys and the food and martinis at sundown crimson like fire for the smoke stinging the eyes and lungs if not the munificent heart of my flower of the mountain yes who knows she can always get round me who told me yes that silly girl fifteen years ago today when i lavished her with roses like the andulusian girls used and a ring dangling from one and read her the dirty parts from joyce and every year since and what a time it's been yes since she told me yes she said yes I will yes i do forever always yes my little minx Yes.

Streaming of Ulysses begins at 7:00 EDT (5:00 in Colorado) at the link below, with Fionulla Flanagan once more coming in as closer, reading the Penelope passage/Molly Bloom soliloquoy, unexpurgated, uncut, in its entirety, later tonight, with her feet up, sipping a stiff drink no doubt. Don't miss it.


http://www.symphonyspace.org/event/7093-31st-annual-bloomsday-on-broadway

When Timeshare Gets Ugly

Below is a letter I sent recently, via certified mail, to Diamond Resorts, a timeshare group out of Las Vegas.  It was sent in response to a letter I got from them.
 

May 16, 2012

Diamond Resorts

10600 West Charleston BLVD

Las Vegas, NV 89135

To Whom It May Concern:

First of all, on behalf of my mother, DeEtta, who will be 92 years old this summer, and myself, as well as my wife Donna, thank you for the instructive letters, certified and otherwise, regarding our upcoming reservation and what we need to do at this point to keep it.  Unfortunately, having already paid nearly $2800.00 toward the reservation we booked last year, prior to your springing the special assessment, we’re not inclined to give you another $7000.00 just to keep it.  Sorry, but that’s the way it is.  Moreover, I’ve tried, on two occasions since you announced the water intrusion assessment—for which I see you guys are getting sued; my friend over in Haena keeps me in the loop; good luck with that!— to simply give you back the weeks, the contracts, all of it, no questions asked, but on both occasions I was told you aren’t “accepting voluntary surrenders.”

And I thought: Could that be?  That you would want me, or anyone else, to pay thousands of dollars toward something you, yourself, won’t accept for free?

More on that in a moment, after we go over a little history …

Back in 1996, my mother and I bought two “Float/Float” weeks at what was then the Embassy Vacation Resort in Poipu.  Bill Fernandez was our Sales Representative.  Back in 1996, Mr. Fernandez indicated to my aging mother that he owned three weeks of Embassy timeshare himself.  This, I would soon realize, was a common statement made by timeshare sales reps everywhere from Morritt’s Tortuga Club in the Cayman Islands to the property that, like yours, has also changed hands many times in Pagosa Springs, CO.  He, Bill Fernandez, as well as others in the flocking sales group, mentioned a recent law on the island that would prohibit further timeshare building.  Thus, on the south shore of the Garden Island, there was the Embassy property (formerly luxury condos built by a Japanese concern, sold following the Nikkei crash in 1990; perhaps after your 68 million dollar makeover they will become luxury condos again, that you’ll sell), the Mercedes in the lot, and the Chevy property, the relatively shabby Lawai, redeemed only by its proximity to the Beach House and decent snorkeling waters. 

My mother, nearly eighty years old at the time, had already fallen in love with the island, and was, in the end—ironically, you have to admit—seduced by the “your kids will have this forever“ pitch.

The following year we visited again, with my future wife this time.  We asked about Bill Fernandez, but he was reportedly gone.  No one was quite sure what had happened to Bill.  Someone who could sell my wary, crotchety mother a timeshare and he wasn’t on property anymore?  Stunning.  Was he at least coming out to use his three weeks of timeshare?  No one could say for sure.

A few years later, the Marriott completed its timeshare property down the road, near Poipu Beach: a Lexus between us and the Chevy—so much for laws prohibiting further building of timeshare.

Still, being resourceful, my mother and I, and later my wife and I, and others, continued to use the property, booking early, paying the maintenance fees—which weren’t really too bad until you fine people came along.  As many other unhappy owners have pointed out.  But I don’t need to tell you how hostile the climate has gotten over just that one thing, not to mention this new water intrusion thing.  Money, money, money—and for something we literally can’t give away.

Then, in 2009, after thirteen years of fending off your sales team during our visits (“So, just out of curiosity, what would our weeks fetch on the open market?” I would ask, and the sales rep would reply, “I really have no idea,” and I’d reach over and honk his or her nose), my wife and children and I, along with some friends of ours, came to our “home away from home.”  Once we got there we were approached, as usual, during check-in, by the concierge—the earnest if likable John, whom I’d known for years—wondering if we were interested in an “Owner’s Tour.”  We indicated, as we always did, that we already had more timeshare than we needed given the realities of the (wink, wink, nudge, nudge) ownership; but he retorted, very clearly, that even though we had no intention of adding to our position, we should nonetheless come and find out what exciting things were happening on the property, for which we would get the usual gift card, good for use throughout the island. 

Why be difficult? we thought.  Take the tour!  Tell them we weren’t interested.  Get the gift card.  It was part of the drill.  They were used to it.

During the tour, I mentioned, straight up, over and over, that this wasn’t a good time for me financially because I’d recently spent roughly $16,000.00 putting solar panels on our home. Our Sales representative, Glenn Hughes, however, had likely heard such complaints (objections, as you call them) before, and, taking it as a challenge perhaps, told us that this meeting was a “one-time opportunity,” that next time the price would be much higher (this he showed us on a sheet, and, sure enough, it was much higher), and that, most importantly, the industry was going through transition and we would sooner or later have to go along, too, or feel increasingly like outcasts.  In plain words, we could either join “The Club”—transition to the point system and a higher tier of ownership—or find it more and more difficult to book our usual spot.  Home would feel less like home.

Which, give it to Glenn, was a clever way to attack us—hitting our one insecurity—since, after all, for thirteen years, while raising my two nephews, while getting our oldest birth son through cancer, while trying to write a book of my own, I’d always been able to book.  No one had ever implied that we wouldn’t be able, with our seemingly enviable float/float week, to book it as we always had.  And if we couldn’t book our usual oceanfront in Building Three by calling one year ahead, because others—Club Members who had bought into the Hawaiian Trust, as, it was implied, we would, if we had any sense—would be able to book thirteen months ahead, and what would happen then?  If we literally couldn’t give the property away, despite it being a beautiful place in a lovely location, and would very soon not be able to book our usual spot, well then, that was seemingly a bind we had to consider doing something about, or what was the point of paying the ever-increasing fees year after year?

When I mentioned that I owned these weeks with my mother, who wasn’t present at the time, this, oddly, didn’t seem to faze Glenn and the others.  I was told, getting out on three hours now, that if we, my wife and I, bought into The Club, my mother could sign later on.  We would be deeded members until my mother signed, through the mail, after which we’d become part of the Hawaiian Collection Trust.  I was further told that we could book our former property at Morritt’s Tortuga Club as a “club select,” and that this would bump us up to Gold status as owners, which would offer us copious benefits … we were told a lot of things that, in short, didn’t prove to be correct, for which, as you and I both know, there is recourse.  But let’s not get all excited just yet.

So after three hours and an afternoon of vacation wasted on a one-hour tour, we finally capitulated.  I had friends waiting on us, restless children; we decided not to remain outcast “weeks” owners and to take the one-time deal (which, we would later find out, at your property in Lake Tahoe, wasn’t exactly true; there was no such thing as a one-time deal, we were told by the smiling sales reps).  Purchasing the least amount of points necessary, we “upgraded” to “Club” status, feeling as if we really didn’t have any good other choice: one can either divorce, at great cost, or agree to the next set of terms. 

Again, I mentioned my mother, the primary owner on the 1996 contract that was being folded into this new contract.  I was still trying to understand how we could do this one-time deal without her being present, without her getting informed consent, as we used to say back when I was a transplant coordinator at the hospital.  Here I was potentially committing my mother to more expense—a lot more, as it turned out—without her even getting the benefit of the presentation.  Without her having a say.  And now here she is, getting threatening certified letters from Diamond, my 92-year-old mother, the primary owner of the “float/floats,” who wasn’t even there in 2009, when we joined your club, all three of us … with only two of us signing the documents, late in the day, in the “just sign and date here” fashion. 

Later, when, through the mail, I supposedly got my mother’s signature on the documents (I have still never seen the signed documents), I was told, by Kerry Rath, via email, that no, we in fact hadn’t opted to join the Hawaiian Collection Trust, but rather had decided to remain deeded owners.  When I replied saying that no, I seem to recall that we opted for the Hawaiian Trust, and was there anyway to get that arranged, I never got a reply back. 

Had I known that a special assessment was coming, I would have kept pressing.  Of course, had I known there would be a special assessment of this magnitude I might have decided that with a property that one can’t, literally, give away, it was time to cut my losses.

A lot of owners might have. 

Which is why you never told the owners that the special assessment was coming.  Not a whisper of it, in sales pitches or otherwise, even as recently as January 2011, when I was on property and there was a great deal of discord leading up to Board Elections, elections that turned out predictably, with all your stooges getting spots.  At no point was it mentioned by any of the candidates, or by any of your employees pitching owners groups at the time to hand over their deeds to the trust, that a few months earlier this water intrusion issue had been formally discussed in Las Vegas.  At no point, until the bill came last fall, were you honest with your supposed owners about what was coming, about why, if the assessment was a fait accompli, they might want to either join the trust or pay someone to transfer their deeds back to your sales force.

Needless to say, looking back, I am frustrated, embarrassed.  On that long afternoon in 2009, I mentioned on several occasions that we were not in a position to add to our timeshare costs, to buy an upgrade, and then, after doing so, I discovered that booking the same time in the same location on the resort would cost me close to 75% more.  And now this special assessment for “water intrusion.”  When we first bought, we were able to book time in an oceanfront unit, reliably, for less than one hundred dollars per day.  Now, the maintenance fees and “Club” fees, which were never mentioned in the presentation (only that Interval membership would be free for life), have taken the cost up over $200 per day.  For this “upgrade,” 4,000 points, I paid the bargain price of around $9000 in 2009.  For an “ownership” that is worth nothing, that I literally can’t give away. 

Which gets us to now.  In calls made to your resort in November, and again on April 30^th, I was told that the resort is not even taking “voluntary surrenders” of the weeks.  Imagine!  Quite a different story than what we were presented back in 1996, when our sales rep and others all owned three weeks!  When these weeks would prove to be quite an “investment,” since no further timeshare would be built on the island.  Before Club Sunterra, and now, The Club.

Alas, no one likes to be hustled, and this whole thing—all of it—was a hustle, a grand hustle.  And you guys, recently, have taken it to a new level.  There is no “investment,” and there is no longer even decent value when it comes to the yearly cost of a stay based on the maintenance fees.  For years, when we couldn’t make it to the resort, I was able to get people to take the weeks for the fees, but now, the fees are so high that no one in their right mind would pay them. 

And now you’re going to collect, or try to, upwards of 66 million dollars on the backs of the owners, who in fact own nothing, many of whom live in the delusion, as we did, briefly, unfortunately, in 2009, that the next set of terms is better than divorce.

Well, not this time.

I want my money back from our purchase to “Club” status in 2009, as well as the money returned from the booking of our reservation for this June, which came before the water intrusion assessment in October—which is to say I am not paying another $6800.00 and counting, in addition to the $2773.22 I have already paid, to stay in a unit that, a few short years ago, would have cost me $1400.00 for two weeks.  Furthermore, I am not paying you another dime toward my ownership in a property that I, we, quite literally, can’t give away, not even to your sales team. 

I want all these monies returned, and a release from any further expense and liability regarding my supposed “ownership” in The Point at Poipu, and, more broadly, from any relationship with your group, Diamond Resorts.  Should you find this disagreeable, consider that I am, among other things, a published author, with enough means and a mean streak to cause you far more trouble than you might imagine—which is to say I’m not your usual ranting chump.  I will write about you and your tactics relentlessly, and people will read it.  I have an agent in Manhattan, at Curtis Brown, who assures me that if it’s juicy—and it will be—there are many outlets eager to buy my clever telling on a subject as previously opaque as this one. 

Consider, also, in addition to the legal headaches, the media headaches, I would be more than happy to visit on you should you want to quarrel with me, screw with my credit, bother my mother, anything like that, that I have friends on the island, at least two of which have offered me gratis lodging should I decide to come over and pay a visit, and, say, spend a lot of time at the pool bar, at breakfast, on property, talking to your future clients, being politely and informatively disruptive, shall we say, and blogging about it, the posts of which would one day soon become a feature article, or a book, which might even lead to a documentary, with you in a featured role. 

Who knows, maybe no one would pay any attention to me.  Or maybe you’d have to call the police to the property again, like you did when my friends were visiting back in 2010, to settle everyone down.

Point being: the more interesting this gets, the better it is for me.  And I’m about done with my current project.

Let me know how you think we can settle this.

Aloha, and mahalo!

Craig Bueltel