Vail, Colorado.
(note: I have moved -- but my other blog site is down for maintenance (damn them) and I wanted to post. So I will copy and paste from here to there tomorrow.)
I’m not rich and famous. My annual income is not over a million dollars. I am not a trendy dresser. And I don’t own a mink coat. Since this is all true, it begs the question (Not, why do I think I am eligible to start a blog? That answer is obvious!): why the hell am I vacationing in Vail, Colorado.
‘Tis true. I am on vacation in Vail at this moment getting over my jet lag by working on my blog. (It just seems unreasonable to go to bed at 9:30 even if I did wake up at 8:30).
Some quick facts from an internet search on Vail:
“Aspen is where the celebrities go and Vail is the place where the people who own the celebrities go”
“In Vail, the municipality, the average single-family home price exceeds $1 million, and the average condo price is more than $500,000.”
Yes, so unfortunately it was not surprising when I entered the “diverse” Denver airport (diverse in the fact that there is a French restaurant, a Mexican restaurant, and McDonalds) (or, diverse in the fact that Latina women clean the restrooms) and then when I entered the “non-diverse” prop plane that took me to Vail/Eagle.
Let’s put it this way. I felt like a minority because I was Jewish. Thank G-d my Jewish father flew with me or else I would have been the metaphorical “one in a million” and that is not a tout of my ego. The only black man (who was also gay I might add, double whammy) was the flight attendant. (go figure). And together the passengers were wearing enough jewelry that I didn’t have to open the window and look out at sun to go blind.
So why does it make me mad? Shouldn’t I feel privileged to go where the elite go? I’m appreciative, I’ll put it that way. Vail is a beautiful. The scenery is postcard perfect without being a cliché – rocky territory painted with snow in all the right places. It is a mountain with great skiing conditions. It snowed 10 inches last week, five last night, and is supposed to snow tonight. Then next week it will be skiing in 40 degrees. How much better do conditions get? Plus, this is the first vacation with just my dad and I. That is exciting. I get to be the center of attention, while getting some QT in with daddy.
Yet, on the plane the men sitting next to me were all talking about how they smuggle Cubans into the U.S. Some have them sent to Mexico and then drive across the border. The no-fail method I heard, though, was to get them sent to Canada – “to make sure they aren’t counterfeit” (does that mean Canadians are more trustworthy than Mexicans?). This information was from one guy who “doesn’t smoke at all – (I’m a straight-edged devout man of G-d) – unless it’s a good Cohiba Siglo” and from another guy who in his “humidor at home has a Cohiba from Saddam Hussein’s collection”. (he also let his audience know he was “saving it for a very special occasion if we know what he meant”). Funny, how these are the crème de la crème of society.
While in Vail “the resort” I feel like I am in Epcot center. Every person who walks by me speaks a different language. It’s like I have the world at my fingertips.
And the ironic part is that the rest of the world is just like America. There are the foreigners who are building their fortune from the bottom up, which means these are the “workers” -- The front desk man was from Spain (but he did go to Valley Forge Military academy); the ski rental man from Argentina; and the Scandinavian ski shop cashier. Then, there are the “big pimpin” foreigners. (I wonder how they get their Cubans?)
So, its depressing and exhilarating to ski Vail. Seems wasteful to take advantage of nature in this way (by flaunting such excess) yet also wasteful to give up the skiing.
I will leave you with a question:
You are sitting on the top of one of the tallest buildings in NYC. You are with someone with whom you can speak your mind. You are bonding looking out upon the city. Down below you see the great lights, the amalgam of citizens, personalities, ideas, opinions. You see the immense of buildings. Perhaps you see a lesbian couple dancing in one of the windows. Or maybe you see a man opening the door of a limo for his date. You see times square – the advertising, the Mtv building, GameWorks (steven speilberg’s video arcade). You comment how far technology has come, how unbelievable it is.
My question: is what you see beauty or is what you see sadness?
I’m not rich and famous. My annual income is not over a million dollars. I am not a trendy dresser. And I don’t own a mink coat. Since this is all true, it begs the question (Not, why do I think I am eligible to start a blog? That answer is obvious!): why the hell am I vacationing in Vail, Colorado.
‘Tis true. I am on vacation in Vail at this moment getting over my jet lag by working on my blog. (It just seems unreasonable to go to bed at 9:30 even if I did wake up at 8:30).
Some quick facts from an internet search on Vail:
“Aspen is where the celebrities go and Vail is the place where the people who own the celebrities go”
“In Vail, the municipality, the average single-family home price exceeds $1 million, and the average condo price is more than $500,000.”
Yes, so unfortunately it was not surprising when I entered the “diverse” Denver airport (diverse in the fact that there is a French restaurant, a Mexican restaurant, and McDonalds) (or, diverse in the fact that Latina women clean the restrooms) and then when I entered the “non-diverse” prop plane that took me to Vail/Eagle.
Let’s put it this way. I felt like a minority because I was Jewish. Thank G-d my Jewish father flew with me or else I would have been the metaphorical “one in a million” and that is not a tout of my ego. The only black man (who was also gay I might add, double whammy) was the flight attendant. (go figure). And together the passengers were wearing enough jewelry that I didn’t have to open the window and look out at sun to go blind.
So why does it make me mad? Shouldn’t I feel privileged to go where the elite go? I’m appreciative, I’ll put it that way. Vail is a beautiful. The scenery is postcard perfect without being a cliché – rocky territory painted with snow in all the right places. It is a mountain with great skiing conditions. It snowed 10 inches last week, five last night, and is supposed to snow tonight. Then next week it will be skiing in 40 degrees. How much better do conditions get? Plus, this is the first vacation with just my dad and I. That is exciting. I get to be the center of attention, while getting some QT in with daddy.
Yet, on the plane the men sitting next to me were all talking about how they smuggle Cubans into the U.S. Some have them sent to Mexico and then drive across the border. The no-fail method I heard, though, was to get them sent to Canada – “to make sure they aren’t counterfeit” (does that mean Canadians are more trustworthy than Mexicans?). This information was from one guy who “doesn’t smoke at all – (I’m a straight-edged devout man of G-d) – unless it’s a good Cohiba Siglo” and from another guy who in his “humidor at home has a Cohiba from Saddam Hussein’s collection”. (he also let his audience know he was “saving it for a very special occasion if we know what he meant”). Funny, how these are the crème de la crème of society.
While in Vail “the resort” I feel like I am in Epcot center. Every person who walks by me speaks a different language. It’s like I have the world at my fingertips.
And the ironic part is that the rest of the world is just like America. There are the foreigners who are building their fortune from the bottom up, which means these are the “workers” -- The front desk man was from Spain (but he did go to Valley Forge Military academy); the ski rental man from Argentina; and the Scandinavian ski shop cashier. Then, there are the “big pimpin” foreigners. (I wonder how they get their Cubans?)
So, its depressing and exhilarating to ski Vail. Seems wasteful to take advantage of nature in this way (by flaunting such excess) yet also wasteful to give up the skiing.
I will leave you with a question:
You are sitting on the top of one of the tallest buildings in NYC. You are with someone with whom you can speak your mind. You are bonding looking out upon the city. Down below you see the great lights, the amalgam of citizens, personalities, ideas, opinions. You see the immense of buildings. Perhaps you see a lesbian couple dancing in one of the windows. Or maybe you see a man opening the door of a limo for his date. You see times square – the advertising, the Mtv building, GameWorks (steven speilberg’s video arcade). You comment how far technology has come, how unbelievable it is.
My question: is what you see beauty or is what you see sadness?
posted by mjs at
12:17 AM
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