I Hate Speculators

Before the great real estate meltdown of 2008 there was the great real estate bubble. The bubble burst because of the greed of a few and it totally screwed over the need of many. The greed of a few inflated properties. Housing prices soared and went through the roof. And then the bubble burst. The carnage of the American homeowner was not a pretty sight to behold. It was a heartbreaking sight. People lost their homes and the landscape of empty foreclosed on suburbs stretched from shore to shore. Housing prices plummeted and many families ended up in apartments ( which now saw their rents double and triple because of supply and demand ), with relatives or homeless.
And now the damned speculators are back. I HATE them. I should not wish them in hell and yet they have created hell for the America dream. Their greed is making it so the average middle class family can not afford to buy a home. Here is how it works. A speculator buys a house. Sometimes they put in a few bells and whistles, a few cosmetic repairs. But they aren't interested in fixing any foundation issues, any plumbing or wiring. Naw… they want to make a quick buck. So they "flip" the house. You can spot them on Zillow. Look for last sold. Ok, so maybe it was sold last 20 years ago. That is not a speculator. But the ones sold 2 months ago sure as heck are. They jack up the price and then sit like a fat little toad to see if they can grab a sucker to help fund their greed.
Speculators who ruined our economy? They're back… Damn, I HATE speculators.

The Hippie Temptation and me

I have not posted here in FOREVER! But here goes. I hope to start posting a few more comments about a lot of things that have been going on in my life which has been turned upside down in a lot of ways. Ok, about today. It was 47 years ago today that "The Hippie Temptation" aired on CBS. It was narrated by Harry Reasoner. It was allegedly about hippies but it was a very biased one sided point of view ( a pointed head point of view if one must know, a pointed square head at that ). I, being a hippie, did not want to have anything to do with it. And oh yes I was asked and I said NO when the CBS film crew approached me and wanted to film me. When I said no the camera man who had asked me got snotty and said in a snide voice "Why not?" Well I told him why not! The Diggers ( a service organization in the Haight ) had gone around to the communes in the Haight the day before and had told everyone not to cooperate with CBS because the piece on hippies was going to be a one sided smear job. And time proved that right. I think I also might have mentioned the term "yellow journalism" in my little speech to the camera man. Ok, ok. I DID mention that term and his face contorted with hateful rage. I guess he must have decided he had to film the smart aleck little hippie girl who had the nerve to say the piece of yellow journalism he was part of was yellow journalism. Imagine that! So yes I was filmed though certainly without my permission and without any cooperation on my part. I kept putting my hands up in front of my face so I wouldn't be filmed. In spite of that CBS managed to get 2 seconds of footage though if one views it they can see my hands coming up to block my face! Soooo on August 22, 1967 "The Hippie Temptation" airs on CBS. And there I am, live and in color, during a segment on the Grateful Dead. They spliced that footage in because I had not been filmed at a Grateful Dead concert ( this is not to say I didn't go to Grateful Dead concerts, I went to lots of them after this incident ). I had been filmed at a Country Joe and the Fish concert. So there I was with my blonde 18 year old hippie face with flowers painted on my face, black eyeliner sketching the roses and inside of them was filled in with red lipstick; Maybelline and Revlon if you are that curious. And the footage has been shown a gazillion times world wide since then! Not just in the infamous piece of disinformation and propaganda known as "The Hippie Temptation" but in lots of other places as well. World wide. CBS has made a bucket load of money and it is on my bucket list for CBS and I to come to a settlement where I can have a bucket load of money from them now and in the future for past and any future usage. So I went over to twitter and in honor of it being 47 years ago today I posted 47 beautiful or gnarly or whatever tweets to CBS.
I hope they are reading those tweets and get in touch with me. It is MY face. I think I should have the right to say where it is shown ( it was shown on America's Most Wanted and I was NOT amused ) and be paid for it as well. That would be only fair and just. Not that life is necessarily fair but one can always hope and dream and pray.

I have not posted here in over a year. I hadn't figured HOW to get back in. So here I am.  I am now up on youtube and have 82 videos! Yippie! While nothing has gone "viral" one of them was posted on nme, a British music magazine and has over 3000 views. Which is nice. To find me on youtube all one need do is type in Cyd Summers and my songs will come up ( and a few rants ).

long time since here

I am thinking of possibly making a new blog that can end up as a book. But I should probably actually post here once in a blue moon. I hadn't been to twitter since May and it has been long here, not since March!'

BIG NO To X Factor

Well, Libby and I did NOT try out for X Factor though we DID read their release form that basically would have made us their unpaid slave labor if we had been stupid enough to sign it. It also would have made them the owner of any original songs one were to preform on the show --- without any money. Talk about corporate greed! But then why is this no surprise for a show on Fox? A show owned by Brits on tv station owned by an Aussie to screw over American artistic talent?

It never fail to amaze me ( though why should it because we are talking about corporations who are EVIL as satanically evil ) the outrageous GALL and GREED of these large corporations. It is not enough that these multi-millionaires and billionaires are not satisfied with the millions they rake in from advertising on any given night. They also have to stiff the artistic talent that they are supposedly going to "help" become discovered.

Ok, so I AM the great unknown super star with her 10,000 plus songs ( not to mention my other writings, fashion designs etc ) that no one knows about. But no one will know me as a putout ( and plenty have gone the way of the casting couch ) or the sellout when it comes to what I create or getting my foot in the door that has never been opened for me, not in over 25 years.

Maybe I don't have fortune and fame but I DO HAVE self-respect and integrity . And somehow I don't think that I have ended up with the short end of the stick. But I don't know if I would say that about the poor schmucks who waited in line for hours in the rain to end up paying for wayyyyy over priced food and drink, end up being treated lower than chihuahua crap and then see great singers passed over while crummy delusionals were passed through to make for so-called "good" television.

I Got You, Dawg

I GOT A DAWG!!!! I cannot believe that I have bought myself a little chihuahua. His name is Sontheimer Angel Rattino, known as Sonny. He is soooooo cute ( gush gush ). He turns 3 months old on March 22. It has been over 50 years since I had a dog. It is so strange to hold a furry creature and not have him PURR. He has golden tan fur and little white angel like "wings" below his shoulder blades. And he is a love. :-)

Senior Bullies

A friend of mine moved out today. She had been evicted. While it is true that she could be abrasive she had a good heart. She was also disabled, about a year younger than me. I now have a little garden thanks to her help and encouragement. It seems that other people have been helped by her also. She did laundry for one person, helped others with their gardens ( as well as me ). If I had a surplus of something I could give it to her and know that others would receive it. So this morning she hoped on a bus, left most of her possessions behind, and took off for the great unknown. She has my address and phone number and a self stamped envelope to let me know how she is doing when she gets to where she is going. And why did she get evicted? Because of a nasty neighbor. I only heard this neighbor once banging on my friend's wall in the middle of the day. My friend looked as if she was going to jump out of her skin and said that this person did this to her all of the time.

The person in question was a little old lady in her 80s. Now there seems to be a belief that if you are "old" ( 80s and beyond ) that you can not be a nasty person. When did someone who has been and done evil all of their life suddenly turned into a nice person? In my case I was hit by a car at the age of 36 by a woman in her 80s. The accident had been preventable. I am now 62 and the injuries I got from that accident never went away. The woman would have been a hit and run except other people in cars flagged her down. As it was, she lied about me in a deposition. People do not want to believe that someone who has lived so long can be evil or mean.

Today, after my friend had moved out, I met the nasty woman who had hounded her, a senior bully. I went to collect my mail and a person matching her description was there. As I went to walk away she blocked my way so that I brushed against her ( and not on purpose for my part ). She muted something and gave me a nasty look and I said "I'm sorry" and walked past. But I could see the meanness in her. And now I know who she is. She was talking to someone else at the mailbox. I do not know this person. Maybe she knows I am the person who helped her next door neighbor. I will ignore her and she will probably ignore me ( I assume ). But if she decides to say anything about me to anyone that is a lie then she had better watch her step. I no longer suffer fools gladly and that does not matter how old they are.