The Villages tagged posts

PLASTICVILLE-USA

PARADISE LOST IN PARADISE THAT NEVER WAS…

When it comes to spreading manure America’s dairy farmers are rank amateurs compared to the Mighty Morse Myth Machine. In fact the only thing that can surpass TV PR department when it comes to shoveling bullshit is a Democrat politician.

For decades Morse Industries has spun their development into “America’s Friendliest Hometown” and literally one-hundred plus thousands have willingly bought into the hokum. Believe me..if Villagers are your friends you have no need for enemies!

One of the myths of TV which up until a few years ago was probably the closest there was to truth, was that TV was a relatively safe place to be...

PLASTICVILLE-USA

FLORIDA SUCKS!!!!

Three years ago this past week..on our 10^th wedding anniversary to be exact..we succumbed to the pressure of my wife’s parents and bought a house in the Plasticville bubble. While her parents were overjoyed, we came here kicking and screaming and the feeling hasn’t changed.

Over the time we have lived here, I have had the chance to meet and talk to a number of true native “locals” and found them to be VERY nice people. They love Florida and interestingly they all seem to share the mammoth dislike..as we do..of the northern invaders. Local Floridians love their state and they don’t mind the extreme weather and other interesting attributes of their state...

PLASTICVILLE-USA

IN SEARCH OF BLUEBERRY PIE…

My 93 year old mother was..and still is..an amazing cook. Her sister’s kitchen talents where just as amazing and they were both outclassed by the woman who taught them..my grandmother.

My mother was not keen on teaching me how to cook because she came from a time when cooking was considered woman’s work, and if a guy showed any sort domestic talents he was thought to be queer. So my mother really wouldn’t let me into the kitchen. I learned what I learned by watching her and remembering what she did.

I picked up a lot of things, but one thing I never found a knack for was pie. I couldn’t make a good pie if there was a gun screwed into my ear. Mother on the other hand made fantastic pies. One of my favorites is blueberry pie.

When I w...

PLASTICVILLE-USA

AN HONEST MAN WITH SOME SERIOUS STONES…

Ed Wolf is my new personal hero. Ed is the long-time mayor of little Wildwood, Florida the small town that borders TV on its southwest side. In fact TV radio station WVLG is actually licensed to Wildwood NOT to TV. The reason for this is that unlike TV which is essentially a make-believe town, Wildwood is a real town, and the FCC does not license radio stations to make-believe towns. Of course the ONLY time you ever hear anything about Wildwood on WVLG is their top-of-the-hour ID which is REQUIRED to state the name of the town you are licensed in. Otherwise WVLG services the town of Wildwood not at all.

A couple of months ago the Morse machine came calling at the Wildwood Town Hall with a proposal in hand to buy up a parcel of l...

PLASTICVILLE-USA

THE DEATH OF THE VILLAGES…

In the 1980’s and 90’s there was a very popular radio format called “The Music Of Your Life”. Actually “The Music Of Your Life” is a trademarked entity originally designed by a former record company executive named Al Ham. The format was essentially a big-band, 50’s crooners radio format that was designed to reach the children of the great depression and World War-2. A number of competitors sprang up also offering the same sort of package to local radio stations, and in many ways “The Music Of Your Life” essentially became the generic name of the format no matter who sold the various packages, much like “Coke” has become the byword for any sort of cola product.

While the format was extremely popular with the 50+ age gro...

PLASTICVILLE-USA

THOSE @#$% KIDS!!!

If you are a resident of TV you pay what it called a monthly amenity fee. This amount which varies from $0 to $150 a month goes to pay for the private perks that you find in TV such as swimming pools, non-Country Club golf courses, ball fields, parks, tennis courts and the like. In return for your fee you are promised exclusivity of use of these amenities. Those who are not Villages residents, or guests of residents are not allowed to use these various facilities. Fair enough.

You might notice that I said the fee goes from ZERO dollars to 150. Yes, there are a few who pay nothing. Those are the folks who bought into old Harold Schwartz’s original project which is now..depending on who you are....

PLASTICVILLE-USA

WAITER! THERE’S A HAND IN YOUR WALLET!!

Villagers are a curious bunch in so many different ways. They come complete with all the likeability of Hillary Clinton and they are some of the cheapest people on earth.

The funny thing is they are cheap in odd ways. They have no problem laying out a stack and a half of Clevelands for a new Mercedes or Lexus, but they have trouble dispensing a proper tip at a restaurant. They have no trouble laying down 14 large for a Rolex, but will howl like a stuck pig if they just miss out on 2 for 1 booze at the squares. There’s no problem paying over 30-grand for a tricked-out golf cart but get their nose out of joint if the price of milk goes up at the Publix. They are just plain weird.

One of the things that Villagers do on a very reg...

PLASTICVILLE-USA

VICARIOUS UMBRAGE…

I have recently discovered a cable/Sat television channel called Investigation-Discovery. It is part of the large Discovery group of channels that can be found on most cable and satellite systems. ID as it is called is a collection of true crime stories that revolve around the police solving serious personal disappearances and murder. My wife and I just refer to it as “The Murder Channel”. While the vast number of stories are about evil people doing premeditated evil things, quite a number of the stories are about normal people who under terrific stress of the moment snap and commit the most foul of crimes.

As I watch these shows I wonder when I am going to see the story of some poor hapless server who works at a restaurant in TV who after being...

PLASTICVILLE-USA

WHEN LIFE HANDS YOU LEMONS MAKE LEMONADE

-BUT-

WHEN LIFE HANDS YOU A BIG FAT DEFINED-BENEFIT PENSION CHECK…MAKE WHINE.

What is now TV began as a solution to a problem that old Harold Schwartz had. Back in the 1960’s Harold was making a living from buying up cheap scrub land in Arizona and Florida and selling off parcels by mail. While there was never any evidence that old Harold was doing anything the Brits would call “dodgy” there were lots of others out there who were selling chunks of ground where “water front” property would be defined as land that’s covered in 18 inches of water in some fetid Florida swamp. Now why any half-sane person would buy land sight-unseen by mail from somebody you don’t know is beyond me, but Harold was making a go of it.

In...

PLASTICVILLE-USA

IN PRAISE OF RARE BEEF…

I have always wondered about the validity of the restaurant and hotel internet rating sites such as Travel Advisor, Yelp and Urban Spoon. Since virtually anyone can file a review I often wonder if the “yes” reviews are written by employees and the “no” votes are written up by a bunch of nasty internet trolls who just want to stir up the stew.

I am by no means a world traveler but I have been fortunate enough to visit many places in the good old USA and like everybody else I’ve eaten at some great places, some mediocre places and some lousy places.

Sometimes I take a peek on-line to see what sort of write-ups my favorite places get. Now having been in a place first-hand I know what the situation and the experience was...