All Valley Blogs

The following is the opening paragraph of Steven M. Davidoff’s article in The New York Times DealBook blog. Oct 5, 2009. It is about assessing the financial crisis and begins…

“There is a conventional view developing on the financial crisis. The Federal Reserve’s policy of historically low interest rates spurred a worldwide search for higher risk and return. Concurrently, the entrenched United States trade imbalance led to a huge transfer of dollar wealth to Asian and commodity-based countries. The unwillingness of Asian economies, particularly China, to stimulate their own domestic consumption led these countries to reinvest the proceeds into the United States. This further contributed to lower American interest rates and further fueled the search for return.”

To which I replied…

“It is interesting that you mention the low cost of borrowing and the surplus of cash available as root causes of the financial crisis.

The conservatives have been begging public policy leaders to get the government out of the borrowing pools so that business can borrow less expensively for expansion through plants and equipment.

That has been the conservative song for decades. So what happened? Rates and the money supply finally became attractive for businesses to borrow and what did they do? Alan Greenspan commented on this at the time. He said “we have a conundrum”, businesses are not spending money on “plants and equipment or on expansion”.

We now know that when business got the cheap money they chose to gamble it levered 30 to 1, in some cases, instead of using it for business.

This finally should put the lie to the old song about keeping the government out of the debt markets so business can get better rates.

When business finally got the cheap money we saw what they did.”

bill

I was reading the L.A. Times tonight and they have a headline saying they have an article “fact checking Obama’s speech”.

My question is, where have they been for the last almost nine years of Bush?

b.

Did George Bush Jr. bankrupt America? Well, it’s looking more and more like it, every day.

In 1979 I made a movie that was distributed widely in the United States and around the world. It started out as an attempt to document an American subculture and turned out to have commercial possibilities.

The movie was partially inspired by my early years in Anderson Valley. What I call my, “American Graffiti” years. I later worked for George Lucas, the director of “American Graffiti”, for over two decades. Nitro was my first feature length film and it got me noticed at Lucasfilm.

It is now the 30th anniversary of that original release and we have made a new digitally re-mastered DVD of the movie and it is again available after having been off the market for many years.

When it opened at Filmex in Los Angeles one reviewer summed it up best…

“It is an exercise in asphalt anthropology, capturing the rowdiness and violence of a Roman spectacle; high-speed crack-ups, men afire, semi-nude maidens in attendance, and the legions of racers and their fans who have pledged their lives to timing records and intangibles harder to define.” Filmex

You can visit the website at americannitro.com

One of the things I take great pleasure in about my place in Anderson Valley is that it is not on Google Maps. Of the four billionaires I know, all are to be found on Google Maps. Not me.

So much for optical character generation. They screwed up. I now claim this adds value. Want to hide out? This property is unknown. If only Bernie Madoff had befriended me I could have helped, he could have hid out here. But alas, he didn’t.

It gets better. Zillow thinks my property is raw land. Doesn’t know there is a house, studio, guest house, etc. How cool is that?

Sir Google, here’s the deal, Live by the digit, die by the digit.

You are dead.

b.

I drove across the country last summer. After flying to New York (that’s a whole story in itself) and then at the last minute I decided to drive back. I rented a car and drove the 4500 miles over about four weeks.

What a cool trip. I hadn’t done a first class road trip in a long time. The year before I took the train to Michigan and discovered the fantastic fresh water lakes and beaches.

On each trip I started looking for tank towers. On the train I couldn’t spot a one from Reno to Chicago. They still have the old ones on the tops of buildings in New York but there was not a one visible on my drive back.

I have not found a suitable answer for this yet. Shouldn’t there be one or two old farms left with tank towers like in California? How else could they have had water pressure in the house?

b.

A favorite place in Anderson Valley is the Apple Farm. Owned by the Schmidts’ of “French Laundry” fame, it is a real treat to visit. I like to just walk around there before buying some of their delicious fresh apple cider.

It took me awhile to appreciate the place. I remembered the location from my high school days and it didn’t seem very inviting. Too cold in the winter I thought, and too close to the public access river.

Well, now I take that back. The Schmidts little farm has some of the mildest weather every time I visit, summer or winter. And the public beach is well away from the farm.

The Schmidts’ have fixed the place up enormously judging by the main house and it’s cooking class kitchen. They also have cabins that they rent. But it is the fine detail and care with which they have done these things that I admire.

The little accents the Schmidt’s have added are deceptively subtle and seemingly modest. There is a chandelier with candles hanging from a tree over a garden table. A church window at each end of the raised garden beds. Elegantly simple door pulls on small out-buildings. All unremarkable and with an almost homemade look, yet together they provide a thoughtful answer to creating a sense of place.

It is unpretentious and artfully done. It also doesn’t look like someone just threw a lot of money at it either. Which brings up the fact that having gone on last years’ garden tour I can attest that most of the newer places being built in the Valley, while expensive, are for the most part being tastefully done.

Which is saying a lot about who is moving here. Don’t try and find tasteful in most of the other wine areas such as the Napa Valley.

Recently, I went to visit a film director who lives in Saint Helena. Driving up into the hills outside of the town center I missed his turnoff and drove past several nearby properties. One was right out of “Gone With The Wind” and aesthetically didn’t belong in its setting.

For the most part, that is still not a problem in Anderson Valley.

b.

I pulled over on Sunday as I was driving to Cloverdale to snap this photo of the snow covering the hills east of Yorkville. As I stopped it occurred to me that I had been in this place before.

The little building on the right side of the road used to be a tavern. The owner was a lady who also tended bar. When we were looking to buy some beer in my AV High School years, this was one of the two places that would serve us. The other was a similar place in Comptche.

We would usually send in just one of our group to buy a case of beer. It was winter and we were bored. It was also the weekend, and by passing the hat were could scrounge up what might have been about five dollars, a small price to pay for enough fuel to energize an otherwise dull evening.

Any adult might well have questioned the wisdom of such adventures. We were breaking numerous laws and we were endangering our lives. Yet, it all felt worth it. Worth the risk. Mostly because it was exciting and there was not a lot exciting in our lives.

I actually worked on this movie. I even had a chance to be in it but I had so little interest that I let that “opportunity” pass me by.

A far more interesting thing to do is to go to the real site which now has a bunch of fine old Fort Baker buildings converted into a hotel, a restaurant, and a bar. You can have a drink on the veranda or a meal and get this interesting perspective of the Golden Gate, bridge, sailboats, ship tankers and all.

I walked out of the Half Day Cafe in Kentfield the other morning and saw this truck with all the campaign posters. I guess the election is really over and we can all get back to picking up the pieces of our country that have been left scattered across the landscape like broken toys.

b.