Up, Up and Away.....

Apparently a developer in Salt Lake City decided to build an actual house based on the one that floats away via a giant balloon bouquet in the movie, "Up." Which is an awesome movie that made me cry my friggin eyes out and is by far my favorite Pixar movie, but that doesn't mean I want to live in a replica of the house. It's on the market for $399K and I'm sure there is a nice little family of Disney/Pixar freaks out there who will snatch it up in no time. Then they will demand that an entire tract of houses that look exactly like the Up house are built in the neighborhood, making it not just another depressing suburban tract house neighborhood (little boxes..**) but one that will be filled with ticky tacky and Disney freaks. And that's a scary thought. I spent an embarrassing amount of time at Disneyland in my youth since I grew up about 20 minutes south and had an annual pass for a few years, so I've seen some of them in action. One time we were behind a group of beefy, shirtless, very hairy bears, wearing little Mickey Mouse backpacks. Not as cute as it sounds. Others are just major dorks who are obsessed with Disney movies/characters/rides, etc. Many of them choose to work at Disneyland and then they mate with other Disney freaks, creating smaller ones, and the chain continues. Someone else besides Balloon Boy's dad needs to figure out how to make the balloon bouquet pick this house up and take it far away so my dreaded Disburbia never becomes a reality.

**Sidenote: Full lyrics to the amazing theme song from "Weeds" that was a lot more fitting when they lived in Agrestic than where they are with this new season, which I am enjoying btw, as well as this season of "True Blood" despite hearing many haters/complainers say both shows have "jumped the shark" (a phrase I didn't understand until recently when Jefe explained that it's due to a horrendous episode of "Happy Days" where they made Fonzi literally jump over a shark) because apparently they have nothing else to do with their time. Here's an idea: stop watching. Anyhoo I just learned this info about the Berkeley hippie artist Malvina Reynolds as well, which is pretty awesome, esp since I lived in Daly City my first semester at college in SF (not by choice, only cuz my friends from OC lived there and I moved in with them for a bit til I moved to SF- it sucked.) If only Malvina could experience Hugo, Eden Prairie or Woodbury, MN - the worst suburbs ever..

words and music by Malvina Reynolds; copyright 1962 Schroder Music Company, renewed 1990. Malvina and her husband were on their way from where they lived in Berkeley, through San Francisco and down the peninsula to La Honda where she was to sing at a meeting of the Friends’ Committee on Legislation (not the PTA, as Pete Seeger says in the documentary about Malvina, “Love It Like a Fool”). As she drove through Daly City, she said “Bud, take the wheel. I feel a song coming on.”

Little boxes on the hillside,
Little boxes made of ticky tacky,¹
Little boxes on the hillside,
Little boxes all the same.
There's a green one and a pink one
And a blue one and a yellow one,
And they're all made out of ticky tacky
And they all look just the same.
And the people in the houses
All went to the university,
Where they were put in boxes
And they came out all the same,
And there's doctors and lawyers,
And business executives,
And they're all made out of ticky tacky
And they all look just the same.
And they all play on the golf course
And drink their martinis dry,
And they all have pretty children
And the children go to school,
And the children go to summer camp
And then to the university,
Where they are put in boxes
And they come out all the same.
And the boys go into business
And marry and raise a family
In boxes made of ticky tacky
And they all look just the same.
There's a green one and a pink one
And a blue one and a yellow one,
And they're all made out of ticky tacky
And they all look just the same.