Brutally Honest Rant - 10/03/07

Brutally Honest Audio Rant: The Worst Fears – Part 1
Audio Transcripts
10/03/07

[Start Program]

(Computer – Introduction)
(Music intro – “American Idiot Remix” – by Green Day and David Matthews 2)

Good evening and welcome to this week’s Brutally Honest Rant. I’m David Matthews 2, writer of the weekly online column Brutally Honest.

Well my friends it is OCTOBER! The weather is cooling off, the nights are getting longer… well unless you’re in the Southern Hemisphere… and people are thinking about HALLOWEEN! Yes, costumes, candy, horror movies, and a whole bunch of Christian Conservatives screaming bloody murder about Deists.

Oh and let’s not forget the new seasonal tradition from the politicians… scaring the crap out of you with terrorist threats that, in many instances, have thus far proven to be either unfounded or overly exaggerated.

And that bring us to a new mini-series here at the Brutally Honest Rants… a look at “The Worst Fears”.

Now when I talk about the “Worst Fears”, I’m not going to list them. I’m going to DESCRIBE them. I’m going to demonstrate WHY they are the “worst fears” for certain people.

And that’s the key thing here… these are the “worst fears” of CERTAIN groups of people. Because you have to wonder how they can do the things that they do and still sleep at night. They sleep quite well, because they know that their “worst fears” aren’t being realized.

Let’s get brutally honest here… I’m telling nothing but ghost stories this month! So turn down the lights, bring out the popcorn, and enjoy…

(Lead-in music – “Heavy Price Paid” by Martin O’Donnell and Michael Salvatori)

They knew that the bidding would be fierce. That’s why they imposed the strictest of rules for any auction house.

It was invitation only, closed only to auction house officials and the invited bidders. No proxies were allowed. No anonymous bidding allowed. The people invited had to be there in person. Payment had to be made in full and on the spot upon completion of the auction. There would be no exceptions.

Over one hundred of the best people in the business were there to bid on the most valuable item in the world.

The meager opening bid of 10 million was topped in a matter of seconds. The number reached 1 billion within the first minute. Within the hour, the highest bid broke the 50 billion mark, and there was still no sign of letting up.

When the highest bid broke 1 trillion, many of the bidders stopped. But they didn’t want to leave. They HAD to know who would win out.

Some of the bidders tried to form collective partnerships on the spot to pool their money and keep themselves in the game. It was allowed by the rules of the auction, and it kept the bidding going well past the 10 trillion mark. But the ad-hoc partnerships wouldn’t last as the new partners would disagree with how the prize would be used. They ALL wanted it for themselves. They all had great dreams for it. But they knew that only ONE of them would get it.

Fights started to break out after the 30 trillion mark. The people started accusing each other of not having enough money on the spot to cover their bids. Challenging the funding of the bidders was allowed, and it would put the bidding on hold until the challenge could be answered. This was, after all, the net worth of several countries being put on the line. Several of the bidders had to revoke their offers when they realized that they didn’t have the funds on the spot or couldn’t get them by sale. By the rules of the auction house, they had to immediately leave the room.

Pretty soon the bidding started to slow down. They would increase in increments of 100 just to keep the auction going. Calls frantically were being made. New funds needed to be collected and delivered quickly. One of the bidders was overheard yelling “SELL IT ALL! Go broke! Sell the family!” Needless to say, they didn’t stay in the bidding for very long.

Finally after several hours, there was one bid that couldn’t be matched. It was challenged twice and was found to have enough funds on the spot to make the sale.

Going once…

Going twice…

Going three times…

Sold.

The most sought-after prize in the whole world was sold to a pan-Asian conglomerate for 550 trillion 110-thousand… it was one square foot of carefully preserved topsoil and green grass.

As the conglomerate made their payment, the rest of the bidders sat there in shock and in utter remorse. This was it. This was the final frontier for them, and now it was gone.

For countless years, they helped to expand and grow the world that they live in. Every single place on the planet, over the planet, around the planet, under the planet, and even THROUGH the planet has been tapped, stripped, converted and transformed. Residential, commercial, industrial, business… it didn’t matter. It was all THEIRS to command and to control.

But through it all, they knew that there was that ONE place that they couldn’t touch. ONE place that was preserved and protected at all costs. Wars were even fought to make sure that it stayed untouched.

But over time, the costs of maintaining it and preserving it and protecting it from them and their grasp got more and more expensive. At first it was a whole acre. Then it became a half-acre. And then just a hundred square feet. Then eventually was negotiated down to just ONE square foot of topsoil and grass. Governments fell, institutions went bankrupt, public opinion changed… finally it really wasn’t worth protecting anymore.

The new owners of the last piece of original organic land announced their ultimate intentions. The carefully preserved prize would become the home to a microscopic mega-mall, which would be viewed and visited only by people using microscopic robot proxies. It certainly wouldn’t be the first of its kind, but it would be the last time they could do so to previously untouched ground.

As the artificial sun which represented light for the city began to set, and the lights from the upper levels of the outer ring were appearing as stars once did, the bidders realized that their time had also come and gone. Sure there were other planets to go to, but it really wouldn’t be the same. It wouldn’t have the same FEEL of raw, untouched soil being ripped up, graded, leveled, and transformed into mega-malls, strip malls, and prefabricated living quarters. The JOY of turning nature into something intrinsically human and making a huge stinking profit off it would no longer be there. Now they would simply have to scavenge off other creations… destroy other buildings so theirs can be built. They would have to feed off their creations of their friends and associates just to stay in the business. It was like cannibalizing your own family.

Welcome… to the worst fear of a real estate developer! Being stuck in a time when there is no more real estate left to rip up and develop for their own profit.

(Computer – some stuff)
(Fade Music In – “Mythodea” by Vangelis)

You know, guys, I’ll be honest with you… I know that I really don’t give developers a fair shake. It’s not personal… but rather it’s their professional attitude that does them in. They have adopted a “Field of Dreams” attitude about their profession and turned it into a genuine obsession… not to mention one that brings in tons of money. They firmly believe that if they “build it” that the buyers will just magically appear. It really is an obsession for them to take every patch of green grass and forest and transform it all into a Wal-Mart supercenter with a subdivision and a mini-mall gas station.

I live in a part of Georgia that is in constant states of growth and expansion. I’ve seen first hand how that unrestrained growth can have an effect on the area in terms of erosion, pollen, traffic, and how it all puts an incredible burden on local communities. And obviously it’s not something that should be stopped, because we DO need growth, but it certainly needs to be better managed, or the end result will be making that patch of green more valuable than gold.

(Pause)

Brutally Honest is a Get Brutal production; all opinions expressed are those of the commentator, and may or may not be shared by the online provider. This is David Matthews 2 saying good night, and I’ll speak with you soon!

(Fade out)
(Computer – Ending/“End of Recording”)

[End of program]
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