Taylor Swift and Houses (and zebras)
Well, I guess I’m not the only one pondering too much the Taylor Swift wedding, supposedly happening in NYC at MSG this weekend, coinciding with a big American yearly holiday and this year more so because it’s the 250 Anniversary of this American Experiment (which as far as history goes, is pretty short).
Alice Bolin of the NYTimes captures one angle of the wedding objection in her guest essay today, and she nails some good points, but covers others I think are overdone or over-urban, or perhaps over-liberal. My primary objection, or concern, or cause for a raised eyebrow (as I wrote a few weeks ago) is her seeming need now to always be where it's at - if it’s a media all-consuming event, she will be there, like Forest Gump. I noted it at the Knicks game. I noted it at the music awards where Oliva Rodrigo was performing. And now, competing with a nation’s semiquincentennial, sestercentennial, bisesquicentennial, or quarter-millennial (all different ways to say biannual according to Google’s AI) celebration, seems overly needy, like she has somehow confused herself with us. It’s weird, and I feel bad for her, this need to be there, like:
Carly Simon sings:
Well I hear you went up to Saratoga
And your horse naturally won
Then you flew your lear jet up to Nova Scotia
To see the total eclipse of the sun
Well you're where you should be all the time
You're so vain
You probably think this song is about you
You're so vain (so vain)
I bet you think this song is about you
Don't you don't you, don't you, don't you now
I’m not hating on Taylor Swift, I’m just observing a personality trait that seems to be growing - the spotlight stealer. That’s never a good look for someone who has spent a lot of time in her own well-earned spotlight. I don’t think it’s bad for country, I think it’s bad for her, personally, as a person, since regardless of wealth, or fame, in the end, the F Scott Fitzgerald quote about late nights - ““In a real dark night of the soul it is always three o'clock in the morning, day after day.” Nothing protects us Homo Sapiens from this doubt and mind-meandering.
That’s why the American mid-westerner is so celebrated - humble, comfortable in their own skin, god-fearing, with an understanding of their place in the world. Swift’s mid-western charm, and the songs she wrote about them, is a long way off from getting competing with a nation’s birth.
We are busy. Really busy. And I now know what that means for me, in this period of my always changing business-journey - I’m the guy at the right place at the right time at the right meeting hearing the good bad and the ugly and efficiently acting, reacting, or fixing. It’s actually really good for the business - to have the most experienced person in the organization who happens to be one of the most experienced construction veterans in the region - being the first to know - it accelerates problem-solving by accelerating problem-identification. And what’s the old saying - being aware of the problem is the first step to solving it.
But what it also means is I’m dealing with a lot of ‘bad news’ first hand, unfiltered, undelayed. And I can be a bit of an emotional overreactor, especially with business problems, because like a zebra in the African savannah whose genetic code has taught it to be jumpy, alert and highly suspicious of every blowing blade of tall grass in case a lion lies in wait, I’ve been on a trigger’s edge of hyper-alert sensitivity for that problem that puts me out of business. So I’ve trained myself out of necessity to be hyper-alert, and to take quick action to problems large and small, since you never know when small will become large. It also puts me in the position to having to solve, or lead the solving, of the problem, which results in increased blood pressure BUT efficient and clear resolution paths.
And in economic terms, efficient and clear resolution paths result in efficient and clear profit maximization. There is no money in dawdling over problems. Identify, construct a plan, throw some money at it, fix correctly the first time, and move onto the next one. I wouldn’t be solving all these problems without a great team behind me to delegate some pieces of the problem-solving puzzle to, that’s for sure.
It’s hard to know if it’s ‘harder’ now to get things done - it feels like it with interfering building departments - but it’s probably the speed at which we are moving. And we are moving fast - because, see above - I’m out there in front solving problems.
But to digress back the zebra, that’s why you don’t see domesticated zebras - because their flight and fight instincts are so hair-trigger because for millennia they’ve been bred to worry about all the predators that would love to have them for dinner. I relate to the plight of the zebra.
Houses all over - in all states of completion. We are just finishing up three. Starting 3. Mid-construction 5. That’s a lot of construction. All the dust from this round of housing investment that I started in September 2025 should be washed and rinsed by November of 2026 - and not one inch of it has been done without my micro and constant oversight.
Teaching my son how to drive my travel van so he and his bros can go up to Lake George for a few days.
Say what you will about me, but one thing baseline truth is that I've handled a lot of other people's money - a lot- over the course of decades - money that had their hopes and dreams wrapped up in it - we are talking millions, hundreds of millions - and never, not even once, have I mis-used, mis-appropriated, borrowed-against or otherwise put it in danger. As a big business story reader, the stories are endless about people in my position of managing other people's money during a building or development process that somehow - purposely or not, competently or not, honestly or not - end up losing this money by not finishing the project or running out of other people's money to finish the project. The responsibility is immense, and I've always met the moment. There has been plenty of times where the cash flow of Catskill Farms was severely strained for periods of time, and that's when you want a businessman at the helm of the business, and not some carpenter who rose through the ranks whose books stink and knowledge of finance is weak.
Happy 4th. I'm staying close to home.