Just for the continuity of this thread before I take it back off topic, the “Soulfulness” of any given ski town, or anywhere for that matter, is entirely subjective to each individual. I may agree with Soulskier that the manufactured ski “village” so popular in North American resorts lacks soul, but what Rob, Geoff, or anyone else thinks is “soulful” is entirely up to them. That said, I would suspect from my many conversations with both ski town locals and seasonal visitors, that the vast majority of people prefer a town with a more organic and lived-in feel. The best contrast I know of is to look at the town of Telluride and its neighbor Mountain Village. Both are packed during holidays and busy during the main ski season, but during the summer, Mountain Village only has any activity during the 4th of July holiday, Labor Day and the weekends of July and August. During the week in summer, you can wander the place completely alone, listening to piped-in music from some hidden speakers somewhere while looking at closed stores and empty display windows. It’s eerie and disconcerting, especially when there’s a cool breeze blowing through the stone and concrete alleys. At least the few employees at the information desk and the North Face store (offering great deals on all of last year’s unsold inventory BTW) are pleased to see you as they are bored to tears and happy for the conversation. On the other hand, the town of Telluride gets quiet during the shoulder seasons –when Mountain Village is entirely deserted- but there are still people about, businesses open and the obvious activity of a real town. During the summers, it still feels like a bustling (sometimes too bustling during the festival weekends) town with all of the character, quirkiness and uniqueness that makes such places attractive to most people -although to be fair, you’ll also see a few of the much-maligned stinky, granola-eating trust fund hippie types lurking about the streets, still confused over the loss of Baked In Telluride to fire (how’s that for a broad-brush generalization?). Now that I live in a city and have to plan my vacations instead of skiing whenever I feel like it, I’d prefer town over Mountain Village every time, but that’s just what I like. For a funny, tongue-in-cheek “expose” on Mountain Village, check out
The Lost People of Mountain Village; just remember to keep your sense of humor intact.
Now off-topic:
For the record: as mentioned in my earlier post, the 10 minute clip that you’ve viewed here
was not made by myself and is an unauthorized edit that takes much of the content out of order. It is not a trailer nor am I particularly happy about it, but I’ll let it lie as it is at least reviving interest in the film and helping us sell the last few DVD’s we’ve got taking up room in our closet.
Resorting to Madness was made in 2006-2007, before the recession and its impacts on the ski industry. After its release, we toured with it extensively in the US and Canada and it was picked up for Internet distribution in Europe in 2008. It’s been in a fair amount of film festivals, including being screened in the 2007 Banff Mountain Film Festival, and to date it’s been purchased by people as far away as Australia, Greece and South Africa (can’t image that they have any of these problems at the two club fields there, so why South Africa I have no idea). From the feedback we’ve had over the past 4 years, the film has had plenty of positive impact in resort communities –not just skiing related- by educating local stakeholders and encouraging them to become involved in the future of their communities. Judging by the fact that it keeps resurging in the greater ski world, it would seem that it still resonates with people out there and it’s doing fine without the investment of the extra $1200/ month I could make by jacking up the rent for my place in Durango. In sum, we consider the film a great success despite the fact that my business partner and I had zero experience making films when we started and I wince when I watch it for all of its technical errors.
Geoff":1sz5gwct said:
I also didn't consume a year of my life making a documentary railing about the politics of envy.
So Geoff, while you may think that I was “consumed” for a year making this film, I actually had a great time, meeting great people, skiing in some beautiful places, learning about the film industry, learning how to get a lot done on a shoestring budget and learning a hell of a lot about the ski industry. Being that we are both trained as researchers and writers, we strive to be as objective as we can (it is almost impossible to be 100% objective, I’ll admit) and spend a lot of time making sure we don’t come across in the pontificating, antagonistic, assh*le style of Michael Moore. Maybe if we did, we could make some real money, but our standards are much higher than that and in the end we made about as balanced a film about the impacts of the ski industry on communities and the environment as one can. If you actually watched the entire film, you’d see that the first third of the film is about the causes, effects and externalities of the industry, with a look at the most savvy of them all (and my former employer) Vail Resorts. As VR denied at least 4 requests for interviews, I had to include mention of their positive contributions at the end of their segment. Next there is a short segment on the community of Mammoth Lakes and its struggle to figure out how to deal with growth, and the last half of the film is given over to optimistic stories of communities and companies in New Hampshire, Colorado, California, Wyoming and BC that have found solutions to deal with some of the issues discussed at the beginning of the film. The overall message is that stakeholders in communities –business owners, homeowners, renters, ski companies, local governments- all have a right and an expectation to have a say in how their towns grow. Furthermore, the fact that most of the people in the film currently live in these ski communities and the rest have formerly lived in them should easily rebut your assertion that the film is about envy. These people don’t envy people in ski towns as they
are the people in ski towns. I’ve asked this before but no one seems to have an answer: Why do you care that people in these towns would like to find solutions that allow viable communities and economic activity to occur together?
rfarren":1sz5gwct said:
I am happy you showed me that the shops in Vail are corporate. I'm glad that I know that now. Next time I go there I'll still probably spend my money there because I don't have a choice. I'm sorry, but to say corporations are patently bad is just a ridiculous a generalization as you accuse me of.
Where exactly do I state that “corporations are patently bad?” Is this your assumption based on what I’ve said or just your interpretation of what the talking heads in the film say? Point out where I state this or where anyone in the film says this. I don’t think that they are bad and in fact own stock of some selective corporations and am married to a corporate executive. I do think that some are better “citizens” (after all, the Supreme Court has granted them most of the rights of individual citizens) than others and a rare few, such as Monsanto, come pretty close to the “evil” imagined in science fiction films. I think the more interesting thing is where the broad generalizations that you and others bandy about come from. The film shows the causes and effects of the type of economic development that occurs in many resort communities. Any assignment of ethics or morals is entirely up to you. If you want to argue the merits of whether or not resort real estate speculation is a cause of middle class flight, fine. But to make the leap that someone saying that as the cost of living rises, artist, teachers, “dirt-bags,” etc move elsewhere is an indictment of the ethics of the developers is ridiculous. Perhaps you should question why you immediately come to the conclusion that the film or myself are anti-corporate.
And Rob, you don’t have to buy at a corporately owned store. As a consumer, you have freedom of choice and there are still a few shops in Vail that are owned by local owners. If shopping at an independent store matters to you and it’s too difficult to walk the extra 100 feet to Buzz’s Boots and Boards or Kenny’s Double Diamond, than you probably won’t last long on the mountain (I’ll even throw in a plug for my best friend's shop in the Vail parking structure, Gravity Jones. It ain’t a pretty shop, but they tune every pair of demo and rental skis every night and they are a lot cheaper than VR’s shops, you just have to walk a bit farther…). If VR eventually forces the rest to close up shop, than you won’t have a choice and you’ll also lose the advantages afforded to you by completion in the free market. VR is very good at branding in such a way that you (Rob) didn’t even know that most of the shops you could have chosen to do business in were owned by one entity. At the point when one entity owns/operates ¾ of all retail locations in a market and is constantly striving to increase that market share, you should be concerned; if not on an ethical basis then on an economic basis as a monopoly will only mean poorer selection, service and higher prices. Also, keeping in mind that you will read this as “anti-corporate” even though it is a statement of fact: for every locally owned shop that closes, there is less money that stays in Vail Valley communities and more that goes to Broomfield and VR’s shareholders. If you live locally, this could be a bad thing. If you are a holder of MTN stock, it could be a great thing. I’m not alluding to anything here, just that these are some of the impacts of VR’s possible monopoly of the local ski related retail market. If you read otherwise, that is your inference, not mine, and any implied bias is yours.
rfarren":1sz5gwct said:
What would've happened to Minturn had the mines and railroad closed, as they would've, but Vail wasn't there?
This is an unanswerable question. There are infinite possibilities in the realm of conjecture and we can’t possibly know the answer to them. What would have happened if the railroad didn’t close (there are rumors of its resurrection)? What if the price of ore didn’t drop so low in the 80’s? What if the Olympics were actually held in ’76 (Beaver Creek was to be the Alpine Venue)? What if the skyrocketing prices for minerals and rare earths leads to Gilman being reopened next year? What if Vail failed in its first few years? On and on…
Let’s attempt to answer it at its base level, assuming all other economic developments outside of Eagle County were as they are today. Minturn would likely have done just fine and would be comparable to Salida in terms of economic activity because of the following: the area would have (and did have, before the development that destroyed all of the valley floors and south-facing grass wintering range for ungulates) sizeable deer and elk populations, so it would have been a big hunting base in the fall. It is located at the junction of I-70 and US 24, two main arteries in the Central Rockies that would have accounted for plenty of service activity from travelers and commercial trucks, especially as it is almost equidistant from Frisco, Eagle and Leadville and at the base of two major passes. It is at the base of 2 wilderness areas with great backpacking and Mt. of the Holy Cross, one of Colorado’s most heavily climbed 14er’s. It sits at the confluence of the Eagle River and Gore Creek and just downstream from Homestake Creek, all of which are heavily used by rafters, (including at least 3 commercial rafting companies) and kayakers (much like Salida and Buena Vista). The Eagle River is a known as a “Gold Medal” trout stream (and would be even more pristine without the miles of development along its banks) and would draw its fair share of anglers. Ski Cooper and Copper Mountain would be about 40 minutes away for those that love to ski but don’t want or can’t afford to live in Summit County or don’t want to freeze in Leadville. There is great mountain biking in the area and it would be, like the area is today, a destination for riders seeking to escape the heat of the Front Range (only 2 hours away) in the summer. Like Salida, I’d imagine that Minturn would draw some of the arty, “soulful” folks that give many mountain towns the charm that most tourists, present company apparently excluded, like. Unlike the extreme real estate speculation that has occurred in the real Vail Valley (it would probably be called the Eagle River Valley, its real name), life in “alternate world” Minturn would be more affordable, although I’m sure that people would be arguing about the same issues as they do in almost every town. In short, “alternate world” Minturn would not be some Rust Belt type town withering away after the end of the industrial era, but more likely a healthy mountain community -not without its share of issues- that would be nice to live in. Colorado’s population has more than doubled since I was born and people continue to move there to find places like this mythical Minturn to live, raise families, start businesses, etc and the ski industry is not the be-all, end-all key to economic well-being for the state.
rfarren":1sz5gwct said:
Your views are overwhelmingly liberal, and that's fine, but I can't agree with you about things. As you say, you may not have argued the morality of the situation in documentary specifically, but it is implied, to say it wasn't is disingenuous. Did you have point behind your film when you made it? or did you just let things lie as they fell. Based on your trailer I felt you had a point of view that you were intent on pushing. BTW I work with documentary makers all the time and almost all of them know where they're going before they start a film.
Well, I’m not overwhelmingly liberal, although the generic tag “liberal” probably comes closest to describing my overall point of view. In some topics I come closer to agreeing with conservative views than liberal, much to my truly liberal friend’s consternation. I’d surmise that you are not overwhelmingly conservative and that you, being obviously pretty sharp, take a more nuanced view on most topics. But perhaps because you believe that I am so liberal, you automatically assume that I am anti-corporation, or that I’m envious of those wealthier than I, or that the film implies that all ski companies and developers are morally bankrupt. When we decided to make this film (again, what you’ve viewed is not our trailer nor is it our edit), our original intent was only to explore the environmental impacts of the industry but as we continued to interview people in ski towns (54 or so all told) we realized that for many, loss of community, loss of business opportunities, loss of charm, etc, were as poignant, if not more so, than the environmental impacts. Thus, as opposed to most documentary filmmakers that start with a general premise and than build a story to support this view, we gathered all of the information we could and told the story of what we learned about how these stakeholders view their communities. As I mentioned in my first post, the vast majority (95% or more) of ski industry employees and ski town residents that have seen the film have agreed that it is pretty accurate, including the impacts of the ski resort development model. Yet these same people don’t all agree on how to deal with the issues. If they agree with the premise of the film, then by using your broad brush they all are liberally biased and apparently wrong. I believe that they are more qualified to judge what is going on in their communities than you are and furthermore that they have a right to be part of the decision making process in their communities.
rfarren":1sz5gwct said:
As far as the specific points made in your reply I can't argue point by point as I have a job and don't have the time to spend on it. However, in a general response your complaints are common across the rest of the country wherever there is development. Not to be cold hearted, but change is inevitable, that being said, what you're doing is to fight the good fight, but understand that I'm entitled to disagree with you based on your evidence and principles. Don't get get angry at me that I felt the arguments made in your trailer were based on emotion and were easy to disagree with, that's my right. It's like me getting angry that you made the film in the first place. I'm sure your film is great, and am more than willing to watch the whole thing, but it would be better if you understood that I disagree with your bias, not with your work.
Great, we both work and I’ve spent an hour or two on this, which is more time on it than I should, but I find it great practice. Thanks for the comment that I’m “fighting the good fight,” that is a high compliment, but again (and I’ll keep asking), what is wrong with people trying to find solutions to the impacts of development in their communities? Of course change is inevitable, but most people aren’t going to shrug and accept everything that affects them. I’m sure even you don’t have such a fatalistic world-view, yet you have inferred in your posts that those that contest how these changes impact their lives are naïve and misguided and that is what I take umbrage at. I will admit that your comment about the film being about as watertight as a “cardboard battleship” (good imagery by the way) pricked my ego and resulted in my sarcastic tone and for that I apologize.
rfarren":1sz5gwct said:
You should feel stupid for that one. If the externalities cost you in the long run then it's not actually maximizing your profits, but in this case, your just losing out on an extra $1200 a year. That is money that could go towards getting the word out on your film, which by my summation (based on your opinion of the arguments of your whole film) is strong enough to help ski communities far better than your tenant could.
Nope, still don’t feel stupid. As mentioned above,
Resorting to Madness has run its course and made its impact. It continues to show up now and then, such as in this latest run here and on Unofficial Squaw, and we continue to sell a DVD every week or two, but we’ve better things to do than continue to flog an admittedly less-than-perfect (in a technical sense) film, so using the $1200 would be a waste of money. I think we can agree to disagree on this one. I don’t need the extra money as I live comfortably enough within my current middle class demographic. I don't need to accumulate all of the trappings of wealth that popular consumer culture uses to measure my success and self worth, and being somewhat knowledgeable about real estate, my property pays for itself. I also like having trustworthy tenants that pay their rent on time and take great care of my investment and I respect and like them as well, therefore I don’t feel the need to maximize my profit at their expense. Furthermore my tenants are skilled craftsman that make great beer in one of our local breweries –the town being Durango- and are involved in various cultural and social organizations in town. As such, they enrich the local community and make it a better place to live. What is important to me is that the community remain a nice place to live for all those that live there now, not just the wealthy, so I’m not concerned if the value doesn’t double in 5 years (not like that’s going to happen again anytime soon), in fact, I’d prefer that it doesn’t as it would permanently alter what makes Durango such a great place to live and if I ever bring my family back to live there, we will move back to a vibrant community and not the empty, itinerant, hollow place I lived in when I was in Tahoe City. But that’s just me…
Geoff":1sz5gwct said:
Jeez. This is the Rasta Pete argument from Blizzard of Aaaaahs. I'm getting absolutely nothing new or original here.
Granted I haven’t seen Blizzard of Aahhhs in at least 15 years, but I don’t remember Rasta Pete. Are you thinking of Rasta Stevie? I can’t recall his “argument” much but I do remember that his less than impressive and rambling statement was along the lines of: “…things are expensive, man. We need to make things less expensive brah. Yeah, dude…” If so, then there is nothing in common with my film, and the people interviewed in it, with Rasta Stevie’s blathering and you are just being condescending.
Geoff":1sz5gwct said:
rfarren is simply saying that nobody is born entitled to be able to afford to live somewhere.
Please point out where I’ve stated that people are
entitled to live somewhere? Where in the few minutes of the film you may have watched (you did state that “anything with Hal Clifford in it automatically gets rejected out of hand in my book at being hopelessly biased” so I assume you didn’t bother watching any of it) did anyone say that people are
entitled to live somewhere? I don’t read Rob’s point of view as being that simple. In fact he didn’t say anything even remotely like that. Here is what he stated and I responded to:
rfarren":1sz5gwct said:
I watched all ten minutes... I dry-heaved when the argument was made to save the town for the "dirt-bag." HA!!!
1, skiing is inherently destructive to the environment.
2, the reason why the the person who buys a second home and the ski bum who choses to reside in these communities are often one and the same. You can't say one is moral and the other isn't. It's a side-effect of the desirability of a given place.
3, Hearing someone in a resort community say "I think they should be responsible with development" is no different than hearing that in any other community across the country i.e.
http://atlanticyardsreport.blogspot.com/.
4, the arguments made in those 10 minutes are about as water-tight as a cardboard battleship.
Please point out where he says that people aren’t born entitled to live somewhere.
Geoff":1sz5gwct said:
I'd love to have a 3000 square foot penthouse on Central Park, a slopeside trophy home at GnarlyLand Mountain Resort, or a villa on the beach. Guess what? The law of supply and demand says those locations are going to be wildly expensive.
Again, where have I, or anyone in the film (that you haven’t watched) mentioned that they’d like to have a bunch of expensive trophy homes? All of the people in the film live where they want to live and apparently live in places that you’d like to but can’t afford to. You are making wildly off-the-mark assumptions based on your own preconceived notions.
Geoff":1sz5gwct said:
I make due a mile off-mountain at some east coast hell hole ski area and 1/3 mile off salt water in an affordable salt water town for my housing. I don't resent the extremely affluent for being able to afford that real estate.
If you consider your local hill a “hell-hole” than why do you chose to ski there? Your language here has a touch of bitterness that leads me to wonder if you are a bit resentful after all.
Geoff":1sz5gwct said:
Unlike where I live, when they bought in a decade ago, they locked in their property taxes. The rest of California is subsidizing their existance due to a really bizarre property tax law where they can live in a million dollar home and pay property tax as though it were a $250K home. You'll notice what a financial debacle that has created in California. When you enact quasi-socialist law, nobody wants to pay for it.
This is a ridiculous statement loosely based on fact. I assume you are referring to Prop 13 which was enacted to reduce taxation on homeowners. Ironic that you complain about legislation that reduces the tax burden on homeowners while you also complain that ski bums use your tax dollars to live for free. Prop 13 has had both positive and negative impacts and to pin all of California’s economic woes on this one source is absurd. For the record, my friend and his wife bought their house a few years before the height of the market, and made an addition for their growing family, which means that not only did they have a pretty high tax rate compared to many neighboring houses that were bought in the 90's, but they were also reassessed for the new construction. To infer that they pay some trivial amount in taxes and that the rest of the state supports them is, at the risk of overusing the word, ridiculous. In fact, we pay about 10 times as much tax on our home in San Francisco than we do for our property in Colorado, even though the latter’s appraised value is less than 1/2 of our home here, so it’s not like California residents don’t pay sizeable property taxes.
Look, my philosophy is based on this simple fact: when I was born there were less than 200 million people in the United States and about 3.4 billion people on the planet. Today, there are about 310 million people in the US and around 7 billion on the planet. In 2050, there will be a projected 440 million in the US and a projected 9.2 billion on the planet. In my lifetime the US population will more than double and the world’s population will almost triple. We are inexorably using up our resources and polluting many of the systems that we need to stay healthy. Thus in the interests of the well being of my family, my friends, my countrymen and my species, I attempt to find solutions for our growing problems so that my kids and their great-great grandkids can still enjoy the quality of life that we do now and this, if anything is my bias. The outdated concepts of “to the winners go the spoils,” “trickle-down economics” and infinitely expanding economic growth so espoused by many of the conservatives in this country are outdated and dangerous and this is the attitude that gets me angry because I find that it is a direct attack on the safety, health and security of my children and of future generations. Some of you that read this may only care for their immediate well-being and I find that incredibly selfish, callous and immoral. Because of this, I will spend a huge chunk of time trying to get these people to care about our shared future (thus the time I’ve invested in this damn post). The issues we explore in our films are infinitesimal compared to the bigger pictures of changing climate, dwindling access to clean water and food, etc, but the search for solutions and the processes in understanding and coming to consensus are the same and are the key to the bigger challenges that we face. Concern of our shared world apparently labels me as a lefty liberal, which is some sort of mark of disgust and shame among the conservative-minded. I find it depressing and disheartening that my concern and work to better our world, or at worst, maintain it as is, is seen as a negative attribute and I feel the same way about those of you on this forum that spend a lot of time bashing people that strive to keep their communities livable. I’ll ask it one last time: why do you care so much if these stakeholders have a say in their communities?
rfarren":1sz5gwct said:
BTW, please do send the DVD I watch 1 or 2 documentaries on Netflix a week. I guess though I shouldn't watch it off of netflix because it's a corporation, darn, I guess your damned if you do or if you don't...
Rob, PM me with an address and I’ll get one off to you ASAP. I definitely would prefer you watch the copy I’ll send you and not the version you can rent on Netflix. Not because it’s from Netflix -after all we gave them permission to rent it- but because the version they have looks like crap and the version we sell now looks, sounds and plays better. Plus I can autograph it for you with some trite personal message!
