May 30, 2009
Clusterflock Inn
Okay, here’s the plan: I buy an old motel somewhere in Texas. It’s just for us–not a working property. We find a caretaker–someone who lives there rent-free in exchange for keeping the place up. Flockers can gather there at will–single or in groups. We call it The Clusterflock Inn.
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Brilliant! I was coming to Texas anyway – it would be good to have a base.
yes.
I also want crazy people to stay there.
other than us.
on a rotating basis.
Perhaps we could mention on forums that odd lights are often seen at night and or ghosts – or even clouds in the shape of dead presidents or dead pop stars can be seen – you know, attract the odd wacko.
I think she’s serious about this chief.
I am too.
(I hope my frivolity didn’t distract from that.)
meaning, I love the idea.
love it.
Sounds like a great idea. It should have orange colored neon on it somewhere, too.
Oh, yes, Amy. Good neon is essential. In fact, this will be my opportunity to house my long-hoped-for collection of large neon signs. From washeterias, liquor stores, movie theaters, ice cream parlors. There will a big field out back to house the signs, with long dinner tables set among them. Then, on special occasions, we will light the signs and eat.
I want some pale blue neon for when it snows.
Daryl, so am I – I’ve just poured a gin, I’m that serious!
It could be a kind of artist retreat.
Inspiration for the neon signs, from Lex.
if I can do anything to help, let me know.
I’ve got a farm in Groesbeck, TX just outside of Waco – doing nothing other than playing host to some rather boring cows.
You’re welcome to hang a shingle there, as long as you name one of the wings after me.
Can I get on the list of potentials for the innkeeper job? Might be good to get back my Texas roots…
I’m in this up to my elbows.
I’m serious… (Lucy, yes, I like the artist retreat idea. It’s been too long since I have been surrounded by creative folks.)
Wow, Bud, that’s a swell offer. I kind of have my hopes set on an actual old motel, but if we decide to go the farm route, we’ll talk. Although I think the thought of a compound outside of Waco might make Lucy a little nervous.
Dave F, you’re at the top of the list for potential innkeepers.
I’ll get to lookin’ for the mo-tel.
Holy shit, y’all. Danny and I were talking about this in the car driving last weekend (all told we spent 24 hours or so in the car Thursday through Monday). Maybe we need two or three or five or six different places in different parts of the country. Maybe we could all have a room to call our own in each other’s places?
I see it as my working retirement. An artist retreat exactly or a crazy person’s retreat maybe we could winter in the south, summer in the north. It’s a crazy notion. So crazy it ought to be real. If I win the lottery tonight we’re all in.
Damn, Rick. I have 3 months worth of lottery tickets to check. I could be sitting on a reality.
If the position is still open, I’d like to throw my name into the potential-innkeeper talent pool. Rick and I have plans within plans, schemes within schemes, dreams within dreams, for what the future might hold in terms of motel restoration and artistic retreat development.
Or perhaps we will just pick up our lives and relocate to Telephone TX in the Praxis community and reinvent ourselves in the shadow of spiritual giants.
Oh Phil, what a great line.
I have been telling myself that I’ll check them for weeks. I will in the morning, if my numbers come up, well, I’ll be dropping Cindy a little note to Buy, Buy, Buy.
If I don’t move to Malta, I might apply for caretaker too. But not if I have to house the ‘loonies’. I stress too easily.
The motel idea is perfect because of the separate facilities, especially if it’s an old motel with kitchenettes. Folks could have art studios, writing studios, photography. . . .
Yes and you know, motels are kind of thrilling entities in themselves. I’m kind of with Coop about the loonies. I am basically odd, but then there’s loony. It makes for difficult living circumstances.
I am so for this idea. If there were a vote, I would vote yes. And I would come.
“Flock in to the Flock Inn!”
Yes, Cooper, the ideal is one of the old motor courts with individual cottages with kitchenettes. I know there are old motels for sale for practically nothing in remote areas, but my guess is that anything with charm–like the kind of motor court I’m envisioning–won’t be affordable unless, like Danny and Rick, we’re looking at it as an ultimate place for year-round living in retirement. And that idea is sounding better and better–especially if several of us stayed there most of the time.
I just need for all of you to know that I’m dead serious about this. I don’t know if it can happen this year or if it will take several years, but I’m serious about doing this. And I’d love for it to be a group effort for any of y’all who are interested–work on it if you want, or just come and stay for a while, or stay forever!
Hell, this might be what gets Sheila back to Texas, at least temporarily.
And, Garrett, if this is what it takes to officially draw you into the loop, that’s the cherry on the cupcake.
I’m in! I’m in! I have experience living in microscopic apartments, so I’d be chuffed just to borrow a closet for an art studio. We could even use it for instrument storage…
Living small is really good. My ‘park model’ RV (like a tiny house trailer) is, I think, 350 sq ft, and it’s really more space than I need. I would love to have a tiny little ‘efficiency house’ in a quiet neighborhood of efficiency houses.
Cindy, there’s a shit-fuck of old motels on Ft.Worth Ave. Especially the kind we’re talking about.
The difference between a ‘compound’ and a ‘campground’ is a subtle but important one.
We’re dead serious, too. Don’t know how it’ll happen yet, but I can see it, it can happen.
Also, Coop. I have long admired your lifestyle. Maybe Danny and I will just have an auction, sell off every unnecessary thing. (It’s a secret wish of mine.)
My worry is that I get over excited. Cindy, Cindy what have you started you lovely thing you.
Rick, I too have admired Cooper’s lifestyle – often these cluttered lives we live cause such problems. The more space we have the more we bloody fill it.
Deron, yeah, I love the old motels on Fort Worth Avenue. The problem with those is property taxes and land value, both of which are sure to rise in coming years. I don’t want an investment–I’m thinking of something that will be an initial outlay of money, then will be practially free thereafter, except for utilities, maintenance and modest county taxes. Ideally, it will be someplace within an hour of a city.
I’m tethered to Texas, but northern New Mexico and Arkansas have strong pulls, too. What do y’all think of those? It would be great to have some snow, some mountains, some water. New Mexico has a state income tax, though. Don’t know about Arkansas–but I know they’re both affordable.
I’m down with it. Shit, I’d draw a circle around Texas a state wide and say yes. I know Oklahoma could be tough, but it sure can be pretty out toward Tulsa.
Also, my sweetheart Dave must promise to visit often to give us CE classes. We don’t want to fall behind in our quest for lifelong learning.
Cindy, there are other problems with the old motels on Fort Worth Avenue. Fr’instance, if you bought the Alamo Plaza, I would always be thinking of me and my boyfriend renting a room there for six dollars in 1969. This must have been after he no longer had a summer lease on the Travis Street shack where I was deflowered.
I’m afraid I might get really confused.
Same with any of those old motels way out west on Davis. My parents lived in one of them when they moved down from Connecticut to Dallas after WWII.
Too many ghosts.
Note to self: no ghosts.
Wait! Wait! Other people’s ghosts are cool. I would love to stay in a haunted Clusterflock Inn.
It’s just that I would love a retreat from my own ghosts.
Sheila, you told me you were a virgin.
Well, it’s like I said when I introduced myself to this group. I live to embellish.
And I am fatally drawn to mendacity.
This really is a very ambitious sounding project. It’s a big financial investment, commitment, relocation… are you thinking about it as a place for a core number of people to live on a semi-permanent or permanent basis, with space for visitors? A fund to pay for the expenses and upkeep? A kind of refuge, retreat?
Just about everywhere I’ve lived has been more or less on the ocean or sea. It was a big shock when I went to the US for the first time, Nashville was my first stop, and I realised in the plane on the way, that my view out the window was the last I was going to see of ocean for some time. I think I am very drawn to varied places, but all have that proximity to the sea. I don’t think I’d feel right living in a landlocked place. But this is conversation really, for my part. I am a certain kind of gypsy spirit, but I basically feel at home in the Irish countryside, and also in the dense urban jungle of New York. But I love to explore. And visit.
You are so right, Lucy. Two or three times in my life I have been fortunate enough to own land and have access to capital, and it’s just damned amazing how regularly things fall through.
Dang. Just ten years I ago I thought I was going to acquire the final remaining forty acres (actually thirty-nine pont something-or-other) of the remaining Wild West. I’ve pursued various schemes and dreams that blew up in my face — in a kinda slow and painful way.
That much said, I think what people are proposing sounds great. And if I am not reduced to utter pauperdom by the end of the calendar year, I’d love to pursue what I might contribute.
And, of course, Lucy — and all y’all — there are oh-so-many models for the various visions envisioned. And I know that lots of people here know about those things.
But it is good you say what you say — because your questions are good questions.
Well, if we ever move on with this thing, just know that I know a seriously heavy-hitting West Coast (US) real estate lawyer/film producer who has always been generous with free or cheap (and good) advice.
Well it wasn’t my intention to naysay or suggest that it was unlikely to happen because of its ambition. Far from it. I’m all for ambitious projects with heart. My life feels like that, right now. I would like to encourage this kind of thinking, and support it.
If I can contribute financially, I will. I know how to do almost anything construction / renovation oriented. Rumor is I’ve been slow in the past, but I’ve definitely picked it up. The efficiency of experience I guess. And no longer being afraid of it.
plus, I have the tools.
Yes, I was just thinking about various communities I have visited in Denmark, variations on this theme. Often with an eco twist, because that’s usually the next thing people think of when they think of living in a communal-yet-separate arrangement in a bucolic environment. But in Denmark, it is a very normal way of living.
Oh, hell, no, Lucy! I did not interpret your words as naysaying. In fact, I thought they were both moderate and bracing, if such is possible.
Clearly, if we want to move on much further from this discussion, we must shift to a more private forum.
Listen, y’all. Against the wishes and intentions and efforts both of myself and my ninety-three year-old mother, she is now incarcerated in a ‘really nice’ nursing home in Dallas, and she is miserable, and I am miserable — and believe me, I am thinking hard about what it takes in this world to live a good and fulfilling life both now and in my dotage.
These are also bracing thoughts.
Sheila, I bought Gladwell’s Outliers last night and within the first pages is a paragraph that speaks to the issue you raise (and potentially to this endeavor as well). I will post it in the coming days.
Oh, good, Deron. ‘Cause I know my mom and i had all the right discussions and tried to do all the right things, but — bang! (Especially when you are an only monkey of an only parent and a thousand miles and an occasionally rocky relationship lie between you.)
This feels good in so many ways – loving the discussion, the debate.
Well one thing many of our cultures in this world share, is a bizarre attitude to ageing, dying and how to treat our old people. I’ve seen many people in their last decade of life, and it’s not always pretty: lack of family closeness, lack of community or friends, and a medical monolith that thinks that the most important thing is to extend the duration of life at all other costs, even resorting to total sedation of that prolonged life, just as long as it can be prolonged. And this is basically the law of the land.
I saw an interview with Melvyn Bragg recently where he suggested that he’s made arrangements to have himself brought to Switzerland, if it comes to it.
Okay, let me clarify my idea a bit. The plan is that I buy the place. Me, Cindy–my mo-tel. This is not out of a need for ownership, but out of a desire for simplicity. I don’t want others to feel an obligation or any sense of burden by this. The plan is that I buy the place, and any flocker can use it at any time. Money and management are my thing–I can do those. Someone will have to live there year-round to keep the place occupied and kept up, but I don’t think we’ll have much of a problem on that front–my guess is that we’ll always have one or more flockers who wish to be there, some on a permanent or semi-permanent basis. Daryl and I might very well retire there in a few years. This is not to say that I will pay for everything–each flocker who visits/stays will need to pay his or her own way in terms of utilities, food, and some maintenance, but there will be no profit sought, so it will be very cheap. And, of course, brilliant but desperately poor flockers will be subsidized. The motel will be remote out of financial necessity, but there are some requirements for this place: UPS delivery, fast internet, access to a city with restaurants, an airport and a hospital. What I envision is a home base–a place available to flockers to gather as a group whenever we want to get together, but that also will be available to flockers who want a brief getaway or a long-term place to stay.
Do you see what I’m seeing? Does this appeal to y’all?
I sure do see it, Cindy. You describe it that way, it’s crystal clear.
Don’t I know it, Lucy. My mother once asked me if I owned a gun and knew how to use it and whether I would use it on her if the time came. I told her I had one and that I could use it but that I wasn’t willing to be sent to the Big House for her sake. She came around.
Last time she was in her right mind, she said, “I think that old people should be issued expiration dates.”
The damn thing is, sometimes events unravel fast and furious, and the best-laid plans blow all to hell.
It sounds like the lone house on the prairie, one exit to the east, one to the west, with travellers passing through. This is a deeply kind idea, Cindy.
I’d love to visit. Meet more of you imaginary friends.
The good news of course is that sometimes the worst laid plans blow all to hell, also.
Sounds perfect Cindy, and perfectly simple (at least on the levels that count)! …and I am still serious…
I think you guys could be on to something. You have a unique community ~ but you have to get organized. I mean, there is allot of money out there in foundations to support an idea. You need a mission – beside yourselves.
You could create some income and opportunity for artist types who need a venue. My daughter Becca created a graffti venue for kids in Brooklyn.It was an after school program – for teens. There is money out there for such projects. I like the neon light idea – but not sure that would fly!!
Create a board and a non for profit. Don’t get squimish about “looking like your going main stream either”. Your all too bright &creative too look like “deers in headlights”.
I have done some research in the past – I was amazed the amount of money out there for individuals that were concerned about the shrinking middle class in America and the impact it could have on ones future rights.. Who knew??
Just some thoughts.
Valerie
Yeah but with the money, you also become beholden to grant giving bodies’ criteria and structures, that way. And you have to fulfil bullshit and write reports. I think what Cindy is proposing is much simpler than that.
I agree, Lucy. For my part, I just want a place that will foster the kinds of human connections I saw last weekend at Clusterflockstock. I wouldn’t ask somebody to help me buy my own house, and I wouldn’t want to live in a place that also had to be “income producing.” Also, I wouldn’t want the whole thing to become a craft compound or any sort of place given to teaching, promoting or preaching. Being able to go to a place that clearly doesn’t have any kind of agenda would be something we would want to offer. And as for dinner under the stars amid a maze of cast off neon signs, lit occasionally for the delight of a few guests–that would indeed “fly” because that’s all it would be–a thing of delight, for us and anybody else given to taking delight in such a thing. One good thing about having some money (and we are not rich–we have simply not wanted many of the things many people spend lots of money on) is that it allows one to not be thinking all the time about making more money. Some very wealthy people never learn this.
Sounds like – reverse prejudice . I know lots a people with real money supporting real causes – and although they have “things”.. they were once poor and “get it”.
…as you wish. it was just an idea.
Maybe you can get a successful aritist to jump start you – cause he passionate about your vision – mission. Not everyone expects something back – but just wants you to be true to the overall cause.Google Danny Clinch.. he is in my network – maybe he might have interest. He rbings new meaning to “kool”.
I did go Woodstock and own a VW Bus…but my world grew – as did I.
VS
My goodness, Valerie–I thank you for your thoughts, but did you read the string of comments here? If you buy a house and select one that will allow you to invite a number of friends for extended stays–would you really need to formulate a “mission statement”? And what would you think if you bought such a place, and then had people tell you that you should or could be doing this or that with it, instead of just, you know, living there and having a good time? Aims such as the one considered here don’t all fall into narrow categories of opportunity, with one having to choose Woodstock as a model or an NEA funded writer’s colony as a model.
And what exactly could you mean by “reverse prejudice”? Do you think we don’t know and respect a number of people who have “real” money? Is it not common to see people who make lots of money and always seem to want more? Seems like the current banking crisis would provide ample evidence of that–particularly when one sees the list of items being auctioned off to benefit defrauded investors. But maybe I’m just being prejudiced and don’t see the grand authority of old money that should insulate the wealthy from the harsh claims of the rabble.
Daryl, I like your thinking and really don’t see any reverse prejudice at all. I believe in and feel yours and Cindy’s vision. I’m there!
Okay, let me put this disagreement to rest (I hope). Valerie, I make a very nice 6-figure salary. My idea is not the least bit naive–it is, in fact, something I could do this week, if I feel so moved. My thinking is that it will take some time to find the perfect place, but rest assured–when the perfect place is found, I can buy it.
Me, too. Y’all. And I hope I did not conflibberate things by any of my meanderings. Cindy clarified things perfectly by saying, in effect, “I would like to do this.” Straightforward. Just like Cindy.
“I want to do this because I want to do it and I love y’all.”
Yep. I know things get complicated. But I know that Cindy is smart and savvy and knows all that shit. And I know that she has a better-than-good heart. So I am all eager to trust her and to offer what help I can.
And I know that Cindy is smarter than a sack of stoats and is not at all naive about the real world.
Far from it.
Oh Cindy! That little town Gainesville is quite charming. I even thought of taking over the empty school building for my artist residency idea. For which Valerie’s notion would be most helpful. Gainesville’s real cute I learned- even cuter than the part we saw when you dropped me off at Starbucks. They also have a bunch of historical homes that are just BEGGING to be made into a hotel, motel, clusterflock inn.
Mary–we loved that town too! In fact, Cindy has already looked into property values there. We have thought for some time of buying a lot somewhere and building a green modern house on it, so Cindy looked first at lots. There is a 1/2 acre lot in the middle of town for $8,000. And, as you say, there must be dozens of places there that would be worth looking at.
Just been doing me a street view of Gainesville. Nice!
Y’all are challenging me. It just shreds me to tatters to come back to Texas. I quite literally fall ill — for days — every time I return.
Can’t we do New Mexico — or Arkansas — or anywhere else?
It doesn’t have to be Texas, Sheilababy. Arkansas and New Mexico are real possibilities. And Deron’s right about the beauty of certain parts of Oklahoma, but we can’t go there–they water down their alcohol, for god’s sake.
Cindy, this won’t be one of those places where you have to sign in as “Mr. and Mrs. John Smith” in order to satisfy the desk clerk, will it?
I wish Screamin’ Jay Hawkins were alive and willing to act as desk clerk.
I’m in love with this idea and I’m tearing up over it. How lovely to have a place to gather and share ideas and create art and just fucking live!
I am glad I stir up the crowd.. and got some of you thinking.
I understand …the world… you live in – and take notice – and I am right behind you!! Its not the way things have always been… I think you should know . One time we could trust.. allot of things …even if we didn’t embrace the percieved greed… “just o make money”. They didn’t hurt or harm.. they were just motivated to be on top. Excellence .. on another level… in their world. The didn’t compromise themselves to be there.. Ok maybe in our “Woodstock vision of world.. but even Abby Hoffman realized at a point in this life … he had to make a living… I hope I offered some clearity. Money is not the enemy…even though it can be “the root of all evil.”
Hey, the cats out of the bag.. you have resources … I was only trying to help! ( I have an opinon about it ….but I will keep it to myself.)
I took a year off and raised close to 1M for a club in Trenton that has helped urban kids… because I had the resources/ contacts to do it.
Our generation ( those of us who cared and saw what was important in life and challenged it.)……….. ” we wanted to “changed the world”…it just took longer than we expected.Your journey into a colorless world ..is our doing.
The task at hand .. is not to be” controlled by the hands of the abuser”… or throw the baby out with the bath water.
Our country ( all in all ) is built on good morals. DONT FORGET THAT!!
VJKS
No editing.. I have a bottle of wine- to boot!
I too would love to find a cheap lot and build a green modern home or renovate something, slapping some solar panels on it and growing veggies and chickens in the backyard.
Thanks, Valerie. You might not be aware that the median age of clusterflockers is about 40. A good many of us are over 50. We aren’t new to the world.
Amy, are you thinking of a pre-fab? That’s the idea we’ve been tossing around for a while.
A pre-fab would be great, but it seems so many are too expensive for us right now. I’m sure that a more economical version will surface soon, or at least when we are ready to build one.
Mulch. Think mulch.
got any more exotic fruits from around the globe?
You tempt me to go out and pluck curious berries from driftless regional trees I cannot identify.
I have long had the longing to buy an old gas station–two service bays, small office area with large closet, two bathrooms–to convert into livable space.
When I first moved back to San Francisco, the apartment I lived in was a first-floor storefront with a very Mission District mural covering the exterior. I lived like Harry Potter under the stairs — truly in the storage closet — but it created a similar longing in me to convert Main St. utilitarian spaces, like beauty parlors and bakeries, into homes.
Some day.
And then there are old abandoned churches. I have heard that people who buy those often get some sort of religious person to come in and do a ritual that changes the place back into a regular building. It’s funny, but even though I’m not a “believer,” as they say, that process strikes me as a respectful thing to do. For me it has more to do, though, with the history of the hopes of all the people who once gathered in such a place. That sort of haunting seems more real to me.
When I was living on the street–Sunset Strip, to be exact–at age 15, a bunch of “us” (derelicts, banished bikers, runaways, criminals on the run, nut cases, draft dodgers, saints, caved in bargain hunters, cowboy wannabe porn stars…) were huddled in an outside alcove of a large church on a cold night. Then an industrious soul jimmied the lock on a door that let us into the main building. Everybody filed in quietly and made beds on the pews and carpeted floors. But then a nut case from Iowa started to cry. “It’s always waiting for me,” he said. He rushed up and started to play the big faux pipe organ. He played very well and even took unusual requests. Then we heard sirens approaching and we all had to run.
Back the next day though for the free doughnuts and coffee.
I remember in Metropolitan Home a long time ago. There were a couple of Dallas boys who had converted a Piggley Wiggley into their home. Danny and I still mention it every now and then, It was neat.
Coop, let’s not forget your drive-in concession stand scheme. If the 61 Drive-In near Maquoketa, Iowa goes under, maybe you acquire it.
Wait. I forgot. You don’t do winter.
Well, it could be a summer home. You could winter in the Valley, right where you are now.
And just think: The 61 Drive-In is just a hop, skip, and a jump down Highway 61 from Dubuque. And you’d be a short drive from the Quad Cities as well.
It has much to recommend it.
Rick, I sure hope they retained some of the Pig paraphernalia and signs.
I have a camera-phone snap somewhere of my local Pig; perhaps I will post it for our evaluation.
Daryl, your wonderful church story reminds me of a few tales from my own misspent youth.
Was it that big Kessler Park Methodist Church? Hmmmnh. I don’t quite recollect.
Those tales I will perhaps share when we-all finally meet over fish tacos.
Coop, I’ve been tempted by old “fillin’ stations” myself. The beautiful stucco ones.
Guys, a mother of a motherboard knocked me offline for a few days, so I’m just catching up to this idea and thread.
It just so happens that if you look for the right type of properties (pre-1936 and/or eligible for recognition on the National Register-which is not necessarily as hard as you think for an old building with a little bit of character and a modicum of nostalgia) there have been some nifty changes to the tax laws that make this idea even more plausible.
In a nutshell, for Register properties, you could recover 20% of your rehabilitation costs in tax credits the first year the Inn is placed in service. This particular piece of tax law isn’t new, but the way the credits now work recently changed.
Don’t want to get too legalistic about this dreamy stuff, but if you would like to learn more about this, I’d be happy to kick in a little knowledge.
Oh, Jay, thanks so much for this! My plan had been to find something valued low in a rural county, where taxes wouldn’t be much of a consideration. But your suggestion opens the door to other possibilities. As I continue to look into this, I will surely take you up on your offer of advice. Thank you very much!!
[...] posting my hopes of finding a vintage motel to serve as the clusterflock inn, I have done a lot of searching. There are some great old motels out there (some of which are [...]