Three Reasons Why You Should Never Blog When You're Tired

I had this idea for a political cartoon but unfortunately I can't draw so I'll have to describe it instead. It takes place in front of the capitol, and out in front there's a long continuous line of SUV's all climbing the hill with banners on the back saying "$3.00 a gallon gas", and in one of the SUV's there's this big fat guy leaning out the window and looking at the capitol with his fist in the air, and the caption reads "It's all your fault!"

Yeah, I know, pretty lame, but then I'm no cartoonist.

And that's not what I wanted to talk about anyways. What I want to talk about is Eric Steel. If you don't know who Eric Steel is then let's just say he is an important filmaker. How do we know he is an important filmaker? Well, because he's made an important film, that's how. Please, read on. This is very important.

Apparently, Eric Steel asked officials with the Golden Gate National Recreation Area for permission to film the Golden Gate Bridge for a series of movies he was making on national monuments. Naturally, the bridge officials agreed and so Mr. Steel set up cameras that would shoot continuously throughout the daylight hours for most of 1994. That's a lot of footage, but it was for a good cause. Right?

Well, turns out our filmaker wasn't being exactly honest with the bridge officials. Instead, what he really wanted to shoot was not the bridge but people jumping off the bridge and comitting suicide. Not actors, mind you, but actual people jumping to their deaths. That meant he was able to film about 19 successful attempts during this period along with numerous aborted attempts as well. All he had to do was go through the footage, find all the good parts, and edit it something an audience could enjoy. Swell guy, this Mr. Eric Steel.

So there you have it. I guess the movie is finished now and awaiting release, and sure to be a hit with audiences bored by all the simulated violence they have had to witness over the years. Now, at last, we have a movie where audiences can go and see the real thing. Real human beings dying on film. "Kind of sick" you may be saying to yourself, "controversial" say others, not realizing that in these modern times, words like "sick" and "controversial" are just mediaspeak terms for...

"important."

You can practically hear the critics now. "Most important film of the year from one of America's most important filmakers." The folks associated with the bridge aren't to thrilled with it all, of course, and some are calling for renewed efforts to erect suicide barriers along the bridge, a move that would save lives but would diminish the aesthetic aspects of the world's most beautiful bridge. It's not an easy call.

I'm of two minds on this myself. Sure, we all want to save lives but there are other things to consider. I mean, if they erect the barriers how would people like Eric Steel get their kicks? Has anyone thought of that? This is an important filmaker we're talking about. Not some sick bastard who's looking to draw attention to himself by exploiting the misery and suffering of others. If they do build the barriers what will that do to him? Poor, miserable SOB. Perhaps he can find some other important project to enlighten us with. Something like child molestation perhaps? Sure, instead of just talking about it, why not shoot a film where we get to see actual children being sodomized on camera? Huh, don't tell me that wouldn't be important.

(I'm just kidding by the way. I know how seriously people take these blogs sometimes.)

Well, enough of that. If you want to read about Eric Steel the story can be found here. Now on to other (more important) things.


Do you live in California and, if you do, have you ever heard of the transfer tax? If you ever bought a home in California and actually managed to make it all the way through all the little numbers in your final closing papers then you might have. If not then let me explain.

The transfer tax is levied by your County Recorder when your Deed is presented to them for entry into the Official Record. This is a complicated process which involves stamping the document, photocopying it, and stuffing it in an envelope to be mailed back to you. In California all counties charge the same transfer tax of $0.55 per $500. That is, you take the sales price (or fair market value) of the property and divide that number by $500, rounded up to the next even multiple of $500, and then multiply the quotient by 0.55 to arrive at your final tax. For example, for a typical California home selling for around $700,000 you would divide 700,000 by 500 and then multiply by 0.55 to arrive at a tax of $770.

Ok, so what's the big deal. Well, it's not really a big deal, but did you also know that certain cities in California also charge their own separate transfer taxes that are levied in addition to the transfer taxes levied by the counties? If you read your closing papers you did, but in case you didn't then I found this great little website called dirtlawyer.com which gives an interesting breakdown of all the various transfer taxes charged by cities and counties in California. Quite an eye-opener if you're considering buying or selling property out here.

The good news is that in 47 out of 58 counties no additional city taxes are levied at all, and in the remaining counties only some of the major cities have such levies. In Santa Clara County, for examle, only the cities of San Jose, Palo Alto and Mt. View have the tax at a somewhat reasonable rate of $3.30 per $1000. Sonoma and Yolo Counties have much lower rates than ours (Cloverdale in Sonoma County, for example, only charges $1.10 per $1,000), but what really caught my attention was the incredibly high amounts charged by some other California cities. In San Francisco, for example, the rate is $6.80 per $1,000 for our hypothetical $700,000 home, but that pales in comparison to the taxes charged across the bay in Alameda County, where the cities of Oakland and Berkely charge a whopping $15 per 1,000.

Are you kidding me?

That means on a $700,000 home in Oakland, Alameda County would charge a $770 transfer tax and the City of Oakland would levy an additional $10,500, bringing the total transfer tax bill to a staggering $11,270. Holy Toledo, and that's just the tax you pay for recording your Deed. Compared to the $3,080 you'd pay in San Jose for that same sales price I'd say that San Jose seems like quite a bargain. At least it would to an old penny-pincher like me.

Anyways, it's an interesting chart of a little known tax. It also breaks down the tax on the basis of who pays what, so that in Alameda County for instance, the seller actually pays the county transfer tax and half the city transfer tax and the buyer pays the rest. That means in our hypothetical $700,000 transaction, the buyer would only pay $5,250 and the other $6,020 would be deducted from the sellers proceeds. Seems reasonable, eh?

Ah, homebuying is so much fun. Maybe in the future we can talk about property taxes and earthquake insurance.