I'm reading "Won’t You Be My Neighbor? No Thanks, Elon Musk. Residents of an upscale enclave outside Austin, Texas, learned the hard way what it’s like when a multibillionaire moves into the mansion next door. Some of them have started a ruckus over it" (NYT).
Some screwy details in that story — Texans bothered by holstered guns, flying a spy drone into your neighbor's airspace then complaining that he's got cameras aimed out at the street where you took the liberty to pee, that whole nakedness-or-black-underwear conundrum....
In any case, doesn't Elon have his own city now? I'm reading "Voters Approve Incorporation of SpaceX Hub as Starbase, Texas/A South Texas community, mostly made up of SpaceX employees, voted 212 to 6 in favor of establishing a new city called Starbase" (NYT).
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103 comments:
Musk is right to be extremely security-conscious.
The guy who pisses in the street is head of the homeowners association.
Those who support Hemmer's actions are known informally as Hemmeroids.
Just another leftist who wants Musk to be unarmed and unable to stop him from peeing on Musk's property.
The neighbor sounds like a real peach, doesn’t he?
I can’t get through the paywall. Do they quote anyone else, or is the whole article based on the ravings of a single leftist crank who pisses in the street and harasses his neighbor with drones?
Texans bothered by holstered guns
Residents of wealthy suburbs in Austin are not like most other Texans. It’s a dot of navy blue in a deep red sea.
Yeah, just from the excerpt, the neighbor is the crazy, not Musk. How can he complain about cameras watching him pee when he flies a drone and keeps cameras on Musk's property?
That Hemmer fellow sounds like a real piece of work. This may have been written as a hit-piece on Musk, but your excerpts are more damning of his neighbor.
If he wants to live like he's in the middle of nowhere, then he needs to live in the middle of nowhere. In the meantime, he needs a visit from the police about his harassment and assorted gross behavior. Texas is not San Francisco.
Oh gee - I was walking outside in black underwear and on another day I had to pee,in public, but I can't stand the guy who moved into my neighborhood - we want Liberal values and not those Texans values. He is lucky they have not filed charges against him for being a pervert.
..."Mr. Hemmer also spoke up at the meeting to say he doubted the homeowner had been misguided.
“If you follow him at all in the news, he’s always guilty of building stuff and then asking for permission later,” he said."
This is the neighbor everybody wants to be the head of the HOA.
..."One commissioner, who was not identified in the recording, said she could not believe West Lake Hills staff had recommended that the homeowner receive any exceptions.
“I’m astounded the staff is putting forth any kind of suggestions we bend based on who is asking,” she said...."
Austin, baby. I like to call people like this 'Austistic', but only if I'm sure they can hear me.
Story is archived here .
This story is cover. The New York Times is doxxing where Elon Musk lives so that Democrat assassins can burn his house down.
My first thought, before I got to the really weird shit, was "How often is he even there?" Does the article ever answer that?
Damn. I think Former Law Clerk might have hit that nail on the head!
This article seems to contain enough info to get a restraining order against Ms. Hemmer. The fucking Karen.
Elon is cleaning up government corruption and waste.
He is enemy number one to corruptocrats and their loyal cultists/ Domestic Terrorists Antifa Nazis.
Not surprisingly, Mr. Hemmer is a regular Democrat donors. More generally, it appears Mr. Musk’s neighbors in West Lake Hills are white wealthy liberals who voter over 60% for Harris
It might be more of a place to store his women and children than a place for him. But those are a lot of people and they need an insane amount of protection.
“Neighbors” like Rand Paul’s “neighbor”. Batshit, emotionally incontinent, seventh-graders.
Yah, this is Austin. Not the same as Texas…and I get the feeling these people are sad and betrayed Musk found religion.
I wish I needed a place to “store my women and children”. That’s some serious oligarchal shit right there.
Elon and family would not need insane amount of protection if the democrat party were not so corrupt and heinous.
Forget it Jake, it's Austin
Musk has to understand that his life will never be normal for him again. He allied with Trump, and maybe more importantly, he founded DOGE, which is effectively defunding the left and unemploying leftists by the score. The good news is that he can afford good security. I would rather be Musk, and not Dr Fauci, right now, who had his government funded security yanked by Trump. Yes, Fauci has a government pension that rivals that of a former President, but that go that far buying adequate security for the amount of blood on his hands.
If I were Musk, I would start by buying a nice little ranch a bit further out. At least a section, maybe more. Fence it. Put a landing strip on it capable of handling smaller jets, plus helicopter pads. Maybe an inner compound with guard towers. Upgrade external security to using AR-15s, or even M4s. Solar/wind backup, and a lot of Tesla batteries. Maybe build barracks for the security staff, to get the official population up, then incorporate, and get his private security force certified as LEOs. That should get them easier access for machine guns, and maybe even surplus military equipment. Etc. Maybe a couple hundred $million$ to get it going. Pocket change for him.
My first thought, before I got to the really weird shit, was "How often is he even there?" Does the article ever answer that?
I thought I read not that long ago that he didn’t have a house, and slept in the office at the Tesla factory or crashed with wealthy friends.
I agree with Former Law Clerk. That was my first thought on reading your excerpts. They are putting this out there so the crazies can find out where he lives.
..."Mr. Musk also moved himself to Austin. He initially wanted to build houses for himself and his children (he has at least 13) on hundreds of acres that he bought there. After the plan fell through, he looked at other properties...
"The mansion was one of three that Mr. Musk bought in the area over the last three years to create a compound for his children and their mothers...." I wonder why the original idea fell through, though. Maybe they didn't like the idea of polygamy-compound life, or maybe the land was too far out. Ironic, that he moved to Austin to get away from California. Any Texan could have told him to think twice. Austin used to be a nice, quirky, artistic town, but it started going from progressive - weird to activist - whacko about 30 years ago.
Did the NYT send its best foreign correspondents?
WisRich is correct. Texas is very friendly to Musk and takes pride in the accomplishments of SpaceX… everywhere but Austin, but especially in those very upscale Austin suburbs. In terms of arrogance and political bigotry, Austinites rival Yarmouth people. The city itself yearns to be Portland South, but the working class residents keep the place too clean for those longings to mature into facts.
"Mr. Hemmer, who has long owned a Tesla, grew so frustrated with his neighbor that he began flying a drone over the house to check for city violations"
Karens like this Hemmer character are essential cogs in the Surveillance State,
"The best-known Cuban mass organization, the Committee for the Defense of the Revolution (CDR), was established on September 28, 1960. A CDR unit was set up on each square block throughout all urban areas, and equivalent counterparts were located in rural areas. The CDRs act as the eyes and ears of the regime at the most personal level; they are designed as a "neighborhood watch" in which neighbors are both the watching and the watched. The police tap into this network for information on any individual: information on the suspect's friends, visitors, family background, work history and volunteer activities is readily available, as well as CDR officials' personal assessments of the revolutionary commitment of each individual within the jurisdiction."
https://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/cuba/cdr.htm
All totalitarian governments institute this, Stasi, FBI, KGB, et alia.
The name of the left's game is to Never Leave You Alone.
MYOB, hemmer, you pissy S of a B.
I must say, after having read the archived article, that I would not take it lightly if my neighbor built a 16 foot tall chain-link fence around his property.
Where I live we would call a person like Mr. Hemmer a Fucking Asshole.
The complaints about the holster guns reveals much about the ulterior motives of the complaints. The Democratic Party has been encouraging violence against Donald Trump, and everyone associated with his presidency. Consequently, Elon Musk and others employ armed security agents. In Musk’s case, the armed men are private contractors rather than taxpayer-funded Secret Service agents. In short, the national socialists resent Musk’s efforts to make himself a difficult target.
I think we all know how Mr. Hemmer would publicly react to Elon Musk fly a drone over his property.
Flying a drone, that is.
Am I too late to point out that in Texas, "longtime Tesla owner" is pretty equivalent to "Progressive"?
It's changing now - more normal Texans are buying Teslas (it's astonishing how many Cybertrucks drive around my Houston suburb) as rich-ish people who vote R do their part to support Musk, realizing that an electric car is fine for commuting.
"president of the neighborhood homeowners association"..
that routinely urinates in public..
that walks around wearing NOTHING but a black g-string
that flies drones on private property, filming other people..
YEP! Elon Musk is the problem in THAT neighborhood
"he began flying a drone over (Musk's) house to check for city violations"
Sounds like the quintessential HOA president. Stasi lives on in our hearts and minds, Comrade!
They should sue Musk, like Bill Gate's neighbors did in Medina, WA. They thought they were 'rich'. They found out that when suing someone like Gates, they did not have enough money between the lot of them to afford a comparable legal team. They finally gave up the suit and Bill got to finish building a single house on multiple lots (not strictly legal, but exceptions for really rich folks can be made).
If they do not like it, they can move.
I take it that Musk refused the interview with the roaming NYT reporter, so the reporter chatted with the neighbor.
There's a character in Tulsa King, the HOA president of the wealthy suburban neighborhood where Stallone's character settles down, who drives around in a golf cart dinging people (and especially Stallone) for ridiculous violations. Then he finds out that Stallone is a mob boss.
Our HOA sent us a notice last fall that we need to paint our shutters (true, it's on the list), and another that we need to shear our shrubs (bite me, we like them to have a natural shape). And in general, there is an HOA rule that if the trees in the parking strip in front of your house die, you must replace them with trees of equivalent size, to which the entire neighborhood has given a collective "bite me," as the original trees were live oaks that have popped the sidewalks everywhere. We're all just taking those trees out as they get older and more destructive of our sidewalks.
I fail to see the chain link fence as a big deal. I assume it's covered. Seems like how the really nice golf courses keep their greens hidden from the rest of us.
Indicates how low the Times will sink in order to write something/anything nasty about their enemies. Paper of record (sarcasm).
Strange that Musk decided to live in the one city in Texas that generally doesn’t care for him.
Austin has suburbs that are not populated by liberal wackjobs.
I fail to see the chain link fence as a big deal. I assume it's covered. Seems like how the really nice golf courses keep their greens hidden from the rest of us.
I suppose if he paid the astronomical cost for a fully mature hedge or tightly spaced poplar trees to be planted, it could be tolerable.
I was in Augusta once, and thought I'd drive by Augusta National to get a glimpse of the course where they play the Masters tournament. Ha! You'd need an airplane or a construction crane to see anything but tall, dense shrubbery.
From the article…
“On another night, he said, he was walking his dog fully clothed and stopped when he suddenly needed to urinate — which Mr. Musk’s camera captured.”
Dammit, people. Remember to curb your HOA President.
As a child in the late 50s and early 60s, one of my jobs for my family was to walk to the candy store and purchase copies of the NY Times and the NY Daily News. I read them both, and could readily see that newspapers were biased, and that the NYT had a Democratic Party bias with a bit of NY leftism in the mix. It's gotten worse and worse.
bad HOA president, dog needs to slap him with a newspaper,
How long until Mr Hemmer keys and then torches the Tesla he owns?
Hammer is a nosy busybody of an HOA leader. Replacement time, someone should be president of that HOA who realizes having a professional security team in your neighborhood is the ultimate Neighborhood Watch upgrade. He should also realize that he's an amateur dealing with experts in being pricks. I doubt Musk is aware of the nastiness or the intrusiveness of this Bozo, his security team likely takes care of it and might only let Musk know about the more amusing incidents.
It's a Phil Hendry bit come to life!
I must say, after having read the archived article, that I would not take it lightly if my neighbor built a 16 foot tall chain-link fence around his property.
Why?
I've been told that lawyers dread HOA cases, enriching as they can be, because "it's like litigating a bad divorce between 100 parties."
I'm sure they exist, but I've never met a sane or stable HOA President. I hope Musk considers outlawing them on Mars.
I'm not sure that Elon Musk will live at Starbase any time soon. We were just there 2 weeks ago and construction is ongoing, both at the base and the surrounding area. The little town of Boca Chica is not Austin by a long shot. The middle of nowhere Texas.
"I'm sure they exist, but I've never met a sane or stable HOA President."
The job self-selects for arrogant, self-important asshole types.
NYT's a target on Musk's back by showing where he lives and talking about his neighbors. They pulled the same stunt with Tucker Carlson and didn't pull back until Tucker threatened to do a TV segment on the NYT's editors residence and neighbors.
Musk has gotten one bad articles in the NYT's and WSJ after another because he's supported Trump. They lie about him, just lied about Trump. And of course, antifa goons mysteriously materilize out of nowhere to threaten his family, and later to torch Telsa dealership. Meanwhile, the Delaware lawyers - posing as judges - refused to approve his compensation package.
This country is one step away from leftwing dicatorship.
Blame Elon. Not the hate filled leftist crazies that are a threat to him.
"I must say, after having read the archived article, that I would not take it lightly if my neighbor built a 16 foot tall chain-link fence around his property."
Why?
His property line is fifteen feet from my bedroom window. I'd see nothing but fence.
Obviously if I lived in a place with 10-acre or 20-acre ranchettes, I wouldn't care what kind of fence the neighbors built, but if you think that ordinary suburban neighborhoods should be required to allow 16 foot metal security fences like you'd see at a prison or airport or bonded warehouse, I don't think one person in a hundred would agree with you.
On another night, he said, he was walking his dog fully clothed and stopped when he suddenly needed to urinate — which Mr. Musk’s camera captured.
I've seen dogs in sweaters but getting them into pants must have taken a lot of work.
'The cameras got me,' Mr. Hemmer said. 'It’s scary they have guys sitting and watching me pee.'"
It's scarier having the HOA president whip out his schlong on the public roads.
My backup retirement plan has always been 120 acres in west Texas and a 20 year old pickup. It’s looking better all the time.
People who fly drones over their neighbor's home to try to spy out "city violations" don't get to complain about being recorded by a camera while on a public street.
And HOA Presidents who pee in public need to lose their job as HOA president
Hassayamper said...
His property line is fifteen feet from my bedroom window. I'd see nothing but fence.
As opposed to be able to spy on what's going on in his home?
I'd rather have trees blocking out my neighbors' view than a fence (and happily that's what I do have).
But I damn well do have a right to block out my neighbors' view of MY back yard & home
The Cracker Emcee Refulgent said...
“I wish I needed a place to ‘store my wimmin and chillun’. That’s some serious oligarchal shit right there.”
Fixed some spelling errors.
Well you know me, Tina. I like to think of myself as sane and stable. But that might be a minority opinion.
Seriously, I have been president of our HOA 6-8 times over the past 45 years. I've stopped going to the annual meetings to avoid being elected again. It is a pain in the ass and I understand why nobody wants it.
OTOH, whenever I hear people complain about an HOA, ours or theirs, I ask if they participate. Do they go to meetings? Do they run for office? Seat on the board? Since not many people don't want to do it, it is generally easy to get elected if the HOA is too onerous.
Biggest complainers about HOAs seem to be non-participants.
They are better than the alternative. City councils, planning boards and zoning commissions.
HOAs seem quintessentially American and pretty close to pure democracy. For good and bad.
John Henry
If people confuse black underwear with Hemmer being nude, does that mean he is black? Is there a picture in the article?
John Henry
goggles they do nothin
“I must say, after having read the archived article, that I would not take it lightly if my neighbor built a 16 foot tall chain-link fence around his property.”
You could put a big Jolly Roger on a flagpole next to the fence. Or put a coffin on your roof to advertise your mortuary business.
This post needs a Nicholas Yung v Charles Crocker tag.
If you train video cameras and drones on your neighbor's house, you're a flaming ass to then complain about the size of his fence.
Also, if the video cameras and/or drones can see into areas where there is a reasonable expectation of privacy (e.g., can see into a bedroom or bathroom window or into fenced-off pool area), you may be violating the law (in Texas - other state's laws may vary, but I believe this is the most video-lenient type of law). If this guy has video of that sort, combined with roaming the streets in his underwear (at best) and public urination, he is risking being deemed a sex offender and needing to register.
Dark island said…
“HOAs seem quintessentially American and pretty close to pure democracy. For good and bad.”
And a reminder of why the Founding Fathers gave us a Republic and not a democracy.
After describing the workings of the town council of his little New Hampshire village do it’s thing, P.J. O’Rourke had a comment to the effect that the best place in America to find totalitarian dictators was on the local zoning board.
His property line is fifteen feet from my bedroom window
I see. You literally meant your neighbor not if you lived in Musk's 'hood but in your own. There's probably a six-foot-tall limit for residential fences in zoning regs for your actual neighborhood. Texas prides itself on being zone reg-free.
"Biggest complainers about HOAs seem to be non-participants."
People who want to be left alone don't typically aspire to positions that involve messing around in other people's lives.
"HOAs seem quintessentially American..."
Minding your own damn business is quintessentially American. Measuring other people's lawn height and assessing fines? Not so much.
"Some screwy details in that story" That's probably because it's the NYT writing about Texas, something they know very little about.
Also, Mr. Hemmer sounds like a neighbor from hell. Typical HOA Karen type. Heck, maybe he'll get his own HOA Karen YouTube channel. (Yeah, I know that a lot of those HOA Karen videos on YouTube are fake, but there are plenty of stories in the actual news about totalitarian HOAs and their over-the-top rules and enforcement. There was one case where an HOA made a rule that homeowners couldn't vote in HOA elections if they owed any fines to the HOA. So they started fining everyone to keep them from voting them out of power. Finally, the state had to pass a law against that.)
and is president of the neighborhood homeowners association
Great. An HOA President with too much time on his hands. Baffling people! Who decides to just whip it out and piss?
"I'm sure they exist, but I've never met a sane or stable HOA President."
Our HOA has 20-30 members, and the HOA is entirely sane.
Had one guy who got pissed that the HOA wouldn't let him put a "dog run" in his front yard, but he walked it back after his cross street neighbor had a chat with him and pointed out how much more appropriate that was for a back yard.
Other than that? No one's been a dick in the close to a decade we've been there
There's probably a six-foot-tall limit for residential fences in zoning regs for your actual neighborhood. Texas prides itself on being zone reg-free.
I think you are mistaking Houston for the whole state. I lived in San Antonio for a while, and there were most assuredly zoning regulations.
The story the Professor quoted from makes it clear that there is a six-foot limit in Musk's Austin neighborhood, and he went ten feet over that limit without a permit, and now he is asking for a variance. Places with no zoning do not have zoning variances either.
Present company excepted, John Henry, Greg. I was (mostly) kidding.
I spent decades on volunteer boards and other service provision, but I never had the desire to get entangled in HOAs. I don't really remember needing them growing up: public mores were understood more strongly then? One small correction: they still have to abide by local zoning boards, city councils, etc.
I've had a good HOA, and I've had a bad HOA.
The good one governed very lightly and was mainly there to keep people from doing stuff like putting old beater cars up on cinder blocks in their front yards. Your choice of paint and architectural styles and vegetation was up to you, though I suppose neon colors and such would be frowned upon.
The bad HOA had exactly six colors, specified by Pantone codes, which you were allowed to use for any exterior paint. They made me trim back a native palo verde tree that had probably lived there for thirty years before the subdivision was built, because it was "too big for the neighborhood". I built a very high quality wooden playground set for my kids in the back yard, where it was not visible from any neighbor's house or yard, and they fined me $500 for doing so without a permit AND made me replace the tasteful solid-colored forest green canopy with a wooden roof.
Correct on the Houston vs. rest of the state -- all the larger cities but Houston are zoned.
our experience with hoas in broward, was disturbing,
Hepps not a Croce fan? An important instruction set Hepp missed.
Don't tug on superman's cape
You don't spit into the wind
You don't pull the mask off that old Lone Ranger
And you don't mess around with him
Their concerns about seeing holsters aside, I wouldn't be surprised to see some mini guns scattered about the premises behind those shrubs.
Nor would I be surprised to learn Musk's people hijacked that drone flying around, you know, just to keep their senses sharp.
When you f*ck with the bull, sometimes you get the horns.
West Lake is pretty well known in central Texas as a hive of scum and villainy - I mean, privilege and pretention. My grandson's soccer team played them a while back; to be honest, the West Lake team was more skilled and better coached, but our kids were better conditioned, and beat them soundly. Once the game started to get away from them, the West Lake kids started flopping like LeBron. To his credit, the ref didn't fall for it. Make of that anecdote what you will.
Why isn't the strikethrough html allowed?
Considering all of the threats and invective lobbed against Mr. Musk, he damned well needs security--lots of it. And maybe the security guys can stop the neighbors from peeing in the street.
The HOA where I used to live was talked-up by the realty types & FSBOs as a good way to keep property values up and the riff raff out. Not true. In practice self interested parties get together to make all POs pay for their pet projects & improvement schemes. Over time with all the HOAs assessments it got to be like getting three tax bills a year instead of just the usual two from the township. No thanks. I'll never live in a property with an HOA ever again if I can possibly help it.
he began flying a drone over the house
Fly a drone over my house and the last image you'll see is my shotgun pointed at it.
And then you'll hear a knock on your door.
"Fly a drone over my house and the last image you'll see is my shotgun pointed at it."
FAA laws aren't forgiving of people shooting down aircraft.
But go ahead and FAFO
Jim at said...
“Fly a drone over my house and the last image you'll see is my shotgun pointed at it.”
From six years ago: https://www.facebook.com/portsmouthofficial/photos/attention-wayne-hills-residentsplease-stop-throwing-beer-bottles-at-the-drones-t/354784548777202/
Fly a drone over my house and the last image you'll see is my shotgun pointed at it.
I bet Mr. Hemmer doesn't know that Elon Musk owns a company that makes flamethrowers.
If the democrat party and the democrat media were not the party of hatred and violence, musk wouldn’t be nearly as worried about himself and his family.
If a citizen shot down a drone and I were on the jury he wouldn’t have anything to worry about. The democrat party of hate and violence would certainly convict.
Musk, if he has even heard of this twerp, probably considers him an insect. But considering he began his career writing code, and heads up the #1 aerospace technology company, I don't think jamming the signals on a drone and causing it to fall from the sky or land in the lake, would be outside of his wheelhouse, if he so chose. And of course there's no way to prove it, it's just gone.
FAA laws aren't forgiving of people shooting down aircraft.
But go ahead and FAFO
The FAA has better things to do than regulate some stupid, private drone invading people's privacy in their own neighborhood, dumbass.
When the dust clears., it will be obvious to all but the most committed Democrats that Musk has performed a huge public service at tremendous risk to himself. He has delegitimized a huge cluster of corruption and stupidity
Company towns exist across the country; however, the southern coalfield company towns are distinctly West Virginian. When the railroads arrived, southern West Virginia primarily was a mountain wilderness, with a smattering of small towns such as Beckley, Madison and Aracoma (later renamed Logan). Coal companies had to build towns and houses for their miners in some of the most isolated areas of the region. By 1922, nearly 80 percent of West Virginia miners lived in company houses.
As Tennessee Ernie sang:
"Saint Peter don't call, 'cause I can't go
I owe my soul to the company store."
So residents voted to name a tin city, Starbase (presently without drinking water, and the Rio Grande would be a bit salty near the gulf) to become a self-governing town. Commercial retail and public properties are non-existent, with not even a company-owned Dollar General. Were all voters American citizens? Elmo will never tell.
Poster-child example of bad neighbor.
Jim @ 3:11
Lessee. The maximum effective range of a shotgun with, let's say BB shot, a goose load, three inch magnum shells 1& 1/2 ounces, Is 70 yards. Be generous 150 feet. A drone with a good camera is going to be maybe 300 feet over your house. You ain't hittin' nuthin, bud.
@gadfly, that's right - they're very similar. Dreary, grimy towns, where hope is lost, where poverty is ever-present, where people die of ill health - both of them. You've absolutely nailed it. The poor inhabitants, they can't leave, in debt to Elon's monstrous exploitation, launching rocket after rocket. Forget about those cheering workers in the control room when another technological first is achieved. They're just under threat of punishment for not being convincing in their 'Two Minutes of Excitement'. Yeah. The similarities are almost too much to count. Great points.
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