WHY I AM..

...unlikely to agree.

April 2009

Madison Square Garden

(Photo by TG)

The Allman Brothers Band - Little Martha

Warren Haynes and Derek Trucks on Guitar.  Duane Allman on fishin' pole.  TG in row 3.  This one is from March 19th, 2009.  Referred to in some circles as "the greatest night in the history of live music."

A Heavy Trip Down

...as in Down Town New York City.

 

I finally gave in to the magnetic pull from downtown New York City. I was very reluctant to return to the area where I spent the best days of my life – professional glory days.  There was nothing but good stuff going on down there in the 90’s and now everything has changed, seemingly at light speed.

 

My vivid memories of dashing from the NYMEX floor, between the Twin Towers, straight up the middle of Zuccotti park, to our commodity trading desk at 85 Broad Street with pockets full of trade tickets from open out cry orders I had executed on the exchange that day came right back.  I had spent 2 years of my career on the 107th floor of the North Tower.  My father had spent nearly 2 decades on the 86th floor of the South Tower with Dean Witter Reynolds and now I slithered between them on my way back to my post with Goldman Sachs at the top of the commodity trading pack.  No matter how my day went I was never able to pass between the two towers without looking up between them and thanking God out loud.

 

“Pretty awesome…I think I made it.”   

 

I thought it was going to be like that forever and I’ve been unable to live comfortably in a great moment without fearing it would all come crashing down at some point since.  Literally.

 

Back then I could never resist the temptation of a $20 backgammon game on my way through the park to the office (to my former managers who may be reading – that’s why I was late.) Unfortunately the outcome was always lopsided.  Mr. Ivy League here would drop another $20 to a hustler with broken teeth, a ripped sweater, and presumably no education but it was my little karma gift to the Gods of Risk and a fun encounter with a complete stranger.  Appearance aside, my opponents weren’t afraid of competition; they were skilled at surfing probability and quantifying outcomes.  I don’t feel like the same competitive logical thinking that went on between us is going on amongst the Occupiers of Wall Street in that park today.  I think a few are playing Chinese Chess, most are playing checkers, and a large population is loafing around looking for something to do. Like get arrested for protester streed-cred. 

 

Now in order of decreasing importance - there are no more Twin Towers, there is no more open outcry, and Zuccotti Park is a semi-peaceful activist occupation zone with a NYPD “eye in the sky” tower looking down over it.  (I guess they have to keep an eye out for thieves down there. Dishonest folks, beggars, and thieves will always be tempted  to re-distribute a few of someone elses personal items into their own possession.)

 

As for the Towers - there is a spectacular memorial built just perfectly for “never forgetting” in the footprint of where the pillars once stood.  It was reassuring to see that this parcel of hallowed ground is probably more secure than Fort Knox.  Unfortunately that old gaze into the sky is alarmingly empty without being book ended by glass, steel, and the gleaming pillars of global commerce that could block out the sun for hours.  The designer forces your focus into the hole to reflect on that absence.  The foliage and the precision landscape make it quite a jarring experience to stand in what was respectfully referred to as “Ground Zero” for so long.  It is worth mentioning only as this symbol of the Old America confronts a growing population looking for a New America  a few hundred yards to the east.

 

Through the years trading has been moved off exchange floors and onto computer chips where high frequency traders have been empowered to steal in broad daylight.  To me that is a direct result of investment bank hubris and exactly what some of the proper protesters are focused on.  Bulletproof local trading operations had their future revenue streams rolled up into an IPO.  Their livelihoods were transformed to memories as fast as investment bankers could collect on that revenue stream and HFT’s could write code to trade a zillion times per second.  That was the beginning of a new chapter.  Then they moved on to raiding the public funds to “prevent the global financial system from collapsing” and we had the great wealth transfer.

 

Nassim Taleb said yesterday - and a few of the Chinese Chess playing protesters are acutely aware of today – there is a widely visible trend of rewarding bank failure and punishing everyone else for it.  When he hangs the Hammurabi Principle on that notion – you should reach for Wikipedia with eyes wide open.

 

This whole ploy is currently manifesting itself in a phenomenon called “Screwflation.”  Read Doug Kass’s definition and don’t come back to me saying “But headline inflation isn’t…” I will slam the phone down.  The same Government pulling off this ponzi is the one reporting the right side of this constantly evolving inflation equation.

 

CPI = NOTHING THAT YOU USE ON A DAILY BASIS WHOSE PRICE CAN APPRECIATE DUE TO CURRENCY DEVALUATION

 

“Screwflation, like its first cousin stagflation, is an expression of a period of slow and uneven economic growth, but, its potential inflationary consequences have an outsized impact on a specific group. The emergence of screwflation hurts just the group that you want to protect — namely, the middle class, a segment of the population that has already spent a decade experiencing an erosion in disposable income and a painful period (at least over the past several years) of lower stock and home prices. Importantly, quantitative easing is designed to lower real interest rates and, at the same time, raise inflation. A lower interest rate policy hurts the savings classes — both the middle class and the elderly. And inflation in the costs of food, energy and everything else consumed (without a concomitant increase in salaries) will screw the average American who doesn’t benefit from QE 2.”

 

That’s where the ire of the protesters should be focused.  That will be the straw that finally breaks their back should they be around for the next few rounds of QE & Policy Tool mania.  That is where they can actually make a difference if they are smart about it.  Central Planning and intervention in free markets should be at the top of their list.


The problem is that the atmosphere is undeniably similar to the parking lot at Giant’s Stadium before a Dead Show, only the agenda is far more pervasive and the message is far more splintered.  Imagine if the Dead show parking lot were littered with metal heads, thrash rockers, rap artists, classical pianists and good ol’ country boys strumming a banjo with a shotgun rack on their Ford Cherokee – amongst the twirlers and miracle seekers.  Knowing what band to march to would be difficult and I feel like that is what has been created with Occupy Wall Street.

There are candle lit yoga sessions led by 20-year-old kabala Nubians, there are “HUNGER STRIKES for OWS” in full swing (although the guy looked well fed to me, it must be early), and there are peaceniks from the 60’s with John Lennon’s eyeglasses on. 

 

There is a large faction of Thomas Sowell carriers of cliché signage like “We are the 99%” and “Stop Wall Street Greed” and then there are those that just want to “Legalize it.” Dressed in Cloudveil climbing gear, they have clearly been procuring their stash with the help of Daddy’s Ivy League Bailout Fund up to this point.

 

Is this the counter weight to the Tea Party?  I don’t think that’s a good idea.

 

A Quinnipiac University survey showed that 67% of NYC voters agree with the protesters’ views, and 23% don’t.  Support came from 80% of the registered Democrats, 58% of the independents, and 25% of Republicans.  I found those numbers to be high for a group whose list of demands reaches from ending the war in Afghanistan to asking for $1T in government money for ecological engineering.

 

I’d love to look that 67% of NYC voters in the eye and ask them what they are in support of because OWS is starting to show its darker colors.  Douglas Schoen did a little fact checking and was kind enough to share what he found in the WSJ yesterday.  The colors matched those of the Weather Underground more than anyone would care to admit.  In fact, the T-shirt silk screen printers downtown hijacked the Weather Underground fist, threw a 99% across the thumb, and are exceedingly uncomfortable entertaining questions about the relationship between the two populist movements.

 

“Nice graphics, hey where’d you find that cool fist?  Looks familiar.”

I am awkwardly ignored.

 

Take note that first of all, these OWS cats are no rookies.  52% have participated in political movements before.  I’d imagine that drives a spike between the similarities of the 67% that agree with OWS and “Broadway Joe” right there.  I can’t picture half of NYC having participated in a “political movement” before.  We’ve been living pretty high on the hog here since the Bronx was burning and they marched on the New York Stock Exchange in 1979.

 

Schoen found OWS “comprises an unrepresentative segment of the electorate that believes in radical redistribution of wealth, civil disobedience and, in some instances, violence.”  98% of them would be supportive of civil disobedience to achieve their goals and one third of them support violence to advance their hazy multi-pronged agenda.
 

Does this sound like recent graduates from UPENN that are upset they can’t get hired?  Are 98% of the 67% that agree with OWS policies also prepared for civil disobedience?  I don’t think there is a chance.  Are anywhere near a third of the 67% going to resort to violence?  Less of a chance.  So where’s the correlation?  It’s up for grabs and radicals recognize a jump ball.

 

New Yorker magazine apparently tested the knowledge of the financial system across OWS protesters and found similar results to what I learned last night. While they may not be able to grasp the framework or how the equation ties out, they are able to see the injustice.  Let’s just hope they choose voting leaders out of power and it is starting to sounds like that is an increasing possibility.

 

A recent Gallup Poll showed that Americans are more than twice as likely to blame the federal government in Washington (64%) for the economic problems facing the United States as they are the financial institutions on Wall Street (30%.)  That offers a glimmer of hope for the movements focus, and a tremendous fear for the seated government.  Those are the levers we have to pull on while they fiddle.

 

Why?   Because of some scenes you will see in Chicago.  It’s unnatural and blatantly anti-American to hear chants of “We are the 99%” over chants of “We are the Communist Party!”

 

The OWS hijack is on in full force.  You have to wonder if the left is wondering who they are getting in bed with.  Al Sharpton has weighed in, admittedly on the light and highly groomed side. The usual group of stooges shows up early and often (Simmons, Moore, Sarandon, Robbins, Baldwin).  Last night I saw Jessie Jackson representing his constituents in full force.  Today he is asking President Obama to suspend the constitution and declare a jobs emergency. 

 

The inmates are truly trying to take over the asylum.

 

My point is that everyone is getting a little bit confused right now and few know whose side they are really on, never mind who is on theirs.  I include myself in that “wildly aware yet carefully confused” group.  The best possible outcome is the awareness being created.  We still face the problem of a solution.

 

This is around the time I start daydreaming about standing at the base of the Twin Towers.  It was so much easier to look up and conjure the incredibly amazing future we were supposed to have.

 

Please pay close attention to OWS and try to promote its merits.  The next time we royally screw up our economy may be the last chance we get for a while.

 

Quiksilver Pro 2011_THE SURFERS

Quiksilver Pro September 2011

"We can evade reality, but we cannot evade the consequences of evading reality."

- Ayn Rand

Street Freak by Jared Dillian

They say it takes a brilliant man to understand difficult concepts and a genius to explain them.  To engage readers in a truthful and believable tale about a trader’s tumultuous Wall Street career in this day and age it takes a cutting edge writer with bipolar disorder. 

 

From his beginning as a frugal, hyper responsible, and wise beyond his years Coast Guard Officer to “the big ETF trader at Lehman Brothers”, who happens to also be speculatively lugging around $1B worth of two-year notes, Jared Dillian tells a brilliant tale about his trip on Wall St.  His manic career was largely bookended by two world changing events of very different denominations – the attacks of September 11th, 2001 and the Lehman bankruptcy that will forever punctuate the fate of the credit bubble bursting.  Street Freak is so captivating because it examines those events only as they apply this trader’s mental state and be forewarned: the emotional volatility is not for the faint of heart.   

 

Dillian may have sealed his own fate when guaranteeing job interviewers he could work harder than anyone else because he was "insane".  He guided himself in that direction by applying ancient academic trading principles, complex behavioral theory, and a military work ethic to his trading desk at Lehman where his job quoting clients was skewed sharply toward the impossible.  He admits there is nothing fun about the indignities of his trading job, yet he wouldn’t trade it for the world.  Dillian actually did his job masterfully but the emotional side of his brain and inherent fear of failure kept him from processing everyday information properly and he experienced waves of paranoid panic attacks.  Some of them are sad while others are blatantly amusing and you get the distinct feeling Dillian knows which is which.

 

The originality of Street Freak lies in Dillian’s rapier wit and ability to analyze situations down to their bare bones.  His skill in stepping outside of himself to observe his own behavior at all the right moments makes his book a treat from start to finish.  Dillian should be commended for noticing during his time in a mad trading fish bowl that decent people do unflattering things when getting bombs dropped on their head on a daily basis, that people who are smart and lazy really do make the best colleagues, and that no one is entitled to anything on Wall St.  You can slay all the trading dragons in the land, conjure untold millions in extra profits from perfectly executed trades, but in the end - you get what you get. 

 

In this day and age there is TRULY a lot to be said for that but it takes a complete Street Freak to roll you up in a tale like this one.

Street Freak Interviewed 

Sunrise at Haleakala

 














05:50 a.m., 10,000 feet above sea level, Maui, Hawaii.
...Like nothing you've ever seen before.
(click on images for a better view)


(photos by TG)

Dear Gerianne

"If you should die before me 

ask if you can bring a friend"
- Stone Temple Pilots

(photo by TG)

Rough Riders

"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better.  The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort whithout error and shortcoming; but who does actuallly strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat."

- Teddy Roosevelt, San Juan Hill

FREEDOM OF SPEECH UNDER FIRE

The way things are going on this continent, I need to get in as much FREE SPEECH as I can.  There’s no question the FCC will be looking to regulate the internet soon, and finally every bit of information placed on it.  Please don’t be offended by the comments that follow.  Harsh language is used as subject matter only, and if you think you might be offended then please go NO further because this section is called FREE SPEECH and it resides on my own private piece of electronic real estate.

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is being revised.  The word “n*gger” is being removed and replaced with “slave”.  That both upsets me to my core, and confuses me.  It doesn’t upset me because I am a racist.  I am not.  It upsets me because I am an American and there still exists an Amendment in the U.S. Constitution that says you can pretty much say what you want.  UNLESS, of course, someone takes exception to something written by one of our nations most iconic authors who has made a spectacular and lasting contribution to American literature. 

Twain used the derogatory term for a black man when he wrote the book published in 1885.  They’re actually going to pull a BACK TO THE FUTURE on old Huck’ and change the “n-word” to “slave” even though slavery was abolished 19 years before the book came out.  The 13^th Amendment to the Constitution tidied that up in 1864.  You see, this Constitution is supposed to be our playbook.  But our playbook is being changed by the politically correct and I’ve had enough.

I read “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” in high school and it was meant to be a descriptive time-piece in American Literature.  Mark Twain was sharing his view of the social climate of our country and actually putting prejudice on exhibit, so you could see what it looked like from the outside.  If we’re going to alter his work of art, for aesthetic and politically correct purposes, then maybe we should also go back and make the Mona Lisa hotter?!  Maybe we should pierce her nose and put a tattoo on her ass?

We can certainly remove the offensive word from future copies, so some teachers will be more comfortable teaching it, but why?  The “n-word” has become the salutation of choice AMONG young blacks, especially in the NYC area.  You can’t tell me I’m wrong, I hear it on the train platform every day amongst students commuting to and from high school or college.  But go ahead, change the book, change history, and guard the soft malleable masses from the reality of our nations past.  I will continue to listen to stories told by adolescent blacks and enjoy the incredulous chorus-like response of the story tellers surrounding friends – “damn n’gga!!!” 

Following suit with that sort of profanity and hearing the word “asshole” on CBS during prime-time television is insulting to me and my 3 children under 8 too.  Fortunately modern programming gives me an entire host of other (sports) channels I can turn to, NEVER to return to one of the major thieving networks again.  Brain ON, prime-time profanity OFF.  It’s a very simple concept.

I’m afraid you won’t be able to draw illustrations as you were in the past either.  Two illustrations (below) include rebel flags were ordered to be REMOVED from the Elmont Fire Department in Long Island.  Those cartoon-like pictures were found offensive by one firefighter and a handful of people in the community that Engine Company 3 protects with their flesh, blood, and courage. 

My points are twofold here.  First, they are only illustrations.  They are an artist’s interpretation of Engine Company 3’s nickname.  It gives them a persona.  When they go to fight fires, I would imagine their adrenaline begins to go haywire and they can get behind the rebel image and get into character.  I know firefighters.  I know how they think and behave.

The skeleton firefighter (below) wearing a rebel bandana is painted on the side of the truck; the firefighter on the right is wearing rebel flag shorts and can be found on a small painting on the firehouse wall.  Wake up call.  It is 2011; the books on slavery, even on segregation are FIRMLY closed. What’s the big deal?

Secondly, if the Elmont Fire Department, long known as the “Runnin’ Rebels” were such a bad bunch of guys, then why did they volunteer for a public service that puts them in danger in order save lives by design?  If my house were burning, God forbid with someone trapped inside, I would much rather a runnin’ rebel with fire in his eyes, a fire hose over his shoulder, and a confederate bandana around his neck show up than a civil rights leader in a pressed suit with a bucket of salt.  Different situations call for different measures.

You better be careful if you are a songwriter and trying to creatively capture a moment in history.  The Dire Straits tune “Money For Nothing” was banned in the country of Canada.  Know why?  Because ONE GUY called up the Lord of Canadian Airwaves and said he was upset by guess which verse? 

See the little faggot with the earring and the makeup
Yeah buddy that's his own hair
That little faggot got his own jet airplane
That little faggot he's a millionaire

I don’t use the word anymore either because it is derogatory to the gay community.  I certainly wouldn’t sing those lyrics in front of friends who are gay.  I have no objection to it being in a song though…BECAUSE IT’S A SELF DEPRECATING SONG!!  If you read that dreadfully offensive verse in context, you will learn that Dire Straits thinks those benefitting from fanfare is the utter JOKE.  Confused that they’ve achieved fame and wealth playing guitar and drums while others slaves away at more productive and actually useful blue collar jobs.  While they’re at it, they happen to be using that generation’s terminology, which didn’t always have a sexual connotation.  It just meant weak and that’s all Dire Straits is saying.

 

Well, Elton John is out of the closet, there are gay characters all over main stream entertainment, and they’re ALL welcomed with open arms by sensible North Americans so I don’t see why they need to ban a Dire Straits song for any other reason than it is one song by a great band that happens to suck.

 

 

I think everyone needs to take a page out of Ricky Gervais book.  He caught holy hell for being funny, original, and telling it like it is at the Golden Globe Awards.  Luckily he’s a MASTER of the IF/THEN statement and everyone on this continent should respect how expression of ideas and FREE SPEECH actually work.

“IF you are offended, THEN I don’t care.”
- Ricky Gervais

My Gibson Les Paul

Quoteboard: Tom Ford

"Just because I've become spiritual doesn't mean I can't love crocodile."

Phish Bowl

When a time tested band like PHISH makes a holiday run through the worlds most popular arena on New Year’s weekend, it would be a sinful event to miss.  That’s why my wing man and I made our way to row S on the floor 20 minutes before the show started to make sure we were in the thick of it from the very start.  Well, we were in the thick of it all right, and we came out with a few unsuspecting treats.

Now, the treats at a Phish show come in all different forms.  From the hysterical pre-curtain convo I had with some loon in a tie-dyed T-shirt and 2011 glasses carrying his “meat stick” from the New Year’s Eve show the night before, to the foursome from Vermont’s cover of Walk Away by the James Gang in the middle of the first set that almost blew the roof off the Garden.  The entire night that makes up a Phish show is part musical improv and part magical mystery tour.

To walk into one of their concerts is to jump into a giant Phish Bowl.  These four musicians have got their gig down to a complex science.  Their original songs and the covers they choose take you on an exploratory journey through power chord rock, jazz fusion, bluegrass, funky grooves, country sing-along, and some hippie dippy geeky nonsense that in my opinion doesn’t translate well to the studio albums that Phish puts them on.  Well, my opinion doesn’t matter in the phish bowl, and their loyal fans devour every bizarre note, lyric, and crowd participation moment the band has to offer.  When you mix this cultural concoction and play it through light man Chris Kuroda’s kaleidoscope, the result is an amazing 3-hours of sensory overload. 

They opened the new year with My Soul featuring one of the most basic blues riffs known to the guitar, and the show got a lot more complex and heated from there.  I couldn’t possibly identify their one-word title songs from my place in their fan base, but I was pretty alone there.  As soon as the first note of a new song was released every tweaked fan in the Garden raced to call it – “TUBE dude!” followed My Soul, giant smoke plumes followed, and off we all went on our journey. 

Phish got the entire Garden crowd to bounce for the reggae-like intro to Guelah Papyrus, they played fan favorite Divided Sky, and then hit hyperspace with their blinding version of Walk Away.  I’ve only seen a few bands raise the roof of the Garden to a level like that and I couldn’t help paying them the ultimate concert accolade, aloud to myself as I looked around M.S.G. – “fuckin’ awesome.” 

They touched my oddball favorite Phish album “Farmhouse” with Gotta Jibboo, then again in the second set with a slow and trippy version of Twist.  (I still think that was their best studio album life to date, but I haven’t given them all an equal listen.)

The first set ended with a great chance for Page McConnell to stand out from his post at stage left behind the piano as he pounded away the dramatic chords of Walls of the Cave.  He and guitarist Trey Anastasio are truly impressive showmen and great musicians.  Trey goes nimbly back and forth between blues scales and classical arpeggios and it is next to impossible to figure out where his fingers leave off and his custom Languedoc guitar begins.  One thing is certain.  He is the conductor of the 5-man orchestra known as Phish (remember their fifth man, Chris Kuroda.)

I don’t have as much good to say about bassist Mike Gordon since his incident with the daughter of a Hell’s Angels biker only 9 miles from my house, but let’s not get into that.  He’s a kooky looking bass player that anchors the band pretty solidly.  I really don’t have anything to say about drummer John Fishman.  The guy plays drums in a dress and they named the band after him.

Set two was equally amazing.  They covered Crosseyed and Painless by the Talking Heads and everyone followed the directions in the chorus "saaaaaaail away!”  Then Twist, Simple, the mellow crowd shaker Sneakin’ Sally thru the Alley, and back through Kingston Jamaica with the Makisupa Policeman reggae chant.  They ended set 2 with a driving version of David Bowie and walked off to darkness.

Nobody thought for a second they were done.  It had only been about two and a half hours of music, it was Saturday night, and we we’re in New York – Phish had to leave it all out on stage.  They came back on for Fee and then shocked the crowd for a finale.  Page McConnell grabbed a ferocious keyboard guitar, took center stage and they blasted out a psychedelic roof raising version of Edgar Winter Band’s Frankenstein.  Chris Kuroda took a final opportunity to let the crowd know that the light guy is part of the band because this encore was among the most memorable in my 25-year history of concert attendance. 

I came into the Phish Bowl very relaxed with no expectations.  Like I said, they aren’t my favorite band and they're still not.  However, I walked out wishing there were three more sets and saying to myself – “I’ll come back if they do.”  In fact…I grabbed one last treat on my way out the door.  Madison Square Garden sure is one funky Phish Bowl.