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