Should I call IT, or a Priest?

The great chase is over. Motorcycle #1 is a Suzuki Intruder. I will post the account number for the emergency medical savings account later.

Born to Be...Formerly Living.

That's Where the Retardation Begins

Last week, my oldest child threatened suicide. Child #1 is a few months shy of being 15.

When I started this blog, I was on the road, Boston I think. At that point, Child #1 had not spoken to me in several months, stopped coming to the house, would barely speak to me when I made my quarterly phone call to see if anything was forgiven yet. Being on the road so much made it easier for me to ball all of the daily guilt up and pack it away somewhere that the National Safety Administration couldn't find during the numerous bosy cavity searches I was subject to.

Throughout my adult life, I believed that even if I failed at everything else, I would always be a good father. In 2002, less than a year after 9/11, and while dealing with a second major flare up of multiple sclerosis, I began the long painful process of leaving one family to start another.

Wife #1 (who was, by that time, also wife #2) made certain that the process was a loud, long, painful, public matter. Though we never honestly discussed the matter, I suspect her point was to visit upon me the same time of pain and shame I was visiting upon her. The difference was, she decided to use and abuse the very legal system I worked in an attempt to take my children away from me, tried to make me look like a thief, a liar, and a deadbeat. I was accused of having secret bank accounts, having affairs for years, hiding assets. I cared little about those things. Fresh out of law school, having grown up in a series of mobile homes, the only assets we had were a set of Ginsu knives, and the new VCR I bought when we had been remarried.

The apparently accepted manipulation of the legal system to aid in the attempt to take my kids away, that bothered me immensly. It changed the way I view many things not the least of which include my job, the courts, and my colleagues who make their money jacking with other people's kids. The harder I tried to do good and be a "suitable parent", the more it backfired.

Once the divorce was finally, thankfully completed, I tried to get on with the business of putting my relationship with my kids back together. Unfortunately, at the same time, I was also trying to establish new relationships with new kids and shortly a new wife. For a short time I worked a few weekends as a security guard just to buy groceries.

During the summer, I was moving stuff across town from an apartment to a rent house. Wife #3, was just home from the hospital after we had our first child together. The office was calling wanting to know when the hell I was coming back to work. I was seriously unhinged as a person, apparently useless as a father. I let the outside stressors build up, and vented my frustrations on my family. It was the last straw for Child #1. She never came back.

For a long time, she blamed it on Wife #3, the new kids, she lashed out at anything and everything. That was 2 years ago.

When I started the blog, I was searching for some public persona that would allow me to feel normal for a bit. It was no longer normal to carry on the types of conversations that people do when first meeting. Waddya do, have kids, how many...? I felt as though I carried a scarlet "Asshole" sewn on my clothes, as though everyone knew I had a child that hated me. That was the inspiration for the name of this blog. New wife, new kids, new job responsibilities all required that I keep functioning. But inside I was dead, or at least starting to flatline. I kept believing that Child #1 would come around, certainly that is what everyone kept telling me.

Child #2, seeing the upside to familial chaos, is now following suit. The day that Child #1 was coming home from the facility Child#1 spent the better part of the week in, Child #2 called to ask me how to get new music on Child #2's Ipod. Child #2 hasn't been here in 2 months. 10 minutes into the call, I had to interrupt Child 2 to see when Child 1 was coming home. I also finally asked Child 2 about summer vacation. Yeah, a week long trip to Seattle sounds cool, but no I don't want to spend the summer with you.

Child 1 is home now, and finally getting the counseling that has been so sorely needed the last 2 years. Mom had decided the Child 1 didn't have to go to counseling unless, at the child's discretion, it was necessary. And I am the piss poor parent. Just incredible.

Children 1 and 2 will call me when they are ready to have a relationship. They will call me when the Ipod is broken.

The job has new requirements. I have to start building a name, a reputation, and a book of business of my own. As more and more companies resort to bankruptcy, and more non-bankruptcy litigators get in on the game, it truly is becoming a mercenary-staffed battlefield of suicidal clients and assassin litigators. I hate the job, but I do so love the work.

The time for my apologies has passed, the retributions will, undoubtedly, be lifelong. My failure as a father, and as a man, have stripped away any value I may have represented to my children. To complete strangers, my time is worth $250 an hour. I don't get much of the $250, but enough to buy some more Ipods as time goes on.

If you think I'm an asshole now, just wait till you see me as... Formerly Living.

Spring Break Extra - Greybeard University

All the kiddies are out on spring break. You can always tell because the bars are empty, the planes are full, credit-card issuing bank stocks are up, and the additional weight of fresh new debt tilts the party barge to one side so that the increasingly overweight co-eds slide across the deck on their pasty, thong split asses.

With the co-ed age leaches out of the house, next door apartment or vomit covered gutter, take this opportunity to take a quick look at the plans that all of you loyal readers have been making regarding your investment/retirement accounts. In previous posts, we danced around growth versus equity, and, if you were paying attention, established that you are gonna be your own gate-keeper for your money.

Where in the world, you ask, can we find some place that is worthy of guiding the newbie investor in each one of us? Here is the profile... we ain't talking about day trading here, nor are we talking about timing, metrix, forex, or any other get-rich-quick type of voodoo. If you are so inclined to this kind of investment, I suggest this resource... For the rest of us, we can tolerate a trading station that does not execute trades faster than I can drink two fingers of scotch at work. Some of us, like me, don't have a lot to work with so we need also need a table with a small buy-in. That means that account minimums gotta be reasonable, and per-trade-fees have got to be as equally reasonable. For you and me, all we really need is some thing like Sharebuilder, or the new $7 per trade that Bank of America offers. Despite my unsolicited dislike for banks, B of A also has a program that automatically transfers your "pocket change" from your checking to your savings account each day, a concept fully endorsed by the facutly of good ol' Greybeard U.

How then, do we play our short stack of chips so that we have enough chips to go slip toes in the hot sands with all the college refuse now south of the border? If you have been paying attention, you know that a portion of your portfolio needs to be stocks you know because they are products you use/ or an industry that you know. These are the stocks that Google sends you an alert on, you read the SEC filings on a regular basis, and the CEO has you on the speed dial (or has requested a temporary restraining order so that you leave him or her alone).

The next significant portion of the portfolio is gonna be split, at some percentage between growth and income. For the young, reckless and indestructible, the percentage of growth stock is probably going to be much higher than the old and broke down set like greybeard. At least, that is the conventional wisdom, and I don't know that conventional carries the day today.

Growth is like an addiction. You get a little, you want more. Soon, you gotta have more and more just to get the same rush. Growth stockers have lots of GM shares they are shedding. Growth stockers were orgasmic over Enron, right up to the very end. The latest messiahs for growth have been the pencil-neck geeks at Google. The problem is that the institutional investors who make their money taking risks with other people's money expect more and more growth, and they don't give a damn how it is accomplished.

Growth stockers are easily bored, so they play this little game each quarter, where the target company provides estimates about growth, income, revenue, the number of import banana-yellow thongs that will be purchased...whatever. The stockers, not complacent with watching the game, have their own quarterly forecasters, the "analysts". Anaylsts are the "they", the "them", the nebulous of collective wisdom that the rest of us refer to prove an unfounded point, such as "They say that Bill Gates is giving away $500 if you forward this email I keep hearing about," or "Google stock is good enough for them." "They" play a game each quarter that has profound impact on Mom and Pop SixPack's retirement fund.

Last month, Google stock took a huge hit in value, meaning it's share price decreased. Google didn't lose money last quarter, they aren't getting sued because their latest drug made Thalidmide babies look like Olympic swimmers, nor have they profitted from no-bid government food service contracts that starve our service men and women. No, last quarter Google made money, they just didn't make as much money, AT THE GROWTH RATE THAT THE ANALYSTS GUESSED THEY SHOULD! In their defense, Google released a press release explaining that the "organic growth" rate was probably at its peak.

Beloved, note two things here. When Google launched its now historic IPO, part of the manifesto from the math geeks suggested that they weren't going to play the forecast games that other companies in the past, notably Enron, had used to drive the short-term implementation of the company business plan. Problem is, even if the target company wont paint a big red cross hair on its ass every quarter, the analysts do it anyway. What this means for you and me is, the value of a huge company is being driven by the wild-ass guess of a bunch of pencil pushers in NYC. If a company grows 25% in one quarter, but the wise ass analysts say that growth should have been 35%, the value will drop overnight by 30%... just like Google.

The second thing you should note... when corporations start using language that would make the White House Press Office swell with pride, terms like "organic growth", it is time to place your bets elsewhere.

Growth investing, over the long term, has been profitable for two generations. Growth investing on the short term, betting on sustained, meteoric growth seems to be new phenomenon. If you are gonna heavily invest in growth stocks, know that which you put your chips into.

Income stocks are ugly, boorish, and not much fun to discuss around the beer-bong. Rather than focus on growth in terms of the stock price, income stocks look to pay a dividend to share holders. As a result, income stocks tend to be represented by more consistent and predictable approaches to core business. This means that it is, or should be, easier for the great unwashed such as you and I to track what they are up to. The beauty about income stocks, especially in programs such as Sharebuilder, is that the dividends can be automatically reinvested, so that you don't feel like you have a few bucks sitting around burning a hole in your pocket. Think of it as a savings account that builds equity.

Here is a good starting point to see what makes an income stock a good income stock...

While you discuss amongst yourselves, Spring Break is almost over, so I gotta run a few hundred more miles, shed that winter weight, decide between the Triumph of my dreams, jump on the Von Dutch anti-marketing anti- rebel rebel image, stick with the sentimental favorite, build my own, or strike out in new patriotic directions with the Victory motorcycle. [I know, I know. Victory is owned by Polaris, and Polaris is a division of Bombardier, a Canadian interest, but every year or so, I apply for an in-house counsel job with Bombardier, so blow me.] The end of spring break means the return of the co-eds, and mini-skirts will rise just as surely as gas prices; neck lines will plunge like GM revenue. With a good raise, I am even gonna get a custom painted helmet, a pin-up girl on the side, and on the back in blood-red razor blade tattoo paint... Formerly Living.

"Woman, I Broke my Rock!"

This weekend, I crossed off one of the things on my "To Do before I Die List", and took a motorcycle safety course. Yes, the irony is not lost on me that participation in this activity could prematurely end my existence, and thereby prevent me from completing the other items on my list. Guess what? The same can be said for all the other items on the list as well... so smoke 'em if you got 'em!

I put off doing this a long time, even though I grew up riding motorcycles with 2-4 wheels, and even though I have always wanted to ride with my dear dumb ass dad. I just didn't do it. Prince rode a motorcycle. Chuck Norris rode a motorcycle. The Terminator rode a motorcycle. Hell, if you look close enough, half the horses in the old John Wayne movies had two wheels and a panhead. And the unnatural attraction of chicks to motorcycles? Never bothered to exploit that opportunity.

My wife has been, figuratively and literally, standing around tapping her toes, waiting for me to get a motorcycle. I didn't even have to resort to the tried and trued "Gas prices, baby... we can save money". For the life of me, I just couldn't figure out why she wanted me to get a bike so badly...

So, I did learn a couple of things. For instance, there are some folks that have been riding for years, but don't knwo the first damn thing about how to ride a motorcycle. Those are the folks that keep national insruance rates high, but do help in thinning out the herd a bit. Next, I figured out that my dreams of running down to the local Triumph dealership and buying the biggest, baddest cruiser or cafe racer they got is just going to have to wait a bit. Here is to growing older and wiser at a measured rate.

Most importantly though, I have decided that the United States should implement a mandatory program requiring every licensed citizen to ride a motorcycle for an entire year as their primary means of transportation. Only in this way can the asshats of the world understand why it ain't okay to make a right hand turn out of the left lane, across 4 lanes of traffic.

Even with visions of my eyeballs exploding like nightmarish sugarplums at 80 miles an hour, over the two days that I was in the course, I didn't worry about work or seethe with unquenched rage at my ex-wife or bemoan the two children who have disowned me, nor did I shake my fists at the Bush administration that has made it so difficult to remain Republican after 15 years of loyal service. Monday morning, when I got back to the pressure cooker, I felt better than I had in months. There really is something about riding a motorcycle that you just cannot get from any other recreational narcotic.

My wife's anniversary is next week. She has authorized the release of her approved wish list:

1. A motorcycle for her loving husband

2. Someone to ride with [link NSFW]

3. A new watch

4. Home security system

5. Membership in exclusive club

Is it any wonder I love this woman so?

Over the weekend, volunteer and professional firefighters all over the Texas Panhandle battled the largest fire in Texas' recorded history, nearly 800,000 acres as of this morning. Some reports attribute 11 deaths to the fire. Towns were evacuated and homes were burned. These are all people and places I know and love dearly, so don't make me chase your cheap ass down.

Please send financial contributions here. [Photo is property of AP/Amarillo Globe News]

Glad to be alive, glad to be able to ride, waiting for the rains to return to my beloved Panhandle so I can ride home. Sitting in the sidecar beside me, dressed in a yellow rainslicker and limo-dark tinted goggles...Formerly Living.

I am to the Blogosphere What David Lee Roth is to FM Radio

Beloved I have returned to disappoint and dismay! After spending two weeks marketing the lovely little Star-Telegram, and another two weeks mourning my loss, I am back in full rock-and-roll glory.

While trying to improve my own lot in life, I missed all the other good juicy stuff... the triumphant return of the nitro sweetness of NHRA racing, cheating in NASCAR, the Cheney shooting, Dubai Days and Port Week, Newsweek pulls the plug on terminally ill New Orleans, oh the things I have so missed making fun of!

Lo and behold, children I wake up on Fat Tuesday, and the voodoo gods give me Anna Nicole Smith at the Supreme Court, Google Smells Like Enron Spirit, and cry baby CBS sues Howard Stern. Please excuse me a moment longer while I choke back the tears of joy.

Before anyone gets seriously twisted, please understand the jurisprudential value of the Anna Nicole Smith case. Many times I find myself fighting for the rights of the poor and the defenseless, the down-trodden and the hygiene-challenged. Second only in importance to the Second Amendment, is the sticky constitutional issue of jurisdiction. Now, I am normally a states' rights guy all the way. But there are two compelling arguments that the media and those arrogant legal commentators are missing. First, the greater jurisdiction that bankruptcy courts can exercise, the more money I can bring home to my lovely wife. Second, and perhaps even more importantly, the state court that Miss Smith lost in was in Texas. I have not completed my own review and analysis of all the relevant pleadings, but I seem to recall that the first paragraph of the jury instructions in the Texas case read something like this..."Ladies and Gentleman of the jury, before you answer each of the questions below, the Court reminds and instructs you that Miss Smith has made her money the old fashioned way... she humped it to death...". Now, does that hardly sound fair? There clearly are times that the federal gubment needs to step in and help the country's favorite stripper (and, in all fairness, the bankruptcy court found that dead man's son destroyed evidence in order to win...takes a real man to cheat and lie in court to beat up on any woman, no matter how far the angel has fallen).

Don't be fooled, this case has such importance to the system... I am gonna have to engage in large scale research... all the way to the very beginning.

If anyone was paying attention two weeks ago, Google stock took a kick in the shorts. Not because Google lost money, only because Google has let itself get tangled up in the game of analysts' outlooks and forecasts. More on that later, but here is the point that someone needs to make...

Google may have a 32nd flavor, a little aftertaste of Enron.

Not because Google is ripping off its retirement funds, soaking cash out of the company, or setting up tricky little special purpose entities, but because investors fell in love with Google, without understanding how Google really makes its money, and failing to understand that stratospheric growth year after year and quarter after quarter isn't possible. You heard it here first (at least until Google turns this site black), in a year Google shares will be below $250 unless Google changes its basic business model, and you can ask GM how easy that is.

Serves those arrogant math geeks right... and by the way, in the interest of full disclosure, I have indeed been banned from AdSense, and I think there is a helluva lot better way to do what they want to do.... math tards...

CBS sued Stern today. They are pissed because he talked about Sirius Radio, they are pissed because Stern helped Sirius hit some subscriber targets and Stern got a tidy little $200 million bonus for doing so. CBS claims that Stern and Sirius did all this at the cost of CBS, use of CBS airtime was a misappropriation of CBS's resources. Christ in a can ladies, Stern was a misappropriation of public airwaves for years. He had huge ratings in the last three months of his time on the public airwaves, because everyone wanted to hear the coming train wreck. Stern says that the ad space was sold out at the end, and I gotta believe that. 99% of my Stern experience was in the last three months. CBS also through in count that they had, essentially, first right of refusal to any new radio programming Stern might dream up. If I understand the charge, CBS is gonna tell a judge, with a straight face and a fancy suit, that THEY should have had a piece of Stern's work on Sirius, after years of leaving Stern dangle in the wind everytime the FCC got their thong in a tangle. I still think Stern's content was crap, but I am gonna prepare my resume now to serve as a high-priced expert for Stern's legal defense team... god I love this country.

Vacation is over, Papa Justice is back, time to get... Formerly Living!

BLOG EXPLOSION/TRAFFIC SWARM Members WIN FREE BOOK

*******2ND UPDATE********

The People have spoken.... and I get Hosed again. Rant to follow (to follow the crying and dry heaves from the 3 day bender I am starting). Good Luck to the Final 3 (I hope they enjoy their shiny, happy lives as well-adjusted, emotionally available members of society).

Thanks to everyone who voted, and special thanks to everyone who tapped their contact list for votes (and a very special thanks to those of you, WIFE, who didn't bother to tell anyone... Bad Santa knows where you sleep, and where you have hidden the extra key to the backdoor, and where you keep the gas can for the chainsaw).

Even though I am a piss poor loser, there are several folks in line for free books, will let you know in a week or two.

For those that didn't get free books, the proceeds of all book sales are going to two good causes, so please, when they come out, go buy one...

Now, go away. I am off to prove that my ex-wife is right about everything she ever said about me...

*****UPDATED*******

My entry made the final round of voting!!! The Big Ten, the Final Decade, The Last of the Wannabe's!!! Go back to the Star-Telegram for the next round of voting. Even if you voted in the first round, EVERYONE gets to vote one more time, until midnight (CST) Sunday.

The final round is populated with very talented writers, so I gotta sweeten the deal. Whoever can demonstrate that they drove the most votes from their friends, family, employees and lovers will get a comped copy (autographed if I can swing it), plus one of your contacts will get a free copy as well. Its like Amway, except better...

After you vote, send me an email at infinitegtr@gmail.com with an email or name, then as each of your suckers, I mean upline, I mean your loved ones... when they vote, tell them to email me and let me know you referred them.

C'mon, live the dream, help a brother out! Think of your vote as the cost you gotta pay to keep me too busy to keep up this crappy blog!!! Inflict the pain of my writing on others! Share the love man...

Between now and February 7, Blog Explosion, Traffic Swarm or members of any other such traffic source who go vote for entry #38 in the Star-Telegram Serial Novel contest will have the chance to win a free copy of the serial novel when it is published!

In order to be eligible, click through the Star Telegram link above, surf your way to the voting form, use number 038 to vote. After you have voted, send an email to infinitegtr@gmail.com that includes your email address, and also cut and paste or re-type any 4-5 words from entry #38 ( so I can reasonably confirm you actually went to the site) in your email. Please vote only once in the first round, as duplicate votes will be pulled by the Star-Telegram.

I will offer up an additional free copy to the Blog Explosion member who can refer the most non-Blog Explosion voters. Have them follow the instructions above, make sure they use your email address to indicate who referred them.

If I can make it into the second round of voting, there will be additional copies given away. If I actually get selected to participate in the book, will see about getting some autographed copies as well. The free copies are coming out of my back pocket, and not from the publisher, so please drive in as many votes as you can!

Check back here to see what happens!

Christmas Done Come Early

This is IT! Day One of personal freedom is dawning! I need the help of everyone that loves, hates or barely tolerates me!! Go take a peak at the 400 PLUS entries in the Ft Worth Star-Telegram Serial Novel Contest, and before you leave, if you wouldn't mind dropping in a vote for entry #038 (have to use three numeral format on the voting form, which is a pop-up), then I won't have to come to your place of work and tell all of your co-workers and friends about the shameless little display down in Mexico last summer, the terms of your probation from the last Las Vegas trip, or why you still have nightmares about showing up for grade school nude...


Voting ends Feb 7, and with 400 entries this is more about marketing than writing, so call in any favors you have, call your girlfriend, call your mom... hell, call your girlfriend's mom. Just show a little love...

Advanced Consumer Econ Pt IV - Greybeard U

Before we thump our chests, and start chanting about putting the women and children to bed in advance of our little hunt and kill expedition, there are a few more basics to cover before we go balls to the wall and start spending your children's inheritance on off-shore, pyramid, fractionally owned, currency traded, China-Googled get rich quick investments. These are simple rules, the advice is free, you get what you pay for...

I read somewhere once that managing your invesments/retirement is a necessary part-time job. Swell. I have been working 12-15 hours a day since the first week of January as it is. I already have a part-time teaching job. The sweetness of nitromethane powered drag racing begins next weekend. I have children scattered across the DFW metroplex. The newest chapter to the rest of my life starts in a few short hours. All I need is one more part-time job. In order to keep your pieces o green in your investment account, it makes sense to keep the universe of potential investments limited.

Rule 1: Select a number of stocks that you want to track on a regular basis. 10 may not be enough, 75 may be too many. You probably won't be invested in all of the stocks in your pool at the same time. Inevitably you will read about some wonderkind emerging stock that you will want to take a look at, and there will be a drowning victim in your pool that you want off the list. Out goes the room temperature ballast, in goes the new stock. Think of it as window shopping for stocks.

Rule 2: Stick to what you know. Refuse to by any razor except Gillette? Does your pantry look like a show room for Coca-Cola and Duncan Hines? Do you work for a Fortune 500, and find that you like your job, believe in your product, and your customers love you? Have a pretty good handle on the ebb and flow of retail, or you are certain you understand how Google generates its massive income? You just established the foundation for your pool. If you constantly find yourself bitching about the cost of a tank of gas, only to be greeted by airy commentary on the car radio about how MobilExxonShellBP mega oil just posted record profits again, yet you keep going to the SAME branded gas station for your weekly poke up the ass, guess which oil company you need to invest in...

Rule 3: Open the package. Over the remainder of this course, we will talk about some very simple concepts and vocabulary words that will allow you to simply and easily monitor the health and saftey of your favorite swimmer. You will need to find a library or other public computer so that you can visit the SEC on a regular basis, without the black helicopters hovering over your house in "Silent Mode" ala' Blue Thunder. For now, with your super-secret SEC log-in, all you need to know is WHAT does the company do, WHERE does it do it, HOW does it do it, and does it have to have a lot of DEBT to get it done?

In an earlier post, I mentioned that Blockbuster had found a way to punish its current customer base AND delay bankruptcy for another 6 months, by jacking up the monthly fees on its "FastPass" or "Passport" or whatever the hell where you could take two movies and keep 'em forever, or alternatively, spend all day picking out two movies, walking through the door, and getting two more... the clerks love it when you do that 30-40 times on a busy Saturday. Point is, Blockbuster has been having a bit of trouble keeping banks, bondholders, and other investors happy. (Forget for the moment that they have not been able to stay out of court due to their practices regarding late fees). Just like Aunt May, who had to file bankruptcy last year, or the federal government that files a psuedo-bankruptcy every time it jacks up taxes, or issues more T-bills, companies that rely on credit to operate get themselves in trouble. They lose flexability, they lose the ability to quickly jump on emerging business opportunities, and their credit costs (think of those credit cards in your wallet that will all be at 30% APR's by July) eat into the profit margins they have to produce to keep you, as a potential or actual investor, happy. When Blockbuster raised its monthly fees, I shut off my account. Netflix for me all the way baby (unless Blockbuster wants to bring its bankruptcy bidness to me, then we can talk).

GM claims it has 19 billion in cash, but then you gotta figure in the 3 billion and change that they are sloughing off to Delphi, and you gotta look at that little issue of having lost 4 billion in the last quarter. (Just once, I would like to blow 4 billion in 3 months....). Until GM uses some of that money to design a car that doesnt look like the by-product of a monkey humping a football, there is little chance that they can stop the nose dive. Without access to truly "free" cash, or cheap credit, GM just don't stand a chance with the current line up.

For a while, Sturm Ruger was a great invesmtent. They were debt free. They were closely aligned to their core business. Papa Bill was still at the helm. Liberal activists hadn't started their attempts to pervert a legal system that already has its hand up the girls' skirts by trying to sue gun makers out of existence. Dont expect to find a bushel basket full of debt free companies, but if a member of your pool cannot take a corporate crap without Moody's or Standard and Poor issuing a flurry of press releases, maybe that stock should be on the Dead Pool list.

That is enough for tonight beloved. Scour the home, find 5-6 items that you or your loved ones purchase on a regular basis, start building your pool. Next class, someone remind me to tell you why Starbucks may be a better buy than Burger King...

Dateline Detroit - GM announced today, in a last chance attempt to save North American operations, that it will take a two pronged approach to realign its business model with market demands. In an admission that GM has been whore-mongering its "other" lines, GM will revive Oldsmobile, and at the same time will completely spin-off Oldsmobile and Pontiac so that they can stretch their wings and create some truly unique, muscular opponents to Ford and Dodge. Even more shocking, GM announced a special racing option that will be available for all of the current GM lineup including the Corvette, the Solstice, the GTO and the "Oh we dont know if we will build it or not" Camaro concept. Departing from previous numbering systems, the new racing package will be designated the L69, but your local dealer will know it as simply... Formerly Living.

Nuclear Iran, and other Modern Disappointments

Perhaps the end is near after all. The other day at lunch, my cellmate and our paralegal shared an elevator with a bunch of accountants from a temporary office on our floor. In the time it took to descend 120 feet to the ground floor, I came to understand how exactly the emergence of the Metroplexual will indeed spell the end of Western society, and perhaps all of civilization as we have come to know and despise it.

Young Metro #1: "Gosh, where should we eat. You think we can get into El Guapo now?

Toying with being neighborly to the temporary residents, I almost pointed out that El Guapo is impossible to get into after 12:15, especially with a group as large as theirs. Before this rare display of common courtesy could escape from my grips, the other hairy girls from next door chime in...

Young Metro #2: "Now hold on, silly. Where did you eat last night?"

Playful pause.

Young Metro #1: "Ooooh, that is right. I just don't think I could possibly eat there again today. Where should we eat then?

Young Metro #2: "Hmmm. I don't know. Where do you want to eat?"

Metros #3-6, in satiny unison: "Gosh, dunno...what about you? Isn't there a tea room nearby? I just dunno, where do you want to eat?"

In between the mindless exchanges, there was scattered chatter about television commercials, clothes, Golden Globes, how Aunt Sally got the blood spatter off the wall and the brain material out of the carpet.

Come on girls! Get yer hands out of yer pants, and drop those purses already. Why the hell don't you get right to the nut-cutting, skip lunch, pile into your compact hybrid, and go to the shoe store, or get facials together. Its bad enough that I gotta have a similar conversation with my wife at the end of the day, who, despite being home all day long hasn't had a single brain cell to devote to deciding where I am going to pay money to have a stranger feed me and then do the dishes, thereby releiving her of that duty as well. You boys wanna wear your girlfriend's lace panties, or momma's hairnet, take that shit to American Idol, don't bring it to my elevator.

This close to the Super Bowl, we should be warming up our smacking hand, chilling the beer, and selecting the finest cheese and other half-time snacks. Saunter your dainty asses to the vending machine, get a 40 ounce can of Cajones, or maybe an extra shot of testosterone in your smoothies, and make up your damned mind. Brokeback Mountain my ass... bring them cowboys down off the fence, put khaki's and a goatee on 'em, put em in an office and call them accountants... Brokedown Metroplexuals is more like it.

Last week, of all the countries in the world, France said they would nuke Iran if they had to in order to keep those towel-wrapped little devils in their place. France didn't immediately retract the statement and surrender, so I was a little worried.

Monday, Credit Suisse and UBS Warburg said they were sending the Iranians packing, and telling Iran to take their uranium soaked lucre else where. Both institutions claimed their relative holdings were small, just over a billion dollars in one instance. Beloved, I don't care if it is ten cents or ten billion, when banks walk away from money, THAT scares me. Gold is undervalued until it hits $685. If the Israelis hit Iran this calendar year, gold is undervalued at $850. If the Israelis don't hit Iran's nuke facilities this calendar year, gold is a bargain at a grand.

Both children from wife #1 have now committed themselves to having a relationship with my checkbook, but not me; without much planning or forethought and an abundance of willful, wanton and malicious intent, have now apparently alienated all of my siblings; sitting at office right now working on this sub-par post while the wife is at home by herself with two infant boys that have some rare, deadly form of flu/bubonic plague... The tri-fecta is in play.

Took up a collection from co-workers, about to go purchase the winning lottery ticket and abscond with the winnings. If I can't get paid in gold specie, I will just get a cashier's check made payable to the order of... Formerly Living.

Advanced Consumer Econ pt. III - Greybeard University

Some time ago, I shot off my mouth about investing specifically, and the state of corporate America in general. Rather than get right to the nut cutting about investing, there was a little discussion about consumer debt, and another very basic course about keeping one's own donuts on one's own extendable donut holder. Finally, as promised, is the end all and be all of investing on the 21st century (sort of, this will be a multi-part presentation).

Just need to clean up two matters from before. Federal law now entitles you to a free credit report every year. It is possible to request your free report on line, but here are two cute tricks. You can't hardly Google your way to the correct web site, which is www.annualcreditreport.com . The link is accessible from Experian, but you cannot get the free report directly from the bureaus, gotta go through the link. Trick number 2... when you go to www.annualcreditreport.com don't ask for reports from all three bureaus at once. Make it a habit every four months to go to the web site, and rotate who you request report from. For example, pick Experian today, go back and get Equifax 4 months from now, TransUnion 8 months from now, and start the cycle again next January with Experian again.

If you do this, you can continually monitor and correct your credit year round, without being out any dough. Also, it takes a couple of months to clean up your report, so if you correct something on Experian now, the correction should show up on Equifax 4 months down the road.

Bonus trick! Also, you gotta understand that your Transunion score is usually the lowest of the bunch. TransUnion tends to report more of your bad behavior than the others. That is why you need to put it at the end of the cycle, you give yourself 8 months to start clearing up erroneous credit reporting before you get to those weasel-nuts.

One more house cleaning matter. Earlier I extolled the virtues of gold, but even when the Dow hit 11,000 the other day, gold was at its highest point in several years. If, like me, you believe that the US housing market is about to rollover and heave like a coed at Mardi Gras, gold is still a good buy even at today's price. There is a series of gold coins that is a bit undervalued right now... they are commonly called Coronet coins, made in the mid-1800's through the early 1900's. Most of the coronets minted 1877 and afterwards are a helluva bargain right now. If you have a good local dealer, go see him. If not, try this guy . His collector coins are a little pricey, but he will do you right on the gold.

Also, keep in mind that other precious metals have more industrial uses than gold does (and therefore more intrinsic value). Platinum comes to mind...

Either way, I still fear the Chinese... I meant to say, I for one welcome our new Chinese overlords. In 1995-ish, the US only had enough currency to physically embody 8% of the total "wealth" held within the economy. All of the rest of the "money" was nothing more than electronic transfers and bank ledger entries. In short, the money didn't exist, you only had money to buy things because the bank said you did; even if there was cash to be had, it is only worth anything because Uncle Sam says so. Gone are the days when you can belly up to the Federal Reserve with a fistful of sweaty singles, and exchange it for gold. Once the Chinese bend us to their will, the only tender that the US dollar will be good for is kindling to keep warm while all the world's oil goes to China and India. Soooo, gold may be a bargain today at any price.

With that upbeat message, on to today's lesson.

Investing, unfortunately, means more than socking some cash into a Mason jar or picking up some lottery tickets while grabbing a drink for the evening. Modern day investing is little more than an updated form of alchemy. It largely consists of giving your worthless green stuff, cash, to someone else in the hopes they will give you more green stuff, cash, back. Lead to gold, cash to cash...

While there are many ways to have people give you cash, the alchemy of choice today is the stock market. Because there is so much money being dumped into the stock market now, there are 18 different kinds of hucksters, used car dealers, pimps, lawyers, brokers, bankers and shunned dentists trying to separate you from your paper lead. What result is a complex trading system that benefits from your ignorance and inaction.

Since we have all agreed, for the time being, that those funny looking green sheets of toilet paper can be exchanged for goods and services, then we gotta figure out a simple way to suck as much cash out of the system as we can. The odds are stacked against us. The rules are complex, or out of date. The alchemists use big words, sliding through ambiguities and slipping through cracks they help create. A swift kick in the nuts ought to slow them down long enough for us to get ours too.

So if you are gonna play in the alchemists' lab, you need to understand what the rules are.

Hypothetically, one could use a green piece of paper, cash, to buy another piece of paper, a stock certificate. One piece of paper says "In God we Trust", the other piece of paper says "Owner and Holder of 1 Share of Infinitegtr, Inc., and entitled to all rights and appurtenances therein." Taken by themselves, one piece of paper is as useless as the other.

If you show up at the locked, gated entrance of Infinitegtr, Inc., with stock share in hand, you ain't getting in to see the President, no chance in hell will the guards let you into the control room and pull the red handle with the placard saying "Do Not Touch!". If you try to drive one of the company vehicles around the corporate campus, somebody is gonna Taser your ass. Even though the new piece of paper in your hands says you are a partial "owner" of Infinitegtr, Inc., no body is gonna jack with you or listen to your great idea about how to generate more of the green paper.

The only way that the front gate lets you in is if you have lots and lots of green pieces of paper, and exchange that paper for lots and lots of stock certificates. Even then, although you "own" lots and lots of Infinitegtr, you still cannot fire the smart-ass, slack-jawed lackey working the guard house because he is picking his nose with one hand and using his "crotch-hand" to maintain his ihateinfinitegtr.com website.

Instead, there are at least two layers of other people between you and your company. The first layer is the Board of Directors. Every so often, you get to vote on who is on the board, and who is off. You also get to vote on suggestions that the Board makes regarding how the company is run. Voting for directors, or the directors' suggestions, is worse than voting for politicians. Political elections, at least, give you months and months to see what kind of asshat you are dealing with. Directors stay below the radar, and they have lawyers and other liars draft the suggestions being voted on, so you Mr. Owner Man, don't know what the hell you are voting for anyway. Most boards are like politicians, in that they really don't do anything of great importance, other than soothe their own sense of self-importance.

The second layer are the officers. These are the folks with the offices on the top floor of Infinitegtr, they fly the corporate jet all over the place, have big parties, and give money out of your corporate coffers to charities like Jack Abramoff.

The officers and the directors try to keep you happy while keeping themselves wealthy without going to jail. This is usually done in two ways: growth or income.

Growth means that you use 1 piece of green paper to buy you stock certificate; and 6 months later you sell that same stock certificate to someone else for many many pieces of green paper.

Income is the uglier, but more interesting, sister to growth. Instead of selling the stock certificate for many many dollars, you keep the stock certificate, and every so often Infinitegtr sends you a couple dimes and and cents for every stock certificate that you hold in your sweaty hands. Your paper turned into coin. You get to keep the paper AND use the coins to obtain goods and services. Modern alchemy.

When the system works, it is a good thing.

If the officers and directors don't succeed in that sweet voodoo magic of turning nothing into something, if they can't help you sell your paper or turn paper into coins, the directors can fire the officers, and you and all your shareholder friends can fire the board. If they screw the deal up, you may decide to trade your certificate for green paper, but for less green paper than you originally traded. If the folks at the helm really screw up and have to put Infinitegtr into bankruptcy, then you are sucking wind. You and your friends with the stock certificates will get paid last, if you get paid at all. (The term "getting paid in bankruptcy dollars" may be the most honest assessment of modern currency yet).

The next class will focus on finding a good company that might provide growth and/or income. The suggested reading for next class is here.

This morning, Infinitegtr, Inc., rebounding from sleazy scandals that submarined the ailing company, announced that in order to clean up its corporate image, cleanse its corporate soul, avoid a moral bankruptcy and relieve itself of growing and unmanageable shame, the company is selling its largest, high profile division...Formerly Living.

Cover yer Ass, 2006 is Coming!

Photo: Falling Snake courtesy of Infinitegtr
Copyright protected, all rights expressly reserved.

To hell with Top Ten lists from the out-going year, lets get right down to cool stuff coming up in 2006!!!

1) TCU Press is publishing a serial novel, an old-fashioned Western, consisting of 12 chapters written by 12 different authors. The book is similar to Texas Aggie football, in that one of the chapters is being written by Joe SixPack. The Fort Worth Star Telegram is running a two-part beauty contest for the 12th author. Submissions are taken January 1-20. After two rounds of voting, the favored son gets to rub elbows with Jane Robert Woods, Elmer Kelton, Dan Jenkins, Carlton Stowers, Phyllis Allen, James Ward Lee, Jim Donovan, Judy Alter, Mike Cochran, Mary Rogers and Jeff Guinn.

My writing sample is already written, and I am just waiting for the witching hour to submit it. Watch here for details on where and when to vote...

2) Last week, while flying over the tinderbox otherwise known as New Mexico, I had the good fortune of sitting beside a brilliant, talented gentleman by the name of Thomas Graves. Turns out, he is a professional photographer, and he has a great eye. Spend your new year checking out his work at www.thomasgraves.com and enjoy the show.

3) I WILL finish and publish my novel. Maybe I can get Graves to shoot the cover for me.

4) My wife is making me take a vacation. We are spending a week in Seattle. Maybe I can also get Graves to teach me a little better technique. The picture above "Falling Snake" was taken just east of Seattle (Assuming that Goggle's Hello doesn't have the picture all jacked up again, and that you can actually see it). I am already saving money now for extra film.

The day that I snapped Falling Snake, two people were killed on the same highway I took to get to the falls. There was a rock slide, and a boulder the size of a small Cadillac hit their car. I never figured out if this happend before, during or after my trip. That they died saddened me, and that it occured where I had just been frightened me. To die in the middle of such beauty though, not a bad way to go.

I have another version of the picture that I jacked up with Photoshop, the water has a golden hue to it, and the rocks in the background have a copper tinge. I have to figure out how to calibrate my printer so it prints what I see on the screen

5) In a few short weeks, I have been promised a one only CD from the second greatest musical genius of this generation. If I can figure out the audio options of this crappy blog, and can get wonder-boy's permission, I will post some of his tunes here for your listening pleasure.

6) Almost forgot, a colleague and friend has figured out once and for all how to resolve the abortion debate. Each side gets what they say they want, neither side will be completely happy, so it must be the correct solution. I don' think we can get the book out in time for the mid-term elections, but certainly in time for the Presidential primaries.

Having solved that problem, we will end world hunger with three clothespins, a gallon of Easy Cheese, an eye of newt and a good dose of... Formerly Living. 

70 and Sunny on Christmas Day

Photo: Kenai Mystery courtesy of Infinitegtr
Photo is copyright protected and all Rights are expressly reserved.


On Christmas Day, my daughter complained that it was the" dead of winter", and she was upset, because, at 70 degrees Fahrenheit, just not quite warm enough to wear shorts.

I used to hate cold weather, but two events changed that. The first was contracting multiple sclerosis (and if I can ever prove that MS is an STD, I am going after my ex-wife). The second event was actually a combination of two trips that I got to take to Anchorage this time last year.

For the first time in my life, I have found a place that has a beauty, a majesty, and a spiritual energy so overwhelming that I could really connect with the concept of home. I have seen no more of Alaska than a 60-70 mile strip running from just north of Anchorage down to the Kenai peninsula, but just that tiny strip of paradise made me feel the movement of a Supreme Being... hell, if I saw more of the state, I might even stop being an asshole for a while...

The photo above, "Kenai Mystery" was taken on the second trip, in January of 2005. I was sent to Anchorage, with a paralegal in tow, to begin a fairly sizeable document review. We started on a Thursday, just before MLK Day as I recall. The following Tuesday, I was planning on sending the paralegal home, and I was going to take the first of nearly 30 depositions. I was going to be on the road for 6 weeks straight, in a different town every night. At the end of that time, I would return home, and we were set to go to trial 4 days later. (It only now dawns on me that, I would have spent first anniversary in trial, having been gone the 6 weeks prior). I was in the early stages of pneumonia. The weather was dark and foul, and matched my mood perfectly.

On Saturday evening, opposing counsel informed me that we would not have access to her client's building, or the documents I sorely needed to review, on Sunday. Something about being the Sabbath, and staff wanted to worship their god, and Federal Rules did not require her to work on Sunday. My coughing fit gave her the perfect opportunity to assume my consent and hang up before I could engage the Expletive-O-Meter.

Sunday morning dawned... well, for that time of year, "dawn" starts to crawl over the mountain top about 10:00 Aleutian time. For the first time, the skies were clear, and we could actually see the "glacial glow" of Denali. If you have never seen the color of glacial glow on a Sunday morning, I truly am sorry. I think they named it glacial glow, because calling it a "hue of the very color of one's life force, shaded by the essence of the outer limits of human joy emanating from the deepest most profound regions of the human soul" is too long, a little unwieldy, and a bit too feminine to be used in the common vernacular of your everyday Alaskan mountain man.

But I digress... when the paralegal saw the first rays of sunshine, she forced me out of my Ni-Quil induced sleep, and demanded to see something other than the inside of the god-awful office I had imprisoned her in for 3 days.

Just south of Anchorage there is a lake that lies at the opening of the tunnel leading to Prince William Sound. In years past, glaciers were visible from the northwestern bank, where a visitors center was eventually built. Until the next Ice Age, the glaciers have receded quite a bit.

In November of 2004, I made my first pilgrimage to the lake. I saw my first bald eagle there. The waters of the lake, at least in November, looked like cold, molten lead. I tried to get some pictures, but even film could not capture the depth of the layers of leaden color in the water.

The paralegal desperately needed to be impressed with Alaska, so the lake was the first place I thought of. On the road in, we stopped in the hopes of seeing bald eagles. While I wrestled with my camera gear, I heard a disturbance in the air above me. Three, no five bald eagles swooped and soared out of the tree line, across the highway. Mentally groping my private parts in celebration of my good luck, I rapidly pulled my aging camera to my eye and pulled the trigger. Nothing, this thing was deader than Bob Dole without his little blue pills.

I have a daughter, my own flesh and blood, that wont speak to me. I was devastated by the untimely death of my camera, and secretly, for that one moment in time, I was not sure which of the two tragedies was greatest. My paralegal was used to seeing me act like an asshole, or an incompetent baby lawyer, but I don't think she was prepared for the full-scale mope that I was about to begin.

She took several photos of the bald eagles with her under-powered and over-priced digital camera, and I think she took a few extra just to piss me off. I am suddenly through admiring the taunting eagles, so we proceeded to the lake. The body of ethereal water that I had first seen in November was now, in January, a snow covered, solid, full-on winter ice-scape. The cold, gun-barrel grey and silty waters now encased the rocks of the shore in ice, and all had been dusted with snow. 300 hundred yards out, a group of people were ice-skating.

The paralegal stepped off the sidewalk. This was one of those slow motion moments, because I knew there were rocks here, and just 45 days ago this was water, and maybe it wasn't a good idea to just jump off into polar bear land. I was still pouting over my camera, my dagger tongue was dulled by cold medicine, and well, her camera worked, so to hell with her. I remained silent.

She may have actually taken two steps before falling face forward in the snow. Even now I am lauded for not laughing. No need to laugh, as cosmic justice had been meted out. We got back in the car, and I toyed with the idea of driving to the Kenai peninsula while she poured the water out of her now frozen and temporarily inoperable camera.

In 48 hours, I was to begin the Deposition Roadshow. Here was the only place in my life I had actually felt the presence of God. We were going to Kenai.

Once you traverse the southern edge of Turnagain Bay, there is a 10-15 mile pass that takes you to Kenai. If there is a portal to another plane of existence, it is this stretch of road. Sunshine turned to spectral fog, things seemed to be moving between the trees... hell the trees seemed to be moving through the trees.
Photo: Flight of Fantasy courtesy of Infinitegtr

Photo is copyright protected and all rights are expressly reserved.

As soon as we cleared the pass, we spotted a rest area and stopped. While paralegal danced and skipped through the parking lot, taking pictures as though she were throwing candy from a float at a parade, I decided to take one more shot at resurrecting my camera. A nudge here or an unstuck shutter there, and suddenly I possessed once again the magic necessary to preserve images on film.

I fairly well fell out of the car, careful not to drop my suddenly breathing camera in the snow. I could feel my shaking hands absorbing the adrenaline while I started lining up targets for my Minolta sniper rifle. I looked back towards the Twilight Zone from whence we had just emerged, and I was temporarily frozen in place. The sun was funneling through a jagged, gaping tear in the clouds while the fog seemed to be sneaking upwards trying to blot out all of the sun. I snapped Kenai Mystery before we rushed off to use every ounce of remaining light we had left.

As far as outdoor photography goes, this is probably pretty run of the mill stuff. For me personally, this photo has the same emotional impact on me now as it did when I first got the slide back from processing. On those late nights, when wife and children are tucked safely in bed, air conditioner running to prevent heat stroke, I often pull out this image and allow it to take me back to Alaska, if only for a few fleeting moments.

The rush is on! There's Formerly Living in them there hills...!

C'mere So I can Slap the Stupid off Ya'

So there I was, standing at the crossroads of my career, and I thought to myself, "Damn I am angry. A lot. Angry like a mean drunk coming off of a three day binge kind of angry."

Photo available at:
Dave Kommel - dkommel@autoimagery.com
www.autoimagery.com


My wife used to joke about stapling me into the sheets and setting the bed on fire. Last week, we were at Lowe's and I couldn't help but notice a professional staple gun, a case of staples, a gallon of lighter fluid, and some of those cool "strike when wet, burn in a hurricane" matches that you can usually find in the camping section or from military surplus stores. I also found it an odd time for her to be so interested in whether or not I was current on the life insurance premiums. I guess the joke is up, time to do something different.

I am already trying to cram too many things into a day, but now that Stern has gone off of terrestrial radio (and perhaps even further off his rocker), that frees up the 30 minute morning commute. So, I cashed in my Blockbuster Movie Pass (after they temporarily delayed their pending liquidity crisis by jacking up their monthly fees to customers, but that is another story), and signed up for a membership with Simply Audio, kind of a Netflix for audio books. One of the titles I put high on my list was some kind of How to on Cooling the Flames of Anger or some such... better to cool the flames in my Pontiac than be bar-b-qued in my Serta. (For some beautiful photography, that I was afraid to borrow for fear of serious lawsuit, check out the work of Karen Kuehn).

Day 1 - The audio book is narrated by the Dali lama of Fargo, North Dakota. He says mindful breathing a lot, which is cool because this sounds like Jedi Knight kinda stuff. I tried to fast forward to get to the Jedi mind tricks, because that kinda thing can come in very useful against the weak-minded... clients, judges, other attorneys, my boss. No such luck, must be on another disc.

Day 2 - This clown wearing the orange toga who narrates this audio book, there is something about his voice, just cannot seem to put my finger on it; some strange, sensual feeling, like being reunited with a long lost lover... but different. He also talks alot about mindful eating and organic chickpeas and eating milk. Pretty soon, he is going to start talking about mindful urination. I still haven't heard anything about Jedi mind tricks, which pisses me off, because I have this big contested hearing I haven't prepared for out of reliance upon the use my newly found Jedi skills.

Day 3 - Spend most of the day under the custody and control of the U.S. Marshal. Apparently, when I mysteriously waived my hand at the federal judge, and told him, "You don't need to hear evidence weak-minded one, just grant my relief, commend me on my advocacy skills, and send me on my way", that somehow crossed some kind of line of decorum. I went from contemptuous to out and out contempt. Notably, my underdeveloped Jedi skills do not work on the U.S. marshals either. They tasered me a few times, and left me alone. No CD player though, so I didn't get to listen to the Dali lama. I discover that being tasered REALLY pissed me off.

Day 4 - I am starting to doubt the Dali lama's wisdom. His teachings on mindful eating nearly made me vomit in the car. 20 minutes about chewing 50 times, mindfully chewing, turn your food into liquid and it is already half-digested. Before I decided to stop being angry, I would use this time in the car to shut off my emotions, to check the security of the wall between my soul and ghoulish siege army waiting for me at the office. This morning drive is kind of essential, and my stomach is often tied in knots as a result. I suspect this is the same process an exorcist goes through each morning on his way into the office. The last thing I need while steeling myself for the day's adventures is the visual image of some bald guy in an orange robe with liquefied chickpea and milk dripping out of his face while he mindfully breathes.

His advice ain't that practical either. Lunch usually consists of whatever leftovers I can scrape together as I am running out of the house in the morning, or some leftover from the refrigerator in the office. Regardless of source, it is generally eaten in about 5 minutes, in between client phone calls, returning emails, and furtive, stolen glances at my bookies' home page to see if he has put out a contract on my life yet.

Can't do this half-assed, so I try 50 chews per bite. Lunch takes three and a half hours. My face is swollen, and my taste buds are on strike (not a New York Transit kind a strike either... a strike with some commitment to the cause). I have liquefied Chinese take-out all over my shirt, and my intestines, overwhelmed by the onslaught of liquefied mush has me running to the bathroom every ten minutes, just so my backside don't look like my frontside. My boss, seeing my distress, and checking his web cam to gauge the length of my lunch, yells behind me that anyone who takes a three hour lunch and comes to work soiled shouldn't expect a Christmas bonus; and the cost of an exorcist was coming out of my next paycheck. I attempt to waive my hand mysteriously at boss to initiate a Jedi mind trick, but I can only raise a middle finger at him as I sprint to the sanctity of a once clean porcelain nirvana.

Day 5 - My children are afraid of me, and wife is practicing with the staple gun. She can spit lighter fluid with more dramatic effect than Gene Simmons. I have had it with Dali lama. That strange feeling I had when I heard his voice? It was the same ingratiating anger that used to well up inside me on the rare times that wife #1 would pretend to get calmer the angrier I got. I waited until I saw a motorcycle cop on the side of the road before I ejected Disc one out the window like a throwing star being shot out of a bad Jet Li 3-D movie; aiming for his sidearm, I must have hit an updraft, because the disc shot suddenly upward, hitting him in the helmet and waking him from his Krispy Kreme induced slumber. When he finally managed to pull up beside me, we were screaming at each other, throwing epithets back and forth as we weaved in and out of the slower traffic.

Oh Joyous Rapture, the release of anger! The cleansing sensation of seething rage, the catharsis of catatonic hate! He finally pulled me over, and as he yanked my out of the car with one hand and started wailing on me with night stick in the other, my intestines (the Dali lama of Fargo pronounces that in-test-i (with a long i) -nz) opened up, and I fed off of the anger now washing through the suddenly soiled and besotted officer beside me.

Day 6 - The audio book club had me served with process in the civil suit today. The process server had to talk their way past the line of cops, media and clergy trying to get into my jail cell. Soon as I get out, I am going to Fargo to find that Dali lama, going to take him a case of liquefied whoop ass and a year's subscription to... Formerly Living.

A Word, Literally, from a Sponsor

So far, I have been able to avoid mixing content with ads. But you gotta check out the freaky talking chick at the top of the ads column on the right. I find her pithy sayings strangely arousing...

Also, this little endeavor so far has been "revenue neutral" which is fine, but if there ain't gonna be any cash, we gotta have some kool swag. Soooo, let's have ourselves a little design contest, get some t-shirts, coffee cups, and temporary tattoos for Formerly Living. Winning design gets some free crap and my eternal gratitude. If the winner is a feckless law student, I will also quit claim all my interest in the City of Cincinnati to them!!!

Always a Bridesmaid, Never a Bride...

Dammit, beaten to the punch again. Turns out that a fellow Soul-Eater, a brother (well, sister) in the Brotherhood of Blood Money, has not only produced a better blog, (busted link fixed now, thanks greybeard)she has a huge number of page hits every day, and is preparing to turn her media attention into a new career. Some day I will be pushing a broom and taking out the trash in her 21,000 square foot mansion...

Formerly Living... where all 7 deadly sins are committed against Opinionistas. Good Luck!

One More Thing to Dust...

All of today's talk about authorized spying on US citizens by the government is ruse to hide a much more important scandal... best git yer hands out of yer pants and listen up here. The US Government has apparently decided to have a little garage sale. Seems that there are some in House that want to make it easier for the gubment to sell federally owned land to private interests. While the legislation purports to act in favor of mining interests, there are those that believe that the real thrust of the fire sale is to benefit private land developers. Having covered every available square inch of commercially useable ground with strip malls, Starbucks, Office Supply, and Circuit City outlets; and having crammed neighborhoods into every remaining nook and cranny, there is no land left to build upon. Must...(gasp)... have (cough)... government (wheeze)... land!

What is a recovering conservative to think? After all, what could be wrong with an oversized, inefficient sovereign divesting itself of unused real estate to those who best know how to turn a dime, especially in an up market? Policy assumptions underlying long established legal concepts suggest that property should be committed to the best possible economic use. What could possibly go wrong?

Maybe nothing, perhaps it is a rare instance of the government unloading an unused asset at the peak of a seller's market. I wonder though, what the last great conservative president would think. It was after all, the last true Republican that was largely responsible for today's US Park System. It was through the obsessively dedicated, sociopathically focused efforts of Roosevelt the First that some of the Nation's most treasured lands, and its various 4-legged inhabitants, are protected and open to the public.

Perhaps the proposed legislation should be expanded to include Yellowstone Park and Denali. They are, after all, some of the crown jewels in the holdings of the US. If the gubment wants to sell that which it bought from the Indians for good wampum, or purchased from the French with ill-gotten gold, well, why the hell shouldn't it? In fact, I say we put an oil rig and a 7-11 Convenience Store right on the front lawn of the White House.

But none of that is really what is on my mind (yes, shameless trick to pull you in, but keep reading because there is some eye candy as payoff). Instead, when I saw the report about the modern day land grab, I thought instead about another lasting impact that Roosevelt had on modern society. Roosevelt had a grand, bold vision of what the United States should mean to the rest of the world, and he wanted that vision reflected in grandest, boldest of means. Although less important to some degree today, the true heart and soul of a government is reflected in whatever things it may create or produce. Almost without exception, this includes coinage and currency, as expressed in its artistic stylings. The quality of coinage turns on the availability of gifted sculptors and engravers.

Both the Greeks and the Romans used their coins to express the strengths of the people, the love of particular rulers and heroes, and as a form of propoganda. The Greeks, by and large, had far superior sculptors and minters. As a result, ancient Greek coins carry a hefty premium over Roman coins, because they are valued for the undeniable aesthetic beauty of the remaining coins. The Greeks produced negotiable works of art as much as a system of regulating and stabilizing trade.

The Romans however, well, it seems that they were so damned busy conquering far away lands, importing Egyptian wheat and recruiting new legions to spread the freedoms of the Roman form of government that they failed to pay as much attneion as they should have to their artisans. Some of the coins of the Roman era are so poorly crafted, today's HBO viewers of "Rome" would think that all the fall of the Roman Empire was the result of a combination of Down's syndrome and wide spread in-breeding.

Once the Romans finally threw in the towel, it was not until the Renaissance the sculpture, and subsequently coinage, gained traction as a worth while endeavor.

In the United States, there was a brief period of time when our collective cultural contribution aspired to heights a little greater than the current (and upcoming) dose of Howard Stern. (Yes, I have priced Sirius Radio, so what about it?)

Before the likes of Howard, Madonna and Lindsay Lohan, the soul and the collective conscience of the country was shaped and molded by the likes of Augustus Saint-Gaudens. And it was the likes of Saint-Gaudens and his contemporaries that helped to define enduring, idealistic, and iconoclastic images of modern beauty.

Roosevelt turned to Saint-Gaudens to breath new life into American coinage, which had grown stale, at least by standards of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. In return for Roosevelt's confidences, Saint-Gaudens produced what, at least for the time being, is without a doubt one the best looking US coin in the nation's history. The design is still used by the US Mint to whore out bullion sales.

PBS, another important but underperforming government asset, has some great information on Saint-Gaudens and his works.

Some of Saint-Gaudens contemporaries were the Frasers.
Theirs is an interesting story by itself. Although Pa Fraser is probably most well-known for the "End of the Trail" sculpture housed in the NationalCowboy Hall of Fame, it is his medallic achievements that are of most interest today.
In fact, the US Mint, apparently fresh out of original artistic designs, reissued Fraser's most well-known contribution to the numismatic scene. I guess you could say that coin collectors are going through their own little "retro" phase, because they snapped these up as quick as the Mint could churn them out.

I apologize to Fraser, and to any one actually reading this far, for the piss-poor scan of the indian head. I borrowed a beautiful photo off of Google Images, but I think some assclown jacked up the picture so that it wouldn't upload here, and you gotta drive to their place to see it. I never did like those guys.

Ok, a little more eye-candy disguised as serious social commentary. Which has the most appeal on all sensory levels: Pamela Anderson or Liberty with an exposed breast?

Photographers the world over have made a fortune off of lovely Pamela, but images fade, film becomes more crackled and brittle than my crusty briefs, and eventually deteriorates. Liberty and her scandalous exposed breast shall live on well after the silicon in Pamela's chest has been recycled by Mother Nature.

Thanks to Rep. Mike Castle, the tired-ass coin designs that have remained static for 20 years (nearly 100 years in the case of the Lincoln cent) are starting to go through a mini-renaissance once again. Mike Castle for President in 2008! Here is a Yankee I can support!

Most of the real innovation has come on the US nickel. Thank you Joe Fitzgerald and Don Everhart for making Thomas Jefferson cool again.

Coast to Coast, this guy is the most if you want to take part in some of this artistic coingasm.

Fine, go ahead and sell off the real estate, this neighborhood has been going to hell ever since I moved in. Just don't, elected officials and fellow citizen-soldiers, continue to neglect some of the other treasures held for the public good. I am goint to petition the Mint to make a commemorative coin for this site, and on the obverse it should say, "In God We Trust, but We Read... Formerly Living".