the fetid stench of travesty upon the water

no, not deepwater horizon this morning: israeli commandos resorted to indefensible, disproportionate force and killed (at least) 10 (volunteer, and in many/most cases european) members of an aid flotilla (ostensibly sponsored by nato member, turkey) sailing towards the blockaded gaza strip, where millions of palestinians survive in impoverished conditions of abject tyranny at the hands of hamfisted oppressors (who, for example, routinely use white phosphorous (i.e. outlawed) weapons against civilian targets and otherwise ignore all standards of humanitarian conduct in pursuing their selfish "security" over the rights of millions of innocents).

oh, yes, it's complicated, but this, for me, is so far beyond the definition of "complicated" that it's extremely simple: emboldened by the carte blanche umbrella of us security actions in iraq and afghanistan, and the sham of "democracy" which is, in practice, no better, and, in many, many ways, worse, than apartheid in south africa, the state of israel has decided that economic and social genocide (i.e. the forced encampment of those who they deem unworthy in giant slums without any means of redress while they confiscate all the lost land and property that is their whim) is theirs to wage with impunity owing to a religious belief in their own superiority.

this, my friends, is evil, in case the fruit of its tree isn't obvious.

yahoos here like to consider ourselves a "christian" nation, but, in practice, we are anything but.

it's a shame. it's shameful. and it's wrong.

no its not

"it's just like going from a regular house to vinyl siding".

i know from its context the intent of the analogy, (and i won't disrespect its subject by citing more context than this), but my high school english instruction and coincident preference for domicile weatherproofing must be from a different place entirely.

i'd retort that it's just like going from a regular house to something else a bit more granitic, but even then there's been one particularly poor-tasted home improvement project going on over on andover street for what seems like the past year or two involving a quarry full of too much stonework, (what is it about too much money that so quickly causes too little sense?), and there's seems to be no proper way to say it.

i will say this, though: i love my hometown newspaper.

ahhh, chunky's!

ever want to sit back and recline your personal and jen-you-wine lincoln continental passenger seat, (on its own wheels), have snacks (meals if you want them) and libations of all sorts delivered right to you as you get to watch something fun on a big-ass screen with awesome sound and all the A/V trimmings? oh, man, you want chunky's.

got to see iron man 2 this afternoon at chunky's in nashua (8 screens--everything you want to see) while chowing down on some remarkable (as in remarkably good) grub while further drinking remarkably frosty refreshments brought right to the table by better table service than you'll get in most restaurants.

the tickets were $5.75 (matinees are indeed a bargain) and they're only $7.25 for the evening shows. the menu is surprisingly extensive, and the food is good, hot and fresh when it arrives quickly at your table. there's no better way to enjoy a movie while IMAX has yet to figure out how to feed and water you at your seat. (but, seriously, IMAX in reading rocks in its own way, too).

don't get me wrong--i love that showcase cinemas in lowell is so close, and has such high-quality projection, sound and overall facilities. but there's nothing like chunky's, and it's well worth the extra 20 minutes up route 3 when you're looking for that full "dinner and a show" experience.

"conservative" horses assery this memorial day

i took a moment to join a symbolic memorial day wreath-laying on facebook this morning, and was, afterwards and as a result, dumped onto a facebook page festooned with ronald reagan's smiling visage and exhorted to "like" being conservative. first of all, i don't really like being conservative, just the same way i don't like being liberal--they're both silly designations with no useful purpose except to organize to oppose the other, and they really don't accomplish much beyond alienating other folks, so i'll prefer to just skip that part of the party, tyvm. (like humphrey bogart says in casablanca, we can just say i'm a drunkard and leave it at that).

anyway, there was also an exhortation to get on board a figurative trainload of righteous indignation that barack obama will be at the lincoln national cemetary laying his memorial day tribute to our fallen soldiers there instead of in robert e lee's front yard. WTF???

ronald reagan, the smiling poster boy for the conservative obama-bashing on facebook, was only 50/50 (four out of his eight years in office) in arlington, though we do need to give him a mulligan and credit for five observing the coincidence of his santa barbara convalescence after the assassination attempt. but he still missed THREE without a doctor's note. of course, billy boy clinton, the man who "conservatives" seem to love to hate best, was the only president i know with a perfect record--8 for 8, though i'm sure there may have been others since before i was old enough to pay attention. (geo dubya bush was 7 for 8, with a great big and well-deserved asterisk for being in normandy for the other one, so he's pretty much a perfect score too, but they're the only two). geo aich dubya bush senior, the only combat veteran among the recent crowd, NEVER went to arlington. (he spent one partying in rome, with a quick dash out to an american military cemetary nearby, and three of 'em kicking back in kennebunkport while danny boy quayle did the arlington deed).

so WTF, people???

lots to criticize about the current president, but i'm sorry, but i'm standing behind him 100% on this one, and calling out every yellow mothers son among the "conservative" outcry that somehow lincoln national cemetary in illinois is any less appropriate a place to honor our fallen than a secessionist general's front yard in virginia. (not even DC--get the facts straight, people). if i were president, i'd like to think i could spend my memorial day at indiantown gap national cemetary where my uncle lies at rest with his brothers from the korean conflict, but that's just because its symbolism means most to me. arlington is cool, too. as is lincoln. and the field south of rome, while we're on the subject.

fallen veterans, be they at rest south of rome, behind the beaches of normandy, outside of chicago, or near our nation's capital, are ALL deserving of our honor and our remembrance this coming monday, and, indeed, every day of the year. taking opportunity to put such solemn observance second behind petty party politics is reprehensible to me, and my uncle was as conservative as they've ever grown 'em, and my honor to him and his company-mates today, two days early, is to remember how my uncle only ever once commented to me on his memorial day remembrances, and it was simply to say that politicians needed to shut up and take a better example from those who were there.

amen.

edited to add that mike savage, nee mike weiner (you just cannot make this stuff up), asserted on his radio show recently that "every other president in history" has made the memorial day pilgrimage to the tomb of the unknowns. if "conservatives" want anyone to listen to anything they're compelled to say, i'd say they first need to take responsibility to shout down the idiots on their side of the aisle who spew this kind of nonsense--just the same way that so-called "liberals" need to stand up and be counted for the recent D-led vote to sanction DNA collection from innocent ("til proven guilty, remember?") citizens.

partisan politics is a cancer. all you with D's and R's on your voter registration need to consider why it is that opposition to "the other" is so important, when all it does is perpetuate it.

unenroll.

sapere aude.

just gotta add...

one more time: carl's custom guitars rules.

i've been finishing up the learning of all peter lavender's new stuff playing through one of carl's custom dovetailed wooden amp cabinets, wrapped around the guts of a fender blues jr, and it sounds so warm and so wonderful (at least to me) that even my inarticulate musical stumblings somehow redeem themselves. can't wait to bring it out on friday so i can really turn it up... (ah, the compromises of condo living).

you can come see and hear the results friday night at the worthen--and, if you're lucky, carl shows up in time so you can ask him to build you one for yourself.

you know you want it.

shangri-lowell

ok--here's the deal:

peter lavender (with arte k, and maybe even bob nash, too) is playing two sets over at the worthen on friday night from 9 to 11. he's playing stuff from the first record, "back to normal", (yes, "someday soon", and it ROCKS), and he's playing stuff from the second record, "never now", (though not "seems a little silly", that i know of, so we'll just have to imagine him singing the classic "and i could tell by the frightened look in your eyes / you could see the horns a-poppin' out of my head / and i knew right then beyond the shadow of a doubt / your mother had gotten to you again"), and, and here's the best part, he's playing stuff from a NEW record, which is soon, hopefully, to be coming to life under the (tentative) title "unreliable". it's all great stuff, and, as melvern likes to say, "you should totally come". cuz you should.

responsible journalism (i crack myself up sometimes) requires me to share with you that peter may even be letting me sneak onto a corner of the stage for one or two or three or four, so if you like musical NASCAR, (you know--lot's of action with always the possibility of a little wreckage), this is the night for you!!!

dead or canadian

until this past wednesday, art linkletter was a good bet to stump most folks in ken ober's classic "dead or canadian?" category. (yup--artie's a canuck). sadly, for artie's family and for the whole world, artie now joins lorne greene in the quintessentially classic "both" column, and the world is a far poorer place for it.

when i was a child, getting to spend time with my grandmother meant the added bonus of sharing time with her and art linkletter and his house party. otherwise rationed to 30 minutes of tv per week by my well-intended parents, it made those moments of "kids say the darndest things" all the sweeter.

i miss 'em both.

quotable

"i don't object to the concept of a deity, but i'm baffled by the notion of one who takes attendance".

big bang theory is the bomb

i got blistas on me fingas

riding to the airport from the hotel in orlando last week, i had the particular pleasure of the company of an older and very worldly jamaican woman (my driver) whose joy in life is something for every human being to see, and to learn. we talked at length about the trials we are given in life, and how the wealth of ones soul comes from what is inside--not what is accumulated, won or lost on the outside--and how the best gift of all is the love of friends and family. she told one story of one of the hardest times in her life, when she received a knock at her door, and an unexpected visit. her visitor reached to her, pulled her close, (because we all need to be pulled!), and said in her ear "i just wanted you to know that i'm in your corner with you".

it was not the "i'm in your corner" part that brought the tears. (hers and now mine). it was the "with you". "i'm in your corner WITH YOU". such wealth.

i've spent years now grieving my marriage and its dissolution's impact on my kids, and rebuilding my life and my spirit as best i can. it's so clear that all were always in such dire need of being rebuilt... and i'm grateful today for two things, and both are embodied by the opportunity i have this friday to do something that i've never done before, but am learning as i learn myself that i've always had inside to be joyful to do. a friend of mine's faith in me is yielding a gift i can never repay, except to pay it forward, as best i can, to him and everyone i care about, which, as my worldy cab driver knows and will tell you, is everyone there is in the world. and this gift to me is being given surrounded by so many who have put themselves in my corner WITH ME, and i cannot express sincerely enough for what it all means to me. even the special ones who can't be there are going to be right there with me. it's how love and music work.

until then, and as that most fabulous exclamation from that zep recording would have it, "i've got blistas on me fingas", and i can't get enough of the music.

best part? today's surprise was carl perkins--every day something new, and something wonderful. it's how the richest lives are built.

ask me--i'll tell you.

JKLO

i'd been working like a dog in preparation for my recent florida business conference (not to be confused with "running like a dog through the everglades", but it amounts to much the same thing) so i've been woefully remiss on my jen kearney stalking. (not to mention the stalking of pete maclean, carl johnson, claire finley and mark mullins, who comprise jen's lost onion). well, last night was not only the first monday in a long time where i've had the luxury of a late night at toad, but it was also prime convertible weather, so everything was seriously into double bonus. (triple if you count being introduced to kim hilliard, of the martha's vineyard kim hilliards, to whose show i am looking forward to finding this summer while bumming around the cape in search of--in evasion from?--my upcoming 50th birthday).

jen didn't bring her telecaster, so no lenny kravitz or year of the ox, but carl brought all 11 on "what is and what should never be", so everyone got their guitar fix BUT GOOD. (when carl flashes his arm downward after the last upbeat on the verse, and slashes it across the volume knob so that you know it's turned ALL the way up, it's like being in church). claire was up to her enthusiastic best in goading the boys in the band on to *their* best, (no better rhythm section i know when she and pete are into it together), and jen was at her expansive best on the keyboard solos all night long, too. throw mark money-shot mullins on top with the brassiest of brass, and you've got everything you can dream on a monday night, and more--cuz the right home with the top down is the best moment of every day.

bureaucrats gone wild

it's springtime in shangri-lowell, and i guess everyone is feeling their oats. to wit: saturday, at the semi-annual household hazardous waste day at cawley stadium, where downtown residents can bring their toxic chemicals but NOT their plastic, glass and aluminum recycling, (because, you know, owing to the priorities and policies set by the city recycling and solid waste coordinator, downtown residents just can't bring their plastic, glass and aluminum recycling anywhere at all), city recycling and solid waste coordinator, gunther wellenstein, allegedly (i wonder if that is allegedly, as in, "allegedly, downtown residents can't recycle their plastic, glass and aluminum"?) assaulted an off-duty cop for having the temerity (according to the newspaper report here) to put out his city-authorized material (in this case, one slightly used sofa, which is not to be confused with city-un-authorized material, like, say, for example, downtown plastic, glass and aluminum recycling) a couple days early.

now, i can't say whether or not the city trash regulations for single-unit dwellings do or do not allow the setting out of authorized material before its pick-up day of the week, as i am only obsessed with the city trash regulations for multi-unit dwellings that prohibit the placing out of plastic, glass and aluminum recycling on, before or after all days of the week, but i can say that when bureaucrats become so full of themselves that they feel it necessarily to (possibly/allegedly violently) confront other citizens over the enforcement of their little petty bureaucratic tyrannies, that other other citizens will have something snarky to say about it.

the funniest part, i think, having met mr. wellenstein in person several times to discuss the fact that residents of multi-unit dwellings are denied the privilege of plastic, glass and aluminum recycling services, as are afforded other citizens for the same tax dollars, is picturing him having "poked him in the chest and bumped the officer's head with the brim of a cap". if only there would be cell phone video from civilian bystanders!

gunther, in all sincerity, i hope you get a 100% fair shake from the judicial process, and that the outcome is exactly as is deserved.

love songs for losers--the rock opera

love songs for losers--the rock opera--graced the stage at the merrimack repertory theater saturday and yesterday evening, and it was good. oh, so good. melvern taylor and his fabulous meltones filled the hall with melvern's inimitable happy songs about sad people, and jess houlihan, the woman with the plan, brought her vision of it all to life right there in front of all of us. kamryn day is a revelation as "she", the beauty in blue about whom all men hurl their broken selves against their various walls, and benjamin nguyen, our everyman, could neither resist. (kamryn's voice is too beautiful for words).

the songs were all, literally, themselves--just melvern and the boys backing the cast--but also expanded and illuminated by a story that was as fresh as it was always there the way you knew it had to be. boy meets girl, and life just happens, and it's all as beautiful as it can be sad and uplifting at the same time.

congratulations to jess and jaymo and EVERYONE who had a hand in making it happen--it was an amazing evening, and the best of all that is this place we all call home.

first raves first

got my greedy mitts on "the lost album" by treat her right last night, while getting my greedy ears fed by dave champagne and jim fitting and steve mayone and billy beard (the current incarnation that is the sonic awesomeness that are treat her right) rockin the house at toad. (nods to katie champagne and "signed hank"--nobody does the duet thing like katie and dave).

first of all, nobody has the sound these guys have. i ducked out to the car to put the cd safely away, and, in the process, let the first few bars of "early man" leak out. jim fitting is, simply IS, one of the greatest ever, (EVER), and those first bars of "early man" are as compelling a proof as exists in this world of the existence of god. i've got the jimmy rogers and little walter and junior wells and howlin' wolf tracks that i love, and, don't get me wrong, this isn't a "greatest blues harp player of all time" rant. paul butterfield, james cotton, kim wilson, magic dick, etc. etc. all can play that thing. but--that sound. THAT SOUND. that jim fitting sound. there is NOTHING like it. it stirs. it wails. and when its wrapped around a dave champagne lead line, and amped it up to 11, with steve rolling it around the low strings of the low guitar, and billy (beard last night, but conway has done it in his time, too) kicking it up ten notches past there, four guys on a stage can rock like words can't describe. you simply have to be there. and i was, as i am often, there. it was biblical.

if you've never seen "back to sin city" live, you've never seen rock and roll.

the stench of hypocrisy, and so much worse

the current president, much like his predecessor, has presumed the authority to order the murder/assassination/extrajudicial killing of US citizens. (three are currently on the list for summary execution that we know about). no due process. no habeas corpus. no right to face ones accuser. just the right to be killed on sight. (or not--they'll use unmanned drones to do it, too).

the other day, as covered by cliff on the right side of lowell, that very same president addressed his military at their academy and said about his country and its constitution that "we will promote these values above all by living them".

the stench of hypocrisy overwhelms the senses.

i'd write my congresswoman, but she's currently party to the recent passage of legislation that legalizes confiscation of DNA upon an arrest, without judicial review, and regardless of innocence.

if you voted democrat in the past election, i'm willing to wager, based upon cliches of your likely-liberal bias, that this is not what you intended. however, i'll point out, dirty party politics being dirty party politics, that as long as we keep electing these racketeers, from both the R and the D side of things, this is the sort of unconstitutional tyranny that we will continue to endure. (i'd say there's more than a few articles among the bill or rights violated by just these two examples alone). you complained when the R's were doing it just a short while ago. so where is your voice today??? are you as gutless and unprincipled as these hacks who have taken your vote and raped it?

vote for change, people, or we're all very much in trouble. (which is to say, if it's stained by a D or an R, it's all part of the very same heaping, steaming pile of BS).

sapere aude.

i'll let louis black say it

http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/wed-may-12-2010/back-in-black---glenn-beck-s-nazi-tourette-s

i'm so mad i could spit fire

observing the destruction of the world trade center was one of the larger incidents of extra-judicial killing we have on record here in this country, it's shameful to me that there are some here who would prefer that we imitate the practice. and, no, just because the targets are smaller in number does not change the math for me.

we are either of the belief that all men are created equal and deserve therefore the privilege of due process, or we are not. and, if we are not, we have shamed our constitution and our laws, and deserve neither.

the tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. [not just tyrants] thomas jefferson said that.

irony defined once again

on one of the conference buses heading to the convention center earlier this week, i had opportunity to share a ride with a past professional acquaintance (i'm choosing my words carefully here) who is now working in the marketing area of a new "sustainability" initiative.

you know, "sustainability"? the hot all-things-green-and-renewable business topic that seeks to convince dollars-and-cents managers that they really ought to be more worried about saving the planet because conservation is good business?

well, anyway, this guy commented on our use of electronic badge-readers and software at the conference, by which business card information could be collected and exchanged without ever requiring an actual business card, and his comment was that his boss (a de facto leading proponent of the "green" and "sustainable" business revolution) did not believe in or trust electronic card readers, so he was requiring all of his people at the show to be trading physical paper instead.

my acquaintence's response to my guffaw?

"we're not here to save polar bears, we're here to make money".

yep, i love my job.

the lighter wars

one of the most poignant recollections of lowell george i ever read was in the liner notes to "hoy hoy", describing the feat tour lighter wars. lowell george would walk up to you, ask you for a light, engage you in conversation, and then attempt to walk away with your lighter without your having noticed. petty? well, then, at the end of the tour, he'd hand you back all the lighters which were purloined in such fashion with a little personalized note attached to each one noting the date, time and place the theft took place. (some day i hope to have one of these heirlooms in my little rock and roll museum here, but i imagine those still in possession of such would not part with any for all the tea or china white in china, so nobody's holding any breath, least of all lowell, may he rest in rock and roll heaven). the wars, such as they were, anyway, were to try to do the same to lowell. i can only imagine the sport...

i'm not trying to suggest any comparison, other than to note a little logical similarity to my lame little version of "convention booth wars". see, i was sequestered (incarcerated?) in the bowels of the orange county convention center in orlando, florida this past week, chained (figuratively, thank providence, though if they thought they could have gotten away with it, i'm sure they'd have tried to do it for real) to a little kiosk with a laptop and a monitor, upon which it was expected for all attendees walking up that i could show them whatever they pleased about financial supply chains, financial master data, financial investment and risk applications related to the corporate treasury function, (are you noting the "financial" theme?), or just about anything you can dream with a financial connotation related to the multi-billion dollar company for which i work. my compatriots (bandmates, if you're keeping up with the analogy) also stood around similar stations vulnerable to the same fate.

so this probably otherwise very nice lady walks up, with an eight page research paper, complete with screen images prepared for her by another person with whom she works, containing detailed notes on error messages and conditions, in hopes that someone might explain the solution to the (apparent, and more on that in a moment) system limitation on documentary detail on procurement requisitions. now, perhaps you're already too bored and distracted to have noticed the absence of the word "financial" in the preceding diatribe, but i'll remind you that myself and those stationed near me are not, sad to say, experts or even marginally aware of what our multi-billion dollar company does to handle procurement requisitions, as much as we might have liked to have been. but here she is, in my face, so to speak, citing chapter and verse on her acute need to have this matter settled to her immediate satisfaction.

first note: she's already been to the procurement area and received confirmation from them, as she had also received from the technical support organization via phone, fax and online conference prior to coming to this in-person conference, that there is indeed only one item of detail that is possible behind this particular sort of requisition. but, in honor of lowell george and his lighter, i just could not for the life of me resist suggesting that she visit the booth next to mine where a very personable, smart and capable employee was in possession of all the detail we had on how invoices are settled for requisitions.

(i'm laughing on the inside here, and i know i'm going to software hell for this, but as god is my witness i simply could not resist).

my compatriot, with whom i had never worked before, but with whom i am very good friends now, did not understand the ground rules of this particular kind of warfare. she came up to me very shortly after the protracted and involved conversation, confirming for the fourth time for this woman that she was, absolutely and without question, SOL, and inquired as to why i would have EVER sent a case like that to her...

now i'm laughing on the outside.

cuz it's funny!

well, it took her a few minutes to relax, and by the end of things on thursday she was both laughing all about this one, as well as about the one where these guys from south america, who did not speak any english at all, needed to see an overview of the entire financial supply chain, and were referred from her area to mine. (the tangential rationale being that i had the overview slides at my station). TOUCHE!!!

you may not think such things are fun, or funny, but, believe me, after three straight twelve-hour days in the bowels of a convention center in the middle of one of the most soul-less places on this entire planet, you're gonna laugh about it all the way to the bar on wednesday night when, at least, that part of it is all over. want to know what the two of us new best friends sent over later in the week? how about a quite-obviously gay guy to get his demonstration from a quite-obviously not-quite-old-enough-to-not-be-bothered co-worker who gets nervous about and around such things.

we all need to loosen up, and, thankfully for our co-workers this week, at least there were glimmers where we could.

so, if you're ever working a conference with me, and somebody walks up to you and asks you if you know anything about the most ridiculous and off-the-wall inquiry that you thought you could imagine, before hearing it for real, ask them if they've talked to me yet. because, they either have, and i got ya, or they haven't, and it's your prime opportunity to get me. (you know how it works--you can always refer someone away once, but it's much harder the second time).

all's fair, after all.

and at least that was my little bit of sunshine in an otherwise dark and dreary place.

(ok, carlos santana wednesday night didn't suck).

too much pork for just one fork

spend a week in orlando, sandwiched around southern culture on the skids gigs, and you're gonna come by some stories. i can bullet a bunch of 'em here, but i know i won't remember them all, nor all at once, so expect some "oh, yeah!" moments over the next few days and a few more random tales from the road. last night's show at the iron horse in northampton is freshest in my mind, so we can start with a few anecdotes from there:

first of all, northampton is one of those one-of-a-kind places where you see and hear things on the street that just can't be put completely into words. the first impression that you get after parking your car and going wading out into the personae (feminine form intended--the estrogen is so thick even the guys walking around the streets seem to have absorbed it from the atmosphere, and give off a kind of testosterone-less wimpy vibe that makes you conclude, as i did about one particularly pale older guy toting a paper sack out of a wine shop, that "she only lets him out of the house to pick up her wine", which, by the way, elicited a pretty god laugh from the posse even if it doesn't seem that witty to you, cuz, well, you just had to be there).

even before that, the shop right in front of us as we stepped out of the car had a very large, white t-shirt displayed in the window, which was emblazoned, in giant black lettering that took up the entire front of the shirt, I [heart] LESBIANS, which was funny both from the two-way entendre (such things take on a whole different meaning would they be worn by a guy, or in a place like lowell) as well as for how silly such sentiments are all by themselves. at least to me. and, so far in my experience, only in northampton.

on our way over to the paper sack encounter (and i think this one is my personal favorite) we passed a gentleman out walking his dog engaged in conversation with a young girl and her father about what one must assume would have been an inquiry as to the dog's name. "his name is beowulf" (bay-oh-wolf, as only a professorial type would enunciate it, and i'm sorry i don't have a recording of it for your listening pleasure, because it was, literally, a classic) "you know, like the dragonslayer".

it was a POODLE.

(ok, it wasn't a toy but a standard one, but it was one just freshly shorn with his summer haircut, so, believe me, none of the irony was lost). yes, some guy out in northampton walks his poodle named beowulf and calls him loudly by name while (unsuccessfully, i might add) admonishing him to SIT, beowulf, SIT. all i could do not to laugh out loud.

once inside the iron horse, it was all southern culture goodness. skipping ahead to the heart of the show, i need to say that mary did frisbee the top of the KFC bucket out into the audience during the intro to 8-piece-box, (the bucket of which was returned to her after the show in pursuit of an autograph, which, i understand from dave, which is a story for in just a little bit, is not all that rare an occurrence, which, as easily amused as i seemed to be yesterday, fulfilled me greatly to realize that there are, across this great country of ours, uncounted KFC buckets displayed proudly on rec room shelving--i'm hoping they're fastened to basement faux paneling--with mary huff's john hancock, which is a beautiful thing), and rick miller brought my particular house down by asking us all if we've ever seen a trouse, because he saw a bunch of 'em up in maine earlier in the week. (a trouse being a trailer that's in process of becoming a house, perhaps via addition of the very faux-paneled rec room containing the KFC bucket that's adorned with mary's sharpie signature...) ahhh, tales of upward mobility...

the impromptu stage dancers were as enthusiastic as you'd want them to be, and just as memorable in their own upwardly mobile way, and mary and rick and dave and the-other-guy (more on that in a moment, too) were having a ball letting the rest of us all have a ball. at one point during the show, the guy next to me who was sitting by himself, who had been exhorted upon to GO TO THE SHOW!!! by a friend who couldn't be there because of how good SCOTS is every single time, turned to me and said what i hear literally every single time, which was "THESE GUYS ARE GGRREEAATT!!!!!" (at various points the word "great" was replaced by terms like "amazing" and "incredible"). he was drumming on his beer glass with his silverware for much of the show (basically everything past the first number) in between jumping up and dancing and banging on the table and you could tell he just had never seen anything quite like it before. such enthusiasm and thrall is as much the reason i'll drive 200 miles to see a show as anything, and it's infectious. (don't you feel like that should be spelled with a "U", like "infectuous"?) he even gave my tablemate the laugh of her evening when he asked if i'd be able to read the total off his credit card receipt for him (the irony never stopped last night, and that's a fact) and i chose, rather than hand it to her and say "read this", as i usually do with all of mine, to hand him instead my magnifying reading glasses out of my front pocket, so he could manage it himself. (i thought she was going to aspirate her drink and need CPR she was laughing so hard).

so, to wrap up some of the earlier promises before breaking and giving you a break:

dave was conversing on the street with another fan when we walked by with my blaze orange southern culture on the skids racing team t-shirt which had been artfully personalized by mary huff only days before down in hoboken. being in the moment, as i generally am when out fan-boy-ing my favorite bands, i asked if he'd be generous enough to add his own personalization, which he was only so very sincerely happy to do, (have you ever noticed how the best bands are always the ones most appreciative of their fans, even when we're at our fan-boy-est?), and the four of us there got into a conversation about the guitar god who is rick miller. (because, with dave's and mary's signatures, the shirt had nothing but a big egregious hole where the third signature NEEDED to be, so, naturally, the conversation would get around to such things.

now i'll start all this out by saying, as i did to dave hartman when he said what he said about rick, that dave more than keeps up. as in, more than keeps up with almost any drummer you've ever seen or could name. the glass-drumming oh-my-god-these-guys-are-amazing guy seated next to me, at the inevitable point in the evening where first-timers can't help but notice such things, blurted out almost so loud the folks in the balcony could have heard him even in the middle of one of the loudest most raucous and ON IT numbers of the show, that HE'S STANDING UP!!! there are two words for the facial expression in such moments, and they are "blown away". (blown away, as in you know you're hearing the guitar and the bass and the vocals and there's a song going on, but you're so enthralled by the beats that they've gotten into your very soul and you CAN'T SIT STILL, and you're willing to tell the guy next to you and anyone else you meet for the next two weeks that you've seen something you're never going to forget. anyway, this is all to say that this is a musical talent like few others, so when it holds an opinion with which you agree, you begin to believe what you know to be true...

dave told the story via the context of having seen a piece of clapton's 24-night run at the royal albert hall awhile back, and, having played on the same stage with rick miller as often as he had, coming to the mind-altering conclusion that rick's as good as anyone there is.

you want my honest opinion? on his danelectro or on his gibson, (that upward mobility thing--hehehehe), just pickin' along while he's singing any of his songs, or melting your face clean off during "mexi-melt", rick miller is a surf rock, rockabilly rock, southern culture on the skids rock, or any other kind of rock you can name rock, rock guitar talent that just has to be seen to be understood. dave gets it. i get it. a bar full of northampton southern fried surf rock afficiados get it. you should get it too. (i would have told dave that i'd seen carlos santana the immediate night before, which i did, by the way, and that dave was right on the money right about the clapton thing too, but why tell a man what he already knows far better than you).

the best part? dave hartman, drummer extraordinaire, just hanging with fans on the street and enjoying the vibe from just having rocked the house, offered to bring me back inside to find rick so that he could add the third part of the triumvirate to the now-classic t-shirt. thanks dave!!! for the rock, the talk, the generous signature, and everything!

so back inside i'm once again hanging with rick miller. (i had dinner at the table next to him the other night, remember? ;-) well, not hanging so much as hanging on his every word as he proves my theory that the best are the BEST, and i realize as i'm handing the bartender a few bills to cover rick's beer, (i'd tell you what he ordered, but it'll stay a secret until you ask me in person), that i've had the privilege to have bought and had beers with some of the most remarkable musicians i know. (i won't brag--it's not nice--but just ask me, i'll tell you--there have been a lot of 'em). rick finds the right sharpie, signs the shirt with a beautiful little cartoon of a moonshine jug on it, and i'm just about the happiest guy you know right about then and still now.

best night out in a long time, or at least since last saturday.

tonight? serial thrillers at the hard rock.

and, yeah, i've bought paul ortalano a beer, and you can just be as jealous about that as you want. and you can probably buy him one yourself later tonight. you just have to be there.

BE THERE!

life is good.

SCORE

my mexican coke connection came through, yet again. (this time via the shaws in east boston). life is good.

one of my conversations at the conference this week was with a pair of mexicans, direct off the plane from mexico city, who had been surprised to discover upon arrival that our american coke tastes like relative crap next to what they're used to at home. (they were not, however, surprised when they learned that ours is made with HFC, aka high-fructose corn syrup, as opposed pure cane sugar). they laughed when i described the lengths to which some of us will go here in order to come by the magic elixir otherwise properly known as the real thing.

but what else would we do?

mary, queen of scots

southern culture on the skids is one of the finest musical, nay, CULTURAL experiences to be had anywhere at any price. for me, this time, the price was merely a 200 mile drive (each way) and a little lost sleep, and, for nothing, karma threw in dinner seated next to the band (maxwell's cheeseburgers are awesome, btw) and mary's mark on the back of my new bright orange hillbilly / scots racing team t-shirt. life is good.

thursday i fly back into logan from business conference hell in orlando (an experience mitigated only by the finest convention center orange juice on the planet, though if you think that's hardly a suitable offset, i'm here to be the first person to agree with you) and hop right into the car for the drive out to the iron horse in northampton to catch scots all over again. yes, life is good.

yes, i'm missing melvern (and his fabulous meltones, of course) at toad, and i'm further missing the carl johnson trio at voices in lowell (best sound system in the city, hands down, and tyngsborough carl johnson and his trio are just the folks to prove it), but a man's gotta do what a man's gotta do. in a perfect world, they don't triple book me like this, but you all know all about that.

hope they do "life is a gas". (cuz it is). hope they do "whole lotta things". (cuz there are). hope they do "liquored up and lacquered down". (cuz i'll be). or they can do anything they damn well please, cuz they never fail to please, no matter what they choose to play.

life is good.

want some advice?

jet blue.

you're welcome.

i've flown more than a few commercial airlines in my time, and i've endured indignities and invconveniences that i have neither patience nor interest to list here. in constrast, jet blue's embraer jets provide a plane full of first-class-equivalent seating, with every one either on the aisle or the window. (that's right--NO CENTER SEATS).

so--save money, and fly comfortably on jet blue, or spend more, and be treated like cattle. which would you choose?

"but i can get upgrades with my miles"... yeah? why do i need an upgrade when i'm already seated comfortably?

"but i can earn free flights"... yeah? you can, too, on jet blue.

i'm just sayin'

i can't believe i'm about to say this...

i'm typing this as penance and aversion therapy:

go flyers.

ugh. i feel dirty.

wanting to play and beat montreal so badly as to having rooted for them against pittsburgh, (who are, let's face it, one of the most enjoyable teams in the league to watch lose, so at least we have that to feel good about), it's especially deflating this morning to see montreal in the marquee next to philly, and nothing but the epic stain of a three-game collapse, garnished by a 3-goal lead collapse in game 7 for the bruins.

no, i do not find solace in basketball, and i especially do not find solace in the prospect of 4 more months of watching the rays and the yanks trample all over major league baseball. (and you can't even watch the revs these days they are so bad).

taking a look at the +/- ratings for the recent series, i think there are quite a few obvious spots to upgrade with all those new draft picks.

oh--i almost forgot

a friend earlier today warned me that it's poor manners to brag, (to which i reminded them that i've been told it's not bragging if you can back it up), but you know i'm gonna tell you anyway...

saturday night i've laid out one of the best saturday nights i've laid out in a long, long time. it starts off in downtown lowell a little bit after noon, and the road trip meets the highway via the lowell connector. after a quick detour through manhattan to drop off some non-countrypolitan fans, the first serious destination is zeppelin hall in jersey city, new jersey. (zeppelin hall seats over 1000 people, has over 100 beers on draught, and serves a never-ending cornucopia of brats and pretzels and schnitzels to a great crowd). after getting liquored up, german-style, it'll be time to get lacquered down up at maxwells in hoboken, new jersey, where southern culture on the skids will be playing all night long. (they're gonna be on the ipod the whole way down from lowell, so all car poolers are hereby warned).

the crash, if it must occur, will be in the old ticonderoga pencil factory in jersey city (i would not make this stuff up), and then it'll be on the road by dawn to make my 10am soccer game over in groton, before heading straight to the airport afterwards for the coming week's (i'm embarrassed to admit) work-related stuff.

what are YOU doing this weekend?

;-)

they're doing it to me again

tonight is a friday night in downtown lowell. it's a perfect night to walk out on the town, catch a band (or two) and love life.

EXCEPT!!!

tonight there isn't a single band playing. nope. there aren't two bands playing, either. there aren't even three bands playing, which i've managed before by doing one set each on a winding line back to walking distance from home so i'm a responsible non-driver. no, tonight, there isn't one, two or three bands playing in downtown lowell--THERE ARE FOUR.

in reverse order of personal proximity (non-driving is important on nights like these) there is:

big trouble up at the hynes tavern. the hynes, as you all know from the raves here, has a new floor, new walls, new bar furniture and a new PA setup, and it's a GREAT place to see a band. the bar staff are great, the beers are cheap, fresh and cold, and, with big trouble, you're gonna get yer ya-ya's out for sure.

los sugar kings down at ole. ole has one of the ass-kickingest sangria recipes around, and a great vibe for great music. (jen kearney and the lost onion every other thursday is case in point). los sugar kings are the kings of cuban, salsa, merengue, rumba flamenca, funk, jazz, soul--you dream it, they play it--and they play it so you can't sit down.

audrey can't die (acoustic) over at the worthen house. the worthen is THE bar in lowell, immortalized by countless songwriters, and, seriously, where else are you gonna get your drink on where both edgar allan poe and jack kerouac once warmed bar stools? audrey is up--audrey is down--audrey is a great listen, and it's going to be especially fun to listen to them put all their songs through au natural.

half-past eight at savanna palace. ok, so i had some fun at savanna's expense over their "reservations are going fast" over-hype for their opening... but, see, here's the thing--those appetizers they're talking about? THEY ROCK! and the sound and light system is kick-ass. the room is big, and the bars are all around you so you'd never have to wait to keep your evening going, if you weren't already having your order taken by the staff that's everywhere. and, of course, half-past eight is the real blues deal.

so how is a guy to choose? four hot gigs. four hot venues. one hot night in downtown lowell.

see ya there!!!

it just occurred to me...

you know how (it seems) everyone is complaining about the problems with incumbency in our present political system? you know, the burgeoning sense of self-importance and entitlement that grows as a person's tenure in a particular seat goes on? (google "robert carlyle byrd" for one particularly egregious example of a man who has parlayed heading--not just belonging to--a ku klux klan cell, avowing "rather i should die a thousand times ... than to see this beloved land of ours become degraded by race mongrels", not to mention filibustering against the civil rights act of 1964, into one of the most powerful positions in the current US senate, from which he has opted to skip over 40% of this session's votes).

it's as if these old hacks see the seat as THEIR seat... like, somehow, since they've been re-elected to it, that they more or less OWN it...

and you know what?

it's our own fault.

to wit: in today's lowell sun, there is a story at the bottom of the local news section, on page 3, about "Cox drops out of Garry's rep race". yup, not OUR rep race, or the 36th middlesex's rep race--GARRY's rep race. our fourth estate, the great and mighty free press, defender of truth and liberty and all that rot, is just like the rest of us--so far gone down the rabbit hole, that words are lost to express anything resembling a people's democracy, and all we have left are "it's yours, so why don't you keep it".

it's really frightening when you think about it.

just in case you missed it...

just in case you missed it among all the finger-pointing and "not me's" being thrown about washington dc these days in relation to the catastrophe of deepwater horizon...

one of the three firms all insisting that some other is at fault (but not them, of course), is halliburton.

yes, THAT halliburton, scion of dick cheney, which was found by the GAO in 2004 to have bilked the US government out of BILLIONS of dollars related to their contracts in iraq, with the GAO citing "significant problems in amost every area, including..." (too many for patience to list).

so here's the way it seems from first (ignorant) blush:

british petroleum leases a rig from transocean, and pays them to run it. transocean decides on a contract with halliburton for them to do the dirty work on the ocean floor to encase its drilling pipe in concrete so that things such as have happened shouldn't happen. halliburton, as is their habit, half-asses it after pocketing pantloads of money, and, voila, we have the gulf oil of mexico. (bad pun on an old gasoline brand--sorry).

of course, BP isn't stranger to fatal oil-related incidents, either, most recently having been party to the deaths of 15 of its workers at its texas city refinery back in '05. (only 11 people died this time--the good news is that we're trending toward improvement).

remember all those courtroom crime dramas where the twin brothers (or married couple or who have you) both point the finger at the other, and then each get off for "reasonable doubt", and then we finally learn in the end that they planned their defense that way all along?

i'm not saying these cheating guilty bastards are that smart, necessarily--just that they're that base and evil and craven, and, no, truth is not always stranger than fiction.

the lazy, successful investor

so we've learned (right?) the sense of buying a mix of stocks for value, selling when stocks are rising, and buying when they're falling, and we're all set to succeed, right?

well, truth be told, i pick winners as a hobby, with an EXTREMELY small portion of my portfolio. (as in, such a small portion, that even if i had picked google a few years ago, i'd still be sweating my retirement). there are a couple of other investment truths that are even more important:

likely due to the market vig and associated transaction fees, almost no professional money manager slash stock picker has EVER outperformed the average market over the long haul. (warren buffet, the sage of omaha, and universally regarded as one of the greatest investors of all time, and his berkshire hathaway conglomerate, were down a PILE after recent meltdowns in the insurance industry and the market overall--check it out--and even he has to own up to the hard truth of such things). if you simply bet on a market index of stocks and held on to them, you'd end up ahead of almost EVERYBODY else over the long run. want to know where the vast majority of my money is parked? stock index mutual funds. (only invest in mutual funds if you're in a tax-deferred vehicle so you can avoid the tax penalties related to dividends involved in such things--otherwise buy the index tracking instruments that are traded on the exchanges).

however, lest you be tempted to still believe that being "smart" can pay off if you put in your time a la mr. buffett, consider one last thing:

if you were granted INFALLIBLE market timing, where you were guaranteed to buy into any bottom-following rally within 3 days of the trough, and sell out of any top-based peak within 3 days of the apex, you would still end up with a lower return than if you had just rode the market the whole way. (yes, it's true--they've done studies that i'm too lazy to link here, but, trust me, they're valid). such a large amount of gains and losses are incurred within 3 days of a change in market direction, that being anything other than uncannily lucky is going to lose you out over the long run.

it's all there, if you just look at the history.

but, of course, now you'll remind me that past results are not indicative of future performance, besides the fact that maybe you're the first person in history to be able to always tell in fewer than 3 days when things are trending up or down, so you're going to believe what you will, no matter what you've been told. i know--it's the american way.

just don't say nobody ever told you so.

;-)

portfolio theory and fantasy baseball

i get a 60 minute conference call (i.e. an almost complete and total waste of time talking about next week's almost complete and total waste of time) and so you get your promised update on portfolio theory and fantasy baseball.

fantasy baseball is a lot like any other game where you bet on a number of winners out of a very large pool of prospects. and, like any other game where you bet on a number of winners out of a very large pool of prospects, there are some winners that/who are worth so much more than any of the others, that they seem compelling to the point of necessity by comparison.

for example, after a little over a month of this year's season, the top hitter in the league by runs, homers, RBI, stolen bases and average, (the default scoring categories in the fantasy baseball league to which i belong), is ryan braun of the milwaukee brewers with 31 runs, 6 homers, 28 RBI, 8 stolen bases, and a .359 average. by comparison, the average hitter has only hit 2 homers, with 10 RBI, and sports a .264 average. this is all to say that ryan braun, all by himself, well more than out-hits three average players COMBINED. you need a guy like that on your team to be successful, right?

as i mentioned before, i don't have any top-10 hitters on my roster. i've got #11, it's true, (jason werth of the phillies), but where i excel, and where i attribute my success, is when you look at the number of players that i have who are rated between number 11 and number 75. (i have 11 of those guys, out of a league of 13 teams, meaning that statistically speaking, you'd only expect to have 5 or 6, but i've got basically twice that number).

the other facet of this discussion worth examination is how the fantasy baseball scoring is achieved, (comparing each statistical category individually, instead of as one mixed total), and how that might be logically equated with stock picking where you want a mix of capital gains, dividends, low risk and high returns. the real reason i'm ahead (no guarantee of future performance based on past returns, so if i'm not leading tomorrow, you know it's to be expected and it doesn't disprove the sense of any of this discussion) is that my mix of mid-level talent is made up of players who all contribute in different ways to the total.

to wit: yes, ryan braun has 6 stolen bases, but brett gardner of the new york yankees (quiet--there's no room for partisanship in fantasy baseball) has 14. ryan braun has 6 home runs, but ty wigginton of the baltimore orioles has 10. (both those otherwise-obscure guys are on my team, tyvm). to succeed, you actually don't want to stack a team with only the "best" players, with the best gross returns--you have to mix your "bets" on players to come up with the best aggregate performance among all the categories--and the winning combinations most frequently do NOT involve the best players. for example, the player appearing most frequently among the best performing 500 teams in this particular fantasy baseball universe to which i belong is matt capps, relief pitcher for the washington nationals. (he's the 37th ranked player in the league).

to relate this all back to your retirement portfolio, consider a high-flying mega-return stock pick to be a lot like ryan braun--great to have, but never the entire answer. and, seriously--when he was a rookie and committing a boat-load of errors at 3rd base and was in legitimate question of whether or not he would be able to stick in the majors at all, would you have bet your fantasy baseball retirement on him ahead of guys like mark teixeira (currently ranked #191) and alex rodriguez (currently ranked #108)? of course not. but here we are in 2010, and there are a lot of guys who were lucky enough to end up with ryan deluding themselves into thinking they were that smart, and a lot of guys owning teixeira and rodriguez wondering if they might prefer to have someone else instead.

want to know what? if i had ryan braun in my portfolio right now, i'd be willing to trade him straight up for either or those two other guys. in a heartbeat. because the "cost" of investments in a-rod and tex is way way way down, (because their ranking/price is down), and their value is exactly what it always has been, and, perhaps, even more, because that yankees lineup is murderers row, and you can't earn RBI without guys on base, and that kid gardner is getting on and moving over like a man possessed these days.

do you get it yet?

google is yesterday. somewhere, somehow, there's another stock like google that you're never going to see coming, so don't even bother to look! there are undervalued gems, a lot like ty wigginton, who are out of favor and easy to grab. (only houston's hitters are less attractive as a group than baltimore's, and AIG was once trading for less than 35 cents a share--though i wouldn't recommend them anymore at over $40 a share after a 1:8 reverse split, or the equivalent of $5 a share, but you should be able to get the picture and find some other bargains like that if you look long enough and hard enough).

next a brief discussion on what to do if you don't have (like i don't have, and like most people don't have) the time to look long enough and hard enough for value...

portfolio theory

folks chasing xanadu via their retirement investments are always easily distracted by recent gaudy returns. yes, though they may be able to recite the standard boilerplate from any prospectus that "past returns are not indicative of future results", (cigarette packs have a blurb about cancer too), they will act as if they have never in their life heard of such a thing, and they will put their money down on whatever has been hot up to that point as if they've been given a free peek into a bright future.

first of all, attentive readers will note that buying things as their price runs up (which stocks do when they have had recent gaudy returns, owing to all the people jumping on the bandwagon) quite often fails to satisfy the "value" test, that would compare that up-swinging stock price to the company's underlying performance. basically, like apple stock, it USED to be a bargain, but now it quite surely isn't that anymore. it may still be a good buy--who knows--but it'll never be the big winner it was while it hadn't yet begun its dizzying ascent. (think of it as a big league player who already has the fat contract--remember how hard it was for the red sox to find a team who wanted manny?)

second of all, there's a built-in penalty for loading your hand with cards or stocks or players that are all doing the same thing at the same time. take the aging boston celtics. (yeah, i know, i said "who cares" awhile ago, but we still read the sports headlines every morning). danny ainge bought a whole pile of talent when he bought the contracts of ray allen and kevin garnett, and, good for him and for celts fans, when combined with paul pierce and some very compelling other players like rajon rondo, it was good enough for a championship a couple years ago. but it's now 2010, and how is the team doing? it's OLD. it's creaky. it's having it's problems with CLEVELAND. (sorry cleveland, but you're cleveland). remember, you don't retire during the past championship year, you retire many years from now. so what would your future retirement championship plan look like next year, and the year after?

that's right. unless rajon rondo suddenly sprouts an addition 8 pairs of hands and feet, he's not gonna be enough. the other guys, they'll all be in boca playing mah jongg, and you'll be waiving your big green foam finger on the golf course every may, and recalling the time when you used to be able to afford to play golf, cuz you'll be the person cutting the grass at 5am.

the answer for a prosperous retirement is to seed your portfolio with things that have great future potential, not things which have had interesting runs up in the past. peter chiarelli of the boston bruins took phil kessel, a possible logical proxy for paul pierce's scoring ability on a hockey rink, and got rid of him last year. one of the best scorers in the league--and he dumped him. and what did he get in return? toronto's first-round draft pick in 2011 (second one in the entire draft as it turns out). and what else did he/we get in return?? toronto's second-round draft pick in 2011. (the thirty-second in the entire draft). and what ELSE did he/we get in return??? toronto's first-round draft pick in 2012. yep, the bruins will have almost 10% of the top 32 prospects in the coming NHL draft, (they have their own first-round pick, too, remember?) and a significant percentage of the top players from next year's too. all for a single player whose performance this year couldn't even get toronto in the playoffs, let alone deep into the second round with a shot at the conference championship. yes, it's a good time to be a long-term bruins fan.

so how is it that peter chiarelli dumped the high flyer (there's a pun in there somewhere, but it's a bad one, so we'll just leave it at that) and still succeeded deep into the playoffs? check out miro satan. he is the ultimate poster boy for "buy low" hockey performance. he's been part of winning a bunch of past championships, (more than sidney crosby), and he's playing for the bruins for the eye-popping sum of $700,000. (eye-popping because it's so low--that's over a million less than the league's average salary). only 10 players have scored more playoff goals this year than miro. and most of those are costing their teams TEN TIMES what the bruins are paying miro. THAT'S an investment with big returns.

the bottom line to all of this is that you need a portfolio of investments to succeed in the long run. if you have a team full of miro's, or rays or kevins, you'll be SOL soon enough when they're all off to the glue factory. stocks are a lot like sports that way. it's impossible to provide high returns forever. (microsoft was once what google was once what the next big winner will be once, but unless you bought them when they were bargains, i.e. not after then ran way up in price and attracted everyone's attention, you just bought another average return and you ain't going nowhere). it's surprising how far you can get on well-valued stocks. some are old and named miro. some are young, and haven't even been drafted yet. so get yourself out scouting, cuz if it came to you via today's business pages headline, a bunch of people already made the killing that was to be made, and you're just going to be holding onto a dream that will likely never come true.

ask me about my first place fantasy baseball team sometime, and i'll tell you even more about portfolio theory. none of my hitters are even in the top 10 in the league, but my team is tops in the fantasy league overall even so. how does that work? it works because of portfolio theory, and i'll tell you more about that another time when i have more time. (yeah, i know, boring cocktail conversation...)

the most disturbing thing about talking babies

the etrade talking baby is either irreverently amusing or more than a little bit unsettling, depending on how he strikes you, but i think his most disturbing trait has to be his profound lack of making any sense at all--neither anthropomorphic, nor investment. for example, as during a commercial during the second period of tonight's debacle at the garden, and while (apparently) flying home from a bachelor bash, he brags on the "pant load" he has saved while relying on etrade's automatic "stop loss" capabilities to save him while he was distracted by whatever might distract a baby while living it up on a bachelor party get-away. (he's drinking milk on the airplane--ha ha--and, yes, i'm being facetious about the ha ha).

for those not familiar with the jargon, a "stop loss" order is one that is set to execute whenever the price on a stock you own falls below a pre-determined amount.

if the logic of such a thing makes intuitive sense to you, than i would strongly advise either you do NOT invest your retirement nest egg in the stock market, or, if you must, you first go back to school and learn something about value investing before jumping in.

stocks are intrinsically worth nothing other than their proportional share in the company from whence they are issued, no more and no less, and only by market manipulation do they take on any other value. if you are buying and selling securities with a mind towards benefitting from market manipulation without regard to intrinsic value, let me be the first to inform you that you WILL become busted sooner or later.

like casinos rigging the house against individual gamblers, large investment houses rig the financial markets against individual investors. each IPO is part and parcel with the investment bank's cut, (not to mention preferred sales to their own accounts and to their favorite clients' early in the issue), and each "book" in each security that is bought and sold on an ongoing basis is made with a spread that is baked into the price (higher if you're buying, and lower if you're selling) in order to compensate (legally) the exchange member who fronts the market for the stock, and (illegally) his business cronies at the investment houses who funnel him most of his business. the net result is that every retail bet on a stock (that's what you're doing when you're buying--you're betting it's going to go up in price) comes with a vig. every time. (and i'm not even talking about the brokerage house's transaction fee, which only makes that worse, just the built-in charges you never see on your statement). yes, that vig means that it's not even a zero-sum game when all you're doing is betting on market swings--it's always a losing game.

the only thing that can make the stock market a winner for the individual investor (i.e. one who is not in on the rigging of a market) is that the underlying value of a stock grows alongside the value of the underlying business, and will eventually overcome the vig--IF the investment is based on the value of what is bought and sold.

so, back to "stop loss" orders.

let's say you buy a stock at $10 because you know it's a good value--you know the underlying business is sound, and that the business is growing and will assuredly bring the value of its stock higher than $10 in the future. even if the whole market tanks, as it did back at the end of 2008, you know it's price has to come back up over $10, because the business is worth that much based on its annual profits, and that calculation has nothing to do with its market price on any given day.

so let's further say that the market does tank as it did back at the end of 2008, and that $10 stock might be trading at $7--down 30%. the etrade baby perhaps would have set a "stop loss" order at $7.50--25%--so he can save himself that proverbial pant load--and he's out of the market and down $2.50. he thinks he's happy, cuz you're down $3. (it's baby schadenfreude--everyone feels it). so let's say the market keeps tanking, and now the price is down to $5. the baby is even happier, cuz now you're down $5. and what should you feel?

remember the value of the stock? the etrade baby doesn't even know what that is, but you should. (you bought the stock in the first place, and you did your homework about its value, right???) so it's down 50%, and, instead of panicking, you're throwing a party, too. seriously--a huge party. why? because you now have an opportunity to double down on an investment that you know is going to be worth more than $10. (remember keeping yourself well-allocated in cash from the other lesson a few days ago?) if the stock was a good buy at $10, it's twice that good buy at $5. it's simple math. so you buy that second pile of the stock for half price, and you smile, because when the price of that stock that the etrade baby fled comes back to $10, you will have doubled your money on that market-bottom buy. yes, you will have doubled your money. like clockwork. fish in a barrel.

market idiots like the etrade baby will say, yeah, but they could buy in at the bottom, too, but, i will have to tell you and all your fellow babies the truth and the very bad news--you can never tell when the market peaks, just the same way you can never tell when the market bottoms. all you can do is track the value of the stocks, and buy them and sell them accordingly. (or you can keep betting against the vig and wait to be busted). any investor, baby or otherwise, who says they can detect the bottom and know when to buy should be asked why they would have been holding a stock after its top, and have to rely on one of those "stop loss" thingies beforehand, if their investment mojo was that strong. simple answer is that it can't possibly be, unless their investment mojo is based on intrinsic value. THAT's the only basis on which a stock price will rise or fall over the long run. if you're stopping losses, you're also stopping profits, and losing the vig (and the transaction fee) in the process.

know the value. buy accordingly. laugh when the market goes down, and buy in while it's tanking. laugh again when the market goes up, and sell out while it's soaring. if you're buying when things are going down, and selling when they're going up, you will always win. it's why those guys who own seats on the exchange have all that money. (ever ride around the hamptons and count the boats?) that's what they do. when etrade babies are stopping losses and selling, the exchange guys are laughing all the way home in their lamborghinis, because they picked up their bargains at the fire sale. (when you sell your stock, the person who takes it from you is the market maker with the corresponding seat on the exchange, and when you buy your stock, the market maker is the one from whom you buy it--the fact that it looks like someone else bought it from you is the game that they play to hide the extraction of the vig, and the ultimate nature of the crime is that the guys holding the stock in between the sell and the buy orders won't buy it unless they already have a seller at a lower price, and they won't sell a stock unless they already have a buyer at a higher price--it's a license to steal, and steal from you and me they do).

so, it's up to you. play the "stop loss" game and lose, or buy value and win. either way, you shouldn't be listening to talking babies, even if they do seem to you to be amusing. all etrade wants are their transaction fees.

deepwater horizon and personal responsibility

i am aghast every morning to read the developing story of the unmitigated disaster that is the catastrophic failure of deepwater horizon. besides the obvious, (think terrorists are missing the point about sitting-duck oil platforms in international waters?), it occurs to me that each and every one of us, for every mile we drive or degree we heat our home, is party to this tragedy and culpable in our own personal way.

i find it in many ways similar to how illegal drug use creates illegal drug-related violence, except that there is no easy solution, as would be legalizing drugs and eliminating the profit motive in at least that one particular sort of lawlessness. oil companies will continue to exploit our dependence on their product, and do whatever it takes, no matter what the cost, to profit from bringing it to us. they've bought our government--e.g. BP spent $15.9M last year alone lobbying congress, and over $77K accumulatively to obama himself, who was coincidentally (or not so coincidentally) the top recipient of all lawmakers over the past 20 years--and they're today reaping the benefits of their investment, while we reel from the unfolding of what will undoubtedly be the worst man-made environmental disaster in the history of this earth and our own collective responsibility for it.

however, before we get too far down the rabbit hole of self-criticism, it's worth noting that reuters has a great story on the overall political perspective of the tragedy. for example, they've got one quote from one particular partisan politician to the effect that the incident should "not be used inappropriately" to stop efforts to expand offshore drilling. (i know). now if i were to ask you, would you guess that the utterer of this patently ridiculous statement was a "drill, baby, drill" right wing texas oil republican? oh, no. senator mary landrieu of louisiana, with a great big blue capital D, is of the party normally associated with liberal tree-hugging greenpeace save the whalers. (yes, virginia, it's an equal-opportunity clusterfuck). want to know what landrieu's spokesman had to say about her position, in light of her being the #1 recipient of BP cash during the last election cycle? "campaign contributions, from energy companies or from environmental groups, have absolutely no impact on senator landrieu's policy agenda or her response to this unprecedented disaster in the gulf".

oh yes. the guy actually said that.

so i put it to you that we are, individually, and, thus, collectively, and almost without single exception, all guilty of both using too much oil, in our cars, and in our homes, and in our profligate use of plastic wrap, trash bags and what have you, as well as voting for any party politician of any major american political party. we own that. we have to own UP to that. WE are guilty...

and for penance i propose two things: use less oil and plastic, and vote more often for unenrolled candidates, at least until the fetid stench of oil-drenched (and tobacco-drenched, and corrupt-bank-drenched, and you-name-it-drenched) campaign cash can be drained from our political swamps.

i don't care which political party of which you're a member, or which kind of economy car you drive. this is on YOU. (and me).

so very, very frightening

i've been reading further comments from pro-AZ-law folks, and i'm finding myself upon the verge of a nervous sweat this morning. here's one anecdote meant to support a position in favor of strong anti-illegal-immigration laws:

I remember being stationed at 1960's Clark AB in the Phillipines. Locals climbing over the perimeter fence at night to burgle homes and warehouses on base was of epidemic proportions. There were all sorts of politically correct actions that didn't work in the slightest. Finally, one Colonel who knew absolutely that his chances of being a general were zero was assigned as the Base Commander. It was a terminal assignment......no matter what he did. So....he wandered over to the Negrito village.....a tribe given lifetime base residency and quasi-US citizenship status by Gen MacArthur.....and asked them to help. Well....overnight the fence climbing ceased.....and for several weeks...the base drove around with a flatbed truck to haul the lifeless bodies of crooks off of the fence. Word got out. Nobody came any more.

so i'm scratching my head, considering the picture of dead philipinos, shot without process, due or otherwise, and recalling a time back in 1983 when i took a week to honor my nation and its history in washington dc. it was, coincidentally, immediately after the bombing of the marine barracks in beirut, and being possessed of dark hair and a beard, (i hadn't otherwise thought of myself as appearing middle eastern, but go figure), i found myself detained and questioned at each and every national monument.

personally, not being in the habit of carrying my birth certificate or my passport while out and about in MY country, i should say i would prefer NOT to be found shot dead on a fence somewhere. the problem with bad laws, as is the AZ anti-illegal-immigration statute, is that they confer upon the state powers that have the potential for abuse. the state *says* they aren't going to shoot anyone who doesn't deserve it, but, seriously, randy weaver's wife didn't think they would, either..

the greatest irony is that, in the same breath as these anti-illegal-immigration folks are baying for the state to be given further power to abuse individuals, they are complaining about the very same government and the people who are making a colossal clusterfuck of running it.

do people not listen to themselves at all???

just thinkin

national baseball commentators are so bad, that i've watched all the recent sox/yanks games with the sound on my tv completely off. it's too bad not to have the crowd noise to accompany the video, but the advantage to being free from the insipid and asinine commentary is far more critically important. there's likely a useful parallel to be made to versus using mike milbury as a hockey analyst, but at least he's not in the booth polluting the play-by-play. (yes, i do understand there's a rumor out there about the celtics being in the postseason, too, but, seriously, who cares?)

on the other hand, it gives one a useful example as to why the appointment of a new supreme court justice is a big deal, since, it would also seem that these commentary positions are granted "for life", and, once you get a bad one or two, (yes, i'm talking about you, tim and joe), the hell seems to go on forever. (or maybe that was just last night's pregame blather...)

i can't imagine curt gowdy is having all that much of a restful afterlife these days...

asset allocation

folks impatient to reap the rewards of aggressive retirement investment are always tempted to ignore sage advice about asset allocation. i think they figure, if the average return from equities is 10%, and everything else is less, than they should just buy all the stocks their little retirement portfolios can afford, and consider themselves best-positioned to succeed.

if i only had a nickel...

i'm often as much as 20 or 25% in cash, even though my retirement horizon is more than 10 years out. (though growing further distant every day, it would seem). awhile back, careful readers might recall i went in for significant investments in citi and aig when they were at their weakest, (less than a buck for citi, and around 35 cents for aig), and it's worth pointing out that i was able to do this without selling anything at a low point in the market (that would have meant losing as much as i'd hope to gain by the opportunity cost on the other investments) because i had a pretty good pile of cash for just such a bargain hunt. (i won't say how much i made before selling 'em out when they became more fairly valued, because that's boring cocktail conversation, but lets just say, this one time, i did ok--the time before, when i held stock in the little peruvian bank that was once capitalized with montesinos' money--who knew--i did less well--and, yeah, that's my boring cocktail conversation when we start to play "i'm more woeful than you").

the point is that my little cash pile is long since back to its usual corpulence, and with the market tanking a good 10% in the last couple days, it's feeling like just the time to go bottom feeding again.

how are you allocated?

(what, don't you pay yourself 10% of what you make every paycheck before you start spending it on beer, or your personal equivalent, and have your own retirement pile, too?)

(and, for those tempted to ask "but what about that 'buy and hold' stuff you were talking about a day or two ago, please consider that "buy and hold" means "buy stuff that's undervalued, and hold it until it's not"--and if you'd like to ask me questions about value, i'd be happy to share the benefit of my business school education about how to read company balance sheets and P&L's and find out which ones are earning which percent of their stock price, which is a pretty good indication of how valuable they are, but lets not get too far off the track here...)

buy and hold

if you caught the trough this afternoon, you could have earned big money buying into the rebound. of course, if you stumbled over the precipice first, you might have already lost your shirt. me, i still own the same boring number of boring shares in boring companies as i did this morning.

people are always looking to earn something for nothing. they'll tell you about every hot stock they've ever bought, and every lucky lottery ticket they've ever scratched. (they'll leave out the stories of the losers, unless they're playing the "my misfortune is greater than your misfortune" game). me, i'm teaching my kids how to balance a checkbook, and how to understand and respect the ultimate supremacy of compound interest, and how "buy and hold" is the only sane investment strategy for someone trying to save for retirement.

if we're smart, along the way, we'll put some of the crooks in jail who have been screwing with our global economic system. if we're not, we can continue to play D vs R games and let our corrupt legislators leave them off scot-free. either way, a lot of people are going to suffer through a very rough last few years of their lives, whining all the way down about how they "worked their whole life and now they deserve to be taken care of". (if i only had a nickel for every "i got mine so everybody else can go pound sand" american who hates illegal immigration and foreign aid and blames both for all our troubles, while looking forward to their social-security and medicare-enabled retirement).

some pretty ugly shit is going to be hitting the fan over the next little bit, and it's going to make the water in the gulf of mexico look crystal blue by comparison. i'm looking forward to all my little shares in all my little companies to still be in business on the other side, and i'm hopeful i'll do ok, but who knows. in the case that they're not, i'm going to face the hard reality of perhaps always having to work in order to eat without complaining that anybody else owes me my living. all those protesters in greece are doing the same thing i expect a bunch of people here to be doing sooner or later, and it's going to be as ugly then as it is now. except all my fat american countrymen and women aren't going to see it that way. they'll be blaming all this on somebody else, like all those greeks in the street you see on tv, because it's become the american way, too.

"we have met the enemy, and he is us".

walt kelly said that.

for the conspiracy theorists out there

take a look at the cboe volatility index beginning around 2pm, and note how it's already begun it's steep ascent towards its peak when the alleged "oops" took place about 13 minutes before 3pm. that's an hour of SOMETHING going on.

somebody made a LOT of money today, that's for sure.

"trading error at major firm"

who needs regulation and oversight when a "trading error" at a "major firm" (we'll all know who within a few minutes, i'm sure) can cause trading in $40 stocks to list at mere pennies (accenture, at four, in fact) and the entire market to plummet in an instant. (some jihadist will, i'm sure, be taking credit shortly). for their part, the nyse, whose entire business depends on global confidence in their trading system, insists that no system error occured. (it's always important to make sure your own finger is pointed first, isn't it).

i'm glad my retirement savings recovered a little bit towards the close, but it sure gives one pause for reflection.

interesting times.

edited to add: the fattest fingers are all pointing at citi, which is fascinating, since citi's stock price declined more or less the least among the majors today. did someone misplace a decimal point? type a "B" (billion) when they meant an "M" (million)? make a bogus bug fix to an electronic "stop loss" system last night? citi is still standing by "no knowledge of a bad trade", which is even further fascinating, observing that everyone is insisting on using the singular to describe an incident nobody is willing to admit knowing anything about.

edited further to add: there seems to be a little cottage industry springing up to investigate trades in proctor & gamble... just my 2 cents (that's half a share in accenture, yo) but i'm suspicious a few people figured out the glitch just a little bit faster than other people, and were active in the biggest-volume stock they could think of to make a little hay on the side while the eclipse of the sun was shining. (the greediest money people always seem to leave the most fetid monetary spoor...)

edited one last time to add: yep, "B" for billion instead of "M" for million on a proctor and gamble trade from a desk at citi. word is that any stock experiencing over 60% volatility will have all its trades during the final hours of the day cancelled. (fascinating that P&G wasn't the stock most affected by all the electronic trading that ensued once the capacity on the NYSE was exceeded and stuff started getting exchanged on NASDAQ's electronic boards). ain't it grand that the banks are giving each other a "do over". think you'd ever get one of those?

props to the mr mill city boys yet again

when they discover and point out the foibles of the paper of record's web site, it's like shooting fish in a barrel in addition to being funny, but this quote from their piece about a hypothetical conversation with santa about tooksbree renaming their december school vacation to "winter" is absolutely today's web read of the day:

"when a town’s entire economy is based on the retail success of roughly four billion strip malls, it would make sense to eliminate the one guy who’s giving shit away for free".

yep, santa is wise, and his little mr mill city helpers are too.

lies, damn lies, and statistics

this past february, al inhofe's family built an igloo on the mall in washington dc, and put up a sign declaring it al gore's new home in a perfect piece of ignorant partisan politics posing as punditry. (la times coverage here). the virginia GOP called the storm "12 inches of global warming", and the right-leaning folks whose attention spans are 8 seconds long all nodded along. (i know there are plenty of right-leaning folk whose attention spans are somewhat longer, which is why i'm writing this if you haven't already figured that out). well, unfortunately, climate is a bit more persistent than all that, and record-setting weather events, from the snow in dc, to the current floods in tennessee, might all be usefully considered to be part of a fuller picture. (increases in global temperature are demonstrated to spark increases in atmospheric volatility, including snow, in case you haven't read that far).

anyway, in the interest of the trumping anecdote, and in honor of its 100th birtday this year, i did a little research this morning on montana's glacier national park. (having the word "glacier" in its name, it's got to be relevant, yes?) in 1850, at the peak of the last "little ice age" (cooling global temperatures have been measured as taking place over the period between 1500 and 1850, give or take, which is kinda coincidentally the practial onset of man's "industrial revolution", but that's probably just a coincidence, so we can skip further comment), there were an estimated 150 glaciers slowly sliding down the mountainsides in glacier national park. (to be a glacier, ice and packed snow have to persistently cover at least 25 acres of landscape, which is about the critical mass where ice becomes ponderous enough to move on its own). when the park was dedicated in 1910, (which is, as i mentioned, coincidentally exactly 100 years ago, which is yet another trumping anecdote, yes?), most all the original glaciers still existed.

want to know what glacier national park looks like today?

in 2010, 100 years after over 150 glaciers roamed the mountainsides of glacier national park, fewer than 25 ice fields remain of 25 acres or larger. (the textbook cutoff for glaciers being called glaciers).

so, what do we do now? call it "national park national park"?

in 2003, myrna hall and dan fagre published a study entitled "modeled climate-induced glacier change in glacier national park, 1850-2100", which, unfortunately, used up its entire 8 seconds in the recitation of its title, but i digress. in it, myrna and dan compared two scenarios--one presuming carbon dioxide-induced global warming, and the other making a linear temperature extrapolation based on presently-measured trends (+.45 degrees fahrenheit since 1850). under the chicken-little, al gore scenario, myrna and dan concluded that the glaciers will all be gone by 2030, but, of course, al inhofe would recommend you completely ignore that particular nonsense. interestingly enough, however, and regardless of what mr. inhofe would have you believe, the measured retreat of glaciers since 2003 has *exceeded* the chicken-little hypothesis rate, and made the linear extrapolation look just as silly as igloos in washington dc, only in such excruciatingly slow motion that absolutely no one appears to be paying attention, and most certainly not al inohfe and his igloo-building grandchildren. (though you can get a visual by clicking on the study, and paging down to figure 3, which puts a 1910 photograph of the grinnell glacier next to one from 1998)

i love glaciers. i've climbed on them everywhere from alberta, canada, to patagonia, argentina, and there's nothing like the radiation of cool that you get from them, even on a hot, sunny afternoon. (you know how fireplaces make you feel their warmth from across the room? imagine the opposite--and it's awesome).

i'm sad to see the glaciers go, and i'm doubly sad that partisan politics leads so many people to oppose so many folks like al gore via opposition to some of the very few sensible things they say, as opposed to all the rest of their nonsense. oh well, i guess snowstorms and igloos look better on the 6 o'clock news...

well, .45 degrees fahrenheit over the course of 160 years may not sound like much to you, but if you would take a look at the photos from glacier national park, i should hope you might agree that something is changing here on gods green earth, and we ought to try to understand it before we find it floods us out of our houses and homes. (oops, wait, it already has). maybe we're exacerbating the trend via man-made CO2, and maybe we're not, but i, for one, would surely prefer to study things a little, to try to know for sure, and i'm quite willing to ride my bicycle more often in the meantime just in case. (if you're not, or if, for example, you're a righty who believes in things like al inhofe's little practical joke, or if, for another example, you're a lefty who opposes things like the cape wind project because you think you're some sort of ecologist, well, you'll all just have to pardon me for calling you all assholes on both sides).before and after photos of the grinnell glacier courtesy of the us geological survey

how to put on a show

i'm holding in my hand tickets #1, 2, 3 and 4 for mess entertainment's "love songs for losers: the rock opera!" for sunday, may 23rd, and i'm a happy, happy guy. adding to the happiness is the hand-addressed envelope in which they were delivered, complete with personal note from the producer behind the mess, (great production company name, btw), jess houlihan, thanking me for supporting the show.

how cool is that!

seriously: how many times have you received a personalized "thank you" for buying a ticket to a show of any kind? it's a mother wonderful thing. and this is going to be a mother wonderful show. singing. dancing. melvern taylor and his fabulous meltones. more singing. more dancing. and all your friends will be there, too. (right?)

merrimack repertory theater.

may 22nd and 23rd at 6pm.

$20.

get it!

http://lovesongsforlosers.com/

"look at me"

i've been reading some snippets lately from some people in the nashville area to the effect that "hey, we haven't been stealing from each other or shooting people in the streets, so is that why you're not covering our flooding?" and i'm finding myself sorely conflicted.

on the one hand, floods are a bitch. a few years ago i was chased out of my basement apartment along the banks of the merrimack, (one advantage to being an exiled divorcing dad is that you have to travel light, so you can put all your things in the back of your car and drive to higher ground, crank the seat back, and catch some z's, though finding a shower can be tricky), and more recently i think all of us here in massachusetts can speak first-hand about the sorts of devastation such things can cause. we even received federal disaster assistance for it, as i'm sure will the nashvillians. but i don't recall anyone here writing anything judgmental about the troubles of others throughout the trial.

perhaps i'm guilty of selective perception, but i'm tempted to put this observation down to traditional new england stoicism and dogged perseverance in the face of adversity, and i'm sorely tempted to want to hold it up as a better example. there's absolutely nothing attractive about piling on the misfortunes of others in an attempt to curry favor, attention, or, especially, federal handouts for your troubles. of course, nobody died (that i can recall) in massachusetts or rhode island from the recent overabundance of H2O, and maybe that's why no one felt need to complain. 29 people (of whom i'm aware) have been announced to have died in the flooding affecting the swath of tennessee and kentucky currently underwater, and that's a sobering, serious and solemn tragedy.

but, see, here's the thing: 1800 people died in the wake of hurricane katrina and its related flooding. there are entire sections of cities still un-re-built five years later. it's a dictionary-definition catastrophe, and one that is still reshaping lives. and, yes, it caused a breakdown in civil order that did not always reflect well on either the victims or those intended to help. but if anyone wants to do the danny carcillo thing and start whining about their little finger on some flooding a little further to the north and east, they ought to at least keep in mind how it's going to look.

i'm going to suggest the same thing i suggested when haiti (which is still in crisis, btw) was hit by its earthquake: text "redcross" to 90999 and $10 will be donated to the tennessee flood relief efforts. we all need to pitch in. and it'll make you feel better about yourself, too, which is a double bargain.

when one doesn't take the 5th

amidst a thoroughly enjoyable playoff hockey game last night, marc savard did something every hockey player knows they ought not to do--marc took his stick, and way up in the air where EVERYBODY can see it, especially the people who are watching for such things, he took a free slash at brian boucher's catching glove as it held the puck after a referee's whistle. not cool. (though the coolness quotient varies in direct proportion to ones rooting interests).

so here's what's supposed to happen:

the referee is supposed to blow his whistle a second time, and send marky marc to the sin bin for two minutes in order to contemplate his crime against the hockey universe. (check).

both defensemen and any and every other teammate of the aggrieved goalie within reasonable distance are supposed to skate over and take a free run at marky marc and rough him up for being a wise guy. referees at this point are happy to look the other way while all this is going on, provided the retaliatory messages are delivered in a timely and reasonably sporting fashion (i.e. no assaults with swinging sticks, or other attempts to injure, etc.) so that future order will be maintained on the ice in front of the crease. so far so good. (check).

now here's where it gets gray:

daniel carcillo, one of those lightning rod players everybody (except his own teammates and fans) loves to hate, (because he's an asshole, and you can tell him i told you that, cuz he's just gonna laugh and say "so what"), ran savvy while keeping both his two hands on his stick (a cross check under any other circumstances, but see notes above about referees looking the other way on things, though this gets perilously close to the unwritten line already) and then proceeded to bury the far more diminutive savard in a flurry of maliciously aimed body parts with the able and happy assistance of several teammates. michael ryder for the bruins did what else you're supposed to do when you're a teammate of a wise guy who is getting the triangle treatment thusly, which is to skate in and try to deflect the worst of the things and prolong the stand-off long enough for the referees' whistles to come back out and separate the puglists, i mean combatants, i mean hockey players who are settling their differences playground-style. all still, to this point, despite the borderline extra bit that carcillo included in the retaliation, where it's supposed to be. check.

NOW it gets interesting:

savvy is pretty short, so he's literally invisible under a mushroom cloud of gloves and sticks and elbows and all the usual stuff that players bring in defense of their goalie. a bruins fan is psyched to see ryder barreling in there, and not too concerned that savvy is getting what he paid for with his little gratuitous stickwork against boucher. all pretty much well and good. but somehow, as they bodies are being untangled and the penalty minutes are being meted out to savard for being the wise guy that he most assuredly was, daniel carcillo starts waving his index finger around to every referee, linesman and rink-side official that he can find, whining (and this is quite clear on the replay, even if you aren't a professional lip-reader) that "he bit me".

ok.

first of all, in the court of hockey law, it's going to be impossible for anyone to know beside marc savard and daniel carcillo what really happened, since it all happened beneath that flurry of equipment that rendered mr. savard completely invisible while he was being treated to his blanket party in the first place. second of all, since it's going to be impossible for anyone to know beside marc savard and daniel carcillo what really happened, it's pretty weak, from a prosecutorial standpoint, for danny boy to be skating around waving his primary digit and claiming he was mistreated. there's the point about his having started things with marc (allowing that marc started things overall in the first place with his slash, but we're talking about danny vs marc now, so keep up) that makes such whining a bit unseemly, but there's one more point that occurs to me, that kinda makes danny boy both a whiner, and a bit of an idiot--the written rule of nhl fisticuffs is that anyone dropping ones hockey gloves gets sent to the penalty box.

so, it bears questioning of the whining mr carcillo, if his un-gloved digit was to have found its way inside mr savard's oral cavity, how it is that such should be.

my take? carcillo barged over the unwritten line, as he is generally wont to do, and now he's pissy like a little girl that marc had the temerity to take the trip with him. only a "tough" guy who isn't really tough at all when you get right down to it starts the whine like that, in an attempt to weasel and wheedle some extra penalty time for his opponent. and only an idiot, when trying to weasel and wheedle some extra penalty time for his opponent, does so in a way that literally proves that he should be required some penalty time, too. it was too funny watching the referees skate around telling him to go sit down, knowing as you know they did that the very next whistle they were going to have to blow was going to have to be blown to send the little pantywaist off to his favorite seat on the ice. (danny does get penalized a lot).

as for savard, well, i kinda like his style. he most assuredly woke up the entire rink with his intentional misbehavior, and his teammates most assuredly took up the cudgel on his behalf, and you have to wonder, just a little bit, if that all might not have been in his mind as he prepared to make his little slash.

there are a lot of ways to lead a hockey team. skating around the ice complaining to anyone and everyone about the boo boo on your little finger isn't one of 'em.

go bruins!