Somewhere Over The Rainbow

Israel Ka'ano'i Kamakawiwo'ole was born at Kuakini Hospital in Honolulu The son of Evangeline Leinani Kamakawiwo'ole (aka Keale) and Henry Kalei'aloha Naniwa (aka Tiny). He lived the first 10 years of his life in Palolo Valley on O'ahu. Then the family moved to Makaha.Young Israel was surrounded by music, his uncle was Moe Keale, a well-known musician, and his parents worked at a Waikiki bar where many of the legends of Hawaiian music performed.

At age six, Israel learned to play the ukelele after watching and listening to his mother, his older brother, and his uncle. His first performed publicly at around age eleven when he and Skippy, his older brother, were called up to the stage by bands that played regularly for tourists at their parents' workplace.

On 1990 Israel Kamakawiwo'ole decided to start recording on his own. His first record,Ka 'Ano'i, became the most popular Hawaiian album of 1990, His second solo album, Facing Future, was released in 1993, and in 1995 the album E Ala E featured a duet with Skippy (using special studio effects). His next album N Dis Life(1996) continued to sell very well.

Throughout his last years, Iz suffered from severe obesity, at one point carried 769 pounds (350 kg). Israel died of weight-related respiratory illness on June 26th, 1997. Over 10,000 people attended his funeral on July 10th 1997, The wooden coffin lay at the Capitol building in Honolulu. He was the third person in Hawaiian history to be accorded this honor (the other two were Senator Spark Matsunaga and Governor John A. Burns). His ashes were scattered into the Pacific Ocean at M'kua Beach on July 12, 1997.

Laura Marling

I did not intend to write another piece so soon after putting up Song for the Holidays. But then I heard Laura Marling. She is a 21 year-old singer-songwriter from Hampshire, England. The music I post at AllAllan is filled with intense, deeply personal songs. Until I heard Laura Marling I thought they didn't write songs like that anymore. I was wrong.

Song for the Holidays

And now the holiday season is upon us. In my family's home on Roselawn in Detroit, it was sometime in the 50's and everyone was still alive. We lighted a candle for each of the eight nights of Chanukah. I was a seven-year-old boy whose only dreams were of a Davy Crocket toy rifle or a new bike. The real dreams, the ones that weren't about things, were still to come. One night it was gelt. Silver and gold wrapped chocolate that we devoured as our parents, aunts, uncles and grandparents looked on, proud of the job they had done making the children happy. Learned by their example, inherited from their genes, over the years and through the loss of them all, one by one, we that are left are left still making our children happy, making ourselves proud.

In 1966 I was in High School and we got two weeks off for the holidays. I sat in my room listening to folk music on the local public radio station or playing the music of a strange-named duo, eloquent, piercing, inspiring and personal. Simon and Garfunkel had just released Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme. I embraced the poetry and feelings that I thought only I had known. Who were these guys?

In the 1990's the holidays were spent on the beach in South Carolina. Even with the summer people coming back to the island with their families, the beach was still nearly empty. We rode our bikes and drove into town to see the lights at James Island Park. My kids were given Chanukah just the way I had learned it and my little one was in charge of counting the nights, making sure a gift and new candle were part of each of the eight nights. My mother would have been proud. She passed way too soon, but she would have been proud.

How things have changed. I am so far away from those times, those aunts and uncles and parents and cousins and grandparents. I am so far from my kids, in geography and time and regrets. The holiday now is filled not with celebration, or faith, but sports on TV. We no longer have a single home. We have our own homes, with each one of the four of us caught up in the holidays of others, relying instead on phone calls and text messages.

The holidays have changed too. now they are about colored days that refer to special sales of the things that people buy. The ads are draped over our lives, filled with cars in bows and expensive jewelry that generate guilt and insufficiency. How can you love her if you don't buy her this and that? How can I love her? How can I love her? How can I love her?

Someone I didn't know died today. I read about it on The Drudge Report. He was born in 1949, the same year as me. He never made it to this year's holidays, this year's gifts, this year's guilt and this year's sports on TV.

Silence like a cancer grows.


A

Guest Editorial - Gerald Celente on MF Global

NNVC - maturity knocking

In 2009 I forecast that NNVC could be a triple digit stock (over $100/share) by 2014. That forecast was based on their game-changing anti-viral technology that has the potential to eradicate the most heinous viral diseases known to civilization. No hyperbole, just facts.

It takes time and money to go from here ($0.70/share currently) to there. They have the money now and we have the time.

NanoViricides, Inc. Announces That It Has Submitted a Pre-IND Meeting Request to the US FDA For Its Anti-Influenza Clinical Drug Candidate, FluCide™
Submission Represents a Major Advance for the Company


WEST HAVEN, Conn.--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- NanoViricides, Inc. (OTC BB: NNVC) (the “Company”) announced today that it has submitted a pre-IND Meeting Request to the US FDA. The Company has requested an initial meeting with the US FDA to review the Company’s proposed strategy and plan for conducting safety/toxicology studies and human clinical trials required for approval of its anti-influenza clinical drug candidate, FluCide™ (i.e. NV-INF-1).

“This submission is a major milestone in the Company’s program to obtain US FDA approval for FluCide™,” said Eugene Seymour, MD, MPH, CEO, adding, “FluCide has demonstrated excellent efficacy and safety when treating influenza infections in our animal studies. We anticipate similar strong results in humans when the drug becomes available for human use.”

The Company has submitted required introductory documentation with the meeting request letter in consultation with the Company’s regulatory matters consultants, viz. the Biologics Consulting Group. The Company plans to submit additional briefing documents at least thirty days before the FDA meeting, in compliance with the FDA guidelines.

This pre-IND meeting request submission follows the Company’s recent announcement that it has chosen a clinical candidate, NV-INF-1, in its anti-influenza drug program (FluCide™) to develop for regulatory submissions both domestically and internationally. It is estimated that there are about 50 million cases of influenza annually in the USA alone, and about 250,000 patients are hospitalized for influenza. The Company believes that a single course of therapy that can be easily administered by a medical office is likely to be feasible for out-patients, with no additional follow-on treatment necessary. This expectation is based on the following results from its animal studies: (1) the extremely high treatment effectiveness in inhibiting the cycle of infection, virus expansion and spread of infection and, (2) the significantly long lasting effects of the drug treatment after the drug is discontinued. In addition to out-patients, the Company also plans to develop an indication for hospitalized severe cases of influenza.

The Company has recently announced that it is working on developing cGMP (“current Good Manufacturing Practices”) manufacturing capability for the production of its drug candidates. cGMP manufactured materials will be required when the Company is ready to file an Investigational New Drug (IND) application to the US FDA.

JFK

JFK
May 29, 1917 - Nov 22, 1963
RIP

Hampton Junior High School
Detroit, Michigan
Ninth Grade English
Last class of the day
Principal walked somberly into room
Whispered to teacher
Turns to class
The President is dead.
School dismissed
Go home.

Four friends walking home
Stunned silence
Frozen in time
Filled with fear
and apprehension

Vietnam War
3,000,000 Vietnamese, dead
52,000 friends walking home, dead

Number one song, 11_22_63
Dale & Grace: "I'm leaving it up to you."

Memories of Life

The world would be a better place without leaf blowers. There used to be rakes. They were used to silently sweep leaves into small piles which could be picked up and placed in trash bags. When I was a kid growing up in Detroit, my father, bother and I would get out there on Thanksgiving morning and the three of us would rake up a big pile of leaves and place it just off of the curb at the end of the driveway. In the years before they made burning leaves illegal, my Dad would light a fire and burn the pile off into the crisp autumn air. I can still smell the smoldering mound. Then we would all go inside and watch the Lions game.

Memories of life. Popping up here on my blog from time to time, so that some day my daughters will have a piece of their father to remember and maybe show to their children, who maybe will ask about a photograph on a table or discovered in an old album.

There are some things that are felt but never said. Some questions that get asked, for which are no answers.

Why didn't this one work?

"Your head just inches from my own, your toes cradled beneath mine. Your breathing slow and measured. You lay beside me, safe, content and deeply asleep. Ever so gently your hand slips into mine. Loosely, then tight, then loose again. You are drifting, immersed in some far away dream. Quiet lovers, in soft cadence, intertwined. I could have stayed forever."

These moments I write about; No finer gifts could ever touch my life.

But stories always end,
And if you read between the lines,
You'd know that I'm just tryin' to understand
The feelin's that you lack.
I never thought I could feel this way
And I've got to say that I just don't get it.
I don't know where we went wrong,
But the feelin's gone
And I just can't get it back

Camelback

Friday's have been slow, especially toward the end of the market session. So today I packed up an hour early and climbed up Camelback Mountain. Well, not all the way up. You get to know when your body says, "I'm too young to die," and its time to turn back down.

At a spectacular view of the desert below, I think about the last night we slept together. It has become one of those moments to remember as it is too revealing, too eloquent, to let go. I wrote about one in a previous post:

The closest we ever were as a couple were those special moments on the dance floor, sometimes just locked in a deep passionate kiss....

We were far into our Sunday night, our TV night. The shows and movies were over, the television was off and we were under the covers. I was mostly asleep. She was mostly awake. Out of a quickly forgotten dream, I felt her fingers on my back, up and down, back and forth, slow and methodical. I wondered at first if she was trying to wake me for a quiet, fleeting moment of intimacy. No, her touch was too gentle, too soft, too personal. She loves me, she loves me not. She loves me, she loves me not. She loves me, she loves me not.

I knew that if I awoke, she would retreat, feeling smothered and seek distance. So I didn't stir. I did not want her light, sweet touch to stop, to disappear. Another man might awake and turn toward her. But another man would not be beside her, not this night.

I continue down Camelback, having not reached the peak, full of the memory, the magic, the melody of her touch. She loves me. She loves me not.

Cactus Tree

There's a man who's been out sailing
In a decade full of dreams
And he takes her to a schooner
And he treats her like a queen

Is love just the release of chemicals in the brain to aid in the procreation of the species? Do you know anyone over 50 who is in love?

A girl pours a shot of expresso into my coffee at Starbucks. It's 6:00am and I am not at my best. I think and feel, yes, I can fall in love with her. But all that comes out is a "Thank you," and a one dollar tip. Out of some distant memory I hear Joni Mitchell.

I sent M a text message about our times together. It was too early to call her and by writing it down I wouldn't catch her by surprise. Maybe what comes back is thought out, felt out, honesty.

There's a man who's sent a letter
And he's waiting for reply
He has asked her of her travels
Since the day they said goodbye
He writes "Wish you were beside me
We can make it if we try"

Thirty years ago, by now I would be holding hands with the girl from Starbucks. Small talk chit-chat would have led to the abandonment of our customer-barista roles and lead to the magical creation of chemicals, hope and budding feelings The dance of love. But now the days turn colder, light becomes dimmer, we don't think about love, we think about the end of days. Love never is lost, it just disappears.

There's a man who's climbed a mountain
And he's calling out her name
And he hopes her heart can hear
Three thousand miles he calls again
He can think her there beside him
He can miss her just the same

Then one day we find ourselves in that one last great love of our lives. We won't know when its over until its gone. I can count them all on one hand, the real ones, the great ones, the magical, romantic, intense ones, before they disappeared.

But not this one. I'm not ready to let her go.

She will love them when she sees them
They will lose her if they follow
And she only means to please them
And her heart is full and hollow
Like a cactus tree
While she's so busy being free

Down the foggy ruins of time

Hockey season is back again and once more we have the pleasure of watching Pavel Datsyuk and the Detroit Red Wings. When I was in high school in Detroit, we didn't have a hockey team. But a group of us hockey fanatics would rent out an hour of ice time at the Detroit Skating Club, from 11:00pm to 12:00pm on Saturday nights. It was a badge of honor to be one of the 22 selected to play each Saturday night.

It was also date night. That too was a badge of honor, to bring your date to the arena to watch you play. Yes, those were some strange times. I worked myself up to be a regular of the 22 by skating circles for 2 hours every day after school at the State Fairgrounds arena. One of the other skaters each day was a girl named Sheila Young. She ended up winning a Gold Medal in the 1972 Olympics.

Now some forty years later, I don't skate anymore, I don't play hockey anymore, Saturday night is no longer date night for me, whether in a relationship or not. No, let me take that back. M and I used to go dancing at a club here in Phoenix on Saturday nights. The closest we ever were as a couple were those special moments on the dance floor, sometimes just locked in a deep passionate kiss, with all memory and fate driven deep beneath the waves. No hockey game ever compared to those kisses, those dances, those date nights.

All of that is gone now. The skating, the hockey, the date nights, M. It seems that nothing ever stays the same. It changes for the better, it changes for the worse, it changes just for the sake of change. But one thing never changed in all of that. Every time there was the future. Every one of those skates, games, dances, passionate kisses was full of hope and giddy expectation of what would be coming next.

And what came next?

Writing about what was once and forever, my life.


Then take me disappearin' through the smoke rings of my mind
Down the foggy ruins of time, far past the frozen leaves
The haunted, frightened trees, out to the windy beach
Far from the twisted reach of crazy sorrow
Yes, to dance beneath the diamond sky with one hand waving free
Silhouetted by the sea, circled by the circus sands
With all memory and fate driven deep beneath the waves
Let me forget about today until tomorrow.

The Moon is a harsh mistress...

....she's hard to call your own.

On Steve Jobs

On the day Steve jobs died, I posted a note to my subscribers regarding the technical analysis of AAPL. One of my subscribers, a very bright and supportive subscriber who has been with me a very long time wrote me an, "how dare you" message, accusing me of an insensitivity that I cannot deny. As an Apple customer, shareholder and advocate since 1987, I could have instead written a sad post of his passing. My bad.

Death follows us with its icy stare and constant patience throughout our lives. For Jobs, death was a part of his life in the later years. No wealth, nor personal accomplishments could possibly compensate for those years he endured, waiting for the end. We all waited with him, knowing there was nothing short of a medical miracle that could stave off the inevitable. His strength and courage right up to the end was an inspiration for all of us who felt we knew him and worked with him every day we opened our MacBooks, or answered our iPhones. I loved that man. Not because I knew him, but because he knew me.

As each of us move toward the inevitable, we have the choice to exert the strength and courage to live our lives with the passion that was Steve Jobs. I have made some extreme decisions along the path that winds through my days. I have hurt myself and those that love me as I always chose the trail least traveled. Along that way, I have touched the beauty and felt the pain that fell upon the life I have chosen to live. Yet nothing I have done can ever be compared with the accomplishments of a man who traveled with death every day of his latter years. We live with his legacy every day, with every key stroke, every ringtone, every iPad.

Steve Jobs is an eternal inspiration and his passing left the world a lessor place, as his life made the world a better place.

Another Sunday Night

These thoughts and feelings were first published here a couple of years ago. I ran across them again tonight. Who was this man so full of hope, expectation and faith? What does he feel, what does think, who does he dream of in the dark corner of another Sunday night?

I am not sure what needs to be said here. The words and melody, a soft and raspy voice, melodious, tranquil; the synthesis of age and beauty creating a portrait of the artist as an old man.

A mirrored testament of a life serene, if only for this passing moment.

Sunday is my personal day, a time for reflection and rest, a day to share some personal joy, or angst as these later years seem to prefer.

Something unwritten, unsaid, seeks release with the harmonies, the words, the music and the sentiment his art.

In the end, subtly and unfinished, it leaves an image of our lives, expressed in a song, delicate, vibrant, eloquent.

It remains one of my favorites, a Best-of-Allan, for all that it says about love and life, for all that is says about you and me.

Find someone to love, then love her.

A

Sunrise

It is early and the air is filled with the mist of a low country dawn. Before me is a serene salt water marsh, murmuring with life, undisturbed by the thunder of the ocean roaring just beyond the breeze.  How I have come to be in this place after all of these years is the story of my life.  It will be remembered in bits and pieces by all who have crossed my path and by the ones who were told about me because those paths did matter.

The end lays beyond, in a quiet mystery, out of view, on my mind.  It is a place like this, of swirling beaches, of egrets and of trees that never die.  One day I shall awake and I will be home.

Sundown

It's last night already.  Gets dark fast in the middle of September.  A few days ago, it was July and we celebrated my birthday by not fighting.  There was no August this year, called off, too hot. I am tired of the desert, or maybe it's tired of me. The streets are filled with a different generation, not the one behind me, but the one behind them. I watch baseball like my grandfather did and I don't smoke dope anymore.

Every day passes quickly, uneventfully, smaller then the day before.  I talk more on the phone then face to face.  There is no one to touch anymore.  I know this was not how it was meant to be.  In this part I was supposed to be smiling, that was always the plan. I should be at the ballgame, not watching it.  I should be across the table, not eating alone. I should be living, not writing.

I awoke to a lightening storm. Thunder rolling in the sky, rain waiting its turn. She was there, left over from a dream, in the new blue dress we bought last week.  Below is one of her favorite songs by one of my favorite artists.  It was so rare that we liked the same music, this one and Tangled Up in Blue pretty much covered it.  Storms like this are meant to be shared, but last night I was alone, as it was meant it to be.

Sundown you better take care 

If I find you been creeping 'round my back stairs 

Sometimes I think it's a sin 

When I feel like I'm winning when I'm losing again

Inspiration

Trading is not an easy game. If it was, everyone would be doing it. It takes persistence, discipline and not being intimidated; not by a bad day, bad trade or bad break. Most of all, it takes being ready at any moment step up against all odds and show the market you have the heart to take it down.

Reason to Believe

I can tell from the statcounter that not a lot of folks are hitting these very personal reflections of my life.  That's ok with me, I'm writing these mostly for myself so that one day I can look back and remember. I would be surprised if any my past loves stop by and read these.  Even if they did, they would never be sure if it was written about them, or someone else I have been with along the way. The common thread through it all is my search for love and how lost I have become. There certainly have been enough, one lasting decades, some lasting only a few months, some easily romantic, some comfortable and affectionate. Then there was this last one;  intimate, volatile and oh so close to being the one.

These songs that accompany my musings always have something to do with what I am going through at the time, or one particular love I just lost along the way.  This last one though, still fresh in its downfall, is described in Tim Hardin's words, written just for her. An expression of evolution, of demise, of two hearts beating as one, finding a way to say goodbye.

Labor Day's, Past and Present

In 2011, it seems to be all about sports.  Pennant races, college football (Lets's Go Blue!), pro football and now some abomination called fantasy football.

I remember when Labor Day was a holiday, celebrated without shopping or watching sports on TV. Memories of a schoolboy in Detroit, when school always began on the Wednesday after Labor Day.  The final weekend of summer vacation, overshadowed by the realization of the loss of summer's freedoms, the most precious of which was sleeping-in.  But come Wednesday, the excitement of a new grade, new classes, new teachers and the reunion with our non-summer friends quickly overcame the mourning.  Everything was fresh and our prospects unlimited.  New beginnings, new faces, new crushes and the new dreams. We were as invincible as the days and weeks that followed. Or at least we thought so.

Then came kids.  In the South, where I spent all of those parenting days, school started in mid-to-late August, so Labor Day rained in as a lost Monday. Kids were home and bored. Parents were called upon once again to pick up the slack. Somehow it was easier, knowing that it was only one more day and in a way, a special one to us as the last family day of summer. Now, so many years later, I miss those Labor Days. It just took awhile to notice they weren't kids anymore.

Labor day at the beach, on Kiawah, was the most special Labor Day of all. Everything changed starting with the mass exodus of the tourists. The sun was a little less hot and evenings were filled again with quiet, surrounded by a magical sweet bouquet of low country charm. With just us full time residents back at the helm, the sense of community came back with greetings and smiles. The names and faces at the general store, pumping gasoline and buying overpriced milk, bread and the 50% off t-shirts, came back with comfortable familiarity. We had our beloved island back. It was Labor Day that deserved and got our enduring appreciation for what a special Monday in September it was....and will forever be.


A

No Regrets

They don't write songs like this anymore.  Sentiments come and go, captured in the rhymes and melodies of strangers living in the deep corners of our lives.  Special words, special times, special years and special loves.

Laying here awake

Laying here awake, I do nothing but think about you. 

I wonder if you have found some peace without me. 

I think of everything we did, said and felt across our time together. 

Yes, I am still your friend.  I am all that we ever were or meant to each other. 

I am your lover and everlasting companion. 

Those anchors do not go away or disappear, they are forged into our hearts, into our souls.  The words said in anger, in hurt, are just pain without meaning, without truth. 

Do not leave my life thinking I was anything less then the man you once loved.

Leave that memory alone and I will be at peace.

I am alone with my thoughts, where I need to be right now.

Laying here awake, I do nothing but think about you.

Epilogue

Forever Young

As these past few blogs have described, I spent this special week with my daughters. What greater gift then the enduring, eternal love between parent and child? Words can't say enough, unless you're Dylan.

May God bless and keep you always
May your wishes all come true
May you always do for others
And let others do for you
May you build a ladder to the stars
And climb on every rung
May you stay forever young

On to Columbia

Wednesday night in Columbia, home of the University of South Carolina. My baby daughter is a senior now, with a boyfriend and we three shared sushi and sake tonight. Another man assuming my role as caretaker and confidant? Same as it ever was. My thoughts drift back to the desert, where I wonder what and/or who is left to fly back to? It's an all of nothing world back there, same as it ever was. 24 hours and I'm back in Charleston, counting the seconds before the flight takes me away from the most precious treasures of my life. Same as it ever was.

Shem Creek

My daughter turned 23 this week. We celebrated with hamburgers at Folly Beach. The next night her friends took her out to Red's at Shem Creek. We ate Oyster Po-Boys and everyone got to meet Sarah's Dad. But the most memorable, touching moment came when one of the girls quieted everyone down and said a prayer. Among other things, she thanked God for bringing Sarah into our lives. Those were warm and glowing words. I felt part of some grand scheme and that my place in this world was exactly right. That all I had done was done under guidance and for a purpose. We get glimpses of that purpose throughout our lives, but sometimes it passes by so softly that we miss it, a subtle clue that leads us to closure, to understanding, to that elusive peace with ourselves. But last night, at Shem Creek, I got it.

Low country sunset

I've never forgotten how beautiful a low country sunset can be. (One reason might be that this one is my background screen shot on my iPhone.) There isn't a day that goes by that I am not reminded of the pristine beauty that graces this quiet, hidden place, just waiting to be savored, then nurtured in a memory. Long after these eyes go dark, the infinite beauty of the marshes, shores, the 10,000 year old maritime forest, the egrets and the herons and the majesty of a pounding, exquisite thunderstorm pushing out over the sea and the short time I was a part of its grand scheme, will remain.

Tucked somewhere inside its memory will be the very special time I was here, along with the love shared between us. This will always be my home.

On the road

Charleston, S.C.

I'm going back to Charleston next week.  I'll find my two daughters, now women in their own right along with my ex-wife and Clare, the Bichon that was as much apart of our family as any one of us. We have gone through the past few years apart, only because one day back then I went out to find something and never came home. Everything changed that day.  The journey that followed was not just my journey, it was a new path for all of us, a path alone, whether any one of us were looking for it or not. For a week or so, I'm coming home.

I've written about Kiawah before. It's where the four of us, the five of us, went through ten perfect years, through the year 2000 centennial, with all of its unknowns, the mysteries of what was to follow.  Not one of us knew what was coming for our family. Four years later the rains came.

It was about that time, the turn of the century, that a local South Carolina band provided the sound track for those years.  That's where I am going next week.  Into the depths of a of another time, another place, of this musical memory, never more appreciated as much as it is now. Who knows where the time goes? Who knows how to get it back?

Song of a Lifetime

I've posted a lot of songs over the seven years of this blog.  When I heard this one, I knew it was without a doubt, the song of a lifetime.  If you think you have heard it before, you haven't. Please allow yourself to listen to the entire song, full screen, you will be well rewarded, especially toward the end.

A

Kiawah

That barrier island that was my life a few years back.  I knew at the time it would never get any better.  It hasn't been that easy for a long, long while.  This song came on my Pandora last night, as I lay trying to sleep. Instead of sleeping, I was immersed in the stories that brought me to this song.  You say Morocco.  I say Kiawah.

Gone

She turned the corner and he was gone.  As quickly, inexplicably, as he entered her life, he was gone. Sudden clash of thunder, gone. The instability, emotion, the anger, the passion, the love, the love, the love. Gone.

He turned the corner and she was gone. The reason for the pain falling on those left behind, gone. Times that will never be recovered, gone. Triumphs of those who loved him, who missed him, melted in the distance.  He had found the one, the life that once flashed by him in a dream.  There were moments, now gone.

They turned a corner and they were gone.  Left behind an empty embrace that once held two years. Memories shared, two paths that became one, then broken apart, now gone.  Rain falls gently on their world.

A

The world was on fire

No one could save me but you

Strange what desire will make foolish lovers do

I never dreamed that I'd love somebody like you

I never dreamed that I'd lose somebody like you

The Rise and Fall of CNBC

In days past I used to wake up and immediately tune to CNBC, to Mark Haines and Erin Burnett, who between them transformed the craft of financial banter with brilliant wit and subtle charm. Now Haines is gone, a much too young and vibrant man's death that touched every viewer deeper then they knew.  Burnett is playing musical chairs with the monkey-like program directors at CNN.  They will destroy her.

Here we sit, viewers who beg for intelligent observational reporting.  Instead, the mediocre, the bad and the ugly:  The forever shifting morning crew at CNBC.  Someone shoot me. Their inside smirks and unfunny jokes, their pretend journalism, their suits and ties, their hair, their insipid interviews with lying politicians, none of it even rises to the level of a joke. Cramer nauseates me. The real pillars of CNBC's morning are now dead and gone. For me, Muzak and a rolling ticker at the bottom of the screen would be just fine, an improvement, a stunning upgrade of their morning programming.

So who am I to be writing a review of a business I know so little about?  Just an average viewer who was spoiled by the inquisitive genius of Haines and the girl-next-door unpretentious candor of Burnett.

Don't it always seem to go
That you don't know what you've got
Till its gone.


A

The Days Ahead

There are some changes coming, lets preview the days ahead so no one gets blindsided.

First, a spanking new web site for AllanTrends.com.  I got a sneak preview yesterday and it is a professional job from start to finish.  I like it much better then the old one,  you will too.

Second, I will be making my first public appearance, here in Scottsdale, to promote trend following as the way to make money in stocks.  I prepared a 40 minute presentation in Keynote, so it will be an audio-visual experience. The production manager says I need to be outfitted upscale, so I will wearing a suit that cost about 1/2 as much as my first car, a 1971 Chevrolet Vega.  It had the first (and last) aluminum engine block from General Motors and after a year, it burned about a quart of oil every 100 miles.  I hope the new suit does a little better.

Third, I haven't decided what the third change is going to be.  But something/someone is missing these days. Maybe it was not so subtly set out in my previous blog. Or maybe its that I find myself back to all work and little play, where dreams diminish and memories fill in the holes.  Yet the search goes on for that destined, or is it mythical, bright shining star; that light that lays hidden somewhere in the caverns of life.

This morning I went to Starbucks for a Verona and a shot (expresso).  They know me by name there, another recent change that can only be attributed to waking up here, instead of there.  And only one coffee, not two.  Everywhere things have changed, everywhere a reminder that from moment to moment, life needs to be appreciated for what it is, not what it should be, or what we want it to be. Life changes, for better or for worse.

I used to get 2,000 hits a day on this blog. Since going to AllanTrends, that number has dropped in half. Maybe its my bad, for going for the money. I don't know how many of you are new here,  I suspect most of you have been with me for all these years.  You know me better then anyone.  You know that my passion in life is not the stock market, it's passion itself;  deep romantic attachment, a shared intimacy of life.  With it, I cannot be defeated. Without it, I wander in the desert, no, not the literal desert that is this valley in Arizona, but the desert of lost contentment.

We find ourselves there once again, you and I.  You continue to be my best friend. The only one with who I share these thoughts and feelings.  That is a good thing.  Or maybe  that is a bad thing.  I don't know, nor care anymore.  

Full screen, please.

The Law of TANSTAAFL

Usually its Sunday nights when I end up feeling sorry for myself. Today its Friday.   Things getting better, or worse?  Let's see, is it about the aging thing, or being so far away from my kids, or the guilt associated with the journey I have been on for the past seven years, the lack of a real home, the Red Wings; or is it a girl, again?  Anyone care to guess?


It's the old story of boy meets girl.  Boy falls in love with girl.  Boy loses girl, because, because, because. Boy moves on.  Boy feels sorry for himself.  Time passes. Boy meets girl....... 


Notice, there is no, "boy learns not to touch a hot stove."  


But,  this last one.  She was one red hot burner.  The scars will last because I kept putting my hand on the stove, over and over again.  Just shy of two years worth of burns.  Ouch.


Life isn't about learning.  It's about loving.  And the pain?  It's the law of TANSTAAFL:

There ain't no such thing as a free lunch.

See her how she flies
Golden sails across the sky
Close enough to touch
But careful if you try....

For her

A Moment In Time

Memories.  I reflect back today on July 4th weekends gone by.  Most of them happened on Kiawah.  That's my pristine barrier island off the coast of Charleston, South Carolina.  I write about Kiawah a lot on these pages, ten years that remain all of the best of me.  There were my daughters growing up.  You know them as they frequently appear in my essays here. But there were also the hypnotic ocean waves across tranquil sunsets, a 10,000 year old maritime forest, a bicycle and me winding through every nook and cranny of that island and when from the ages of 44 to 54 I lived my only years that ever counted.

How does one come to such a sweeping, dramatic and sad realization?  It wasn't me, it was then.  It reaches forward in time to find me, especially on weekends like this.  I want to hide in those years and never come out.  I think people like that get put away now.  But if I could, I would, even if that was the price to pay.  That's how precious a decade it was, of love, joy, sweet contemplation, carefree, invincible........and my own.

The army of vacationers would begin their march to the sea around sunset.  As the hour or so before it became dark enough for the first flare of fireworks, those on Kiawah came together as a single community of star gazers, in ever increasing anticipation of that first flare of color and boom, when eyes lifted to the dark skies over the Atlantic in a shared 40 minutes of splendor.  At the end, we picked up our chairs and blankets and wandered back home. The murmur that preceded the show, returned cloaked in quiet satisfaction that this day was special and would stay in our hearts forever.

And it has.  It never once occurred to me back in those days that the memory would ever become so distant.  That my years ahead would be filled with such change, turmoil and sadness.  That my kids would ever grow up.  That I would ever grow this old.  If the magic of the universe could embrace just one moment of our lives and freeze it in time perpetuity, never to go forward, never to walk the path that lay ahead, it would be those July 4th walks home on Kiawah.  Where everything was as it should be, when everything would stay as it should be, where these were not memories at all, that they would be wiped from our past and instead, just be. Where it all stood still for just one moment.  And where I could stay in that one moment and never know another day.

A

Leonidas, Southern Greece

Leonidas, my friend:


How are things going in your neck of the woods?


A

Greece was the first area in Europe where advanced early civilizations emerged, beginning with the Cycladic civilization of the Aegean Sea, the Minoan civilization in Crete and then the Mycenaean civilization on the mainland. Later, city-states emerged across the Greek peninsula and spread to the shores of the Black Sea, South Italy and Asia Minor, reaching great levels of prosperity that resulted in an unprecedented cultural boom, that of classical Greece, expressed in architecture, drama, science and philosophy, and nurtured in Athens under a democratic environment.

 

Allan on the Air

I will be on the radio today, Saturday June 25th on "A Call to Rights" between noon-2:00pm PDT  (probably the second hour).

------------------------------------------------------------

Two AllanTrends media events are planned for the coming month.  First, I will be interviewed by Steve Kates, a local radio show personality, on Saturday, June 25th between noon and 2:00pm (probably the second hour) on KFNX (AM-1100).   You can listen live in Phoenix or on the Internet at the above KFNX link;

On Saturday, July 23rd at 10:00 am, I will be giving a live presentation of the AllanTrends methodology, including a detailed look under the hood of Trend Following and why it is so effective in generating positive, profitable growth in investment accounts.  The event will be covered by a local TV production company and parts of it will  be available on the new, expanded web site (coming soon). The presentation will last about 60-90 minutes and will beheld at 10:00am in Scottsdale, across from the Scottsdale Post Office at 8130 N Via De Negocio (Off of 101 at Via de Ventura Exit.)

8130 N Via Negocio #100 Scottsdale, AZ 85258

Want to bet?

If all hell breaks loose in the world financial markets this summer, who are you going to turn to?  Ghostbusters?  Cramer?  Kramer? Abby Joseph Cohen?

This is where I am looking for protection:

My VXX Daily Trend Model is currently on a BUY SIGNAL which is underwater for the moment. Everyone says this is a "flawed' instrument and cannot be trusted.  That's the kind of consensus that I like to bet against.  (Although I say Cramer is a flawed instrument and cannot be trusted.......but that's just me, his ratings suggest a lot of people watch and listen to him.)

Having VXX or longer term VXX calls in your portfolio may or may not pay off this summer, but if they do pay off, it could be in a huge way.  Life of contract high (split adjusted) for VXX was $480 in February of 2009.  "They" say it can't happen again.

Oh, yea......want to bet?

A

MId-week Update

SIlver, Trends & Trading

Spending Sunday afternoon flipping through some charts, I ran across this AGQ, a Double Silver Leveraged ETF.  What I am finding out at AllanTrends is that there are some stocks and ETF's that trend so well, it is almost too good to be true. See for yourself:

Another Father's Day

How many are there left?   I can't remember the last one I spent with my father.  Some day, my daughters won't remember the last one they spent with me. A card, a phone call, an "I love you," seems so routine, but in the grand scheme of life and death, they are my treasure.

There is so much I would change if I could go back in time, back when I was all they knew and every step they took into the their new world was followed closely by the steps of their Dad.  I can hear them calling up the stairs, I can see them riding their bikes up the driveway, I can still feel their tears, their fears, their joys, their wins and their losses up that ladder of growth and discovery.  I was there.

Now it has come to distances and those cards, phone calls and, "I love you, Dad."  We take what we can get in this world.  I suppose there are some kids and Dads that don't or can't even get that.

Still, that one frozen moment in time, that one Fathers Day when we were living at the beach in South Carolina and the four of us, our family, took Dad out for dinner and bought him a blue T-shirt with a bike on the front; it was the best day of my life.

D

A Rare Opportunity

This is the closing paragraph from Robert Precther's latest Elliott Wave Theorist, just out last night:

A Rare Opportunity

These are exciting times. We seem to be entering our second big payoff period. The decline of 2007-2009 was very profitable for well positioned bears, but the 2011-2016 period should prove to be an even bigger boon. To get an opportunity like this is exceedingly fortunate. It happens to only one generation in ten.

Robert Prechter hasn't always been right, but he nailed the 2007-2009 decline and then turned around and nailed the 2009-2010 rally.  He turned bearish again in 2010, a little early, but says the market is now on track for a protracted decline of epic proportions. We don't have to believe, nor do we have to scoff at his prediction.  Our trend models will keep us on the right side of any protracted move in the market, whether it be up or down. If he is right, we are staring at a life-changing opportunity.

I have no doubt that within a year, maybe even within a few months, we will all look back and be very glad we were here.

DJIA Daily Trend Model & EW Analysis

Sometimes, life just sucks

If you embrace this concept, that sometimes life just sucks, it ironically helps you through the sucky part. Whether it be in business, money, relationships, the Red Wings, other drivers, Jim Cramer, the weather, Jim Cramer driving, the government, (did I say relationships?), children, siblings, ex-spouses, lawyers, oh, excuse me "attorneys" (I just sent $119 to the Georgia bar to be "inactive, retired, fed-up", or whatever they call their annual fee that I cower in fear of not paying for God knows what they might do)  relationships, banks, spam, oh the spam, insurance of all kinds, shoes, (yes, shoes, you have a problem with that?) relationships, one-hundred and five degrees in June and cutesy run-on sentences.  Yes, sometimes, life just sucks.

But we plow on, because sometimes, life doesn't suck.  Tequila, sex after tequila, the stock market, being held in the middle of the night, Italian food and the Red Wings.

There is a lot of stuff in-between, that doesn't exactly suck, but doesn't exactly not suck either. Woody Allen, iPhones, a sunset at the beach that we will never see again and one of those songs that so often grace these pages, poignant and full of memories of another time, another place, another life.

A

Zen and the Art of Trading Stocks

It is hard to use the word Chautauqua in a sentence.  OK, not so hard.  There was a famous book of the mid-1970's titled, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance from which I have been inspired to speak to the yin and yang of trading.  The concept is simple, that there are opposing forces always at work in the market.  These opposites only exist in relation to each other and it is their interaction that a greater whole forms and becomes its own dynamic system.

That is why a fellow like Jim Cramer is such an idiot. For an hour a day he does a slight of hand where he paces a pea inside a walnut shell and while distracting you with his clowns hat and a whistle, rearranges the shells and then has you pull out your wallet and pick the shell that houses the pea.  You are betting with the town jester for the right to be the town fool.

In other words, Cramer espouses buy a stock and hope it will go up.  Romantic, but silly.  You may as well hope for world peace, or diamonds on the soles of her shoes.

On the other side is what we espouse at AllanTrends and is best understood within the context of the yin and yang of the marketplace.  It is the recognition of force applied to an object that determines the outcome.  If a greater force pushes, the object goes one way.  If a greater force pulls, the object goes the other way.  Ah, but the wild card here, the key to market success, is to identify the greater force, the one that has the staying power to create a trend.  One solution: look at which way the object is moving, there is the greater force.

After decades of technical trading, from moving average crossovers, to Elliott Waves, to neural nets, to channels to pattern recognition to astronomy to astrology, I was finally ready to see and understand the holy grail of trading. No, it's not a subscription to my AllanTrends.  It is the concept of being one with the market.  This was the essence of my two-second trading system from back in 1998, where I held up a chart to a group of traders at a seminar and asked them, after looking at the chart for only 2 seconds, "Do you wish you already owned this stock?." If the answer is, "Yes," the stock is a Buy, if the answer is, "No," the stock is a Sell, if the answer is, "I need more time," or, "I can't decide," then go on to the next stock.

No one can trade like that, it is too trite, too corny, to simplistic, too much a game, not serious investing, not credible, not Cramer.

As for credibility, it is at once secured by clothing the grail in math:  The AllanTrends Algorithm. An equation when applied to a set of data derived from the immediate past measures the probable direction for the immediate future.  It is an application of rational thought, in lieu of Cramer's bells and whistles, that uncovers, or at least approaches the Zen-like truth of the marketplace, "Being in the moment." My two-second test, reduced to its most basic, rational, objective, self;  The holy grail of trading.

"You look at where you're going and where you are and it never makes sense, but then you look back at where you've been and a pattern seems to emerge. "

— Robert M. Pirsig (Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry Into Values)

A

NHL Playoffs and the DOW

'
Onto the NHL Playoffs.  Vancouver and Boston are in the midst of a tight series to see which team plays the Detroit Red Wings for the Stanley Cup.  One of the Bruin players, Nathan Horton was knocked out the playoffs by a pretty vicious late hit by Canuck Aaron Rome.  You can see the hit here.  Rome was suspended for the four games, essentially putting him out of the series.

A couple of Allan points:

(1) During the regular season, the hit may or may not have resulted in a suspension, worse ones during the season did not, or if so, the suspension would be one game, two at the most;

(2) My suggestion for years has been if any player commits an infraction that results in injury to another player so as to cause the injured player to miss any games, then the player causing the injury must also miss a like number of games.  Yes, that means  if an illegal hit ends the career of one player, it ends the career of both.

So it looks like I agree with the suspension of Rome?  No, I don't.  He received extra punishment because it was the Stanley Cup playoffs.  That's not in the rulebook.  That's not right.  Change the rule (a la my idea) or apply the existing ones.  Don't shape the punishment to the importance of the player, or to the importance of the game.

How about that DJIA chart?

A

Charts & Trends

AllanTrends

Weekend Update

I just now sent out my Weekend Update to subscribers.  Here is how it begins:

I banged the drum loudly a few months ago when I introduced the new DJIA trading algorithm, one of the best trading indicators that has come across my screen in decades. It’s first real time signal was a SELL on May 5th @ 12584  generating about a 400 point gain (so far) in less then a month,  for about a 3.2% win. The leveraged equivalent of being short the DJIA is DXD and as would be expected, it rose 6% during the same time period.  For option players, a 3% move in one month on the DJIA was easily a 100% move in puts.

In summary, our first DJIA trade has generated returns of +3%; +6%; +100%………

IF YOU ACTED ON THE SIGNAL

If you scroll through the attached Trend Tables you will see a bevy a similarly situated trades.  Successful directional signals for indices, commodities (hey, how about the Sell signal on SLV, a gain of 16% unleveraged in a month!) stocks and gold shares.  The signals are there, the algorithm is doing his/her/its job. We found something that works, but its you who has to trade it.

This week there is one new signal.........

......and this where the free preview must end, its only fair to those who are paying for the service.  You can become of them @ AllanTrends.