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.
Monday, July 18, 2011
Thursday, July 14, 2011
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
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
Monday, July 11, 2011
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
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
Sunday, July 10, 2011
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.
Friday, July 08, 2011
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:
See her how she flies
Golden sails across the sky
Close enough to touch
But careful if you try....
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....
Wednesday, July 06, 2011
Monday, July 04, 2011
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
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
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