uncle keith's copperhead blues

Breaking news! And the reporting staff here at Song and a Story is on the, er.... story!

Apparently, Uncle Keith got into a bit of a rhubarb with a copperhead snake while hiking in the Great Smoky Mountain National Park on Friday. Details were sketchy but we were able to ascertain that there was some question of right of way and local easement rights in the park domain that ended in what some local residents are now calling the Pickle in the Park.

Eyewitness accounts have led to this artist rendition by great niece Alex Ava:

As you can see, there was some question as to who the instigator was. One local snake commented that, "Uncle Keith was the aggressor! He was the one that commenced to the initial biting attack!"

A Park Ranger, commenting anonymously, stated that "It was a match of wits. Sadly, Uncle Keith had none."

At any rate, this was the result of the Pickle in the Park:

As to the current whereabouts of the copperhead, our local reporter Alex Ava was able to verify that the snake had absconded to the western side of Chicago where he was seen yesterday at a street festival on the west side drinking a Coors Light: 

The remarkable part of this incredible story is that hard core troubadour Steve Earle foresaw the events that led to the Pickle in the Park back in 1988 and wrote a song about it which he then performed on the Letterman show:

 
 

For those of you planning on visiting the Smokies this year, perhaps some precaution is in order. You don't want your own Park Pickle. Uncle Keith was lucky. It could have been worse. Snakebites are no joke.

birth school TRADE death

They closed the trading pits for good in Chicago yesterday. A way of life brushed aside in the name of Efficiency and Technology.

This is hardly the only industry to be overturned by automation. It had to happen but a part of me remains redolent for the drama and trauma of dearly departed days gone past.

I made my living in those pits from 1987-2002, book ended by the crashes of stocks in '87 and planes of 9/11. 

It was not a normal life. Part Wall St. and part Vegas, baby, everyday promised an adventure washed in a kaleidoscope of raucous energy, crazed and bleeding colors, desire and greed, executed by garishly attired adventurers and buffoons. 

 
 

This picture is of the Swiss Franc pit circa 1992. The Swiss pit is where I spent most of my trading career, and when I say spent, I mean I basically lived there moment after moment without break from 7am to 2pm everyday: screaming, fighting, laughing, sorrowing, occasionally yawning, making and losing ridiculous sums of money.

It was a great place to grow, grasp and grind. Learning not just about the markets, but about oneself. Forced to confront inner demons while surfing gigantic waves of euphoria and despair, I can't help but feel that I know myself in ways that others won't ever internally encounter.

You know what else you won't encounter with the trading pits shut down? The constant whiff and waft of felonious farts perpetrated by unknown assassins in proximity to your being. Nothing like losing absurd amounts of money on a trade while simultaneously absorbing the drift of some silent assailant's undigested food. 

Happened all the time leaving me grateful for one thing in a pitless world: computers don't fart.

To pair up a song with a story of the frenzied ferocity of the trading field, you need a mantra with intensity and furor. Grinding guitars, screeching turbulence and more than a little touch of testosterone is required. Enter the Godfathers by way of London.

Around the time of my ascent into the world of high finance and low dough, the Godfathers released Birth, School, Work, Death. One of my most memorable musical moments was watching them perform this song in the early 1990s at the Cabaret Metro in Chicago. 

From the opening chords below a hazy cloud of cigarette smoke and above a rowdy crowd ready to pounce, the Godfathers ripped into an explosion of primal release. It was not unlike the trading pit. A few hundred spectators bouncing up and down as if we were on a collective pogo stick. Crazy fun.

Discharge your anxiety. Bob your head. And give your earls a swirl:

 
 

greece is the word that you heard, strangers

Greece is the word is the word that you heard when you heard the word Depression.

The country that first discovered advanced mathematics over 2500 years ago has a math problem. A big one at the intersection of math and money. I'm not sure the Pythagorean theorem is gonna solve this baby.

We started hearing about this Greece problem in 2009, shortly after our own financial crisis. Most of us yawned and said whatever. Not my problem. It's a Europe thing. I gotta fry my own fish. Do I still have a job?

Steps were taken to attempt to solve the problem through bailouts that were pretty much underwritten by the Germans via the European Central Bank. But the basic math problem of too much money being spent and not enough taken in to pay for those expenditures has never been solved. The issue has reappeared time after time after time over the past five years with the politicians doing what they do best--kicking the can, following the can down the road and kicking it again down Perpetuity Street.

Okay, Greece has spent money that they do not have--pretty much like every other country on the face of the earth. We do that here in the U.S.--why is it a crisis over there and not here?

One, it will be a crisis over here eventually. It just hasn't become one yet because we own the world's reserve currency--the dollar--and that allows the U.S. to get away with financial murder for reasons that are beyond the scope of Song and a Story. 

Two, it's Greece. I'm reluctant to generalize about any group of people......so I'll let Michael Lewis and Vanity Fair do it for me.

If you want to experience the curious sensation of being dumbfounded, yet laughing and depressed at the same time, please read the Lewis story. Yeah, it was written in 2010 but like all Greek tragedies, it's timeless. 

Now that you're suitably dispirited, I hope to provide some emotional equilibrium with a funky little group from Brooklyn. 

Lucius is a five piece outfit that formed in 2005. They've got a fashion flair to go with their irresistible pop funk hooks and the mainstream media are taking notice. But don't hold it against them that they're the current fave of NY Times economic columnist Paul Krugman. I guess there's one thing Krugman and I can agree on: Lucius is awesome.

This is a cover of the 1970 Kinks tune, Strangers. Seamlessly stripped down to its essential elements, if you appreciate great harmony, this is heaven: