January 3, 2009 – Charlie Hooper’s

Well, Major Domo don’t like to be locked away. And it is such a small little room. And if you let him outside all he does is pee on the tires of all the nearyby cars.r. That’s what the Major does. If he were bigger he might chase after those same cars. But he is not. He has a lot of piss for one little dog, he does. He has marked my truck and the neighbor’s new car. I don’t think that he as gotten Brenda’s car as it is always gone when I let the Major out, but he has gotten the carport thoroughly scented. That’s where she always parks except if it is supposed to snow, then none of us comes down the hill and park behind the house.

And it’s five o’clock and the sun is going down again and it was unseasonably warm today. Hooper’s had the front door open and the crowd was divided between the Mizzou
and the Jayhawk games. I was watching the former but the sound was turned up on the later and when excitement peaked I looked up from my reading and nothing unusual seemed to be happening and I had to remind myself that that was the KU game behind me not the Tigers there in front of me where the action was.  It’s nice when it’s warm enough to block the front door open and the Major likes to scamper about and I don’t mind watching after him then. But there are packs of big neighborhood dogs about and it would not do leave him unattended.


What’s an old dog to do but to sleep? Today is dog day at Hooper’s too. I had my two and two pints of ale too. What’s an old dog to do but have his two pints a day?



Finding legs it ran away
Metaphorically abandoning me
Play it again Sam, over and over
It had million dollar legs Sam
It ran away with my spoon
It jumped over the moon, Sam
Yes, its my own narrative frame


The saddest features of anti-intellectualism is that it often reflects an actual suppression of intellectual activity rather than any lack of ability – Norman F Dixon

January 2, 2004 - Kansas City Mo - The Coffee Break

Brenda got a Yorkie with papers for $50 and thought this was such a great bargain as they usually sell for $300. But that is for the puppies what she got was a five year old male which was no longer useful for studding. And it is an affection little thing. Lets see how this works out. She couldn’t stand the little toy poodle that her father-in-law had left with her. Her husband said, “get a cat – its a lot less trouble and remember how you were always complaining about Dee Dee (that was the toy poodle).” “But I’ve never had a dog of my own.” They picked up the dog yesterday. Its hair was all matted and it has a growth on its neck. Dave, her husband, was sitting on the floor of the bathroom giving it a hair cut right after having given it a bath. What are you going to do with it when you go to work. I’ll leave it with Betty. Right now it is running about marking territory. He works at night. He drives a truck. Of course I will get attached to it, he said. But why is it that I never get what I want? She tried to keep it the little travel cage in which she had brought it home. Dave won't allow her to do that. Maybe we can make this bathroom its space when she is gone. I don't think Betty is going to appreciate having it pee all over her house. But Betty is eighty-eight and Betty would enjoy the company if not the responsibility.

Now to get tickets to Chicago. Let’s check the Amtrak schedule. I don’t like to fly. I like the leg room and the ability of to get up and roam and I don’t mind at all the travel time. The Chief and Megabus cost about the same but I like the scenery on the route through St Louis and I can save about 20% on that route. Now I need to check on the date. I’m thinking the tenth. Oh but its cold in Chicago – well colder than it is here – 26 compared to 46 here.

Drip drip from the eaves
As the sun begins to warm
The night’s ice and yesterday’s
Snow begin to lose their hold
And I don’t want to play in
The snow and it is so sad to grow old

Everyone is like the travelers who get to know a land and its people from a railway carriage – Nietzsche

December 31, 2008 - Broadway Cafe - Kansas City, MO

December 31, 2008 – Kansas City, Missouri - The Broadway Cafe in Westport

Kiss kiss – God you’re still here. I have been sending you text messages all morning.

The line is getting long again but unlike everywhere else the Broadway takes care of those who only want quick service (a filter coffee or tea). And that is so disturbing to those who want their fancy drinks (cappuccino or macchiato) because half the value of what you receive is the inconvenience you cause to others and the other half of the value is in the inconvenience you make for yourself. If the value proposition was in creature comfort everyone would be in the short line and then where would the rest of us be.

So politely stand in the longer line with your hands clasped in front as if you were taking an elevator ride to the top of the Mark. Don’t talk – look straight ahead. A great coffee shop is one with an eclectic clientele. The Broadway is a great coffee shop and oh yes there is the quality of its roast and the expertise of its barristas but they are only secondary. Fresh roasted coffee by the cup or by the pound.

If it were not for people watching you might as well get up and go. If it were not for the people watching what sense would there be to it at all. The short bus does not stop at Starbucks.

What are doing tonight? Going home and going to bed. All the armatures have had their reservations for six months – all you can drink for two fifty a couple (party favors and a bottle of champagne on ice in the middle of the table). Another value proposition to which I do not subscribe. How can you say that – such a stick in the mud. I can easily say that for I do that every night, just not this night. Tonight I celebrate by doing what you do every other night – remaining me of how the other 99% live.

Tall girls in wooden underwear
Young lads in electric spats
Old coots on bicycles two by two
That’s me in the lead

I wish to establish a journal in which the men of genius may fight their battles; upon some terms of equality, with those dunces, the men of talent – Edgar Allan Poe

It is in his nature
To have this power
Of hectoring

And knowing that he
Will get only groveling
In return

And he shall dispise them
For not fighting back
Yet he is intrigued

By their purchases
Of just one more day
At such an horendus cost

He is smug in his own
Self-assuance that he
Would never betry honor

But there comes a time
When we also put on
A suit and tie

December 30, 2008


Kansas City, Missouri - Coffee Break --- School is out (I am sitting here across the street from Rockhurst University and near then campus of the University of Missouri at Kansas City and everyone is gone home for the holidays) and Mark is coming up with ideas for new lines of business - a plasma center (I was thinking of large screen TVs and he was thinking of blood). He had earlier said that there wouldn't be enough business to pay the heating bills and just before Christmas the pipes froze and he only reopened yesterday. Already the economy has taken out my other coffee shop (The Oak Street Cafe) which closed its doors Saturday.
--



If I only knew, Mark had said. We would have stayed open just for you, he had said. How's that?, I asked. Said he had seen me at all the bars. Will several people had come up and said they saw me on TV - stuck out like a sore thumb. I had tried to avoid the camera at Hooper's but had evidently failed. Local news was doing an interview with Kelly the owner regarding the lack of a sponsor for the New Year's Eve free taxi services (just another of those post economic panic happenstances - coming faster and faster at you on the wrong side of the street).
--



And where else did you see me? I asked. At Kelly's (that would be in Westport). Haven't been there in ages, I said. Will, I saw you crossing the street in front of it. Oh, said I, I was headed to the cinema (MILK - that would have been Friday at about 12:30 - too early even for me to be in a bar). Yeah! he says. And I left it at that. I don't usually go to the movies but during the holidays there is nothing else to do for a single person but get drunk and with these seasonal blues (read SAD) I'm not about to do that and normally I only go over the line maybe once a year just to remind myself what's its like but I do that someplace safe.
--


Well two down and One to go and you that are single by lifestyle choice know what that is about.
--

With the windows all steamed-up
And streams of rain water running
Down the middle of the street
There’s no imperative to sit in front
Of the big expansive panes of plate glass
It is miserable where ever I sit
And spring is a long long way away


And with the temperature hovering in the sixties
It is only a reminder of far off possibilities
But I did enjoy the all night long winter thunderstorm
And the creeks rising to their springtime limits
But it makes it all that harder to accept the three hard months
Remaining until the green returns again
---
---
If I must suffer from one or the other, I would rather it should be from the paw of a lion than from the hoof of an ass – Joseph Addison

The Trial of Chicken Little

Junk bonds will soon be do, lots of landmines await
These defensive lines that keep getting overrun
It takes time to entrench and build defense in depth
Needed, a little financial fire prevention and some education
We expect bilateral ties to strengthen
Knock! Knock! It just an eight-hundred pound gorilla
Pounding its chest

Talks of a "new world order" are emerging
Fallout of the current economic meltdown
Financial firms face a "new world order"
Economic catastrophic conspiracy is rampant
Allied to the solutions of predator globalism.
While the mainstream outlets continue
To parade out the same old economic experts
But thier images have been tarnished
A twelve step program for financial disaster
With major geopolitical implications

Who is there to believe other than your instinct
Turn off the sound and watch their faces its
A better method for thin-slicing
Look for their vested interests
It will say more than they do

The pace of dimunition of the US position
Shall accelerate
The generic question is, is the world falling apart?
And now that they see it melting down, they're nervous
What would JP Morgan do?
Even locked doors may not help
Triggering market collapse can be a very profitable undertaking
Regulators serving the interests of speculators

Who are the architects of economic collapse
America is the most indebted nation on earth
We are dealing with an absurd spherical relationship
The orb of self-confidence, the mirror of fate
Who is the fairest of them all

Under tighter control, debtors are not choosers but beggers
Neo-liberal economic discourse is often cynical and contemptuous
Neo-conservative dialog is in disgrace
Neo-socialist agendas are in ascendancy
Neo-postmodernism is hanging out its shingle

Our gluttonous appetite for spending
Has kept the greenback flying high
Financial meltdown escalates a global crisis
Hoard whiskey and cigarettes
Gold will just make you conspicuous
And besides weight you down
The first to go are the cows
Watch for the number of goats and chicken
To escalate - backyard feedlots poliferate

In the bunker the the sides collapsed
And the top blew away.
That there is the luckiest man on Wall Street
Swartzkoff said as he pointed at the stockborker driving away
The conspirators are trying to uunravel
The complexities of the New World Order
And authority has no veracity
Conspiracy theories are rampant
Old habits hard to break – the pointing of a finger

There simply isn't enough firepower
The generals are fighting yesterday’s war
It necessary to be nimble in assessing changing conditions
There is no playbook for responding to turmoil
There are no reserves to throw into the battle
No weapons to target financial markets
No WMDs or even remotely targeted munitions
The Swiss Army Knife is our only metaphor

It was a hard-fought battle during the early part of the day
The bulls are in fighting form
The picadors have done their job well
And the man with the cape is a butcher
A beachhead has been established
The bulls are launching their second assault.

We must once again repel any afternoon counterattacks
Are the bears in retreat, analysts sound downright cocky
Look around at the waddling ducks they’ve paraded out
Bouncing higher after the recent carnage
But you need a floor to bounce off of from,
Everybody's trying to get under the same table
At the same time and there's not enough room.
Very rarely will an analyst abandon metaphors entirely.
When they do, it's a sure sign of desperation
.
Running back for cover in the war on banks
Black operations, secret plans
Members fortify defenses against temporary capital account outflows
Attempts to fortify credit markets fail
And in the bunker he shall
Try the cyanide pills on the dog first
And reserve a jerry can of gasoline
Pass the metaphors and keep shouting

QUOTE: A race which could do nothing small is as defective as a race that can do nothing great – Henry James

Government Cheese

Don’t use the word “recession.” Instead, stick with “shrinkage"
The economic statistics are becoming decidedly less positive,
As they adjust for an over statement
How many more land mines exist out there
No one knows or ventures to guess
Will there be a Nobel Award this time

Inflation caused by fiscal policy is another problem
That few seem to be mentioning
We will be seeing much more inflation caused by fiscal policy
Created in many countries around the globe
New inflationary problems will arise before employment begins to rise
The long term rally will begin long before economic growth returns
That is our best guess

This may be an occasion for governments to rein in
Out-of-control capitalism
There are opportunities for the left to explain
How the economic system works
An excuse for pursuing a neo-socialist agenda.
This will be my number one prioity
With the administration scrapping the original centerpiece
Of it’s rescue plan
And they are still calling it a weak economy
A recession is a contraction phase of the business cycle

Inflationary economic contraction - tightening in financial conditions
Data is deciedly on the soft side
Tighter credit, declines in stock prices is creating some headwinds
To boost the economy while also containing inflation.
This is something almost impossible

Having blown fiscal policy on tax cuts ill afforded
And a war that can’t be paid for
And historically war has helped the economy
Fiscal policy is now.a ‘no-go’
And with using monetary policy alone, it is impossible
Inflation and unemplyment were not supposed
To occur at the same time
GDP = P x Q. Therefore ΔGDP = ΔP x ΔQ

Evidence of a broad global recession continues to accumulate
The economies of the entire group
Are contracting and will shrink
Projections point to a protracted downturn
Weekly jobless claims are a volatile statistic
The safest course is probably to assume
That this reflects a genuine acceleration

There were other signs of global slowing
Forecasting for reduced global oil demand
The largest economies in recession
And the strengthening dollar will likely
Hurt overseas business
Chaos, everyone for the lifeboats
The captain has been seen wearing a dress

Weaker than expected demand in all geographies and market segments
Precipitated by fall-offs in tourism and bananas
Panic when it was rumored that the price of rice
Had doubled at Wal-Mart
The Euro dives amidst evidence of Q3 economic contraction
This may not have the typical ‘V’ shape and last longer
This is a shape indicative of glaciations
The game has changed
Global warming during a new ice age
Ugh!

Lots of buyout debt is coming due
Many private equity firms face a refinancing wave
At a very uncertain time
Nearly 30 percent of big leveraged buyouts defaulted
We are most assuredly in some kind of
Worldwide production plateau at the very least
But we can look at the peak in oil production
As a harbinger of things to come
Exacerbating this scenario may be the need
To increasingly adapt to climate change
Just as the amount of available energy
Per unit of time diminishes

We will reverse our historical trend
To grow in pseudo-measures
Or learn to tweak for more positive indications
Then how shall we perceive this contraction?
What will life be like in a permanent decline
The magic of technology is losing it luster
And they promised it wouldn’t happen again
We have learned our lessons they said
Can it be endemic?
Is this long awaited avian flu?

Is the underlying value of money, energy
Isn’t that what technology means
Thus it will take more units of money
To buy the same unit of work
Individuals will not be able to afford stuff
That they previously bought

But unlike previous business cycle downturns,
This one is caused by reduction in energy for doing work.
There is no recovery phase people will have less
Because there is less to have.
What’s next?

Are we in the grip of a profound
Geopolitical contradiction
The current economic crisis will surely accelerate
And continue the erosion
Biggest monthly drop ever in futures trading

Aspirational qualities
Are not simply about convenience
Over populated neighborhood outlets
Consumers are feeling the credit crunch
Americans dove 15 billion fewer miles
No growth in oil demand in ‘09
Planning to cut 1.5 million barrels of production

Economic contraction is here
Which comes first
Value-added attributes
The pocketbook
Or Government cheese
Will we be seeing a huge paradigm shift?


QUOTE: In 1993 a study even found that people were willing to pay more for airline travel insurance covering “terrorist acts” than for death from “all possible causes”. Logically, that makes no sense, but “terrorist acts” is a vivid phrase dripping with bad feelings, while “all possible causes” is bland and empty – Daniel Gardner

Come Duck Day

Shall it be a lame duck session
Drive one’s ducks to a poor puddle
Under the watch of the lame duck president
Any chances the ducks, come what may
And is it thus immunity time
Is there no box of fluffy ducks
For unspecified crimes
Who’s the biggest duck in this puddle

This the lamest of lame-duck sessions
Pull up your blue duck trousers
And bowl for a duck
Billy Ducks is roaming about
There is a lot of battle fatigue
Members of Congress are human beings
Not just broken down politicians
Butts on you Ducks!

Its a person or thing that
Who or which can’t catch a duck asleep
Unable to roll even a couple of ducks
Especially one that was previously proficient.
But now unable to crack his duck

Change-Alley bankrupts
Waddle out lame ducks
All in a double duck fit
The bulls had a balance to pay
To the bears and only one lame duck
Waddled out of the alley
And chance the ducks
If he makes one run he has
Broken his duck's egg

Lame-duck office holders
Never as meek as little duck butts
Against the wishes of their constituents.
Hence the Lame Duck Amendment,.
A time to reflect upon duck butter
There is still ample time to duck shovel
Lame duckers doing the unspeakable
A lame duck impeachment
Damn these duck noires

Many lame duck presidents travel abroad
Duck plucker presidents can simply be
Downright nasty it is said that
The Clinton whitehouse removed
All of the ‘W’s from the computers
A lame duck’s pardons can be particullary
Scandalous – a duck shoot
Truman just got on the train
And went home
Look out for a lame duch surge

QUOTE: Perhaps this is the difference between a town and a city; a town ends. You can walk down one street or another to a place where the houses stop, duck between the second and third strand of barbed-wire fence and find yourself on the open prairie – Dale Peck