Rule 48

...Or Catch-22 as I come to call it. Click the pic and see Catch-22 explained. If you don't get it, look at the buttons below. 

Rule 48

I've spoken about how I watch the markets like regular people watch sports. It's an addiction especially when the action is hotter than hell like it was the past few days. This is real drama involving billions by the minute and not whether someone can throw a curve.

On Monday's open, I had my stock screen on and 30 seconds later all data I was receiving went blank. I laughed. “Hmm, that figures.” I thought. It didn't come back up until a half an hour later and it was flying like a raging Chinese dragon. That's the scoreboard I was watching and it was all over the place.

People couldn't sell fast enough and when they did, their orders were so back-ordered that it took longer to execute them. Each second delayed is a loss in profit.

The NYSE Gods knew this was going to happen so they invoked Rule 48. On calm days, all orders have to be approved by a floor manager so there's an orderly process of buying and selling. Everyone knows what the price is of an actual stock. Rule 48 retracts this. In short:

“When the market is turbulent, setting approved prices before the market opens would slow the entire show down and cause even more chaos — which is the last thing needed right now. But if they don't have to approve the price, then the market won't be delayed. Kristina Peterson of the Dow Jones explains that market makers "will not have to disseminate price indications before the bell.”

“Don't disseminate prices before the bell.” Which means you have NO idea what the price of a stock is, even if your screen is saying it's worth XX amount. The real price isn't known.

I've heard many loudmouths bray about how they “made a killing on the market today.” What you'll never hear is someone proudly boasting how they lost $50,000 in less than 60 seconds on the very same market. No one boasts of their losses. Though I came across a blog in which the guy lamented his butt hurt this past Monday due to the way the market operates on days like that.

Most traders use a “stop-loss” order on any stock they buy. It's an automatic insurance policy that stays in effect for as long as you want it. Say you buy stock for $20.00 a share and you then can set a lower price, the price you aren't willing to go past should the market puke and automatically sell it. You don't have to be there to execute it.

You get out with some of your skin instead of staying in and watching your stock drop to $10 a share, wiping out half of your investment should you panic then and sell it.

The problem with stop-loss orders is that when activated, it becomes a market order. Market orders force you to bend over and take it. Market orders are executed at the “best” possible price. This means ANY price. If the market is having seizures, the price where the market order is eventually executed can be much lower than you think. No joke.

If your smart, you use a limit order to buy or sell. You will ONLY buy a stock if it hits $20. No higher or lower. If your still smart, you sell it using another limit order which says you'll sell the stock at $15.00 and that's it

Stop-loss orders, when activated, like is said, become market orders. High frequency traders just LOVE market orders. They can manipulate them down and down before your order is actually filled. Final tally? You lose money. Add to that if a market is volatile like it was Monday, the bid/ask spread is wide as shit and fluctuating like hell. You don't really know where your stock will sell as the quote is all over the fucking place. You might think you set a stop loss at $15 only to find out it was executed at $12. It's legal. Enjoy sucking on your loss!

There are over 1,000 NYSE “rules” that are supposedly designed to stabilize markets. The problem is that they can be arbitrary as shit and easily abused. The ones who set the rules are the rich. Get the drift? They can invoke or revoke any rule at any time. Those in the know play with them like kid's toys.

I came away from watching Monday's action realizing they can do any goddamn thing they want if the shit hits the fan.

Here's another piece of info you may not know. Your deposits at the bank are insured via FDIC. FDIC backs up your saving with the “full faith and credit of the United States” to the tune of $250,000 per account. Sounds nice? It is and generally it has been upheld and if a bank goes tits up you can get your money back fairly quick.

Want to know what happens to FDIC if there is a real, Mother of God collapse in banks? By law, they can take 99 years to pay you back. It's on the books.

Like the old Italian woman said, “Catch-a 22.”  

Flaming Hot Envy

The Italians have a better word, and better artwork to describe envy, they call it invidia.. Literally it means to “watch too closely” (at what others have). Am I so perfect as to never feel it? No f'ing way! It's one of the Seven Deadly Sins and I've committed this regularly. 

There she is. Depicted as a sick, ragged women with the snake of bitterness, devouring her own heart with a demon floating around her head to egg her on. Gotta love Medieval artwork.

The most heart wrenching envy I have felt occurred in a bar (Yessss...i know...many of my stories occur near or in bars) that was on Mineral Spring back in the late 80's. It was called Rolls Touring and it was a tiny place, barely enough room for 30 people. But because it was small it fostered an intimate behavior with the patrons. You had to get to know one another. The other nice perk to it was the fact they were one of the first places to have beers from all over the world. I managed to try, at least once, every beer from every country. Hint: Do NOT drink any beers from France, they are clueless on how to make it.

Anyways, I have to diverge and tell this little story first so you'll understand my own invidia.

We all have enemies, or people we can't stand. For most of you, that's other family members! For me, it was Keith Barnett, a nice Anlgo, white as mayonnaise name, ain't it? He and I did NOT get along. For some reason, and I can't discover the first time we started carping on one another, we became incredible competitors. Ah, these things get their start and then snowball down the hill. We competed over grades, schoolyard games, cliques and probably over belly button lint. The problem was this, this son of a bitch would outdo me by one inch, one more point, one more goal, and by one more thread of dust in his belly button. There were occasions I bested him but the cumulative score was always, “a dollar short.” It was an organic competition. We never set out to consciously do it, it was so ingrained in the both of us that we automatically, without thinking, contend with one another.

He was full of it too. He would waste no time in mentioning where he lived (CountrySide). What his Dad did for a living (Pediatrician) and the fact his shoes were better than mine. The kid would blow his own horn as loud as he could.

“I know your Dad works at a (add sneering contemptuous voice) bank. MY Dad has his own practice in Providence!”

We never fist-fought. I wonder why? I guess smashing his smug face with my fist would've always gotten me into trouble, even if he fell on it by accident and there were witnesses. Keith was the good boy, I was the bastard (according to some teachers).

We graduate high schools and we never see each other again. I later hear that he became an engineer and had a business in Cumberland. The gossip proved to be right for once. I saw his engineering firm on Mendon Road in Cumberland while driving by it once.

**

Flash forward to 1988 when I was hanging out at Rolls Touring. We had adopted this place during college and I wasn't about to give it up afterwards, even after we all graduated and were slowly drifting apart. Our college crew, most of us, would meet every Wednesday or Thursday to polish off the beers and have fun. This lasted a year or so but like all of life, we get pulled in different directions. It was fun while it lasted. I don't regret it all as I have great memories of it.

At that bar, they had hired a pretty girl I'll call Michelle. She was my age and I thought drop dead beautiful, even though she was just slightly pudgy. No matter, that face is what got me. I was hooked at the beginning. My extended stay at Rolls beyond when our crew had drifted apart was due to her.

She sort of looked like this chick, nearly so at least. How can you ignore that face? 

I worked on her for a few weeks. I knew enough not to go too hard as all female bartenders get hit on regularly so I toned it way down. I come to learn she was a professional photographer, fairly rich due to her parents and educated. All pluses! You know, she could've been covered in mud and had credit card debt of $34,000 and I'd still chase her. Those rare occasions when a face stuns you, you throw all logic out the window.

I also learn to my heart's dismay that she had an on again off again boyfriend. The relationship wasn't the best so I figured I may, may have a chance at this if it all went to hell. I bidded my time for moment to pounce.

One day, as I was sitting there talking to her, she mentions, with some joy that her boyfriend asked her to marry her. “OH FUCKIN' SHIT” I thought. Well, as the minutes went by, I realized that I lost nothing anyway, except some nice dreams that cost me zero. Still, it was a sting.

She goes on about how she and her boyfriend had finally realized they were meant to be together and all that. I nodded along to the ugly news.

She keeps talking of her boyfriend when I hear, “I drove up to Keith's place in Cumberland...”

In my head I come to a complete full stop. She said “Keith and Cumberland.”

I had to know...

I then said, “Keith?”

“Yeah, Keith, the guy who I'm gonna marry...he has a business in Cumberland...anyway, I drove there last night...”

“Barnett?” I ask.

“YES! You know him! Wow! Rhode Island really is tiny! How do you know him?” she asks.

I tried, I really tried as best as I could NOT to show any reaction on my face. I really tried. I think I managed to succeed as she didn't change her behavior to me in anyway.

I swear I could hear Joe Pesci's angry voice in my head when I thought this:

“You mutha fuckin' rat! YOU get to fuck her!!??” I swear too, that that thought was SO loud, Michelle and the other patrons there could've heard it. It was loud enough in my own brain!

Then the damn walls burst and all I could feel was envy, waves of it, a raging hot river of envy roaring down into the valleys of my heart, drowning all that was there. It really was overwhelming. How I managed to hide it all was a miracle I think. Ah, we all put faces on in public, don't' we. But keeping that mask on my face was a bit hard when I heard that news. The only other time I may have felt that envy was when I was 15 and new to the dating game. I had a young teen's puppy love when I saw my puppy being taken away. That misery lasted all of a day or so. The Barnett revelation felt worse because of our competition.

I then hoped to God and all the Angels in the Choir that she did NOT know my last name, lest she should let it slip to Keith that she knew me, knew I was hitting on her and all that. God...that would've been the final dagger in my back.

I finished my beer, paid the bill, said goodbye and got into my Renault piece o' shit and sat there for a few minutes, still hot with envy. I think it took a good week for it to dissipate. Had this been just another girl who said “No” to me, that would've been different. That kind of sting is short lasting....but to add a Barnett to the equation...Wow!

The last time I felt envy, for a few seconds at least, was last Saturday. I was on my way to work and saw my neighbor tanning himself on the lawn. That kind of envy was much easier to take.

Power

I read a book on Bill Graham, the guy behind the Fillmore and Winterland in San Francisco. One of the interesting anecdotes was his opinion on the tours by Led Zeppelin and ZZ Top. In short, he called both touring groups assholes. They were drunk with money and power and chose to use it like a club. If you've ever seen Zeppelin's “The Song Remains the Same” movie, you'll see Zeppelin's giant manager, Peter Grant, using his size and aggression to shake down some guy selling knock off Zeppelin tee shirts. After reading that, it hit me just who they were (not the band members specifically, but the touring teams and management).

They turned into bullies apparently. What I know of bullies is that they have been oppressed most of their lives by someone and the second, the second they attain any power, the jerks use it on others like it was used on them. Totally classless. The trick to power is to use it sparingly and lightly. These morons use it like an axe handle. That's the difference in character.

You had to have seen this and I hope you're not one of these people. If you've gone to any event, restaurant or bar and have had server wait on you, you've seen some person order the server around like a slave. They get off on it. When I hear people say they don't go out to eat for the food but the “service,” I begin to wonder about them. A waitress once told me the worst customers are three older women in their late 50's at a table. She couldn't explain it but that demographic seemed to enjoy shoving her around like a poor Cinderella.

Once I was witness to some guy bullying a waitress at a Chello's not far from here and I nearly turned around in the booth and call him an asshole loud enough to alert everyone in there. He can push her around due to her fear of losing her job, but not me! I didn't. Perhaps I should've. Sometimes I really do love f'ing with people.

I did hear this story though from a maitre'd who, let's say, worked in a Parisian restaurant in downtown Providence sometime in the past 10 years. He said on every Friday night, this well to do person would come with his wife to eat there. On every Tuesday, he'd show up with his much younger mistress.

Now this guy knew the maitre d wasn't stupid and decided to bribe him for his silence. Every time they entered the restaurant, the guy would shake hands with the maitre d and in that handshake, a bit of money would change hands. The total amount of that money? A one dollar bill. The maitre d said he just kept quiet and thought the guy a liar and a chintz to top it off. “I've seen enough married businessmen take their “girlfriends” here enough times, it's part of the life of running a restaurant.”

But..

One night, apparently the guy shows up with his young babe and stewed to the gills. The guy became more drunk and started to abuse the staff, ordering them around for this and that. He was sending food back to the kitchen, raising his voice and acting like a young child. The maitre d' just managed to keep the peace within the room by catering to this spoiled brat's behavior. Once the meal was over, the bill paid and the couple left, the maitre 'd told his waitstaff to “keep things in hand” as he needed to leave for a bit.

He left, but only to follow this guy's car through Providence to the entrance ramp by the mall. Once on the highway, he called 9-1-1, got ahold of the state police and reported a “very drunk driver” headed north on 95. He kept behind a few car lengths to track him and within minutes, two state cop cruisers pulled the guy over. The maitre d' then drove back to the restaurant.

“I don't think we'll be seeing him much more” he told the waitstaff.

I'm told the guy was nailed with a blood alcohol content that was stupendous. The other trick to this, the state couldn't prove just where he had gotten all that alcohol and couldn't nail the restaurant for serving him to begin with. I don't know if his wife found out about the little vixen that was with him.  

Pay Attention to Those Small, Quiet Thoughts in the Back of Your Head.

“Tune in, turn on and drop out.” This was Timothy Leary's advice to the Flower Children back then. He and many others figured that LSD, or any other psychotropic drug would enlighten you, expand your mind and rush us headlong into the Age of Aquarius where we'd all hug trees and each other. Well...

The problem with that was that most people didn't use it for personal growth at all. It was recreation.

Huston Smith, who I know you've never heard of, was the son of Christian Missionaries who tried to proselytize deep inside Communist China. Not an easy thing to do when Mao was purifying the nation of capitalists. Huston grew up in this and became evangelized (Methodist). He eventually became a professor of religious studies and worked along side Leary. They and Richard Alpert experimented with LSD as college professors at Berkely. Huston was there when they give hits of acid to sophomore college kids and studied what happened.

Huston convincingly argued that the LSD experiences and any religious epiphany were exactly the same. Become a Christian monk hidden deep in the mountains and you'll have personal insights into Jesus like St John of the Cross. Or you could drop acid and get them. The two experiences are indistinguishable. The new knowledge comes from literally nowhere and is stunning to know.

Huston went on to say though, most people don't do a damn thing with the epiphanies they receive when ripped on acid. The religious ascetics however, do. This was Huston's main criticism of it and a lot of the 60's trippy-dippy mindset.

I had my epiphany once.

It wasn't on acid. I know my subconscious too well to let that raging gorilla out and I have never dared to try it. No.Thank.You. My experience with lightning bolt realizations came from boring ol' marijuana. That and a Beatles's song.

Prior to 17, I smoked bales due to my older brother buying bales. I won't say when I started to smoke but if you read this blog enough, you'll guess the age. Too damn young. But hey, “Anything Goes” when it's the 70's.

It was recreational for me. It also became one hell of an escape. When high, and having a pair of headphones on my head, I could completely leave my “real” life and go wherever my imagination took me. Now why would I want to leave my real life behind at such a young age? Well...try being an adult at 14 to 40 something mother who decided she didn't want to be one anymore. In short, she was wrecked with depression and made useless by it. I had to step up and be Dad. So, sucking on a joint was a vacation.

One Saturday morning in the spring of 1981, I was crushing out a joint and waiting for that high to climax, then I would listen to music via headphone. That was good for about two hours of space trucking around the Milky Way. I could forget about going to CVS to pick up her script, cut checks for the bills, clean the house and the other usual Dad shit. The next two hours were mine and I'd deal with real life later in the afternoon.

I played the Beatles album Abbey Road and “I Want You (She's So Heavy) came on. I had never heard that song before. To describe it, it's a bit heavy metal/bluesy but there's a turn in the song where they play the same riff over and over again for about three minutes, with no change. If you're straight and listen to it, it's pretty hypnotic due to it's repetition. Now listen to it high as a kite, in a rocking chair rolling to the beat and you end up past Pluto.

But what happens at the end of the song is startling if you've never heard it before. It cuts off, dead. You are put in a trance and suddenly the musical mantra hits a brick wall. You hit that brick wall too.

So there I was, rocking away, drifting back and forth to that repetition when this song cuts off to dead silence. I opened my eyes in a bit of shock and sat there for a minute. Then this thought, which came from nowhere, appeared in my head.

“You can't keep this up. You can't keep escaping. College is coming one day, so is work...you can't hide in a cocoon so deeply several times a week. You have to grow up.”

I'm not kidding, I was startled by that thought. I didn't like it at all. I didn't like the idea that I had to wake up and keep my shit wired tight, like an adult. I had to be competent. I had to leave childhood behind for good. Ugh. Well, the message was so startling to me that I obeyed it. I grew up.

A few years later, in a Cognitive Processes class taught by Don Cousins at RIC, he was talking about epiphanies and how our minds can hatch them. “Where does this strange creativity come from?” He then turns to me and asks, “Did I have any epiphanies?” I said “Yes” and then refused to elaborate. It was too personal. My friend Ken who was in the class as well remarked to me after that he could tell I “shut right down” when asked to share my experience. I never told him either. There are times when you are hit with ideas and they're yours, and yours only.

It's been 34 years since I regularly smoked. I can't do it now. I have tried several times over those past years and all it does is invoke that experience I had then. It's powerful enough to have lasted with me all these years.

So, how's that? A drug induced epiphany told me I had to “cut the shit.” Without having known Huston Smith back then, I used this wake up call to good use all on my own. Lucky me.

What I want you to do now, is play the song (click the pic), close your eyes and let it take you along. I want you to feel that sudden stop that'll come unexpectedly. If you want to drop acid and chug some Bushmills, fine. Otherwise just let the song envelope you. If you hate psychedelic rock, move on.

Do You Think You're Better Than Me?!!! (Well...yes!)

If you criticize me about something I know to be false, or bust my nads about something in the same manner, I'll just blow it off. In fact, I'll exaggerate just what you accuse me of. It's false and I don't care.

“You're a sheep ravisher!”

“Yep! I sure am, I accost sheep all night long! I have my own herd!”

But, if you point out something in my character, criticize me for that and it's true? I'll get very quiet and can feel the smoke curling around my shirt collar. I know myself to know if I get that reaction, then it's true beyond a doubt.

One night chatting it up with Liz she says. “Ya know, you can a snob at times.”

Cue the collar smoke and dead silent reaction.

So, am I a snob? Yep. I have to admit I can be at times. I also know where I learned this too. File this reason under “still having issues about it still” at my age.

Up until I was 8 years old, my school career was dead average or nearly so. Any other endeavor I had was that as well. Passing, boring average. Then something happened when I turned 8 and I started to rocket upwards in my school grades, wonderfully so.

Why 8? Easy. Most kids go through the “5 to 7” shift where they begin to understand and use reason. It's also why Canon Law of the Catholic church sets your first Communion after you have passed 7 years of age, never before. The following is from Jean Piaget, top child psychologist that ever was so far.

“The transition from preoperational to the more advanced concrete operational thought. Many contemporary researchers see a major transition around 5 to 7 years of age, called the 5 to 7 year shift, with refinements of cognitive skills that are present in preschoolers continuing into middle childhood. Here are some coggnitive changes from early to middle childhood:

1.Capacity for logical, systematic thinking using multiple pieces of information, due in part a marked decline in centration.

2.Ability to perceive underlying reality despite superficial appearance (the appearance-reality problem).

3.Domain-specific knowledge or expertise.

4.Information-processing capacity and control over attention and memory.

5.Ability to think effectively about own knowledge and processes of thought, metacognition.

•Cognitive limitations that remain include:

1.School age children still lack the broad base of knowledge that adults possess.

2.They sometimes have trouble using a skill they possess as part of a larger problem-solving system.

3.They cannot reason maturely about abstract and hypothetical problems.

When I hit 8, I pretty much flew past my peers when it came to schooling. It became silly easy to me. Where they had to struggle, I might have had to read/learn something three times before it stuck, and for years too. I also found learning to be entertaining, not drudgery. Granted, there were some subjects I was bored silly with so there was no motivation on my part to dive into it deeper, just doing enough work to get a decent grade was fine by me. Hell, it's why I can find documentaries on certain subjects amusing, even now.

You can't hide being a brainiac. When we got our weekly test scores back from the teacher, kids would flaunt their grades over someone who did less as well. Everyone did this. I routinely hit 85 or above. After a while, I began to be hated for that because it was so easy for me.

Now, some teachers would use me as a tutor for the others. I'd blow through whatever busy work she had assigned to us and I'd sit there bored, waiting for all the others to finish. Miss Enos, a fourth grade teacher, had the bright idea of pairing me with the more 'tupid kids in the class, in hopes that I might rub off on them. Or at least my transferable skills. I was cool with naturally helping others, but I began to discover what a lot of those others were really like.

Bill T. was a kid who routinely got every answer wrong no matter how hard he tried. Also, he was what would be today called “ADHD.” Back then it was called, “a disruptive, spoiled, unruly kid.” I once walked home with Bill to his house when I was 7. When we got to his house he went inside and I immediately heard his mother SCREAMING at him about something. Then a loud crash. Then silence. Then Bill running out the kitchen door with his mother shouting at him to come back. I didn't know what to make of this at the time. Now I understand. She was a single mom with shitty parenting skills and an equally shitty low wage job. Her life was nothing but stress and not enough money. Her kid bore the brunt of that. If your planted in shitty soil, you grow up to be shitty plant.

So I was paired with Bill and in a few short days I began to hate him. All he wanted were the answers and never wanted to do the work required to get them. I would try to tell him that he ain't getting any help on the test as he would be all alone for it and he'd fail. Also, I asked him if he was sick and tired of being wrong all the time. I had told him there was an easy and sure way to avoid all the crap he put up with in the classroom, if he'd only listen to what I had to say.

“I don't care! Give me the answers!” cries Bill.

“NO! Why should I do ALL the work and you get the credit? I return.

“Just GIVE ME THE ANSWERS” he tries again.

I got up an left him there. In my mind I was saying “FUUUUUCK YOUUUU.”

Friday comes, we take the test and Bill fails spectacularly again. I sat there, quietly gloating.

I'd run into these types of kids again and again; dumb, lazy and no future. These same kids hated my guts because again, school was a no brainer to me. They also hated me because I wouldn't give them a free ride.

In sixth grade, I was elected again to “help out” by being the “go to kid” if you wanted help. I forget the dullards name but he comes up to me with his math homework and wanted help. I looked at what he was trying to do and I saw it was simple addition problems. 540 + 103 = ? kind of stuff. I looked at him in amazement.

“You can't do addition on your own?” I asked. Don't forget, this was sixth grade and we left “addition” way in the past in SECOND grade.

He gave an embarrassed smile and turned around and left. I then thought, “You lazy, worthless bastard...can't DO simple addition? You so damn lazy and you want ME to do it?”

Again, I ran into these types again and again, way too often. I was easily building a disgust for them. They were everywhere!

Miss Mara, our sixth grade teacher, later on admitted to me that there were a lot of “lazy kids” in our class and some of them really should have been held back a year or two to catch up. She'd personally torture the lazy kids by doubling their work and help the slow ones. What I didn't know about that addition kid was that he really couldn't do addition. I wonder if he even could read. I found out that most teachers then, had to teach the slow kids as well as the smart ones. Just because we were ALL reading Johnny Tremaine didn't mean all the kids could understand it..or even read it. She had to tailor her teaching to each kid. I kinda thought we all were moving along in the same boat at the same speed.

What my experience with all of this, from my perspective was: “GIMMIE! GIMME! I WANT THE ANSWERS NOW. YOU DO IT! I DON'T WANT TO DO IT! IT'S EASY FOR YOU!” Multiply that by 12 and have them “come at you” constantly without so much as a thank you if you helped them. Have people coming at you all the time wanting things...see how much you like them after a while?

See? I have had ugly experiences with this.

What topped it all off also happened in the sixth grade and really made me feel a hell of a lot more superior than the greedy, thankless bastards that were trying to leech off of me for free.

This really happened:

Each year back then all classes had to take the national comprehensive tests. You remember those, fill in the circle with your #2 pencil. You even had to fill out your name by circling those dots. These tests were for some committee in the US Department of Education in order to the tweak teaching curriculum or what not.

I took the test in sixth grade like I had always taken it, but this year something was different. I scored a 98 on it.

It got out that I had scored a 98 and by doing so, really fell outside the curve on this. Valmour Collette, our principal, thought I had cheated. On top of that, he thought Miss Mara had given me the answers. I heard there was a heated argument with her and Collette over the score when it was proposed by Mara that I retake the test again but in Collette's office, under supervision where I couldn't cheat. He agreed.

Before that happened though, Miss Mara talked to me privately in the coatroom. She was quizzing me about that test and she came to realization that “you weren't really trying at all to pass it...you barely put any effort into it and you aced it.” To tell the truth, it wasn't hard at all.

Miss Mara then, and w/o my figuring her plan out just yet, told me...

“Ronnie, I want you to really try hard this time around. I want you take your time and get EVERY answer right.”

What I didn't know then was that she had confidence that I could do it. With this newer score she could shove it up the ass of Valmour Collette who suspected her of giving me the answers in the first place. This would be her vindication.

I retook that test in his office, under the four eyes of Mr. Collette and his secretary, Mrs. Slyvestre. There would be NO accusations of cheating this time around. I am sure Collete thought I'd bomb wonderfully on this retake.

A few weeks later the score came back, 100%. This got around the school as Miss Mara brazenly told everyone she knew there and in effect, shoved it so far up Collette's ass that it came right out his mouth. I was amazed that I managed to do it. I then felt pretty damn proud of myself too. I hit it out of the park.

Well, many of the other kids weren't so proud. In fact, some others were down right disgusted that that first attempt to label me a cheater and stupid didn't stick at all. I was hated even more still by them. A few others had “patted” me on the back but guess which type of kid they were? Successful students who would go on to college one day. The lazy prick ones just fumed.

I had talked to my Dad about that, why is it when someone succeeds it just brings out the wrath in others? I was 12 and just learning all about the shitty people in this world still. He had told me they are always present and always will be present. You can't get rid of them. He told me to hold my head up high for batting this out of the park. I wasn't to give into the other's disgust. I didn't. I didn't by being smarmy and stuck up as shit to them. Why? Because it infuriated them to no end.

**

Never in my life, was I proud of being ignorant of something. Never in my life did I hide the fact that I didn't understand something. I would ask questions w/o any feelings of inadequacy. NEVER in my life did I think being stupid was a badge of honor. I know many who do seem proud that they are dullards.

I don't respect that, nor them. I never did then and don't do so now. And if I come off as snobbish, well you know where it all came from now. If I turn my nose up at you by mistake, sorry.

See how childhood experiences shape who you are today?

$$$$$$

Chances are, You nor I will ever get to own a Black Card. 

I never really knew any rich kids growing up. Rich in that I mean million $ rich. I did know a few whose parents were doing upper middle class “well.” Those parents usually owned a few rental properties and along with their job and could afford nicer things vs. the other parents in our neighborhood who had to make due with one source of income, their jobs.

My first introduction to a spoiled rotten kid of well off parents was Michael Simoneau. His Dad drove a purple Cadillac DeVille...yes, purple. We all called it the PimpMobile. He was one of those short guys whose head barely could see over the dashboard and the steering wheel in comparison to him, looked like the steering helm to an 1850's Yankee Clipper ship.

Michael was the youngest of two brothers. His older brother was much older, by about ten years which means there was no real sibling rivalry or friendship. When there's that much distance in age the two have little in common. Why hang around with one another? This made Michael an only child in a greater sense.

We'd see him on occasion, out in his driveway with his cool toys, bikes or whatnot and being kids, we naturally gravitated to him because of his shiny baubles. When I got to know him, barely, he had been turned into mean-spirited, spoiled “No! It's MINE” type of child. Not very fun to be around.

He had the best bike in the world then. At the time, we po' kids were riding Murray's or BMXs that were banged up due to mostly our treating them like shit (we were boys, we ruin things). He had one of those “choppers” that was made by Schwinn that aped the old 70's chopper motorcycles. I remember it was there on the sidewalk, on it's kickstand when I wanted to get a closer look. I wasn't about to ride it, just look. When Michael saw me approach it he ran over yelling, “NO! DON'T YOU TOUCH IT!”

He then walked the bike to his backyard and slammed the fence gate closed behind him for added insult.

Now back then, when I was that kid and still thin skinned, I was hurt by that rebuke. I couldn't understand what I had done. I had no intention of riding it, wrecking it or doing anything to it. I guess the absolute, solid “NO” is what got me.

“Ah...Fuck him.” said Kenny to me, who saw the whole thing.

Mike Simoneau never really had friends as far as I could tell. Well, none here in this neighborhood. He was too abrasive to even be near long enough. Occasionally his path would cross with our little crew as we aged from childhood to our teen years and still he was the same kid. Just as nasty and selfish as you would get.

In his late teens, he thought he be a cool, low level pot dealer and tried his luck at it. No go. He was ripped off by suppliers that populated Slater Park back in the early 80's. I swear they stiffed him as a joke and not motivated by any financial reason. I guess however he did manage to score a pound or two and then tried to sell it. I'm sure for exorbitant prices. The trick to succeeding in any blackmarket economy is to have a street sense to spot danger. Mike had none. He was finally busted after being pulled over. Never mind he had pot in his car, it was the Beretta pistol he had under his seat that got him nailed. Dummy. He ended up doing a few months in the ACI for that. I wondered by his parents never did hire expensive attorneys for that one? I have no idea what his relationship was with them. Perhaps they gave up on him?

When he got out, he further spiraled into petty thievery and was incompetent at that too. Back to the ACI for another round of abuse. I heard he was finally diagnosed with some mental condition by the Dr's there and then put into some Halfway House. Do I believe the Dr's were right to diagnose him as nuts? I do after I randomly ran into him at the House of Pizza.

“Hey Ronnie” I heard said from behind me as I was ordering a pepperoni pizza there.

I turned around and saw this short, grossly obese guy. It's the kind of obesity where even his fingers were fat. I recognized him even though he had changed so much. I bet it was all the meds they had him on that made him look so swollen. Want to know where your old clothing goes after you dump it into the Good Will box? Well, he was wearing it. I'm no fashion guru but I do know how to match clothing. He was dressed in a flannel shirt and far too long baby blue nylon shorts that extended nearly to his ankles.

I'll ask very probing questions of people at times, even bordering on intrusive because I'm so damned curious. So I asked him “Where is he living and what he's doing now...how's his Dad and did he keep buying rental properties?”

“I live in the New Horizon's Halfway house now. The state gives me $25 a day. I walk all around Pawtucket and buy cigarettes, scratch tickets and coffee...I don't care...I like it. My Dad owns seven places now...sometimes I cut the grass there for a few bucks.” I began to regret I had asked him anything as the vibe I was getting off of him just didn't feel right.

I rarely feel my skin creep. I've seen a lot of stuff in my life due to my old occupation in mental health. But my internal radar was going berserk after meeting this kid again. I was glad when they called out my number and I paid for the pizza and left with quick, “Nice meetin ya, hope to see you again” and I bolted out to my car. On occasion, I'll see him walking the streets of Pawtucket and am glad he doesn't recognize my car.

**

My other brush with rich kids was when I was an adult. Martin Woolf was the son of a materials science engineer (ceramics) who had his own small business out in woods of Foster. His Dad was the scary-kind-of-smart in that he could manufacture anything out of any kind of material. He had contracts all over the world for very specialized parts needing to be made out of things like oxygen-free copper or ceramic material that would withstand God's Wrath on Doomsday. Before I knew Martin, his Dad scored a near lifetime contract for parts used on the Apollo missions and then the Space Shuttle. I once saw a spool of wire, all 24 feet of it, that went for $5,000 and was being sent to Kennedy space center in Florida. What it is supposed to do I don't know.

Dad did very well, dollar wise. When I got to know Martin, his family was drowning in money. I suspect the banks wouldn't take any more of the damn stuff.

Growing up rich, Martin concedes, was not the best thing for him. He remembers being unceremoniously dumped off at a the grammar school portion of Phillips Exeter without being told what was going to happen to him. Phillips Exeter is one of those incredibly restrictive private schools where you have to be rich and capable of being smart as a whip. Martin was no dummy and his Dad had the bucks. Hey presto! Instant acceptance.

“My Dad drove up to the administrative building at Exeter, pulled out a suitcase I had no idea he had packed from the trunk and told me this is where I would be living for the next few years...Talk about a blow. My Mom...was too stoned on valium to put up a fight. I got a kiss from her and then sent through the doors.”

I tell him I have heard stories like that but have never met anyone who was pawned off on a nanny or sent to some Swiss school during the summer, so the rich parents can be unburdened while they take a whirlwind trip through Asia. He then asks me to shake his hand. “There, you've shaken hands with a kid who was sent away so his parents could be “unburdened.”

Dad eventually dies and splits the will ½ and ½ with the son and wife. She getting the cash assets and the son getting cash and the business...which he promptly sold once probate was done. He didn't have the expertise to make wire out of diamond dust nor was he interested in managing a crew of other engineers who are really a pain in the ass to get along with. Final score. He walks away with enough money to live silly comfortable for the rest of his life.

With this money he builds a McMansion in Foster that sorta looks similar to a Hogwarts type of house. Also, he had statues around the outside which represented Egyptian and African war gods, all cement...not the nice marble kind. No matter, he knew where to find people who would cast something like this, if paid well. He spent his unemployed days starting trust-fund type occupations to while away the hours of a bored son of a zillionaire.

Wedding photography, writer, cabbie, vacation planner...all of which came to no good end as each occupation requires you commit to the customer. That's no fun if you're rich to begin with. Why show up at a job you contracted for when you can go see the Dead in Halifax, Nova Scotia that weekend? I swear these attempts at “career” were just half heart-ed attempts at trying to seem normal.

The other revaluation that stunned me a bit was Martin's admitting he had seizures all the time now.

“Grand mal ones?” I ask.

“No, cocaine ones.” he says matter of factly.

He goes on to say he started to get them when he was 20. He was 33 now when I knew him and I thought that a bit too early for death. “Ahh...I've been tooting for over a decade now, nearly every day...I know what the problem is.” He did. He wasn't dull...just emotionally wrecked is all.

Raised rich. Dumped off in New England's best school. Interest and capital gains checks arriving via mail every month. 33 and one failed marriage, a drug induced brain disorder and still a spoiled brat kid inside. He's near my age now, nearing 50 at least...wonder if he's still alive? I have no idea.

If I was given all that I wanted, or the ability to gain as much, I'd beat the shit out of it. I know I would. Give me a blank check with a few lawyers backing me up and I'll go commit felonies I couldn't get away with now. I guess I'm lucky with a Dad who rose from three decker Depression era housing and managed to secure himself some sort of success in life...but not too much.  

More Planning...

I read damn near everything and thanks to the Internet I can read w/o paying a cent to the rightful owners of books, the authors or their publishers. I also thank PDF files or if not that, format changing software that can reformat any file I download. I didn't pay for the software either.

I downloaded Henry David Thoreau's “The Maine Woods” last week and shot through it. I have read his “Walden; Life in the Woods” and it is what it is. If want a finely scripted work that talks about the noises one hears in your winter cabin at 1 AM on a January night, go for it. Ok, instead of being snarky about it, it's a watershed book that promoted the New England Transcendentalists rise to power. Transcendentalists? Think of the very first hippies, treehuggers and women activists...that appeared in the 1840's.  The first communes weren't established in the 1960's...they were tried here first in Massachusetts before the Civil War. They failed awfully then as they did in the '60s too. They nearly failed for the same reason, not enough food due to the division of labor being too loosey-goosey.

But that's another interesting story about 1840's men and women trying to have a go at it...

What I love about Thoreau, is his ability to describe anything and if you can read (God knows that's a dying skill) you can paint the picture in your head of what he's transcribing to you easily and with great detail. In his book, he describes a travelogue up the Penobscot river to Mount Kaatdn (Katahdin). He tells you of the river, the Indians, his traveling companions, woods, animals and black gnats as well. He's not like Dickens who will blow three pages on describing the room where one of his characters will eventually sit in and brood quietly to himself (I hate Dickens for this!). Instead, Thoreau moves the narrative along before he bores you.

The culmination of the story is his near assent up Katahdin and it reminded me of when I scooted up Mt St Helens. He depicts the weather changes, the rock, moss, lichens and the clouds as I remembered them to be as well. It sort of sparked my interest in scooting up and down piles of rock once more. I glossed over some articles on Katahdin, the Applachian trail and the more I read, the more I wanted to try Katahdin. I have rock climbed before. I had tried a bit of technical climbing as well, banging in petons and rappelling. I figured this would be a cool thing to do. Katahdin is barely over 5,000 feet whereas Mt St Helens was 8,300 feet...this would be easy!

Easy...

Baxter State Park in Maine is in that part of the state where nothing exists. A night time satellite shot of New England shows up Boston, Providence, Portland Maine easily whereas the backwoods of Maine is totally black. There's nothing there at all. These are the real woods. It also means there is precious little in the way of emergency services too.

I began to read more deeply into the trails up Katahdin and I kept coming across dire WARNINGS about the rockslides, lightning strikes and the numerous other injuries you can sustain by turning left or right. They close the trails by October 15 due the fact the summit can turn into winter in a few hours and you can freeze you nice and stuck to a boulder. I began to learn this hike had it's dangers.

Here's some detail of the “Knife's Edge,” a final ascent trail to Katahdin's summit.

“It is the most notable feature of Katahdin. Along with being the terminus of the Appalachian Trail, the reason Mt. Katahdin is such a popular hike amongst hikers is because of this trail. The path stretches roughly a mile and is all sharp granite rock. It is surrounded on both sides by steep cliffs and at sections is only three feet wide. It is a dangerous part of the mountain and accounts for most of the deaths from slipping and tumbling down the slopes below.”

Three feet wide is the breadth of a sidewalk. But the Knife's Edge isn't made of nice flat concrete and you usually don't have 50mph winds pushing you this way and that. I began to reconsider my idea. If I were to do this, I'd need to work out for it for over a month to get my “trail legs,” buy more equipment and then realize I'd run out of time by October 15...when the bad weather moves in to kill you.

What's needed according to Baxter Park base? This:

Working Flashlight

REAL hiking boots and not those pretty things you find at REI that look like hiking boots.

A Gallon of Water (Yes, you hump this up the mountain too)

Detailed route maps, compass.

Layered clothing.

Wool clothing, extra socks, shirts etc.

Bucket of Sunscreen as the UV up there is like a microwave oven.

Sunglasses.

High energy food

Duct Tape (Wrap up cuts and great for on the spot splinting material for your busted leg, or wrapping up your blistered feet)

Parachute cord

Whistle (for when you foolishly fall down a slope and live and can alert the others)

Large knife, matches, foil, First Aid Kit

I have a few of these items...not enough!

Also, I'm 51 years old and feel every bit of 51 too. Slower, achy-er and more bitchy. I live at sea level and I'm pretty used to these nice dense oxygen levels. I know from experience that above 3,000 feet, walking or climbing a hundred yards makes you feel you've just done a mile. You slow down quick and learn the dizziness is very much like being drunk, not great for making decisions. I'd have to recognize that I'm taking this on as a different person than I was when I was 29.

This is a project for next year. But I still would love to walk a part of the path Thoreau once did over a hundred years ago. It's also something to see as well, standing on a moon-like summit and seeing clear to Canada.

Click Pic for Larger

Knife Edge Up Close. Step Either Way and Down You Go. Click to Watch Movie.
Hear that Wind? Some of These Cliff Shots Will Make You Puke.