THE JAZZ GODS, MILES DAVIS, JOHN COLTRANE, THELONIOUS MONK, SONNY ROLLINS, GONE, BUT STILL HERE, THEIR SOUND IS STILL HERE

Birdman was sitting in 1962 in the front row at the Village Vanguard, Greenwich Village, NYC.  A black cat slowly moved into the spot light, like a jaguar stalking a deer in British Honduras.  It was Miles Davis, dressed in an immaculate French suit, handsome, his golden horn sparkling in the blue and red light.  He turned around and started blowing Kind of Blue, a chill went through the body of Birdman, he was awed and overcome by the sound, the man, the rhythm, the music.  Later on in the decade of the 60's,  he again saw the legend, Miles Davis at the Jazz Workshop in San Francisco.  Davis played from his Sketches of Spain,  and the same feeling took over the soul of Birdman. The audience gasped with disbelief.   It was if a god of music had descended from the Elysium, to blow out the unbelievable sounds into the night of San Francisco,  and the Universe above. 
       "Let your soul stand cool and composed before a million universes."  Walt Whitman, American Poet
       Miles Davis, sat in with his horn when he was 19, at a club in Kansas City with Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie.  He said in his book, "Miles" he knew at that moment, he had an epiphany of sound, with two of the greats of early bebop, and had to go to NYC, where he played as a young man on 52nd street, with Bird, and became the musician he was meant by the gods to be.
       Sonny Rollins was at his peak between 1956 and 1966.  He took two years off, playing as he strolled into the night from the Williamsburg Bridge, NYC.  He would trill at length, bark out phrases, slurs and distorted his line, harps on a couple of braying figures, and showed off a gloriously beating tone.  He would occasionally belch his horn, sounding like a lost mule.  He is the only survivor from the gods of jazz, and still plays at 85 years young.  He was recently interviewed on PBS, and asked if the great sounds of the legendary musicians were dead.  He answered, "No, they are still here, their sound is still here."  What a statement on the vision of immortality of the giants.  He said, "When I leave town, my sound will still be here."  He also played with Charlie Bird Parker, Davis and Coltrane in NYC.  Can you imagine the rush to the soul, hearing Rollins' horn from the Bridge, mixed with the night sounds of NYC.  Hopefully that music is still echoing in the Universe somewhere, maybe above Europa.  "All the bells that ever rang, still ringing in the dying rays of light," William Faulkner, novelist. 
       Birdman saw Thelonious Monk in 1962 at the Five Spot, NYC.   His eccentric dancing and walking around like a crazed Beat poet will never be forgotten.  He left a lot of space in his music, yet could be most effective when paired with busy-sounding saxophonists such as John Coltrane.  Opposites attract.  Birdman later on saw Monk play at the Jazz Workshop in San Francisco.  These experiences were unique, most people today never saw these cool cats from the heyday of Bebop and Cool Jazz.  It was if Birdman had seen Bach play in person, in a previous life, in the old days of Europe.  After Monk finished at the club he spun around in a rhythmic, weird dance, and exclaimed, "All ways know, always know, always night."
       John Coltrane's briefer stay on the planet earth, showered people and the planet with sheets of sound.  He played with explosive improvisations, expressive energy, and once mesmerized an audience with his saxophone, playing "My Favorite Things" for 45 minutes, non stop, in a club.  Coltrane could blow seven notes squeezed into the space of a beat or two.  He played at the Five Spot Cafe,  East Village NYC, for 7 months with Monk.  Monk didn't mind Coltrane playing so many notes, as long as his improvisations developed out of or illuminated the source material.  He left town to play the big saxophone in the sky, at a young age.   John Coltrane was a beat poet, whose sheets of sound echoed around Greenwich Village for 6 years, playing with Monk and Miles Davis.  He favored cascading waterfalls of notes.  He created a musical revolution.  The major outgrowth of his free jazz tended to represent an outgrowth of the bohemians, and angry young men of the 50's, and the Beat poets and writers. 
       Jazz critic Frank Kofsky took this view further, asserting that the free jazz movement represented nothing less than a vote of "no confidence" in Western Civilization and the American Dream.  Kofsky wrote in John Coltrane for vice president in his ballot of 1964.  Coltrane studied music at a school for years in Philadelphia and also studied philosophy.  He was a quiet, serious musician who lived music 24 hours a day, according to his mother.
       If any single sound signifies jazz it is Miles Davis' Kind of Blue, with a Harmon mute.  Kind of Blue is the most famous and most analyzed jazz album in history.  It is listened to over and over again by students of jazz, and people who do not even listen to much jazz. It sold over 62 million albums and CD's, a record in the history of music.  His "Sketches of Spain" still echoes in the soul of most aficionados of jazz.  As Rollins said recently, his music is still here, even though Miles is gone, his music is here forever. 
       What is the future of jazz?  Nobody knows.  It had a breath of fresh air in the 70's at the Keystone Korner Club in North Beach San Francisco.  Today jazz is played at a few surviving clubs in NYC, Chicago, and New Orleans, and at festivals around the US, most notably the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival held each spring in the Big Easy.  It may take a young musician, sent by the Gods, with extraordinary feeling and talent, to walk the Williamsburg Bridge at night, and blow his horn amidst the sounds of the City. 
       Jazz sounds are still beaming and echoing out into the Universe. 
      

LIFE, THE BIG VANISH, THE BIG DISAPPEARANCE, COMETS PASSING

Enrico Fermi, the renowned physicist exclaimed "Where is everybody?" He was referring to the fact that no life has been detected in the Universe after hundreds of years and thousands of people searching.  On this planet many people have an epiphany when they notice that, like comets, events, eras, people, friends, money, movie legends, presidents, athletes on the radar screen, dogs, bank robbers, seasons, gorgeous women, time itself, is in a constant mode of things and people drifting over the horizon, or vanish like a large flash of light, an arcane event.  To many this is disconcerting, they weep over the end of fall or miss an old friend.  To some like George Carlin, the comedian, things passing is great and a giant joke, like when an annoying, crazy uncle leaves.  To others like Joey who cried out in the western movie Shane, across a mountain valley, to Allen Ladd as he rode away for good on his horse, "Shane, come back, come back Shane."  That had to be one of the saddest moments in the boys life, and a very sad and touching scene in western movie history.  The scene gripped the audience to the core of emotion, even when watched to this day, years later; the tears of a young boy in the West and the final farewell of a cowboy he loved.  If you believe like the American Indians, who thought that nature and life was a circle, and all things and people return, there remains hope, and even in passing you go to the Happy Hunting Grounds.  In New Orleans when a jazz musician passes, they shouted at his musical, loud funeral, "He left town."  The past 4 years millions of people who sparkled in their communities like a comet, have left town to greener pastures, on a new, long, dusty trail.  The American Dream itself may have vanished.  It has been a major exodus especially from ski towns that saw the end of their Gold Rush years.  Does John Steinbecks "Grapes of Wrath" come to mind?  "...all the bells that ever rang still ringing in the long dying rays of light."  William Faulkner.  The Khazars, a warrior tribe in the Caucasus, said their prayers by weeping.  Their sadness over a life that vanishes is expressed in prayer.  Then, suddenly they vanished, as a tribe, wiped out by other warrior tribal nations, with almost no archeological sign of their existence, by the Black Sea.  "Ships that pass in the night, and speak to each other in passing, only a signal shown and a distant voice in the darkness; so on the ocean of life we pass and speak, then darkness again and a silence."  Longfellow   "Hast thou never seen the comet's flaming flight?  The illustrious stranger passing, terror sheds on gazing nations from his fiery train of length enormous ; takes his ample round through depths of ether; coasts unnumbered  worlds of more than solar glory; doubles wide, Heavens mighty cape; and then revisits earth from the long  travel of a thousand years."  Edward Young "Night Thoughts"

CITIGROUP-FEDERAL JUDGE JED RAKOFF-SEC ENABLING-REAL PUNISHMENT?-RISK OF ANOTHER FINANCIAL MELTDOWN-FRAUD AGAINST INVESTORS

      The Securities and Exchange Commission and Congress' incompetence has put the nation again at risk of another financial meltdown.  No-admit/no-deny settlements are no real deterrent to future bad behavior.  The banks love this policy since by not admitting fraud, they cannot be sued by thousands of investors, who have lost millions of dollars.  The same old story, when Wachovia and Wells Fargo paid a slap-on the wrist fine for holding cartel money, repeatedly, and the question remains, where is the cash from drug money being laundered today?  The best guess from the US Treasury Department, is that it is going to European banks, who desperately need the money. 
      The new case that may be litigated in July of 2012, developed when Citigroup allegedly defrauded investors when it had not adequately disclosed to investors its role and interest in creating and selling-and betting against-a mortgage-backed investment that was intended to fail.  When the investment tanked, the bank made $160 million, according to the SEC, while investors lost $700 million.
      Judge Rakoff said that his understanding of the matter indicated that a tougher charge of knowing or intentional fraud was indicated.
      SEC chairman Mary Schapiro is pressing for larger penalties, and is asking Congress to pass laws that would allow the SEC to impose fines up to nine times greater than the maximum currently allowed by U.S. law.
      If the proposed new law would have been applied in the Citigroup case, the maximum penalty would jump to $1.44 billion from $160 million.
      Many Republicans and some Democrats are resisting the new proposed law, giving the SEC more powers.  The main question is whether the larger fines would deter illegal behavior.  The admission of wrongdoing would be an investment banks worst nightmare, opening them up to monstrous litigation and law suits from individuals and parties who had lost a large amount of money.  The lobbyists are already driving up to Congress getting ready for this dramatic change in the law.
      A new law that makes fraud on the American people by banks, a major crime, with monstrous penalties, may save the nation from another bank meltdown, and the disastrous Category V Hurricane, that has made the lives of a great number of people on the verge of a collapse, and permanent poverty.  Teddy Roosevelt warned the nation in a 1903 speech, that prosperity in America could only be sustained by the conduct of the larger banks with the following requirements:  a legitimate business practice, fair and honest dealings with the public, no wild speculation, and a disciplined adherence to established conservative rules.  Maybe Federal District Judge Jed S. Rakoff, who has the courage to tackle this deal between the SEC and Citigroup bank, maybe he read the history books that detailed the Roosevelt presidency.
      The policy of small fines for banks, no individual liability of bankers, and extraordinary fraud from 2000 to 2011, would be eliminated by Judge Rakoff's successful ruling and victory in July of 2012.  If he loses, and Congress doesn't have the courage to act on stiffer laws, the recession may never end.
     

JON CORZINE-CASINO CAPITALIST-DEBT AND GAMBLING ADDICT-LOSE OTHER PEOPLE'S MONEY-JUDAS DUCK AT GOLDMAN SACHS AND MF GLOBAL-TELLURIDE LAND INVESTOR-BUY HIGH, SELL LOW

      Jon Corzine is the essence of what is wrong in America, the immoral culture on Wall Street, the Street of Shame.  He represents the hubris in national politics, addiction to credit and debt.  Corzine represents the cowboy gambler in finance, who bet the firm on one slot on the roulette disk, and the ball in the largest Casino in the world, Wall Street, the ball fell in the wrong hole, $6.2 Billion in one miserable hole, a black hole.
      His father on his small farm where Jon grew up in Illinois abhorred debt, survived the great depression, as a hard working farmer, a legitimate businessman.  His son built a career on debt.
      As CEO of Goldman Sachs, Jon Corzine lost about $150 million on trades, then unwound the loss by brokering other deals.  One of his colleagues at Goldman (Noguchi) said Corzine managed Goldman through 1994 when massive losses and defections threatened its existence.  He backed a risky bailout of hedge fund Long-Term Capital Management.  He was ousted from Goldman by a coup, and the firm was rescued from his cowboy capitalism.  Corzine was not rational, he was not systematic, nor a quantitative analyst and trader.  He winged it with other peoples money, dangerous to the firm, and to the public who invested in the firm.
      Dan Neidich worked at Goldman Sachs for 26 years.  He says, "What motivates Corzine is neither money nor ego.  Mr. Corzine's real problem is he is addicted to gambling.  The whole industry has proven to be unethical."
      Where is the $1.2 Billion that is missing from MF Global?  Suspicious wire transfers before the bankruptcy filing? Yes, is the money in Switzerland, in Latvian banks?  200 FBI agents do not know yet.  Several hundred FBI agents and hundreds of government investigators are looking for it.
      To make a $6.2 Billion long bet on euro zone sovereign debt, you would need ego and hubris, as well as lust for the greenback, right out of a Mark Twain novel.  Neidich's statement sounds like pure cronyism, to protect Corzine, without knowing any of the facts of MF Global's bankruptcy meltdown.
      Corzine spent several hundred million$ to get elected to the US Senate, as well as governor of New Jersey.  His biggest bonehead move as governor, besides being a "yes man" to lobbyists from the world of finance, was allowing his state trooper driver to hit 90 mph, on a public highway, endangering the citizens of New Jersey, and he failed to wear a seat belt.  He was the top cop of New Jersey and should have arrested himself as well as the trooper for violating state law.  He could have saved himself from horrific injuries and the troopers well being and reputation.  Are you above the law if you are the governor?
      If Jon Corzine had listened to Kyle Bass from Hayman Capital, in Dallas Texas, he could have avoided his dumb bet.  Bass' hedge fund made a massive wager against the subprime mortgage bond market.  His wager paid off large.  He said at the time, "The financial crisis wasn't over.  It was simply being smothered by the full faith and credit of rich western governments."  That is exactly where Corzine was wrong.  He thought the western governments would not let European central banks and governments fail, so he bet long on euro zone sovereign debt.  The debt went the opposite direction.  Had he ever heard of diversification?  He was a small town banker a long time ago, and didn't pay attention to that common advice. 
      Jim Rogers a successful commodities investor said after the MF Global bankruptcy filing, "My how the mighty are fallen, it is inconceivable to me he would do this after Refco.  He has referred to himself as a recidivist banker." 
      Many power brokers in Washington and Wall Street, said he was vying for Secretary of the Treasury.  Vice President Joe Biden called Corzine once a week for advice during the US meltdown crisis.  God help us!! No wonder were still in this permanent Category V financial hurricane.
      Jon Corzine also speculated millions in Telluride Ski Area real estate.  According to LandMan, he paid $53,000 per acre on approximately 500 acres at West Meadows, across from the ski area entrance to the Mountain Village.  This was documented at the San Miguel County courthouse records.  Joe Zoline, the original developer of the ski area, had paid $225 per acre for the same land.  That's a 235 bagger.  Corzine alienated the public in Telluride by spending 3 years to get the land subdivided.  He marred one of the most pristine views of the Wilson Range, in the region.  The land was pastureland, not a tree in sight, lousy for development.  He should have created a conservation easement on the land, and planted thousands of native trees, and downzoned to one home per five hundred acres, hidden from view.  He had paid too much, a foolish offer, for the land, and made the Zoline family very wealthy.  Then he paid way too much for 2200 acres on Specie Mesa, built a road to the ranch at a cost of over $2million, and  listed the ranch for $42million.  He never sold one acre on Specie Mesa.  The ranch according to LandMan was never worth more than $7 million, if that.  It had marginal access, no access to the pristine National Forest land on Little Cone mountain, and should also have been turned into a conservation easement, which would have allowed huge tax benefits, and kept the mesa pristine like the last of the real cowboys, Clyde Duroy, envisioned in his late 80's. 
      Corzine's clients at MF Global lost hundreds of millions of their money, several thousand investors.  His friend who hired him at MF Global immediately lost $50 million with the bankruptcy filing.  "What happened to MF Global on Corzine's watch was not just incompetence.  It was spectacular recklessness", Henry Blodget writes.  He writes that it was like running a 747 jet filled with people straight at the side of a mountain and hoping that, just before you smash into it, the prevailing winds will shift and enable you to pull up.  Corzine knew the mountain was there.
      Jon Corzine will have an honored place, a statue as The Judas Duck of the Century, at the lake in North Platte Nebraska, along with the other jerks.  He may end up working at the laundry at Sing Sing prison in New York state.  Why aren't there other Judas Ducks from the Street of Shame, working in the laundry?  The jury is out on this mess caused by a Judas Duck financial nitwit, Jon Corzine. 

DAVID RAMSEY, JUDAS DUCK OF THE CREDIT ADVISOR WORLD, HORATIO FROM SHAKESPEARE, CRITIC OF THE OCCUPY MOVEMENT

      David Ramsey has helped thousands of people get out of debt through beans and rice and a long, disciplined struggle to pay off credit cards.  His advice worked well before the massive meltdown of the banking system, and the Category V Hurricane, that came out of nowhere like a Black Swan event in late 2007, and is still blowing at 200 m p h in every county in America.  Now his advice is outdated.  Almost nothing from the old school of debt gurus is working any more.  Ramsey's advice could be a path to despair, credit ruin, and IRS tax on charged off debt. 
      "In Heaven and Earth Horatio, there is more than is in your philosophy", William Shakespeare.
      In his latest harsh critique of the Occupy Movement, Ramsey has revealed a lot of his flawed thinking.  He calls the demonstrators on Wall Street, and around the nation,  "whiners, thieves," and tells them "to grow up." He says Wall Street is "just a street , a road and an office building." 
The demonstrators, 95% of them, are not thieves, are not whiners, and understand Wall Street as a symbol of theft and corruption since Jay Gould invented the stock printing press.  According to $Bill, Wall Street has always been rigged by manipulators and thieves.  He mailed Birdman a book called "The Den of Thieves", after the Black Monday event of October 1987.  He lost $20 million in 24 hours on American Express stock, and put his remaining blood money into Treasury Notes for the rest of his life.  Wall Street is not just a street, it has become a symbol over the years, and attained a worse status since the Meltdown of greed and corruption.  Ramsey is naive regarding who the real thieves are.  Investment bankers as detailed in Yves Smith's book, "Econned", looted $millions from their firms, and aided in the 401K, stock and real estate meltdown.  Ramsey needs to read several books including Barry Ritholtz's book "Bailout Nation".  Ritholz details the 22 culprits starting with Alan Greenspan, who sunk the US economy into a deep hole.  He also has some positive solutions in his last chapter that could work, and they are not 'beans and rice" and "quit whining". 
      In his critique of the Occupy Movement, Ramsey completely misses the entire phenomenon of the past 4 years.  The resort real estate industry has vanished, not stalled, construction work is down 80%, the values of real estate in every county in America has dropped 36% to 80%, stocks have collapsed.  Estimates vary from 10 trillion to 20 trillion in value that has been lost during this catastrophe, which started with the sub-prime, toxic loan meltdown. 
      Ramsey says "the capitalistic system works just fine."  This is an outrageous statement.  The capitalistic system works well when the participants are legitimate entrepreneurs, honest, follow the rules, stay away from speculation, and casino type bets.  Wall Street firms created a casino capitalism.  Where were you the past 4 years, sleeping on the radio? 
David if the government takes your money or property, that is called communism.  That same fear of communism led us to the Vietnam war, another Judas Duck disaster.  Your chances of being held up by a gun are one in 200,000.  Nassim Taleb in his book "The Black Swan", describes gurus  and financial advisors, who give the wrong advice out of hubris and incompetence,  as possibly more harmful to society than terrorists.  Your chances of getting struck by a terrorist act in the U.S. is one in 200 million.  Getting bad advice from financial gurus is one in two.  Like lawyers, Ramsey is only right half the time. 
      Ramsey says, "my problems are not McDonalds's fault.  My problems are my fault."  This is true until a Black Swan event caused by a massive theft of Americans 401K's, stocks and collapse of real estate values, whacks them like they were hit in the face by a baseball bat.  "Get a job," Ramsey says. How ridiculous that statement is when 20 million Americans are unemployed.  Many good people have been looking for work for 3 years.  He says "Invent a weed whacker, another Facebook".  When the wolves are howling at the door, angel investors who finance those ideas are nowhere to be seen.
      The largest Judas Duck idea that Ramsey holds, is his anti-Bankruptcy advice.  His students could file chapter 7, get all the protections a Federal Judge offers them, and still legally pay down their debt, if that is their moral goal, with a zero percent interest rate.  There would be no phone calls, no lawsuits, no taxes on the debt, and credit scores can go up, as opposed to a failed Ramsey approach.  Ramsey uses fear mongering to compare chapter 7 with a death in the family.  It is the exact opposite.  It is the wing to freedom, a fresh start.  When the only job available after looking for 2 years, is a part time job at $7.36 per hour, the means test for chapter 7 is within reach.  Mark Twain filed chapter 7.  He knew life would be easier on the other side of hell.  Ramsey is telling young people to tough it out and suffer for years to pay off banks.  Banks are a contract, not a moral obligation.  Ramsey should send his tithe to Goldman Sachs, since he worries about the banks bottom line.  One to two years, and the credit returns for seniors and young people who file chapter 7.  Many retirement attorneys who have a clue, are endorsing bankruptcy as part of retirement planning.  David, grow up, get a real job, and please do not keep attempting to get statue status on the Mount Rushmore of Judas Ducks in North Platte Nebraska, along with Alan Greenspan.  I have a new book idea for you: "How to survive debt free through Chapter 7, during the endless Category V Hurricane."

  

SOLUTION TO THE MEXICAN BORDER WAR, LAUGHING GAS, WASHINGTON DC AGENTS HAVE NO ANSWER TO THE CARNAGE, JUDAS DUCK DEA AND JUDAS GOOSE TREASURY DEPARTMENT, JUDAS DUCKS OF THE CENTURY, THE US ATF

Not one official in the US Government has come up with any solution to the carnage on the US/Mexico border from San Diego to Matamoros.  The war on drugs is being run by Judas Duck agents, they are wasting billions of tax dollars, are making the war worse, and the US Treasury Department, also run by Judas Ducks, has no clue how to stop the laundering of the drug money. The Judas Duck ATF has no clue how to shut down the gun stores on the lengthy border, thousands of them, nor how to stop the amazing amount of guns and high powered weaponry crossing the border south to Mexico to be used in the daily slaughter.  You would think all of these officials were born next to the lake in North Platte Nebraska, where the descendants of the original Judas Geese still frolic.
          Birdman came up with an amazing solution to the border problem: LAUGHING GAS.  With the cooperation of the Mexican government, the US Special Forces teams could fly thousands of planes, twice a day, along the border and drop reams of laughing gas.  The Mexicans were always known for their outrageous sense of humor, joy of life, and somehow have lost it.  The air plane designers could duplicate the plane used in the James Bond movie, when it flew over Fort Knox and put all the guards to sleep, to facilitate a large Gold heist.  Twice a day the entire border would be engulfed with hilarious laughter.  The Green Berets could drop tiny parachutes with DVD's and old VCR's of George Carlin comedy shows, translated into the Mexican language.  The kids would love the parachutes, and the drug thugs would be so bent over with constant laughter, they would forget about murdering someone.  Also, around 50,000 special ops guys could take over 100 miles deep into Mexico, along the border from San Diego to Matamoros, and round up the laughing drug guys, and offer them a choice: hand over all your weapons now, stop the drug trade and executions, or join Jesus Morano in the Elysian Fields.  Wouldn't this make a great movie?  Dan Aykroyd could star as the commander of the Ops Forces.  What a Solution, what a Movie!!! It would be far better than what is there now. 

AMEXICA,LAUNDERED DRUG MONEY TO LARGE AMERICAN BANKS, BORDER SOLUTION ALONG AMEXICA

Ed Vulliamy's book "AMEXICA" details the border carnage, and exposes to the American public, the largest violation of the Bank Secrecy Act, an anti-money-laundering law, in U.S. history, a sum equal to one-third of Mexico's gross domestic product.  Wachovia bank, which was later purchased by Wells Fargo bank, admitted in court, that it didn't do enough to spot illicit funds in handling $378.4 billion for Mexican currency exchange houses, from 2004-2007.  Wells Fargo and Company, has admitted in court that its unit failed to monitor and report suspected money laundering, by narcotics traffickers.  Wachovia had struck an agreement with Federal prosecutors, a slap on the wrist, which included a small fine compared to their yearly profit, with a pledge to discontinue the practice. Wells Fargo bank, after buying Wachovia, paid $160 million in fines, less than 2% of its $12.3 billion profit in 2009.  "Wachovia's blatant disregard for our banking laws gave international cocaine cartels a virtual carte blanche to finance their operations," said Jeffrey
Sloman, the federal prosecutor who handled the case.
         Western Union was also given a huge fine with a promise to discontinue this practice.  The Federal government has held this "wink and a nod" policy of "no prosecution" or jail time for CEO's of large banks, for many years, largely due to their concern that if they prosecuted the large banks, there could be a run on the banks, and cause a panic.  This is part of the U.S. government's irrational fear of large banks being "Too Big To Fail."  Even with the profit from the laundered drug money, and subsequent buy-out by Wells Fargo bank, Wachovia has vanished from the international money scene.  They were not given TARP money, allegedy due to their Bank Secrecy Act violations. 
          Ed Vulliamy in his book "AMEXICA" documents this cabal between the Federal government of the U.S. and the large banks, and the violent drug trade that has convulsed Mexico for the past four years.  It has been a largely undocumented role.  Large criminal enterprises cannot function without money movement and placement of funds.  The major media outlets in the U.S. have basically ignored the border war, which has taken over 30,000 lives.  Michael Crichton was wrong on this border disaster.  In his book "State of Fear", he claims that the media chases down every disaster that happens, to put its readers in a state of fear to catch their attention, to watch an advertisement and sell a product.  For some unknown reason the U.S. media has stayed away from the long border war and its carnage.  How can they ignore a war that is close to taking as many lives as the Vietnam war?
           One solution would be to fine banks up to $5 billion, when it is proved that they have violated the Bank Secrecy Act, and 10 to 20 years jail time for the Act violators.  This would seriously dent their profit and discourage the practice.  The DEA has thousands of agents presently working on the problem. 
            Ed Vulliamy writes way too much detail of the carnage from his long trip along the border from San Diego to Matamoros, but his main theme of the cabal created to operate the cartels is valid.  One scene of carnage on the Bridge of Nightmares is enough.  Does anyone in the Federal government have a solution to this mass carnage?  Read my next Blog. 
          

GEORGE ORWELL, NORMAN MAILER, DEATH OF THE NOVEL, DECAY OF OUR MOTHER TONGUE, NEW LANGUAGE FOR MENDACITY AND FINANCIAL LOOTING

George Orwell wrote an essay in 1946 and said "Most people would admit that the English language is in a bad way." "Our civilization is decadent, and our language must inevitably share in the general collapse.  The decline of a language must have political and economic causes."  The glossary of financial double-talk, the words like "derivatives", "commodity futures contracts", "swaps" have become the jargon of financial thieves, disguised as real English language, with no threads of probity, amid incompetence and lies.  In his last book, an interview with his son, called "The Big Empty", Norman Mailer lamented the possibility of the novel vanishing, corporate America completely taking over the culture to become "The Big Empty".  Mailer believed that life's mysteries, moral codes, insights into the Universe, and answers to many of life's dilemmas, were not found in corporate America, and not found in churches or synagogues.  The American novel and great writers through history have been the repository of massive insights, and huge epiphanies that show youth and adults a way forward.  Great novelists from the past have woven into life's narrative, many answers to the Big Questions.  If the language is corrupted by Wall Street, and the unintelligible speech of incompetent political figures, what is left?  Birdman was recently in a discussion with a large group of youth in their 20's where the dominant theme was the abuse and corruption of the mother tongue.  Half of the group used the F word at least four times a minute, the other half had never heard of James Michener, nor Norman Mailer, and when a mention of Shakespeare came up, the F word crowd could not deal with the level of language.  They were creating their own slang, because they didn't read anything above a 6th grade level, and couldn't speak well.  "In heaven and earth Horatio, there is more than is in your philosophy." William Shakespeare. There is more than the F word, even in this rough culture.  One young lady used the word ghetto to describe almost everything, interspersed with the F word.  The sad news is she had allegedly graduated from an American college.  The slang, misuse of the word ghetto, is not in the Oxford Dictionary of Modern Slang.  It has been corrupted like the word icon, by small elements of the young to describe something that is substandard, like the wrong color on the hood of a car.  This is an example of the acceptance of ignorance, to be part of the "In" crowd.  God help us if these guys ever get elected to anything.  They could end up on Wall Street as language experts on how to hoodwink investors into buying "credit default obligations."  Even President Obama, who is the master of rhetoric, at a recent speech in Toledo at a Chrysler plant, said, "Our task is to rebuild the future".  You cannot rebuild the future.  You can work on hiring people in your administration who have business experience in private enterprise, and create an atmosphere for job creation and legitimate growth.  Teddy Roosevelt referred to this in 1904.  Only 6% of President Obama's staff has previous private enterprise experience.  Harry Truman had a staff with 50% and Ronald Reagan had a staff which contained 88%, people who had private business experience.  In the TV series, "Boardwalk Empire", the head boss (Nuky)  of the entire operation was confronted by a young man who complained that he wasn't getting anywhere, moving up in the quasi criminal enterprise.  The boss looked at him and said, "If you would learn how to speak well, in good English, someone would take you seriously."  Never have so many, who know nothing, taken over the public dialogue.  Never have so many crimes been committed , by so many looters of banks, with none guarding the walls of prison in striped suits.  Hundreds of cases were prosecuted, and white collar jerks, were sent to jail during the savings and loan crisis.  Now the justice department, with the President of the US as head policeman, have done nothing. Is it because they have no grasp of the language of white collar crime, or is there something else at work here? Freedom of speech in the US has become people talking constant nonsense.  There are a few exceptions like Harrison's novel, "The Legends of the Fall".  He is 72 years of age, is very well read, and knows the language of  Americans, how to tell a dramatic tale in the west.  He knows how to create a narrative and speaks well.  Mark Twain, the master of American vernacular, should send us some letters from the Elysian Fields, describing the criminal cabal between Wall Street thugs in the banking system who looted 20 trillion $ from the American people, and Washington DC incompetents, who stand by and watch, and make sure the culprits get their yearly bonuses.  Mark Twain predicted these bank robbers 100 years ago, as well as Teddy Roosevelt.  James Michener on his 89th birthday in Austin Texas, was celebrated at a bookstore.  Two thousand people were standing in line when he arrived to honor his lifetime of writing and just to see the man.  Michener wept, he had not been moved so deeply since his wife Mari died two years before.  He gave 60 million dollars to universities, writing schools, cancer research centers, scholarship programs, and various other causes his last decade, and lived on a small pittance left by his wife.  Thomas Wolfe in "Of Time And The River"; "October had come again, and that year it was sharp and soon: frost was early, burning the thick green on the mountain sides to massed brilliant hues of blazing colors, painting the air with sharpness, sorrow and delight...over all the earth there was the premonitory breath of frost, and exultancy for all the men who were returning, a haunting sorrow for the buried men, and for all those who were gone and would not come again." Who can write like that now? Now we get the raucous cry of a young girl at the Denver airport: "The whole nation is full of shit-head, one- and- a- half -times rednecks, and they are stupid." Congressmen and Wall Street bankers should have in gold letters on their doors, this young girls cries for a lost hope, and add to it, "And they are us, and we are stupid, but we know how to steal."

FALL COLORS, EMILY DICKINSON, ROBERT FROST, THOMAS WOLFE, SIGURD OLSON, TELLURIDE, DALLAS DIVIDE, SNEFFLES RANGE

Birdman was hunting Blue Grouse, with Roncen, a former Green Beret Captain in the US Special Forces in Vietnam.  The fall colors were on fire, with groves of aspen trees in blazing yellow and reds.  Hastings Mesa, near Telluride Colorado,  where the original True Grit movie was filmed with John Wayne, often turned into a blazing red display of Aspen trees. Birdman, Roncen, and Rascal, the Black Labrador dog, walked up to a grove of gambles oak, two grouse flushed.  Roncen swung his shotgun into the birds at a lightning speed, and dropped both.  Never had Birdman seen such quick and accurate shooting with a shotgun.  The fact that the former Green Beret was still alive after years in the war, was a testament to survival, luck, and the sadness of the loss of so many young soldiers who were not there to enjoy the bright golden spectacle of the fall.  Roncen got to see the blazing reds, orange of the oak, and golden aspens, all across the Sneffles mountain range, above the Marie Scott ranch, so brilliantly captured in the original True Grit movie. "Too much of a good thing is not enough", Mae West.  People from Montana, Wyoming, and Idaho travel to the Dallas Divide pass near Telluride to witness one of the most amazing fall displays of aspens in the western US.  The aspens run across the Sneffles mountain range for 10 miles, with jagged snow covered peaks above, and dark timber as a picture frame to outline the brilliance of the yellow, which looks like it is on fire, when the sunlight hits it just right. Fall is a truly special season.  Robert Frost, poet, "O hushed October morning mild, Thy leaves have ripened to the fall; Tomorrow's wind, fit be wild, Should waste them all.  The crows above the forest call;  Tomorrow they may form and go.  O hushed October morning mild, Begin the hours of this day slow.  Make the day seem to us less brief.  Hearts not averse to being beguiled, Beguile us in the way you know.  Release one leaf at break of day; at noon release another leaf."  Many people get very sad when fall ends with the big empty brown of the barren trees.  Frost had a poem for that as well:  "The woods are lovely, dark and deep.  But I have promises to keep, And miles to go before I sleep, And miles to go before I sleep."  Life does go on after the fall, there will be another one, even though life is waiting for the energy of the snow. Thomas Wolfe in "Look Homeward, Angel:  "And lying there while the winds of early autumn swept down from the Southern hills, filling the black air with dropping leaves, and making, in intermittent rushes, a remote sad thunder in great trees."  Up in the north country of Minnesota and Ontario, the Boundary Waters, there is a fall brilliance of color as well, that corresponds with the migration of ducks and geese.  Sigurd Olson, canoed and wrote about this country in books and taught at the University of Wisconsin.  He was an ecologist a long time ago.  "The Singing Wilderness":  "We brought the maples into the yard so that we could enjoy for a few short days in the fall the brilliant reds and yellows of their coloring, so they could remind us of the flaming pageantry of the entire North whenever we looked their way, the poetry of shorelines and protected bays, the magic of seeing a lone and vivid splash of red against a whole hillside of somber green."  If you live on the front range of Colorado, from Colorado Springs to Denver, there is another color display.  Wood Avenue in Colorado Springs has a New England type display of brilliant reds, purples and yellow, along its heavily tree-lined boulevard.  Birch, maple, poplars, cottonwoods and aspens, are thick and brilliant in front of the elegant homes, built by the mining boom.  In Denver, along UniversityAvenue, and Bonnie Brae Street, there is a jungle of birch, maples, and oaks, that remind one of New England or Minnesota.  Emily Dickinson, "I had a crimson robin, Who sang full many a day, But when the woods were painted, He too did fly away.  The morns are meeker than they were, The nuts are getting brown; The berry's cheek is plumper, the rose is out of town.  The maple wears a gayer scarf, The field a scarlet gown." How lucky and magical it is to be alive this fall.  Poem for Maya Rose, and Cody, the children.  Emily Dickinson: "As children caper when they wake, Merry that it is morn, My flowers from a hundred cribs, Will peep, and prance again." 

ASPEN, TELLURIDE, SUN VALLEY, VAIL, JACKSON HOLE, REALITY IN PARADISE

Dizzy Gillespie was on stage at the Telluride Colorado Jazz Festival, looking out at the mountains above the town, the red cliffs below, and the waterfalls in the distance.  He exclaimed "If this isn't paradise, heaven can wait."  He temporarily lost his rhythm.  He was moved to exclaim that the Telluride valley, was a unique paradise, far superior than the coast of Spain where he had played for a festival.  Most people do lose their life road map and sense of reality, when they come up the valley of Telluride.  But are towns like Aspen, Telluride and Sun Valley really paradise? Mose Allison in one of his Blues songs, said, "Whatever happened to real life?"  The Beatnik poet cried out while reciting a poem alongside a jazzbo playing the blues on a trumpet at the legendary fountain in Washington Square Park, NYC:  "We could be walking through heaven and not even know it."  Dizzy thought he had arrived in heaven in the valley of nature's mystical joy called Telluride, the Yosemite of ski towns.  Is there a downside to Birdman's life in Aspen, Telluride, Sun Valley, Jackson Hole and Vail?  There always seems to be a downside.  "Life is the Saturday that always comes but never quite makes it." Gene Shepherd, WOR, NYC radio announcer.  The Yogi Berra type saying, "Wherever you go, there you are", is an apt description to all ski towns in the American West.  It is true of all visions of the Elysium.  In Jackson Hole, in the early 60's Birdman was awarded the honor of cutting down the first pine tree on the ski tram line at the top of the mountain.  The Teton mountains looked like heaven from a distance, yet many died attempting to summit the peaks.  The rings of Saturn look like heaven from a distance.  The word Teton originated from members of the largest and westernmost of the Sioux peoples.  Birdman never saw a Sioux Indian while in the Hole.  The Indians were forgotten, and their land long ago was taken over by ranchers and cowboys.  Birdman did see hostile cowboys in downtown Jackson, jump out of old trucks and pound hapless youth who happened to have long hair, from the hippy days.  "Jerks in the History of the West."  You may have thought Doc Holliday was bad, a romantic card shark, but these guys were pocket book desperados who looked and acted like slum dog street thugs.  Birdman's friend, Jeff, a tough Swedish wrestler and street fighter, took on fist to fist, around 7 of the so-called tough cowboys during the summer of the building of the Jackson Hole ski area.  He laid them out easily one by one.  He called them roundhouse punchers who didn't really know how to fight.  The local  ranchers had cults of old-timers who were members of families who were born in the Hole, and did not like outsiders, actually expressed hatred for them, even the mountain climbers from Europe, were glared at  and some were beaten up by the elk racks in the park.  These cowboys didn't even like themselves.  When Wyatt Earp asked Doc Holliday why Johnnie Ringo killed so many men, hated so much, Doc replied, "revenge," Earp said, "revenge for what?"  Doc said "revenge for being born".  Jackson Hole was more like living in Purgatory rather than Paradise Lost.  It is where Dick Cheney, ex V.P. owned property, and probably decided to take out a few hostile cowboys with his miraculous bird shooting ability.  Sun Valley was next to a high desert, hot all summer, no cool air descending from the mountains like Telluride, and no rain all summer.  The locals were friendly, but the ski town is loaded with cliques from southern California and eastern Blue Bloods.  No community coffee house where strangers could strike up a conversation with a local.  If you were not part of a group, you were absent of invitations to parties, and trout fishing and hiking were your best choice for a connection to the place.  The trout streams have mostly private ranchland for access, except for the Nature Conservancy free stretch to the public on Silver Creek.  It was even hot at the streams, which can throw an outdoorsman out of rhythm.  A fly fisherman was known to have tried to escape the heat on Silver Creek, waded into a deep hole surrounded by quick sand, and disappeared.  Vail was one large traffic flow on the I-70 interstate freeway.  Instead of nature's quiet sounds, it sounded more like the turnpike at night by Gary Indiana.  The local social scene involved scattered saloons on the main mall area, with Denver tourists packing the seats, loud voices from sports bar hell.  Its Bavarian charm had vanished a long time ago, that it once had in the 60"s.  Who really wants to ski above an LA Freeway.  It would make a great music DVD, called "Skiing to the sound of howling semi trucks."  Vail pass is a nightmare in the winter, with people strewn around the freeway, pushing their sedans up the pass, nimrods from no snow city.  Powder skiing would vanish, what there is of it, in minutes from the crowds.  Vail's biggest claim to fame was Gerry Ford, who played football without a helmet, and played golf like Richard Nixon on steroids.  He was observed by Birdman at a tournament playing golf with Bob Hope, who had a great sense of humor about the silly game.  How could one call mountain adventure, chasing around a little white ball.  Birdman heard and saw Bob Hope look at a white golf ball in disbelief and say"You silly little ball."  A tourist on the sideline ran for his life when Ford walked up to a ball with a 3 wood.  Aspen is closest there is in ski towns to heaven, at least it was in the 60s, 70s, 80s and part of the 90s.  It was a community of local ski patrol, dozens of regular working people that were friendly and drank pitchers of beer at the famous Red Onion saloon.  That colorful community of ski bums, patrol, and workabees were friendly and drank pitchers of beer to the sounds of Neil Diamond.  Some holdouts for the Aspen life style from the old days, still meet at the Hickory House for breakfast. They look like they are getting ready for an AARP Convention.  Ninety Nine percent of that era of Aspenites have left town.  Then, wealthy nimrods replaced the barstools with velvet couches, sat around with uncool cigars, wearing phony cowboy hats. They looked like they were about to attend a gay cowboy rodeo.  Birdman has looked at dozens of old photographs in storefronts and museums of real working cowboys in the very old west, from Texas to Montana, and never saw one hat that looked like those worn by the yuppies that took over Aspen.  Tom Horn would never have been caught dead or alive wearing one of the Ralph Lauren, purple hats with bells.  He would have shot up the new Aspen with his 45/60 Winchester.  The skiing is heaven, especially at Snowmass which is a monstrous glade area, and a powder hound has a pick of bowls, glades, couloirs, and expert in the Wildcat area.  Most of the cool skiers gather at Aspen Mountain to say "I skied Aspen."  One morning a drunk skier from Iowa yelled, "Heaven is 2 feet of powder snow on the Big Burn."  He was right, the glades there are supurb, with placement of small pine trees as good as it gets in western ski towns.  Birdman walked into the Ute City Bank (called the "meat rack") a few years ago, not one working local in view, and joined a group of cigar smoking wealthy ski bum wannabes.  Their cigars were at least 14 inches long and you know the saying in Texas, "Big cigar, big hat, no cattle."  Birdman was asked several times how much he was worth.  They wanted to do a deal.  After the bank meltdown, ski towns were devastated.  None of the previous rich who crowd the bars and restaurants of Aspen, have anything now, not even mountain adventure memories. That is unless you flew in on a golden parachute from a Wall Street Hedge Fund.  Telluride is still plugging along, although the devastation and wipeout of the real estate and construction business requires one to be worth 10 million in Treasury Notes, which are lucky to get 1.3% now.  A good and creative real estate agent used to make that working 4 hours a day, and ski or fly fish in the afternoon.  Telluride still has a community that is slowly vanishing, it has one main street, called the street, by locals.  Locals are friendly and do talk to one another in front of coffee shops, and once every two months, a Hollywood legend will wander by. In Aspen the legends of Hollywood wander by at least twice a week, especially at Christmas.  That is, until off-season when they vanish for months.  One astounding fact of ski town life is that two-thirds of the homes are owned by absentee owners.  From late September to mid June, a resident may not see anyone familiar, except the hard core locals who are too broke to change their mind and go somewhere.  The surviving rich, have left for their 5th home in Hawaii or somewhere south on a coast, to the other paradise, keeping track of their dwindling net worth, bragging about their trophy home in Aspen or Telluride.  It may snow for a day or two weeks, nonstop in all of these towns of historical renown, these legends of paradise.  But who knows, one man's paradise is another man's hangover, and that could be anywhere in America, even East Lansing Michigan,the former home of the longest, oldest, surviving ski patrolman at the Telluride Ski Mountain.  There is trouble brewing in Ski Town Paradise, stay tuned.
"Life like a dome of many-colored glass, stains the white radiance of Eternity."  Shelley, the English Poet

AL GORE, THE ONE-EYED JACK, PSEUDO SCIENTIST OF THE GREEN MOVEMENT, THE JUDAS DUCK OF THE ANTHROPOGENIC-WARMING THEORY

The Comedy Central, "South Park" buffoon caricature of Al Gore is getting more ammunition from a Danish physicist Henrik Svensmark.  Svensmark was awe struck by a 1991 paper by Christensen and Lassen, who had charted a close relationship between solar variations and changes in the earth's surface temperature since 1860.  Svensmark is doing extensive research in a cloud chamber in Denmark to prove the validity of cosmic rays and cloud cover, as natures real link to global warming.  CERN, a European organization for research is controlled by 20 governments, and has launched a huge cloud chamber experiment by Jasper Kirkby.  The experiment is ongoing since 2009, and so far, it has not proved Mr. Svensmark wrong.  Both Kirkby and Svensmark hold that human activity is contributing to climate change.  All they question is its importance relative to other, natural factors.  Fifteen of Al Gore's major points in his 2006 Film, "An Inconvenient Truth" have been shown to be false.  Albert Einstein demanded empirical evidence to prove theories in nature.  Freeman Dyson, Professor Emeritus of the School of Natural Sciences in Princeton and a fellow of the Royal Society writes: "Computer models are very good at solving the equations of fluid dynamics but very bad at describing the real world.  The real world is full of things like clouds and vegetation and soil and dust which the models describe very poorly.  The climate of the earth is a very complicated system and nobody is close to understanding it."  Al Gore's financial livelihoods and lavish lifestyles depend on selling worst case global warming.  Michael Crichton in his book "State of Fear" describes in detail one-eyed-jacks like Al Gore who sell fear, live the opposite to a green lifestyle, and con the US Government into grants  (send the money) and has wasted billions of tax dollars on research to prove his theories, to make a movie, and ride his gas guzzling private jet.  What would you expect from a guy who got his trust fund money from Occidental Petroleum, a company whose owner Armand Hammer was the Godfather of American Corporate Corruption and Greed.  Hammer contributed millions, a steady supplier of campaign funds to Gore and to the Democratic Party.  To top off that, Gore talked Bill Clinton in 1995 into selling the Elk Hill oil fields (47,000 acres) near Bakersfield California, to Armand Hammer.  It was the largest privatization of federal property in US history, larger than Tea Pot Dome.  A huge increase in the stock value of Occidental Petroleum followed immediately after the sale.  The US Navy held Elk Hill since 1912 for military emergencies.  The fear of the lack of oil for the US Military was a main impetus, that led to the attack on Iraq.  The sale increased Gore's trust fund checks, through stock owned by his mother in Occidental.  That act alone would qualify Al Gore as the Judas Duck vice president of the century.  The US Government should put a Mount Rushmore style statue of Al Gore at the lake in North Platte Nebraska, where there are descendants of the original Judas Duck and Goose population, still thriving. 

THE WING TO FREEDOM FOR RETIREMENT, A FEDERAL SPONSORED SOLUTION TO DEBT

A recent article in the Wall Street Journal titled "Debt Hobbles Older Americans," revealed that millions of older Americans who had planned to retire in their early 60's have found it impossible due to mortgages on their homes, credit card debt, and the huge drop in value of their primary homes, and the collapse in value of their 401-K's.  Many have accepted the fact that they will be working for Walmart or driving taxis to make ends meet in their twilight years.  What a dismal prospect for the old American Dream.  Until the investment banker caused meltdown starting in 2007, older Americans could sell their primary residences at a good profit, downsize to a modest condo, or smaller home, put the profit from their home in a Treasury Note, and live on the interest, 401-K money, and Social Security, owed to them in a trust fund that they paid into for 50 years. Wall Street, along with 22 other culprits detailed in "Bailout Nation", wiped out that entire possibility for a dignified life that is debt free, in their twilight years.  There is a solution that can be signed by a Federal Judge, and sanctioned by Congressional Federal Law, it is called Chapter 7 bankruptcy.  This action should be seriously considered as a path to freedom after ones career has ended by choice or circumstances from the endless recession.  It should be a major part of retirement planning.  What does a senior actually need a home for, they are not raising children anymore and who is anyone trying to impress after the US economy was trashed by greed?  All of the David Ramsey "Debt Free" solutions are too late at that stage of life, they take too long and are for young people who need massive good credit for their future family.  If an elderly person has made way less than $40,000 per year, the past two years, due to the bank meltdown, or career collapse, or sales collapse, such as a real estate agent, they can qualify under a means test, for a complete discharge of all their credit card, business, and mortgage debt, with no federal tax consequences and no feedback lawsuits are possible from any banks or institutions of credit.  Hand the keys to the banks, they want all of the real estate in the nation anyway.  It costs from $1,000 to $2,500 for a good bankruptcy attorney, and can take as little in time as 6 months or less.  Definitely do a due diligence with an attorney on all of these facts.  The feeling of freedom, no bills for the first time since they got out of high school, will be a breath of fresh air, like landing on top of Mount Everest and seeing the world fresh and new again, like when they were born.  Then, with a wisely selected part time job, Social Security, and a paid off home, or downsized good rental, no mortgage, no payments to the banks, and one or two friendly letters in their post box with only dividend checks from a firm, life will feel free and fresh again.  The seniors can find a high amenity, low overhead town to live like Denver Colorado.  Rent there is 25% of their underwater mortgage cost in a resort town, with 50 times the amenities.  The process is completely legal, it works, and is approved and signed by a Federal bankruptcy judge at final discharge.  There should be no stigma to the act, and no guilt, unless a Judas Duck financial advisor is philosophically opposed.  The seniors should tell these Ducks that give out bad advice, to send a tithe to their favorite Wall Street Investment Bank, since they are working for and protecting the banks anyway.  Many famous people have used the solution, including Mark Twain, Burt Reynolds, Donald Trump, as well as numerous other movie legends, sports legends, titans of business, and thousands of others who have knowledge of the American System.  Good credit can return in 1 to 2 years.  Would a good credit union rather loan to an alleged millionaire, who has a $1,500,000 mortgage on their primary ski town home, or a zero debt senior who has cash flow which is guaranteed for life through Social Security, a treasury note with the US Treasury, and some dividend money coming to their post box, like clockwork?  "Ignorance is the curse of God, knowledge the wing wherewith we fly to Heaven."  William Shakespeare

DARYL HANNAH, JUDAS DUCK TREE HUGGER

Good work Daryl, you flew out and circled the flock of ducks to lead them to slaughter, by having them arrested in D.C.  You are a clear example of a Mamaluk, a jaboni from fern fairy heaven.  Almost everyone wants an alternative fuel so we can clean up the environment and stop the permanent wars in the Middle East.  Those who have thought about this problem, realize that green energy is ultimately the answer but Green will take dozens of years to function on a daily basis at an affordable level.  EVSI, is working on setting up charging stations for electric cars in parking lots around the U.S. by solar structures, plug-ins.  Even Exxon, your favorite oil company, is working on natural gas as a takeover product and interim, cleaner fuel, until the next green energy is large enough to make a difference.  In the meantime you want people arrested and urge them to fight the pipeline which is the safest way to transport oil at the present time.  If the US doesn't build it, the Chinese will take over the buyout of Albertas oil, and ship it by boat to China, which could lead to an Exxon Valdez disaster.  The pipeline would provide tens of thousands of jobs, and benefit our neighbor, Canada, instead of sending billions to Saudi Arabia.  When people are begging for food and work on street corners all over America, you are collecting interest on your trust fund, I guess you use green tea to drive to your environmental office work every day.  You are up there with Al Gore as a phony, whose family made all their money and send him a check from Occidental Oil company.  Next time you travel to Telluride, write out a check to the Montrose or Norwood chapter of Ducks Unlimited, it will be more of real help to Canadian and American birdlife, than your Judas Duck sit in.  "Ignorance is the curse of God, Knowledge the wing, wherewith we fly to heaven."  Daryl, when you find that wing, please don't disturb the real working ducks, and please don't circle them back for a slaughter. 

STAR GAZING DURING TELLURIDE FILM FESTIVAL

       A local elk hunter named Charlie was asked at the Telluride film festival, whether he had been doing any star watching.  Charlie said “no, I never look up at the stars at night, and know nothing about it.” A few days later, Charlie loaded up a mule called Equus with all his hunting gear and camping supplies for a weeks elk hunt in the high country of the San Miguel mountains.  Hours later he arrived in a basin, near the Wilson mountains, above timberline, with views to the heavens.  Just when he was about to set up camp for his primeval hunt, Equus bellowed and took off with everything, never to be seen again, never to return. Charlie returned to the Sheridan bar, to tell the tale, with his tail between his legs.  A local mountain climber claims he saw Equus, at night, in a grassland basin, looking up at the stars, contemplating the universe from the Colorado high country. Equus was renamed by the locals, Stargazer.  He has never been seen since. He made a jackass out of Charlie, who had to walk 12 miles back to town, in the dark. The legend is growing that Stargazer may have caught the tail of a comet, and may return in a thousand years, gazing and contemplating in the far reaches of space. 

WOMEN IN SKI TOWNS

IN SKI TOWNS?  After 40 years living in ski towns from Aspen, Telluride, Vail, Jackson Hole, and Sun Valley, I have concluded the answer is NO.  Bring your wife or girlfriend or wait your turn.  Telluride in the early years had a ratio of 10 to 1, men to women.  A cab driver said it best in Aspen Colorado.  “Even the ski towns in Europe have a huge abundance of men who love the outdoor adventure life, with a small number of ladies.”  The economic change in the late 80′s and 90′s through the present made it very difficult for women to handle the high cost of living.  They left Telluride in droves for greener pastures.  Also, the rugged lifestyle turns even married women off, who miss the Big City amenities.  I watched 10 men lose their wives due to over two decades of complete boredom, while their husbands were in a state of outdoor nirvana, hunting and fishing and skiing in the mountains.  A new phenomenon written up in several outdoor magazines has changed that somewhat.  More women are taking up outdoor sports, including bird hunting, fly fishing and hunting deer and elk.  Telluride and Jackson Hole have not changed a lot since the quote from Washington Irving in 1836: “It is to be feared that a great part of the West will form a lawless interval between abodes of civilized men….Here may spring up new and mongrel races, like new formations in geology, the amalgamation of the debris and abrasions of former races.”  Walk into the Last Dollar Saloon on a Friday evening in Telluride Colorado,  and not much has changed.  Several presidents wanted to leave the untamed West alone, since it was too vast and savage to deal with.  Mark Twain in 1865 said it best: ”Sometimes we have the seasons in Nevada in their regular order, and then again we have winter all the summer, and summer all the winter…..It is mighty regular about not raining, though….But as a general thing, the climate is good, what there is of it.”   Try to put your high heels on under those conditions.  Bachelors, stay tuned, there is hope.

HELLO WORLD!!!!!!!

I will be posting excerpts from my book in progress,  ”Travels With $Bill”.  Wacko Wally will be one of your favorite characters.  There will be huge insights on How to generate big cash, Aspen and Telluride insights on living in ski towns, investing in ski towns, characters from Chicago, goose, duck and pheasant hunting within 100 miles of Telluride, comparisons to Sun Valley Idaho, buying fixer uppers in Aspen during down markets, bird dogs, ski patrol, (the inside story), Chicago Board of Options traders, the wildmen of the MidWest, the Black Pontiac, black leather seats, travelling around the American West, stocks, bonds, land investments near ski towns and the pitfalls of false, phony and incompetent gurus, and numerous hilarious hunting stories with the Black Pontiac as the main  duck blind in the fall action.  $Bill, Wacko Wally, and Birdman will set your comic relief level at a new high, in a way too serious world, particularly these days, with the Den of Thieves in the banking industry, lurking on every street corner.  The pitfalls to avoid in ski town real estate investment will be discussed at length during the travels, stay tuned, LandMan.

SKI TOWN MELTDOWN

I have spent the winter at a bookshop in Colorado Springs Colorado studying 12 books written regarding the Wall street meltdown of banks. More importanlty I have witnessed firsthand the meltdown of real estate values and sales in Aspen and Telluride Colorado Ski Towns. Never in their history have those two towns experienced such devastation of prices, sales, and values, caused by the theftocracy on Wall street and governmental incompetence. Hundreds of millions has been wiped out of ski homes and ranchland. The following quote from the CEO, owner of Intrawest, one year ago says it all “The real estate business at ski resorts has not stalled, it has vanished”. I have a way to make up for those losses. e-mail me at: rforsbergland@telluridecolorado.net, and I’ll fill you in. Thanks, LandMan. Telluride

JUDAS DUCK

In the old days of market hunting for duck and geese, the shooters would sit in a blind with their Judas Duck, a trained, live bird that would take off and find a flock overhead.   This duck was quite unusual, it would fly up to a passing flock, join the head of the flock, and lead the ducks down to the decoys to be slaughtered, for the restaurant markets.    Does the Judas Duck remind you of present day characters in Washington and on Wall Street?  Does the Judas Duck remind you of any lawyers you know, real estate agents, financial advisors, stock salesman, mayors of major cities,  secretary of the US Treasury, heads of major Wall Street banks, past generals (Does General Custer come to mind?), financial gurus in our midst, talking head rapid mouths on TV, jerks preaching on a street corner, beware of the Judas Duck, he or she may be in your neighborhood, LandMan.

CATEGORY 5 HURRICANE

In the book, $200 Oil, the author says something astounding for the year 2006, and by saying so makes an inadvertent prediction.  ”The tech stock correction of the year 2000, was a minor storm, since Alan Greenspan lowered interest rates and smoothed out the national economy from the rough waters,  it was a small storm on the radar screen.  If there is a collapse of the real estate bubble, nation wide, it will be like a Category 5 Hurricane. ” The Hurricane hit in 2007, with no advanced warning, no time to leave town, and no time to take corrective action.  It tossed hundreds of millions of Americans from one disaster area to another, and hasn’t let up yet.  The Federal government, the Wall street bankers, and the media has attempted to remove this storm from the public radar screen.   The winds and the backwash haven’t ebbed yet,  entire families are getting washed up on strange and distant beaches, 10 trillion dollars has vanished, the largest deflation of assets in the nations history, and no one has a real solution.  A ship captain whose boat in Mississippi Gulf waters was dragged out to sea during Katrina and was tossed and banged around in his cabin for hours, said, “The gods have saved me from this disaster, so I can face a larger disaster in the future.”  Does anyone in Washington or on Wall street, have any idea of the size of the destruction, from the 2007-2010 economic storm, and how many people it has washed to strange shores? Remember ”The Grapes of Wrath” John Steinbeck.  How about ”The Gurus of Incompetence”  Alan Greenspan.  LandMan

SKI BUM TO MILLIONAIRE

Aspen and Telluride ski towns were real gold mines of opportunity in the 70′s and 80′s.  Starwood at Aspen, lot prices started at $22,000 and eventually became worth over $2 million per lot.  Houses in Aspen were as low as $125,000, eventually over $3 million per house.  When Birdman arrived in Telluride, to work on the Ski Patrol, he secured a home in a prime, sunny side neighborhood for $25,000 with nothing down, owner carry. Others, the lucky few on the ski patrol, who had listened closely to the stories about the new ski town, Telluride, in beer gulch at the famous Red Onion Saloon, secured homes as low as $10,000 per miners shack.  In the early 80′s, Birdman picked up a house across the creek from the Carradine mansion for $50,000.  This miners shack sold for $900,000.  Those days are over in ski town USA.  A ski bum working on the mountain for $5 per hour could buy a home, hold on to it as he raised children, hunted, skied, and fished in pristine trout streams,  in the prime sportsmans paradise of SouthWestern Colorado, pick up another home or lot, fix it up, rent it out, and sell his empire eventually for over a million $ in cash to Wall street bankers.  Young people who want to live the mountain life of adventure, are looking for another potential ski town, like Aspen and Telluride, they have heard the stories.   These two towns are unique, the ski trails drop right into the heart of the mining town, an easy walk to your million dollar shack.  Those days are over, the US Forest Service does not allow new ski permits on National Forest Land, and the cost of development is five times the lift production costs of the 70′s.  The Gilded Age of the ski bum turns millionaire on a raw dirt or shack investment is over. Young people have heard the stories and are looking for the next Telluride or Aspen.  There is a town, not on this continent, that is similar to Aspen in its infancy, e-mail me and I will let you know where it is.  Also, British Columbia has some towns with potential, but highly risky investments, since Fernie and Revelstoke take so much of the action, and have such spectacular powder skiing.  Ski bum to millionaire, a legendary time in the west that will be remembered.  LandMan

JUDAS DUCK, JUDAS GEESE IN US TODAY, TOO BIG OF A DUCK TO SUCCEED

There are still descendants of the original brood of Judas Geese in a park in North Platte Nebraska, who were luring the wild flocks to their demise on the North Platte River.  They were trained by the market hunters to fly up into a flock of geese and lead the flock down to the gunners to be slaughtered for the restaurant markets.  There are many examples in our society of Judas ducks and Geese.  We are forever and constantly plagued by Judas duck lawyers, financial advisors, real estate agents, Wall Street investment bankers, congressmen, accountants, secretaries of defense, travel agents, and countless other advisors on everything, in the absolute wrong direction, leading us to eventual slaughter.  The charlatans and quackers on Wall Street, led the nation to the precipice of disaster, to the edge of the worst financial meltdown since 1929.  Ben Bernanke said in the movie “Too Big To Fail”, talking to the heads of the largest investment banks in the nation, “If you guys do not take this loan offer from our TARP authority, we could see a worse financial disaster than the Great Depression.  It will take you all down.”  All the Judas Duck heads of the banks knew they had caused the problem with their hubris, greed, and incompetence, yet some of them resisted the loan bailout funds.  They all finally signed the deal, giving the markets on Wall Street a false sense of security, for awhile.  The Category 5 Hurricane in the housing markets is still happening with no bottom in sight.  An extremely competent real estate attorney from Boulder Colorado, Oliver Frascona, said in a real estate class, “Lawyers are right only half the time.”  The other half are taking us into the final duck blind.  Financial advisors before the Big Meltdown, told people by the millions to buy into the stock market, even though real estate was in a ten year bull market.  In the fall of 2008, the stock market collapsed, leaving millions of people stranded in front of the blind with the Judas Ducks quacking away.  In the book “Outrage” Vincent Bugliosi said “There is incompetence from the lowest government official all the way to the top.”  The secretary of defense, Robert McNamara, sent 58,000 young Americans to slaughter in Vietnam, and later admitted it was all a mistake.  He should get the Hall of Fame Award, the Master of the Judas Duck Quacker trophy, and quack away in his grave, like a wounded, crippled duck.  A Judas Duck hang glider once told the Ski Patrol, how great everythinig is at 20,000 feet….maybe so, if you are an eagle or a peregrine falcon.  The Judas Duck financial geniuses sat in Beer Gulch at the Red Onion saloon in Aspen ski town in the early 70′s and urged everyone to never move to Telluride, it would be a giant loser.  Telluride real estate then increased an average of 34% per year for 35 years with one minor correction in 1982, and provided homes, work and a life of outdoor adventure for the smart and lucky who moved there in the early 70′s.  A Beat poet once said, “You may be walking through heaven and not even know it.”  The Judas Duck ski town gurus in Aspen are green with envy and white with fear about how wrong they were.  William Shakespeare had something to say about the Judas Duck phenomenon in Henry VI.  “Ignorance is the curse of God, knowledge the wing wherewith we fly to Heaven.”  But do not fly with the Judas Ducks.

JUDAS DUCK DEFENSE SECRETARY, DONALD RUMSFELD

Peggy Noonan, in a recent Wall Street Journal column  called Donald Rumsfeld, “a second rate mind and gutless.”  She was referring to his failure to keep his eye on the ball and kill or capture Osama bin Laden at Tora Bora, when they had him in their sights.  He failed to stay in direct touch with the CIA, and Special Ops on the ground to give them the assistance they needed to finish the job. Donald Rumsfeld called Osama bin Laden, “one man on the run”.  Peggy states “He was not one man on the run. He is the man who just killed almost 3,000 people at the World Trade Center, at the Pentagon, in a field in Pennsylvania.  He’s the reason people held hands and jumped off the buildings.  It is the great scandal of the wars of the Bush era that the U.S. government failed to get him and bring him to justice.  It is the shame of this book that Don Rumsfeld lacks the brains to see it, or the guts to admit it.”  We should honor Peggy Noonan for the guts to speak the truth, and recognize the Judas Duck of the century, Don Rumsfeld.  “The failure to find bin Laden was a seminal moment in the history of the war in Afghanistan.  And it was a catastrophe.  From that moment everything about the Afghanistan war became unclear, unfocused, murky and confused. ” It took a Black president with guts and brain power to keep his eye on the ball, and take the risky and dramatic kill, finishing the job 11 years later.  Donald Rumsfeld, Judas Duck of the century.

ASPEN AND TELLURIDE GOLD RUSH, JUDAS DUCK ADVISORS, MARK TWAIN LUST FOR GOLD IN SKI AREAS

Mark Twain wrote that the real religion in America was the lust for the greenback, stocks, and gold.  He called these three, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, and admitted that he spent a great deal of his life chasing money and gold, eventually ending up in Virginia City Nevada during the gold rush, and lost everything, filing for bankruptcy.  The Pure Golden Age of the ski towns, Aspen and Telluride, started in the late 60′s and ended abruptly in 2007, with the bank and Wall street meltdown.  The old saying of miners in these two towns was “Only a few find the gold.”  In the early 70′s those that invested in a home or land in Aspen or Telluride, eventually found lots of gold, and the numbers of winners were quite high.  Ski bums, carpenters, plumbers, ski patrolmen, and a lucky few that were already rich, who bought low in the 70′s, cashed out in the 90′s through 2007 did astonishingly well.  Some made 150 times their initial investments, with low downs to local families.  Skiing became a cover for closet dirt and pad junkies.  It was real, it was powerful, and lasted 27 years, the Golden Age of ski towns. In 1982 Birdman bought a home across from Keith Carradines mansion.  He paid $49,000 for a duplex, put $5000 down, remodeled and sold for $950,000 in 2002.  That is an astonishing 170 bagger.  That is an 8.5 bagger each year for 20 years.  It beat the stock market with a $42,500 increase per year, while Birdman slept and worked, and rented out the extra unit to pay the small mortgage.  The town of Aspen increased in value around 30% per year since the late 60′s and had one minor correction in 1982 during the high interest rate (21%) recession caused by Paul Volcker.  The following years (82-2007) saw steady increases until the Category 5 hurricane hit, that destroyed the dream.  Telluride homes doubled in two years (2000) when the heir to the Sony Corp bought the ski area, Joe Morita.  Then the houses and lots collapsed dramatically from 25% to 50% or more in value, starting in 2007.  Go to www.estinaspen.com, and you will see the reality of the huge correction in Aspen homes.  Trophy homes in greed-head city, have sold for half their original price, taking 3 to 4 years to get an offer.  There are still Judas Duck real estate agents and promoters in each town, cheer leading the recent increase in sales in 2010 and 2011.  They have Judas Duck reports and promotion, hyped up analysis, on the meager increases in sales.  They forget to mention that sales have dropped 50% to 65% and more,  from the last boom years of 2006-2007.  Nobody on Wall street, except a few hedge funders, (described in the book,”The Big Short”), predicted or knew about the looming Category 5 Hurricane. There was not one line in the Wall Street Journal, warning of a coming disaster.  The Golden Age in these two ski towns, Aspen and Telluride, was a unique Perfect Storm.  People adventurous enough and lucky enough to have arrived in either town in the early 70′s, and had any grasp of the upside of buying a home, were rewarded in a giant manner.  If they were caught in 2007, still owning the same properties, they still may have gained a lot, if they cashed in early, or lost all their equity in the meltdown.  The addiction to real estate during the Golden Age, was powerful, and became the dominant culture.  Even ski magazines wrote constantly about the phenomenon.  The end of the boom-boom years has dramatically altered this opportunity, and made the search for gold, a search for escape back to another reality, and lower prices for everything, and no lifts at your doorstep.  Now a large percentage of Telluride homes are owned by the banks that are holding a huge number of Deeds of Trust. The low down, high leverage, huge upside phenomenon may never happen again.  You may see in the future, these two towns fade into a Newport Rhode Island status, where mansions became museums, and went out of style as havens for the rich.  What a great life for the ski pioneers, and a sad ending for the two ski towns.  Where is the next New Big Thing?  Stay tuned.  

JUDAS DUCK MAFIA GOOSE HUNTERS, HAL AND AL

Wacko Wally and $Bill were witness to one of the most outrageous goose hunts in the history of Cairo Illinois.  They were on a mission to hunt geese where the Ohio river meets the Mississippi river, outside of Cairo, a Mafia hang out.  Wacko walked out of his motel room early in the a.m., his hair around the bald spot, was standing straight up in the air, he was hungry and saw Hal and Al in front of their room, holding eggs in a spoon over a bunsen burner.  Hal was 4’11″ and Al was 6’11″ tall.  They looked sinister, wearing Bogart style camouflaged trench coats, which had bulges underneath.  There were several violin cases on the ground, filled with goose ammunition for their sawed off 10 gauge shotguns, and two Thompson submachine guns.  $Bill came out to say hello, and Hal bellowed, “Where are you guys hunting?”.  Wacko says, “We’re in pit number 9 at Babes goose club.”  Al says “We’ll see you there, we’re in pit number 10.”  A few hours later at the crack of dawn, Wacko and $Bill walked to their blind with their dog Pinetop, named after the Chicago Blues singer, Pinetop King.  The two good fellows were already in their blind.  Pinetop was howling his version of the Blues and shaking with anticipation.  In the distance a large flock of Canadian Honkers appeared, and headed towards Hal, Al, Wacko Wally, $Bill and Pinetop, the yellow male labrador.  Wacko loaded up quickly his Belgium over under, with 3″, number 2′s.  $Bill was ready as well.  As the geese headed towards the decoys, Wacko noticed something peculiar in Hal and Al’s blind.  Hal opened up the violin cases, and pulled out two loaded Thompson sub machine guns.  Wacko’s knees started shaking and his bald head went into a sweat.  $Bill erupted in wild laughter.  Not since the days of market hunting, had there been such a presence of Judas Duck Hunters.  As the geese came in with set wings, Wacko dove for cover and laid out flat in the blind.  All of a sudden Hal and Al let loose with the machine guns, an amazing barrage of fire power, it sounded like the  Valentines Day massacre.  The lead goose exploded with a massive feather drop into the blinds, Wacko’s bald head filled with feathers.  Pinetop launched from the blind in the midst of 15 geese, flopping  around on the ground.  He retrieved every bird.  Hal and Al took all but one goose, wished Wacko and $Bill luck and left the scene.  Several weeks later, Wacko Wally got to know Hal and Al, at a motorcycle club meeting, in Chicago.  They were now working as Martial Arts instructors for the Chicago police department.  Wacko was later escorted out of Chicago, safely, by Hal and Al, at the end of an affair with the wife of a Mafia attorney.  Wally and $Bill were later seen, hiding out in Telluride Colorado, hunting mourning doves with 20 gauge Belgium shotguns, using light loads.  Wacko Wally told the story of Hal and Al on every hunt.  He never did heat an egg on a bunsen burner. 

NATIONAL DEBT SOLUTION

The fraud and non payment of Federal Income Taxes is costing the U.S. Government almost 2 trillion dollars.  The excess of different sections of government watching over agencies with no help but high costs, which could be solved by congress, amounts to 800 billion dollars.  The defense of Europe, at a cost to every citizen of the U.S., costs a huge amount and is unnecessary.  European countries are getting a free ride, with very little cost for their own armies.  The amount of troops in Korea is extremely excessive, the Koreans can take care of themselves.  Congress has never really addressed waste and fraud in government which is in the billions.  Electric cars would sell if Envision Solar International (EVSI.ob) could get their solar panels and plug-in stations in all the empty asphalt in the U.S., which is the answer to where to recharge the batteries.  Rest stops on Interstates could also be areas for recharging with these solar panels on long distance trips.  An economic study by a Bill Clinton advisor concluded that Social Security could be fixed with a 2 percent raise in the payroll tax.  The U.S. government owns hundreds of billions of dollars of land in cities all across America, and does not have a listing and sale program, the land sits empty and useless.  T Boone Pickens has presented a solution to the oil problem to Congress, natural gas, as an interim fuel that is less expensive and less polluting.  This is readily available in huge supply across the U.S. and Canada, and could lessen dependency on Middle Eastern oil, until the green solutions become more financially feasible.  Convicts could be put to work rebuilding our infrastructure across the U.S., and learn a productive trade in the process, saving billions on labor for bridges and roads.  Three wars can end, with major pullouts of troops, the new local armies exist,  that the U.S. has built and payed for, and save us a trillion over the next decade.  Gas is costing $500 per gallon for the military vehicles in Afghanistan.  Why not retrofit to electric Humvees with solar plug in panels, saving billions?  Mose Allison, the blues singer and piano player said “The world is one big trouble spot, things aren’t getting better, they just keep on getting worse.”   The obvious solutions to the National Debt can be fixed with the help of the same kind of brilliant minds that invented the computer and the internet. 

DEED OF TRUST CASH BUYERS, LANDMAN TELLURIDE COLORADO

I have large numbers of cash buyers for discounted Notes backed by a good Deed of Trust as well as Mortgages, through my firm, which has been in business for 15 years.  You list your note, backed by a good parcel of real estate with a good interest rate, list through  my Firm, get cash offers, accept or reject, and close in 35 to 55 days.  Your note will be valued using several criteria including seasoned borrowers, credit score, above sub prime interest rate, property with an appraisal, amount of equity, and several other factors.  I have a number of references, I have worked in the land sales business in Aspen and Telluride Colorado for 25 years, and have created hundreds of notes backed by a Deed of Trust on properties.  I know the values around Telluride, where I have some discounted notes for sale, I have made millions for people in the ski towns, including the Nordic Trac family on a recent sale of 1250 acres to the Trust For Public Land, in the Ophir Valley near Telluride ski area,  for $8,300,000.  The acreage will be bought by the US Forest Service for permanent Open Space.  Call me or e-mail me at: rforsbergland@telluridecolorado.net             Cell # 9707089038.  You will learn a lot and get your cash which is King now rather than 1 to 30 years from now.  Thanks, Landman

ASPEN TO TELLURIDE, REAL ESTATE JUNKIES

Birdman heard thousands of conversations in Aspen and Telluride during the 70′s through 2007 about the biggest addiction in ski town USA history, real estate investment and credit addiction.  This was the crack cocaine of the ski towns, leverage, credit, buying homes and land to make huge gains in the appreciation of the product.  The phenomenon involved the rich as well as soon to be rich, regular workers, real estate agents, and workers in the restaurants.  Starwood lots in Aspen were $22,000 per lot in 1971, and went to $3 million and now reduced to $2 million.  Between 1972 and 2006, lots in the ski town of Telluride went from $7000 per lot to $1 million per lot, a 141 times increase.   Some years they doubled in value, and some years went up 20% to 30%.  They were the drug of choice.  There was nothing more powerful in the valley than this money game, not even the avalanches that occasionally rumbled off the mountains, in full view of downtown Telluride.  Cocaine dealers who were loaded with hubris lost all their money, buying real estate as fast as they could, feeling invincible to the downside.  It was a monstrously powerful addiction, with no RESG (Real Estate Support Group) to counsel its victims.  The rich and famous got involved as well, dozens of movie stars bought into Aspen and Telluride.  Captains of industry, a who is who of CEO’s bought into the frenzy.  Birdman bought a home in 1973 with nothing down for $25,000 in a prime upscale neighborhood, and sold it years later for $975,000.  His neighbors included the great-granddaughter of Jay Gould, the Wall street tycoon who invented the stock certificate printing press at the turn of the century.  The Walt Disney grandchildren bought a home on 4 lots across the creek from Birdman.  Keith Carradine bought a house across the creek from Bill Graham the promoter for the Grateful Dead, who was later killed in a helicopter accident in Vallejo California returning from a Huey Lewis and the News concert.  Birdmans house had a temporary foundation, concrete, railroad ties, and mining beams, it was remodeled twice, and sold for cash in two weeks, to a Wall street investment banker family.  The powerful addiction was part of almost every conversation in the saloons, on the streets, it rolled through the culture like a religion that was a major part of the ski towns legend.  Mark Twain would have moved to Telluride, looking for a real estate agent.  Rich folk roamed the main street of downtown Telluride, looking for the best agent, that would make them richer.  No matter how or where the conversation started, it ended up with, “did you hear about the agent who bought 3 lots in town for $40,000 each and sold them for $100,000 each 2 years later.” One builder in Telluride owned 20 prime residential lots on the sunny side of town, said he thought they generated no interest in the early 80′s, and sold them for $50,000 each.  Later on they went to $800,000 to $1 million per lot.  One real estate broker owned a home below Red Mountain in Aspen, sold it for $370,000, and moved to Telluride and opened a real estate office.  The house a year later sold for over $1.4 million.  He was addicted to cocaine and addicted to real estate and money, and the question is, which was the most powerful.  The banks, and old miners handed out loans like free hotdogs at a 4th of July barbecue, and national banks sent letters by the week offering equity loans to any owner with a heartbeat.  The ultimate solution to the lust for real estate, which ended the party, was the meltdown on Wall street, when real estate sales dropped to zero and commissions disintegrated, and land and home values collapsed in Aspen and Telluride 30% to 60% in value.  Now the locals are going through withdrawal and the endless category 5 hurricane, from the bank meltdown and recession of the century, never seems to end.  A new culture, a new value system is emerging in Aspen and Telluride; friends and family, children, grandkids,  mother nature, outdoor adventure are looming as a real value, for those who are survivors and can afford to stay in the ski towns.  The golden years of real estate booms, 1970-2007, is gone, the big easy money is over, sayonara.  Junkies are leaving town,  searching for a new Big Thing.  Maybe it is gold panning, and actually skiing. 

TELLURIDE REAL ESTATE EXPERT, LANDMAN, HOW TO AVOID THE JUDAS DUCKS IN THE SKI TOWN

I worked in real estate sales in Telluride Colorado for 25 years, pioneered the ski resort, and kept track of prices and all the deals, from 1972 to now.  I also traveled to and worked in Sun Valley Idaho, Aspen Colorado, Jackson Hole Wyoming and Vail Colorado.  I studied every spring and fall ski town values and best location investments and development in these 4 towns.  I am an expert in ski town investing and buying.  I can give you advice on location, Judas Duck lawyers, Judas Duck real estate agents, incompetent town and county officials, and hype artists, cheerleaders that hang on the Main street of downtown Telluride, day and night.  I have relocated to the eastern slope, and maintained an involvement in the Gurley Lake Community Ranch project which is 34 miles from the ski lifts, south of Norwood, and contains 3500 acres of a renowned, historic ranch.  The ranch has a 320 acre trout/sailing lake with views of the ski runs.  I have sold thousands of acres to the Nordic Trac family, from Ridgway to Montrose to the Ophir valley, south of the ski area.  I procured the purchase and sale of 1250 acres of mining claims in the Ophir Valley for the Nordic Trac family.  I introduced the family to the TPL (Trust for Public Land), who closed on the property in 2009, and have sold to the US Forest Service for permanent Open Space.  I also listed and sold the Bear Creek Valley, to a conservation minded family.  The valley of Bear Creek is now permanent open space.  There are many Judas Duck types of promoters in the town of Telluride, who will tell you anything to make a sale, especially during these tough times in ski towns.  I will level with you regarding anything you ask, and help you save money on deals, and avoid future disaster.  I know who the Ducks are.  A Judas Duck was a trained live duck during the market hunting era.  The live duck was let go to fly up and join a circling flock, and lead the flock back to the decoy spread to be slaughtered by the market hunters, for the restaurants.  I know the areas that are over priced, and the deals and locations to avoid.  Call me or e-mail me (9707089038); e-mail me at: rforsbergland@telluridecolorado.net.  Thank You, Landman. 

ASPEN SKI PATROL, DEATH IN THE MOUNTAINS, COMETS PASSING

Unique tragedies are part of the life of anyone living in ski towns, or at least hearing about them.  In the winter of 1971 four members of the Aspen Highlands ski patrol, perished in tons of snow, in Aspen Highlands Bowl, a massive avalanche that was tough to avoid and escape.  The tragedy for these very young athletes rocked the community of Aspen, and left a lasting mark on the romantic vision of mountain adventure for Birdman.  A few years later, Birdman worked for 8 years on the Telluride Ski Patrol, with patrolmen from Aspen, Taos, and Steamboat Springs, doing the same kind of avalanche control work on massive bowls of powder, hanging high above the town of Telluride.  Studies and data were kept for the US Forest Service, and most of the powder bowls were later opened up to the public.  Aspen Highlands Bowl is now open to the public, due to the work of these original pioneers on the patrol, who braved its wild elements.  The early, untimely death of young people has always caused Birdman to ponder in sadness, but also to reflect on the comet theory, that some people, sent by the gods, whether jazz musicians, writers, poets, or mountain adventure types, living on the edge of nature, who come into this life, like a bright, sparkling,  comet, and orbit around the local mountains and far away in high adventure spots, causing wonder and awe amongst the locals, with their hubris and acts of living on the edge of bravado, and suddenly like a descending falcon, dive to  earth, not to be seen or heard from again, ever.  “The angels all were singing out of tune, And hoarse with having little else to do, Excepting to wind up the sun and moon, Or curb a runaway young star or two, Or wild colt of a comet which too soon, Broke out of bounds o’er the ethereal blue, Splitting some planet with its beautiful tail, As boats are sometimes by a wanton whale.”    “The Vision of Judgment,” 1822, Lord Byron.  In each ski town, its residents regularly hear about these young adventurers, passing away in an avalanche, hang glider, rock climbing,  skiing on the edge, or  skiing the length of Norway, to be caught in a 16 day blizzard,  frozen in a tent, like a Telluride resident who perished in Norway in 2008.  It is always very sad, it always shakes the soul of those friends left on earth .  The same comet theory applies to soldiers who died in their early youth in Vietnam, and now two perpetual wars.  “And that’s the end.  He passes away under a cloud, inscrutable at heart, remembered, unforgiving, and expressively romantic.  Now he is no more, there are days when the reality of his existence comes to me with an immense, with an overwhelming force; and yet upon my honor there are moments, too, when he passes from my eyes like a disembodied spirit astray amongst the passions of this earth, ready to surrender himself faithfully to the claim of his own world of shades.”  Lord Jim,  Joseph Conrad.