$Bill, Wacko Wally and BirdMan were heading for Montrose Colorado for a duck, goose and pheasant hunt, rolling along the highway in $Bill’s black Pontiac.
BirdMan had his usual back seat and could see the glow off the top of Wacko’s bald head. $Bill says, “My theory of economics is real simple, buy low, sell high, nothing more complicated.” Wackos ears perked up as did BirdMans for the insight of the decade, how to make Big $. Wacko says to $Bill, “Didn’t you have a wooden decoy collection worth over a million dollars?” “Yes”, says $Bill, I brought plastic decoys to the blinds on the Illinois river in the 50′s and 60′s near Henry Illinois, the home of the famous carver, Purdue, and traded them to the hunters for their hand carved works of art.” “My wife hated them stacked all over the garage and basement, and when we parted ways, she took them, my buddies had to purchase them back from her.” “They eventually had a worth well over 1 million greenbacks.” “I do that with everything, from antique furniture to real estate, stocks and bonds, and collectible shotguns.” Wacko Wally was beside himself at this point, and his bald head shined even brighter. That day, during a Chinese ring-necked pheasant drive, BirdMan floored Wacko again with “You know these pheasants have been around since the Miocene age, after the dinosaur wipeout. There are bones and fossils of pheasants that have been carbon dated in Mongolia, China, and Korea.” At that point Wacko couldn’t take it any more and fired 3 rounds from his Browning autoloader at a passing flock of mallards 300 yards up, not a feather stirred but 15 pheasants jumped up 20 feet away, and Wacko had an empty gun. Wacko exclaimed, “I guess I buy high and sell low.” BirdMan walked out of the river with 3 pheasants,
4 quail, and a lesser Canadian, and $Bill grinned, and said “That is the way it was in the old days, by Henry Illinois.”
Saturday, August 27, 2011
Friday, August 26, 2011
HEMINGWAY, TRUEBLOOD, AMERICAN SPORTSMEN IN IDAHO
Birdman first heard about the hunting and fishing in the mysterious state of Idaho, reading Ted Trueblood’s column in Field and stream magazine. Trueblood lived in Nampa Idaho, and hunted and fished southern Idaho and southeastern Oregon for ducks, geese elk and chukar partridge and wrote about the adventures in his monthly column. He lived the life of the true outdoorsman, and his motto was “Do it now.” He told the story of easterners who spend their entire lives in a city office, dream about retiring in the west, eventually head that way after 50 years, and drop dead of a heart attack, before they ever get there. Ernest Hemingway, hunted ducks on Silver Creek below Sun Valley, with Gary Cooper, and pheasants in the Hagerman Valley. He lived in Ketchum for years, as well as his son Jack, and grandchildren. His writing romanced Sun valley as the place to go for the American Sportsman life, at its best. Jack O’Connor wrote about hunting mountain sheep in Idaho, in his Outdoor life column as the gun editor. He lived in Lewiston Idaho, another center of hunting and fishing. Mike Carroll, professional hunter for years in Kenya, told stories to Birdman, about the Palouse country on the border of Washington and Idaho, near the town of Pullman. This country was a rare spot in the U.S., loaded with pheasants. Hundreds of stories were told in outdoor magazines about the great trout fishing in Silver creek, below Sun Valley, a slow, English style chalk stream, with large rainbow trout. Birdman had a dream about going to Idaho for 12 years, as he hunted and fished western Colorado, near Norwood and Montrose. It became an obsession with him. When his first marriage vanished he headed to Oregon to fish the Rogue river, made famous by Zane Gray, for steelhead trout. His goal was to get to Idaho, and see if it was real. He had in mind to fish Brownlee reservoir, part of the Snake River, before Hells Canyon. He stopped at a tackle shop and met a game warden, who told him about the jigs to use and where to fish. He drove out of Weiser to Brownlee, and remembered that Trueblood had hunted chukars in that canyon. A man at a store told him that steelhead used to come up the creek from the Columbia River behind his store, before all the dams were built. At the rocky point at Brownlee, Birdman caught and released 47 smallmouth bass, an amazing day. In the afternoon, Birdman caught 30 more and released them all. Years later Birdman spent a summer in Sun Valley, and fished Silver Creek. The fishing was difficult. The large rainbows could be seen, in the spring fed creek, but were not taking dry flies. A fisherman came along and told him that some days the fish will take anything. He also heard the story about the fisherman in chest waders who was caught in quick sand and taken under a deep stretch of water. His black labrador went out to rescue him, but could do nothing, his body became a submarine. Too many duck hunters have met their demise in chest waders that fill with water. Idaho was better than the dream, the southern foothills were green and reminded Birdman of the scenery in Spain where he ran the bulls at Pamplona when he was 19. Idaho, what a mystical place, full of wild hot springs, majestic mountain scenery, outdoor adventure, and green foothills that look like Spain. It is still there, and the spirit of legendary sportsman still haunts the place.
JAZZ SCENE IN EARLY 60'S IN NEW YORK CITY, BEATNIKS MEET BEBOP CREATOR THELONIOUS MONK
Birdman had the great fortune to travel from St Olaf College in the summer of 1962 to New York City and live on Perry Street in Greenwich Village. He had arrived in the center of one of the revolutions in music, the New York City Jazz scene. It was the time of the Beatniks, who read their poetry in Washington Square Park, at the fountain, and read at the Cafe Why?, the Cafe Why Not?, and the Fat Black Pussy Cat. Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, Peter Orlovsky, and numerous other Beat poets lived in the Village and prowled the cafes at night. Bob Dylan played at the Cafe Limelight, blowing his harmonica and singing his early songs. Birdmans first encounter with the scene, was a night at the Village Gate. Outside the building, a group of winos from an empty semi trailer on the Hudson River, had gathered with empty wine bottles, and showed Birdman how to listen through the empty bottle, through the walls to the sounds within. Inside, Mose Allison ws playing the piano and singing southern blues. Later on, Birdman saw Miles Davis play at the Village Vanguard, Thelonious Monk at the Five Spot, and all the bebop greats of that era, playing in one of the Village clubs, including the Blue Note. Jack Kerouac was strongly influenced by this jazz method and called his method of writing, "spontaneous, jazz inspired rapping." He influenced thousands of young men to buy an army rucksack, and hit the road, like his "On The Road" characters. Birdman, after 6 months of bumming around Europe, ended up in Hermosa Beach California. He saw most of the greats of jazz at that time play at the Light House Cafe on Pier Avenue. He and his friend from Minnesota, hopped a freight train to San Francisco and were lucky enough to hear Thelonious Monk play most of the night at the Jazz Workshop. Monk played and created some of the best jazz of that era, that will last far longer then the music of today. The beatniks of that time gathered every night at the Five spot in the Bowery of NYC. This mystical nightclub was formerly called the Bowery Cafe. The greats of the Bebop era played there on their own or with Monk, including Charlie Rouse, who Birdman later saw at El Chepultepec in Denver Colorado. The Beats hung out there, including Kerouac, who later in one of his novels called Monk the high priest, the Monk, the greatest musician who had ever played. Monk had a series of spontaneous dances, getting out of his piano chair, swirling around, and amusing the audience with his eccentric behavior. Jack Kerouac introduced the phrase "Beat Generation" in 1948. He expanded the meaning (tired or beaten down) to include the connotations "upbeat, beatific" and a musical association of being "on the beat". The jazz scene and the poetry scene in Greenwich Village in the early 60's was an unusual era of spontaneous creativity, never seen since. The Beats ended up in a kind of soulmate link with the greats of jazz of that time. Yes they were influenced by Thomas Wolfe and Walt Whitman, but every night, in their face, the sounds of Monk, Coltrane, Rouse, Gillespie, Cannonball Adderley, Miles Davis, Erik Dolphy, Nancy Wilson, and Nina Simone, reached into their souls, to inspire their writing. At the fountain in Washington Square Park, Big Brown and Moondog, rapped their street and jailbird poetry while a trumpet player blew a horn by their side. Leo Jones, the guru of Beatniks, chess player and Greek Mythology professor, worked the chess tables in Washington Square Park. He made a living rapping Mythology and hustling chess players. A crowd would gather to watch him, the black mystic, who could recite myths of old while he played chess. Birdman can still hear the trumpet sounds of Miles Davis, a muted howling in the night darkness. "All the bells that ever rang, still ringing in the long dying rays of light." William Faulkner
SKI TOWNS
Aspen and Telluride ski towns have generated a large amount of fantasy, legends and myths, since the 60′s, beyond rational and real experience. I lived in Aspen, Telluride, Vail, Sun Valley and Jackson Hole ski
towns for years, worked on the ski patrol as well as ranch and land sales for 40 years, and pioneered the cutting of the tram line at Jackson Hole Wyoming, in the early 60s. Young people, couples and family constantly ask me to tell them the stories of what it was really like, living in these ski towns. The romantic notions of people all over the nation, what it must be like to actually live in Aspen or Telluride, overwhelm the imagination, and the endless tales and narratives make Mark Twain roll over in his grave and howl with laughter. I will be wandering through these myths, searching for reality, and revealing the survival skills necessary to live in these towns, duking it out with nature or living in harmony with nature. One of the myths of ski towns, discussed constantly, is the myth of powder skiing, like it was the final goal of a skier to reach Nirvana. They did not experience the life of an actual ski patrolman who left the patrol shack with a pack full of dynamite, in a 3 day blizzard that dropped 4 feet of snow, winds howled at 70 to 80 miles per hour, staggered up to a ridge to blow up a bowl for safety, his stocking cap blew up into a swirl of snow, hundreds of feet, his goggles fogged up, then froze, his feet were frozen, he couldn’t get the frozen pack open to use the dynamite, he skied down, went off a cliff and landed in the top of a dead tree, with luck the tree lowered him to the ground slowly, lost his glasses to be retrieved the next summer. How romantic is that? Two days after the storm, on a blue sky, sunny day, the powder can be magical, rhythmically floating through a cloud of champagne powder. Are there any women in ski towns? Stay tuned.
towns for years, worked on the ski patrol as well as ranch and land sales for 40 years, and pioneered the cutting of the tram line at Jackson Hole Wyoming, in the early 60s. Young people, couples and family constantly ask me to tell them the stories of what it was really like, living in these ski towns. The romantic notions of people all over the nation, what it must be like to actually live in Aspen or Telluride, overwhelm the imagination, and the endless tales and narratives make Mark Twain roll over in his grave and howl with laughter. I will be wandering through these myths, searching for reality, and revealing the survival skills necessary to live in these towns, duking it out with nature or living in harmony with nature. One of the myths of ski towns, discussed constantly, is the myth of powder skiing, like it was the final goal of a skier to reach Nirvana. They did not experience the life of an actual ski patrolman who left the patrol shack with a pack full of dynamite, in a 3 day blizzard that dropped 4 feet of snow, winds howled at 70 to 80 miles per hour, staggered up to a ridge to blow up a bowl for safety, his stocking cap blew up into a swirl of snow, hundreds of feet, his goggles fogged up, then froze, his feet were frozen, he couldn’t get the frozen pack open to use the dynamite, he skied down, went off a cliff and landed in the top of a dead tree, with luck the tree lowered him to the ground slowly, lost his glasses to be retrieved the next summer. How romantic is that? Two days after the storm, on a blue sky, sunny day, the powder can be magical, rhythmically floating through a cloud of champagne powder. Are there any women in ski towns? Stay tuned.
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ECONNED, LOOTING THE FIRM, THE CABAL ON WALL STREET AND WASHINGTON WHO HAVE ROBBED THE MIDDLE CLASS AND THE POOR IN THE U.S. BY YVES SMITH
Yves Smith has written an extraordinary book detailing the sinister con job by Wall Street and Washington officials, who have conspired in a cabal to rob their firms and their customers, con the presidents of two administrations, and the US Treasury Department of the government, into paying back the firms in large amounts of cash, paying them to pull off the largest bank heist in the history of mankind. Her book is stunning in its detail, facts, and insights into the destruction of the Middle Class, the disappearance of trillions out of the equity of all Americans, and she shows how it happened in detail and where the money went and who and how they did it. The worst detail is a group of financial people in positions of power in Washington, who knew about this takeover of the economy, in the middle of the meltdown, were hired for the top jobs on the current financial team, in Washington. Top management at investment banks, robbed the firms, then got jobs in the administration to pay back the firms that they had previously held top positions with, and were totally aware of the game, the con game. It is so corrupt in its execution, that we should all be green with envy, and white with fear. Part of the problem is obviously massive Greed, taken to its extreme never seen before in history since Genghis Khan plundered from Mongolia to Europe. The present day Khans did not murder anyone, they plundered the American Middle Class, and destroyed the economy. They sacked and plundered every city, town, and county in America without leaving their offices. They did not have the courage to face their victims with spears and bows, like the historically renowned Khan, but furtively pulled off this massive bank heist with computers in Manhattan offices, never leaving their buildings to courageously confront their American victims. This is not gutter, street crime, it is white-collar to an extreme. This is a Black Swan (Nassim Taleb) event that had never been seen on this massive scale before, a catastrophe for all of the American people. The investment bankers, as Yves Smith points out in detail, ruined and altered the lives of millions of people, 20 times over. Also, part of the problem, as pointed out in the book “Bailout Nation”, is the envy of the Wall Street Investment Bankers, of the fast money being made in the Silicon Valley firms. They concluded that if dot com companies could make billions in worthless paper companies, with no revenue and profit, they could make billions by swindling the public, their firms, and looting the Street. It’s also an interesting epitaph to the true beliefs of this cabal of thieves. They have no conscience. Have you heard any of the heads of the top firms on the Street, express any regret over the loss of 8 trillion in equity to Main Street Americans, or the loss in stock value, or 401K’s. No, none whatsoever. Their actions and later acceptance of bonuses are proof of Mark Twain’s statements on the real religion in America, years before: “The true religion in America, the father, The Son, and the Holy Ghost, is really the greenback, stocks and gold”. Mark Twain knew that religion was a phony in this country, and a cover for all sorts of devilish actions by Americans who worshipped the $Bill. On WOR radio, in New York City, years ago, Gene Shepherd, the brilliant radio announcer, from Chicago, made the following observation: “Life is neither a tragedy or a comedy, it is a carnival, and everyone is on the merry-go-round, reaching for the brass ring.” The brass ring was a ticket for a free ride. It is amazing that in a country of workaholics, so many constantly search for an early retirement, the free ride, through scams, drug dealing, Ponzi schemes, and after a Harvard Economics degree, join the Den of Thieves on Wall Street. Yves Smith has a series of answers to this problem of the financial Oligarchy, at the end of her book. Will anyone in Washington or Wall Street listen,? do they care?, probably not. In the book “The Black Swan” Taleb lays out some real solutions to the problem of the den of looting. He takes on economic experts in every manner, including the think tanks, and economic professors as well as the accepted methods of capitalism, and the narrow box of thinking in Washington and Wall Street that allows for no creative solutions, except borrowing more money. He has solid evidence that no economists know much of anything. The last 4 years has proved that the system is run by incompetent buffoons, who are greedy, but they know how to steal. It may take another Black Swan event, before the merry-go-round stops, and the music ends, and the brass ring vanishes on a plastic horse, ridden by Fat Tony, who is actually a horizontally challenged human being. Americans need a new beginning, a revolution in values, and find out in their souls what is really valuable, like nature, the amazing wilderness in this country, family, children, and the old belief in total honesty in business. If you want a friend, buy a dog. Do not take it to Wall Street. The horizontally challenged guy may steal it.
Monday, August 22, 2011
TEDDY ROOSEVELT, US NATIONAL FOREST FOR ALL AMERICANS WHO CAN LIVE LIKE THE OLD KINGS OF AUSTRIA
Very few Americans are aware of the National Forest in the western US, and parts of the east and south, which offers unlimited access and freedom, in their own back yards. It took an Austrian elk hunter who told Birdman that he lived in a public land paradise, heaven for the outdoor sportsman. In Austria you pay the descendants of royalty to access the forest, and you pay a lot. Teddy Roosevelt set side 300 million acres of national forest land during his term and established the national forest system. Roosevelt lead the way, we can live like kings because of him. At one time in America, 900 million acres of national forest existed, open to all outdoorsman, all Americans, the rich and the poor. Half of it was sold to railroads and mining companies, and dedicated to school districts, or chopped up into smaller 10 acre mining claims all over the west. Now the Trust For Public Land is buying up millions of acres of mining claims and private logging land in Maine, and selling the land to the US National Forest Department in Washington D.C. The US government gets money from offshore oil and gas leases and uses the lease dollars to buy up land from the conservation entities like TPL. People can invest in TPL, and get conservation tax write-offs. TPL is presently buying up mining claims near Marble Colorado. Cities on the front range of Colorado have access to millions of acres of public land, within minutes of their boundaries. Colorado Springs is adjacent to the Pike National Forest and Denver is close to ten wilderness areas. Flagstaff Arizona is surrounded by National Forest, as well as Telluride Colorado, Jackson Hole Wyoming, and Whitefish Montana. How lucky are the people who live close to public land, and how adventurous are those who visit, and have the courage to hike around wild land. There is a legendary photograph of John Muir and Teddy Roosevelt, standing on a massive rock, looking out over Yosemite National Park. The scene is very mystical, and has deep meaning for Americans. This photo should hang in the living rooms of every American, and remind us of how beautiful this country is, with massive areas of wilderness and National Forest, that stirs the soul. Yellowstone Park is a must visit for every American, with its herds of ancient buffalo, elk, and grizzly bear, walking in open meadows, and crossing roads in front of visitors. Lamar valley in Yellowstone looks like it did 10,000 years ago. When the morning news of gloom comes on, hit the off button, and take a long walk in these magnificent woods, and remember the men who saved this magnificent paradise, John Muir and Teddy Rossevelt.
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