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