Well, the bricks lay on Grand Street, where the neon madmen climb,
They all fall there so perfectly, it all seems so well timed,
And here I sit so patiently, waiting to find out what price,
You have to pay to get out of, going through all these things twice
Bob (who else?)
Sigh…
Must we do this again?
Apparently, we must.
If I were calling the shots, I would’ve declared victory, and went home, immediately after what has to rate up there with such great military triumphs as Hannibal’s Alpine Crossing (218 BC – which launched the 2nd Punic War), Frederich the Great’s Defense of Prussia (7 Years War: 1756 – 1763), and Andy Jackson’s Defeat of the Brits in the Battle of New Orleans (1815).
Here, of course, I refer to the Beeper Bomb attacks of 17 September, 2024 – an event the remembrance of which still brings tears of joy to mine old eyes.
But noooo. We hadda go in this past weekend with the entire army, as well as that of the Israelis, and take down the entire Iranian regime, as led by that cockroach Khamenei. Few will miss him, but I doubt that this will be a quick and clean operation, followed by the establishment of strings of Trump Casinos/Entertainment Centers scattered across the Fertile Crescent and stretching from the Caspian to the Arabian Sea.
Instead, I predict that we will be stuck there, fending off sleeper cells across the globe, while the region’s jihadists, not likely to quietly disappear, use the episode to step up what is already a robust recruiting enterprise.
So, in reference to our introductory quote, which rhetorically queries the cost of avoiding the need to repeat unpleasant episodes, the answer is two-fold: a) we don’t know; but b) we can be sure it ain’t gonna be cheap.
Still and all, I don’t know of a line, written or sung, that moves me as profoundly as does those couplets referenced above. They derive from the last verse of the magnificent “Stuck Inside of Mobile (with the Memphis Blues Again)”, which slots in between “I Want You” and “Leopard Skin Pillbox Hat” on Side 2 of my all-time favorite album: “Blonde on Blonde”.
The song is a nine-verse sequence of micro stories, seemingly unrelated entirely to one another.
But I’ve long had a theory that it is at least partially inspired by Steinbeck’s “Grapes of Wrath” – particularly Verse 4 (Grandpa died last week, and now he’s buried in the rocks) and Verse 8 (When Ruthie says come see her, in her honkytonk lagoon, well I can watch her waltz for free, beneath her Panamanian moon). In GoW, it is Grandpa’s death and anonymous roadside burial that first foretells of the hardships the Joads will face on their nomadic journey. Ruthie, the youngest girl in the clan, is a bit of a tart – always getting into trouble and, in the end (spoiler alert) is the one that rats out Tom to the locals, which catalyzes the final of the disintegration of the Joad family.
One can easily picture her, later in life, wearing a seductive outfit, waltzing slowly with an umbrella, on some cheesy stage, and inviting men she likes to take their chances with her.
And I got to thinking about all this when my twin flame mistakenly referenced my having been born in Mobile. I wasn’t, of course, and she knows that. I came into this world on the now-long-ago shuttered Norton Air Force Base in San Bernardino, CA:
The Kid’s First Landing Pad:
Which is a long way (~2,000 miles) from Mobile, and not a place to which one would likely inconvenience oneself to visit.
It almost does make me wish that I was from Mobile, so that I could authentically claim the Memphis Blues. Because, you see, my first college girlfriend, who from certain perspectives, deflowered me, grew up in M-Town. To the best of my knowledge, she has spent her entire adult life there, on the banks of the Mississippi. As a respected obstetrician/gynecologist.
I haven’t spoken to her since she slept with my then-best friend but think of her from time to time. And about this incident I have nothing further to convey.
Other than this – upon my immortal soul, my then-best friend’s name is Iran.
Meantime, the latest events also brought to my mind images of Verse 6 of Mobile/Memphis (now, the T Preacher looks so baffled, when I asked him why he dressed, with 20 pounds of headlines, stapled to his chest, but he cursed me when I proved to him, and whispered/said “not even you can hide, you see you’re just like me, I hope you’re satisfied”).
Grapes-heads know what an important figure The Preacher cuts in GoW. But that fictional character, plainly meant to personify Jesus Christ his-self, has been dead for nearly a century. If we’ve a preacher now, it’s the T Preacher, and 20 pounds of headlines stapled to his chest just ain’t gonna cut it.
This past weekend, he added Pound 21. And still, I doubt he’s satisfied.
In fact, I suspect, as do most of the folks with whom I am boys, his primary motivation was the creation of new positive headlines to staple to that big, fat gut of his. Because, on balance, it’s been a rough winter, and a particularly difficult February, for him and his constituents. It began, symbolically, when the groundhog saw his shadow. But it didn’t end there. The winter weather in the Northeast at any rate was as bad as I can remember in decades.
Tempers appear to have cooled in the frigid terrorist metropolis of Minneapolis (aka the Baghdad of the West), but the Supreme Court, unambiguously formed for the purpose of enforcing his iron will, betrayed him, God and Country by ruling his tariff authority finite and constrained.
Inflation modestly disappointed to the upside; GDP fell humiliatingly short of expectations. In the realms of earnings, it looked on paper like a strong Q4 – particularly across the Mag 7. But investors were unimpressed, closing out February in sufficiently bleak fashion to cause the Gallant 500 to generate its first losing month since the glorious aftermath of the Liberation Day announcement, nearly a year ago.
The dour mood was perhaps best illustrated by the action around NVDA, which announced (among other things) record-smashing revenues and earnings and a new generation of AI chips. The stock leaped while Jensen was still at the podium but has collapsed by more than 10% in the two trading days hence.
Perhaps this was partially owing to the preceding evening’s State of the Union Address. Of which I watched nary a second but read enough to learn that it set records, by extending to ~108 minutes of self-congratulatory bloviation.
And one can barely click into a news forum without finding oneself assaulted by pearl clutching commentators, warning us of AI’s imminent threat to steal our, everyone’s, livelihoods.
Oh yeah, then there’s some shit about Epstein, who, somehow, 6.5 years after his death, is causing more of a ruckus than he did during his miserable life. None of which, to the best of my knowledge, did much to improve the mood anywhere in the Lower 48.
Our headline loving preacher has had much better success in international affairs. A fortnight ago, the U.S. men’s and women’s hockey teams won Olympic gold, and, if, in fairness, he cannot claim all the credit, it’s certainly fair to say that they couldn’t have done it without him. Our Special Forces did a great job rooting out that other cockroach Maduro – even if his absence leaves a vacuum of confusion. Though I forget the details, we also kicked some Mexican ass.
But the riot squad of the electorate is reckless, and, unless polarities can some how be reversed, the tea preacher’s team is looking at the near certainty of a mid-term shellacking. Recognizing this, his timing for aspirational regime change in the cradle of civilization begins to make more sense.
But what all this means for the markets – particularly in the short term – remains difficult to discern. It looks like OPEC+ (already having caved to our cultural vibe by adding the + to their acronym) has already announced supply increases, which has dampened what was perhaps an unavoidable supply chain spike caused by what must be a mother of a traffic jam in the Strait of Hormuz.
We see signs of modest risk off across other factors, but none which appear irksome, much less alarming. I think that while risks have clearly risen, this is precisely the type of tape where the Big Dogs look to scoop up assets on the cheap, and, the rest of the world recognizing this, said cheapening never transpires.
Longer term, I imagine we may face some problems, but why fixate on them now? Russia and especially China must be wearying of our glorious economic exploits and pull martial fast ones of their own. From an economic perspective, our Energy Patch – has already added a de facto 30% incremental capacity by taking control of the Iranian and Venezuelan fields. Which cannot please our erstwhile frenemies.
How and when they react remains unknowable. About all we know now is that the bricks still lay on Grand Street, where the neon madmen climb higher than ever.
And, if anyone wants my opinion, the combined wealth of the entire Forbes 400 is insufficient to cover the costs of getting out of going through all these things twice. Or three times. Or more. The T Preacher will nail more headlines to his oversize ribcage, and, will continue to waltz for free in a manner that reduces men to mush.
But the good news is as follows. I made up with my buddy Iran. I shed the Memphis Blues. And no, mama, really can’t be the end.
In fact, it is only the beginning.
But I can’t offer my time-honored farewell term without pointing out that I lifted it from Steinbeck, not the Grapes of Wrath, though, but East of Eden. A reference to the Land of Nod. Where Cain settled after murdering Abel, and where, I suspect, we are destined to remain.
TIMSHEL