I hope everyone is recovering satisfactorily from a raucous Saturday: one that featured not only the Kentucky Derby, and Cinco de Mayo, but also the annual Ridgefield (CT) Gone Country Festival (replete with its BBQed Rib Contest and the 70s rock stylings of the local high school band).

But as for me, I’m still trying to gather myself from the shock we all received earlier in the week.

Specifically, on Tuesday, and in violation of virtually everything I consider holy in this world, Nashville-based Gibson Guitar Corporation, which has been pumping out its one-of-a-kind axes for approximately 5 generations, filed for protection under Chapter 11 of the United States Bankruptcy Code.

Though the blow was staggering, I hasten to remind my minions that all hope is not lost. Gibson did NOT opt for the full-smash Chapter 7 shutdown; it instead chose the Chapter 11 reorganization alternative. Statements from the Company suggests it took this action in order to protect its signature guitar line, by raising some capital and scrapping a few offshoot businesses in which they never should have been involved in the first place.

I’m praying for the kids down in Nash Vegas, because life on the planet will be unilaterally diminished if that shred machine factory ever goes dark.

No one should be surprised that the guitar business ain’t what it once was. Anecdotal evidence suggests that each year, fewer hormonal, acne-battling teenage males squirrel their lawn mowing money away to plunk down on a 6-string razor and appropriately distorted amp. And who can blame them? It’s not like that sort of thing gets you laid like it did in the old days (on the other hand – and trust me here – it never did). And this is to say nothing of the blow the Company received when Pete Townsend discontinued the practice of ending each show by smashing his instrument (almost always a Gibson) into smithereens.

But the Company’s real troubles began in 2011, when gun-wielding thugs from the Environmental Protection Administration (EPA) rudely busted in on their production facilities – as part of an enforcement action – and you can’t make this up – against violations not of United States environmental laws, but of those of the great nation of Madagascar.

So the trend has hardly been Gibson’s friend these past few years, and though I haven’t done much to support the enterprise lately, you should be made aware that my first legit guitar purchase was a Gibson SG, acquired from my much more talented high school mate (one John Zucker) in 1976. In elegant, bookend fashion, my most recent such acquisition took place in 2008 – about a month before Lehman went down – when, at long last, I managed to get my hands on the Companies signature product: the Les Paul.

I must point out though that I bought both of these axes used, so it’s not like I’ve done all that much to support the company myself. I am, however, dedicating this weekly to them and that’s something, right? In addition, I actually tweeted my outrage on the same topic earlier this week, which brings us to another topic: would it kill you guys to follow me and maybe tweet back once in a while? Didn’t think so.

Perhaps the only Gibson item remaining on my musical bucket list is the Flying V, a model that derives its name from its shape, a sample of which I offer below. I have thus far resisted the temptation to pick one of these up, because – let’s face it – If you’re going to rock a V, you’d better be ready to bring it all with you, and even after 45 years, I’m not sure I have it all to bring.

Again, for now, the Company will continue to pump out these bad boys, but it may need some help – both from its creditors and perhaps even from other enlightened souls on Wall Street. And I certainly encourage all of the fat cats within my range of influence to take a look here.

Surely the money is there. I mean, take, for example, the recent Spotify IPO, in which musically inclined investors shelled out sufficiently to manifest a $26.5B market cap. Due in part to a disappointing earnings release, it had a bad week, but is still holding a valuation of $1B above its IPO price.

And I ask: what are the users of Spotify listening to? Well, a goodly number of them, including yours truly, are cranking out Zep, Cream and other similar recordings positively driven by Gibson products and the Gibson sound. It would therefore make logical sense for Spotify’s underwriters to protect their investments by ensuring that the musicians that produce the sounds that stream across the program are adequately supplied with appropriate instrumentation.

Fortunately, there are at least symbolic indications that investors may be inclined to come to the rescue of the beleaguered brand. Here, I refer to the impressive V bottom registered by the Gallant 500 over the last couple of trading days. After a pretty lousy Thursday session, and factoring in some time for the markets to digest what on the whole was an encouraging April Jobs Report, the SPX three-day chart looks something like this:

Sharp-eyed observes – particularly rockers – are likely to notice not one, but two Flying V formations, in the chart. And I ask you, what can this possibly be but a financial tip to the hat to the Gibson Guitar Corporation of Nashville, TN?

It perhaps also is important to bear in mind that Thursday’s lows and subsequent recovery represent, by my count, the 4th time in the rolling quarter that the SPX touched the depths of its 200 day Moving Average, only to bounce enthusiastically in the immediate aftermath. All of which reinforces the notion that stocks want to remain in a narrow range. Intraday volatility is on the high end of what we’re used to, but at the end of the day, we’re ending up pretty much where we started. It does strike me that this stasis is likely to continue for most of the rest of the quarter. Earnings continue to wind down, and the numbers keep getting better and better. Forward-looking P/E Ratios have drifted back to their five-year averages, and, while projections call for some deceleration across the rest of the year, the prognostications remain highly encouraging. But the best that the market appears to be able to muster is a bounce-back from a nasty puke.

In addition to a Jobs number that fits tightly with the narrative (stable but short of Bonzo job creation, coupled with a similar dynamic on Hourly Earnings – all supporting the notion that the economy is doing pretty well, but is in no particular need of rude rate increases to cool it down), investors swooned over a marginally strong earnings report from Apple. Presumably this is due in part due to the Company’s buyback announcements and even more so that the Omaha Buffet now features an even larger supply of the biblical orb on the tray tables.

Yet naysayers persist on the stock, and to them I pose the following question. Best estimates call for 5G telecommunications protocols to roll out, in round numbers, within about a year. If this new network configuration follows the trajectory of its predecessors, then everyone will want 5G, and this will compel everyone to buy a new smart phone to avail themselves of its wondrous benefits. Does this not portend marvelous things for the world’s leading smart phone provider?

But while Apple, as has been the case across its long history, is given the benefit of the doubt by the markets, the same cannot be said about the broader array of large cap companies. As a record earnings growth season winds to a close, investors are reacting with what can be described only through generous interpretation as a collective yawn:

This, my friends, looks to me to be the financial expression of tough love. There seems to be little appetite to push broad-based valuations higher, but at the same time, the picture is encouraging enough to suggest that selloffs are socializing some bargains.

So equities as a risk factor aren’t doing much, and probably won’t for the next few weeks. Why? Well, there’s some continued concern that higher rates will crowd out equity returns, but these higher rates are nowhere to be found – at least as expressed in longer dated government securities.

Pretty much all developed jurisdictions are enjoying bids on their paper, and, while the short bond crowd may ultimately win the war, it appears to me that it will only be by attrition. They have many bloody skirmishes ahead of them on their righteous road to rate normalization. What my eyes see is continued evidence of an improbable shortage of government debentures, but I’ll leave that often-covered topic aside for the present.

I will continue to reiterate my belief that no much action is likely to transpire at the factor level – for the rest of the month – and perhaps bleeding into June. The Washingtonian Circus could change this with one snap of the high-wire, but otherwise, I’m kind of thinking we’re stuck in neutral.

All of this gives rise to the old adage “Sell in May and go away”. But I’m not sure that there’s much benefit to be had in doing this, or for that matter, in taking the opposite tack. I think instead I’ll stay right here, and maybe spark up that Gibson SG I’ve owned for more than 4 decades. It sounds sweeter than ever, perhaps because it’s just possible that my chops have improved; more likely because those Gibson guitars are just so well-made that once you own one, you can enjoy it for a lifetime.

I take my leave with the fondest wish that the Nashville Cats are successful in their reorganization efforts, and, to my minions: if you can’t float a few shekels in the form of capital, the least you could do is head down to your local guitar store and pick up a Flying V. Failing that, you can perhaps, at minimum, follow me, and therefore the saga @KenGrantGRA. Unless I’ve missed something, it’ll do you no harm.

TIMSHEL

Yes, my friends, the eternal debate (is it “Pathos” or is it “Bathos”?) rages on. Moreover, the question applies not only with respect to individual events, but to human existence writ large. In this installment, we will focus on the former, because, in terms of the latter, how can we possibly arrive at a conclusion other than through impact-weighted aggregation of individual experience?

Noah Webster’s Arc (OK; dictionary) defines Pathos as “an element in experience or in artistic representation evoking pity or compassion”. Its usage, however, dates back to Aristotle’s Rhetoric (soon to be made into a major motion picture), and rightly so, because those Ancient Greeks – what with their wars, sacrifices political intrigue and endless, droning debate, seem to have been bathed in the stuff.

Bathos, by contrast has more recent origins, and is perhaps as a result, more ubiquitous in our usages and in our imaginings. After all, are we not all intimately familiar with its original source, the 1727 Alexander Pope essay Peri Bathous, or The Art of Sinking Poetry, which many of my readers can recite, word for word, from memory? However, for the less erudite among us, let’s simply define it as a humorous shift in the contours of an enterprise – to the common/vulgar, from the sublime.

Both pathos and bathos are indelible components of the human equation, carried with us as we first crawled out of the primordial ooze, and are almost certain to be present when our species’ grand purpose has fully run its course, when, presumably, back into the ooze we will sink. Moreover, each concept bleeds into the other – in both visible and opaque fashion – often in the process obscuring the lines of demarcation between the two. This has always been the case, but at various points in our history, said lines become even more blurred.

It appears, my friends, that this is one of those times, and I’d like to take this opportunity to offer some opinions as to which side of the line certain pertinent events predominately fall.

I start on a personal note, wishing a heavenly rest for my friend Tony Glickman, who died suddenly this past Monday. I called Tony “Rabbi” because: a) everybody called him Rabbi; and b) that’s what he was: an ordained minister to the Children of Israel. He went on to attain the lofty position of Rosh Yeshiva (aka, the rabbinical equivalent of capi di tutti capo) at Yeshiva University. For my money, Rosh Yeshiva at Yeshiva is about high on the foothills of Mount Sinai as any mere mortal can hope to climb.

But for all of that, the Rabbi spent most of his career in Finance. Across his storied professional experience, he served as Treasurer of Canadian Imperial Bank for Commerce, Head of Risk Services at both Globe-Op and Northern Trust, and, most recently as a Senior Advisor to the global consulting firm Oliver Wyman. He was a prolific writer and thinker, and though I only jammed with him a couple of times, I can attest that he had some legit chops on the keyboard. He could sometimes overwhelm you with his presence, not everyone “got” him, and I don’t think he’d quibble with me for stating that if you wanted Rabbi Glickman, you got all of him; no partial or smaller serving of Glickman was available on the menu. He and I grew quite fond of one another, and I will miss him. But what saddens me most is that he wasn’t done. Not by a long shot. He remained fully engaged across his wide spectrum of interests and activities until the very minute that the Good Lord took him. So, to the Rabbi I offer a heartfelt “aleha ha-shalom” (may peace be upon you) and render, for the purposes of this installment, the following verdict: 100% Pathos. 

Moving on to (though not entirely) less personal (and entirely more uplifting) realms, I wish to share my satisfaction with U.S. News and World Report Magazine, which, for the first time since it got into the academic rankings game, has listed my alma mater: The Booth School of Finance at the University of Chicago, as the nation’s top MBA program. Yes, I’m pleased about this, but must offer a couple of caveats. First, the paleoanthropic era during which I studied at Chi-U began and ended many years before David Booth stroked in a maharajah’s ransom for naming rights to the program, so, technically, I attended not Booth, but U of C GSB. Second, us Maroon finance types had to swallow the indignities associated with the reality that listings actually showed a first-place tie with our intellectual enemies at Harvard. But I’m going to do my best to forget that part of the story, and offer the judgment that this development is bereft of both Pathos and Bathos.

In the wider world, I note that on Friday, the United States Congress passed its 2018 Budget Bill, and that the President (with a show of trademark bluster) promptly signed it into law. Its record $1.3T of projected outlays implies an incremental annual budget deficit contribution on the order of $300B to $400B, but hey, we’ve got children and (in my case) grandchildren to deal with that, right? The consensus among the talking heads is that the Democrats took their opposite numbers to the cleaners here, shoving in a cornucopia of discretionary bling in exchange for a much-needed increase in military spending. It seems, though, and as stated by others, that the outcome is a win for everybody – except of course American taxpayers. Still, I suppose we needed a budget, and, while I suspect that some of what has transpired will come back to haunt America and its well-wishers, I will shade this towards Bathos, while reserving the right to revisit the call at a later date.

Earlier in the week, and just for additional yucks, the Administration laid about $60B of tariffs on China and the latter has responded in kind. The markets didn’t particularly like this stunt, and for what it’s worth, neither did I. I have read widely the encouraging reassurances that this is all part of a grand negotiation strategy that will ultimately redound to our unilateral benefit. Well, maybe, but I say it’s a risky approach. This thing could spin out of control, in what I fear could be a financial redux of the events that started WWI. There, a rather obscure Archduke from a back-benching, dying empire gets assassinated in Sarajevo, treaties are triggered in domino-like fashion, and the next thing you know, the Western World’s military spends years blowing each other to bits in trenches dug not 100 meters away from each other. That conflict led to a stalemate; the Russians bolted and became the Soviet Union, the free world suffered a crippling depression, and the whole thing had to be settled yet again on the same battlefields, a generation later. I’m not saying that we’re in store for anything so dramatic with respect to this here episode, but then again I’m not saying we’re not, and I am in any event going to give the nod here to Pathos.

Last week’s other earth-shattering event involved the revelation that the Heavenly Walls of Almighty Facebook had been breached by nefarious forces, in the process violating the personal electronic space of 50 million users (including, presumably, yours truly). I was under the mistaken impression that everyone knew, or should’ve known, that this was coming. The core premise of Facebook is that it lets you communicate, creatively and effectively, at no charge, in exchange for allowing them to hoover up your private information and sell it to the highest bidder. This type of thing runs much deeper than what has been reported, and extends well beyond Facebook. I, for one, shudder to think of what type of data mining is taking place in the 3rd sub-basement of Google’s sprawling corporate campus in Mountain View, CA. To whom the content is being distributed, and for what purpose, is a matter I prefer not to contemplate at all. Further, I suspect that although the tying of this episode to the endless stream of nonsense about 2016 election interference was inevitable (not to mention ridiculous), it is instead best interpreted as the first salvo in an unfolding battle that will attack the galactic and accelerating power of a handful of U.S. Tech companies over virtually every aspect of our lives. I won’t elaborate here, but if I’m right, then the action will be both fascinating and terrifying to observe. For now, though, I think the FB thing a pig in a poke, and am going to place the sequence squarely in the camp of Bathos.

Investors, however, found little amusing in the episode, and were dumping FB shares – to the tune of about 15% loss – all the way up to Friday’s close. Between this and our burgeoning Trade War, it was a tough week for the Galant 500, which, largely through a sequence of angry closes, ended the week down a round 6%. The Facebook-heavy NAZ fared worse, down 7.3%. All broad-based indices are now in negative territory for the year.

Please know that I weep at anyone’s financial reverses, most notably those accruing to the holders of the common stock of this nation’s great corporate enterprises. That these losses are manifesting at a particularly inopportune moment – the quarter’s penultimate week (and therefore a matter of mere days before CEOs and fund manager must report results to what we can confidently expect to be a wavering group of investors) – only adds to the pathos I’m feeling. However, I’m not ready – just yet – to call the election and hand the victory to the P camp.

For one thing, I view the latest selloff as being driven more by risk reduction prerogatives than by an emerging consensus about valuation levels. Investors are nervous here, and one can hardly blame them. The non-stop assault on our sensibilities emanating from the shores of the Potomac are enough to un-nerve even the steadiest among us. Here, I blame Trump. He may not have started the infantile set of quarrels in which he is perpetually engaged, but it is he who sets the tone. And now, one never knows, from one minute to the next, whether the government is going to shut down, who is running what department, and whether we will go to war first with Russia, China, Iran or North Korea (just to name a few). The preceding administration was headed up by a guy they liked to call No Drama Obama, and I thought of this as an offensive misnomer. However, 14 months into the Trump Administration, #44 is starting to look like Tom Landry on the sidelines at Texas Stadium.

And if you’re an investor, it’s kind of tough to load the boat under these conditions. But I hasten to remind my minions that economic conditions have not changed dramatically from where they were in late January, when our friend Mr. Spoo was sitting some 285 handles and precisely 10% higher than the levels that prevail as this publication went to press. I see very few signs that the earnings harvest has been cancelled or even deferred. Borrowing costs remain stubbornly low, and we’re in the earliest of innings with respect to the widely hailed bennies from regulatory reform and tax cuts.

None of this is to say that the selloff was in any way irrational, or that it won’t continue. I just think that we’re basically looking at substantially the same world that we inhabited a couple of months ago, when it seemed like the “down” button on the equity elevator was damaged beyond repair. As such, somewhere in here, buyers should re-emerge, and I recommend that, at minimum, investors prepare for such an unthinkable contingency. As for now, I’ll deem the equity election too close to call.

However, there is one development which could decide the outcome at any minute. The SPX is now perched directly on its 200-day Moving Average, and I promised you that it would hold this threshold:

If it breaks through on the downside, from a technical perspective, it has some good ways more it can fall. But that’s not really what’s at issue; I’m much more concerned about this chart making a monkey out of me.

As you know, this is something I cannot abide, even during the wild and wooly days of March Madness. Right now, my bracket reads Pathos and Bathos tied at 2, one withdrawal and one contest undecided.

Given the way the NCAA Basketball Tournament has unfolded, I suspect I could have done a lot worse. Since Round 1, I’ve been warning anyone who would listen not to sleep on my Loyola Ramblers, but almost everyone did. And now they’re on their way to the Big Dance in San Antone. And now I’m advising this same crowd not to sleep on equities, at least not yet, but I fear many of you will. To ease my frustration, I keep telling myself, March ain’t over, and Madness is likely to outlast this and many subsequent turns of the calendar.

There’s both Pathos and Bathos in this, so stay on your toes.

TIMSHEL

“He’s a good man. And thorough”. That’s what Maude said. And she must have believed it because she said it twice.

But as is widely understood, she wasn’t talking about the Dude; in fact, she is speaking to the Dude. We’ll get to that later.

But first back to the Dude. Most of us agree he is indeed a good man, but is he thorough? The jury is out on that one. He tried – and failed — to stop Walter from flashing his piece on the lanes. He tossed the ringer in the wrong location and then lost the actual package. No, they never did “kill that poor woman”, but hey, she kidnapped herself, right? He has devoted his life to Thai Sticks and bowling, but while we bear witness to his consuming several Sticks, we never actually see him roll.

He went to see Marty’s dance cycle, but he left early, and was at least two weeks late with the rent, which, for all we know, he never bothered to pay it at all. And if he didn’t it’s now 20 years (240 months) overdue.

I mention all this because this past week marked the 20-year anniversary of the release of Coen Brother’s cult masterpiece “The Big Lebowski”. And all I can say is that if you’ve seen it, you no doubt get the references I’ve laid down, and if you haven’t, odds are you never will.

But we celebrated more than the TBL’s China (20th) Jubilee last week. Nine years ago this past Friday (March 9th), the Spoo (aka the SPX Index) closed at a crash-induced and previously unimaginable low of 676.53. Some 8 years and 10 ½ months later (January 26, 2018) it reached its most recent zenith of 2872.76 – an impressive gain of 337% and change over the period. We’ve given back a little bit since then, but not much. And now, since that dark day in 2009, the valuation recovery has survived 9 full trips around the sun. Tradition equates a 9th Anniversary with Copper in the U.S. and Pottery in the U.K. But the Chicago Public Library – which somehow has designated itself as a primary source for these protocols – has established that gifts for a 9th Anniversary should be Leather Goods.

Those Keepers of the Dewey Decimal Cards at the Harold Washington Library Center at 400 South State Street may be on to something here, so we’ll designate this date of celebration as The Rally’s Leather Goods Jubilee, because, among other reasons, it just feels right.

Yes, my loves, it’s been a good rally, but is it thorough?

Here, we should all bear in mind that thoroughness is an ideal, akin to, say, the Golden Rule: – something which we all should rightly aspire, but which mere mortals are less than likely to achieve in totality. Still and all, the closer we get to thoroughness (as is the case with treating others in a manner we would wish them to treat us ourselves) the better off we are. So I propose we settle for a standard of near-thoroughness and see where we stand.

At the moment, while, as indicated above, the Spoo has yielded a modest amount from high ground, its current valuation levels come at a point of negligible financing costs, (if the published statistics can be believed) begin inflation, and strong corporate performance.

But here is where The Dude and The Spoo part company, because, as also has been well established, the former has both a biological and behavioral disposition against employment. His longest recorded, compensated tenure with any organization appears to be his stint as a roadie for Metallica (buncha @ssholes). So I’m not sure that he is burning a Celebratory J in the wake of Friday’s surprisingly robust Jobs Report. Therein, our fabulous employment engine ginned up a gratifying >300K new February gigs, and the Report also featured a modest-but-sustained upward push in Hourly earnings, positive revisions for the two prior months, and (problematically for the Dude) an increase of >800,000 able bodied citizens to our Labor Participation Rolls. Perhaps the good news, here, is that of all the forces likely to impel the Duder to dust off the old resume, peer pressure may be bottom on the list.

As others have pointed out, and in perverse contrast to our experience a month ago, investors reacted positively to these tidings. As recently as Groundhog Day, a strong January Employment summary evolved into a catalyst for the first double digit Spoo retrenchment in a number of years. As such, I believe that anyone at their posts at 8:30 a.m. EST on Friday, who might’ve feared that a strong showing by the BLS would be met with an angry market response would’ve been justified in these fears.

But they would’ve been wrong. Investors swooned at the strong jobs showing, taking our titular index up nearly 50 points, and driving it to within striking distance out of that dangerous 27 handle. This topped off a giddy week that added ~3.6% to valuations. It perhaps also bears mention that these uplifting trends took place over a 5-day sequence where the markets were also compelled to absorb a number of theoretical threats, including this tariff nonsense, the contemporaneous resignation of Economic Advisor/Adult in the Room Gary Cohn, and ECB Chair Draghi’s (albeit ambiguously worded) announcement that European Quantitative Easing (EQE) is certain to end in this calendar year.

So why is all of this now good news, when a scant four weeks ago, the markets took such a dim view of similar tidings? Well, at the top of my list is that nothing under the sun seems to carry sufficient fortitude to actually lift yields on the Treasury Curve. A month ago, the strongest signs in many a month that the long-sought-after wage inflation might be emerging acted to move the interest rate (and, for that matter, equity) needle a titch. But 10-year yields have actually backed off since their end-of-January highs, and one now wonders if even merciful Allah himself can normalize the yield curve. It therefore stands to reason that whatever fear exhibited by the capital markets respecting higher inflation and more elevated rates has abated considerably.

But in the broader universe of Fixed Income, there are indeed some concerns that might serve to kill the collective buzz of anyone less chill than the Dude. Investment Grade bonds are feeling some gravitational pull (higher borrowing costs), as are, to a lesser extent, their poor relations in Junk-land:

Investment Grade and High Yield: Name Your Junk

In addition, when all was said and done, Q4 earnings failed to evoke the anticipated reaction of Pavlovian purchases. Earnings growth clocked in at an eye-opening 14.8%, and Revenues expanded by a respectable, arguably impressive 8.2%. Somehow, though, investors appear to have expected more – particularly on the Revenue side, as evidenced by the following metric – purloined from FactSet:

If this confuses you, suffice to say that Spoo companies that reported upside revenue surprises actually experienced counterintuitive price declines of 0.4%, as compared to an average historical gain of 1.3%.

Disappointers got hurt as well, but according to the metric by amounts roughly equal to the historical average recorded with respect to such transgressions.

But if I’m right, not much of this will matter across the three weeks left to the month of March. There are a few odd data streams to which we should adhere as the quarter winds down, including Inflation, Retail Sales, and Industrial Production – all set to drop next week. The following week features a modestly anticipated FOMC statement – where the Committee’s intention to raise rates another quarter point is all but a forgone conclusion.

However, all of this is fairly low drama – particularly in comparison to what begins to transpire once the calendar turns to April. I won’t reiterate what I believe is riding on the performance of the public and private economies with respect to these data streams; suffice to say it’s substantial.

One might even go so far as to suggest that by the end of April, we may know a great deal more about whether Spoo, good though he almost certainly is, can be appropriately characterized as thorough.

However, TBL fans will tell you that the “good and thorough” man to whom Maude alluding was in fact a doctor that Maude referred to the Dude — after her goons clumped him in the head. Though he had to be pushed, the Dude eventually went to see him, and this man of medicine, after checking out the dudely noggin, asked him to drop his pants.

Though it compels me to offer an un-dudely Spoiler Alert, Maude wanted to ensure that the Dude’s

reproductive parts were in sufficiently sound working order to enable him to assist her in her procreation objectives. History shows that everything checked out fine, and, presumably, their shared progeny (no doubt, if God’s Will were done, a masculine one) will be celebrating his 20th birthday later this year.

Here’s hoping a similar fate is in store for the Spoo. To be sure, he’s likely to throw both strikes and gutters as events unfold, but we can certainly wish him Godspeed. And so we will. Spoo: I like your style. May your rally abide for another decade or more, and may we all do the same, perhaps enduring long enough to tell the tale to the Dude’s grandson.

But between then and now there are a lotta ins, a lotta outs, a lotta what have yous… …lotta strands to keep in the old duder’s head. So I reckon we’ll just have to find out for ourselves.

TIMSHEL