Handel's Messiah 2025

 Each Christmas I try and attend the Messiah Community sing at St. Olaf's Catholic Church in downtowm Minneapolis. I begin thinking about it in fall, when the first chill is in the air, and thoughts turn to the coming winter and Christmas. 

It's always on a Sunday night downtown. If the weather is bad, or really cold, I think about backing out. That happened this year. It was around 8 or 9F when the concert started. But for the 8th year in a row, excluding the covid cancellations, we went, my wife and I. 

While I am not a singer there is this really good sense of Christmasing that comes over me when the music starts. I let go with my permanently off key rendition of the masterpiece. The crowd is a mix. Many like me, who welcome the large crowd to drown out their mistakes. Others, professional or semi-so, lift high their beautiful voices to proclaim "unto to us a child is born" "speak ye comfortably to Jerusalem" 'they have turn-ed every one to his own way" "He shall reign for ever and ever" "by his stripes we are healed". 

They are dressed in suits, smart Christmas dresses, elf costumes, Santa hats, buffalo plaid shirts and dresses. A gathering of devout followers of the true Messiah and a few, perhaps, non-believers. All drawn by the spell of Christmas into something deeper than elf on the shelf and Christmas cookies. 

Christmas. Christmas. Christmas. 

It is well that we cannot see the future

 Today my wife busted the mailbox door when she got out of the car to check the mail. In closing the car door it hit the mailbox door and broke one of the plastic hinges. Clearly an accident. (Perhaps.) It could have been me. (But not likely). 

I was the one who got to go out in the snow with the temp a balmy 19F. Back and forth I went. To the tool shed, to the mail box, to the tool shed, to the garage, to the house for gloves. Dropped a screw in the snow, which can only be retrieved barehanded. Dropped it again. Dropped a wingnut. Finally I reverted to my first thought, wire. Drilled a couple of holes and macgyvered a solution. Hopefully will last til spring. Gotta get back in the house. 

With a big mug of hot chocolate I start working on this blog entry. My phone rings. My wife it is. "I'm at the mall. The dash says one of my tires only has 14 lbs". Gee, same as the air temp now. "Which mall?" "OK. I'm on my way"

Back to the title of this post. In the summer of 1979 had I known that this day was coming, especially the mailbox part, I might not have married her. It is well that I cannot see the future. 

We never see market bubbles coming, only over our shoulder

 There is much ado in the financial press about the "AI bubble". Pundits wax on and on about the coming and going, the pop prick of this thing "we all know" is happening. 

The majority fall into the camp that reflects their imbedded conflict of interest, the idea that "a bubble is coming but it is not here yet". This view they will hold until after a bubble has past, for it 1) keeps them in the majority and avoids (shudder) standing out in full sunlight with an actual well-reasoned adult opinion 2) it keeps their clients in the market, in the pundits' strategy/fund/etf/etc. 

As I see it, bubbles are rarely called in advance. It always looks like things could get crazier, prices more elevated. There is always some past mania where prices were pushed to an even greater extreme, on such as basis, we are still at a reasonable valuation. 

It's always easier to tell when things are really cheap than when they are really expensive. At least it always was for me, when I did this stuff for a living. 

Your broker/advisor/manager will not get you out of this. Neither will the guy on the radio and his coop of financial bucket masters. This is good, because they don't know where the top is. They don't know where the bottom is. They only know this mantra that they repeat at the break of each new year... this thing the market is doing today we believe will continue for a while, later on we think prices will change. Yellow. Worthless. Where they will add value is keeping you out of the ditch, keeping you in the market when your impulse is to run, keeping you out of expensive strategies/funds/partnerships/pools/private this/private that.  

When the dust settles and the things in that bubbble have fallen a bunch, and then a bunch again, then we'll look back at the mess and read the wisdom of pundits who will tell us of the fools like us who never learned from the past.  

I am a fan of the New York Jets

As I left mass this morning, I caught that second half of the Jets-Broncos game. It was one of those London games of the 2025 season, with a kickoff just as mass was starting. 

I have been following the Jets since Joe Namath took them to the Super Bowl so many years ago. They have never been my main team. That loyalty has belonged mainly to the Buccaneers, Rams and Vikings, when I lived in the same city as those teams. But for over 50 years, the Jets have been my second team, the team I always wanted to do well, and to someday return to Superbowl glory. 

If you dig around my house, you'll find some Rams stuff and a few Vikings things. but much more Jets. Jets hat, sweatshirt and coffee mug are the things seen most often. In 2023 I went to the NFL Hall of Fame in Canton. First stop, Kurt Warner's bust. Second stop, Joe Namath's bust. Rubbed Joe's nose for good luck like thousands of others. Didn't rub Kurt's nose. 

When my son was 12 his approach to the baseball plate mimicked the stance of Mark McGwire. Mark and my son lived for a while in the same city and were baseball players at the same time, though at different levels. 

When I was 12 and playing quarterback in my front yard with my friends, my stance as I dropped back to pass, mimicked that of Joe Namath. It was intentional, I really tried to hold the ball the way I thought he did, and release it as he did. In reality I was a poor imitation but in my mind I was pretty close. 

With today's result, Jets lost and are now 0-6, the season is likely over. I get to be one of the first fans to start thinking hard about the 2026 draft and what it means for my team. Perhas there is another Namath in next year's class. One who is a true student of the game, who has watched the old film footage from the 60s and marveled at the moves of Broadway Joe. Maybe. 

As I left Mass I did not have the Jets on my mind. But when I turned on the game on the radio, I no longer had the miracle of the Mass on my mind. What does that say about me. Perhaps nothing, just a normal human whose mind moves from one thing to another. Or, am I just a passing fan of both? I hope not. Christ has many fans, but very few fully devoted followers. 

My mother's last checkbook

 Today I am going through a few things of my mom's. I have all her last files. Funny how it is hard to throw away the most meaningless scrap of paper that is in her hand. That almost perfect cursive penmanship that flowed so easily from her pen. 

The last few entries reflect the day-to-day care of her widow's household. Once these entries were known only to her, her private and very secret money world. Groceries, gas bill, her monthly social security. At Christmas there was an entry of a check to me for "Christmas dinner". I do not recall what that was. Perhaps she sent me money to help pay for ours. I do not recall whether I spent Christmas with her or was with family here in Minnesota. Probably the latter. 

It's been over seven years since she died. I hope I always miss her and that throwing away her things is always hard. 

The baseball desert

 I went to a Minnesota Twins game last week. This was my first MLB game since June of the 2023 season, a two year break. 

What struck me most was how loud it was. Not from the crowds, but from the make-believe cheers of the cartoon characters on the multiple screens or the piped in cheers of fans dancing to some tune I do not know or the imaginary spectators cheering the shirtless fat guy doing his version of the Makarena in section 346. It is like you have been inserted into a TV. One long sensory bombardment. 

Scorekeeping has been dumbed down to a shameful degree. A double play is no longer a simple "6-4-3" on the screen, but something like "double play, ground ball to SS to 2B to 1B. 

MLB is not as fun as it once was. Now that pitchers don't bat in the National League, there is no difference between any of the games. Nothing unique about the Cardinals and how they approach a given situation vs the Twins. Nothing unique to the strategy of any given team. 

Granted, the stadium dazzle means that the number of bored little kids has decreased. I suspect the number of bored adults has gone up.  

I used to say that the neat thing about baseball, was that it was the only sport that I could enjoy as a solo spectator. Football, basketball I would never consider going to a game by myself. Baseball, I would, and have. Not so sure that this is true anymore. 

Change. 

The April Fools of the US equity market in the Year of our Lord, 2025

 I don't give investment advice to friends. I don't care about the outcome enough to stay engaged, the personal payoff structure is asymmetrical. Family is different. Them, I try to keep out of the ditch, if they ask. 

The market fell off sharply as our President has become enamored with a tax called a tariff. Markets will tolerate a modest hike in taxes, but not on the scale he is proposing. 

To paraphrase Winston Churchill, badly. Never sell out of US stocks. Never. Never. Never. 

Buy when the market is rising, buy when it is falling, buy when it is flat. Never, never sell. Buy when a President is healthy, buy when one is assassinated. Buy when oil is plentiful, buy when there is a shortage. Buy when there is no cure for a terrible virus. Buy when a vaccine is developed. Buy when you love the President, buy when you don't. Buy when you're sober, buy when you're not. Buy when there is war, when there is rumor of war, when there is peace. Buy when your dog dies, when your cat dies (especially), when your Uncle Wayne dies.

Granted there are times when one should sell everything, go to cash, wait for clarity. Ask CNBC or Fox Business they see it all the time. Having been born in 1956 I have yet to see such a day. 

What so many people fail to realize is our emotions act in an opposite fashion of real things. 

When the market falls we percieve (feel) that risks are going up, we feel this is bad. In reality the risks are going down. The opposite is true when stocks are rising. 

This was true in 1929 and will still be true in 2029. True in 1974, will be true in 2074. 

In case I am all wrong. Keep a few cartons of Marlboros and some bottles of Jack Daniels in your basement. I think I have about four of each. When the social order completely breaks down, when the gas pumps are dry and the shelves are bare at Food Lion, these two things will always have value and can be exchanged for passage across the border into Canada or Mexico. 

The best two sentences in "A Gentleman in Moscow"

 "...just remember that unlike adults, children want to be happy. So they still have the ability to take the greatest pleasure in the simplest thing. "

from the chapter "Ascending, Alighting", page 253. 

Bookends of Life

 I am a hospice volunteer and I am a Grandfather. Thus, I spend a lot of time with the very young and the very old. The struggles of their lives seem at times similar, though that is not real.  

I want that glass of water that I see across the room. How do I get it?

I understand what you just said to me. I want to reply but I don't know the words. Or, I know the words but cannot make my mouth say them. 

I should go to the bathroom. Too late. I am embarrassed or ashamed to tell you. 

I miss that person who comes to my room. Where is he? Will she be back today? 

I wait in my room until someone takes me somewhere and tells me what to do. Sometimes I do it. Sometimes I don't. 

It seems to you quite boring that I spend so much time staring out the window. I am learning, retaining, not retaining, thinking. thinking. 

The single best sentence in Anna Karenina

 "Then it was that he first clearly understood what he did not realize when leading her out of the church after the wedding: that she was not only very close to him but that he could not now tell where she ended and he began." Volume II, Part V, Chapter XIV.

I suppose that after 20 or so years of marriage I would have understood this line. But after forty six years I can begin to relate to it. Begin. Deeper than understanding. 

It was well worth a thousand pages of this great novel to find this little jewel of prose.  

The neck tells no lies

 A conversation with my four year old grandson, Ben. Christmas 2024. 

Ben: Grandad, why do you have that turkey thing on your neck. 

Me: That's because I'm getting old. 

Ben: You ARE old. 

Me: Yes I am, I guess. 

Ben: Why do you have that turkey thing on your neck?

Me: When you get old your skin gets loose. 

Ben: But why do you have it?

Ben: You're old. 

Me: Someday you'll have one and maybe your grandson will ask you why. 

Ben: (laughs) Un Uh!

The Cities of 2024

 Not a long list, but a fun one. A very good year for travel. Below is any city where I  spent the  night. 

Victoria, MN
Webster Groves, MO
Minneapolis, MN
Quincy, IL
Amsterdam, NL
Cologne, DE
Miltenburg, DE
Regensburg, DE
Vienna, AT
Budapest, HU
Duluth, MN
Steubenville, OH
Omaha, NE
Bloomington, IL
Nashville, TN
Roan Mountain, TN
Mount Pleasant, SC

Kissimee, FL