I’m a writer. I have written professionally since I was fifteen years old. Given my peculiar interest in comedians, I find it interesting that the men in that field often start off very young as well, such as Gilbert Gottfried and the surprisingly talented Bobcat Goldthwait.
I started writing for national magazines when I was a kid, and I wrote my first published book at sixteen, to be followed by a couple dozen more.
I’ve dabbled in other forms of writing as well. I wrote a full-length screenplay about my extraordinarily fascinating great grandfather on my wife’s side of the family. I also wrote my one and only novel, about which I am exceedingly proud, and yet I wound up having to self-publish the damned thing.
With such credentials, you might assume I’d be plunging headlong into writing a post with some kind of plan, but no, I’m just typing away, since I feel the need to express a couple of thoughts.
In spite of this website being ostensibly a treasure chest of trading tools and financial musings, the vast majority of my writing – – the decent stuff, at least – – has nothing to do with ticker symbols or trendlines. It has to do with life.
This website of mine is old. If it were a person, it long since passed the age at which it could vote or buy a gun. In a few months, it’ll be old enough to buy booze, which given the market in recent months will probably be a welcome privilege.
Thousands of people – – tens of thousands, actually – – have come and gone over the decades, and a few of us have even met in person. It’s been a long while, though. Some are dead. Many gave up. Others are quiet.
An endless string of record highs makes me stoic, which is my natural disposition in any case.
Actually, that’s not quite true. Sullen isn’t the same as stoic. I’m actually a complete brat.
All the same, I am duty-bound to keep this place going, since I figure at least a few of you wouldn’t know what to do with yourselves otherwise. We all have our roles. Mine is to keep this unique and unhinged madhouse clicking on day to day. Dawn to dusk, and well past that.
A writer sometimes writes about what is going on in his life. I’ve done this many times, although over the years the most powerful stories or acrid lessons have been far too personal to discuss.
At present, there are things happening in stately Knight Manor that are extraordinary, and I’d love to share them, since writing is a potent exorcism for me. Discretion is the better part of valor, however, so as a Knight, I’d better keep the valor thing going. I’ve trained my children to honor the family name, which is much easier as a Knight than, let’s say, a Lipschitz.
I can say, at least, that as a society we are going through an era I never dreamed, and I firmly believe it is going to morph into something unrecognizable and unimaginable.
I would go on to say that, in these very hours of my own life, I feel like a spirit hovering above Omaha Beach on June 6, 1944, watching young men racing ahead, and dying more or less randomly. If I could tell you what’s going on, this could be understood. As it is now, I can only fumble about.
Yeah. I was right. There was no plan to this post. One day, it’ll all be cleared up.
I will say that Slopers are, on the whole, of a kind nature. The world of traders, particularly given the anonymity of the web, is by and large a bunch of alpha male jackoffs, often cruel and more often than not simple-minded.
Slope isn’t like that. Be they bull or bear, Slopers tend to be a decent bunch, and that, I assure you, is the main reason I’m still here.
