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Listen up kids, I don’t do drugs.  

No, really.

No, I get high on… silver highs.   New one’s especially.  ‘Fact, I might even OD on breaking all-time highs, but I am doing wind sprints and having my sons jump out of random closets at me— “Cato-Clouseau-style” — in order to get my adrenaline glands in good condition for the eventuality.

Cause I’m pretty sure it’s coming.   Tonight we have new 31-year highs at $33.12, which is making me very happy.  Mind you I started buying physical silver at about $4.50 an ounce, and have never sold any of it.  That’s over 630% since 2002.  I wish I could say the same for my silver stocks, which I’ve traded perhaps with over-zealous vigour (sic).  In truth, they’ve been even more volatile than the commodity price itself.  

My favorite silver play continues to be the royalty play Silver Wheaton — SLW— which does not dirty its fingernails with crude dirt-scratching but instead secures royalty payment in silver at a certain price in exchange for financing miners.   Would you screech out loud if I told you that SLW had arranged to be paid in silver at the equivalent of less than $5.00 an ounce?   That’s like taking a time machine back to 2002 and rifling the unsuspecting corner numismatic storedfront for less than appreciated 100 oz. ingots, only to return to February 2011 and have them assayed for over $33… and counting.

Can you see why I’m so excited about royalty plays?  They are, in fact, leverage for the leveraged price of the precious metal, as that is what the miners do — they allow one leverage on an increasing precious metal price.  The royalty play is one step higher up the chain of amped return.  Is there risk of default and other mining related problems?  Of course, but like a bank, a diversified portfolio will absorb some of that volatility.  

 Remember this SLW  chart from a couple of weeks ago?   The two arrows are the places where I’ve made recent buys.  We’re still not back to our old December highs, but I think we’ll be there, maybe as soon as this week.  

 Royal Gold — RGLD — is another royalty play, this time on the gold side, and with an even more diversified portfolio than SLW.   That’s another Jacksonian you want to own.

I also like EXK, AGQ (be careful with this one), PAAS, MVG, SVM, AG, CDE (small), and SSRI.  Another great catch all for all of these (or most) is SIL, the silver miner ETF. 

For gold, the old standards, ANV, EGO, RGLD, IAG, GDX, GDXJ, NGD  are recommended, and newcomers IVN and AAU to taste.  I continue to believe also that the rare earth metals will resume their volatile climbs, and I like AVL and QSURD best.

Nothing going on in the U.S. stock markets tomorrow, but the precious metal, U.S. dollar and futures markets should be fun.  Ciao for now.

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[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GW3L8qon7hg&feature=related 450 300]

(Updated: different, non-Scorscese/Last Waltz version.  Not as good, and I encourage you to watch the original on youtube)

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Featuring, Woodshedder on Lead Vocals & Drums and our own Chuck Bennet on Bass Guitar. Complimentary LP with every subscription!

Indueud!

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[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZlsJD8RlhbI&feature 450 300]

(Wow, this is cool!)

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And let nothing ye dismay!

Seeing my kids get all hopped up with Christmas greed in anticipation of Coca-Cola/Norman Rockwell Santa  (note the date)  has me reminiscing back to my own childhood Christmases as one of six kids in a crowded household in western Nassau County, Lawn Guyland.

My Mom and Dad were freaks for Christmas, you see, even in the bad years when they couldn’t really afford it.  They always made it special for us, bills be damned.  If we reeeally, really wanted something — even a Red Ryder BB-gun (I asked for and got one even before that movie had made its debut), we’d be sure to get it.  

Don’t get me wrong — they were hard as flint the rest of the year, but on Christmas they were marshmallows and couldn’t do enough for their little ones.  That’s Irish Christmas I guess.  And now that I’m old I can get all Irish-Sentimental about it. 

Forgive, for this night at least.

My folks were so strong on the spirit of the Day, and for all its bells and whistles, I don’t know many who can compare in this century.   Every season, my dad would string the big, multi-colored bulb lights out on the rhododendron bushes with many a muttered curse,  and my Mom would carefully place the white incandescent candles in all the windows, along with the fragrant evergreen wreaths on the front door.  Inside, the joint would be festooned with Santas, Frostys, Rudolphs and their incongruous holiday rivals–  the myriad somber and serious Nativity collections.  On the turntable, Johnny Mathis and Elvis platters dominated the holiday music scene, but even Barbra Streisand got a healthy workout, Christmas-tune-wise.

But for Santa and his over-the-top largesse, my parents carried a special place in their hearts.  In analyzing it today, I can only ascribe their fervor for Santa to their pent-up generosity, and their desire to give anonymously so as not to somehow “spoil” us.  Even when I was in college, my mother wouldn’t even wink at the notion that my holiday presents came from anywhere else but the North Pole.   And as younger kids, year after year, my Dad would go to great lengths to keep us within the ranks of the credulous…

I remember one night in the late seventies, when I was approaching that age when we are all wont to give up on Santa Claus for good.  I was the oldest boy in the family and with four brother below me, my Dad had to come up with something that would keep me a member of the tribe.  So, long before “Santa Norad” and other on-line Christmas cheer, my Dad came up with the idea of “Calling Santa Control,” on the phone in our kitchen.  

He would dial a number on that old long-corded wall phone, listen intently, nod “yes, yes” with an always-serious mein, and then, placing his hand over the receiver, would tell us Santa was just passing Paris, or Madrid, or wherever, on his way to North America.   Of course, my closest-in-order brother and I, being of the skeptical age, would ask to “listen in.”   He would be obliging, and would then hold the phone up to our ears — one at a time — where we would hear a very official sounding voice telling us something very official that we would not really be able to fully make out.  He only held the phone to our ears for about ten seconds, you see.

Long enough.  He had my brother and I for at least another year, and with us convinced, the whole brood was satisfied.   A magic man, my dad, and at his best in the Season.  

Merry Christmas, my friends, Merry merry Christmas to you all.

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God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen : Lyrics

From God our Heavenly Father
A blessed Angel came;
And unto certain Shepherds
Brought tidings of the same:
How that in Bethlehem was born
The Son of God by Name.
O tidings of comfort and joy,
Comfort and joy
O tidings of comfort and joy

“Fear not then,” said the Angel,
“Let nothing you affright,
This day is born a Saviour
Of a pure Virgin bright,
To free all those who trust in Him
From Satan’s power and might.”
O tidings of comfort and joy,
Comfort and joy
O tidings of comfort and joy

The shepherds at those tidings
Rejoiced much in mind,
And left their flocks a-feeding
In tempest, storm and wind:
And went to Bethlehem straightway
The Son of God to find.
O tidings of comfort and joy,
Comfort and joy
O tidings of comfort and joy

And when they came to Bethlehem
Where our dear Saviour lay,
They found Him in a manger,
Where oxen feed on hay;
His Mother Mary kneeling down,
Unto the Lord did pray.
O tidings of comfort and joy,
Comfort and joy
O tidings of comfort and joy

Now to the Lord sing praises,
All you within this place,
And with true love and brotherhood
Each other now embrace;
This holy tide of Christmas
All other doth deface.
O tidings of comfort and joy,
Comfort and joy
O tidings of comfort and joy
 

 

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[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AsDZMxto-Vc&feature=related 450 300]

(Another take on Kanye)

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Yeah, I’m goin’ tah California, gonna get mahself a beah. 

More likely a nice Plumpjack Estate or better yet, Rafanelli Cabernet Sauvignon in beautiful Healdsburg.  I’ve got an early morning flight for a big celebration for a special lady, who in a lot of ways resembles Madame in the above clip, though she is not from Joisey, but rather Queens, originally.

Truth is, Madame above is from Brooklyn, originally (if you watch her other clips, you’ll learn more) so it’s all six of one half dozen of the other in my assay.  Essentially, almost all of humanity is originally from Brooklyn, at least in these here United States.   It’s like “Out of Africa” via the Piltdown Man, save in this case, it’s out of Flatbush via GTO.

While the dollar is figuring out what it wants to do, I will be jetting West for a long weekend of sybaritic repose, tennis and vin rouge guzzling by the stainless steel vatful. 

Maybe I’ll skip the tennis.

I will try to check in as much as possible, but you can see how nonchalant I’ve become.   That happens when your positions are hundreds of percent in the black.  I suggest you try it and stop screwing around trying to scalp a dime here, and a half buck there.    

Yesterday’s pickup of EXK was fruitful in the extreme.  I would be cautious here as we are due a dollar bounce in the $77 area.   I don’t expect it to be a particularly exhubrant or winning bounce.   More like a semi-spongeous deceased feline, if you know what I mean.

Rome is burning my friends.   Let us raise a glass to a New Republic, someday, with hope in our hearts.    In the meantime, make sure all your denari are .9999 fine grade gold first.

Best to you all.

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Who isn’t sobered into a melancholy pause upon realizing that most of the cast of Spartacus has now departed this earthly veil?  Look at the list:

Lawrence Olivier — dead!

Jean Simmons — dead!

Peter Ustinov — dead!

Charles Laughton — dead for ages now!

It’s somewhat fitting that only The Ragpicker’s Son himself — star of the slave rebellion show and Gordon Gekko’s true father– Kirk Douglas — remains alone from the vast ranks of this blighted party. 

And now this day, even the questionably heterosexual but unquestionably loyal “Antonius” — Tony Curtis — a Noo Yawkah-done-good extraordinaire, has finally taken that last train to the Bronx.  

 I always loved Spartacus as a youth, albeit not for Curtis’s part, though he made a great Sparty sidekick, despite the bath scenes (not that there’s anything wrong with bath scenes, per se).   It was on WPIX Channel 11 and/or WOR-9  at least two or three times a year, maybe because of native sons (of Noo Yawk) Curtis and Douglas were the stars.   

 No matter, Curtis was always a favorite of mine for this flick and for Billy Wilder’s classic featuring Marilyn Monroe at her apex — Some Like it Hot, which co-starred another all-time great, Jack Lemmon.   It’s nice to remember that before he started appearing in Dan Tanna’s Vegas with a bad toupee,  Tony could kick some ass on the silver screen, not to mention catching some off of it.  

I’ll leave this hat tip to Tony with a funny story he told in a 2006 interview with Esquire magazine, talking about his early days of fame in New York and L.A. —

When I left the Navy, I used the GI Bill to get into the Dramatic Workshop, which was located at the President Theatre on Forty-eighth Street. Walter Matthau and Harry Belafonte were students there, too. We were all just trying to make it. Later on, I went out to California, and good things started happening for me. When I came back to New York to do a promotion for City Across the River, they gave me a suite at the Sherry-Netherland and a huge black limo. I took it around to show my buddies in the Bronx and then went by the Dramatic Workshop. It was a terrible, rainy afternoon, and who do I see out in front? Walter Matthau. He’s got a long, heavy coat on with a Racing Form sticking out of the pocket, and he’s looking down at the gutter. Here I am in this nice, warm limo. And there he is, this grumpy guy surrounded by a cold, miserable world. The look on his face says, “What’s ever going to happen for me? Nothin’!” So I tell the driver to pull alongside him and stop. Now Walter’s watching the limo. I roll the window down, look at him, and say, “I fucked Yvonne De Carlo!” Then I roll the window back up in a hurry and tell the driver to get the hell out of there.

No, no, no, he wasn’t mad! For years, Walter loved to tell that story at parties. He’d make it last twenty minutes.

There’s more funny quotes like that in the link.   He sounds like an old pisser, and a guy to have a bourbon with.  Self-centered and probably something of a jerk, but a veritable pisser.

Best to you all, and good night Tony.

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Can you handle it?

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Not as well known a ditty as “Red sun at night, sailor’s delight,” but far more remunerative.  

First, my apologies for not being able to interact last night save by teeny tiny Crackberry screen, which after a day of meetings off-site (I am on the coast now), left my weary eyes strained.   I’ve never actually attempted to post from a hand-held device, save for comments, and I’m wondering if any of my fellow bloggers have. 

No matter, I’m here briefly to let you know we are at an inflection point, in case you haven’t noticed.  The dollar has broken some significant support levels at $82, and I think it’s next stop — and quickly there- will be $80.   I think old Ben has finally gone and done it and broken the bank.  Your only respite will be equities an precious metals in the near term.   For the long term it will be only the latter, I’m afraid. 

In the meantime, as it always seems to happen, I am enjoying “large phallused gains” in almost every category of my holdings, but none more so than the precious, and specifically silver and gold.   One of my correspondants was wondering about possibly putting on some more IAG exposure for the short term rebound.  Now would be that time, young chappo. 

Also, all the silver gods and dogs should move today and through this expansion as silver has easily crushed the $20 resistance mark and is now back on its way to all time highs.  I may take this opportunity to add some leverage to my holding through some DEC call action on SLW.  I may add also to some “permanent options” like EXK and GSS.

In short, the PM’s are like fat, slow blind juicy turkeys out there and you are armed with a blunderbuss on the third week of November.  Go forth pilgrim, and pacify.

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