The other day I was trying to do one of my sporadic clean-ups. Actually I’m still unboxing from the move of nearly two years ago, but doing a clean-up sound so much more….sanitary. Its cool going through the old photo’s and photo albums. The ones that are really neat are the candid shots, the ones that are not posed, the “got ya” pics. Some are good, some are bad, some of the pics are 30+ years old. We look through the old pictures we took, and we know that’s the way they were taken, they reflect the way we were, the way it was. Untouched, unaltered, real and honest. And that’s yet another piece of our life and culture that is slipping away, another casualty of our headlong rush to who the hell knows where.

That Microsoft Cloud commercial comes to mind here.  The one where the wife gets frustrated about  her uncooperative  family and Photoshop’s them to perfection.  Of course, the picture is then a complete fake. Every detail is suspect.  As a side bite here, one of the reasons the potential picture is screwed up is that one of the kids is texting furiously, hence mommy sees the need to fake the kid’s pic for posterity.   So like a pill popping druggie who takes a pill to get high and another one to come down from the high, one electronic gadget is used to counter the effects of another one. Unbelievable. Are we really that addicted to all of this electronic crap? In 10 years time what will a picture even mean? I can see black sheep of the family being photo shopped out of the family pictures.  Or more kids/the new wife/hubby being inserted, who knows where this is all going?  The scary part is, to someone being born today, how are they going to look at a family photo 20 years from now? Will they look at it the same way I look at a picture taken 20 years ago? I think not.  And I’m not sure if that’s going to be a bad thing  or a good thing, come to think of it. Its certainly beyond my pay grade, that’s for sure.

I may not be the Nostradamus of  future photo psychology but I do know this: Get ready to see the gold bubble pop. First off, the television gold hucksters, the most prominent one being a convicted felon named G Gordon Liddy, are the primary gold advertisers on the daily  hour long insane rants of Glenn Beck. All reputable companies have fled from this far right, mentally ill loon’s show that spreads paranoia and hate to the drooling flock, so that should tell anyone with a brain something right there.

See, the first warning bell should be the obvious, when every Tom, Dick, and Harry is talking about  buying something, or “getting into” something because it’s a “great investment”….shouldn’t that set off some warning bells?? Anyone remember the…..”You’ve got to get into this real estate market right now, its such a great investment.” That was  back in that  bygone year of 2007. HELLO!!! Or how about….” You have GOT to get into this dot.com stock right now, this is a GREAT opportunity.” Waaaay back in that ancient history of 2000. HELLO!!! Ok, pull up a chair, gather around boys and girls and let yer favorite pontificating slut tell ya why you need to be very, very nervous about the “great investment” of today’s  gold market.

First off I have some personal experience with the previous gold bubble that I would like to share with you. Sometime around 1976, I did one of my extremely rare (for those times) responsible, adult-like thing and made a speculative investment. I was a young  crazy kinky chick, living rent free, and the money was just pouring in. Read my autobiography for more infoJ Anyway…..coinciding with a more than usual flush moment, I happened to notice that the price of gold had gone  up in just a couple of days from 161 dollars an ounce to 182. I called a lawyer friend of mine and asked him how I could go about buying some gold. He told me about Kugerrands, where to buy them…and then tried very hard to talk me out it, telling me the price was way too high. I did not listen to him….what else is new…and proceeded to buy 10  of those 1oz gold coins for around $182 dollars a piece, figuring I would do something adult before I pissed the money away on….well….never mind what.  I held them for a couple of years, and sometime in  1979 I think it was,  a little birdie told me to bail…and I remember that everyone and their brother was saying “BUY, BUY”….I dumped mine for $780 a pop. Of course, it was a speculative bubble, build on greed and fear; all bubbles are created on some combination of those, with a touch of ignorance throw in,  and it burst not long after I bailed. And its all happening again right before our eyes, and just like the last one, this  gold market bubble  will also pop.

Here is why, right now, Gold is a overpriced, bogus, bullshit market, that WILL bite the little guy on the ass, hard.  First off, no matter what the hucksters, survivalists, Glen Beck rug chewers, etc will tell you, gold is NOT money. It cannot buy a fucking thing. It is not a medium of exchange anywhere in the world.  If you don’t believe me, try going down to the power company and shaving some off of your brick to pay your electric bill. Or go fill the tank of old Betsy and see what happens if you try it. One may be able to buy something with gold, but the value will be skewed..and it will not be in your favor.  “But…but…but…Angie…what happens  after the  Apocalypse and we have to share the world with the mutant Zombie hoards being led by a shrieking witch from Alaska?” Glad you asked, what do you think your gold bricks will be worth then? NOTHING, that’s what. They will make nice clubs and ballast, that’s about it. If that were to happen…and that is a big, big IF….IF, civilization crumbles for whatever unforeseen reason(s), the currency of choice will be gasoline, guns, ammunition, medical items(especially penicillin and pain killers), food, alcohol, drugs and whores, roughly in that order. Seriously.  Forget the gold nonsense, that aint going to be happening then. Gold is  too heavy to carry……and too hard for pillows.  The stuff will be sitting around in heaps.  Gold for the apocalypse ??? Give me a break!!! For what???

See, that’s the thing. Gold does not have a lot of practically, its uses are limited. It does have use as jewelry. And it is used in electronic manufacturing, there is some in the computer you are using. But…there is far more out of the ground than the actual market can absorb and use. That is another problem with Gold, if you think about it, more and more is being created. By that I mean dug out of the ground, put out into circulation. And when there is more and more of something, that virtually ensures that when the price comes down…and it will…then the price is going to stay depressed for a long time because the object of the speculation was overproduced to satisfy demand….see the housing market for further on this subject.

Gold makes no money. It does not work for you. It does not bear interest, nor does it pay dividends. For example, you can buy house, and you can rent it out for income. No matter what happens to the real estate market, it can go up or down,  you can still get money out of that house, i.e. that investment. It works for you. There are other investments that also work for you. We’ll get to what you can do with my favorite investment in a moment. But gold does nothing, and there is nothing that you can do with it but sit on it and hope the market goes your way. So does that mean that you can’t make any money on gold? No, not at all, I did quite well. And there was a reason for that, I did NOT buy it with the idea that WW3 was coming, or  the Jesus Rapture, or the aforementioned end of the world as we know it, or any other wild-eyed line of end of the world shit  folks try to feed you when they want to sell you something.

So what is a good, smart investment? Personally I am partial to thing with engines that go fast. Take a particular model Ferrari. Like, say  the  mid 80’s to  early 90’s Testarossa….I was a HUGE Miami Vice fan!  You know exactly how many were made and there are not going to be any new ones made. Hence the supply is known and fixed.  And when you buy this gorgeous machine, You can then take it out and drive the hell out of it, enjoy it, and if you take care of it, it will make you money when you sell it. They always have, and they always will. And that goes for many, many assorted makes and models. I keep a close eye on the car market, and the collector car market held its own pretty well thru the recession. There are good deals out there yet, look for a car that you happen to like…and that right now no-one else does. That’s the key, buy when no-one else is, then when everyone is buying like crazy and the price is climbing and climbing….and this part is gut feeling, there is a certain moment to bail. But with cars…what I say is….just drive the thing and let your estate make the big bucks! BTW, you can substitute the word ‘motorcycle’ for ‘cars’, works just as well, same deal. Custom knives also seem to be good a good practical investment, especially if your knife maker is fairly well known and up and dies. And remember, when the zombie apocalypse comes, you can use the car to get out of town, and the knife to stab the fuckers. When buying a collectable,  I always think in the back of my mind “can I use this for some good purpose?” Works for me.

Made it over to Volusia county Speedway a few weeks ago for the World of Outlaws opening event. Suddenly it was 1978 again with Steve Kinser winning  the feature the first two nights, and finishing second the final night.  The greatest Sprint car driver in history who has been 56 for at least four years now can still get the job done. Way too cool!!! And in keeping with the 70’s theme for Speedweeks, seeing the famed colors of the #21 of the Wood Brothers back in victory lane at the Daytona 500 was also a great way to being the  Sprint cup season.

On the subject of the Recession, you know the one all the talking heads say had ended. Very interesting read right here http://yhoo.it/eyXqh4 . It shows the same thing anyone in the real world knows.  Of course, the lords and masters in Congress not to mention the talking heads on the tube do not live in the real world, and besides, they all have good jobs, don’t they? Out here in the REAL world, yes,  jobs are coming back…those nice, high quality, part time burger flipping jobs at McDonalds. And don’t ya just love all the job creation going on in Washington. Yeah, all those tea party genius are really working on knocking down the unemployment, I’m trying to figure out how their obsession with enriching health insurance companies and demonizing Muslims  is doing that. And in this state the felon that got away and conned enough morons  to vote for him  to get himself elected governor of Florida could have done some good right off the bat. He could have given Florida workers thousands and thousands of good paying hi-skilled jobs for years to come and at the same time drop-kicked Florida into the 21th century with the rest of the civilized world at the same time. He could have put the people of this state to work, and shown forward thinking vision. But if he had done all of that, then he certainly would not be the greedy far right Republican loon that he is  who hates the middle class…they take all of the money that should be going to the top 1%, ya know. So Rick Scott did everything in his power to kill the high speed rail, making sure that those same workers, instead of having decent real jobs will now be flipping burgers and cleaning toilets in the fast food grease pits owned by his greedy, under taxed, privileged Republican elite. And of course we have Wisconsin, we all know what is happening there. Don’t whine and cry people, many of you voted these amoral trolls in. Voting is something that we all should not take lightly…the Rick Scott’s  and  Scott Walkers of the world know that a large chunk of their votes will come from those who simply will yank the handle because they are Republicans. Hey,  if you are worth millions and are a greedy, self centered sort, then  you had better vote for you pals. But if you work hard for a living and to raise your family and think that those among us who are less fortunate deserve a bit of a break, then you had better look long and hard when someone had an “R” besides their names next time. And just remember…..Scott Walker never said at any time during the campaign that;  “…..and if I am elected I will destroy the rights of teachers, police and firefighters….and that’s only the beginning.”

Gotta run, websites to build, videos to shoot, who knows what else.  TTYL.

Geezers, Rockers and Moneybags, are these interesting times or what?