Yeah, but wait till the REAL SHIT hits the fan!

We’re not just going to transition from gasoline powered vehicles to EV paradise with ZERO environmental negatives.

Here’s the near hockey-stick demand curve for these batteries.

But says the FT, the “mining, manufacturing and disposal process for batteries could become an environmental disaster for the industry.” 

Just how to turn batteries back into metals HASN’T BEEN WORKED OUT YET. Nor is there currently a plan to do so.

So much for the environment and EV crusaders.

PROSE, POEMS, PHOTOS

What are we after but wonder on a platter?

Joined

1.

Beauty viewed through
Numbing pain,
Now shines with duller
Promise. 
Like clenching fingers
Freshly stitched,
I bleed when
Stretched too far.

2.

Light advancing – 
Watch for signs:
Those richer tones,
Come April! – 
Assures its own
Reversal 
When clocks fall back
Again.

JAD, 2018

The Moment

Miles’s Madness,
Shorter now solo,
The siren, the engine,
The pain.
People on sidewalks
I don’t see at night – 
I’m stopping to
Write it all down.
The moment now noted,
Delivered, declared,
Endures as the
Moment no more:
The moment no longer
This moment,
Albeit the moment
Restored.

JAD, 2018

Joined in the Moment 

Beauty besieged by
Lingering pain,
Resigns, rescinds
All promises.

Fingers – still clenching,  
Were recently stitched,
Unconsciously stretched – 
May bleed.

Frontloaded March
Has sprung forward light,
Its samplings of
Notional spring.

Madness by Miles
Now features the cops,
The sirens as well
As Wayne Shorter.

Who are these people
I don’t see at night?
I’m stopping to
Write this all down.

The moment now noted,
Delivered, declared,
The moment – this moment –  
Has passed.

JAD, 2018

The US’s greatest threat is the Unitary Executive.

Democracies that become imperia no longer remain democracies.

Colonialists aren’t quite cannibals.  They don’t eat natives directly.  They eat their lunch.  Starve them.

Can you see the nerd beneath the Bohemian?  Look again.

Tradition enhances stability, but survival depends on flexibility. 

How should one write? 

Like Nancy Wilson used to sing.  Make frugal phrasing resonate.

I behaved at 15 like a corporate suit; at 30, as though 15.

The difference between old and young?  The old were once young, the young still are.

There’s no sound like Eric Dolphy circling around a chord.

Try fiction that’s discursive and transcends genres.

The girl with the hip-swinging walk?  Her brain told her body to do it.  But how much did her brain tell her?

Facades can’t face up to reality.

Unfazed

Savor your days, these
Raw realizations,
This data, unfiltered,
Received;
Fevered forays into
Terrors uncounted;
The rapture of 
Tolling’s survived.
Relish the moment,
The moment it calls,
Shatter all idols
Defiled.
Makeshift defenses
Are nearing collapse.
Pivot towards virtue,
Unfazed.

JAD, 2018

What leverage does the common man have?  His labor.  But if there aren’t any jobs, then what is his role?

Parsing his humanity?

What is he worth with nothing to trade in exchange for consuming resources?  Frankly, he’s useless.

AI will brand him obsolete.  He’s bound for the bin, not capital.  

But capital, too, will perish — by starving or eating itself.  Sustainable subsistence will follow . . . but with far fewer millions to feed.

Elites will extract and monopolize wealth but without need of retail consumers.  The system won’t tolerate drag.

Night Walk Routes

Deuce

Turtle Park Central

Lex Rock Sixth

Lex Rock Seventh

Deuce Bryant X

Deuce Fifth X

Deuce Bryant Fifth

Murray Fifth Lex

Tudor Scaffolds

Parks

Speak like a WASP, move like an athlete, dress like a banker, fight like a thug.

Shakespeare’s genius: the pairing of language and lives.  Flowing from raging or mischievous mouths, the shrewdest most intricate verse.

These, These and More

These curdled responses
So crudely delivered,
These mercies withheld
From the meek.

These harbors of heartache
Revealed to the sighted,
These heartbreaks unsealed
In the night.

These writs and petitions
So subtly encircling,
These treasons reserved
For elites.

These calls to the calloused
To hustle the hapless,
These heroes now
Humbled or culled.

These lusts of the moment
So deeply embedded,
These calumnies 
Cadenced in bursts.

These cavernous lapses
Devoid of all purpose,
These pointed
Omissions and voids.

These truculent tenors
Eschewing the high notes,
These crooners adlibbing  
The words.

These commandeered missions
Rebranded as movements,
These cultural markers
Effaced.

These limitless reaches
Forbidden, forsaken,
These gambits and rescues
Delayed.

These tremors and shudders
Of innocent dreamers,
These maestros serene
Unto death.

JAD, 2018

If women are tasers, men are grenades.  Please don’t confuse them.

To be tolerant implies you were biased first.

We need a radical center.  A space to restore fundamentals.

We Americans

We’ve clung to the traces
Of lies once believed,
These spasms of
Star-spangled spin
Then ditching forensics,
Adherence to facts,
Licensed fresh liars,
Nonplussed.

High on the mesas
Of pasteurized zeal,
We’ve roasted our martyrs
On spits,
Lip-synching birdsong,
Regressing in tweets,
We warblers of
Camouflaged fraud.

Racing through stages
Of cauterized grief,
We’ve sanctified
Ripples of hope,
Skirting the moment
Of tide-turning doubt,
Dividing awareness
In two.

Heartened by hucksters,
Their halcyon chants,
We’ve glowered at
Sages and seers
While heard in the markets,
On cable, the street:
Proof that our moment
Has passed.

JAD, 2018

We seldom see where we’re going, but then when have we not left a trail?

Banish the moment, the moment it lasts.

Brits dine out on their accents.  They should sell them as soft–spoken tokens.  Earbud NFT’s.

What free speech?  It’s been monetized.

The sea as the promise of living forever.

The brain does more than processes.   It creates.

REM I

They say in REM
The brain persists,
Even absent stimulus.
Tasked with more
Than running us, 
It does itself create.
The dreaming brain
Declares itself,
Spawning stuff from nothing.
Some who fear
What REM reveals
Appeal to martyred gods.	

JAD, 2018

My face as Bronze Age helmet. Eye sockets black, prominent nose guard.

We earn the faces we deserve.

Mine belongs to sea people.  Achaean, Athenian, Venetian, Iberian, Dutch, Scandinavian, Britannic.  My foes: Trojans, Persians, Arabs, Huns, Mongols, Russians and Turks.  The land powers.

As Yanks, we’re heirs to sea power. From trading ports to blue water navies, the Anglosphere has endured. We and our allies: Britain, New Zealand, Australia and Canada.

May I raise a bronze helmet to that?

Miles always found the next audience.

What’s a fate worse than death?  Longevity.

Her ponytail.  It tells the world she’s blonde.

Undisciplined emotion is a sucker for loyalty.

Art through artifice heightens reality.

Everything cycles but never identically.

Artists wrest beauty from pain.

History isn’t an accident.

Borderline?  Rage submerged in apathy.

To see yourself in the other, the other must still exist.

8th Avenue

It sits there flaccid
Below 23rd,
Benign in its
Whimsical latency.
Drooling promoters, 
Contracts in hand, 
Look only to
Coax it erect.

JAD, 2018

It’s not a question of jobs with no future but rather a future without jobs.

Not everyone’s a writer.  Some are thinkers who write things down.

What others need is often displaced by whatever the rich want next.

What is a city but lights in the night and the dream of endless sex.

Democracy doesn’t solve inequality.  It merely allows you to vote.

Art can only be commodified in a moneyed consumer society.

Understanding that someone is human doesn’t make them good.

REM II

Giddy and glib,
We giggle,
Drink gallons, sink galleons,
Think gold.
Sleek and unruly,
Adored by the sun, 
We glide through these galleys,
Dream yachts.
No one can stop us,
Just yet.

As preening as Patton,
As savvy as Seuss,
As grasping as
Monetized Facebook,
We scuff it, say fuck it
Like Ford.
Bend it like Beckham,
Sting like Ali,
Remember the Gipper,
Each play.
When hearts break
Their silence,
Report to themselves,
Run smack into Time
And its coffins,
Are we merely confirming 
God’s whims?
You kidding?
We’re roaring unraveled
Through REM.

Nothing may stop you,
The world may not end
Though Grant may surrender
To Lee.
There’s food in those galleys
For both Huck and Jim,
Now plucked from those tough
Middle rounds.
Are you ready for REM?
We’ll see.

JAD, 2018

Start with a classic look.  If you accent it, keep what’s authentic.

You learn who you are by accepting who you’re not.

Who needs stories?  Truth is fiction enough.

Charisma is dangerous.  It’s as fetching as beauty and just as persuasive.

To fathom the world, start with truth.  My truth: the world simply is.

Is New York still famous for what it does?  Or simply because it’s New York?  Is it now just a long-running show?

I’ll settle for less as long as it lasts.

Something is nothing’s best option.

Music: mood’s own narrative.

Anything one with its sign — has already ceased to be real.

REM 1V: Be – 

Beget – begat – 
Beholden.
Bespoke, bejeweled –
Be smart.

Benighted, beleaguered,
Bedeviled, bedraggled,
Belittled, beheaded –
Believe.

Bewitched, besotted – 
Be nimble.
Bemused, beguiled –
Be quick.

Belated, bedazzled,
Berated, bewildered,
Belabored, befuddled –
Beware.

Benign, behaved –
Be grateful.
Becalmed, beloved – 
Belong.

Besmirched, bespattered,
Begrudged, begriming,
Bemired, bemoaned –
Begone.

JAD, 2018

My condition isn’t medical, it’s mystical.  I suffer from too much awareness.

Candidates run on behalf of the people but govern on behalf of the state.

We continue to self-poison.  One man’s cash flow is another’s clogged arteries.

Of all the silences I hate, the worst is that of an empty platform as I watch my train depart.

REM VI: Reprise

Summer sings for
Supper now – 
Its dream a fading star – 
For those who track
Trajectories,
Physics wins again.
The shafts that cleft
Manhattanhenge 
Might just as well have not:
Light’s own axis
Street-aligned;
The cost, an image spent.

August ebbs,
Reveals its doubts,
Accepts its sure demise;
The coming days
A cavalcade
Of moods in search of lies.
Waning light – 
So liquid now, it –
Falls like golden rain.
The wind is in
From Africa,
Joni once exclaimed.

JAD, 2018

What we call our lives is the scab we form to protect our wounds from the world.  Yet, the bravest among us resist that conflation.  Like Captain John Miller, whom Tom Hanks portrays in Spielberg’s Saving Private Ryan.

Miller’s no lifer but a teacher-turned-soldier serving in combat in a citizens’ army.  It’s not just the life he didn’t intend but one where his wound could be fatal.  And where scabs don’t matter at all.

To survive, Miller must kill.  But he never confuses the scab he forms with the person he is throughout.  He instructs Matt Damon — as saved Private Ryan — to go back home and “earn it.”  Miller already has.

What’s a mosaic of different durations?  Time.  And it matters where you are and how fast you’re moving.  At no time is time universal.  It’s local.  

We wind up invoking an absent God.

My mother, who heard broken-English, seldom shared how that felt.

What am I now at 70 but a man bent on healing his heart.

This shroud of solemn sanctity that swaddles the civil state is there to mask surveillance.

My libido was once like a bright Testarossa I recklessly tooled around in.

Nothing’s so sobering as an older woman — game and impeccably dressed — but in obvious failing health.

Liberals seldom fare too well with those with a darker view.  Yet, there’s no way to whiteout malevolence.

Jews are hated for their wealth; blacks, for their poverty.

Other than bedrock, what is New York’s foundation?

BP Medication

Fifty degrees
On East 41st.
I see the street comically,
Clearly.
Laughing, I’m walking
Through life.
Others have told me
I haven’t a choice.
I’m taking their take
For a stroll.
But is taking this
Medicine smart?
I reckon without it,
I’m dead.
Happy to take it,
I’m sorry I must.

Manic Grand Central,
Park beckons next.
Now, I’m at 
Union Square West.
I drift with the shoppers,
Cherish old views
As endless Manhattan
Persists.
That gap that exists
Between me and myself –
No, me and my self
When reflecting –
Has widened since
Taking this drug.
Perhaps, I will learn
Something new.

JAD, 2018

Can a Hollywood picture be great?  The odds are against it.  Hollywood’s role is to pacify.

Do drugs release creativity or merely bend what we see?  Or is there no difference?

Women stockpile outfits as they always need to look new.

What’s with Japan?  Rock gardens, yes, but no zoning?

To nationalists, what matters is a) the land itself and b) who lives on it.

King Lear is Shakespeare’s ultimate play.  And these days, it speaks to us all.  It has gender conflict, generational conflict and all manner of struggles for power.  Hamlet, in contrast, speaks to the young; Richard III, to the mighty.

The old have seen glorious days.  They’ve tasted their kills and gore.

Interlocking crises await.  Tipping points will be tested.

Nothing tastes more like summer than a luscious, sweet nectarine.

New York can mislead you.  Neither Kips nor Turtle are bays.  Coney’s far from an island.  Broadway in places is narrow.  The Bowery’s a street not a farm.  And the circular garden called Madison Square is almost a mile from Madison Square.

I was listening to Eric Dolphy while reading Finnegan’s Wake. It was a dream. But it took some time to recover.

Scimitar jawlines, jutting chins, cheekbones as jagged as outcropping stone. What else but Slavs in a group.

No, it’s not like everything. It’s not a thing like everything.

We used to have products. Now, we have brands.

There’s no point after a point.

The world: miracle, circus, abattoir.

Aging reveals there’s no end game. Living your life is it. You’re not headed anywhere afterwards. Everyone gets one shot.

JFK led to Trump. Futures have a logic of their own.

What is the US’s strategy? The goal of our global role?

Those who drive rich economies are always looking for more.

Echoes

I write, at times, all night – 
Sometimes, straight till dawn.
Reframe the past,
Rethink, regret,
Dissect defeats in fits.
A thoughtful man,
Apprised of this,
Informed me what it means.

Look, you’re hearing echoes, right?
Try to make new memories.
I just turned 65,
Okay?
We marked it out in Brooklyn.  
I said, “So this is Brooklyn?”
My God, it seemed so nice.
Trust me – mute the past.

I’m writing now at
10 AM –
At 10 AM, not sleeping.
Notebooks, poems,
Two staunch blogs,
And now a brand new play.
From newer memories,
Echoes.

JAD, 2019

Recovered

A raw March poem,
Its stunning return,
A note to myself,
This midsummer night.

Look to your mind as
It rambles through channels
Of calcified winters
Recalled.
Salvos of memories
Are whistling through time,
Commingling the living
And dead.

Today, I lost lines
That seldom just come.
These, now recovered,
Have quickened my step.

JAD, 2019

A Turning

Fear deploys in 
Summer’s wake
Like an army
Sullenly billeted.
The mind, unable
To probe or detect,
Retreats as regret
Bubbles up.
Age in the offing,
Redoubles the fear
Turns duller serenity’s
Glow.
Terror emboldened,
Returns.

JAD, 2019

Groping

Sundays often undid me.
Pale, hung over,
Depleted till dark,
I’d aimlessly wander these streets,
Searching for reasons
To be or belong
Or, at least, for some
Plausible pretext.
Life, in those moments,
A poisonous void,
Still smacked of some
Semblance of purpose.
Potential, scabbed over,
Had not yet bled out,
And no one spoke frankly
Of time.

JAD, 2019

We see what we wish/To see in each face/The rest we chase/Or erase.

He seemed a bit girly, and his penis was what?  Some kind of dangling modifier?

The French don’t so much pronounce their words as fellate them.

The closer I get to Christmas, the more I tend to miss it.

Southeast Station

The angled light that
Sparks the rails,
Repaints the fading maples
As autumn’s chiller,
Stiller air
Abridges time’s remit.
The blazing reds and
Subtle golds that
Mark the rolling foot hills
Offset the thinning blue.

JAD, 2019

Over Time

It makes no sense
To sit out life.
The appetites
Forbid it.
But what is freedom –
Pain deferred?
Value wrenched from time?
What matters – matters
Over time
But only for a time.

JAD, 2019

No Longer Mine

Sidelined by time and
Cultures reordered,
I keep to my
Narrowing patch
Till, one day, a
Silent, subliminal
Summons
Steers me down born-again streets.

What do I think then
Of stark Hudson Yards,
The High Line now slivered
By buildings too dense?
The Meat Packing District,
Its monetized blocks – 
Did I once only go there
For beef?

Trust me, I’ve wondered
But lacking in proof,
I seem to be just
Passing through.
These streets I once wandered
And thought of as mine 
Belong to the 
Hungrier young.

JAD, 2019

P Is for Poem

The pain that paupers
Precedent,
That profits paranoia,
That plunders perfect
Pedigree
And pranks each puny punk – 

Is polling poorer, primed.

The pain that plumbs
Precocity,
That placates peeved Pandora,
That primps presumptuous 
Punditry
And prunes the pride of prudes – 

Is pelting perky pines.

The pain that punctures
Pentecost,
That panders to pretenders,
That parses prim
Presentiment
Then pivots, prepossessed –

Is prompting pirouettes.

The pain that pans
Philanthropy,
That predicates personas,
That plots the path of
Predators
And paralyzes prayer –

Is proofing perjured popes.

The pain that pierces
Picadors,
That plagiarizes prophets,
That pasteurizes
Perfidy
And penalizes pluck –
Is preening, plumed or not.

The pain that pilfers
Paradigms,
That pulverizes passion,
That poaches pesky
Platitudes
And parries purer, posed –

Is pissing in the pond.

JAD, 2019

Goldman Sachs’ COVID reports have been accurate.  We’ll see how THIS ONE turns out.

What follows are mostly charts.

The Delta variant may be peaking in some countries.

Vaccinations have reduced the number of hospitalizations.

Vaccinations have also worked across age groups.

Where there have been high case rates, there’s been a degree of drag on mobility.

There’s been a recent slowing in UK momentum more pronounced than elsewhere.

There are increasing labor shortages versus previous quarters.

Lockdowns are being relaxed.

I’d say, mostly positive news.

These charts from Lance Roberts at RealInvestmentAdvice.com tell the tale.  Plus, some of the long-term trends revealed in them are TRULY DISTURBING.  And you will NEVER see them discussed either in the MSM or on CNBC or Bloomberg.  Those outlets are just CANDY FOR DIABETICS.

Even at 6.35%, Q2 growth was far less than projected.

Growth has been declining since May.

Weakening will continue over the next two quarters.

The long-term growth rate is trending below 2%.

The correlation between the economic composite and rates is overly optimistic.

Yields and yields spreads are suggesting that the peak is in.

The money supply is not expanding.

It looks more and more like US economic prosperity peaked in the late 1990’s.

The labor force peaked in 1997.

Wages have stagnated for 80% of US workers since 2008.

Household wealth inequality continues to grow.

While asset prices have inflated dramatically, there has been little actual economic growth since 2008.

Sorry to be the bearer of such BEARISH bad news. But reality is STILL the best therapy.

Kudos to my wife, Maxine.  Jim Patterson’s most prolific collaborator to date.

The 5 Most Successful James Patterson Co-Authors

From Oilprice.com.

Why Norway Won’t Give Up On Oil & Gas

Who would give up — sitting on significant reserves that also form the LIFEBLOOD of one’s economy.  But as true Scandinavians, Norwegians will try their damnedest to eat their cake and still have it.  And like many Scandinavian initiatives it may even — to an extent — succeed.

Here’s the piece’s conclusion:

Where you pay the most tax buck vs. how much economic activity your country generates.

It should comes as no surprise that the top 10 payers are all European social democracies. 

But then, what societies get a better BANG for that hefty buck.  ME?  I would take that trade in a heartbeat.  Higher taxes in return for a chance to live in as civilized a way as the citizens of continental Western Europe do?

WHAT’S NOT TO LIKE?

Can the G7 fight back against China’s Eurasian Belt & Road Initiative (BRI)?

According to this OilPrice.com piece, the B3W will constitute “a values-driven, high-standard and transparent infrastructure partnership.”

What is the B3W?  Davos’ Build Back Better World concept concretized.

“A key aspect of the B3W is the mobilization of private sector capital through the expansion of existing development finance tools.”

“Another key pillar . . . is sustainability.”

And finally:

“Many emerging economies are in urgent need of funds to drive their Covid-19 recoveries, and are waiting expectantly for further details of how the initiative will operate. However, while the principles enshrined in recent announcements are certainly encouraging, more details will need to emerge promptly in order to demonstrate that the B3W is more than a memorable acronym.”

Here’s the piece itself . . .

Can G7 Countries Compete With China’s Belt and Road Initiative?

. . . plus what the crossroads of the NEW WORLD — EURASIA — is starting to look like in places.

I hope the G7 can move on this faster than the US in tackling its OWN INFRASTRUCTURE ISSUES. 

As inevitable as death and taxes.

Whether Barnum said it or not, suckers are born every minute.