What’s in the Szelhamos Portfolio?
I don’t recall whether to credit comedian Robert Klein or David Steinberg for this one, but I still hold a grudge against Klein for participating in one of the worst Saturday Night Live skits on an episode that he hosted 30+ years ago.
The closing sketch, “Giant Lobsters Attack the Studio” was just the conclusion to that evening’s running “Attack of the Giant Lobsters” non-gag.
In fact, scratch “worst skit” and substitute “worst episode, ever”.
Don’t call me “petty” and don’t tell me that this is the season for forgiveness. It was truly a terrible thing that he did. In fact, the free marketplace bears me out on this opinion, because Klein never professionally recovered from this horrible hit.
As a neighbor, back when we still lived in Westchester County, I couldn’t stand to be on the same side of the street. when he appeared. As far as everything else went, he was a funny, wonderful and warm person, but those attributes were trivial and still are.
So I’ll go with David Steinberg, who was among those comedic geniuses behind the Smothers Brothers Hour, including Steve Martin and Bob Einstein. Coincidentally enough, he and Robert Klein were part of The Second City troupe, together in the 60’s.
But the story went that when two people that have had extensive plastic surgery, nose jobs, braces, you name it, get together and have an incredibly hideous baby, it’s just God’s way of saying “Booga booga”.
The actual telling of the joke was much funnier than trying to write in down years later. Especially missing is the thumbs in the ear and outstretched fingers waving while saying “Booga Booga.”
You had to be there.
I know that here are a number of evangelical ministries that teach its disciples that “God wants you to be rich”, perhaps Joel Osteen, being the best known of those.
And what better way to find grace in God’s eyes than to enrich the coffers of Osteen’s church and therby Osteen himself.
I like that kind of theology. I think that everyone should be wealthy.
I also know that if wealth was to be equally distributed you would still have paupers within minutes of the distribution and some even wealthier citizens as a result.
Separating people from their money is just something deeply ingrained into our genome, but my Deity should be made of more heavenly stuff.
On this, one of the holiest days of the Jewish calendar, it’s clear to me that my God doesn’t want me to be rich.
Allowing me to watch a market that at one point was up 180 points and yet seeing my own positions falling fast, is cruel and unusual.
It may be God’s way of saying “Booga booga” to me.
Message received. Especially when the market gains evaporated and my losses mounted. But at least he allowed me to stick around long enough to witness my oldest son’s 25th Birthday today.
That was a nice gift, but seriously what’s with the other stuff?
God may have done the same to Robert Klein for deifying those incredibly delicious, yet dietary forbidden crustaceans. Banished from paradise.
Heaping more cruelty on Robert Klein is the fact that his greatest achievement of the past 30 years was receiving an award for having been a Bronx native.
But I certainly won’t blame higher authority for today. Higher authority did not command me to be over-weight in Mosaic, Freeport McMoran and Rio TInto. In my defense, I thought that by so doing I was paying respect and offering testament to the fine natural wonders that we have been given.
Of course, leave it to those Deity-less Chinese to elect to use less of your wondrous bounty, for some inexplicable reason.
Can I have an Amen?
But still, it may have been higher authority that so cruelly reversed price direction in Halliburton, ProShares UltraShort Silver ETF, Transocean, as well as Mosaic and Freeport McMoran, before I had a chance to sell last minute call contracts.
But why?
In the sad case of Robert Klein, he was never asked back to host SNL. They haven’t even let him watch the episodes for the past 33 years. Even more painful is that this talented man has had to endure the likes of Steven Seagal.hosting and the fact that Seagal is more likely to be invited back than he.
I’m hopeful that mine is not a vengeful God. I’m hoping that despite today’s lack of participation in what was a rally, at least until 2 PM, was just an expression of displeasure with me that can be erased.
That’s what the “Day of Atonement” is all about and it arrives in just a few short days.
But it’s probably not too early to begin the process of cleansing and asking for forgiveness.
I vow to lighten up my dependence on natural resources. Forgive me.
As soon as the first opportunity to take profits come along.
I vow to keep finding opportunities to poke fun at Ministries that seek to take advantage of Believers, unless they include me in their profit sharing program. Forgive me.
I vow to not be greedy and hedge my positions as soon as I open them, eschewing greater capital gains in return for the safety providing by believing in my tenets of managing portfolios. Forgive me.
It’s comforting to have a list of Commandments to live by
Those are the basic values that shouldn’t be altered. The big nose, the crooked teeth, the need to hedge investments and things like that.
Once you get away from the formula that got you to the Promised Land be prepared for Booga Boogas to come at you from any direction.
The late hour fades on Wednesday and Thursday are worrisome and I’ve heard enough heads mention “climbing that wall of worry.”
But I have faith, blind faith that despite the hideously ugly offspring produced by superficially altered human beings, who have lost their ways, that they too can thrive if the rules are followed.
To traveling the pious path and to profits.
Or at least one of those two.
Knowing that an all knowing Supreme Being reads this blog, I wasn’t surprised to see the market bounce back in the final 30 minutes.
For me, still a loser of a day, but Booga Booga right back to ya.