Lay It On the Line – Christian Alexander
Got It Twisted • I normally stick to a few safe zones in writing this note: offbeat personal narratives; connections between music and life; how power corrupts politicians; and Wall Street / hedge fund labor conditions. And, on that latter topic, this has been abysmal year for macro HF employment. Cuts, closures, redemptions, reconstitutions — you name it — any event that could drive unemployment higher in the macro space happened at least once in the last 12 months.
When I do sometimes go “off-piste” to tackle market topics, I usually like to stick to interpretive analysis rather than give forward-looking trade ideas. I mean, let’s face it, if I was full of good ones, I’d be flying around in a PJ rather than riding a bike, know what I’m saying? But, at the beginning of the year, I like to do a couple of unconventional things every year. For starters, I never go out on New Year’s Eve. Never, ever.
The last time I went out on New Year’s Eve like a chump was back in the mid-Nineties when I lived in San Francisco. Everywhere we went — then in our mid-twenties — was too crowded to get in, or a suffocation box that once inside it was impossible to move, breathe or get a drink. I am not sure how we got so drunk, but somehow we did. I think maybe we realized ordering rounds was going to be difficult so at some stop we all just ordered 10 shots and each took them down rapid-fire to catch up (mid-twenties).
Anyway, somehow I found myself separated from my friends, highly annoyed, very drunk, and standing alone in the rain in some deep pocket South of Market. I didn’t want to walk home in the rain, and there were no taxis passing by, so when I finally some saw a crowd of unknown people successfully hail one, I sprinted down the block, pulled open a door and rammed myself in with the all the strangers (mid-twenties). Of course — also being drunk — they took offense to that maneuver which escalated inside the taxi until the driver booted us all out so we could have a sloppy drunk throwdown in the rain. Anyway, it was a super fun night and because I am not twenty-four anymore I have refused to leave my apartment on NYE for the last 25 years since that night. If you like a drink, then focus on the 364 nights of the year, because NYE is for rookies.
Plus, many spoils await the lone unhung-over inhabitant of any town on New Year’s Day. I once had the best day of skiing ever at Northstar (Lake Tahoe). I was the only car in the parking lot, and I had the entire resort, and fresh powder, all to myself all day. I never even so much as saw another person on a chair lift. It was better than heli-skiing in Whistler. When I got back to the cabin for dinner everyone was still in their PJs drinking 7-Ups.
My other unconventional practice around New Year’s is that this it is the one — and only — time of the year that I like to make predictions. In each of the last two years I predicted the downfall of Donald Trump. You see, I am not very good at this. My forecast was biased by my wishful thinking. At the turn of ’17, I thought Mueller would get him during ’18, and in ’19, I thought the GOP would boot him. I didn’t just get it wrong, I got it totally wrong.
Published at Sat, 11 Jan 2020 23:57:16 +0000
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