The Intergalactic Cowboy

Federal Reserve Chairman, Ben Bernanke, once again testified in front of Congress today and answered questions about the economy of the United States. There was much speculation that he might say something negative about the economy that would send the current, fragile stock market crashing downward. His public comments have sent the stock market up and down on consecutive days on more than one occasion before. Suprisingly, he made the same positive insinuations that he made the day before concerning the moderately strong economic growth and the low inflation. The stock market only increased by twenty three points today, in contrast to the eighty-plus points that it increased in value after his comments yesterday. This tells me that the market has reached a top and that when the next negative economic report arrives, the walls of Jericho will come tumbling down.

I sold my last profitable stock, an exchange traded fund, for a four percent profit today. An exchange traded fund is a sort of mutual fund that specializes in stocks of a finite, specific category. This particular fund dealt with companies that are expected to make money in emerging markets such as China, India, Russia and South America. This is a fund that I would definately buy into again after the upcoming, inevitable stock market correction occurs.  At 4:30 this afternoon, the Microsoft Corporation announced a revised, lower sales forcast for 2007. As a result of this disappointment, I expect that the whole software industry will sell off beginning at 9:30 a.m. tomorrow morning; perhaps even the entire technology sector. This market uncertainty could trigger a selloff in all sectors of the market that could snowball into a panic sell, beginning at 3pm tomorrow. My advice to all investors is to be prepared to “cut and run” tomorrow so as to minimize your own personal financial peril.

On a more optimistic note, my sitting and setlist practice improved today. My tendon pain and throat congestion are minimal. My start time on Saturday has been moved up to 7pm.

Be very careful about the middle,

I.C.

Federal Reserve Chairman, Ben Bernanke, gave a testimony in front of Congress today on the state of the economy, among other things. He remarked that his inflation fears had eased, insinuating that interest rates would not need to be raised in the near future. This caused the stock market gains of the day to triple within just a couple of minutes of this utterance. The Dow had risen by about 86 points when I looked a few minutes ago. This man, Bernanke, has glided our previously overheating economy into a perfect soft landing ! It would seem that the stock market rally that began eight months ago will continue for at least one more day. I should warn all investors that the very next issuance of bad economic news could begin the next stock market correction of about ten percent. My advice is to monitor this situation daily if you have any investments that are the least bit profitable this year.

Those of you out there who make plenty of money as a musician, teacher or instructor will not likely be interested in such economic news. I should add that my sitting this morning turned my anger and irritability completely around and re-guided my day into a positive direction. My performance rehearsal this morning has been useful and instructive.

With a watchful eye,

I.C.

Progress !  A slightly better sitting today; a better vocal practice: success in the art of recovering from guitar mistakes; success at selling another stock.

I sold my Onyx Pharmaceutical stock today for a twenty five percent profit. This company has a new liver cancer drug. Onyx abruptly stopped it’s trials of the drug because the results were so overpowering that they felt as though they had to start giving the drug to the people in the study who were given a placebo, as a control group. The name of the drug is Nexavar. It is already approved for kidney cancer and the company is now applying for fast track approval for liver cancer, a cancer with little effective treatment until now. Today has been a win / win situation for all parties involved with this drug.

Rock on Onyx Pharma !

I.C.

Today has been a day that has included an adequate sitting, adequate vocal practice and an adequate guitar practice. Is adequacy something to rejoice in ?  Well when your recent sittings and gig rehearsals  have been plagued with lung congestion, and tendon pain, you’re damned right !  Although I would love to rise above the level of adequacy over the next few days, I am thrilled that I will not have to cancel this gig at Smith’s Olde Bar in Atlanta due to illness !  And speaking of illness …..

I have on occasion transcended the worlds of interacting hearts, bodies and minds and observed them from a higher state of consciousness than the normal one. I wonder if there is a world of “sick bodies” that can be transcended and observed ?  I don’t remember any such “world” from the Bennett literature, but then again, there is a great deal in the Bennett literature that I haven’t really “gotten” yet. It would be nice if I could experience my sick body from a distance, from an eternal place, rather than “becoming” the sick body and rather than letting the sick body get in the way of everything else. But for now, at least the lung congestion and the tendon pain are at an adequately “work throughable state”. 

I bet that there are better words to describe what I am talking about.

With incomprehension,

I.C. 

I forgot to remark yesterday about the lack of hostile comments on the DGM forum, concerning R.F.’s recording contract with the LOCG. I am suprised that no one wrote in to call him a greedy businessman. Where is the poster who wrote in to ask him if Bournemouth, England was still the center of the universe ? Where is the poster who wrote in to ask him if the conditions on stage are very cold; and if not, why is it necessary for him to wear black leather on stage ? These posters are inexplicably remiss in pointing out his obviously cutthroat business tendencies in presenting this contract to the LOCG ! If you haven’t seen this contract, just go to R.F.’s latest diary entry.

With disbelief,

I.C.

‘Tis been a week of making precise judgements about exactly what course of action to take. Last night, my left wrist and right shoulder were aching with tendon pain. When the pain persisted this morning, I added a second aspirin to my regimen of one aspirin and one ibuprofen a day. This additional aspirin gave me the relief necessary to practice guitar without further injury. There is also judgement required in how to practice one’s vocals without straining the voice.

In other matters of judgement, I sold my Apple Computer stock today. I fear that a ten percent correction is coming to the U.S. stock market over the next couple of weeks. My advice to all investors out there is to take what little profit you can make now and then buy the stocks of your choice after the correction takes place.

With shrewd investiture of resources,

I.C. 

At the risk of jinxing my improvement, I will now announce that I have been able to get by with one aspirin at lunch and one ibuprofen before bed, in order to eliminate my tendon pain. Every other time that I have announced progress in this diary, I have experienced extreme pain the next day. I have always enjoyed defying superstitious beliefs such as ” it’s bad luck to brag.” I have switched to aspirin and ibuprofen because someone told me that Alleve would damage my kidneys if I took it for too long.

My rehearsals for my performance now begin with a longer than usual warm up period for my hands. The Guitar Craft basic exercises have the effect of increasing the blood circulation into the muscles of the hands, which leads to more efficient use of the hands. I don’t know what to do about the tendons of the right shoulder, other than to be careful about not straining them further.

So far so good,

I.C.

Would you believe that I now have tendinitis in my right shoulder, in addition to both of my hands ?  It started two days ago when I attempted to ween myself off of the anti-inflammatory drug called Alleve.  I thought that it was just a pulled muscle, but the pain was so great on Thursday night that I didn’t get to sleep until 4am Friday morning.

This is what I think is going on :  I believe that lots of upper body tendons became strained when I used to hang from the parallel bar at the health club. When I started taking Alleve, I believe that this masked the pain that I would normally feel after doing the light weight lifting that I have been doing since then. When I stopped the Alleve, the tendon strain in the right shoulder finally became manifest.

My gig in Atlanta is in two weeks. My new policy is No Upper Body Exercise until after the gig. All of the internet articles say that a doctor would only prescribe the same treatment that I am already prescribing for myself.

On a side note, many thanks to Mr. Whitman at the DGM forum for listing the notes of the C Symmetrical Scale.

With care,

I.C.