An irreverent Wall Street Blog
Wordless Songs and the Sounds of Crickets on Wall Street
May 27, 2016
Today, May 27, is the Friday before the Memorial Day weekend. To say that it's a quiet day on Wall Street would be an understatement. On this Friday, there are three types of folks in the securities industry: those who took off for vacation late Wednesday or Thursday; those who came to work this morning and will never return from lunch or from that purported trip to the bathroom; and, finally, those poor souls who will be forced to work through the day. It's a day when the kids who are manning the trading desks are told to do nothing beyond accommodating firm customers and, if you really think that you must buy something, you've got a capital commitment for the day of no more than $3,250 but call Bernie or Sal at the beach before you buy anything and get those Head Traders's okay before you hit ENTER.
In the spirit of the day, I ain't writin' jack about anything of substance. If I do publish something brilliant, no one is likely to read it, so it's a waste of my legendary insight. About the only noise emanating from Wall Street today is the sound of crickets.
Consequently, let me take you back to the past, to the early '60s when I had my first guitar and my fingers were filled with painful blisters as I tried to press down on the metal strings. Among the first songs that I learned to play on the guitar were three that had no lyrics: Apache (1960) Walk, Don't Run (1960) and Pipeline (1962). We used to call those tunes "instrumentals."
Join me, in the days when the Kennedys were in the White House and I was on the beach burning beneath my slathered Coppertone, drinking Coke and eating M&Ms with Wise Potato Chips, as I listened to the blare of thousands of transistor radios playing the top 40. For those of you who may wax nostalgic, I've also added Telstar (1962) and Green Onions (1962).