Listening to the Man

My all too often side trips down memory lane seem to have taken the lead from jackrabbit slim recently, despite taking place in a world increasingly punctuated by breaking news.
To go any further without musical inspirational would be tantamount to a teenage suicide.
All that potential wasted and so young to die- but certainly a much finer corpse left over than my sun-weathered lump.
Ah yes, the Spinner's Rubber Band Man, is found on iTunes, and I didn't even need to send out a distress signal. Asia and our hero, the soulful rubber band man have a lot in common, an elastic span that suddenly stretches out so long you have to think it will break any minute and the next minute it snaps back like a slap in the face of a jealous lover. On Wall Street or even Main Street the amped up trip from hero to zero and back again seems to have taken on the magnitude of cooking instant noodles.' As I write this Southeast Asia's home of capitalism, Singapore, has been enveloped by a nasty case of the haze. Going back to the 1970's Jimi Hendrix turned it purple, but the current mood certainly is not a return to the Summer of Love.
Scanning the annoying high pitch financial news channels, everyone is chatting about the cost of the haze, and what the cost to the economy will be. Millions, billions or trillions? Call in the Rain Man. My head starts spinning out- not another derailment.
Going back to the new Millennium, we've had 9/11, SARS, bird flu, sub-prime, red shifts, yellow shirts, tsunamis, volcanoes, terrorism, and that screwy dictator in North Korea.
And yes, the breaking news for investors has come and gone.
As far as the Rubber Band Man travels, he snapped back from the edge at just the right moment.
In the new age of instant gratification, our love affair with social media is only outpaced by the pure and epic love of The Fast and the Furious. Like Asia, the number of rapid-fire high velocity sequels to that franchise film series just keeps going. I stop for a minute and wonder, it is better to be fast or furious? Silence has pieced my ears and it is ready to tattoo a scorpion on my arm. More music, and up comes that blues classic Sixty Minute Man. Yes, going old school makes sense, back when there was real staying power.
This year, the world is continuing to reel in epic proportions, yet here in Asia we have managed to live long and prosper. I have to admit the China slowdown, easing of US monetary policy and potential impact on resource driven economies such as Australia and Indonesia worries me. Still, life goes on and for sure it's only going to get faster.
Hey Rubber Band Man, what you doin' next? Is there room for any more on the real estate Soul Train? I've got sixty minutes, and come to think of it, maybe sixty more.