Stock and gold options trader and dad, ex-CBOE MM. Grateful Dead, Goose, Dylan, Univ of Oklahoma football and sashimi. These are a few of my favorite things.
Park City, UT
Joined May 2020
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Back when I was an options market maker on the Pacific Stock Exchange we had a few colorful characters on the trading floor and so many fun times. I would have done it all for free. It was the best job anyone could ever have...except for the days that it wasnt.
One independent broker JO went by the name World Commander or just Commander or World for short. The name on his trading badge was World Commander. I knew someone who got in a cab once and when he told the cab driver where he worked the driver said he had just given a ride to a guy from the PSE named World Commander. Not a name you easily forget.
One of the things we would always say is that options weren't rocket science but one of the traders on the floor was an actual rocket scientist, RR. I was reading a book once about the 1982 Israeli bombing of the Iraqi nuclear reactor, RR was in that book.
Another quiet unassuming guy on the floor, JU was a former professional blackjack player in Atlantic City and Las Vegas, part of a larger team. He paid another trader on the floor a hundred grand or so to teach him to trade options. Just another game of probabilities and on the options floor you generally didnt have to wear disguises or worry about getting beat up or worse like you did in Vegas, unless of course you were flipping quarters for money...
One time one of the brokers from the floor met a couple guys from Reno and brought them down to the floor, turned out they were both con men. They started flipping quarters for money with one of the Susquehana traders, HR, who thought he was the smartest guy in the room but apparently didnt understand that when con men are involved normal probabilities dont apply. The con men took him for 30k or so and strongly suggested he go with them to the bank across the street to withdraw it immediately or it might not have ended well as it was at least implied there would be a gun involved. Noone knows how they did it. That Susquehana trader later moved to the Merc in Chicago and was forever known as Flipper there as well. HR was pretty much a pompous ass so I at least thought the whole thing was pretty funny. I heard the con men eventually made it to the CBOE floor and conned the wrong guy there, after all in Chicago you never know who is connected. Heard at least one of them was found in an alley a few blocks from the CBOE though I cant verify that. I kinda doubt that part of the story was true but it does make for a better story.
Another guy SS was the floor bookmaker, made a market for anyone on anything and everything. The annual Oscars were big business for him. Eventually he and two other guys from the floor moved to Antigua and started one of the first online sports betting sites when it was still illegal in the USA. It was the worldsportsexchange, eventually one of the guys came back to the USA knowing he would be arrested, to fight the illegality of it all. He was arrested and convicted and went to prison. Timing is everything, its all legal now. That whole episode was so sad, SS was a wonderful human but it was all too much for him. The guy that went to prison just published a book, Odds Man Out.
One time when I was on the CBOE this new guy in the pit who later became a good friend and I still talk to all the time, was fresh out of Purdue and trying to break into the pit, not a real big guy. This other trader in the pit, about 6'5 230 or so, was kind of seething over this apparently and one morning before the market even opened he gets in Purdue guys face and starts screaming at him. Totally out of character as I dont think I ever once heard him raise his voice to anyone else ever. A few times a year I still say to Purdue guy....remember that time JUN got in your face and started screaming at you before the market even opened? Happened right in front of me and was one of the funniest things ive ever seen.
Fun times. I would go back in a second...for free of course.
Its really cool when your heroes turn out to be great guys. I just ran into Tony Casillas and spent some time talking OU footall and college football and. I saw Thomas Lott and said to Tony....is that Thomas? As I told Tony he was my favorite OU player ever, which he is, he called Thomas over and told him what I said and Thomas was so appreciative. This is my lifelong memory created today. I
I wish I could find a girl that looks at me the way Jeff Chimenti looks at John Mayer during a Dead and Company show ❤️
Ok, so.
I have a ticket to see Goose in Salt Lake City on August 29.
My brother is getting married on August 29.
Hmmmmmmm. Gonna be some hard decisions made in the next two weeks. 🤔
There are countless Grateful Dead cover bands, maybe more than all other bands put together. The scene grows every year with younger Heads taking the place of those that age out and, well, die. Phish, Goose, WSP, etc...are all just an extension of the overlapping scene. It was created by the Heads, not by the Grateful Dead, and it remains a living breathing entity that cant be killed or even slowed down.
I went to my first Dead show in September 1983 in Park City, Utah. I only knew a few of the songs they played that day. I didnt get on the bus right away like some but the seed germinated and took root and by the late 1980's I was fully onboard.
As Jerry said...The Grateful Dead are like licorice. Not everyone likes licorice, but the people that like licorice, really like it.
Jerry Garcia had a way of describing and understanding humanity without being naive.
When he said, in 1987, that "there was a revolution, and we won," he did not mean the freaks took over Washington. He meant something much more meaningful and long-lasting.
The tribe had survived. It continued to grow and flourish in ways no one could have imagined 20 years earlier.
Facing mainstream derision, the Dead created space for a world where people could enter freely, be themselves, participate or not, and get on with their lives. Gathering and spreading the vibes or rejecting them were both perfectly acceptable. But it was always the participants who drove the scene forward.
That is not utopia. It is proof of concept. Garcia saw that what they had made was not just a band, but a distinctly American experiment.
Wonder if he imagined it would still be so alive, well into the next century.
#DaysBetween
