DJoshuaRubin (97.99)

Declaration of Foolishness

January 08, 2008 – Comments (3)

Dearest CAPS-Playing Fools,

When I came to the Fool, I was  a money-losing pig-expulsion of an investor who bought on tips with logic thinner than Kojak's hairline, believed in bogeymen and conducted my business-self like a shnook wrapped in a moron with a creamy imbecile-nougat center.  Disgrazzia!    I lurked for months and then started to realize, "Hey, my opinions and man-passion and strategical observations are just as valid as some of these Professor Frink-monkeys who can run three million calculations per thought and still never pick a stock right if there life depended on it." 

And I started ranting and yakking and writing things that today's Foolish censors wouldn't allow in a millions years.  And I started buying Hidden Gems and Breakers with the rawest man-passion - making right call after right call - NUAN, ISRG, AKAM - to name a few.  I was a scrappin' Fool with guts and heart and you-know-whats.  I'll give you a hint.  It rhymes with bojesticals.

Then I cajoled and hustled and wrote and ranted and got the call to come to the Foolish big leagues.   And something happened on the way to the Forum last year.   I lost some of my voice, my he-passion, my love of what makes the Fool truly great.   And guess what, Fools?  It's time to get it back.   It's time to cut through the crap and corporate sissy-filter that permeates so much of the coverage of the market and start really telling it like it is and doing it with more raw color, style, humor, urgency, relevance and dare I say, panache? 

Who made the law that says financial media must be filled with jagwads in suits and ties giggling and exchanging pleasantries, never really calling each other on their bullsquat, never really digging down to the core and having honest conversation?   No one.  There is no such law.  If there was, would CAPS be jampacked with what Bruce "Magic" Springsteen calls for in Radio Nowhere, "I want a million different voices speaking in tongues".   

I literally went to the mountains (Big Bear to be specific) during the holiday break and gave some real thought to what a jester is, what a Motley Fool is and a great vision - TALL AS A MOUNTAIN appeared!  And I could see at its core, its heart, its soul - a dangerous, rebellious, honest, intelligent irrepressible truth, an unshakable desire to tell the King he's naked when the King's chumlies are dangling to and fro!  And I held out my index finger and the great high mountain cloud Fool reached down and let a bell from his great cap touch my finger and saideth he,

"BROADWAY DAN, YE SHALL GO FORTH AND BE FOOLISH!  AND LET YOUR FOOLISHNESS SHINE LIKE YOUR GREAT MAJESTIC C-DOME ON THE GRASS OF THE DEWY MORN.   LET YOUR FOOLISHNESS SHINE IN HONOR OF THE TRUTH OF THE FLORIDA BUILDER AND ALL THE MONEY HE HAS SAVED FOOLS AND WILL MAKE FOOLS!   LET IT HONOR THE FEARLESS CALCULATIONS OF THE STATS GEEK, THE TRUTH-ROAR OF THE SPEC BEAR, THE LUV OF B2B, THE FIERY HE-BREATH OF THE GREAT SATAN AND THE DEMON, THE GENTLE HONESTY OF SIR ELDREHAD AND SARAHGEN, AND THE UNIQUE, KIND, COOL, INTELLIGENT GLORY OF FOOLS TOO NUMEROUS TO MENTION!  AND BE YE NOT AFRAID TO SPEAKETH THE TRUTH TO ALL POWERS THAT BE, EVEN IF THEY WRITE YOUR PAYCHECK FROM THE HIGHEST ECHELONS OF FOOLDOM!

Tears fell down my charismatic cheeks and I had to wipe my nose twice so vast was the mournful toxic outflow.   For the challenge facing Fooldom in this great age of Dot.Bomb survival and growing success is that the house of success often leaves the back door open like the paper gown of a fat-arsed hospital patient.  And through that opening, the booty crevasse is tickled by complacency, conservativism and kind-n-safe corporate crapspeak.    

This must not happen to Fooldom.

And the surest way to guarantee that it doesn't, is to give bullhorns, megaphones, trumpets and flaming piccoloes to ALL of the great voices of Fooldom.  And this great golden orchestra of openness is called CAPS!    This great bastion of independent thought is called CAPS.   This World's Greatest Investment Community is called CAPS.   The largest database of stock ratings in world history is here - in CAPS.   This vast mountain of dynamic community intelligence is RADICALLY outting crap-stocks by tagging them with one-star ratings and PREDICTING winners openly and publicly with 5-Star Ratings.   CAPS works like Charles Ingalls after a storm has destroyed the family crops and left a young fat-faced boy-dan howling in tears.   

This is my Declaration of Foolishness.  I want a more hliarious, more creative, more radically human Fooldom.   Honoring the quality of the time we spend here and making that experience profitable is as important as making our financial investments profitable if not more so.  Time is the most important investment we make. 

If you have any ideas, concerns, hidden desires (CAPS-related only please), dreams and hopes for the future of CAPS, post them here.  In the words of Flavor Flav, "let's get this party started right!"   

Foolishly  Yours,

HollywoodDan