Here’s a good one. When I paid my electric bill today, it came back with a notice that FPL (Florida Power and Light) could now disconnect me for 24 hours minimum if I didn’t pay up. Wow, 24 hours! Does this mean they will rebate me for the three months [2,160 hours] I went without them after the last hurricane, or was that stretch just them softening me up for this newest corporate rip-off tactic? I've never been late on my payment, so this was a needless warning.
Notice that they will reconnect your power within 24 hours of payment posting. Not 24 hours of when you paid. Clever. That means 24 hours after they get around to posting it. Sounds entirely like something they would do, you know, “We sent it to Postings last week.”
Cancel today otherwise. I seem to have caught whatever flu Anna O had y’day, except she had it really bad where I got off lucky. (Sore throat, aching head, sour cough.) It brought me to a standstill but only until late afternoon. It is a lost day I can ill-afford but I was able to get downtown.Fred closed before I could even hop on my bike, so I went to that Internet place on Young. They soaked me $9.00 for an hour. I made friends with the clerk, hoping he can send me the other people that balk at those rates. It was dark when I headed back. I could not find or think of any place around here to stop for a coffee and that would leave you alone, so I came home. It was quite cold, but nothing compared to standing at a bus stop on 41st and Kingsway.
Mind you, that is not to say when I am ill, I get as little done as the next guy. Lots happened, I just am not in the mood to tell you. I biked around the late afternoon in the cold wind and did some serious thinking about music. I must stick to an amateur [musical] group despite what I may want professionally. Predictably, I’ve run into many [11] guitar players who seem to assume that makes them both Pharaoh and leader of my band.
That has not changed in twenty years, which I feel is a holdover from the days when the person who did the [heavily electronic] lead break was second only to the vocalist (at least in their minds). Hence, you had people like Clapton and Hendrix becoming “rock stars” where, in reality, then or now they could not have successfully played the local saloon. [They required full backup bands or intensive studio effects which would bankrupt you [in] today’s small clubs.]
Bands are like marriage, there is no happy medium. You settle for what you settle for. I’m in trouble because I’m seeking a gifted amateur. In related news, the G sent me a note saying that the gay bar thing in Ft. Lauderdale was a “ruse” to get me to show up at Cort’s. Which is bull, because he did not know that I knew he was back playing there, duh.
The G insinuated since I did not drive out ten miles to jam for free at a gig that he never told me about, that I had “no heart”. Interestingly, this is the same guy that promised me steady work seven years ago, but never got around to it. (I went out and spent some of my last dollars on the strength of his statement back then.) I informed him that if keeping promises was having a heart, I was light years ahead of him. Pointing out such things [as facts] will not win you the congeniality prize in Florida, where being popular and being right rarely coexist in nature. Although, if I were the G, I would not start any contests on either of those counts.
Here is a picture of what are often referred to as “family businesses” in Miami. There is a cruel joke going around that they steal the flowers off the graves and sell them in traffic at stop-lights, but I won’t mention anything about it. This enterprising fellow is advertising a clean bathroom, which you can use for $1.00. This picture was taken at “Calle Ocho” last year, a big Latino celebration that blocks off the street with that name for around forty blocks.
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