I lashed down the Boss Cruiser onto the roof of the Taurus and was over at JZ’s before 9:00AM. He was zonked out, probably from partying last month. In the hour it took him to wake up, I carefully went over the bike to document what repairs were needed. Good plan, for later JZ seems to have forgotten our conversation that it would still be a good deal even if he sank $100 into it.
This concept got us over to the bike shop on Dixie, where the total repairs came out to less than $20. I even found the owner’s manual on-line. It was odd reading, for almost the entire booklet was based on the fact that bicycles are dangerous. So I never did find out what that fancy handlebar setup was for.
Now JZ grew up in that neighborhood, so we managed to stop at all the ice cream stores between home and his sister’s place. One thing, his [16 year old] niece was sitting on the sofa and I have to shake my head how everybody treats her. Stay with me here because I don’t mean anything bad, but it may come across that way. She's spoiled.
This girl has been treated like a baby so long the real world is going to be a wakeup call. We talk just fine but JZ will often say that I have to tone it down and not use such “big words” with her. I say that kind of nonsense is not helping. I shocked JZ by pointing out that I was just five months older than she now when I left home with no intention of ever returning. Don't hand me the that-was-then nonsense. It's a tough world and I did not say she was better-looking two years ago, but gaining weight is a problem. Definitely a danger signal at that age.
For something to do, JZ and I cleaned the pool deck. Tammah removed the deck screening, so now instead of leaves falling on the canopy, they fall into the water and get soggy as well. We went over the pad with a pressure hose to shine things up a bit. They are having a birthday party for Luis, the youngest brother. He is way younger than the rest of the family, I think he is around 30 now. I am basing that on JZ’s guess that he was around five years old when their mother died.
From there we biked to his dad’s place. The doc was having a nap and MJ was on the phone, so we sat out in the back yard. It was too hot. We biked back to Blockbusters and rented “Edison Force”. Some unknown actors, but excellent for the roles, which were trite stereotypes, but a good action movie. My Mexican blender is over there now, so we drank cranberry banana smoothies and ate peanuts for the rest of the afternoon. His first day on two wheels in four years; we put 8.9 miles on his bike.
[Author's note 2020: don't be too upset if I criticize anybody here. Back then I hardly knew JZ other than we were chums and often scouted for women together. I had just barely met his immediate family, much less the shirt-tail relatives. Too many to count.]
I got a return call from the newspaper guy, and I have the email address of the editor. hlwdcahoot@aol.com. There is an edition coming out in a couple of weeks so I may be in print before my own birthday. That would be a milestone, because it will also be the first thing I’ve had published on artistic merit alone. Um, the 100 page database manual I wrote for the hospital this March was not my idea of artistic. The interesting part of the conversation was that they want articles that feature pictures. That I can do. My pay is the usual, a share of the advertising revenue.
He did make an interesting remark about that. I did not know that it had earlier been a monthly paper. He said that arrangement was just too much like running an advertising company. I never thought about it, but it makes sense when he puts it like that.
I did not stay for the party. Instead, I went home, picked up my bass and drove to University Drive. The place was a fixture until I needed something (it was there forever when I had no use for it). When I walked in, there was a new PA system and some unfamiliar people running the show. It is a judgment call whether I had a conversation or wasted my time, these two are exact parallels in most of Florida. No word of the G or Brian and the new owner never heard of any of them. He got on my case, so I did not even stay for a coffee.
By that, I mean that it seems the only time anyone from Florida is nice, it is because they want to sell you something. Or put more accurately, they try to put you in a position where you have to buy something, yet all you did was ask them for directions or some equally simple event. No, they can’t be nice like a human being and help you out. They twist every encounter into a sales pitch.
You know the type, they get on your case by acting “polite”, constantly asking you to buy something instead of answering your question. They put on that mortified act when you won’t go along with them. It took me a small eternity to get information out of these people. One zero actually tried to get me to buy coffee before he would tell me what time the band started, “I’m not sure, just have a coffee and wait around for about a half-hour.” The sumbitch actually tried that.
I glanced through the song lists and it is all guitar player music. This is different that guitar music, and I’ve made this distinction before. Guitar player music has tremendous appeal to guitar players but a steady diet of it puts the audience to sleep. To me, one particular song sums up what I mean. Remember “Searching for a Heart of Gold”? A close second is “House of the Rising Sun”. I liked them, but only the first 500 times I heard them.
Long, droning and slow with dull lyrics and yet guitarists think they are so great. They think this because of the innovative chord changes, which make it far easier to sustain musical interest over a long passage. It also beats being original. This is admittedly criticism that stems from another musician, but over the centuries I have learned to vary my bass lines slightly within the framework of a given song and I normally play half again as many notes during turnarounds.
I admit it is not the easiest thing to do, but I don’t see why they can’t do the same. For extreme examples, listen to jazz. It is all over the place, and thus appeals mainly to people who are not musicians or other jazz musicians, but nobody in between. Careful here of claiming to be the exception – you would be bringing your degree of musical talent into question.
