Financially, this was an incredible day. Stick around and I’ll tell you what happened at Club M later this evening. First of all, I drove over to the wig shop, and snapped this picture of a particularly apt sign for the backside of most Florida vehicles. Most important hard fact learned today? When you open your AOL email with any browser other than the one AOL sends you, it places your email into an entirely different folder. If you don’t know to go looking for your mail, consider it gone, since both browsers remove it from your “new” mail tab. Way to go, AOL!
Wallace’s daughter called from back west. You know that $211 “travelers insurance” premium he paid on his medical coverage? Yeah, well it only covered him up to $500. He might as well have paid cash and not let it get on record that he had a problem.As long as I can work with doggie wigs, I’m fine. Today I saw two new dog wig models. Think of Cher, but not when she had beautiful natural long, black straight hair. Later it was dyed and kinked and who knows what else. That’s the one. Now, does anyone remember Barbara Eden, the one who played “I Dream of Genie”? The TV series that proved once and for all if you are slim, young, blonde and your father is Anthony Eden, you don’t need talent to get a high-paying acting job.
News back at the trailer court – yes, there really is a trailer court. The condo developers have their way, and we have been given notice. Without much explanation, they have to pay me $2,000 more than I bought the place for if I move by the middle of June. I’m thinking. Of course, where would I practice, park my cars and set up my workbench? There is no place as quiet as the summertime around here.
My music lessons were easy today, although I had to give some stern lecturing on practice time. You can cheat on yourself and waste your parent’s money, but you cannot waste my time. Nuff said. I understand the logic, where teens know more than the parents but find other adults frighteningly smart. All I did is emphasize that fact.
Wallace can’t drink because of the medication. He is not even tempted to cheat because the dentist is keen on extracting three teeth if the prescription fails. This will be a holiday to remember, yessiree. Um, I think he’ll stick with the orange juice and keep his molars. That does not stop us from going out for an evening’s entertainment.
Which brings us to Club M and the Tuesday night jam session, known out east as an “open mic”. Now, Wallace and I walked in off the street, so if you remove us and the three musicians awaiting their turn, there were two customers in the place. Two. The emcee was an old chord-banger and there was a lead player who tried to do fills but did not understand the question-answer structure. (Do you?)However, a kid named Matt got up and struggled through some nothing Dylan tunes and other folk music. His timing was great, as exact as you please. I gave him my contact info and advised him to call before the weekend. I can work with his current skill level because he is too weak to solo.
The Club had rigor mortis, the Rumanian barmaid wanted a $2 tip for every drink (not just every round) and some skinny Philippino girl chirping through unidentifiable songs made the only real entertainment. Well, that and the story that the barmaid is an Engineer. Er, isn’t it supposed to be the other way around; you do bartending to get a degree? Then, what I know about Eastern European values is from watching Borat.
I’ve heard a rumor that there exists a band of firemen who play Club M once in a while and pack the place. It makes sense to me because they have a gimmick. Tonight’s people did not. The window sign said “Live Music”, but it was barely so. The host had a 4-channel Fender Passport, the PA equivalent of a Sears home stereo. Club M has a plaque indicating it is a historical site. The atmosphere is making it truly more so. We left within the hour.
May I say this, however, that despite my complete lack of detailed information, Club M shows all the characteristics of mismanagement by a second generation owner. The house speakers are gone, the décor is rundown, and although factors can unite to cause occasional flash full houses, nothing can stop the exodus of customers when prices are just too high for the quality received. (Club M prices are higher than when the house provided live bands.)
Such bars lack the fine tuning present in the first owner. Club M shows signs of myopic removal of exactly that priceless equity. It has lost the constant effort required to differentiate the place, an absolute requirement for success in a flooded industry. There follows a gradual loss of identity by becoming ever more like nearby outfits who serve up identical venues. (This effect works both ways, in case you wonder why all local bars are about the same.)
This happens when the son takes over with his falootin’ ideas about profit maximization. The business then begins to lose market share, not through competition, but via dilution – the new boss is disinclined to take even tiny chances to increase his margins and instead embarks on short-sighted cost cutting. He removes the very options that made his place unique and tries to replace it with “advertising”. The decline is predictable: open mics, then Karaoke, then strip bar. Club M has joined the other twenty saloons in the area in operating six nights a week to a near-empty room.
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