June 30, 2007

           I bought lunch for the office. Tips were that good last night, and the toothpicks made the newspapers again. Some local monthly called the Hollywood Gazette, and some people have already been in to see the display. Fred is dismayed because, although he got top billing, they listed his age as 66. Ouch. The newspaper has Fred standing beside the toothpicks wearing his biker Jagermeister T-shirt.
           That’s lunch [I bought instead of breakfast] because I had to get the PA gear out of the Taurus to make room for Steve’s clothes and the aroma of mothballs. He is at a motel up on Taft, but wait, there is more. It took me an hour to get underway. In that interval, he went to Kahn’s market to make a phone call. Having only $50 bills, he asked some passersby for change.

           The store manager asks him inside and thinking he may get a handout, Steve enters. The manager locks the door behind him and proceeds to punch Steve six or seven times. Steve, who is indeed sixty pounds heavier, most of it paunch, cannot defend himself, because he is on probation. It seems one of the people he asked for change, a 4F, went inside and told the manager that Steve had given her the finger. What? Oh, that means Fat, Forty, Female, Flatulent. (I don't doubt Steve did give her the finger--he's nasty to people who don't give him money.)
           Of course like the average Florida male who is desperate for any kind of sex, the manager “believes” the woman and wails on Steve. However, I know Steve and he would not flip the bird. Steve was going to go back and get the guy, but I showed him how to fix the situation calmly, legally and permanently. You get the manager, the store and his family, but in a way he can’t retaliate because he can never be positive who screwed him around. Doing this is almost too easy with Florida jerks, who all seem to have very guilty consciences besides being social write-offs.

           Everyone forgot it was the July 4th weekend, even though that date is the middle of next week. So, the pub “Showoffs” called to cancel my gig. Pamela, the manageress called to say there were just four people in the place, so driving all the way out there was not worth it. We’ll shoot for next Saturday.
           While real estate is collapsing, there are still tons of plugs and ploys to get people into the recently-notorious preconstruction sales scam. Here is a photo of the kind of monstrosities all along the Atlantic shore. These buildings are fifty feet apart all up and down the entire beaches of some towns, and are built right up to the property lines on streets that are no wider than before when there were mere dozens of houses in the area.

           [Author's note 2015-06-30: the units depicted here fell from a pre-construction price of $900,000 to $70,000 in 2012]

           Later. I went through my music files and I do have more than enough suitable material. What I don’t have is time to learn it all right now. While people with a guitar mentality might question my choice, tunes like “Judy In Disguise” and “Him Or Me” [Paul Revere & the Raiders] won out over the helaciously over-played Johnny B. Goode. The song that had ‘em dancing in the aisles last night was “Jackson”, by Cash and Carter
           It was a relaxing afternoon learning this music, and I have what may be some sad news for country purists. A lot, if not most of it [new country music], seems to be studio assembled. When thrown up on the analyzer, you can see the things I’ve been talking about. Spectrum after spectrum shows engineering tricks and assembly errors that I earlier suspected were anomalies. Among the more heavily used recording tricks is the injected lead solo. The solo is recorded separately and cut into the rest of the track at strategic points. In some cases I can see the dropout on one of the stereo channels. Often a different guitar is used.
           Another secret is the half-measure patch. Whenever the guitarist plays those twangy Dwight Yoakum style riffs, it comes out of the break a half-measure short. This has to be made up for to keep the music danceable and so as not to clash with the vocals. I can see both people sticking to their guns, so another half-measure is stuck in somewhere to keep them happy, and the result is this current type of music. Classic examples are “Chatahoochie” and “What’s A Guy Gotta Do”.

           [Author's note 2016-07-01: the second tune mentioned above did become one of my standards. But not until nine years later, and I was playing guitar, not bass.]

           As far as going out tonight, I decided no. Last Saturday was different as I had not played any of my sets the night before. I am very conscious of repeating too much material, particularly as my show works best when I surprise the crowd. There was a classic Florida summer thunderstorm and I’m not energetic. Strangely, the thunder seems to get the cat going, she likes the sound.
           Okay, I’ve made a decision on tonight. I’m intentionally doing nothing now so I can go out and spend an extra $50 tomorrow. For those who don’t yet know it, I am “practicing retirement” to see how I can fare under the table. I get a laugh out of the number of high-paid people who discover how little they are worth when they try to find work after they retire or try to start their own business. Or the ones who think they can still work like a horse when they are sixty. What I did not expect is that it would take two years to get things set up, so I have not had $50 to play with in a while. Even on my worst stretches, I made enough money to bank something, and there have been several episodes where I went out and could not find a single thing I wanted to buy.

           What could I buy tomorrow? I’ve got a lifetime of unread books already. I prefer my own cooking (a result of learning to cook via an Xmas present given to me some fifteen years ago by a co-worker, Sharon B.). It’s true, before that [time] I couldn’t cook anything much, really. So if I don't buy food, what should I spend money on? Help me out here. Shoes? Clothes? Gadgets? Probably not, since I’ve got a part-time job at a Thrift Store. I even go to movies free. The most expensive thing this year was the $20 airboat ride, and Wallace paid for that. (Hey, thanks buddy!)
           Well, I’ll find something to spend money on, maybe wake JZ up since he knows a lot about spending. He also knows about budgeting, but in ways only a rich kid would. He won’t even leave town unless he has “at least $135 on him”. I once flew to Venezuela with less than that. I used to go to really fancy places for coffee but there are no fancy places in Florida worth the effort. Maybe that will change when I get a job. People with jobs lose the ability to have any fun at all without spending money, even if they spend it on crap that promises to enable them to have fun without money.
          Ka-ching!

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June 29, 2007

           What’s this, more promo for Club M? No, but I am certain some will take it that way. Club M is a much-maligned local pub that was once a great little night spot. However, progressive generations and higher prices ($3.50 for bottled water) leave the place vacant most of the time. The current owner has a fondness for young skinny barmaids from eastern Europe, underpaying them so they expect a $1.00 tip on every drink. (So make that $4.50 a bottle.)
           This is a photo of next Monday, but these fully-documented, legally-immigrated and green card-carrying Mexicans are repairing the signage. The club’s poor reputation stems from the owner’s shifty methods of paying for the band. He promises a cut of the till, but does not let the band see the register tape. Good move in a town where most musicians you’ll meet haven’t a clue what a z-tape is.

           With the known high prices, even on a holiday weekend the place is often deserted. The main draw is that the club has been downtown for so long everyone knows it is there. I’ve played the place as a duo and didn’t get paid enough for the gas to get there. My guitar player was a capitalist pig who exploited fellow musicians, so don’t blame the club. That guitarist was one curious shit-head. He would use other musicians to play groupie by falsely promising to pay, understate how much the gig was paying and then accuse others of being capitalists for wanting to be paid for their time and effort. Duh!
           A day of real progress, and now we find out if the cat stays or goes. Cancer Steve called while I was rigging up the wireless network “atlanticjune”. Don’t you think the names I give networks are the neatest ever? Okay, already, I just thought I’d ask. He’s got a place lined up for the first and needs his clothes for now. Remember the call blast feature I reviewed years ago?

           That is where you set all your phones ringing when any one of your numbers gets a call. It may have limited use for stockbrokers or prostitutes but I repeat myself. Of more interest is a feature that rings your numbers in a predetermined sequence. The Vonage phone is chock full of all the things that are really of limited utility to people who conduct their lives in an orderly fashion to begin with. Still, the technology is fascinating, including an option to receive an email whenever anyone leaves you a voicemail.
           Then Marion called. I love it when that happens because we all need to talk to a sane person now and again. I can always tell when she is about to ring, I’m developing ESP of when she’ll get on the blower, maybe it is one of them there telepathic things. Either that or call display. She is chipper but chatting with her reminds me we have not visited in six years. It has never been that long and besides, we were neighbors back then so nobody kept score.

           You’ll want to know about the music portion of tonight. Sure, but allow me this opportunity to say that just too many people have complimented my song list for anyone to reasonably deny that I know what the crowd likes. No, I don’t play any Clapton. Tonight, the Thursday karaoke guy came in to scope out the show. He personally said the music mix was “fantastically suitable” for the crowd, and later took the tip jar around and collected us an extra $36. So there.
           The gig at Jimbo’s. We hit the predictable doldrums and I’m watching closely to see how everyone reacts. The doldrums are what happens to a band when beginner’s luck wears off. It is usually your second through fifth gigs, where you draw blanks on stage, the equipment sounds funny, and the music does not sound at all like what was rehearsed. This happens no matter how well you prepare and, take my advice, get it over with.

           It was a rough gig, but partly because we practiced most of the material here to slide guitar and Mike switched to harmonica on stage. Couple this with the natural tendency for bands to overplay new material and we had a tougher time usual. This cannot be avoided so don’t blame anyone. The crowd still loved us and the tip jar was full. We have a small fan club, Juliet is the leader. She brought in snacks for everyone, a cheese ball cake in the shape of a guitar and a huge tray of crackers. Garlic perfecto.
           The gig for tomorrow is only tentative and that may be good, as it will get me off my tush to get some new material onto the Farmer AB [category name of the CD disk I use to record my solo music]. I’m going to instantly include several Blues tunes and my student teaching material, such as the Dixie Chick’s “Travelin’ Soldier”. These are not set lists, but MP3s with a single measure click-track intro, I just don’t have the software for anything fancier. Nor the patience to learn any new software right now. And it turns out my old recording of Fur Elise is really top rate [128K], so I’ll see about something there.

           This reminds me of the answer to another oft-asked question: No, you cannot print the list of file names that Microsoft displays when you look at a directory using My Computer. You have to accept that it is just the kind of people that Microsoft are. You cannot even copy and paste it to another document (it will try to copy the files themselves rather than the list). You could do a printscreen, but that is not likely what you want.
           Trivia. One can of water produces 1,600 cans of steam when heated. I learned that from a TV show about locomotives, so I can no longer say TV never taught me anything. Actually, that will be easy because I never did say anything like in the first place, and in fact I do watch educational shows. The trivia stuck with me because I have always been amazed by the versatility of ordinary water, and I don’t mean just the fact that it is water. I mean things like the fact that it freezes from the top down in a crystalline form that is less dense than the liquid it and begins to dissolve any container in which it is placed.

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June 28, 2007

           It’s a picture of a package of tea. The design should be familiar to anyone who has walked the lonely aisles of Winn/Dixie, Safeway or Publix. Who’d think there was a market for so many different brands of tea? I’ll stick with orange pekoe. Since you know I’m not selling tea, what is with the picture? The man who designed the package was in the store today. Barry Zaid, who has a store on Meridian in Miami Beach.
           He was in about some art work and of all the people in the room, I appear to be the only one who gave a second thought as to why he had an old box of tea in his display case. Thus, you are viewing a scan of the only original Celestial Seasonings tea box. You saw it here first. Some of his other work includes what apparently was a huge financial success for him, the floral patterned Kleenex box.
           It took all day to get the VoIP hooked up. The snag was (again) duplicate IP addresses. This one took time, as the product was from two different manufacturers, namely D-Link and Vtech. They both use 192.168.15.1 on their Vonage compatible equipment. Now it is working, and I’ll do the wireless next time around. I saw something new today, the lady who trims the hairpieces asked me to fill a small gallon jug of chemical from the back room. I have no idea what it is, but the fluid is used for cleaning wigs. And it costs $535 for a 5-gallon pail. It is super heavy and that pail is unwieldy, I suppose $10 worth of it evaporated before I could hit the spout.

           For now, I’m at home making chicken garlic stew. The pilaf of last day was as tasteless as most grains unless you add too much butter and salt. Today it provided just enough ballast for my evening meal. Cowboy Mike is due for practice and I have more news I’ll return with soon. Cancer Steve is out of the slammer and needs his clothes, maybe that bicycle I saved for him as well.
           This could mean the end of Pudding, you know. If you think time has got me attached to the cat, you are wrong. There is one situation where I would agree to keep the cat and let us see if you can guess what that is. He is welcome to Princess Pudding, the only cat I have ever seen that will not eat chicken. Steve is going to get some cash and get into a motel for a week.

           Mike was over by 7:00 p.m. and we added four excellent songs to our list, we now have twenty. Bright Lights Big City, Key to the Highway, and two more I’ll learn to tell apart by tomorrow when we play them at Jimbo’s. The drum box is an integral part of the act now, that is, we cannot do without it. There is (at last) no more talk of a guitar player, either. The few tunes that absolutely require guitar, I play them on my Fender.
           Mike did bring out a revealing point, that in his former bands it was usually a guitar player (and rarely any other musician, except of course a drummer) who most objected to the drum box. Upon questioning, it turns out that the guitarist in each case had a hard time playing along with it. Couldn’t do it right. Do I hear an echo?
           I decided not to drop in at Booz, as we practiced until past 9:30 p.m. From my standpoint, the biggest improvement from these sessions (because I am not learning anything new) is how Mike is subconsciously reacting to the melodic bass lines that exactly match each drum setting. Coincidence? He no longer feels any urge to rush into the next instrumental part and will take his time when switching instruments, so it is kind of neat to hear him say that I’m “getting it now”.

          [Author's note 2016-06-28: as you read this post, remember that I had not yet figured out that Mike only knew these twelve songs, had been playing them for 40 years, and was incapable of learning any new material. It is not only Mike, I found this out to be a truism for all of south Florida. Mike was just the first. Am I blind? No, in my decades out on the west coast, I had never met any guitarist list this. Whenever I was in a band, it was my band and the guitarist had to trade one-for-one on songs learned. Then came Florida, home of the Guitar-Nazis.]

           The progress is quite rapid, particularly since Mike now knows exactly how fast he can feed me new material. This has been what, around three weeks now? Certainly the confidence level is right up there as Mike no longer hesitates to just get out there and play the stuff.
           We talked a bit about recording and I made my stance very clear on that. I have wasted too much time believing people who said they had written the best songs ever. I’ve had many bands ask me to record, so it is not my bass playing, yet not one of the hundreds of songs I ever helped people with ever became a hit, including the ones I’ve learned in Florida. Much of that was due to the writer’s total lack of connections in the industry and blatantly retarded ideas about the skills and attitudes it takes to succeed in any field.
           Sadly, recording music is one of the most corrupt businesses imaginable. Thus, I record if you pay me or you can take your original music and get somebody else. If I do record, I get a cut of the profits as well. Same as any other business I participate in. You may think you play guitar better than anyone else, but let’s see how you make a business deal.

           There was one part of the conversation that was quite revealing. Cowboy Mike asked me if I had a scanner and I replied I did. Mike has been in business in this area most of his life, so you must not be astonished that he went on to ask more questions. Is it hooked up? Does it work? Can you operate it? Is there electricity? Does the computer work? Is the software installed? Is there are printer? Is there paper? Do you have ink? Will you scan something? Do you have blank disks? Are these the right disks? Can you copy files to a disk?
           Myself, I can’t really say who is responsible for this situation. Mike is not a skeptic and I am not a cynic. Anywhere else, a simple “yes” would be enough as it would be my responsibility to say “no” if the scanner was not fully operational. You can imagine the difficulty if the first person did not know how a scanner worked and was seeking information. This area is a scum-bag salesman’s dream world. This is how things are done in Florida. You think I’m kidding, don’t you?

ADDENDUM
           The news today was that the “Immigration” bill was defeated. I only vaguely followed the issue, but the figure of 25,000,000 deportees has been kicked around. Of course, I have always said they should go after the people who hire them. I would rather have tomatoes cost ten dollars a pound than pay fifteen dollars in taxes because of illegal use of the system, if it means anything. That is a whack of people but there was plenty of warning over the decades that in the end they would not be tolerated.
           My beef is with the vocal Illegals who are here that don’t like the system. There are plenty of Illegals here who do like it, so the others basically know what they can do. Some politican by the name of Martinez declared the bill’s defeat to be “right-wing” (Nazi). Apparently he does not grasp the concept of majority rule very well, but then, he would say that, wouldn’t he?

June 27, 2007

           This is a box of grain-food. It is a mystery [to me] why grain is expensive, I mean we’ve got it by the boatload, don’t we? Maybe for the same reasons fish is expensive along the seacoast? This pilaf contains buckwheat, which I used to eat by the bowlful back on the farm. Trivia, according to the box, buckwheat is “actually a seed-like fruit, closely related to rhubarb”. (Shows you how accurate DNA testing can be.) So I have some on the burner right now and it surely does smell good. It takes, like most grains, 25 minutes to cook.
           Voip. It’s been a year since I last hooked up a voip phone, but it seems it has not gotten any easier for some people. I’m waiting for the call to go over and see what the hold up is. For any of you who wonder why I sometimes write in two parts of the day, being on call in the mornings explains it. When I have a free ten minutes, I write exactly where some people would go click on the TV, that is, when they do not write.

           Vonage. I credit this company with making the Internet phones work seamlessly with regular phones. I have a slight issue with their advertising, where they claim they can transfer your existing land line or cell phone number to their service. Careful, while that may be strictly true, they are not a cell phone company. Do not mistakenly think you can transfer your cell service to Vonage for $24.99 per month. You would still have to go home to make a phone call, since they only take over your cell phone number, not the service.
           Vonage is advertising a wireless phone that works in hotspots. I’ll look into it, but you would then have to go to a hotspot to make a phone call. It is an interesting concept, but how long before the hotspots begin to limit access, like the so-called “free” service in downtown Hollywood or Starbucks? Vonage makes sense for businesses that make a lot of toll (outgoing long-distance) calls.

           One novel feature is remote area codes. I described this years ago, so I won’t get into detail, but basically you could open a branch office in Alaska. The catch? Well, you would first have to establish a high-speed internet service in Alaska to connect up. The phone and cable companies are very touchy about such activities. Mind you, if you knew somebody out there that had an existing high-speed account, that would be different. Hmm. To Alaska callers, it would be a local call, although I can think of dozens of alternative reasons one might want a phone number someplace other than where they live. (How long before 911 is compulsory?)
           Blast it! My ignition switch broke again (this happened in 2005). The part is cheap but it sets me back a half-day. True, I’ll get some extra bicycle mileage but Wednesdays are prime time for me. I have to pick up things I can’t delay, such as cat food. While shopping on foot (bicycle actually), I walked down the diet pill aisle and paused to read a few of the labels.

           These diet pills cost $25 per bottle and up. The list of ingredients shows mostly vitamins, but also chromium and biotin. I’ll make it a point to read up how these cause weight loss. I looked carefully at “Hydralux” (don’t quote me on that, but it is a heavily advertised brand) which claims it causes your body to burn calories rather than convert any to fat. My interest is that quite a number of other brands that said the same thing had the same list and proportions of contents. For example, exactly 417% RDA of something I already forget, but it is the formula that intrigues me.
           Unplanned bike trips are great, I had time for a coffee at the Panera. They wisely leave discarded newspapers on a small rack so others can read them. I see the CIA is owning up to dastardly deeds. Their spokesman said they were skeletons from a different era, but the leader of another group that I’ve never heard of lambasted him with what I consider an extremely cunning comeback. “Some of those skeletons, like wiretaps without a warrant, are still walking around.”
           Excellent point. I will find out who this group is and what they do for a living. They are against government intrusions and so am I, regardless of whether that intrusion is authorized, condoned, permitted or if the law is silent on the point, nobody should be allowed to do it except under very rigid circumstances. That there is a group organized to watchdog the situation makes it odd why they are so obscure, at least to me.

           High point of the day was my music lesson. The family band was able to fake an entire Blues jam and basic fills to rock ballads. New musical points and innovations are taking over from rote memorization, although there is nothing I can teach that diminishes the requirement for dozens of hours of independent private practice. One thing, I am personally feeling the effects of information overload so I’ll haul back on anything new in the next week or so that interferes with the Blues.
           Cowboy Mike’s new choice, “Keys to the Highway” is a winner if only because it is yet another of our tunes that does not have a twelve-bar pattern. This one has eight. There is just too much new information arriving at once to process, so I made a big pot of tea and drank it while staring at the walls. This is definitely one of the most relaxing places I’ve ever hung out – the trailer in “Tales from the Trailer Court”.

           Later, I dropped in at Jimbo’s to check for developments. Nothing, and it was too dead to set up, although Charles, the sax player showed up and said we were far too good to be playing there [at Jimbo’s]. I disagree. I didn’t break his heart and tell him it was our first gig. He’s invited me to stand in with them tomorrow at “Booz” on the beach. Isn’t that the place my last guitar player got thrown out of for skipping on a two dollar tab? The same guitar player who says he knows more about running a band than I do? Hello?
           More trivia. I’m not sure, but I heard that carbonated soda (“pop” in Canada) is so acidic that if it was not already an accepted food, it would require warning labels not to drink it or let it splash on your hands. I’ll have another swig. I drink three to four cans of it per day in the hot weather. Today, it was 93 inside, now down to 86. F.

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June 26, 2007

           Yes, there is a dirth of pictures these days. The trusty Argus is throwing batteries when I keep it around my neck on a lanyard. This problem has now been fixed. Ah, the wonders worked with duct tape and zap straps. I again praise Argus for having designed a camera that is repairable in the field. I had to get today’s picture from a different source. My scanner.
           How about “Stok” (rhymes with “stoke”), for those who just can’t get enough chemical additives in their food? In addition to your edible petroleum product, you can now lace your latte with 40 mg of extra caffeine. The fine print says not for those under 18, pregnant or “caffeine sensitive” and carries a warning to limit intake to 2 per day. It doesn’t say it clearly, but I think it is also an artificial sweetener. Bottoms up.

           Looks like a day off for me. To the shop, to find and download music for the weekend. I’m toying with placing an ad for Jimbo’s at my own expense. I’ve heard the theory of slowing building up a clientele-following, but I’ve rarely seen it in practice. More often I’ve seen a place get swamped due to some change in the market and a percentage of those newcomers stay on. Good example, sushi restaurants. Had it not been for the diet fad, who would eat a lot of raw fish and seaweed?
           I am reminded of a place called “Connections”, a nothing club near a western Amtrak station. Their most memorable feature was 37 televisions perma-tuned to ESPN. That place was deader than a golf course next to a whore house. Until one week, the owner put an ad in the Seattle paper and hired eight of the most gorgeous drop-dead big-boobed young blonde waitresses he could find for one month. $1,000 per week guaranteed plus free room and board. At his house. Ah, I see some of you remember that ad. Well, it packed the club to standing room only and an hour lineup outside the door.

           The waitresses are long gone, yet to this day, that club is still considered one of the local pickup joints after twenty years. A different generation of single male drinkers have moved in that never saw the blondes, but still ask the owner when they are coming back. So I’m working on a plan to get the one-timers to become the old-timers.
           What a sick spectacle this morning. Not Paris Hilton getting out of jail, but all those glory-hungry gunslingers (policemen) walking along beside her with their walkie-talkies and other paraphernalia, all jockeying for camera time. I call it the Eric Estrada mentality. I counted at least eight of them swaggering along. You pay for this. Worst was the “spokesman”, some bullet-headed no-neck pea-brain going on about how she had “fulfilled her debt to society”. Yes, we need more fully armed gorilla-shaped thugs in uniform to clamp down on these anorexic felons. It obviously requires far less brainpower to stage a theatrical arrest than to track down crooked politicians. And I don’t even like Paris Hilton.

           From this point on, you get disjointed details of the day. I must have given away $300 in free lessons to people who just did not understand the basic operations of a computer. That is fine because it will pay off. In a way it was interesting, because I completely changed the way one guy looked at computers, a guy who came in to restore his “backup copies”. Turns out they were not backups.
           During and meanwhile, I tried to find music an lyrics to more of the songs that Cowboy Mike is, according to him, training me to play along with. Sure. This works fine, because there is a country composer who was there last week that figures we captured the essence of his music. I’d know the guy to see him, and I’ll channel him over to my mentor, right? Further, I asked Jo about what she would like to sing. Two songs, Moondance and Stormy Monday. Mike also called about some tunes, but I did not have time to get into it.

           Wallace was in touch, concerned about my [bicycle elbow] injury, and [he was] assured it was nothing. He was not kidding about his own hip joint surgery, wish him good recovery. That type of operation is best left to later in life, even if your recovery takes longer. Personally, I think he should pack things up and move down here from October 12, 2007 until December 11, 2007, but that is just a suggestion. That would allow him enough time to check out every last corner of this community while I was studying “all kinds of really important subjects”. Meanwhile, I mean.
           Sure enough, there was a complete vacuity of the tunes I wanted on the Internet. Duh, it seems that most people over 40 just don’t post their favorite music on line, though it is hard to imagine any reason why not. I mean, if you just want to stop learning anything new from the day after you turn 18, I heard AT&T is hiring.
           There was a mix-up at the warehouse today and Ruth was on the blower instantly. My guess is that that lag time between order and delivery has amounted to “a wrong size” of one item in the shipment. I’ll take care of it, although I take this opportunity to point out that the database records facts, not truth. I was asked how the database could make such a mistake. It didn’t. We ordered small and the standards for small were not set up until more than two months after the order was placed.

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June 25, 2007

           The daily picture and it is barnacles. I’m the type that figures somebody would have, by now, figured out how to stop barnacles from growing on everything in the water, like Mike’s boat that you see here. He had to haul it up onto the trailer, because like parking your car, Florida makes moorage expensive. You’ll have to look closely, but that crust on the boat bottom is barnacles. Vile-smelling rotting barnacles.
           Speaking of stenches, let’s talk about AT&T. I guess some people do not get it, so I must tell all once again. Yes, the phone company records EVERY call you make to any of their departments, word for word. That is why they always insist on you stating your name, even if you are dumb enough to buy that story they “like to know who they are talking to”, you should have guessed that one by now. Yes, the phone company gives your private phone information to telemarketers. The phone company’s privacy statement only says they will not SELL it to them, but they can give it away any time they please, and they do.

           In particular, the phone company runs their own telemarketing departments – but hey, that’s not considered selling by the squadrons of bald-faced liars that swell the phone company ranks. These telemarketers ring you up and tell you they are an “AT&T Vendor”, or likewise for your local phone company. This tricks you into believing they are making an official call. The scam is to verbally coerce you into “upgrading” your service by getting you to say “yes” to a series of misleading questions.
           Sure enough, they got my client for an extra $231.50 since November. Not my fault, as I do not monitor the phone bills, but I was asked to look at it today. These telemarketers speak with a fake air of authority and ask you to “confirm” certain things, such as a recent order for DSL service in this case. (One caller tried it on me back in November 06, but I told him off.) They managed to slip through in January 07 when I wasn’t there, and tricked somebody into saying they were “satisfied with DSL Ultra service”. Did you spot the scam?
           The scam is, nobody consciously ordered Ultra. I set up DSL Lite, at 256 KBS for $29.95 per month. Not DSL Ultra at 1.5 MPS for $79.95 per month. Don’t blame yourself if you have fallen for this rip-off. The phone company scripts are designed to fool anyone not totally familiar with their degenerate terminologies. You would probably have answered “yes” thinking they were asking about your existing grade of service. Wrong, it is a twist to claim you said you were “satisfied” with a more expensive connection and therefore must have ordered it. All quite barely legal. The scripts change somewhat in detail, but not the swindle. Three cheers for AT&T.

           [Author's note 2016-06-25: rule of thumb: never talk to to phone company about service or surveys unless you are the party who initiated the call.]

           So I came home and patted the cat for ten minutes. Then Cowboy Mike showed up for practice and we went over four new tunes. Not including a new suggestion by Mike called “Cowdonla”. This is, I figure, the Florida version of “Caledonia” by BB King. We shall see. One thing ironed out was the 10% for the PA. True, I know that my last band never had such a rule. Probably because the other guy kept 80%. I went over the computer process with Mike, about MP3s, file systems and how to rip CDs.

           The goal was to cut down on the assumptions that computers make things so easy that the operator need not get paid much. I have not had time to comb my hair, or what is left of it. The tunes he thinks are free to download are not there. I had to explain that the people who are sharing music on the Internet are nowhere near Mike’s age-group. Most of them have never heard of the music he wants. Example, there is not a single offering of the Alman Brother’s hit “Blues By Midnight” to be found on Limewire.
          What’s this? House sales are off by 26% from a year ago. Seems to be connected with a huge glut of overpriced units on the market. Personally, I hope this is a case of you ain’t seen nothin’ yet. I would like to see house prices drop to 1/3 of what they are. For decades, the wealth of much of America (and Canada) has been built on perceived values created by juggling numbers. It would take just one shiver to bring the walls crashing down. I’m reminded of that story about the Kuwaiti stock exchange built totally on each man’s word of honor – until one man wanted to redeem a bond, and I believe he only wanted something like $26,000. Turns out nobody had the actual cash. Eight billion in “value” evaporated in the next month because it never really existed.

           Let me describe the housing game. In earlier years, when the bank lent you money, they were concerned about your ability to pay it back. Then along came Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the Federal housing people. Now, when the bank lent you a $200,000 mortgage, they turned around and sold it to the Feds for an instant profit. That profit was on paper, but that is how banks work in this country. Banks went crazy. Pretty soon, anybody with a six month work history could pile up lifelong debt obligations. Housing sales surged because of easy money. It worked great as long as all the baby boomers kept “upgrading”. Now, they will all try to sell and move south. Americans like to die in warm weather.
           This “upgrading” process is a fascinating study in mass stupidity. Tradition shows that the top 5% make a killing, but let us look at the other 95% who don’t. Most people don’t have the arithmetic skill to do the math, but those flipping houses at a “profit” throughout their lives tended not to take the money and run. They essentially plowed the money back into a more expensive house with an even larger mortgage. This is why you have heard me often refer to the real estate market as a legalized Ponzi scheme. As long as the Feds provided enough new suckers to keep buying in at the bottom, up went the numbers.
           Now the buy-in has become so expensive that even borrowed money can’t prop up the structure. What happens when the base of the pyramid collapses? I think we’ll find out in the next six months. There are just simply no new sources of money or schemes left untried this time around. I like the new bankruptcy laws that will require the majority to go on some orderly payment of debt program for the remainder of their working lives. Serves them right.

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June 24, 2007

           JP and I were ready to head south to the Keys by around ten in the morning, but we never made it. Not trusting the weather report, we could see it was going to be raining by mid-afternoon. So we had a big spaghetti lunch and went over to the Barn on Kendall Drive. It is actually half again as big as your regular bookstore. That is offset by the large foreign language section. JP was again astonished by how I talk to women without trying obviously to get them in the sack. It is just not the Florida way.
           The photo is the two Jamis bikes chained together near a small shopping center where JP used to be the security guard some twenty years ago. It is rare in Florida, in that it is very well maintained, almost spotless. Real benches you can sit on. Free picnic tables in a shady central area.
           We rode the bikes over between rain showers, stopping along the way. I wanted to scope out a high-hat and I have a complaint about what happened then. There is a Guitar Center in the mall, but they tried to sales process me when I asked for the price. Instead of the guy being a decent American and saying “the cheapest set is around $180”, I got the runaround.

           He launched into the nonsense about looking up the price, like he was doing me such a big favor. The worst was his insisting on pricing the stand and the cymbals separately. I had to tell him twice that a high-hat was a combination of the components and useless without both parts, but the jerkface could not cut off the lame sales pitch. He continually kept up that he was going to see what he could “do for me”. What a typical south Florida peckerhead. He must have asked five times if I was going to “take this on the road” and each time I asked him if it made any difference on the price. I finally walked out after hearing him mutter the prices to himself.
           The guy was an absolute prick, the type that deliberately treats your simple question as a signal to launch his cripple-brained sales pitch, constantly trying to maneuver you into buying something you don’t want. Is it his job? No, not when that behavior isn’t called for. It took over ten minutes to get a single piece of information out of him, all the rest was his bullshit. I can just picture him in a sales meeting with his equally asinine boss training him to do precisely that.. Unless you say no in a way they will interpret as impolite, you’ll have to buy something. Such dipshits will not give you the time of day without trying to suck money out of you. You may think that is okay. I don’t.

           You want to know the worst part of the experience? It was that the fat little bastard intentionally trying to slow things down to keep me in the store as long as possible. Even after I told him I had people waiting outside, he continued to try to drag things along. Maybe some moron-salesman theory that the longer I’m there, the more he can falsely ingratiate me into spending money? Bad, Guitar Center, bad!
           The rain never really cleared for long, so JP directed us over to the Village Pub, and out of the way place with great specials. It is what some would call a “beer parlor” because that is all they sell. There is some ordinance about them being less than a permitted distance from a day care center. This is but one more example of the strange mentality of Florida, where it is okay to take the same children to an “amusement” park like Boomers where the “games” are almost exact replicas of gambling slot machines.
           We got caught in there for an hour and finally rode our bikes home in the rain anyway. We got to talking philosophy and women. JP finds it very odd that I don’t mind stripper bars, although I have never go to them. I’ve said it before, that when I compare what I’ve seen in this world as far as talent, education and personality to the caliber of men that I’ve met in Florida, I am forced to agree with strip joints. There are two givens. One, that paying for it is absolutely the only way most Florida men will ever see a young pretty girl take her clothes off. Two, such men have to convince themselves all other men must do the same.

           Our bad luck with renting DVDs was in full force. We rented a doomsday film, “Children of Men” and a war movie, “Days of Glory”. Don’t bother, they will soon enough be boring you on the flatscreen. Mind you, I got a lot more out of the war flick, as I am very familiar with the hardships of the Arabs who served in the French army. An army that hasn’t single-handedly won a battle or a war since before Waterloo.
           There were some very realistic battle scenes, although I did not care for the portrayal of Germans soldiers as the bad guys as well as the enemy. They were continually shown as booby-trap artists except where they were foolish enough to walk in tight groups through narrow streets. The equipment and uniforms were very exact, although both scenes that showed the Germans using an MG43 completely failed to show how terrifying a weapon it really was. The thing fired 900 rounds per minute creating a 100% zone of death in front of the muzzle. Further, many of the scenes on the DVD Amaray [jacket] are never shown in the film.
           There is also heavy advertising for HD-DVD. My guess is it means High Definition, but only a guess because I thought DVD was already supposed to be the highest definition possible with plasma screens and such. So when it comes to formats, here we go again.

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June 23, 2007

           They just parked this old squad car on the corner. Nobody is ever in it, at least not in the past few weeks. Must be some crime deterrence thing. I have to be careful, I can easily exceed the speed limit on my bicycle, and I’ve roared past a couple times already. Maybe I’ll squeal rubber next time, lay down a patch right in front of his bumper. Whaddya say? Things are too quiet around here.
           I could not just get underway today, being tired to the bone the way you get after a day of piling lumber, and yes, I once did that for a living. I just vegetated. Television did not help, but there was an interesting show called “Below”, filmed in a real WWII sub, you can’t fool me on that one. However, the script was definitely at least 1990’s.

           Otherwise you would just never believe the number of personal problems that the US Navy allows on board. Something goes wrong every damn five minutes that puts your patience and virtue to the test. Such as the woman on board who waits until they are 40 fathoms under and being depth-charged to demand her “rights”. How do we just know that not too many nautical miles off is the first Gay Boat?
           Wallace thoughtfully bought me a Su Doku game. With nine skill levels and features galore. I may have to report to him that it is not that easy to operate. Plus, there is something just a little more blonde-friendly about working the puzzle out of a booklet. Any true Crib champion would totally understand this. Of course, south Florida was out of AA batteries when I set out to try this game.

           Music news. I spent the mid-afternoon rigging up my gear. My Ampeg now has the proper cleats bolted in [to wrap up the power cable], the cleats they thoughtfully quit including twenty years ago. I decided to just go up to Jimbo’s to replace the “dance posters” and met a new bar-maid in the fray. She is 36 and twice the recommended weight. For the life of me, I don’t recall her name, but I know her parents are personal friends of the people who operate Jimbo’s, and that they own a pub out on 62nd and Johnson.
           The evening must have been novel in this town, in that when I got there the place was empty but I still got up and played the show. Mostly to stragglers all evening. This is what got the conversation going with the barmaid, who works two other bars who are “looking for something new”. She reports they had a house band, which she says were great for the first few weeks but then began screwing up and developing bad attitudes. Maybe they had day jobs at the airport?

           That means as early as next weekend or plain early anyway, I may be playing gigs for a small string of local bars. Turns out Jo’s friend is also the daughter of the best friends of the bars over near 441. Oh, and while I won’t tell you what I charge for a gig, I will tell you it is “twenty-five dollars more” than the last guitar player was getting. The tips are far, far better. Sure, he could sing and play guitar, but he never was worth as much as I and that is gap is only going to widen considerably. Who knows, one day he may just walk into one of my gigs with his silly old demo tape.
           Speaking of recording, Cowboy Mike wants one. Or at least he did until we played. Word of mouth is by far the cheapest advertising but rarely the best unless somebody in charge is doing the talking. I do believe we have that situation. Jo did not come in during my show, so I tracked her down to Capt. J’s pub on Dixie, where she was Karaoke-ing. It turns out they are also good friends with the owner of McGowan’s and the Blarney Stone. Cha-ching!

           From the talk, Kim, the owner of Jimbo’s, who walked in mid-way of the Friday show, was so impressed that she did not at first even recognize me. She was blown away, and apparently stated that she was going to “march right over” to some club on Hollywood Beach and tell them about us. Let all this be a lesson to anyone who doubts that I have managed bands since my early teens. Nobody gets the gigs like I do. Demo tape, my eye, real club owners know to drop in any hear you play elsewhere first. You can’t fake a live performance.
           Last, thanks to music I made enough this week to buy all the extras I needed for the band, and I’m taking tomorrow off and driving to South Miami, maybe to the Keys. Some place nice. Hasta la vista, baby.

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June 22, 2007

           Want to see a photo of an aluminum can of soda that exploded in my fridge? (Not from freezing.) This is not supposed to happen, ever. I am a strong supporter of recycling. Did you know the aluminum can you put in the bin becomes part of a new can within six weeks, and saves 95% of the energy? Alas, the thrust is toward making the cans a little cheaper (and weaker) each time. They only hold their shape because of gas pressure.
           I have far more interesting news. The band, “Blue Crows”. It being Friday, we played Jimbo’s. The original deal was we played until 9:00 p.m., but I had to help kick band people out after 1:00 and leave the others for the staff. There were not really any new faces but those who came stayed longer than usual. Lots of $5 bills in the tip jar.
           As par with musicians, one thing led to another and we had a sax player (Charles) and a lead guitarist (Al) stand in for huge chunks of the evening. It is still a new club (Jimbos) so everything that walks in the door is new. We had total crowd response thanks to stunning, if unfamiliar, interpretations of basic Blues patterns. Even Jo, the barmaid, (who said she could sing but never showed me) was up on stage. The ice is broken, we have played and found a club that loves what we do. Just three miles away
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           There was a client in the office today talking about police power, only he didn’t know that was his stance. He pointed out that most criminals were not caught at the end of a long police chase, but by “accident”. I am the arch-opponent of such things, not because I side with criminals, but because these “accidents” usually mean a roadside stop. Freedom cannot co-exist with Law and Order based on police power. Of the two, I support Freedom. I maintain it is not the business of the police who you are or where you live or when you were born. Unless, of course, you break the law, but there are already enough powers and legislation about that. We don’t need any more.
           I also believe that Freedom is indivisible. You are not free when enough secret or public records have been created that you can be investigated without your knowledge or permission. It should be made more difficult for the police to “check your identity”, so they won’t do it without a damn good reason.

           Nor do I identify with the police who successfully find an outstanding warrant during a checkstop. I side with the hundreds of innocent people who are put through the meat grinder during that highly illegal activity. The Constitution forbids arbitrary search and it is therefore illegal for the police to do so. Some people have a lot of difficulty understanding what “arbitrary” means. Be clear that whatever it means, it includes when the police stop you for an expired tag and then take your driver’s license back to the squad car and run your identity. That, people, is an arbitrary search. Illegal.
           Does anybody know if there is a book written about the rise of police power as related to the automobile? That would make great reading. Too many people don’t draw the association between the erosion of freedom as paralleled by increased police powers to “enforce” motor vehicle law.

           A good example is police radio. No, it was not a result of any police “concerns” about dispatching a unit to your neighborhood burglary. To hell with your concerns. It was designed to prevent criminals from simply dashing across the county line. Back in the Bonny and Clyde days the Feds had to get involved to enforce a law across jurisdictions. The Constitution made it precisely so to prevent the consolidation of abusive powers by the authorities. Is that clear enough for you? The Constitution limits the power of the authorities and expands the rights you have against authorities.
           With a radio, the police could park one car at a convenient location and, by radioing ahead, snag the bad guys before they made it to safety. Usually after the customary but rarely necessary high-speed chase. It was never intended that the radio be used to stop ordinary folk and shake them down. But the police quickly learned to use this awesome power against everybody. Through motor vehicle laws, the police found the nearly ideal method of invading privacy.

           You may have to think this one through, but in record time as far as lawmaking goes, it became a requirement to have Identification papers rather than just a license to drive. The vehicle had to be registered although in most cases it was replacing an unregistered horse and buggy. The real breakthrough for the police came when General Motors began a deliberate policy of selling expensive cars on credit payments, around 1928 I believe. That was the strong-arm the police were seeking.
           Almost overnight, the automobile became the second most expensive item the average man owned, after his house. The police still needed a warrant to kick in the door of his house, but this automobile thing was new, here was something that could be systematically abused without Public outcry. There was no tradition of tort law protecting motorists. The radio could be used for everything from calling “backup support” when television cameras were nearby, to “running” identity checks which can only be the result of you being presumed guilty.

           The police found to their delight that they could pull over a motor vehicle for almost any reason and the owner was invariably terrified of having his property impounded. The ideal situation for an illegal and arbitrary interrogation. The Public was apathetic to anyone stopped, why they simply must have done something wrong, mustn’t they? Driving laws quickly became so complex that most people looked the other way and were just glad it wasn’t their turn. Now, the police could get almost anyone into a corner where it became both expensive and personally dangerous to stand up for their rights.
           I would strip the police of this power instantly, to be replaced by traffic cops whose job it was to enforce traffic laws and nothing, repeat, nothing else. If they encountered a non-traffic crime, they could call the police, just like anybody else. Heck, they could even use a radio, right?

           One enterprising bureaucrat even cooked up that totally false phrase that has no basis in law, but has since stuck in the brain of every ill-educated member of our society, that driving is “a privilege, not a right”. That saying is total bunk. Driving is, in fact, a right that can be suspended, but never really taken permanently away unless you pose a hazard, and even then, the law which does so is not a motor vehicle statute. For anyone who cares to look it up, all motor vehicle laws are statutory, and my guess is that 80% of statutory laws are unneeded and many are beneath contempt. Some people are never “old enough” to drive, vote, or consent to sex, while others don’t need any help from the system whatsoever. Most people I know don’t.
           Now for today’s trivia. Around 25 years ago today, I read specifications for an entirely new device. It was a CD player called the Sony CDP-101 and carried a price tag of $899 in Seattle. It had all the features and identical buttons as a tape deck. I rejected it for the same reasons I would today. It was read only and it was the old “album scam” all over again. Where you had to buy the entire disk to get one or two favorites.
           What is more, everyone knew the price would drop and also, Sony had begun the long, slow decline from a reputable company to a leader in consumer rip-offs. You know, selling you your own warranty, unique transformers for every item which cost 2/3 as much as a new unit to replace and the evil that Sony pioneered: quoting the product weight without the hefty, bulky power supply.

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June 21, 2007

           Now that is a Florida accident. The whole bumper ripped off and wrapped 180 degrees around a lamp standard (telephone pole, to some). Like most of Florida, there are no hills, curves or blind stretches, this happened at a flat, dry intersection (Dixie and Sheridan) in broad daylight.
           Three spelling mistakes in the first three sentences. Of course, some people guess that is just what to expect, but not me. If you get the address, phone number and zip code wrong, what are you doing pretending you know what an invoice is? Some people are not long for the dog wig business or any other. It is hardly me, but more the fact that nobody slides much past Ruth or the way things just have to be. It is like, don’t think, just do it right. I understand when documents are produced under pressure, as in deadlines, but you won’t make the big bucks until all this is sorted out.

           Almost the entire day was spent cleaning up paperwork. We have this new guy, a telemarketer, but a pro at scrounging up business. I’m a total loser when it comes to marketing so I’m impressed by people who appear to enjoy it. I still disagree with using public information (such as telephone numbers) for private gain without compensation for the intrusion.
           That is correct. I’ll take any telemarketing call on my private line, as long as you pay me for the time. A current rate of $0.50 per minute sounds fair, from the time the phone rings until I tell you to go to hell and hang up. Nobody who uses public information should be allowed to do so anonymously.

           Now that I have that off my chest, I report that music has again paid off more that a day of database administration. I have a family band on my hands, and they are knowledgeable enough to be forming their own group in less than the next month. What’s more, is that this situation is nearing the very limit of what I can teach or advise students to go further.. For example, my experience with breathing and aspiration while singing is limited to the fact I know they exist but my students want more.
           I had to deliver a twenty minute lecture on band equipment tonight. It was well received. Again, the practical aspects of playing in a band are my specialty. I’ve lost more band equipment because it got left behind and was not worth going back to pick it up, than I ever have through outright theft. Your results may differ.

           Who remembers “Dance Posters”. I used to walk and hitchhike around for free [putting them up on telephone poles]. Now I’m having the same rate of success with all other forms of advertising. It just does not work unless you can get people to talk about your pitch afterward. Speaking of bad campaigns, now that I leave the TV on for Pudding, I have a list of three of the sickest, most insipid bean-brain things I’ve seen dished out in my life – but then again, this is coming from a guy who first saw Conan a couple years ago and thought it was a one-time spoof. Anyway, the sickest things on TV

                √ Kirstie Alley. that bloated creature who never could act. You know the one where she wears a Oprah-size red dress and tells an almost equally fat-thighed brunette to eat a fridge full of lasagna (who looks like she would eat the fridge, too).

                √ Sesame Street. Because it is not Sesame Street anymore. All the real characters are gone and replaced by wimps or third-rate actors in cheap feathery costumes that fool no one. Like the staff at Broward Community College.

                √ Ice Road Truckers. Jesus Murphy, that’s all I gotta say about that.

           Alain called to cancel out on the house-sitting. However, she has to do it before July 1 if she wants me to help. After that, I’ve promised to mind the shop for Dickens. I think I’ll take this weekend off, which is one of the few privileges of being unemployed.

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June 20, 2007

           It is a picture of a blue crow. Why, what did you think it was? I took a picture of an American crow and bucket-filled it with deep blue. Now I suppose you’ll want the explanation. I am not fussy what the name of the band is, and the other guy, Cowboy Mike, came up with “Blue Crows”. While it would not be my first pick, or my second, third or fourth, it apparently has some significance to the Blues and there is at least one other band that uses the term.
           I spent a few hours tinkering with the orders database for doggie wigs and eating ice cream cake which is totally off my diet. I’m afraid I’ve made a few errors with the database that make it difficult to track inventory balances, but the total mistakes so far are less than 1% of what goes wrong with manual systems. Especially when people try to adapt such systems to a database – ours is the other way around. The very basis on which we do some things depends on how easily the event can be adapted to a computer.

           The biggest “error” is that the primary key does not indicate the color of each model, therefore every search or reference has to address a compound key made up of both components. Database has always been so complicated for me that I have to re-learn a whole set of the features again every time I create one. It is not a simple matter of changing the key, for that would destroy all the queries, forms and reports associated with the old key.
           Database means long hard hours on a computer, so I’ll talk about band practice tonight. We ran through ten songs, not as tight as I prefer, but well into the ready-for-performance stage. It is going to take some real live stage time before I am jolted into memorizing some of these Blues tunes. For every one that has a catchy tune, there are five I can’t tell apart yet.

           It is also interesting to me to experience the things that others find important. Myself, I could care less than most what the band sounds like, as long as I do my part and do it in good balance with the remainder. I could care less what the band is named (right?) or how we start and stop a song as long as we do it the same way every time (it is kind of important like to play things the same as everybody else when you are in a band). So what if we play several songs in a row in the same key (guitar players are very sensitive about this, yet some of them would play ten blues songs in a row if you let them).
           Generally, we’ve decided to play this Friday at Jimbo’s, and we went there an hour ago to introduce Cowboy Mike to the situation. His eyebrows knotted upon finding out about the Troll (who sleeps in the corner overnight) and the lack of atmosphere. Sam was bartending, so although we won’t be playing on his nights for now, we got the go-ahead to put up a few posters and similar advertising. Mike would like more practice, where I feel we are already over-playing a few sections that could stand to be looser.

           Mike also bought a set of big, fat guitar strings. He calls them “meat-slicers” and replaced them with a set of medium strings. The new strings won’t stay in tune, I wonder if I should say anything. He tunes his guitar from the thinnest strings first to the thickest. Hmm, I always thought you tightened the thick strings first, as they apply the most tension to the neck. If you leave them till last, tuning the lower strings may throw off the others. Anyway, that’s what I think.
           There has been no time for reading or studying in a week, except for an hour or two here and there. That means no trivia. The cat, Pudding, seems to enjoy not only music, but the television. She stretches out in comfort whenever either is playing in the background. Don’t ask me, I’ve never had a cat or dog that ever noticed music, but I did have a budgie, Memphis, who could tell one piano tune from the other. He lived to be almost 13. To keep her occupied, just switch on the TV and she will stay in that room.

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June 19, 2007

           Todays picture is actually a scan of the recipe for bannock. I may have used it already, but you know this blog loves a picture every day. I don't have one. My Argus [camera] is working fine. The strap that goes around my neck wore out. Argus cameras last forever. That is strap number two for that excellent digital camera.
           I spent an extra day in the wig shop, there are always a ton of logistics to a new venture that require all kinds of skills that you can’t find anywhere at reasonable cost. There was also some exposure to a strange virus or virus-like activity. A known trusted party sends us an email from New York. Except we never get it. However, when we look in our spam filter, there is a very similar address blocked. Every time.

           We’ve checked every known avenue on that one, but while I’m talking Internet, there is another scam you should be aware of. Watch out for ads that use your parked domain name. The guilty party is usually the company you paid for the domain. I’m just informed I should explain this one in more detail. Okay, suppose you “purchase” the domain name abcdefg.com. That is now your domain name and nobody else can use it. Or can they, now?
           The presumption is that you will acquire a web page using that domain name, however I can think of a dozen reasons you might register a domain name with no intention of ever using it. By registering a name, you create a vacuum and the domain registration company will go in there and fill it with junk advertising. Anyone who types abcdefg.com will get a page full of other ads with a tiny little link in one corner saying abcdefg.com is “on the way”. The majority of the page is filled up with somebody else’s advertising. Anyone who visits the page between now and the time you use it may get a completely wrong idea of what your business is all about.

           Incidentally, when I called register.com to complain, they tried the old 1990s record the conversation “for training purposes” (an outright lie, it is to cover their backsides when they screw up) and also tried to pump me for personal information (not the information of the account owner). Like I’m going to tell a zero stranger who answers a damn phone for a living my name, address and phone number. Ha! The prick on the phone actually tried to defend doing these things. To me! Let’s hear it for register.com.
           I think I’ll take the evening off and work on that bass line to Fur Elise (“Fairly Easy”) just to see where it goes. Later. It went nowhere, I was dumb enough to sit down in the sleep magnet and did not wake up until 4:56 a.m. One day I will throw that chair out and start getting things done in the evenings. One priority will be a customer list for the doggie wigs. There are so many ways to do it, I admit I don’t have a definitive method in mind. But I do know I will be separating the credit information completely out of the loop.

           This also means I have to go underground for a few days to relearn the methods of creating subtotals and such on database forms and reports. It is one of those things I seem to have to do over again every time I need them. Friday sound like a good day, because Alain called back and the contractors won’t be there until then. So the plan is for me to be there on Friday instead.
           Speaking of contractors, I have one who admitted to me recently that he has not made any net gain in the past fifteen years. Goes to show you, since I worked the same amount of time for the system and was not one penny ahead of where I started, either. Yet, I had done things right to an uncommon degree. It is the system. When a stockbroker screwed me around, the court sided with the stockbroker, for instance. (There was some technical requirement to fill out a form we had never before filled out. Suddenly, that one time he insisted.)

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June 18, 2007

           I see Hometown or Roto has placed caution ribbon around the entire grease area, a little too late for me. I talked to a lawyer momentarily this morning, but oddly, his secretary kept pumping me for the type of information they could sell or profile me with (name, address, phone) before they would answer any questions. It was bad lawyer, because they wanted to know if I had filled out a bunch of documents I never heard of before they would take the case. For instance, whether I called the police or went to a hospital, which from my point of view is none of their business. When they said this paperwork had to be done at the time, I asked if that was true even if I had been unconscious and they said yes. I hung up. Their office is “just off” Young Circle.
           Time to call a firebreather. I dislike lawyers who owe too much to the system. Of course, it makes sense that a lawyer will support the system that keeps him in business, but I know some are born wealthy enough to take on all opposition.

           I spent the day getting some database updates and logistics out of the way at the doggie wig place. Allow me to state that the cost projections I did on a scant few scraps of pricing information late last year turned out to be uncannily close to the real costs taken off the invoices. Often, my guesses (which they were) hit the mark within ten cents on a sixteen dollar item. Too be sure, a few large errors cancelled themselves out, but they were precisely where errors were predicted, such as air freight costs.
           I am also informed there was a billionaire (“not just a millionaire”) in the shop today. I couldn’t tell. A few things were mentioned about my indifference until Ruth assured everyone that one thing I am never concerned about is how much money somebody else has. I went on about my computer work. I must go in tomorrow, there are some deadlines with Modern Dog Magazine and I have to locate some photos to scan for the Fall Issue. For the first time in, let’s see, yes, 23 years, I talked to someone in Barbados. I celled the Sheraton Center Mall in Christchurch to get an email address. Small world. I was on Rockley Beach when the Grenada thing happened. (Celled, as in called on the cellular telephone.)
           Say, I can squeeze in the trivia for today right now. Christchurch is a relatively swank area compared to the shanty town of Bridgetown. What is now the Sheraton Mall (an ITT subsidiary) was once the manufacturing plant for the Intel computer chips originally used by Bill Gates. Now it is a plaza with about 75 stores.

           Anyway, folks, Cowboy Mike and I had a fantastic practice tonight. The building blocks are all in place. I suspect he’s never had such a great sound from a duo before. He is digging out tunes I can tell he thought he’d never do, even with a larger orchestra. Now he will literally do one part at a time and enjoy the show himself. We had a hell of a grind with “I Hear You Knockin’” because it is an eight-bar blues but right where you least expect it.
           We finally had to write it out note for note and word for word until we were both playing the same thing. The tune is such a winner, nobody minded, although at times we were ready to defenestrate it. Now we can play it in our sleep, and of course I never miss an opportunity to point out how great it sounds with just the bass and drum box. “We don’t need no stinkin’ rhythm player,” I chortled. Actually, I hope I can fall asleep with that tune rattling in my brain.

           Like most Blues, we can easily stretch each tune out to six or seven minutes, meaning we have enough for a “half gig” any time he feels ready. He brings in a few more tunes each time more toward Bluegrass than Blues, but I point out that Bluegrass is probably the only bass more boring than country. Still, my overriding concern is to get into a playing band. Some of the music tonight used the accordion thingee that he plays, the one that changes keys with a series of wooden plugs.
           Alain called about Wednesday, I may go down there to “house sit”. They cannot find anyone they can trust to watch their house while the windows are being replaced. If you knew the system here, it would not surprise you that they would call me in from thirty miles away. They let Joe’s wife do it once, but with all the kids and toys that had to be hauled along, it is better to call me. Unless I have a major upset, I can help them out but I must be out of there by 4:00 p.m. to make my band lesson. I think that may just work.
           You know, I have to say something. On Limewire today I found a couple versions of music in that weird wma format that requires a “license” to unload. If anyone is unfamiliar with Limewire, its very purpose is to get free music, to download music that has not been paid for. Since nobody would pay for anything on Limewire, the situation suggests some idiot is trying to “share” a licensed format. As I said in 1997, if it was not for the Internet, only one person in 10,000 would have a computer. Like, what would they do with it?
           Last, I found an old recording of me playing a perfect version of Beethoven’s Fur Elise. That is the only piano tune I have ever played perfectly, and it took me four years of daily practice to do it. I could not possibly play it that way again, for I was just 26 at the time. I’ve always toyed with the idea of inventing an electric bass line to that haunting melody, and I do believe I have something that works. It [the technique, not the bass line] came to me while listening to Kansas’ “Dust In the Wind”.

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June 17, 2007

           This is a picture of one of the inland canals along the Intercoastal waterway. The ads say this is waterfront property but not that the waterfront is concrete behind a chain link fence. Florida has more perfectly straight and flat waterfront than all other states put together.
           Yes, I’m sore all over from the bike spill y’day. I do now think, since the injuries are still painful, that I will be contacting the people responsible. I just did not like the way that restaurant manager implied it was my fault. I hosed down the bike with heavy duty detergent – oh, and I had to get up and move it further from the house last night because of the odor. Old bacon grease, not strong, but bad.

           I’ll be laid up for the day due to my shoulder, the other injuries I can limp or work around but the shoulder puts me out of commission. I had no way to contact the club last night and let them know I could not play. Cowboy Mike wanted an extra practice later today, we’ll see. The good news is I found the old charts I had made of from the last practice we did with the whacko guitarist last year, which doubles my Blues repertoire.
           Daylight also let me take inventory of damage to my bicycle. It is not so much the cost of repairs, but the opportunity cost as I must cancel other priorities to make the repairs. That bicycle is my primary means of local transportation, I rarely use the car for trips of less than ten miles. The grease got into everything, and even though I spent a half hour hosing the bike down, I still get a surprise handful of the gunk here and there. The handlebars are held in position by a clamp, now that has to be dismantled and cleaned. The clamp that holds my lock has to be replaced, and so do the hand grips which slide right off now, and cannot be cleaned no matter what I use.

           My odometer has quit and I had to file the brake pads with emery board. The lens fell off my rear flasher and I had to replace my emergency reflector. My bungee cords may have to be trashed and my headlamp bracket is bent. There is a bad dent in my air pump, but I have not tried it out yet. My front flasher is loose and will have to be re-clamped in place. Worst, however, is that my chain and sprocket assembly now clicks and skips slightly as I pedal. That is always an expensive repair. After a year of keeping everything in tip-top condition.
           I also have to keep moving. If I remain still for more than a few minutes, my right side becomes quite sore when I try to start moving. So, I’ll spend the afternoon programming the drum box, since that keeps me in at least mild back and forth motion. Oh, and making chili. I love to make chili when I’m housebound. Gives me something to look forward to. I am unable to play my bass due to shoulder pain, elbow pain and thumb pain (can’t grip the pick for very long).

           Sure enough, I was able to get far further with the drum programming than I had planned, but I have gotten behind elsewhere. I discovered over half the tunes Mike chose must have been from the same album, as the drummer and drum kit were identical once I listened closely enough. Mike showed up after 5:00 p.m. and we jammed until 9:30 p.m. I should now describe this practice in more detail, as I believe this band will fly, and soon.
           Cowboy Mike now accepts the drum box, his valid early concern was the sound, but now he hears that I can program it better than the original. (Oddly, my last guitar player created a Catch-22. It is so much work to program that I won’t do it without a commitment to a particular song, so all he had to do was refuse to commit until he heard the drum box. Catch-22). Mike now admits we need a rhythm player like we need a hole in the head. We got lost in several grooves and wound up jamming for ten minutes at a stretch. Between now and last practice, he has caught on that it is okay to leave off playing and singing for a few bars, I will never miss a beat. Until he heard the drum bass combination, he was understandably hesitant to stop playing. A lot of soloists are. Now he does it without a second thought.
           We have already reached the stage of arranging every song, a slightly different process than just learning the tune. With simple music, like Blues, most musicians tend to vary the turnarounds a little each time, but that habit must be completely stamped out when playing in a group. The bad spots were quickly identified (he likes to go to the IV chord during lead breaks and I will often miss a drop to the IV during a turnaround if it is not in the original version). My injuries slowed me down from what I wanted to do, but even so, I came up with an actual original Blues bass line. It is the result of a “mistake” often made by beginner piano players, and although it is not really Blues, it sounds great.

           That means I get to write an original Blues tune, I suppose. I’ve decided to call it “Blues Up the Ying Yang”. Mike, impressed by the drum beats, asked several times for me to turn it up, a good sign. As far as rehearsals, I would rate this one highly successful. From my viewpoint, we are ready to play somewhere, but Mike put on the brakes, saying he wants private time to practice on his own. I think we should do Jimbos’ this Friday. Practice is scheduled for tomorrow and Thursday so don’t rule anything out yet. I can tell Mike is used to these things taking a lot longer.
           Trivia for the day. Did I already tell you this one? Anyway, the reason you cannot swat a fly is because the fly detects the shockwave of air created by your hand as you swat. Apparently the trick is to spread your fingers, but I’ve been unable to find an accommodating fly to test the theory. I do know that Florida flies are smart enough to avoid flypaper, giving them an apparent IQ greater than my cat. Huh? Oh, I can tell by the cat fur stuck on the glue.

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