September 30, 2010

           Half the town is flooded out. As usual, the water authority will open the flood gates only to complain of a water shortage in around three months and start fining people who sneak out at 3:00 AM to water their lawns. And make the neighborhood dogs bark enough for somebody to phone in and report them since noisy dogs are not illegal.
           Turns out I was wise to hold back on spending. Another delay has cropped up, this time concerning my bank balance in 2004. Yes, I had a lot of cash at that time, but that does not mean I still have it today. This is another lesson learned, as I will now begin a systematic policy of monitoring my bank balances as well as the statements. It is a good thing I keep such damn good records, you know, in most cases I even scanned the checks and deposit slips. Let this serve as a warning to the complacent—you have foolishly given away a lot of the freedoms you are going to need if anything goes wrong. You will find out the hard way that telling the truth is not enough without proof.

           Now the good news. Top of the list is the bingo gear. My guesstimate was a little off, I had planned on $85, now we are up to $93. But it is top of the line tackle, from an outfit called Bingo King out on State Road 84. Consumables are the bingo cards, costing $23.95 for a case of 3,000 and the markers, at $5.00 a dozen. I can ill afford any of it, but I can even less afford not to. The static investment is the bingo cage, balls and the master tray.
           Meanwhile, I wind up a Jimbos to inventory my gear, which all has to be moved for the show. Darned if the Thursday entertainer didn’t call in sick. On the spur, I set up my combination music and bingo gear, and we had a perfectly wonderful three hour “poor man’s Karaoke”. At first, the singers kept looking for a screen with the words, but once they caught on, everybody was singing. That’s much more my style of show. I was surprised to see Hi in the audience, he normally doesn’t frequent the north end.
           What’s more, I stayed on stage and sang a lot of background vocals. I picked this technique up from Laura’s show, where she sings along with many of the standards. She does it well enough that I thought it was backing tracks until I heard a small error once and turned around. (I never sing with my back to the audience.) There was no choice of tunes tonight, as my music was all pre-recorded bingo material. Question, could I put on a serious Karaoke show with what I’ve got?
           Pause here and think. A Karaoke act isn’t all that easy. For openers, the gear is so expensive one has to play up to five gigs per week [to profit]. No way can I move even the lightest speaker systems that often. I’ve already hit physical barriers trying to miniaturize my regular music systems over the previous few years, so there are no pending miracles either. My show tonight was successful because it was novel, and novelty wears off. Ask any married couple. I’d have to think twice about a repeat. As well, the tips were not as good as playing live, which was to be expected.
           The woman across the way, the one who once threatened to call animal health on Pudding-Tat (because the cat often slept outside on the porch), is a gossip and everybody knows that. They avoid her, but lately she has taken to hovering whenever other people are talking and it has become a real annoyance. Anyway, today we timed her and she talked non-stop from 4:30 AM until 9:00 PM, a total of 16-1/2 hours. I’m used to that (family again) and when there was nobody around she talked to the cats or herself.
           Such people cannot be cured for they think the real reason others don’t do the same is because they are not as good at it. But hey, I know old guys who think that about real estate. This is the same lady who once asked why the kitchen night light wasn’t on at 3:30 one morning. The bulb was burned out. Still.

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September 29, 2010

           Real estate makes my headlines again. Only twenty-five properties changed hands during September in this area (Dania, Ft. Lauderdale, Hallandale, Hollywood, West Park). Property is not moving in south Florida. Nobody can get a mortgage and listings average 13 months. Merely twelve of the sales were single family, the rest being condos or highrise apartments.
           Six went to banks or property management companies, fully half the sellers were foreclosures. Even that is suspect, as banks are careful not to flood the market. What captured my attention is some sharpie bought a house in West Park for $43,200. This is no surprise to me, yet five years ago that was barely a down payment. Somebody got their dream home for a half-year’s wages.

           In Hallandale proper, only one single family house was sold this month. There are over 20,000 repossessed houses in Broward county alone, meaning the local buyers are holding back. Half the properties went to out of state concerns. At the other extreme, some dodo paid $325,000 for a condo in Ft. Lauderdale. The housing safety valve is at its limit.

           [Author's note 2016: that's a typo above. The number of repossessed houses in Broward stood at 120,000 at the time. It remains in that same range six years later.]

           For all the media hype, it is actually quite rare for storms to hit a given part of Florida. Not so today, as a tropical depression is dumping buckets of water on the town. Visibility is down to a half a block. Except for hurricanes, wind can be rare as well. This time it is alternating between dead calm and blasting breezes around an hour apart. This is what sailor’s call a tempest and it gets mention for its terrific violence all night and this morning. Water in the low spots is two feet deep.

           Today’s trivia covers a lot of ground. Who remembers the coelacanth, the supposedly extinct fossil fish caught off the Comoros that stunned the scientific community? The universities spent years and tons of money until another one turned up. Further investigation reveals that the local fisherman had been catching them all their lives and throwing them back, commenting they were “not especially tasty”.
           In my late teens, I played in a band called “Little Joe Hill”, always thinking he was some famous Australian outlaw. Turns out he was a labor organizer in Utah, where they pinned two murders on him. That bum rap got him the firing squad in 1915. Today I recommend we do the same with eastern politicians, census takers and the heads of registered charities.

           From the same source, I discovered yet another gap in the Bill Gates myth. He found out IBM needed an operating system, not surprising since his mother was on the board of directors. I have previously written how he simply changed some command words on an existing program (CP/M) and claimed it was his own creation. What I did not know is that he bought that existing program for $50,000.
           Let me do the math. Gates was born in 1956 and came up with DOS in 1977, I think. One has to ask where on this earth did a 20 year old who had never had a job in his life come up with that kind of money back then? Rusty and I got our first mortgage around the same time, so we know there is no way Gates could have borrowed such a then huge sum as venture capital. Somebody clearly gave, not lent, him the money. I admire the guy, but it irks me when he is quoted as an example of the successful entrepreneur when the only chances he ever took were in Las Vegas.

           Later, I was busy coordinating the new bingo. Strange, when I said my act was hard to follow, it seems that was interpreted by some to mean difficult, a shallow presumption. What I meant and said was that the show is not easy to duplicate. The roots go much deeper, where every aspect of the performance is covered and rehearsed. Staff has to be trained how to verify the winning ticket and to hand signal the amount of the next jackpot across a noisy room within 15 seconds of game start.
           I was up to Oakwood Plaza and stopped in at Big Lots. They’ve done wonders with the place. It appears they’ve brought in a professional to modernize the layout of the entire store. Again, very well done, even the grouping of the shelves is a better match to how real people shop. Did you get that, Publix? Winn/Dixie?
           Good, because it is also clear that they have expanded the food section and prices start at 88 cents. As well, they don’t stock perishables so they have a larger variety of boxed and canned goods, such as the excellent cheese & bacon pasta I’m scarfing right now. The shelves have plenty of packaged meals that would prove handy to survive disasters like a hurricane or a recalcitrant partner who thinks others can be arbitrarily declared “100% responsible” for his bills.
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September 28, 2010

           Ah, a satisfying breakfast of Mary Kitchen corned beef hash, one of those meals that tastes better when it comes in a can. I had reasons to celebrate. First, young Jag has passed a milestone with his rhythm playing. Instead of trying to duplicate the entire progression himself (who would ever do that), he understands more each week how to integrate simple patterns that integrate with other instruments. You should hear us do a swamp beat or some Bo Diddley now.
           I caught supreme ack-ack from Colorado. Seems I sent a letter there in August addressed to my best friend’s maiden name. But, but, she’ll always be a maiden to me. Everything is in order over there, including the invitation for me to stay for a while, say 2011 - 2015. I suppose this does not make sense to people who only pretended to be my friend while pursuing a hidden agenda, but I do have real friends. I’ve known Marion so many years I will not say here, but more than 25.
           Here’s news. The guitarist did not show at Buddy’s Place last evening, a real disappointment, if only because Jag and I walked the big mile in the rain to be there. I’ve been invited to put on my bingo act next week. (Late rumor has it the talent showed up but left because the place was empty!) All the staff, except Buddy, has seen my operation [at Jimbos’] and know that my show always goes on.

           [Author's note 2017: the paragraphs here do not seem to match up to the photos. This post may have been cut and pasted from other sources, possibly my accounting records.]

           A few weeks back, Buddy’s declined bingo, stating it was not the atmosphere they were seeking. Something says atmosphere ain’t paying the bills. My one-of-a-kind bingo show is mature, completely polished and operable by two people, though in a pinch one could do it. Keep in mind the average bar only needs another five or six patrons to make an evening profitable, as outlined below.
           My show targets that paying 7:00 PM to 9:30 PM crowd so they will arrive sooner and leave later. That’s how a bar makes money despite paying out the total bingo revenue in winnings. And that’s why I can claim to be an entertainer as well as a musician. As a reminder (pay attention here), in terms of cash outlay for gear and supplies, bingo is supremely by far the most cost-effective exhibition I have ever conducted.

           Clubs need the money and I can generate that. My show yields an extra 36 patron-hours during which they sell an extra 96 to 120 drinks, damn good business in this town. The lucky server sees a quantum leap in tips, as do I from the winners. Once again, this unexpected demand for bar bingo proves itself a delightful opportunity. And it should remain an opportunity because my act is very difficult to duplicate. Things could still go wrong at any new location. Eh, I’ve worked tough rooms before.
           Buh-buh buh-b-b-buh Bingo. Y'all come back now, y'hear.

           It is a good thing my record-keeping is up to par. I spent and hour on the phone tracing down my old work records. Dealing with foreign governments is a hazy process, where they even asked for the address where I last filled out a tax form back in 1996, like people are supposed to remember that stuff. Furthermore, they used the now totally discredited security question about your mother’s maiden name. At any rate, I was able to field all their nonsense with completely accurate information, so expect some more good news in approximately 60 days.
           Here’s some trivia. Many people remember J.P. Morgan, the billionaire back when a billion was an awful lot of money. But not many people know he owned the White Star shipping line, which included the Titanic. Even fewer people know that he was booked on that fateful trip and cancelled his ticket at the last moment. What’s that smell?

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September 27, 2010

           The Sunday paper used to take most of the day. Now it spills over into Monday. Top issues are employers once again complaining they have the jobs but cannot find qualified people. That nonsense is remedied instantly by paying adequate wages. The underlying issue is the employers don’t want to pay for any on the job training. That’s an investment they lose if the worker leaves. On the flip side, very little of the expensive education I have was ever used in a job, all it did was get me hired.
           Colleges are turning out record numbers of graduates in fields where the jobs no longer exist. If I had not been the victim of such a school myself, I’d tend to blame the students. Yet they still shoulder some blame, for most of them have something I did not: valuable advice from their elders. At least in my day, college counselors were not commission-based salesmen, although there was a certain pressure to commit to advanced degrees without regard to the cost.

           What are my plans for my upcoming birthday? Simple. JP and I invite a couple of sexy women from the dating club at Aventura, get them on his dad’s boat and out to his brother’s condo in the Keys for a weekend. No, not hired help, but mature women who aren’t afraid to have a little fun without twisting it into a commitment. Not divorced women [like that Theresa] whose only friends appear to be middle-aged married men whose wives don’t know they are “just friends”.
           Speaking of that, the Cave Woman was here for another load of her things. I made it a point to be busy in the yard the entire time. For a few moments I had a wheelbarrow of clippings near the gate and she instantly whined about blocking her way with my “fat ass”. Funny timing from a broad who’s had over nine months to move out.
           Even funnier is that fat ass comment from her direction. Obviously she doesn’t know, since in many women their weight remains constant while the sagging progresses. I could write a book about that subject after my 15 years with the phone company. I have x-ray vision on old lady aging crises. She’s rather sit and worry about being broke than do anything about it. And we know what sitting around does.

           Good news from the research, it seems that for purposes of income, my retirement amounts do not count. So if I get a pension from Venezuela, it does not affect my income for tax purposes here. This freed up enough time today for me to read some background on Zuckerberg, the Facebook guy. He is listed, at age 26, as one of the top 50 billionaires on the planet, owning 27% of the shares. So somebody beat me at my plan to be the fastest billionaire. I know he did it, but I can't but suspect it was an inside job. I have nothing to back that up, I've never even read an account of what Facebook is all about. But I know when I smell a rat.
           I don’t even know how Facebook generates their revenue, but it must involve advertising. One can’t help feeling a little jealous, but then, he was raised in White Plains and attending Harvard at the time. He even lifted the original idea from a student get-acquainted application on campus. For the record, he is being sued over that. Sigh.
           I’ve often wanted to return to learn object-oriented programming. It came up the year after I graduated, coincidentally the year before the Internet was launched. For all that I know, I cannot program anything that works on-line except static html pages. Yet there are brats out there so dumb they think html (hyper-text markup language) is short for “hotmail” who are getting jobs. Anyway, just a dream at this point.
           Trivia. Sweden and Iceland have the highest average age which men get married. They tie the knot at 33, with women at 32. That’s a statistic, because I have no idea who is marrying 32 year old women, but I’ll bet it isn’t 33 year old men. Oh, and top tourist destination is still France, with 77 million visitors every year. Mexico hardly rates at 13 million. America is way down the list because people can’t afford it, with our $300 a night motels and $75 Disney tickets.
           I also investigated various methods of clearing a print queue. This is that annoying problem originated by Hewlett-Packard where you cannot delete the last print job from the spool. It sticks there and even rebooting the system won’t kill it. I have several suggestions, all complicated. I have not yet tried them, so do check back.

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September 26, 2010

           I trooped to Denny’s for breakfast. This alone tells you something is pending, since I have little to do these days but wait. There was a time I spent every Sunday at Denny’s. Their coffee has gone up in price to the same extent it has gone down in quality. In former years I was highly pleased with how consistent their coffee from Alberta to California. But now, it just adds $1.99 to the price of a meal. Plus tax.
           My Sunday tradition while in college was to work the crossword and gulp down refills half the day. But then Denny’s began to change the format, nothing serious, but enough to adopt a corporate face. The corner cafe atmosphere is missing and people don’t hang out there any more. Gone is the long row of stools with booths along the sides. Now there are usually four seats next to the washroom doors.
           Sadly, there was a blind guy in there this morning. He was there to find people to talk with, however, that does not allow for people who don’t want to chat. He could sense when anyone sat down next to him and he’d start asking them friendly questions. I’m of two minds on that, but I will always choose sides with the person who wants to be let alone in peace. Provided he isn’t pushing the issue.

           I’m halfway through “The Soprano State” and it is not as juicy as hoped for. So the governor is a fag, they still voted for him, did they not? He spent $600,000 renovating his garage, but so do Florida smugglers, their social equivalents. He stocked the payroll with phony jobs, but in my view all political jobs are phony. Stupid people will always get the mediocre government they deserve. Like O’Rourke also wrote, if you allow majority rule on small issues, every meal will be pizza.
           Don’t bother with the book unless you are a gossip hound. Instead of picking one politician at a time and following his corruption, the two authors are constantly weaving around fifteen different people at once. Worse, it seems that not only are New Jersey politicos a shady lot, they have ridiculous names. McGreevy, Chugh, Corzine, Cipel. Why bore the reader when you can exasperate him?

           How is life without the electric? For me, little difference, except it is quiet around here for a change. I wish I had kept that propane stove from the old place but other than that I’m comfortable. Not so with the squatter, you see, I can understand the neighbors talking in Spanish. She told them she was going to “challenge” me, see who was tougher. She lasted nine days and bailed, using the excuse she thought her cats would die. Right.
           But then, I overheard another disturbing item. Wallace told the neighbors I was not paying for anything around here, that I was freeloading off him. Discussing personal financial matters with strangers is not the mark of an intelligent man. They knew too many details to be making it up, so I took it upon myself to show them the past two years of paid receipts, all in my own handwriting. Ask them what they think of Wallace now.
           How comfortable am I? Well, quite. I have my battery powered gear. I have an approved indoor propane burner. I love spending the really hot days in the library and the casino staff let read in the upper lounge and don’t wake me if I doze. I’m a natural early riser with a laptop. When there is a breeze, I can bicycle to every park bench in the shade within ten minutes.
           Mind you, all food must be non-refrigerated and be consumed when prepared. I am used to this and have a variety. I know how to shop for everything in non-perishable containers, including irradiated milk and proper storage methods, hurricane style. My utensils are all camping grade and I know how to use them. My lantern lasts a full ten hours per charge. My perked coffee rivals Starbuck’s best. No need to worry about me, I was prepared for a much longer siege through the end of October, by which time Wallace will be compelled to arrive and reconnect the electric or lose this place outright. Either way, he's turned out to be a complete liar.

           You know the strangest part of it all? If they had simply kept their promises, I was going to give both Wallace and possibly Theresa a free place to live for the rest of their lives. Ironic, isn’t it?

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September 25, 2010

           This is not an insane asylum, a wool factory or a library in Spain. It is how rich people live in Irelance. Read below for info. (Later, Irelance? Where did that come from. It is supposed to say Ireland.)
           This week I’m reading “The Soprano State”, a somewhat interesting expose on corruption in New Jersey. The place is so bad it can’t change because anyone who wants to clean the place up has to be in the mob to get elected. New Jersey is the worst. It stands as an example of where all politics eventually leads and I totally blame the complacency of the voters in the first place. There is no quality control in politics.

           Further, as an example of why people don’t trust the government, today I got a letter from one certain particular government department I had given my address for one certain purpose. Inside was a voter registration form. They gave my address to the voter registration department without my knowledge or permission. And once the voter registration has personal information on you, anybody can get their hands on it. Crooks, shysters, tax collectors, kidnappers. Undoubtedly they had the right, and undoubtedly shit like that is the reason nobody trusts them.
           I found another place for sale across the way. It is $6,200 but it is super nice inside. Two bedroom, large kitchen. Off-street parking, big yard, finished Florida room and the rent of only $350. Still, the price is high for an area that may not exist soon, so I’m holding back to see what transpires.

           My newest advertising plan is to hand out free earplugs at the library. The moment anybody starts talking, I offer the plugs to others. The computers are always scrunched together like a pig trough. Each set will come with a little blurb about this blog. It is a pity the way the libraries have gone downhill. There is a lady collecting signatures to protest the cutbacks. The libraries are too stupid to figure out how to save money and clientele by not all closing on the same days.
           While waiting on my turn, I read a book on the formative years of Ft. Lauderdale, when an army officer by that name was murdering Indians in the area. It was a fishing village population 202 before the developers moved in. By the 40’s, they had the usual society halls and patrons. That includes dozens of those trite organizations that older people invented for younger people, like glee clubs and junior opera appreciation leagues. I noticed every last young female in the pictures had the identical smile, actually a big toothy grin.
           I found a book on Irish castles. What a dreary bunch of stone piles. If those are the manor estates, I’d hate to see the servant’s quarters. The closest thing I can think of would be if you have ever driven past the prison in Walla Walla. The interiors are gaudy as well. As O’Rourke would say, Liberace turned decorator and taking steroids. Others are too plain, such as the Dublin castle ballroom. It smacks of the rental conference room at the Marriott over on I-95.

           [Author's note 2015-09-25: it doesn't show in this blog, but the following quip has become a standard standing joke in my circles. It applies to people who are basically lazy and make excuses how easy it is for others to get things. She sat around here for months doing nothing until things came to a head. I hope she lost everything in that locker, just out of spite.
          If I didn't tell you, she even tried the old, "I thought you loved me" line. Not only had we never discussed this, we never did the wild thing and I never implied there was anything between us. But, my god, if this is how she treats people she thinks love her, it's time to Baker Act the broad. For her own good.]

           Theresa was back today removing her belongings a little at a time. She informs me she lost her storage locker. I would at least have held an auction sale. She lamented that she was broke while I have all these “little things” I can “do for money” she said, as she moved her sewing machine, vacuum cleaner and ironing board.

           Bingo was the usual success although the crowds have not yet returned. Most unusual to night is that we had three games with three winners and two double wins. That is, half the games played tonight had more than one winner. Strange how that could happen with only twenty people. The place was full of smokers and it was smothering in there even for an ex-smoker like myself. The place isn’t nicknamed “Jimbos No Windows” for any old reason.

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September 24, 2010

           I told you things would pick up. Big Al had to do some deals downtown so I asked for a lift to return the netbook. However, CVS does not give refunds, they give store credit. Neither of us regularly go there so we went on a shopping spree for half an hour. We got mostly bags of cookies, some Halloween masks and some junk on sale, but also an excellent Craig DVD player that easily compares with my expensive Toshiba. Stay away from Digital Gadget's Sylvania 7" netbook computer shown here. Windows CE = "Crappy Edition".
           It turns out Wallace called the office and told them I was “100% responsible for the rent”. Allow me, I’ve been waiting for my turn to say it, “Do you have that in writing?” Ha! What’s more, I saw the title and it is still in his name. So much for his claim that he transferred the property to his daughter. The office has to approve any such transaction anyway and they would not.
           Just over the way I’ve found a place that actually rents for less than the cost of the pad. It has two bedrooms, the second one so small it is really an office. Since the recent zoning meeting, the house values here have plummeted to 25%. Everyone was aware of that possibility but the plan was to share the rent here until buyout time. That is unlikely to happen now. The other park is owned by a different outfit, a much smaller company. The cool weather people are just starting to show up again, so be alert for more bargains.

           Jagger played his second live gig tonight and finally made some cash. Shall we say it was six times what he made last week, and he definitely is developing a fan club. His guitar is not the best but we are managing. Remember that we have not yet begun to look for places that want our brand of music. We will need to expand our song list by double. Except for two Canadian girls, the place was pretty much empty because rent is next week, and also a popular owner from the Wayside, a pub up in Dania, passed away suddenly this morning.
           The show is progressing as I expected. People have an ingrained tendency to regard to give the guitar player top billing. I don’t mind since the alpha females in the crowd always know better. My delivery is becoming more confidant but I still have trouble because it turns out I tend to like tunes with a lot of lyrics. Our most novel arrangement is “Party Till The Money Runs Out”.
           Jagger is generations removed from what we play; his favorite groups are Blink-182 and Flogging Molly. I’ve listened to some of their productions but not often enough to begin to like any of it. My incentive to Jagger is that if he hunkers down and learns a full two hours of our material, I will learn a couple of his tunes. Like all who took guitar lessons, Jagger can play the intro and lead breaks to many old Stones hits, but not necessarily the entire piece of music. Right, Marty Stewart of Tsawwassen, wherever you are? (Tsawwassen, that T-S-A-double-double-u-A-double-ess-E-N.)
           We used to play that party trick where he’d be at a rave in Detroit and call me in Spokane Valley. He’d just had someone pick a card from the deck and from two thousand miles away, I would guess which card. It’s an old trick, remembered mainly because the last time I talked to Mary back in the 80s was when he used to phone at three in the morning. He finally married a born-again gal from Winnipeg, in Canada. Never met her.

           What? You want to know the trick? What time is it? Yeah, okay. Pay attention because you have to imagine the half of the conversation the chump can hear. In a prearranged sequence, Marty has the chump who drew the card standing beside him. He phones me and asks, “Is the great Swami in?” This tips me off the game is on.
           I begin to say, “Spades, Hearts, Diamonds, Clubs”, and on the correct suit, Marty says, “Okay, I’ll wait.”
           Then I begin to name the cards, “Ace, two, three . . .” and so on, until Marty says, “Hang on.”
           Next he hands the phone to the chump whereupon I say with my worst Urdu accent, “I am thinking your card is being the seven of diamonds” and promptly hang up. Are you sure I didn’t tell you this one already? Let me check. My records say no. But it is a classic that can really fry brains already on a mixture of booze and pot, for which Detroit is well-known.

           Last, a word to the wise--practice, practice, practice. Just because you see me make it look easy on a computer, don’t make assumptions. I have been complimented by highly-knowledgeable people for the apparent speed and ease of my usage but they don't know I used to teach this stuff. Most of you have not. I'm referring to the work done on the computer before you see me on stage with a tiny MP3 player. You don't know many steps or hours it took me to get there. I’ve replaced everything in my act except the guitarist whereas three years ago I didn’t know how or where to begin. And unless you are a fellow musician or paying student, I’m not talking.

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September 23, 2010

           I biked through the entire area this morning looking at properties, finding nothing to my liking. One to my disliking is the tiny unit at the end of Cedar with the for sale sign in the window for two years. That’s because the nut case owner wants $20,000 for it. He might get $5,000. I’d like to stay in this area where I know the lay of the land. But Colorado is looking good. So is Belize. Here is a photo from Colorado, near where my best friend lives.
           With certainty, I can now report that Hallandale Beach Public Library is the worst I’ve seen. They let children and teenagers romp around and let anyone talk as loud as they please. That includes the staff, who love to teach newcomers on the computers at full volume while the rest of us are trying to concentrate. I was testing the netbook a final time to see if it could be made to work. Nope, I’m taking it back.
           The doggie wig place called right while I was caught under an awning for a surprise two hour afternoon rain squall. That’s a remote password change, which has to occur each time there is a staff turnover, and a chat with the owner. She reports after all these years the only systems there that were done right the first time and still work properly were the ones I created. What does that tell you about the computer geniuses of today?
           One more time, folks, let’s go over the rules for a password. No capitals, no spaces, all small letters, no punctuation unless it is from the top row of keys. And now I must add more: No unusual double vowels and stick to words that have a unique spelling. By double vowels, here is what I mean. Consider this password, “savannaalbert”. Worse, the original version had been misspelled “savvanaalbert”. Because of those two a’s, it took an hour more to crack it, and that costs a lot.

           Remember Anna, my real estate agent? Her Verizon contract ran out and rather than lose her as a customer, they provided her with a private cellular antenna. It looks like a large wireless router and has a sticker saying to keep it near a window as it works with GPS. Has anyone ever heard of this? Anyway, she is switching to Comcast, so that will be a few dollars next week to reconfigure all the wireless gear.
           Then over to Publix, where by coincidence half the old gang showed up at once. Fred and his wife, and etc. Naturally, the talk got to computers and passersby were stopping to listen in some awe. Fred is progressively taking over the laptop repairs formerly done by Mike. By not having to pay the shop bills, this is already my best September yet. Fred tells the same.
           I’m looking at throwing my belongings into a storage bin and heading on the road for a few months, maybe for the winter. Have you seen the prices on those places lately? Maybe a few million other people have the same idea, for rental rates have doubled. And they want your life history over a 6 by 5. One alternative being considered is to buy a prefab shed and put it up at Fred’s. If my gear, consisting of twelve suitcases, is stored more than five months, the shed costs less.

           Big Al called. He is a real fan of PeopleString. He views it as a potential business where I see it as a potential investment. Big Al knows countless people and has the demeanor that would make him successful as the leader of a sales seminar. He’d like me to put together a brochure with his family coat of arms. I can do stuff like that, you know, things like print up CoffeeTimes flyers. But Big Al is not going to sit around for a month after I’ve finished and then accuse me of “doing nothing”. Got that, Theresa?

           The following [information] is heavily edited, but I thought some might find it amusing. I have probably the oldest spreadsheet still in regular usage, possibly the oldest of its kind in the world. It was my own retirement plan, one of the first things I programmed when I discovered the capabilities of VisiCalc back in 1982 (before I went to college). The relevance is that I now have actual figures to plug in. What do you know—I was only $166 per month off. Guru! Guru! The major item I did not plan for is that I could take this money now instead of waiting until I’m like 60 or 65, nor could anyone have foreseen that.
           I’m still the youngest person ever to retire from the phone company but I vested the money and have never yet touched it. The rulebook states pensions are not counted as income, so I'm considering touching it. Here’s the quandary: that fateful decision is irreversible. If I wait, I’ll get that little bit extra, but there are soon to be millions for whom that little bit extra ($166) is going to mean the difference between steak or dog food, and in many sad cases, life or death. I don’t care to be among them.

           [Author's note: my record youngest retirement from the phone company is likely never to be bested. I worked there during the heyday before cellular competition. I succeeded only because of the imprecise wording of the union contract, and the phone company has taken extreme measures to ensure the same can never happen again. (That nobody as young as me can ever retire like that again.) As it stands, people who worked there the maximum 44 years as wage slaves will get pensions at most a few dollars more than I. Golly, maybe next time they'll read the rules instead of talk about them.]

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September 22, 2010

           Take a close look at today’s photo. I signed up for the new BigString e-mail. This outfit has jumped the gun, the old over-promise and under-deliver situation. I’ll report on it later as long as you understand this blog focuses in the practicalities of usership over specs you might get from some magazine. BigString is the outfit that claims you can retract your emails, or even make them self-destruct after a time period or number of viewings. My earlier statements about control of my computer are wrong to an extent, as their software is reputed to work only on the email server.
           My prediction is that these recallable emails will be graphics rather than text. That is, you will get a picture of a letter rather than a letter. It would then make sense as coding for illicit purposes has always been possible by embedding it in photos where most humans can’t read it. If it is a graphic, and I think it must be, I can already crack the code. That’s why you should look twice at today’s graphic.
           I’ve found a place (to purchase and live) up on the corner, though I have not decided anything yet. I’m torn between buying an expensive house or a cheap mobile home. It is half the square footage of this place, but at a quarter of the price and everything is quite brand new inside. A full Florida room and off-street parking included. Make no mistake about it, I am done dealing with liars. Wallace has less than 48 hours to salvage this situation, but he has proven to be a master of time-wasting indecisiveness in such circumstances. He’ll sit and watch the ceiling tiles sag down but he won’t fix it or let anybody else fix it.
           Rehearsal I cancelled tonight, instructing young Jag to run through the material on the CD for the full allotted time. Last week he made mistakes, but they were the right mistakes and not the wrong ones. He fielded every nuance I threw him on stage last week without giving up. And yes, by Monday practice, he was tremendously better without me having to assign homework or complain about anything—and that is called real teaching. He is to show up directly at the gig on Friday and launch right into it.

           Normally a day of chasing around, instead I spent the entire afternoon chatting with my well-paid lawyer who was in no rush, I wonder why. Turns out his wife is a Canadian woman he met at a canoe race in Toronto. Thus, when we got to talking about Wallace said lawyer repeatedly chuckled in a knowing fashion as we described known character flaws that are considered perfectly normal up there.
           A Canadian thinks that any wild theory that pops into his head becomes a relevant fact. They also have trouble understanding when they are losing, as if they can’t believe it is happening. And once they do lose they don’t admit it, why that’s because everybody else was too stupid to understand the truth, so they didn’t really lose, see? Canadians cannot think in a straight line. I’ll bet this sounds all too familiar to some of you.
           Canadians also fail to follow logic more than one single layer deep, making every conversation a superficial bantering of idle chatter, shallow notions, and weird childhood misconceptions ad nauseam. For instance, that the Jews “stole” Israel from the Arabs or that contracts have to be in writing. To this day, Wallace does not clutch the reason he is not getting workers compensation is because he lost his case because he didn’t pay into the fund because he wasn’t paying the taxes because he was working under the table. Wallace can’t get beyond that first “because”.
           I have no such mental barriers. The lawyer and I went over the transcripts of my court appearance which he described as “stirling”. Not only was the ruling “fully favorable” to me, but all testimony against me was, hang on while I get the exact wording. Ah, here it is; the testimony of two State medical agency doctors. Quote was “given no weight because [they] did not adequately consider the claimant’s subjective symptoms or the combined effects of the claimant’s impairments”. Got that: “given no weight”.
           That’s a nice way to put it, considering they are, after all, doctors. Checkmate.

           [Author's note 2015-09-22: the last section refers to a court case I won concerning whether the insurance company had to continue paying for expensive prescriptions after my second heart attack. They complained that not only was the attack not that bad, but that the second episode meant I had a pre-existing condition. Wrong, it was all the same initial condition. And I proved it. Things have since moved on far beyond that situation, but at the time, I needed the decision urgently.]

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September 21, 2010

           I’ve been reading Henny Youngman’s “Take My Life, Please”. For those who still maintain childhood environment is not a factor in success, is it pure coincidence his friend on the same street was Jackie Gleason? Anyway, today’s trivia is the origin of Youngman’s fabled line. His wife used to attend his performances, and one time she was blocking the hallway. So he said to a stage hand, meaning to get her out of the way, “Take my wife, please.”
           I can identify with his early career. As with my first efforts, the primary qualification to anyone being in my band was owning a musical instrument. Don’t overlook that he was in New York City at a time when my town population was 457, so I don’t identify with much else. Plus, Youngman did not view getting a dead-end job as selling out to the system, despite his admission that none of those jobs served any useful purpose in his eventual success.
           Today turned out to be a picnic. Dave-O was at the door by 8:00 AM, lost without his Internet and attendant MagicJack. Somehow he’d activated parental controls that blocked every website he cared to visit. He dropped me off at Dunkins, where I finally (without any help from the source) activated the netbook computer. I know I said y’day they helped me, but that is all they did. They didn’t get me on-line. I finally accomplished that myself by forcing an IP address, then reverting to DHCP. The point here is that nobody should have to resort to that even if they could.
           I had the pleasure of sending e-mails to people who are much smarter than I am, at least I think that from what they’ve told me. I’ll await replies but it is past the point of no return. Some people have trouble hearing and also trouble listening. I am truly curious how far eastern liars will go to try to pin things on me. Maybe I was the one that prevented this place from flipping for $50,000? Or the one stopping it from being rented out for $1,500 per month? Many people don’t understand how hard it is to see the facts because their head is up their own ass.
           Certainly, the Windows CE on the netbook computer is junk by any standard. Even third party software will not install, which I blame MicroSoft, not the programmers. I was able to use the netbook for basics, but nothing else. I like the product where I cannot recommend it for all its shortcomings. I got many features to work in a manner not to be expected from rank and file users. Rather than design something that works, it would seem MicroSoft intentionally took away anything of perceived value. Even the spreadsheet function is read only. It takes a completely anti-social moron to come up with something like that.

           By early evening, Dave-O came back and paid me an unexpected sum for the repair. So we drove up to Arty’s and spent it. What the heck, it is not like I’ve got to worry any more. After, I even went to Buddy’s to hear Lou. I played another 20 minutes of my own and this has planted at least a simple thought into my brain. Everyone said his excellent guitar was lacking a bass line. Can I not resolve that in reverse, even if I am a lousy guitar player?
           Last, I looked further into PeopleString. It still smacks of MLM by the way it pays and the claim that it returns 70% of advertising revenues is unverifiable. Like the partner who pays you half but won’t let you count the pile first. However, this led me to their parent company, BigString, BSGC on the stock market at 3 cents per share. It is billed as the first social networking company to be publicly traded. At this point, something caught my eye.
           The company has patented “user-controllable e-mail services”. Now they certainly have my attention. This is dynamite software. Quote, “In addition to permitting users to send recallable, erasable, self-destructing emails and video emails, BigString's patent-pending technology allows emails and pictures to be rendered non-forwardable, non-printable and non-savable before or after the recipients read them, no matter what email service provider is used.”
           This software would cause the most profound change on the Internet since its inception. To send me a recallable email, you must somehow have control of my computer. And how you could possibly prevent me from saving a copy is unbelievable. But if it works, the technology would have a voracious market numbering in the billions of customers. It seems everyone does have something to hide.
           Let me see, $1,000 now would buy 33,333 shares. If this stock goes viral, it should hit the predictable Google/Facebook range of $15.00. Let me commence to cipherin’. Yep, that’s a half a million bucks if you do it right. Do check back, this could prove an interesting run of things.

           [Author's note 2015-09-21: the stock offering disappeared. I suspect it was outlawed "for security purposes".]

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September 20, 2010

           Here is one old photo. That is me in LA holding a roll of tissue. Look at that receding hairline! I’d place this around 1991, probably in my apartment in Studio City around mid-summer. I forget the occasion but holding up a roll of toilet paper was then my trademark for anyone who was trying to had me some bull. Time to haul it out again, methinks.
           Sad news, I had a callout to on the weekend during which I found out the client’s mother passed away last May. She was a spry gal that liked to get out of the house. My client is an upper member in probably twenty major organizations. For example, what is that highest degree of Mason you can be without being like a doctor or judge? Thirty-second, or thereabouts. He is on church committees and knows tons of public figures I’d rate as pretty distinguished.
           He is a people person, thus his now six-year old computer system is in immaculate condition. I am the opposite, give me a computer and I can agree with it 95% of the time. He got into this PeopleString when it was new and asked for my review. I tend to regard all shopping clubs as MLM schemes. PeopleString is legitimate, but it still involves the recruitment of others and that most American of all brain-farts: that you save money by spending money.
           They’ve negotiated discounts with many stores for a cashback arrangement, usually a few percent. (When it is 60%, call me then.) One also earns “peoplepoints” for establishing a “downstring”. The organization seems well-funded but that begs the question of why they are using such a worn-out business model. If you get $10 for every 100 peoplepoints, why don’t they just say 10 cents per sucker?
           Success depends on how early you get in on the pyramid, and that may be the case here. The limiting factors are that you need working class converts to expand and it is just not true that each new person brings in ever more people. The upper limit appears to be around 140, a level very few people actually achieve often to the annoyance of their friends and family. Myself, I don’t know any working class people. At all.
           He’s one of the few people I’ll talk politics with. He says inflation will get bad, I think it already has. A can of the cheapest soup, chicken noodle, costs three times what it did forty months ago. I’m old enough to remember when an extra large pizza with double everything cost $5.99. He predicts civil disobedience, I say the government got their ass scared off in the 1970s by all that and now have every last person on file so it can never happen again. Mind you, I view working under the table as a form of protest that anyone can do. Except Theresa and the work part.

           Flashback time. I recall the first pizza joint I’d ever seen, Sir Art’s. Art was an impossibly old guy, at least 36. One day a customer ordered two extra large and got Art curious when he ordered only one milkshake. Art asked him how many people were arriving. He said it was just him but he was really hungry. Art challenged him if he could eat even one extra large himself, it was on the house, if not he had to pay for both. The customer said you’re on, and we watched. To his credit, he did get close to eating enough pizza for approximately six people.
           But never bet with a pizza maker. They'll stuff the crust.

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September 19, 2010

           That’s RofR’s TransAm that he bought cash in Louisiana on one of his trips back from Saudi Arabia. He was one of the youngest Americans to get a job like that. The car had no cold weather options, such as a heavy duty heater and we were not pleased with the salt spray from the nearby roadways. Nor was I equipped for the cold, that is just a light summer jacket I’m wearing along with a silk scarf.
           Sure enough, bingo was better than usual, determined by the middle of the month when people have more disposable income. You must play to win and a few people still get caught by the rule that you must bingo on the last number called. (For clarity, you cannot miss a number, find out later it was called and then bingo.) A few new faces, overawed by the show, and upon hearing the sammyzonk, saying, “What on earth was that?”
           Where I could normally care less about northern weather, I’ve been watching the upper part of the “City of New Orleans” route. Just my luck that this is going to be an early and cold winter. Examining the fares, it will cost nearly as much to get from here to New Orleans. On the other hand, if one went from here to Chicago by train, then it would be luxury the whole way. The downside is that I know New Orleans but not Chicago, and winter is already setting in up there. You see, in 1999 I had to wait for an hour on a frozen street corner for a late ride, and I swore never again. See today’s photo.

           The new $99 Sylvania computers are all over the place. I’ve seen a dozen people using them, always on-line. Despite its tiny form factor with a 7-inch screen, I saw one dude successfully speedtyping away. At that price, I’ll get two. One problem with a laptop is I cannot master any technique of outputting two different pieces of music. They’ll play, but on top of each other. I need a system that outputs to separate ports so I can crossfade between the music.
           What I have not yet seen is anyone listening to tunes on these netbooks, as they are called. The closeup pictures show a headphone jack, although why they aren’t making that into a USB standard is a mystery to me. The eighth-inch plug is, I realize, a standard, but always a bad one if you ask me.

           Reading a library book y’day tells me I cannot tell cars apart if they were built much after 1985. Prior to 1975, there seems to have been dozens of car manufacturers. I viewed car pictures from Poland, Japan, England, Russia, France, Germany, Italy and even Egypt. The latter was called a “Gamilla”, causing a smile. In Arabic, it means beautiful, but connotatively means "somewhat sex". It looks like a boxy Rambler. Marketing, Suez-grade.
           I had been looking at some aspects of the moving assembly line, a telling feature that was lacking in all the auto companies that folded or were absorbed. Even Hitler sent a man to examine the American factories, who promptly reported back that there was not enough private capital in all of Germany to match the feat. Hence, the German car plants were built with government money and the world eventually got such luxury vehicles as the Tiger tank.
           Noting the recent censorship of Harry Potter, I skimmed a 300 page booklet called “Harry Potter and the Bible”. Some professor not worth mentioning was going on about how children would idolize the black arts instead of Christianity. That’s the thing about religion, each wants to be the only unquantifiable. Rowlings, the authoress, admits she knows nothing of witchcraft and based her ideas on British folklore.
           She added that she did feel seven was a lucky number and that is why she wrote seven books. To the professor, this is numerology and suggests Rowlings is akin to a devil-worshipper. Her books are choking little children’s minds with the occult, he says. Yet, the biggest objection he actually states are the two cases where Potter disobeys rules in the first book about the philosopher’s stone. (Changed to sorcerer’s stone in America.)
           Potter sneaks out of the dorm at night. And he violates orders not to fly a broom in the games. Potter is caught both times and rewarded, which bends the professor’s nose out of shape, unmistakably to the far right. Holy childhood gullibility, we had best not let them kids learn about hedge fund salesmen or they’ll grow up to be personal injury lawyers. Harry Potter and his minions are on the loose.
           So that wanker "Dr." Suess had better clean up his act.

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September 18, 2010

           [Author’s note: Incredible news. But I have no details yet. All I know is I suddenly have new friends and helpful people coming out of the woodwork. These are government agencies who formerly seemed to delay everything on me. My recent appeal went through the system in a record nine days.
           What gets me is their choice of words. They keep saying I've "won" and I'm getting offers for insurance programs and free cell phones. It is annoying, as if I won the lotto and am such a dolt I just don't get it. I've won nothing. What I've lost is two friends, nearly seven years, and the option to drive a car for pleaseure. Not mention the loss of my Cadillac, my life savings, my 401(k), my very expensive education, my career and most of the prime earning years of my life plus even the $2,000 I had set aside for my own funeral just in case.]

[Author's note 2015-09-18: the above becomes clear when I explain that on that day, I proved my medical bills for life were covered, not now today, but retroactively from the time of my illness, and that period includes today by default. It is no coincidence when some of these blog dates match a Statute of Limitation.]

           Now back to the blog proper. Every September brings a new wave of computer call outs, the two notables this week were the Chief of Police and the doggie wig place. In each case, their equipment is showing signs of age and fatigue. But it is always an opportunity to talk to these people, if you follow my meaning. It is also a reminder and a shock (I hear) to some people to realize that I do not, in America, know anybody who “works” for a living. All my acquaintances are management or self-employed and I have no inspiration to change that.
           For the record, the sound coming from one of the computers mentioned above turned out to be a small fire alarm forgotten behind the computer tower in years gone by. The battery was going dead and is was protesting. Fooled everyone in the office, it had. If you can successfully troubleshoot that kind of problem over the telephone as I just did, I’d like to talk to you. Because it took me an hour and ten minutes.
           I’ve already closed the books on the gig last evening, showing an increase in everything including expenses, since I am once again paying musicians in cash. Yes, I keep track of all those things. Doesn’t every musician? I fully expect this expense to drop in proportion to income very soon. I’ve found musicians who start off sounding good never seem to improve much thereafter. I’m after a total new sound. Best effort of the evening: Orbinson’s “Sweet Dream Baby”.
           Some who hear my show criticize the “hokie” aspects, being apparently too thick-headed to understand those are injected on purpose. Yes, I wear a cowboy hat and chew on a straw. Yes, I know we play the “wrong” chords to Johnny Cash songs. Every song is faked, nothing is performed much like the original. This is my act, where the tunes are adapted to give the impression of a couple hicks trying to play what they heard on the radio. We practice looking like tone-deaf zekes, its our gimmick.
           Well, last night there were only eight people in the joint. Six of them were dancing in the aisles by the time we got to “Act Naturally”. And that is my performance, not procedural perfection. If this show ever goes anywhere, the critics are going to have a field day. In this short life, I’d settle for even that. Here’s a curve. Some of the patrons are used to me using backing tracks. A few walked up to the stage and said to turn them off. They weren’t on. That’s what I like to hear. Especially considering that was me singing.
           The downside is that I really sounded like Roy Orbison. (That’s a joke. I transposed the entire song down three semi-tones, from F to D. To bring the high notes down from the range of bothering neighborhood guard dogs.)

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September 17, 2010

           This photo is likely from the middle 90s, either in Los Angeles or Caracas. That is me operating a laptop computer purchased in 1985. That’s for anyone who thinks they are something new. It is a Tandy TRS-80, nicknamed the “Trash 80”, priced at around $1,100 with monochrome lo-res screen. It did the job. The only output was to 3.5 inch floppies, and the maximum number of files on any disk was 108. Note the telltale sign of somebody doing real work on a computer: a calculator just to one side.
           Some of the financial guidelines I still use today were produced on that computer—and trust me they are significantly different from what outfits like Visa would have people do. I know unerringly how much I’ve spent on interest in this century: zero dollars and zero cents.

           Here’s some history for you. I had developed a series of mortgage spreadsheets in 1985, back then a serious piece of programming. I went to six banks, offering my services, but none of them knew what I was talking about. When I showed them errors in their interest tables, the managers generally said these “balanced out”. My idea soon flopped, losing me around $6,000 in hard cash and a ton of damn hard work.
           I was, once more, just too far ahead of the market. Several years later, you may recall banks were suddenly all using similar software and begging people to transfer their mortgages over. The programs made it easy to do, and if anyone had listened to me, they would have had an unbeatable head start. Yeah, if I’d been born rich, I would have created the mortgages myself and said to hell with the antiquated banking system.

           I had to hustle over to a lawyer in Aventura early today and stopped at McDonald’s on the return leg. Does anyone remember when that was a great place to stop in for a quick cheap breakfast? Not any more. Three hotcakes, a sausage patty and a coffee set me back nearly $5.00. At those prices, I’ll go to Senor Café.
           I had a long chat with the neighbor who keeps an eye on things for me. Not the noisy people who live in Eric’s old place, but the rich lady from Dominican Republic. She filled me in on some very interesting goings-on around here a few times while I was away. I already know what I am dealing with.

           For example, I “accidentally” left an official looking letter lying around in a location where Theresa the Cave Woman had no business being. The next morning at 5:30 AM I saw her reading it by flashlight. Man, these people are easy to set up, but I needed her to act on that information.
           I have another contract pending with video transcriptions, analog to digital. Plus, another call from the doggie wig place. In all, this promises to be an excellent start to the season and it is only the middle of September. Sadly, the value of this place has fallen to $12,700, so it is a good thing there never was any agreement to flip the premises for a profit. That, I would not have done without a signed contract.
           I’ve been listening to a tune on Pat-B’s ticket, called “Little Bitty”. It has been voted the epitome of degeneration in modern country, the worst piece of music of the modern era. It surely is a tasteless number, but Marlon Brando did “Last Tango in Paris”, didn’t he? Hemmingway made money off “The Old Man and the Sea”. And Paul McCartney got away with “Hands Across The Water”. Know what I’m sayin’?

           To end on a happy note, Jag’s first live gig went quite well. We would not have won any contests, as everything went wrong on stage. Most of it was the predictable troubles that don’t appear until played at a high volume or due to distractions. Jag by the crowd and me by having to keep an eye on everything. The audience loved his performance and I know talent when I see it. The place was mostly empty so Jag got to keep all the tips, just this once.
           We have nearly two hours of material. Jag went the distance without giving up. I did not point out any errors, as he is fully aware of any weak spots already. A few forgotten chords, a few false starts and a problem with volumes. One was unexpected, the Zoom drum box. It varies its own volume without warning, necessitating another volume pedal.
           With hope, this will provide Jag the incentive to bear down on the guitar parts and get up to speed. The only encouragement I could give him is that it is really that first hurdle that is the toughest. That’s not true, but after that first big effort to get out of the bush league, you learn to take more of it in stride. You become more tolerant of your own shortcomings (but not always of others if you detect they have not put in the time). I sometimes call it “the sound barrier” and to play professionally, you must get through it.

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September 16, 2010

           This is the instrument Cowboy Mike plays. It is known as a Cajun accordion. This popular model is called “Ariette”. Note the series of wooden pegs on top left, just above the single row of white buttons. My understanding is that is how one changes the key. I have noticed all tunes we play, however, are in the key of C, so the instrument probably has other limitations.
           Dr. J is still hum-hawing over the washboard. He wants to get a real one and I find out they still make them. There’s a thought. Get one for J and one for Theresa and see what’s happened a week later. Ha!
           Next Monday is an open mic at Buddy’s, the place where I actually sang and played guitar earlier this week. People as far away as downtown were stopping me and handing out the compliments. I believe it has to do with my show, and not my singing or playing, but I’ll accept that. This got me the incentive to begin inviting all musicians I know to also show up at that session. My radar detects a paying gig somewhere here.
           Today there is a lawyer dancing in the streets up in Ft. Lauderdale. This is not my regular lawyer here in town, rather a specialist. I just wrote him a check for an obscene amount of money, I can’t say but it is thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars. He was worth every penny, and I when total up his time, even including the 7 minutes we walked to and from the coffee shop, he earned the equivalent of $12,000 an hour off me.
           Bryne called from Pembroke Pines while I was in the library. He reminded me of that book “Heaven and Hell”, the expose by one of the ex-Eagles, Felder I believe. The band fired him for wanting an equal share, or for performing their music, some kind of guitar-minded legal hassle like that. So he wrote the book, which was promptly banned in America but not in Europe. Censorship has been recently the topic here. Remember September 25 is beginning of Banned Book Week.
           I clicked a few UK sites on line to note that I got a message “This book is now available from the manufacturer.” Bryne says it was recently uncensored, which is probably where I heard about it. It is subtitled, “My Life as an Eagle 1974-2002” I think. It is so disgusting that in this day and age books are still banned. And taxed. “Taxing reading is for those who find reading taxing.”
           Planning tomorrow’s gig in advance, it is duly noted that for a duo act, I will require a minimum of five of the eight input jacks. Why back in my day, a PA was an old Fender Bassman amp head. It will take at least 12 phono jack cables to hook everything up. Yet, my stage setup is probably minimalist by contemporary standards. A total of 8 batteries have to be kept as backups, along with two MP3 players, six optical disks, two backup microphones and three power transformers.
           All this despite the fact my PA system is already set up and ready to go. Now you know why I want the Fishman. They have a second model out in addition to the Solo, this one called the SA 220. Odd that the same company should have two nearly identical models with the same price, but I do notice deep in the specifications, the bass response is better on the SA. Which means I’ve have to check it out. The single tower PA will cut my logistics in half and it weighs only 28 pounds. It is also scalable (can be linked to more of its own kind if the situation demands).

           [Author's note 2015-09-16: five years later I am still trying to find a good second hand unit of the Fishman PA system. Every time one came on sale, I didn't have the cash.]

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September 15, 2010

           Ha, look what I found. Bass rhymes with “ace”, but is the same spelling as bass rhymes with, well, you know. Okay, ass, it rhymes with ass. Again, great bicycle weather but still too warm for pedestrians. Wait until middle of November. Several reputable magazines are beginning to publish the truth about Florida summer weather where they used to be silent on the point. It is brutal, a sweltering inescapable sauna made habitable only by massive air conditioning. As things are going, this may be my final summer in town.
           I was able to test an electric bicycle. It has a top speed of 15 mph and a range of 10 miles. Not quite enough for me, but certainly adequate, except for the $800 price tag. I looked at an electric scooter at $1,000 which also had limited performance. At this point, for getting around town, the best choice is a good used 50cc gasoline scooter.

           Jag was over for his final rehearsal before we go live. For those who don’t know, with me you get five free lessons. At that point, either we play or you get dropped. That is how easy my material is despite the fact I don’t just play hits, I pick out classics. Yes, every guitarist since you’ve been following this has had their five sessions, so nobody is passed over for lack of a fair chance.
           We have only two hours of material, but I’ve gotten by on less. I feel it is also important to get Jag on stage and get him some money. He has a reserved manner about everything that is not the best stage persona but that is actually better for me. Remember, I also have zero mileage on this type of act. The last duo I played in regularly was in the late 1980s. What you say? That’s right, things like twice a year with the Hippie at the Ugly Tuna Saloona is hardly what I label regular.
           How will you be remembered? The lower class you are, the less you care about such things, that I gleaned from my upbringing. Well, it is a pity that young Jag had to have his final three rehearsals in the dark and summer heat. He knows who to blame. You see, Theresa the Cave Woman has no class at all. She does not care if she suffers, as long as she can make others suffer also, even the innocent like Jag. To her, no electricity just means she can’t boil her next potato. But not a thought in her mind about the hardships she is heaping on Jag. Oh yes, he knows. He knows who is working to make the best of things and knows who is nothing but white trash.
           I also viewed videos and reviews on a Ural motorcycle with sidecar. This is very similar to the Dnepr, but a larger company with more experience building civilian models. As a reminder, my affinity to a motorcycle has nothing to do with heritage, but that my heart stress monitor flies off the scale when I drive a car, but not when I’m on a two-wheeler. The Ural requires a conversion kit to get much over 60 mph, so it is not made for the autobahn. It has a price tag to match its weight.

           JZ and I met up at the sandwich shop and talked about plans. Despite his pension, he has no incentive to travel or just to get out and see things. When my pension arrives, I leave, often for months at a time. This is how I lived at the phone company, periods of accumulation and then clear out of the country up to five times per year. I’ve got my plans for the “City of New Orleans” down in writing, and that is just the beginning this time around. As I wrote to Mitch, the athlete, my pensions will replace my entire income. I’ll never be some old fart cheapskate trying to cheat people who once trusted me. Which I consider the worst of all possible windups in life.
           Most interesting thing was JZ and my prophecies about this situation from two years back. Here is some circular logic. Whereas 100% of what we discussed did not necessarily happen, 100% of what eventually did happen was thoroughly discussed. That is called planning ahead. I sometimes like to put it this way: I have not seen it all. But I have not seen anything new since I moved to Florida.

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September 14, 2010

           One more item on the market I don’t like is the new crop of so-called six channel mixers. Have you seen them? They are modified four channel jobs with multi-input jacks attached to the last two channels. But four is four, and there are only four sets of adjustment knobs. Where do these engineers get their crock? To make things worse, the input jacks are staggered to get in each others way.
           Today’s photo is a representative of these fake six channel mixers. Look at it and count, and ask yourself how low standards have fallen to allow sellers to call this a six channel mixer. The only true six channel I could find was an outrageously priced ($3,000) Roland.
           I’ll never starve. Last Sunday one of my fans ex-husband asked to borrow my PA speakers. Never met the guy but I said okay. Then Dr. J. informs me he was playing at Buddy’s. I walked in the door, he instantly figured out I was a musician and asked if I knew how to play “Me and Bobby McGee”.
           I said yes, and was about to tell him the chords when he hands me the guitar and walks off stage. So for the next 45 minutes, I sang and strummed guitar. There were halting mistakes and fudged chords, but the audience loved it. Seriously. So, I’ll never starve. But that is not one of my concerns. Only idiots starve in America.
           My database guy told me about iFreelance.com, which I promptly posted the specifications for my drum box. I got back two bids within 24 hours, both in the $1,800 range. Since I know those to be too low for the work involved, I updated the project with a ton of specifications to see what difference in makes. I’ve called in the Jukebox Drum Box, because one will choose song titles, not vague and cryptic drum pattern numbers.

           It was perfect bicycle weather, I was outside for at least ten hours. The atmosphere, however, is cloudy. Theresa the Cave Woman is knuckling down for the long haul, bringing home packages from the food bank. It seems she would rather do anything than go get a job. We know who to blame for that. To give you an idea of the mentality of people I’m dealing with, both Theresa and Wallace have threateningly asked to know why I don’t get any mail here. Duh. Like I didn’t have five sneak brothers and sisters holding my mail up to the light.
           Thus, I extended sealing off the glass between the living room and my work area. They have both made derogatory statements about me working on the computer before, as they don’t know the difference between work and play. True, my office is now shielded on one side by tinfoil, but that is the net result when both the town drunk and the town gossip keep adamantly suggesting you don’t really need better curtains.
           Otherwise, it is business as usual, as follows. Pat-B was over Sunday and I mentioned Cowboy Mike, but Pat-B couldn’t place him. So I said I’d say hello. Y’day, Pat-B was jamming with the Hippie who I won’t jam with unless I get paid. Today, I contacted Cowboy Mike, who said he was at a jam and sure enough, it was the same location and he says he knows Pat-B. Cowboy Mike says he met Pat-B at another jam at the Walkabout, which is likely one of the first places Pat-B and I will play as soon as possible. I invited Cowboy Mike to stand it, and will see if Arnel can drop by. Pat-B borrows some of his show from Arnel, whom I sang with at the Walkabout last month.
           Is that what they call an old boy network? And who are you calling old?

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