At the corner of 441 and Hollywood, see the KFC smorg, a.k.a “The Colonel’s Buffet”. I finally made it there. I managed three pieces of chicken, that’s 24 less than the last guy I know who was there. It was a decent $5.99 plus tax and it was all top quality fast food, not a pun. All the basics were covered, including dessert. You get one choice of salad, and it is lettuce. There are sides of pickles, beets and there are croutons. Leave room for the mashed and gravy or cheesy scalloped potatoes. There is no bread or hot beverages, only soda or water.
Still, it is worth the trip, I plan to go there again next month. My new diet restricts so many things I like to have all the items I’m not allowed at once. You’ll find the locals also know it is a good place to tie on the feedbag, yet it is a quiet and decent atmosphere. I was impressed.Unbelievable weather. Jag was over for rehearsal and we are back on track. We have half the tunes needed to play out, this time we’ve really focused on duet arrangements that only sound right when both parts are played. I’ve found most duos don’t do that, especially if either member can also play a solo act. Funny thing, that. When a musician is wrong, he is not off the mark a little, he is dead wrong.
Recall what I’ve been saying recently about the two-hour gig? This is a mature concept, not something I cooked up one day. Yet most musicians would reject it immediately. That’s because they aren’t thinking. The real test is whether or not you are working and making money. In fact, let’s look at two more misconceptions that are ingrained in the music business because I don’t mean just musicians.
Does your band have a following? If they did, they would already have followed you to the place you are playing now and you would not be asking around for work. Plus, if I had a following, in about six months I would own my own pub. It only takes twelve steady paying customers to keep the doors open. Ask the Octopus and Jakes, they’ve been proving it for years. Yet club owners will still ask if you have a following.
Or another good one is the bar owner trying to bring in customers when it is dead, like most Tuesdays. Dudes, you hire a band to play when you are busy so the customers who are already present will stay longer and spend more. The club should learn they have to accept the dead times as part of the business plan. Bands require an audience, they don’t generate them.
Now who disagrees with what I just said? Okay, prove to me that you have turned a club around with your “following”. I’ve got $50 that says you’ve never done it, that you are all talk and no action. Second, it isn’t rocket surgery to know that you don’t hire a band to play to an empty room. I’m merely pointing out that some of the most entrenched ideas in some people’s heads are not based on clear, positive thinking.
Too bad Jag is too young to realize how fast we are making headway. Again, we are not learning specific tunes, rather how to play all of the more popular country and country-like rhythms. This makes for a slow start but pays off in the end. We played out seven of the first eleven weeks we rehearsed; the first time was at the end of the third week we’d met. Even among seasoned musicians, that can be rare. It is an eye-opener for me to see him hit the same pitfalls I did at the same age. But I had nobody to steer me right, no good examples in life. I had no local heroes.
To keep things in perspective, by the time I was Jag’s age, I had already been playing in a band for several years. What is more, they are bands that I organized single-handedly, not some existing group I joined up like my brother, who was a first rate copycat. I had to find, convince, and train the musicians myself. There was no pool of guitarists or singers to choose from, although I did know a kid named Barry White who had a guitar.
Cancel my trip to Texas this Spring. I’ve missed the window and the previous two months saw an unexpected $681 in extra payments, putting my budget behind this quarter. That budget is geared toward comfortable and interesting day-to-day living, not the disaster survival antics of some people I know. Any surprise expenses stall my projects, not the electricity bill. Big difference, you know.
In trivia, somebody has invented a “smart” bandage. I did not know the majority of burn deaths are from infections, not the actual heat damage. The bandage knows when it is to be replaced and can (I think) react to conditions by releasing medicine as required. That makes one bandage that is smarter than my Brother 420CN printer. I got through to tech support and finally got them to admit that the printer is built with a faulty ink sensor that will keep reporting a cartridge empty when it is not empty. However, that sensor is not covered by warranty. Ever notice that Brother and Bozo both start with the same letter?
So that you will know, the ink sensor is not faulty. Brother has deliberately designed it to “malfunction” in this manner if the printer is not used for several months. In fact, when I reported this to Office Depot, they said I was the first person who had ever pointed out the “defect” to them. But see how Brother is taking advantage? People are conditioned to call it a defect. It isn’t, it is made that way.
Once you are aware Brother is selling the ink for $20,000 per gallon, it makes sense they would pull a stunt with a sensor. The part is too complicated for the average consumer to troubleshoot, so they’ll bite the loss. I suggested to Office Depot that as a good customer service policy they not stock Brother cartridges until Brother guarantees the cartridges will work in their printers. Otherwise it is bad business for Office Depot to knowingly sell flawed merchandise.
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