January 21, 2016

Yesteryear
One year ago today: January 21, 2015, “incredible foresights”.
Five years ago today: January 21, 2011, dry technical material.
Nine years ago today: January 21, 2007, Taj Mahal bird cage.
Random years ago today: January 21, 2004, before and after.

MORNING
           That’s JZ grabbing tools from the truck. Much as I liked the mushrooms under the sink, they had to go. JZ says they are poisonous. (So is alcohol.) The good news is that we had every piece of proper equipment. We had the problem fixed in an hour, including a trip to Barnet, most expensive hardware store in the history of South Florida. JZ had to wedge [himself] upside-down and in awkward postures, often obligated to holding hand tools above his head. I’ll try to get a picture of that operation.

           The conversation quickly turned to music, women, and money. As time goes by, there is always a chronic shortage of all three. Was it George Carlin who said when you turn 45, something awful happens to music. Well, JZ is convinced house prices are not only going to fall, that they are falling already. And he quotes dozens of people he knows have been laid off work in the past several months. Including his sister-in-law who worked for a housing materials supplier.

           I see no evidence of this pricing drop in my research, but my plan is always to wait out the winter. My place is small, but I have no problem staying cozy and comfy here. The recent rise in housing prices, I’d say 14% since 2013, was painfully slow and if they are easing back, that could explain why nothing is on the market. Yet. Remember, the same thing happened in 2006/08. Nobody was buying or selling because prices were dropping. I truly hope they drop like stone this time. No mercy to those who live on credit. Not a shred.

Wiki picture of the day.
NOON
           “Boxing is a more sophisticated form of hockey.” – George Carlin

           Here’s the J admiring Pete the Cactus in my back yard, in the morning sunshine. That’s the one-anemic plant a couple feet tall that I threw the ¼ stick on surplus fertilizer on in 2011. Now 18 or 20 feet tall, it is the neighborhood monster. We had planned on half a day to find and fix the water drip, but it was a basic replacement part. We wound up over at that “Diner” on Hallandale that I always wanted to check out. The older Russian lady took a shine to JZ.

           Myself, I’ll pass. The food was meh, GFS-grade. (Gordon’s Food Supply, the chain that bought out Smart and Final.) Too pricey for what you get. But JZ doesn’t care for Senor Café, finding their food “undercooked”. He likes his eggs well done. Even after he finished chatting up the Russian Lady, it was still only 10:00AM. So we headed over to new Aventura library.

           Where I fell in love with the new librarian. JZ says she’s too young, but I’ve seen her in my audience somewhere. No woman over 21 is too young for me, old pal. But, not standing a chance with such a total babe, I headed for the back tables in the somewhat quieter research section.
           The plan was to read up on the latest renovation techniques. JZ has not forgotten those two properties we lost out on that are now worth a half-million each. That’s the 16 suite apartment behind Guitar Center and the 12 suite condo near Young Circle. In each case, a contractor had picked the buildings up as total rehabs and began fixing the units one-by-one with his own money. Within two years, the properties have become some the best rentals in this city.
           Then again, neither of us had $80,000 in, what was it, 2008?

           We found two new items. One was a type of artificial “slate” roofing tile. I don’t mine slate, but it is impossible to work with. And you practically need a gantry to do repairs because you cannot step on the other slate to get at the damage. And “green roofs”, similar to the grass growing on rooftops in Switzerland but without the goats to mow it.
           Here is a photo of a plastic “slate”, which is realistic enough to fool most people. Roofing is a perpetual problem in Florida with the high rainfall. There is also a surprising number of buildings that don’t have any real eaves. We have no idea why this is. Hurricanes? There is a product called Truslate which claims to be real slate but with a waterproof backing. And also claims to be lighter, as real slate pretty much needs a castle to hold it up.

EVENING
           I read Craigslist. Two items I check there: real estate and musicians. Like it or not, over 80% of people after those entities search the Internet first. While there is a dirth of quality houses in the interior countryside, there is a plethora of bass players. And some of them are pretty damn good. One in particular stands out from the herd, but that’s my competition so you can find the one yourself. Instantly apparent is the guy is studio trained. My nemesis.

           However, all is not lost because he has the same weak spots as every trained bassist—he inherits the “guitarist” mindset from his teacher. You see, all (repeat all, every last one, 100%) of guitarists have an extremely fixed idea of what playing bass is all about, often convinced they could do it without much effort. Wrong. I can tell in an instant if a guitar player tries to play bass. It doesn’t work.
           Here’s one of those rare pictures, I don’t know where it is from. But that’s Johnny Cash, Merle Haggard, Buck Owens, and John Campbell (a.k.a. Mr. Tanya Tucker) in one shot. If you don’t know who these people are, you probably would not be all that riveted by my music sets.

           But this new bassist on CL is good. His notes are so crisp and clean the music sounds sterile compared to me—but that is what many listeners are trained to expect. He is deadly for the songs he knows, but one step away from that and he is comping. Pro bassists avoid comping. Another shortcoming is when he tries to fake or improvise, he reverts to that rapid-fire “thrumping” style bass line so beloved by finger-bassists and practically nobody else. That’s an amateur sound no matter who does it.
           One more dislike is his obvious mentality that he is secondary to the guitar. He does no solo work, stands back on the stage, follows the guitarist, and sloughs off on filler and break songs. I’m the opposite on that count, my break songs are some of the best material I do. I’ll spend hours finding and perfecting a break song, after all, that is the last thing they hear you play before you mingle.
           The impact here is that there is a definite surplus of bass players on the market, and like real life, the top 5% are really good. However, they are all competing for a limited number of openings and all of those are rock bands. There are no country bands in Broward and I think maybe one or two way over in south Dade. Where nobody travels unless they are passing through to the Keys.

ADDENDUM
           Did I ever mention when I was a teen, I drove truck for Halliburton? Had absolutely no idea what I was doing, but the job paid well enough. I’ll tell you why I didn’t stay with it. Family. You see, I lived at home and the job was one where you were on call. That summer, when school ended, I got hired at the same time as a group of around seven other guys from the city. And they all knew each other. They rented a house a few miles south of town—largely because there was no phone service out there.

           They worked as a team to get out of being called. So the only way Halliburton could find them was to send somebody driving over there. The callouts were supposed to be on a rotating basis. That is, I should have been called out only on every eighth job. (Actually, every twelfth job, as there were four other drivers already hired.)

           Problem. Rather than drive south of town, it was much easier for Halliburton to pick up the phone and see if I was home. Normally, I would simply not answer the phone. But I had family. If you asked my family to not get involved, they’d get noble on you. It did no good to explain you just got off a five day shift and now it was somebody else’s turn. It was considered great fun by my family to pretend they didn’t understand “all that stuff”.
           “I ain’t lyin’ for you,” they’d say, a strange statement from the piehole of people who otherwise lied constantly, often just to stir up shit. All I wanted was for them to tell Halliburton “I can’t help you, “ which would have been truth enough. Then, Halliburton would dispatch someone over to the farmhouse to get one of the other guys. Instead, this was just one more opportunity for my family to shaft you. If I was at the neighbors, my family would give Halliburton the number to call me over there.

           So often, a month would go by where I was out at the rigs twenty days while the other guys stayed home on full pay hitting on the local women. My one consolation was that I’d already had all those women years earlier. Ha, some of those losers married them. From what I last heard, they are still trapped out there. Double-ha.
           Nonetheless, that was one of my few opportunities to go work overseas and I had to quit after around three or four months of this nonsense. Me, doing the work of eight men. I tried to find a picture on-line of the type of cement pump-truck I used to drive, but I notice all such pictures have been removed.


Last Laugh


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