One year ago today: May 5, 2015, gears, wagons, paint, pickles.
Five years ago today: May 5, 2011, on Chinese iron production.
Nine years ago today: May 5, 2007, new Yamahas.
Random years ago today: May 5, 2008, 73 missing jets.
MORNING
I dunno about the Trump calling Cruz a great competitor now that Lyin’ Ted has pulled the pin, Calling a man who tried to run you personally into the dirt a worthy opponent is a bit too syrupy for me. I’ll relegate that to Trump wanting the public to think he doesn’t hold a grudge. Remember Kennedy’s advice: Forgive your enemies, but remember their names.
This picture is a two-bedroom near Tampa, where I might pop out Sunday for a look around. Beats me why anyone make a driveway with two strips, one wider than the other? But I know how I’d back my sidecar in there.
Florida, penis of the USA, is devoid of suitable houses in the mid-latitudes. Unless you are looking to tie up $100,000 there is nothing for sale you really want. Is everybody again treading water? I no longer think we can “get lucky” against the institutional buyer or buyers working the corridor. Point—I admit, in fact I insist, that I have no direct evidence there is any such thing going on—however this explanation consistently fits the facts. Same as my make-believe silver scenario. The banksters this morning once more resorted to their NYMEX scam, the looming problem being it seems to be their only trick and they are dangerously over-using it.
With real estate, we have a problem. It's how the big money can sit, and a lot of what is out there has been sitting for three years. That’s based on last sale date and amount; the average flip appears to seek twice what was paid every 36 months, that’s a broad average. Anyway, we cannot meet them head on. And these ditzy lady real estate agents are living in some kind of fantasy world, that there is going to be another bubble and everybody will make money again. I know what you’re thinking—that’s an average broad.
The meeting last day also included full funding for another trip, but JZ can’t go until middle of the month. The area southeast of Lakeland is particularly nice although we are not the only ones who think so. Today I am working on setting up our new bidding mechanism, I think what’s been learned in the past year qualifies me to have a go at this on my own. The largest obstacles remain deceptive property ads, bait and switch pricing, and refusal of agents to answer questions about the ethnicity of a neighborhood. That last one is buggy; if they refuse to answer, they have answered.
It’s like the woman who demands unconditional love. That’s a condition.
Another recurring [real estate] bugbear is the crime stats. Some thought will be devoted to this later today because there must be a better source than Trulia. Face it, there is a huge distinction between reported crimes. Somehow, “livestock on roadway” and “sex offender address check” don’t seem to me as immediately threatening as “burglary in progress” and “gunshots fired”.
Emporer Tamarin.
NOON
Here’s some humor in an otherwise meh day, this is for the troop that still believe in crop circles. These only occur in fields that have tractor tire furrows, where the pranksters can approach without leaving footprints. This crop circle is nothing less than the logo of the Swedish state railroad company. If you are caught, guys, you will be fined for destruction of the crop. Move on, the hoax has been long exposed. Hey, I worked “pranksters” and “banksters” into the same blog. Chalk one up for me.
For the umpteenth time, I’m on my own. But I know the trick is to never give a bank enough information to establish a link to your other affairs. This is not foolproof (nothing is) but neither is it foolhardy. Arrange it so the bank does not have your personal data handy, that they can only get it if they specifically go digging for it outside their walls. And next is something that is becoming a routine.
The doggie-poo place is back on the market. Remember Eagle Lake just months ago? How we were told it was gone only to see it relisted a few days later. Consider this, offers on foreclosed housing are not entertained without proof of funds. We were outbid by seven others. We do not know the amounts bid, only that there were seven. Can you see the emerging illogicality? If these buildings regularly return to market, could the obvious reason be that their “proof” was nothing of the sort? Now I have a real reason to look into a separate fund.
If we cannot go to the market without the runaround, maybe the answer is set up a fund so the market comes to us. I have this much money, you tell me what you’ve got. And remember, we are now ready for their lying, thieving, conniving ways. The saddest situation is when you meet a real estate agent who is so dense they themselves don’t perceive they are doing anything wrong. Or the ones who pretend they don’t know. Remember Punta Gorda?
[Author’s note: the eventual fund will not likely be with a brokerage firm, as I don’t like the information they require. Such as whether the fund owns more than 10% of any publicly traded company, and another provision that you must declare the annual net worth of the entire trust, not just the portion that is the concern of the brokerage firm. I’m learning but I always wonder if other people are stupid enough to fall for such conditions. Would you not get suspicious of a bank that demanded disclosure of your world-wide assets before they let you open a local checking account? I would.]
AFTERNOON
I’ll get to music in a moment, but this picture shows something I normally would hesitate to do. This is that Radio Shack “drawing arm” that was supposed to create scribble drawings from MP3 files created from scanning photographs. What I mean is I am finally beginning to dismantle projects which I never could get to work.
This is open mic night up in Ft. Lauderdale and here is your progress report on my guitar show. I’ve reached a plateau with my strumming that is adequate. I don’t hit any strings I shouldn’t and I can accompany most of what I sing without hesitation. My Fishman PA is great, but I’m not taking it. This is out of convenience. It takes as long to set up as for a full show, so I’d rather just use the house PA system until that happy day.
That, and I never did care for guitar players who use audience time to tune and set their pedals, like it is part of their show. It already takes several minutes for me to get set up with just my guitar, song list, and bend the mic to my height. That’s enough of an imposition on the crowd. And a word to guitarists, when you are done, get the hell off the stage. Last week, one dumbo made the next act wait while he wiped down his axe and put it in the case.
I’m not a blues fan, but tonight I’m playing “Tell Me Momma”, you probably don’t know this song, but you would recognize a few of the classic often-copied lines in the lyrics. “If these blues don’t kill me, man, I’ll never die.” Another thing I’m not taking along is my chorus pedal. It is not worth the screwing around with and I’ve notice by the time there is an instrumental break, I already have as much of the crowd’s attention as I’m going to get.
Here’s something. I don’t have much of a “natural voice”, I sing by imitating what I hear. I’ve found I have a range of control (this is all new to me) that many others lack or imprudently don’t utilize. I can growl, croon, or go falsetto just by “thinking” about it. And I most certainly don’t have the cackling voice of an old man with vocal chords shot from forty years of power drinking, Tonight, I’m opting for as smooth a sound as possible, for it’s a mellow crowd at the Two&.
Lloyd’s of London : getting their start insuring slave ships, Lloyd’s is not even a real insurance company. It is a collection of anonymous members who bet against the odds of disaster. The only insurance is of their own profit, which they cover by “simply refusing to pay for their losses”.
[Author’s note: the most public instance of Lloyd’s refusal was over outrageous awards for asbestos damage in US courts. Lloyd’s was actually within their rights, since their rules state that the employer had to have been aware of the danger at the time and nobody could prove that conclusively twenty years later. American courts focus only on the harm, the British demand a motive. That could be the single thing I like about English law.]
EVENING
Here’s a generic snap of a nice blonde babe playing an open mic, and it has nothing to do with where I played tonight. There has never been a babe like this in that place on amateurs night. No folks, the open mic I’m using for live practice is populated only by little old ladies who play the potato (ocarina) and itinerant guitarists who are the type who obviously had certain troubles in their younger days that I can’t identify with.
Next, tonight further substantiates my contention over crowd apathy for guitar ballads. This is a very difficult call but I know what causes it. Guitar players don’t notice that there is usually way too much “song” between the neat parts. They think the audience likes to sit through long boring passages to hear the next hook or riff. No, the audience does something that never happens during my set: they turn back to their beer.
Guitarists like Neil Young and bands like Dire Straits are terrible for this. McCartney is also bad for this style, great intros and refrains but the rest of the song sucks. This was the case tonight, we had to hear the whole song to get the few likeable parts. It is upon those parts which I intend to take dead aim.
My act is flagrantly designed to avoid this musical blind alley, but I will soon run out of suitable songs that don’t have tedious stretches. It appears to not dawn on your average guitarist that lead breaks during a solo performance are dreary. Hence, I don’t do any picking at all. To some, I’m faking it. Don’t think I don’t notice how those critics have to be satisfied with sparse smatters of polite applause.
One of my critics, who has no reason to criticize me yet loves to do so, asks if I would play “Hotel California” for a $100 tip. I can answer that from personal experience, you see, since unlike him, I have gotten $100 tips in my lifetime, bwaaaa-ha-ha-ha. The answer is no, I would not play it, but not for the reason he assumes. That song is so over-played, learning a competitive version would set me back much more than $100. For some reason, that tune has immeasurable pull on people who take guitar lessons, almost a worship-factor. I have no such major defect in the way I approach guitar music.
My song list for tonight was thus:
“Tell Me Momma”, the only Blues song I know or intend to know.
“A Long Time Leavin’”, the good old version by Don somebody.
“Here’s A Quarter”, which also demonstrates I’m actually learning guitar.
If I was ‘noid, I’d suspect the act just before me purposely played a heavy-duty bluegrass song because he knew I play country and could not compete with flat-picking. But that’s silly and anyway, I started off with the Blues specifically because such a situation was long ago anticipated. It would seem I’m not the only one who spotted that, either.
Last Laugh
Return Home
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