First a picture of the Greyhound lot. You see, it is packed with cars lined up six deep to get in. Compare this with a month ago when the lot was vacant all the time. This is the effect of cash-payout gambling and this picture was taken at 7:00 AM on Sunday morning. You can see the sun is barely over the rooftop. (The cash-payout was temporary to get customers in the door. Soon, the cash-payout meant showing your ID at the wicket, then later having to show a "membership card" to collect your winnings. Cash-payout, my eye.)
I was out drinking today. That is correct, you see, the problem is that when you tell people you don’t drink they make assumptions. Hey, I like drinking and I used to do it all the time when I was young. It was heap fun. Now let’s get to the reasons.
To this day, it utterly astonishes me how stupid people could possibly enjoy being drunk, but that is another story. The player was one of those typical hugely overweight men with a “sworly” haircut. Three hundred pounds at least, trying to hide it behind a Hawaiian shirt. Yeah, that’s the kind, I can see you got a visual on that.
The thing is, he tried to get smart with me. All I asked him was if it was a steady gig. Folks, I know this business. Among other things, he tried to make out that he didn’t know the owner, wasn’t getting paid, did this only as a hobby, was helping out a friend, was told to take one hour breaks and so on. A hobby, huh? Now explain the sixteen channel PA. I biked home and returned with my bass and a song list. I play nothing but standards. He didn’t know any of them.
I stood in for one song. “Stand By Me”, by Ben E. King. My Hawaiian looking friend immediately saw that I was competition. I packed the dance floor by verse two. I had told him in advance that I specialized in danceable music. He kicked back in his midi-sequencer and taking a hint, I got off the stage. Mission accomplished, the bar owner saw the effect. There is plenty of work if you lower your price to meet the demand, no demo tape required. This is a dig at the G, who keeps saying he can’t get the band working because we have no demo tape, a bulky analog device that was once used to record music on magnetic mylar tape, but not very well.
[Author's note: demo tapes are useless. I've never had a club owner actually listen to one. They are not music critics and will normally chose the cheapest band they've never heard before. Demo tapes, unless they are recorded live, are usually faked anyway. I did not want to make a demo with the Hippie because he wanted to bring in bong players, keyboardists, and a drummer, all of which we don't have. Nor do we sound like that on stage. So the tape is a fake and I won't participate in a scam.]
Inside, I asked how much a bottle of beer cost. $2.50. I recalled that was the same price I had paid in Studio City [CA] back in 1991, so I stuck around and had a few. Then, I cranked over to Wiley Street to see how they were doing, but of all things they were closed. That’s a sure way to lose your regulars. On the way back, I poked into Frenchie’s. It was packed and nobody spoke English. One funny old lady kept trying to get my attention but no go, she was 60 if a day. I don’t do grandmothers. I had a few more beers and came home.
It was still early, so I watched an old DVD called “Katherine”. I think it was loosely based on Patty Hearst. This starred Sissy Spacek, who I find looks a lot like John Denver. Also, Henry Winkler, who was very lucky to find Happy Days, if this movie was any indication of his talent.
Oh, I almost forgot. I got a callout this morning that I was unable to fix. The guy’s computer has a variety of ills, most of which seem to be virus-based. However, it is in there so bad, I can’t install AVG. He has that annoying MacAffee program that is very hard to prevent from running in the background. I wound up going through every menu and sub menu and could not find the option to turn the damn thing off. Also, his CDs are not being recognized by the motherboard. I swapped out the IDE cable, no luck.
All told, it was a pleasant and easy-paced day. Good bye, 2006. I’ve been in this place eight months already. It was a year of learning and I successfully made as much money as I did at my former job, but only working a couple of days a week. Another year without meeting any decent women (plural) but hey, where else have I ever lived that I had to run my air conditioner full blast on New Year’s Eve. Um, I know what some of you are thinking, but I didn’t live there. I was only visiting. I like the Orinoco.
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