I hope you want to talk music today. What trip downtown would be incomplete without a towtruck in operation? Can’t just ticket these tourists, there is far much more to be made gouging them as well. Cahoots, the quarterly newspaper with the hopeful articles, finally appeared at the office. Bad news, gang. They did not include even one of the articles or sets of photos sent to them in the past three months. It was worth a chance, and that chance did not work out. I’ll just move on, but it is a disappointment at best.
Dr. Skrbc owes me $60, and he’s lucky I don’t charge the full going rate. I finally modified his web site to get the order information at the top (instead of the bottom) but it took six hours. Yahoo small business dot com assumes you know those complicated changes you make to the web page are only saved locally until you figure out you have to “publish”. (Yeah, Yahoo, publish this.) Publish is what you do with manuscripts, not web page code, but of course, they are such millionaire geniuses, who is to argue?I got a response from a trio [band] in Ft. Lauderdale, I may have mentioned them as “Dude Ranch”. I had to answer, just because the drummer, who cannot spell “They’re” was actually pleading for an excuse to fire the current bass player. The word is that he [their bass guy] likes to show up plastered drunk, as in “can’t stand up much less play bass”. I’m repeatedly assured that I “gotta be better” than what they have. Sounds like my kind of group already. Ft. Lauderdale gigs like this are full of homosexuals, but as I wrote to Mitch, that may just make the women more desperate. (Nonsense, but it sounds good.)
Fred peeled open a Sony laptop today, to discover it has a slot for a second hard drive. That is a new one on most of us. He reports there is a complete vacant compartment [in back of the Sony case] and he intends to use it. My experience with more than one hard drive per computer goes back a ways, and although I like the arrangement, it baffles most users.
Mr. Foxx, the acoustical guitarist from Pompano Beach also phoned today. We talked for 15 minutes and arranged to meet over at the Donut shop at 4:00 PM on Monday. He has no equipment and an acoustic pickup that “might not work anymore”. He comes across as a total guitar player (only people who 100% play guitar or 100% can’t play guitar are into Jim Croce). Upon questioning, he hesitated to send or quote me a song list, where I sent him mine many days ago. This usually indicates somebody who is into a very narrow type of music who intends to make you a believer. While I do the same, my focus is outward to what the audience wants, not what they are supposed to want, a major distinction.
On several moot areas, he [Foxx] has deferred to my experience with crowds, so in return he gets a full audition and interview. I’ve got four clubs lined up. No the forty clubs so many guitarists claim to have, but just four. They are solid leads, we can play them as soon as we work up a set. I even have one of those rare Sunday arrangements for money plus tips. The picture is me outside the local pool hall, showing that I am not anywhere near my ideal weight. Ah, but wait until you see how I can fake it on stage, even if I’ll never reach the aptitude levels of Madonna for it.The intentions are that JZ and I are going to put in some shrubbery over at his dad’s tomorrow. I even bought a pair of Chinese work gloves. The meat counter at the dollar store is back in operation, with the same lady who remembers me, but I can’t really place her. Even so, it amounted to me walking out of the place with a pair of work gloves, not an event to endear you to most Florida women. Well, at least not until after you are married, then you really get to put on the gloves.
That you or anyone “should be married” is a statement made almost exclusively by married people over 24 years old. This group has very little to lose by taking such a stance. It is so subtle and minor an issue that I won’t even say anything about it. You’d think I was picking on their selfish motives, or something.
I’m turning in early because the hot weather is back. The most comfortable room in South Florida is my bedroom with perfect climate control. Since I want to read, I won’t go out and sit in the recliner. I estimate the average zonk out time from sitting in that chair is a little over five hours, made worse by the fact you wake up around two or three in the morning and feel so relaxed it is like you weighed five hundred pounds.
[Author's note 2016-02-02: I still own that chair and slept in in last night.]
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