I just got off the blower with Marion. She is my diet consultant and I needed advice because of my weight stabilization. She assures me it is temporary because I am adjusting to the higher exercise regimen with the bicycle. Which I rode to the beach tonight. Hollywood Beach. I’m back now, eating apples and drinking diet ginger ale. She is moving to Everett, which I kind of wonder why they didn’t do that in the first place. Sometime in October. That puts her 61 miles from where I have to be soon, at least for a while.
Okay, the day in review. I worked on several spreadsheets here for the morning, with an early break over at the Panera, see picture. They also have the Starbucks Tub-O-Coffee, which they call a small. It is a different atmosphere than Starbucks [who try just too hard to be trendy]. There is no place to lock up your bicycle. Isn’t that a classic beach scene, with the five palms. The bicycle is not mine and is too small to add much to the picture, but still a great composition. It really was that overcast and dark at 7:00 PM.
Fred was complaining today about family. That is a good thing to complain about, if you ask me. Don’t ask me. He does a lot of entertaining at home and unfortunately, too often guests get spoiled. Fred makes special steak hamburgers with no salt or onion or things you put yourself. One of his guests squawked. Hey, if it was me, they would get tuna salad from that point onward until they got the idea. As usual, he also has kids who have never forgiven him for not being a millionaire.
The security camera setup quit recognizing the hard drive. I’ll have to tear that apart again. Hard drives are made far cheaper than they used to be. The SATA unit out of the black Cube 03 tower also quit. Brand new, but at least still under warranty. It is getting so everybody who lets you down tries to get away with saying “sorry”. That is crap, I grew up in a household full of people who conspired to get away with saying sorry. That reminds me, I did not drive out to Dr. Z’s tonight because I could not get a confirmation answer on the phone.
Which allowed me to head for Toucans on Hollywood Beach. Two doors down from where the G and I used to perform on Fridays. I never much went in there [Toucans] because it is a typical Florida bar. Eighteen men, all regulars, zero women except a buxom housewife whom they all know by first name who shows up at 8:30 for one beer. Eats chutes and leaves. That is not the point. The good news is I jammed with Johnny D. I have no idea where it will go, but we had a fantastic sound, maybe a little too technically correct for a bar – but a lounge sound all the way.
This is more than the odds to this happening. I listen for a certain guitar sound, one that is lacking bass. Couple this with the heavy strumming lounge guitar tunes of the 70s and 80s, and you get a novel approach. I attribute this to the mechanics of guitar playing, where some things have to be left out for the player to complete a more powerful down-stroke. Solo guitarists must do this, but many don’t realize it abbreviates the music in a predictable manner. That is where I’ve learned to fill in a totally mainstream bass line that the audience didn’t realize was missing till it came back. We played several traditional tunes, including Wonderful Tonight and King of the Road. Where we clashed on a couple turnarounds, it is nothing that a half-hour of practice wouldn’t cure. The potential for some really tight wow tunes is there already, many of them tunes I once learned and have forgotten. Like Dock of the Bay.
The picture is looking toward the [empty] stage from the bar, with the Atlantic coastline in the background. Here is another picture, just one that caught my eye, with heavy angles in concrete. I was actually taking another picture of the strange way Florida likes to zigzag things uselessly. The angle of the sun throwing the shadows almost the same height as the wall made this photo too interesting to waste. I’m not seeking any applause because I did not plan this effect, although I purposely did back up from the first place I stood to emphasize the length of the wall along the right. The timing was just when I got there, I didn’t notice the angles until I downloaded back home. Hey, that counts for artistic eye too, I’m told.
