Who said bike riding wasn’t classy? Take a look at this photo. Actually, it is just a black tie and cumbersome-bund from over at ABC. I went there after work to check on tomorrow, which is off unless Dickens calls. The AC is out and it is too hot inside to open for business. The concrete [building] shell does not help, although some think so. The tie slipped off and the camera snapped just as I had stepped forward to reset it. If I was from Florida, I’d claim it was because I had just had group sex, which I have nothing against provided the rest of the group are all young athletic females.
It was so quiet in the shop today that I began to map the menus on the Globalinx phone. Their manual truly sucks. The major shortfall is that it does not describe what happens to all the buttons after you have made an initial choice. For example, once you go off-hook (an initial choice) you can no longer use the speed dial or phone book.
MJ is still out of town so JP and I decided not to do anything this weekend. Besides, I am a little put out by [his brother] Joe’s interference with my lessons [with their father]. Incidentally, Joe is not a doctor. JP has so many brothers that are [doctors], I sometimes forget who is who. Joe is a flower salesman who owns his own business. I made a mistake, crediting Joe with higher credentials than he has. I’ll have something to say about that shortly, to prove a point.
Joe told Dr. Z. that “everybody” owns a laptop, that laptops are the thing and that he would give Dr. Z. a laptop for free. Somebody should tell Joe that laptops are like ten-speed bicycles: expensive, easily stolen and mostly owned by men who think it makes them look sharper than they really are. And another thing, how come I see lots of ten-speeds but not other bicycles parked in front of bars [saloons].
Anyway, his approach is that he knows all about modern computers and an older person like me does not. Now don’t you go defend him saying that is a valid assumption for him to make, or say that anybody could make such a mistake. It is plain stupid to think that way. I level the same criticism at that bunk as I do about police testifying in court. If they are just making ordinary mistakes, then how come they never make any in your favor?
Another thing, while I’m up – I despise that old nonsense that a man who defends himself has a fool for a lawyer. It is not true, except to the extent that the Triad of judges, lawyers and cops make it so. They continually hear good, valid defenses that they reject for their own selfish reasons. It reminds me of that fable about the man whose job it was to shoot the muskrats who were undermining the dam. “What? And lose my job?”
I took the bicycle out way around Old Griffin Road in Dania Beach. The sidewalks here make it a mystery how the town planning mind works. There are new sidewalks way out past the airport where nobody ever walks, but nothing along the nicest river in the area. Not even a shoulder on the pavement to ride or walk.
It’s getting dark earlier, so I may bike up to Young Circle to see that Bell guitar player who says he “might be” looking for a bass player. If so, that would make today a twenty-one mile bike trip, a record that could stand for some time. Then, I do not know how I would react to a totally beautiful day when it does not get too hot to go long distances. That’s a thought. You know, tomorrow the only thing I have to do is get over to Radio Shack for adapters.
I felt like getting out before dark so I rode over to Young Circle. Mr. Bell was not there, and of course, the staff that work there have no idea about anything or when he will be back, hey, they just make their money and go for lunch. By coincidence, the club is the same place that kicked me off “their” sidewalk last year for jumping under their awning during a downpour. Not the same staff, but the same business. They would begrudge you that tiny comfort if you didn’t spend money.
It was worthwhile, because I bumped into a guitar player who, unlike the G, is still keen on playing. Does it because he loves it and it shows. I talked to him for twenty minutes during a break. Mr. Johnny D, whose business card lists him as a troubadour. Lots of heavy guitar tunes, but nothing I really know. Yet. Johnny has perfect timing and understands the value of playing the popular tunes in their popular versions. On his own, he expressed what I wanted to hear him say about the frustrations of trying to work with another guitar player. The material clashes because one guy has to wind up playing second fiddle. Not so with bass and guitar.
He mentioned he used to play bass, but could not sing like he wanted to at the same time. He is playing an open mic over on Hollywood Beach until midnight next Tuesday, in case the lesson with Dr. Z. doesn’t work out. Plus, he will play cruises if the money is big enough. It is. $400 per weekend each beats a job any time. Uh, that includes tips, nobody pays that much around this town.
Elizabeth, the novel. I finished reading it and I’ll tell you the ending, since I doubt you’ll ever read it and sincerely doubt you’ll even try because the book sucks. She does finally leave Siberia with an old priest, who croaks near the Wolga. A boatman takes her across and she makes Moscow (not St. Petersburg) in time to find a new csar being crowned. She finds an innkeeper who believes her story since they were far better able to spot virtue back then, I’m told, and he gets the crowd to part for her.
Also, anyone who has read Ivanhoe knows that in those days you kept bumping into people from all over Europe at the right time and place, thus she met Smoloff, the son of her father’s jailer. They pile off back with not one but two hand-maidens, a carriage and a pardon, stopping to reward the boatman, of course. Her parents use several hundred words to say hello, and it turns out her father is not only pardoned, but was a Polish noble, no less, and has all his possessions returned to him. I dunno, maybe the people who had it meanwhile get exiled or something, it doesn’t say. Elizabeth marries Smoloff lickety-split and we just know they lived at least as happily ever after as I would if I could meet a virtuous woman.
I scrolled through the TV channels in case there was a good documentary. No, but there was a show about Mexican actors in early Hollywood. The other Hollywood, in California. It seems there was a big protest at the time for untruthfully portraying them as killers and bandits. The Mexican government banned the films. So Hollywood took to portraying them as hot-blooded Latin lovers. Although this was even further from the truth, the protests stopped. Hang in there, amigos.
