Allow me rattle off the events today. First, I decide to sleep in, a wise move, because as predicted, Jay the Disk Jockey called early. Wants his documents. So I get on the bicycle and meet up with him at the corner of Hallandale and Federal. When I mentioned the station sounded a lot like Black Gospel, he said it was. Didn’t I say I found the station, but did not know I had found it? Praise the Lord at 1520 cycles per second.
He is one broke dude, no car, no room, but a radio show. He applied for a job at Dunkin Donuts and got in a shouting match with the owner who, it seems, does not phone all the applicants to tell them when the job has been taken. So we couldn’t meet there. Fine, I made it over to Starbucks, just for variety, for I neither like their coffee, prices, nor clientele.
It was glorious bike-riding weather, so I took a tour of the area, winding up by ten at the Argentina coffee place, where I dismounted and worked a Su Doku. I had started it earlier at Starbucks, where some mouth-breather was staring at me. I called JP, who was sheepish about his excursion y’day. I assured him it was none of my business. Remember that fridge his brother gave him? Well, JZ figures it is too expensive to operate, so he wants to bring it out here. That is the unit I originally wanted. Expensive you say?
Over to the flea market at the Greyhound Track. This is the one I told you was selling out regularly. It is a tremendous draw for the gambling crowd, the operators have really hit their own jackpot. Which is good, because I dislike the attitude of the competition, Gulfstream Park. Make no mistake, I dislike all gambling places. Anyway, here is a photo of the huge crowds they experience every weekend.
There are a good six hundred people at any time, with a fantastic high turnover. These crowds would make some people’s eyes water. An older crowd with tons of Canadians (take that anyway you want) all paying with cash money. Good luck trying to come up with something to sell, mind you, all the booths are saturated with the standard flea market junk. They have tons of room if they ever do expand. I called Dickens about this (many times already) and hopefully he will take a look. There must be something we can sell over there – we are lucky to get ten people in on Sunday.
Mind you, all ten buy something at our place. Also, the $700 a month rental puts weekends only out of range. The parking lot has electric power available, so let me think a bit. I got another Sunday off, because Dickens may have broken the front lock and can’t get inside himself. I was hoping for the day off. It would be different if the pay was steady. Instead, I came back here to practice.
Not with Jane, however. She is not responding to my earlier page. If she doesn’t call soon, I’d be tempted to recommend her to Dunkin Donuts. I wrote a lengthy email to Jeff, asking many questions but mainly about his stage persona. What? Okay, mine is that slightly distracted, slightly bored dude who never, ever misses a beat. I do several things to make it look like I’m off somewhere in space, then come back smack on. With a big grin if any ladies pick up on my act.
Frenchie, the guy across the back, was outside so I roped him into an hours practice. This time, I brought the drum box. He has trouble practicing when I am not around, but today we ran through the twelve bar blues, country and rock. I suspect he once worked for the government or something because he is rich enough to spend the winters here, but incredibly slow to catch on to things written down.
This is not a derogatory statement, I mean it in the context that I’ve known many Canadian government workers who develop an inability to follow written instructions as a career move. For it is far easier to “misunderstand” if you can claim it was the spoken directions (and not your performance) that was wrong.
Remember, I worked for one of the largest non-military bureaucracies in the world for fifteen years. The phone company. Recalling that job always reminds me of O’Rourkes statement about competition, because it applies so well to phone company policy. “Maybe they think basketball would be better played if all ten players were on the same team and they got rid of those baskets.”
By mid-afternoon, it got hot. Up in the 90s and I am slightly sunburned. I ducked into my Florida room and played some guitar music on the Fender. Maybe I’ll give some Johnny Horton another listen-to in the upcoming week. I strongly hinted to Jeff that I would prefer to play “non-Beatles, non-Stones and non-Clapton” and that there are hundreds of other artists to chose between. Plus their music is not so over-played.
My philosophy on that is easy to grasp. There is not enough work for every band in this town. That means we have to be good enough to take away work from some other band that is not pulling their weight. Playing the same song list makes that harder to do, but all new material can sway the crowd and the manager. The G was blind to the fact that the best audience response we ever had was in the unusual music we played. “El Paso” comes to mind.
It is not late evening and JZ did not show. It is cool enough to move around so I may spend the evening reading. It was dark before it got comfortable so hey, I washed and waxed the tile floors. This was considerably more exciting that what was on TV after the tape finished. One of those weird programs about lady lawyers who try to act tough. One thing I will never understand is what some women find so attractive about pretty men. My experience is that only around 20% of women fall for this, but that is also the single largest category of women. They truly don’t know any better, but aren’t they supposed to?
Where’s my five bucks?
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