Here I am, home alone on a Friday and it is past 11:00 PM. So much good it was playing in a band these days when and where there are no women. The G swears he does not do that on purpose. (That's a joke, but he does chase women away.) I’ll tell you about the day but first let me describe the barely auspicious first gig with the ticky-bop machine. I think the only thing that keeps the beach economy going is the relaxed attitudes toward foreign money. The locals can’t afford to do much more than take a stroll on the Broadwalk.
The good news was that the drumbox sounds great when equalized through a PA system. Many problems were experienced, all solvable. The same things happened with my original drumbox twenty years ago – when you first play it live, the beats don’t sound anything like what we practiced. I have to keep double-checking to make sure I didn’t schmuck up. The G's PA stereo inputs are a different balance than my equipment, so I may have to spring for a pre-amp. Maybe use my bass amp but that thing is a pig to lug around. We can also do lengthy lead breaks, often killing an entire hour with just five or so tunes. That alone gives the drumbox a chance for acceptance. It also carries some respectable sound with a realistic snare and tambourine. The problem is that the G loaths anything that isn't him showing off on stage.
I worked all day for $50, and even then all I got was a check. I got up to Diane’s, the French lady. Egad, it is apparent she likes my company. That is too bad, she is totally not my type. I went to return her scanner, and got talked into refurbishing that broken laptop she should have got rid of a year ago. The one with the cracked screen that was in the van she rolled. She has awful luck with vehicles, this trip she blew the motor five hours south of the border (Canada) and had to spend a fortune to tow and repair it.
It is all up and running except the sound – sometimes that happens with Win XP. I didn’t have time to find the problem, as I had to get back to Fred’s with the money for this computer. His rent on that shop is $2,000 per month, I thought it was worth maybe $1200. Yet, I can see it. The location is one of the best for his business.
I’ve still got $50 in my pocket, so I’m doing okay. Going back to Diane for a moment, she is living in this trailer that FEMA gave her as a loan for 18 months. They rolled it near her old place, but not right up to it, so her balcony and deck are 40 feet away, plus there is a rule that she cannot hang anything on the walls, not even a picture. Her place is so crowded she cannot turn around. She is a survivor and a tough lady, but then, all of her hardships are her own doing.
She knows a man who is a dual citizen, of both Canada and the USA. I thought that no matter what country you were in, the social security was payable, but she says this guy was “caught” and now the USA takes 25% of any Canada Pension Plan money he makes off his US Social Security payment. I was totally unaware of that. I find out later that Canada charges a flat 25% tax if you collect you pension out of the country--a condition that was not there when workers paid into the fund.
I had to charge her the going rate because I was there three hours. She is an expert at getting free things out of men but she knows it is not so easy with me. I know the computer does not work, but I also know it was working when I gave it back to her last year and that it had nothing wrong with it then. Yes, I used her scanner but I would not have paid anything for that, it is just not worth it. There were no print cartridges in it that I know of and I am not responsible for anything that may have happened to them. She has zero experience being around men who don't find her charming.
That is not bragging. How many times in your life has someone told you they have never met anyone like you? Well for me, folks, that statement is a rather frequent event, I probably hear it ten or fifteen times a year. Take it any way you want, but I don’t hang around long with dipshits of my own volition. She has said several small things that implied we have gotten to know each other, and that is just not true. To me she is nothing more than another customer. One that does not pay very well
.
I thought since she knows people in Canada, she might be able to tell me the minimum that Canada Pension pays, but not so. She knows as little about it as anyone else. It seems everyone I ask either does not know or starts giving me lame advice like call them up – as if I have not tried. The first mark of stupid people is that they think you must be stupid too. I read an interesting phrase about that once. Something about just because you didn’t know an opportunity when you saw it , it is still an opportunity. Circular, yes, but it makes a damn good point.
Ah well, I’m back home and trying to make a copy of the Pirate’s Festival for the G, his friend can’t play it or duplicate it. I triple-checked everything and there is nothing wrong. [Later, they must not have the correct decoder on their computers, or are trying to play it on the wrong kind of deck. The copies I made are fine.]
[Author's note 2020: remember these were early days ov converting to MP3 for me, and I have nobody to help. If I word things a bit funny, it is because I'm still learning on my own. There is nobody anywhere near my age around here who knows a thing about operating systems of software or the latest computer developments. It seems by the time I ever hear about anything, half the world has been using it for months already.]
