Yep, that is another flat on the Taurus. One customer called and I was going to head over to fix his computer, but a fact of life prevented that. He had so many locks and blocks on his phone, I could not call him back when I had the tire inflated ten minutes later. Too bad, he uses his computer for business and now I cannot get there for at least another day or two. See the weeds sprouting up around the wheel? That is how little I use the car.
So I forgot it was Easter. It was the quiet roads that tipped me off. Religious holidays were never big in my life. My [eleven mile] bike ride this morning reminded me of how fantastic a place Florida must have been to live before all the gonads moved here during the 90’s. Everything is geared toward a collection of small lazy towns and it still has that infrastructure. South Florida really does not have any big cities. The trouble begins when the retards start using their SUVs on the Interstate to commute all the way from West Palm Beach to Miami.I was at the Panera for early coffee and wound up reading an extra hour about the fascinating history of why blue jeans are the color they are (since 1960). Anybody know? Okay, it began as ancient dye from a plant called woad. It was expensive as hell. Seafarers discovered a tropical plant, Indigo, that was cheaper but you needed to import it over sea lanes “patrolled” by the British Navy. Consequently a German, correctly guessing indigo was a chemical compound, spent 48 years inventing an artificial substitute. Each factory could produce as much dye as a quarter-million acres of English indigo plantation. And you thought WWI was an accident.
Indigo dye became so cheap that you may recall all the military uniforms of the era featured that dark blue color. After the wars, new chemical colors arrived and that was almost the end for indigo factories (there were four left in the free world). Somebody suggested using it to die trousers, but nobody liked dark blue trousers. Then, some guy hit on the idea of only dying half the fibers. That is correct, only the weft is colored, the warp is left white. They found a California factory that had just such a setup. Levi-Strauss.
Here is an outdated item, the log book of mileage on the Caddy back starting late 2000 when I met the G. At that time, he had [falsely] told me he was starting a duo and had steady work. On the strength of those statements, I bought $800 worth of equipment. The finances are recorded separately, but I show the following “gigs”, none of which were a full 4 sets for me. 10/27/00 Starbucks, 11/18/00 Shuckems, 11/24/00 Borders, 12/16/00 Shipwreck, 12/30/00 BU’s, 1/5/01 BU’s, 1/27/01 Shipwreck, 2/16/01 Ugly Tuna, 2/23/01 Ugly Tuna, 3/1/01 Ugly Tuna, 3/7/01 Circle Tavern, 3/9/02 Ugly Tuna.
Yes, that is twelve gigs in like five months! It turns out later that was the best he could do. In my own defense, I point out that I was working full time and did not have room to start my own group. Now, the next few months gets interesting. 3/14/01 Club M, 3/21/01 Club M, 6/3/01 Club M, 6/10/01 Club M, 6/17/01 Club M and 6/24/01 Club M. (It was the 6/24 gig he had to sue for the money.) The columns of figures are mileage on my car, not dollars.
This the same club that is getting all the bad press lately for jacking musicians around. The G only paid me an average $10-15 a night at Club M (he has an impossible time understanding that it is exploitation like that, and not those of us who can add and subtract, which makes one a capitalist pig).
There was one more set, 10/5/01 Tobacco Road, which paid nothing but obscure prestige. Altogether, I put over 1200 miles on the Caddy including travels to practices, a two-hour round trip. The G used to make a big deal about how difficult it was to make up the practice tapes, but it was more difficult to explain to him how to create a CD-R.
JZ was supposed to drop off a bed tonight, at 8:00 PM. A nice one, from his dad’s house, for Wallace. It is now 9:30 PM. Of course, I had to wait around in case he did show. During that time Jose, the neighbor came over. He has a Dell printer which requires obsolete cartridges. I advised him to toss it. Then, I handed Jose the [acoustic Fender] guitar for the hell of it. I’m not making this up; he had never touched a guitar before. He actually picked it up backwards, the strings against his chest. You have never seen such a thing in your life.
Not one to miss an opportunity, I had him playing “Guitars and Cadillacs” within 15 minutes, along to the bass line and drum box. There is no more proof needed that I can put anybody into a band, if they have the patience to listen and the aptitude to do what I instruct. This self-righteous nonsense about musicianship “the Man” being the major element is the product of frustrated little minds who dearly wish it to be so.
One thing I can say about Truth, is that some people should learn that their lifestyles would benefit immeasurably if they learned to behave like eventually that Truth would be made public. Who knows, they may even mend their ways.
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