The heat is shimmering off the pavement ten feet away from here. I tried to take a photo but the resolution doesn’t pick it up. I can only imagine what it must be like back in Texas. That reminds me, Mike and his dad were talking about how they once went for a Sunday drive and wound up in Amarillo two days later. Nobody told them it was the opposite in the winter and they half froze to death.I watched “The Last Samaurai”, a great theme except for the excessive amount of footage depicting those fake conversations of honor between military men that nobody believes in the first place. I find the weapons interesting and the depictions of battle scenes lack any basis in reality. The battle was reputedly in 1877, yet showed maneuvers that were outdated by the Civil War. Like a frontal attack down a narrow valley against an enemy with Gatling guns.
Saturday evenings are routine for me now, if there is no crowd in Jimbo’s by 8:00 p.m. it is not worth setting up. So I just went there to pick up my equipment. I used the spare time to scout around the other clubs and I may have come up with something for Tuesdays. One of the VFW posts has a dinner that ends at 7:00 p.m. and has a crowd of around 35 patrons. That would be ideal since playing and teaching are equally fun for me. I’m more willing to try new places now that I’ve made back all the money I spent on equipment (and then some).
During the chasing around and talking to people, I found out the law has changed concerning ATMs at gambling houses. They were formerly verboten, precisely the type of useless law that you regularly encounter in Florida. The Holiday Bowling lanes were making a fortune (reputedly $2,500 per day) so this could mean an end to their good times after less than a year. Maybe they’ll reconsider what they are willing to pay for entertainment again. It was flagrant how they let a perfectly good night spot go to ruin while the money was easy.
I’m also revamping my entire song list, redoing the weaker spots and making the entire show more suitable for sets of quieter tunes. Soon I’ll have to get a decent laptop to get the effects that I want. All tunes less than two minutes have been electronically “stretched” to over three, which propels my act well beyond four hours with music to spare. The goal is two completely different sets so I can do the same club two nights in a row without a repeat, a lesson a lot of other musicians could stand to learn.
Who remembers the foot-attacking plant from last week? Yeah, well, it left permanent scars, looks like my right foot got smallpox. I’ve walked through the jungle without incident, well hold on, that is not strictly true. I’ve been bitten by a vente-quatro, which was my fault. I’ve also breathed fire air, it is a microscopic fly that forms a mist that looks just like early morning fog. It turns your lungs on fire if you don’t walk around it. Or more accurately, you duck under it as it hovers around five feet off the ground. Anyway, the foot attack is a reminder that Florida is semi-tropical.
So how does the Pudding-Tat manage to still go sit in the sun, even on the hottest days? I figure it is one of those things just not understood. Take for instance that belief that a duck’s quack doesn’t echo. I notice that I’ve never heard a cat’s meow echo, either. So I’m thinking, the quack is a sound and therefore it does so echo and the illusion that it does not lies in faulty observation.
