Leo, the biodiesel guy called for a network printer setup. That made my cash for today and got me again interested in the process. He creates fuel, but not gasohol, from restaurant grease, much like the slime that toppled me a few months back. What is even more mysterious is why his printer will not work on both computers. I told him if I had a budget and two hours, I’d find the problem and otherwise it is not worth the effort. His system was totally unprotected from virus attack and he was amazed I knew what transesterification meant.The gig at Jimbo’s was mediocre. I seem to need major [seven-band] equalizing on stage to do even the simplest performance. I finally bought a stand for a high-hat, just the stand, after deciding I really don’t want to spend $55 on each cymbal. The bad news is that I may be too old to play the thing while standing up. For now I have my tambourines hung on the peg. I can already play most of my material in a basic form. I need at least a week to practice a more elaborate show, something tricky enough that even a talented moron could not fake off the bat.
I dropped in a Johnny Bostons, the club a few blocks north of my gig. Their advertising is paying off, with over 60 people in there when I arrived. That was 60 active, partying people in the 35-40 age group, having a good time. At first the staff did not recognize me [in my cowboy hat] but we got to talking in short order. Some things don’t change, for instance, the wives were all on the dance floor while the husbands formed an ugly ring in the corners. They have a Tiki bar. I’m thinking.
Back to my condition, I tell you, I am bone-weary tired. This is great because I used to get this way only when I was working for a living. Work upsets my Circadian rhythm. Let me get a good book and curl up until late tomorrow. I’m serious, I have bass players tendonitis or something similar. That would get me upset, since years ago I purposely learned to play bass in a manner I could change if required. For the nth time, I am also re-reading the story of Dien Bien Phu. It makes me feel so intelligent.
The book ties in with today’s trivia. I always thought the Foreign Legion was named so because they were stationed outside of France. You know, all those movies of marching through the desert. (Often seen taking a right-angled turn, which would be dumb to do in the middle of the Sahara, but it made dramatic camera shots.) New evidence, the surnames of the soldiers, indicates I was wrong about that. There were Czechs, Russians, Croats, Algerians and even some ex-SS troopers. Oh, that kind of “foreign”. Only the officers were French.
In another book, I looked up the top 500 LPs of all time. It caught my eye as it was based on number of albums sold, not total sales in dollars. In 45 years, nobody has touched The Beatles, who dominate the top 10 and the top 25, where even The Stones only show up twice. I was surprised that Madonna came in way back at 235, and she was ahead of Michael Jackson. Both handily beat Eric Clapton who came in at a piddling 327. I know those performers have their cult followings, but I believe if The Beatles could cut one more album today, it would outsell the other 499 combined for the next decade.
Here’s a book for you, I see that even pumpkin carving is now an art form. To think that jack o’lanterns used give me a hard time. I wonder how long before this is a credit course at BCC (Broward Community College). Tomorrow should be exciting, you’ll get some sneak photos of a disk clone operation. This computer crashed. I seem to get around 18 months of daily use out of Western Digital hard drives. Sorry if this hurts, but when one is prepared, as I was, even a disk crash is not that bad, because I was able to clone 100% of the data and all the installed files. This confirms your bad luck than when it happens to you, everything is lost. Ha!
