This is the Miami courthouse. I had a delivery there, and does it not say a lot about our society that one has to go through a metal detector to enter a house of justice? It is like the unpopular teenager blaming the rest of the world. They had a security guard accompany me to the 9th floor to drop off the vase, and return back to the exit. Isn’t this building fancy? When Miami puts people in jail, they do it in style. And fairness. That is why all the people testifying against the accused have free parking right outside the main entrance.
Reacting again to audience requests, I pulled up a list of tunes by Melanie [Safka], the original hippy chick. I thought she was English since she sang Ruby Tuesday. Nope, she’s from New York, born in 1947. I’d never seen her picture until today. Let me tell you, that was a babe and a half. Never seen her? Look it up. Wow!Will and I got together for a half-hour practice outdoors. He was playing blues, country and rock in G, with a little help from the bass player, please understand. You will recall he has only played guitar a few minutes in his life. (He once had a guitar, but gave it away because he couldn’t play it.) In fact, he did well enough that a passerby pulled out a harmonica and played along for close to five minutes.
If Will was not super-motivated to take my lessons to heart before, he is now. Should he knuckle down, there is every chance he could play a tune or two either this Friday or the next. That is not conjecture, I have taught hundreds of students how to play guitar in record time; my method is almost the opposite of “guitar lessons”. Strangers don’t walk up and start jamming unless you are already doing a decent job of it. Will now knows that first hand.
Now I’d like to say a few words about wire taps. I did a callout today concerning these things. First of all, they don’t have a panel truck parked across the street with agents listening on headphones. Except in the movies. They use a VOX, a voice-activated recorder, and they clip it onto your phone line. If you live in an apartment, there is always a cable vault. That is where they put the device. Cable vaults are custom-designed for wire taps.
The authorities do not enter your apartment. The gadget would have to be placed and you or the cleaning lady would find it. When done, they would have to leave it in place or retrieve it, neither is as good option. They use the cable vault, the room full of little wires somewhere near the elevator. Next, what about the warrant? Don’t need ‘em. All the warrant is for is so that anything they record can be used against you in court. Without a warrant, recorded evidence is inadmissible.
But the police don’t care about that. It is not “illegal” for them to tap your phone if they never intend to use the tap itself as evidence. They are smarter than that. Instead, they use the tap to miraculously catch everybody red-handed when the deal is going down. What, did you think that was pure coincidence? You’ve never heard of a sting operation?
So, how do you protect yourself when the odds are against you? It is quite easy—misinformation. First, scout out a location with only one approach, but which you can see from a mile away with a good pair of binoculars. If possible, sprinkle the site with “evidence” in advance. (That show “CSI” gives excellent step-by-step instructions on how to trick people into incriminating themselves.) Then state the time and place on the tapped phone and wait. To make things truly interesting, place an anonymous invitation to your least favorite employer, politician or prosecutor to arrive surreptitiously for “favors of a sexual nature”. The Internet can be a wonderful thing, going a long way toward providing your mark with the appropriate “code word”.
I’ve just gotta tell you about a computer lesson earlier today. My task was to set the anti-virus on automatic. The fun started when I tried to explain the operation to the owner. The computer must be powered on for the anti-virus to run. You either have to leave the computer on in advance or it will wait until the first time you turn the computer on after the scheduled time. To some people, that means it is not automatic, and you were supposed to make it so. Argh!
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