One of my former students was in with a disk of aerial photos. At first it looked like an ordinary building with hurricane damage. It is some kind of massive church with special roofing tiles. The repair cost approaches $1,000,000 and the insurance company is balking, saying they must use ordinary tiles that only cost a few bucks each. Hmm, you’d think some people would know better than to argue with a church full of old people. The building is gigantic and it is again rainy season (May to October). In Florida, it could go either way, you know, Religion vs. Insurance Company. If one gets baptized the other gets soaked.I don’t want anyone to get the mistaken, erroneous impression that Pudding-Tat leads me around by the nose. I am just concerned about her well-being, nothing more than the same for any of my old girlfriends, really. Slowly regaining her trust, she will finally nibble at the food and sort of be cautiously around. Her stitches were visible much where you’d expect them to be. There was no surgical finesse, it was a $35 operation start to finish.
Pudding-Tat immediately hid under the bed in the one spot she knows I can’t reach. Afterward she silently found her way out to the Florida room, where she could hide forever. As predicted, she would not eat unless I was there, so I stook around until she at least sampled everything. Did I just say “stook”?
Walsh’s pub. Another tedious but popular place in Hollywood. Johnny D and I met up there for a set. He got a kick out of the lo-hat. I would rate the results as somewhere between great and overkill for that audience. We faked nearly an hour of material and he refers to my bass style as “filling in the holes”. I return the compliment because unlike some bands I’ve been in at least Johnny leaves those holes. Like too many other Florida soloists, he’s got another four piece band on the sidelines and doesn’t want any other “bands”.
Yes, I’ve seen that before because I’ve also seen there is no steady work for such large groups, much less any local rooms with a large enough stage. Clubs that don’t already pay for a band are unlikely to suddenly begin doing so. That means playing for tips, and it follows that single acts wear off. That is where I’m hoping he will collaborate. He must have noticed the upsurge in tips while we played. This “open mic” thing of Florida is a sick bird that can only survive because of desperate times and people.
Top rendition of the evening was “Teach Your Children”, a catchy tune with lyrics bordering on the psychotic. Will walked in though he didn’t stay long. Another guitarist performed but I did not accompany him. Newbie guitarists, my advice to you is most of you have lousy taste in music. Learn something other musicians know that has less than twenty chords, if you can. You jazz fusion pickers are not anywhere near good enough.
Later, Pudding-Tat is slowly moving around and beginning to be friendly again. Did I mention that I, too, have some new side effects? Aren’t you thrilled to hear about other people’s medical condition? Mentioned primarily because it is a new regimen, I have $4 per day habit called “Tricor”. This is the anti-triglyceride pill I first saw over at JP’s one day we were watching TV movies. It took a year to get it, but it certainly feels like the right thing. It is some kind of skookum chemical, which comes with 800 words of instructions, warnings and a stamp that each refill requires a new prescription. However, one instant consequence is that I’ve stopped gaining weight. This is not a diet pill, this is a method to stop my system from producing triglyerides. Expensive. However, it is a cure, not a control so I’m hoping.
Trivia. One of the first animal conservation measures was in 1657; can you guess where? Today the place would be called South Africa. The Dutch, who were there only because they had opened a supply station for ships going around the cape, found the inland areas suitable for farming. There were waves of animal migrations so large they created local earthquakes. During droughts, herds of antelopes thirty miles deep searched for water. The Dutch limited each farmer to one giraffe, one eland, one rhinoceros, one elephant and so on per year. And there were thousands of farmers.
