A few hard decisions made today will affect music for me, possibly forever. Short of a miracle, I refuse to waste another moment of my life forming bands with Florida musicians. Just as I figured, Jim has teamed up with Pat (one of Arnel’s students) over that fluke at Arty’s. Pat and Jim are not Arnel and me. We’ll see how far they get because they may already be there.What’s more (no names mentioned), certain individuals have even managed to get Arnel angry. Good, for now he doesn’t owe anybody around here any favors. I know talent, and he is the only performer in this entire area that draws a crowd. Each place he plays takes a carload of patrons to his next gig. That is better than a following, which around this town could mean a pack of wannabees. Let’s just say some people tried to give Arnel the “Legion” treatment. They won’t pay, yet they want things their way. I never thought I’d hear Arnel tell Florida, “Up yours.”
We had a 16:17 minute phone call and set quite a few things straight. There are a few places we have agreed not to play or promote, and we have a pretty complete idea of who and what to avoid. All music, computers, web publications, site and equipment, including software versions, will henceforth be compatible. If we cannot find midi tracks, we will create our own, him on guitar, me on computer. Some club even had the nerve to call Arnel and beg him to play, but for free because he was “an unknown”. I’m not making any promises, I’m just saying even failure will hereinafter be systematized. Music is not as haphazard an industry as some take it to be.
Big Mike brought me the originals of “The Sopranos” so I can catch up on season two. For some reason, my copy procedure is producing glitches and artifacts. I did not know any background when I mentioned the Soprano daughter actress putting on weight, but Mike says I’m right. In real life she is Hungarian and Bulgarian or something. They nearly had to fire her over an eating disorder. That’s fancy for saying she was stuffing her face like a pig.
The son in the movie is also a butterball. Like the “Titanic”, it is sending kids the message that it is okay to be overweight when in fact it is not okay at all. Disney is guilty too. They’ve got a porker of a fat kid playing a young “Ace Ventura”. Great idea, terrible implication, sort of eat all you want, children, it won’t stop you from becoming a movie star. The hell it won’t and that’s the least of your worries if you are already fat by the time you hit twelve.
From here on, today is just filler. Read it anyway, for insight or something. Wallace and I have to have the big talk about the difference between large and heavy duty. Those large trash bags he bought are thinner than a high-school hooker’s underwear. I had to double-bag to pick up leaves.
I’ve got another gimp feature problem with Excel. Time to switch to Open Office. Somehow I locked that damn Excel into a way that the cursor keys move the whole page instead of from cell to cell. There is no easy way to find out what that stupid feature is called and I cannot seem to turn it off. MS loves gimps, so they would never put a simple purge button on the page to turn all the gimp settings off. Don’t give me any crap about being insensitive, because it is too well-documented how people who criticize me amazingly start thinking like I do the moment they finally try get anything accomplished in their lives. Right, Teresa?
Later, times are so bad, I had to take some web work. It is a hair salon that sells bulk gunk. They agreed to an outrageous price I normally quote to discourage HTML projects. I dislike web work because the lack of standards means the client is rarely satisfied. This one is PayPal so I made an exception. It may prove interesting to see how that outfit lets customers set up electronic store fronts. I’ll be increasing the prices of already expensive tonics and lotions. The shipping costs are up as well, as in $23 for up to twenty pounds. Ponder, have you put twenty pounds of goop on your hair in your entire life? Okay, stop pondering.
Lastly, Arnel called to say the day’s prospecting was successful. I am aware some local music types will assume their talent is enough to compete with anything we’ve got to offer. Yeah? Think of the next big weekend and a club on the beach. I know of one place that is going to get a full 8.5 hours of real variety non-stop music without having to deal with both Joe and Moe Florida. Two acts for the price of one and a half. We may not set the world on fire, but we’ll set new standards.
