This is a fuse that fits inside the electric meter box. I was reading in the armchair this morning when the lights went dim. This happened just as the air conditioner and dishwasher clicked on at the same moment. Wallace arrived and of course, was a little incredulous at my description. There is no cut-off lever in the panel, so we went outside and I slid out the main fuses, one of which is fried, as seen here. As I said, they went dim.
This spurred us on to further check around the perimeter and to make decisions toward upkeep. One conclusion I have is that whoever built this place put most of the effort into making it look nice. The rest is a little mickey mouse. We replaced both fuses and brainstorming about the causes of the rotting vegetation aroma when the wind is right. It is definitely a compost pile smell, so we cleaned out the more obvious matter from the crawl space. The area is far too huge to rake it out entirely, so we have two interim solutions. Wallace recalls a house built in 1890 that had an attic in perfect condition because the owners had strung up a few 20 watt light bulbs. The tentative plan is to string some 7.5 watt coily bulbs, maybe the yellow ones they say repel insects. You know the bulbs I mean. Now they come in all colors, including black light.
While up at Home Depot, we stopped next door for pet supplies. How I disdain buying material so the cat can poop in it. I also picked up the tick treatment and got my knee clawed during the application. The cat always figures out it is good for her in a few hours. We got a gallon of wet-dry patching cement and will spread it around the few cracks found on the roof. No matter how it is ultimately repaired, we know for certain in Florida it will be the cheapest possible method known to mankind.
New Year’s resolutions. I will publish something this year, even if it is a coloring book. I mean traditional publishing, with binding and a cover. Several ideas come to mind, but the top contender is my experiences as a bass player over the years. I’ve had my moments. One hotel we played was so sleazy the tiles in the bar were warped from water overflowing in the bathtubs upstairs. People would pass out with the water running. Or the time a lady went pee in her boots rather than leave her bar table.
What should I call it? “Confessions of a Bass Man.” “The Rise and Fall of Classic Bass Playing.” “The World According to a Bassist.” Don’t underestimate the entertainment value of what I would have to say in such a book. I won’t be talking about wild parties, as I’ve never been on tour. I have no history of hit records, I’m stage not studio. Yet I’ve played bass off and on since I was thirteen, and I’ve taught many others to play. Today, the two major reasons I play are that I find most live bassists to be musically unexpressive and that I can’t find anybody around this town who can innovate without losing the essence of the hit version.
The electric bass was barely invented when I first played it. Some of my first students are still at it. Here is where I will make a wild, unsupported claim. Although anyone I taught may have become technically a better bass player than I was at that time, I doubt they got anywhere with it once my influence was removed. I would take sly satisfaction in being able to prove that, but I cannot so it remains just a claim. For instance, one of my earliest trainees was John Campbell.
He quickly outclassed me playing within a year, that is, by the time he was fourteen. But I point out that playing bass was all he did, it is wishful thinking that he was ever as good as I would have been if I’d played for an equal time. He only thinks “it would have happened anyway”, and what he calls band management amounted to so much interference that I finally had to let him go. Every band he was in after that stagnated, yet yes, he was a good bass player. He would not last ten minutes as a bass soloist.
The book would span only twenty actual years of playing. I once went a decade without touching the bass, then would pick it up again usually for lack of finding anyone suitable for the next band I got involved with. I’ve hit some fancy joints, but generally the itinerant musician (like myself) plays where I get hired. You don’t often get the fanciest places and they tend to be stuffy. I’ll have some wild tales to tell about skid roads and flea bag hotels.
Watch for the book. In the final chapter, I’ll tell everyone exactly how to play bass like I do. It is more difficult than playing guitar, but it is still easy in the sense that if it wasn’t you’d never be able to do it on stage with all the distractions.
