Enjoy, it is the only picture I’ve got left. For a few days at least, things will be boring for non-writers. I have poured all resources into research and writing as it represents the only possible source of future income. A job does not qualify on that count and my new prescriptions are producing the same side effects as they are intented to cure. Nor is education any longer any assurance of success. Bryne and I have taken a one-day job as laborers at a catering firm this upcoming Mother’s Day. That’s a former engineer and a former accountant, both with advanced degrees, taking one step closer to waiting on tables. Scary. Very little to report today, though the experiments with FireHow publishing, like all experiments, bring unexpected results. One was a French guy who wrote a lexicon of words that are similar in English, French and Spanish. That may not be on your list but the fact that he used Amazon means he did more than just talk. I questioned him for fifteen minutes to find out dozens of tidbits not available from Amazon themselves.
His book sells for about $8.00 and Amazon put it on Kindle format for him. He gets royalties, for each book sold, of $3.84. Why it is impossible to pry that figure out of Amazon is unknown. They also have an upper limit of 120 pages, which I could do in my sleep. It is unknown if I can use my nom-de-plume of “veryatlantic”. This electronic book system demands closer investigation, as I would require over 1,000 FireHow clicks to make the same money as one book sale.
Now I have a motive, and several ideas of books I could amalgamate from existing material. I even have 10 of the best electric bass tabs ever written (judging not the music, but the examination of bass tabs as found on various top on-line services, who clearly have no quality control). I’ve only seen electric bass tab learning books in the past, never a full compilation of tabs marketed for stage work, as in “Forty of the World’s Top Bass Hits arranged for Duo Work”. I would like to write such a book. And maybe I will.
Bryne was over this morning. He’s also the guy that’s bought three used laptops in a row that all crapped out on him. For the record, he’s the marine engineer from England who used to make six figures. When he applied for a job in Florida and asked for $80K to start, they told him the interview was over. He lost a fortune, to the tune of $300,000, on a bar in California. When I met him, he was painting a kitchen, though I instantly knew this guy was no unskilled laborer.
I was troubleshooting that laptop for two hours, to no avail. The motherboard is cracked or something I cannot fix. During the running conversation, it turns out we have a tremendous amount of similar career experiences. We both made obscene money with big corporations. However, I never lost anything, I planned carefully to be where I am. He may have to take a job as a bartender. He’ll do well at it, with that Limey accent.
Some may question that I say “planned carefully” when I’m working 3 or 4 part time jobs just to get by. They are exhibiting a shallow understanding of the situation. There are many pitfalls waiting for those who’ve led their lives in a credit-card based comfort zone, and in America that danger amounts to a hospital stay not covered by insurance. There are those who are habitually and chronically poor, but that does not apply to me. I’m talking about the millions of so-called middle class who are counting on some combination of their respective Enrons and CPPs for a happy ending. You are doomed. They are not there for you now, much less in 2030.
I calculated after my first $72,000 heart attack that if an emergency ever happens again, I would lose everything. That is the cause of 75% of personal bankruptcies in this country. The system will not assist you when your income is more than $400 a month over your rent. Nor if you have more than $2,000 in assets, nor can you have dissipated assets in the previous five years. They got you by the balls, folks, particularly you people who “had nothing to hide”. Now, you won’t be able to if you wanted.
They say in Germany, “The fortunes that survive are those that can be carried across the border at midnight in a suitcase.” I planned ahead under the euphemism “practicing for my own retirement”. I did, in fact, have that second uninsured heart attack that would definitely have wiped me out. Anyone who imagines they can handily do what I did had better start thinking over again. Do you think you will mow lawns after you retire?
To those who think they are smarter, well, you are also younger and we shall see. For my five years, I enjoyed my assets, learned valuable new skills, and can now work wonders with $1,999.99 worth of gear. That’s a far cry from losing everything in a fire sale to pay the ambulance bill. And there is no immunity through politics. In America, people fail one at a time, in Canada; the whole barge will sink at once.
Incidentally, I’d only be working one part-time job if I could meet people who would carry their own weight.
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