Here is a photo of the recently mentioned i-Tab. It has a five inch screen and reputedly will scroll lyrics to the tempo you set. There is no information about whether this speed can be co-ordinated with other devices, such as a drum box. I decided against spending the money. Even getting the lyrics wrong on stage is not as serious as relying on a device that could get misplaced. Besides, I only need a prompt now and then, not the entire printout.
Of all the days in history Pete the Rock was not at Panera, it was when I decided to go there for coffee. No sign of him. Bingo was mediocre last night but I had a small budget and the Panera does have excellent bagels. Better than you can buy in the store. Small improvements in my budget means treats now and then, and you must try their honey walnut cream cheese.Internet access is something I plan very carefully, and I believe, when all the true costs are added up, it makes the best sense to get high speed cable with phone service. Your situation may be different. There is a huge tradeoff between all the issues involved and one thing I advise everyone to avoid is a home phone in your own name. You have no idea what the phone company does with that information. I do.
The Zoom drum box is another idiot design with a center negative power plug. They are so rare, I modify a regular transformer and spray paint it a different color. It appears to be weak batteries that cause the tempos to all revert to 120. Something like Folsom Prison has 216 beats per minute and there is no quick way step up to that speed. If this happens on stage, I’ll have to stand there holding the “+” button, with time a-wastin’.
On the books is my first pending holiday since California in 2003. Now that was a good time. Staying at the Torrey Canyon (look it up, if you have to ask, you can’t afford it), what a three weeks that was! I was part of the featured team at the Del Mar County Fair and we got more San Diego radio time than the governor. We were the top attraction that year, donating $2,000 to charity. That is where I found out you can only put 50 bills max at a time into an ATM, often standing there until past dark feeding in the day’s take. Frank and I carried the loot in trash bags like a couple of inner city pimps.
Alas, a short five months later, after Xmas and before a long-awaited BB King concert, along came that stupid heart attack that placed me right here today. You may not know this; I had a $240,000 per year job lined up (although it was not to begin until 2006) at a high profile stock brokerage in Ft. Lauderdale. They wanted me to start immediately, but I was still saving up to cover the two or three year “incubation period”.
That is why I had so damn much cash* when the disaster (my heart attack) hit. A major broker was retiring and wanted to mentor out his management position. The deal was he turns over his customer portfolio and acts as a consultant, retiring at 10%. He told of harrowing difficulties finding a match. He was running a seminar as a cover seeking the right talent and told all he’d met were con artists and legal retards and had originally overlooked me as “too un-mathematical”. Maybe I came across like a musician?
He’d been searching for two years. I was younger than what he felt was needed, but he said he had never met anyone with my grasp of TVM. (That's "time value of money", where I got the highest marks ever to come out of my college, that is 100%, a record never broken or likely to be. I am not likely to let the world forget this.) Basically, he would pay me a guaranty of $150 per week as I gradually built up confidence and knowledge.
This would have been one of the highest stress jobs possible and explains why I was socking away all that moolah—I thought nobody could live on $150 per week. I now know otherwise, but don’t you try it. A word to the wise: this is also where I learned that any saved money vetoes [disqualifies] you from ever getting any help [from the system] until you are wiped out. Such is your reward in American (and Canadian) society if you are dumb enough to work hard and invest. I also learned there is no safe place to stash or safe method to dissipate money.
This is another reason I laugh at people who say they have nothing to hide. When the time comes when they have to or else lose every last thing they’ve ever worked for, they are going to learn they have given up the option, nay the right, to do so. Healthy people in this country are one medical issue away from destitution. I was to learn later that medical emergencies are the number one cause of personal bankruptcy in the nation.
True, folks with oodles of bucks should not be getting a handout, but that isn’t my point. Which is, that such people will suffer worse than any chronic welfare case for they won’t have a clue how to get by under the radar because they spent your life supporting oppressive anti-privacy laws to catch “bad guys”. When their turn comes, there will be no privacy left. At least I enjoyed my money. I planned for two years of financial survival, in the end, lasted almost six and a half. Most will be lucky to get past three months. And the majority of those won't last past their next pay period.
Ultimately, the broker went on, when the decision-making process became automatic, I could bank on average earnings of $1,155 per day in a four-day work week He did not trade on Fridays as that is “when most fortunes are lost”. He said the worst part of the job was getting up at 4:30 AM. He was a chain smoker, deep-inhaling the occasional half-cigar.
[Author's note 2015: this is not strictly the only source I counted in the total. I did have a large cash position, but it was only partially due to saving for the two-year stretch before the new commissions cut in. I also had a running bet that when the housing bubble burst, I would pick up a house in Las Olas for $5,000. It was between these two operations that, when I fell ill, there was enough to last more than five years--at minimal levels. I did not know that would be the last time I'd have such money for a very long stretch.]
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