enough for somebody to phone in and report them since noisy dogs are not illegal.Turns out I was wise to hold back on spending. Another delay has cropped up, this time concerning my bank balance in 2004. Yes, I had a lot of cash at that time, but that does not mean I still have it today. This is another lesson learned, as I will now begin a systematic policy of monitoring my bank balances as well as the statements. It is a good thing I keep such damn good records, you know, in most cases I even scanned the checks and deposit slips. Let this serve as a warning to the complacent—you have foolishly given away a lot of the freedoms you are going to need if anything goes wrong. You will find out the hard way that telling the truth is not enough without proof.
Now the good news. Top of the list is the bingo gear. My guesstimate was a little off, I had planned on $85, now we are up to $93. But it is top of the line tackle, from an outfit called Bingo King out on State Road 84. Consumables are the bingo cards, costing $23.95 for a case of 3,000 and the markers, at $5.00 a dozen. I can ill afford any of it, but I can even less afford not to. The static investment is the bingo cage, balls and the master tray.
Meanwhile, I wind up a Jimbos to inventory my gear, which all has to be moved for the show. Darned if the Thursday entertainer didn’t call in sick. On the spur, I set up my combination music and bingo gear, and we had a perfectly wonderful three hour “poor man’s Karaoke”. At first, the singers kept looking for a screen with the words, but once they caught on, everybody was singing. That’s much more my style of show. I was surprised to see Hi in the audience, he normally doesn’t frequent the north end.
What’s more, I stayed on stage and sang a lot of background vocals. I picked this technique up from Laura’s show, where she sings along with many of the standards. She does it well enough that I thought it was backing tracks until I heard a small error once and turned around. (I never sing with my back to the audience.) There was no choice of tunes tonight, as my music was all pre-recorded bingo material. Question, could I put on a serious Karaoke show with what I’ve got?
Pause here and think. A Karaoke act isn’t all that easy. For openers, the gear is so expensive one has to play up to five gigs per week [to profit]. No way can I move even the lightest speaker systems that often. I’ve already hit physical barriers trying to miniaturize my regular music systems over the previous few years, so there are no pending miracles either. My show tonight was successful because it was novel, and novelty wears off. Ask any married couple. I’d have to think twice about a repeat. As well, the tips were not as good as playing live, which was to be expected.
The woman across the way, the one who once threatened to call animal health on Pudding-Tat (because the cat often slept outside on the porch), is a gossip and everybody knows that. They avoid her, but lately she has taken to hovering whenever other people are talking and it has become a real annoyance. Anyway, today we timed her and she talked non-stop from 4:30 AM until 9:00 PM, a total of 16-1/2 hours. I’m used to that (family again) and when there was nobody around she talked to the cats or herself.
Such people cannot be cured for they think the real reason others don’t do the same is because they are not as good at it. But hey, I know old guys who think that about real estate. This is the same lady who once asked why the kitchen night light wasn’t on at 3:30 one morning. The bulb was burned out. Still.
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