We did a rehearsal standing up as we would face the audience. This revealed a couple non-evident problems, such as my tendency to look down at the foot pedal thus missing some of the vocals through the microphone. That means more practice, or a head set, or some better trigger than the footswitch. The limitation now is my ability find songs I can sing. We need fourteen more, and that is optimistic as there are a couple that we should probably drop already.[Author's note 2016-10-13: in the end, I found out my head-down playing style is partially the result on never having lessons. I have to watch my left hand to hit the right notes. That was fine, until I started singing. Can't face the microphone and the bass neck at the same time and still put on a good stage show. Read later posts to see how I resolved this problem. Hint, I only have to look at the neck when I'm changing key.]
Checking on my equipment on the return leg, I ran into the owner at Buddy’s. She has given the go-ahead for my bingo show to take priority on Mondays. That means if we run over, the following act has to wait until I’m finished. That’s always a good sign even if it signifies the other party is not holding up their end. She further asked if I could do a singles act, which I had to answer yes and no. She wants me to give it a try.
All this leads to Friday, where it is arranged to head out to Nova U with Cowboy Mike. It is a five hour show, so bring your reading material. It is [another] coffeehouse, and here is Mike’s report: “They have poetry readings, and some of the ladies get pretty raunchy. They read a lot of poems they wrote about sex. There is one fifty-year-old that really gets herself worked up. Don’t buy anything there. I never have, not even a coffee. They want $2.50 for a coffee. They don’t give the band nothin’. Not even a donut.”
But it is exposure we need and I’m sure we can swing the coffee. I sent Ray-B an email to minimize us all playing the same tunes before the other arrives. Upon consulting with Dave-O on the phone, we’ve decided not to follow up the CPI scooter and instead to look at some his friend has put together from kits. I was able to find smaller motors, I believe the one I want is no longer available. It was a 30 cc unit. I found others, such as the Sachs 301, a 30 cc German design made in China. But at $1,550 it can stay there.
Dave-O is a fan of two-stroke motors, saying the new pollution controls have made them clean and quiet. I’m unconvinced. The last two-stroke I rode was a new lawn tractor and the persistent vibration was evident even when idling. The motor made a constant humming noise and I can imagine the fatigue induced by these engines when attached to a light frame [such as a bicycle].
I’m half through “Victoria’s Wars”. It has been flawlessly proofread so far and I’ve just completed the segment on the Light Brigade during Balaclava. I learned that Montgomery’s ambiguously worded orders during World War II have historical precedent. The British military structure causes them to issue orders that can point blame at subordinates or colleagues in case of failure but claim the glory otherwise. In the Crimea, the commander was audacious enough to say that his subordinate should have “had the military sense” to disobey the order. Some army.
Their Allies, the French, seemed to have an outstanding supply system. While the British froze and starved, the French had wooden supply huts and surplus food. Too bad these things are not permanent, as shown by the utter failure of the French system a century later at Dien Bien Phu. The book is pro-British. To cover up unpleasant facts, it often credits the enemy Russians with much better armies and performance than could have been. World War II shows that the armies directed from Moscow are among the most inefficient armies in history.
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