Here is something most people have never seen. A gram of gold. It is the little pellet in the lower right corner of the package, shown here about life size. After numerous questions upon publishing this picture elsewhere, it makes the blog headline today. At roughly 28.3 grams per ounce, what you see here is around $64.42 worth of gold at today’s quote. Beware, you pretty much have to know a dealer to buy it at that price. Usually smaller pieces sell for considerably more than they are worth.
There has been an upsurge in demand for these grams. The logic is sound: a full ounce is over $1800 and most people can’t make change for that. Ounces are out of the price range of the working class. I said working class, not middle class, for that crowd would be dumb enough to buy a whole ounce with a credit card, and fancy themselves clever. Hint number one: Buy precious metals only with cash. JJ and I had the Jaco Pastorius conversation last rehearsal. Jaco is a bassist, no doubt very famous and very talented. At the same time, it is extremely unlikely you could dance to his material, or whistle the melody, and that is a big part of my point. He essentially plays jazz guitar licks on the higher registers of a fretless bass. A lot of people confuse this with playing bass.
So, I decided I was going on-line once and for all to see if the guy had produced any top sellers. Not hit records, but top sellers. The only thing I found was vague references to “Birdland” and “Weather Report”, plus plenty of commentary on his “electrifying” showmanship. Okay, I concede on all that. My conclusion is that Jaco and I are universes apart when it comes to the “right” way to play bass in a country band. I said country. I said band. If Jaco was my bassist, I’d have to fire him. He plays too much razzle-dazzle. To those who say he was a great bassist, I ask who told you that? You certainly didn't come up with it on your own. Can you hum even one of his riffs?
Then, of all the crazy things, I called JJ by a different name. What the? Sure enough, we’d been talking about the Holiday Lanes where I’d met another musician with a similarly spelled name with different pronunciation. I showed JJ the other guy’s business card and what a laugh. I guess when you program as many decades as I have, the old brain starts to function logically without being asked and that is not how the real world works. What’s the term for words that are spelled similar but pronounced differently? Like “good” and “food”. I keep thinking “heterophone” but that isn’t quite right.
Back in the mid-80s, I took a serious tour of the area around Merida in Mexico. I doubt I’ve published anything here, but I’ll try to locate the hand-written files. It is the nearest city to Chichen Itza, where I climbed the pyramid both inside and outside. (Mayan pyramids had another layer added every 52 years.) The point is, the city of Merida has now been “discovered” by the American retirement market. It was a remarkable place, I attended university there. The university with no roof, since it never rained. It rained while I was there, just my luck.
That’s the town I asked for a “taxi” and the guy showed up with a cart and a burro. I truly admired the city, it is so far away from the Mexico one sees in the news that it could be a different world. Alas, that will change now. Back then, I stayed in a first class hotel for $12 per night and was astounded by how little the place must have changed since 1850. I saw families riding 5 to a motorcycle and Saturday dances in the downtown marketplace.
There was no evidence of crime. I told of the little monkey that would snatch a pen out of your shirt pocket and stay just out of arm’s reach until he led you back to his owner’s fruit stand in the Mercado. I knew when they built that Club Med at Cancun 75 miles away the days of this peaceful city were numbered. I was last there in 1986. I shudder to think what the influx of strangers will do to paradise.
It was a waypoint for European tourists making their way through the pyramids and ruins. I went to Uxmal (Ooosh’-mawl rhymes with Foosball.) and sat in the Emperor’s throne, and wrote about the similarity of the interior rooms to the grass huts of Polynesia. I traveled independently back then, by that I mean not the military or tour groups. If I had done the itinerary thing, I would not have had any adventure. I have fond memories of four blonde German girls I met in that town on the two occasions I was there.
See also June 9, 2006, December 23, 2009, and January 30, 2004 . It is almost impossible for a publication this size to avoid all repetition dealing with the past, but I was surprised to see after so many years the same items come to mind about Merida.
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