Fool that I am, I took the Hippie’s word (shown here with acoustic) about paying gig this afternoon. I went over some 2/3 of our old song list, brushing up. When I arrived the requisite twenty minutes late (if you want to avoid setting up the other guy’s gear), I still met with mass confusion. Uncontrolled feedback and equipment problems, ostensibly due to having all his equipment ripped off last week but which he failed to mention y’day.Money was discussed. But I neither need or want the Hippie as a vocalist. Those days are long gone. I’ve gotten used to being paid to perform. So imagine my attitude when the Hippie says not only is there no pay, that he wants me to pay him. For what? His half-speed whacko versions of “Jambalaya” and faked lyrics to “Folsom Prison”, both of which I can sing ten times better than he can?
I played a shorty set and left. My conclusion is nothing has changed with the Hippie. Nothing in twelve years. He tried to get back into how he was the only one who could get paying gigs, one of his fantasies. Okay, now explain how I’ve been making money for six years, fella. He survives by undercutting the other bands on the beach. Remember, I’m a retired accountant, I can tell you exactly how much a person makes by looking at them. He’s playing for $40 plus beer plus a meal. You decide if that rates professional in my books. Nothing against the guy, but I don’t live like that.
The electric bike and I went up to the Riptide. Johnny D was doing a solo. The crowd was unappreciative. I continued up to the Walkabout to find Ray-B with a complete tribe of musicians on stage. Drummer, bass, and lead player and he was a four-piece band. It was also his birthday, Happy Birthday, Ray-B. Then onward to bingo which was another success, though the crowds are half the size of a year ago.
Anything else? I’ve been passing the word around about the European bakery. My coffee budget lets that pleasant place take over as a daily habit. It is also more relaxing as the atmosphere is not attractive to, ahem, certain types of locals that are generally found in other establishments. That, and the fact it is a haven for tattoo-less blue-eyed blondes, exceedingly rare in south Florida. A place where people don’t interrupt you if you are reading.
Last, I may have to boycott Buddie’s Place. I was going to stop for Karaoke but they refused to allow me to park my bicycle. That isn’t right, they could put a rack outside the door and the constant stream of people would ensure things are safe. But there’s a pool player who likes to pretend the bicycles are constantly in his way. Not all the pool players, only him.
ADDENDUM
By popular request, here is information I wrote in the 1980s that represents nothing new. This is sparked by my recent statement that like all poor people, I originally required an income of $100,000 to save up my first $5,000. That is true, and I will explain it yet one more time. So listen up, for I’m getting tired of repeating this tale every five years.
Most of us are familiar with how poor people struggle to save $5,000 only to watch it evaporate at the next crisis. This is because they lack parental infrastructure. The only means they have to save that kind of money is to rob Peter. I inherited nothing from my parents. They were wealthy people who denied me everything. Not the other children, only me. So I figured how to beat the odds, no thanks to the world around me.
Question: if a way out is known, why do so many people remain poor? Because when your parents fail you, it requires half a lifetime to develop the infrastructure on your own. And 30 years is one hell of a sacrifice for a youngster. Even the precious few poor people who manage it don’t make anything of themselves until they are over 45. Figure it out, they would have had start building at age 15, the age you should start enjoying, not working.
I first recorded this pattern in the early 1980s. My own life followed the “always ten years too late” rule because I started at age 25, not 15. Whenever I got anything, I was ten years behind everyone my own age because in addition to matching their progress, I also had to make up for lost time.
Here’s the pattern: success happens in threes—at least for the desperately poor. First time, you lose everything because there is no infrastructure, but you took a youthful chance hoping to get lucky, for it does happen. But when you lose, as I did, you are left in debt. Second time around, you lose again, but you break even, that is, without debt. That is exactly where I found myself in 2008.
The important point was that on this second occasion, my infrastructure survived intact. It survived my savings, my other assets, some terrible liars, and near-total discouragement. I had $19 left at rock bottom, but now we begin round three. To save a solid $5,000 today, I don’t even have to make that much. If you want a statistic you’ve never heard before, on June 7 this year, I will be financially 46 years old.
That word again is “infrastructure”.
