Looking deeper into Tampa Bay, pun intended, I see that I was there once for a couple of hours in 2006/7. The Hippie and I stopped in Ybor City and toured a cigar store. (Google’s has again detuned the search algorithm so I can’t find the blog.) Some advice to Karaoke bars who advertise on-line: post your times. I’m the kind of patron you want and if I don’t see the hours on your site, I click right past it. “Thursdays” is not good enough. That means the only other likely way I’ll show is if you have a sign on the sidewalk as I’m passing by.
I’ll tell you who needs a kick in the head. The person who programmed Google maps to zoom instead of scroll with the mousewheel. A good swift kick in the head, followed by that surefire cracking sound of a moron who finally gets it. Google, you had one job.
It didn’t rain so I attended rehearsal with the new band. What makes music intimidatingly wonderful is the gaps that occur in expectations. Their timing was bad, that’s not the point. The guitar playing was inaccurate, that’s not the point. They are out there and I am not, that is the point. I vote we go with it. I dismayed the guitarist who said, “Now it sounds like we’re a country band.”
That came about as we jammed through material common to both lists. This will have to be handled very carefully and I’m not certain I can muster that level of diplomacy. When you get to the meat and potatoes, he is a guitar man and that spells “ego”—although this guy is not at all that pushy about it. It's just that, when you get me on the same stage, it is obvious my city-slicker bass-vocal-drum constructions were designed to survive in the desert.
That being said, it is an instant sound and we could play out tonight. I was not what they expected but that’s why the other bassists didn’t make the grade. There was another factor concerning how I discovered making the vocals sound “sincere” was just one more trick, that I was imitating other singers no differently than I’d copy their accent. Put another way, this was the first time I used the technique in a live situation. Wow.
I followed tradition and stopped at “Willy’s” and vegetated. This is a family blog so let me tone this down. I had a bar bunny, a nice looker, coming on to me. I said no, not because she was bad, but because she was drunk. Like my ex, she didn’t understand that was not what I’m after. I’m not looking for some gal to pay half my bills, though of course she should pay her own. She bared her breasts at me and the entire bar full of tough guys saw the whole thing. I told her to behave herself (that if she came back another day sober, we could go out then.) I fully understand that some men will never believe I did that. I got two brothers, you know.
Around the world, what’s new? India has the right idea, allowing their forest rangers to shoot poachers on site. Of course, there may be some unwarranted casualties. (In Canada, the law wouldn’t work. You shoot the bastard and his relatives will claim it was “an emergency” that he was wondering around the forest with a rifle and a flashlight at midnight.) I don’t never mind when a few fringe cases trying to push the envelope get consequented. Hey, did I just mint a new word?
In Canada, you can now be fined $34,000 for organizing a protest. Doesn’t surprise me in the least. And the head of Google says crime and porn etc. are not the biggest threats to the Internet. That position is occupied by “Governments”. And in St. Louis, the cops are complaining that cameras that record them punching out detainees are hurting their job performance. I didn’t know St. Louis was in Canada.
How’s my diet coming? For results, pretty badly. I have not lost any weight in two months. My indexes have all returned to normal, but without shedding pounds, this is hardly living. Saying no to rice removed a favorite staple and even if pasta always means Kraft Dinner to me, I enjoyed it a lot. How effective is eliminating potatoes and bread if I increase the portions of the other items? Nor was I ever a pasta connoisseur. I don’t frequent restaurants that serve food I can cook at home.
Otherwise, I’m following the diet totally well, if you discount my happiness. The only one that truly gets to me is the rice. I get day-long cravings. Not fun. Ordinary boiled rice, nothing fancy, even though I can make just about anything from rice. I love a big juicy chicken breast on rice with just soy sauce and pepper. Make you a deal. If I ever hit 150 pounds again, I’ll treat myself. (I formerly ate rice up to eight times per week, and I mean in two-cup servings. I laugh when I see that half-cup serving size.)
Trivia. NASA has issued a warning to the 26 companies developing moon travel that relics of Apollo missions are historic sites and thus off limits. Cows standing in a field will all face either the north or south magnetic pole.
ADDENDUM
I don’t much stop at BK any more, but today I was out paying the phone bill. I ran into that completely out of touch lady who presumes we have so much in common because we are the same age. We have these conversations through that backward fog of uneducated frustration that amuses me as I’m reminded of my childhood. My brothers at 15 just beginning to get the clues I did at 9 and thinking they are smarter because they “brought it up first”. Except this lady can’t explode into a jealous rage, so we sort of get along.
Her: “What are those?”
Me: “They’re the trolleys from the toy that comes with the kid’s meal.”
Her: “You never told me you had kids.”
Me: “I don’t.”
Her: “Then how did you get the kid’s meal.”
Me: “I ordered it at the counter.”
Her: “You can do that?”
(This goes on for another five to fifteen minutes. Then to wrap up.)
Me: “I use the trolleys to build robot feet.”
Her: “Where do you get the chickens?”
Me: “What chickens?”
Her: “The ones from the chicken’s feet.”
Me: “No, no. That’s robot feet.”
Her: “So, how old are your kids?”
Me: “Give me a break.”
Her: “Oh no, is the trolley broken?”
She bought a single Krugerrand for like $80 back in 2002 and asks me every time if I think gold will go up. I always say yes. Like my family, she honestly believes we are having a quality conversation and that there is a major two-way exchange of information underway. She means well but she is so far out of her league it gets embarrassing being seen with her. How, I ask you, can a person who can’t order a kid’s meal think we are on an even plane here. Then again, Theresa used to tell me I was dumb because she knew all contracts had to be in writing and I didn’t.
Thick, impenetrable fog.
