So, you still trust Google. A month ago, I checked on laser eye surgery prices. I’ve watched the evolution of side ads since then. The first week, tons of eye doctors. Then the profile took to sending me ads for contact lenses. The third week started with eyeglasses and frames. Notice the products offered get cheaper as time passes and I don’t purchase? Clever. What’s next? Offers for a magnifying glass?On the causeway face-eating incident, all I can say is that is where tolerance applied wrong gets you. In concept, it makes people free. In Florida, it attracts the sickos. It just so happens that I know an awful, awful lot about how freedom and equality can be twisted to favor the truly wicked. The police shot the attacker, sparing us an expensive trial, but also silencing any details. I got five bucks on which community now screams persecution. No, Miami, them being on drugs is not an excuse.
I guess I’m not a phone person. While rigging my phone to ring in Colorado, I reviewed the previous year of activity. In all that time, I’ve made only 1,246 calls totaling 92h 6m 58s which is 5,527 minutes. I paid for 18,000 [minutes]. Generously assuming half those calls were outgoing, I’m vastly overpaying for my service. My average call is less than 4-1/2 minutes. In all, I use the phone only 9% as much as most people.
Here is a photo of Bill, the guitarist, in action. Progress is more than satisfactory, particularly after some early misunderstandings got cleared up by a two-hour phone call. Every band has teething problems and the whole idea is initial compromise until you get out and play. Then nobody feels so bad when they ruin your thunder and you mess up their sequences, ha! Personalities are always a deciding factor but don’t overlook finances and realities. For example, I knew the guitar player had a bad back and wasn’t saying anything, trying to pretend he just liked sitting on a stool. (The guy is disabled.) Anybody who has been playing the same music 30 years must be a walking juke box, if one can just get him to play other than his favorites. I’m the same.
The drummer, Alman, is a widower with teenage twins, enough to keep him attached to a working project better than any percussionist free agent. Thus, I conclude the sooner we get in front of an audience, the faster the roots can grow before the cement sets. This also means yet another shift in my priorities, caused by another reality check. I can play bass. I can sing. I’ve won contests. But, I cannot sing and play bass at the same time without watching my left hand.
Big deal. Well, yes, read on. I’ve only been doing both at the same time a little over 14 months. In my brain, these remain separate skills. While millions of guitarists strum and sing from day one, I have yet to hear of such in a bass school. Picture how one can’t look up and sing into a stage microphone and look down at the fretboard simultaneously. I either hit wrong notes or turn away from the microphone. So, a wireless mic again becomes a priority. And they are damn expensive.
And of course, I’m first and only. The first to buy one and there is nobody around to ask for good advice. Yet just you watch, once I spend the $500 they’ll all become experts who knew of a better deal. My consolation is that I’ve had to do this so many times, I never have to worry that any of them will steal my act. My show maybe, but never my act. Even if they became problem solvers on anything like the scale I operate, they still have no comprehension of the non-musical ground they’d have to cover.
