December 15, 2013

           Today was not exciting. I spent the morning productively, installing pilot lights on the club “real power bars”. Think of them as power bars that have an off-on switch that you can really use and, importantly, that nobody is going to walk off with. Next, I sat in my armchair, shut my eyes for a second and woke up at two minutes to five in the afternoon. Hey, lots of people do this but not all of them wait until they are finished the day's work first.

           In fact, here is a picture of a club “power bar”. These are simple outlets that control items that don’t have their own off on switches. I guess it depends on how often you need something along these lines until you get fed up with regular power bars. Their rinky-dink switch is difficult to use and unlike my design, it doesn’t have that plate you can step on to yank the plug out.

           This is not a photo of the finished product. Although I would have no objections to using the night light shown as a power indicator, it is too fragile. But all those 115V lights I bought last year turned out bad, the whole lot. Note the attractive classic cover plates. That’s from back when they made them right.
           It is still morning and I’m sipping iced tea. It was a good game last evening, I love bingo and bingo loves me. I was going to have breakfast at Dunkin, but that place is always full of noisy old buggers. I walked in, heard them over there in the back, and walked right back out again. You know the type. Deadbeat losers who use a $2k laptop to check their email, know everything, and think the Jews stole Israel. A disgusting pack of nobodies, but a majority wherever they congregate. Plus, the Dunkin staff are noisy and will often start sweeping the floor near your open cup of coffee.

           So, I bought some pickled garlic tomato and a quarter loaf pumpernickel at the Russian store, then headed right back to the peace and quiet over hear. Have you seen what specialty bread costs these days? Staying at the coffee joint was not a choice. If maturity is discovering the volume knob also turns to the left, that Dunkin crowd has a ways to go. There’s always one coot twice as loud as the rest and today he was on about sports and lotto tickets. I told you, today was not exciting.

           Thus, no outside breakfast for me. Not spending means I have the bingo cash to splurge. The bingo crowd was smaller than usual at the game, but too large a group is not always a good thing. You’ll always get the ones who need the number repeated a third time. Here’s a food picture. This is dishes from the recent birthday party in Miami. When you have a slow blog day, food pictures always work.
           This plan for breakfast was provoked by memories of how John and I used to go to the very best places when our weekends off coincided. I’ll have to give her a nickname so you’ll know she and I used to chum. We had such different but non-confrontation takes on so many things so we learned a lot from each other. And yes, I miss a woman who can talk about what I already know, but from a refreshing perspective.

           By the afternoon, it’s too hot outside so I watched some tutorials, such as there are on the Internet. You know, guys, videos on scientific topics like how to build light cubes and use augmented reality screens may not be the ideal place to impress upon the world your ultra-kewl taste in disco rap. At the other extreme no sound is just as bad. Videos with no sound track are also a good way to advertise that you are a numbskull.

ADDENDUM
           Practice did not happen today. Billie-Bill was due for rehearsal, but I’m never the type to count on a Saturday night musician to show up on Sunday. Sure enough, he worked until 3:00 AM. (He drove past here and saw the lights on, but wisely didn’t drop in. I was sound asleep so what he saw was the security timer.) For me, midnight gigs are long gone unless they are really paying the big bucks. Or as I said when I was 35, “If I don’t get paid and laid by 10:30, I’m going home.”
           Later, he called but I’m not putting my eggs in one basket. Billie-Bill is a multi-bander, that is, he plays in several groups simultaneously. Usually, this is to keep working, but it is a non-starter, as these bands wind up competing for the same gigs. As a guitarist, he is also more concerned with things like “musical direction” and “making it big” than my concentration which is basically providing entertainment at small venues and having a good time. Thus, he gets occasional work with a big band while I prefer steady work with a duo.

           His management style is also different than mine. He is more the type to avoid discussing an issue in advance and consequently often obliged to deal with it in less advantageous circumstances in the future. His, “I don’t want to talk about the past,” becomes “Why didn’t you say anything until now?” Mind you, he has the advantage of knowing that I can rapidly learn his music. Yet I have never seen a Florida guitarist learn anything new including music, except those situations where I was teaching. At the other extreme, my management style is heavily based on facts, studies, statistics, and reality. Here is a graph that shows the declining revenues since May 2011 (the down-sloping pink line).

           A graph, the equivalent of which every guitar-player-band-manager who disagress with me would have his own copy based on his records and independent research criteria. I’m sure. I mean, they wouldn't dare criticize me just off the top of their heads. Would they? Wallace?
           What I’m guarding against is floaters. These are guys who think they are hot tamales, so all they want to do is play the gigs. The problem there is they don’t want to do any of the hard work. I prevent that. I recompense the person who sets up the gig 15% off the top. And yes, I fire people who object. Go figure that 85.7% of those fired have been loudmouth, smartass guitar players types who thought they could scoop the gravy.

           [Author’s note: should anyone point out that in the band I play in, I get an equal cut without any management duties, I have an answer. That particular band rules with an iron fist and insists on not sharing the work load with me or anybody. Therefore, the two situations are not comparable and anybody who suggests so is just picking a fight.]