February 22, 2014

           Nothing happened in the entire world today, or at least the part of the world that concerns me. There’s the bakery and bingo, but that could pretty much be any Saturday in the middle of winter around here. I’ll tell you how the day went, diary-fashion, and you decide if you want to be bored with it. Back in the picture is Belize, the former British Honduras. I doubt I would move there, as it is not the cheapest or nicest place, but has the advantage of everyone speaking English. A decent house there costs around $40,000 which is comparable to a Florida manufactured home with the land.

           One very attractive part of Belize, outside of these ladies modeling the “Lemon Crush” bikini, is that the Belize legal system is different. The government does have the right to monitory all money, but they do not do extensive background checks for residency. I would expect to find a lot of people over there who “re-invent” themselves. This bikini is claimed to be formal, as in suitable for the bride. Formal? I’ve inspected it very closely and I don’t know about that. Very closely. It comes in a size called “bootiliscious”. I don’t want to know.
           It’s been twelve years since I inspected Belize and back then concluded its best asset was that it wasn’t Mexico. I am leery of retiring on any kind of island after my experience in Barbados in ’83. I learned not to live anywhere that can’t supply its own food. And I have a preference to locations where I can, if necessary, walk back to the USA. But of course, I would ride a motorcycle.

           The dirty underbelly of Belize is they have a deliberate policy of excluding undesirables from gaining citizenship. All foreign marriages to a Belizean are investigated and monitored for up to five years. Leave the country more than 14 days and your name goes on the watch list. A residency card costs Americans $1,000 because they know you’ve got it. To retire without residency, you must deposit $24,000 in a Belize bank. You cannot bring your car or boat and like any ex-Brit colony, the economy is completely dominated by a few well-connected families.
           It wasn't all swimwear, I worked today. I installed a DVD burner and secondary hard dive on the XP computer. This outdated but perfectly functional equipment requires time to repair. The hard drives are the older IDE model that have suitcase straps and two drives is the practical limit. Anyone who had a computer in the 80s would recognize the setup. There is a working 3.5” floppy and the monitor defaults to Screen 0, the clunky old green and black type. Yes, flat screens can be set to that mode.
           This is the unit I’m running QBASIC on and I’m close to developing a script that takes MP3 files and strips out all the nonsense in the “Details” tab of the property menu. Why? Well, because the world is full of idiots, beginning with the ones who designed the tab. You can see it by right-clicking on an MP3 file and choosing the option Properties. The problem is that your computer displays the files by the title in the “General” tab, but Android-like playback units use the title field. Other idiots use that field to put the strangest things, like “full version”, “rare copy”, or even the artist’s name. The problem is that your computer displays one name while your playback device shows the other. Sheer lunk-head majority rules stupidity.

           I understand some people have a real compulsion to memorize album names and which track the music is on. But seriously, do you know anybody that says, “Let’s listen to Best of 1995, Track 3”? I do, but can't specify. Soon, my new script will, robot-like go in there and wipe out all that hard work by thousands of idiots. You might think they’d learn, but I think the opposite. These people aren’t going to admit they are losers by themselves, you know.
           How goes my QBASIC? It must still be an evolving language because there are numerous versions that don’t mention commands I’ve seen in the coding. They also contain data placeholders and new graphics procedures not explained in the original texts. Well, I should not say that, because the furthest I’ve read back is 2001 and I don’t always distinguish early varieties of BASIC. That’s in all caps because it means Beginner’s All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code. It was my first high-level language and I began using it in the early 1970s. It fell out of fashion when early Apple software became available, although I had done some advanced AI work in BASIC. I emphasize this time around my studies are only to rekindle a skill, not to become an expert in the language.
           Mitch was home which, despite the time zones, results in an e-mail chat. You’ve had those. Where the reply button institutes a much slower back and forth of messages. Sort of “non-live” chats. Over the course of a morning, we conduct a very slow conversation—but it contains much more depth than a chat. He is about to retire. This is my eleventh year of “retirement” and one thing I’ve learned is not to trust the system for your future well-being. I’m very cognizant of the fact I do not own the property where I live, not that many others do either. I have a theory that given enough time, all properties get repossessed by the sate. I've heard tell of people who wasted their lifetime in a factory to own a house they lost for a few dollars in taxes they couldn't pay when they got old. I'm dumb, but I ain't that dumb.

           And it was a long day. Eighteen hours. Why was I up so early? Well, unlike guitar players, I have rehearsal in a few hours and I like to be prepared. That, and because I will never tire of mocking the habits and self-perceptions of stereotypical Florida musicians. I wonder how I developed that behavior since I never used to do it much before 2008. I need new equipment. The portable Fishman PA, the drum foot pedal, and a new electric bass of the same make and model. $1,300 is the cost these days. That’s a considerable layout that may never show an ROI. I already own $3,464.47 worth of equipment, around half of it nearing its service life.
           This kind of fact is why I often smile when I hear guitar players claim they are experienced band managers. Jag was over today and we carefully stepped through the Valentine’s video to pick through our mistakes. Each man is allowed to find his own, the only time another opinion is allowed is by request or in broad terms addressing the big picture. I’d say we covered most of it, but the tunes concentrated on tended to be the ones which contained those “thirds” you’ve heard me mention so often. “Folsom Prison”, “Love Me Tonight”, “Tennessee Flat Top”. Those thirds are easing toward becoming our distinctive sound, since other bands [who don't arrange their music] either leave them out or make the mistake of playing “floating fourths” instead.

           I’d say this was our most productive practice yet. We’ve added dynamics that have traditionally scared away other guitar players. We tried the shallow strumming to “These Boots”, and musical aspects like the slip of paper between the guitar strings to emulate a snare drum (Johnny Cash). Many times these techniques are not fully investigated by bands. The main reasons are, in my experience, that most bands never "go back" an improve a song once they've learned it, and it takes raw confidence to incorporate non-standard stage work. I'm serious, most bands actually strive to be like other bands.
           What I'm seeking are "tipping points", the technique of doing something novel enough to elicit a tip from the crowd. The idea is to attract attention, not to command it. It is dumb to try to captivate the audience, it is prudent to make them look back at you several times each tune in amusement. Sorry Billie-Bill, but the kid is light years ahead of you in this department. His other band is playing at the Egypt tonight. That’s the punk rocker venue out near the Davie Everglades that I visited last year.
           The photo? It's just there to get your attention. This is what the women at the Egypt do NOT look like. This is the guitar player of some chick-band that sings like Michael Jackson, you know whispering the words in the background. But she sure looks better to me than the lemon crush bikini crowd.