One year ago today: September 16, 2013, Ft. Lauderdale by sidecar.
Five years ago today: September 16, 2009, finally, water!
Ten years ago today: September 16, 2004, John Day.
We took a close look at the hub and axle arrangment on the eBike prototype. Agt. M opted for a small scooter hub with shorter spokes, but this involves drilling new holes. I hinted that might weaken the metal but we proceeded. In a surprising move, he agreed to try both the drill press and hand drilling and compare. Surprise, I told you this guy can do spectacular work by hand and he did it.
[Photo delayed}
Working with aluminum is becoming easier. That hub was aluminum. We also examined the DrawBot, which is now mounted on a larger clipboard. Even when built to spec, it remains a finicky contraption to operate. I am examining the software to find out if that is the problem. This is a fairly high level of activity for the heat of summer so we took off the the Russian market for chicken and cold drinks. Whoever opened that place is brilliant. And I might add the clientele is much more upscale than the neighborhood. People are driving to get there.
It will certainly slow down Senor Cafe just a block up the highway. Plus, they don't mind if I read a book or do some arithmetic for a while. No pictures because I have no camera yet. None of them make the grade. And my camera phone doesn't like to send pictures at times. What's with that, Virgin Mobile?
How did I relax? I spent an hour tracking down that "d" value in the nautical tables that doesn't make sense. It is that last piece of the puzzle I can't follow. I can get the right answer every time now but that is not the way to learn. It seems to be in interim value that is not needed by every method that consults the tables. Anyway, I skipped the writer's club meeting tonight to catch up on other things. Like this blog. Oh well, I'll have plenty of time until I join the next band.
And join I will. I just put in 16 months with a group that did not improve or learn anything new. They put more time into erasing the parts of their web videos that showed the crowds applauding my bass playing than they did into getting us gigs. The drummer maintains he is working full blast on it, but the only real gigs were the ones the piano player gave us when his band didn't want them. You can read in the addendum how he wan'ts us to pay him for doing something that doesn't work. And then has the gall to tell me I'm confrontational for wanting a say over my money?
I made $534.80 with that band all told. Did I mention the drummer was miffed that I kept score? Good, because that is all they made as well. Imagine that, them telling me I play the wrong kind of music. Or don't know what I'm talking about when it comes to working a room. My bingo [alone] turnout beats their best crowds, you know.
I thought about these things while Agt. M and I drank $14 worth of pineapple juice in the heat today. That's right, a fortune in cold juice to drill 36 spoke holes. But them are the finest spoke holes ever made in a shed in this town. We ran into DeeDee in the Russian market, so we are not the only ones playing hooky on the bakery. Shhhhh. It's a secret. Hey, I still go there in the morning.
ADDENDUM
The following is all band gossip.
It's the end of the band, for anyone who did not see it coming. The drummer, bit of a mouthpiece, calls me up this morning to say he wants $25 per member per month to cover his management expenses. Funny, that's about equal to all the money his management has ever earned the band. Since I could see where this was going, I pointed out that I had joined this band to give them a chance to be my backup group. That was to bruise the ego he claims they don't have.
They should have listened. By now they'd be playing the circuit and could dump me and do their little loser act. They are a first rate backup band but second rate owner-operators and third raters for stage presence. Who will never understand that music virtuosity by itself does not sell. Remember that, music by itself dos not sell. I hope one day they walk in to one of my shows and what might have happened if they'd even given me a fair chance. They never did, you know.
The writing has been on the wall for a while. I understood I was answering a Craigslist ad, although I was slow in realizing why that band didn't seem to personally know any of the movers and shakers in this community. Now I see, they don't even move in the same circles. Another difference is I admit I have an ego, because I would never have succeeded at anything without it. But you should listen to those guys. They have equally huge egos without any successes to back it up, at least not any that show. They are like, "We don't have egos at all. We're just not going to listen to anything you say because you don't think we're perfect as we are."
This is nonsense. But you know something that stuck in my craw? I finally brought up thow they never asked me if I wanted to play a given song. Get this, he said that was because it was decided during the 8 -12 minutes I was regularly late for rehearsal. (They don't know about my Sunday incoming business reports at 2:30PM). That's mighty convenient. What's even more convenient is how they must have instantly stopped talking about it when I arrived, because I never heard even the tale end of such a conversation. Now follow their logic here: my absence somehow explains the band playing "Strawberry Fields Forever", but never any Johnny Cash.
Which is the other thing. They never did learn 15 of my songs as was understood to happen after I'd learned some of their list. But they misremembered enough of our original negotiations that I didn't bring it up. If they deny hearing me say I was looking for a working situation, they'll deny anything. Can we have a show of hands here now many people seriously think I joined a band to waste my Sundays practicing for gigs that never happened? That's what I thought. The band says otherwise. Now put down your hands before you start shaking fists.
Seriously, the band was not up to my standards and will only ever succeed by importing lots of outside talent, such as the singer and I. But the egos they don't have will not allow them to admit it. And for the record, my standards are not that high. However, those standards include arranging everything we play, no drinking at rehearsals, and paying close attention to the music climate in the area. But Florida is strange. I even tried paying musicians to learn the techniques of arrangment and just got broke in a hurry.
Note that arranging music is itself is an ego-buster. Guitar players especially want to only play "the guitar part". The other extreme is when they over-play rhythm guitar and every song sounds alike. There is a balance [to music] and I learned the hard way that balance may not exist like it once did. Here is a rare quip from one of my e-mails:
" I learned one thing from that working-class bunch. If you've experienced any modicum of success in your life, [they'll bitch that] you have an ego. Only those who have never been tainted with success can claim to not have an ego. But it is only a claim. They do [have egos] but it [their ego] just can't take the same beating as a successful ego, so they run you down."
Return Home
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
