One year ago today: June 24, 2016, examining the cabin walls.
Five years ago today: June 24, 2012, a generic post.
Nine years ago today: June 24, 2008, when music isn’t enough.
Random years ago today: June 24, 2007, what’s an amaray?
Here’s that crazy dogs gif, it got so many clicks I had to leave it. Needing to get some business taken care of, I had the Rebel up at the music store in Auburndale. I would caution any visitors it isn’t really a music store, but a vintage guitar and amplifier shop. You can’t get supplies, they don’t have batteries, pop filters, music books, that type of thing. For that you go into Winter Haven, which has an excellent outlet. Vintage Music makes the blog because they have my dream bass amp. Here is a next-to-new Matchless. (This model is the Phoenix 35, without reverb, I think.)
Then, I got bitten by the motorcycle bug. I opened the carbs and went sailing long country roads for nearly two hours. Imagining I was in Texas just driving to any horizon. By mid-afternoon I came to my senses, aided by the realization I had not yet had breakfast. By then, 80 miles later, I got into Winter Haven and bought my train ticket to Miami. I’m there and back by Monday. If there was a safe and convenient place to park in south Florida, I might take the train more often.
But, same as went Los Angeles, you don’t dare leave a valuable vehicle sitting unattended for even 48 hours anywhere in Miami except parked in front of your house. The entire urban area is multi-culturalized in the sense that your car will be stolen or vandalized in short order. Here’s a beautiful shot of the Rebel at the Amtrak Station as I bought the ticket. Shortly thereafter, I was in the library book store, getting some reading material for the trip. The scenery is old hat to me, but I still like a window seat.
That was a first class adventure. Sigh, and nobody to share it with. Well, nobody sentimental, anyway. It’s the way Florida works. If you want to take a train trip for the fun of it, the only way you get company is to buy their ticket for them. You think I’m exaggerating, don’t you?
Brazil Day.
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As finances improved [a few years ago] I repeated that day trip [to Winter Haven], then moving to town where I could stay overnight. That was Deland, which as we now know is not anywhere near the Amtrak station. This was the beginning of the decision to move to this area. And I would stress that Polk County and central Florida are not for everyone. It’s cowboy-dropout-hillbilly country and you had best be prepared to never meet anyone with whom you have anything academically in common. Like Canada, it is not unusual to meet fifty-year-old people who have not read a book since they had to.
Also, the Indians thought they were hoodwinking the stupid white man. If you signed a paper saying he “owned” the land, he’d give you rifles, money, beads, whiskey, you name it. Boy was that white man dumb because the next day, the land was still there and you could still walk across it. Let’s be level-headed about these land deals, they were very two-sided, so let’s not be calling one party more nasty than the other. They both thought they were screwing the other guy.
On that note as well, you can read up on the facts about the so-called spread of disease. The germ theory was unknown, so the white man could not possibly have sold infectious blankets. Besides, where did they get the blankets? The Indians traded them back to the store. This blog has also discussed the Bubonic Plague and the 1917 Influenza epidemic to show that these disease attacks are everywhere throughout history and not something the white man invented to kill Indians.
This book was big when I was a student, but I never got around to it. I had my own problems back then. I’d heard it portrayed the white man as totally wicked, and we know that nobody, not even a Stalin or Hitler, can be all bad. People who think total evil is even possible been brainwashed or are thinking of the DMV. So, now I’ll [finally] find out what the book has to say and get back to you with the book report. That’s the blog-style book report, which amounts to my opinion. On the other hand, I’ve been paid for my opinion and national publications have plagiarized this blog, and as far as I know, none of my critics have had such an honor.
Trivia: Your smart phone will recharge faster if you put it in "flight mode".
“I was married by a judge
I should have asked for a jury.”
~ Groucho Marx.
Much as I don’t like working electrical wiring in the dark, I installed a new LED bulb in the scooter. Nothing else was bright enough on the available current. The job took past dark, so I was busy soldering in sub-optimal conditions. I got it working, but it did shake loose after a couple bad bumps on the road. You see, I took the test run out to Highway 17 and now I have another exclusive article for you. New material you just will not get anywhere else. I’m about to tell you what it is like for an aging entertainer to go out to a club where he is unknown and not the star of the show.
I walked in and instantly noticed there were no single or attractive women. Prepared for this, I had brought my notebook (that’s a scribbler, folks) and found a quiet corner. The sign said Karaoke and I saw the crowd was you average 35 year-old married couples. My oath, these people are out of shape, when I was that age fat was something associated with bacon. So I put my name in and the pimple-faced millennial tells me I’m next.
But next is a raffle, then a birthday thing, and so on. He’s playing a ton of instrumental pseudo-rap. I figure it’s part of some special event, so I’m jotting down notes in my book. I spend money to wait around because my turn is next, right? Wrong. The little prick has told everybody the same thing. He’s 24-ish and doesn’t even know how to work the equipment, with constant squealing feedback. Don’t make excuses for his age, when I was 24 I would still have walked all over this two-bit character.
So finally, 90 minutes later, I reminded him he said I was next. He hands me some lame excuse about he doesn’t do this every night. I told him that’s no excuse, to lie to people, saying they are next. He played me for an hour and a half of wasted time. True, I was writing, but he didn’t know that. From his perspective he shafted me into sticking around. So I told him his show sucks and that was the end of it.
Two people approached me during the evening. First was some skinny dude who was too interested in what I was writing. I called him on the bullshit and sure enough, he was a real estate salesman. Come on buddy, in a bar on a Saturday night? The other was a fat lady who said she was impressed by my drawings. I called that one as well, she was selling A/C repairs. Is that what the working class puts up with on a regular basis? Unless you sit there like a dork, you’re a target for these over-pushy last-chancers?
If tonight is the standard fare of non-entertainers, I can somewhat appreciate the appeal of cable TV. If your choices are talking to the skinny man or that fat lady, hell, why not go for the movie channel, or whatever. Myself, I came home and watched one of the “Bourne Identity” DVDs. Back when these were produced, they portrayed his assassins as definitely Latino or Arabic types, so that makes it extra neat to watch Bourne completely kick the shit out of these characters. They’d never allow such scenes in these times.
Last Laugh
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