One year ago today: June 6, 2016, fixing to move.
Five years ago today: June 6, 2012, my consistent mistake with women.
Nine years ago today: June 6, 2008, that useless saw (now I need it.)
Random years ago today: June 6, 2005, remember Katrina?
Gosh, that was a rainstorm and I drove the Rebel through it. Out goes the power, this is Florida and the distribution system has never been upgraded. I got to the bank, it was coming back that proved a little challenging. There is no place to carry a rain jacket on the Rebel, it is strictly a local and fair weather machine. Except for the trips to Miami, and the forecast is for rain well into that period. Get out of town early, as the rains are normally the convection thing from the Gulf, so mid- and late afternoons are the times to avoid.
Next, I read up on college and university costs. How much are parents who put their kids through college actually paying out? It seems most parents have a system, whereby they put one kid through before the next. This often means the second child may have to wait until he is 20 and the third until he is 22 to begin, although the ease of student loans probably means that rare actually happens. We are talking about the few lucky ones whose entire post-secondary education is parent-funded. If you ignore the Ivy League outfits, it is not that bad. An economy degree is running at tuition plus $24,000 per year. Should I go back to college when I’m 65?
Location is also a factor, the most expensive place to attend is Hawaii. Back in the 80s, I met women who were students on Oahu. That includes one gal whose parents shipped her car with Michigan plates to the island each winter. It was always shocking to meet kids with parents who spent more on them each year than mine did raising me. As of inflation, to get an idea of costs in my day, lop off a zero. The dollar is now ten cents. Back then, the school year was around $200 per month. I would have lived like a king on that kind of money. Instead, some years I got by on $800 borrowed dollars.
In the end, it was not enough. I got by as far as I could on youthful enthusiasm and wearing the same clothes I turned 16 in. There is nothing redeeming about being the poorest kid on campus, and that’s poorest by a truly mammoth amount—there were welfare brats in my class who had enough spending money to go on charter jet trips to Europe over the holidays. While I lived in my room eating stashed leftovers waiting for the dining center to re-open in January. No, there were no other poor kids on campus. The only other person there over the holidays was the watchman. The residence closed over the break and technically he could have thrown me out into the snowbank.
You know, it was years later in my twenties that I found out my parents used to brag how their “kid in university” wasn’t costing them a thing. Isn’t that something? It also transpires they had planned for me to drop out of university, thinking I’d never get as far as I did. Rumor has it they intended that I would flop completely, return home in destitution, and they would “benevolently” put me to work at manual labor on the farm. There’s masterful parenting for you. Why are we talking about this?
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national debt
Take a gander at these stacked wood slats, it’s another mark how satisfied I am with the work shed. Before, I would have had to clear counter space in the house or underfoot to stack boards like this to dry. And these boards are larger than anything the area is designed for. It was worth falling another month behind to get that shed into commission.
“Good girls are in every corner of the world,
and the world is round.”
~Anon.
It would seem I learn an average of three new songs each time I meet a guitarist who lasts more than one or two rehearsals. This time it was six, because he’s singing five of them. Whereas I’ve dabbled and jammed a few of the new tunes, they were never part of my act. Jamming and learning represent a considerable difference in time put in. If all I have to do is play bass, I can spend six hours learning a new song. I don’t so much play that music as much as I present it. On my own it is unlikely I’d choose something like “It’s Five O’Clock Somewhere” just because it is not quite catchy enough for a bar song. It’s so slow it crawls and the lyrics are too ballad-like.
However, if the other guy sings it, that’s different. The audience quickly picks up that I’m the one that plays the fun music while the other guy plods along with what he can. This alone is a big part of the challenge I fact finding a rhythmist. Most guitar players don’t like being relegated to just another band member, yet that is precisely what the bastards expect of others, strange as it is. One of the worst possible reasons to choose a song is because the guitar player likes it. Most of them are so bland and unoriginal, you can predict what they want to play and so can the audience. I’ve met highly touted “lead players” who could not strum through a an entire song. Now that’s living in a shell.
Playing what the audience wants. What a concept. Taking it to the next level, they cannot do. They turn 40 waiting for their ship to come in but they never sent one out.
I went through the entire new song list, including the tunes I’ve just learned and that’s 28 songs we could play if we had to. What a far cry from that New York jerk who wasted my time. I can’t believe I was desperate enough for a guitar player that I put up with his nonsense. You know, he never did learn a single song or a single note that was on my list. Music, when done right, tends to be complicated even on the simple passages and that pinhead seemed to take everything I said the wrong way. He was just so asinine about doing things different that before.
For example, I hesitate to change anything about a song that alters its basic character. But that does not apply to creating a chopped ending on stage for songs that fade out in the recording. Fading is infamously difficult to accomplish on stage without a sound man. Whenever I’d stop him from changing a riff in the middle of a song, he’d gripe when I changed an ending. It would be different if he had an alternative ending, but no, he just griped about the one I had suggested. Which I would only do if it had worked right before.
ADDENDUM
Even I get to have a treat now and then. I was in the south end, so I stopped at the Mongolia, in Bartow. Coffee, mini-cupcake, and the puzzle. Well, the puzzle because there are never any women in there between 18 and 40, so always take your crossword so you’ll have something interesting to look at. In this case, you see I’m working the Sudoku, the puzzle the inventor forgot to patent, so he lost a potential fortune. This is a photo of my cupcake from the pro deli.
See, that’s the problem with you women these days. You never learned how to cook properly. That explains why you are all so damn skinny. Why, two years of my cooking and you’ll be plumped right up, for according to the latest studies from California, that is the look that modern men should like. That’s “should” like. Guess I’m kind of old-fashioned, since day one. Just so you know, I never did go through a childhood phase where I didn’t like girls or thought they were icky.
Then again, I never was into gangs, jock sports, or long stretches of just doing nothing. As with not watching television, this was astounding considering my environment. I was the only “hippie” in a town of greasers and rig workers, I was the only self-taught musician who created his own band from scratch. I was first to have long hair, and in those days, the first in my crowed to score with a virgin. It meant a lot back then, because most of the guys in town were initiated by this sleaze-box deaf girl who had her own horse.
Guys, don’t you believe that crap about “experienced” women. You’ll find there is only once in each woman’s life she has sex for no other reason than that she wants to. Oh, she’ll want to again, but by then that is no longer the only reason. I speak with authority. And I would give what I could to just once more in my life find a woman who did not bore me silly after a few months. I’m resigned that will never happen to me again, the best I can hope for is a pretty one.
On that note, I’m going to watch a DVD that I have never completely seen before. “Goodfellas”. I’ve only seen clips here and there, I could not tell you the plot. I expect it will be another Hollywood glorification of gangsterism, and we know who controls Hollywood and why they have spent a hundred years creating the myth that the Italians are the bad guys. That’s baloney, the Italians were just the hired enforcers. A moment’s thought tells you who the real gangsters have been all along for the last 3,000 years.
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