November 10, 2017

Yesteryear
Yesteryear
One year ago today: November 10, 2016, disciplining free thought . . .
Five years ago today: November 10, 2012, the scooter trunk, new.
Nine years ago today: November 10, 2008, I stop using banks.
Random years ago today: November 10, 2013, California orange groves.


           This is a Vivitar of a speed bump. See the sign? If you can’t, that’s because it is a Vivitar. The sign says SPEED TABLE. Oh goodie, mom, are we going to have lunch? Aw, come on Florida. Speed table? Stupidity is more offensive than any degree of political ideology.

           Where’s Bradford? See, I told you the guy would be unreliable at first. It’s common unless you get people who really have played in a band before. They don’t realize how much initial investment is involved. You always practice on a Friday when you aren’t playing to reinforce the concept that time is not your own. But the positive news is Bradford would do a good job of it if he knuckles down. He’s over 30 and plainly nobody has ever shown him before how to play in a band. I know of somebody else that happened to.
           No, it isn’t obvious what is required. Just look around and the countless guitar wankers out there who will never play in a band. They’ve got bad preconceived notions what it is all about. That goes for the majority of the solo guitarists, as well. Even the Hippie. More than half their song lists are funereal at best. While I can’t teach anybody music, I can show practically anyone how to be a stage performer if they try. That’s the situation with Bradford.

           I took ten minutes and showed him the basics. Do this, don’t do that. When I move by bass neck upward, change to this chord, when I dip it downward, switch to the other one. Whenever I play this sound, you stop. Within minutes we were playing nearly stage-ready music. His face was the most classic, “Ah-ha,” I’ve seen in ages. Then two more tunes in minutes, which is quite opposite to learning a tune with other bands. With them it is a drawn-out session of the guitarist, who has already learned the list, breathing down your neck to hurry up.
           Nor was it just the music. I’d explained about voicings and he wasn’t so sure. Then he tried it and he couldn’t learn new songs fast enough. It’s that I-can-do-this moment and in his ear, he heard the whole band. Music lessons spend so much time taking the music apart that guitar players forget how the audience listens.

Picture of the day.
Hans Island, disputed territory.
Remember to use BACK ARROW to return to blog.

           This is an ancient cash register. Again, Vivitar, so you can’t see the fine print. But it has a key for each possible combination. If a transaction is $1.99, you press the white dollar key and the black 99 key. That’s from back in the day when a penny was still money. The machine had a series of little chutes along the front of the keys, you can just make a few of them out. Nobody remembers what they are for, but they lead to a type of coin bucket. It’s not for sorting the coins, since they would all fall into the same bucket.

           Noon found me back in Winter Haven buying supplies. The cheapest guitar cable these days is a twelve-footer for $15. And even then, they try to see you a service contract. But what I was over there for was to see some honcho at the bank about taking my name off my checks and bank cards. A lot of people don’t know you can get this service—but you usually have to insist. The logic is simple, when you get a debit card, it usually contains a VISA or other credit logo somewhere on the front. Let’s call it VISA. So, even if you never use it as a credit card, VISA monitors every transaction. That may not be a wise thing for you, letting some unknown entity track your movements and purchases.
           As you know, I simply never use the debit card except to use an ATM and always in the next county over. This still leaves VISA with a trail of my travels, but mostly I use the same ATM. What you want is a specific ATM card. That is all it does is work the machine. You cannot use it for purchases. But that is what I originally wanted two years ago. It was complicated by the fact my accounts are not in my own name. I set up a dummy situation to isolate my transactions from the world.

           This is not illegal. You can call yourself Superman as long as it is not for a fraudulent purpose. But after the account was set up, the bank began spelling out my identity on every piece of paper in the place. It was not until recently I got high enough through their echelons to somebody with the authority to take my name off the transactions. One of the primary reasons people establish corporations and trusts is discretion. If somebody wants to know what they are doing, they want the same right back. Well, finally, I got it done. That also takes my name off the envelope that contains my statements.
           Worst bank I’ve ever dealt with? Bank of America. Scum. Cheating, lying scum. That’s the outfit that would not even let me close the account. They demanded I leave $100 in there for a month afterward “just in case”. I left $100.01 and casually walked out the door, with the smug-faced fat broad behind the counter thinking she just showed me. Her expression changed as she watched me stroll over to the ATM and take out the last $100.00 faster than she could block the transaction.

ADDENDUM
           Trivia. Childhood violence is up 11,000% since the invention of the television. North Korea has a 100% literacy rate. A person there is deemed literate if they can read and write “Kim-Il Sung”. (And killed if he couldn’t? That could explain the 100% rate, you know.)


Last Laugh

++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Return Home
++++++++++++++++++++++++++