One year ago today: December 25, 2016, you screamed once.
Five years ago today: December 25, 2012, on feeding lazy people.
Nine years ago today: December 25, 2008, the definition of New Age.
Random years ago today: December 25, 2014, an Xmas bagel.
A glorious winter day in the Florida sunshine. I see most of my neighbors, like myself, observe Xmas but don’t much celebrate it. My treat, I made chicken mushroom soup and read my Skeptic magazine, and wrote my batch of Xmas letters. Yep, the inner circle still gets good old fan mail. (This does not include e-mail.) All last year, for the record, I got one return piece of mail, a postcard. But that’s not really how things are measured. I would like to write articles similar to what appears in Skeptic, though lately, as in the last couple of years, their choice of articles has been slipping. They pay, on average, $1.71 per word, so what you read here today, if published, would be worth around $2,800 to the author. But don’t get your hopes up, the odds of writing like this being published—unless it wins that prize or contest first—are practically zero.
Today you get a mini-essay, including a near top-notch article on band financing down in the addendum. Free. It was so quiet, I read the business section which normally barely concerns me. I see Colorado Springs is still operating at a surplus. I’ve only been there once, passing through to Pike’s Peak, but it was the city that elected a businessman to straighten out the budget. He did, but like Trump, the major opposition was from the people already in when he got there. It’s all a matter of record, so you can look it up. He dealt with resistance by firing department heads. The city screamed they were losing top talent. But they went from deficit to surplus in one term. Proving it works to get rid of the wrong kind of talent.
I was impressed by his leadership because it owed nothing to cronyism. What I liked best was the aspects of user-pay. It revealed, at least to me, how Libertarians could make a system work that did not have to coerce anyone into anything. Example, the city shut off every third street light because the power bill was too high. The citizens reacted with an adopt-a-streetlight plan. To me that says most of it. People will gladly pay for their own street lights, but not for the other side of town. That is such an essence of being Libertarian it nearly brought a tear to my eye.
The real surprise was reading that the voters had learned that saving money costs money. It says here that they voted in tax increases for things that never would have passed ten years ago—because like the street lights, it was a direct benefit to their own neighborhoods. And I’ll bet they got their projects done at a fraction of the cost had the old city council still been running things. That city flies in the face of others where the establishment declared the citizens too incompetent to vote out council decisions. Pure bureaucratic arrogance, that is.
One article in the Skeptic got me thinking about welfare. While the focus was on how to best prevent reoffending, I found many of the conclusions could be applied to welfare as well. The big conclusion was how to reintegrate the offender back into society, so that he develops the concept that his needs are integrated with a larger community. Well, is that not exactly the process that should happen to welfare recipients? I’ve always felt that certain forms of long-term welfare, particularly intergenerational, are more injurious to society than most petty crimes.
There is very little incentive to get off welfare if the result means going back to work for eight hours a day. It is evident to most clear-headed observers that even the lowest degree of comfort made possible by welfare is preferable to any kind of work. Welfare, I think, has created such a large group in the USA that the recipients can easily develop a comfortable level of acceptance within their own kind at the expense of any other part of society. Going back to work means leaving their friends and becoming exposed to an environment with totally different values.
I personally experienced some of the same. When I left university, it meant the end of most of my intellectual contacts and friends. I was no longer surrounded by people really trying to make things of themselves. In no time I even missed the ones I didn’t like. I was permanently separated from my ambitious friends. I was thrust into a work environment with people I would never socialize with, and in the end, never did. My entire working career, I never developed a single friendship with anyone in that company that lasted beyond quitting time. However, you may find it revealing that the parking lot attendant next door is to this day, 30 years later, on my mailing list. He’s the guy who invented the brake-bleeding system. He never got rich off it, but I had more in common with him than anyone who had the same career as me.
Baja California.
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I walked over to chat with Howard, the guy who sold me this place. He is really impressed with the work done. I told him about the stop work order and he couldn’t believe it. His father was the city engineer for many years. Howard has heard other stories lately of the new city code inspector doing this to other people. I’m telling you, nobody expected it would happen to me. All my work exceeds code but that didn’t help. Now I’m specifically listening to what people are saying. And watching what they are doing.
Look at this picture, an example of the design I am using—almost. The difference is the literature says to use only these solid concrete blocks, not the hollow brand I am using. What you can’t see is the difference in price, $7 vs. 98¢ each. The book says the hollow blocks are too brittle, but the ones that have been under my house for 70 years say otherwise. My blocks are the regulation four feet apart under the girder. Note the asphalt shingle under the lumber in this illustration. It is glued in place and acts as a vapor barrier and a cushion that fine tunes the wood to level.
ADDENDUM
Xmas or not, the young guitar player has not called back as planned. That brings the 1960s lady back into focus, she said available immediately after Xmas Day. Let’s take a closer look at what she is offering. Taught music by the age of 17, she’s got pro equipment including a custom Ovation. It’s the one guitar I recognize on sight. She says not really a singer, but that’s a plus. She can’t run out on me to do a solo. She last played in the 90s, which is around the newest music I can market.
Take care when judging the market here. I’m not starting just another clone act, rather a duo that would have zero competition if I could just get a guitarist who does his job right. This is not some pie-in-the-sky adventure. I’ve teamed up with a strummer here and there for a few songs and the crowd appeal was immense. That’s part of what I mean by marketing. Most guitar players, when it comes to gig income, live hand-to-mouth. The average income is still less than $14,000 annually, same as it was twenty years ago, but now worth maybe $9,100 in today’s money.
Guitarists seldom to never take enough into account to when they are making or losing money—the reality is most of them can’t afford to try something different. In Florida, most of the guitarists I know, even if they play twice per week, don’t meet even that low income level. It works out to $270 per week and no individual musician I know consistently makes that. But here is where we diverge. Playing music is basically a sales job and it pays by commission. The better you are, the more tips you make. Has everyone here read “Death of a Salesman”? Salespeople quickly fixate on their biggest week and hope it happens again. They don’t spot that their musicianship probably had very little impact on that week. And hope doesn’t pay a red cent.
Don’t underestimate this. At gig level, they have very little incentive to change anything, including learn new material. They literally live forever on that dream of again having a big week. Wait, it gets worse. Most are not trained sufficiently to calculate their short or long term expenses. They do not have a business plan, and except for myself, I’ve never known one who has any realistic plans at all. For examples, thousands of them record a CD, never realizing that’s a sure-fire loss. Can you name me any musician who made it big by burning his own album? To a one, they never understand the music business is dominated by the distributors, not the music. And musicians are terrible distributors.
[Author’s note: to my overseas readers, the numbers above are not verified. They are guesstimates from my own experience. One of the greatest American taboos is not talking about income. It results from the unique Yankee experience of living in a welfare state that utilizes tax law to oppress people in the very instances where freedom and privacy are most expected. Everybody knows at least one welfare cheat and someone with unreported cash income—and who have gotten away with it so long that even if caught, the worst penalties are a slap on the wrist.
Also, American law is very unevenly applied. It is best for those with cash incomes to simply clam up. There is also a vigilante attitude that discourages everyone from daring to brag about income, especially in public or to strangers. There is a lot of envy toward cash flow business. And “cash only” is how most musicians even manage to get by. It is common to find older musicians in Florida who still get an allowance from daddy.]
I’ll pick this theme up again in tomorrow’s blog, where I’ll discuss more of my experience with the audiences. To me, the audience is more important than usual, so you might find it good reading.
My approach is much different and it is understandable that I get disappointed. I have a definite advance plan to market a distinct type of music to a definable audience. There is no pretence at thinking anyone over 40 can appeal to the youth of today. Did you get that, Glen? I’ve tried rock, blues, and easy listening. They have a narrow market appeal. The other types of music hardly rate, they get hired mainly when there is nobody else. I’ve looked closely at band sizes and audience temperament. I’ve counted the bar stools and studied how the cruise lines and Internet have dried up large segments of the venues and crowd I grew up and got used to.
Back to the solo joining a duo. There is an initial period when the set lists must be rehearsed. That is unbelievably unappealing work to a guitarist who can go out right now and make at least some money with what he’s already doing. Even in a duo, there will always be conflicts over the choice of music, how often to play out, what to charge, and the guitarist’s worst nightmare: playing songs he doesn’t like for the sake of the band.
But once the duo is running, those startup hurdles become incredible assets. You’ll play when and as often as you please. In turn, you then can pick the best clubs. This is why I know a bass-acoustic duo would have vanishingly little competition. A duo with great musical arrangements would be almost impossible for soloists to match. (Note that most guitarists suck at arranging music but don’t try to tell them that. They have a strange and strong belief that being a guitar player automatically makes them good arrangers) My target audience is people with money, not a packed room of enthusiastic but broke fans. I restrict out of town gigs because the true cost is frightening. I was once the least likely to play country music, but it is hands down the widest and deepest market out there.
It boils down to I’m asking a guitarist to invest a little of his time for a bigger and more consistent payback. It also means somebody else will know how much he makes. He’s not free to do as he pleases and the pay will be smaller at first. There are countless barriers to be overcome. The first suggestion is to hire a guitarist who doesn’t care about the money, but you’ll find that creates more problems. If he doesn’t care about money, he won’t care about what else needs to be done either.
This is why I’ve often said my ideal guitarist would have a day job, need the extra cash, not be able to sing, and puts the band just slightly ahead of personal demands. It would also help to look like Taylor Swift, believe me, it would help. You see, I also have to put up with the guitar player in reverse, but this factor is rarely appreciated. Guitar players who say they don’t like egos or drama mean from others, not themselves. It is curious that nor have I ever played in a band with somebody I chummed around with much other than the music.
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