January 18, 2018

Yesteryear
One year ago today: January 18, 2017, on the number of the beast.
Five years ago today: January 18, 2013, if thinking was easy . . .
Nine years ago today: January 18, 2009, Bingo pays.
Random years ago today: January 18, 2016, remember biosphere 2?

           Here’s the breakfast that faced me this morning in Sun City Center. It’s a shopping center some thirty miles west of here, on the outskirts of Tamp. You are looking a full 290 calories here, including the salad dressing. It’s the McDonald’s and the side salad is so anemic, I had to punch it up with the apple slices on the right. It was too cold to work, Agt. R reports the wind chill took it down to 27°F and that is nearly unheard of in this territory. So off I went on a car tour, into the unexplored area SE of Tampa. Even on the motorcycle, there is no logical reason to cut through that area.

           Yet, it turns out to be more than typical, if that’s possible. One heavy farming community, there are large acreages of shrubs in laser-leveled fields. It would have made such a great motorcycle tour that despite the cold, I put down the car windows and pretended. They could have been strawberries or radishes and I must have seen 90% of the Florida supply. In the area is Plant City, the big processing facility for the grocery chains. There is intense (and expensive) irrigation and before you ever think of “going farming”, you’d best take a trip through and look at the competition.

           One thing, field after field of the plants seemed identical and weed-free. It spells GMO but no way to tell. There were few orchards and they seemed to be dormant or off-season. Who remembers how many times I’ve driven highway 27 past the sign that says Parrish and thought, “One day I’m going down that road just to see.” Well, I came to a T intersection south of, oh what’s that town where I get my haircuts? I found myself halfway down the road to Parrish. Gossip. At the end of the month, my barber has decided to hop out of the lease and head up to location next to a saloon in Plant City.
           Right now he’s next to a beauty salon and it just can’t be that busy. When you see a guy who’s been to barber school opening shop under somebody else’s lease and in the middle of the radish fields, there’s probably an immigration issue. But you’ll also find that Americans are tolerant of those who work. It’s the druggies and rapists they don’t want. And the welfare cases. Don’t you love the leftists that ask who is going to pick the vegetables once the deportations sweep through? Tell them to look it up, only 2% of illegals work on the farms, but 41% collect welfare. Um, and most of the 2% only stay there until they can find some place else to work. It’s their entry-level position.

           Where were we? Ah, yes, there’s a sign now, Parrish 17. Now I’m passing potato ranches and what looks like grape vines. Am I in Florida’s Napa Valley. If so, make that Nada Valley, there are no hills beside each other in the state to create a valley. If they are grapes, they just lost a crop. By 11:00AM it is still frosty. Then, I find Parrish. A lot towns in central Florida consist of a highway intersection and a couple of stores. Sometimes you can find the old town a few miles away, but I think Parrish is more of a community. With no coffee shops. (Later I found out there is one, but it closes early.)

Picture of the day.
Uxmal (say Ooosh-mall).
Remember to use BACK ARROW to return to blog.

           What’s this? Parrish has a railroad museum? Count me in. The car pulled to the right, screaming “Park me, park me.” There I was, at the Florida Rail Road Museum. Except, it wasn’t really. They have a couple of real railway cars and an old engine parked. Inside is a railroad model exhibit. It’s worth a five minute look and it’s free. The only museum pieces are the old passenger cars that house the exhibits. There is a small steam locomotive, heavily over-painted, parked alongside.

           The area is actually a former terminus for several railroads. I’m no expert, but I believe the nearby city of Bradenton had a lot to do with that history. Didn’t I read that is where the Orange Blossom Special was a popular destination out of New York? Just say I am more likely to visit any of the gulf cities if I can get there avoiding the freeways. These smaller towns dot the interior not that far from the coastline over there. I can’t wait until I get the batbike back on the road. Today was fun, but it was not exhilarating.

           I have a long record of using these trips to think ahead. And this time it was the potential finances of the band. If the lady shows another week of improvement like the last, I’ll be looking for some kind of gig. The time to plan for money is well in advance. Unlike other types of planning, it is never a failure if you don’t get the money. Um, Ken, that’s planning ahead, not daydreaming. With music, only general plans are possible, but I know from experience to divide the year into quadrants, or you’ll run short. You get three good months, three medium months, three so-so months, and the rest of the time you’ll get nothing at all. Let’s put some numbers on this.
           First, a closer look at the months, they are rarely consecutive. The best time is the stretch from two weeks before Halloween to New Year’s Eve, with another good period a week or so either side of July 4th. My best ever, converted to today’s money, works out to $2,430 on average for each cumulative 30 day “month”, and my books treat this as three months, sometimes called “the happy time”.

           The worst months are July, August, and the first half of September. I usually don’t even try to play out in that slot. It’s nothing to do with what kind of music you play to a market, but that the market itself is very seasonal. It’s been since the 90s that I played steadily enough to be affected by this factor yet I still seldom plan to gig during that time. The other dead period is January 1 to the week before Valentines. My band records go all the way back to my 19th birthday and they say I’ve made a total of $43 in my life in that stretch. Ha. One good trailer park clubhouse gig could change all that.

ADDENDUM
           Speaking of trailer parks, I can’t find the phone number of the guy whose wife knows the social committees. That’s the one where I found out there were 200 trailer parks in Polk County, although I see that sometimes four or five in a cluster one corner of a dust field is still considered a trailer park. That’s the guy who bailed because he found out playing in a band was like a part-time job. There’s more to that, but it boils down to the same old nonsense. The guitar player figures he’s the boss, he already has the perfect song list, so his “job” is to find him some backup musicians that make him look good. But as far as learning new music along with those people, that’s too much like said part-time job. This picture is my concept of bands with two guitars players.

           Will I play trailer parks? Yes, to gain field experience with the new lady. When I say there are no good duos in the area, there may be some who play that circuit and never advertise. But as a rule, before I’d play the trailer community centers, I’d prefer to play a bar or at least to a crowd that has the energy to dance until midnight. But to get some mileage with Lady Nik, I can’t find the phone number of the guy whose wife knows the social committees. That’s the one where I found out there were 200 trailer parks in Polk County, although I see that sometimes four or five in a cluster one corner of a dust field is still considered a trailer park.

           That’s the guy who bailed because he found out playing in a band was like a part-time job. There’s more to that, but it boils down to the same old nonsense. The guitar player figures he’s the boss, he already has the perfect song list, so his “job” is to find him some backup musicians that make him look good. But as far as learning new music along with those people, that’s too much like said part-time job. He wasn't planning on doing any work. That's for the lesser musicians than guitar players, see.
           Then I stopped at the old club because I’d heard there was going to be a duo. Yep, one electric and one acoustic. This time I was ready and I have footage of them playing the moaner-droner-groaners with not one person applauding. Wait, there was one. The bar manageress. This, folks, is the precise market I am after. You can hear something you just won’t when I’m on stage – the crowd all talking between themselves at their tables, not even paying attention to the band. If the clubs are desperate enough to hire that, then it’s no wonder I’m getting back into the business.


Last Laugh
(Food Coloring 101)

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