One year ago today: April 12, 2017, bad guitar habits.
Five years ago today: April 12, 2013, Amelia Island.
Nine years ago today: April 12, 2009, Greyhound sucks.
Random years ago today: April 12, 2015, I built this.
Some guys think they are so great with that little chain of keys on their belt. Hey, we got keys. You want keys? We can open any lock made since the Civil War. And probably some that were made then. The day was used up pricing materials, I’m going to stockpile a little of the next batch of goodies because the prices are, I believe, going to soar. We exported the technology overseas and now they have this country by the short and curlies. You think they give a twit about our culture or political system? Ha, they just want to steal the industry any way they can. They know our plant and equipment hasn’t been updated since 1945.
We’ll probably be like England in another ten or twenty years. Two classes of society, no mobility except for the extremely lucky, and a permanent sub-class of people on the dole. The odd outcome of this was a discussion this morning that returned to the hot dog cart. It’s not the cart itself, but the growing realization that it is foolish for us to not have something of that nature in reserve. I watched how fast the USSR crumbled and how those that had access or knowledge of materials came out on top. Oil, lumber, vodka, it was the people who knew how to move these things around that made a killing.
Our ideas centered more on having a recession-proof business that can be worked no matter how bad things get. I never got rich, but I lived a rich lifestyle by comparison. I had a few rough times, but not the grinding years of sweat paying off debts and supporting ex-wives. I always had access to a vehicle without making car payments and was always free to take off any time I pleased. That kind of rich. Money? I’ve always advised everyone that you don’t need millions, rather just enough to outlast the pack. The hot dog cart represents a buttress against being wiped out by a downturn that cuts off money from the usual directions. That’s what could really, er, upset the hot dog cart.
I don’t care for the idea that the operation ties us down during the events I like to attend, but nobody in my crowd quite understands how important this band is. Last weekend, forty people watched me leave the building with the best looking woman in the place three minutes after we met. I view the band as a business with a lot more class than most. Those around me view it as fun and games. And I’ve already described music as the last best clean cash-flow business left in America.
This presents the others with the confusing situation where I agree with the concept of a business and that the hot dog cart is the most logical at this time, but I don’t feel the pressure to act now. I already have thousands of dollars of band equipment and the means to move it. I know the trade and how much money can be made, and importantly, I know what do to when things go wrong. If things really imploded, I could step up the frequency of the gigs. The band is important enough to me that I’ve fallen behind on my house renovations.
Fire tornado.
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I’m back at the electrical wiring starting tomorrow. The past two weeks has been running in place after the realization that I’ll need that sub-panel. All those circuits had to be replanned around the new box and I’m a rookie at this. I must have looked at the bathroom circuitry alone from eight or ten revisions. That 30 Amp panel is going to just meet the requirements.
I mapped out the basic components but I’m not putting in a single pipe until that front bedroom is ready to go. Tomorrow, it’s time in the attic and the scooter makes it far easier to run downtown for small parts as needed. I also checked out the prices of bathroom fixtures after getting that jolt on the price of vanities. I’ve found some within reason and right now I’m happen just to know they are there. The electrical comes first in any case. Summer will be here in a wink and I’m buying and air conditioner before the mad rush begins. I’ve decided on the next size up as recommended for that floor space. I’ll be installing a 6,000 Btu unit.
JZ doesn’t care about having electric first, but then I’ve seen him string extension cords for nearly half a block. It doesn’t make sense to me to not hook up the electric first. I don’t agree with him that temp panel I set up was a waste. It has safely powered the whole house for months and I know it is done right, so I don’t worry about problems. Especially now that I know 15 amp everything can be run off the beautiful 20 amp wiring that forms the core of my new system.
The wall I designed that faces the bedroom is also sound-proofed and that depth of stud allows for any of the medicine cabinets I saw on display. I could almost frame in some custom shelves into the rough-out. But I like the look of the wood types as shown in the picture. These are still priced reasonable so why bother with customizing. Allow at least a full two weeks for me to tackle that electric sub panel. I’ve decided to mount it in the spot where the laundry room is planned and build a special waterproof frame around it until I get to that stage. The reason is until the room is built, it is an exterior panel later made into an interior. Yes, the rule book says that is okay for a temporary installation.
ADDENDUM
I got a note from Pat-B, he’s still out in California working the cruise lines. But he’s slowly going broke, not like I didn’t warn him about that. Only 2% of the people who live in California can afford to live there. The state is one massive credit bubble teetering on the edge. He is talking of returning to Florida, where the music pay is a bit better but living expenses are, oh I’d guess, 30% lower. I think he burned his bridges here so let’s be wishing he knows what he’s doing. I talked more with him about the finance part of a band as it pertains to my decision to go country music.
Son-of-a-gun, he says he took my recommendation and now does a set of country music for his show. I asked him to keep separate track of the tips. Then he’ll really learn I was right. People want the familiar when they go out on payday. They don’t care what the song means to the musician, and that is the hardest lesson for most guitarists who think pouring their guts out in some old ballad is going to get the audience in the mood. The only mood they want is a good time. Dang, if he’d listened to me 15 year ago, we’d be in Nashville by now. You should hear us together; he plays that CAGED system that other guitarists hate. (Probably because they failed at it.) But Pat-B was early into soloing and you know how that wrecks guitarist’s patience to ever form real bands again. Even when they do, it’s so guitar-centric you are back to my original condemnation of that crumby waste of time.
I’m reminded of the Patti Hearst kidnapping back in the 70s, when my then girlfriend took great interest in the story. The kidnappers demanded her father leave, I forget, something like $40 worth of free groceries to everybody on welfare. Initially he said sure, but then he found out there were like 8,000,000 people in California on welfare. There are two rumors, one that he didn’t have the money, and two that he said, “Keep her.”
That’s the problem with federal programs. They always backfire because they fix the wrong problem. California now has a permanent underclass of third and fourth generation welfare dwellers with absolutely no intention of giving up their freedom to sell sex and drugs all night and watch cable TV all day. If you ever go on welfare, behind Hawaii, California is your best choice. There’s your case study in special interest groups that have learned to “vote themselves largess out of the public purse.”
