One year ago today: August 23, 2017, military accidents explained.
Five years ago today: August 23, 2013, musta been battery-fest.
Nine years ago today: August 23, 2009, my Canadian tax course.
Random years ago today: August 23, 2006, I was in deep recovery.
Who recognizes this building? Damn, you must be getting old. It is my old shop in Hollywood. Ha, that idiot landlady who tried to more than triple our rent still hasn’t found new tenants. You can’t see it, but she is still hawking real estate out of the middle unit. That’s the one who didn’t listen to her husband saying not to hypothecate this building. As soon as he died, she mortgaged it to the hilt and bought beachfront property just before the crash. A year later, she used the CAM clause (an old Florida trick) to crank the rent from $800 per month to $3,000. By then, I was the only one making any money, so we pulled the pin. My partner had been there nearly 20 years. I doubt she’s sold a thing.
That’s easy, we are broke, at least for the next eight days. Three trips to Miami this month and related expenses came to about the same as last time that happened. $196.46, though most of it except the gas was avoidable. But I don’t travel austerely unless I have to. The camper? That’s luxury. I had planned on a jaunt over this weekend, however I did not have time to make the required modifications, and the new marine battery is going to eat up even my reserves.
[Author’s note: careful of my terminology. Just as I have eight definitions of retirement, I have different categories of reserves. In this instance I am referring to my monthly discretionary funds. There is still unspent money for groceries, entertainment, and such. But once again, gasoline is through the roof. From 1,582 extra miles on the car this month.
Yeah, yeah, I know, some people hate that must-be-nice term “unspent money”, but hey. I worked hard and stuck to my guns when I was their age, while they laughed that I wasn’t enjoying life. Not that I ever did enjoy what life has handed me. Yeah, well who is going to wind up looking for a job at the Piggly Wiggly so they can steal the cat food instead of buy it for dinner? And for the ones who laughed hardest at me, tell them the store manager knows they’re pilfering but can’t bring himself to fire such pathetic losers. From me? No mercy. I’ve had to sleep on park benches and under bridges to pay taxes so they could give it away to their pet causes.]
I had the option to crash in Miami, but opted to head back even if that entailed driving after dark. I required the time to think. Here is the plan and it is only a plan. It has been two years that I’ve been auditioning guitarists in Polk Country, and I’ve concluded the musician’s pool has no deep end. I have a choice to continue with this futility or go make a fool of myself as a bass soloist. I was planning how best to make myself the fool. Hey, it worked for Richard Gere. First, I booked myself on next Thursday at the club on Hwy 17. I have three sets chosen that I’m strong with. Building on my experience soloing at the bicycle shop in Ft. Lauderdale, I can start each set with a strum, then make a Hippie-esque claim that somebody requested I do a tune that only I can play. And grab the bass.
Are you with me here? Auditioning the 20 failed guitarists has expanded my long list to 60 tunes. I can solo and sing that many if I have to, but I’d rather pick the known crowd-pleasers. I get away with it because they’ve never heard this type of bass solo before. Advertising for a guitar player does not work; they overestimate their ability. Thus, I’m after exposure to a different class of guitarist, the one who hears me and wants in. This does not work as well as people say, but do I have any cards left to play?
What is this green bar in the picture? I don’t know. It was on the curb attached to a 2x4. I grabbed it, and got it home. Then it dawned on me what it was for. Remember those two millennials that blocked me in at Bayonet Point? Well, this bar is my new trailer reverse gear. I mount it kind of like a rear bumper. It is really solid metal. The true purpose is to have a grip where I can physically pick up the whole trailer and position it without having to back it up with the hitch. The trailer weights 444 pounds, but I can pick it up just high enough myself to skid the tires into place.
Lithuanian long hair contest.
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Here’s a montage of the newest addition to the fleet. It’s only a 50cc, but it is a Yamaha. This is the new transportation for Agt. R, who has taken the lesson watching me use the red scooter for day-to-day commutes. It outclasses my unit, but I’ll stick with my 150cc. When it was new, I drove it from Miami to St. Augustine, where this new unit maxes out at 37 mph. It makes the blog because it is a solid reflection that in just four days (August 28) I will have been in complete control of all finances for one year. The change is dazzling to onlookers; most of the town is aware of what happened. And we have not even opened for business yet.
Speaking of business, the burners are slated to arrive tomorrow. In the end, except for the insurance (which I’m working on) the cost of doing things by the book has been only some $830. That’s the differential, some of the other money spent was on improvements. I got flak, sure, but now the value is showing through. Opening day is already completely financed internally, we have 8 confirmed events per month, and everybody can sleep nights. That, FYI, represents a vast improvement over the way they ran things before I arrived on the scene.
It proved impossible to keep my involvement private. Everybody knows Agt. R. Yeah, and he got another lesson, how every last one of them stood there watching his situation deteriorate. We’ve heard their tale from the trailer court, how they all had problems of their own. Listen, it never cost me a cent to step in and help what was virtually a complete stranger. I know they to a one lacked the sophistication, but they could have provided moral support. You remember those early days, how it must have looked with me prancing around giving orders, do this, do that, do as I say, and sign here. But times were desperate. And god damn, I made believers out of them.
Are you listening, Patsie? Theresa?
ADDENDUM
I’ve quit mentioning my weight loss because there hasn’t been any since May 22. Instead, my curious physiology is at work again, where I’ve lost inches. When both my lady doctor and her assistant gasped when I walk in the room and the gals at the Hallandale Starbucks give me the look, it makes my day. I’ve dieted before and it always came back, but this time I held the line. So you’ll be reminded, I did require help from a diet pill and I only did that as a last resort. I have a revulsion to taking chemicals instead of addressing an underlying problem. That goes for people who do it all the time, too.
Except coffee, I mean. I’m addicted to coffee. And reading. Okay, throw in music and women. Slim, firm-feelin’ women. Who the hell back there yelled, “And hotdogs?” Get outta here!
And I know somebody by now has asked what this picture is all about. It’s my today’s stab at humor. Get it? Are you ready? Scale for banana.
You should have seen that one coming.
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