January 17, 2019

Yesteryear
One year ago today: January 17, 2018, she lacks confidence.
Five years ago today: January 17, 2014, Florida: drive-bys & drive-thrus.
Nine years ago today: January 17, 2010, $1,200 - per year.
Random years ago today: January 17, 2007, he was in jail.

           Once a musician, always a musician. We rolled in kind of late last evening, as mentioned, JZ did not show, so he did not get to party with all the legal secretaries. Trent didn’t have custody of the kids, so rather than hunt JZ down, I crashed in the boy’s room. Now, I’m an early riser, and like to say I have the ex-girlfriends to prove it. We had been jamming , just guitar and bass. So I was up at 4:30AM and played some bass, no amp, just on the silent strings. I’m fasting for my labs, so all I can drink is diet soda.

           Trent barrels down the stairs about 5:00AM also for soda, and hears my bass line to “Fireman”. But once a musician, we started jammin’ country tunes and before anybody looked, it was after 9:00AM. That’s okay, the condo is just an eight minute drive from the test clinic. My usual lady was out of town, so they brought in two student nurses to check my vitals. I’m not usually into brunettes, but let me tell you, the one in the white lab coat was about as vital for me as it gets.

           The picture? Oh, that’s later in the day. It’s the most interesting person to talk to in south central Florida. That is the giant panda at the Olga Mall. Instead of getting one the road by 11:00AM, I had to hang around to get my prescriptions. Turns out there was some contra-indication that took hours to sort out. This found me at Starbucks down in Hallandale. For the record, my last set of labs in November showed that my cholesterol and triglycerides have long since stabilized, but without life-long control, my blood pressure will naturally climb to 177 over 91. This is the danger zone, yet I do not feel a single symptom over it. End of medical.

           I’ve started a new book, it’s an in depth study of the causes of the real estate bubble in 2008. It should be noted that this market collapse did not affect every place or group equally. Let me throw a few of the facts at you. First of all, there was always a sub-prime market. These are people who had no business trying to buy a property on credit. Tell ‘em, Theresa. They are the sub-class that, quite frankly, are better of renting. At least there is a landlord to keep things in line.

           Basically, the Clinton administration made it easy for such people to borrow money. Prior to that, the bank didn’t just check your credit score, they did an in-depth study of whether you were the type of person they’d lend money to. And they wanted big down-payments. That’s because people don’t trash houses that belong to them, so the down-payment is what is called, in financial circles, “skin in the game”. Suddenly, the Democrat party says to the banks, if the borrower fails, we’ll bail you out with taxpayer money. The bottom of the market starts borrowing money, prices soar, the rich rake off the profits. Then the market tanks, and guess who got stuck with the bill?
           Here’s me, the book, and a peanut butter sandwich. This is a treat at the Olga Mall on days when I have blood drawn. I recommend you have dinner there some time, you basically get whatever is cooking. This is my favorite table, a book, a coffee, and the treat. I recommend the raspberry jelly, they put a shot of something in it, but I mean like vanilla or possibly almond flavoring. Gives it a sweet bite.

Picture of the day.
The Mercedes factory.
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           Finally I’m out of the rat-hole Miami traffic making 70 mph for Ft. Meyer’s. This photo is a still but it shows the bumper-to-bumper reality of the Florida east coast. This is not an unusual traffic jam, but a daily occurrence, every day. If you want to go to the beach, spend a million for a place near there because you can never drive anywhere predictably in such third world conditions. Once again, the main problem is the police cannot enforce the traffic laws evenly without having the race card played against them. At the same time, I emphasize that that is the police’s problem, not societies, because instead of taking the flack for doing right, they play favorites.

           It is not uncommon to get caught between two cars side-by-side blocking both lanes at half the speed limit to find two ethnics talking to each other by cell phone. Happens all the time. I finally got out of town by mid-afternoon and turned north toward South Bay. That’s the most nothing town in Florida. A bunch of abandoned buildings, a couple truck stops, and two high-priced gas stations. Top attraction would be that railway crossing that will take out your bumper or muffler if you take it at just the right speed. The population is probably 150 although I’ve see no evidence that anybody actually lives there.

           I took Highway 27 through Clewiston, stopping for a second treat, a scoop of ice cream First time in years. My phone started ringing during my appointment, it is the number used by Petunia. But this was a one time circumstance that I cannot duplicated and she knows it. Thus, I don’t want to hear any explanations of what went wrong. She missed the deadline knowing what was at stake. If it was my situation, I would have walked, crawled, or stolen a police car to get there. But I don’t know how calling up the next day is helping. I can’t say the reasons, but by this time next week, she may not even be allowed to ride in my car.
Now JZ, taking this roughly, as he should, says he wants her phone number. My gorilla glass is cracked, but I have it written down at home. He’ll just have to wait till I get there and harness up the phone to the computer. She is blonde and blue, and that’s more than enough for my buddy.

ADDENDUM
           Here’s the Taurus parked outside the Olga Mall. You don’t mess with tradition. Later, I tried to drop in at my lawyer’s. They are not responding to my e-mails, but probably because they are using my old addy, from before the switch away from Google. Thanks to millennial GPS programming, I got there five minutes after closing time. I needed WiFi to get directions, so I search on Dunkin, and it sent me to the middle of a parking lot in north Ft. Meyers, saying I was 300 feet away. There was nothing for a half-block in every direction. Later I find out that is where the shop was seven years earlier. So really, the only thing the Gen-Zs have changed is they make their screw-ups globally at the speed of light.

           On the way back, I stopped at Arcadia to chat with the harmony bartender. He’s back in a barbershop quartet. He’s the real potato on that, he belongs to the professional organization and is registered with all the churches. They had come up with a great band name, “Four to the Bar” but it turns out some obscure quartet had already taken that long ago. I met a guitarist also, but Arcadia if 60 miles from here. I balked at the commute, but the guy still wanted my contact info. It sounds like he has something worthwhile on the go.

           One thing about him, is he looked like an entertainer. Most guitarists if Florida look like they just got back from the laundromat. He has the appearance of a younger, slimmer Kenny Rogers and was at least as photogenic as I am. Ut-tut, I did not say handsome, I said photogenic. Why bring this up? Because we had only been there a few minutes when these two ladies at the bar got up, walked over to us, and said they were leaving. Because, said the cute one, they were no longer the prettiest people in the place. How about that? Sure, pay me $250 a show and I’ll commute to Arcadia.
           Then, as I sailed past Bartow, I get a call from some strange number. It’s Mack, the old guitar player from the east end. The one I thought disappeared. He’s at Kooter’s with his wife, and throws out the invite. I did a U-turn and walked in, wound up staying an hour. The married barmaid who says I’m “not boring” was on duty, which helped. Er, I mean in the sense of giving us Happy Hour prices well past 7:00PM. Mack would like to play out, but not in a band. Alas, it don’t work that way. He changed his phone numbers and just never happened to be at home whenever I checked in over the past six months.

Last Laugh

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