One year ago today: May 26, 2018, he loves that egg.
Five years ago today: May 26, 2014, scam average: $400,000.
Nine years ago today: May 26, 2010, and it’s still vacant!
Random years ago today: May 26, 2013, 10,000 miles.
Daybreak found us circumnavigating the Mt. Juliet Wal*Mart. They always have such manicured pet poop areas. It was the vaguest memory, but I knew darn well I had seen a turtle walking harness in my career. It was in California, and I probably only noticed because it was some babe at the other end of the chain. Anyway, what you see here is hand-made, therefore I can make it. Amazon wants $11.99 plus shipping and Wal*Mart says they carry it, but it won’t arrive until June 6. So other than that, they carry it. Damn millennial bullshit artists.
The music manager wants to meet up, including an audition. His lack of urgency tells me he’s dealt with many musicians, meaning he relies on nobody’s promises. Good. I can’t directly ask him what he doesn’t like about his current arrangement, but his questions tell me he’s got the same obstructions I did. He’s just got a much larger pool to draw on. His mention of names who’ve played with the band are really guitar players I’ve never heard of. Occasionally he’ll say this or that guy played with some famous band, but guitar players would have to cry a new ocean before I’d give a damn. I want to know if they can entertain a downtown crowd the way the crowd wants it. Which is where I step in.
Straightforward, I told the manager I would have to learn most of the ancient guitar tunes, which amused him, I must say. He’s now seen parts of my song list and will soon detect how it is not predominately guitar in content. No lead breaks, few fancy intros, it’s music more angled toward whole-band presentation than the usual “guitar-freak and backup”. But he is unquestionably aware that guitar players habitually chose tunes where the “bass is easy” and assures me I will be able to knock the bass lines “out of the park”.
Say no more, he’s going through lead players like a deck of cards because none of them can wrest enough control to dictate the band play only his perfect list. Seen it many times. I don’t yet know how serious it is, but I’ve formed early opinions on this venture. I wonder what he will make of the way I can play the tunes solo, with or without a guitarist. Makes no difference to me—and that carries over to the audience. Remember Shebean’s, remember Lake Shipp. It’s been years since I required a guitar player to put on a show. You know what I think when the guitar player writes the song “The Weight” (THE Band) as, “The Wait”. We are not dealing with anything large caliber here.
The extra work gives me plenty to keep busy all day; I would like to gig out at least once before I head back. He doesn’t know about that dual commitment yet, but he is also the one stipulating the position is stand in. Fine by me, as long as I’m (just kidding) identified as a guest bassist. Um, I need a new cover story. Where am I from this time? I mean, being on stage in Nashville means you never know who’ll be in the audience. The Tampa Bassist? Sounds like a newspaper. Winter Haven is too long and Jim Stafford is from Auburndale. Lakeland is the real thing, but even I confuse such a common name with other places. Maybe the Bassist from Bartow, or Mulberry. Help me out here.
Anyhow, in a bid to be ready for anything, I’ve dug out my old transcripts of the bass lines I created for the old five-piece back in Hollywood. I have killer bass lines that fit behind many of the standard guitar breaks considered intense—and I know how to deal with that. Remember Bill, how I let him choose the songs, so after a few months he thought he could cool down my act by choosing tunes that had especially simple bass lines. That backfired, since I specialize in simple. I learned from old BB.
I’ll tell you one trick of the trade. One of the overplayed classics is Route 66, so over the decades the guitar work has been covered so often I could amalgamate the various bass lines into one massive solo that outshines the guitar. It is also one of the arrangements that creates the illusion the guitarist is following me, which they hate but what can they say. They chose the tune. Of course, at first I would never overstep the line, but let’s just say if I encounter any of the same old at the Nashville level (where it is supposed to be professional instead), I would be primed for action.
Algae bloom, China.
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Here’s a view of the back yard with wildlife. Sparkie, shown here, now reports the entire area is not clear of marauding deer, renegate squirrels, and most species of small bird.
Time for some bellyaching about my two of my three pettest peeves. This afternoon, it’s millennials and old ladies. First, I hate millennials who post ads on youTube. I have a simple rule. Since youTube cannot differentiate between posts with ads those without, by default if it has an ad, stick it elsewhere. Yes, youTube is a dotcom, meaning commercial. But that’s youTube, not you third-rate Johnny-come-latelys who are trying to cash in on their hard work. We know all about your type.
What’s that you say? There are no entry level jobs to be had? Maybe you should have thought about that when you were spouting off against the border wall. You smugly thought your degree Arts would make sure you would never be picking tomatoes. But you forgot when you let in 30 million unskilled laborers, big money is not going to invest in your $15 per hour entry level positions. When they can hire at minimum wage or less, the entire economy gears down to that speed. Until I actually hear a millennial admit there is a connection, it’s safe to conclude none of them are intelligent enough to spot the relationship. You mother wouldn’t say it, but I will. You can’t fecking have it both ways.
What’s this about old ladies? I’ve made it no secret that I don’t like them. I don’t like old men either, but sporadically, you do meet the odd one who has accomplished something in life other than breeding more if his own kind. Not so much in Florida, but they are out there. On the other hand, I first started avoiding old ladies before I was twenty. It’s no secret I intentionally do things they should not find attractive. When old ladies come on to me, it creeps me out. Whenever I go to the Dollar Tree, I now walk three times faster than they do. I still have to stop to pick out my merchandise and that’s when they strike. Sauntering well into my social distance, humming to the overhead, pretending to shop for micro-screwdrivers, single-use crazy glue, and today, turtle harness material. Give me a break.
Then again, maybe there is an unusually high population of desperate old bags in Tennessee. I mean, consider what they must be used to locally. Now that is scary. To get my mind off all this, I read some chapters on the state of DNA research. Most of it is probably on-line, but I find reading a better experience. Some of the questions asked show most people have almost no idea about DNA. Most think it is atoms, but it is molecules and you can see the strands with a good magnifying class. I once saw a documentary of school children being taught to separate the strands. However, reading, splicing, and interpreting the DNA is not for everyone.
My notion of how it works is changing as new discoveries arise. Like most, I thought variations arose through mutations that proved successful, and subscribed to the theory that the vast amounts of junk DNA had something to do with resistance to infections. There is so much evidence that this seemingly inert material contains “switches” that control active DNA, even how much of the genetic message is applied. This, I find scary. One passage quoted research that all embryos have the DNA for legs, even animals that don’t have them, they pointed to whales and snakes. That is, the leg DNA is there, it just isn’t switched on.
Why is this scary? Because it reveals that a lot about what was thought about evolution isn’t so. The DNA is not evolving in many cases. Rather a switch is being thrown. Where Nature can operate the switch, so can man. If the leg gene is the same in all species, this points to the frightening concept that most “mutations” are already there, built in to each cell. Every angel and every monster imaginable is present. And mankind is starting to tinker with whatever process has been holding things in check.
ADDENDUM
This trip the accounting is modified to extract anything over budget. Before, we were only aware of totals, and something was off kilter. Food. It’s $31 a week more expensive in Tennessee than in Florida, based on my usage as a single who cooks a lot from scratch. Newspapers are more, with the Tennessean weighing in at $3 for a weekend copy. And the killer is gasoline. Unlike back home where everything is less than a mile away, the average trip outbound from here is 3.3 miles. At local gas prices, which aren’t bad, that’s an extra $15 per week. Total differential is $31. It costs that much more per week to live here. And I did not budget for that. Since I rarely go out clubbing here, I felt the savings there alone would easily offset matters. I got the short end, because there are other expenses also.
JZ was on the phone. He never saved up the $3,000. While he was on the topic of money, I went over my plan to completely relocated my kitchen to the east wall. It would be easier to rough in the whole affair rather than try to get under that cast iron piping that has been repaired a number of times. It would also mean locating the hot water heater in a better (central) location along a common wall. Right now there is a 34-foot run to the bathroom taps. The entire length of iron pipe has to heat before you get any hot water. The cost would be half what I paid for the entire house. But that freed-up corner in the kitchen would make an excellent dining nook. Two windows which would command the entire street, coming and going. It would strain the budget, but so what?
