One year ago today: January 14, 2019, let the paint dry.
Five years ago today: January 14, 2015, my Honda 450.
Nine years ago today: January 14, 2011, damn sinister.
Random years ago today: January 14 , 2013/, dislocated shoulder-wear.
Here’s some random photos from the past month, here to day because they missed first call. The dish is JeePee’s six course breakfast. You bet that turtle likes me. Shown here radishes, banana, blueberries, kale, red pepper, celery, and peas. This afternoon, don’t miss some items I read from the old Tennessee newspaper of 1869, that’s four years after the Civil War ended. And the first time most people in Tennessee had voted in seven years. And a picture of HMS Kursk, as long as you promise not to tell the Reb I said that.
I am okay with just DVDs but I can see that BlueRay discs will edge them out if only because the studios are pushing them so hard. Have the theaters been keeping pace? In some ways, with reclining seats and mega-sound systems. I looked at the curved screens, the three-sided screens, and the recurring attempts at motion and smell and to me, most of this has been done. I’ll go see the movies hoping for vast improvement, but I think the technology may be tapped out. It’s holograms or nothing. But unless we get some significant breakthroughs, I won’t see that in my lifetime.
For those who saw the duplicate gif, that was my mistake the first one was supposed to be a still because I hadn’t made the gif yet. Later I got mixed up and put the same clip in both places. Again, repetition is always an aspect of any work this size. I was also reading up on the troubles in Europe. Those clueless bastards don’t seem to understand they are being invaded. And when they wake up, there will be troubles. I had remarked years ago that the reason I did not go see Europe when I was younger was because the rest of the world was shutting down and Europe would always be there.
The world didn’t shut down, but it changed into something else. Even Thailand isn’t really there any more. Everything is a tourist trap or too dangerous to walk through. Last month, the Reb asked what I thought about Europe. She recalls what I’d said so long ago. I replied that I was wrong. Europe is not there. Have you seen those tent cities in Paris and Denmark. No-go zones and religious zealots making pests of themselves. Before, I took pride in not traveling first class because it was a canned experience. Now, if I go to Europe, it would be first class if only for the protection.
Marshmallow knitter.
Remember to use BACK ARROW to return to blog.
What movies did I watch? “The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada”, “Man of the House”, “The Good Old Boys”, and a Clint Eastwood, “Gran Torino”. I’m out of everything, including coffee. And the only tea I have left is something herbal, like peppermint. I get enough of that in Tennessee. Back here I’m a dark roast coffee man. Cowboy movies are okay, but I’ll always resent the way they try to portray farm life. They get it wrong. Farm life is hell even on those inclined to it. The movies concentrate on the one or two trips to town every year, the rest is sheer boredom that defies description.
Okay, your special treat. Selected items from 1869 Nashville news. Two dudes named Edwards attempted to pass a counterfeit hundred dollar bill. Was not confederate money considered counterfeit? A Negro dance house was raided with 100 arrests between College and Cherry streets. A man struck dumb “by his own folly” got his speech back after a jolt from a new item called a galvanic battery. A well-known black man declined an invitation to fill a City Hall vacancy, stating his character was worth a lot more than “aldermanic honors of a very questionable sort”. Did you hear that, Florida? Lightning struck a building and by way of an iron pulley communicated to the workshop next door, where it danced around the room and felled several workmen. Another strike damaged the gutters of the Maxwell House. (Remind me to look that one up.)
A little boy fell into a kettle of boiling water and saved by his mother. A little girl had her are amputated close to the shoulder. The KKK were causing “pranks”. The Governor issued a proclamation that laws must be obeyed. A Dr. Spalding advertises that without knife or pain, he can cure cancers, ulcers, dropsy, weak eyes, and female diseases. And on August 19, 1869 meteors were “darting athwart the sky”, and reminds the reader that when they were young how much fun it was to trace the constellations “if the right parties assisted”.
For example, they started their own recording studio and the big American outfits damn near shit their pants at the very thought of musicians telling studios what to do. The affects of that are still with us today, including the selling of “albums” of up to twenty songs but only one or two hits.
Less obvious are items like how the benefit was held in a high school gym. It is unlikely any recordings of it exist. Note the price, $7.50 plus a $5.00 donation. If the gym was packed with a thousand people, the gross was $7,500 which would be pretty respectable today. If you could find any good bands to do it. I maintain these smaller crowds and venues are an overlooked opportunity, but recognize they would be difficult to manage. That, mind you, could be the fault of musicians letting a good situation lapse as they ran after record sales instead of performing. I would not doubt if the big studios are against live performances because of how it would hurt their monopoly.
The total price for attending this event was therefore $12.50. In 1973, that was almost my spending money for an entire month. But by then, I was working as a construction laborer 2,000 miles away. I never really got into Johnny Cash music for another 15 years, when it became very clear there was no going back to rock bands for me. Music is one category of American society where the “middle-class” was entirely wiped out by 1988. If you were not on the tiny remaining circuit by then, you were the local bar band whose drummer quit every two years because you weren’t learning any of “his music”.
ADDENDUM
As before, the end of the year totals are not bang on. Not every receipt and memory makes it into the log book. But by way of comparison, I have some fairly accurate totals for 2019, a year unlike any other year in my life. I don’t normally spend $300 per year on dog food. Let’s take a look at a few budget totals. I spent $499 in coffee shops during 2019. My groceries were $2,560, which is very low by American standards, but I cook most everything. The gas for the car came in at $1,920, which is also low due to lower prices and less in-town travel. On an astonishing 47 days, I spent $0, which is almost impossible to do in this society. But it should be noted that 99% of what the Reb & I do for entertainment costs nothing. I think we went to four movies and maybe dinner that many times all year.
Not counting items like vehicle expenses and property taxes, my daily cost of living like I do is around $40 per day. This is quite low, but remember there is no frivolous spending because I don’t use credit. Entertainment on my own, which means for me everything from museums to girl-watching to grabbing a beer ran up to $2,750 or just over $7.50 per day, again, very low for my demographic. The largest item over budget was vehicle repairs at $1,466 and I spent $412 on books (which includes newspapers). Household repairs and supplies were $1,580 and my taxes and utilities were $1,800.
I do another total I call the cost of standing still. That is, in America, you get hit with fixed expenses even if you do nothing. To do nothing in America costs me $5.03 per day. That’s better than the $23.11 per day when I was paying rent. TMOR do not take these numbers as average. Double them for most people and triple them for people who are caught in the credit whirlpool. And for heaven’s sake don’t think somebody could just show up here and get by with so little. It takes a lifetime to learn what not to waste money on.
(Truck-eating bridge.)
