One year ago today: February 10, 2020, the pecan tree died.
Five years ago today: February 10, 2016, cool under fire.
Nine years ago today: February 10, 2012, sizing up campus life.
Random years ago today: February 10, 2009, fake bolts.
Rehearsal is postpones until Monday, but there’s an upside. The vocabulary now batting around is that I’m a fixture and incorporated into the band. Told ya, and I predict the telling factor was that I committed to learning the list even when the initial results were indistinct. The IQ of Polk County musicians hovers around room temperature and you know what that does to the learning curve. It seems the drummer’s wife landed in the hospital, this is a fact of life rearing up all around me these days. My era is over, even this blog reaches back over 40 years. It’s amazing to hear people say that I don’t have a Facebook account because I’m behind 15 years behind the times instead of 15 years ahead of it. But there are people that stupid out there.
You might be thinking my question is, “Why me?” But that’s only partially so, my real question is how many times does this have to happen every day before you conclude that the system itself has now morphed into goof-friendly. If it came to an efficiency contest, my money is on this batch of collard greens. If you look close, they are still shiny from the heavy morning fog. They contain lots of good vitamins, which that, and their IQ, make them more useful than people who park behind a laundromat for no apparent reason.
In a sad moment of our times, guess who is in danger of being blacklisted as racist and kicked off the airwaves? Good old Benny Hill. He was an inspired and hilarious comedian, but some are taking offense that his material often portrayed the humor of the time. He typecast most of his characters. The girls were slim, young, and pretty. The characters looked their part, and the lyrics and dialogue were highly suggestive. It was meant for the audiences of the time and he gave the big studios of the day a real run for their money.
It is getting harder to find his re-runs posted on-line, but I know people who are already downloading as much of it as possible. My favorite remains his portrayal of a Chinese man going through customs. I forget the exact script, but it goes like so.
Benny: “I want exchange 100,000 yen.”
Clerk: “Okay, here is £50.”
Benny: “Last time you give me £60, how you explain that?”
Clerk: “Fluctuations.”
Benny: “What you say?
Clerk: “Fluct-u-ations.”
That look on Benny’s face, priceless.
Somewhere, northern Louisiana.
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Now a few words on contemporary “efficiency”. This is a subject I’ve studied at an advanced level in management accounting. I’ve often pointed out the shift away from good principles by passing the cost on to the customer and calling it a savings. This began in the early 1980s, as American business began to admire the Japanese models. It was known as “unbundling”. As was pointed out at that time (35 years ago) this passing of costs is not efficient. It produces a false impression the business is “saving money”.
That is a cost to the customer. Today, I was again confronted by the situation of a business refusing service unless I “provided” a telephone number. Other than the invasive nature of these tracking devices, there is the aspect of said efficiency. They are passing on the cost of doing business to me seemingly without realizing it. They do not see the cost incurred when others must own and operate a phone as component of their own business model which they are now failing to provide. Most lack the mental capacity to understand this, but in end these are the masses who wind up working for a living, never making the connection that these little efficiencies all add together and come back to bite them. These are the people who get up on their 35th birthdays and realize they have to get up for work another 35 years. Here’s where I remind the world that I retired at age 41—and still experience people telling me how to do things right.
This is the blog that predicted, correctly, that the phone would become a profiling device, and that it would not be long before it became a requirement. And that the proletariat would follow suit. Every day, there are reports of breaches of security, from geofencing to identity theft, yet the masses continue to believe it will never happen to them. Amazing, such logic. Let me make this clear. If a business wants a change, in this case a new appointment time, the polite method is to provide the customer with the timely option, which in my case is 24 hours notice. But because they could not do so, they declined the business, figuring this is my doing.
Let’s be clear on this. They see it as “just” a phone, but it is far beyond that. Their privacy policy is a joke (as is normal) and even if I had a phone, the number would be unlisted—something they obviously would not respect. If they cannot do business without the customer having a phone, they should provide him with one. The fact this would seem silly to them gives you some idea of the vacuum they are living in. True, all their other customers must plainly have given them a phone number, but that’s what the term proletariat means.
You might say that is just majority rule at work. If so, it is also lost business. Was it Sagan or Asimov who pointed out when you have majority rule, every meal is pizza.
ADDENDUM
Ray-B emailed. I guess it is kind of a parallel to my own story. When I was his age, I opted not to trust music as a career. It was too mercurial, so I had a day job. And yes, it solidly hindered what I could devote to any potential I had as an entertainer. I say parallel because things turned out nearly opposite despite us having many common goals. Adjust for the time lag, that he is now at the age I was when we met, and experiencing the opposite outcome.
This comparison flip-flops between now and twenty years ago. He had a reliable, long-term lady, I did not. He played most weekends, I could not solo until a few years ago. We both had comparably secure day jobs, but mine paid three times as much. But he played the best clubs and had as much cash left over as I did at the end of the week. So, what changed and what didn’t?
We both quit the day jobs at a similar age, but he focused on music, I kept a day job of some sorts, with music as a sideline. He left his lady to perform on the cruise lines. And was first to lose when the COVID lockdowns began attacking all small cash flow businesses, which is what lockdowns are really all about. He’s okay, because he has family in this area, but that fast-forwards to today. Curiously, I had warned him that even on the cruise lines, chock full of “single” women, he would never again meet a decent lady of the same standard he held before.
He confirmed this several times in a roundabout way, noting the crew pecking order and who the women swooned over. The captain and the purser, mainly because they had the snappiest uniforms. Single women don’t go on cruises because they have a full dating calendar back home, guys. He’s taken a day job where the biggest component is he gets medical, but it is not a career. He himself states he is the oldest person on staff, older than the manager. And right at a time I am launching back into the music business as full time as it gets. That means more than six gigs per month, sometimes double that.
What a reversal of fortunes, but it is not all said and done, of course. I cannot imagine having to go job hunting these days. What’s out there are the exact jobs that in my day were considered total dead ends. For good reason. No, my generation did not ship the good jobs overseas, for that matter we warned the lot against it. Now they can’t get even entry level jobs and still let in another 11 million unskilled immigrants. I’ll say it again—there is a difference between suffering and getting exactly what you bargained for.
