One year ago today: July 20, 2020, Florida, legendary line-ups.
Five years ago today: July 20, 2016, beware of September—again.
Nine years ago today: July 20, 2012, obvious personality defects.
Random years ago today: July 20, 2014, advanced cPod wiring, remember?
Yep, double confirmed the clinical study is ended, along with my free trips to Miami. This causes a ripple through the whole system that I won’t delve into until budget time, which is November but usually completed by Halloween. Okay, overseas, what does it cost to get by in America? Let’s see if there are any tidbits in there so far this year, which has been astonishingly quiet. Okay, I’ve spent $$1,825 on materials for this place, of which $1,000 was the new shed roof I needed so badly. New tools, $460 including the $150 chain saw and the $50 biscuit joiner. Once again, most materials were a direct increase in equity. I would not sell this place for $135,000 although I have not had that kind of offer. My most expensive month was January, when I bought the van.
Tomorrow, I plan to be at a jam session where I get a few free brews. Listen up, I don’t usually report non-band gigs such as jams. Once I play just a couple tunes, I can get talked into playing most of the night for a few more free beers. I normally turn down free beers from strangers, saying throw it in the tip jar. Same as at the old Jimbos, my entertainment costs are probably a third of if I did not play music. All other costs are in line with former years. Other than surprise items like lumber, I am not a great consumer of high-inflations commodities. Like new cars, weird fashions, and cruise vacations.
So, we get hit last evening with first the news that one Arizona faction will recall the electors (the people elected, in this case Biden Democrats), and another faction saying they don’t have the authority to recall them. This infuriates people. If you can’t do a damn thing once fraud is shown, why the hell have you been sticking your nose in and running off at the mouth all these months? If somebody rigs an election and you are useless, then get your fat arses out of the way and get somebody in here who can do something. It’s not like these people wouldn’t have known back in April they were inept in case of this outcome. Jesus Christ, I hate time-wasters.
I also did not care for several people at the Legislature saying they would have to pass the matter on to a higher authority, when as a matter of fact the Constitutions says the they are the final word. They bleat talking points that there is no precedent, well godammit, quit ducking the searchlight. Grow some cajones and make a precedent, it’s your damn job. The Democrat defense seems to be taking the standard form. As each piece of audit information is released, they attack it as inconclusive, pretending if they don’t accept the results that turns “no evidence” into “not evidence”. Usually, they fold their arms and demand “more proof” but this time that’s probably not going to work. And they do go on that it is a Trump audit when Trump has nothing to do with it other than expressing opinions same as millions of others plus maybe giggling and rubbing his hands together. Stay tuned.
There is a growing sentiment that Fauci belongs in jail. I never paid much attention to the guy as the moment I first saw him, he was never much more than a shill touting the party line. Within a week I spotted him as someone who would say whatever he was told, and I was first to point out that the CDC was “advisory, not regulatory”, but nobody listened back then. I was shocked how many people thought he was a real doctor and not that long ago never believed in how bad mass stupidity could be amongst the sheeple of this nation. The good life always corrupts, starting with the weakest minds first. We had some diversity at that level back when there were three TV channels. Now there are 300 channels but all the same, so changing their minds is no longer an easy matter of changing the channel.
Yorkshire tiddley-winks champion.
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There’s talk of a “new” Internet, one that behaves like what was promised so long ago. I’ve asked everybody I know to contact if it happens, I’d be first to sign up to the real thing. Ideal would be if it attracted only the intellectuals where they form a local monopoly. Sort of like Gab, where the best stuff rises rapidly. A new Internet that leaves the proletarian masses behind in much the same way they feel unwelcome or uncomfortable in many places right now. They just don’t know how to act or behave. It’s willful thinking that once all the smart people leave, the rest are now free to enjoy their wonderful world. They would flood to where they are not wanted, it is a libtard thing. They screwed California over and now they are scrambling for Texas. Ha!
Music. I wound up at the jam but did not play. As soon as I got there, I recognized both guitar players. They’ve played off and on for years with a local group that forms and forms again, I’ve lost count. Auburndale, Florida, is known for a strangely large number of successful musical endeavors but like any such locality, it has its share of near misses. Back when I was trying to find a guitarist in Polk County, I auditioned around six (out of more than twenty) who were associated with “Aggie Road”. These guitar people were so alike, they became a stock joke. The bunch who could play “Folsom Prison” and claimed to be country musicians.
Henceforth, these bands usually adopt a house bassist. This is like a flame to moths for the current hordes of “Guitar Center” finger-players. These are talented people, but they contribute to a bassist image that I consider wrong and outdated. Tonight, the guy they had was sitting down back beside the drummer and playing remarkable guitar riffs. He was comping great runs in the classic question-answer style. He could have won awards, yet his presence remained that of hired help. Also, finger-playing relegates the bassists and usually the entire band to a cap on presentation that they will never exceed. Because they are, with that sound, relegated to playing Eagles, Young, and CCR.
This photo shows you the effect I mean. Quick, point to the bass player and drummer. Hardly to be seen, but you can see the neck of the war-club bass behind the guitar player in the light-colored shirt. Something you won’t see is the inordinate amount of time it took to get this picture. You see that couple dancing? The first four or so times I tried to get a picture, they were instantly out on the dance floor blocking at least one of the shots. No, they did not plan it, but it is proof again and again that peasants do not need to know what is going on to block the path of anyone trying to get somewhere. It takes around a half-minute from the time I open the camcorder to make that first shot and they were up and dancing in the way in that split minute every time.
The honcho of the group, Bobby (whose name I will forget again) was over to chat. He recalls we jammed somewhere but I could not place it. The point is he remembered my philosophy of wanting a “weildy” country duo with a comedy edge. Please get in touch, he says, because now that the lockdowns have forced a sense of reality on the local scenes, he has also met several guitarists who want the same thing. He even says there is now duo in the area who is now trying the same shtick. Ha, with what I’ve seen of how locals deal with audiences, I’d like to see that show. Just wait until summer is over, he says, and get back to him.
I can do that, as my plans involve getting out of Florida again this hot season. Bobby insists the music possibilities have shifted while I’ve picked up more of a survivalist vibe. There is such a surplus of wannabe guitarists in the area that I’ve long confined my search to find one who can keep up and manage a little stage banter. So, in the end, I did not jam tonight, but I could have. It would have involved uprooting the other bassist, who is used to playing all night, and then taking the stage spot for the other guitarist because I need a microphone, and running an extra long phono cable way over to the bass port. Fortunately, I keep a 25-footer handy for just such milieus but opted to play audience instead of bass.
ADDENDUM
Here’s an e-mail from this morning that covers familiar ground. It is a message I sent to a pal who is doing some coding and was put off by the lack of progress in the lecture halls.
Indeed, I think I know precisely the frustrations to which you refer. I returned to secondary school in my late 20s and was appalled by how far the standards had fallen in one generation. The entrance requirement for knowing "first principles" had be dropped. The lectures were now geared down to the slowest and lowest mentality in the audience, swamped by people who should probably have been in remedial boot camp. It was a real imposition on the rest of us for the instruction to take place at a snail's pace because there was one mental defective in the hall who might sue, usually some gimp product of the "no one left behind" public school fiasco.
College and university should be the place that sifts these underachievers out. If that's cruel, tough, life is cruel and anybody who tells you different is selling something. Another contingent I totally dislike are the "nodders". They are since 1990 a majority in every classroom, such academic weaklings they try to cover it up by nodding as if they understand what the prof just said. Their plan is to pick it up later, but the effect is that when you ask for clarification, why you are the one who didn't get it. You are the one holding up the class. Proof: everybody but you nodded.
