One year ago today: January 29, 2021, my anti-auction plan.
Five years ago today: January 29, 2017, I sing Miranda Lambert.
Nine years ago today: January 29, 2013, on motorcycle attire.
Random years ago today: January 29, 2019, five miles to Dunkin.
The coldest day of the year and I have no wheels. This harks back to my observation when I was maybe 21, that in America, if you have a business that needs mobility, you require three vehicles. Two will let you down. This is like the fifth or more time in my life I’ve been stuck like this. The scooter won’t be ready until Tuesday and I can’t shop for another van without risking a breakdown on this one. Yep, that’s contemporary life around here, you need a vehicle to buy or fix a vehicle. There’s entire sub-industries built into the system to gouge when you don’t obey the rule.
Here’s a classic bass pose from today’s gig. Details below, but this, folks is my vindication of theory. The one thing I never wanted for retirement was to wind up just another schmeeb in the audience, you well know this tale from the trailer court. This was the best gig so far with this band and at the same time a musical flop. Ah, but like I told you, I don’t care because we are on the stage and the fancier Polk County bands are not. It does not matter these guys will never win talent contests, anything stage work is better than being in the pit. It was a bitter cold night but my shirtsleeves tells you the hall was toasty.
I’ll tell about the band later, first the crowd. Well over 70 [average age], the last of the pre-54 boomers. It’s your usual veteran’s hall, packed until 9:30PM, then you “play to the bartender”. The club was emphatic, play only country music. A couple of gals in the audience lectured me on that point as well, we did not want to be like “the last band that played here” was the operative phrase. I assured them they would recognize every song we play, I wish I could have said that about myself. Parson actually hand-printed up four copies of the song list, some of which I drew complete blanks on. And he wrote down the key of each tune right, at least most of the time.
It was another four-hour gig, ten bucks in the tip jar. I can’t compliment these guys on musical prowess and add to that they are also around as disorganized as it gets. Everything takes twice as long, which often means long stretches of waiting on somebody else to catch up. But the payoff is always a happy, undemanding crowd. There were two women present in their 30s, possibly parent-sitting, and they wanted things to liven up. To this band, that means we play “The Breeze”.
There is a hard frost warning, although it did not dip below freezing near the cabin. I have excellent southern exposure, in fact too excellent on hot summer days, so there’s enough shelter to moderate a bit. A brisk wind took down my tarp, which I fixed but that was enough outdoors for me this weekend. I’ve got food, coffee, music, and I finally trapped that new critter who showed up y’day morning and tried to steal my scrubbing sponge. A large field mouse, who goes back into nature early tomorrow, remember, I have no way these days for my usual task, which is to drive across town and release vermin near the code enforcer’s house.
Ho Chi Minh City.
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The dominating occurrence of today was the gig in Zephyrhills. First, a word about the birds. Me and the cardinals are ready to rumble. We have three regulars, grandpa, grandma, and another younger female. Back to the gig. I had to get a ride from the guitar player, which is 30 miles out of his way, for a total of 120 miles, but I gave him $20 for gas. The gig was another eye-opener, my description would be the band is now much better at being terrible. It remained hard cold the whole day, with possibility of a freeze tonight. Let me record more about the gig. I’ve learned the best option is to just follow the keyboard player. Thus tonight we played around six tunes I’ve never heard of. It’s a VFW where they usually don’t care, which is handy because I don’t know that this band could ever get much better.
Randolph, the drummer, what a yahoo. Well, he also lacks stage savvy. This may not be your initial impression, but I see it right away. Where Trent & I or the Reb & I effortlessly glide around on stage during setup, Randolph is constantly underfoot. He’s so clumsy I now doubt his claim to have played for years.
First thing he does is put his drumsticks on the stairs, so everybody unloading equipment has to step over them. Then, after the PA speakers are hefted up and put on the pole stands, he decides they should be on the floor. I’m over-protective of my own gear, and set my microphone and camera way off in one corner out of the way. He somehow decides he needs something from that very corner and knocks my expensive gadgets crashing on the floor, which mercifully was carpeted.
I recognize all this, again from my brothers, as a desperate attempt by the chronically unaccomplished to feel important, even imagining being "in charge", but no way is it as subconscious as they like to pretend. These types know they are getting in the way and love the attention. Gives them something to complain about, we can suppose. There is no way this guy played in a band for years without learning to quit blocking the aisles.
The crowd was undemanding, around a hundred people. Like most vet halls, they cleared out after supper. Retired couples with a surplus of widows with cackling voices. The two younger women in the room didn’t rate a second glance. If you like 1990s fashion, this was a show. Myself, I wear specially chosen stage costumes that peg me as part of the band without doubt. More on this in a moment.
Last, the ominous event. Normally, the band is, stage right to left, the guitar player, keyboardist, drummer and then myself. This is how we rehearse and how we gig. Got the picture? Okay, I told you about stage presence. You got it or you don’t, and I do. There is no question that the focus on stage has shifted toward my end, but here is where I stress that I do NOTHING that detracts from the others, I am very careful about that. Sure, I fully admit I enhance my own presence—but that is called, in this industry, doing a good job. Randolph could do the same, by standing on his head, I suppose, without objection from me.
The situation has not gone unnoticed, but they also recognize that I am not doing anything they could do or say since I’m just standing there playing bass. But yes, people making requests generally walk over to my side, and when the audience applauds, they tend to face toward this end, it’s a combination of these tiny issues that, I think, led to this evening. Parson, instead of setting up his gear in the usual spot, moved it over in front of my spot, where I would have to stand behind him. Where have we seen this before? Anyone? So I promptly moved my gear over to the spot he vacated.
He complained, saying it would “throw off the sound”. Understand something here, the stage at this hall was huge, take a look at this picture. At the extreme left, you can see the guitar player standing in his usual spot, and beside him the first yellow arrow indicates the spot where the keyboards would usually be. Tons of room. You can even see the keyboard amplifier set up at that location.
The arrow on the right shows the position where I normally stand. Note, the keyboard is deliberately set up exactly in front of my spot. However, I am doubly prepared for any of this brand of nonsense. I carry extra extension cables that allow me to stand well past the point others can’t reach, so the whole gig was played lopsided with me off to the right-hand side of this photo and that glaring empty gap on the left.
The audience cares less, but there is another aspect of what’s going on. It’s that I’ve learned the band’s idiosyncrasies, whereas they have not learned to play anything like the standard to which I play every tune. When they make mistakes, I cannot be thrown off, and they can confirm I play what we rehearsed, no stage-shit allowed.
This comes out in the music and again you find couples tending to dance in front of where I’m standing, which is noticeable but not conspicuous. The songs that I sing now have a marked contrast to the band in general, in that my tunes have structure and play certain things at fixed and predictable spots, and I start and end on queue.
Something has changed, I supposed I’ll eventually hear what the keyboard thing is all about, but so you know, there is no reason if anything I’ve speculated here is going on, that Parson could not just say something. He could say something like tone down my playing but knows I’d ask him to do the same. The odds that it could be something I’m not even imagining means I won’t ask. But whatever the reason, you do not stand in front of somebody else on stage except by design.
Before I forget, that’s another thing. Let me ask you something, if you had a long narrow trailer with lots of space, how would you stow the gear? Myself, I’d say since the things that take longest to set up are the drum kit, then the PA system, I would store those where they could be first to remove and last to pack up. Randolph does the opposite. Now I see why the rest of the band is often set up and ready while he is still unpacking. I observe it now to be some ritual, but making the other three people stand around waiting is part of what I mean about starved for attention. Let me add, if you are good at it, you can command attention from afar, if you are bad at it, you afflict the vicinity.
One more thing Parson has learned from me (and copied) is the importance of stage wardrobe. He’s figured out if he wants focus, he has to make concessions, but does not have the years to learn to do it without infringing. Anyway, costumes. In the above photo, I’m wearing subdued colors and flowing fabric. Parson showed up tonight wearing a buckskin jacket and cowboy hat.
The jacket is far too heavy, he took it off second set. And you notice when I wear a hat on stage, it is straw, not leather. Winter or not, guys, this is Florida. That got doffed second set as well. The hundreds of hours of stage time is just not present with this band, much less the thousands I bring to the table.
And just like my family, instead of thanking me for being a shining example of how to do things for himself, he will eventually come to resent me for not coaching him on how to steal my thunder. Seen it all before, folks.
ADDENDUM
Predictably, the courts supported Robinhood’s right to restrict trades during the Gamestop episode. I recognized Robinhood as a corporate front at first sight, others not so much. Warren Buffet made $9.8 billion today. And the Webb telescope has activated the high-gain antenna, leaving only the final step of turning on the telescope. I never understood LaGrange points, locations in space where gravity cancels itself out. The part I don’t get is how the telescope will “orbit” that point, one of five in our system, but I know it has a lot to do with counterbalancing a bunch of forces out there.
