One year ago today: February 9, 2023, 11 recalls.
Five years ago today: February 9, 2019,, my “heritage” site.
Nine years ago today: February 9, 2015, they always over-reach.
Random years ago today: February 9, 2010, SETI bicycle-riding pattern.
We awake to the good news that that evil talk show, “The View” is cancelled as of this season. But is it fake news? They said something similar a year ago. But it takes a few years for truly dispicable people to get run off, so maybe this tim. I’ve never seen it, but I’ve seen enough news clips to know they’ve been doing little but spewing anti-Trump venom for years. They’ve lost their viewers which is more likely the difference this time around. Says MSNBC scientists, the reason the Neanderthals died out was, you guessed it, climate change. In desperation, California toys with the concept of letting people with so-called multiple personalities cast multiple votes—as long as they are all for Biden. Here's my unsuccessful attempt to repair and XLR jack.
News from Tennessee, who can blame me for not trusting cars that have had a major repair. Well, this time you can’t because I wanted to sell that KIA sedan what, eight months ago? It died in the parking lot of Trader Joe’s, a good 16 miles from home. AA is on the way but this is caused by a short that slowly drains the battery and she’s mentioned one of the auto-folding mirrors has been acting up. It needs other work, such as rotors but will she get enough out of it now to replace it? We’re glad she had the second vehicle but this is America, a car is an expensive possession that gobbles up nearly a quarter of the average worker’s take home pay. The economy is largely dependent on that, which is another reason E V s are not catching on. There is no infrastructure to underpin them.
This means even if she sells the thing, there is an overlap where either she walks or has double the money tied up for a while again buying another car and waiting for a buyer on the KIA. It’s the old American paradox where to buy a car, you already need a car. There is really only one place that much cash can come from, and if you’ve guess Caltier, you’ve been paying attention.
Some cheerful news, the jam session on Wednesday has had a nice ripple effect. Next week should be interesting if that mandolin player is still in town. We know which tunes and keys he likes. Several times on stage he turned to ask how I could play like that on the bass, which is one of the highest of compliments in my books. He is great on the mandolin, not so much on guitar, but I can work with that. He’s learning both to play “voicings” and listen for them, so we sounding like a four or five piece band. This is world class, unmatchable, top-rung fun unattainable at any price. This, I say to my detractors, is the way to spend time during retirement and I’m the one who told you so.
And that, Elliott, is 100% vindication of what I tried to show so many people over the years. The new guy may not know it by name but somewhere along the line he’s picked up the technique. Man, that jam was the best fun in a long time. That’s what I told the Prez was a goal back in August and he was in his element that night. He retires in a few months, and let me tell you brother there is no hobby like playing in a fun band after you cross that line. Nothing, and if there was, you’d have to show me.
Plus-size skateboarding.
Remember to use BACK ARROW to return to blog.
There was a knock on the door, a guy offered me $300 for the Town & Country as is. The reason I have not sold it is because I can’t find the title, plus I had my heart set on $1,000. I’ll think it over, he runs the local demolition derby, so screw the paperwork. Let me ponder it for a day and if he’ll fork over $450, it’s his. My net dollar loss on that van, if I subtract the new windshield and new tires would then be $1,950. I would not have sunk so much into it but at the time it was running fine and what a treat, driving my first van in my life. They sold new for $80,000 and I got spoiled. What really turned me off to the thing is replacement headlights were $2,200 each. Maybe a demolition derby is too good for that thing.
Up on the roof again, until I ran out of shingle nails. I used up the last of the fancy shingles from Tennessee. I’m one package short, so the free shingles from Tennessee covered two and a half Florida roofs. Once the local rain washed them clean, they are as good as new. They are a common dark red color, but who cares, it’s a saw shed the city would make me tear down in a wink, some nonsense about hurricanes and plywood. Say, could I interest you in any papayas. I’ve got 14 more and 11 of them are full size. But the tree kept growing and they are like 30 feet up there now.
Who warned you not to trust SONY back in
the 80s? Louder, I can’t hear you. Now, it seems, they’ll renege on their promise to keep digital copies of your purchased moves. Forever, to SONY ends this April. My original beef with that outfit was for tricking people into thinking a service contract was worth anything. By law, you have a right to return a defective product to the place that sold it to you for a replacement. SONY is the reason that is today such a difficult process.
ADDENDUM
February 9, 1962, sixty years ago today. The Beatles arrived in America. They were in their teens, the world could not believe it. I was never and Elvis fan and I was too young to understand The Beatles—but I instantlu like the music. What a departure from the shoo-wap era and songs written by old people to be sung at teens rather than for them. It would be nearly ten years more before I played any Beattes music and they were waning by then. There has never been anything like it since. A few artists have beat them at numbers, but not by proportion. There are simply more people now who buy music.
The Beatles, on the other hand, created their own market. The Rolling Stone wrote an inspired article that captured the moment. What I admired most about The Beatles was the fact they knew, at 17 years old, they had it made and it irked the hell out of the Establishment. I saw them on the Ed Sullivan Show, next to them he was just the cabin boy. Less than 35 months later, I was to starting my own band. And it was not like to day where you audtion and pick the best. Back then, you had to carve it out of nothing. The hardest part about that first band was fighting my own relatives, who overnight became experts on The Beatles and bands in general, all without ever having anything to do with either.
In the end, my bands never played any but the simplest Beatles tunes. I was raised so far from anything positive that I did not even know The Beatles were singing most of their music in harmonies until I was in my twenties. Nobody around me knew and there was nobody to ask. I thought singing required talent, and a lot of it, so it would be another 45 years before I sang my first time. And I sang Jim Stafford’s “Spiders & Snakes” while playing bass at the same time. I was shocked that it could even be done. A month later, I sang that song at Karaoke. My only thought was why had somebody not shown me this when I was eight years old. While America was the land of opportunity compared to other places, anybody who thinks the opportunity was evenly distributed is living in some kind of bunker.
