Into the depths of hurricane/wet/slow season with canceled shows, fewer people and fewer tips. To add insult to injury, a bored deputy erroneously issued me a citation for supposedly passing in a no passing zone.
He didn't pay attention to the part of the highway code that states you have 100 feet after the solid line begins to return to your lane. I should know. I had to spend four hours in traffic school. I think all the deputies need to get a refresher dose of traffic school themselves. That was a $500 expense I didn't need this time of year. Thanks Barney Fife. There goes the weed budget.
Oh well, one slow season Catch-22 is I have time to fix stuff but no money to get what I need to repair it with. The funny thing about time and money for me, is the two seldom exist in the same space. I have one or the other.
For lawyers time is money, for banks money is time at 30% interest... Unless they're paying you, then it's 0.25% interest. For the most of us we spend our time making money to give to other entities. It's a hard lesson when you realize your time isn't worth as much as everybody else's time but that's the musician/writer/artist life. Suffering for your art. But we get by with a little help from our friends...
I try to focus on creative endeavors during the off-season, pursuits that involve imagination over substance because substances cost money that isn't coming in. The bills keep coming in though. But that's just how life is. The world doesn't stop because you do. The Catch-22 in this case is the everyday realities interfering with the creative process.
For example, the toilet tank cracking in the middle of the night causing the water to run, flooding a portion of the house. Another unexpected off-season expense. Another week without weed. Luckily I get high with a little help from my friends...
This time of year is excellent for breaking in a new bassist. By the time the snowbirds get back, the band should be sounding good with the dynamics of a new member adding to the excitement, provided dead season doesn't kill us before their return.
It's difficult to find someone that has heard of the material I do and even harder to find someone willing to learn my set list so she's really putting in the work this off-season in hopes that we will all be rewarded when season comes back around.
Survival isn't assured as it is hurricane season. One bad storm and there's nowhere to work or live. The thought of relocating at my age and rebuilding what I have here in Key Largo somewhere else...wow! It's taken 25 years to build the momentum I have now which has endured through congestive heart failure, multiple hurricanes, the year 2020, and Covid.
I suck at self promotion. That's why it took me so long to get established around here. I'm an acquired taste. Word of mouth is my most productive advertising tool. I've never been a good salesman especially when it comes to selling myself. I don't play popular music. I don't play current songs. I don't do fads. I don't dress for success. I don't talk the talk, but I rock the rock.
It's too hot down here to wear a bunch of clothes on stage though some people manage to do it. I get heat rash from wearing long shorts or pants. Kind of like diaper rash but with more whining.
Maybe I could find a gig at a clothing optional resort, not that I have anything worth showing off. It's a comfort thing. I already have a decent base tan from cleaning my pool in the nude. My wife likes to say that the people that bought houses here didn't pay $1 million to look at my ass so I roll over and say, "Well then, they can look at my wiener. We don't have any kids that play outside in our neighborhood anyway." She still doesn't think it's funny. I once got arrested for indecent exposure but they let me go for lack of evidence goes the old joke.
A lot of my fellow Keys peeps take this time of year to go on vacations to places that are not as hot as it is here. Alaskan cruises sound refreshing when the heat index is 116°F. They go visit family in Michigan, Vermont, Seattle or go to the Sturgis motorcycle rally though with all the heat waves lately a body might have to go all the way to the north pole to cool off.
I've never been on a cruise ship and I have to admit that the ocean is intimidating to me. The one time I went out deep-sea fishing I remember looking over the boat into that endless, deep blue water and feeling like a piece of bait, waiting for something to come up from the depths and swallow me whole. I love living by the water but that doesn't mean I want to be out in the middle of it. I fear the ocean more than I've ever feared any God.
Life is pretty slow during the slow season (hence the name). If it wasn't for picking up the yard after tropical storms there wouldn't be a whole lot to do. The bummer for me is I love to play my guitar but the arthritis is so aggravating and painful it ruins my rehearsal time.
These days I mostly play for my own amusement and that's why during this slow season I'm working on original material with the band because why not? There's a ton of new music that I find personally to be crap and my crap ain't no worse than pop country rap. I'm out of brain space for cover songs. I have forgotten more songs than most people will ever attempt to learn. Your average cover band maybe knows 40 songs. My band has about 70 songs ready to go right now and that's only a portion of what I know so it's time to explore my own material.
We get a boost Labor Day, Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, then hell week with New Year's Eve as the exclamation point at the end of the busiest week in the Keys. January is painfully slow as the snowbirds slowly begin to trickle back to the Keys with February, March and April being the busiest three months of the year. If you don't make any money during that time, summer and the following off-season is going to suck. I really hope the recreational weed passes so I can at least grow my own during the off-season. There's probably not going to be any way that the politicians are going to allow us to grow our own, they want us to buy it from their sponsors. I wonder how long it will be before the owners of Anheuser Busch start selling weed? After all marijuana is related to hops.
☮️❤️😊🎶👣🖖
Welcome Jennifer Neuman to the band. No she's not green, it's the stage lights.
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