Friday,
I have scheduled a ghost story which I wrote 10 years ago to be automatically published.
I hope to tweak it a bit before then.
If I had a blog back then, then this might be an entry from March, 2002.
I always consider myself to be such a better writer "now" and will probably look at it as the work of a child when I proof read it.
It is probably not a good idea to schedule its publication without proof reading it at all; I'm not sure that I was a very good writer back then...
Ghost story eh?
ReplyDeleteWell, I went to the local "buy here, pay here" car lot today and the friendly fat Mexican guy who runs it, really nice guy, did his best to talk me out of buying a car from them. The down payment I'd need is enough to buy an OK car on Craig's List or "on the street" as he recommended, and I have a feeling the lack of an actual job would jam me up anyway in the Rocky & Vito credit approval process. The guy knows I don't have ea job, like half the ppl in my town lol. The good news is, I'm going to work on getting a car anyway, and will hopefully be able to pull it off in a couple of weeks.
A car means BUSKING. I can busk around here, getting around by bike, but I'm kinda shy about it since it's the kind of town where everyone knows each other. But going up to Sunnyvale or Mountain View, and entertaining bored dot-commers and Chinese and Indian folks who are used to buskers in their own countries, OK!
And I know a few "money pot" sites that you have to have lived in the area for years to know. I've actually not gone to them because I feel that a busker should have a certain level of skill and not "poison" them with bad playing, I've only gone to sites that are kind of "all comers", where a person can be good or lousy. I feel I'm 6 months away from the "money pots" but I'd take you around to 'em right away.
Yeah, hard to tell if the fat man didn't see a way to profit off you, or if he's doing you a favor.
ReplyDeleteMy experience with them is, they sell you a car, which you could have gotten for 1,000 cash, and take like 50 bucks per week until you've bought it at 2,000 (or more if you're more of a sucker)
But, after faithfully making about 12 payments, you fall on hard times and they conduct their second line of business, when their own tow truck shows up; takes the car which you could now get on the street for 900 bucks ('cause of the roach burns in the uphoulsry; damn you) and puts it back on the lot at fifty bucks a week for 40 weeks for someone else, whose address is stable enough so they will know where to send the towtruck lol
I dealt with them and that is actually how I got the e-mail name, the yipper. The guy would be telling me about how the '86 Dodge Lancer has got a good motor, and his mechanic standing next to him said "yip!" and how they did a compression test "yip!" and it tested fine "yip!" and the oil was clean "yip!" and the six cylinder was actually the better motor as far as Lancers go "yip!" etc. etc.
A month after I bought it, when the Lancer was f***ing up, I would yell "Yip!" every time it stalled, or every time it idled at like 3k rpm after I started it..."Yip!"
When I wrote my checks to them, on the memo line, I inscribed "The Yippers"
In my opinion a car has to almost pay for itself; I could drive from here to the Fairhope Arts festival, for example and back ($35 in gas, maybe another 10 in hidden, eventual costs; like being 300 miles closer to that next oil change; timing belt every 60k, CV joints every 90K; and, the book value of the car drops sharply if you go over 12,000 miles per year, factor that in...) and I could make 150 bucks busking all day there. A 100 dollar day, when staying here in NOLA on that same day would yield maybe 50 bucks. Six hours of driving when you could be busking might have to be factored in, and the car is paying for itself, barely. But then again, it comes in handy at other times like running to the store during a thunderstorm; or sleeping in the thing...I would suggest getting a Honda Civic with 280K miles on it, really ugly paint and perhaps a dent; for 800 dollars cash; and then running it until you hit 380K, after you have made the 800 bucks back 50 times...
Haha my friend said he'll loan me the money to buy a car, because I'm borrowing his so much, and because I told him I'd spent some time thinking very hard about it and concluded that I'm being hurt more by not having a car, than the costs of having a car. In other words, for me, a car is probably going to *make* me money. In fact I know it will.
ReplyDeleteSo I called up the dealer again, and got the actual specs on that car (such as it's actually a 1996 not a 1999) and looked it up, and the car's worth about $3500, and he has it marked up around 6 grand! In fact I think that's these guys' business model - they get a car that looks good, in fact it's a good car, but then they look up the kbb value and double that, and sell it to the kind of people who only look at "how much a month is it". At 17% at least!
So whenever I turn the key, I have to ask myself, "Is this trip paying for itself or making me money?"
A used car dealer confided to me once (under the influence) something like "Whatever you see written on the windshield is *twice* what they could actually sell it for [and still turn a profit]"
ReplyDeleteAnd I believe him. I guess in some book called "How To Negotiate" it probably tells you to start by demanding twice what you would actually settle for; and then haggle from there...
I got another ticket last night; I was coming out of a store with a beer in my hand; three guys were sitting on the sidewalk; one had a banjo. "Hey, Bring that guitar over here!" said the one with the banjo. "Ok, maybe one song," said I.
Somewhere between the second verse and the chourus, up pulled the same cop and...I guess you know the rest of the story...I talk to my lawyer this afternoon and the topic will be "Getting Daniel Out Of Here Without Warrants Hanging Over Him"
Damn. I just can't imagine that kind of chickenshit ball-busting going on here. I panhandled right under the nose of cops! The only time I had a cop show some interest, I was out spare-changing, and it was a hot night so I took my leather jacket off and had it over my arm - a cop car followed me for a while, probably they thought I was offering drugs to people or something, and when they saw I was merely peacefully spare-changing, they drove off. I actually considered asking some cops for spare change, but chickened out.
ReplyDeleteIn Santa Cruz, I came up with the basic rule: Do you ADD to the street scene, or SUBTRACT from it? If you're an annoying, smelly, negative sort of panhandler, you're a "minus point" and the cops will lean on you. If you're cheerful, polite, offer a craft or a song or a joke, literally, help people out when needed, then the cops are fine with you. It's called selective enforcement and it can work in your favor.
Good luck on getting off of the barbed wire that is New Orleans.