I Forgot The Tape

The headset microphone needs to have some kind of signal boosting in order to plug into the portable amp. I am thinking of getting an equalization pedal, meant for a guitar, and then just running it flat with the "level" all the way up.

The important thing is that I get on it immediately so as little time as possible goes by before I am ready to go out and play again

There is a lot for me to research. It will probably be something meant to boost a keyboard that I will need. The stuff made for guitars cuts the high end out of vocals too much.

I Forgot About Duct Tape, But Remembered Wine

I went out earlier, and somehow forgot to get the duct tape; so the bookshelf won't get put together tonight.

I am enjoying going out less and less. Starting to dislike too many of the people I encounter.

Back in 2006, I would wake in a dark forest at 5 o' clock in the morning, and then pedal a bike 3.1 miles to the labor pool, expecting to be sent out on some labor intensive job somewhere, and then being back at the tent around 12 hours later, with food and wine and a little bud of weed, and about 30 bucks left over, to go in a Mason jar with other monies.

There was a little Asian run store not far from the labor pool, where just about everybody cashed their checks, at a cost of one dollar. In 2006, this might be around 120 people a day.

They would go out to job sites where maybe 90 brand new houses were being built, cookie-cutter style, for the most part, with variations in window shapes and maybe front door placement, and, of course they would be painted different colors.

The problem that became apparent was that Jacksonville, which was already on the list of worst cities for traffic jams, could ill afford more communitis of 90 families competing for the same traffic lanes. On the way to the jobs, the Workforce van might have to stop 3 times, as the lights changed, just to make it to the front of the jam and maybe go trough the green light the 4th time it changed. The same was true after the work day was over, it took about a half an hour before the van was moving over 20 miles per hour. Everywhere you looked there were roads that looked like parking lots.

This had to do with why Jacksonville has the nickname of "The River City," as the river needed to be crossed using only a hand full of bridges that were already in existence. It takes 10 times as long to build a new bridge over the St. John's river as it would to build 90 brand new houses in a subdivision which might have 2 roads leading in and out of it. If you were to put 2 cars in the garage of each house, then the situation becomes a traffic jam waiting to happen.

Not to mention, it's probably pretty expensive, putting a cable suspension bridge over a mile wide river. That's probably the reason that the 4 existing bridges were built around 40 years apart from each other.

Somebody was most likely making a ton of money building and selling new houses in one of the top 5 worst traffic cities in the nation. And who knows who was paid off, whose job it would be to raise the issue of the infrastructure being unable to accommodate the additional traffic, to make them shut up. That someone probably made his fortune and then moved to Texas or somewhere else that has a much better commuting situation. 

The labor pools were the place to go if you had no ID but still wanted to work and get paid the same day. 

They would tell new arrivals that they could sign them up and do all the paperwork, but, before they could print them a check, they would have to verify their citizenship and Social Security status, etc.

Then, there would be a shift change and, by the time the worker got back in from a job, the other crew member would just print them up a check, along with everyone else, using the name and number written on the work ticket.

You could then work there a certain length of time, then take the pay stubs showing said work history to the DMV, where they would be good enough to get you a state issued ID (in whatever name and number you had been writing on your work tickets). This was a great way to get an alternate ID in the name of some deceased person and say goodbye to your bad credit, criminal history, child support obligations, etc.

I used one in order to marry Nina, my Russian wife, while keeping an identity in reserve, in case I met the woman of my dreams right after marrying Nina (isn't that the way it always happens?). 

Or, in the words of England Dan and John Ford Coley: "It's Sad To Belong To Someone Else (when the right one comes along)" 

But, showing up at a labor pool with nothing but the clothes on your back, but being willing to do heavy physical labor, used to be a great way to change one's identity.

And the Asian store would always cash the checks that they recognized as coming from the labor pool, so one could survive the few weeks, before going to the DMV to claim you lost your wallet and every piece of identifying information in it. But, you do have pay stubs from your job, type of thing.

I think doing back-breaking work like mixing concrete by hand or riding on the back of a trash truck, for a couple months, earns a person the right to a fresh new identity.

In my case, I was driving a cab in Phoenix when I got pulled over by a cop on Central Street, who only sat a short time in his car running my new license, before returning it to me, congratulating me upon being 36 years old and never having gotten a ticket, telling me that he didn't want to be the cop to mar such a stellar driving record.

Another time, I was on Indian School Road late at night and saw a group of cops chasing a young skinny guy across a parking lot, in a Keystone Cop-esque scene. I moved my cab to intercept the guy, who had been maintaining a distance of about 40 feet ahead of the whole gaggle of them. I jumped out and was able to slow the kid down enough by playing linebacker and causing him to have to go around me, so that the cops caught up with him.

This was the same time that I had a federal fugitive warrant issued for my under my other name; and there were the cops, shaking my hand, slapping my back, and thanking me for the help; wasn't I the guy with the pristine driving record? I just love stuff like that; and those kind of things make the best memories. There are people out there, who are on the "most wanted" lists, and you never know where they will turn up. Why, you're shaking the hand of one right now, and offering to buy him a hamburger....

But, the Asians who ran the little store were very shrewd people. I'm not sure if they were Laotian, Cambodian, or Vietnamese.

They would charge the dollar for the check cashing, which would have them handing you back something like $48.69, conveniently broken into all kinds of denominations, ready to spend right there on beer, cigarettes, lottery tickets, pornography, candy, hot dogs, and maybe even "dick pills," of which those Asians were conscientious enough to keep well stocked. There would always be ginseng extract available at the counter. And they seemed to respect us as the hard workers we were purported to be.

Outside the store were the pot dealers and the crack dealers, and so those Asians even became aware of what everyone's "poison" was, and knew things like how reliable they were as far as showing up for work all 5 days in a given week. I just feel bad about how, when I did have that warrant out for me, and was driving a cab in Phoenix, the detectives started turning over stones and pursuing different avenues to find me, and were soon flashing a picture of me and asking them when the last time they saw me was. They were homicide detectives and so, word soon got around that I was a serial killer, or whatever the rumor mill churned out, and I started getting the cold shoulder when returning to my old haunts, such as Jacksonville. I had thought those Asians liked me at one point, but now they were whispering things to each other when I returned, and being very short with me.

Who knows what tactics are used to jog people's memories, "Can you give us a call if you spot him; it's very important that we find this guy; it has to do with a murder," type of thing.

It's been worse, the times I've gone back to Mobile, Alabama, where the rumor is that I'm a child molester- another example of "guilt by accusation." I'd have to conclude that murderers are much higher up on the totem pole than I am in that particular port city.

The Pool Dries Up

But, in January of 2007, the labor pools abruptly stopped getting calls for cheap labor. A 5 a.m. bike ride to the place would turn into a 3 hour session of drinking bad coffee and watching even worse TV, with the sound of a phone ringing being a rare occurrence. 

On those mornings, I would leave there around 8 a.m. with the sun already high in the sky and go on scavenging runs to dumpsters behind stores. I would often arrive back at the campsite with a 40 pound box of foodstuff balanced on my handlebars. A fire would be lit that night, and a party thrown, with all the raccoons invited.

Thankfully, I discovered busking at around that time, before I sank any lower than when I would go into the Gate station and grab 3 large cans of malt liquor, throwing 2 of them in a certain trash barrel and then bringing the 3rd one to the register to pay for it. 

And then would sit at their picnic table waiting for the 2nd shift person to come out of the store, pushing a hopper containing all the trash bags from his shift, 15 minutes from its end, and then chuck them all in the dumpster. I would go in a few minutes later and feel the bags for something cold, before returning to the fire and the party.

Yeah, busking came along in the nick of time... 

This was when being homeless was an understandable condition to the average person. All construction of new homes had been halted around Jacksonville, with some buildings left standing in a half finished state. This was also before a ton of people found that the panhandling they might have initially done out of desperation, had become their calling. Then you started to see the professionals, begging with a smile "Anything for me today, sir?" Alright, there's always tomorrow and the next day and the next, until I die, type of thing. Those types really annoyed me. I will steal before I would ever panhandle; unless I got a hand chopped off for stealing; then I might reconsider.

It seems like that (2007) is all "in my youth" now, as I looking back 15 years. I suppose every cell in my body has regenerated itself twice over. I remember that forest with a feeling of nostalgia. I suppose all those raccoons have all passed away. Yes, it's sad.