NYC Journal

I only have a few hamburgers.

My pants that fit tight are a 28 inch waist. 29’s are loose fitting.

I’m not so old looking. My hair extends about 3 inches below my nipples, and in the morning when I get up my hair makes me look like/resemble Steve Tyler. My sides are grey that’s about it, but my arrogant chin beard is almost all white.

Cal
 
I had a bout of GAS on a unique modded 70th Anniversary Esquire that had a Joe Glaser double “G” and “B” bender and a likely MJT refin.

But I’m officially in “No-Buy” mode. I went to look at the guitar in a local shop, and I figured it would be deal-no-deal where I would try to do a trade.

The Victoria Regal amp I like, but I don’t necessarily love. I acquired that amp by a flat trade of two collectible lap steels that I bought as investments. The shop put them up on Reverb for crazy money, but realize I bought these back in the day for no money decades ago. Oh-well.

Then I bought this small National amp mostly because of it’s pristine condition. This amp dates back to 1964 and has the original Jenson speaker. Kinda rare to find one like this, today clean original ones sell north of $1K, and I bought mine just last year for $700.00 out the door.

The Victoria Regal amp also went up in price by about $400.00. This amp also I only acquired last year.

So basically I have items I don’t need that I can wheel and deal, as well as barter.

So the neck on the 70 Anniversary Esquire was kinda narrow for me. No love there. I did get to check out the Glaser Dual Bender which is kinda cool and works great. A kinda novelty tho kinda make a Tele like a pedal steel. But pretty much I did not feel the urge to splurge, and I think the amps I have are good dry fodder and are better to own.

They also have a reissue Fender external reverb, for $750.00. I could get it out the door for $700.00 cash, but really the older originals are point to point wiring without a printed circuit board, but the vintage ones sell for $2K-$2.5K which is insane.

For $2K I could buy a Victoria Reverbarato. Which is two Fender effects for the lowest price of a vintage Fender, and know that Victoria kinda recreated the Fender reverb, and the Vibrato that exists on my 1960 Brown Super using point-to-point wiring.

To me I would rather save my ammo and get a Victoria Reverbarato. Anyways I still own the Victoria Regal and that has a cool reverb and vibrato built into the amp.

Understand I would want the outboard reverb for other amps that lack reverb, and also know that the outboard reverb does boost and amplify the input signal so in effect it is a mild overdrive that is tube driven.

So anyways I learned that these two amps I bought just last year appreciated greatly already. I would expect further price inflation, and really they are kinda like “hard assets” that appreciate in value.

Oh-well on the 70th Anniversary Esquire, didn’t feel right in my hands, but it was a nice exploration and exciting to check out if it would be great for me. A bit of fun and excitement flirting with a guitar.

Cal
 
About 200K workers for the Federal Government are on probation as new hires. These 200K workers are getting fired, meaning they are unlikely to be counted as unemployed because they being fired are not eligible for unemployment benefits.

Remember I mentioned that new applications for unemployment at 400K translates into a recession… If these workers become fired/unemployed we are kinda there.

Now it seems 75K workers will take the buyout to compound things. Do you see a government slowdown yet? What do you think happens to the moral of the rest of the public service workforce?

The markets are showing a Red Screen, while Gold and Oil are up. My spin on the gold and oil prices is inflation expectations.

Meanwhile European markets are out performing U.S. markets, reflecting a slowdown.

Do you feel the slow-motion happening?

It seems Orange Julius used his first-term as a testing ground for his ideas to kinda establish the red-lines and where he would have pushback. Now in those red lines are being crossed and tested again.

8 years ago there was the threat of the U.S. leaving NATO. This is a mucho crazy idea, and now it is looking like Europe has to get prepared to defend itself. Germany for decades has underfunded its NATO commitment and pretty much is a small shadow of what it had in military strength during the Cold War.

So is the new U.S. policy that Russia has permission to annex a Free Europe?

Mucho evil is happening. The world has to wake up.

Cal
 
I looked back in my journal and now see that the Victoria Regal I got in a flat trade for two old vintage lap steels in September 2024 increased in value not by $400.00, but $500.00

So today I love this amp a bit more. Call me a greedy bastard. LOL.

That Glaser double “G” and “B” bender is mighty cool. Sending off one of my guitars to get one installed would set me back $1150.00. Hmmm…

No rush, but the money has to come from somewhere. I think this blonde light in weight swamp ash Tele made with a 1-piece body would be the candidate.

There is a $650.00 option for a single bender that would be convertible to either “B” or “G,” but not two at the same time.

Hmmm.

Cal
 
Morning Devil Cal,

You remind me of me. LOL

I just bought from Germany a 15cm Voigtlander Apo-Lanthar, which is a serious Lanthium elemented Cult LF lens. I'm putting the cells into a Plaubel Makiflex Automatic Iris Auto Diaphragm Olde Lensboard. My repair Guy Mac has experience working on my Harem now. Difficult I ask? Nope he says. YAY. The Apo-Lanthar is infamous for element seperating, this one has teeny teeny edge seperation. So priced to move at 225 British Pounds with Linhof shutter, which is a steal deal. Most are near or north of a Grand, a no brainer. The HOLY GRAIL of Plaubel Makiflex lenses. The Harem will be so pleased :)

Inverted Sinar Handy 4x5 TMX400 Pushed Handheld by Nokton48, on Flickr

This is like shooting a 4x5 Olde 21mm Leitz Super Angulon but on steroids. TMX400 1/60 F8 Handheld
 
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Devil Dan,

Don’t tell your wife you have a private harem. LOL.

She must know tat you have a camera and lens fetish by now. LOL.

I’m still fantasizing about that 70th Anniversary Esquire. Someone dropped $1150.00 into having that double bender installed, then there’s a $325.00 refin done by MJT. My forensics makes me believe the 4 conductor bridge pickup is a Seymour Duncan that costs $139.00.

Know I could get a used one in great condition for $1.8K to $2K. They only made them for 1 year in 2020, and they were sprayed with nitro cellulose lacquer like in the old days.

They are trying to sell this on Reverb, so I likely could worm off that commission that I believe is 10%.

My thinking is I could change out the neck and pretty much I could buy a replacement neck for the girth and chunk I require. Pays to save the neck, because it pretty much would sell easily because it is a Fender USA neck and is special because of the lacquer OEM factory finish.

Call me a dog, but I have lust and desire.

Update: Reverb fee is 5%. Also if a trad is involved this evades sales tax.

Cal
 
A red screen in the markets, even gold and oil are in the red.

Monday is a holiday, and pretty much in three days more can happen to add chaos to the markets. Doing a Texas Hold ‘Em is mucho risky.

I have some possible trades to secure the double bender. I could get rid of a bass that I bought for no money perhaps 3 decades ago, and now its value is kinda triple what I paid for it. Then there is the National 1210 amp that is original and OEM.

If I knock off the Reverb fee I kinda got a flat trade.

No worries is that I have a transparent red version of the transparent blue version I’m willing to unload, and know that the red version is about 9 pounds which is mucho light weight.

Lust is an awful thing to waste.

Sticking with my “No-Buy” mode.

I can live without this bass, and the National amp I bought as an investment knowing it’s condition held a vast premium.

Cal
 
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It was a no deal, and I’m cool with that. Oh-well.

My mind got a chance to wander and wonder. It was exciting, it was titillating, and most of all it is cool it didn’t happen. Most of all it was educational and also entertaining.

Economically I think I am better off with the assets I own. When I pulled it out of the basement I just had to tune the bass, and it plays well right out of the case. Been in storage for perhaps 4 years. Wow…

Then having an OEM original amp…

The transparent blue finish utilizes the most select ash for showing off the grain. This blue bass weighs 10 1/2 pounds and has a neck stamp date of October 1981. Along with the rosewood neck the heavy weight adds to create a woody sound like a fret less bass. Very cool.

Oh-well.

I kinda learned about this Joe Glaser bender. Mighty cool.

Cal
 
Gold fell below the $2.9K threshold. Hmmm…

A headline was why Europeans don’t buy American cars. Pretty much they are not small and not as fuel efficient as the preferred smaller cars to choose from.

There also is criticism that American car manufactures promote and build more SUV’s and trucks to pad their bottom line because on these vehicles profit margins are bigger.

Then there is the absent headline where Americans who don’t want to buy pickup trucks or SUV’s, have a limited selection of compact American cars to choose from. Basically because of shortages and limited selection Americans are compelled to buy foreign cars because American manufactures don’t want to support this share of the market.

Know that gas prices are in liters in Europe, and it takes 3.8 liters to make a gallon. The rude thing is that a liter of gas in Europe costs about the same as a gallon of gas here in the U.S.

On long trips the Audi A4 gets more than 27 MPG, granted I have to buy premium because of the turbo. On a 16 gallon tank I can exceed 400 miles.

Also the quality of American cars is not so great. IMHO I think foreign cars are more durable and reliable over the long term. For me American cars are junk.

Cal
 
This morning I got a chance to plug in. I learned that my playing got a lot better and is smoother. The exercises I have been doing to internalize chord scales is paying off, but I need to start learning songs, and reading music to really advance.

Its all about feeling and not thinking…

I played through the 1960 Fender brown Super, and went through the rotation of guitars on hand. Pretty much subtle differences between guitars, but overall they all sounded great through this amp without having to tweak knobs on the amp. This is impressive.

Then I plugged into the Vintage 47 VA-20 amp. More of the same, but perhaps a bit more raw with some apparent “hair.”

The Victoria Regal required some dialing in, and I think the bass was a bit too loose to my liking. I think I need to retune the output section. I think I have a 6V6 along with a 6L6. I think the 6V6 is making the bass a bit “farty.”

So I have to tweak the Victoria because I have evolved and advanced.

Cal
 
Tomorrow is one month post surgery. I pretty much get my life back.

I can say that if I drank soda, consumed sugar, ate cake, and perhaps was heavier, that my aggressive Cancer might have advanced to a point where it likely would of taken me out.

Understand that sugar is the food that promotes Cancer growth, and I have an aggressive Cancer,

Also being active and exercise starves the Cancer because glucose is used to fuel muscles rather than fuel Cancer growth.

So I’m not taking anything for granted I got lucky. Tomorrow I will start exercising again.

Cal
 
I am getting my head around the different thresholds of my amps. Seems like the brown 1960 Fender Super has more headroom than 1950 tweeds, and the Victoria Regal kinda honors the tweed sound with less headroom and more fuzzing up.

The Victoria though with it’s overbuild though has the power to push and open things up. Lots of tweaking to find out what is good for me and my style.

Between the Vintage 47 that uses all old octal tubes and retro circuits, the Fender brown Super that is a bridge between Fender Tweed and later 60’s Black Face amps, and the beefed up Fender Tweed sounds of a Victoria. I likely have a stable of ultimate plug and play amps.

Then I have a Matchless Spitfire and a Matchless Lightning for that British sound of Vox using EL 84 tubes.

Seems like the Fender brown Super though has the right balance that is magic to go from a pristine clean, edge of breakup, to some raw push with just the volume knob. Of course big strings and a heavy attack adds to the dynamics. The thing with brown amps is that they are midrange heavy and the sound is warm and thick.

The Vintage 47 with the octal tubes has a husky thickness also.

The Victoria has a chimney 15 inch speaker, but I’m getting some fart-E-nes in the low end. I need to tweak this amp, and since it can use all kinds of output tubes it gets complicated fast. I currently am running just a single 6V6, and I think I need to run a pair to get the DC response to smooth out the bass and to add mids. I’m asking the amp to push a lot of air with very low power, perhaps only 5 watts.

Tomorrow I’ll add a second 6V6 to have 10 watts class A. Kinda like a Fender Champ on steroids. The Derick and the Domino’s album Layla and Other Love Songs was made using this single 6V6 Fender tweed “Champ” that basically is a 5 watt amp through an 8 inch speaker.

This little amp only has a volume knob, and be assured it was “dimed,” meaning turn fully up. A poor slammed little amp, pushed.

Pretty sure I’ll find a sweet spot.

The brown Super I have the two channels jumpered together to add thickness, and I run the volume on each channel about half way up, but know that the speakers are the lower powered P12R’s that have a nice early breakup. This works out to be great in the small bedroom that is my music studio.

My guitars have vintage style pickups that kinda have low outputs. Even though the amps are kinda turned up, I’m not killing my ears because my hands are pretty good.

It ends up that the sonic Blue Tele Thinline cameo out as a great guitar. The sound is warm and smooth. Really great for Jazz.

Cal
 
Looking forward to some exercise tomorrow. A month of rest is a lot.

Let’s see what an old man can do, how much strength I lost, and how much muscle memory I’ll have.

Cal
 
Disappointed that my threaded collars for my tuners have not arrived yet for my Strat build. Monday is a FED holiday so hopefully today.

I weighed my guitars last night using the cheap luggage scale I bought from CVS for something like $8.00 using a coupon.

That Strat is a porker at 7.75 pounds, and I have a few guitars that right around a featherweight of 6 pounds even. Strats tend to be heavier than Tele’s, so no surprise here, but then again Strat “Hardtails” that don’t have vibrato’s/tremalo’s can be as light in weight as Tele’s.

So last night I was keen onto the pattern that I favor the more open and less processed sounds of retro tube amps that have big plug and play capabilities. Pretty much I want the volume control on the guitar to be in the realm of controlling my clean, my threshold of breakup, and a mild over driven sound.

Not needing any pedals is a great thing that opens up dynamics. I pretty much want to get the sound from my hands, big strings (12’s) for a piano like tone/sound,

I also recognize that only so far my Victoria is the only amp with reverb.

Some people say that Matchless amps are so lively that no reverb is needed. The black faced Fender Pro amp I found being thrown out on the lower east 90’s in Madhattan has reverb, but I have not found the speakers buried in my basement yet to be able to build out that amp.

A storm that was once an atmospheric river in California will hit us in New York over the next two days.

In the financial news they are saying the supply side is starting to loosen up in the housing market despite the “locked in effect.” Also prices seem to be more negotiable in a downward manner, as interest rates remain high. So the underlying situation is that January pending sales are mucho low, but then again the winter months are a slow period anyways.

My spin is a belt tightening, and perhaps the Dumb Americans are realizing instability, inflation, and maybe a slowdown is underway. BTW we Americans are mighty dumb.

The Philly Flower Show is coming up. Last year we missed it. We will attend part of this week long event for sure this year.

This flower show is mucho big and worth the trip. Actually it is kinda mucho crazy. Worth a long drive and an overnight stay. Also I have a route that is across the Bear Mountain Bridge and is a pretty drive.

Pretty much on March 3rd I have an appointment with my urologist/surgeon. The PSA test should be a zero I’m told. Pretty much careful monitoring going forward to target the aggressive Cancer when it reappears.

Again I am thankful that my diet and exercise kinda saved my life again. The skills I learned from Iron Mike and biking kinda ensured that I starved this aggressive Prostate Cancer.

Sugars, processed foods, weight gain, over eating, and lack of exercise could of enabled the Cancer to grow more rapidly, and pretty much my life has been saved again. I had “9“ readings on the Gleason Scale. This is pretty close to a terminal Cancer. Pretty much was a close call that would of had an “ending.”

I’m a very lucky guy.

Cal
 
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I don’t want to be a “Chicken-Little,” but is the Bird Flu a new Pandemic?

Seems likely since RFK Jr. now holds a public office and supports an anti-vac policy. Things probably will get worse. Highly likely. I’m not the only person who says, “Oh-well.”

Childhood diseases and diseases of old are surely going to take a toll on infant mortality and life expectancy.

Locally there are reports of a surge of Whooping Cough in nearby Putnam Valley.

In a rural part of west Texas there is a big Measles outbreak.

Glad I have a good supply of face masks still. To me this is Third World…

Not sure if radiation therapy will compromise my immune system when required/needed.

Gold falling below $2900.00 is a surprise to me. I was expecting some consolidation and a period of sideways action around the $2950.00 price point before its next leg up. Since inflation expectations are up, I expect the march to $3K to eventually resume.

Could be people locking up profits and hoarding cash waiting for the trap-door and for the expected reality check when dumb Americans realize that a slowdown is underway.

As far as the fireings of probationary workers that are basically new hires goes, it is reported that this amounts to about 20K people so far or about 10% of the expected possible 200K Federal jobs likely to get eliminated.

Since these workers are “fired” they will not be counted as unemployed, meaning eligible for unemployment compensation. Mucho rude and demoralizing.

Don’t forget the 75K Federal employees that are taking the “buy-out.” 275K less Federal workers are expected…

So maybe a stagnant government first, then a stagnant economy. The housing market seems to be in a slowdown, and that is true even in the Hudson Valley, as witnessed by the kid’s recent signing of a contract. Still slim pickings, even though there is more housing stock becoming available, and also prices are somewhat negotiable.

Trader Joe’s is no longer taking or accepting employment applications. The son-in-law tried to apply and was informed.

So is there really a worker shortage? Perhaps in the unskilled labor, construction industries, and agriculture, but seems like either people need a side hustle to pay the bills or pay down debt. Anyways that is my guess…

“Maggie” took note that many who work at Trader Joe’s are of retirement age, and basically could be supplementing their Social Security. This is a reasonable possibility.

I kinda see the early signs of a slow-down, and the future to me looks like a downturn as Orange Policies take root.

I reported that the sightings of day-laborers in the usuals locations no longer exists. I can easily project the loss of exploiting illegal immigrant cheap labor.

Cal
 
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I count 10 electric guitars, 4 bass guitars, 3 acrostic Santa Cruz acoustics, 5 guitar tube amps, a 200 watt tube bass amp, and a handful of other tube amp projects in various stages of completion.

Then there are three guitars, two archtops, and a small parlor guitar, at my friend Cris’s shop.

So pretty much enough is enough… I’m kinda satisfied…

Now I kinda need something new to obsess about, because I kinda have an addictive personality along with some OCD impulses.

Bladder capacity, control and leakage steadily improves. I organically exercise my bladder by a bit of over hydration and even coffee abuse as physical therapy. This ends up being real world real deal exercise.

About 3-4 inches of snow expected, then a day of possible heavy rain, then a very windy Monday.

Cal
 
You need a pole barn with a second floor. Give it a lot of Calzone Factor! Your Architect can design it for you. Make a walkway between your buildings. Finish Devil Christian and shoot that 70mm. Work on that can of XX. Dust some off some Leicas and Nikons.
 
I just lubed and cycled the spring wound motor in a couple of my Bell and Howell 70 cameras (DL and DR). I have four more to futz with if I want a fidget toy. One of these days I need to build a film dryer then develop the 1200 feet of film I've shot over the last few years. That's film related! ;)
Phil
 
I have some Kodak 5222 in the freezer, and some odd twenty packs of old Fuji FP 100 to expend.

Hmmm.

Save the date: February 28th. Pretty much no spending or purchases on February 28th, and boycott the economy.

I’m not the one who started this. If you have to buy stuff do it before or after February 28th.

Cal
 
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