Being a musician can be tricky when trying to cut cost so one can feed the Frankenstein or the dreams as I like to call it. We have a tenancy to live in the cheap part of town. And when there are many of us live there, well, word does get around and before you know it we have to move because there far too many antique stores. When they show up you know rents going up and it's time to move. I call this the cosmic bellybutton it kind of moves around. Use to be Vermont, use to be SoHo in the Village, and use to be Key West for a short time, and use to be Floyd here in Virginia. So yea we try to find a somewhat cheap place to live and at times it can get downright strange. Your family might not understand it and they might call how you live, "a lifestyle". If someone does not understand the how and why on how you live that's what they call it, a lifestyle. But I am getting off the subject here….cheap rent. So I'll go first and feel free to post your stories, I'd love to read'em . Kind of like that post, The Gig from Hell post.
The way many of us find cheap rent is just look in the paper and read the ads and make some phone calls. You never know until you call them up and see the place for yourself. I called this one guy and he seemed a bit too pushy and too friendly but heck we all have our bad days and I always give people the benefit of the doubt so I drove out to see the place. Now on the phone I told the guy to tell me everything about the place and the settings. He told me that is was way out in the sticks and was a peaceful place. I had to meet him at a locked gate so I could get in. I found out later he kept the gate locked to keep them out from turning off the electricity. So anyway we made an appointment and off I went.
I met him at the gate, I think it was a warm Saturday afternoon and he was right it was out in the sticks, which I always seem to like. I went through the gate and followed him to the house which was in an open field. I parked the van and walked to the house and he said something like," Let me show you around". When he opened the door out came 6 or 7 (a herd) man eating dogs (rottweiler's) and I made a bee line for my van. All the while he had a cockatoo bird that was yelling, "hello there, hello there, brockkkkk". Wow, this guy did not mention a thing about those dogs and he was trying to tell me they were ok. I told him, "You did not mention those dogs, damn!" He told me he didn't want to mention that one because it might scare away people from coming over. Gee I wonder why?
Now the way this guy looks was a trip too. He had a shaved head with a goatee and was a bit loud kind of guy. He told me he did demolition for a living and he looked like it. You might say he was kind of a drama queen and way too loud, kind of like his herd of dogs. All the way I was looking at this guy listening to him I told myself maybe I should give him the benefit of the doubt. Maybe the dogs were ok and maybe that bird is not as lonely as he sounds. While he was talking the herd of dogs was playing with their stick. The stick was a 6" pole that was about 10 feet long that looked like they had been chewing on it. One dog somehow straddled the "stick" with his paws and was moving the damn thing. "Oh he's just showing off", the demolition man said. I was thinking, man I don't know about this place. But I did need a roof over my head so……
As I was walking ever so slowly away from my van so I could at least look at the house the demolition man told me, "don't run too fast the dogs might be getting to ya". Great I was thinking but how much more strange can these places is? I have this tedious when I see strange I want to know more. As we went through the small house he showed me the kitchen which had the smallest refrigerate I have seen. He told me, "We share this". I looked in and it was packed, not that there was much room.
Now to make a long story kind of short yea I moved in and did have my own room upstairs. The first night was kind of strange because that cockatoo was saying every now and then, "Hello up there, hello up there".   Maybe he is kind of lonely. I came down for breakfast the next morning and make my espresso. The herd of dogs it seems to herd around the kitchen when there is some kind of food around. So you have to yell at them to back off way too many times but at least it works. I wanted to head to town that morning to get some stuff food and so on. As I was leaving he told me, "Let me put the dogs in the house because they do not like you leaving the house and they bit your tires and I don't want you to get a flat". All I said was, "What?"
I came back when some food and some other things like toilet paper. He asked me what I got and I said something like, "Oh a few things ya know like food and toilet paper "TOILET PAPER, TOILET PAPER, OH MY GOD YOU SHOULD OF TOLD ME, I HAVE A BARN FULL OF THAT STUFF" Wow what the hell is this guy doing with a whole barn full of that of that stuff. Maybe fate is trying to tell me something.
Well as you might of guess I did not live there too long. I do remember I brought a girlfriend of mine there because she just did not believe it, oh there goes Bill again he's exaggerating. When she showed up and was surrounded by the herd of flesh eating dogs while the cockatoo was yelling, hello there, hello there. She was doubled over from laughing because it was all true. Yea, cheap rent does make for good stories. Funny now but next time I'm going to listen to my gut feeling.