Another story,

I just answered one of these open internet questions. The question was, would I (anyone) read a fictional blog. My answer, sure if it's a good read, I'd look forward to it.

Sure would. When a writer I like runs out of story, it's a drag. For example, Bernard Fall. He didn't run out of story so much as he just plain got himself killed. He wrote military stuff, and he was in the right place in time to specialize in Vietnam. He died in Vietnam with an American green beret, one of them tripped a land mine. Or, Rowling. She had great Harry Potter stories for about 3 books, then they just weren't as good (in my opinion). Anyhow, if the story is good, sure I'd read it in a blog.

Then I got to thinking, a bunch of people I've known over the years would make great characters. No, they were/are great characters. For instance..............

I knew these 2 guys who went into business, and they had a real big influence on my life. The professor wasn't a very interesting guy, he was simply good at using people. The other guy? Am I the only person who remembers he was the guy who kept the old candy machine in the basement of the co-op full of joints? It was called the new machine because the old machine had died and it got tossed out. The way it worked was: deposit a quarter and pull the handle, nothing happened, put in another quarter and pull the handle, out came a strike anywhere kitchen match, and on the third quarter out came a joint.

How did this guy influence my life? He was kind of like big bird, he was what they call smart in the head. His father was a big shot with an insurance company, and he'd lived in an environment that was conducive to doing well in school, and college was all expenses paid for him. Me? I was just a steel fitter at the time, a common idiot, right? But he had self esteem issues too, he was only smart in the head, he wasn't interesting or good looking. Is anybody ever happy with what they've got? Nah......

Then there was his old lady, he didn't have one when I met him, but right about that time he got one. He didn't pick her, she went after him. After a few rolls in the hay, she got him. She had self esteem issues too, she was, ah, er, well, pleasingly plump. She had a couple of older brothers who were good guys. I recall one of them, the one closest in age to her, Steve I think his name was, glassy eyed drunk, recalling the great taste of a real cold Genesee Cream Ale in a 7 ounce bottle, the hometown brew.

All these years later, recently their daughter was a grocery clerk at a neighborhood grocery store on the near east side. How do I know? She is the spitting image of her father. I wonder if she knows about the "new machine".

And Duckless, well, he's still around. Who is he? When he came here he as a rich kid, but that didn't last long. His grandfather was a banker in a wealthy town, but his grandfather died and his father got the money. Was his father really that stupid?

Well, his father liquidated the bank (at a loss? probably), and went into the sporting goods business. His father liked fly fishing. He bought a successful sporting goods store, got rid of the guns and anything else he wasn't into, and concentrated on fly tying and fly fishing. Duckless laughed when he described the bank's tow truck coming and towing away his dad's Cadillac. Needless to say, fly fishing didn't support the business like hunting and shooting had.

Do I like fly fishing? There is no finer way to waste time than fly casting for large mouth bass. Did I, as a kid, wonder why it was impossible to find fly tying materials? Yes I did.

Anyhow........ Duckless wasn't allowed in the grocery clerk's mom and dad's place, even though he was a member of their inner circle of friends. Why? Seems he had this fire cracker, and they were sitting on the sofa in the living room, and the lit fire cracker found it's way under her mothers fat butt. Duckless was 86'd permanently from the house.

Is there any literary hope for these bozo's? There are more of course.

I picked up a couple more cab stories

I also think I might have found the right starting point to write from to make this into a book. Maybe.

The problem with writing the book is getting the first page, and the first chapter to hook an agent or publisher. Many of the good stories are not good material for this, for a variety of reasons. The flow of the book needs to make sense. Ah yes, now I remember, the kid with lice!! That was the little story that I think is funny enough, light hearted enough, and peopley enough.

It's the first day of school, and I'm a day driver. I pick this kid up and the destination is home, it's about 10am. We get about 1/2 way there and he says with all the excited enthusiasm of a normal healthy 9 year old, "Do you know why they sent me home from school!?"

I tell him no.

He says, "I have lice!!"

Ok...........................

Well, the guy who owns the company is a pharmacist, so I key the mike and tell the dispatcher what the situation is. There is this total radio silence that lasts about 5 minutes. What that tells me is that everyone in the office is rolling on the floor laughing. I was told that what I do, is up to me. So I went to the office and wiped down the seats.

Yeah, this definatly falls into the you never know who or what will get in the cab.

I have to remember to put the old German woman in, and the famous Don. Don I can actually talk about because he's dead. I have to wonder about the German woman. Her property redeveloped is offering free boat slips with condo sales now. The condo's aren't doing so well, but I offered her a chance to go home, and she passed it up. Maybe she actually liked living in the old folks home, but it's hard to imagine.

Not a 501C3.

I talked to the IRS, and they looked him up. Neither of the 2 companies are 501C3's. What does that mean?

Let's say I create a blogger blog that is a web site for a charity of sorts. Why, I could say I was feeding the poor. I could have buttons all over it that say donate, donate, donate. And, I don't have to be a charity. If I'm not a charity, the donations won't be tax deductible. Why would anybody want to contribute to such a charity, when there are so many legit charity's out there? Good question. I pretty much doubt that anybody would want to donate to such a thing.And it all works fine until somebody asks for the paperwork associated with making a donation to a charity that actually is a charity. 2 possibilities, you simply never get the paperwork, or you get phony paperwork. If phony paperwork is being passed out, that's a crime, and sooner or later the government will catch up with it, and then they will talk to EVERYBODY.

So back to the question of where do you get the designer tomatoes from? At the farmers market, when they're shutting it down for the day, some kid comes along and asks me to give him my unsold tomatoes, he'll give them to charity for me. Got a receipt for me kid, I'm going to want to write that donation off on my tax's. Now what happens? He either cuts me a receipt using someone's legit tax id number (a 501C3's), or he cuts me an invalid receipt that will get me audited if the tax people pick up on it, and the deduction for charity will be disallowed. What does he do with the stuff? Does anybody care? Can it be tracked?

If nobody cares where the tomatoes came from, who then will care where they went? The guy who grew them will care a lot! I've sold at the farmers market before, the vendors are a real close knit bunch. If one of them finds out about such a thing, it will be around the square faster than you can walk around the square.

Was I right?

Yes I was. Got a rise out of him too.

Food pantry garden

I went by a charitable agency, CAC, and talked to them the other day. They said that for someone to be collecting for charity, they have to have a certain form filed with the IRS. So I went to the IRS and asked them if the kid's organization was compliant. Woman was, I won't say rude, but very unfriendly. Did I have a personal interest in the kid? Sure, would I be here looking into him if he was my favorite person? Get real. Up went the stone wall. Ok lady, I know how to deal with people like you. Monday morning I call Senator Kohl's office and ask them to get what I need. It will happen same day. Senator Kohl's office is REAL good about that sort of thing. If the kid is a legally registered charity, ok, fine. If he's not.............

I will say this, the people I talked to said that they check on all the food pantry gardens that come to them for assistance, or what ever else they interact with them for. This season, they checked on all the gardens, and there was one that was non existent, as in no tilled ground, no garden. It was the kids.

I also found out where all those bedding plants came from. WalMart gave them to the charity, and the charity put them out for people to take for free. That explains the trailer load of WalMart bedding plants. You keep them there so if people come out to look at the place, you can show them plants. Then you talk about green houses you're going to build on the furthest inaccessible end of the property, and if somebody wants to go all the way out there and look, let them, they only see weeds and potential anyhow, right?

I'm amazed

Suddenly, there are 100's of page views a month. To hear me offer my opinion about the wrongs of society here in Dane County Wisconsin? Nah, couldn't be. Could it?

The scams thing, I could believe. Which made me say to myself I'll start a scams blog and for the first time ever put paying advertising on it. This means a bunch of little behind the scenes things need to be done to protect myself. Anyone who thinks the internet is a safe place has lead a sheltered life (IMHO). For instance, I looked at the stats and where page views came from, did any come from China? Nope. Did the kid do a year of exchange school in a Chinese speaking country? Yup. Did I get semi smart aleck comments in a combination of Chinese and English that I deleted, which were never posted? Yup. What do I think? It was the kid keeping tabs on me, unable to resist the temptation to taunt. Who won? Has the kid filed for that money portion of the suit that was dismissed twice in the replevin portion of the suit? Nope. So, first I prepare a destination for the penny or so that a page view will generate that is bullet proof safe, then I start with the blog. Yes folks, there will be a scams blog, it will be a collection, like the collection of cab stories that were the beginning of this blog.

The new blog will start with the kids scam. By the way, for those of you who didn't figure out the scam, consider the following reasoning....... A guy gets himself 2 companies, one that collects surplus produce to be distributed to charity, one that sells designer produce to restaurants. He buys himself a few bedding plants at WalMart and expenses them to both companies. Then he collects the unsold produce at the end of the farmers market supposedly for charity in the name of company A and turns around and sells it to upscale restaurants in the name and bank account of company B. If he pays his income tax, who cares what he's doing right? Only, the people who "donate" their surplus are being cheated because he's directly competing with them, further devaluing their produce because there will be less potential buyers.

Meanwhile, the kid laughs all the way to the bank. His companies aren't about work, they're about friendship and fun, right? Go and visit his gardens. They don't exist.

Anyhow, the blog for scams is on the back burner, I'll offer a redirect to it when it's up and running. Right now I'll offer a disclaimer for it too. It's a collection, like a stamp collection, not intended to be used by anyone for any particular purpose. Particularly not intended to be used by anyone for any less than honorable, ethical, or legal purposes. Perhaps writers might find it useful. For me, if that's the kind of stuff that people want to read about, so be it. Once it's up and running, the stats will tell all.

It's dismaying

The next victim is beginning to move into the kid's house.

I can hear the line of BS, "The previous tenant was....." The people are looking at the house and saying to themselves, 'a house we can afford.....' Nope, by the time they pay all the little victim penalties, they can't afford that place. Garden? They grow a garden and the produce might simply vanish, after all who's going to care of a tomato or 2 walks away. They'll realize their mistake within 4 weeks but it's too late. They're hooked, some fish fight more than others but few get off the line.

A friend was helping me move a vehicle yesterday. He was also victimized by a landlord, so we looked her up, and sure enough, she's taking the same property tax credit the Chinaman took that got or is getting him audited. She never gives receipts, only takes green cash, and has a house that is designed to have paying 'room mates'. Well, her house isn't zoned for that to be legal, I don't even have to make a trip into town to check on the specifics of it. As far as zoning is concerned she's running a rooming house, and she's only zoned for residential. In order for the tax credit she's taking to be legal, she has to be living in the house, and she has to be a state resident, and it has to be a single family residence. Nope, rooming house. How can revenue determine that on casual inspection? Simple, how many non-related peoples tax returns show that address? For most years, if not all years, they're going to come up with 4. That's enough to make that tax credit invalid, the tax credit is enough for an audit, and from there..... I'm pretty sure my friend will tell them the amount is $1150/month that she brings in in rent. Revenue will say ok, 84 months X $1150 is close to $100,000, and they'll want the back tax's as well as the trifling sum of around $1000 for the back tax credit that wasn't legit, plus penalties and all. Then zoning gets into the act and says, get those people out of there. Then the house goes up for sale.

That woman will wail and cry to anyone who will listen that she's this big time victim, and the government has singled her out, and..... BALONEY! One of the reasons the government is broke is because she and a lot of other people like her should be paying their way, and they aren't. What will happen? I'm not sure, but I suspect that things called tax sales sometimes begin as some capricious, petty little hustler landlord, taking their bad day out on someone who has been paying them (like my friend), when they wish they had a hundred or 2 more in their pocket.

I do know this, that woman has no other major source of funds. She claims she's disabled. She moves around fine when she's painting the basement apartment to rent it out to the next person, but she's otherwise disabled. Now she's got real trouble. She thought she has privacy in the United States, well she sort of does, but there is also this thing called zoning. She wouldn't want a dog kennel with barking dogs next door, nor would she want an 8 unit apartment building, nor would she want an 800 square foot tiny house because zoning protects her from that. Well, zoning protects her neighbors from her. They didn't complain? Doesn't matter. My friend that you kicked out complains to me, and he or I take the complaint downtown. Zoning takes a look (and they can take a look inside with notice), says yes it's true, issues some kind of cease and desist order, and you don't victimize any more people. Zoning is also capable of looking up how many non related people have vehicles registered to the same address, that would do the trick all by itself. How is it the old line goes...... What a tangled web you weave, when first you practice to decieve.