A Whacky Farce

A tumultuous Wednesday started.

I decided I was going to try to avoid meeting Lilly to get the macha cookies that one of her girls had made. And the strawberry vanilla ones, I think it was.

I hadn't slept all night, afraid I would drift off in the wee hours and oversleep my chance to go see Smokey Greenwell about a new harmonica.

I hadn't been that hungry Tuesday.

In fact, I looked at the entire chicken that I baked and only picked off of a little bit, sitting there in my fridge and thought it was going to go to waste, so not in the mood for eating I had been.

Why did I go and bake a whole bird? I thought. 

But, here, almost a day later I am salivating over the idea of a refrigerated chicken that was baked 2 days earlier. With salt, pepper, mustard, and some hot sauce; and a knife and fork...

I was  up when the sun, as previously stated, and planned on getting an all day pass, so I could make a trip to get a new harmonica and then still have a trip to the grocery store and back in my back pocket. I just hadn't factored in being up all night, in an attempt to be out and about in the late morning.

I thought of the French Market where Smokey Greenwell, who played with the band “War,” used to have a stall and who sold pretty decent harmonicas

He did play with War, although he came along after they had already had their hit song: “Low Rider,” and had most likely spent all the money, and then become fractured because of disagreements over money...

I went to Shell and got a strong bock beer, then started my walk towards Canal Street and the street car lines.

I wasn’t finished the beer when I got to the first stop, and was in fact having a hard time taking more than just small sips, so I walked along the tracks and, finding that I was half way to the quarter at the point that my bock was only half gone, decided to just walk all the way to the Louisiana Music Factory for exercise, and to see what I would find on the ground.

After the 2 mile walk (a dime and a couple blunt roaches) I was indeed rather astonished to see that the music store was dark inside. 

I realized that I was pretty early and could see that they opened at 11. 

But, it was 4 minutes after… 

Then, on the front door that sits in a ways off the road, another sign announced: “Closed Wednesdays.”  I guess I should have taken the slightly anal retentive, to me, precaution of calling the place the previous day just to make sure they hadn’t decided to pull a random day of the week out of their asses and take it off...

In their minds, people can just grab their phones and ask:

“Aliesha, what are the hours of Louisiana Music Factory, and then “closed Wednesdays” in bold red font would alert them.

Though, that wouldn’t have saved me the walk because I would have decided that I had Smokey Greenwell at the French Market as a Plan B.

“That’s alright, I’ll just go see Smokey Greenwell, who played with War, at the French Market..

Well, the rest of the story is a whacky farce. (and hasn't been proof-read)

Smokey had decided to take Wednesday off at the French Market. How can he decide to take the same day off as his huge competitor, the music store down the street, does? I wondered... I asked a young lady who had a table full of lunch boxes if she could find Smokey, perhaps on Facebook, and maybe I could still buy a harmonica from him if I could message him and it turned out that he was nearby or something. A guy formerly of War would likely have at least some kind of Facebook presence, I thought. Even if the cover photo isn’t him posing with the iconic band in 1997. But, I had the misfortune, in my sleep deprived state, to ask her to look up “Stoney” Greenwell, and then was so bemused in wonderment over how a guy who has CDs out could have absolutely no social media presence…

There wasn’t anything close to the white haired bandanna wearing harp player to be found by searching for “Stoney Greenwell.” At the first few stalls where I inquired after my friend “stoney,” I was starting to get the sense that the guy had made of himself some sort of pariah around there, judging by the way they dismissively said “No!” as if they not only hadn’t seen my friend and furthermore didn’t want anything to do with him. They thought I was looking to buy weed and was using coded language. Finally, by a guy who had a large table full of tee shirts and sweatshirts (all folded so that whatever was emblazoned on the fronts of them wasn’t visible, I remarked to myself) I was corrected upon Mr. Greenwell’s first name. I just resolved to come back the next day, which is today… Of course the music store down the street will also be open and they do carry a nice “Blues Bender,” by Hohner… Then I went into a head shop type place on Decatur. They were talking about the impending ban on the THC drinks that, to me are better than pot in the way nicotine vapes are better than cigarettes. While not taking smoke (tar, gasses to include carbon monoxide) into the lungs, but are getting the “active ingredient” in a more ergonomic way, in my opinion. After that, I just wanted to make a beeline for my bed or my couch, which I accomplished by about 2 in the afternoon. I was soon asleep and having confused dreams, but was up at 6 this morning and grateful to be on a more “normal” sleep schedule.

A Lot of Stream of Consciousness

This will, I guess be the first blog post that I write in my room and will then take on a thumb drive to the computer room.

I went through my 4 gigabytes of monthly data in something like 3 days. This happened through the streaming of videos. 

I don’t know what kind of viruses or malware or spyware is on the Android government issued “Obama” phone I have. 

I’m pretty sure the program was started, not because "it’s a basic human right to have the ability to call 911 in an emergency," as per the original rationale claimed by the Obama government, but as a way to keep track of people. More accurate than going door to door to take a census, since about 18% of the population has no door to knock on, unless tent flaps count as doors…

And, they are propaganda tools. The Google search engine is the default, with its bias baked in, and its algorithms that function something like in that movie: Clockwork Orange. In that movie, subjects were shown a series of video images and their reactions to them monitored. I think the upshot of that was that it could be determined what exactly the subject fears the most out of all their fears; and that somehow played into the plot. 

The Google algorithm was doing the same thing. 

By 2020 it had become possible for someone to tell some Joe at Google: “Deliver me this election!” and, by golly, notwithstanding any kind of tampering with ballots and harvesting, it came to pass that in about half of the population, an abject hatred of the Trump candidate was fomented. 

That turned out to be like taking candy from a baby; shocking how easily beliefs can be manipulated. Nothing else mattered, as long as everybody was doing the “I hate Trump” dance (and, if you don't, then I hate you too).

Just let the algorithm do its work; there will be people ready to murder those who refuse to take a certain experimental medication that hadn’t been properly subjected to clinical trials, etc… Now, the Affordable Connectivity Program has ended (but I thought it was a basic human right to have access to 911…?) 

Now, I'm in search of some unlimited data plan so I can have the internet in my apartment. Being still, at this point, an aspiring artist, It's just the cost of doing business in 2025. I’m thinking that a better phone would also be a better video camera, a better sound recorder, and it will not be blacklisted by the same algorithm I’ve been going on about. 

Somewhere, some bit is set to a zero instead of a one, which marks me as a person to be suppressed; my ideas should not be allowed to proliferate. Joe doesn’t benefit from me… And a new phone number would decouple me from every instance where the old number has been flagged with: “anti-vaxer, election denier, climate hoax skeptic.." Suppress his content; limit his visibility, hide him from search results, exile this guy!” 

Get a new phone, become a new person, in 2025…. So, where was I? 

There were these people (“Mexicans,” we called them) in St. Augustine back around 2009 who rode bikes and seemed to all have day jobs in construction, and were paid in cash. They could be seen breaking one hundred dollar bills at all the convenience stores, to buy typically an 8 pack of Ramen noodles, a 6 pack of Corona beer and an international phone card -never cigarettes or lottery tickets- and maybe something like diapers or laundry soap (although it was usually the females who took care of household items -clothes for kids, Lysol of course, and laundry supplies -to include fabric softeners, bleaches; dryer sheets; the whole nine yards.) 

Karrie, my “Mexican” girlfriend used to wake up a little before the sun came up, and leave our tent for the deep woods. The sound of breaking sticks off in the distance seemed to put me into a deeper, more relaxing, sleep; secure that I was in the knowledge of having Karrie. The sleep I got out there was actually pleasurable. Waking up with the sun shining on the tent, seeing the shadows of anoles crawling on it; and with a whole 14 hour day ahead that didn’t have to begin until I was good and rested totally restored. 

I would have likewise started the previous day with caffeine, then busked somewhere for the “morning people,” then probably taken a break to move to a different “night” spot, where the first alcoholic drink would be consumed shortly after the sun went down. I find it hard, now, to believe I felt so well all the time given that I drank stuff like “Hurricane” malt liquor -the kind of flavored “ale” that is boosted up to around the 8% alcohol level by adding grain alcohol. 

Rule of thumb: Avoid beverages that are named after disasters, or things that are dangerous. Colt 45’s, Hurricanes, Earthquakes, the Shlitz bull, and even the "mad dog" of MD40 repute, all too dangerous to drink... I was also into the high fructose corn syrup type of energy drinks, getting my days off to jittery but productive starts. How optimistic I was in 2009. 

Now, my friend Jacob is in jeopardy of losing his house and his car, and it is hitting him really hard, as if it would be the end of the world, and he’s feeling suicidal. I’m trying to somehow convey to him that there is a freedom that comes from not having to spend the first 2 and a half hours of each workday paying for a car that is necessary for getting to work. And not having “broken even” around 6 and a half hours into that same day by having earned rent, utilities and ‘miscellaneous expenses related to owning or renting a house” type expenditures… 

The World According To Joe

I think the low key objection to homeless people stems from their not paying in to The System, the one that has been set up by and for “the owners” of the world. 

Joe owns a business that employs 500 people. He also owns a tenement building where they all live and about 30% of what Joe pays them comes back to him in the form of rent payments. Maybe there is a cafeteria at work where employees can buy their lunch from Joe. Maybe Joe owns a used car lot, where an employee can get a special deal on a car, so she can get to work and back. She can pay in installments, with an 8% interest rate being charged on the outstanding balance, type of thing. Through the Bank of Joe, of course.. 

So, given that the police basically work for the Joe’s of the world, it isn’t surprising that often officers who are doing a “sweep” of the homeless, in areas where a bunch of Joe’s are expected to arrive for a homecoming college football game, will cop an attitude (excuse the pun) and say things like: “You don’t pay taxes!” derisively as they bag up the persons possessions for disposal. “You just sit there and play your guitar, hoping that someone is going to come along and give you money, you disgust me!!” It’s really because the cop’s boss, Joe, is not benefiting from the arrangement, which means it sets a bad precedent for anyone else who might consider unyoking themselves from Joe’s team. The cop probably isn’t even cognizant of why this is his attitude. 

There are lots of people who are unconsciously doing the bidding of the Joe’s of the world. As long as the cop goes on duty with the “right” attitude towards “them,” and is helping to preserve the “stigma” attached to all the “get a job!!” homeless people, then he is a useful idiot. 

In 2009, it was possible to live like a king as a homeless busker. Karrie and I were homeless in a pretty posh section of Jacksonville. 

The land that we camped on was designated as either “protected wetlands,” or a “bird sanctuary,” depending upon which map you looked at. The lands were not wet at all, but more like a hardwood forest. And while there were plenty of birds taking sanctuary there (including a grey owl with wings about 4 feet across) this designation was most likely an attempt to keep anyone from bulldozing the hardwoods and building houses there. The people who lived at the end of cul-de-sacs all around the perimeter of the protected wetlands had nothing but privacy behind their houses, in the form of about a mile of woods. About a half mile in the forest was bisected by a lazy river that was about 20 feet wide for most of its length, and this offered more insulation against anyone deciding to hike their way through the woods to see where it might lead. One would want to have hip boots to cross that river that had all the signs of being a water moccasin sanctuary.

It was very much a white part of Jacksonville. Across the river, there was poverty, mostly white people in trailer parks. You could do pretty well living cheaply in a trailer and, through the magic of a car, be able drive across the 3.7 mile Buckman Bridge to get to where the wages were higher, and it was safer. People had birdbaths in their front yards that they might have paid a couple hundred buck for, which were still there when the sun came up. And so, as homeless people, we were able to sleep out of sight, where even the fires we built couldn’t be seen by civilization. The sound of breaking branches at 4:30 a.m. were pretty much inaudible to the public. 

But, coming out onto the clean streets to sit at a picnic table in a trash free grassy area, wearing clean clothes and busking was generally deemed a noble profession by most; one worthy of having spare change thrown in support of it. It seemed that only the business owners of certain ethnic backgrounds were averse to allowing buskers. 

An Algerian guy comes to mind as one who told me to move away from the front of his restaurant. My friend Larry was a short order cook for a while at the place and this guy would whistle for him like a dog when he needed him, and Larry wasn’t allowed to sit at the bar alongside this owner and whatever friends he had hanging out with him. 

Conversely, a Moroccan lady working at a convenience store, upon seeing a guitar on my back said: “Why don’t you sit out front and play and see if you can make any money!” She had taken the words out of my mouth; I was just getting to: “Would you mind if I sat out there, off to the side, and played for a while?” I used to make the rounds of businesses, and it eventually boiled down to see who was working the shift somewhere, whether or not it was ok to busk. 

I used to bring the Moroccan lady things that I would get from diving in a dumpster behind a certain Walgreen’s. Things like bottles of expensive shampoos and conditioners that got leaked on by one of the other bottles in a case that might have fallen off the back of a truck. Or large boxes of Russell Stover candies that had “Happy Valentine’s Day” labeled on them, found by the dozen the day after Valentine’s day. I would be too unassuming to set a price anywhere near what the stuff might be worth to someone. It seemed like half off would be fair, but when dealing with a $30 bottle of shampoo, I couldn’t bring myself to ask of her any more than “just give me 3 bucks,” to which she would usually offer me 20 bucks for the whole lot of it, 5 boxes of Russell Stover chocolates and all. I was happy to be able to give her a great deal in turn for letting me busk. 

About 2 and a half Hurricanes into the busking session, I would start to get sloppy in my playing and would get one more Hurricane for the bike ride home, usually with about 25 pounds of food in a box balanced on my handlebars. 

This would have come from the Winn Dixie dumpster across the street from this same Kangaroo Store. Going in the thing with a flashlight, I would discover about $350 worth of meat that was still cool from being taken out of the meat case a few hours before it was to “expire,” bagged up and thrown in. There was always plenty of produce and cheeses (for Karrie) and even egg cartons with one or two out of 18 eggs broken inside. Yes, cooked lobsters in Saran wrapped Styrofoams with prices like $28.43 on them were occasionally to be found. Every so often a car would drive by the dumpster -there was a pool hall behind the plaza- and every so often, through a rolled down window could be heard someone saying: “Get a job!!” I always wondered if whomever said it was having lobster and fillet mignon burritos that night, too… 

Karrie would return with an armful of sticks about an inch thick, for kindling. That would be my cue to come out of the tent and start the fire. Karrie claimed to not know how to start a fire. She had been burned as an infant, by a step parent who had set the trailer on fire, out in Dalton, Georgia. Her whole back, as well as parts of her arms bore the scar tissue from that episode, the upshot of which being that Karrie had become “disabled,” as a result of disfigurement which put her at a disadvantage as far as being employable. “People don’t want to have a waitress bringing them their food who has these ugly scars all up her arm, it grosses them out,” she once said on that matter. 

The same parents (who probably intentionally burned her in that way) were able to get some kind of power of attorney over her and she claimed that they had kicked her out of the house, but were still receiving her disability checks every month, as if she lived there under their care, type of thing. 

I met a guy in St. Augustine who had said he was from Dalton, Georgia. I told him about my girlfriend from there and, as the conversation turned in whatever direction, mentioned that she had been badly burned, as an infant. The guy said he knew someone else from there who had suffered the same fate.

So, Karrie didn’t know how to start a fire. I did, and would have coffee, along with a large kettle of water that she would have fetched from behind a nearby building, heating up. 

Karrie took this time to remove the blankets from the tent, then spray its floor down with Lysol, then hang the blankets on a clothes line, and spray them too, as they would then be left to "air" out in the daylight. The kettle of hot water was used for washing clothes and dishes.

It's 3 In The Morning

 And someone left the computer room door open.

I'm really not supposed to be here, so, more later I guess...

Abba Songs In My.Head Lately

 I may just come here meaning this blog to do my morning papers which are a facet of the artist's way program I guess you would call it based on a book written by Julia Cameron called the artist's way and it came out in the 90s and there are people now who have used it for like 20 years I think even like Neil Young perhaps and it unlocks your creativity I think it just pulls your dream world closer to the reality one or it makes reality more dreamlike but it's supposed to be handwritten in the long form as they call it cursive and three pages every morning as soon as you wake up before you even get out of bed I guess I imagine Julia has a cup of coffee that she brews that she's been doing it for 50 years and she's written several books and the only problem I have is the handwriting thing I think it might be intended to connect the fingers with the brain somehow but I imagine a keyboard would do that also and she wrote the book in the early 90s before everybody was doing everything with their thumbs so I imagine that stream of consciousness output would be better than not getting to the blog at all as the days go by speaking of which I believe there's a mindset that's cultivated by this monthly doling out of money through food stamps and other means I know it's just the government taking money and putting it into the economy because you got to spend your food stamps on food so that has to go into the cash register and pay the cashier and keep the lights on and pay the truck drivers and the Goodyear tire company for putting tires on trucks etc etc and I imagine that food is about 60% of the whole economy groceries as Donald would say Donald who is lining people up against some wall ready to execute them by now if some people are to be believed.

 Anyway, I'm going to hit the send button no proofreading at the mercy of Google translate speech to text.

Health 

On the health front, my priorities and those of the new administration are much the same.

I'm going to get some nitrous oxide formula pills, some testosterone boosters, and a brain formula of the mushroom concoction type, or something like that Prevagen that I see advertised on TV as a memory booster. It sharpens people's focus at least although the funny thing is they say it takes 90 days or something to realize results.

That makes me a little bit suspicious, because they can pretty much sucker people into buying the 90 days worth of their pills, and make a pretty penny on the transaction, and then the person probably isn't going to want their money back... They  probably will have noticed some improvement in their memory; but that could be due to the reason why they took Prevagen in the first place, because they are actively trying to improve their health, so, that type of person is probably going to see some kind of improvement over time, due to all the other things they are about.

Somehow, Prevagen has escaped the censorship of big pharma it is sold over the counter and I think it's probably made by pharma and so somehow they cut the doctor's out of the equation does not have to be prescribed and I think we all know what a racket the prescription game is turning out to be...

But, I'm rambling, because I'm using speech to text...

I might try to write Julia Cameron, to ask her if it negates the benefits of the morning papers to do them using a keyboard, and not in long hand....

The Disappearing Treasury Checks And The Script

40 days and 40 nights after the passing of  my 62nd birthday, the egg from social security was laid in my mailbox. They had made it sound like I really must open a bank account so the thing could be electronically delivered, as per law, even. But there it was; a paper check,

It was almost an incidental occurrence, and I soon forgot about the thing, and was back to work on whatever, probably my Python script* and staying up most of the night.

The Python script is going to learn me a few Python skills (does one even aspire towards landing a coding job that starts at $90K a year these days?) in the process of developing a tool for formatting this blog.

Each paragraph will have its first three words enlarged. If I get really ambitious the first letter will be a fancy gilded old school style letter that looks like it should be engraved in marble...

 ow awesome will that be?

The dictionary

*The script will also produce a dictionary, the Dictionary of Daniel, if you will, which will be a book of every word that I have ever written (as far as a sample of 38 gigabytes of blog posts going back to 2006 can yield). This will also give me a rough idea how many words are in my "vocabulary." Then, the program can compare that against the Harvard Dictionary and make a list of words in it that I have never written here, and suggest a random one as the "word of the day" -a word I have never used that I could then try to sneak into my writing so as to augment my vocabulary with one more word... But I let the check sit there for a day and then, on the morning of Thursday, I set out to the Bank's Meat Market, where I was told to come back at 9 o'clock, when the check cashing guy would be there. I went home and promptly "lost" the check. 

Waiting For Banks To Open

What I could piece together, later, was that I came home and removed the black jacket that I had been wearing in the living room, leaving it on a chair. It would have felt hot in the apartment after walking almost a mile. I then wound up taking off the shirt that had the check in its front pocket in the next room, where I laid it on top of an olive green jacket that I often wear in combination with this particular shirt. It's one of the few outifits that allow me to wear my brown hat. I had worn that combination the day before going to Banks Meat Market, I later recalled. After hanging out a few hours waiting for Banks to open, I checked the front pocket of the shirt, finding that the check wasn't in it. I then went through the jacket, thinking I might have switched it from the shirt to the jacket after taking it out at Banks Meat Market. It just wasn't there. I thought about the ridiculousness of a check falling out of the front pocket of a woolen shirt just from walking less than a mile... I concluded: "I'll be darned, the thing just disappeared..."

I thought of disappearing checks being issued by the treasury that would work something like disappearing ink, they would be there when you took them out of the envelope, but once they hit oxygen they would gradually disintegrate. Then, they could make people jump through hoops to get another one issued; ultimately saving to government money... I was ready to call the number listed for the treasury and hold for however long necessary... 

Then I just cast the problem to my subconcsious..... and let it sort things out. 

I think the train of thought started with hats. I remembered wearing the black hat with the silver ornaments on it, because someone had complemented me on it. It might have been a facetious compliment, I recalled. Then that made me think that I wouldn't have worn the olive green jacket with that hat. I then went and found the check in the inside front pocket of m black jacket.

Health Is My Wish

I certainly want to get a brand new "Special 20" harmonica; probably in the key of C major.

But, in the first place, I think a trip to GNC for some of the super food powder and the nitrous oxide boosting stuff that was a staple for me, back in 1998, would be in order.

First you have to be of sound mind and body to even want to move forward in the first place.

Just Biding Mine, And Everyone Else's Time

 I've got my schedule chopped into more equal and diverse pieces these days...

Have been binge watching true crime stuff on true crime TV lately, but when not absorbed in that, have gotten back to work on brushing up on skills such as making animations, cartoons and making sure to practice the guitar for at least a time equal to that spent on what will be the optics to with whatever music...

I want to get some artistic charcoal and do another big face to put in my front window. There is something slightly pathetic about having the same faces hanging in windows for years... 

Billion Dollar Pillow Fight

 I stopped by the bar on my back from the store where I was like 66 cents short of getting a 50 milligram THC drink. I was going back home to grab the change off the cabinet top that the turntable sits on.

There was a crowd outside the bar watching none other than the Tyson fight that a less lazy blogger would put a link to right here...
Anyways, I found some copious roaches abandoned in ashtrays, after learning from one guy sitting there watching that nobody had really gotten hit yet. It was the 5th round...
At the store run by Israeli's, or the Shell, as it is advertised, I learned that the particular gloves used during this officially sanctioned fight were, to the person who may have never boxed, but has battled siblings with stuffed animals while bouncing on beds, "more like pillows," according to my source...

Anyways; gotta ease back into blogging gradually, happy Saturday, and may the college football match ups intrigue thee...

Supposedly We Are Half Animal, And Half Some Manifestation Of Divinity...

Since we are the only animal that commits suicide; would that somehow be related to the divine half of us?

Maybe I will resume blogging here, some day.

I've been wondering, myself, why I just soured on the practice and just stopped -pretty abruptly around a certain time....when the posts stopped coming almost daily and turned into almost monthly.

I think it was the age of censorship and cancel culture and all that, and I might have been wise to have clutched my pearls, rather than casting them out there...
Idk...

Messenger Blog

Hey, Jacob, how's it going on this Tuesday after a Monday that was Columbus Day, and thus, more like a Sunday?

I trust that the tracks we laid down Saturday, at the "museum of crap," were adequate compensation for taking that night off from busking, I look forward to hearing that session (end of message).

The Sum
We made something like 44 bucks playing for maybe 2 hours on "Boardwalk," last night.
Boardwalk, in the realm of busking in New Orleans, is the spot right where Rouse's Market on Royal Street sits.

It was most likely available because it was a Monday evening.

Park Place would be a couple blocks down, where the Rib Room, and whatever hotel it is part of, sits, and is where Tanya Huang has first dibs at. She will often pay one of the homeless people the ripe sum of 20 dollars to plant their cardboard right there to sleep, so that, when the sun comes up and people start to stir, they can hold the spot for her, maybe even by sitting there with some kind of musical instrument from early morning, until she arrived around 11:30 to play from noon until maybe midnight, something that happens from Thursday through Sunday.

Doing the math yields a 48 hours work week for her. though it might hover just above 40, due to her knocking off before midnight on Sundays; because they're Sundays.

I'm pretty sure we knocked off before midnight, it being a Monday like a Sunday...

I been seeing that guy for years walking around with that guitar on his back, but ain't never heard him play the thing...

And, across the street from us was the "I've been listening for 57 years," guy (above).

I could intuit from his body language, after we had arrived to find no other buskers playing, that he was eager to finally hear me play, after 13 years of seeing me going to and fro with a guitar on my back, stopping to listen to Tanya and Dorise, Doreen's Jazz Band, or one of the "old timey" bands like "Yes, Ma'am," that have like a dozen members, on any given occasion, and maybe even a tap dancer. (I always wondered what it must be like to be in such an outfit and, seeing a dollar go in the tip bucket, think: I just made 8 cents!). But, the guy who's been sitting there for 57 years kind of perked up a bit, in anticipation of having a 13 year long curiosity satisfied. He had:..I been seeing that guy for years walking around with that guitar on his back, but ain't never heard him play the thing!.... written all over his face.

Suddenly, I was more nervous over what that guy's impressions were going to be, more so than the fact that we had lucked upon the Boardwalk of the French Quarter being available. He was going to be the measuring stick of whether or not we were "ready for prime time." 

The Sun

The sun was in our faces, but the shadow of the buildings across the street was only about 10 feet from us, and was creeping towards us. 

After starting to play "Ain't No Sunshine," for the guy, and getting the sound kind of balanced and mixed in the process, it was aborted about half way through, partly because I remembered the inherent folly in trying to play something for someone based upon sizing them up. 

One of the highlights of the evening ensued when we did one of my songs called: "The Sun Told Me (everything's gonna be alright)" and 4 one dollar bills went into the case, and then a fresh 10 dollar bill during another McKenna song, perhaps: "Crazy About A Crazy Girl."
I think the tip tally was one twenty, one ten, two fives and 4 ones...
Then arrived Elijah, who had landed on the "go to jail" square when we were playing at the Lilly Pad (St. Charles Place, for trivia's sake) and whose arrest caused enough of a stir that Lilly told me not to play there for "a month, to let things cool down."

He is out on bail, thanks in no small part, to Jacob, who had been the guy's contact on the outside (maybe the only person who had accepted a collect call from "Orleans Parish Prison" from him).

He looked a whole lot better than he had on that night when the police thumped him up against Lilly's shutters, causing her to check her camera to see what the ruckus was, and then causing her oldest daughter to rush out in a full blown panic, thinking that the plain clothed officer involved was a tourist who was beating on me "because he didn't like your music, or something..."

That had been too much drama, and had revealed to "the whole neighborhood," which had stuck its collective head out the collective window, the extent to which Lilly cares about me and wants to protect me. And, due to neighborhood politics that are beyond the scope of this post, and beyond my comprehension, the one month cooling off moratorium on me playing there, was enacted. 

Lilly is in a court battle with a neighbor over the right to the alleyway between their houses. Lilly considered it her property and, at one time, told me that that was where I should play, right in front of the gate to that alley; to mark her territory, in a sense. But after the initial ruling was not in her favor and a judge said that the neighbors could use the alley for things like painting that side of their house, and were thus entitled to their own copy of the key to the gate, Lilly told me to move over a few feet onto her step but no longer right in front of the gate. She felt like she was ceding land to the enemy, I believe.

But, up walked Elijah, looking much better than on that night when he was being accused of being a thief and a crackhead, by a group of people sitting a couple stoops down from us, and then later being arrested for "robbery' and handcuffed up against the house. He had gained about 5 pounds of weight and was no longer shiny with sweat, very nervous and a fiend for everything in sight, asking for one of my cigarettes, was that weed in the rolled up one? Could he have a sip off of whatever we were drinking (kratom tea) etc... 

He apologized to me for the situation with Lilly that had arose when he "went down." It was a chance for me to be vindicated a bit over having come across as kind of a jerk for running him off a few times. Jacob and I are a duo; we've been working on our sound for a couple years. We've never rehearsed anything with you and would thus be just winging it and having a ragged jam session; which is fine when just hanging out somewhere; but we're out here trying to make some money during these 3 short hours...or words to that effect that I would tell him. I'm sure Jacob was wondering what harm could come of letting him join us, and maybe looking at him while rolling his eyes, as if to say: I don't know why he can't be more accepting of people, excuse him for being a boomer, set in his ways and close-minded....I apologize for him... 

Now, at least, Elijah realizes that I wasn't just using Lilly as an excuse to not have to play with other people besides Jacob...

I kept looking over at the guy whose been listening for 57 years, for some kind of indication on Elijah. As he and Jacob talked, I checked to see if the old guy would shake his head or make the finger across the throat gesture. For, if anyone would know that the guy is bad news and to be avoided, it would be that guy. But he gave me no warning glances.

After I came out of Rouses Market with my first beer of the day -a "hazy" IPA of some sort- Elijah was sitting next to Jacob with his guitar out, and asking for "a low 'e'" to tune to. And we were suddenly a trio, without myself having been consulted.

All the conditions were right for me to just let the matter go; there was no Lilly enforcing a 2 musician limit at the spot, the guy had just gotten out of jail and seemed to have cleaned up from whatever mess he was in that had landed him there, the sun had finally sunken behind the buildings across the street putting us in some blessed shade....
I couldn't hear Elijah hardly at all on the other side of Jacob and the amp, which had been placed as far from the mic as possible to eliminate feedback. So I just tried to play my best along with Jacobs bass notes, which I could hear.
Then, of course, a 20 dollar bill went into the case. Was it $10 for Jacob and I, or was it $6.66 for all three of us?

Thankfully, Jacob had broached the subject of tips while I had been in Rouses, with Elijah having said that he didn't want "his share" of the tip jar.

I wound up getting another beer, a Foster's Ale in the "oilcan," and then, as if the penalty for each beer is one more party-crasher, up walked a another musician, who probably lacked the skill to make a living busking on his own corner, but who could certainly blend in with a group (for a share of the tip jar).

He had a story. Doesn't every skeezer have one? He had just had a near death experience, complete with the tunnel of light, and the voice of his his mother telling him to turn around an go back -there are people who need to be skeezed, God has plans for you; your work on earth isn't finished, type of thing....

He was a likeable guy; but I couldn't help wondering what he was even playing, since he was even further away from me than Elijah; and I couldn't help wondering what a Grateful Dead concert would be like if, by the second set there were a half dozen random hippies on various instruments jamming away on Morning Dew, whom Jerry had said: "I see you brought your mandolin (flute, zither, trumpet) come on up and join in; the more the merrier!" to.

I didn't have to be able to hear how the 4 of us sounded. The old man got up and started walking off to somewhere else. I caught up to him around the corner and said: "We ain't no Doreen's Jazz Band, huh?"

He said we were alright but: "Just don't mess with my spot..." That was kind of funny because after we first got there, we had considered setting up there because it was in the shade....

In A Vise

I've been going through a toothache situation for nigh on a week...
The pain goes entirely away sometimes; such as this afternoon. So I wish I hadn't told Lilly about the thing at all. Now she is liable to call me any time and demand an update as to the progress I have made on it. 

I was too lazy to go to the emergency room. Last night I went there and, after a couple hours decided to leave; not having brought a book to read and being subjected to that Seth Meyers late night guy whom I once watched through the entirety of one of his shows and did not laugh at all. I shook my head over the fact that their must be a lot of people who think he is funny...

Anyways, I walked up to the receptionist type nurse and said; "I'm not feeling very well at all, I'm just going to call this off..."

I thought it was funny and befitting someone whose upper jaw feels like it's in a vise...

Zappa Played At Least Once, Shown Here, On A 1971 Gibson SG Deluxe

Too Nice Out Here To Hold A Grudge

I went out around noon Sunday, like I usually do, except this time I brought along a heavy stick made of carved redwood, that was given to me by David the water jug player before he passed away, for use as a self-defense weapon.

That's because Steven stole my two towels plus my laundry card (and tried to steal the coffee filter, which I caught him in the act of, capturing the whole exchange on an audio recording that I was making with my microphone and guitar at the point I decided I wanted a cup of coffee and discovered that the filter was nowhere to be found.

Arriving home, I went to Elizabeth's to see if she wanted me to empty her kitty litter boxes and tote the three bags "full of it" to the dumpster.

But Elizabeth's hip was bothering her and her balance was off and so she didn't even want to assist in the procedure, so we put it off until today.

Then I went to the store and got one strong  beer, and returned to watch more football, followed by the videos that I had put on my stick in the computer lab.

 The "government" phones have stopped supplying data to the masses of low income people -one month short of the election, go figure ...

It's apparent that they don't want "the American people" to be enlightened by any news source outside of the state controlled propaganda outlets that most people see all day, every day...

Government phones have a small amount of data alloted to them, and after that runs out in a week or so, they'll only be useful for making phone calls and texting.

They will have no idea about any "stolen election" or anything else, for that matter, such as planned protests, marches or God forbid, storming any capitols....

I did not encounter Steven which is probably good because I don't know if I could have held back from cracking his skull with the stick over two towels and a laundry card...

So here it is Monday.

I felt pretty good after waking up at 10:00 in the morning having only had a huge cake to eat the night before made with three eggs and a cake mix that I stole from JR's vacated apartment.

While I call out Stephen for stealing from me. In my case, jr's food and his bag of pipe tobacco are going to be no good a year from now when he gets out of jail for aggravated assault -the same thing I was thinking about doing to Stephen.

A 206 was left unlocked by the police when they arrested Jr, on a charge that may have him gone for at least 6 months according to what those in the know have said.

I'm thinking of taking his guitars and bass for safekeeping, which dovetails into what Jacob is doing for the guy named Isaiah, while Isaiah is in jail. There has seemed to be 2 of everything in my life, since I started noticing it.

So it is back to the computer lab to load all kinds of News sports and information videos on to the stick along with maybe another Bob Dylan album and maybe one of the Beatles first couple albums since that would provide a convenient way for me to study the composition of music using just two guitars, bass and drums -something that came to be known as "a beatle band" by musicians.

It just crossed my mind to take a towel from jr's place... that way I can just let go of the grudge against Stephen and not wind up in jail, and then homeless like them, the way Satan seems to be trying to orchestrate.

Portable Words

 

So, Thursday, I get a summons for jury duty almost as if I am being punished for registering to vote, or something.  

But there was this letter, addressed to me, telling me that on the day before my birthday I have to, under penalty of law, report for jury duty, when I can't even make a doctor's appointment without tying a string around my finger.

And, there was the thing -and of course my first question is: do they pay you for your time? 

Otherwise I am going to send them a letter telling them that I think capital punishment is murder committed by the state, and I am vehemently opposed to it, or something, to get myself disqualified...

Even Stephen?

Then Friday around noon, I ran into this homeless guy named Steve that I have seen hanging around The Holy Ground. 

He offered me 20 bucks a night for two nights of staying at my place, claiming that all he needed was a little space on the floor to roll his bedroll out.

In order that I didn't have to go and sell my plasma for 75 bucks,  I took him up on the offer and we went to Sacred Heart and Sherry at the front desk recognized him and said hello and; apparently this guy had stayed with another resident named JJ and JJ had kicked Steven out in the middle of hurricane Francine, when she was pouring down rain, and had 75 mile per hour winds.

He called the police and had Steven removed from his place and so in Sherry's eyes, JJ was the bad guy.

Sherry knew that Steven was  "paying for everything," and JJ had shown immense ingratitude in kicking him out in the middle of a hurricane, but as often is the case in life, I found out that appearances can be deceiving; and it was Steven that I wound up kicking out (on a bright sunny day) because the guy came in looked at the place.

I apologized for how cluttered it was, and then should have backed out of the deal, right then and there. 

As soon as he said: "Yeah, you could say it's cluttered!" 

And then, after criticizing my refrigerator, telling me that it was broken because it should be a lot cooler and then saying the totally ignoramus type thing of: "gee I don't understand why it's not cooler because the freezer works..." he should have been out.

So that's the kind of ignoramus I was dealing with, one who thinks that a refrigerator should work because the freezer, which is a totally separate component, does. 

He went basically through the apartment loudly complaining about everything from a piece of hair on the sink to Harold having knocked some food out of his dish onto the floor.

The guy sprayed Raid in my kitchen without asking me first.  He cleaned the bathroom counter by basically shoving all of my toiletries into the corner end of it leaving them knocked down and in disorder.  Then when he cleared the bed off so he could sleep on it, he tossed all the items that were on it seemingly in random directions to clear a space for himself and I wound up asking him to leave after he finished his laundry. 

He had also said a bizarre thing about himself not having to buy cheese when he went out to get groceries because "we already have (the block of medium cheddar that he saw in the fridge while inspecting it like any renter would, I suppose) some."

His deal was going to be to try to slight me on the rent because he had made some kind of breakfast that would come out of his food stamps, I suspected.

"What makes you think my cheddar cheese is 'ours,' what's that got to do with a space on the floor to unroll your sleeping bag?" 

That thread of conversation wended predictably, with him espousing some pretty woke ideas while trying to explain why he is entitled to the cheese, and I reached the point where I didn't want to be sleeping in the same apartment as Stephen Henning, and so..

He almost left with my coffee filter in his possession.  

Luckily, I had the hankering for a cup, but couldn't find the thing,that he had admired openly the night before and even offered to buy from me.

So I encountered him with: "Have you seen the coffee filter?" 

He said: "No ," and then I went back in the kitchen and looked again whereupon he confessed that he had been about to steal it.

And then he became; I don't know what,  a Democrat? by starting to argue that somehow he deserved the filter, because he had been short changed on his $20 for some reason, maybe the refrigerator...

Anyways, that was my Friday.

And then Jacob and I went out and had a pretty good night, but I did drink.

And we went back out Saturday and we played in a different spot because Lily had run us off for bringing other musicians.

 Within an hour, we had -you guessed it- other musicians...

A man from Germany who played the "musical saw" as they call it, came along and became quick friends with Jacob.

In fact he had approached him and directed his request to jam with us mainly at him, in a slightly disrespectful way. But I had my reservations about him as he was kind of openly gay and so I doubted that music was his prime motivator. To most gays, everything is a means to the end of gay sex. A musical saw can help you hook up with queer musicians, and that's the extent of the purpose of a musical anything, has been my experience, and that's the way I had read this guy.

The guy hardly said a word to me, as noted, except for at the very end.

 "What about the tips?" of course was referring to whatever had gone into the case when all four of us (there was a drummer by now) were playing which it was implied by him was to be divided four ways which might have yielded $4 each, for him and the guy who came along banging a homemade drum.

 I am remiss for not giving the saw player $4. The way they came at me demanding it had taken me aback and I thought it more important that they understood that no agreement had been settled on. Most of the time musicians who ask to sit in will specify: you can keep all the tips, I just want to play.

It should be a privilege to sit in on an act that has practiced together and it should be that person's aim to keep up, and assumedly they like the sound of the combo and want to play along.

But saw man immediately said: Let's do something that we all know," and offered "The House of the Rising Sun" as a suggestion. We sounded really good. I went to get my first beer of the night, and when I got back there was now a drummer and, it was like goldilocks as far as there being someone in my chair and using my microphone. Good thing I had brought my guitar and harmonica with me or there might have been some slobber on the latter...

Jacob became angry. 

We should have given the musical saw guy 4 dollars...

Maybe 6..

Today I called Lilly..to be continued...