5 Days

Countdown to Songwriting Contest: 11 days
It will be 5 days since I've had a beer or drink, as of about 9pm. tonight.
I am in training for the songwriting contest.
I am registered for the 10th, but will attend on the 3rd, just to see what the competitors are up to.
I saw the "92 (the zoo) FM" van parked right by the beer store.
There is a new hobo in town, who goes by the "name " of "Pyro"

He sat next to me last night, smelling like a train that hasn't bathed, as I played. He was asking people for money as they walked by. He called it "spaingeing," which is an abbreviation of "spare change," the clever devil, him. He was lamenting the breaking of a half gallon of wine on the sidewalk, a tragedy which had befallen him earlier that night.

He was spending every cent he "made" on beer, and became pretty incoherent, and said things to the people passing by, which were cryptical, for example, saying 'north" to one group of young men, as he pointed skyward. 

He was angry at the people of Mobile, because he wasn't getting any money out of them. At one point, his "Do you have any spare change?" only netted him 80 cents from a nice couple, who were on their way towards Royal Street. Looking down into his hand, he uttered an oath, adding, "This isn't crap, I hate this town." Those who didn't give to him had their backs cursed as they walked away.

He talked about travelling the country by trrain (avoiding bathtubs,) but mostly it was in  relationship to how the pan-handling is, nationwide. I mentioned the new laws in Mobile against begging. He continued to beg anyways.

He gave me some "useful" information about train hopping. Eventually I escaped him by just packing up and walking away, but not before learning that he is from Dalton, Georgia, where Karrie Porras is also from.

One interesting sidenote; he is called "Pyro," because of the fact that he was burned severely as a child, and bears the scars to this day, just like Karrie Porras, who was burned severely as an infant in that same small town in Georgia.

It has been pretty boring, playing sober; it makes me question the purpose of it sometimes. John the preacher thinks that if I start doing gospel songs exclusively, then I will rise to great stardom of some kind. Of course, John needed 3 bucks to do his laundry the other day and had to borrow it.