My Audience

I have only two minutes to post.
The weekend was so hectic that I couldn't bring myself to bring myself to the library to update this blog because I felt that I would be missing out on opportunities.
To find a highlight, which I could put here in one minute:
Sue and I may be having a falling out...

2011 Sep 26 14:00 – 2011 Oct 3 13:00

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Sue, the last time we seemed to be getting along...

Monday Morning
I woke up depressed.
"Why, what's bothering you?" is the typical response to a statement like the above. I think that depression is caused by unnamable things which, by their nature can't be dealt with rationally, though, in my case, I have an idea that my sadness was brought upon by a few specific things.
Sue
Without putting things in any particular order, Sue and I seem to be drifting apart.
She refused to tell me where she sleeps. This could be because there is another person sleeping there, who had her promise not to divulge the location to anyone. This makes sense given that she has been seen without Kooky, her cat, on several occasions. Another person could keep an eye on the cat back at the sleeping spot, which probably turns into a getting drunk spot for the other person, after Sue leaves.
I saw Sue Sunday night.
I had spent the afternoon listening to football games on a radio which I found atop a trash can on Daphine Street, right after I left Vieaux Carre Baptist Church. It needs to be plugged into an outlet, which I did down by the river, using The Aquarium's power. I was pleased that they were broadcasting the Patriots against the Raiders on the local sports station.
That was a blessing, though I felt like I was squandering opportunities to play for the masses of conventioners who are in town.
Other musicians were overheard to say things like "I made a lick," which translates into them having been thrown large bills by generous tourists.
This contributed to my state of mind. I feel like I cannot afford to take any time off at all, without suffering a loss.

"When you're standing still, your going backwards" 

Saturday, I had played the whole day, in about 7 different spots, making a couple bucks here (Decatur), four bucks there (between Bourbon and Royal), 7 bucks in one fell swoop (in front of the Marriot for about 15 minutes before being run off..), here a buck; there a buck; everywhere a buck, buck...
I woke up with about 30 bucks Sunday morning, thinking that it could have been more like 45. I had been generous to the beer store owner, as well as having gave a tarot card reader a dollar, after she promised me a "free" reading. Her reading was disturbingly accurate, though she spent half the time complaining about the lady next to her, who was sitting there, knitting and selling baby hats. "She needs to go!! Who is she to tell me what to do? I've been here since Katrina!"

Tanya (and Dorise)
Then, there was my encounter with Tanya and Dorise, shown to the right.

Tanya Huang was born in Taiwan and has been playing violin since she was six.  She has played in a variety of venues ranging from concert halls to streets and subways all around the world, and has long favored playing in the streets of New Orleans

Tanya is arguably the best musician in New Orleans.
A large black lady who plays the clarinet is a close runner up, along with myself, of course.
She is mesmerising and draws crowds of people, who listen for a long time and then typically put a twenty dollar bill in one of their baskets, taking a CD along with them.
She plays the most beautiful songs in all styles. She did a Mariah Carey song, for example, with the violin mimicking the vocal to include every quiver and vibrato from Mariah's recording; and then takes off on soaring improvisations which would make Paginini stop and stare..
Her accompanist, Dorise, well understands her role and plays solid background chords, extending them just enough to supply Tonya with a pallete of colors to paint her masterpieces with. She wears a perpetual grin (as seen in the photos) which seems to say "I'm glad I hooked up with this chick!"
The Grand Canyon
The Totem Pole
They realistically might make two thousand dollars per week each (or more) - six figures per year, tax free.
They DO work hard at it, playing 5 hours in the morning and 5 more after a lunch break, 3 or 4 days a week. That's 50 bucks per hour for you mathmatically challenged, and the hour that I watched them play seemed to support those figures, no pun intended.
Their success starts with them being at the top of the "totem pole" of New Orleans street musicians.
The violin is top dollar.
Females are top dollar
Add 50% if the performers are amplified
Add 25% if the performers are young
Add 20% if they are a duo that works well together
Add 100% if the young female amplified violinist is a virtuoso who makes people stop in their tracks and gape in wild wonder, as if they just stumbled upon the Grand Canyon.
I have no problems with this phenomenon, except having to swallow the bitter pill that a guy playing an acoustic guitar alone and without an amplifier is at the bottom of the totem pole..
I have sat and listened to them for an hour before, when I could have been on my spot making my own money.
Saturday night, I was listening to them play in front of Rouse's Market. Sue was there, next to a famous blind harmonica player named Grandpa something (he was featured in a movie set in NOLA which made him world famous, though I can't recall his nor the movie's name).
I didn't walk over to Sue, which was a small breach of our prior protocol, but stayed put after noticing her sitting by Grandpa whoever.
She walked over to me, though, with a demeanor that suggested that the breach of protocol was not lost upon her, and chastised me for not being on my spot playing. There were shades of a nagging wife in her tone. "Why aren't you out there, playing?!?"
She asked me if I was drunk. She seemed drunk...
She splke only briefly and then returned to sit next to Grandpa.
"Are you going to buy me dinner?" she yelled from that spot, more for the benefit of Grandpa and those around him, I thought, than an actual address towards me. I felt like she may have portrayed me to them as a pushover, whom she has wrapped around her finger and who buys her food.
I have been buying her food, because she let her food card expire, despite being unemployed, rather than take required classes on resume writing and interviewing skills, etc.
She also balked at coming to Mobile with me, where she could have her card activated within 5 days, just by being homeless and unemployed. (This is one of the reasons that Mobile is a cesspool of the lazy beggars that swarm there, but that is another story.)
I remained where I was and didn't talk to Sue after that.

Those two baskets were half full each.
I couldn't see anything smaller than a 5 dollar bill
in one of them...further fueling my depression...

I was enfatuated with Tonya Huang by that point.
Tonya And I Talk
I struck up a conversation innocently enough with Tonya, after they had finished playing.
I asked her which songs I had missed, which she thought came out well.
"We did The Godfather theme, that was interesting" then she hummed a litte of it. Her humming was perfectly intoned -go figure...
I had spoken to her on two other prior occasions.
The first unwitting time, I had told her that she needed "a good guitarist," a statement that I later had to eat.
I had only caught the very last song which they did. It was probably a request. They were probably improvising it out of thin air or from distant memory. I should have given them the benefit of the doubt at the time. I thought Dorise was playing too simply, or somthing in my Steel Reserve haze...
I was surprised that Tonya (and especially Dorise) spoke to me the second time, after I had said such a jackass thing..
We spoke at length, Tonya asking me if I had been to college, and then saying "I thought so, you seem very educated; I can tell by the words you use" after my answer. She asked me what my favorite book was. I told her "Great Expectations," which brought a frown to her face. "I had to read that in high school..." she said.
"I must admit that the language and the phrasing is complex and I even had to read over some sentences twice to get the meaning."
We had an interesting conversation. We talked about the fact that the basket which is open faced so that the whole world can see what is in it, was the one with all the twenties and tens and fives. The one which is shaped like an urn and which allows money to fall into its recesses, out of sight, was full of one dollar bills.
"A lot of people want to take credit for giving you a good tip," we both agreed.
To make a long story short, I came away realising that there are other fascinating women out there, besides Sue.
Sue Finds A Bird
Now, Sue is  nursing a pond dwelling bird, planning upon relocating it to a different habitat than the middle of Canal Street, where she found it.
Early Tuesday morning, Sue gave me a sleeping bag, as I passed a spot where she was sleeping in between two bums. Someone had given her a huge bag full of blankets, and two sleeping  bags. She was snuggled up in a blanket and woke up as I was giving Kooky some fried chicken.
She had heard that I was upset that she wouldn't tell me where she was sleeping. She asked me if I was mad at her, sounding hurt.


Sue Bird



Sue's Bird
No Longer In The Heart Of The French Quarter

Bag Thrown Into Dumpster, which later catches
on fire.

My sleeping spot, which is right in the French Quarter, under a temporary ramp on a constructions cite, has been "blown up," to use the parlance of the homeless.
I had a tendency to sleep "late" there (past 6 a.m.) and, as a result, I had been spotted by the construction workers in the morning. I usually woke up when they started making noise, especially when one of them would stamp his foot on the roof above my head for the explicit purpose of waking me up "before the boss man arrives."
"How do you expect a homeless guy to sleep with all the noise you're making?!?" I said once, which brought laughter.
Well, Monday morning, as I went by to retrieve my other backpack, which contained the rest of my clothes, which I wanted to wash, along with some hygiene stuff and, more notably, my jar of instant coffee,
I was told by "the boss man," that I could no longer "stay" there, and that my bag had been thrown into the dumpster; conveniently located for just such a purpose. he went on to say that the dumpster had caught on fire, as a probably result of a lit cigarette being tossed into it.
I am not sure if my bag was thrown into the dumpster before or during the fire, myself perhaps being deemed the cause of the conflagration...
The previous night, Monday, after I had showed up at Checkpoint Charlie's, (the place where Blue had bought me a shot of whiskey), only to learn that the Open Mic Night had been changed to Sunday nights,  I played on Canal Street without any success other than succeeding in developing a hatred for all mankind, especially the well-dressed types who walked by me and didn't seem to realise that I was trying to entertain them.
I kept my music uplifting and spiritual as long as I could, and then started to throw fried chicken, which I had taken out of the Popeye's dumpster and was intending to give to Sue for Kooky, in their general direction, when they were ignoring; close enough so that they got the "message," (whatever the message was.)
One of the challenges of playing street music is to change the mindsets of people who seem intent upon flaunting their "superiority," -i.e. they are The Rich, (who will wilt away like flowers) -by perpetuating the dynamic that "the rich get richer, and the poor get poorer" by not tipping a cent to a performer, probably hoping to see him die of starvation, wherupon the rich would have a feast in celebration.
"Ignore-leans," is my nickname for this city...



Sue and I reconcile...