My Nice, Quiet Middle Class House

Should I go in to the Sports Bar and play
the open mic night? They might buy me
a beer and enjoy my music, but I could sit
on the street a couple blocks up and
maybe make 5 bucks...

This morning, I woke up with no money at all, and 74 cents on my food card.
I did have some red Mountain Dew left in my 2 liter bottle, which I drank, and instantly wanted a cigarette, which I didn't have.
The Save-A-Lot manager finally told me that I couldn't stash my bag and guitar behind one of the registers that they never use, anymore. I needed to come up with a place to hide the stuff while I am in here blogging about being a street musician.
Right now, my stuff is stashed in a spot, which has about a 4% chance of someone coming across it. Out of the people who might come across it, I would say there is a 75% chance that it would be one of the landscape workers who have a depository of bricks and other landscape-related materials there.
The other 25% would be a homeless guy, and there would be about a 75% chance that the homeless guy would dump all my stuff out of the backpack, return to the bag what he wants to keep, and then walk off with the bag and my guitar, going directly to Martin Luther King Blvd., to trade the guitar for a 10 dollar piece of crack cocaine, because he really needs a hit, because it's going on 24 hours for him, without one.
I played at the open mic night at Fat Tuesday's Sports Bar, during their "Writer's Block" segment.

The crowd was enthusiastic, someone
bought me a 50 gallon glass of beer, and
one girl kept trying to touch my hat all night...

Someone bought me a beer (it was "Jones-y") and I played my song "Crazy About A Crazy Girl," which got an enthusiastic response. Then, I tried to play one of the only reggae songs which I know, "The Harder They Come," which I kind of hacked up, and got a less than enthusiastic response. I played it because it was ostensibly "Reggae Night," although none of the other performers did any reggae. There were rappers and poets, and one gospel singer.

I find that black folk seem to become unnerved when I attempt to perform the work of a black artist. I have been booed while doing Stevie Wonder before. They seem to like it when I stick to what I was born to do, namely "white" music, and seem to appreciate it more, especially through the tip hat.

Soon, I will be on a train, going through the tunnel shown,
which is also the only refuge from rainfall that Howard
and I have. We have been lucky so far.

I actually prayed before I went into the place for God to show me if I am meant to be an entertainer, or not, by either giving me inspiration, once I got on the stage, or leaving me feeling flat, uninterested, bored and just wanting to leave. I would follow His will.

I studied the sheet music which I had for the Jimmy Cliff reggae song before my time to go on came. Memorizing takes a certain amount of concentration, and so, I focused upon the lyrics. There are only three verses, and I pretty much made sure that I had them down. I would have to sound out the chords "on the fly," which I did, but, I attempted to do an extended solo on them ala Jerry Garcia, with The Jerry Garcia Band (not the Grateful Dead).
This is where I ran into problems, but, it was a learning experience and there is no quicker way to burn a chord progression into your head than to screw it up in front of an audience which had come out specifically to hear reggae.
Nobody seemed to like my story, before the song, about how I got a reggae album when I was 11 years old, which I never would have discovered in my white middle class world untill years later, had it not been for me winning a contest hosted by a radio station, then having the "top 15" albums at the time, sent to my nice quiet middle class house.

I noted that I wasn't feeling "oppressed" enough to pull off the song, either, and the audience was probably thinking "What does he know about 'the officers are trying to keep me down?'" Wouldn't they be surprised to know the reality, though!
I came away thinking that I needed to work a lot harder on my own lyrics, and let the extended solos take care of themselves. Then, I went and slept at the railroad track spot until 11 in the morning, effectively precluding any morning playing and any eating at the mission....yikes.

I came to the library here, to work on my story, to be published later.

I haven't eaten.

I am worried about all my stuff being taken from the spot where it is hidden right now, leaving me with no guitar, and no warm clothing. It is hard to concentrate.

Meanwhile, Howard continues to expand his estate.

If it were me, I would shake out the bottom blanket
each morning and hang it; so it could air out, and so

the ground underneath it could dry out.

I am also flat broke, and procrastinating over going out to play in the street. I am afraid that I won't make anything.
I also am telling myself that, if I don't at least give it a try, then I most certainly won't make anything, and my fear will be realized.