Charging Ahead

Over The River And Through The Hoods

I am charging
my mp3 player now. Soon, I will check my e-mail to see if anyone sent music.
Wish List: Grateful Dead, Elvis Costello, Phish, Widespread Panic, Beatles, Joe Satriani...
I will be charging ahead with my plans to leave here soon.
On Leaving New Orleans
I have been able to put things into perspective this past week in New Orleans.
The "busking" situation is this:
There are people making $1,000 per day, on the same day that others might make $100, if they were to work the same hours.
Tanya and Dorise have houses and cars. They could decided to fly to Melbourne, Australia, for example, tomorrow, take a cab from the airport to a certain area, set up and make up to 1,000 gellamos (the Australian currency, I think), enjoy the rest of the week sightseeing, and then fly back to New Orleans and sleep in their own beds. I hung out for about 45 minutes last night, in which at least 100 bucks went into their basket(s). I think they use two baskets as a ploy to remind people that they have to split the money. One lady wanted all 4 of their CDs. She asked for a discount. Dorise told her "$45; that's getting one for free," and with that, an amount equal to my whole nights take went into one of the baskets, where it rested upon a 6 inch thick bed of paper money with Jackson and Hamilton and Lincoln peeking at you, everywhere you look.

Someone waits for them to both look at their strings
before snatching a CD...

Doreen and family are in the same bracket.
Like An Instrument
Some of the bands that play things like washtub bass, washing board rhythm, banjo, fiddle and guitar, and sing about travelling, dressed like travellers, come in a not too distant second to the "big two," but they have to divide their tips amongst up to 10 people, with mandolins thrown in. They are cashing in on the "exotic instrument" bonus...ain't never seen no one standin' up on a upside down washtub with a string attached to it, playing it like an instrument...
At Least, An Amp
Then, there is a slew of "one guy with an amp"s.
These are people who may have tried to add a second musician and for reasons ranging from, "I don't know any of the stuff he knows, and vice-verse" to the more practical "We make about 50 bucks a night together, but I usually make about 30 to 35 by myself."


Poor Grandpa Elliot. Now it's these guys putting him
"out of business."

 He sounds good and knows a lot of "classic rock," but he doesn't sing, minus 35 points... There is something pedestrian about a distorted electric guitar, too. People don't have to come all the way to New Orleans to hear one, as some do for the clarinetists or trombone players.
Another one, the guy who plays classical and Celtic music on a nylon string guitar, seemed to be keeping pace with the minimum wage being earned by the 99%, though, he has told me that he (and J.S. Bach, the "father of modern music") has had "two dollar" days. If you look at the balance sheet of a music store, you might find the amount spent on classical music verses other kinds, to fall in line with the above figures.
Yet another guy, the older heavyset guy with the cowboy hat, who plays a lot of Bob Dylan, but does it in his own older, heavyset way, was in grand spirits. He must have connected on some level with a tourist, and gotten rewarded at the fiscal level.
The Wild Card
The above is an example of the "wild card" which is out there for all of the performers. You always want to play the song that the couple walking by just then, made love to their first time. With practice, you will be able to look at a couple and determine what that song is.
The older, heavyset guy had the wild card fall upon him yesterday.
The rest of the 99% of street musicians did not and will be lucky to be able to keep new strings on their instruments, batteries in their amps and come up with some kind of roof to put over their heads.
It is also more trying to sit out for the same span of time as a "Tanya and Dorise" will do, while making minimum wage. It is easier to notice that, after your first 2 hours set, you have made over 500 bucks, and decide "Let's keep going..."
There is also an endurance factor involved. "You have to gradually build up," said Dorise to me yesterday, alluding to the fact that a musician might only be able to go "full tilt boogie" for 3 hours per day when first starting out as a street musician, due to blisters, and the psychological enigma of having to repeat one's "best " material over and over, at intervals, which ushers in boredom to take its place amongst the other obstacles. You run the risk of becoming tired of your favorite activity.

"You have to gradually work on your raggedy stuff, in between your best stuff and work it into your set," added Dorise.
Leaving New Orleans will feel like being sent back to the minors, in a sense. Kind of like "The kid had some good stuff, but he just wasn't quite ready for the majors" type of thing. There is a resolve to come back here and attempt it again, like those guys that just won't let Mount Everest rest. "If you quit New Orleans, you'll be a quitter the rest of your life, son..."
If I come back here, it will have to be with a portable amplifier, microphone and other little battery operated things like a cheap mixer to blend guitar and voice before amplification; a pre-amp, I think they call them, in tow.
I will never be a pretty Chinese girl (alas), even if I put my mind to it, and even if I were to take up the violin and try to bring my skills on that most revered, admired and tipped instrument, up to Tanya's level, It would hard to even match her money wise; short of me finding an orangutan that can keep a steady beat on a drum.
I'm not going to stand on a washtub and make a complete jackass of myself either (just kidding, washtub girl, if you're reading...)
So, that is what I took away from the past week.
Yesterday, the streets were packed with people from LSU and Alabama. So many people were about, that the base noise level was higher. There was a doo wop group, standing in the middle of Royal Street, without microphones, and you had to move to within 12 feet of them to really hear them.
Tanya and Dorise were a couple blocks down from Rouse's Market, where Doreen was.
They were fine where they were, with their two amplifiers and their fully charged batteries.
The rest of the performers were off on the side streets, eating the crumbs which fell off of the Royal Street table, by trying to get a dollar from every 200th person or so; like telemarketers and their "numbers game."
Howard, You Decide?
There is the matter of travelling with or without Howard. I see no reason for him to want to leave here, except that it is a lurid, seedy, filthy, dangerous place with temptations equal to the lucre. I will talk to him soon.
Since talking to him is so difficult, I don't even know where he is from and how he got here, nor even how old he is. He looks around 71...