The Guy At Lafitt's
Last night,
planning upon knocking off early, forgetting that my court appearance was not in the morning, but at 3 p.m., I played for a while on Decatur Street, thought I sounded pretty well, and scraped up about 6 bucks. This was 6 bucks more than I was expecting on a Wednesday night, well before Mardi Gras season is to start.
I then went up to Bourbon Street, just to see how busy it was, and just in time to run into a guy, who invited me for a beer at Lafitt's Blacksmith Shop, which is a falsely advertised bar (shown). (I didn't even see any horse shoing equipment in the place).
He bought us each a couple of Abita Amber beers, and told me, at one point in our conversation that he would be willing to invest in getting me a small amp, microphone and a pickup to go in my guitar, and a cart to pull it all around in, so that I could at least double my income, afford to live outside the downtown area, and eventually join the upper eschelon of street performers who actually make a "living" doing it.
There are guy's who I am just as good a musician as, who sit and play right in the middle of Royal Street in the areas that are barricaded at each end, making the street like a "pedestrian mall,"on busy days, who reasonably expect to make about a hundred bucks for their efforts. They have little battery powered amps, microphones and harmonicas, if possible.
I was telling the guy this, when he suggested that I "sell stock" in myself, by coming up with a total dollar amount for the equipment I need and then dividing it into promisory notes of some kind which I could subsequently pay dividends upon. I don't know if he was speaking metaphorically.
It sounds a lot like borrowing money from whomever I can with the promise to pay it back.
I went out and played some more on Bourbon Street, taking my second Abita with me. The money was sparse and I went off around midnight, complaining that I had been "paid in beer" that night.
Harmonica Added
Yesterday, I tuned the guitar to the harmonica, which Alex from California had sent me, and managed to sound good using only the notes that my mouth was stuck upon. I hadn't tried playing it along with the guitar yet, for lack of a neck strap for it, but I got the notion that I could do something using only the left-most three holes as a simple accompaniment; and it worked!
I am really looking forward to adding it to my sound, the way a juggler might want to add bowling pins to his feat, to keep it challenging for himself, and to develope his abilities. And to make more money juggling...
Court This Afternoon
I go to court soon.
I'm going to make the 20 minute walk, in order to save the bus fare of $1.50.
I am hoping that I can pass the paperwork over to attorney Mary Howell, who will then tell me; "I'll take it from here, you won't even need to show up in court on the 29th of February."
Last night,
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| The stools were in about the same position last night, as in this "stock" photo of Lafitt's |
I then went up to Bourbon Street, just to see how busy it was, and just in time to run into a guy, who invited me for a beer at Lafitt's Blacksmith Shop, which is a falsely advertised bar (shown). (I didn't even see any horse shoing equipment in the place).
He bought us each a couple of Abita Amber beers, and told me, at one point in our conversation that he would be willing to invest in getting me a small amp, microphone and a pickup to go in my guitar, and a cart to pull it all around in, so that I could at least double my income, afford to live outside the downtown area, and eventually join the upper eschelon of street performers who actually make a "living" doing it.
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| "Mr. Joe Jangles," previously referred to here as "The One Man Band," performing in Saint Augustine, which is where I met him. He will drive his van to Canada, for example, for a certain festival, and come back a week later with almost a thousand more American dollars than he left with, for merely playing a 3 day stint. He could teach me how to make a similar rig, and I could make over 50K per year, just like him. "A lot of people don't follow through after they realise just how physically demanding it is," said the 58 year old to me recently. |
I was telling the guy this, when he suggested that I "sell stock" in myself, by coming up with a total dollar amount for the equipment I need and then dividing it into promisory notes of some kind which I could subsequently pay dividends upon. I don't know if he was speaking metaphorically.
It sounds a lot like borrowing money from whomever I can with the promise to pay it back.
I went out and played some more on Bourbon Street, taking my second Abita with me. The money was sparse and I went off around midnight, complaining that I had been "paid in beer" that night.
Harmonica Added
Yesterday, I tuned the guitar to the harmonica, which Alex from California had sent me, and managed to sound good using only the notes that my mouth was stuck upon. I hadn't tried playing it along with the guitar yet, for lack of a neck strap for it, but I got the notion that I could do something using only the left-most three holes as a simple accompaniment; and it worked!
I am really looking forward to adding it to my sound, the way a juggler might want to add bowling pins to his feat, to keep it challenging for himself, and to develope his abilities. And to make more money juggling...
Court This Afternoon
I go to court soon.
I'm going to make the 20 minute walk, in order to save the bus fare of $1.50.
I am hoping that I can pass the paperwork over to attorney Mary Howell, who will then tell me; "I'll take it from here, you won't even need to show up in court on the 29th of February."
Well, it sounds like you're a pretty good Singing Guitar Guy, but there are so many Singing Guitar Guys that .... you just kind of blend in.
ReplyDeleteThere's a guy on Homeless Forums who does pretty well, with a tambourine and kazoo! He also came across a barrel organ, a working antique, and that's got him hella money. You really want something people can hear, otherwise you'll have to go for looks and you might as well have the guitar out of tune and recite the Constitution, because it won't matter.
An amp *could* help, but with an amp comes issues with batteries, theft, and the fact that most places don't allow 'em. If I thought an amp would help more than hinder, myself, I'd have gotten one long ago, I find slide guitar so sinfully easy to play that I'd have a near-zero learning curve. But, almost noplace allows amps.
So: You can get a louder instrument, or you can find quieter places to play, or you can get an amp and play using it where it's allowed which may be only a few places.
Amps are the norm here, there is a place called Cafe Du Monde, where the crowd of 80 on average at any given time, consider the "dinner music" part of the whole experience; it helps to have more than the 8 people nearest you; hear you...
ReplyDeletebut, there is always turning it so low and covering most of it except the speaker with a towel or otherwise hiding it, that nobody will ever know you have an amp, whose job it is to notice from a distance...