The tourists, in town for the football games, seem to have had run out of steam last night.
The playoff "seeding," which conspired to have the Detroit Lions coming here, maybe somewhat unexpectedly, to the Superdome on Saturday, added yet another diversion for the amusement of those who came here for the Sugar Bowl, and are staying for the BCS championship game, this coming Tuesday.
There were very few people out. I saw several musicians calling it an early night and packing up, while I was still on my way out to play. I decided to just sit and practice some stuff. I got a few bucks thrown to me.
I went back to retrieve my sleeping bag from a spot nearby the library.
The patio was packed "like sardines" with people and their beddings.
Howard had reserved a spot for me, I could see, in between himself and the front edge of the marble floor, about the size of a coffin, I thought. I decided to leave there and sleep at the sign spot, which I did.
Howard came by and dropped off the sports section of the day's paper, at about 6:30 a.m., as he has been doing, since I moved my sleeping spot.
Rainbow Children Rain Blows
This morning, he told me about a fight which had broken out last night. I wasn't surprised to hear about it, given the fact that it was a slow night for bums too, not just musicians.
I didn't hear what the fight started over, because Howard didn't hear what the fight started over. I'm sure that it was related to the economy. These "Rainbow Children," "hobos," or "travelling kids," whatever one wants to call them, are self governed by the principle that everything is community property. I call it a "pass the bottle" society.
They pool together whatever they were collectively able to beg on a particular day, and then buy as much liquor as that will afford. Every cigarette lit, gets passed around. Anyone who has a guitar and won't let someone else play it, for example, is just not in the rainbow spirit and is to be an object of their resentment, and stolen from if possible, because they have no right to covet what God has provided as a blessing to the whole rainbow family.
Their dynamic would be a lot more palettable, were they to follow principles of Christian morality and/or wouldn't be ready to fight anyone who wasn't willing to pass around whatever they have, causing them to wake up flat broke the next morning, like "everyone else." What I see are a bunch of lazy derelicts, who love the idea of "sharing" because they rarely have anything to share, and wind up sharing the fruit of somebody else.
A Made Man
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| Give my little guitar playing buddy a break on his coffee. |
I wanted to see what the balance was on the card, plus, I wanted to spare my food card from another charge of $3.19 for a Starbucks drink from Walgreens.
I was tempted to go into the Starbucks inside The Marriott. Their security people are always on the alert for loiterers. They seem to derive a smug satisfaction from saying: "If you're not going to purchase anything, then, you'll have to leave," with barely supressed grins.
I decided to walk an extra half mile to the Westin, where the coffee isn't nearly as expensive, because the either are or aren't a "franchise store," I forget which.
The barrister, a large black lady, who resembles Doreen, the clarinetist, made up my coffee and then waved away my proferred giftcard, saying: "Don't worry about it; I like your music."
Ever since the night that I played funky guitar for Doreen and her band, when they were breaking down and packing up, I have noticed a difference in the way I have been treated by various people. The night after that, the young black guy who works security at Rouse's Market, in front of which they play, greeted me with a friendliness, which I hadn't seen before from him.
At The Unique Grocery, the employees have taken to calling me "Acarlo," which I think means; "next in line to succeed Doreen's present guitarist."
Doreen probably has a lot of clout in the city, because she has been one of its main attractions for umpteen years. She is probably "connected," if you know what I mean...
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| ...and put some caramel syrup in it if he wants; kapeesh? |
As the time of my departure from New Orleans nears, I need to talk to Howard.
I don't want the day to come when I pack up in the morning and tell him: "Well, I'm off to try to hop a westbound train. Good luck, Howard. Maybe I'll see you if I come back for Mardi Gras." and then have him say:
"Well, wait a minute, I'll come with you."
There is a benefit to having a friend come along, but it can be negated by other factors.
Should I get to a point where I have a chance to hitch hike a ride, it will be harder to find someone willing, or having the room to, cart two people, and their luggage.
Secondly, Howard has been wearing the same clothes since we were in Mobile, which was at least around a month ago.
He had left his extra clothes in a bag outside the library one day. I remember hearing the announcement come over the libraries PA, asking someone to "please remove the bags" which were left in front of the library. It didn't occur to me, at that time, that they might be Howard's, but it should have -the way he just leaves stuff laying around after he's done with it- and Howard didn't hear the announcement. That is how he lost his clothes about a month ago.
I was going to go to the Goodwill this morning and buy another pair of pants. He was going to go with me. I changed my plans, after I washed a pair of jeans in the shower at the Rebuild Center, and put them on wet. They were drying fine in the sun this morning.
Howard cancelled his plans to get a new pair of pants, because I wasn't going, I assume...
If he were to get into the closed confines of the cab of a car, with a good Samaritan, the person, after rolling down his window all the way and lighting a cigarette perhaps, to no avail, might just stop the vehicle and say "I'm sorry, I just can't do this. My wife will kill me if I bring the car home smelling at all like that..."
Howard is hard of smelling.
It sounds like the black/white divide there is bad enough, that you were just another ofay to a lot of blacks until they saw you playing *for* Doreen and realized that you're just not a racist person.
ReplyDeleteOn traveling X-country, HITCH. DO NOT I repeat DO NOT try the trains, you have friendly Thomas The Tank Engine trains there but x-country, it's brutal. I've been researching the hell out of it, thought about train hopping myself, and NO WAY JOSE'!
Hitchin' with a guitar, yeah that geetar will be your ticket, any musical instrument makes you seem friendlier and it's hitching gold. People will not only transport you, they'll feed you, put money into your hand when they let you off, etc.
As for Howard .... he's a lead weight. I suggest you just leave without telling him. It sounds mean but I doubt it will affect him much, it seems like he's in his own world and he'll just find someone else to latch onto.
Let me know if you got those emails i sent you, as they were very large. I wasn't sure they went thru.
ReplyDeletenope no fucking emails and I wrote a fucking Doestoevsky novel of a post here and the fucking internet/computer trashed it.
ReplyDeleteThis is why I say, "use the internet to prepare for life without it" (or high tech in general).
Try again, maybe you can send them plaintext or raw HTML or something.
I'm going to type this and the computer/Internet will probably trash it but at least I'll know I tried.
ReplyDeleteYou need to GTFO of New Orleans. You could stay, get in tight with Doreen, be known by a ton of people as a great guy, but your white skin will always make you a target - and as the economy gets worse, you'll be in more danger. Your Black friends won't be able to protect you 24/7, and someone who doesn't know you is going to cave your head in for being a cracker.
I've read every post you've written, from the start. I really see you as a Bay Area type of guy. I think you'll take to this area like a fish to water, and the only reason you're not already here is you're a fish who's never experienced water.
The reason I urge you to migrate to your natural home, here, is that the Internet is a fleeting phenomenon. It was probably at its peak for speed and reliability just after the dot-com crash, because tons of money and manpower had been put into the Y2K problem. It's been downhill since. You're not going to have the Lidgleys, some weirdo who smells like garlic out in California, etc yadda yadda, who know you from the net, to send you stuff. You're not going to have email. Snail-mail will be more reliable, and faster. We're talking going back to little-kid-time, the 1970s, where the people you know are the people you know from interacting face-to-face.
I've already largely fallen off of the tech cliff, Yeah I use Craig's List but CL is, except for the pictures maybe, 1970s green-screen plain text level technology. The guys I buy and sell equipment with now are all guys I know from meeting them face to face. I'm in the process of putting a Rolodex-type filing system of friends and customers, paper cards don't crash.
So you need to be, where you'll be at home and surrounded by friends, when this long-distance high-tech bullshit is just a memory. Which, the way things are going, will not be very many years. Fortunately, you have something more valuable than an engineering degree: You're a musician. You'll always eat, if anyone is.
Now let's see if this actually posts.