New Post

After getting half a night of sleep Monday night, Sue and I took the
Algiers ferry across the Mississippi and finished sleeping
in the relative quiet of the "other side."

The Cat Sympathiser Pity Dollar
Monday night, with Sue by my side,
I played and made the $4.78 which I reported in yesterday's post.
This was a test of my spiritual development, in a sense that I realised that the only reason that I would be reluctant to have Sue with me, is if I weren't to make any money. This would cause me embarrassment and open the door for Sue to make polite criticisms about the songs I was doing, or the manner in which I was doing them.
I had to crush the seeds of the anger which was already fomenting in me, and ask myself one of those searching questions like "Why am I feeling this way." I solved the problem by saying to Sue, as we approached the spot: "You know, I don't think I'll make anything at all," as I looked up and down the sidewalk at the sparse crowd. Then I asked her how long she thought I should play without having made anything. "At least one hour," she said, and I could tell by her tone of voice that she too had resigned herself to whatever fate the God, which I'm not sure she believes in, dealt us.
I felt better, after having removed that way, all expectations and promises and castles in the sky. In the past, I might have said something like "Hopefully I can come up with enough for us to get something to eat," and put pressure on myself. Neither one of us had eaten much that day.
It has been a while since Sue sat by me, in fact, and in that time I believe my music has evolved to where I am more cognizant of my inner voice directing me and less aware of the people walking past, as regarding my choice of music. I play what I want to hear, struggling at times, and the struggling has been rewarded with as much money or more than any other single guy with an acoustic guitar and no amp has reported making to me, in the same allotment of time...
Sue had to leave to retrieve her "stuff" from a very secret location, which was conveniently very near my playing spot on Decatur. "A couple blocks away," was all I could wring out of her about it, and the fact that she had to go there after dark.
This gave me a chance to play for about a half hour by myself, starting my case out with 6 pennies and some other assorted coins of no real monetary value, such as a game token for some amusement park, somewhere on earth, which was thrown to me by a smirking young black gentleman on Canal Street once. He might have thought that he was playing games with me, after I said "thank you," when he tossed it in my case. Sometimes in the past, the gold coin which I caught a glimpse of out of the corner of my eye, as it spun through the air (like those shiny metallic spoon lures that attract some fish) has turned out to be a gold dollar coin of the Susan B. Anthony or Poccahantis ilk.
I would have said "thank you," anyways, even if I had identified it as a token from some amusement park somewhere on the planet, because the coin is useful to me in situations like Monday nights, when I am just about broke (so broke that I can't even pay attention, yuk yuk..) and I want to give the passers by the impression that my music has found favor with other people enough so that they rewarded my, albeit with coins.
This makes them feel like they aren't the only freak on the street who actually likes the kind of stuff that the weird guy in the hat is "throwing down."
Coins attract more coins, and a trip to the beer store to exchange the first dollars worth for paper money is expedient. And why not grab a Samuel Adams Nobil Pils, why you're there...
I had a dollar neatly placed, standing up and leaning upon my sign which reads "Street Musician Stimulus Package," as if layed there in appreciation of that sign, especially (and hopefully the music wasn't too bad either).
Soon another dollar was layed on top of the first, in the same position, as if the second person was "seconding" the opinion that the sign was worth tipping.
By the time Sue returned, weighted down like a burro with more bags of stuff than I've ever seen her with, there was like three dollars and change, amongst the "worthless" coins.
So, there we sat with my bag and guitar case, and Sue's four or five bags, one of which contained a cat, until she let Kookie out, for the cat's sake and to fish for what I will coin the "cat sympathiser pity dollar."
Food Arrives
An Asian lady, wearing what looked like the "scrubs" that surgeons wear, came out of a doorway about fifty feet down the sidewalk, stopped and listened for a minute, left, returned, and without a word, handed us a tupperware bowl of what turned out to be excellent rice with celery and other things cooked in. We showed our appreciation by attacking it with our spoons and moaning with satisfaction.
Another lady placed a styrofoam container down next to my case a bit later, full of red beans and rice.
Then, a street person came by with a styrofoam container and handed it to us, saying that he was so full that he couldn't eat any more. It had pork chops, macaroni and cheese and asparagus. Kooky got most of the pork chops.
We carried all of our stuff to the sign spot, stopping to rest a couple times along the way. Howard was sound asleep but had laid the mornings newpaper by the head of our bed of mulch.
In the morning, I pursued my plans to accomplish much, but only got as far as the shower and the mailroom at Rebuild Center, and the phone store, where I was ignored.
The Same, Only Better
Tuesday (last) night, Sue decided not to walk the great distance with me to my playing spot with me. She asked me what time I was going to get "back." I told her "About the same time as last night." I added that I was hoping that night would be similar to the previous one, especially in terms of making at least 5 bucks and being handed food by people, but not excluding the cuddling in the sleeping bag with her which took place.
I bent my tracks towards Decatur. I found a bag containing three styrofoam containers, laid neatly by a trash can. One of them contained a rice dish with some kind of secret ingredient which may have been either potato based or tapioca. Another one contained salad, and the third, something which looked as though it had been "bitten into."
I combined the salad with the rice dish, threw away the third, and continued on to the spot, where I made about 11 bucks and was handed more food by the same Asian lady, who was wearing the same scrubs. She glanced expectantly at the spot where Sue had been sitting, as if looking for signs of her.

"You can stand here and play, but
you can't sit here and play."

"I'll see her later," I said, pointing at the same spot. The lady was probably intending that I would share it with Sue, and probably assumed that I would, after seeing us eat out of the same bowl the previous night.
Another Ticket
Then, a friendly, portly white cop pulled up and told me that I wasn't allowed to sit and play where I was. I could stand and play, but not sit and play, because "Some of these tourists are pretty drunk and might trip over you. You're harder to see, if you're sitting down..." That could have been the end of it, but he went to his car with my ID and returned with my second ticket this week, which I signed. "I know you probably think it's a stupid law, but..."

"But, I don't have a strap."

He had a "Don't worry about it; you're not in any trouble" look on his face and I thought he was going to wink at me as he further explained the ticket. After I told him that no, I didn't have an address, he kind of shrugged and said "OK." He surely knows what I now know about those tickets and the process of having them dismissed.
The previous night, Sue and I ran into a female clown, who told us about a house where musicians and artists were welcome to dwell for free, do their laundry, shower and sleep. When I told the clown about my ticket, she gave me the number of a "street lawyer," who "is actually a Civil Rights Attorney," named Mary Howell. She said that it was very important that I show up for court, but that I contact Attorney Howell in advance, who will have had the ticket dismissed before I even show up. She could do the same if I were to miss the courtdate, but I would have to turn myself in and spend time in jail, waiting for another courtdate, perhaps 21 days.

"Tie a string to it, or something..."

There is something going with the issuing of these tickets to the homeless. The Parish just got a huge sum of money from the government, to use in placing homeless people in jobs and apartments, and it seems like they are fishing for candidates.
Then, It Rained
I moved to the Bourbon Street spot, after telling the officer that I couldn't stand up because I didn't have a guitar strap.
As I packed up, I noticed that someone had thrown a bud of very potent pot into my case, alongside the 11 dollars and the worthless coins. I had been there the whole time that the officer was talking to me.
I played like the finest violinist in all of Europe on Bourbon Street, and added another few bucks to my case before deciding to knock off at about 9:30 p.m., and go share the food from the Asian lady with Sue.
But then the skies opened up and it poured very hard. I ducked under an overhang to wait it out, wondering if Howard and Sue were getting the same rain about 4 blocks away.
I didn't expect them to be there when I got back. I had no idea how long it would rain and prepared to sleep right there off of Bourbon Street under an overhang. I thought about how I had asked Sue about the red beans and rice before I went out to play. She told me she had eaten it. "What am I supposed to eat?!?" was her response.
Then I thought about how the food was given to me this time in a plastic bag, poured by the Asian lady out of another tupperware bowl, which she probably didn't want to part with. I wondered if Sue would question the origins of the food or maybe suspect that I had gotten it out of someone's trash, and then refuse to eat it.
Finally, I thought about how Sue had been riding me about the fact that I hadn't eated at all that previous day, telling me that I needed to start eating more.
So, as the rain poured down, I ate the food out of the plastic bag.
I think it may have been the best meal that I have ever tasted. It was a rice dish, but the rice was perfectly done and had vegetables, notably broccoli, which seemed to have been given their own special treatment in cooking, before the ingredients were combined. I could imagine things being soaked over night, others marinated over night, and everything slow cooked so as to preserve all of the nutrition and flavor.
It was so delicious that I wanted to save some for Sue, but then thought about all of the above arguments and ate the whole darned thing, rationalising "You TOLD me to start eating more!" as I did.
I got back the the spot and Sue and Howard were indeed there. Sue was curled up in a fetal position, under the cardboard, which we had been laying on top of. She had Kooky underneath her, keeping her dry...