The Troll (appended a bit)

Last night was Wednesday night,
and there was no bowl game at the Superdome, but, there is going to be an NFL playoff game, between the Saints and the Lions, (oh, my!)

Tanya and Dorise, experimenting with
a different playing spot than their usual
one on Royal Street.

On Saturday, just 4 days after the Sugar Bowl, and 3 days before the BCS championship game, between Alabama, and LSU.
Geek Speak
[[I need to put in a little aside here. Once, I was accused of being a "troll," by some guy in California, who was on a team of online people that volunteered their time, I guess, to help people who's blogs had been deleted by Google, I guess. The reason that the "troll flag" went up, I think, is because I mention a lot of things at times which are the hottest search terms in the nation, like "Alabama," and "LSU." See, I did it again! But, anyways, there you go, Alabama vs. LSU at the Superdome, and my blog being hit upon by souls everywhere who are interested in that football game and haven't read the help screen about blocking irrelevant results out of the search...]]
The Shaman Guy, But First, The Clean Guy

I left the library and walked a common path, towards the Quarter and its The Unique Grocery store.
I saw the clean guy, John B.
He wasn't looking too happy. I wasn't in the mood for stopping to talk. I raised my hand in greeting, but slowed not my pace as I passed him. He returned my greeting and didn't ask me to stop. I made the excuse that I was dying to get to The Unique Grocery, to get a beer; an excuse that any man must honor.
I think he may have thought that I had snubbed him on his offerings to collaberate. I have not.
I am just procrastinating in getting around to starting a singing group with him and becoming famous. I dally, I really do. I rationalize it to myself with "You can't rush art."
Cave Man Guru
I had my first Samuel Adams in my hand, and was walking down Royal Street, trying to see who might be out playing. I got to a certain spot where there was a guy sitting on the granite steps in front of a statue.
He accosted me. My first impression being that he was some kind of bum. He told me that he, too was a musician. Then, where's your instrument, Suspicious Man?
He told me that he did "tribal music," played a percussion instrument, was a Shaman from  a region of the Amazon where there was no country rendered on "the map," but where his country was, where his father was the king.
He had spent 36 months, or so, meditating in the cave and sleeping in a hammock.
He was in this country to spread the spirit of the feminine divinity, Shiva, and for that purpose alone.
He needed a guitar player, he added, to add guitar to what he described as "tribal music," as I have said, and as being simple "really simple." The lyrics were from tribal chants 5,000 years old. He offered to show me his studio. He gave me an example of some of the lyrics, which were in a primitive language and were in praise of the feminine divinity, Shiva, by singing some of them. To me, it sounded like pretty generic chanting. He certainly didn't turn any heads along the way to Chartres Street with his 5,000 year old ditties.

He got me to at least walk with him, to see where his studio was located.
I resolved, as we walked, to abort my plans to check out his place, if he mentioned the word "feminine," more than a couple additional times. I was questioning the shaman's sexual orientation, and sizing him up physically to assess his chances of pinning me down upon a yoga mat and violating me. 
On the way there, he told me that he made music which was distributed to yoga and (something else, I forget) spas around the nation.
He said that he was a servant of a god the figure of which, I figured, was either "Krisna", or the one that the Hindu's are for, maybe Shiva herself.
His apartment was on the second floor, next to a restaurant.
He showed me where the doorbell was, telling me that if I ever needed a shower and a place to crash, etc. that his place was a "shrine."
Before we arrived at the entrance to his place, we encountered stuff laying on the sidewalk, rug remnants, empty suitcases, to name some. He scooped them up, saying that he had been hoping for just those items, and that the universe had layed them on his doorstep.

I told him that I only had "4 minutes" to check out his place, as I was quite anxious to get out, and half bored with thinking about self actualization.
I helped him by carrying a rug remnant up a long filight of stairs.
I made sure that people saw us enter his place, by striking up short conversations with a doorman or two in the immediate area.
I tried the read the faces of everyone who looked like they worked on that block for expressions that said "Ain't never seen this weirdo here, before," or "Maybe I should tell that fellow to be careful around "'Crazy Caveman Guru,' as he's well earned the right to be called on this block."
I followed him up the stairs and through a "hanging beads" door, into a room, which had evidence of being used for a yoga studio, and a shrine.
Walking in, the first thing I noticed was the very warm, almost sauna-like air that enveloped me. It was like a tropical rainforest.
There was a projector, casting the image of the feminine divinity in a corner of the ceiling. There was a multilayered shelf, laden with small statues and other types of images, made out of crystal and other materials, along with a picture of a man, whom Caveman Guru said was the king. He was shirtless, looked like he was from way up the Amazon, and looked like a king. A shirtless king. Everything in the room was related to the feminine divinity, by either being an oil painting of her, or a statue of her, or a phrase quoted to her on a poster. We stood on a divine rug, surrounded by esoteric items, which all needed to be explained to me.
The computer on a desk seemed to be the only thing not from a rainforest along the Amazon.
I told him that I had a blog. He said that he wanted to see it, because he thought that maybe I would serve Shiva by teaching him how to start his own blog. He said that he didn't know much about technology, having lived in a cave for the past 3 years.
I told him that I once lived in a cave in Phoenix, but that caused him to shake his head with pursed lips, which communicated to me the fact that he didn't think that my little cave dwelling experience stacked up with his at all.
I was having flashbacks of a person I know, but haven't seen in 20 years, who seemed to operate under the assumption that his "cause" was the only one that mattered, and that every other human being was put on earth for his use, in furtering it, if they hold any value as human beings at all. It was his tone of voice which triggered the memory.
Another room contained lots of electronic items, from camcorders to a huge high definition screen, at least 4 feet across. There was a hammock stretched across the center of the room, which he moved, so that he could display the fruits of one of his recording sessions.
The screen showed waves coming towards the viewer and crashing upon rocks in the foreground. It looked like the light brownish waves are being driven by high winds. Each wave could be heard crashing in pretty high definition sound.
"I took this from my cave, in Hawaii," he said.
Apparently the shaman from a place in Venezuela on the Amazon, as he described it, chose Hawaii as a place to escape to and meditate in a cave for 3 years. I don't recall the Amazon River even going into Venezuela, but, maybe his tribe lived on one of its tributaries.
"There's my hammock," he said, as the camera panned to the right to reveal just such a place of repose, stretched between what might have been two coconut trees, if the video was actually shot in Hawaii, or two trees indiginous to Louisianna, if he shot the video down by the Mississippi river for use in luring people into his cult.
He played one of his CDs for me. I thought that one particular percussion instrument was way too loud in the mix, and out of tune. I also thought that it was simple, and that there might be any number of guitarist in the area, capable of comping along with it, and maybe gaining a free room in the process. It didn't inspire me to want to jam along, feminine divinity notwithstanding.
He produced, from another roon, a percussion instrument, long and eliptical and looking like it was made from natural fiber. He didn't play it, though. Never even tapped it.
I offered to show him this blog on his computer. He booted the thing up, but left it hanging on the screen prompting for a password. He never logged on. The mouse; he never even tapped it.
And,  he had moments of becaming rather pushy, I thought.
At one point he told me "Stand up!" He wanted to show me the paintings on the wall behind me, but I wasn't sure I hadn't detected a note of triumph in his voice, after I had complied and stood up.
He kept switching the lights in the room off, and then back on, also.He said strange things. For example, at one point I started to say something. He cut me off and said "We're both going to be silent, and then, when you have something to say, you will say it.I knew I had to call his bluff and reinvoke the "4 minutes" rule, just to see if he would honor it.
Then, it felt like a mind game, where I had to review every thought of mine to determine if it was "worth" saying.

I managed to leave within another 4 minutes, fending off all of his arguments, the prevailing theme of which being, why was I going out to play in the street, hoping someone would throw me some change, when I was passing up a chance to serve the feminine divinity.

I left and went off to play. There were few people out. It is in between football games here, with the Saints ready to play in two days, and the the BCS championship 4 days later...but...
I found this picture (left) of Tanya on the internet.
I just want to let things rest at this point.
The Howard Matter
Still, Howard has made no indication of wheather he intends to travel with me, next week.
I talked to two hobos on Decatur street, who were soon in a drunken argument over where the best place to hop a train out of here headed west would be.