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| I would say that I would sit just to the lady in the blue shirts right, so that the wall behind me will project the sound. I may set up some sort of basket with a bulls-eye on it, so that the gondola passengers can make a sport of tossing quarters... -just trying to make it fun for them, that's all... |
Said I, to Howard, about a couple hours before nightfall.
The Royal Skirt
I went to The Unique Boutique and stocked up on 200ml of Heaven Hill whiskey, and then proceeded towards Decatur Street. I didn't take my usual route along Royal Street.
I have found the walk down Royal Street to be a negative experience.
Musicians who are new in town wind up playing there, many of them suffering the disappointment of "3 dollar" days, or worse, flanked by Ricky the clarinetist and maybe even Tanya and Dorise to the other side of them.
Upon arriving here, and knowing nothing about the city, I too went to Royal Street after someone told me "That's where all the musicians are"*
*[That's where all the competition is and that's where the average person who doesn't eat sleep and breath music might have heard "enough" by the time they walk past you, or the average person who isn't wealthy -at least not "above average" wealth- may have given the first couple of street performers decent tips, not realising that they were Performer 1 (of 25) and Performer 2 (of 25)]
I don't like the scowls from those who are not doing well and see yet another guy carrying an instrument, and on the other hand, I don't like to watch 10 times as I am hoping to make that entire evening, going into the case of someone who isn't just a sub average musician; he's a sub average musician with a sound system with all the "effects."
I skirted around Royal Street, even though that is where Sue the Colombian lady has been spotted in the past.
I went to Decatur and walked its length, seeing if I could spot the gutter punk who punched me the night before, leaving me with a slightly black left eye.
I was going to give him a chance to either ignore me, apologise to me or start the same crap with me all over again. I had pepper spray in my left hand, and a piece of re-bar in my right (re-bar has uses besides reenforcing concrete) for the contingency of the third scenario described above...
I never saw them the entire evening and wound up playing the best that I think I have since coming here, or maybe in my life, for that matter. Maybe a punch in the head can be a blessing in disguise.
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I went straight to the Bourbon Street spot, because night was falling and I was going to end up there anyways, and sitting at the same spot on Decatur Street might cause the gutter punk to respond in the same way, like a dog returning to its vomit.
The gentleman in the condo behind where I sit (shown above!) came home around 7 p.m.
He was an elderly man, dressed very sharply and wearing a hat which even said "wealth" if you listened hard enough.
He stopped and mentioned that I had been there pretty late the previous night, and went on to add that he enjoyed my music and that he was all for me practicing my art form and "If music bothers people, they need to move to Wyoming, not here!"
I appologised about playing so late the night before. I told him about a previous time when I was there and a voice came through the leuvered shutter behind me informing me that it was 12:30 a.m. I said that I had set a boundary for myself at around midnight based upon that, but I had lost track of time the night before. I didn't mention being punched in the head.
"That was me," he said, solving the mystery of the voice behind the shutter.
I told him that I appreciated the way he had communicated to me, without hostility.
"Oh, no...I...I harbour no ill will; I enjoy your playing and..." then he went inside.
I played until exactly midnight, when, despite hourdes of tourists walking past at that time (and making 3.4 times as much noise as a guy with a guitar and harmonica LOL!) I knocked off.
It had been about a 45 dollar night, played in three sets of 1 hour, 1 1/2 hour, then 1 1/2 hours, with breaks in between; a steady 11 bucks an hour.
The last time in life that I made 11 bucks an hour, I could buy two ounces of .999 fine silver boullion with an hours pay. Today, I can buy a third of an ounce...just throwing that economic data out there...
Each time I stopped to take a break, I felt like I was all played out and was going to quit, but after a walk to Stanleys, I came back "refreshed" in more than one sense of the word, each time.
Only 15 of the 45 bucks had come in five dollar bills. In other words, over 30 other people came by and threw something; I could see them out of the corner of my eye, and have gotten pretty good at saying "thank you," in between gulps of air for the harmonica.
Foot Loose And Book Free
Howard has gone and done all of his laundry at the Rebuild Center. I had casually mentioned that cleanliness is going to be more important to our plans of hitching a ride than if we were to hop trains. He got the message.
The next couple of days will be spent lightening loads, jettisoning hard cover books, for example. There should be plenty of books in Texas, and they will even be bigger, I imagine...
I will play as much as possible, to store up "travelling" money, or "beer in far away places" money, if you will...
Blah I'm worn out, from selling at the swap meet from 5AM on, and doing a bunch of stuff.
ReplyDeleteI made a fair amount of money, but spent it on a lot of things, things to resell later and hopefully a better soldering iron setup than what I've used and sworn by for years, the Weller WTCP series. Instead I now now have a nifty Hakko one. And my main goals the next two days will be building the circuit boards and getting my practice in.
So, you can like, make a distortion box on a little curcuit board using resistors, diodes etc for a lot less than the 30-40 bucks that they sell them for at the music store? I believe a typical one chops the tops and bottoms off of sine waves, creating square waves (the garden variety "distortion")some of the exotic ones that are "rat" distortion or "metal crunch" add or boost "odd" harmonics and/or add more bass or treble...I once studied electronics but instead of audio was seduced by the lure of easy money in computers...
ReplyDeleteI dunno I never thought about it, but stuff that makes weird sounds is always ace in my book.
ReplyDeleteShit, it should be possible to build on that lives *inside* the 1/4-inch phono plug that goes into your guitar.