Posted By Laptop, Your Mileage May Vary

Hypster.com

At the top of the screen is my first attempt at posting music on this blog.

I was able to find Hypster, which promises that I will be able to upload mp3 files and put them on my playlist, though, when I click on "upload" I am brought to a screen asking me for the "u-tube url" of the "video" that I want to upload...so I don't know...I might have to ask Matthew, the musician/technician, if I see him tomorrow.

Now I go back to the Hypster site, to try to figure out how I am going to get my songs from the little stairwell by the church, to the rest of the world...
This Just In: I found a site called kiwi6.com, which has an upload button to take files off your computer OR U-tube...I'm getting closer, I can smell blood in the water!!

Sunday's Lost Post 

The following was done Sunday, in the park in downtown Baton Rouge, using city electricity...

And so it came to be the next day and in the morning I woke up and walked past the Episcopalians, none of whom even acknowledged me as I walked past them where they stood. They were there at the entrance to their church to greet people, hand them misslets and bless them in general.

Then I went to the convenience store on Government Street, where I was greeted by the foreigner with "Bag outside!."

I was able to leave my bag by the door, rather than outside, after I protested that it would get likely stolen if I left it unattended outside. I had been to that store about a dozen times, always buying something each time.

I drank the energy drink, which put my food card balance at the miserable level of $5.67, and it gave me the energy to go find the 8 guitar picks which were laying on the ground at the spot where I had played. I have no idea how they managed to fall out of the little plastic bag in which they came and then to escape out of the pocket of my case and then scatter themselves on the ground. My theory is that, after I took the bag out, ripped it open to get the pick that I played with, and replaced the now ripped open little plastic bag back in the pocket, I failed to zip the pocket back up. Then, when I flipped open the case to gather the miserable tip amount of probably $5.67, the picks fell out, and scattered themselves like seeds on the marble. Then, when I went to leave, in a state of emergency because I had to relieve my bladder at the portolet across the street, I didn't see them in the semi-darkness.

There they were, scattered like seeds this morning. Now I have back all 12 picks, which I paid about $5.67 for, yesterday.

I also paid $6.41 during that spree, for a new set of headphones, which are slightly larger than ear buds and have a little more bass and more power handling capacity. Madonna hasn't sounded so good in a while, coming from my FM radio.
"You Creep!"

I now sit in the little downtown park, where bums circle like sharks. I can see their reflections behind me off of this computers screen. They have this impatient look about them, like they want to interupt me to beg for something, yet, they probably see the folly in putting me in an ill mood right off the bat. I'm waiting to hear "Excuse me..." any second now, out of any one of them.

I was already begged by a guy who walked up, and whom, I would have drawn, if given a pencil and some parchment and asked to draw a typical bum.

He was wearing the typical kind of clothing which is given away for free by charitable organizations, to wit: an Izod golf shirt, and some shorts, which were probably fashionable a few years ago, before they became stained with God only knows what.

The Izod shirt is ostensibly the thing that people donate who are sincere in their hope of helping someone out. It is a shirt that people who can actually afford to play golf might wear, and it theoretically makes the wearer look like the image of upper class. Hence, it would be a nice shirt to put on, after cleaning oneself up and go to a job interview in. This is the wishful thinking of the donator of the shirt. People who want to acheive upper class status are behoven to try to look and act sucessful, even before the fruits of their endeavors manifest themselves.

So, the bum walks up and I look at him and I see him for exactly what he is, and what he probably is (someone jonesing for a beer at 8:53 a.m.) and I know what he is going to say right off the bat.

He glanced at this laptop, and it seemed to register with him that, since I have a laptop, then surely I could give him his beer money.

He grinned sheepishly, as I took him in. His grin seemed to say "Yeah, I live off of the charity of others."

He wondered if I could help he and his "buddy," (who was probably "working" another area) to get something to eat.

He went on to explain "Because St. James isn't feeding until 11:30, because they've got 'that hamburger thing' going on, and we're hungry!" When he said the word "hungry," his voice cracked a bit, implying that he was on the verge of tears.

I couldn't believe my ears. "No" was all I said.

"No, you said?" he asked.

"I don't give my stuff away," I said.

He walked off, saying "You creep," before he was out of earshot.

There was a black man sitting at the next table over to me, who had his phone plugged into the next plug over from me. He had a backpack and was similarly dressed, though clean and well shaven. The bum didn't ask him for anything, but half directed his creep comment to the man, perhaps warning him not to ask me for anything. Maybe "creep" is the new code word amongst people who live off the charity of others for "those that never give you anything for free out of their hard earned posessions."

"I hope you make it 'til 11:30 without starving to death!" I yelled to him when he was about 25 feet away.

"What?!?" he said, stopping to turn towards me, putting on a show of belligerence, as if he thought I might have insulted him (back) and, if that had been the case, he was ready for a confrontation.

I repeated that I hoped that he didn't starve to death, amending it to "before you get your hamburger!"

It irked me, for one, that he used the word "feeding" in reference to what St. James will be doing at 11:30. He has been so conditioned by, and so resigned to, a life of mooching, that he unconciously used the lingo of the "entitlement" class, "feeding." Easy to walk into any urban area, approach someone who "looks homeless" and ask, "Hey, where are they feeding?" wherupon you will probably get a whole itinery laid out for you, which could have you shuttling around town from church to mission, back to other church, to Salvation Army, to parks and under bridges, taking up the whole day, stuffing your face along the way. Then, of course there are the clothing, blanket and backpack giveaways, which are often kept "under wraps," as supplies are limited and it's every bum for himself; certainly a creep isn't going to be made privy to such a rare and special occasion as a blanket giveaway -maybe as he lies on the ground shivering he might have a change of heart and re-evaluate his creepiness and start to go around, handing out his hard earned stuff to people for free.

At 8:53, the #47 bus went by. It is Sunday, and that bus might run every hour or hour and a half, not any more frequently, I'm pretty sure. That's the one that goes back to the LSU campus, and ol' Howard.
I might try to get the next one, or I might walk about 3 miles in order to save $1.75.

the 150 dollar one, the 70 dollar one, and the 100 dollar one...

Introducing, from the left,

the 150 dollar one, the 70 dollar one and the 100 dollar one...

I've got a nice set of headphones, which will help me to record some tracks, there by the church. I listened back to the first recording that I made and had to smile at how "not bad" it was, for a first effort, and for not yet having discovered all of the tweaks and levels and microphone positioning tricks, which will eventually make them "not bad at all."

They had USB microphones at the Guitar Center. "The cheapest one is this one (pointing to a 70 dollar one) but this one is better (pointing to a 100 dollar one [the "Yetti"] but if you really want to go all out there's this (pointing to a 150 one [a better Yetti) one," said Lenny, in the Pro Sound section of the Baton Rouge Guitar Center.

This laptop also has a front jack next to the headphone jack, labelled "mic." I imagine that I could realise a modest improvement in sound quality, just by plugging in an external analog microphone which is better than the built in condenser mic next to the computers keyboard.

I want to achieve a certain minimum level of sound quality before I start to e-mail or send songs to my Facebook friends.

One of my friends has almost a thousand friends, and she will almost certainly send each one of them the songs, and I don't want her to have to add a comment like "It's really hard to hear, I hope you can make out the lyrics, because it's a funny song," and I don't want there to be a thousand young people, with another few thousand of THEIR friends, who will never click on a link to another one of my songs, because "his songs sound really shitty; I got a headache the last time I listened to one.."

That being said, it is now 10 a.m. and apparently the ol' #47 to LSU doesn't run hourly, and so I will now go and position myself to be able to intercept it in one half hour, as that is the interval of which I am guessing is its frequency.

Bus Ride Blown Off

I decided to spend the day downtown because there were a couple of concerts going on, but, they ended just in time for a rain shower to come and empty the streets of all people. I spent myself down to a little over two bucks.

This morning, I walked back to campus. It was only a couple of miles.