Go Fish

Saturday, on an all day bus pass, I went to The Guitar Center and bought a new set of strings, then it was over to Wal-Mart, where I bought 2 pounds of Whiting Fillets, along with some tomato paste.

I already had the ingredients, hanging in a plastic bag in a bush in Scotlandville, to make my own salsa, mainly, vinegar, olive oil, garlic, hot sauce and seasoned salt. Stirred together, this mixture will rival anything that comes in a jar, at a fraction of the cost.

Then, it was back on the bus, to connect at the terminal to Scotlandville, where, with time running late (it was already around 4 p.m.) I decided to hang the frozen fish in the bush with the other bag, and then hop the next bus downtown.

Arriving downtown, I set up and played, and made around 30 dollars, before quitting at about 1 a.m. Half of the money came after midnight.

I slept in the little courtyard at the St. James Episcopal church, until about 9 a.m., when they have their first Sunday "Eucharist" and someone was nice enough to raise their voice as they walked past the courtyard ("Sure is a beautiful DAY!!") whereupon I rolled up my blanket, shouldered my bag and guitar, and got the hell out of there (excuse the pun).

Then, I made haste towards the bus terminal, and ultimately a fish fry in Scotlandville.

I ate all the fish, along with two ears of corn on the cob, which I had wrapped in tin foil and placed near the fire, until they were done perfectly. It was my weekly meal. I think I will try to make a habit of eating, at least once per week, from now on.

Hey, I Googled "Sue, The Colombian Lady"

and this is what I got, so I guess this is her...

Now it is Monday, and my plans are pretty simple. I will e-mail Sue, the Colombian lady in New Orleans, because I woke up thinking about her. 

I will also e-mail my mother in Massachusetts, because I have an uneasy feeling, a little bit like home sickness, but also just a hope that everything is alright up there, and that they have just been too busy to e-mail me, lately.

What do you say to a son who washes his clothes behind a building in a 5 gallon bucket, after you sent him to all the finest schools, and taught him right from wrong...hope your fish comes out well?

Next, I will find the Audacity tutorial/manual/instruction guide type thing on the net, and I will try to absorb as much as I can from it.

No Save Button Could Save Me

Last night, I was in the middle of what I thought would be my first decent sounding recording, when the program locked up on me. Every time I tried to go back to it, the computer told me that "Audacity is already running" and that to open two instances of it might cause problems, probably as both of them would be competing for the same memory space or something. I even tried shutting down the machine and rebooting and still got the same message that Audacity was already running.

What did work, though, was logging in as a different user. Audacity came up, and even had a different look and feel; different colors and styles. That's a Linux kind of thing.

My excellent recording, I assume, is lost.

I had success by raising the volume of the click track all the way (even though it distorted it) then keeping time with it, using a single acoustic guitar, playing a rudimentary, though slightly interesting rhythm part, focusing solely upon staying on the beat, nothing too fancy.

I then took the 5 gallon bucket/washing machine and a stick which I found, and reinforced the beat by playing along with the click track, using my palm on the top of the inverted bucket as a "bass drum," and the stick on side of it (or alternately on the rim) as the "snare drum."

It was sounding good, I was "getting into it" and was deciding upon the eventual subject of the song and a few lyrics, when, the program just stopped. There was no "save" button that could save me at that point.