Sunday, July 22, 2012

32 Bucks, Or So

$5.63
I rode Shermans bike to the store at 6:30 a.m. Saturday morning. I reached a top speed of 20.2 mph, according to his digital speedometer.
I hadn't slept yet, as I had gotten back from busking at about 3:20 a.m. and Sherman and I had sat up talking.
A pack of smokes and a Mike's Hard Lemonade set me back the amount above, and I returned to sleep and to wake up around 2 p.m. Saturday, with about 38 bucks and a desire to go to Guitar Center and buy strings and picks before I wound up whoring away all of it.
We went to that place, where Sherman bought a guitar chord encyclopedia (even though he had a living, breathing one right by his side) and he sprung for the picks, which we split, 2 for him, 10 for me. They were Jim Dunlop .88 nylon picks, and I would come to "swear by" them, after making....let me see;
$5.63 -cigs and hard lemonade
$1.60 -a beer on the way to the store
$6.80 -Martin Marquis acoustic strings
$1.60 -a beer on the way from the store
$1.60 -a beer on the way to the gig
$1.60 -a beer during the midnight break
$5.63 - whiskey and cigarettes this morning
$23.86 -Total expenditures over the past two days
$49.72  -how much I have on me now
$73.58 -how much I made over the two days (minus the 17 cents that I started my tip jar with)
So, I guess I made 32 bucks last night, plus a couple cigarettes with the Jim Dunlop picks and by playing Brown Eyed Women, by the Grateful Dead as my "doesn't he know any other songs?" song for the night. I'm learning it and I believe in on the job training.
Adaptor For Samsung Laptop
I guess I will spend the 6 bucks on an adaptor for the Samsung laptop which Sue gave me in New Orleans, thinking (she) that it probably didn't work. 
I don't know where she got it, but it boots up with a Spanish version of Windows, and she is Colombian and there might be a tie-in there, somewhere.
Latest Sue Theory
I think she is the wife of a drug lord who is in prison for life and is now in hiding from either imagined or real enemies that he may have made.
She is too pretty (and has perfect teeth) to have been homeless her whole life, and she acts like someone who is used to having doors held open for her and being respected -always quick to take offense when someone treats her as anything less than a lady; something that happens all too frequently, as people are quick to judge someone who carries several bags on her shoulder and a couple of live animals....
So, the "problem" I am facing is this: For 6 bucks I can have a fully functional laptop which sold less than a year ago for about 800 bucks and which Sue just gave to me because it was getting heavy for her to tote around.
I am reminded of the time my car was impounded in 2005, and my 1930-s Buffalo nickel in MS-65 condition (which is listed in the coin-value magazines at 800 dollars) came up missing from my car and I was given 5 cents by the police to replace it -after all I was complaining about a nickel being taken from me; so I guess they placated me and we are now even and I should hold no grudge against officer Wasson -badge # 3033- of the St. John's County Sheriffs Office, St. Johns County, Florida.
And now an $800 laptop falls into my hands, through the agency of Sue ...
Is it karma (or are my love-making skills worth at least that??)
I don't appreciate all of you women out there who just said "karma" out loud, by the way...
Picture ID
Now, I wait upon the homelessness place to get back to me on helping me to get a picture ID from the state of Louisiana. It hasn't happened yet, and I wonder if I gave them my mothers phone number wrong.
At the point of getting the ID I think I will go to Shereveport. I am pretty sure that I can make about the same money busking there, as every city seems to want to be New Orleans and have a Bourbon Street and the sight of a street musician is a harbinger of the transformation of their city into a Big Easy in its own right; and they tip better than the people in New Orleans. The irony of that is amusing...
 




3 comments:

  1. That's cool that you have a decent laptop now. This one I'm using is getting pretty old and dopey.

    The new place I'm moving to in a couple of months will have fast internet so I might not feel like the internet is dying. Depending on how things go, I might replace this laptop after I'm all moved in and settled down.

    Much as I'd like to take my ee-lectric violin to Santa Cruz tomorrow, I've only been playing less than a week and I think it will be kind of pointless. I might even succeed in really turning some people *off* of the electric violin. I'll just get my books sold, then cruise around a bit and drop some dough on any decent musicians I hear, have some lunch, and come back. Sadly, the process of simplifying by selling most of my shit off is making life more complicated in the short term.

    The new place is going to be nice though. Apparently I can ride a bike to the trolley station easily, and when you ever get out here, you'll find out the trolleys are really cool. The VTA, Valley Transit Authority, runs VTA buses and the trolleys, and for a $6 daypass, you can ride around all day on either one. I won't even necessarily need a bike, since I can walk out to where one VTA bus runs, get my daypass, ride to the trolley station and then go to any of a number of good busking locations.

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  2. I feel like I owe Sue something; she basically said that if I might be able to get it to work and use it; and that she had too much stuff to carry around already; but I could fix the screen on this one (Sherman found one on e-bay same model "for parts" for 35 bucks -the only "part" I would need would be the screen though) Maybe I could buy it, take out the screen, then list it back on e-bay as "Acer laptop, just needs a screen, 35 bucks lol) and then list mine, working fine, for 80 bucks or so and wind up with an almost brand new Samsung and 80 bucks in my pocket; It sounds like that is the way you wheel and deal out there in California; I'm amazed at how you can just sell off all your stuff so fast or buy a Yamaha keyboard and sell it three weeks later without taking (I assume) too much of a loss in transit...
    Shermans got his studio set up and now is my chance to take advantage of it; time to force myself to be spontaneous, I guess.
    Howard is the only problem; if it wasn't for him out there in S'Ville, I would have no reason to go there; I could hang at Shermans and be 5 minutes walk from my busking spot which has been pretty consistent with 50 - 80 bucks per weekend; I don't spend as much at Shermans, either because its a pain in the ass to go to the nearest (1.5 mi.) store and back so if I go get a couple beers and then want a third or fourth one, I usually blow it off...
    I still have the traveling bug, but its possible that I can replace my guitar and get a new reed plate for the Lee Oskar using the proceeds from this situation and then travel with more earning power at my disposal; I guess I need to be smart and not just hit the road in my underwear and barefoot, so to speak...
    Now that I hardly see Howard he seems to be in limbo; its possible that he is unable to make his own decisions and just waits until the wind comes and blows him in some direction. I have been telling him that I want to travel for 3 months now and the longer I stay somewhere, the more reason there is to stay there (like having an air conditioned recording studio/place to crash and a busking spot that "produces" the only thing I don't know is if busking in Santa Cruz for example would produce so much more as to make the 76 bucks I make here on a typical weekend laughable; like 76 per night, or something...

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  3. OK um, busy day with lots in it so I'll write it in my (boring) "my electric violin" blog

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