Sunday Morning, I woke up before noon.
I was behind the building by 8th Street and not at Shermans, after we had had a small argument over the incident when I was attacked the previous night.
I was grateful that he had come to my aid and was ready to use deadly force to protect me while I foraged for my glasses and my hat, but the whole ordeal stressed him out after he had a chance to dwell upon and realize the full import of what might have happened, especially if the same kid had emerged from the darkness and started to demand "his" five dollars again, and picked up another bottle.
Pathetic Busking Take
I took a few tentative steps and found that I had banged my right knee pretty hard during the scuffle.
I had the pathetic amount of less than 10 dollars in my pocket, and the enormous weight in my pack of two laptops, and some shampoo and hand sanitizer and three paperback books that I had added the previous night upon arriving at the spot behind the building and finding that another homeless guy had been staying there, but was nowhere in sight, and had left those items behind.
The thought of hobbling to the store and then to the library was daunting, but I needed to start to rehabilitate my sore leg by walking on it.
I limped off towards the nearest store to use my food card (which also had less than 10 dollars on it) to get an energy drink, and then spent the afternoon in the air-conditioned library, where I found a book on Perl Programming (learn it in 21 days!!) which hadn't been there before.
Eventually, I realized that my circumstances required some fore-thought, and maybe some common sense.
I didn't want to spend money on bus fare to go to Scotlandville, only to sit there, flat broke for a few days, and then return to busk on Friday. Howard will just have to wonder what happened to me after he doesn't see me at all this coming week. Maybe he will come downtown and look for me at my spot Friday; or maybe he will lay there reading and eating Cheetoz and drinking Pepsi.I needed to go to the One Stop Homeless Center the next day (Monday; today) to check upon whatever happened with the photo ID that I was trying to get with their help.
I also needed to go to the post office to see if I could re-activate my "general delivery" box, so as to receive a couple of harmonicas which Alex in California is getting rid of, and which would be hard for him to sell, as they have been in his mouth, and people are funny about things like that (although trumpets are routinely sold...)
Back To Shermans
I hobbled back to Shermans in the evening.
He was asleep and said that he had been up all the previous night.
I went into his kitchen and, fueled by a huge pot of coffee, stayed up pretty late catching up upon this blog and a few other things.
I went on YouTube and one thing led to another and I went from watching Evel Knievel jump to watching lions fight bears (and they weren't wearing football helmets) to watching the first appearances of Jay Leno, Madonna, Conan O'Brian and Brooke Shields on The Tonight Show With Johnny Carson, to the speech which Brooke Shields made at Michael Jacksons memorial service...
One might think that I am "trolling" for blog traffic by dropping names, but I am only telling it like it was...then I went to sleep around 4 a.m. and slept until noon when...My Dinner With Sherman
In the late morning, Sherman offered to buy me lunch at some place where a waitress whom he is attracted to works.
He had been there by himself a few times and was worried that the young lady would think that he had no friends, and that is where I came in; and got a Reuben on Rye for my troubles.
It is going to be a pretty "thin" week with no money for beer or cigarettes, but plenty of time to study Perl Programming and maybe record some music.
Sherman wants to burn a CD of a few of my songs, which I can sell out of my guitar case as I play, like so many other buskers do.
It's hotter than hell here, the flies are buzzing and twanging away, I'm bathed in my sweat, and none of the new guys here turn out to be actually in the slightest interested in putting their actions where their mouths are and doing any actual watering or work around here. So as usual I'm doing it all but I might well be out of here by the middle of next month.
ReplyDeleteMy violin and my cute little "orange" amp are sitting here lonely and idle.
I may in fact move them up to the storage this Saturday when I have to go to the airport anyway. I'm too stressed to get meaningful practice in, and missing a couple'a weeks it not going to factor large in the scheme of things. My main concern is getting things I want to keep safely out of here and getting everything else sold.
I'm keeping the harmonicas, remember? You didn't want them and I have someone who does want them.
ReplyDeletePerl programming will not put money in your pocket, CDs of your music will. You should push to get CDs done.
I would have wanted them, I just read the comment two weeks after you posted it; I make more money with the Lee Oskar that has 5 "blown" notes on it than without it; so of course I would want more harps in different keys; but I guess it was a mis communication...
ReplyDeletePerl programming will make it easy for me to write a program that will format my blog posts with the first words of each paragraph standing out and different colors and fonts, plus I want to make my text bigger than "normal" but smaller than "large" and all that is simple HTML that a Perl program can insert; I already have the program working except for randomizing the colors of each paragraph (and not repeating the same color) and I'm only in "Day 3" and you never know when I might find some kind of job where "must have basic knowledge of Perl scripts" is a requirement; but, yeah the CDs will force me to record better; I haven't heard any of the other musicians ones in New Orleans; but they are probably all done in "professional" recording studios with a little reverb and no traffic noise in the background; if I do my more humorous stuff I can get away with less sound quality, though..
I myself plan to get CDs done as soon as I can.
ReplyDeleteHotter than hell here, it's the norm for Gilroy in the summer. Sweat dripping and flies flying. Even if I felt like sweating all over my violin and the rosin melting on the bow, the flies flying in my face at random intervals tend to preclude practice in the afternoon; it's hours of essentially enforced inactivity or near-inactivity.
Where I'm moving, the commercial building may get nearly as warm, but no flies. And a trolley nearby ready to take me for $2 to Mountain View, where it's always excellent.
Morning's out because of morning chores. Evening's out because in the early evening, evening chores, then I wait for the temperature to get below 80 or so so I can eat, then by that time it's 10PM and I generally have a bunch of shit to do.
This is why the land owner goes off on about 6 months of vacation a year, which he has the money to do. And we peons here have to take care of his shit for him and deal with the inhospitable weather. And by "we" I mean, me, because the three other guys are lazy irresponsible fucks. And after I leave my trailer will be ready for move-in so I'm sure the land owner will bring back some "strays" from Burning Man. He seems to believe that attending Burning Man somehow purifies a person, making them henceforth incapable of stealing, lying, or being an irresponsible lazy fuck...
So, in the interest of Getting Important Stuff The Hell Out Of Here, I may actually take the violin, books, amp, etc up to the storage unit on Saturday. And the harmonicas which make decent little pitch pipes if nothing else. Yeah, I'm sorry, but I'm gonna keep 'em. Frankly, at this stage in things I can't even say for sure that *violin* is a shoo-in for me although I think it and I are a good fit. So I may end up happy I kept the harmonicas.