The Midnight Train Going Anywhere...

No Sue At The End Of Journey

I arrived at the Save-A-Lot, Mobile, Friday morning after dragging Howard about 3 miles from the train to get there. 

I was greeted by Jennifer the manager and Julian, whom I talked to for a while about what I had been doing for the past year. Then I went to wash the brake dust off of myself and change clothes in the restroom.

I can no longer leave my pack and guitar there, when I want to go to the library, because their rules have changed.

Blog reader Sherrell (left) greets me at Save-A-Lot
I bought some bananas and some grapes and some pears and an energy drink, planning upon cleansing myself from the crab fingers cooked in some kind of margarine and the toaster pastries with peanut butter that I unwittingly ate on the train ride.

The elixir was probably effective, but only after a period of stress and discomfort. Sometimes it is darker before the dawn...

Since I couldn't go in the library, I stood and waited for the little free shuttle which comes around; planning to ride it to a spot where I could hide a bunch of heavy items. A guy had given me a can of mackerel and one of tuna outside of the Save-A-Lot, for example. Howard went into the library.

The little free shuttle came around and the driver lady told me that big "duffel bags," like the one on my back weren't allowed on the little free shuttle.

I walked to Cathedral Park, where I plugged in this laptop and did yesterday's post, despite the distractions from a lot of bums who had been there the last time I was in that park a year earlier, as if they had never moved.

Their conditioned-in assumption would be that I had been in jail. One of them interrupted me from my typing to ask me where I had been. When I looked up at him, he said "Yeah, I'm talkin' to you!," in a tone which said "Answer me when I speak to you!"

"New Orleans," I said, in a tone which said "Can't you see I'm busy with something, derelict!"

I think he was testing out the "jail theory" by seeing if I had spent an extended amount of time in a Louisiana jail where white men, being outnumbered 97 to 1, are broken in spirit, busted like broncos and acquire a humble attitude towards their darker-skinned brothers, and answer when spoken to. Along with having their socks stolen. New Orleans, not so much...except for the socks part.
A cop came around and recognized me. He is a Sergeant and seems to have been assigned to "monitoring the homeless" and asking them where they have been if he hadn't seen them for a year or so. And expecting an answer, also.
I told him about New Orleans and the train ride and my misfortunes with eating something that I was allergic to.

"Yeah, you don't look as healthy as you usually do, Daniel" said the Sergeant, who seems to know all the homeless by name. The cynic in me couldn't help but think that he was telling me "Stay out of trouble because I know your name...and there aren't too many long-haired guitar carrying hat wearing skinny guys in this little town of 420 thousand.

Then, still not feeling right, like I woke up on the wrong side of the grain car, I went down by the railroad tracks and took a nap.

I was seriously considering not playing the first night of the festival, rather resting and recuperating and taking a better shot at it the second night. I wasn't sure if  I should find a marker and make a sign; or if I should start playing at a spot as soon as the festival started, even though everybody would be on their way to the venues and would be holding onto their money, not sure how much "everything" is going to cost; and sober, too.

Gerald, Bag Not Shown

Plus, if I were to be run away from a spot before really making any money, it would become unavailable to me later on, when swarms of inebriated people were walking by.

I slept by the railroad tracks, as at least three trains rolled slowly past on their way to New Orleans, and a couple the other way. They were slowing way down as they passed the crowds of people waiting to cross the tracks. Even the trains are polite here....

At about 7:30 p.m. I got up and decided to walk all the way to the Save-A-Lot for an energy drink, to shake off the lethargy after having had my sleeping habits disturbed the previous two days. The observation about me not looking as healthy as usual was disturbing me. I couldn't see people throwing me tips if it looked like I was going to die before I got to spend it.

I just wasn't motivated to play. I was pretty much broke, but couldn't see suffering through an uninspired set just for the sake of beer money.

I sat and talked to Gerald, the man who carries everything he owns in a big black plastic bag for a while in Cathedral Park. He kept running to a nearby bar to check the score of the baseball game between the Texas Rangers and the Baltimore Orioles.

I took another walk, looking for motivation in the form of finding money on the sidewalk or being handed a beer by someone who would say "You look like you could use this."

A rainbow child who was making flowers out of palm fronds and selling them, handed me half of a beer.

I Decide To Blow It Off

I walked around some more, trying to imaging what songs I would even play, wondering if I should include the harmonica which is missing notes; or if I should make a crude sign, when I heard the group Journey performing "Open Arms," from their mega-hit album from the 1980's.
I went to the spot in a parking lot where the large screen behind the stage is viewable and where the speakers are pointed "right at you" and listened to Journey perform the last 4 songs of their set, all mega-hits, and feeling depressed because:

A: Sue loves Journey and yet she was NOT sitting there with me.

B: A band that was once on top of the world and is still world famous was now playing Bayfest with their hair dyed too dark to match thier 60 year old faces.

C: Their couple of thousand fans were mostly older people who were wistfully watching and visibly lamenting the loss of their youth, and thinking of the high school sweatheart that they once made out with to the songs that they were now hearing, while their spouse did the same thing by their side, neither one the wiser...

D: See "A"

E: Who the hell is that singer, a poor man's Steve Perry?!?

F: There is a regular band in a club on Bourbon Street in New Orleans that does better Journey than Journey.

G: To these fans, music has taken a back seat to life in general, now that it is no longer make-out music and I could sense an unspoken sentiment amongst the crowd that started to leave during the encore (because they knew it was going to be the last song, and it was only "Lovin' Touchin' Squeezin'" -another mockery from the 80's Hair (dyed to dark) Band...

And,

H: See "A"

I went to sleep at the Episcopal Church spot. Howard was nowhere to be seen.
My only regret after taking the night off to re-evaluate and recouperate was the ultimate question from Howard. "How'd you do last night, I saw a lot of people.."
Which he asked me this morning at around 7 a.m. after he found me at the sleeping spot. He had been down by the tracks...