I Got A Name

Stand Up Comedy Well Received

Yesterday, I blogged and then went to get food.

I was down to 15 cents.

I sat at the acoustically superior spot and played; though there were few people out.

About a half hour into it; a street person came by and sarcastically asked "Hey, do you have any spare change?"

I think he saw the "nothing" in my case and was trying to spread his misery to me.

At that point I had to reach deep into myself and, not only continue to play, but to try to play better.

A woman came and hollered "Daniel!"

She was the woman who had sat by me once and passed me a bottle of Wild Irish Rose wine and sang a Janis Joplin song and some Pink Floyd.

She had just gotten an apartment, she said, and on this night which was forecast to be 36 degrees, invited me to crash at her place.

She said that she had been looking for me all day. This concerned me.

She touted all the amenities of her place: couch and a bed; one of those old style bath tubs that you can submerge yourself in; stove, etc.

I thought about the whole chicken and the ground beef that I had just dropped off at my sleeping spot (and the spinach, too) and was thinking of taking her up on the offer; but...

Her place was a 3 mile walk (or spend the 3 dollars that I had made at that point on bus fare) and she said that she didn't want to be there alone. This concerned me.

I thought about all the times that I had been invited into peoples places and all the hidden "catches" that came along with such offers and I politely declined.

I didn't want to wake up in the morning and be way on the other side of town and have my "routine" interrupted such.

A guy and a girl came by, I played them I Got A Name, by Jim Croce and got 6 bucks.

I went and got a beer and then drifted in the general direction of Serdas Coffee shop, though, to drink the beer, not to go to that place.

However, I realized that it was Wednesday night and open mic night, and then I saw the gaggle of traveling kids; newly arrived in town on this day; all gathered at Serdas.

Serdas has recently established a policy of giving a free coffee or beer to all performers at their open mic night. (hence, the traveling kids??)

Somehow, I decided to go in and play.

There was a new guy running things.

One of the traveling kids played a decent harmonica and sang.

Then, Taylor, daughter of Jeff the Potter arrived.

I had just signed up and Taylor was to follow me.

I got up and did two songs. They were well received.

The guy that runs things asked me to play another one.

Taylor Sang And Played Well

I said that I didn't want to cut Taylors time short.

Taylor, who was on her way out the door said: "I need to get my guitar out of my car."

This gave me additional time and I decided to do stand up comedy.

"I'm gonna do some stand up comedy, because I always wanted to," I said.

I stood up and did some stuff that I always figured would be the stuff that I would do if I ever did stand up; and it went over very well and the guy that runs things said that he "very much enjoyed" it and "You know, we do this every week..."

So, there is a new reason to stick around for one more week...to try to kick that ball that Lucy is holding....

Addendum To The Ted Story

At the country club where we worked, we were allowed to go into the dining room and help ourselves to the soda dispenser, which had buttons that you pressed to get either Coke or Sprite or Root Beer or Tab or soda water or club soda (there's a difference??) or orange soda or Fresca; as well as the ice cream cooler which had about 12 different flavors of ice cream.

Soon, we were experimenting...Have you tried coffee ice cream with Coke? Not bad..sprite with orange sherbert, man....but soon established The Brown Cow as our official drink -two scoops of vanilla ice cream in a glass of Coke.

taylor "knows" Beiber??

We started a contest to see which of us could drink the most Brown Cows. We had a tally sheet inside one of our lockers, where we kept our golf spikes and the Brown Cow tally sheet.

Ted was leading me 114 to 86 or so, the last time I checked. (he got more hours than me...as an overachieving Greek should).

Maybe the reason that he won't friend me on Facebook is that he is still hopped up on sugar!!!