Since we last left Daniel, he had finished his blog post for Thursday, November 29th, and went to get some food.
One of the traveling kids (who was a scraggly looking guy in his forties) came by and asked if he could sit by Daniel and display his artwork while Daniel played.
Daniel didn't really care, and told him so.
He purchased walnuts, chips and salsa, three tomatos and some frozen chopped spinach.
Returning to town, he discovered that the guy had sort of disappeared, and so Daniel went to his spot and played and made 3 dollars without any traveling kid sitting next to him.
The traveling kids artwork was very simple and consisted of acrylic paint applied to cardboard in various patterns. He only had one color, a shade of blue and so all his works featured it.
Daniel stopped at Heroes Pub after getting food and watched the Saints vs. Falcons game until the staff came out and shut the TV off, at around 9 p.m.
When he was in The Dauphin Market getting a beer, a mysterious, tall woman walked in the store. She appeared to be around 30 years old and had big brown eyes and very full lips, an exotic mixture of strange races; one of which, he was told by Sajid, the cashier; was Honduran.
The lady smiled at Daniel and asked him how long he was going to be in town.
Daniel told her "It depends upon..." and was thinking of adding "if I fall in love with any exotic woman or find some other reason to stick around."
But only mentioned that he was thinking of staying until the following Wednesday evening, so that he could return to Serdas Coffee to perform stand up comedy.
He was wondering if the womans apparent interest in him was spawned by his performance of the previous week and was kind of fishing for a response in that regard.
The woman was wearing black slacks and a transparent silk-like top through which could be seen a halter-top and her midriff. Her Honduran navel caught Daniels eye.
After making the 3 dollars and returning to spend one of them at the same store, before retiring to his sleeping spot to cook lean ground beef patties and re-heat the leftovers from the whole chicken which he had cooked the previous night; mix the two ingredients together; wrap them in tortillas and eat them.
Alabama Amanda
Zobaer had relieved Sajid from duty.
Zobaer was able to, in rapid-fire broken English, shed more light upon the mystery of the part Honduran lady.
After being supplied a description of the lady, down to which brand of cigarettes she purchased, Zobaer had narrowed her identity down to two possible ladies.
He produced his i-phone and showed Daniel an unmistakable image of the very same woman, whom he labelled "Amanda."
"She is a good girl," said Zobaer, and then provided addition details beyond the scope of this blog, which intrigued Daniel further.
This morning, Daniel was up with the sun, but continued to lay there feeling its warmth, until such a time that Howard showed up at approximately 7:40 a.m., handed him the sports section of the daily paper, and then resumed his morning routine, by skulking off in the general direction of the library and McDonalds.
Daniel got to the Big Clock spot at 8:35 and played for about an hour and a half and netted 10 dollars, exactly. And exactly the amount of money required to take the bus out to the music store, purchase new strings and then return on the very same bus. Along with a couple of cans of beer to give him the courage to embark upon such a wild and capricious adventure.
And that is how it stands at 11:38 a.m., Friday, November 30th, in 67 degree Mobile, Alabama.
One guy had shown up when Daniel was playing and said "I don't have any money, but, can I show you something?" as he reached towards Daniels guitar.
"Sure," said Daniel.
The guy played a very snazzy up tempo kind of finger picking thing, which was pretty impressive, and then handed the guitar back.
Daniel wondered what the guys point was in showing him that particular feat, and wondered why a guy like that had no money.
"Were you using three fingers?" asked Daniel.
"Yes," said the guy and then added that he was an admirer of an artist called "C Six," or perhaps "Sea Six" or "See Six" or maybe "Sea Sick."
Daniel was advised that he could no longer sit for 5 hours in Pollmans Bakery working on his computer after the purchase of only one cup of coffee, and so will cut this post off now, at about the 816 word mark, and then try to get new strings and maybe find the time to Youtube
For some reason the Starbucks' here in San Jose are chill about people just coming in and typing away .... some are really rude about it though, bringing in food, cups etc from other places, sheesh!
ReplyDeleteSome mom and pop places though like Devine Grind, I always buy something because they're struggling.
If you move out here, be prepared for the Internet to be worse than out there in the swampy south. I feel like I'm back in 1997, and this is why I'm big on not being dependent on the 'net for a living.
Have you tried going in a guitar store and at least trying a nylon-string job?
Yeah, I hit upon the brainstorm of coming to Serdas Coffee and paying 30 cdnts more per cup, but having a nice quiet back room surrounded by bags of coffee beans from Yemen; and so far no pressure to pay and stay -perhaps because I am part of the Wednesday night entertainment; drawing a bunch of broke-ass smelly train hopping kids like flies whenever I perform lol
ReplyDeleteI have gone one step further than a nylon-string job; Have been looking at the Ukelele; I just happened to have found a Rolling Stone mag in the recycle bin and there was an article about "Why the Uke is the hottest thing going now" Taylor Swift, the group Glee, they're all turning that "toy" into a bona fide instrument.
Eddie Vedder, too...and, I just happened to put only the top 4 strings on my guitar for a while the last time I changed strings, so that I could simulate a banjo; for grins and giggles; then I read the Uke article and, if there is such a thing as a higher power it might be trying to put a Uke in may hands;
It would liberate me from having to have the guitar part just like Jimmy Page played it; people would EXPECT Stairway To Heaven on a uke to sound like, well something unique and kind of cool, rather than; he messed up the middle part where Jimmy slides up to the 8th fret that we have indelibly stamped in our psyches, no dollar for him!
One of the Serda employees just came in and said "Your standup comedy was brilliant the other night; It was very genuine" So, how 'bout them coffee beans? Now, a standup comic with a ukelele...now we might be cooking with gas! And I will have you to thank in part for opening me up to the possibility of actually changing instruments without fear of throwing away 40 years of experience on one; because you are The Man Who Changes Instruments Like Underwear LOL!
If you get a uke, ASAP (as soon as you know you're going to devote yourself to it) get a redo-uke, or a banjo-uke. Both are louder, and much cooler looking and sounding.
ReplyDeleteanything, anything at all that gets away from the guy-with-guitar image!
On stand-up, it might turn out to be your career. Remember Weird Al took accordion very seriously for years before doing into comedy songs, he was an architecture student when he did his first songs on college radio. Steve Martin studied the banjo quite seriously. And, as a stand-up guy, you can look a bit disreputable, it worked for Gallagher, George Carlin, etc., and you could even be a fat slob like that Candy guy and be beloved. Hell you could even joke about your beer for breakfast routine and the pathetic becomes hilarious.
I recommend you pursue the stand-up, it's worth a chance and beats circling the drain as yet another scruffy geetar guy.