Monday, September 30, 2013

Stream Of Conciousness

  • Another USB Drive Gone
  • Friday Cancelled
  • 50 Dollar Saturday
  • 2 Dollar Sunday
  • Monday Night Football

Take A Drive
I wanted to back up this blog but discovered that yet another tiny piece of technology is missing from my backpack.
Namely, a 4 gig USB jump drive, onto which I have been backing up this blog, and on which I had pictures dating back to 2006 which are irreplaceable.
This makes me wonder if, when I am standing in line at the Unique store, skeezers standing immediately behind me aren't going into the back pockets of my pack and stealing from me (and then tapping me on the shoulder and saying, "Hey, guitar man, buy me a cold one).
But, it may have fallen out and into the rocks under the dock when I was using the pack as a pillow and may not have zipped the pockets shut.
I have been meaning to get a flashlight and search around where I sleep; I might find all kinds of stuff. 
I haven't posted since last Thursday.
Friday: Too Drunk To Busk
Last Friday, I was up early in the morning and completely broke.
I had watched some football, Thursday night, standing outside MRB bar on the sidewalk and drinking the profits of the little bit of busking which I had done.
Things are gradually picking up here.
Now the commonly heard complaint is not that it is "dead" with hardly any tourists; it is now that the newly arrived tourists are cheap.
Friday was a day of debauchery.
I got to Rouses Market at about 5 p.m. as a hillbilly band (called Tuba Slim) were just breaking their stuff down.
Tuba Slim
Dorise appeared and greeted me.  
She asked if I would watch the stuff that she had placed next to the hillbilly bands stuff, while she went to get the rest of their stuff.
She wound up giving me 5 bucks after I asked her if I could borrow "a couple bucks."
I got my first beer of the day, but hid from Dorise while I drank it.
Then, I wound up finding so much alcohol laying around, and then ran into Leslie (click to read profile), who was in "let me buy you a beer" mode, and the night ended with me just cancelling my busking gig and getting to sleep early at the sign spot.
I was within 50 yards of a whole cadre of security people who were standing across the street, guarding the newly re-opened Saenger Theater while Jerry Seinfeld was inside making jokes (I assume).
It was their "Grand Re-Opening," and they got a pretty high profile act, and then hired far too many security people for the event.
Hurricane Leslie

Saturday, I woke up broke again, but realized that it was my own fault, for having cancelled my gig the previous night.
I was up and determined to play during the day, somewhere.
I got to Rouses Market where Tanya and Dorise were just arriving and setting up.
I knew I had already burned my "borrow 5 bucks from Dorise" card, and so I was prepared to start the day off flat broke, and figured that it would just be an uphill climb from there.
I took my guitar out and played through the chords of "Something," by The Beatles, as they set up their stuff.
"Are you playing 'Something'"? asked Tanya
They wound up starting off their set with "Something," by The Beatles, after Dorise glanced through the chords off of her phone.
And then "We Can Work It Out," followed by "Oh, Darling," by the same fabulous four, before doing 2 Smokey Robinson songs, and then 2 James Ingram songs.
The first Beatles song was inspired by my asking them how much they would charge to play under the bridge for us homeless people.
"You want us to play 'Under The Bridge' (referring to the Red Hot Chili Peppers song)?"
"No, I want you to literally play under the bridge where the homeless live; we'll all pitch in..."
"You'll have to give us a date," said Dorise.
And, then they played "We Can Work It Out." as if responding that it was negotiable.
"Folsom Prison Blues" was played after a guy walked by with a Folsom Prison tee shirt on; and I got an idea about how those two select their songs, out of the 1,800 that they know...
Then, Leslie appeared.
"I'm Going To Vomit!"

He was in "Do you want a beer?" mode.
I had just finished an energy drink, which I had gotten off of my food card, but I didn't turn down the 24 oz. Tecate Lager which he emerged from Rouses Market with.
He was able to go into that store because the security personnel whom had barred him from ever entering that business, were not on duty.
Leslie is barred from almost everywhere in the French Quarter.
He becomes confrontational when he is too drunk.
When we were walking along a crowded sidewalk later that night, he was yelling "I'm going to vomit! I'm going to vomit!" in order to clear us a path through the well dressed people.

Only the Unique Boutique seems to let him past their threshold, as their personnel are ready and willing to be just as confrontational right back at him, and they seem to enjoy it.
Well, Leslie ran to Uniques a couple times, returning with a Hurricane Lager for me each time, and one for him (I later learned that he was buying 3 and gulping one down along the 10 minute walk back to where we were listening to Tanya and Dorise).
Then, he mentioned the "chronic" which we had smoked some of the previous (Friday) night and which was a contributing factor towards my decision to cancel my gig.
We started heading towards his apartment and his garden, where we planned to smoke together and then I would go to my playing spot, which is just 2 blocks from the huge house full of apartments, all of which are empty except for number 6, where Leslie lives.
His landlord used to occupy the front apartment, but has recently passed away.
The place, like every other dwelling on Bourbon Street is a fort.
An iron gate with more iron reaching 12 feet high and studded with sharp spikes is the portal to a narrow sidewalk which runs along the side of the building and along a chain link fence which separates it from the neighboring house.
Even jumping over the garden wall would put one in the back yard of another house and there would be no escaping there either, without employing some cat burglar type maneuvers.
To make a long story short, Leslie wanted to stop for another beer at Uniques, before we embarked for his house.
And then another one at the corner of Dauphine and Conti.
And then another one at the corner of Bourbon and Ursuline.
And, we eventually got to his apartment, with him stumbling the last few blocks.
He unlocked the gate and let us in, opened his door, turned on the A/C and the radio, then flopped onto his bed and went into a deep sleep, from which I couldn't stir him.
There I was, trapped on a Saturday afternoon, thinking that I was going to have to wait until he woke up before I could leave.
I wound up breaking out of there, by hanging my guitar and pack from the highest spikes at the top of the gate, and then scaling the chain link fence, hoisting my stuff over the top and then getting myself over the gate.
I went to my spot kind of angry and feeling like I had been led on; but then figured that it was just Leslie and anyone else would have gone through his place; found and smoked his weed and then fished the keys out of his pocket; left to go to the hardware store to make personal copies for future treachery; and then returned his originals and walked off; leaving him to wake up and not remember any of it.
I played myself sober and got over my anger and wound up with about 50 bucks for the whole night.

2 comments:

  1. Why don't you get Leslie to let you move in with him, to be his protector? You could keep the *other* skeezers away as Head Skeezer, and at least in theory you'd have a safe place to set up a music studio.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Because Leslie just can't say no to other skeezers and I would be the third one in and would be skeezed every time I lit a cigarette or opened a beer; plus, he doesn't just start the morning with liquor; he never really stops from the night before and goes 2 or 3 days without coming home, leaving whomever is there locked in and; God help them if they ever set the old seasoned wood place on fire and can't get out of their wheelchairs and up over the 12 foot high spiked gate; Leslie is too much of a people pleaser and too many people know it; one guy kept mentioning that he was going to go stand by the store and "hustle" up a beer and cigarettes; and Leslie said "You don't have to do that, here's 10 bucks"
    "That'll work," said the guy (who is actually one of the more decent guys in wheelchairs) but with a wink to his girlfriend (also in a wheelchair) which seemed to say "see how easy Leslie is?"
    All I will need is a handheld digital and a quiet place; and then can use Audacity or Pro Tools (sparingly) to enhance it without stripping it of it "a guy playing on the sidewalk" ambiance
    But, if I wanted to take my alcoholism to "the next level" then Leslie is there; why, he called me this morning at 8:17 a.m. from Uniques to ask me if I wanted to drink some whiskey
    "No, I'm gonna sleep until 9.."

    ReplyDelete

Only rude and disrespectful comments will be replied to rudely and disrespectfully. Personal attacks will be replied to in kind, with the goal of providing satisfaction to the attacker.