Updated Weekend (final draft)

• 125 Dollar Saturday
• 2 More Dock Intruders
• Intruders Continued 
• 10 Dollar Sunday

Saturday, I woke up with 52 dollars on me, in the wake of the 60 dollar Friday, which I have reported upon.
I went to the Lilly spot. It was very early for me to have done that; as I set myself up for at least a 12 hour run of playing.

 "I am the entertainer; the idol of my age...
I make a lot of money; when I go on the stage
You've seen me in the papers; I've been in the magazines...
But if I go cold, I won't get sold
I'll get put in the back in the discount rack...
like another can of beans."

I took my guitar out and was studying the sheet music for "The Entertainer," by Billy Joel off of his very first album; one that mostly people who fell in love with his 3rd album, "The Stranger," enough to spark a curiosity in his earlier works, are the ones who have even heard it.
I didn't even open up my case, nor set up any signs.
I was slowly working on a half pint of brandy, and slowly warming up with "A Day In The Life," by The Beatles when I decided to work on the Joel song.
The 4th Largest Tip Ever
I had run through it for about the third time in my life when a young lady came along holding a wad of cash and, after balking at putting it upon my unopened case, she laid it right upon the sheet which I was studying off of; and on top of the next verse that was coming up in the song, actually...
It was 7 one dollar bills, encrusting a 20 and two tens and a five = to 52 bucks; the fourth largest tip which I have gotten as a busker in 2 and a half years in NOLA..
Chris's Axiom

I have no doubt that I was in the right place at the right time doing the right song the right way in the right key at the right tempo at the right volume that time.
I Call this the axiom named above, after a tall, skinny man in Saint Augustine, Florida, who looked to be about 70, but looked hale and hearty and a bit like Moses, and played a wooden recorder, and said that making money with the thing was just as easy as following that axiom, to the tee.

"-Wish I did..."
I figure that, if the lady is a huge Billy Joel fan, or maybe she was even at the Hotel Monteleone when Billy purportedly made an unannounced and impromptu (if that isn't redundant) appearance and played the piano in their "Carousel Room" or whatever it's called, a few months ago.
And maybe Billy sang that very song and maybe he picked her out of the throng of rubberneckers to join him in a duet and then autographed something for her and it became a defining moment in her life...and so she tipped me 52 bucks.

She may have thought that I wrote the song -it's a good one....you have to hate it when you have to fess up and tell people that no, you didn't write it...then add the trite "'wish I did..." to it.

Well, I wound up making 125 bucks the whole day; and only called it quits after about 2 a.m. when I only made 2 dollars (to bring the total to the above) and I couldn't remember how to play the Billy Joel song anymore; at the particular level of impairment brought upon by brandy which I had reached..

Intruders
Then, this (Sunday) morning, a group of 3 teenage hoodlum types came under the dock to inhale nitrous oxide, and they saw me.
There was a young black kid, well groomed and dressed pretty well in trendy stuff and having at least a piercing or an ear ring; I didn't pierce him with my gaze long enough to take him all in. His "look," I will call the "still living at home on your parents dime" look.
Sitting next to him was a white kid about the same age with red hair cut almost to a crew cut. He was wearing a very clean white shirt as he sat on the very unclean rocks.
There was another guy who was out of my sight, but whose presence was being reported by what sounded like heavy chains clinking together at intervals.
They moved further down away from me; and after hearing a few blasts of "whippets" discharging; in between the sounds of heavy chains clinking together for about 10 minutes; I heard them leaving.
....but...

Just a while ago, as it is mid afternoon now, on Bourbon Street, a couple of young blacks walked past me in the opposite direction and the taller one, who had a heavy chrome chain draped over his shoulders said: "Oh, I got you, tonight, that's for damned sure!" just as they passed.

Into Monday
I have to admit that a little bit of preoccupation set into my mind; and it was a distraction most of yesterday (Sunday) afternoon, and I called my busking off just before sundown, so that I could take a preventative measure.

Which was to go under the dock and hide my sleeping bag and blankets well, and then to jumble up the cardboard, scattering all 7 layers of it in a disheveled mass which would make it look like someone had been there and ransacked the place, causing me to abandon the spot..

That would make any single one of them wonder if it were done by one of the other two of them; and it would hopefully make it look like I had just slept there for one night and then torn up the cardboard looking for money or jewels; and then went on my way.

 I then went to the sign spot, where I slept until about 10 a.m. this (Monday) morning.
My Thoughts About Chain Man

My thoughts after thinking about it, as it is now early Monday afternoon:

A: Could Chain Man have been trying to warn me?

If he were, then he would have had to have been warning me about the third intruder, because he was walking alongside the second one.

That would be the white red-haired crew cut guy.

I don't think so.

B: Could he have just been having fun trying to scare a white guy?

The implication of his remark was that, upon seeing  that I had a guitar, something that he hadn't noticed under the dock, he concluded that I make money nightly, and sleep with a pawn-able instrument, to boot; and he now knew where I slept (at least Saturday night)..

But, why would he say it right in my ear?
He couldn't be all that obtuse, even for someone who wears a heavy chain.
C: A third, and I think correct interpretation was that he and his buddy had been having an entirely unrelated conversation, and chain man was telling his friend "Oh, I got you tonight; that's for damned sure," just to let him know that he was expecting some kind of skeezed windfall and that he was going to hook the guy up "for damned sure," at that time.

I slept at the sign spot, on the other side of the Quarter.
I left a one dollar bill visibly atop a rock, as a booby trap.  I will check for it this evening.
If he is strung out enough to try to rob me, he will not be able to resist taking the dollar; it will also tell me if he had a flashlight or not.
Now, it is

Monday.
I have enough money to buy a new guitar, and might shop for a used one.
First I will get a quote from Paul at Webbs Bywater Music on repairing my Yamaha.
I found one of these (left) for 100 bucks on Ebay
..