It is Sunday evening, and I am totally broke; as I sit here at Starbucks.
Last night, I walked into the Quarter and was not able to play much; as it rained off and on.
One couple came by and gave me 4 bucks for playing Happy Birthday, for the lady (which I improvised additional lyrics to) and another guy gave me a dollar; and I took the streetcar back to the apartment, after having bought one last beer; and after having found two Styrofoams laden with what turned out to be an Asian dish with a lot of soy sauce and things like shrimp and pieces of meat, noodles and other Asian fare.
My food card money hits at midnight (another 6 hours) and, I now go out to play for most of those 6 hours; hoping to make enough to take one of the last streetcars back; laden with food of my choice; and with a little bit of money.
I haven't decided if I will go on a juice fast or not; but I probably should.
Last night, I walked into the Quarter and was not able to play much; as it rained off and on.
One couple came by and gave me 4 bucks for playing Happy Birthday, for the lady (which I improvised additional lyrics to) and another guy gave me a dollar; and I took the streetcar back to the apartment, after having bought one last beer; and after having found two Styrofoams laden with what turned out to be an Asian dish with a lot of soy sauce and things like shrimp and pieces of meat, noodles and other Asian fare.
My food card money hits at midnight (another 6 hours) and, I now go out to play for most of those 6 hours; hoping to make enough to take one of the last streetcars back; laden with food of my choice; and with a little bit of money.
I haven't decided if I will go on a juice fast or not; but I probably should.
Now that you have a place hang onto it!
ReplyDeleteNow you're working the system properly, you've got food stamps and a place, the next step would be to start the process towards getting a crazy check.
Next step musically would be to record some stuff and burn CDs and use some of the colorful art you've done for covers. People will buy colorful stuff! The yolk will be on them when they actually listen to the contents, but by that time they'll be back in Racine and telling their relatives as they pass the lutefisk that they got that CD in exotic new Orleans...
You may be pleasantly surprised to hear my next recordings; I am going to delete all of the previous stuff and start a new "era"
ReplyDeleteThe vocals that I've done in the past have all been under great duress (Is someone going to conk me in the head any second and steal my laptop as I try to record outdoors? Is Leslie going to fling a heavy object at my head because I am ignoring him in his own house; and all I care about is my stupid art? etc.)
Singing well is a lot about relaxing and focusing...
Even on the street, I am singing better because I know that I have a cozy place waiting for me; a streetcar ride away; as soon as I make my first $1.25 for the fare...
Plus; I have discovered the magic of "presets" in the Audacity menus; which have names like "vocal 1" and "vocal 2" and have had the things like "damping" and "reverb level" and "high" and "low" and "wet gain" and "dry gain" already preset by the pros; and, well, I never knew what damping was, so I kept it at 0, but the vocal settings all have it at 99; and to make a long story short; I don't sound so much like a skeezer singing in a bathroom anymore....though "bathroom" IS one of the reverberation choices LOL!
Just like charlie brown falling for Lucy's entreaty to kick the football, I will probably fall for it and listen to more of your purported music, but not right away, the part of my brain that deals with sound is still recovering from the last time.
ReplyDeleteI have acquired a clarinet and am almost done acquiring the things that go along with it, and right now the plan is to play that for about two years then move to the sax, the ultimate busking instrument. Trumpet is great but its hard to put in five hours a day on trumpet. The math is simple, I make ten bucks an hour playing and need an average of fifty a day to live decently so... I need to be able to honk away for five hours a day.