Along comes the devil.
My first dollar tip came after I had just taken the guitar out and hadn't even fine tuned it.
A couple of tourists stopped in front of me, a guy and his wife. The guy looked at me, as if to say: "Well, what have you got?"
I played the Beatles song "Do You Want To Know A Secret."
I could hear the guy singing along a bit and nudging his wife a bit: "Beatles, honey..."
That produced a dollar, which was good.
It was good because I had spent myself down to less than the price of a cable car ride and, should I had made nothing the whole night; I would have been walking the 2 miles back to the apartment, after not having eaten in 4 days.
Then, I continued to play and had my head down, looking at the guitar neck when someone else threw something in my case.
"Thank you," I said, in between singing.
I looked over and, there in the case next to the dollar, which was my cable car ride, was 2 cigarettes.
I couldn't stand it; and smoked one and put the other in my backpack.
Then, the next person to stop and listen a while and tell me that I sounded good, went on to add: "I don't have any cash, man, I wish I did, but; do you want a cigarette?
They might as well have been red and had horns and been carrying pitchforks. 4 Days without cigarettes; shot to hell; excuse the pun....
Why do you keep calling them cable cars? They're streetcars... There was even a movie about some people in new Orleans with streetcar in the name!
ReplyDeletethe streetcar named Desire, by Tennessee Williams?...now there is just a bus with "Desire" on its placard...
ReplyDeleteUm, they run on electricity, conducted through a terminal on the roof, attached to a, um, cable is I think what you call them, which is elevated above the tracks...
Nope look it up, a cable car is propelled by a cable that's under the street! Typically used on hilly streets like in San Francisco.
ReplyDeleteA trolley runs on tracks and uses electricity from overhead wires and a streetcar runs on rubber tires on the road and uses electricity from overhead wires.
San Francisco has all three types plus buses cars and math fueled bike messengers, its a trip!