Saturday, June 20, 2015

Some Great Amnesia's

57 Dollar Friday
(...though only at $14.25/hour)
Friday night, despite battling incapacitation by E&J Very Smooth Brandy, I arrived at the Lilly Pad so early in the evening that, when I positioned my solar powered spotlight in the vines above where I play, and put the switch on; it wasn't yet dark enough for it to light. It must have been only 7:15 PM.
Me, Saturday, June 20th, 6:45 PM (CST)
The light did come on, about 20 minutes later, after I had played throughout the interim and hadn't made anything.
I started to think, and to accept the fact that it might just be a slow Friday night. I was glad to have enough on me for the trolley ride home.
The tips started to slowly trickle in, and I had maybe 12 dollars at the first point when I felt fatigued, not so much physically, but musically.
I couldn't think of any song that I wanted to hear myself play.
I took a break and ran to The Quartermaster (where I caught Lilly and both of her daughters in the act of eating some kind of pastries off of a plate of them which they had just bought).
After an Abita Jacomo beer and about 10 minutes of rest, I was back on the spot and went for about another 2 hours, still feeling like I was leaving too early at 12:20 AM when the second wave of fatigue and not being able to think of a song that I, myself, wanted to hear; hit me.
But, I rationalized that I could hit Rouses Market before they closed, on my way out, and could purchase catfish nuggets, something that they frequently have marked down, with a florescent orange "today's special" tag on it, at that last hour before their closing.
I wonder if I could haggle the price down even more, at that hour, by talking to Tony, the manager....Come on, Tony, you know you're gonna just throw this away....
There was a time when Rouses Market would indeed "just" throw it away, where it could be retrieved by anyone from their waste bins, who had a flashlight and the humility to "fish" it out of there within the view of tourists and others.
57 Dollars
I had left the apartment with about 30 bucks on me, bought brandy ($4.35), a new battery for the Snark guitar tuner ($3.24), and all-day trolley pass ($3), a new harmonica ($11), and actually started the tiposaurus jar with the only 3 dollars that I had on me.
I was therefore happy to be stuffing a full jar of what I thought were one dollar bills into my pack when I packed up. I had been putting larger bills in my back pocket immediately upon seeing them in the jar; and I knew I had a ten and three 5's there.
after a pack of cigarettes ($6) and the beers that drank while on break ($4) and a ($5) bud off a kid who happened by and then putting ($6) toward the purchase of food, to save some of my food card; I got back to the apartment 15 dollars richer in cash, after having made the discovery of two 20 dollar bills in amongst the singles in the jar.
I had made 57 bucks, at the rate of $14.25 per hour. Not bad for being pretty well lit up on brandy. I knew that I was a little sloppy; but perhaps the brand new harmonic, plus the Snark tuned guitar were consonant sounding enough to have bailed me out a bit.
I now have the brand new harmonica, a full pack of butts, the bud and; while not too many great memories; some great amnesia's!

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