- 86 Dollar Friday
- 65 Dollar Saturday
It is Sunday morning, I have played for a total of 5 and a half hours the past couple days; having miraculously rearranged my sleeping schedule so that I have woken up right as the sun was going down and had been rested enough so that a single energy drink had me soon on my way to the Lilly Pad.
The second (Saturday) night, I stayed at the spot and continued to play through the period when, for the past hundreds of nights, I would knock off in order to run to Rouses Market before their 1 AM closing.
This token of a person living from hand to mouth, in the sense of a person buying one meal at a time has been costing me in the busking business.
Friday night, I ran there, making it with "7 minutes" to spare, and then, after packing my groceries into my pack, returned to the Lilly Pad, and played from about 1:20 AM, until about 2:30; and probably added another 20 bucks to my tip total.
It was good to have a decent Friday night, followed by a decent Saturday night, as, the two have seemed to be almost mutually exclusive in the past.
This was because; when I was drinking and I had a good Friday night, I was generally more drunk when I arrived on Saturday to play more sloppily and for less time.
And, might have something to do with tourists going hog wild with their spending on their first night in the Quarter (Friday) and then pulling the reigns in the next night "no more 20 dollar bills for street musicians..."
I am ripping a Linda Ronstadt CD onto my data stick so I can listen to it in my room.
I will compensate Linda for the piracy by having ready any number of her songs for female vocalists whom might come along at the Lily Pad in the mood to sing a song.
Buskerman can't live on "Me And Bobby McGee" alone.
Friday night, one of my disappointments at the end of the evening, was not having been able to pick out the exact chords by ear to "Killing Me Softly With His Song," as a young lady sang it. I was close enough to have gotten the 20 dollars that her group left me; but really felt like a musical idiot, something that the 65 dollars that I laid on my dresser at the end of the night couldn't completely take the sting out of.
The chords had been right at the tips of my fingers; and, minutes after the group walked off, I was playing the Roberta Flack song pretty much accurately...
Having such Linda Rondstadt classics, as Oh, Baby, Baby is also having Motown in your back pocket....
Damn, dude, you were fast. That being said, running was not a big thing where I grew up, and my surfboard-paddling skills were probably at the same sort of level as your running skills. Years and years after, as in, I never surfed after age 18, I took a windsurfing class in 2005 or so. Well, a windsurfer is essentially a big heavy surfboard with a damn sail on it. They teach you the "rescue drill" where you're in an area you can't sail out of (advanced windsurfers can sail their way out of anything but this is beginners) you're supposed to lay down on the board with the sail laid down on your legs, and paddle out. Like did no beginner w/o surfing experience, ever. Welp, I ended up blown down into the part of the lake beginners can't sail out of, and then it was, (1) walk the board along the shallows, stepping on a million little oysters, which is not hard on the feet, but is, on the oysters, or (2) do the "rescue drill". I opted for (2), lay the sail down etc and paddled out. I just motored on out of there to the astonished looks of my class-mates, and I was astonished too that I guess, the muscles don't forget.
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