From The Phone To The Blog

Taking Tuesday Off

$17.58 Wednesday
$24 Thursday

I got back to work after 3 days off by arriving at the Lilly Pad at around 11 PM and playing for 2 and a half hours in order to net $17.58 on Wednesday.
The 17 bucks was reassuring because it came from basically 4 groups of people. It could have been 4 single bills, which would have been a strain upon my tranquility, after having taken 3 days off.
I feel like I can continue to go out and accumulate money for the laptop fund. which had dipped to below 70 bucks, after the 3 days off.
For "Her."

I'm pretty happy about the improvement in my playing recently; it is almost happening on a spiritual level where I can feel the energy of other buskers channeling through me...I do mental exercises, like pretending that there is a lady up in one of the rooms in the nearby houses who is laying back on her bed and can hear me through her window which has been opened to allow starlight in...I will perform for "her" all night; probably to the bemusement of some tourists. I have been complimented before by people who were impressed that I had performed as if for someone, when there was nobody there (except for he; making the observation).
The phone that Sherman gave me, I have not yet been able to switch over the service from the old phone to., I might have to hold indefinitely (because my call is important to them) and get it done. I will need yet a third phone to call from, apart from the the 2 phones involved in the transfer. The phone has a camera; and I might be able to spruce up this blog with more photos soon, after I get in the habit of whipping it out as soon as I see something fantastic, or spectacular at least; and snapping a picture.
I think I just then get a USB chord; plug the phone into any empty USB slot on this computer and some wizard will pop up and instruct me on how I can get the pictures from the phone to the blog...

I woke up and looked at the clock. It read 10 minutes past 7.
I thought that it was Tuesday night, and that the half lit sky outside was darkening.
But then, I drifted off to sleep only to awaken to the sight of sunlight streaming through the windows, and I realized that, after laying down at 9 PM, the previous evening, right after Sherman rode off on his motorcycle, I had slept about 10 hours.
This was very cool, as it had me up and well rested early in the morning.
Last week, I only made about 20 bucks Monday through Wednesday.
I am trying to achieve some kind of balance between busking, and other activities, hoping that it will have me full of energy and playing for a long time at a high level on the money nights.
It used to be that any night at all could be a money night here. There were definitely more tourists here, as recently as 2 years ago. There was a drop off after the last shooting on Bourbon Street, almost 2 years ago.
Aw, Shoot...
I remember that I had gotten some food out of the Rouses Market trash -I think it was about 1:40 AM- and then had walked up to Bourbon Street where I saw puddles of blood on the tiled sidewalk around the side entrance to one of the businesses, and then stepping over them, came to the corner where was visible a person laying in the street, nearby whom stood a cop with his hands on his hips and chewing gum, and another cop closer to me who told me to keep moving, which I did, coming upon another young lady who was sitting on the curb and holding a bloody rag to the side of her face. She had had a bullet pierce her cheek and miraculously miss her teeth. She must have had her mouth open during that split second in time. I wondered if she had chosen between one word over another, and was pronouncing it when the bullet went through her cheek, saying: "What was that?!?" and getting hit on the last word, rather than: "What the f***?!?" which would have cost her a few teeth.
I didn't ask her. She was ruing the fact that she was probably going to be the last of the injured to get any attention "'Cause there's people dying over there," as she put it; matter of factly.
That's what I remember of the night of the last Bourbon Street shooting, along with the fact that, back then, I could go out and have a 75 dollar Tuesday night, if I just put in the 5 hours.
Now, I am taking the first 3 days of the week off, after evaluating the time to be worth more than the 20 dollars that the law of averages would have me making.