I Eat Ground Beef
I got some ground beef from the Ideal Market last night.
I had been living on mostly liquids; a lot of juice, and had recently gotten another large jar of peanut butter; all natural; peanuts, salt.
I put the ground beef in a pan and set the temperature to be very low, not enough to boil water.
This is good because it was probably 20 minutes later that I was sitting in my room and a heard the sizzling sound coming from the kitchen.
As I ran in that direction, I was happy to not smell any burning meat. The meat in the pan was browned on the bottom and almost raw on top. I flipped it over to let the top at least get a bit of sizzling in the pool of grease. I then seasoned the thing with ketchup and mustard and pepper, added some lightly fried onions and, very gingerly at first but then more ravenously; ate it. This morning, I felt pretty good indeed, and not "depressed" for the first time in a while.
Peanut butter (left) had been keeping me full feeling and was an appetite suppressant to the point where I would eat a few tablespoons, either slathered over a banana or mixed together with all fruit jam and coconut milk and honey in a coffee mug; and would return to what I had been doing, satisfied and not constantly running to the kitchen for more to eat.
But it is hard to ignore the feeling of well being that I have gotten after eating the pork chop which was given to me that had come from Irene's Cuisine in the French Quarter; which was an expensive dish; and the wad of ground beef that I sizzled and ate last night -about a dollars worth.
I was up at about 9 AM.
I had to think about what day it was; then I remembered that I am close to being broke.
I have rusty strings on the guitar and no working harmonica.
The strings, I can replace out of the savings jars; putting them in arrears.
I will have to busk with just the guitar and my voice; like I used to do, back when I made 10 dollars per hour on average, doing it.
Then, I should, hopefully before the weekend comes, be able to afford one of a particular type of low priced harmonica, namely a Suzuki "folkmaster," harmonica. The guy in the French Market sells them off of his fold up table or out of his plexiglass case for $26.99.
I was able to find them for about $17 on the Musician's Friend website.
The Suzuki company apparently uses high technology in the building of their harmonicas, gimmicks perhaps, but they promise that their harmonicas will be in perfect tune, because they use laser beams to micro-tune them in China. They make some extremely expensive harmonicas; I'll bet that their $850 one just about plays itself.
They also make cheaper ones than the Folkmaster, but those aren't marketed with the designation "master" anywhere in their names, and are suggested for use by "hobbyists," whereas their most expensive harps are all touted as being the master of something i.e. "Promaster," "Bluesmaster," etc.
It is a plastic combed harp, but I see this as not being inferior to the wood combed harps. There are hard technical specifications that both materials have to meet, like being "airtight" and wood can actually expand due to moisture and become compromised in that capacity. Put in terms of the layman busker, the wood in between the holes that you play into begins to protrude so that it is less like running your lips over a flat surface and more like running it over the tire marks left by a tank.
This offers the advantage of allowing the player to use the wooden nubs to locate the holes. A melody that takes a leap of 2 holes can be found more by feeling the wooden protrusions rather than by just muscle memory.
Another drawback is that the bloated expanded wood can be rough on the lips.
The plastic combed ones sound a little bit differently, but to me the difference would be like: What if the Rolling Stones had used a Steinway piano instead of the Yamaha when they cut the song: "You Can't Always Get What You Want," would the kids just not dig it as much, or would they dig it more?
I'm not going to fret over wood vs. plastic when I have less than 30 bucks right now to replace the one that's shot so I can take a pay increase from 10 to 18 dollars per hour, and have 80% more fun playing.
I could knock out one of the more important errands that I need to get to.
See Rebuild Center about eyeglasses
Find a third phone to use to call to switch my number from my present phone to the one that Sherman gave me.
 |
| "I had some ground beef last night." |
I got some ground beef from the Ideal Market last night.
I had been living on mostly liquids; a lot of juice, and had recently gotten another large jar of peanut butter; all natural; peanuts, salt.
I put the ground beef in a pan and set the temperature to be very low, not enough to boil water.
This is good because it was probably 20 minutes later that I was sitting in my room and a heard the sizzling sound coming from the kitchen.
As I ran in that direction, I was happy to not smell any burning meat. The meat in the pan was browned on the bottom and almost raw on top. I flipped it over to let the top at least get a bit of sizzling in the pool of grease. I then seasoned the thing with ketchup and mustard and pepper, added some lightly fried onions and, very gingerly at first but then more ravenously; ate it. This morning, I felt pretty good indeed, and not "depressed" for the first time in a while.
Peanut butter (left) had been keeping me full feeling and was an appetite suppressant to the point where I would eat a few tablespoons, either slathered over a banana or mixed together with all fruit jam and coconut milk and honey in a coffee mug; and would return to what I had been doing, satisfied and not constantly running to the kitchen for more to eat.
But it is hard to ignore the feeling of well being that I have gotten after eating the pork chop which was given to me that had come from Irene's Cuisine in the French Quarter; which was an expensive dish; and the wad of ground beef that I sizzled and ate last night -about a dollars worth.
I was up at about 9 AM.
I had to think about what day it was; then I remembered that I am close to being broke.
I have rusty strings on the guitar and no working harmonica.
The strings, I can replace out of the savings jars; putting them in arrears.
I will have to busk with just the guitar and my voice; like I used to do, back when I made 10 dollars per hour on average, doing it.
 |
| Tuned by a Chinese person with a laser beam |
I was able to find them for about $17 on the Musician's Friend website.
The Suzuki company apparently uses high technology in the building of their harmonicas, gimmicks perhaps, but they promise that their harmonicas will be in perfect tune, because they use laser beams to micro-tune them in China. They make some extremely expensive harmonicas; I'll bet that their $850 one just about plays itself.
They also make cheaper ones than the Folkmaster, but those aren't marketed with the designation "master" anywhere in their names, and are suggested for use by "hobbyists," whereas their most expensive harps are all touted as being the master of something i.e. "Promaster," "Bluesmaster," etc.
It is a plastic combed harp, but I see this as not being inferior to the wood combed harps. There are hard technical specifications that both materials have to meet, like being "airtight" and wood can actually expand due to moisture and become compromised in that capacity. Put in terms of the layman busker, the wood in between the holes that you play into begins to protrude so that it is less like running your lips over a flat surface and more like running it over the tire marks left by a tank.
This offers the advantage of allowing the player to use the wooden nubs to locate the holes. A melody that takes a leap of 2 holes can be found more by feeling the wooden protrusions rather than by just muscle memory.
Another drawback is that the bloated expanded wood can be rough on the lips.
The plastic combed ones sound a little bit differently, but to me the difference would be like: What if the Rolling Stones had used a Steinway piano instead of the Yamaha when they cut the song: "You Can't Always Get What You Want," would the kids just not dig it as much, or would they dig it more?
I'm not going to fret over wood vs. plastic when I have less than 30 bucks right now to replace the one that's shot so I can take a pay increase from 10 to 18 dollars per hour, and have 80% more fun playing.
I could knock out one of the more important errands that I need to get to.
See Rebuild Center about eyeglasses
Find a third phone to use to call to switch my number from my present phone to the one that Sherman gave me.
Where are you playing nowadays Daniel? I will be in NOLA 6/12 - 6/14 and wanted to hear you play again.
ReplyDeleteThe gate that I sit in front of reads "927" and "933" on it; since it opens into the hotly contested for alley between Lilly and her neighbor, over which court battles have been waged; the alley is apparently now shared but Lilly retains the right to licence street musicians at the spot, and so there I am, usually between 10 PM and 12:30 AM -on Bourbon Street; I've been taking Mon-Wed off lately, after some consecutive slow ones, but may have to go back to at least showing up to "see what happens" I'll most likely be there those nights; I hope I remember your face; I'm terrible with them LOL
ReplyDelete