Wednesday, June 15, 2016

Captivating Title Goes Here

$0 Monday
$9 Tuesday


It is Wednesday afternoon and I am starting to become annoyed at the "routine" that I seem to be gravitating towards.
I've been whiling away the hours by practicing drawing


It has been 162 days since I drank.
The only (other) constant in my life is that I busk generally at the same time almost every night.
Thus, the rest of my life has been gravitating towards coming into alignment with this.
The variable in the equation is the amount of money, if any, that I make.

I have been waking up in the early afternoons and, thinking that I had a golden opportunity thus, to be at the Lilly Pad early, have been dallying around, drawing pictures, listening to the talk radio shows, and then seeing the darkening skies outside as being the cue to get moving.

5 PM
Around 5 PM is the time that I would take my quarter mile jog/run; when I take it.  I've been taking it less frequently lately; walking it instead behind an excuse like "I left my stopwatch behind, and if I can't time it; I don't want to run it. What if I feel really energetic and run like the wind and am sure that I had just broken my record of 1 minute and 47 (and 9 tenths) seconds, but had no way to know. It would drive me crazy. The way around that would be to jog it, but purposely start off at a snail's pace so as to quash any speculation that I am about to set a record.
These subjects are from out of my head.
This jog puts me in the Broad Avenue neighborhood, where I would do any of the following, dependent upon my situation -pop into Whole Foods to buy fresh ground peanut butter, bananas and/or a more expensive energy drink. Pop into Dollar General for cat food, batteries, or a less expensive energy drink.
Then, I would have to decide if I wanted to spend 7 dollars on a pack of American Spirit cigarettes in the Rite Aid. I still have a hard time bringing myself to spend half of my cash on hand on cigarettes. They can be picked off the ground in the Quarter and then re-rolled, effectively saving the guy (who does so) about 50 dollars per week. I could even be choosy and only pick up American Spirit butts, non mentholated variety.
The way the busking has slowed down recently, a pack of smokes is a sacrifice. And then 8 skeezers per day on average will have the nerve to want to leave me with just 12 of them for myself.
Goose Egg Monday
Monday night there might have been 2 times when, playing the brand new harmonica and sounding good, I thought, I figured that there would be something in the tip jar when I looked down from the stars overhead to glance at it. There never was, after about an hour and a half of playing, and there never even appeared the guy who puts a dollar or two in your jar no matter what you are playing or whether or not you even are playing.
 you are always playing music that nobody asked for in a spot that you weren't invited to.
Each one was, at an earlier stage of production,
much prettier. But then I overworked and ruined them.
It has been instructional, though.
It was, I think the 4th time in 4 and a half years of busking in New Orleans when I didn't make a cent. Once, about 2 years ago now, I had left the Lilly Pad after not having made anything and then run into a guy and his wife who asked me to play them something after seeing the guitar on my back and wound up turning a zero into a 20 dollar night for me.
My reaction to the slowness is definitely going to be to hit the road and busk elsewhere.
I will rely upon my ability to go into a new town and find a good busking spot, based upon the surrounding businesses, the time of day, and the acoustics; rather than take the path of the feckless busker who will walk around until he sees or hears someone busking and will then deem it to be an "appropriate" spot; there really being no such thing in busking, as you are always playing music that nobody asked for in a spot that you weren't invited to.

1 comment:

  1. "the person who drops a dollar no matter what you're playing, or if you're playing" - I've been given a few bucks just for warming up! Apparently fast chromatic scales == modern jazz?

    Those drawings are really nice. Sure, a critical type could pick them all apart but proportions and things can be learned, the thing is, that they're very attractive and happy drawings. There are many, many artists who had or have great careers who didn't start out so promising.

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