A Flood Of Ideas

Monday was a terrible day.

But, this morning, I started to make sense of it.

I came here in August of 2011, and one of the things that I noticed off the bat, was the scowls on the faces of almost everybody here.

I understand that, a bit, after 5 years here.

There are hardly any tourists here.

There are the same number of skeezers and heroin addicted skeezers.

Last night, as I got to the Lilly Pad, I saw only 6 people at Lafitt's Blacksmith Shop Tavern.

Four of them were sitting in a row in the chairs provided for smokers who like to sit when they smoke.

One of the block skeezers, an older black man, who rides a bike was just accosting them, as I was locking my own bike across the street. I was totally sober of alcohol (196 days) and weed.

I saw the skeezer stop his bike and heard him say: "Say, do me a favor, will you?"

It was 3 guys and a lady, and I saw the lady change into a more defensive posture, one hand going to her purse and her legs crossing more tightly; but the guys seemed to actually welcome the diversion of the skeezer. I am always rooting for the tourists in such situations, hoping they will dispatch the skeezer after seeing through his skeeze. I always want to yell out: "All he wants is your money!" but, if the tourists aren't wily enough to figure that out, then who am I to interfere with the skeezers livelihood. I suppose if he is truly a talented, even gifted, beggar, than he might be just as entitled to their money as I am after playing a darned good Neil Young song. I root for the tourists out of self preservation. If they feel like they have been manipulated, or "had," by him, it might harden their hearts along with lightening their wallets before they eventually encounter me; and that might take money out of my tip jar.

There was to be no tip money at all last night.

I didn't feel like playing when I sat down, didn't have a joint to smoke to at least give me an "artificial" desire to play; and the feeling never came. It felt ridiculous to be playing for nobody at all; and to be putting all my energy into it, especially. There have been times when I have done that; when just imagining someone in the loft of the house across the street listening to me through an open window was enough to motivate me, but not last night.

I think the appropriate thing for me to have done as a busker who wanted to make at least a dollar so he could feed his cat, would have been to take a page out of the book of the skeezer at the bar, and to have spoken up to the sporadic groups of tourists that passed, perhaps saying: "Say, could I have just a dollar so I can take the trolley home and never come back?"

That might at least spawn a conversation that might lead to me playing them something and, who knows, the "dollar," may have become ten bucks.

Or, I could have said: "Man, this is ridiculous!" and again added "As soon as I get a dollar for a can of cat food, I'm outta' here and these people (nodding towards Lilly's house) can have some peace and quiet." Or almost anything.

Do you have any work?!?

I looked over to the bar and the old black skeezer was on his knees in front of the 4 tourists.
I couldn't hear what he was saying, but yes, he was on his knees in front of them; probably laying it on thick. I was still hoping that the tourists would have said something like: "Look, sir, I can smell alcohol pretty strongly on your breath. If you had money for that, you could have gotten a hamburger.

One time, I had been given some food when I was playing. The same guy was doing his "Do you have some change for something to eat?" skeeze which, seems like it is a numbers game to him as he does it in a rapid fire kind of way, receiving his answer from each tourist in turn before quickly going to the next. I offered him the Styrofoam, as it was fried food and I didn't want to eat it.
"Hell, no, I don't want that!" was his answer. I guess holding the Styrofoam would ruin his hustle.

I had hatred for everyone. I left the Lilly Pad before I got more pissed off. I was glad I wasn't drinking, or I would have been singing my venom out: "I'll just eat out of the garbage, that's OK, give your money to the beggars," or similar "lyrics."

Almost everyone that I saw, I found a reason to hate. Maybe it was the addition of sunflower seeds to my diet that day,

Then as I tried to make sense of it, it dawned upon me.

Baton Rouge just had a 1,000 year flood.
I see this as an opportunity that only comes around every thousand years for me to take the 5 dollar bus up there and get in contact with my friend Sherman and ask him if he can initially put me up while I try to find work doing flood cleanup.

There are advertisements around, offering 12 dollars an hour for such. It seems like they just want people who will show up every day. There are so many people who will get their first paycheck and go on a crack binge, missing the next 3 days of work until the money is gone; and then showing up famished and shaking with a diminished capacity for work; the "labor" trade has always been rife with them. I made a career at the labor pools, back in 2005 through 2007, just by being there every morning at 5:15 AM.

I think I could use the change of pace. I am trying to contact Sherman now, and I had better put this blog down and go do that. The only other option would be to sit here and live off water for the next week and work on a novel.

I have no food stamp money for the next 11 days; no cash; and will not even be able to feed myself or my cat for as long as I continue to not make any money.

I'm not going to call my mom and ask her to wire money; I will find food for Harold in dumpsters; and will go to the food bank in the morning with my ID and a copy of my lease and get a box of food that is going to make me sick and give me brain tumors.

Something Is Eating Me

Or, I'm going to just starve myself for the next 11 days.
I just want to be in control.

Starving myself is something that I can control; I don't need anyone's help.

I'll never knock on a neighbors door and ask for food; because my neighbors here at Sacred Heart are soul-less, sub human derelicts, lower than my cat; whose mothers became impregnated with them solely to take advantage of the welfare system, and to proliferate their race in hopes of achieving world dominance through sheer numbers, rather than education; and because immorality has no stigma attached to it in their world; by a father who is absent from the kids life, unless he is employed, in which case the whores of mothers would be playing the child support angle on him and keeping close tabs; who hadn't the resolve nor principles pursuant to keeping their noses clean of alcohol, crack, weed, tobacco and pain medications while they were carrying the kid, and all half dozen of its half siblings by a half dozen other derelict fathers.*

But, aren't they adorable?

I'm just rehashing what everybody knows already; these are the things that caused the now residents to become chronically homeless and qualify for residency here in the first place.

*Not all of them are like this, but, it's the 87% that ruin it for all of them.

I'm trying to believe in God, and to think that maybe there is an important reason for my going to Baton Rouge to clean up after the flood; one that I would never come to know if I was making decent money every night busking. That's the way you're supposed to think when you believe in God.

Maybe it's just work available at 12 bucks an hour; with no divine connection.