The Time To Go

• 9 Dollar Saturday A Drag
• Smoking A Drag

I really don't want to be smoking when I go to Massachusetts to visit people.

Perhaps a lot of the friends and family that I see will be smokers. Smoking is an expensive habit, the cost of which has become magnified further as I have been able to economize in other areas of my life, reducing the average daily cost of my existence (in dollars and cents, at least).

This makes the 7 bucks a day for cigarettes take up a bigger chunk of the pie chart.

The worst part of being a smoker is when you have to go outside to smoke because nobody at the house that you are visiting smokes.

This brings home the magnitude of the nicotine addiction; as you excuse yourself every 45 minutes to go outside, which might involve letting cold air into the abode if this is winter time.

The conversation has to be suspended, and may never regain its same intensity, as trains of thoughts might become derailed while you are puffing away, or others matters come to light, while you are lighting up; and the whole evening might come to a dull conclusion; helped by the constant interruptions that you inject into the proceedings.

Plus, you know that, as soon as you come back in the house that, to these non smokers you are going to smell like a chimney anyways, try as you may have to expel all the smoke from your lungs. They are going to be thinking facetiously "Gee, he might as well just stay in here and blow smoke in our faces, the whole house smells like smoke anyways."

So, I am kind of bummed that I have been sneaking nicotine, and as I make plans for a trip, it would totally suck to have to have a pack of smokes as a companion on the trip, at 7 dollars a day to hang out with him.

I plan upon doing a "gig" at the off ramp to the Interstate in the early morning, holding a sign similar to the one that I have blogged about.

I will have gotten a "Jazzy" bus pass for free from Sacred Heart Apartments, using up my allotted one per month from there; so I could then hop on the city bus number 94, taking it all the way out to where the Oliver Yard rail yard is located.

I will have packed one of my heavy jackets; prepared for temperatures down to about maybe 55 degrees, and would have my guitar, hopefully with new strings on it, and the same harmonica that I have been using for about 3 months. It only shows slight signs of going out of tune, and enough of the reeds do work so that in a worst case scenario, I could wail on the intro to "Love Me Do," by The Beatles over and over.

Bob Dylan recordings are actually like a gift that he has left to, for one, harmonica players like myself.

Just as, according to some critics, Mr. Zimmerman, with a single voice, "paved the way," for a career in music as a singer for Sony Bono, his quite frankly, out of tune, harmonica playing has made for smooth sailing for guys like myself , who can play the recognizable chords of a popular Dylan song on the guitar and then put harmonica to mouth, and if it sounds more like cat to lathe; the result might at worst pass for "some good Dylan."

I hesitate to get off the train in Mobile, Alabama, based upon hearing that it is terrible there, in regards to relationships between law enforcement and anyone who looks like someone the good citizens should protected against.

I have heard "bad" things about other places, even Panama City, Florida and Biloxi, Mississippi. I take these with a grain of salt, as they come from people who might have been trying to skeeze their way in those cities; and had thus drawn ire of the cops, who are middle class and pay taxes, besides being cops.

I am going to go under the assumption that I can busk just about anywhere. Once.
The first thing from "them," will be a verbal warning and an explanation of local laws concerning buskers.
I really just need to have a 100 dollar night and then I can proceed directly to the Megabus terminal; next stop: Boston.