Monday, April 24, 2017

Monday Evening Blog Catch-Up Post

  • 70 dollar Friday
  • 15 dollar Saturday.
  • Skeezer attacks me.

photo by: Tim, my caseworker
I'm trying to watch a little bit of sports this Sunday afternoon, on the TV that has been sitting there, collecting dust, with a picture of Donald Trump over its screen for at least 2 months, now.


I sure am glad that Howard Westra gave me the thing free after he had upgraded to a 36 inch one, himself.*


*A recent article, in the Sunday New York Timesŧ has shed some light on the subject of him having come into a windfall since the election of Donald Trump. The article was about how the stock of privately run prisons has generally doubled in value since his election. Howard told me once that he worked as a prison chaplain for something like 10 years. He must have had a stock purchase option that he took advantage of...


I have taken the rabbit ears out of service as a pop filter holder and plugged them back into the TV.


Both the Celtics and Bruins are in the playoffs. The one basketball game that I watch all season could be the final one of the season for the Celtics, and the same is true for the Bruins, who face elimination. Nothing like boiling the whole season down to its essence.


I once wondered why people don't just tune in to the last 2 minutes of NBA basketball games, as that is when at least half of them are decided. But, I guess people who really like basketball want to see every play. Plus, the last 2 minutes that decide the game are a test of the stamina of the 2 teams. Sure, they have played "even Steven" for 58 minutes, but which team has worn themselves out more, in the process? Hence, the last 2 minutes


I Fistfight A Skeezer



Last night, I was pretty late in getting to the Lilly Pad, and after about an hour had made perhaps 7 bucks when an out of shape, disheveled guy who seemed to be stumbling a bit, stopped and leaned against a pole in front of me for a couple of songs and then sat down on the stoop.


I played one more song, which he seemed to enjoy.


He wasn't putting anything in my jar, and was discouraging others from doing so by his presence, but I wasn't able to articulate this to him in any way that had him graciously moving off.


He instead, stood up, after I feigned to be moving to another spot, "Well, I guess, I'll move, if you want that stoop so bad.." and grabbed my guitar, trying to yank it away from me.


I reflexively, and probably fueled by adrenaline, was able to wrench it from him, whereupon he continued to advance upon me. I gave him the "What's your deal, dude, you got something against me?" as I backed closer to Lafitt's, hoping to spot the Italian mobster looking doorman, who might relish such a scenario.


But, as I got closer to the bar, the skeezer turned back towards where my tip jar and my backpack were still sitting.

Backup Guitar
Before he could get to it some other traveling kid type punks, had grabbed the 7 dollars or so out of it, having seen nobody within 25 feet of it, and probably misinterpreting the tiposaurus sign in such a setup to mean, help yourself to the money.


The skeezer gave them a thumbs up, while I went about putting my guitar in its case, to safeguard it.


This being done, I approached the guy, who struck me in the face, not even hard enough to knock my glasses off, but just to dislodge them a bit. I put them in my pocket, while saying: "Is that your hay-maker. Is that your knockout punch?!? Really?!?"


I then had a flashback to the Leslie Thompson (fight of December 19th, 2013) situation, and, being just enough outraged by the combination of having 7 bucks taken, being hit by him not very hard, and the fact that he was encroaching upon a spot that I have made my own, I swung at his head, hitting his face with a relatively solid feeling thud, kind of like when you hit a baseball and it springs off the bat rather than ratting your bones with a vibration.


There was an instantaneous flash of surprise and a bit of fear on his face as if he hadn't gaged just how drunk he was and perhaps was seeing more stars than he cared to for just that second.


This seemed to awaken him to a heightened state, and he began to fight more vigorously, but I was able to shunt his blows just by quickly jabbing at his arms and redirecting his punches. He was pretty slow and drunk, basically, and I envisioned how a speedy combination of punches could breech his defenses, and I thought another one just a bit harder than the first might knock him out long enough for him to fall back and hit his head on the concrete, which might put an exclamation point on my gesture, and would hopefully have him skedaddling away, thinking that I hit like a concrete sidewalk.



But, just then a state police van rolled up, and I was able to explain quickly to the officer behind the wheel that the guy had tried to grab my guitar and had then punched me.


The skeezer said: "Whatever he said; I didn't do it..." and then stood behind this argument; didn't produce identification because it is known through skeezerdom that one doesn't have to do so, etc.

Paintball Hit Harder Than Skeezer

The officers basically told him that, though they didn't have the grounds to arrest him, they were thereby telling him to leave the area, and should he not comply, then he would be arrested. For failure to obey an officer, or something.


I Could Busk With My Backup Guitar


I managed to make another 9 bucks to go with the 7 that the opportunistic gutter punks got, and I kind of look forward to going out tonight. I might start to bring my second guitar out busking. It is not that much of a drop off from the Takamine, and some might even like its tone better...


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3 comments:

  1. That's something kind of annoying. I've been playing my trumpet near the front of The Old Spaghetti Factory in downtown San Jose, and while it's OK, playing music there makes one a "street person". It's almost like setting out a welcome mat to every bum, crazy, panhandler, etc., to come on by and be chummy.

    Whereas, while the chance that The Old Spaghetti Factory would want me to play a trumpet inside, if I got my caricature drawing game up to speed, there's a pretty good chance they might be very amenable to having a caricature artist who's set up and entertains the kids (it's a big place for people to see how many generations of their family they can get around a table at once) and does not compete with whatever schmaltzy music they play inside.

    In fact, that "complex" there, called San Pedro Square or San Pedro Market, could very well be open to the idea of a caricaturist who'd set up in the open area inside the square, where the oldest "pueblo" building in San Jose is preserved, and everyone's little kids climb in and out of it. I think it's called the Fallon pueblo or Fallon house, and at the rate things are going, it'll change from Fallon to fallen.

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  2. A correction: It's the Peralta adobe, inhabited by Indians first, and the Fallon house was a Victorian house, like we have tons of around here.

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  3. I'm going to stick it out with the horn for now, though. So far, surprisingly, the worst trouble I've had was a guy hanging out next to me, not saying anything, but just being his bummy self, which was off-putting, but I was in a sort of niche in the theater building that a lot of people sort of have a legitimate claim to. So he might have thought I was moving in *his* space.

    And I had, long ago, a guy sit right down next to me in Mountain View, again a spot in front of Easy Foods that lots of people settle at, and since I was playing my frankly horribly shrill sounding PVC flute I had made myself, I just blasted that sucker and he was off.

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