New Procedure

I am posting, it is Wednesday night, the last night of May, 2017.
Tomorrow, I might be paid back the 120 or so bucks that I lent out.

Playing By Ear

• Hearing 70%
• Antibiotics All Used
•  

It has been a week since I went to the hospital for the ear infection thing.
As I sit here now -the antibiotics ran out today too, by the way- I can hear better, maybe 70% by actually doing something that I believe "lower" animals do, which is to contract certain muscles around the cranium, usually accompanied by other craning attitudes, in a manner that the passage to the ear drum is pulled open, or wider open.

It could be that, in the animal kingdom they have to have their ears protected against sudden stabs by the talons of a birds of prey, so that their ear canals are naturally kind of tucked away, and to hear at their optimal level, they pull their ears open.

But, my hearing is back to about 70%, and maybe even a bit better when I use muscles which are artifacts of an age when men's ear canals were protected by flesh and they could pull their testicles up into their mid sections.

I won't busk tonight, as there is a 50% chance of rain, and it is a Wednesday night, and I am supposed to be paid back tomorrow or "Friday, at the latest" and will get another 5 bucks tomorrow from Travis, who has been on the scene, lately.

Travis called a few days ago, wanting to store his cat at my place for a day or two, while he moves from one place to another.
It was a slow couple of busking days, and I was still kind of waiting upon more improvement in my hearing before going back out; and he offered me 20 bucks in return for the favor, and so, Tuesday, Travis arrived with some of his stuff, and the ordeal began.

A lot of time was taken up in just getting the cat to the place.
Travis (who is a guy who crashed at my place for the 10 days allotted to "guests" in response to a CraigsList ad that I had placed, offering my couch as a place to crash for 20 bucks a night.
Travis wound up being a cool guest, except for the fact that he had tried to, it seemed, monopolize upon my time.
I don't think I posted to this blog once, during the 10 days when he crashed at my place. If I did so, it was with him sitting next to me waiting for me to finish so that we could return to what ever it was that "we" were doing.
He asked if he could walk with me to the store when I was going there, the first day that he stayed.
This, I was amenable to, as I saw it as myself showing him where all the nearby stores were and "teaching him the ropes" (of walking to the corner of Broad Avenue and Canal Street and buying stuff).
But, this had meant myself pedaling my bike at walking speed the whole way to keep pace with him as he walked (and talked enough for both of us, apparently) and I was glad, upon his return that he then knew where all the stores were, and could then go there on his own.
But, then, he continued to want to come with me, even using the curious interrogative: "Can you bring me to Family Dollar later?" one time, and it almost seemed like he wanted my attention "the whole time" that he stayed at my place.

I had forgotten a lot of that, frankly, when I agreed to babysit his cat for 20 bucks.

Where I made the mistake and where it turned into a 15 hour ordeal to get his cat was when I suggested that I come along with him when he got the cat from his place, so that I could help him carry some of his stuff, and so that he didn't have to be abandoning the shit-hole apartment complex which was being sold at auction and from which all the residents were being forced to leave, carrying arm loads of his stuff, walking through a mostly empty place that looked like a bomb had hit it; alone.
I offered my help as a truly "friendly" gesture.
Then;
Hour 1: Travis couldn't cash his check that he/we had waited for (so I could get my 20 bucks) at the first place, so he desperately hopped on the first street car to come along and was headed for the Quarter.
I texted to him that he should go the The Unique Grocery, where, if there was a problem, I could vouch for him, having been a regular there long enough, etc.
But, I guess that meant I was hopping on a street car, trailing Travis, on my day off.
No problem, I grabbed a Starbucks coffee and met him at the store, got my 20 bucks, and then we were off to get his cat.
Hour 2: We had to go to my place to get the cat bag that I had borrowed from Rose (saving Travis the 20 bucks that he was ready to buy impulsively at Wal-Mart, demonstrating a mindset that I had once been a slave to which was basically geared to solve every problem by throwing money at it, to thank God that you do have all that money, but then to throw it. Might as well just get a brand new bag at Wal-Mart in order to transport the cat once or twice a year, type of thing...)
Sure, then we had to sit down and smoke a bowl and then sit there while one of us embarked upon a pot induced preamble until the other, realizing that it was already...
Hour 3: ..and we had the cat bag and now needed to get the next street car to the next #94 Broad Avenue bus and then get the cat and come back, a couple hours of "work," at most.
But, then, I was talking about food which made Travis decide to buy me lunch at the McDonald's that we were passing on the way to the #94 Broad Avenue bus.
A half hour later, we emerged from McDonald's to see the next #94 go past. We would have to wait a half hour for the next, no big deal.
Hour 4: We got the Travis apartment in a part of town that was definitely under at least 8 feet of water during the hurricane and had been bought and sold on the cheap, and finally to someone too cheap to change a light bulb or stop sewage from bubbling up from the ground in the middle of the "courtyard."
Well, it started raining.
"It's raining pretty hard, why don't we just chill at my place, smoke up and just listen to music or we could watch something," said Travis.
Hours 5 and 6:
It was still raining, but it was getting dark and Travis and I still had to carry his large screen TV and other things past vulture-like figures slouching over the second balcony railing in front of windows in front of venetian blinds that looked like Pablo Picasso had had a go with.
Hour 7:
Who would have known that it would take Travis so long to get this cat that he adopted as an adult into a bag that turned out to be kind of small for a cat bag and which smelled like Rose's cat and Rose, too, being assisted by a strange guy who smells like his own cat.
Hour 8:
We leave the place with the power turned off and the door locked for the bus stop. We just miss the next #94 bus. No problem, we will wait a half hour -no, wait, after 11 PM, they start running every hour instead of every half hour...
Hours 9 and beyond:
We got the cat to my place. Harold and the cat hissed at each other. Harold chased the cat to under my bed where it basically remained the whole day that I babysat it.
Except when it moved to a hiding place.

It was in a closet on a shelf that looked like it had two pillows piled on it, taking up all its space but actually had enough space for a cat to hide in. To hide in well enough so that its owner (and the friend that had been lasso-ed into the project as soon as he had taken the offer of 20 dollars) would have to spend one whole (additional to me) hour looking for it.

Now, it is about to go past midnight and into the month of June around here.
I think I'll have a cup of coffee. I might hang around the parking lot area, ostensibly walking Harold, so that I might see Rose and Ed coming out of their place shortly before midnight, and might get them to say that they would come back and give me the 120 bucks shortly.
Bumming cigarettes off Travis had been a bummer.
Having him buy me lunch was cool, but, all in all Travis' day took up my whole day.
I like the guy, but I am reminded of his tendency to try to set up a monopoly on someone's time.

Oh, the "new procedure" is to read my comments upon yesterday's post, after I have written that day's.
This will mean no more instant answers to comments, but it will keep me on track with what I sat down to write instead of answering comments...

Like A Machine

Like A Machine
Friday night ends now, I guess, as I sit at the laptop to recount it.

Return After 5 Nights Off Yields $8.50/hr

Tanya and Dorise Are Ending Their Collaboration

Ears at about 38%

I got back from busking with a can of cat food for Harold, who devoured it in such a way to make me think that I should have plunked down $1.60 on two cans, out of the 17 bucks that I had made.
I was busking on the "improvement after two days," that I was supposed to notice in my hearing, I guess.

The older, white haired guy who works at the Quartermaster and whom I hardly ever see because I hardly ever knock off as early as I did, said that he had the same ear infection and that antibiotics were the only solution after he had endured almost total deafness for almost a month before seeking medical help. He had been hitting it with some kind of drops, which had been ineffective, as it had been a "middle ear" infection, which the drops can't get to, past the ear drum.

It had taken a week before his ears suddenly "popped," as he put it.

I left Starbucks after posting to the blog (and doing some minor messing around with its layout) and was at the Lilly Pad and playing less than an hour later, so, I would say that I played from about 9 PM, until 11 PM, and made 17 bucks, mostly off of the harmonica.

I was able to sing, somewhat, by listening very closely for my own voice, specifically, the mid range notes that were coming in my ears and being all but drowned out by the humming heard through the bones in my head. But, by 11 PM, I think the noise, which might even have made healthy ears ring a little, was enough to agravate them a bit.

I knocked off, thinking that 17 bucks, under the circumstances was OK. There were a lot of tourists on Bourbon Street, and I had to weave my way through them, on my way home; an agonizing sight. I could only tell myself that tomorrow (Saturday) I will be one more day into the antibiotic therapy, and will hopefully reach the point where I can hear well enough to sing.

On the way home, I passed an ambulance with its lights flashing, and the EMT's administering to a young black woman right along "heroin row," with the cops on the scene yelling: "Do you know her, are you a medical doctor? ...then move along!"

Tim Todd, Violinist

Then I encountered Tim Todd playing his electric violin in front of Rouses Market on the corner of Royal and St. Peters street. We chatted a bit about ear infections. His last one was 20 years ago, but it was pretty severe.

He said that "one side" of the amp that I sold him about 2 years ago now, had died. I told him that, since it isn't a stereo amp, and basically has two speakers projecting the same signal, that the problem is either the speaker, or the connection to it. It would be like if he had a Marshall "stack" amplifier with a 4 speaker cabinet, and one speaker went out, and him thinking that one quarter of the amp had fried. It's the speaker, I told Tim. Funny how the amp that he never fully paid me for would have one side go out right about the same time the first of my ears became plugged up.
Then, I encountered Tanya Huang, who was just packing up for the night and seemed to be surrounded with the street types that had attached themselves to Tanya and Dorise, mostly through the agency of the latter, I assume. There was a bee-hive of activity around her, as one skinny old drunk guy was hauling one of her amplifiers towards her vehicle, like the ant lifting the rock 10 times its weight, assuring Tanya that he "had" it and that she knew him and knew he could carry the amp and that she could trust him to bring it to the vehicle. And there were others forming a veritable human shield around her, as she scooped the money out of the basket and wisked it into a leather duffel bag, planning to unfold it and count it at home, without a veritable human shield around her.

I had stopped and was going to speak to her, briefly, maybe to apologize for the way I had been shunning her, and maybe to lay the foundation for speaking to her again.

But, Tanya was using the shield pretty effectively to avoid having to look my way.
I have most likely violated whatever the Chinese people call "face," as in "saving face," and maybe Tanya is saving face by not talking to me.

I might send her a message on SavingFaceBook or something.

But, really the thing I would be interested in is someday playing with her, after I get the electronics required to play on Royal Street. But, I might have to start vying for spots and becoming a known musical quantity on Royal Street before it seems apt that the combination of us be tried, as an experiment.

There is a magic between her and Dorise that, I'm assuming, she hasn't been able yet to replicate. The super talented musicians that can "keep up with her" on one level don't improve the overall sound enough to garner double the tip amount. The money that a virtuoso violinist will make with nondescript accompaniment is about the same as with a pre recorded backing track, so, why not use the track and keep all the money?

I haven't been in touch with Dorise, and don't even know how she is doing. She was having chemo-therapy, last I heard, and now she is absent more than she is present alongside Tanya.

I wonder if they think that, if I were a true friend of Dorise, I would at least call her to see how she is doing.

Maybe that's true to a degree, but I'm just not a phone type of person. I always feel like I'm going to be calling at a bad time.

And, really the sense of being a vulture perched nearby to pick upon Dorise' bones, moving in to try to claim her gig; is something I avoid.

This just in: Tanya and Dorise have split up as a musical act; as of April 25th, according to their Facebook page, where I went to get the photo above..

But, there are practical considerations, and a way to go about such things; like just ask Tanya if she wants to jam sometime; after I repair her face, that is....

Maybe we could play for 3 hours together on songs that we both know, once a week, to see how it goes. The question is: How much longer is Tanya going to want to play on the street at all, without Dorise?? 

How much longer will 38 year old Huang stay in the rat race??

Then, I rode back home after spending half of my nights earnings on a pack of cigarettes.
I think I could quit cigarettes using Kratom, the same way heroin addicts use it to kick that, especially when "subs" (another method) aren't working.

I only smoke about half as much when taking a moderate dose of Kratom, and the other night, after running out of cigarettes, I didn't want one bad enough to hop on my bike and ride the mile and back for some. I just kept on writing a story that I'm working on.

The next noon, I woke up and was very conscious of the stimuli that normally trigger the urge to smoke.

Like, after I took my first sip of coffee. What is normally an impulse to light up at that point, seemed almost like a phantom impulse, or just a suggestion. But, I was aware of it, enough to think: "this is when I always smoke," but to not be smoking. And then other thoughts like, which socks am I going to wear or something equally trivial; and my hand starts going for the pack.

Kratom seems to work on the "pleasure center," in such a way that it removes the anticipation of pleasure -the idea that a cigarette "would be" good right now kind of disappears. It's harder to "imagine a cigarette being good" when taking Kratom, easier to look at it very matter-of-fact-ly.
Maybe more like a machine.

Hospitals, Doctors, Elevators,

So, I arrived maybe 72 hours ago at the emergency room at the University Medical Center.
I had brought this laptop, and so time really wasn't a factor. It seems like I was only there for a minute, because I would be lost in the cyber world the rest of the time.
I am living in a quit head.


About The Video

I haven't seen the video.

Really.

I highlighted a random section of a 32 minute jam where I wanted to see if I could even play with stuffed up ears, and so set up the microphone (at 1:30 AM) and sat myself about 3 feet in front of it and did what I did when I busk.
That, with the exception of singing.

My first attempts to sing, I felt that I would have had to sing a lot louder, and so I stopped singing in deference to the neighbors.

As it was, my ear being clogged caused me to play loud enough so that I got a lot of clipping at the distance of 3 feet which is where I usually sit away from the microphone. So I am trying to be louder, just to hear myself.
I guess the silver lining is that it will give me practice, singing loudly; which is alway a nice tool for the busker to have in his shed.

I hope the video at least plays; I'll pull it down quickly, if some of the pictures I grabbed at random are ones that I had meant to delete because they just made me look too damned ugly...

Back To The Ear Story...

Yes, the guy, I mean Doctor Hurley, did see an infection in the right ear.

He did confirm my suspicion that the information that my friend, Bobby, had given me, after my ear had first become plugged up, which was basically to run a Q-tip all the way in to the ear drum.

It makes you squirm just to read this, this is normal. I asked Bobby: "Isn't that just going to push whatever wax there is all the way to the ear drum, minus what happens to be absorbed by the cotton swab?"

"Sure it is," chimed Doctor Hurley, whom at first glance, I thought to be a guy whom I was locked up with in the Federal prison in Bay Minette, Alabama, whose name was "Hurdle."

"Hurdle was in there doing what ended up being 19 months for shooting someone under circumstances that wound up exonerating that particular son of a wealthy citizen, who was a medical student at the time, more and more as they unfolded, and his attorneys were hoping to be able to have the charge reduced to "a boo boo," once they got their ducks in a row.

Hurdle was a very pleasant young man with a quick mind and a thirst for intellectual stimulation. We found common ground by being the only two inmates in a pod of about 20, who liked doing the crossword puzzles out of those particular papers.

I wound up being in there for something like 26 days before my charges were dropped. I hope to tell that story sometime and stuff in into the "2010" spot in this blog, if I haven't already. If I did blog about it, there is a chance that I mentioned Hurdle. We had become fast enough friends that, a nice little reunion would have been had; during which I would assure him: "I'm never going to mention to anyone that I knew my doctor from prison."

When the Doctor walked in and said, "Hi, I'm Doctor Hurley," he must have seen by the look on my face that I thought that I knew him (and that he was a very light knocker, as I had forgotten that I was too deaf to even busk).

He agreed that my good friend Bobby, while maybe not being full of shit about anything else, probably had prompted me to tear open skin in my ear, allowing it to become infected, basically.

I was given a bottle of ear drops, free upon leaving; instructed to call the Ear, Nose and Throat section of the hospital "as soon as possible," to make an appointment. I'm going to do it.

I'm going to take all of the antibiotics until they are gone, like the bottle instructs, and am going to put the drops in my ears twice a day and let them sit in there for 20 minutes.

If I don't notice "an improvement within two days," I am going to go back to the emergency room as instructed to do in that contingency. That would be in about 16 hours, when I next wake up after taking the rest of this Thursday night off from busking, my 5th consecutive night off, after having only played for an hour on the night when it became so bad that I stopped.

Doctor Hurley had never heard of Kratom.

He seemed to shake his head at the notion in general that anything that I had put into my body could have contributed to the ear infection.

He listened as I told him the bloodcurdling description of screwing my pinkie into Harold the cat's ear "as far as I could get it," while Harold air-scratched with his leg on that side, as a way of directing and encouraging me.

"Even though I washed my hands after, there could have been some cat ear bacteria under my nail that could have gotten in the bath water and found its way to my ear..." The doctor seemed to doubt that.

When I go to the Ear Nose and Throat department, I am going to re-ask those questions.

There are a couple foods that stuff my ears up. One is sticky rice.

It might just be a coincidence that the consistency of sticky rice is about what ear wax feels like, in my ears at least, and there is the kind of wax that is somewhat fluid and emits a clicking or popping in the middle of a yawns or on elevators.
  
But, my ears will get stuffed up if I stuff myself with peanut butter or red beans, with or without rice, and this is pretty much consistent. There was a particular "honey fried rice" that made one of my arms go kind of numb and feel like I had hit the funny bone on it, unless I slept with my head angled another way on my pillow.

Even though the doctor didn't poo poo any foods at all, I am still clinging to my own personal dietary beliefs and am not going to feast upon peanut butter while trying to clear up the ears.

I Fianally Go To The Doctor

• Uncle Louie Arrested: "Freeze!!"
• Ear Drops And Antibiotics

"Uncle" Louie, used to do his thing by the dock, where the Natchez steamboat landed.

I lived underneath that wharf, so Louie and I became acquainted.
There was always something a bit "guarded" about him, and I wondered at times if he didn't like me.

One such time was upon running into him the second time after having spoken to him once before.
I thought his name was "Melvin," and called him so. Then, when someone else entered and addressed him as "Louie," I corrected myself.

He seemed offended that hadn't remembered his name, but it was probably just that he was uncomfortable with any (especially a white) guy probing him about his name.

If I had mentioned Jacksonville, Florida to him when talking about some of the places that I have lived, then that could have made him uneasy.

As we all learned from the Edgar Allan Poe story: "The Telltale Heart," living with lingering guilt and constantly having to "look over your shoulder" is the onus that even people who "get away" with a crime have to live with.

Louie was arrested a week ago for a murder in Jacksonville that took place in 1974. I guess they always had latent fingerprints, lifted from the crime scene, but it probably took Orleans Parish this long to update their files, or digitize them, or whatever.

There is some wisdom in coming to New Orleans to "disappear" because the police are not likely to mess with you over something petty. Last night, I just about blew pot smoke into the face of a couple cops that walked past me, as I was taking cover from the rain, under a canopy in front of the Radio Shack on Canal Street.

One guy in Massachusetts whom I was in jail with, who was a black man 20 years older than me, who had been to New Orleans, told me that neither one of us would have gone to jail here for what we did.

His analogy: "When you go into a little country store and you eat a strawberry out of a container, the store owner might raise hell and throw you out of the store. But, if you go to the Chicago Mercantile you will see so many strawberries that people will be crushing them under their feet...."

Louie has a "talent" for remaining pretty much motionless while he performed. You can barely see his rearward hand tremble slightly.

He did a lot of this by locking his joints into place, in fact, in the picture to the left, whomever took it had snapped the photo either before he had assumed his pose, or right as he was snapping out of it, because his rear foot is not perpendicular with the front as it is when he "locks in."

I'm Collecting Spit

I haven't posted in a week because I started writing another short story that took on a life of its own, expanding upon me, like those novelty items that kids drop in a glass of water so they can watch it swell to 25 times the size it was before they dropped it in.

It has 10,000 words already and will be moved to a side-page called "My Short Stories," that will have its own tab at the top of my refurbished blog as soon as I refurbish the blog. The Tulip Story will be taken off the posts page and will join it there.

Emergency Situation

Serious Ear Issue: First Missed Busking Due To Health Concerns
 
There is also the very serious issue of my ears.

This really should be the whole topic of the blog post, as my loss of hearing caused me to knock off Saturday night after my first hour of playing and having the people listening to me tell me that I sounded good, and putting their money where their mouths were by tipping 49 bucks. There were a couple 20's folded together and shoved way down in the bucket.

It could have been a 100 dollar night. I took this ($49) as a sign that I needed to take some time off to heal the ear.

I could hardly hear my guitar unless I pressed my lower jaw to the top of its body, whereupon it became quite amplified, through the bones in my head. I could get a decent mix like this between the harmonica and guitar, but it was a pretty awkward way to play, and I didn't want to damage my "brand," by being out of tune. I could imagine someone walking past who had heard about me and had finally come by to check me out; maybe even a blog reader who was in New Orleans and curious about me. It wouldn't be worth the extra money I might have made the rest of the night to have even one person walking around saying: "I went by there and checked him out, he sucks!" Maybe that was my pride getting in the way of making money but...

Stuff a finger in each ear and then sing your favorite song; it's quite manageable, if you focus upon the pitches; and you don't have to worry about "blocking everything else out."

But, now imagine that you are singing along with a guitar that you can't hear. And then that a small group of people are applauding and you can hardly hear them. Are they just being polite, or did you sound good?

When I got home, I put my stereo on, wondering why I wasn't getting much volume out of it. I made sure the output gain on the Audacity interface was up, and that the output to my headphone jack that I plug into was up, and that the volume on the amplifier for the speakers was up.

I blamed it on the original recorded signal being weak, thinking that I would have to run the "amplify" effect upon it.

Then, I did hear the banging of a broomstick or something on the floor, or ceiling or wall or wherever it was coming from. They must have been banging pretty loudly; it was about 5:30 AM.

A week ago, after submerging my head in bath water infused with Epsom Salts and lavender, which eventually found its way into my ears, I was unable to shake the water out of my right one by doing the "swimmers" move of tilting my head sideways and then hopping on the leg on that side.

I didn't try to get a Q-tip or a tissue in there, thinking that it might do the ear good to have Epsom Salts and lavender in there for a while longer.

This was probably a mistake, as, the water also contained all of the "dirt" that I had washed off my body. This very well could have included bacteria from under the fingernails that I had used to clean Harold the cat's ears out with.

Not having any Q-tips, and seeing Harold scratching excessively at one of his ears, I put honey on the tip of my pinkie and then (I'm not easily "grossed out," having been a medic in the Army, and a nurses aide in a nursing home; wiping diarrhea off the hairy legs of bed-ridden people, etc.; but this is about the grossest thing that I do these days) screwing it into Harold's ear canal to get at any mites that might be in there -the honey is a remedy that I got on line.

So, I might have had cat ear infection bacteria in my bath water.

I went out and played the next night, hearing the whole world as if it was to my left, and being able to play and sing well, on one ear.

But, the ear remained plugged, and then, I bit into the cherry skin that caused the gum to become slightly infected with something that moved to a neighboring tooth and started to become abscessed, complete with cold/flu-like symptoms of chills and swollen glands with a soreness that could be traced from the tooth along the jaw to the neck and to the back of my head.

This, I attacked with Ibuprofen and the contents of a bottle of antibiotics that I had left over from a toothache about a year before that had cleared up after I had taken only a few of them, even though the instructions on the vial said to take them 3 times a day until they were gone.

From My "Kratom Series"

Then Rose helped out; and that was what I started to blog about when it turned into a 10,000 word and growing, story.

Kratom

It bears mentioning, since I had never used Kratom in my life, and also had never had such problems (that seem to stem from a weakened immune system) that it might be a side-effect of the Kratom.

It stands to reason that there must be a trade-off for the improved focus and concentration that has me playing well enough to make 50 bucks an hour, and has me writing 10,000 word stories, only stopping to stretch my wrists.

Excerpt From Original Post: Wednesday Night Off

I'm in my room on this 17th day of May, it is a Wednesday night, a night upon which I have probably averaged about 11 bucks over the past few months; I'm taking it off.

The XML programming undertaking took a giant leap forward yesterday, when I was able to download a very capable "IDE" which is basically an editor with a bunch of built in tools which make it easy to write programs (highlighting where you left out a semicolon, for example).

The XML book, which I've had out of the library so long, I'm afraid to ask what the fine on it is (It's $4.50 I just checked) uses the "Jedit" IDE for all of its examples, and to be able to follow along closely (and get the most out of the book) it was propitious to have been able to download the "NetBeans" editor at appropriately enough, Starbucks, which is comparable.

The whole reason I'm studying the XML is because some day I would like to be able to get "technical" and know what the heck I'm talking about. (How come, when I save a file with Audacity, it saves it in one particular directory, but then when I want to open one, it looks for them in a different one? Would a professional computer programmer be able to sleuth out the problem?).

But, last night, I studied almost all of chapter 4, played around with the examples until I understood their inner workings, and then knocked off around 5 AM, with a renewed hope that I might finish the book.

It seems that, as with the Mel Bay Modern Guitar books, I have finally learned how to learn at a much more efficient rate. 

With the latter it involves not leaving any lesson material until being able to play it at a high level. This might involve taking one particularly problematic measure and repeating it for several minutes.

This does many things; for one, it forces you to go from the last beat, back to the first (like a snake eating its tail) without losing any time. 

This last note of the measure is very often different from the one which precedes the measure in the piece of music. So, you develop the ability to jump to the start of the measure from anywhere in the piece pretty efficiently.

Frank Zappa used to audition musicians by giving them a piece of music that was intentionally written to sound horribly dissonant; if they played it "right."

This is supposedly the hardest challenge for a good musician, whose fingers have been trained to seek out the sweetest sounding notes his whole life; to be able to unflinchingly hit a note that he instinctively knows is going to sound like crap. I guess it has to do with blocking out everything else and focusing upon your part.

Excerpt 2 From Original Post: 15 Dollar Thursday
I woke up Thursday evening, after the sun had gone down, feeling pretty beat and starting to realize that Kratom, while kind of dialing me in and focusing me upon the mechanics of playing, and giving me a "I can do this for a while longer" attitude, leaves me pretty much drained "the next day," or whenever I wake up after having slept it off.

It was Rose (of Rose and Ed fame) who woke me up with a phone call at about 8:45 PM, wanting to borrow 5 dollars. I wound up lending her 6 bucks, at no interest rate.

She has been very helpful with the stuffed up ear that I have been having, and the toothache of the past couple of days.

The tooth that was bothering me is one that had become abscessed maybe a year ago, but then, after only having been drained by a doctor, had been fine the whole year since then. Stand by to see if there is any correlation between Kratom and a weakened immune system.

But then, I mentioned to Rose that I had a toothache.

She sprung into action, bringing me a vial of what she referred to as "spearmint spirits," to apply directly to the painful area with a Q-tip. This, I did, after trying to determine if it contained alcohol. It could be that ingredient that does the numbing, just like it's the 40% alcohol in some cough syrups that are so effective at putting kids "down" when they are sick.

Mention of my right ear, which has been plugged up since I submerged myself in a tub full of Epsom salts and lavender, 4 days ago now, produced two more vials from out of her copious medicine cabinet, one with isopropyl alcohol, and the other containing an expensive, prescription only, ear drop solution (Neomycin and Polymyxin B Sulfates and Hydrocortizone Otic Suspension, for those of you keeping score at home). She also offered me Ibuprofen, if I needed more.

I decided not to charge her interest on the money, in light of all that.

Rose and Ed seem to be those types of people who are in a constant battle against medical conditions and ailments.

Just as being paranoid doesn't mean that everyone isn't out to get you, being a hypochondriac doesn't insure that you aren't going to get all kinds of diseases, I guess.

"Ed has to have two surgeries next week," said Rose.

Of course Ed has to have two surgeries next week...

"It's to remove those lymph nodes that are the size of golf balls..."

Don't lymph nodes swell up due to their working overtime in order to produce histamine, because of the presence of some allergen?

My own glands will swell if I'm taking in too much (whatever can trigger histamine production) and I will eventually develop eczema that can be traced right to the swollen glands, if my intake goes unchecked.

If I were to go to a doctor who recommended surgery to remove those glands, so they wouldn't produce histamine and, hence, wouldn't cause my skin to itch, I would tell him that he was out of his mind.

After that operation, when I encountered an allergen, I would be spinning the wheel of fortune to see where the symptoms would find an outlet. ...my brain is telling the glands to make histamine but the glands aren't there anymore, so that part of the brain is developing a tumor... That's OK, we can schedule the tumor surgery for the week after; and the pain meds that you'll be bringing back to Sacred Heart Apartments will be out of this world; you'll come home a hero, for sure.

They say that tonsils are removed from children when they become inflamed because they are not necessary and are relics from an era when we humans ingested a lot of grass and rocks in our diets, and needed the tonsils to secrete some kind of super lubricant or something to help "digest" the grass and pass the rocks. The gall bladder is in this category, too. But, they are just guessing, and snipping away.

Will they discover, in my lifetime, that tonsils play a role in the overall health of a person? "...their becoming inflamed in a youth is an indication of an imbalance between X and Y.....and the inflammation leaving the tonsils is the best indication of a return to this balance, thus they are very useful organs to have...." type of thing.

But, Rose knew all about "swimmer's ear," because she used to get it as a child.

Of course she did.

She was, most likely, that pale, plump, weak little girl who was always sick; couldn't take the heat, or the cold, or the dry air or the humid air, or the sun, or the wind, or the moon.

It's one of the only diseases that one can contract from swimming, besides drowning, and so, sign Rose up, I guess.

"Plus, I used to burn, because my skin is so light..." added Rose.

My First Encounter With Hospital Culture: 1986

I knew a young lady, back when I was in my mid twenties, who seemed to be very accident prone. She would fall down the stairs and bang her head, or sprain an ankle, or cut herself with a kitchen knife, etc. every other week, it seemed.

Then would arrive an ambulance, whose driver, instead of being given a street address had been told "It's Meador, again."

And there would be like a reunion: "Hi, Diane, what happened; did you fall?"
"Oh, hi, Michelle. Yeah, I tripped over my sandals and fell all the way down the stairs. It's so good to see you. How's your little girl, Suzy? See, I remembered her name!"

And then, all the "You're gonna be fine. We're gonna take care of you. Let us know if you're in pain. Can you bend it? Does it hurt here? Would you like us to raise your pillow?"s would be the sum of attention (and love?) that she may have gotten that whole week -or since the last time she dropped boiling grease on herself, or something. The E.M.T.s, the nurses, the doctors...they were kind of like the only people on earth who paid any attention to her, more than any other "family" that she may have belonged to.

And she sure seemed to be accident prone.

Diane Meador was the first "hospital culture" member that I had ever met.

10 years later, there would be another one; my girlfriend, Angela, but her, I will save for "The Angela Story," which might just be one chapter in the larger story that I am working on.

The story was initially a sidebar to what I was discussing in the blog post (Rose and Ed).

It's probably about 10,000 words and still swelling.

It started out being about my girlfriend in 1997, Angela, and the apartment complex where I moved in with her that was pretty much filled with people who had medical disabilities. It had a theme about race relations in the south, as I was encountering them "up close," for the first time.

It was a foreshadowing of Sacred Heart Apartments.

Then that story had its own back-fill which was about a woman named Pat Rose whom I had encountered in 1988.

Then, I realized that the Angela story was a piece of an even larger story, and needed something before and after it.
 
When I did acid for a bit in the early 80's, I became good at finding symbolism and hidden meaning in the universe.

My Great Novel is going to have the symbol of the rose at its heart. 

The anecdote about Pat Rose didn't come up apropos of Marissa Rose (which is Rose's actual name) but it's funny how one story led to another, within which I was reminded that Marissa is actually the second woman name "Rose" that I have met.

No Time To Read About Skeezers Right Now

• 30 Dollars Thursday
• 58 Dollars Friday
• 53 Dollars Saturday

I found 11 bucks stashed in the pocket where I keep my new guitar slide, Friday morning, after having lend Ed the 10 bucks. It was like getting it back immediately, in a way.

He never came and repaid me "the next day at the latest," and so, when Rose called earlier this (Sunday) evening, I told her that I had put all my cash on the green card.

I have to back them off a bit. It would have been nice to double the 30 bucks that she wanted over the next 16 days, but, they are so predictable that I can foresee them doing the same thing that played out last month.

I decided that I would rather get some new sneakers and a grow light for my houseplants which otherwise see direct sunlight only 4 months out of the year; etc., and I don't want to wait until June 1st, after they pay me back to get those things.

I'm trying to get through the XML programming book, and tonight would be a great time to knock out a few chapters and then try to digest them....

I called to wish my mom a happy Mother's Day, but only having had a notion to call her for some other reason before I had been reminded that it was indeed that holiday by overhearing someone...
I got her voice mail and the inbox was full, just as it had been the last time I called and got the machine...
It's a land line phone with an old fashioned tape message style answering machine...I'm not even sure that it will indicate that she had missed a call from my number; but she might read this and know that I tried to call...

That's if she gets past the Rose and Ed update before hitting the back button, LOL! ...I guess he's alive that's good, no time to read about skeezers right now...
 

Headphones Arrive

• I Write A Song In My Sleep
• 18 Dollar Wednesday
• 19 Dollar Thursday
• Rainy Friday Afternoon (now) 
• Headphones, Strings Arrive

Ownerless Kitties

"Nobody treats you like your owner can when you're master is dead, lord..."


That's it, I'll write a song called "Masterless Kitties," based upon "Motherless Children," by Eric Clapton, I'll shoot a video...


"...Strangers will do the best they can, so many things strangers can't understand..." (pan to shot of cut up Vienna Sausages in a Styrofoam sitting on the sidewalk by the apartment building).


Then I can make a fake body with the guts disemboweled and stick my head "through the hole" so it looks like it's my body, and put cat food in there so when Harold eats it, it looks like he is eating my guts, while the song plays...


Then I woke up. With "Motherless Children," playing in my head. It was about 9 AM.


I decided to go rattle my keys in the parking lot to see if Harold wanted to come in and eat. He had missed a 1:30 AM feeding after I hadn't seen him when I got back from busking and making 19 bucks in two hours. It had been a Wednesday night.

Calling Harold When He's Preoccupied...

Harold was probably still pretty full from Tuesday, which saw me stay in from busking and catch up on a few things. With him in the house, and myself opening a fresh can of food every time he stood by his dish and meowed, he had managed to put away about 4 cans throughout the day. This is about twice what he had been up to consuming. And he is skinny. I do worry about "worms" and have started to look into at least trying to find some free clinic run by the SPCA, or something, to try to bring his medical care up to at least the level of the average homeless person. I think they can get wormed for free if they flash their Obama phone, or something...


Rattling my keys summons Harold within a minute, or not at all. So I figure that he can hear the keyring from up to about a minutes run away. Judging by the speed at which he comes through the gate, this is probably about 400 feet.


I could record my keys rattling and, using the Audacity sound editor, analyze the frequency spectrum, and then Google the "specs" on cat ears to see in which frequency range they are most sensitive, to see if the sound is even in the optimal range. I want to make a special cat whistle of some sort, which he might be able to hear from up to a half mile away, once I find out the optimal frequency.


Just because cats can hear higher notes than humans, doesn't mean that they can hear those tones from great distances, so I don't assume that I have to make an ultra high pitched whistle. That is a consideration only in regards to my not wanting to disturb Sacred Heart residents with my cat whistle at 2 AM. What they can't hear can't bother them (the imaginary people whom they hold conversations with notwithstanding) right?


But, if I find the frequency that "carries" the farthest (I guess, based upon the air pressure here, at 11 feet below sea level) then I would go ahead and make a whistle at that note, to obtain maximum calling distance. As far as the Sacred Heart residents, I will just take a "This if for all the times you've fallen asleep with something on the stove and set the building's fire alarm off."


One of the readers of this blog, Alex in California, makes trumpets out of PVC tubing. I have a feeling that I'll be able to make a cat whistle out of that ubiquitous tubing found strewn on the ground at nearly every construction site on earth...


On the frequency/distance matter, my gut feeling tells me that it is going to be a matter of how loudly I can sound a particular one (given the sonic qualities and limits of inexpensive plumbing materials). For example, cats may indeed be able to hear a 22 kilohertz tone, but, how loudly could that tone be produced through a PVC trumpet, compared to notes closer to "middle C," that one might be able to really blare through the thing?


One incidental matter -I found what I believe to be a trombone mouthpiece laying on the sidewalk in the Quarter about a year ago now. I pocketed the thing, just on the general principal that it was laying on the ground and free, and that its shape suggests a pot smoking pipe in a pinch, and that there is probably about a 7% chance that somewhere, at some time, I'll be walking past a group of horn players with their heads down because they were ready to jam, but the trombone player forgot to bring his mouthpiece.


On The Way

I've done it; I've gone and spent some money and the Mel Bay Modern Guitar Method books 2 and 3 are in transit, and should arrive here in about a week. There are some strings coming, and a new set of studio headphones.


I was ready to buy some 30 dollar ones that were on sale for 20, but found some 40 dollar ones, on sale for 30. There is a greater savings with the 30 dollar ones being a third off, but there is diminishing returns in the fact that they are cheaper headphones. I mean, would I buy a crappy 10 dollar set if they were unbelievably priced at 50 cents?


So, I decided that saving 25% on a more expensive set was the way to go. Plus, I have learned in the past that headphones, along with car speakers and audio components in general are something that you thank yourself over and over for having spent more on, so long ago that the sting of the financial hit has worn off.


I can't even remember the brand, but they have 50mm "drivers," and I read a bunch of reviews of them and gleaned that they should be just fine for my studio. Reviews of almost anything that I buy are always rationalizations that whatever it is is a good deal "for the money." They often allude to what they would buy "of course, if I had $1,000 to sink into headphones, I'd get..." type of thing. What bugs me is the "for the price, you can't go wrong..." Really?


If you hand me 4 cents, and I put a steaming gob of cat shit in your hand; you went wrong. For the money.


The Mel Bay books are necessary to keep a fire lit under myself and stir myself out of the complacency that being in a comfort zone from being able to knock out The Merry Men like a pro, puts me.


At some point in book 4, I will come up against the wall of unchartered territory, when I reach the furthest point that I had ever gotten in the books.


But, again, back then, I was in a rush to get to book 8, thinking that, once there, I would be playing at "that" level just by dint of putting my fingers where the polka dots on the staff indicate. I would "complete" a song and then move on, telling myself that "The Grey Goose," can only sound simple and boring, and that I had "learned" it well enough...


I'm going to make another Mel Bay based "instructional" video using one of the better songs out of book 1 in the next week, before the next 2 books arrive.


I'm kind of happy with the way I've managed my money. I've grabbed little things like socks and carpet cleaner, and kept Harold fed, and have still been able to eke out a modest savings onto my green card.


I waited until I had about 120 bucks on the thing before spending 30 on headphones, 8 on the Mel Bay books and 5 on strings.

This is good, because I was able to go, the very next morning after having warped the rim and broken the bearings on my back bike tire, to a little bike shop that I never knew was about a half mile away until I Googled it, and have "Neil," put a used back wheel on the thing for 25 bucks, total. That brought my green card balance down to like 15 bucks, but the stuff I ordered is on the way, and I didn't miss a day due to the bike being broken, and so that is good. I didn't have to ride to the Lilly Pad on a wobbly back wheel to busk up the money for a new one. I'm glad I didn't dip into what turned out to be the emergency fund to get a new harmonica, which I almost did.


It's Thursday, about 2 PM, and there are a couple things I could do.


I'm trying to record a lot of guitar parts that I might sing over, once I find some empty building somewhere that the owner would let me use as a studio.


Even if I play a song and sing it half-assed because I don't want to scream at 3 AM in the apartments, I am going back and playing another guitar along with the first -one that will follow the song perfectly and that I can sing over later...


A group came by last night, when I was making 18 bucks in 2 hours, and wanted to buy a CD of my stuff, if I had one...


They wound up tipping 10 bucks, hanging out for almost an hour in the process. They were from Scotland.



You've just read: 1,612 words. POWERED BY ↁ DANIEL-SOFT TEXT SOLUTIONS ↁ"

Friday, May 12th, 2:48 PM

I wound up packing my stuff up a little before 9 PM last (Thursday) night and going out to busk.

I made 19 bucks in a couple hours but, as usual, it could have been more.

There was a very drunken group that hung out, giving me first, 8 bucks and then telling me at one point that they were going to give me another 10 and then kind of forgetting to do so, 20 minutes later when they finally left.

I just couldn't bring myself to mention "Oh, were you going to give me that ten?" since I was trying to remain "above" the material aspect of playing.

I ran into a trumpet player who sounded pretty good about 4 blocks down on my way home.
He asked me if I wanted to jam, and we made 20 bucks in about 5 minutes, playing "What A Wonderful World," by Louis Armstrong.
Then a skeezer showed up.

He was a "rainbow child" skeezer, wearing hippie type of clothing that was kind of unisex, halfway between a sun dress and something that a guy might wear, a silken "skirt" type thing above his sandal clad, dirty feet. He was bearded, drunk and had pretty obviously done a quick stop and about-face because he smelled the pot that Wyatt from Austin, Texas had lit up.

It was Wyatt's first night in the Quarter, and he has not become jaded enough (yet) to have seen the obvious intention of the skeezer.

The skeezer stopped and asked us first, if we were "rainbow."

Neither of us were.

I'm pretty sure that he asked us that thinking that, if we answered in the affirmative, he could have continued with: "Well, then pass the joint!" It is one of the annoying beliefs that the rainbow children have that everything is everybody's and we all share the rainbow love.
The problem is that the "drainbows," as a particular element are referred to, never seem to be the ones who have anything, but are always the ones ready to share what you have because, of course, they would do the same, if they ever had anything to share.

So, the skeezer stood there, after having gotten the information that we were not rainbow.
There was a disjointedness about the guy's skeeze, based upon the fact that Wyatt was spending his first night here and a ripe candidate for all the skeezes that can be applied to such a guy, yet, I was standing there, with my 6 years of experience in the Quarter, seeing through everything he was about.

The skeezer was spewing out everything he could think of in the category of trumpet playing, telling Wyatt that he had a beautiful trumpet and that he (the skeezer) loved trumpet, dropping a couple of household-name players that even people who hate the trumpet could call to mind.

He was effusively complementary, and, of course extolled the beauty of music as an art form and talked about how beautiful a gift it is to share with fellow humanity all the while, tracking the joint with his eyes like a Yorkshire Terrier watching a human at a dinner table eating meatballs which are precariously perched on his fork.

Then, the skeezer, after perhaps thinking that he had convinced us that he was actually a pretty cool dude underneath it all and not a skeezer who is all about sharing whatever he can of everybody else's stuff, finally skeezed: "Hey, can I have some of that?"

He took a few hits and then sat down where his already challenged brain was flooded with THC and he began to sing, loudly and out of tune, over whatever Wyatt and I were playing. He probably thought he was being clever.


The 20 dollar bills certainly stopped flowing at that point.

After about 10 minutes of the guy singing, I felt that it was my duty to demonstrate to the new guy in town how it is a good idea to run such people off, and was about to stop and ask the guy if he would leave. He didn't have to stop singing; just do it somewhere else.

At that point, Wyatt stopped playing.

"It must be my singing," said the skeezer.

"No, you're cool," said Wyatt. "I just need to rest my lip; I'm still getting it back in shape..."
I thought this might have been a nice way of his saying: "Yeah, it's your singing."

But, after telling the guy that his singing was cool, the skeezer seemed to reconsider things and plopped himself down, waiting I guess for Wyatts lip to become rested.
At that point, I started packing up.

"It looks like your trying to leave," said Wyatt.

"Yeah, I... (nodding my head quickly towards the skeezer) I need some rest myself..."
At this point the skeezer left. He had gotten what he wanted, after all. The music that he had found so fascinating and had wanted to stick around to hear, while the joint was being passed at least, had lost its hold on him. He walked off, on his dirty bare feet to go find some more things that he might share with others.

Wyatt and I split the 20 bucks, and I rode back to the apartment.


Recording

My latest process is to run through the list of songs that I am planning upon putting on the CD, in order, trying to make sure that I hit all 12 of them for at least a couple verses each (it would take over an hour to play them all the way through). 

I kind of melt from one into the next. It's quite enjoyable to listen back later, while it gives me practice in mixing the audio. 

Through trial and error, I've come up with certain default settings.

If I pull a bit of the 100 hz range out of the guitar and voice, compress it at about 1:1.5, add a middle-ground amount of delay and reverb then it sounds pretty nice (the performance quality notwithstanding). It's kind of like clicking on "enhance" to touch up a photo, which corrects anything that is drastically out of balance.

Doing this will keep the songs fresh in my mind and, on any given night, one of the 12 might come out well enough to make it onto the CD after having been added to and produced. I want to leave an open track for vocals to be done, maybe in a little chapel in Baton Rouge that I discovered while I was there 3 years ago, now.

I guess religion isn't really popular at Louisiana Southern University, and there is a little Baptist chapel with about a dozen pews on each side of a maybe 50 foot aisle, leading to an altar and, off to the side, a piano -a pretty nicely tuned little piano. When I was homeless in Baton Rouge, I would sometimes sleep in the little foyer in front of the front door of the place. One had to be up and out before a custodian came to vacuum the rug at about 6 AM, even though he was cool and would only nicely ask you to leave. I guess he was vacuuming the rug so early so that the chapel would be ready for a 7 AM "sunrise" service, attended by no more than 5 people from what I saw. Then, for the greater part of the day, the chapel would sit empty; but unlocked, in case someone wanted to go in and pray during the day, I guess.

That was 3 years ago and I think about that as being a great place to record vocals, and to have a piano available for just playing along with the music on an empty track. There is something about adding an acoustic piano to the mix, even if it's in the background, that changes the overall tone of a piece.

So many Rolling Stones or even Bob Seger songs wouldn't have the same charm without the piano, even though the listener might be focusing upon the vocals and guitars... 

The drawback would be that I have been written up for "trespassing," by the LSU police.
My "trespassing" involved just sitting on a bench nearby the same church when accosted by a couple of cops who were basically profiling me because of my backpack and guitar and clothing.

They asked me for ID, and then basically told me that because I had a "history," in other words I had been arrested before for anything, that they didn't want me on the campus. After they ran my name, my 12 year old warrant from North Carolina came up. It was "do not extradite," as it has been the whole time, but it was enough of en excuse for them to tell me that I was being "trespassed" from the campus.

Then, of course, they wanted to search my backpack. I don't know what my rights were in the situation. They had to ask me if it was alright if they searched my backpack, using all the b.s. police tactics that are pretty much universal, "...if you've got nothing to hide, you shouldn't mind," etc. 

The problem with giving them permission to search is that, once inside the bag, they could construe anything as potentially illegal and arrest you. 

A plastic bag of sweet basil leaves that you picked from an herb garden and use for a seasoning? "If it comes back from the lab (in 2 to 4 weeks) clean, then they'll let you out, and you'll have nothing to worry about (except the 2 to 4 weeks of your life that has been run off the clock)."

Rose And Ed

Rose called last night, wanting to borrow money. I told her that I had less than 20 bucks and was going out to play to try to get more.

Ed called this morning, wanting to borrow 20 bucks and would pay me back 40. "I might even have it tonight, or tomorrow at the latest," said Ed, repeating pretty much what he has said for the past 6 months or so, when wanting to borrow on about the middle of the month.

I'm pretty sure he needs the money for gas in order to go to some pharmacy on the other side of the river, where he gets some kind of medication that he can turn around and sell some of, to pay someone like me back. Or he can start eating the pills and then decide that they are more important than paying me back.

The past 6 months, after asking for a loan of about 50 bucks on about the 7th of each month, they have invariably shown up right around this time (the 12th) wanting to borrow some small amount, which is probably for gas to get over there, and cigarettes.

But the "I'll probably have it tonight; or tomorrow at the latest," has never come to fruition.
This morning, I had 22 bucks sitting on my coffee table. I told Ed that I needed to check the balance on my AMEX green card before I did anything.

He told me that I could do it at his place, on Rose's phone.

I told him that I only wanted to use my laptop because trying to access my account from a new device might raise a flag and cause me to have to verify that it is myself, etc.
He told me that I could bring my laptop up there and connect to their wireless and check my balance.

I got to the apartment and fired up the laptop.

"You'll need to put your password in," I said, preparing to turn my back while he did it.
"Oh, Rose has all that information, that's her thing..."
Ok, so he invited me up to his apartment to check my balance, but wasn't thinking that I would need a password? Or did he just want to get me there, physically present so he could ratchet up his skeeze?

He then told me that he had broken a tooth and that he was in so much pain at that very second, could I just lend him the 20 bucks, even though I hadn't checked my balance and it very well could be my own cigarettes and energy drink etc. that I would be giving them, could I just do it because he is in such pain?
I reiterated that I needed to check my balance.

He then proffered Rose's phone: "You can use this," he said.

I had already told him that I didn't want to try to access my account from a strange device but, in a manner true to skeezers, had conveniently forgotten that bit of information, or more likely, had assumed that it was just some bald faced lie that I had told and would have forgotten saying it myself.

I decided that they weren't clever enough to have installed a keystroke recording application on their phone and would be able to go back and retrieve my password to log in to my account, and I went ahead and tediously pecked in my full e-mail address and password, while Ed stood nearby, rocking his body from side to side.

My balance was $5.41.

"Dude, I only have $5.41 in my account, I can't lend any money, I'm almost broke..."
Then, I started to leave. "Are you going to your apartment?" asked Ed, who was following along with me, continuing to ask for the money and promising me that he would pay me back "tonight, or tomorrow at the latest.."

At one point, I mumbled something that he affected to have taken as my having caved in: "Oh, thank you, Thank you so much, you don't know how much I appreciate this. If you knew how much my tooth hurt..."

"Oh, I can't lend you the money. I don't know if it's going to rain tonight and I won't make a cent. I'm almost out of cigarettes..."

He had just wanted to give me an example of the kind of effusive gratitude I could expect should I give him the money. So, I wanted to spell out the fact that, if I gave him my last 20 bucks, I could find myself without my basic creature comforts (even though I had gone out and had worked and had earned enough to cover all my needs).

I guess this was a test to see if he would betray himself as caring more about his own needs.
Another common tack of skeezers at this point would be to promise me that It wasn't going to be a hardship for me, as if he had a crystal ball: "You'll make it back, the Quarter is packed....er...Rose was down there earlier, she said it was packed...you're gonna make good money tonight..."

But, instead, Ed asked: "Well, can you do ten, I'll borrow the rest from my sister?"
I decided to give Ed the ten bucks, telling him that if I didn't get it back "tonight or tomorrow at the latest," then I might be "f***ed."

In the confusion of the moment, being begged profusely every step of the way to my apartment, and having conceded the loan of ten bucks to him, it also passed that there was no mention of the "I'll pay you back double," which has been our usual policy. It was just, "Well, can you do ten?"

He was going to pay me back double for the 20, originally, but I can picture him saying "No, that was a straight loan, remember I asked you if you could do ten, but didn't add that I would pay you back double...? You see, if I had the 20 then it would have helped me enough so I could have been able to pay you back double, but with only 10, I didn't have enough to get the pain pills that I usually sell...." or something.

This has all become petty enough and enough of a nuisance, especially with them having hit me up for another 30 bucks last month, 7 dollars here, 5 dollars there, which were loans that never got tallied into their total, due to the ruse of "Don't tell Ed I borrowed this, he's be pissed..." that I am looking at a 10 dollar buy-out of my "contract" with them.

If he is true to form and doesn't pay me back the 10 tonight or tomorrow, then, when they inevitably show up the next time of the month that they always need money (24th through 30th) I am going to shake my head and say: "You know I really f***ed myself lending you that 10 that you said I'd get back that night or the next day....I couldn't even get an energy drink to wake me up the next morning..." or something.

When it works, it's a great way for me to invest some of my cash each month.

Wednesday Morning At Five O' Clock

As the day begins...

Monday night, I was at Starbucks in the Quarter until they closed at 10 PM., and, since I had my guitar and all my gear on me, decided to go out and play, which I did for a couple of hours, making about 15 bucks.
I had taken some Kratom leaf capsules after leaving Starbucks, and knew that I wanted to play some good stuff, either at the apartment or at the playing spot.

Bike Wheel Warps

I only went out, on the 4th day of a juice fasting that Tuesday night was, to get some apple juice and a pint of blueberries.

I was craving blueberries, and wondering if having mega-dosed them by eating a huge bag of them was responsible for the improvement in my memory that I've been experiencing -I'm much better at putting a pot on the stove to boil and then going off and doing a few other things, before returning to it, rather than standing there, watching it..

Before, I would get involved in something until stirred from my reverie by the sound of boiling and hissing water coming from the kitchen.

It could be the Kratom, which seems to effect me like ephedrine used to, as far speeding up my reading, for example.

It seems like, somewhere in history, someone would have been stranded somewhere with nothing but blueberries to live on; and he would have noticed if his memory had suddenly improved. It's probably the Kratom.

I just like to save it for when it is busking time, even though I get a lot done around the house when I take some. And I don't want to develop a tolerance for it, because it's 11 bucks for what is about 3 days worth for me now.

It's easy for me to avoid anxiety on the stuff, like when I made a mistake in the studio and had messed up a track I recorded. I just took a few deliberate steps, set up my stuff and re-did it; no stressing out at all... 

One the way back from getting blueberries, I cut the wheel of my bike viciously while hopping over a curb of the kind that slopes downward to the road, ostensibly so you can pull off the road by driving over it, in a move that is like something that surfers do, when they are kind of going with the grain of a wave and then they pivot abruptly, cutting back into the wave and using the leverage to propel themselves or shoot themselves upward or something (that's probably when a lot of those rare cervical spine injuries come from; from boards that get torqued by the wave and come around and whack them).

As I was moving almost parallel to and gradually ascending the curb, I cut my front wheel so as to use the curb as a ramp and hop a bit, which I did, but I bent the back rim pretty badly.
I now go to ride the crippled thing to the nearest couple of bike shops...