A Once A Week Post, These Days

• Ears 50% After Two Weeks (ringing right now)
• Saturday Night: 18 Bucks
  
• Sunday Night 18 More
• Post not proof-read; possible mistakes in text
• Kratom And Hearing Loss? 

  

  "Kratom" leaf

I Stopped in front of Walgreen's on Canal Street, thinking about going in and spending some of the 18 bucks that I had made, Saturday night. 
I had been playing with stuffed up ears. I have had the condition for a couple of weeks now.

I started taking Kratom around the time my ears became warm and fuzzy and ringing.

But then remembered that I had food at the apartment; I had gone with Rose and Ed in the Rose and Ed-mobile, to the Winn Dixie about a mile up the road on Carollton Street.



Rose had called and woken me up at just about the point that I had attained 8 hours of sleep, or 5:30 in the afternoon.

She said that she had gotten some cat "wormer" and had paid 7 bucks for it, and, didn't need it. She only wanted "3 or 4 dollars" for it.


Health

My ears have been just clear enough for me to go out and busk. It is actually a bonus that I have been pushing myself to sound louder and trying material that can be done so, such as "House of the Rising Sun," which can be either done in a low-down kind of Otis Redding way, or a full-out Animals (the band) way, an octave higher.


I made 44 bucks Friday night, on my first night back from the ear infection.


This was timely, as I was able to apply it to the gaping hole in the dam that was leaking the lake of money which was the $120 that Rose and Ed had paid me back that morning.


My weed bill with Lancaster (not his real name) in building C was at 60 dollars.


This had slowly accrued over a period of at least a couple months.

The 8 nights that I took off from busking because of the ear infection fell in the week before I was to get the Rose and Ed money, and so I was able to borrow weed against that expected windfall, and, hence, spent the week pretty stoned, doing all kinds of projects that would probably go faster, but wouldn't be as much fun, if I wasn't.


In so many ways, music is God's way of providing for his children who can't do anything else, like fly a jet plane, because they are too stoned.


I have just gotten the idea for a project to make a "list" of the top ten rock and roll songs that were recorded by musicians that had just smoked a joint.


For regrettable legal reasons, this information may have been kept under wraps (excuse the pun) by a lot of artists. 

There's the stoner in the lower left corner

hiding behind shades...

Jeff "skunk"* Baxter (Doobie Brothers, Steely Dan) the guitarist said about the guitar solo on the song "Dependin' On You," from the Doobie Brother's "Minute By Minute" album; this after having broken down another solo to the level of what modalities he used; "That one was one where I just smoked a joint and then sat back and let it fly..."

*"skunk" is a nickname for a potent kind of pot that has a bit of a smell similar to the pole cat; but so does Heineken beer if you let a bottle warm up and then re-refrigerate it...
I feel in my very fiber that John Lennon's insistence that the song "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds," was NOT about, nor inspired by, L.S.D. is a bunch of B.S.
I might even be tied to some clause in a contract that he unwittingly signed, stipulating that the "image" of the band shall be preserved as a lovable bunch of mop-tops who sing about holding hands, and are wholesome and good.

If John were to say that he was tripping his teeth out when he wrote it; maybe he would have been found to be in breach of that contract and would reap no gain from the Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.


The Beatles "experimented with drugs," it has been documented (admitted) by them.


I also ,sensibly, experimented with acid enough to have seen rocking-horse people eating marshmallow pies, and the only way that the song was truly inspired by a drawing by John's then toddler daughter which had been hung on the refrigerator, as John firmly and steadily asserted, is if it was a Freudian slip that occurred when, after she told him she had named it "Lucy, in the sky, with diamonds," he was struck by an impulse to write a song; after subliminally seeing LSD in the title; and it was his subconscious mind's way of saying "What's with all the LSD? about the drawing, not conscious of his subconscious mind's recognition of the initials in its name.


It also occurred to me that, perhaps at school, some kids may have told the girl: "I heard your dad takes L.S.D," and that was as close as she wanted to get to actually asking him if he did. But that is about as far as this blog will go into the psychology of a the family of a guy who I only know from listening to his records.


I knocked on Rose and Ed's door at about 8 PM, coffee in hand, and after having "woken up," some.


I had boiled some marrow bones early Saturday morning, and had enjoyed a thick broth of marrow, after having poured some "vegetarian" beans into it. But then I piled on by eating bananas with peanut butter, with the result being that I slept like a rock, and still felt like a rock after I had finally called it a night's sleep a bit before 9 PM.


The surge of energy that I always get at that time, from years (4) of going out to play at about that time every night, was enough to lift me to a sitting position and propel me into the kitchen to put coffee on.


I had decided, after having slept about 2 hours on the matter, to buy the cat wormer stuff off of Rose and Ed.

It crossed my mind that it had occurred to Rose, upon seeing Harold the cat in his skinny state with a lack-luster coat, to take the initiative in purchasing the worming stuff and that she was either going to administer it to him without my knowledge, but in good faith, to Harold, or to entrust me with being able to administer it to him by giving it to me, and then that she had deemed it prudent to offer the stuff to me at half its market price. That way, I would most likely jump at the chance to save money on something that I would like to use on Harold, since it can't hurt him even if he doesn't have roundworms, as Rose suspects he does. That way, she would be lighting a fire under me to get using the stuff immediately, and she herself would only pay half the price of the stuff. She claimed to have had the receipt, by the way...


So, I gave them 5 bucks for the worm stuff, then came back to the apartment.


I ran over to Lancaster's and spent 10 bucks on bud, and then ran into Rose and Ed, who were getting into the Rose and Ed-mobile.


They were going to Winn Dixie, the said, then asked if I wanted to come along.


I figured, why not? I'm going to want to eat something, and we would be back to the building in time for me to leave to go out busking delayed by maybe a half hour at the most. It was Saturday night, but it had rained off and on the whole day, and it was about a coin toss' odds of getting drenched by being outside for 5 hours.


The Rose and Ed mobile was a portrait of themselves.


It has been in and out of the repair shop just about as much as they each had been in and out of hospitals.

"Learn GIMP in 24 Hours:" Hour 0

The front driver's side window is missing. It's an SUV. I have never looked at it closely enough to see what exact make it is; I guess my attention is always drawn to things that need repair or inflating on the thing whenever I walk by where it usually sits in the parking lot.


"Is this an automatic?" I asked Ed, after noticing (and feeling) that the motor had reved up to about 3,000 rpm's before it was shifted down to a lower gear, either by Ed or (see above).


"Yeah,"


"'Cause it revved up pretty high in second gear,"


"Yeah, the transmission needs adjustment," said Ed, and I could feel a ripple go through the atmosphere, as if the transmission's needing adjusting, along with the driver's side window needing replacing might be a source of anxiety for the couple.


Before we had left the parking lot, a black lady of about 50 had approached and offered 10 dollars to Rose and Ed to drop her off at a certain block. "Where they just had the shooting," I added, as a way of putting in my 2 cents, after the woman had given Ed directions to the block, which was actually not too far out of our way, and had redirected our trip along a triangle with each of its sides being a mile.


The lady spent most of the trip yelling into her phone out of which could be heard a voice yelling on the other end. It was the most "ghetto" kind of language which was almost comic against the backdrop of her having presented herself very demurely and almost graciously, calling to mind a grandmother, to ask if Ed wanted to make 10 bucks as a stand-in Uber driver.


It was a meek, quiet, unassuming and pleasant lady who occupied the seat next to me; until she answered her phone about a quarter way into the trip to drop her off. Then, her volume level tripled and she began to let fly, as I said, some pretty vintage ghetto jargon, with "She a ho!" being one of the highlights, in my opinion. At one point she released a volley of "So what you sayin?"s of which I counted at least 8, in a machine-gun style while whoever was on the other end kept right up with her and said what she was saying. It was like a high level ping-pong match where the ball is ghetto jargon, and they slashed back and forth, trying to maybe put a little English on it...


"She a ho!" I said, after we had dropped her off at "my block," making Ed and Rose laugh.


"No, I'm just repeating what she said on the phone," I said, laughing myself.


"What ever happened to "I'll call you back in a few minutes, right now I'm in a vehicle with 3 other people, and I'm yelling as loud as I can?'"


I thought about it later and, I think the fact that she hadn't heard about the shooting a few days earlier in a place that she had adamantly insisted was her neighborhood and her people, meant that she might have been lying, and that, coupled with her phone call it paints a picture of an older black lady that might have feared that we might be crazy white people that were going to hold her prisoner and torture her, and she was trying to make it seem like, where we were going, she had a lot of friends, and that, as evidenced by the phone conversation, she was from the deep down hood, and the were 100 percent ghetto friends; so just bring her to her destination and don't mess with her, no little side excursions for Ed and I to pin her down in the back of the SUV while Rose, wearing a halloween mask, did her with a strap-on dildo -or whatever white people do to her kind -it's been so long since I've read any "crime" magazines...


I will say, though, from the ones that I have perused in the past; that the kind of people who do those kind of things are often almost indistinguishable in appearance from a long-haired street musician and two pill heads; I'll concede that...


It was a bit after 10:30 when we got back to the apartments, so I placed the bag containing instant oatmeal, 2 cans of cat food, a half gallon of apple juice and a yam, down on the kitchen counter and then hit the ground running in an effort to go directly out and play. I managed to leave before a half hour had passed, after having run through the checklist.


Note, the Hohner Special 20 harmonica has gotten one of it's holes plugged up, after about 2 months of use. I would, and hopefully can, buy another one.



These 3 or 4 days (Sunday through Wednesday) I like to spend working on writing and drawing and recording music, along with reading and studying.

I was in the Goodwill store Saturday morning, and was able to find some CD's (Johnny Cash, a tribute to John Lennon by sundry musicians, and Tchaikovsky's Symphony "No. 6," along with a book on XML and another one on the GIMP image manipulation program that I have been trying, without the aid of any kind of book or manual, to learn, without any success for a while now.


The CD's were 99 cents each, the books; 50 cents each.


It was a cosmic occasion, as I saw, in the CD rack, a copy of Elvis Costello's "King of America," and then, there was a CD that would change my life. Actually any CD that I might have gotten would have changed my life, as I would eventually listen to it, rather than do something else with my life...but.


The CD was an Amnesty International campaign compilation of different artists doing John Lennon songs, named "Instant Karma," and all the proceeds were to go towards saving Darfur. It came out around 2003 and is evidence that, at that time I must not have been listening to many news broadcasts, 'cause I've never heard of the place.


Yoko Ono wrote a paragraph in the liner notes giving the endeavor her blessings.


A few notes on the CD:


The highlight of the double CD, was no surprise to me, by being Christina Aguilera singing "Mother," and being up to the task of rendering the "scream therapy" crescendo, made famous by Mr. Lennon.


The dismal low point was a vapid rendition of "Power To The People," done by The Black Eyes Peas, with what I guess is a prerequisite for them, rap section in the middle, where an intelligent artist may have freestyled some lyrics pertinent to what John Lennon was talking about, politically.


Instead, what sounded like a puffed up (and who I imagined to look like M.C. Hammer, after he had ballooned up to about 300 pounds, had mismanaged away all his "You Can't Touch This" money, and who appeared in any subsequent photos wearing a deer in the headlights expression, as if the camera was the tax collector) on his own ego rapper, just yelled the word "power" repeatedly. It was apparent that he was just "rapping" about power, in general, having no idea what the original song was about. He would pause, as if trying to think of something, at one point uttering the "You've got to be kidding me," rhyme of "It's the hour for power!," before spitting out a few more repetitions of the word "power," and then pausing again, perhaps searching for words like sour, dour, tower, flower or even flour, which all must have eluded him. In his mind, he might have been personifying the word by emphsizing the "pow," as if he was having visions of inciting the crowd to swing their fists and take up arms; "POWer, POWer, POWer!" That seemed to be about how deep his ideology was.


A band I had never heard of before named: The Flaming Lips did a version of "(Just like) Starting Over," that was as "artistically" done as the original.


There was also a Johnny Cash CD called: "The Legend of Johnny Cash," still in the plastic wrapper, which has, I guess, what are his 21 best songs on it, to include the Nine Inch Nails song, "Hurt," which he released not long before he passed away. Johnny Cash songs are good for a busker to have in his repertoire. They are requested every so often and always, it seems, by someone who looks like he is ready to throw a large tip, should you prove to know "Hey, Porter" all the way through with even the little guitar lick thrown in correctly between the verses.


I will have to listen to the disc before commenting more.


But, when I think of Johhny Cash, I always think back to a time in 1981.

I had just completed Army basic training, and had been sent to complete my "Advanced Individual Training," or A.I.T, to become a combat medic, at Fort Sam Houston, in San Antonio, Texas.


My Army experience, at that point, had gone from being subject to 8 weeks of basic training during the winter months at Fort Dix, in New Jersey, where I remember having to get out of a warm sleeping bag in the dark at 4 AM, and then don an ice cold uniform, while trying not to become entangled with my "buddy," Boyd who was attempting to do the same thing in the same "two man" pup tent. And I can remember, while changing out of the tee shirt that I had slept in (because it would be moist) the bare skin of my back touching the fabric of the tent which was coated with ice from the frozen condensation from our having breathed in it on that 20 degree night. When the shock from the cold went through me, I kind of intuitively sensed that I had just then gone through what would be the worst part of basic training...


Then, in early May, I stepped off the plane in San Antonio, and thought that I must have been right underneath one of the turbine engines, and could feel it's heat; but, looking up, I saw only the sun. It was the hottest sunlight that I had ever felt, having never left New England before then, and I felt like I was in a tropical paradise.


The army regimen had softened, with us being woken at 5 AM, rather than an hour earlier, and us being let out of training at 3:30 in the afternoon, free to do as we pleased, until bedtime and the 10PM. headcount.


I spent a lot of time in the base library, attached by cheap rubber cupped headphones to one of the phonographs, having culled from the eclectic mix of music the same stuff that I listened to at home. Cranking up the album "Rocks," by Aerosmith to the point where the librarian tapped me on the shoulder and aprised me of the fact that one of the shortcomings of the cheap, vinyl cupped headphones (that probably cost the government 500 dollars per pair) was that they leaked and that he could hear Aerosmith "Rocks" all the way over behind the counter where he was stationed.


There was, what seemed to me, a disproportionately large "Country and Western" section in that library. I knew nothing about it. It was all Ringo Starr singing "Act Naturally," to me.


Then, I noticed one of the female trainees sitting a couple tables down from me, listening to music and crying.


Upon noticing me looking at her, she lifted the cups off her ears, and said: "I'm sorry, but this just makes me so homesick.."


I just smiled, a little bit in awe of music's transcendental power, and a little bit wondering if being overcome by homesickness was a sign of weakness and if she was going to crack under pressure, start bawling and get us all killed somewhere down the road...


I became curious, though, and walked over by her and actually had to rotate my head at a rate of 45 times a second in order to get a bead on the label and there, spinning around like a sock in a dryer was the name: Johnny Cash.


I had heard the name before, and was pretty sure that people revered him, but didn't think anyone actually listened to him; and here was this girl crying. She must be from some place in between Kentucky and West Virginia, I remember thinking...


"You're crying because a guy named his son Sue?"


(laughs) "No..."


Then I realized that there really wasn't any music that would make me feel equally homesick, because when we were listening to rock and roll as kids, it seemed to be something that kids everywhere were participating in; it wasn't a Fitchburg, Massachusetts thing exclusively; and outside of English bands singing: "Oh, Boston, you're my home..." there wasn't much there.


So, I look forward to listening to the Cash CD, and maybe trying to guess which song it was on the girl's turntable.


I think that, since country songs focus a lot on family and relationships, and that it was shared from one generation to the next (unlike rock-n-roll which was turned up in order to torture parents whose music you, in turn, hated) that it is more likely that Johnny's songs would make someone feel homesick, than The Cars greatest hits.


Music was just more integral to the lives of those people who listen to Johnny Cash, I concluded then.


Then, I went and found a "Teach Yourself GIMP in 24 hours," book, along with an XML book -just what I needed to pick up from the college bookstore.


It is Monday, the 5th. My food stamp card was charged today. The day's arrival came swiftly. The months are flying by fast, which means the years are, too. I wonder if Johnny Cash has a song about that...


Tuesday, The 6th.


It is Tuesday morning, 2 AM.


I just got back from making maybe 4 dollars playing for a smattering of tourists, one of whom was a young lady, who put some change in my jar, appologizing for having no more and wishing out loud that she had had a 20 dollar bill "because you're killing it!," she added.


There have been a few nights like that in the past couple months, when I went home with maybe 25 bucks, after having almost gotten more "...I could swear I had another twenty, somewhere..."


I went out because my green card is just above 10 dollars and I have less than that in cash.


My plans to get a new harmonica and a few other things have been sidetracked.


The bigger picture shows these recent nights to be harbingers of "the slow season," which didn't used to officially begin until around the time Tanya and Dorise left in search of greener pastures, usually the last week of June, which is less than a month from now.


Making only 4 dollars on a Monday night started me thinking that, I should try to load up on the busking hours during the weekends and then go on the road, so as not to be here for much of the slow season. Even if I busk my way up the east coast to see my family in Massachusetts, upon leaving there, I wouldn't have to come straight back to New Orleans; perhaps I could continue north to Burlington, Vermont, which buzzes with August activity; that being the only month when its a hot for them 85 degrees during the day and remains in the 70's at night. It's about the only dose of "summer" they get, while at the same time, New Orleans is hot and humid and oppressive and avoided by wealthy tourists who can arrange their itinerary so as to be in Burlington, attending a Phish concert/festival or something at that time.


I will be disappointed in myself if I don't go on some kind of tour in the near future. I promised myself that I wouldn't endure another Southern Decadence festival, which is something that is always pointed to as the turning point from the slow season into the busy one, and it may be that for bar owners and others, but as far as busking, I believe I have blogged for 2 or 3 straight years about the experience of gay man after gay man walking past me as I played, as if deriving some pleasure out of ignoring me; or maybe being truly transfixed upon having sex with men that they actually did not notice me; or whatever.


After talking to Barnaby Chancellor, who was the very first person whom I met in the residential block where I play, I had almost decided to play another one and to take it as a challenge to find a way to get their "queer as a three dollar bill" dollars.


"You're whining about not making any money, when you need to realize that you have nobody to blame except yourself; you're not doing a good enough job. Take my word for it, if you sat over there and played "It's Raining Men," (goes on to explain where the song is from or something) you would have a group of them around you, singing and dancing and throwing good money in your jar!" said Barnaby.


I could almost feel my dander rising and a resolve forming within me, and adrenaline building up in my veins as I reframed the situation as a challenge, and had almost decided: Barnaby is right; I just haven't cracked the code, solved the riddle. You never know how much money you might make naked (except for a jock-strap) and painted pink until you try it. ...Myself in my bathroom at almost 5 AM, rubbing the last of the pink off my face in the mirror...in the foreground is the mound of money piled on the bed, a lot of it smeared with pink from when they stuck it under my jock-strap.....sure...


(and now that undulating blur effect that they use on screen to show a character waking from a dream)


"No, I'm taking off next August, Barnaby, if I possibly can."


That is really going to mean jumping out on the road as soon as I have a brand new Hohner Special 20, a couple sets of strings and, optimally, a camera of some kind to help document the trip on this blog. Waiting until I have amassed enough cash to feel "comfortable" traveling on probably won't be an option.


I might pick a night to play until 4 AM at the Lilly Pad and then, having my luggage with me, go from there right to a Megabus stop about 5 blocks away.


I would have locked my bike in the apartment, and I guess made some kind of arrangements for the care of Harold.


I could entrust Rose and Ed with the key to my apartment, so that they could actually let Harold in at his regular 2 AM feeding time, put dishes of food and water out for him, and then just lock him in for the night. He'll just eat and then clean himself and then lay down and sleep. They can open the apartment door at around noon, to see if Harold is indeed chomping at the bit to get outside, as is his routine.


I would be taking the only things of value, my laptop and my guitar, with me, leaving the bike behind, but I trust Rose and Ed; pretty much.


That would be the most Harold-friendly solution, as the thing might not really give a rat's ass who shows up to let him in and give him food, although, Rose not remaining there to be rubbed by its nose and to have attention demanded of, might put Harold in a funk. One of my fears is that the trip might turn into a 3 or 4 month excursion, but if it did, I suppose I could mail Rose and Ed more cash for cat food from Burlington, Vermont (where I have been staying and working on a CD with a group of musicians whom I met while busking there) or wherever.


The bike, and Harold; problems solved.


The other issue is the apartment, and how long a resident whom is recieving government assistance so that he can stay there, can not stay there.


One, if not the, basic premise behind the granting of money to get a chronically homeless person into a dwelling is the underlying determination that the person suffers from some kind of homeless-itis -the example of one guy who was given an apartment here, but who was soon seen no more there, having gone back to the same hedge by the casino where he used to lie down; after he had hustled and stayed drunk and high all night a couple blocks away, and then had made a circle around the casino collecting enough tobacco and alcohol to hunker down with.


In the morning, he would hop the trolley down to "The OZ" for their grits and eggs and sausage and orange juice breakfast, where he would encounter his friends, and a discussion would ensue, plans would be made "...as soon as that festival end, about 3, all that beer they got left over, if you got a cup or somethin' -I bring a 5 gallon bucket- they just give it away instead of dumping it out; but we have to be there a little early, you know, chill with the beer guys a little..."


business deals, too: "...you got an i-phone and a pocketbook, an empty wallet, some sunglasses and some chap stick for sale; how much for all of it...except the Chapstick?"


And, most of all, there would be a feeling of community; as people would come together, and the guy would have the sense that, should the worker have come out and raked the ashtrays clean around the casino a little early that morning, leaving him at a loss, there would be friends there to support him; ones who would understand that life had just thrown him a curve ball and who would rally around him; and, after all the cigarettes that they had gotten off of him almost every other day, they had better...


So, basically, that person had started to opt out of trying to get himself two miles up Canal Street and back each day, so he could sleep in his own bed with his own bathroom and kitchen, etc.


There wouldn't be food there; and he wouldn't have been allowed to take his load of open alcoholic drinks onto the street car, so...


His cardboard was only a few stumbling steps from where he skeezed, and if he needed anything in the middle of the night, he could just jump up and do a quick once-around of Harah's Casino; and would surely come back with tobaco, and maybe a "Skeezer Ice Tea" concocted of last sips; and hey, maybe a half a joint, money, who knows "A nigga might can find anything layin' around that casino!" to put it in the local vernacular...


And so, it is a life of wonder and excitement, awe and adventure; and mystery. Imagine the adrenaline he felt when he spotted something; sitting somewhere, up ahead; like on the little ledge around the plant bed behind one of the benches and it starts to look more and more like a wallet with each step he takes towards it! You can't get that kind of thrill just laying around Sacred Heart Apartments watching Seinfeld.


One of the questions I was asked by my caseworker Tim, as part of a yearly report of some kind; pursuant to my living arrangement was, in essence: "What are some of the dangers you could possibly foresee that might cause you to relapse into homelessness?"


One of the cool thing about being homeless was being able to locate yourself with perspective of whatever you wanted to do at sunrise. If you planned upon getting to the library as soon as it opened, how nice it is to open your eyes to see that you are only a short walk away from it.


I can remember one time when I was in Federal Way, Washington and I had a work ticket out of the temp place to work the next day, beginning quite early, like 7 AM, at a place about 15 miles from where my covert dwelling was, and so, rather than deal with the hassle of getting there in the morning, I stuffed a tent into my backpack and grabbed a bus at my leisure to the jobsite and was able to be asleep nearby, on a plush, grassy area, and when I woke up in the morning, I had about a 2 minute walk to the jobsite, having been able to sleep right up until about 25 minutes before work started.


That was one of the cool things about being homeless. I remember being able to pick an almost infinite amount of blackberries nearby where I had pitched my tent, as that particular berry was everywhere around Federal Way, Washington.


It seems like a lot of work, packing and unpacking a tent, setting it up, breaking it down, working the 10 hour shift (which was just driving vehicle after vehicle through a bay where they were bid upon, pretty easy work) and then taking the bus back to my covert dwelling.


But, I could live off of the 89 dollars for about 5 or 6 days; but never would; I would be back out there on another job, probably the next day. I saved up a thousand dollars over the 6 weeks or so that I was in Federal Way, Washington.


The proximity of the place to Mt. Ranier and many other natural attractions that involve hiking imparts a better connotation to a backpack there than one would have in, say, Jacksonville Beach, Florida.


So, thumbs up to the Peuget Sound area of the state of Washington, as a homeless destination. Heck, if I were to find that busking in Seattle was lucrative, I might be able to dig out my covert dwelling and use it for a while. It could only be gotten to by walking along the trunk of a tree that had fallen into a swampy area and then jumping off of it about halfway along its length onto a footstool sized area of terra firma from which another small hop could be made to another patch of ground which looked like it afforded only enough room to stand, with a barrier of cedar branches competing for the space.

But is was mainly comprised of one large limb which yielded to reveal a path which wound its way along the contour of the swamp until it dead ended into a spot which had swamp on one side, a 50 foot cliff on the other, and very thick and thorny and probably spidery vegetation everywhere in between.


I'm pretty sure that the tree that you had to walk along 17 years ago to find the path, has rotted away.


Fixing that place up, though, would give me some cheap accomodations and take the pressure off of me that my friend Colin feels, which is to come up with 100 dollars every night, so as to be able stay in a hotel, eat, and make bus fare for the next place.


I think I might pick Colin's brain a bit whenever I see him again, and maybe ask him to rate 50 U.S. cities by how good they are for busking. If memory serves me, I think he said that Seattle is so over run with skeezers that people are on their guard, or did he say that there was someone playing a uklele every 50 feet? I'll have to ask him, for an upcoming feature.


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