30 Dollar Monday
25 Dollar Tuesday
1 Dollar Wednesday
29 Dollar Thursday
And now, it is Friday.
Thursday around noon, I was woken up by Rose, who was wanting to borrow money on this the last day of the month. She would be getting her money in a mere 12 hours, and would pay me back double whatever I lent.
I had to shake off the cobwebs and think for a bit...
...Oh, yeah, I had a one dollar night last night...
"No, I'm so broke, I'm ready to crush up the rest of my empty cans and run them over to the scrap metal place to get maybe 3 bucks, so I can get cat food for Harold, and maybe and energy drink to propel me right back out to play some more as soon as the sun goes down..."
Her call reminded me that, as broke as I had been the whole month, I did have 15 bucks coming from them, a mere 12 hours from then.
That kind of gave me a safety net, thinking that if I had another 1 dollar night, I could knock on their door when I got back and get the 15 bucks.
I didn't have enough for a shot of kratom, so I would be forced into an experiment upon taking it one night, but not the next.
Rose showed up around 3 PM, and gave me a dog food sized can of cat food, of a brand that I didn't recognize. The can was dented but not breached.
That gave me the additional peace of mind of knowing that Harold would be fed and I would have at least 15 bucks, as I went out, arriving at the Lilly Pad just before 10PM.
I was playing my ass off for not very many people. There were sporadic groups of black people passing by, signaling that the "Essence Fest" was about to go down.
This is the time of year that I usually do better than a lot of other buskers, who complain that the black people don't tip. It is often the case, I believe, that the black people can sense when a busker is pandering to them by dusting off whatever Motown they know and presenting it.
Last night, a good portion of the young black people passed by, with one guy laying a 20 dollar bill on the "tiposaurus" sign.
He said the equivalent of "not my particular style of music, but it's 'real'" while doing so.
Tonight, in a couple of hours, I will go out to see what a Friday night brings.
Lilly called me the next day after we had walked and sat together by the river.
"You should have called me," she said.
This made me realize that Lilly perhaps saw the occasion as being more of a traditional "date" than I had.
It was nice to have come out through Lilly's Gate onto Bourbon Street and looked to my left to see Rochelle playing on the other stoop, and more specifically, to have her see me pushing my bike out Lilly's gate with my backpack on.
It was just after sundown, and we had returned from our jaunt and slipped past her as she was busy with someone who was petting her dog or something.
Rochelle could have easily thought that I had spent the night with Lilly, and was just then re-emerging after having slept off our lovemaking.
As soon as she saw me, she asked: "Can I just play a couple more songs?"
This was a departure from her objections over my having arrived at the same time the night before.
She definitely inferred that I probably had Lillian in my back pocket.
"Oh, I'm not ready to play yet; last night was way to early..." the last part brought a visible sigh of relief from her.
"By eleven, I was sick of playing, and that's the time I should have been starting..."
"Yeah," she smiled.
The trouble was, after Rochelle left, I went on to have the 6 dollar Saturday already blogged about and lamented over...
Then Lilly called the next day, reminding me that I should have called.
Shouldn't I have sent flowers with a note thanking her for a wonderful evening?
An In-Between Post
The following, I wrote Thursday evening, before going out and making the 29 bucks...
Hey, blogsters, the yipper checking in here.
"The Yipper" is a name that is as close to a stage name as I have, at this point.
A name is important enough for guys to have changed theirs from infamous things like Robert Zimmerman, and of course, John Dusseldorf, who became John Denver, and then took things even a step further, by singing about mountains in Colorado, and the "high," that I'm sure all the oxegen deprived citizens there enjoy.
But, you could feel the fresh air in your lungs, as John Denver sang about fresh and pure things, and he became ingrained in the music consuming public's minds, strumming his acoustic guitar at the summit of one of the Rocky Mountains.
In his case, it was a brand of music. Finger picked guitar parts that utilized capos, making the chord forms accessible to the novice, and so the songs got played around more campfires and at more frat parties, etc. and the feeling that you should have been home yesterday became contagious and I'm sure Mr. Dusseldorf's lifetime earnings, and rankings among similar artists will further affirm that.
So, I have enough music now, to cut and paste and edit it down (cause certain backbone sections to repeat themselves while different stuff goes on over them, etc.) to a pretty solid CD length production.
Now, I need to either just use my real name, Daniel McKenna, or do what Richard Starkey, Norma Jean Baker, Gordon Sumner (Sting) and whoever Marylyn Manson used to be, did, which is to come up with a name like Marylyn Manson to market my music under?
I have some data that I can use, perhaps. I guess the idea is to match the name to what I sound like, or to whatever mountain range I sit atop when I make my recordings.
The data is the fact that; back in 1989, when I had a full fledged 4 track cassette recording studio with effects at my disposal, and would spend the lions share of each day making musical recordings; I would often pop the "final mix down" cassette into my Pinto's 350 watts system and ride around the campus.
Upon pulling up to an intersection or something where there were a lot of students within earshot, which was anywhere within 75 feet of the Pinto, I would often turn the music down somewhat and yell over it: "Do you know who this is; I know I've heard it before and I can't remember where...?"
To which, the students seemed for the most part eager to show off the breadth of their musical knowledge and would begin to yell out their guesses; assuming of coursed, that should they get it right, it would jog my memory and I would yell: "THAT'S who it is, thank you!! My brother in Boston gets these albums from a certain store and they're all stuff that was released in small numbers..." or something.
And, so, I can certainly try to find a name that say's "Brian Eno," or maybe a name that sounds like "Brian Eno" about as much as my music sound's like his.
They also guessed that I was The Psychedelic Furs, old R.E.M. from "basement" tapes, and one guy was adamant that what he was hearing was an obscure bootleg Pink Floyd recording; him being a Pink Floyd expert, and all; probably made when they were tripping on acid...
But, there is also the visual element. Do I LOOK anything like Brian Eno?
One young lady was pretty succinct the other night in telling me of my remarkable resemblance to Neil Young, both in appearance and sound.
OK.
From now on, then, it won't be Daniel McKenna and his harmonious harmonica at the Lilly Pad.
Neil is a name that kind of puts one in the mind of Neil Armstrong, the fist guy to walk on the moon.
And, if you think of it, Neil Young is kind of the "hero" figure; coming to the rescue of the farmers, doing other benefit work to save people; protesting things on behalf of us all.
Neil is Canadian, so there might have been a bit of a preemptive strike by his A&R people, against his being perceived as being a foreigner and making "foreign" music.
Foreign music has to be as good as ABBA for it to sell in the states, the British Invasion notwithstanding.
In the same way, Jerry Garcia is portrayed in front of an American flag in some stock photos, and even wearing an Uncle Sam hat in another. Of course this is because mainstream all-American corn fed kids are going to shy away from "Spanish" music, and so Jerry Garcia's publicity people were guarding against that perception. Maybe one Santana was enough...
I don't think that I have to struggle against any anti Scottish bias by being Daniel McKenna; but hmmm..how about...
Daniel Sonne...?
Conrad Pistachio?
Luke Cryder?
Rudyard King?
Ryan Reno?
Denny Young?
Neil McKenna?
War
A gruesome discovery
Thursday night, I had poured some of the can of food that Rose had given me onto Harold's plate.
It was then that I saw a cockroach scurry away from what had been under the plate.
Just out of curiosity, I pulled open the draw from a table/desk that I had stood upright to use as a sound blocker, next to which I set Harold's food every day.
I exposed a veritable city of roaches, which had taken up residence in that drawer that I never opened because it contained things that I had no use for but didn't want to throw away.
I began to attack, with a wet sponge in each hand, killing a couple dozen of them; shaking the drawer to stir its contents, ultimately just dumping it out and then pounding away at them as they scurried.
Harold just put his nose in the food and ate diligently, as I worked up a sweat. It's almost like he knew that this was not a time to complain about the food.
After most of them lay splattered on the hardwood floor, there would be stragglers- ones that had initially hidden and were making a break for it.
It was 20 minutes before I felt that I had killed them all.
It was disgusting, and, I wound up getting some of the carnage on the knees of my jeans.
If there is one thing I would have done over, it would have been to have changed out of those jeans; because I was getting whiffs of cat food turned into roach shit and then re-eaten and shit out again all night, and was worried that the tourists could smell it, too. If it weren't for a 20 dollar tip, it would have been a 9 dollar night.
I heard that roaches could live for up to five days after they're dead....
25 Dollar Tuesday
1 Dollar Wednesday
29 Dollar Thursday
And now, it is Friday.
Thursday around noon, I was woken up by Rose, who was wanting to borrow money on this the last day of the month. She would be getting her money in a mere 12 hours, and would pay me back double whatever I lent.
I had to shake off the cobwebs and think for a bit...
...Oh, yeah, I had a one dollar night last night...
"No, I'm so broke, I'm ready to crush up the rest of my empty cans and run them over to the scrap metal place to get maybe 3 bucks, so I can get cat food for Harold, and maybe and energy drink to propel me right back out to play some more as soon as the sun goes down..."
Her call reminded me that, as broke as I had been the whole month, I did have 15 bucks coming from them, a mere 12 hours from then.
That kind of gave me a safety net, thinking that if I had another 1 dollar night, I could knock on their door when I got back and get the 15 bucks.
I didn't have enough for a shot of kratom, so I would be forced into an experiment upon taking it one night, but not the next.
Rose showed up around 3 PM, and gave me a dog food sized can of cat food, of a brand that I didn't recognize. The can was dented but not breached.
That gave me the additional peace of mind of knowing that Harold would be fed and I would have at least 15 bucks, as I went out, arriving at the Lilly Pad just before 10PM.
I was playing my ass off for not very many people. There were sporadic groups of black people passing by, signaling that the "Essence Fest" was about to go down.
This is the time of year that I usually do better than a lot of other buskers, who complain that the black people don't tip. It is often the case, I believe, that the black people can sense when a busker is pandering to them by dusting off whatever Motown they know and presenting it.
Last night, a good portion of the young black people passed by, with one guy laying a 20 dollar bill on the "tiposaurus" sign.
He said the equivalent of "not my particular style of music, but it's 'real'" while doing so.
Tonight, in a couple of hours, I will go out to see what a Friday night brings.
Lilly called me the next day after we had walked and sat together by the river.
"You should have called me," she said.
This made me realize that Lilly perhaps saw the occasion as being more of a traditional "date" than I had.
It was nice to have come out through Lilly's Gate onto Bourbon Street and looked to my left to see Rochelle playing on the other stoop, and more specifically, to have her see me pushing my bike out Lilly's gate with my backpack on.
 |
| Lilly (artist's conception) |
Rochelle could have easily thought that I had spent the night with Lilly, and was just then re-emerging after having slept off our lovemaking.
As soon as she saw me, she asked: "Can I just play a couple more songs?"
This was a departure from her objections over my having arrived at the same time the night before.
She definitely inferred that I probably had Lillian in my back pocket.
"Oh, I'm not ready to play yet; last night was way to early..." the last part brought a visible sigh of relief from her.
"By eleven, I was sick of playing, and that's the time I should have been starting..."
"Yeah," she smiled.
The trouble was, after Rochelle left, I went on to have the 6 dollar Saturday already blogged about and lamented over...
Then Lilly called the next day, reminding me that I should have called.
Shouldn't I have sent flowers with a note thanking her for a wonderful evening?
An In-Between Post
The following, I wrote Thursday evening, before going out and making the 29 bucks...
Hey, blogsters, the yipper checking in here.
"The Yipper" is a name that is as close to a stage name as I have, at this point.
A name is important enough for guys to have changed theirs from infamous things like Robert Zimmerman, and of course, John Dusseldorf, who became John Denver, and then took things even a step further, by singing about mountains in Colorado, and the "high," that I'm sure all the oxegen deprived citizens there enjoy.
But, you could feel the fresh air in your lungs, as John Denver sang about fresh and pure things, and he became ingrained in the music consuming public's minds, strumming his acoustic guitar at the summit of one of the Rocky Mountains.
In his case, it was a brand of music. Finger picked guitar parts that utilized capos, making the chord forms accessible to the novice, and so the songs got played around more campfires and at more frat parties, etc. and the feeling that you should have been home yesterday became contagious and I'm sure Mr. Dusseldorf's lifetime earnings, and rankings among similar artists will further affirm that.
So, I have enough music now, to cut and paste and edit it down (cause certain backbone sections to repeat themselves while different stuff goes on over them, etc.) to a pretty solid CD length production.
Now, I need to either just use my real name, Daniel McKenna, or do what Richard Starkey, Norma Jean Baker, Gordon Sumner (Sting) and whoever Marylyn Manson used to be, did, which is to come up with a name like Marylyn Manson to market my music under?
I have some data that I can use, perhaps. I guess the idea is to match the name to what I sound like, or to whatever mountain range I sit atop when I make my recordings.
The data is the fact that; back in 1989, when I had a full fledged 4 track cassette recording studio with effects at my disposal, and would spend the lions share of each day making musical recordings; I would often pop the "final mix down" cassette into my Pinto's 350 watts system and ride around the campus.
Upon pulling up to an intersection or something where there were a lot of students within earshot, which was anywhere within 75 feet of the Pinto, I would often turn the music down somewhat and yell over it: "Do you know who this is; I know I've heard it before and I can't remember where...?"
 |
| Brian Eno |
To which, the students seemed for the most part eager to show off the breadth of their musical knowledge and would begin to yell out their guesses; assuming of coursed, that should they get it right, it would jog my memory and I would yell: "THAT'S who it is, thank you!! My brother in Boston gets these albums from a certain store and they're all stuff that was released in small numbers..." or something.
And, so, I can certainly try to find a name that say's "Brian Eno," or maybe a name that sounds like "Brian Eno" about as much as my music sound's like his.
They also guessed that I was The Psychedelic Furs, old R.E.M. from "basement" tapes, and one guy was adamant that what he was hearing was an obscure bootleg Pink Floyd recording; him being a Pink Floyd expert, and all; probably made when they were tripping on acid...
But, there is also the visual element. Do I LOOK anything like Brian Eno?
One young lady was pretty succinct the other night in telling me of my remarkable resemblance to Neil Young, both in appearance and sound.
OK.
From now on, then, it won't be Daniel McKenna and his harmonious harmonica at the Lilly Pad.
 |
| Ryan Skeeno? |
Neil is a name that kind of puts one in the mind of Neil Armstrong, the fist guy to walk on the moon.
And, if you think of it, Neil Young is kind of the "hero" figure; coming to the rescue of the farmers, doing other benefit work to save people; protesting things on behalf of us all.
Neil is Canadian, so there might have been a bit of a preemptive strike by his A&R people, against his being perceived as being a foreigner and making "foreign" music.
Foreign music has to be as good as ABBA for it to sell in the states, the British Invasion notwithstanding.
In the same way, Jerry Garcia is portrayed in front of an American flag in some stock photos, and even wearing an Uncle Sam hat in another. Of course this is because mainstream all-American corn fed kids are going to shy away from "Spanish" music, and so Jerry Garcia's publicity people were guarding against that perception. Maybe one Santana was enough...
I don't think that I have to struggle against any anti Scottish bias by being Daniel McKenna; but hmmm..how about...
Conrad Pistachio?
Luke Cryder?
Rudyard King?
Ryan Reno?
Denny Young?
Neil McKenna?
War
A gruesome discovery
Thursday night, I had poured some of the can of food that Rose had given me onto Harold's plate.
It was then that I saw a cockroach scurry away from what had been under the plate.
Just out of curiosity, I pulled open the draw from a table/desk that I had stood upright to use as a sound blocker, next to which I set Harold's food every day.
I exposed a veritable city of roaches, which had taken up residence in that drawer that I never opened because it contained things that I had no use for but didn't want to throw away.
I began to attack, with a wet sponge in each hand, killing a couple dozen of them; shaking the drawer to stir its contents, ultimately just dumping it out and then pounding away at them as they scurried.
After most of them lay splattered on the hardwood floor, there would be stragglers- ones that had initially hidden and were making a break for it.
It was 20 minutes before I felt that I had killed them all.
It was disgusting, and, I wound up getting some of the carnage on the knees of my jeans.
If there is one thing I would have done over, it would have been to have changed out of those jeans; because I was getting whiffs of cat food turned into roach shit and then re-eaten and shit out again all night, and was worried that the tourists could smell it, too. If it weren't for a 20 dollar tip, it would have been a 9 dollar night.
I heard that roaches could live for up to five days after they're dead....
You want to be careful with a "stage" name though, as John "Cougar" Mellencamp knows well. He's been trying to ditch that "Cougar" middle name for years and it's never going to go away (his original stage name was "Johnny Cougar") so he might as well own up to it and say it merely reflects his taste in women ...
ReplyDeleteOr Joan Jett and the Blackhearts, we always used to call them Joan Zit and the Blackheads.
Hey, if you're not going to put my new URL on the link for my blog you might as well remove it because all people are finding when they click on "Alex Trumpets" is a dead link.