Harmonica And String Money Materializes

Yes,

Sundays Die Down Earlier
It is Sunday and time to go out and busk.
After I order a harmonica and a set of strings from MusiciansFriend.com
A 35 Dollar Saturday night made that possible.
It followed a 5 dollar Friday night that had me ready to quit busking entirely, and seek employment through an agency down the street and maybe sell some of my blood plasma.
I'm still going out to play tonight, because I'm in the mood to, and because 35 bucks catches me up a bit, but I'm probably going to break a string tonight and will be taking a couple nights off while waiting for the strings to get here, and the harmonica.
I am resigned to the fact that Suzuki "Folkmaster" harmonicas are good enough for me; and that the difference that a 40 dollar harp would make would be mostly in its playability; which translates into; buy the cheap harp and just work a little harder to finesse the notes out of it.
A 12 dollar harp and a $2.50 set of strings; coming up.

Post About Not Posting

It is Monday morning, July 17th.

I realized last night that I have recently fallen out of the habit of going online at least once every other day.

Part of this is from the dread that I feel in leaving my apartment for the Sacred Heart computer room, which is an annex of the "hanging around out front trying to bum stuff off people" set.

Another part, I would have to guess, is because I've been using kratom as my "morning cup of coffee." After my last 30 dollar busking night (almost a week ago, now) I went and bought an ounce of the stuff, saving a ton of money on 3 dollar shots for the next few days. More on that later.

The Roots Of The Dread


The computer room has pretty much a regular set of characters, having been boiled down to those who like computers yet don't own one.
There is one guy who plays chess against the computer, usually drunk and often yelling things like: "I got you; where you gonna go now, huh, where you gonna go now?!?" at the machine, for example.

There would be some resentment directed at me over my owning a laptop, with some of them probably actually believing that I brought it out just to show it off, or to make myself seem smarter. There are just people who believe that everything done by others is directed at them. I think it is called schizophrenia.


But mostly, I would see figures appear in my peripheral vision, and look up just in time to see them checking the reflex of opening their mouths to beg, as scowls supplant their panhandling expressions; along with the recognition that I am someone who doesn't give away things for free at my own expense; and perhaps walking past me shaking their heads in a manner, I suppose, meant to convey disgust over the fact that I don't support them.

For me to sit there and demonstrate that I very well could support them (as evidenced by what they would see as my "expensive" laptop) but that apparently I choose not to, out of selfishness, greed (and especially, racism) -well that just makes them hate myself and all other whites even more.

That's almost enough to bring a nigga' to the boiling point, as drunk as some of them come in at night; to see that I've, once again, positioned myself and my laptop in a room that they would have to walk past, just to remind them that I have nice things because I'm white; and that they don't. That would be pretty egregious of me, and a great length to go to,  just to put the black man down, whose only joy is getting intoxicated nightly.

One of these days, one of them is going to grab that laptop and smash it on the floor, just to take that expression of "superiority" off my face...type of thing.

So, I have been balking at the idea of walking the 250 feet to plug in and go on line, lately, and so the blog posts have slowed to almost a halt.

There is most likely a kratom connection, too.
At first, the stuff seemed to help spawn creativity, making it easier to accomplish things like writing for 12 hours non-stop; playing the guitar with machine-like precision; producing visual art, etc.

But now, I'm starting to think that that facility comes at the expense of having emotions blunted, so that I'm not driven as much by a sense of wonder and purpose and connection to my fellow man, but more by a cold work ethic, and a belief in the cause and effect of; I play music and if people like it they tip me -there is no god, I'm not fulfilling my destiny; not doing what I've been put on earth to do, not expressing love, and there is no greater purpose. All that stuff is a pot thinking; I've moved on to kratom, now.


It actually makes me feel more like I envision Tanya Huang to be.

She used to play stuff that would have people in tears, but when informed that it had been a very "heartfelt" rendition that she had just delivered herself of, she would shrug and say something like "I was just trying to get through it so I could get back to my sandwich," or something to that effect.

Whereas, I could have my whole night made by a person who complements one of my songs.

But now that some of the "emotional" aspect of music has been shunted, I am turning my thoughts towards perhaps playing with that very personage in the near future.

I plan upon calling Dorise to see if she might not even lend me some of the gear that she used to use when they played together.

A lot will most-likely depend upon the nature of their break up, and would Dorise be willing to help Tanya (and of course myself) out in that way.

The crowds around Tanya alone seem to be roughly a third of what the duo usually attracted.

I'm not pretentious enough to consider myself a replacement for Dorise, but it is possible that Tanya playing along with any other human being would be better than the "karaoke" style that she is doing now, with backup tracks.

One concern I have though, is raised by the choice of music that she is using as her backup tracks. It's not T&D material at all; tending more towards classical and other high-minded "world" music. That also has something to do with the thinner crowds around her.

The question would be, would she even want to do a couple sets with me of the Eagles, ABBA, Beatles and Carol King type of stuff which fills tip jars, faster than the Phillip Glass* stuff that she's doing now, or does she see her break from Dorise as an emancipation from ever having to play Hotel California again as long as she lives?
*I use Phillip Glass as a generic term to represent any music that one can ascertain, at a cerebral level, to be very good music, very well composed and played by very good musicians, but that one still doesn't like much.
The couple of minutes of Phil's music that I heard in 1989 had me thinking: "This is 'that' kind of music." People often seem compelled to volunteer information, such as: "He wrote the entire score himself" to go with such music.
"He was the youngest person to ever graduate from Julliard," -anything to make you give it a closer listen; now that you know that it is you, and not Phillip Glass, who isn't up to speed.

35 Dollar Saturday

Saturday night, I made about 35 bucks in about 2 hours of playing. There was a 20 dollar tip in there, otherwise; it could have been just another "scraping by" amount of money.

Scraping by means being put in a position where I have to choose amongst which unnecessary and harmful things to buy, and which ones to skimp on..

As an alcoholic, it used to be a simple matter of the alcohol coming first, and everything else being acquired using the special powers that the alcohol will endow; like those which give a man the ability to boldly pick ashtrays and pull unfinished drinks from trash bins, while not caving in to any "societal" pressure imparted by anyone who might witness it and evince revulsion over his actions.

"There's perfectly good tobacco here (someone tried to light the wrong end and then tossed it in the ashtray after realizing his mistake) but these people have too much pride to reach over and avail themselves to it," says the alcoholic.

This goes too for the bagging up of scraps of fillet mignon from the trash can outside some 5 star steak joint, where the butcher/chefs inside hastily hack off the lion's share of the precious meat, trying to keep up with the pace of their late dinner rush, and wind up tossing a few pounds (or a couple $40 steaks worth) of it over the course of a night.

The Kratom Bar

Someone might drive by, shaking their heads at this disgusting homeless guy, who is going to dine on flame broiled fillet mignon, on their way home to heat up some leftover macaroni and cheese.

I'm sure I blogged about this, but one time there were a couple of 20 dollar bills on the sidewalk, practically at the feet of a group of 4 or 5 very well dressed people. None of them deigned to bend down and pick it up. It was as if they all saw it as some kind of test to see which one of them might betray themselves as being low born enough to do so.

And if the "money" had turned out to be fake, as part of a religious tract, then the person might have sabotaged a daughter's chances of marrying into the (insert prestigious name here) family all for nothing; well; except a nice prayer that they can recite. I imagined they feared becoming the target of a comment such as: "Did you see Frank scavenging off the sidewalk? God; I always wondered about Frank..."

So, that time, I picked up the 40 dollars without any of them even pretending to notice the sidewalk scavenger.

6 Dollar Sunday

I believed Sunday (July 9th) that, if I bought an ounce of kratom for 16 bucks, then I could go without cigarettes ($8/day) and weed ($5/day) and even energy drinks ($4/day) and so, that is what I did. The stuff is used by people trying to kick heroin, after all.



Plus, I would become a more productive "machine" as far as busking and writing and recording and drawing and other hobbies are concerned.
It's hard to think of what the highlight of Saturday, July 8th, 2017 might be...let me ponder and come back
....
....
I stayed up, after coming in Friday night, with 17 bucks, working a bit on XML programming (pretty soon I will be able to hand tweak this blog's "template," which is currently one of the ones that Blogger makes available to Joe Blow, the blogger, to give his blog a cool look. Someone else's cool look.

Since there are a limited number of cool looks offered, applying any one of them has the side effect of making the blog look like a lot of other blogs. It's the "rented tux" of the blogosphere.

I knew just enough "CSS" ten years ago, that I was able to go in and alter most of the default settings, enough to give my blog a bit of individuality.

I'm pretty sure that I am going to gravitate towards some day having my own "domain" and hosting my blog via a paid service, for maybe 50 bucks a year.
This would allow me to have a blog that would present the visitor with an animated page that would cycle through a mini video while perhaps a "Street Musician Daniel," theme plays, while it loads in the background.

The trouble with that arrangement is that it would be hard to get the server to continue to publish posts over the next 8 thousand years, like Blogger is scheduled to do; if the 50 bucks per year stops being remitted.

Something Else To Show For The Past Week?

At least with Blogger, I have the opportunity to become a celebrity, hundreds of years from now, after it becomes known that I continue to post from beyond the grave. I have even included Nostradamus type of predictions that will pop up every thousand years or so.

Of course, I'm not naive enough to think that I will be the only dead person who will have a blog; I'm sure there will be competition.

Almost every other idea that I have thought up; someone else has put into practice. Like putting out blog posts a thousand years from now.
  

Tuesday evening

An Amazing Thing

I was just at the Family Dollar, where I discovered that my green card balance is somehow 6 cents.

But, my friend, Lancaster from building C had just bought a new set of D'Adario strings, which are a "premium" string, costing about 40 percent more than the garden variety ones, and he didn't like them. He gave them to me.

So, I went to Family Dollar to spent 3 bucks on dish washing liquid, cat food and batteries for my spotlight, when I learned that the balance was 6 cents.
But then, one of the employees there covered it for me.

I am in there almost every day, but, since the store is in a kind of ghetto location, the employees have to put up a front of being short tempered and ready to be rude as the situation warrants; and it was surprising.

Written Wednesday, July 12th

Skeezers are bad tonight.

One black guy from our building (who never talks to me unless to ask for something) was on the corner near the building and wanted me to stop and let him use my phone.

He said it was "just to call my girlfriend to see if her phone is on," or something which I assumed was a lie.

I don't like letting people use my phone, because:

• Whomever they try to call, often calls back and I have to deal with them.
• The caller will often ask questions about who the guy was with, or something that would put me in their business, and will sometimes even want me to leave my apartment to go knock on someone's door to give them a message, or something.
• I would then have the number of a likely drug dealer in my phone, so, after they bust the guy and then search his phone looking for his customers or his source, there I would be.

It's just more trouble than it's worth to let someone use your phone, anymore.

And what is it "worth?," a "Thanks, man, 'preciate it," after he hands the thing back 10 minutes later, after the "couple minutes" have finally passed?
Plus, if I was his only hope of being able to make a phone call, than that say's something...

Wednesday, 2 AM, July 12th

I went out yesterday, and made about 5 bucks on what has become too typical a Tuesday night.


I went out on the following Wednesday night and made about 7 dollars. I sold a bud that I had paid Lancaster 4 dollars for; for 20 dollars. So now I'm making more as a drug dealer than a busker. Great.

Friday Morning, 8 AM

I didn't busk last night, although I could have.

I had been up all day, and decided to sleep for what amounted to perhaps 7 hours. I woke up at around 1:30 and went out to get Harold the cat, who is usually expecting me around that time.

My bike is parked outside, and that is my biggest concern right now. I had left it there, ready to go out busking on, but, after I fell asleep, it sat out there the whole 7 hours. I don't want to give some skeezer that long to get up his courage to push it out through the front lobby, lifting the back wheel which is locked to the seat; making it impossible to ride, but not to push like a wheelbarrow.
The skeezer would be ready to tell anyone that a friend called and asked him if he, the skeezer, would bring him his bike, which is in the parking lot. The skeezer accidentally mistook mine for his (don't call him a thief).
If a skeezer wakes up shaking from alcohol withdrawals then looks out the window and sees...just a minute; I'm going to go get my bike and bring it inside...

Alternative Money Sources Sought

It is Monday morning, July 17th.

A 6 dollar Sunday was followed by a 5 dollar Monday, and I am faced with crushing up my aluminum cans, turning them in, and then investigating selling my blood plasma for 50 bucks a week, or whatever, and checking CraigsList under the employment section.

I'm playing too well for what I'm getting paid now, that is the bottom line.

I have just realized that I have fallen out of the habit of posting here or even going online at least once every couple days. I could say that I am busy with a bunch of things, though I don't have a bunch of things to show for that fact...
Until I find a new direction or theme for this, it might kind of stagnate. Taking a road trip and then blogging about it would have been fodder for a revitalized blog; but it has been the same old story of wanting to leave here because it is slow, and not being able to come up with the money to do so, for the same reason.

Pretty soon, the season will come where it will start to get cold up north, and I won't want to travel there; and then it will become foolish to think about leaving here because Mardi Gras and all that will be on the horizon.

I have a feeling that next year's Mardi Gras, might make it official that New Orleans has fallen out of favor with world travelers.

I dread going to the Sacred Heart Apartments computer room, and, since my Starbucks money has run out; I don't go there either.
Plus, I haven't been making enough lately to load any on my card, so, I don't even have the enticement of online shopping to get me into the computer room.

Inside Or Bust

I am determined to get into the abandoned "rectory" building that is part of the whole complex here. The plywood covering one particular door which is shielded pretty well from view from almost every angle is only fastened by heavy screws. There is no way of telling if the door behind it is secured tightly, or if the plywood was put up to cover busted out panes of glass. If I can get inside once through that door, then I can possibly find another way in and out, allowing me to seal that one back up.

The optimal situation would be to find a door on the side opposite us and actually put my own lock on it, so that I could let myself in and out using a key, and be able to have my guitar and pack on me as I go in and out.

The people most likely to observe me on that side would be the guests of the India House hostel, and they aren't going to question someone who has a key to the place.

I just need a place where I can record music, without the incessant, un-mutable hiss of the air conditioner/heater in my apartment, and without having to be "considerate" of my neighbors.

I just feel my creativity being stifled in my apartment. I know it's "all" in my head, and part of me thinks that I need to rise up and overcome this phobia? -just belt out my music in a care-free way, and not be "shy" about it, show some audacity, if you will.

But, I think of a singer who was being interviewed by David Letterman, the latter asking him what he did to warm up his voice.

The singer told him that he had a regimen of exercises that he ran through.
Letterman asked him if he would do one.

"No way, absolutely not. You don't want to hear my vocal warm ups, trust me, it's not a pleasant sound!," said the singer, and it was clear that just the thought was making the guy blush.

One Of My Worst, But Am Short Material

He offered the information that it was "a series of syllables, vowels and guttural sounds" -different ways of stretching the palate and vocal chords; some of which probably produce sounds like bleating goats, or worse...

So, if the great (whatever his name was) was too shy to run through his vocal exercises on national television; can you blame me for wanting to go into an empty, well closed off building and up to the third floor of which, in order to try to put my voice through its paces?

Not hearing other residents bleeding through my door saying things like: "We don't want to hear that hill-billy shit.." or the occasional thump of a foot against my door, as a way of saying: "You're in there, ignoring us; you should be out here, sharing what you've got; you know, participating in society...you want to shut us out and try to become lost in your music, well, here's a little thump, just to let you know that we know that you know..."

These things are manifestations of the "crab" mentatlity; which I have blogged about.

New Strings

A small accomplishment; having gotten a 5 dollar set of strings to go on the guitar.

 18 Dollar Friday

OK, a 18 dollar Friday night didn't do much to change my perception that getting out of here and traveling might be the antidote to a lot of doldrums and might keep me alive through the lean season.

I was on the verge of picking up the phone and asking Ed and Rose when their next trip to the blood plasma laboratory would be.

As a new seller of plasma, I think I could make at least 25 bucks my first time, and then another 50, should I sell another "unit" before week's end.

That might get me a ticket on a Megabus to Savannah, Georgia, where I might make enough in one night (before I am informed that I need a 50 dollar "permit" to continue; to get to Charleston, South Carolina.

I have a 12 year old warrant in North Carolina, where I was technically in possession of a stolen vehicle, back in November of 2005, and for which, they could lock me up and hold me until such a time that I plead the charges down to "time served," (on about my 45th day there) by pleading guilty. My alternative would be to return to my cell in order to wait probably another 3 weeks, in order to "fight" the charges and "defend" myself.

So, landing in North Carolina could land me in jail for up 90 days. Looking like a homeless street musician would not help to tip the scales of justice in my favor. It could be an unnecessary pain in the ass.

Classic Album Cover Distort Quiz

Of course, should I become wealthy in the near future, I could show up at a courthouse, with an attorney at my side and have the thing swept under the rug, for a few fees, here and there.

It is Saturday evening. I've had a shot of yellow kratom, and, as it nears 9 PM, I must go out and play; being down to about 3 dollars in the world, and maybe about 4 more ass-wipes left on the roll of dollar store paper...

I have new strings, and fresh batteries for the spotlight, and weed.
If I had to, I could strike up a conversation with any one of the tourists who pass by me, commenting out loud that something "smells good," as I smoke my tune up joint.

I am sure that they say such things as a sort of ice breaker and an invitation for me to offer to sell them a bud for 10 bucks, giving them about 2 dollars and 50 cents worth, at my cost.

It is part of "hustling," I guess. And pot has been decriminalized here, and "they can't take you to jail for it." Plus, the cops here have all seemed to have accepted me as a positive contributer to the "scene," and wouldn't hit me with a ticket for possession of weed. They would only do that to a skeezer whom they would prefer to never see again, and whom they would notify that, although pot has been decriminalized, failure to pay a fine has not been, and the skeezer would be faced with coughing up a hefty "admission price" to remain in the French Quarter, in effect, and he wouldn't have the self discipline to save up and plunk down all that liquor money on the counter at the clerk's office.

And, they might possibly do that if I were clearly making Tanya and Dorise type of money, and could peel off a one hundred dollar bills off the stack of 13 of them that I might have at the end of a 12 hour Saturday night, and just consider it "the cost of doing business..."

Of course, if I jammed with Tanya, I would probably have to cultivate a habit of subsisting on nothing but green tea most of the day, with a few bananas, and wouldn't light up a joint until a time, such as 9 PM. Tanya would come to regard this hour as the time after which I get "a little silly" each evening...

I had a 17 dollar Friday (last) night; and would love to go out and break 50 bucks tonight, with the new strings and the bright spotlight.

As long as the blond guy with the crew cut doesn't come along and nod off on heroin on the stoop next to me, which he has done a couple times this past week.
I have never been able to get him to leave without him first having to cuss and kick a milk crate or something.

On a Saturday night such as tonight, I won't hesitate to haul my stuff off to the next block from where I would call Lilly.

I don't know how she would handle it, but I would tell her that the guy knows darned well that I don't make any money with him nodded off there, making it look like "we" are playing for heroin; and that he does it as a way of asserting his "right" to be there, ruining my business.

OK, They're Getting Easier, Aren't They?

He never greets me; just sits down, facing forward and stares ahead, as I play; trying to play my best, in conflict with my feelings that that is only going to make the guy want to stay and nod off (to such good music).

Escape From NOLA

I need to escape from here; like the "old time" bands do, during the summer.

So little to show, lately...

They will be here making good money around Mardi Gras and a few other times, but they come back with stories about making a killing in Golden, Colorado, or Gatlinburg, Tennessee, or Burlington Vermont, during the summer.

I feel, after having had another 4 dollar night, that I might just have to take Rose and Ed up on their offer to bring me with them to the plasma donation place, where I can bleed out, right alongside Ed, and then use the 50 or 80 bucks as a launching pad, setting me in motion as a busker in any other city than this one.
I'm going out with rusty old strings and harmonicas that each have a note or two that are off a bit, and with batteries that are dimming in my spotlight...
And, the thing is; it's like I never saw it coming.

I kind of knew that I was hovering somewhere within 3 or 4 bad nights of being broke, but hadn't had such a run of bad luck in so long that I kind of overlooked things. I had been concentrating so hard on my music that I typically didn't even notice the tip jar filling up; and was pleasantly surprised to see money and wonder where it came from; that was before...

Recently, I have been concentrating so hard on my music that I haven't been noticing the tip jar's being totally neglected.

This is headed towards me sitting in the dark and wiping my ass with newspaper and riding over to the Rebuild Center each morning to eat with the homeless...
Or, I brace myself, steel my nerves, and get to the "next" city; be it Mobile, Alabama or Savannah, Georgia.

I have gleaned from Colin, my friend who travels extensively, that it is common to have made 80 or 100 dollars in a lot of places before a nice officer comes along to inform you that you must have a permit to do what you have been doing the past couple hours, type of thing....

You're not going to be their problem tomorrow night, because you're just traveling through, right?

I might avoid Mobile, because of the trouble with the cops that I had there, and the fact that familiarity, with regards to them, might breed contempt.

Are You Kidding Me?!?

• (Another) 6 Dollar Saturday
• 23 Dollar Sunday
• 4 Dollar 4th of July
• Is That All?

It's July 5th, and it's a Wednesday. It's a Wednesday after a major holiday; and it's a Wednesday after an "Essence Fest" that I am sure set some kind of negative attendance record.

OK, This "Distorted Album Cover Quiz" Should Be Easy

Everybody in the world who is not a particular fan of the hip-hop scene avoids the French Quarter during Essence Fest. I think it was 3 years ago when a stray bullet killed a young lady who was from Houston and was not even part of the entertainment (the obligatory* shooting).

*It's up to someone to use the platform to tell the world: "Fuck with a nigga' and you're gonna get shot!" and so somebody steps to the plate each year, it seems, on the grand stage of Essence Fest weekend.

What I saw this year were small groups of African Americans who seemed to be in a perpetual search for where the action was, and who were here and there; and at least 4 cops on every corner, standing by barricades (which have been beefed up this year to thwart the trend of people ramming crowds with vehicles driven at high speeds) and, mostly staring at the devices in their palms, occasionally giving directions to small gaggles of African Americans, who might have heard that there was actual "action" at certain other spots, and were heavily armed.

And there were a good number of heavyset white women walking around, as if on some sort of mission.

I had the revolting experiences of A: having one young black woman stand in front of me with her legs apart, as if playing defense in basketball, and leaning forward towards me, as if trying to get an up close and personal listen to what I was playing, yet, doing so at a time after I had just started out my jar with a fake 100 dollar bill to go with the only other dollar I had at the time; and then walking off after having held her head 3 feet above the jar long enough to have discerned that it was a fake 100 bill in there; and even evincing signs of disappointment, frustration, anger? upon walking off.

Plus, not tipping me a cent to go with the smile and the affectation of being "so interested" in what I was playing to have wanted to stand in front of me; as if the referee was about to throw a ball up between us.

I also had the disgusting experience of being in the Walgreen's at about 2 PM in front of the beverage case where there were two black women in about their 20's kind of milling about, but not right by me.

I pulled out my money and began to count it.

I really wanted to know how much I had.

After I finished counting what turned out to be 16 bucks, I heard one of the black ladies say: "Is that all?" in a manner that was half disguised as her asking her friend if that was "all" they needed, of something.

But it freaked me out, the pretentiousness of the women to think that I had pulled my money out in order to flash it in front of them.
"You've got to be kidding me!," I thought.

They were so not my type. Amazons they were, for one thing; and not exactly even Venus Williams material in the "beauty" category.

It took an effort for me not to turn to them and give them a look that said: "Don't flatter yourself, I'm just trying to make sure I have enough money in the morning!"

And then, to confirm my stomach turning suspicion, one of them said to the other: "No, I'm not working now..." as if in response to "Do you want to try to work that guy for his money?"

And I thought it had been OK to pull out my impressive wad of 16 dollars in front of "everybody" in the store.

For me to say that Essence Fest was pretty much as expected would be pretty accurate.
Oh, and there was a young black kid, skinny and in his early 20's in front of The Quartermaster one night.
He asked me if I had ID.
He could have just asked me directly: "Hey, will you buy my beer for me, I don't have my ID?" and I would have been more inclined to "help" him.
But then I thought about the guy who was working in the store, an older guy who is usually very pleasant; and I deferred to his judgment in not having sold beer to the guy.
If the guy in the store had a reason for not selling to him (that could have applied even though he appeared to be over 21) than I was going to follow his precedent. Also, as soon as I walked in 5 minutes after the guy had refused him and try to buy the exact same thing, it is going to be obvious to the guy, and he probably wouldn't sell it to me, either. He knows that I haven't drank in forever.
So, to make a long story short.
The kid asked me again, once I was outside.
I turned him down again.
He became angry and said:
"I bet if I had that PISTOL you'd..."

Led Zeppelin's: "Houses Of The Holy;" 1973

And then he made a couple pistol grabbing motions towards his hip.
"That's just lovely. Yeah, I'm sure if you pulled a pistol they would sell you beer without carding you..." I said, giving him my best "you moron" look.
He reached once again for the imaginary pistol in his pocket and then gasped: "Oh!" with such a sense of frustration in his voice that it was obvious that he was kicking himself for not having brought his gun to the beer store.