57 Dollar Thursday A Shot In The Arm

I left the Uxi Duxi just after they closed at 8 PM, last (Thursday) night.

The court jester at play

I had just enough money ($3) to get an all day bus pass.

This would allow me to go and sell my plasma for 15 dollars the next day, should I decide to stay in and work on the CD, reading, writing, drawing and feeding Harold the Cat instead of busking.

It seems that a shot of kratom almost always puts me in the mood to go and busk, just to have something to focus upon and, with all possible activities being equal, to have a chance to make 57 dollars in an hour and a half, such as I did last night.

I didn't look forward to busking, as I walked away from the Uxi Duxi.

But, as I went along Canal Street towards the apartment, still non committal on getting the all day pass, I decided that I would get the thing, and then would ride into the Quarter, knowing that, if all else failed, I would have passage to the plasma place, where I haven't been in about 3 weeks.

I wondered to myself how much I would have to make in order that I would blow off the trip to sell platelets for 15 more dollars. "Anything over 30 dollars" came to mind.

Then, I remembered that I had about 15 bucks on my green American Express Serve card.
I also had a golden opportunity to arrive early at the Lilly Pad, I thought, as it was only 8:30 PM when I got back to the apartment.

$24.67 Per Hour*

I don't know how I managed to get there at 10:40 PM.

I fed Harold the cat, trying a can of turkey and cheese of the Winn Dixie brand on him for the first time. His response to it was luke-warm (slowly moving his tail around, and eating from different parts of the pile, as if there might be something better tasting buried somewhere in it). I added the "backup can" of Friskies beef and (extra) gravy, which he devoured while leaving the turkey stuff undisturbed.

I drank coffee, and packed up my stuff.

I had new, great sounding Cleartone strings on the guitar, fresh alkaline batteries for the spotlight, a bud of Bobby's medical grade marijuana, and felt like I had enough material in mind to fill 3 hours of busking without having to repeat any song.

The 9:12 PM trolley passed, as I was still inside. That is the one that I had fallen into the habit of riding, back when I was habitually arriving at the Lilly Pad around 9:50 PM, and striking my first note by 10 PM.

I got the 9:30 PM one, as evidenced by the time stamp on pass.

I took a dollar off the green plastic card at The Unique Grocery, for the purchase of a pack of rolling papers, picked the ashtrays behind The Hotel Monteleone for free tobacco to roll up, and headed down Royal Street.

I came across Brian Hudson, who was not far from Christina Friis. I wound up talking to them for, I guess, about 15 minutes. I told Brian that I was on the move and didn't stop to talk to him; but couldn't escape a hug and 15 minute conversation with Christina.

I'm still sorting out my thoughts about Brian having asked me not to play my guitar that one time that I encountered the two of them on the Superior Court steps. They had just finished playing for something like 12 hours, off and on, and Brian had acted like it was going to give him a splitting headache should I pluck a single note. I'm not sure how I feel about that.

Plus, when he introduces me to anyone, he refers to me as "kind of like the court jester," and mentions this blog. By association, he is elevating himself to the status of royalty, by saying that. He has explicitly referred to Tanya and Dorise as "the queens" of Royal Street busking, and perhaps feels like the king of it; so the jester comment was duly noted.

The court jester at work

The Jesus shadow clock said just about 10:30 PM, as I walked past it, less than 5 minutes from my spot. I had found a milk crate abandoned on Royal Street and grabbed it. That would save me the 8 minutes or so that it would take to walk to The Quartermaster to grab one of theirs before returning to the Lilly Pad.

It was early enough, so that I stood a chance of seeing Lilly, should she be chaperoning either, or both, of her daughters home from either or both of their jobs, working in upscale restaurants where they might meet their future husbands. They have lived their whole lives in The French Quarter, and I believe neither of them has ever walked alone. One night, I saw a well dressed young man escorting Chantilly home, who might be an assistant manager at Mr. B's Bistro, where she works.

I could tell by the snippets of conversation that I overheard walking a few feet behind them, that the guy was keeping things on the "up and up," speaking in generalities, nothing of the "so how do I get you out of your mother's sight for just a minute" sort.

I'm sure that he wanted to be deserving of the great trust that Lilly had apparently put in him, and probably knew that their whole conversation was going to be played back to Lilly upon her "So, what did you two talk about as you walked" inquiry.

I wouldn't doubt it if, the first time the guy ever chaperoned her, Lilly didn't accompany them, to be sure that he was up to the task.

But, the lady is just as protective of the street musician whom she allows to play on the side of her house, so I can find no fault with her.

I jammed away from 10:40 PM, until almost 11 PM, having actually forgotten about the bud of weed that I had. This was until a young man came along and asked me if I knew where he could find powdered cocaine.

I told him what I tell everyone in that situation: "Um, I don't see the guy. There's only one guy that I would trust with that, and I don't see him out tonight."

This is true, in a sense. There is one young skinny black kid, who wears red sneakers usually, and who has said "I've got that powder," to me once, and who was respectful after I had declined, and who later sold some to a tourist who had been listening to me; didn't rip him off, and the guy seemed happy afterwards.

He is polite to Lilly and the girls, and even offers to help them pull their trash out onto the sidewalk. A coke dealer with a good head on his shoulders.

The guy then offered me 20 dollars to smoke a joint with him.

"Will you give me the 20 up front?"

"Sure."

So, out came Bobby's medicinal grade bud, at about 11 PM, which I rolled a decent sized joint out of. Immediately materialized a group of traveling kid types with their dogs and their overstuffed backpacks, on cue.

I hope the guy had gotten his 20 dollars worth of THC out of the joint before he, to my disgust, passed it to one of them. "You're sharing your twenty dollar joint?" I wanted to ask him, incredulously.

The skeezer was running his mouth, chatting up the guy, almost as if trying to divert him from the fact that he was steadily puffing away. The guy on the stoop said something like: "You guys can have the rest of that," and walked off.

Then, I looked at the group of five, as if to say: "Well, there's nothing keeping you here now; not the music that was so interesting 5 minutes ago that you just had to stop, nor the fascinating conversation that you were having in between puffs off the guy's joint."

They walked off, with one of them saying something nice to me. They smelled weed, and so they asked for some for free, big deal. "It never hurts to ask," unless the guy is the type who has a problem saying "no" and would wind up regretting having given away half of a twenty dollar bone.

I went on to add 37 bucks to it, playing until such a time that I felt the first wave of fatigue come over me, and pulled out my phone, expecting it to read the 12:23 AM, that I have seen countless times. It was 12:13 AM.

I felt like I had to play longer, and began to do so. Then I realized that, if I wasn't going to put in a lot of effort and try to get into my zone, then it would be better to knock off. I would have time to make it to the Rouses Market before they closed at 1 AM, and get a box of dry cat food for Harold the cat, a spare can of wet food; and, something for myself, to keep me alive so I can continue to feed Harold, of course.


When I stopped playing at 12:23 AM, Bourbon Street was just as populated as it had been when I had sat down to play an hour and a half earlier. It's always tough to walk away in that situation. But, I can remember times when NOLA was "rocking" just about around the clock, and I had to choose an 8 hour time slot to get required sleep, whether there was a parade about to kick off, or not.

Murphy's Law of Busking: As soon as you zip your guitar into its case, a well dressed group will come around the corner, with at least one of them singing a song that is in your repertoire.

So, I am in the same boat, here, Friday afternoon at 5:40 PM.
I could be nice and early at the Lilly Pad, and play for a good 4 hours. Well illuminated with good strings.

What I would like to do is dig up a "new" song, either from my forgotten repertoire, or something out of the Beatles Complete book in the key of the harmonica. "And now for something completely different," I can say to Angela the waitress from Lafitt's, should she sit on the stoop to smoke during her break. That would be nice.

The "excellent recording" that I had almost used as an excuse to keep me home, where I wouldn't make 57 bucks, I made upon returning to the apartment at 1:30 AM. Up until around sunup, I was, and I made sure that the mix down to stereo was done right, and then I disassembled it into individual parts, so I can build upon the almost flawless rendition of the rhythm guitar by replacing the first run through of the fake bass, which was the last thing I tacked on before going to sleep, with one that is the product of at least 3 or 4 runs through, with the goal being to find

The latest technique is to "mix and render" the separate drums onto one track, so that they become glued together, and I don't have to worry about the high hat falling out of time with the snare and/or bass drum or exotic percussion instrument from Burma.

This means that I then have to put reverb and/or delay on the whole drum kit, rather than giving each its own treatment (plate reverb on the snare, a longer delay on the crash cymbal, etc.) but this is a small price to pay for having drums that stay together in precise rhythm.

My CD (which should be out by 2020) Promises To Sound Good

The results have been quite promising.

I have also disciplined myself to play a rhythm guitar part exactly a certain way, and to not be improvising at all times. This is a right brain/left brain issue. By playing over a 6 minute drum pattern, and then doubling it on another track, and then tripling it on a third track, by the middle of the third time through, I had settled upon one particular way to play it; had rearranged the fingering to facilitate it, and had laid it down repetitively through the whole 6 minutes. No small feat for a mind that is constantly thinking "or, I could play it this way, or this way, or even this way; or maybe..."

I want my CD to actually be listened to, more than just once, by people. Clever, amusing and representative of how I sound on the street.

Lord, look at the time!

So many buskers who sit on a stool playing acoustic guitar and singing will have CD's for sale that "this is me in a band I used to play in..." and sound nothing like a guy sitting on a stool and singing with an acoustic guitar. In my case, the "backbone" will be guitar, vocals, harmonica, with other instruments added to, but not forming the basis of, it.

The important thing will be my ability to play any song on the disc live, and not be in the situation that The Beatles found themselves in, after they decided that they couldn't tour any more "Unless we bring a whole bloody orchestra with us," type of thing.

Now I just need to get into the abandoned rectory, go up to the third floor and sing like a sparrow.
"...I've got a sweeter song than the crows in the trees..."