Eye Candy, Black Jelly Bean Flavored

It is Tuesday afternoon, and I kind of know that I have to go out and busk this Tuesday night, or do I?
If I don't go out, then I can use what little change I have to my name to take the bus to the plasma place tomorrow, which would give me 25 dollars for this donation.

Then, I would have 25 dollars on a Wednesday, plus the CD would be that much further along.

If I go out tonight and make less than 25 dollars, then I will have less than 25 dollars tomorrow, and would have put no work into the CD, and would have been up so late that waking up and getting to the plasma place would be a challenge.

Plus, what if I make some amount of money that causes me to vacillate over whether or not to go get another 25 from the plasma place.

My mom might be sending me at least one more letter with money in it. If I go to sell plasma, and then return to find a letter in my box, I would have advanced the CD project, and might have about 50 dollars in cash.

A Return To 9:30 PM Starts

This weekend, my focus will be upon starting out each night Wednesday through Sunday, at the Lilly Pad at the 9:30 PM that used to be my standard starting time.

The Patriots have a "bye" week and won't distract me Sunday by playing football, and my food stamp money of, probably the reduced amount of 137 dollars, will arrive upon that same day.

I hate to see months "fly by," since "you're only dancing on this earth for a short while," as Cat Stevens put it, but, my food money ran out last month about 55% of the way through it, and I was also shortchanged by Travis Blain on the food money that he had promised me, while he was taking up space, breathing the oxygen, and talking incessantly about himself, in long lecture style.

One might say that the Travis deal was peripheral to my day to day food dealings, and that it should have been considered extra money that I won't be able to count on every month, and that my food would have run out even sooner, had it not been for the stingy amount of  $37.26, that I did get from him, but this isn't totally accurate.

I had made certain decisions, involving food purchases, based upon my expectation of getting the whole 50 dollars.

I could have gotten a whole 4 pound bag of frozen fish fillets for the 12 bucks that he reneged on, for example, and I might not have wasted money on stuff that goes with fish, like vinegar, olive oil, frozen vegetables, mushrooms and "fish seasoning," had I known that I was going to wind up subsisting upon pancakes, made from cheap flour, reasonably priced for the food value eggs, and water, which is plentiful, and seasoned with jam.

I guess I could always try mushroom pancakes, eh, Travis...might actually be pretty good with some vinegar on them, eh, buddy; pal?

Mail

I checked my mailbox around noon.
There was nothing in it except a catalogue from Musician's Friend.
"Yeah, she came early today," said the security lady in the front lobby of Sacred Heart.

Recording

Last night's recording came out very well. I'm tempted to post up an audio clip of it, but, at this point it is just a drum beat and a mixture of rhythm guitars. And, I have learned to be patient and not post up things that came out well, but still need to be refined.
The song is "Purple Heart," about a drunken panhandler in Jacksonville, Florida, who has his freedom taken away by the police, who treat him like crap and then find the medal when they are searching his backpack.

Another song is going to be "Monsters," about my experience of going to Catholic high school, and is basically about how we were one big, loving family of students, being educated and groomed to go out into the world as "Christian leaders," and about how dog-eat-dog, competitive  and cutthroat the process was.

"Computer Geek Blues," will make it onto the disc, with lines like: "Now he's giving her a bit; she's moving her bytes around; she's putting her software on his hard drive..." about a guy whose girl leaves him for "some computer geek guy, from Fountain Valley, California, according to his profile."

"The Twins," is kind of about the situation that every boy who knows twin girls finds himself in. Since they look the same, he's just going to go with the one who seems to like him more than her sister does, type of thing.

"Her Thigh Said Sublime," is another "harmonica era" tune, arranged around the capabilities of that particular instrument, and just needs a middle section. It's been well received at the Lilly Pad.

And, some of my older songs, like "The Carcass Song," and "Crazy About A Crazy Girl," will make it onto the thing, because they are some of my "classics," but, in my mind, they fell off the charts years ago, after maybe having reached #1 for a few weeks. The challenge for me will be to actually "remake" them so they will sound fresh, to my ears, at least.

I can get all the music ready to have vocals put over it, perhaps within the next month.

Then, I will have to think about a cover. I'm hoping that a Kinkos type printing place that advertises that they do "CD covers" is able to produce ones that fold out to reveal sheets of lyrics, more pictures, etc. to go with the songs.

And, buying plastic cases, as well as the blank discs to burn the music onto will be an expense.
And then, there will be the technical aspect of: Can I burn them using my laptop with its built in CD drive, onto the cheapest dollar store blank discs, without worrying that they will skip or not play on people's systems, or do I need to perhaps go to Tipitinas studio to use their more "professional" equipment?

But, hey; it will be cool to know that each disc, which might cost me a dollar total to make, will be for sale at a 1,000 percent markup.

This might make it worth skipping a "20 dollars if you're lucky" Tuesday night of busking to work on it.
But, I guess I'll make the decision as I walk back to the apartment, without enough money for an all day bus pass. Could I busk for a couple hours, work on the CD for a couple more, and then still go and sell plasma tomorrow? That would require self discipline, but, a 20 dollar night, plus 25 for my plasma, plus a letter from my mom with another 20 or so, and I might be able to go from rags to 65 bucks in a span of 20 hours...