My Timetable

• Waking Up At Six
• Back To Drawing, Bored
• Travis Attack

Last (Tuesday) night, I stayed outside the Uxi Duxi, using their wireless signal and blogging until midnight had just about arrived, and the opportunity to busk had just about departed.

I had followed a 35 dollar Sunday with a 7 dollar Monday; but was happy to have gotten 25 bucks in the birthday card that my mom sent.

A 55 year old man is supposed to have achieved a level of success in the world making it possible for him to support his aged mother, and send her something nice on her birthday, like one of those "I've fallen and can't get up" type of communication devices, or a plane ticket so she can come visit him and see New Orleans; not the other way around.

I've bitten off more than I can chew in regards to finding fame and fortune here, but am chewing as fast as I can. It's not over until the fat lady sings.

The Beachcorner bar? restaurant? which seems to sell as much, if not more, food than alcohol, was closing around midnight and so, I left, rather than remain sitting outside a closed bar using a laptop, focused upon past participles, rather than any guy creeping up behind me with a 2 X 4.

I picked up cat food while the speaker above me announced that "Rouses Market will be closing in 5 minutes" (please proceed with your cat food to the register).

I got back to the apartment, and decided to do laundry, as evidenced by the laundry detergent containers on the tabletop (top).

This involves me using the washer on the 1st floor, and the dryer on the 3rd. That washer is a front loading one that can be overstuffed and which supposedly runs on less detergent. The dryer next to it is one that the clothes come out of cold and damp after 45 minutes of, I guess, being tossed around in it. The dryer on the 3rd floor, which is Rose and Ed's floor, runs hot enough that some residents actually use the "medium" setting on it. There are machines in other spots in the building, and I need to seek out a better washer than the front loader that I've been using; I can still smell faint odors of cat shit and spilled coffee, if I put my nose right on the clothes and sniff, after taking them out of it.


Carrying the full basket of wet clothes up 3 flights of stairs made me think about physical fitness. Sure, I am in the top percentile of Sacred Heart residents, in that I tote them up the stairs, rather than just push a button and step on and off an elevator (I think I have used the elevator 3 times in 2 years of being here, and those times were only when I had been talking to another resident as I walked astride them, and they were getting on the thing.

"I could come out of my apartment every morning and run up and down the 4 flights of stairs x amount of times, as a workout," I thought to myself.

Then I thought: "How many 55 year old men would do that; how many at my age haven't already given up on "training," and succumbed to weaknesses, such as eating ice cream in front of a TV.

Jerry Rice, the former NFL football player, was known to be a physical fitness "freak," whose personal workout during the off season was supposedly more grueling than what the rest of the team was put through during training camp. This most likely accounted for the fact that he was playing at a very high level into his 40's.

But, I can picture him now, 25 years later, sitting at a cafe by the ocean, dipping hot wings in ranch dressing and washing them down with Corona beer, with a bit of a gut, saying: "I could probably still break 6 minutes in the mile, if I had a couple weeks to work this gut off me, but I just like to take it easy now, I like my cognac and cigars now..." At least I could picture him that way once I had gotten to the top flight of stairs with my basket of wet clothes.

No, Daniel; I'm toting that basket up the stairs AND dancing with the stars, ...shit!

Then, I went through the past few months of music that I had recorded.

I had done a lot of sessions that ran a half hour to 45 minutes in length, which I had just labelled with things like: "Practice-6-8-17," with the idea being to forget that the recorder was running, and play and practice, for the fun of it.

I was pleasantly surprised to find little segments that I could cut out and paste into new files -complete verses that I had run through, not only without blatant mistakes, but with a bit of style to them; "jazzed up," somehow.

Using the digital capacities of Audacity, I can "repeat" these chord changes x amount of times, and then go on a parallel track to sing all x number of verses over them. My CD should be a mixture of spontaneously created stuff on one end of the spectrum, and stuff that was cut and pasted at the other end.

I'm finally able to discipline myself to lay down chord changes, knowing that regardless of any crappy sounding sections, I can cut out any cool part, paste it into a new file, repeat it, slow it or speed it down or up, change the pitch, add fake bass...the sky is the limit. And that I don't have to follow through and make a complete song each session.

I plan upon doing nothing but vocals for entire stretches of days; and maybe taking the best from of 8 harmonica solos to paste where appropriate. Patience is key, along with getting into the rectory.

I want to make sure that, when I do get into the abandoned rectory behind the church where Louis Armstrong was married, I will have plenty of pre-recorded tracks to belt my voice out over. I still haven't been able to sing out in my apartment like I do when I busk; because, ironically for a street performer; I'm not an extrovert; at least not when it comes to my neighbors. I don't want to indulge them with a glimpse into my soul, I guess; even though I'll do it for total strangers on Bourbon Street.

I worked on my song: "Monsters," which is going to be about the experience of going to Catholic high school. Having settled upon one of the variations of the way the chords to it can be played, denotes progress for my musically ADD self.

Latest Drawing

Sometime in the middle of the morning, I grabbed charcoal and paper and took an hour or so, to draw a face, which I then, in a kind of "automatic writing" frame of mind, automatically affixed next to the clock, as seen in the top photo.

Of course, she looks lovely from every angle (but not as lovely as if I had been spending the past year fervently watching Youtube videos made by charcoal drawing masters; but, alas, I guess I'll just go down in history as a guy who "dabbled" in drawing, unless I live another 50 years and can take a few of them to become a "drawing fool" for a time; obsessively sitting at the feet of the masters on Youtube).

Though, something in a corner of my mind reminded me of the way that particular clock reflects light, especially at 7:17 PM...

There it is (right). You see; the clock is part of the exhibition; and must be displayed in the eventual museum, right alongside it.

I hope that when my CD is finished, I won't have to state that, had I spent more time on it, and paid more attention to detail, etc., it would have come out better. But, that does apply to the drawing.

Charcoal and paper, courtesy of Alex In California, who used to read this blog, but only because he had to come to it in order to navigate to his own blog, until he discovered a work-around for the "problem."

Then I fell asleep at around 11 AM, after having stuffed myself with the equivalent of hot wings and Corona beer, i.e. huge graham flour pancakes with butter and blueberry all-fruit spread.

I woke up around 7 PM, thinking: "Yeah, the pancakes are probably not the best food for someone who needs to be a bundle of energy, able to record music and draw pictures, and go out to busk, etc."

"Ed's Throwing Up"

My phone rang. It was Rose, asking me if I had 30 dollars to lend them.

I had like 25 dollars, left from the 41 dollar Friday, the rained out Saturday, the 35 dollar Sunday, the 7 dollar Monday, and the 25 bucks my mom sent. Simple arithmetic told me that I would have been flat broke and on my way out to busk on a Wednesday night, if not for my mom's gift.

"No, I don't have that much money; I..."

"How much do you have?"

I knew better than to say: "I have about 25 bucks," and then try to explain that I was probably going to need all of it, especially if I don't go out to busk tonight.

"Ed's throwing up."

"I'm sorry, I..."

"You don't have to feel sorry, I was just asking," said Rose, sounding sincere.

Then, Ed called back as I was throwing my laptop in my backpack, thinking that I would at least make it to the Uxi Duxi for a shot of kratom, if I accomplished nothing else this evening. He wanted to use my phone "for 5 minutes," which he did, as evidenced by my phone sitting on far right of the table (top) along with the coffee I drank out of the mason jar, the 25 or so dollars, an all the other items that tell a story from the tabletop.