Compelled To Relate

 To Howard's to watch football on a Sunday.

"Berta usually starts serving at around 1 PM," Howard had said.

I was determined to try to arrange things so I would get there at around that time, rather than a couple minutes before the game kicked off.

The past few times that I had gone there to watch football, I wound up on the very last bus that would give me any chance of making it to his place before the ball was kicked off. And I had gotten off it, at the Interstate ramp and had run, often gripping my backpack behind me so my laptop wouldn't bounce around too much, most of the mile to his house

"Oh, for Pete's sake, I was starting to think that you weren't gonna make it. There's coffee in the kitchen, would you like some?" Howard had said, each time -his routine thing to say- upon my arriving there, out of breath, and removing layers of clothing in order to cool off.

"I had to jog," I had replied each time.

But this Sunday was going to be different, right? I had had a 30 dollar Saturday night at the Lilly Pad, which quelled any feelings that I should be out busking instead of watching football, and had gotten to sleep at the reasonable hour of 4 AM.

But Sherman was at my place. He had started to almost beg me to accompany him to Wal-Mart, where he needed to get oil for the white box truck, which seems to be burning or leaking it. Of course it is burning or leaking oil; it's Sherman's; but it had been a "bargain" in other regards.

"I can drop you off at Howard's afterwards," he had said.

I kind of put my foot down, reminding him that I had made it plain the day before that Howard and I had been planning this occasion since the NFL schedule had come out back in August, announcing the pairing of each of our favorite teams, and even adding that I was trying, for a change, to make it there in time to join everybody in their Sunday afternoon dinner.

As I re-explained this to Sherman, while everybody was saying grace across the river, he sat on my couch, and became lost in his own thoughts.

I felt bad in a way, because Sherman truly seemed to be in need of a friend to lean on. He had somehow been kicked out of his apartment on Spanish Trail in Baton Rouge, where I had passed many nights back when I would go to that city to busk, during the slow season of July and August in New Orleans.

I remember that he had ha the place loaded with signs of all kinds of started, then abandoned, hobbies. The closet was full of music equipment, there was an easel and art supplies, photography stuff, a bow and arrow along with targets, and a dart board, upon which I remember defeating him etc. The place looked like a hobby store that also sold beds and coffee tables.

But, he had dropped in, unannounced, the day before the big game. In a bind.

I kind of wanted to do a shot of kratom at the Uxi Duxi, and then hop on the trolley to begin my journey, which I did.

But, I got busy with writing yesterday's post and found myself, once again, on the "jog to Howard's" vehicle.

The game was entering its second quarter by the time I entered the back door of the house and pushed open his bedroom door.

"Oh, for Pete's Sake, I was starting to think you weren't gonna make it. There's coffee in the kitchen, would you like some?"

Howard told me of his having ordered a nativity scene online, and then having returned the Mary and the Joseph along with a nasty note: "I could have gone to the Goodwill and paid 5 dollars for a better Mary and Joseph, than this 58 dollar set!"

"Much better..."

"The baby was alright, though," he added.

His complaint about Mary and Joseph was that they had been too white.

"Maybe that's so you can color them in yourself, with your choice of skin tone, depending upon your race," I offered. "They probably don't want to pretentiously send everybody a black Jesus..."

The company had made amends by sending him a much better Joseph and a much better Mary (shown).

I was surprised to learn that Howard, whom I knew had been a chaplain at a prison for something like 12 years, before he had gone to China to teach English, had a degree in Theology.
He told me that there was some evidence to suggest that Jesus was actually born perhaps in the year 30 B.C., and not on the commonly believed date.
"And almost certainly not on December 25th," I threw in my two cents with. This got a chuckle out of him.

He told me a few stories about his being a chaplain at a prison, to include the one about his having to have purged the chapel of the homosexual activity that had been going on before his arrival, and the one about the mentally ill inmate who would enter the chapel and just hold the foot of the statue of the crucified savior.
His decision had been: "As long as he's not touching the Jesus inappropriately...I'm not going to bar him from the chapel, just because he's doing something different. How do I know what's going through his mind...?"
I was just glad that Howard was talking in an animated way; as it was a sign that he was enjoying my company. There is always the possibility that I might find him in a mood unfavorable to watching football with a friend; he might have a headache, be very tired, or might have to be up early the next day, due to something having popped up. Making plans weeks in advance opens the door to that possibility.
There had been a couple times like that; when he had dozed off in front of the TV, and seemed to want to just go back to sleep, rather than have an animated discussion. I could read his body language and in between the lines of the things that he had said those times, and had left much earlier, saying things like: "Well, it looks like the Patriots have this one in the bag..."
Howard is also my Chinese "consultant" for all things "Tanya Huang."
He had become pretty much an expert on The Chinese throughout his 10 years of living there and teaching English, and offered me explanations on things like why she would shrug and say "I was just trying to play well," after I might have asked her an art-related question, like: "Did you ever live in Tennessee with a bunch of hill-billies?" after she had played a very authentic sounding "fiddle" part over "Folsom Prison Blues," by Johnny Cash.
The Crumbs Off Of Tanya's Table
I later found out that she had spent a few weeks one summer at a "fiddle camp" in that very state, jamming with and learning from some pretty well known fiddlers who were running the thing.
"Why wouldn't she have just told me that, Howard?"
"Well...the Chinese...." he had started, and then had basically said that she probably wanted me to think that she was this inherently gifted musician who could play any style on earth, as well as if she had spent a summer taking lessons from Ricky Skaggs at $1,200 a week at an exclusive fiddle camp.
Howard also suggested that I may have closed the door forever on any potential relationship with her, after having said anything disparaging that might have gotten back to her.
"The Chinese are all about 'face,' as in 'saving face;' and what is said and thought about them is everything to them; and they'll do some pretty puzzling things along that line."

Anecdote that I felt compelled to relate, or transparent attempt

to boost my blog traffic in Taiwan?

He mentioned seeing wealthy Chinese families in restaurants, who would intentionally order way more food than they could ever eat, just so they could be seen leaving plenty behind; as a sign of their abundance (and innate ability to pick up a fiddle and play as if they are at a square dance in a barn somewhere in Kentucky even though they are in China) and that they would then allow poor people to show their faces, which are beyond saving; and stuff them with the leftovers, praising the name of the wealthy family in between bites.

Tanya used to invite me to walk with her to Rouses Market, where she would buy me "whatever you want" to eat.

I had asked Howard about that, and if I should have politely declined, in order to save face; should have considered it an honor; or should have grabbed the most expensive plate of sushi with caviar and placed it on the counter at the register; type of thing.

It depends upon whether or not she is one of the "new millennia" Chinese kids, or is more steeped in tradition, if she is going to take any grudge against me that she might have, to the grave, or if she might play with me some day.

I actually arrived at the conclusion that, even if I just showed up and played with her for a couple hours here and there, having gotten myself an amp, a headset microphone, an electronic guitar pickup, and a trailer and bike to pull it all behind, that I could quickly and unobtrusively set up next to her; those couple hours here and there might constitute a "living" for me; who isn't presented with the onus of having to make as much money as I would be, playing for the New Orleans Symphony Orchestra, in order to justify my being "out there."

"I had the action lowered and this is a ceramic pick guard I had installed; and I'm just waiting on my wooden picks to arrive, and I'll be ready to go!!"

Bobby, in building C, has been very supportive of me; if giving me huge discounts on medicinal weed that is going to addle my brain and dissolve my ambition can be considered support.

He has bought a trailer that can be pulled behind a bike, a bike, and is now in the market for a battery powered guitar amp, and is giving every indication that he wants to let me use the stuff, and that he will consider it an investment.

"You help me out; you teach me things on the guitar, you inspire me to play; you have too much talent to be going out there and making 11 bucks a night; what the hell is that shit?!?" Bobby has said.

He has given me food -a whole frozen turkey a few weeks ago comes to mind- guitar strings and picks (some of them even made of wood) and even let my try a glass of the methadone that he has been prescribed, as a recovering heroin addict.

He is proud of the fact that he has been able to give up heroin, and that he now only smokes copious amounts of medicinal grade marijuana, doesn't drink nor smoke cigarettes, etc.

It wasn't lost upon me that, in doing so, he was given me the greatest gift, in his esteem, that he had in his power to offer me. How does a heroin addict say "I love you, man!?!" This plastic cup full of a brownish liquid is for you, buddy!

I guess I have never became a heroin addict for the same reason that the methadone put me in no better a frame of mind than I am able to attain in other ways. A double shot of kratom is more my cup of tea; and I don't see myself robbing anyone at gunpoint to get it.

Alex In California, former blog reader would probably see me as skeezing the guy...
Sherman Retreats
Sherman went back to Baton Rouge, I guess, after I had declined to go to Wal-Mart with him, and instead kept my Sunday Night Football date with Howard Westra.
He might have felt that I was being callous and abandoning a friend in need of someone to console him; but, how much should he have expected in that capacity, from a guy whom he hasn't seen in 2 years, and whose blog he stopped commenting upon, because he was repulsed by the "even robots can comment here" message that was in the box for a while?
He had thought it De-humanizing, or something...

But, Sherman; if you are reading this; you can always call in advance, and we can hang out on a day when I don't already have plans.

I think Sherman diminishes his odds of being rejected, by calling from right outside the apartment.

Louise Helton had more manipulative motives in doing the same thing, in the spirit of "I dragged all my stuff all the way here, and I'm right outside, how can you turn me away now?"

"Well, you can turn around and drag all your stuff right back to where you came from...that's how..."

I enjoy Sherman's company, conversely, and could easily plan for him to come by "the next day."
He just suffers from a self invented persecution by people in positions of power -kind of like his own personal 800 foot long hedgehog that is chasing him around.

He has the tendency to project upon himself things that might be said about others. I need to come up with a snigglet to describe this phenomenon.
He kind of took my recounting of the Travis Blain roommate debacle as an indictment of himself, for instance.
"Well, first of all, I don't have a cat, and...if I start to talk non-stop about myself,  just stop me..."
"Oh, I'm not relating him to you; I was just telling you the story because the subject came up. If I have something to say to someone, I'll usually just tell them straight up, and not use parables and hints and insinuations..."

One of my ex girlfriends, Angela, used to labor under the same thing, that I don't have a snigglet for yet.

I might have complained about a certain person, for instance, whom I encountered earlier that day who might have had, say, the irritating habit of staring off into space in between sentences, and might have just mentioned this strange thing, in the course of conversing.; to which her typical response would be to become defensive and say: "Well, I'm sorry if sometimes I have to gather my thoughts and my eyes might wander away from your face. Nobody's perfect. I'll try to guard against it in the future!!"

"Sweetie, I wasn't talking about you, nor trying to tell you something; I was just talking about how my day has gone..." type of thing.

I have written a 15,000 word story about my time with Angela, and would have published it already had I not gotten the idea to tie it in with a 15,000 word story to go
Monday Night
It's Monday night, 10:30 PM, already. I'm outside the Uxi Duxi, which closed 2 and a half hours ago, and I just need to stop and get a $2.12 box of dry cat food for Harold to go with the expensive food that Treva, the cashier at Rouses Market gave me last week. I still have about 12 bucks on me, out of the 30 that I made Saturday night, along with the 7 that I started out playing with.
"How's Harold?," I am often asked at that particular Rouses Market, when I show up before their closing time of 1 AM. I think that it is Treva's way of announcing to the other customers present: "Hey, this weirdo named his cat 'Harold.'"

Last night, as I waited for the bus which only comes once every hour and a half, I found 2 quarters on the ground around the bus stop. I then got on the bus and sat down with my foot almost resting on a 5 dollar bill that was on the floor.

"It's kind of a crazy Santa Claus, I like it." -Howard Westra

I had had to do a 200 yard dash to get to the bus after I had left the stop after the "11:50 PM" bus still hadn't arrived at 12:10 AM.

Thinking that I probably had an hour and a half or so to kill, I was going to get a newspaper and a cup of coffee at the Waffle House across the street. No sooner had I gotten to the other side of that 4 lane road with a median in between, when 2 buses appeared at the stop that I had just vacated.

The 200 yard sprint to it; made feasible by the fact that some guy had to remove his bike from the front carrier; told me that, yeah, I need to quit smoking...