And Tickle The Pope Pink

60 Dollar Friday
25 Dollar Saturday


The Friday night special; the rational brain cells telling me that this is a night of the week when I could potentially make enough to live off of for the remainder of it; and the "other" brain cells telling me that, since I found a twenty dollar bill laying in a driveway as I walked toward the Uxi Duxi at about 5:30 PM, I could use this money, along with the 5 dollars that Rose and Ed are slated to pay me back as soon as the sun rises upon tomorrow, as a kind of safety net, allowing me to work on my other ambitions like drawing and writing and recording music with impunity from the financial blow that I might incur after taking a weekend night off.

Then, there is the impossible to prove zen type of bullshit that would say that, when and only when you have truly sacrificed in this material plane, such as offering up an entire Friday night of busking earnings as a love offering to your work of art, and to please goddess Shiva and have Krishna and the Buddha smiling and tickle the pope pink, in a sense.

Then will the marvel which is the music that flows from the spring of eternal life which transcendence into Krishna consciousness is the way to; and you will record a song worthy of putting on a CD.

Photographing this; prohibited

Or, you will noodle around with the studio, unable to restrain the furtive glances at each trolley that rumbles past, looking for signs of tourists returning from a visit to "the cemeteries," which, I have to admit I know nothing about except that they are deemed a prominent enough feature here, to have designated a whole trolley line as "cemeteries;" as evidenced by the placard under which it rumbles.

But the number of tourists likely to walk past the Lilly Pad can be deduced by the number of visitors who include a trip to the "the cemeteries" in their itinerary. Someone who is doing such a touristy thing is a ripe candidate to come by the oldest bar in America.

But, the 20 dollar bill, I found laying in the driveway of some attorney's office.

All the businesses in Mid City, which is where I'm officially from, are housed in houses.

They look like quaint and charming southern houses, just with signs advertising services planted in the front lawn. It really makes it look like someone is popping in on friends to say hello, when they might actually be going in for a root canal. Charming.



But, after buying a 3 dollar all day bus pass (which is a commitment to go out and busk that night, otherwise the thing will expire worthless) and then a 3 dollar shot of kratom, and then a 7 dollar and change pack of American Spirit cigarettes, I realized, as I was plucking a box of Harold the cat's favorite dry food off the shelf of Rouses Market, and this before I had even considered feeding myself, that the 20 dollars that I had found was hardly enough money to try to take a night off on, even with the 5 bucks added from Rose and Ed.

I would say something like "20 dollars doesn't buy what it used to," but, that could more accurately be stated as: "20 dollars doesn't buy as many cigarettes as it used to."

Cigarettes have gone from $2.36 per pack in 2001, to at least 6 bucks for the same pack 16 years later.

If every other product had followed suit, then milk would be 8 dollars a gallon now and everyone would be lamenting that 20 dollars doesn't buy what it used to...

So, I made a beeline for the apartment, shortly after the Uxi Duxi closed; and then managed to be on the 10:40 PM trolley. I started to walk towards the Lilly Pad along the new track on Rampart Street and was passed by the trolley about 5 minutes into my walk. I guess I would have only waited that long for the new trolley to have come by.


It was probably about 11:20 PM when I started to play, knocking off 2 and a half hours later, with just about 70 dollars in the pocket where only one buck had been on the way in.

Libra: Walk with your eyes on the ground today. Good evening for writing, with the moon in Capricorn.

I was wondering if finding 20 bucks would be worth blogging about, and thought to myself if I find any more money on the ground tonight, then I'll blog about it...

So, then I found two 5 dollar bills, up against the curb on Royal Street and kind of damp.

I believe the employees of one of the restaurants, in wanting to just get the hell out of there and go home at the end of a night, probably took a hose and hit the outdoor seating area with a high powered, general spray; and washed everything right out across the sidewalk and into the street, clapped their hands once (that's good, let's go) slammed the gate and went off.

Only, there hadn't been enough current to drag the two 5 dollar bills down the drain and, hence, they were wet, separated from each other by a foot or so, and half stuck to both the pavement and the concrete curb. My guess is that they hadn't been there for more than 10 minutes, as, that stretch of Royal Street sees a skeezer pass at least that frequently. I guess this time, I just happened to be that "skeezer!"
I found a dime on the sidewalk near the front entrance of Hotel Monteleone, bringing the total for the day of money laying on the ground to 30 dollars and 10 cents -not a bad head start on an eventual 70 dollar busking day/night.

The March Of Dimes

I had been finding one dime per day for something like 43 straight days about a year ago. It was always just one dime laying somewhere along my path that day. It was only "something like" 43 days, because there were days that I hadn't gone out of the apartment. Every day that I did go out, I would find a dime laying somewhere, saying: "There's the dime," as I scooped it up. This string ran for 43 days.

It ended after I got a bike and began to ride it to work and back, thus missing a lot of dime opportunities, I would imagine...

Howard To Give Me A Bike

Howard has served me notice that he intends to get me a bike for Christmas. He and Berta, one of his housemates, are both actually in on it.
I'm sure Howard spoiled the surprise only in the event that I come across a bike between now and then and fork over my hard earned money for it.

Howard has made a fortune in the stock market since our president took over. I will still have to try to get him something that's within my means. I'm thinking about an ounce of kratom.

I could print out a bunch of the promotional, I guess you would call it, stuff that the Uxi Duxi has handy to answer the most frequently asked questions, from "What the hell is that stuff?" all the way down to "So, can I take this instead of pain pills?"
These I could include with the gift of an ounce of kratom which, frankly, I think Howard will blush at the thought of even trying; but one never knows. He might exclaim: "Oh, wow, I haven't seen mitagyna specioso leaf since I was in China; I've been looking all over for some; it's the only thing that has ever helped my deafness!!" Yeah, he could say that.
That would be a good present that's within my means, at $13.20 per ounce at The Herb Shop in the Quarter.

-Charles Bukowski

Howard complained, once again about Ken, who is, I guess Berta's live-in boyfriend. Ken was actually out in the woods in a tent not far from Howard when they met.


Ken somehow met this wonderful woman, who had just lost her husband, and wound up moving out of the woods and in with her. There is a huge brown turkey in the back yard of Berta's house, that she has had for several years. (Anyone reading this blog in Gretna, Louisiana, this is turkey lady that I'm talking about, by the way.) She used to live right down the street from the Algiers Point Bar, where the turkey was caged in a much more visible area almost in the front yard. I'm sure I'm not the only person to have photographed it, after having stepped outside the bar for a cigarette and then noticed it.


So, somehow the three had remained close. When Howard lived here at Sacred Heart Apartments, he would jaunt off on Sundays to have dinner with Ken and Berta, and to attend church with them.


Howard wound up moving out of Sacred Heart Apartments, ostensibly jumping at an opportunity to be out of an apartment and into a house with a yard and a turkey, and everything. But maybe weighing the deeper question of growing old surrounded by good friends and a turkey, or by nothing but the bunch of skeezing turkeys that inhabit Sacred Heart Apartments...

Turkey Lady

But lately, Howard talks about Ken becoming abusive when he drinks, which, excuse the tired cliche, is when he is awake; and he talks about Ken being out of work for long periods of time, during which times Berta's resources become stretched to the point of rice and beans for dinner.

I'm not sure that I don't see a tiny light at the end of a tunnel, which might be myself moving out of Sacred Heart Apartments and replacing Ken in that arrangement should he continue to be unemployed and abusive and to siphon booze money off of a rather simple and genuine woman who probably has faith that he will get back to work soon and will have no idle time to sit around getting drunk.

So, yikes. I suppose this is just halftime. I need to go out and complete Saturday night, and then Sunday morning outside the Superdome for the first Saints game that I will have made it to this year, should I indeed make it there, and then I will have arrived at Monday, one day to wait until food money comes on my card; and hopefully with enough money to notch off one of my goals.

Combining a trip to see Paul at Webbs Bywater music to show him the tuning machine on my guitar that is messing up; with a stop at the nearby pawn shops to try to get an auger with which to drill into the building that I want to use for a vocal studio; would be one intriguing possibility.

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