Like A Bird

My next 100 dollar a week couch crasher?

Friday night's busking proceeds allowed me to get the antibiotics and Ibuprofen for the last stage of the conquest of the infection of tooth and gum (and the swollen whatever gland) a couple cans of cat food, and something to eat. I woke up with just enough for a couple shots of kratom on my coffee table, with enough change left over for another can of cat food.

So, I can go out to busk on this Saturday night knowing that Harold the cat's needs have been met.
I also had an interesting experience which would be related to The Power Of Now book, by Ekhart Tolle that I am reading and the changes in my life that it has engendered.

Specifically, I had ridden into the Quarter after having spent my last cent on a new harmonica, but had 4 dollars, which had been given to me by Ed and Rose, as payback of a loan of that amount.
I had been hoping that they would give me a "tip" of a dollar so that I would have 5 bucks, so I could grab a sack of weed from outside the Banks Meat Market.

I took being a dollar short as a possible cosmic sign that I should try to busk without smoking weed first. I may have found that it allowed me to remember lyrics better and that I could get into "the zone" just as easily without it, once I start to play then get immersed in it....

But, not having the whole 5 dollars for a sack means one thing to me: find David the water jug player.
He might have bud on him and I could give him a couple bucks so that he could get his next half pint of cheap vodka, and would smoke me up, or he might have just one dollar on him to go with my 4 and we could split a sack...the possibilities are endless with David the water jug player.

I didn't spot him along a small circle of his regular hanging out area, but I spotted one guy whom I have always considered one of the most crazy guys in the French Quarter.

He is a black guy with wild dred-locked hair, sometimes seen wearing aquamarine colored hospital "scrubs" with no shoes on his feet, and always very vocal; loud and crazy.

I had seen David hanging out with him before, and thought that maybe David had the mettle to do so, but not myself.

The last time, David had been chastising the guy, yelling something that seemed aimed at teaching him something about human nature, the way David sees it.

"That's why he said that! That's the only reason he said that! He wanted you to think that! I'm telling you!!" or something.

I can't believe David hangs out with that crazy guy, I have always thought.

But, the crazy guy was sitting with another older black guy. He was in the process of rolling a blunt with some weed out of a napkin that he had unfolded in his lap.

I decided that it never hurts to ask.

"Hey, can I give you a few bucks for a little bud, just enough to roll a pin joint?" I ventured.

I was totally unsure of what to expect. This is a guy who takes crazy to a new level, or so I thought. And I had been shunning him for the past 6 years, as he has been a fixture on that block, as is David the water jug player.

"How much money you got?" he asked.

"I got 4 bucks."

"How about you give me 2 bucks and I'll smoke it with you?" he offered.

"OK" Here was a guy whom, upon the sight of, I had always said, sometimes half aloud: "Mentally ill nigger!" full of loathing for him, whom I had never had a conversation with, and had avoided.

I had seen him accosting tourists as they walked Canal Street, and it was usually with some cryptic sounding thing, like getting in their faces and demanding an answer to the question: "Does a bird fly?!? That's all I'm asking you, that's all I wanna know, does a bird fly?!?"

Most tourists would draw closer to each other and pick up their pace, with maybe one of them giving a whistle to communicate "this one's really crazy," or some other quick response, like "Sure," designed to keep them moving and allow them to escape his presence without being totally rude, which might be against their natures, because they aren't natives of the French Quarter.

But, then occasionally one might respond something like: "Unless it's a penguin," whereupon the "crazy guy," might continue:
"Thank you! thank you! Unless it's a penguin! or a dodo bird! or a chicken! or!...They's a lot of birds that don't fly! Every body say's 'yes a bird flies,' but they ain't thinking, not thinking at all. I like you, sir, you think!" and would thus engage people.

He is physically imposing enough at about 5' 10" and maybe 175 pounds that these are usually large young men in pretty good shape who are not afraid to interact with the barefooted guy wearing hospital scrubs and yelling: "Does a bird fly?"

And this is kind of the guy's hustle.

I sat down and he asked me if I could roll.

I had soon rolled a blunt out of the bright green weed that he put in my hand, which I recognized as being the "loud" (very strong) type.

He, I'm sure recognized me as being someone who interacted with David the water jug player but who avoided himself. I wondered if he harbored any resentment for me over this, and it crossed my mind that he might take my 2 dollars and then, when it came to passing the blunt to me, begin to act loud and crazy and make it so I would rather just leave than to try to coax him into passing it.

But, we sat and smoked together and, though he talked only about how he left his blunts wet with saliva after rolling them, rather than passing a lighter's flame back and forth across them to dry them (and to cement it so it would be less likely to fall apart, I argued without effect) because he said that they burned slower that way, he was civil and one would never guess that he was a Does a bird fly? type of person.

I admitted that paper that has been wet and then dried does burn faster than otherwise "Like if you find a newspaper that is bone dry but is swollen and wrinkled like it had been soaked, it will burn in a flash..."

"Yeah, I don't smoke newspapers, though..."

And not all birds fly.

I was amazed at how drastic an effect the Ekhart Tolle book was having upon my life, and how being in the present moment, and not harboring resentment because I had seen him acting crazy in the past when I had automatically labelled him "mentally ill nigger," nor harboring fear that he was going to act crazy and not pass me the blunt, had brought me to the point where I was: sharing a blunt with just about the last person on earth that I thought I ever would.

People looking on might have thought that they were seeing a whole new side to me: Wow, he actually hangs out with Birdman?

After we had smoked, I offered him my hand; "I'm Daniel," as if meeting him for the first time, which I was, in a sense, doing.

"I'm Gucci," he said, giving me the more modern fist bumping version of the handshake, before I flew like a bird to the Lilly Pad. He let me take the last third of the blunt with me, which I snuffed out and put in the pocket of my jacket, a 2 dollar value, which I still have now, as I prepare to go out and busk.

The Power of Now... Oprah Winfrey has it on her nightstand...

It is 9:06 PM, and I'll see you all (all 15 of you, on average) later.

One more note: Once at the Lilly Pad, I was blasted out by sound coming from the balcony across the way. It was from someone with a karaoke type setup who kept repeating "Im rich, yeah, I'm rich."
I was thinking that, while I have been mentioning the apparent decline in the readership of this blog, here is someone who might have read my post entitled: "Nigger Rich," and not read between the lines and well...that is neither here or now...