To Measure Success In Guava Paste

• 25 Dollar Friday Follows 24 Dollar Thursday
• Rose And Ed Evicted

A distraught Rose called me at noon.


I had been asleep for maybe a half night's worth by then.

I remember laying down and snapping the lamp off to find that nearly as much light was spilling through the blinds from the outside as had been coming from it.

I am living a charmed life; to be able to wake up in beautiful Louisiana with nowhere to go, nothing to do, I keep thinking.


"It all has to do with child support and certification and we had to get something notarized and we didn't have the money to get it notarized and we asked them if we could have until Monday but they said 'No, the eviction notice goes in Monday morning,' and then we would have to go to court, so we're just going to leave and stay at my sister's..."

Soon the distraught couple were at my door, pulling a cart behind them that they had apparently borrowed from Wayne, my neighbor who is a Mardi Gras "vendor," and uses it once a year for that. It was laden with food.

Rose unpacked, and explained, each item as she handed them to me...
"This is guava paste, it's kinda sweet. This is already open so be careful, but I didn't stick my hand in it, I just poured some out when I made my chili. These drinks are cold, do you want them in your fridge? This is some really good coffee, but you need a grinder, do you have a grinder; do you still want it?"

"I have the Crown Royal bag and hammer type of coffee grinder."

Ed began to speak, but Rose cut him off: "I'm talking to Daniel right now, Ed!!" The latter visibly shrunk, as if struck on the nose with a rolled up newspaper and, for perhaps the first time in my life, I could smell anger and fear and frustration on another person. I could hear Ed counting to ten in his head.

I could see that the eviction was a tense situation, bringing about some turmoil in the relationship between Rose and Ed. Ed had always been such a good provider, with his disability checks and the sale-able narcotics that are byproducts of his dozen or so yearly "surgeries," and it was sad to see him so humbled by these recent developments.

He had probably wanted to talk to me about the furniture, while Rose had probably wanted to dispose of the food matter first.

As soon as I had drifted off to sleep again, secure in the knowledge that I would have guava paste waiting for me when I awoke, the phone rang again.

It was Rose again, calling about the wooden kitchen table and the sofa that is in the room that her now 13 year old daughter occupies over the weekends when they have custody of her; something they are no longer certified to do, I guess.

I really didn't want any more furniture. As it is, I am stacking smaller tables on top of larger ones in an effort to reduce the clutter of my living space.

It crossed my mind that it would be easier for them to give furniture away (and then have the people they gave it to help them drag it to their respective apartments) than to haul it all the way outside to the waiting U-haul.

They were probably hoping that I would take the stuff to my place, even if I was going to set it outside by the dumpster as soon as their U-haul disappeared down the road.

But, I'm sure Rose will pop in for an unannounced visit at some point in the future, when, like a dog to its vomit, they come back to visit their "old friends" here, and "Oh,....where's the table and the sofa I gave you...I was looking forward to seeing them in their new environment...?" might be the first thing out of her.

They returned the bike that I had sold them almost a couple months ago, now, and that is now a piece of clutter that will always seem to be in the way, no matter where I try to shove it. And I no longer have 30 dollars to look forward to "the first of the month."

I suppose I can list the thing on Craigslist and offer to ride it to anywhere within the zip code to deliver it -included in the 30 dollar purchase price, 40 if I have to leave the state, type of thing....

"Oh, we're 'Chocolate Milk Heads' -been following them around the country in a minivan for years now..."

25 Dollar Friday

I suppose I earned every penny of what I made Friday night.
The "Jesus" clock was almost at 10:30 PM, as I realized once again that I can't seem, for the life of me, to be able to arrive at the Lilly Pad at my target time of 9:30 PM, which is when the piano bar guy starts playing inside Lafitt's.
If, in his professional sensibility, he deems that time to be when the dinners have been digested enough and enough Hurricanes have been swilled down to have put them in the mood to sing along with "Piano Man," by Billy Joel, then I suppose that might mean that they are likewise in the mood to hear "Guitar Man," (an adaptation of a song by Billy Joel) out of me.

This time, I had been waiting upon Bobby to return to his place with some weed. He had just "re-upped" and would soon be back, like Santa Claus with a big transparent bag full of a green leafy substance in his "sleigh" instead of one full of toys.

I thought to myself: "I can leave now, and be at the Lilly Pad by 10 PM without a bowl to smoke while I tune up, or I can wait for Bobby.

I was leery about it turning into a situation where, if he wasn't back by a certain time, I would have to man up and go out to perform my duties without the added luxury of an experience enhancing hallucinagenic. And, yeah, it seemed like I was being tested in some way.

After a reasonable amount of time, I decided that I would just ride through the parking lot of Banks Meat Store, ready to spend 5 bucks on a nickel of their regular bud, but a call to Bobby before I left resulted in him telling me to "hurry" to his place, where I had to take my place in line behind guys who buy from him and then sell it in the Quarter. They all arrive in vehicles, so they can't be doing all that bad.

I got to the Lilly Pad to find a beggar sitting on the stoop, who cleared off of it as soon as he saw me arrive on my bike. I was almost ready to offer him a puff off my tune-up joint.

It felt like the night was successful after group after group of people walked past with almost all of them throwing me at least a dollar; or more like: with almost all of them throwing only a dollar.

But, there were 21 of them, along with a 5 that had evaded my notice, along with about a pound of change in my basket when I knocked off for the second time, after having run out of motivation and talent and ambition at 1:03 AM, then having taken a break to smoke another bud and drink a Monster "Zero" energy drink.

I hit the stoop with renewed vigor at about 1:20 AM and played for about another 45 minutes. That was probably when the 5 dollar bill went into the basket, making for a 25 dollar night, give or take a pound of change.

This is a good sign. The small tip amounts are in line with the fact that this was the second night of a Jazzfest which spans 2 consecutive weekends, and tourists aren't going to come out of the gate throwing 20 dollar bills at every street musician, even if he is singing about carcasses. They will hold on to their money until the second weekend.

Then, after feeling as if they had seen all the performers at least once and had walked the gauntlet of Bourbon Street and been skeezed enough so they are starting to recognize the difference between them and someone who actually has something to offer, they will give larger tips to those few who were their favorites.

This is why it is important for me to be present at the Lilly Pad and biding my time, happy with the 25 dollar Friday night for the time being.
And, I guess the positive energy that I aligned myself with has caused blessings to flow my way. I just have to measure success in guava paste, that's all...
 
I slept with my song "Computer Geek Blues," looping continuously on my stereo. At one point, I woke up and could hear horn parts in my head that would fit -I almost was going to turn the microphone on and mouth the parts ala Peter Cetera, of the band Chicago, just to capture them; but I didn't and fell back asleep.

Left; Where was this "oldie but goodie" photo from 2012 when I was pasting together my "Cavorting With Amy," video? Next time I edit it, this one, along with a few others will be inserted. It should take me only about a half hour to do so.
Then, I'll have to delete the previous version from Youtube and replace it...I'll probably wait until I've finished the music to it... 

Later, I woke up and could hear a snare drum part in my head, implied by the rhythm I was strumming on the guitar, but fell back to sleep. The rest of the wakings up had to do with Rose calling on the house phone, giving away food and furniture.

I am going to take the best parts of the song and make them repeat, deleting the verses where I sang off key, and then play an additional guitar along with it, to use as a guide for singing the missing verses.

I will wind up with a song with the verses having been rearranged from the order that I sang them. All I have to do is cut and paste and I can move the 4th verse to be the 2nd verse, etc. It will be cool to listen to the finished song knowing that that was the case.

It must be equally cool when bands send a tape to one of its members, who takes it into a nearby studio and adds his part to it, before sending it back. "The guy playing the tambourine was in Australia, the piano parts were recorded in California and the rest of the band laid down the basic tracks in New York," type of thing.

The painstaking part will be to match the clips of me singing in the park to wherever those verses are heard, and then I guess to switch to a still shot of Leslie Thompson during those sections when I sang entirely different lyrics at a different spot.

When I get my smartphone, I will be able to play the song through an mp3 player or something and then walk around the Quarter shooting a video of myself singing (or mouthing) along with it, with all kinds of French Quarter scenes in the background and I'm looking forward to that.

Some bands talk about having come up with the idea for a video before the idea for a song came. I'm hoping that, once I get started making these videos I will come up with "...You know what would have been even better there?!?" types of ideas.

I think if I just walked around filming whatever I saw in the Quarter and just let clips of those run in the background while one of my random songs played, it would at least hold a viewers interest.

And, should I capture any "rare" moments, like one of the mules spooking and bolting down the street with a terrified load of tourists in the carriage, then I could even modify the lyrics with a line such as, oh I don't know: "But, you ran from me like a scared mule, woman!" or...something...

Spell Checker, ignore all occurrences of "skeezer."

The point, though, is that sometimes the scene might inspire lyrics, and vice versa.
If I'm recording a song about Lilly, then I can visit the botanical garden in City Park to capture images of her namesake flower, but if a cross-dressing old geezer walks past while I'm doing that, well, that might inspire a whole new song!