60 Dollar Friday
E-Mail Account Reclaimed
It was 10:08 PM, when I left the Uxi Duxi and headed for the Lilly Pad.
I got there at 11:35 PM and played until about 1:30 AM, making about 55 bucks in that hour and a half.
When I hit the "wall" at that point (feeling like I had been wrung out of creativity like a towel) I took a walk to the Quartermaster, leaving my bike and my milk crate near the Lilly Pad, thinking that I might get a second wind, even though it didn't feel impending.
But, after the walk and a Monster Zero energy drink, I was setting back up to play, and was in the mood for doing so. Another half hour produced about 6 more dollars, and I knocked off around 2:15 AM after having about a 55 dollar night.
It was only Friday night, the last weekend of Jazzfest, and my goal was to position myself so as to capitalize upon Saturday night, the last weekend of Jazzfest, or "tonight," as some may refer to it.
It is 8:40 PM, and I would be an hour and a half ahead of last night's schedule were I to pack up now and head for the Lilly Pad.
Wedding Postponed
I had a feeling that Geo and Mindy Lee were going to wind up dead or something before their wedding day came.
Geo called me this morning to inform me that the wedding had been postponed due to close family members on each side being unable to attend "on such short notice."
Reading between the lines, I see this as a reflection upon Geo and Mindy Lee, with their close family members, who know them better than I, probably seeing the frivolity in the whole idea of their marriage in Jackson Square, and it being just a whim of theirs stemming from a tree having spoken to them when they were tripping on acid, telling them to get married, with the squirrels echoing the sentiment.
I was intending to call Geo before the day arrived to ask about the sound system that might or might not be available at the ceremony.
I told Geo that I was adamant about making that trip to New England that I have been talking about each of the past 12 summers or so, even if it meant taking off without having secured bus tickets, spending money, a new harmonica and guitar strings, and stuff like a light sleeping bag, in case I busk in one city and want to crash somewhere before going to the Greyhound station the next morning to pay for the next leg of the trip.
What had stalled me the past few years was the fact that it slowed down here so much in the summer that I never had those preparations made.
Buying about $30 worth of cat food to give to my neighbor Wayne, and leaving him the key to my apartment so he can let Harold in and out and feed him (and I suppose tend to his litter box) will be the only "must-do" thing that would keep me from going this time.
Geo then began to basically beg me to allow him and Mindy Lee to occupy my apartment while I was gone. "You would be doing God's work," he said, were I to allow them to do so, "So we can get some money together..."
They are a train-wreck waiting to happen. I would have laid odds of something like 2 to 1 against their May 7th wedding ever going down, after I first met them. See if you still want to get married when you wake up all hung over and coming down from a cocaine high in the morning, type of thing.
"How much is your rent?" Geo asked me.
First of all, the fact hadn't escaped me that, after he said that the wedding had been "postponed," and I had mentioned that I planned to be gone for a month or so this summer, he didn't seem so concerned about my not being able to play at the ceremony, but more about if they can stay in my apartment while I'm gone, as if they would trade my playing their first dance song for having a place to crash for a month or so, at what I am assuming would be a discount rate. Of course they would probably have some kind of hard-luck story ready when I got back and would probably try to use LSD as rent.
Not that I see any malice in them; they truly seem to be trying to live the "peace and love and acid" lifestyle but the fact that their close family members seem reluctant to come down here for what should be a momentous occasion speaks volumes to me.
I should have told Geo right off the bat that I can't sublet my place as per my lease agreement, but I had just woken up after only about 5 hours of sleep.
I am three times bitten, four times shy, about even telling anyone about my living arrangements.
From David the water jug player who expects me to be walking around with a big sack of weed all the time because my rent is paid and I get food stamps, to Louise, who reneged on the 20 bucks she had promised me when she came to get the last of her stuff out of my place after she had stayed for 10 days, after I opened a birthday card from my mother that had money stuffed in it.
"Oh, I don't get money from my mom on my birthday, I don't get shit!" she had said while stuffing the 20 back in her pocket.
To Travis Blaine who answered my inquiry about him giving me "a little bit of cash" as an advance on all the money he was promising me with: "Well, you sold your plasma this morning, and you're going out to busk tonight, so you'll be alright..."
I have become quite reluctant to tell anyone what "my rent" is.
I first encountered that mentality years ago after I had gotten a pretty good job and was robbed of what little stuff I had, right before my first check was to arrive. "He's getting his check tomorrow, he can replace his stuff; he'll be alright," was the implied philosophy.
And, he was right. I blew off the idea of going to find the guy whom I was 99% sure was the thief armed with a baseball bat, thinking that it could wind up costing me my job if I went to jail for it, and yeah, thinking that I was going to get a check the next day for something like $380.00 and I could replace my stuff and would be alright.
Do these same people fill their car's tanks with gas and then drive off, rebuking the attendant with: "J. Paul Getty is rolling in money, he'll be alright!?!"
The Whole Envy/Guilt Thing
I have been haunted by similar memories lately, like the time I was the big winner at a poker game between about a half dozen guys, having cleaned them out to the tune of about 110 bucks. Then, when we made a trip to the liquor store, it was implied that I should kick in and pay for the stuff. "It is for the girls," said one of them to another, loud enough for me to hear.
"Yeah, it is for the girls," echoed the other.
They each had a girlfriend waiting back at the house where the game had been (of course they would drink some too, so "the girls" wouldn't have to feel like they were drinking alone).
"Yeah, I wish I had a girlfriend to buy liquor for," I said as I stuffed the rest of my winnings back in my pocket.
I guess that is the demon I'm wrestling with lately, having had a 55 dollar night, and knowing that, were I to mention that fact to someone at Sacred Heart Apartments, their knee-jerk response would likely be: "Well, then give me 5 bucks so I can get some beer!" while knowing that holding that resentment within me is stealing joy from myself in the present moment.
"Um, my rent is $767.00 a month," I told Geo, as that is the amount that is stamped "paid" on my lease paperwork each year...
Funny how having a decent money night can put me in just as much of a "funk" as having had a zero dollar night. "I made almost 60 bucks last night in 3 hours of playing, so what, leave me alone!!"
"
E-Mail Account Reclaimed
It was 10:08 PM, when I left the Uxi Duxi and headed for the Lilly Pad.
I got there at 11:35 PM and played until about 1:30 AM, making about 55 bucks in that hour and a half.
When I hit the "wall" at that point (feeling like I had been wrung out of creativity like a towel) I took a walk to the Quartermaster, leaving my bike and my milk crate near the Lilly Pad, thinking that I might get a second wind, even though it didn't feel impending.
But, after the walk and a Monster Zero energy drink, I was setting back up to play, and was in the mood for doing so. Another half hour produced about 6 more dollars, and I knocked off around 2:15 AM after having about a 55 dollar night.
It was only Friday night, the last weekend of Jazzfest, and my goal was to position myself so as to capitalize upon Saturday night, the last weekend of Jazzfest, or "tonight," as some may refer to it.
It is 8:40 PM, and I would be an hour and a half ahead of last night's schedule were I to pack up now and head for the Lilly Pad.
Wedding Postponed
I had a feeling that Geo and Mindy Lee were going to wind up dead or something before their wedding day came.
Geo called me this morning to inform me that the wedding had been postponed due to close family members on each side being unable to attend "on such short notice."
Reading between the lines, I see this as a reflection upon Geo and Mindy Lee, with their close family members, who know them better than I, probably seeing the frivolity in the whole idea of their marriage in Jackson Square, and it being just a whim of theirs stemming from a tree having spoken to them when they were tripping on acid, telling them to get married, with the squirrels echoing the sentiment.
I was intending to call Geo before the day arrived to ask about the sound system that might or might not be available at the ceremony.
I told Geo that I was adamant about making that trip to New England that I have been talking about each of the past 12 summers or so, even if it meant taking off without having secured bus tickets, spending money, a new harmonica and guitar strings, and stuff like a light sleeping bag, in case I busk in one city and want to crash somewhere before going to the Greyhound station the next morning to pay for the next leg of the trip.
What had stalled me the past few years was the fact that it slowed down here so much in the summer that I never had those preparations made.
Buying about $30 worth of cat food to give to my neighbor Wayne, and leaving him the key to my apartment so he can let Harold in and out and feed him (and I suppose tend to his litter box) will be the only "must-do" thing that would keep me from going this time.
Geo then began to basically beg me to allow him and Mindy Lee to occupy my apartment while I was gone. "You would be doing God's work," he said, were I to allow them to do so, "So we can get some money together..."
They are a train-wreck waiting to happen. I would have laid odds of something like 2 to 1 against their May 7th wedding ever going down, after I first met them. See if you still want to get married when you wake up all hung over and coming down from a cocaine high in the morning, type of thing.
"How much is your rent?" Geo asked me.
First of all, the fact hadn't escaped me that, after he said that the wedding had been "postponed," and I had mentioned that I planned to be gone for a month or so this summer, he didn't seem so concerned about my not being able to play at the ceremony, but more about if they can stay in my apartment while I'm gone, as if they would trade my playing their first dance song for having a place to crash for a month or so, at what I am assuming would be a discount rate. Of course they would probably have some kind of hard-luck story ready when I got back and would probably try to use LSD as rent.
Not that I see any malice in them; they truly seem to be trying to live the "peace and love and acid" lifestyle but the fact that their close family members seem reluctant to come down here for what should be a momentous occasion speaks volumes to me.
I should have told Geo right off the bat that I can't sublet my place as per my lease agreement, but I had just woken up after only about 5 hours of sleep.
I am three times bitten, four times shy, about even telling anyone about my living arrangements.
From David the water jug player who expects me to be walking around with a big sack of weed all the time because my rent is paid and I get food stamps, to Louise, who reneged on the 20 bucks she had promised me when she came to get the last of her stuff out of my place after she had stayed for 10 days, after I opened a birthday card from my mother that had money stuffed in it.
"Oh, I don't get money from my mom on my birthday, I don't get shit!" she had said while stuffing the 20 back in her pocket.
To Travis Blaine who answered my inquiry about him giving me "a little bit of cash" as an advance on all the money he was promising me with: "Well, you sold your plasma this morning, and you're going out to busk tonight, so you'll be alright..."
I have become quite reluctant to tell anyone what "my rent" is.
I first encountered that mentality years ago after I had gotten a pretty good job and was robbed of what little stuff I had, right before my first check was to arrive. "He's getting his check tomorrow, he can replace his stuff; he'll be alright," was the implied philosophy.
And, he was right. I blew off the idea of going to find the guy whom I was 99% sure was the thief armed with a baseball bat, thinking that it could wind up costing me my job if I went to jail for it, and yeah, thinking that I was going to get a check the next day for something like $380.00 and I could replace my stuff and would be alright.
Do these same people fill their car's tanks with gas and then drive off, rebuking the attendant with: "J. Paul Getty is rolling in money, he'll be alright!?!"
The Whole Envy/Guilt Thing
I have been haunted by similar memories lately, like the time I was the big winner at a poker game between about a half dozen guys, having cleaned them out to the tune of about 110 bucks. Then, when we made a trip to the liquor store, it was implied that I should kick in and pay for the stuff. "It is for the girls," said one of them to another, loud enough for me to hear.
"Yeah, it is for the girls," echoed the other.
They each had a girlfriend waiting back at the house where the game had been (of course they would drink some too, so "the girls" wouldn't have to feel like they were drinking alone).
"Yeah, I wish I had a girlfriend to buy liquor for," I said as I stuffed the rest of my winnings back in my pocket.
I guess that is the demon I'm wrestling with lately, having had a 55 dollar night, and knowing that, were I to mention that fact to someone at Sacred Heart Apartments, their knee-jerk response would likely be: "Well, then give me 5 bucks so I can get some beer!" while knowing that holding that resentment within me is stealing joy from myself in the present moment.
"Um, my rent is $767.00 a month," I told Geo, as that is the amount that is stamped "paid" on my lease paperwork each year...
Funny how having a decent money night can put me in just as much of a "funk" as having had a zero dollar night. "I made almost 60 bucks last night in 3 hours of playing, so what, leave me alone!!"
"
I know what you mean about certain people being "a trainwreck about to happen" because I've seen plenty of them.
ReplyDeleteAt my old shop, homeless people would go by, but there wasn't much of a place for them to camp out. Occasionally some bum or another would camp out for a few days in some niche nearby but that was the worst of it. Here, in the new shop, there's a large shared parking lot and so we've got a bunch of resident bums living in their cars. And life for them seems to be one long odyssy of fights and arguments and the daily/nightly quest for whatever drugs they're into.
Fortunately there are 3 distinct ways in and out of here so if one route looks "hot" I take another one.
I've developed a theory about homelessness, that if a normal, functional, person becomes homeless, they tend to find a way out of it somehow. At least a half-assed way out, like being just enough of a veteran to get a free apartment in New Orleans, or making oneself useful as a worker and said job, even if half-time, providing a loft to live in. People find garages to rent, backyard RVs to rent, some kind of situation for themselves.
The long-term homeless folks seem to be druggies, kooky in the head, or kooky in the head due to being druggies. Ron the recorder player I write about is probably manic-depressive, and smokes weed all the time - a habit that will gradually get rid of any ambition a guy might have. Red the flute player is either on heroin or he's a nightly alcohol binger; I'd bet on the 2nd thing. They seem to enjoy drama. It's a way of life for them.