Summer Trip To New England

Not much to report here, except waking up in the evening, with it almost 8 PM.
The Red Sox vs. Yankees game was squawking through static from the radio in the other room.

That morning, as I sat and read "Centennial," by Robert A. Mitchum, I had tuned my cheap FM radio to the sports station, which I can barely pick up.

I was depressed over the fact that I was waking up thinking about coffee and a cigarette and kratom, and, should I just clip some leaves off my pot plant now and set them to dry out so they will be ready for when I get back from feeding the other addictions?

You should skip the coffee and tobacco and the kratom and just go straight out to busk; you'll be there nice and early, around nine at night, and might discover that you can play well and enjoy it and make a lot of money, minus the "Linus and his security blanket" that having a joint ready to smoke while tuning up gives me.
Yes, conscience, I know...and, no I don't want to appear in Massachusetts in front of family and old friends, stepping outside every hour and then come back in reeking of smoke to those whose noses are more sensitive than mine because they don't smoke.

Can a street musician kick all his addictions and succeed in New Orleans?

It is already almost 10:30 PM. I could be set up and playing by 11:30 PM on this Saturday night during the officially dead season.

Tanya Huang has packed up and headed for the hills; of China, perhaps.

Other musicians have materialized to pick up the crumbs at her spot of St. Louis and Royal Street. What is not enough money for Tanya to bother with, is still not bad for them.

Doing What I Love

I've been making just about the minimum wage of 8 bucks an hour these past few weeks.
One might say that this isn't bad, considering I'm doing "what I love," but after 3 hours of doing what I love, my fingertips might be stinging. So, a minimum wage job where you only get 3 hour shifts each day, becomes barely adequate.

Solution: Get a Bluebird polycarbon fiber guitar with nylon strings like Dorise Blackman used to play for 12 hours a day. 

So, I have learned to sit idle at the Lilly Pad for stretches, just lightly strumming chords and holding a harmonica note, ready to go into some kind of real music  at the sight of approaching tourists.

This is not a totally efficient strategy, though because of two factors that will be distilled into formulas in the book on busking that I might write.
The "Personas Oscuros" or the people who hide nearby in order to listen to you play so that they can determine if A: you even know how to play an instrument. B: If you are "meant" to play music and truly love what you are doing it as evidenced by the fact that you are happily playing away even though there is nobody around to hear you; or that they are hiding behind SUV's if there are.

It is always better to settle in and play continuously, unaffected by the presence or absence of people right in front of you. People might be curious as to what you will play when you are "all alone" at your spot -these might be the same ones who request me to play "What you play when you're just sitting at home playing for your own enjoyment..."

Some people don't want to show themselves perhaps thinking that, should they engage the busker, by stopping to listen, and then walk off without tipping, it would be insulting to the guy, even though he might suck at playing music.

So, buskers, don't wait until you see someone coming to grab the guitar and start playing, at least strum a lazy chord and hold a harmonica note over it... 

The next fifty dollar bill I see will have "summer trip to New England" written all over it.