- 38 Dollar Saturday Night Marred By Skeezing
- New Wage Figures To Work With
This was my own fault for not having warned the guy who was listening to me play, after he had sat there long enough to have attracted one, about skeezers.
Had I explained to Erik from Loraine, Michigan how, almost invariably, when anyone sits on Lilly's stoop to listen to me and/or chat, it will attract a skeezer, who will try to insinuate himself into the scene.
The skeezers will assume that the tourist has money, otherwise he wouldn't be sitting there requesting songs, and they will figure that it is fair game for them to sit on the side opposite me and try to draw the attention of the tourist towards themselves, and hopefully drain his wallet before I get any more tip money, by presenting them with a plea for money which is more compelling than just being a musician with a tip jar out.
I could have explained this to Erik and made him aware that some professional skeezer would be along, before long, and could have put him on his guard by telling him that whatever the skeezer said or did was going to be solely aimed at getting him to fork over a substantial amount of cash; and the the lies that they tell would be tailored to how much they thought he was worth and what they could get out of him.
But, I had neglected to warn Erik about skeezers. This was probably because I was having fun playing and enjoying myself. It was in the back of my mind that, if he sat and listened to me for an hour or more, then he might throw me a twenty dollar bill, but I really wasn't thinking too hard about it.
The ones who sit for an hour listening and then leave after saying something like: "I so wish I had some cash because I would so throw you a huge tip, because you sound great," and the ones who do the same and then leave me with a couple hundred bucks kind of balance each other out, and the 18 bucks an hour average prevails.
But, since Erik was in a good mood and not suspicious of anyone who might try to insinuate himself onto the stoop beside him, a skeezer was able to do just that.
He was a skinny guy, probably in his thirties, and dressed in all black in a way that suggested that he might be looking for work as a bus boy or some other job that requires wearing all black.
It could also be that, as part of his skeeze, he may have "just lost his job as a bus boy," which would set up his "can you believe how they did me, just because (I'm gay, I have tattoos, I'm not in their little clic, I nodded off for a few seconds towards the end of a 14 hours shift -whatever, depending upon the tourist) story.
For Erik, who was too polite and civilized to have minded if the skeezer sat there, it seemed to be the "just got out of jail (after being railroaded)" story, complete with guns and knives and felonies that he was falsely charged with, and with heart-wrenching details of not having seen his daughter, now nine years old and very hungry, grow up, etc. etc.
Erik is perhaps one of the most gullible tourists that I have encountered on Bourbon Street. I can say that, in hindsight.
"Mind if I sit here?"
I didn't recognize the skeezer as such, and he had done a good job of faking like he wanted to hear me play.
He then followed almost the exact protocol that other skeezers have, by beginning to talk the guy's ear off, blocking my music out so he could concentrate on his phrasing and his diction in an attempt to draw the guy's attention away from me.
A Better Outcome
I have had other tourists, one of which was the self proclaimed millionaire, who had become one by being a no nonsense corporate big-wig, at home chewing a new asshole on a guy who fell short of his quota for the quarter; the type of guy that would make employees break into a sweat as soon as they are summoned to his office, type of thing. He had said something like: "Look, buddy, I'm in the middle of relaxing and enjoying some music, beat it!," and had not given the skeezer a dime, but then tipped me $175 after a couple hours of us hanging out.
Yet Another
Then there was the couple whom I had had the presence of mind to warn that "one of these skeezers" was probably going to come along and try to hustle them as soon as they saw that they had sat down to listen to me.
They had played a game with the skeezer who, true to form, showed up, with the husband having told the skeezer that the wife had "all the cash" on her, after he had, for some reason, chosen the time that she had run off to use a restroom to put the skeeze on.
His skeezer-sense had probably told him that he stood a better chance of getting money out of the guy, and he was right, for, after the wife had returned from the restroom, a Red Bull in hand for me, she had summarily dismissed him, having taken to heart my warning about "them."
She had told me that she used to live, I forgot where, but wherever it was, she had fomented in her a distaste for "bums," after being constantly skeezed there.
The husband had, with amusement, referred the bum to her, whether she had "all the cash," or not, and had kind of winked at me as he was telling the skeezer that she did.
These are some of the great memories that buoy me at times like last night.
Erik seemed naive, and had been very vociferous on the subject of one percent of the population in the U.S. being in possession of half the money, and half of that money being in the possession of one percent of them, "so, we live in a world where a tenth of one percent are unimaginably wealthy, and then there is everybody else..." I had observed on the subject.
This had gotten a hearty, "I couldn't agree with you more!" response from Erik, who then went on to explain how he is a champion of the underdog, and that he values someone like myself, who sits on the sidewalk and, etc. etc.
And, so one can see how he was ripe to be picked by the next skeezer to come along, as much of an "underdog" as a dog's dick.
Ostensibly.
The skeezer had "just got out of jail" (and boy, is that first beer in nine months going to taste great, if he could just acquire the money for it) and began explaining that he had had a gun, which was properly registered "and everything," but that, due to his having a felony on his record, he was breaking the law by possessing. And, of course, he had only been trying to defend his family from, I don't know, Mr. Sluggo?
 |
| Mr. Sluggo |
This was, I felt, an attempt by him to figure out, basically how naive and perhaps gullible Erik was. His "Oh my God, guns, and knives, and prisons and being raped in showers!" response was enough to assure the skeezer that he would be able to blow Erik's mind with his interesting story, which he very well could have been extracting from whatever James Patterson novel he's currently reading.
There is an unwritten law among hustlers that "we are all out here together, all for all, one for one," and it wouldn't, in their world, have been kosher for me to have started to poke holes in his story (a minute ago you said that a person would have to be totally stupid to starve in New Orleans, what with all the food everywhere, while extolling the beauty of "his" city; Now, you are basically saying that you are starving...), or to say to Erik: "This guy is full of crap, he only wants whatever is in your wallet. That's the purpose of his having sat there and the impetus behind every word that proceedeth forth from his mouth."
That all should have been said after I had seen that he planned upon sitting by me for more than a half a song.
After I had played my next song, which Erik heard none of, because the skeezer was running his mouth, I stopped playing.
Erik was so enraptured by the skeeze that he didn't even notice me packing my stuff up and taking down my spotlight until I was shouldering my bag, preparing to walk off.
He then broke out of the trance and asked: "Are you leaving?," blissfully unaware of why I would be doing so.
 |
| Assuming you sleep 8 hours a night, |
| that would leave you less than 70 hours a week to practice; |
| I know I wouldn't take the job... |
I said: "Yeah, I can't compete," nodding my head towards the skeezer "I can't compete with someone telling a story, I was even starting to listen to it myself," I lied, and stopped short of adding: "It's quite a whopper!"
The skeezer then became The Gentleman: "Oh, man, I am so sorry, I feel like shit. I didn't know I was distracting you. Do you want me to leave? I'll leave!" and even started to stand up, but it was "fake" starting to stand up.
I stood there glaring at him, and even shrugged my shoulders as if to say: "Sounds good to me."
Erik then said that he didn't want me to leave.
The skeezer had started to see an opportunity to have the tourist all to himself, and said something like: "Thanks for offering to let us sit here, so we can talk, though, but your music wasn't bothering us at all..." apparently forgetting who had been there first, and who had come along as a distraction and apparently speaking for the two of them.
"We could go and talk somewhere else," he added. There was the implied threat of taking the tourist and his money away from me.
Erik became insistent that I play longer.
The skeezer further annoyed me by asking me if I would play, "some popular music" for them. I had been in a good mood and hadn't even begun to have angry emotions until a ways into that first song, when it felt like nobody was listening.
Other tourists walked by as if they thought that I was already occupied, as they normally do when someone is sitting on the stoop.
Erik had told me that he enjoyed "just talking to people" and hearing their stories, and where they are coming from, etc.
I wanted to ask the skeezer if he would just hurry up and beg the guy for money, because he would surely be gone shortly after getting any, but this skeezer was going for a big payday, trying to harpoon the whale.
That would require much more story-telling and the establishment of a better rapport with the guy, and the sprinkling in of more "human interest" type material so that he could up his skeeze, accordingly. At that point, he was probably only at the ten or twenty dollar level.
He needed to read Erik further, to help him decide between perhaps, his little girl needing braces....I don't know, does Erik look like he might have been made fun of by the other kids in grade school? Or, more "being raped in the shower after being imprisoned behind unjust cause" tales.
He then would shoot for whatever large sum he was feeling at the time.
I was pretty sure he is a heroin addict, and had probably networked with "Red," who is an admitted one, and who had tried the "mind if I sit here?" approach with me, until the third time, when I had just called him out in front of the tourist, in violation of the unwritten code of "us" hustlers.
I set up my stuff again.
The skeezer said: "I'm leaving in a second."
"Here, I hooked you up. You'd better get that," said Erik, pointing to a twenty dollar bill that was laying near my basket.
"There, are we breaking your concentration now?!"" asked the skeezer, full of contempt, as if the bill should have been like a bottle that's shoved into a baby's mouth to make it stop fussing.
I guess a skeezer thinks everyone else is skeezing, just like a crackhead thinks everyone else is on the stuff. The latter is so much under the power of the drug that he can't imagine anyone else being about doing any other thing than trying to smoke crack, too.
"Yeah, you still are. That doesn't change anything," I said.
Erik asked again, if I would please keep playing. But, he said he wanted it as background music while he listened to an "interesting story." I really wasn't sure I wanted to do that. I considered offering the guy his twenty bucks back.
 |
| All this for $581 a month... |
Side note: The skeezer had done an about face from his initial story about guns and knives and about been caught with one of the former because he had had to pull it out to protect his pregnant girlfriend, who had one of the latter at her throat, or whatever it was.
He had switched to the horror stories about being a victim of sexual assault, the way a mariner might rotate his sails to an opposite angle, depending upon the wind. From Clint Eastwood saving the day, to a little white bitch sucking dick in a shower stall, as the situation requires, I guess.
We were in the gay part of the Quarter (to the grave consternation of Lilly) and I guess he had put out feelers along that line, upon the chance that Erik was in the area pursuant to that particular abomination against God.
I resumed playing, and the skeezer resumed talking, until the point that I couldn't take it any more, five minutes later.
"Your leaving?" Erik protested, and then mentioned the twenty bucks, he had given me, as if it was a retainer.
"I thought that was for music already played, I mean, we have been hanging out for almost an hour..."
The skeezer became indignant, having the gall to mention that "we" gave you twenty bucks, and now you're gonna take the money and run.
I fetched the twenty out of my back pocket, where it resided with the other eighteen bucks that I had made that night, and offered it back to Erik.
"If that's what you want to do..." he began. I started to think that he was a very wishy washy guy and would take the money back only because of the prompting of the skeezer, who saw it as "more for himself."
So, I developed a bit of backbone myself, imagining Larry at the Quartermaster, whom I would undoubtedly relate the whole story to over a cup of coffee later, saying: "I would have taken the money and walked off! How long did you play for him, a half hour? That's enough! You didn't make any other tips while he was sitting there, I bet..."
And so, since Erik seemed to be allowing me the choice of whether to keep the money or not, I kept it. Even though he was still protesting the fact that I was leaving at that time.
"I put a lot of work into writing my lyrics, and to just be supplying background music is something I hate. What if you were playing at a coffee house and half way into your first song, people started having conversations and clinking glasses on the tables and stuff. Wouldn't you feel like: "Are you even listening to me, I guess not, because nobody even nodded..."
The skeezer had picked up the mantra of: "Yeah, we gave you twenty bucks," to which I had to set him straight by saying: "You haven't given me anything, in fact you're skeezing my audience!"
Such a lovely word that skeezers can figure out the meaning of just by the context it's in; filling in the blanks as the shoe fits...
I had held my tongue until that point, but that set me off.
"You said you're from here, you grew up here? Well then you know damned well what you're doing. You saw this guy sitting here and figured he probably had money or he wouldn't be requesting songs, and you decided to sit down and try to get it before I did! You figure that musicians are gentle souls that are just going to let it happen. You know damned well that it's rude to just walk up and start chewing the ear of someone who is listening to a performer. I've been doing this for 7 years; you're trying to take advantage of the fact that Erik here comes from a much more civil society than Bourbon Street and hasn't been here long enough to be able to see through you and your bullshit story!
You see that girl up there reading tarot cards? If you saw someone sitting in her chair having their cards read, would you just plop yourself down on the other side of them and start your "Sorry to interrupt you, but I was raped in prison so can I have some money?" bullshit... and then run your hustle on them?'"
As I said this I walked over to stand in front of him. He shrunk back saying: Don't come near me, I don't like it when people come near me!" He was sitting with his shoulder almost touching Erik's, though.
Then, as I walked off, the further away I got, the louder and more threatening he got, bragging? about his "12 years in the system" and saying that he would bash my face in, but then quieting down once I stopped, as if I was thinking of going back to him. This is typical French Quarter behavior -someone loudly threatening someone's life from a hundred feet away, only to attenuate it to a mumble, once they are standing in front of them asking: "What did you just say?!?"
$6.52/Hr. And A Free Laptop
Given the information from my neighbor Wayne that "the most they can put it up to is $581 a month" -it being my rent, I have calculated that I would be taking home about $6.52 per hour, if I were to get a job with Concentrix, the company that he works for.
Time
 |
| No time for drawing...? I'm going to have |
| to chew on that... |
The time is perhaps the biggest issue.
Doing customer service for 40 hours per week would mean that I wouldn't be practicing the guitar and harmonica those hours, nor drawing, nor writing.
 |
| Then there is the small matter of what my life's "purpose" is... |
I'd have just started, as if the narrator in a PBS documentary, Frontline perhaps, describing to Eric how the skeezer operates, and been laughing my ass off inside. And the $20 would have vanished into my pocket never to be seen again, and either walked off or told the skeezer to go fuck himself, very far away, and not played another note. just stood there. Uncomfortable silence follows.
ReplyDeleteI have no patience for skeezers and tend to be able to get rid of them fairly quickly. Since the law does not allow me to simply "turn them off" with a pistol shot, any more than the law does not allow one to dynamite fish these days, it takes a bit of finesse, but I don't let them take up my time.
What fuels my utter contempt for them is their lack of professionalism. Ask for spare change, sure. If the mark gives, don't hassle them for more, move on with a "thanks". If the mark doesn't give, they also get a "thanks". If you are going to be a beggar, it's a profession where you're dispensing a service, that service being making the mark feel good that their donation has done some good - where some good may be buying weed or beer, as long as you're humorous and honest about it.
It's not easy work, because like in any hospitality job, you have to stay upbeat and you have to treat everyone as an individual. But like a bricklayer or a carpenter, you have to stay professional.
These un-professional skeezers are like bricklayers who insist on full Union wages for shitty walls, or carpenters who build shitty fences with bent-over nails in them.
Also part of the professionalism that is so sorely lacking is, if you can do anything else, you do it rather than beg. Entertaining is at least a level up, and doing odd jobs, washing dishes, things like that are to be preferred if you can get that kind of work.
Dan-
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed listening to you play, and speaking to you about your life. And I didn't mind giving you money, because I enjoyed your music and I felt that, after talking with you for a while, you were an honest person.
I am not, however, naïve or gullible. I'm from Detroit. I don't give money to people just because they have a sad story, because there are a lot of sad stories there. It is also not my first visit to New Orleans or Bourbon Street. I guess you could call me a tourist, but I was just there for one night for a wedding and exploring town afterwards. No offense, but if I was so naive and gullible, do you think I would have money to give to you? Do you think I would last long in Detroit, or anywhere else in life? Would you rather no one was simply a friendly, pleasant, positive person to you or anyone else, and everyone assumed everybody else was nefarious or just out to get money? Think about it, what an even more shitty place the world would be. You did offer to give the money back, but I told you I wanted you to have it because I liked hanging out listening and chatting. Would you think me less naïve or gullible if I took the money back?
Whether someone "just wants money" or not, they're a human being. I knew the minute I was approached by that dude, he probably just wanted money. But I was willing to listen. And he didn't get a dime from me. You may see a lot of "skeezers", and that guy may have been, but I refuse to treat someone without respect and dignity until they cease to show me the same. Maybe you can learn something from this? I could have just assumed you wanted money (which you did), and kept on walking.
Sorry you felt ignored, but that was really between you and him. You got money for your effort and he didn't; does that not fit your understanding of the way it should have been? If you were so sure of his intentions, why did you not stick up for yourself, or be vocal and honest with your thoughts? Sounds like you place the blame of your inability to handle situations like this yourself on the combined actions of "one of the most gullible tourists on Bourbon Street" and a "skeezer"
I hope you do better for yourself. Good luck.
-Erik
Erik - by being soft, you cause Daniel a lot of annoyance and a lot of lost playing time/income by dithering around.
ReplyDeleteThe "Beat it!!" guy has the right idea.
There are people who are poor or homeless. Some of them choose to still try to be decent members of society. Others get into drugs, stealing bikes, skeezing, etc. That second group has decided it's not going to be part of society. Thus, they are no more a part of humanity than the stray cats that piss on your porch, the raccoons that tips your trash can over, or the stray dog that nips a toddler. It's perfectly OK to treat them as the pests they are.
I decided a while ago to try not to resent the guy who places himself between me and whomever might be listening to me, a person who might give me a good tip, but only after listening a while, without distraction and gleaning that I must have put x amount of time into composing and practicing the song; work that is hopefully manifested in the result.
ReplyDeleteI have even had a tourist or two tell me "we just gave him our last twenty," and then rationalize that they had no other choice; his house just burned down, or whatever
The skeezer is like a guy who walks into a restaurant where someone is enjoying some excellent food, pours ketchup all over it, then tries to charge them for the ketchup. "That was the last of my ketchup, man! That's the only thing I had to make any money off of!" type of thing.
Yeah, and I have even had a skeezer flash the twenty dollars in front of my face and say: "I make money out here! You can sit there strum your little guitar all you want; I make money!!"
Like I said, I *try* not to resent anyone;
The tourists are usually adults and have to take responsibility for the choices they make, and what goes on between them and the skeezer is none of my business.
Until they start pouring Tabasco on the calamari salad that I'm making...