What Did I Expect?

One Dollar

I went out to busk last (Wednesday) night, arriving at the persistently annoying hour of 11:30 PM. So often do events conspire to delay my arrival at the Lilly Pad until this time that it had me shaking my head as I rode past the "Jesus clock," on St. Josephs Cathedral. Business as usual, after having tried, as usual, to get there earlier than that.

The streets were about as deserted as I have ever seen them in the French Quarter.

There weren't even any pedicabs in front of Lafitt's, when there are usually two or three. There weren't any tourists to deliver anywhere, even if there had been any.

I sat down and played, thinking that I might get a few bucks which would be better than nothing.

I had enough money for the bus fare to the plasma place where 25 dollars could be gotten.

I was basically out of food, both human and cat varieties.
My plan was to busk, then to stay up all morning until the time came to be spirited in the Sacred Heart Apartments official van, driven by Dorothy, to the food bank place that I am allowed to visit once per month, to get some food, which I would then eat, so as to have something in my stomach when I next went to the plasma place to sell my plasma for 25 bucks, before returning in time to meet Jacob at the Uxi Duxi, where he would be consuming the one shot of kratom that he is allotted for this week by Bob, his guardian.

This was a pretty ambitious schedule.

I made one dollar bill busking.

I knew something was up and sensed that the Southern Decadence Festival was officially underway after the first couple groups of people had walked past and ignored me in the aggressive ignoring kind of way that brought back memories of last year's festival.

I had commented last year about how conspicuous it is when a group of about a dozen people walk past with not one of them even turning his head towards me as natural curiosity would dictate.

"Yeah, these are here for the Decadence Festival," I thought.

Most normal people will at least glance at me, even if they have no money, with the more vocal of them perhaps saying words to the effect of: I wish I had some cash because you sound good," or something.

I am not going to waste my time trying to (further) psychoanalyze the gay men who come here for the festival.

I have been through this several times, and have, in past years, buckled under their passive aggression and fantasized about mowing the lot of them down with a vehicle driven at high speed down Bourbon Street, and of throwing a pipe bomb into the mass of them, leaving carnage and thongs in its aftermass.

The Buddha once said something about a guy who was so afraid of snakes that he has a heart attack upon seeing a stick, thinking that it was a snake. The Buddha's point was that the guy was seeing snakes where they weren't because of his fear.

But, I find that once I start doing the same, seeing in my case, gay men who are intentionally trying to inflict pain upon someone who appears to be straight to them, when they might just be sticks, then it is time for me to leave.

I had decided to do just that, but not before singing a few verses of "Fags Never Give Me No Money," a send up of the Beatles song of a similar name.
I did this and then looked to see the one and only dollar of the night in my basket.

To each, his own...

Someone had tipped me that, despite the tone of the song. This really made me want to leave because I was then not sure if I wanted to go back to trying to entertain them in a positive way, or to continue in the "I hope you all die of H.I.V." vein.

Even Jesus lost his cool and overturned the tables of the money changers. I think he would be tweeting out: smh (shaking my head) over these guys today.

Inspiring
The above video, I found to be very inspiring.

The fact that I now have, on my laptop, as much if not more recording "technology" than Phil Spector had at his disposal, has made me want to record even more. I guess I have been taking for granted the awesome tool that the Audacity editor is.



I had never thought about layering track upon track of the same instrument, like he did, even though I have the ability.
And, I guess my guitar parts will sound better -"fuller," at least- if I have a dozen of them playing in unison, like a section of violins in an orchestra.

Just Seeking

I really had to just stop smoking weed.

It's been 3 days now, and only now have some of the clouds in my mind cleared enough so that I can make a rational decision not to smoke it for a while.

Before, I would sit there thinking: "I need to just stop smoking weed," with the thought having been inspired by the joint that is still smoldering in the ashtray. Then, after coming down and getting some sleep, I would wake up with a fresh perspective and "realize" that all that grandiose thinking, I'm gonna go totally substance free and "make something of myself" had all been a pipe dream; that was just stoned thinking, and I might then light up again, and repeat the process.
One time, when I was about 24 years old, I was driving along a two lane road through southern Massachusetts and had smoked a joint. After the weed hit me, I came around a corner to discover a monastery of some kind, run by Trappist monks.

It was St. Joseph Abbey in Spencer, Mass.

There was a porcelain statue of Jesus, with his arms stretched out towards a probably monk-made pond, and a road leading to the where there was the monastery and, of course, the chapel where monks, who otherwise practiced a vow of silence, could be heard chanting just before sunup each morning, before they gathered to eat in silence.

I found most of that out, about it, at a later time, but at that moment, I thought, what could be cooler for a guy who had been driving aimlessly and pondering the meaning of his life, and who had just smoked a joint, to come around a corner and find a monastery, as if having been lead there.

It wasn't beyond me, at that age, to have considered cloistering myself away in such a place, and forsaking the material world, etc.

I needed to find a monk to tell of all the experiences and revelations that I had been having, and the first one I came to was in a little stone building, probably built by monks, which served as kind of a Welcome Center, for people coming to hear chanting.

It soon became evident that it was also like a gift shop, complete with a cash register -a modern one and not an abacus made by monks- behind which stood a monk, who really looked like one, and apparently had had the vow of silence lifted off of him, as he welcomed me with spoken word.

On the glass counter in front of him were displayed jars of "Trappist Preserves," something that's fame had extended as far as my having heard that they were delicious, but which had the first-listed ingredient of "sugar," which gave me pause, at the time. I had been subsisting on a more monk-ish diet of fruits and vegetables and whole grains, as part of my pursuit of Spiritual Truth, in those days, and was probably into the fifth of what would amount to more than thirty five years without consuming sugar.

"How can I help you?," asked the monk behind the counter.

Was I there to buy preserves at 12 dollars a jar, or to find out when the galleries around the chapel would next be filling with seekers longing to be consoled with the strains of monks chanting in perfect harmony?

No, I had been having these experiences where I got the sense that I was seeing through the veil of the material world and tapping into some sort of universal consciousness, and being led to think that there was no destination for the soul to arrive at where it already wasn't.

"I'll be with you in a minute," the monk said, raising a finger to a young couple who had entered, probably wanting some jelly.

Turning back to me, he asked, in a lowered voice: "Can I ask you, have you been using drugs of any sort?"

"Well, I did just smoke some marijuana as I was driving along Rt. 9, but..."

"Yes," he said solemnly, lowering his gaze, as if to peer into his own heart.

"Eliminate this from your life for maybe a month or so, and then come back, and I'll be happy to talk to you..."

Well, this sucks, I'm baked out of my mind and in the mood to talk about love and a higher purpose, and an awareness of a universal consciousness that I might tap into and become one with the All, right now; before the joint wears off. Can't you just give me the low-down? I'm sure I'll still remember what you say when I wake up tomorrow morning...I thought, as I left.

While he might have been thinking: Well, this sucks, I haven't sold a jar of jelly all day...

I suppose, like any other business venture, they have people show up ready to spend money, and those "just seeking." (groan)

"Well, this sucks..."

But, to bring it around full circle, it is Wednesday night, and I have a sinking feeling of dread at the thought of going out to busk.

Pretty soon the Decadence Festival will be under way, and I have bad memories from the past few years of that.

At least now I am armed with the knowledge, imparted by Lilly, that the reason hundreds of gaily clad men will typically walk past me without tipping is that "most of them are here to make money."

Mongrels who ain't got a penny, walk or crawl here, sniffing for money from the wealthy minority who, in turn, rely upon their money to compensate for their usually older and overweight bodies, in order to purchase themselves a good time.

I can remember hearing: "I don't even have a place to sleep yet," coming from certain anxious young men walking the streets in thongs, as midnight approached, and they hadn't hooked up yet. This sheds light upon Lilly's comment.

But, they will most likely be at the Lilly Pad in numbers tonight, with the festival just a few days away.

And, Lafitt's may have already set up their loud PA speakers, blaring such hits as "It's Raining Men," and "In The Navy," by The Village People, to drown out my efforts.

I wonder if I could re-work the lyrics to the latter to be something like:

"In the priesthood, you can have a good time.
In the priesthood, you can even drink wine...
It's clerical; It's hysterical!,"
or something.
Maybe not.

I Am Again Not Robbed

• 4 Dollar Sunday Curtailed By Emergency

Sunday night, I knocked off immediately after getting a text from my guest, Jacob, telling me that he had left my apartment and was going back to stay with Bob, his guardian.

I draw a girl to look at the dog that

came on one of the free canvases that I found on Craigslist

“Cool, did you lock up?”

“I thought you said you couldn’t lock the door...”

Well, I had told Jake that, since he didn't have his own key, he wouldn't be able to lock up behind him if he left -the deadbolt, that is; he would still be able to lock the old style lock on the door handle, affording at least some security.


Right: When Tim and I arrived at the pile of stuff on the sidewalk that was being given away, having been lured there by a Craigslist ad offering free books, there were a few blank canvases and one with the dog already painted upon it.
I hesitated to grab it, not thinking that I could always just paint over it, but did, as kind of an afterthought; and the thing has wound up growing on me, as it sits and keeps and eye on me. But I'm not sure I trust it yet, and so last night, I drew a little girl to keep an eye on it.
The way it took me only like ten minutes to render the girl encourages me to go back into drawing faces. Not dogs, though.

Jacob, Continued...

So, thinking that he couldn't lock the door behind him, he still left.

He apparently couldn’t have waited a couple hours until I returned from busking.

"He could have called you and asked you how to lock the door," said Larry, outside the Quartermaster, when I was there, dropping my milk crate off early, after having called it a night a little past midnight, after having made 4 dollars off the first group of tourists that came along.



So, in a building where a month ago my bike was stolen from the hallway right outside the door in question, that door stood unlocked.

 "Your early tonight," said the security guy at the front desk of Sacred Heart Apartments.

I felt like I was just starting to make money, after a group came by and threw me a few bucks, and it felt like it might not turn out to be such a bad Sunday night after all.

I had been telling Jacob that it isn’t unusual to follow an eighteen dollar Saturday with a sixty dollar Sunday, “there’s no rhyme or reason,” I had said.

Then I got the text.

I found it hard to keep playing "as if I didn’t have a care in the world" -which is key to getting people to throw tips- fearing that whatever little I made might come at the expense of having my apartment cleaned out by the type of person who just sits around noticing things like a person leaving the building.

Did they lock their place behind them? Maybe not. It’s part of a skeezers job to be on the ball and check behind them...

It was an innocent oversight by Jacob and there really only was a less than one percent chance that anyone would go into my place and steal anything. There is maybe only one guy, the one who stole my bike, who would.

But, if he happened to knock on my door thinking I was there and might buy a pair of size 17 sneakers that he stole out of a laundry room somewhere, or a boombox with only one speaker, and the door gave when he knocked, then I would almost certainly be minus a laptop and/or the Epiphone guitar, and my size ten sneakers...

But, all is well that ends well. Jacob had left a couple frozen pizzas in my freezer, which kept me from feeling like I had to stop and buy food on the way home, and today, he has bought me a shot and a half of kratom. So, had I played for another hour and made ten bucks, I would be no further ahead now, but would have taken the sheen off my new strings and missed out on an hour of reading "Iberia," by James A. Michener.

Eighteen Dollar Nights

• 18 Dollar Nights
• I Take Jake In

Last (Saturday) night made three eighteen dollar nights in a row.

Like the others, I could have stayed out twice as long trying to make twice as much, because there were still tourists out, and I will never know if I missed out on any 3 AM hundred dollar tippers.

But, the problem really has been my playing my ass off and making the eighteen bucks, and then just running out of motivation and not wanting to play any more, not being able to think of any song that might be cool to do at that particular time. This is after the joint wears off that I smoke as I tune the guitar, about 80 minutes in.

The remedy will be, in large part, getting around to making that huge laminated list of "all the songs I know," and having that with me, to refer to.

When I switched to the D major harmonica last night, I was unable to think of any songs that I know in that key, even though there might have been thirty on such a list, that I have forgotten about.

So, I played "Nowhere Man," by the Beatles and was soon packing up to take a break at the Quartermaster, where I hoped that a cup of coffee would make me want to play more.

It didn't, so I returned to the apartment, where Jacob was sleeping on the couch.

I decided to move him into the back room onto the bed so I could stay up and listen to the radio and my laptop and play the guitar, etc. as well as have access to the kitchen.

He had a falling out with his guardian, Bob, who has basically been sheltering him, making sure he was regularly attending church, and most recently, banning him from coming to the Uxi Duxi for kratom.

This was enough to make Jacob forsake all of that and "move out," even though he has no job, car payments, and is a student at Delgado College, right down the street from the Uxi.

I can see Bob's reasoning, as a legal guardian of Jacob, who has seen him go from coming to the Uxi every Thursday before bible study, to coming here every day of the week, like a kratom head.

He is guarding against him becoming addicted to anything, since, he took guardianship over him because Jacob's parents became derelict in their duties at some point because they are heroin addicts themselves.

But, cutting this short so I can go out and busk would be prudent.

Jacob had some kind of job lined up doing yard work for some lady who was going to pay him a hundred bucks; an amount that say's she is trying to help him out to a degree, since she could have found someone to clean her yard for a fraction of that.

But, he said that it was too hot to work, or something, and that was that.

He is bringing his keyboard over to my place tonight, though, and some music should come out of the whole experience if nothing else. Of course he is going to have to go crawling back to Bob at some point. Unless he want's to stand upon principle and sleep in his car so he can have his kratom shot every day...

Rita Heywood Gave Good Face

• 17 Dollar Friday A Sign Of The Times

It was good that I dragged myself out there on a Friday night, I made the above amount, which basically resulted in that amount being upon my coffee table this morning, when there would otherwise have been some ashes and a coffee stain.

I had caught up a bit on Harold's food and gotten some coffee off of the 17 Dollar Thursday night.

Right: A skeezer waits to see if I am going to pull out a cigarette or the money that I am going to need to get on the bus when it comes, preparing to skeeze...

When I pulled up at the Lilly Pad and was locking my bike, I espied a white Styrofoam container sitting atop the trash can outside Lafitt's being walked past by people too well dressed to even think about even looking inside it to see what was in it.

What was in it was a full po-boy sandwich, a seafood type one. I stashed it in my backpack and began to play, comforted by the fact that I would be able to stuff my face regardless of whether or not I made anything.

I played pretty hard for the whole hour and a half that I did, and managed to practice music in preparation of "going into the studio" and recording it.

I'm getting ready to put out some kind of "release," and am talking with Jacob Scardino about "i-tunes" as a possible way to upload my music to somewhere that people would have to pay 99 cents per song to get at.

This would give me the incentive to make recordings that are at least worth that amount.

Thursday night, I sat in Bobby's apartment watching it, while he went out and looked for a girl whom he had lent his truck to. The key to his apartment was in the truck, on the key ring in the ignition, so he couldn't lock his place up to go look for his truck.

He was pretty sure that she had wound up at the house of someone she knew a few blocks down the street from us, and that's where he found her.

But, in the meantime, I was able to play his electric guitar while I house-sat, and had pulled my laptop out of my backpack and brought up the Audacity editor and recorded myself, albeit through the built in microphone in the laptop and at a lesser quality than I would have gotten with the Snowball microphone.

This convinced me that it would be easier for me to record my music using an electric guitar. It's something about being able to turn the volume of the guitar up enough to be able to sing at full volume, or to find the sweet spot somewhere just short of that.

With the acoustic guitar, the battle had always been to place my mouth a certain distance from the microphone in relationship to the distance away from it that the guitar was, so that the guitar would be at the right level to back up the vocal, without drowning it out.

The solution to that would be to use two microphones, one a foot away from the guitar and the other a few inches away from my mouth. These could then be balanced using a mixer before being sent to a track on Audacity.

But, I only spent a couple dollars of what I made, on cat food and a candy bar, with the po-boy sandwich having kept me from spending anything on food.

Huge!

One must busk on a Friday night. It is five minutes before nine right now.
18 Dollar Thursday.

I couldn't fathom how I had allowed myself to totally run out of money and just about everything else, as I rode towards the Lilly Pad, at around 11 PM, on a Thursday night that looked kind of dead. "I might not make anything at all," was a sobering thought, but it was me being realistic.
After about a half hour of playing, I had maybe one dollar.
Then arrived a couple from Berlin, Germany named Heinrich (Henry) and Anna, who at first threw me a dollar when I was playing John Lennon, and then who wound up giving me 12 of the 18 dollars that I would make in a couple hours of playing.
This was huge, because I had run out of cat food and coffee.

I Am Disqualified For The Stress Induced Urinary Incontinence Study

Anna, from the Deitrich Institute or whatever they are called, called this morning to inform me that my medical records came back and indicated that I have never been "diagnosed" with urinary incontinence, and so I was not qualified for the study.

"So, I should stop taking the placebo or whatever it is?"

"Yes."

So, there goes the chance to make fifty bucks every ten days....

If I let thirty days elapse, though, I will be able to participate in their "eczema" study.

That, is something that I have been diagnosed with -by a dermatologist in Fitchburg, Massachusetts in the mid eighties, and before that, by the army doctors at Fort Sam Houston, in San Antonio, who had actually informed me that I could have gotten out of the service on a medical "profile" because of it.

I may even have started getting a check for something like five hundred bucks every month for the rest of my life.

There is no use speculating upon how this may have changed the course of my life.

I did meet a guy in Phoenix, who was fifty years old, and had been getting such a check since he had been eighteen years old.

According to him, he came down with a bout of "depression" when he was in boot camp; he didn't want to get out of his bunk, wouldn't respond to reveille and was, I guess, just too sad to go out and kill people.

So, I guess they figured that the five hundred a month was a cheap way to get rid of him.

I would give this caricaturist a D +

But, at the age of nineteen, I had a strong desire to not be "broken" by the whole basic training experience. I really thought that if I were to quit, then I would be a quitter for the rest of my life, type of thing, and it would bother me more than fife hundred dollars a month could ever compensate for.

So, I told my superior, "No," I didn't want to get out on a medical profile, even though I could have. I was tougher than that. Or maybe more stupid than that, who knows.

In an all-out offensive, the average life span

of a combat medic is 11 seconds

Perhaps my buddy in Phoenix enlisted with the sole intent of pulling that stunt in order to skeeze a check out of Uncle Sam.

I wouldn't put it past him. He was a walking reference to "Accouterments for the Homeless in all fifty states."
He was telling me where the homeless guy should go to get everything from eye glasses "Casper, Wyoming has this homeless shelter where they can set you up for an eye exam and..." to dental work (Tampa Bay, Florida, I think that was -the place to be if you need crowns and caps, or something).

He may have been a faker, but I know I couldn't have stayed motionless in a rice paddy with water up to my neck if there were flies landing on the hypersensitive skin of my forehead. I would have had to scratch myself and given my position away to the enemy, who would have certainly cured my eczema, along with the eczema of the rest of my platoon LOL!

But, that is the news on this Thursday, August 23rd.

The new strings might be in my mailbox, I didn't check on my way out the door to come here to the Uxi Duxi.

Where Yellow Borneo Kratom Comes From

• A Goose Egg Busking
• Bike Not Stolen
• Plasma Trip Has Usual Glitches

I went out to play last (Tuesday) night, arriving early enough so that the possibility of my seeing Lilly was there, should she have walked past chaperoning one, or both, of her daughter's at a little past 11 PM. She didn't.

I am getting the feeling that I should have flirted more with her the last time we swam and then went to Starbucks together.

Sure she had cried: "Don't do that!" the time I had attempted to lift her out of the water and, I guess, throw her up in the air and catch her, but had also texted me a few times in the ensuing days wanting to swim again.

The second time, I had been brooding over my bike having been stolen and am afraid that I wasn't as much fun at all, a bump on a log. Then, when I was unable to use the wi-fi at the Starbucks, had hastily taken my leave of her so I could run down to use the one at the casino.

I guess if we ever swim again, I will be sure to try to throw her up out of the water and catch her.

I played for a little while, and didn't make anything, as rain was threatening with flashes of lightning in a corner of the sky and then the thunder lagging behind them.

It did start to rain, and I packed up and moved to across the street where sat a transgender type guy under the protection of an overhang. The direction of the rainfall made it so we were not getting a drop on us.
He asked me if I had any rolling papers, to which I said I didn't, but offered him my little pipe that looks like a cigarette, assuring him that I didn't want to smoke any of his weed in exchange for letting him use it.
The piano guy was playing "Only The Good Die Young," by Billy Joel, and I was able to pick up the chords and play along with him, realizing that I had found a spot that I could play at when it is raining, as long as I jam along with the piano guy when I do so. My potential tippers would be people stuck under the same overhang, waiting out the rain.

Bike Left Unlocked

When I went to my bike, after having returned to the Lilly Pad after the rain stopped, to play another half hour or so for nothing, I found that my bike had been unlocked, but not stolen.
It was just sitting there next to the pole with the lock coiled around the seat pole, but not locked to the lamp post like I had left it.
I was pretty sure this was done by one particular street person who is a very large athletic ex military street person, who often wears camouflaged clothing and army boots, whom I have spoken with a few times, and who has only asked me for money twice in the seven years that I have been seeing him walk past at least once a night.
Both times, he had truthfully told me that he "never" asked me for money, even though he saw me all the time, and both times he never paid me back, even though he saw me all the time. It had been 75 cents the first time, then 2 dollars about 4 years later.
One of the things that he has been adamant about the times that I have spoken to him, usually when our trips to the Quartermaster coincided, was that I needed "to get a better lock," for whatever bike I had been riding at the time.
He has told me how easy it would be for someone to defeat each of the locks I have had in the past; had until someone defeated them, that is...

I recalled a demonstration given by a Latino guy I ran into once, when the subject of securing bikes had come up. He walked me over to a nearby bike rack that had at least a dozen bikes locked to it.
"Watch," he had said.
He went to the first bike and was unable to free it within about ten seconds, so he went to the second one and did the same thing to its combination lock that he had done to the first, and voila! he had the combination lock open and could have stolen the bike, but chose to leave it the way mine was last night; still there, but unlocked.
His "trick," of course relied upon what might fall under the aegis of "social engineering," in a sense. Most people don't randomly scramble their combination number when they lock their bike. This would require them returning each of the four numbers to the correct one to unlock it, taking up valuable time. It's bad enough to have to take a half minute to lock a bike when you are only running into a store for a half a minute, without adding the further inconvenience of having to unscramble all four tumblers on the thing, not to mention have the four digits memorized, leaving you vulnerable to have "brain farts," as some people call them, whereby you might turn the lock to your ATM card pin number and pull really hard on cable before realizing that that isn't "it."

So, to make a long story short, despite the excellent demonstration given by my Latino friend, I apparently learned nothing from it, because I had just turned the last tumbler a couple digits off, leaving three quarters of the combination still intact.

My friend, if it had been him last night (and who I'm calling "friend" because he didn't ride off on the Trek Calypso Cruiser, easily a $150 value at half the price of a new one) most likely did the same thing.

Oddly, there had been no vehicle parked in the spot which would block my view of the bike as I played -one of the few times in the seven years that I have busked there that there hasn't been anything parked in that spot right across the street from the bar and in a neighborhood where several residents own vehicles. Lilly would pounce upon that spot, for example, should she be returning from somewhere and circling the blocks around her house looking for a place to park.

But, there had been a rather starkness about the way my yellow bike was sitting "right out in the open," seeming to be extra yellow because of that fact.

Some thief, who knows the combination lock trick, might have gotten cold feet and decided to leave it there, fearing that it was a bait bike, left there by the cops and equipped with GPS gear. A bright, shiny, yellow bike, right out in the open, inviting as ever could be, illuminated by the lamp above it. They might have had an attack of paranoia...why is there not even a car parked in front of it when it's right across the street from a popular night spot and in a neighborhood where several residents own vehicles, the potential thief might have thought...

I guess that, since the bike was given to me, it is fitting that my G.I. Joe friend have it available to him, should he ever really need it in some emergency. (the dude with all the coke just totally passed out, you'd better get over here quickly if you want to snort up some of his stuff before it's all gone #skeezer, type of thing...)
Unlike the 75 cents, maybe he would bring the thing back.
So, add to the uncertainty which comes with the territory I inhabit, the fact that someone out there now knows my combination and might not always be in whatever generous mood he was in last night.

Yeah, I'm gonna have to ask G.I. Joe the next time I see him: "Hey, you didn't happen to unlock my bike the other night, to teach me a lesson about the folly of just dislocating the last digit of a combination, did you?!?"

I went to the plasma place in Gretna.

I got on the bus a couple stops before the one where there are often one or two people with bikes, waiting and hoping that one or two of the bike rack slots would be empty.

One of the slots would not be, the times I go to sell plasma.
I would have hoisted the yellow cruiser into it a couple stops before it got there.

I have often seen a couple fellows standing there there with bikes, and one of them (the one that got there second, I assume) shaking his head and cussing at the sight of a yellow bike already on the rack when we pull up. Stuff like: "Ain't that some shit, that's the way my whole day been going!" if my lip-reading skills serve me.

This time, there was nobody with a bike. My yellow cruiser stood propped by itself as the bus pulled away.
But, about 20 people had gotten on and filled the vacant seats with the one next to the (one) white guy being the last one to be grabbed by a middle aged black lady.
It has come to my attention that the Octapharma plasma place has another location, and it is in Metarie, a "white" part of greater New Orleans.
It's about the same distance away from my house as the Gretna one, but in the other direction...as in, blacks go south, whites go north. Or as in one table at the Rebuild Center having a dozen all black people eating off it, while a nearby identical table has a dozen whites.

Where Yellow Borneo kratom comes from...

It is probable that the staff at the Gretna location wonder aloud as soon as I leave: "Why he don't go to the Metarie one?" (instead of my being one of no more than 3 white guys, at any given time, out of forty donors, at the one across the river, with the other white guys just happening to live under the bridge nearby the place).
I could probably save myself the aggravation of being the only white guy on the Gretna bus, and having to endure cashiers that you can't hand $1.03 to for a 53 cent purchase and expect to get two quarters back from, and experiencing the other glitches that make the city seem like it was built over the mass grave of a tribe that was massacred and are still pissed off about it. More about glitches later.

After all 20 or so passengers had boarded, with last available seat having been taken beside me, and the bus had gone on to the next stop, about another half dozen people got on and began standing in the aisle.

This is the time when I always look to see if there are any ladies that I can offer my seat to.
There was one young lady who looked to be perturbed at the prospect of standing up for the whole ride to Gretna. It is about a 25 minute ride, and goes through some neighborhoods where there are potholes big enough to have the standers hanging on to the leather straps for life.

I hesitated to ask the young lady if she would like to sit, partly because she had taken a spot towards the front, and I would have had to yell to her from about six seats back to get her attention; and partly because I had the window seat and would be imposing upon the middle aged woman in the aisle seat to allow me to hop over her to get out and then vice versa to let the young lady into the seat.

I wavered upon this until the bus had gotten to the next stop where a few more people had boarded, one of which being yet another lady. A very pretty Latina lady. She had a made-over looking face, with sculpted eyebrows and an Oil of Olay type sheen to her skin. She was poking at a fancy looking cell phone of the kind that a lot of Latinas seem to have, probably because their husbands work 14 hour shifts doing heavy labor and can afford to give their wives 800 dollar phones, with all the tax free cash they make under the table, but I digress.

The arrival onboard of the pretty lady and the couple random men caused the first young black lady to have to move back some to accomodate them. This placed her within shoulder tapping distance of me, and so, standing up and leaning over the lady in the aisle seat, being careful not to offend her by breathing over her or something, I found a spot on her shoulder, being careful not to touch her hair extensions, and tapped on her black shirt (that might have been the uniform of some place where she worked, despite perhaps being unable to subtract fifty cents from a dollar).
"Would you like to sit?" I asked.
She liked to sit. The lady in the aisle seat had already rotated her legs to let me out and her in.
Just then, I caught the eye of the pretty Latina, and thought that I saw some hurt in her face.
I wondered if she thought that I had offered the black lady a seat, but not the Latina.
Visions of children separated from their Mexican parents at the border flashed through my mind. Did she think that I was trying to make a statement: "I'll give my seat to a nigger before I will to a damned Mexican!?!"
But then, I realized that there was a large black man sitting in a seat right by the Latina, who appeared physically able to stand up and hold on to a rail for dear life, but who had not followed my example of letting a lady sit, and had not budged at all.

So, the Gretna bus limped along -they always seem to relegate the worst of their fleet to the routes through the black neighborhoods where the worst of the potholes also happen to be- and myself and the pretty Latina held on for life. At one point, I caught her eye and smiled, then flicked them towards the big lug in the seat right next to her, and got a smile back from her for my effort, and a bit of a self-conscious twitch from the big guy, who seemed, at least, not too dim witted to have gleaned the meaning of my non verbal communique.

I thought that, should I have gotten her attention and offered her the seat, rather than the young black lady, It could have been surmised that I had given it to her just because she was pretty; prettier than the young black lady.
That could have led to a cat fight, where it wouldn't have surprised me to see the Latina gain the upper hand and tear the hair extensions off the other, defrocking her, to reveal that, under all of her "beauty" was a nappy headed ho from the projects.
I had to choose the lesser of the two race riots which might break out in Gretna, based upon who I gave the seat to, so I rested upon the tenet that the black girl had gotten on the bus first.

Glitches, Continued:

Then, I sold my plasma, but my phones battery was dead, so I couldn't check to see if the money had been put on it.
I had to just wait "a while" before going into the Family Dollar to try to buy a can of food for Harold and get cash off it so I could take the bus home. Yeah, I had waited, once again, until I was so broke I couldn't afford a round trip bus ride, before dragging myself over to Gretna.
This was a moot point, because the Family Dollar wasn't giving cash back at that time.
At the Wal-Mart, I saw one of the other white guys whom I had seen at the plasma place. I asked him if he was able to get cash back off the plasma card.
"Yeah, you just have to hit 'debit,'" he said.

So, I got about 4 dollars and change worth of bananas, an energy drink, a grapefruit and a can of Fancy Feast food for Harold, and then took them to the register, where I explained to the cashier what I was trying to do.
I was reasonably sure there was 25 bucks on the card. I should be able to buy the stuff, plus get 20 dollars cash back, right?
No, the screen momentarily displayed a button that said "choose alternate payment" or something but it disappeared a couple seconds later and the transaction went through, buying me the stuff but having given me not chance to opt for "cash back."
"Now I don't have enough left on it to get cash back from any place that charges for it, I probably have like twenty dollars and twenty cents on it now..." I lamented to the cashier.

I wound up going to customer service, returning the energy drink for $1.50 in cash so I would have my bus fare, then going back and grabbing another energy drink, paying for it off the card, then leaving the store with my head spinning.

What I learned, though, is that you can get cash back at Wal-Mart, but you must be quick enough to hit the "choose alternate payment method" button within a couple seconds before it disappears. 

So now I am in on a Wednesday night. But at least I have cigarettes and some food and have had a shot of kratom.
The strings I ordered might arrive tomorrow, and pretty soon the Urinary Incontinence study people will be calling me for another fifty dollar appointment. Harold has a can of Fancy Feast, and things could be worse.
At least there was no race riot in Gretna, Louisiana today.

Out Of It

I was out of coffee and money when I woke up.
Sure, I knew when I took the night off from busking that there would be consequences.

As I brewed and drank the last of my coffee, staying up to record music, the dark cloud of uncertainty had begun to form over me.

Monday, the plasma place got me again, paying me only 15 dollars for my stuff, when I had expected, and had planned around getting, 25 bucks.

This means that I can go and get the 25 tomorrow (Wednesday) though, and that I will probably go out tonight to busk for whatever I can get before a string breaks.
A couple sets are on the way; will probably arrive Thursday.

The doldrums of late August can be weathered this way.

The trip to New England has not been postponed, necessarily. I might try to squeeze it in between the second and third appointments at the clinic.

Their pamphlet mentions that "eczema" is another area in which they conduct studies in.

I might inquire about participating in such a study.

As someone afflicted with the "disease," who learned how to cure it by eliminating certain foods from his diet, I could probably give them some valuable information. And get more money in the process.

An Increase In Libido: Day 4

This is going to require a little more work...

My participation in the clinical study for the drug that I am taking continues, but I have been too lazy to Google whatever it is -I would have to call Anna at the office and ask her: "What did you say the name of the stuff was?" and then Google it.

I am pretty sure that I did not get the placebo, as I am feeling a slight effect, an increase in libido, as a matter of fact.

Some of the girls that hang around the Uxi Duxi are looking especially good to me, lately, especially Amanda, and even Erin, to a degree.

The specific instructions to take one pill from bottle A and one from bottle B, before moving to the second set of bottles A and B, have me wondering.
I wonder if the placebo might be contained in one set of bottles but not the other. Why else would Anna have told me to finish the first two bottles before going to the next.
Either way, it seems that this supply will take me right up to the time of my second visit to the place.
I thought that this was going to make me postpone a trip to New England until the 14 week study is over, but now that I think of it, I could still go, but would have to cut my visit off at around 12 days, so as to make it back here for my next appointment.
That might work out well, as that would give me plenty of time to see everyone I want to up there, and would have me leaving before I overstayed my welcome, and back before anyone got sick of taking care of Harold the cat.

Skeeter Repellent

Version 2 of Sunday night's post.

OK, I said that I would probably cross selling plasma off the list of viable ways to get cash.

I had been away from the place from December until July. Not since Travis Blaine was staying at my apartment, had I been there.

I remember that, because he had held back upon giving me some money that he had promised after I had gone and sold plasma and then was on my way out to busk in that famished state. "You sold your plasma, and you're gonna play tonight, so you should be alright," he had said, by way of explaining why he didn't need to fork over any cash at that time...

Then busking income picked up enough so that selling plasma for what I could make in 44 minutes of playing became deprecated, as the computer programmers would say.

Partly, also, because the bus trips there and back alone could run up to 2 hours off the clock, especially on those days when the bus "just left" every time you show up at the stop.

But, Sunday, I had gone there and gotten 15 dollars for my trouble, minus $2.50 for bus fare.

I would have ridden my bike to the place to save that money, even though it's ten miles each way, but I can't go over the bridge on it. It is illegal and strictly enforced by, I guess the State cops.

One night, I did ride across, after I had watched football with Howard, and the game had gone into double overtime or something, and it was back when I still drank, especially while watching football, and hence the "F*** it, I'll just ride my bike over the bridge" attitude that I had, after the last 102 of the night had shown up, with one bike already on its rack, and I had been cut in front of by an older black man, who had just hoisted his bike up and into the last available slot, while I stood there, trying to politely tell him: "Um, I was here first..."

That was shortly after November 5th, 2016, because the guy had said something like: "Oh, you get to go first now, cause you got Donald Trump, is that it?!"

But, that had turned into a hell-ride across the bridge, with cars honking and making a display of veering outside the marked lanes, as if to tell me: “Look what you’re doing, you’re gonna cause a wreak!,” and other drivers giving me the finger out their windows.

There is only about a foot and half of space between the white stripe on the edge of the road and a 400 foot plunge into the Mississippi.

So, Sunday I got paid 15 dollars, instead of the 25 that I was expecting.

There might be a greater "spiritual" purpose to the plasma trips, because I am actually relaxing my hatred of black people, by degrees, with each excursion over there.

For one thing, the workers at the plasma place are at least educated to a high school level, and had the ability to learn how to run the plasmapheresis equipment; that's something...It's good to be exposed to that "other side" of African American culture, the proper English speaking set.

They are a foil to the dim-witted cashiers at the Wal-Mart down the street, in that sense.

But, I have always thought that the way I seem to get along with Latinos even in places like Phoenix, Arizona where I drove a cab, and was cautioned to never go into the "Spanish" section at night, was due to the fact that they could sense that I liked them. And I supposed by the same token, the blacks can sense that I have "No, I don't have a dollar and I don't have a cigarette!" on the tip of my tongue at the sight of them.
You can hate me, but I hated you first, before you even walked up to me, type of thing...

I never had a problem with the Latinos. But, I liked them, and I guess people can sense that, plus, I attempted to speak Spanish, and even the way I corrupted their language was seen as being admirable to them.

So, I am now attempting to do the same thing with black people -to change the way I perceive them; because they aren't going anywhere, and I can't see myself holding a resentment towards them, which is going to be caustic to myself.

I can at least wait until they say "Esscuse me..." before I deem them skeezers.

I have concluded that it is easier to deal with black people if I imagine them as being full of fear. Of course they are infamous for being afraid of dogs and spiders and ghosts and such. But they must also be afraid of all the stuff going on in the world, and probably do feel a dark cloud hanging over their heads based upon Trump being president, due to the propaganda that they were subjected to during the election campaign -the fake news, and the Kool Aid that a lot of the blacks I have spoken with still had staining their lips.

Now when I see a black lady and perhaps a small child or two, it is easier for me to accept her if I attribute a lot of her actions to her being scared.

She's probably just as afraid of her kids falling prey to the violence that is all around her, because, well, blacks are violent. And fear of white people is probably woven into her fabric.

No Skeeters, No Skeezers

This time there were no mosquitoes at the bus stop, like there had been Sunday night when I had found myself sitting next to a skeezer at the same stop. No skeeters, no skeezers.


This guy was kind of fat and probably in his mid forties but looking more like fifty five, and drunk, apparently.

“Good evening, ma’am,” he had said when I had walked up, but not close enough yet for him to realize his mistake -oh, did I mention myopic.

He quickly corrected himself, and substituted “sir” in his salutation.

As I was beginning to speak, and to forgive his error, perhaps by saying: “It’s alright, one of the drawbacks of having such long hair,” and then maybe to have informed him that I was a musician, or maybe to take the route of explaining that I hesitate to cut my hair -and have been holding in that pattern for at least seven years by the looks of it, eh? Yuk, yuk...

And might have volunteered the information that I am actually planning upon inquiring at the Ideal Market “down the street from where I live” as to whether one of their amazingly( attractive (as a whole, even the older ones) Latinas has hair cutting skills and then to offer, say, twenty dollars to that lady, and even suggest right behind the store around the employee break area to be the spot where the work would be done, and having brought my own scissors, even.
There is a dumpster nearby that area, but it doesn’t smell.

I could have praised the cleanliness of the Ideal Market on Broad Avenue, open until ten, seven days a week, and might even have gotten around to talking about my old girlfriend , Karrie, who defined herself as having “Mexican” in her, but who was a defacto Latina.

In many ways, we could have had a meaningful discussion, and maybe have become fast friends.

But, the guy, who isn’t a skeezer yet, at this point of my narration, then cut off any conversation starter that I might have had in store, with a blunt request, the substance of which was “Can I bum a cigarette?”

OK, he’s a skeezer now.

This basically “deteriorated,” after my: “I can’t afford to be walking around passing out cigarettes to everyone I meet,” into his saying:

“I just asked you a simple question, It’s either ‘yes’ or ‘no!'"

Typical Skeezer Mentality

The implication was that he didn't want to be shamed through my response, over the fact that he was being a bum. A lot of skeezers aren't in the mood to hear any excuses the mark may have for not giving him something for free at his (the mark's) expense. It might go something like:

"No, I only have a couple left, one for before I go to sleep, and one for the morning..."

"I didn't ask you how many cigarettes you had and when you intend to smoke them. I don't give a f**k about your life story, I just asked you a simple question, 'Can I get a cigarette,' it's a yes or no!" type of thing. When they can sense that the answer is going to be no, they can become pretty short with you.

And, I would go away with the sense of: Now, I'm glad I didn't give you one of my cigarettes, turns out you're a real jerk, who doesn't care about people only tobacco.

Well, my point of focus was over the fact that he hadn’t allowed me to speak after having called me “Ma’am,” which, while most-likely an innocent mistake made in the dark with him being drunk, and perhaps needing glasses, was a matter of sensibility and there had been no apology from him, over something that had to have been embarrassing to the dude that was just addressed as a chick.

That happens once in a blue moon because of my long hair and poorly sighted individuals.

But, no, it was right on to “Can I bum a cigarette?” from him, sending the message: Ma’am, or sir, whatever; I don’t care who you are, just about your cigarettes.”


So, instead of us having had any meaningful conversation, or become friends, it ended right there.

"Don't worry about it!," he snapped.

"It must suck when you can't get something for free at someone else's expense..."

"It must suck when you can't get something for free at someone else' expense," I said, angered by the fact that he was showing so much unjustified anger, himself.

It would have been a waste of breath for me to remind him that I can do whatever I want with my own cigarettes that I paid for; I don't HAVE to give them away, not even to other smokers who share my addiction and whom I thus, should feel compassion for, etc. etc.

"Don't worry about it," he repeated.

He then mumbled: "Yes, indeed...." and a few seconds later, "Yes, indeed..." again.

He then threw in "Karma's a bitch!" trying to imply that God was going to get me for not going around passing out free cigarettes.

"Karma is getting you now," I said. "Every time you beg something from someone, you're increasing your karmic debt. Nothing is free in this world and you're digging yourself a hole. You're the one building bad karma. Yes, indeed." I couldn't help adding the last bit.

The mosquitoes are usually very bad at that bus stop, as there is a swamp-like area nearby.

I went into my backpack and took out my Off Deepwoods repellent, and, as I sprayed some on myself, I could see his mouth start to open. I gave him a look that I hoped said: Don't even ask.

I wouldn't normally begrudge anyone a few sprays of mosquito repellent, but I wanted him to feel the full brunt of that bitch, karma, that is is so convenient for the beggar to believe in.

"Someday, you'll ask someone for something and they'll say 'no',"

Incontinence Money Flows Uncontrollably

I woke up.

They sure do.

I could see that either the big hand was on the eight and the little on the six, or vice versa, without my glasses on, but either way, I had plenty of time to sleep more, even if it was the little hand on the eight.

My appointment was at noon, to be vetted for participation in a clinical study on urinary incontinence.

Why that?

I had gotten a pop up on my smartphone asking me if I wanted to participate in this study, for which I would be compensated fifty dollars, (yes Lilly, only fifty bucks for letting total strangers use me as a guinea pig) for each visit to the place, over the next 14 weeks.

The first thing I thought was, gee, ever since I started using the Internet, 24 years ago now, I have always reflexively rejected any offer of any kind that ever popped up, anywhere, often x-ing it out before the box was fully open, but this...

I must admit that "annoying" pop up ads have begun to be less so lately, because they have been for things like harmonicas or writing courses, and not just Viagra, or telling me how to claim my free cruise to the Bahamas. 

I thought that one of my well meaning friends, having been maybe too sensitive to my feelings to inquire about my running to the restroom 3 times during a 3 hour visit to the Uxi Duxi, might have referred me to the urinary incontinence people over there at Touro Hospital.

I usually drink a lot of coffee before I leave the apartment for the Uxi Duxi, or  anywhere else, for that matter. It is as if I am subconsciously afraid of falling asleep out there, somewhere.

Then, sure, my first sip of kratom makes me reach for a cigarette and seems to trigger the bladder at the same time.

It would be in character for the technically savvy millennial staff at the Uxi Duxi to forward me information about such a study, perhaps initially as sort of a practical joke, because I run to the bathroom so frequently.

I guess that is something that I never blogged about.

But, back when I drank alcohol, I would often have a strong urge to urinate when I was busking and would be preparing to go and do so, just as I was approached by tourists of the "Play my girlfriend a song on her birthday, I'll give you twenty bucks," variety.

Then, fifteen minutes later I might experience "leakage," on my way to find a place to urinate (in between two cars, because there are so few places in the Quarter where one can use a restroom without making a purchase, and because, isn't that part of the charm of The French Quarter, you can piss in the street, just like in France?).

And there were other times when, after I thought I was done and had zipped myself back up, more urine would dribble out as I was walking away from the spot in between two cars.

"Leakage," is their euphemism at Touro hospital. I wondered about that....would the doctor ask: "So, you been pissin' your pants a bit, lately?"

I don't think I am being a total fraud by having submitted myself for consideration in the program, and having been accepted, as a matter of fact, this afternoon.

I had only been about 12 minutes late for my noon appointment.

They had already asked me about a dozen questions over the phone, when they first called me, as a way of determining whether or not I should even go in.

This was in response to my having clicked "Yes, I'll do anything for fifty bucks every two weeks!" or whatever it was.

Once there at 12:12 PM, I was handed a clipboard and a pen, then mostly answered "no" to ever having had a whole slew of diseases and conditions, no recent brain surgeries, no fainting -just pissing myself occasionally.

As far as the C.O.P.D. episode back in '13, I have attributed that to the breathing in of feathers and/or dander from a Black Caped Night Heron that was flapping its wings in my face at the time of the flare-up.


I wouldn't want to confuse that with a chronic condition, nor blow my chance to get the fifty dollars' so I checked "no" in the C.O.P.D. box.

I gave a urine sample and a blood sample, after having been given an EKG, and having my blood pressure taken.

I was told that one subject in three would be given a placebo, rather than the "urinary incontinence" drug. I put that term in quotation marks because, I have a sneaky suspicion that the drug is really an anti-anxiety drug and that the theory is that, perhaps urinary incontinence is related to a person's anxiety level.
I wasn't asked any questions about my "urinary incontinence," at all, but answered a battery of questions about depression and suicidal tendencies.

That was kind of funny because, if you answered the first question of "I have thought about committing suicide" in the affirmative, then you were instructed to answer the next few, the last of which was "I attempted suicide but failed, yes or no?"

Is that the definition of a cosmic loser, or what, can't even kill himself!
Note to self: Start a subreddit for survivors of suicide attempts, be the moderator...

But, They gave me fifty dollars on my way out, in the form of a check written to me, which I had no problem cashing at The Unique Grocery store.

Sam, the owner, even waived one dollar of the check cashing fee.

It had been two dollars, out of the fifty dollar check.

"Oh, four percent, eh?" I had asked Sam.

"No, two dollars, everything...pretty good, huh?"

Give a skeezer an inch, and...

"Well, pretty good if you're cashing a big check, not so good if you're cashing a two dollar check." I replied.

Sam then handed me back one of the two dollars that he had taken out.

"You're my friend," he said, in a gesture of tenderness rarely seen at The Unique Grocery Store, where a tough disposition must be maintained, to keep the skeezers in line, with several of them having been barred from the place and relegated to having to stand in front and try to get someone they feel they can trust with the $2.21 to go in and buy their beer for them.

So, I cashed the check and walked out of Unique's with 49 dollars; pretty good...

Now, I have a couple of bottles of what has a 1 in 3 chance of being a placebo. I am instructed to take one pill from bottle A, and one pill from bottle B in the morning, and then again at night.

I also have been given a "diary" to record my urinary comings and goings, and if there was any "leakage."

So, here seems to be a way to supplement my income with fifty bucks every two weeks.

This also sets back any trip to New England for another 14 weeks, but, maybe at that point, I will be able to do the thing correctly, by buying bus tickets and planning stops along the way and back to coincide with festivals and other buskable events.

The only thing that I can foresee going wrong is, if I have been given the actual drug, and not the placebo, having some kind of adverse reaction to it, and being forced to withdraw from the study, and the forty nine bucks every two weeks.

I can almost hear Alex in California saying: "Dude, I would find out exactly what the drug is and thoroughly research it before swallowing the first pill," and I will do that, but I will take the first few doses, thinking that I will find out right away, through my hypersensitive body, if I got the placebo.

How are they going to know if I am taking it? I don't really know.
Maybe they have to "jump through this hoop" by conducting the study, and are secretly hoping the people won't take the drug, only the fifty bucks, so that they will have absolutely no ill side effects to report, and can go on to the next phase of its development.

It seems that I was a good candidate because of the scantiness of my medical history. I have never been diagnosed, nor treated for depression, (with drugs, I assume) and this seemed to buoy their enthusiasm towards signing me up. And being currently on no medications helped. They might be on the lookout for people who participate in these studies by faking symptoms, for the money.

Other than that, we got along great...

I thought that I might blow it by telling them that I sold plasma, or that I took a shot of kratom almost every afternoon, like some people do a cup of tea, but neither of those subjects presented themselves, not even after the guy who drew blood from me was able to use the existing hole in my arm, conveniently placed there by the Octapharma staff.

I have a feeling that they just have to go through the motions of conducting a double-blind placebo based study as part of the rigmarole of getting the drug "approved" and placed on the market.

Or... I am going to go heron-shit crazy on the stuff and go from apartment to apartment strangling skeezers with the bath towel that Louise Helton left behind when she stayed at my place. The light blue-green one.

You are reading the work of a International Association of Professional Writers and Editors member, blog readers.

 The sample of my writing that I sent to these clowns was met with approval, met their standards, and I have been accepted as a member.

I am suspicious, though, that they might accept everybody's writing sample, deeming them all to be up to their standards, because that is how they make money, by convincing people that their writing is good (and so why don't they start to pay $5.95 a month, so as to take advantage of "membership?").
I might be being cynical, because, of course they have to make some money, but my writing...meets their quality standards...get outta here!! I wasn't born yesterday.

Like they are the ones selling the picks and mules and pans and mosquito spray, so why not convince everyone that there's gold in them thar' hills?

Leah Yehjo and the DOOdz - Cocoa Soap (Official Music Video)

• 4X Law of Volume
• 4 Dollar Sunday
• Video From Jacob

This is a video Jacob Scardino sent me.
I don't know who the other "dudes" are, lol.

I see myself playing the bass and us all cleaning up on Royal Street....
Hell, maybe I could afford to start drinking again if that were to work out, what with all the micro-brewed lagers a stone's throw away, ha ha...

OK, so would the 4X Rule Of Volume also explain, then, why the trumpet player you've mentioned makes so much just playing things like the Eentsy Weentsy Spider? -Alex in California

Yes, the trumpet, like the horn on an automobile, is loud enough to benefit from the law's effect. It states that the doubling of a busker's volume will quadruple his income.
ꝸ * ʃ ² = $
Where ꝸ represents talent and ʃ represents decibel level.

By the way, it is "Itsy Bitsy Spider," and not teentsy weentsy, that the trumpet guy who plays by the wharf where the Natchez steamboat docks.
He begins to play after the steamboat has come back down the river into view and is drawing nigh, but still a good tenth of a mile away from the wharf.
He does this so that the people on the boat will hear him. From a tenth of a mile away, they will, and when they arrive safely on shore without the boiler having blown up and scalded them, then they will somehow connect the lonesome strains of trumpet they had heard from out on the river, as if the city itself was welcoming them back, to what they are hearing when they stand in front of him and he becomes part of their "A Ride On A Steamboat," experience.
The guy might even leave after the boat does again and then go grab a bite to eat, returning in time to start playing again as soon as the boat is within a quarter mile.
 
  

I Switch To Performing In Drag

• Seventeen Dollar Saturday
• Red Dress Run
• Desperate Times/Desperate Measures

Just kidding. Photo created by Dom at Uxi Duxi,

using some kind of gay app on his phone...

It was early Saturday evening, as I passed a lively busking scene on Royal Street.

These were buskers who have not yet figured out that August is dead around here; or ones who are alright with the amounts of money they make, not caring that it is one tenth of what they would be getting at the same spot if it were March, and their names were either Tanya Huang, or Christina Friis.

These summer buskers are able to grab the prime spots vacated by the likes of the above named, like hermit crabs crawling into the shells of recently expired snails.

Busking at the spot where Jerry Jeff Walker once stood; priceless!

Groups like "Yes Ma'am" make their perennial return (like migratory birds) every fall, with stories about having lived like kings in places like Golden, Colorado, Gatlinsburg, Tennessee, or Anchorage, Alaska, while their contemporaries in New Orleans were suffering through heat and humidity and 30 dollar nights.

I rode past slowly, careful to keep my wig from blowing off my head...
 
I'm still serious about going to Massachusetts.

Lilly is balking at keeping Harold the cat, though.

I know I could just lock him out, then disappear for a month, and he would be just fine; probably knows of a half dozen unguarded bowls in the neighborhood. A clue is the fact that, when I put something in his dish that he wont eat, he will often be scratching at the door to go outside in short order. There is probably a connection there.


The Red Dress Run

As the calendar is pretty much booked solid here, there was, of course, something going on this past weekend. It was the Red Dress Run.

An annual event, that is, which I have forgotten the significance of, although I do recall one participant last year telling me: "It's really not a race race," then pointing to the fact that several runners carry drinks as they "run" for the finish line.
This may have been at the Lafitt's bar that I play next to, or not.

There was a big banner, hanging high across the street in front of the bar, welcoming the Red Dress runners.

But, alas, PA speakers had been set up and were blasting music when I got there at the early for me time of just before 11 PM.

Red China?

This made me think that it is too bad that "the oldest bar in America," which eschews electric light in favor of candles, in order to replicate the atmosphere of the 18th century, a time when Jean Lafitt the pirate, and his brother Pierre, fenced pirated goods out the back door by Lilly's swimming pool, would spoil that environment by blaring loud hip hop music out of electrical speakers. And not even the kind of hip hop that Jean and Pierre would be "down with," I'm sure.

Colored people like it too!

Since I was forced to move down the street, I did so, and set up across from The Quartermaster, where I made 17 bucks, with the first 5 of it coming from Michelle, the night cashier from in there.
The second 5 dollar bill came from the girlfriend of a guy who had kicked over my Spider energy drink, while leaning in to see what kind of guitar I had.
"Is that a Yamaha? Oh, my bad, sorry about that..."
The farcical thing was that we both reached for the can to try to right it at the same time, butting hands and canceling each other's efforts out as the orange liquid escaped onto the sidewalk.
"That's why I gave you so much," said the girlfriend, tipping me off to the fact that the Red Dress Run participants might be in the same boat as me financially if five bucks is "so much" to them. I know it has become so to me these past ten years..

Just before being gunned down by NOLA police,

who later claimed that one of them pointed an arrow at them...