Daniel The Prognosticator

I was telling a lot of people about my premonition that the "best team in the NFL" New Orleans Saints were likely to lose in Dallas last night.
I initially had to agree that the Saints, being a better team than the Cowboys, should be able to beat them. And, I am pretty sure that if the Saints were given the ball against them with the same score and same amount of time on the clock, then, they would move down the field and at least tie the game nine out of ten times; and win the game probably eight out of ten times; but not every time.
I imagined having money, then thought to myself: Imagine having a hundred bucks and being foolish enough to bet the whole thing on the Cowboys, wouldn't that be stupid?
But this made me consider the opposite extreme.
From what I could tell from listening to the game, it was like a contest of "rock, paper, scissors."
The Saints came out throwing the scissors.
The Cowboys, through the grace of whatever occurs when everybody thinks you are going to lose, threw the rock, which everyone can guess, crushed the scissors.
The Saints, being stubborn, kept throwing the scissors, because surely the Cowboys were going to start second guessing the validity of the early lead that they gained, by crushing scissors.
Then, as the game neared the end, and the Saints had a last opportunity to seize victory, it was they that started second guessing everything.
"Are they going to just throw rock the whole game?!?" the Saints might have wondered derisively.
"No, they know they aren't as good as us and are playing with house money. They've got to be thinking of switching to paper, let's just throw scissors again, they won't be expecting it!"
And, so, they did, and the Cowboys crushed them with the rock, and so, the game ended.

The Week Without A Post

 Shit, Dan, I was getting worried about you there with your long absence from the blog.

I don't know about NOLA, but other than offering CD's for a DONATION, selling merch isn't considered a constitutionally protected free speech right like busking and usually requires a separate vendors license. Craig Nelson, blog reader.

The idea, I'd think, would be to busk a bit more, make/sell some paintings, drawings, CD's, hell guitar picks, anything, so your living is as an artist rather than as a skeezer who sells their plasma. -Alex in California, blog reader.

My understanding is that artwork can be sold in the French Quarter, but it must be original, no prints, photocopies, or photographs of your work, etc...

I imagine, though, that if I set some of my drawings by me for sale, and if people thought they were good, I would then probably get more inquiries about the "commissioning" of me to make drawings of their loved ones, rather than offers to buy drawings of people they've never seen before that I drew out of magazines and yearbooks. How would they know how good a likeness it is, for example?
This, I would be amenable to if they would give me a photo of the individual that I could take home and draw where nobody could see how many balled up sheets were in and around the wastepaper basket.

I don't know if I could bear to have someone looking over my shoulder as I drew, or, especially, making comments like, "the nose is too wide," while the poser became fidgety, having fished the limit of her modern day attention span.

And, what would they think if I were to approach the model to measure the distance between the pupils of her eyes, and then the distance from the bridge of her nose to the top of her head?

I shudder to think that developing the ability to draw like that might be one of those things like snatching the pebble from the master's hand that I might have been lead to New Orleans to learn.

I guess I'm like the people who come up to me and tell me that they could never just sit somewhere and play their guitar, in that, I could never draw someone while they sat there, waiting for me to finish, looking forward to it coming out incredibly well...

But, I suppose if I practiced on a couple hundred random faces out of magazines until I could knock them out in under a half hour...but there is still the problem of me seeing something that needs improving every time I look at the "finished" work, and wanting them to let me fix it before they go off with it.

Hopefully, I will have a CD for sale soon, with maybe seven songs on it. One thing about working with Jacob Scardino is that a year of me fiddling around with a song can be condensed into a couple of afternoons in his studio.

For example, I could ask him to change the beat of a song, and within a few seconds know if I like the way the chords sound over it. Before, I would have had to stop and spend probably twenty minutes programming the different beat to play, only to decide that, nope, the first beat was better..

It has been raining off and on on this Friday evening and is sprinkling lightly now at a little after 10 PM as Chris, the new barista at Uxi Duxi prepares to politely inform me that the place is now closed...

I made it to the plasma place to cash in on my "twice in one week" bonus.

The fine print indicated that, should I have went tomorrow, I wouldn't have gotten the bonus, because, even though it would have been my second visit in a week, it would have been the first of December, starting a new month, and making it so my donation wouldn't be the second one of the week, but the first one of the month -no bonus.

If a person goes on Saturday, December 1st and donates, and then comes back 2 days later (because you can't go on consecutive days) and donates, he won't get the bonus either, because it would be Monday, and Monday starts a new week, so it wouldn't be the second donation of "the week," it would be the first donation of the new week; even though, two donations were made only two days apart...

Thursday Night

...football, features the home town team visiting Dallas in a game that the locals have already taken for granted as being the Saints 11th straight win...

Bourbon Street will be waiting for me after the game...

I have this feeling that I've gotten in the past when people have taken things for granted, and I wish I had a bookie and, of course, money to throw on the Cowboys...I'm sure they are getting points...

A Weak Week

The last time I busked was a week ago now, then I jammed at Jacob's house the night before Thanksgiving.

I wound up sleeping almost the entirety of that holiday, only realizing it upon waking up in the evening.

Right: I am trying to come up with a way to draw myself using only a couple lines, like people are drawn in comic strips. This would let me focus on the humor of the cartoon without getting bogged down with the illustration of it to the point where the joke stops being funny before I've drawn a few frames of it.
I used to make cartoons featuring some of my teachers in high school, and was able to memorize a method for drawing them -first the nose, then the eyes, type of thing- so that I could draw them quickly, in like in 10 seconds, so I could then slap the dialogue and the punch lines on them and have an instant cartoon, the biggest fault being that the characters were always staring straight ahead when they delivered their lines.

It has been almost too cold to go out and play, for most of the week since then, with the temperatures dipping below the range that I have discovered that I can play in, without having to switch to easier material, which is right around 47 degrees.

Most of those experiments took place in Jacksonville, Florida in the years 2007, and 2008.
That was when I would play in front of a Kangaroo store, with a large can of malt liquor not too far from me.
I was playing for alcohol and the alcohol was, I suppose making me numb enough so that I would go until the temperature hit 37 degrees which was the point where I couldn't grip the pick any longer.
I wound up feeling like a wimp for not having gone out when it had been in the upper 40's.
Then, the weekend came along and I was talked out of busking by the guy at the front security desk, who reminded me that the weekend was the one when the Bayou Classic football game was played each year between Grambling and Southern Universities.
These are two "all black" colleges, and every year, as the game is played, so is there a shooting somewhere in the French Quarter. It is usually them shooting at each other, but recently their aim has been off and a dozen bystanders were hit last year, for example.
Then it got even colder during the days after the Bayou Classic game.
I ran out of money to the point that I was giving Harold the cat "people" food, of which a lot went to waste. He ate salmon from a can, but not all of it.
At 4 AM this Wednesday morning, I had woken up after sleeping, I guess, eight hours. I went for a bike ride to find tobacco in certain spots and was glad that I had put my gloves on.
When I got back, I put the turkey in the oven that I had bought the night before
Thanksgiving and which was only then thawed after about five days in the refrigerator.
This was going to be another source of food for Harold the cat.
I was on my way to Bobby in building C's apartment to see if I could bum the money for the bus trip to the plasma place, when I was presented with a big envelope by the front desk lady.

It was a calendar, sent by the Lidgleys, of London.

It depicted scenes from Yorksdale, I think is the name of the place, described as "the land of sheep and tourists," by Alyne.

I remembered last year's calendar, and how broke at times I had been during the year while it hung on my wall, and how, only in October, the month of my birthday, did I find the twenty dollar bill that had been taped between the pages of that month.

At Bobby's apartment, before I could ask him for the bus fare, I looked ahead 10 months and was overjoyed to find a mint twenty dollar bill taped to it. That gave me 20 dollars and 11 cents.

I was soon on my bike headed towards the Family Dollar on Canal Street, where I broke the bill with the purchase of a can of cat food -something that Harold hadn't had in a couple days, and then proceeded to the plasma place, where I discovered that they had gotten brand new plasmapheresis machines.
That was nice, but the fact that they had gotten rid of the 32 old machines and replaced them with 19 fancy new ones and the resultant 2 hour wait just to be hooked up to one sucked.

I had spent the morning, while the turkey cooked, listening to the self help dialogue recordings from the "Awaken The Genius" book, and so I was nonplussed when I was made to wait to see the nurse so she could ascertain that the rash that was around the spot where they stick their needle that I had had the last time I was there was gone, and then when I was made to wait for her a second time after the information that I had been cleared by her to donate had not made it to the computer of the guy who checks blood pressure and other things.
I patiently waited, while the point seemed to be being driven home that I could do better with busking, even at the hours that I normally go to the plasma place, than I can by going there.

Sometimes it takes a ridiculous farce, like the experience of spending over 4 hours in pursuit of the 15 dollars (minus bus fare) that I would be coming back with to make me wake up and smell the coffee.

But, I had already decided that it was time for me to start to endure hardship in order to climb out of the financial hole that toothaches, rain, cold and paranoia induced by smoking strong pot had brought upon me, so I continued to the plasma place, the Lidgley's money notwithstanding.

I had felt like a wimp after not having gone out to busk during the Bayou Classic.

Even now, as I step outside for a cigarette, where it is about 44 degrees out, I can't help thinking: Imagine going out to busk in this cold? As in, imagine it, but don't do it.

I can stuff my face with turkey over the next day to give me the blood protein sufficient to get the 45 dollars from the place on Friday, and I can busk if and when the temperature rises to the promised 74 degrees of the coming weekend.
I might be alright. I paid Jacob back ten bucks of the money I owe him, and Harold the cat has a can of food.

 

Right Back Out On Sunday

• $20.67 / hr.
• I Get Another Hat

It was more like Monday morning, when I arrived at the Lilly Pad, with 12:39 AM showing on my phone as I unpacked my stuff.

There had been a Saint's game and the Saint's had won by a large margin, and it stood to reason that some of the 70,000 people who had been at the game would be around Lafitt's Blacksmith Shop Bar and Tavern even at midnight; even until almost 3 AM.

I focused upon playing, with one couple from Switzerland stopping to listen at one point for about 3 songs or a half hour, and then there was a rather steady stream of what I figured were one dollar bills going in the basket, after I had pocketed the one five dollar bill that I had seen on top at one point.

But there wound up being 31 dollars and change, mostly in one dollar bills that were layered together in a way that implied that they had gone into the basket in quantities of three or four at a time, rather than one at a time, which made sense, because I had went off expecting to have made about 12 dollars, based upon a peripheral awareness of about a dozen people having thrown something...

This is huge thing, as it answered the question of "is midnight too late to start busking?" in the negative.

I have a vivid memory of the time about 6 six years ago now that I had made 83 dollars after having started at 1:30 AM and gone until almost 4.

Yet, recently I have foregone going out after realizing that I wouldn't get there until around midnight. Maybe because it was a Monday...like tonight...

But, last night proved that the groups of people whom I have always seen while packing up and leaving, whom I have always pointed to as being Murphy's Law of Busking in action, were not mirages.

One of the laws states: As soon as you stop playing and are packing up, the ideal group of tourists will walk past, intoxicated and happily singing in unison the chorus of the song that you were just doing before you packed up. They would have thought it so neat to come around the corner and hear a guy playing the same song that they were already singing that it could have netted the basket a five dollar bill from all 12 of them...

It had been the part of my mind that just wanted to sit on my couch and eat Raisin Bran with peanut butter stirred into the coconut milk with honey slathered on top that was telling me, sure, there are still a bunch of tourists but they obviously aren't the tipping kind, let's go, the coconut milk is ready...

But the reality is that, people who are passing the Lilly Pad at say, 2 AM are mostly of the sort who still feel that the night is young and, after having taken in all of Bourbon Street and, perhaps most importantly, still having money and being in search of more escapades, are on their way to Frenchmen Street. For one reason or another.

But, it is mostly because they want a more "human" experience, where they might encounter people whose every line doesn't sound like a pitch, and where there would be young people trying all sorts of things (anyone looking for mushrooms or designer drugs, for example, is directed there) and where they might hear musicians who are putting a hundred percent into establishing a name for themselves with whatever they do, rather than resting upon laurels.

This has always boded well for myself, as I think I present kind of the bridge between Frenchmen Street and "that culture" and the Bourbon Street that the tourists may have found a bit too crass and commercial for their tastes.

I would be the first person sitting along the side of the road who was not aggressively in their face or in their ears with any kind of appeal to "help me out."

I would have my head bent over the neck of the guitar or into the harmonica and they would get the sense that they could walk by unnoticed by me. This has a good effect upon people who would give to "the street people" if only they felt that they were doing it of their own volition, and not because they are being skeezed by the street person, whose dog may have burned down that same morning, or what have you.

Plus, if they have not been impressed by slick and polished blues and jazz standards played with aplomb for the thousand and something-th time by musicians who live not fueled by adrenaline produced by the artists fear of failure combined with his having put himself in a situation where he might, but rather by the security from the paycheck from the "pirate" bar or the "gator" place and the comfort of knowing the songs inside and out...

Then, they might be fit for the likes of myself playing The Carcass Song and making some of it up as I go along -doing something for the first, and not thousandth, time, type of thing.

I am also a personification of the spirit that wants to withdrawn itself from the maddening crowd and play where it is quiet, even though sacrificing "all the money" that surely must be available towards the "neon" end of the street.

"Why are you playing way down here?"

"Why are you playing way down here?" I am asked by people who are almost invariably putting something in my basket as they do.

So, the tourists who are jumping ship and headed towards the underground world of Frenchmen Street, are ripe for me between midnight and 4 AM, yet, I guess I had to go and prove that all over again to myself. One never knows if the climate has changed in six years, as far as those kind of things.

A Daytime Lilly Pad Busker Rears Head

I did learn that a daytime busker has indeed usurped the block across the street from the bar. He is not literally at the Lilly Pad, but 44 feet away. I could see where the bar might let this go, since their piano player hasn't began to play at that time.

It is a large man with long white hair who plays an electric guitar through and amp, but doesn't sing, according to Michelle, the cashier at The Quartermaster.

Michelle has a daughter who is in her thirties and who sings, and has sung with the large guy with long white hair.

She hinted that the songs her daughter likes are closer to what I do than to the repertoire of the large man.

I have some feelings of envy over whatever money the guy might make. I also know that, were I to show up wanting to play at 3 in the afternoon, then a civil discussion would have to take place between us where I would explain that the block is zoned as residential and as such is off limits to buskers, unless those buskers are occupying the private property of a resident who has given that busker permission to do so, etc. etc.

The guy should, at that point, relinquish the spot, grateful for whatever he might have been making there, and hoping that my showing up at 3 in the afternoon is an anomaly...

Some Makeup To Jacob

I am making sure that my friend Jacob, whom I still owe 44 dollars to, doesn't miss out on any kratom teas due to lack of funds, over the entire period that I owe him anything.
This way it will be like the money was virtually there all the time..
I might be able to pay back the whole amount of $50 that he entrusted me with about 3 weeks ago now, with all being well that ends well...

But, the American Express Serve replacement card came in the mail today. On this, I need to put at least the minimum amount of 20 dollars, so that I can at least order a couple sets of guitar strings, and dream about a new harmonica. I am thinking of the key of F major for the next one, sure am...
F major, being just one step above a ton of other music in existence, might yield the most contrast when switching harps between songs, like night and day, I hope.


I am still waiting on a replacement plasma card, but can go to donate tomorrow, since I'll wind up with the money as soon as the card comes...why not have the thing arrive with sixty something dollars on it already?

Blogging tip #11: Don't have all ugly pictures in your post...

The ID card, I may be able to have paid for by "Catholic Charities," which is one of the organizations that I need to be thankful for for my current situation. I know I  can thank them for Tim Cullen, my "caseworker," also.

Tim might be able to take me to the DMV and then, using "petty cash," be able to justify its expenditure upon me getting a new photo ID, one with my real address on it and not that of the homeless shelter, which is an address that tells any cop, you can do whatever you want to this one.

"Are you feeling well and healthy today, Daniel?"

At least the new address might tell the cops that this one is a veteran who has served the country in the military (and as a result, may suffer from some post traumatic stress syndrome, and you might want to have your weapon at the ready, safety off, better safe than sorry...).

Then, there was the library card...I just thought that I should start going to the library again...I could even blog from there....

A Timely 21 Dollars

Saturday was a full day. So full, I guess, that I have spent most of Sunday sleeping it off.
I suppose I could still beat last night's arrival time at the Lilly Pad of about ten minutes before midnight, should I go soon.

Time Slips Through Mis-Management
Saturday, I was up around noon, and soon Jacob was texting about us jamming at his house. We were ostensibly going to record a song for Erin, to be given to her as some kind of going away gift at the Uxi Duxi, that evening.

I grabbed up my stuff, and then could not find my keys to the apartment, on the way out.

I had been in the place for just about 24 hours, having not played Friday night, because it was in the high forties, temperature-wise.

It took me at least a half hour, while Jacob sat in his car outside, to find the keys.

I had gone out to the car and informed him that I would just leave the place unlocked, since the possibility of a skeezer trying the door was pretty minimal, as I have never, in the three years that I've been in the place, heard someone attempting to turn the door knob.

Jacob then asked me if didn't want to grab the picture I drew of Erin, since we might wind up going straight to Uxi after recording at his house.
It was upon returning to the apartment to grab that picture, which I had stuck in the window to amuse Jacob, that I found my keys.

They were in one of the three holes in a brick which I had been using as a book-stop, but which I had rotated to the position where the holes in it would be vertical. This was so I could stand up and light one of the candles that I had found somewhere in my travels, as part of the constant variety of things found laying around in New Orleans.

And, for some reason, in some state of mind which may have been the "not thinking" state of mind, I had thought: What an excellent little cubbyhole to use to put my set of keys in!"

Buskers, and I suppose this goes for everyone, I implore you to always put your set of keys in the exact same place every time you enter your place after having used them to get in.

Nail a peg into the wall near the doorway.

Don't hide them in one of the holes of a brick, for this will make them totally invisible to a casual glancer. And, if the brick had lain on its side for a couple years and had thus, never been used as a cubbyhole and, as a result held no association to one in the mind of a person who might put the keys there, and who might smoke pot, don't ever put them there.

This cost me about a half hour, as stated above.
But, then it wasn't over.

We went to Jacob's house and kind of brainstormed ideas about what kind of song we could make for Erin.

I suggested taking "The Wreak of the Edmund Fitzgerald," by Gordon Lightfoot
and changing it to something about the sacking of Erin the barista.
"The legend lives on from the Pontchartrain on down to the business they call Uxi Duxi...

As businesses go, it was gayer than most, with the captain and crew all well semen-ed..."

But, Jacob was very unfamiliar with that AM radio staple of my youth, and so most of the humor was lost upon him.

We wound up sort of jamming, and I did one of my songs and then tried to make up some lyrics about the sacking of the Erin the barista, but this was recorded only on Jacob's phone, and deemed by him to not be the kind of grand production that he had had in mind.

My argument was that Erin was going to know that it was just us grabbing our guitars and keyboards and making something up on the fly, but, we decided to return to the Uxi Duxi with only the charcoal drawing of her, and a bag of caramels that I was to grab at the Walgreen's on the way there "in and out real quick," which I wound up waiting in a line another 20 minutes for.

Plus, we had popped in on Bobby "in and out real quick" so that Jacob could buy a bit of bud of the "gorilla glue" boutique strain of pot, as another offering to Erin.

Bobby had just gotten a new Fender amplified, and so it seemed natural for us to dote over it, play through it, and comment positively about the tone of it, at least at the maximum volume of almost to the "one" on the dial, that Bobby is relegated to playing at.

Why he is so in search of a guitar tone that can only be achieved by turning the amp up to the level where you can feel the hairs on your arms moving, is beyond me. But, at least another half hour was killed checking out Bobby's new amp.

So, it was quite a feat for me to have maintained my sense of purpose and kept an eye on the time, so that, after Jacob dropped me off a little before 11 PM, at the apartment, I was in the mind to just grab my stuff and hop on the bike and keep the evening rolling, to the tune of making 21 dollars in about an hour and a half.

Still, though, this had me returning home so late in the morning, that, the prudent way to make sure that I could make it to the Saint's game, to play outside that venue, would be for me to try to stay up for it.

Maybe a younger Daniel would have, but after having eaten a split yellow pea and peanut butter dish that I made, in conjunction with a huge cookie that I made from using a mix for chocolate chip cookies and then adding more rye and wheat flour to it and increasing the amount of butter and water, so that the resultant cookie was much less sweet and cloying than Betty Crocker's recipe, it became apparent to me that I was dozing off on the couch, as I listened back to some recordings I was messing with.

I have been digging up old recording of myself where I might have played for 21 minutes, jumping from one idea to another, and have been isolating sections where a chord progression was played all the way through without a mistake.

These, I cause to "loop" repeatedly, replacing the cycles through them that came before and after, which might have had errors in them, by using, say 16 repetitions of the same perfectly played chord changes, rather than the 16 that I might have originally played, where maybe I slowed down a bit in one spot, taking precious milliseconds to think of a word that rhymes, or something.

I can then take these 8 second long bars and zoom in see if every note I played landed right on the beat. If not, sliding the note over digitally so that it does land right on the beat can actually make the riff sound "tighter."

The 8 seconds, that might represent 4 bars of music, can then have drums added to them, using the same method of placing say the bass drum at "zero," and then the snare hit at exactly 250 milliseconds, the next bass drum at 500 milliseconds, and voila! a drummer emerges who is playing right along with the guitar, right down to the millisecond.

This can be repeated so that other instruments can be quickly added to the same 8 seconds of a chord change, auto-corrected to the nearest beat, and then when the "repeat" effect is used to make it go through a whole verse of a song, the drums and bass and other things will repeat flawlessly.

One of my methods is to cause every drum in the kit to sound on every 16th note. This causes the bass drum, toms, open and closed high hats, ride cymbal and snare drum all to sound in a machine gun-like manner, four times a beat throughout the whole song. Then, it becomes a matter of deleting the drums that you don't want to sound on any particular beat. Addition by subtraction. This exposes the ears to what each instrument would sound like on any beat. It might not otherwise occur to a non drummer that an open high hat would sound awesome on a certain off-beat, for example, but with the whole drum kit rat-a-tat-tatting away like a machine gun, it is easier to keep what is sounding good and mute the rest.

The Favela Chic job...still thinking about it....

This overlaps into the same technique that I have "discovered" when drawing with pencil on paper. Rather than trying to shade in the low spots to suggest shapes, it is easier to darken the whole area and then erase the high spots. This can be done more gracefully than trying to coax the graphite to shade lighter and lighter by pressing softer and softer....Addition by subtraction....

As far as any danger of a song coming out sounding machine-like, this can be overcome by having at least a voice or two on the track winging it, liberated from the strictness of time that keeps the rest of the framework in place, but obvious to the listener that it isn't just "a computer" they are being subject to.

So, it was cool that I made 21 bucks, stemming the hemorrhaging of money that flowed during the cold days last week. But, I sort of "have to" go out as soon as I finish this and attempt at least a repeat of that. It is Sunday night.

I didn't make it to the Saint's game, but I can certainly make it to the after hours party at Lafitt's Blacksmith Shop Bar and Tavern...  


When I get back home, I will put my keys on the refrigerator...

The Gales Of November

Here I sit at the keyboard like a million monkeys all over the planet...
Soon, I will be standing on the rocks in front of a pristine stream which has pooled in front of where the entrance to my shelter is.
The fire would still be smouldering from the evening before, when I cooked salmon over it. The local brown bear would be making noise not too far away and rearing its head over the scraggly pines which cling tenuously to the rocky hillsides. I would have placed a fish or two in a certain area so that it would eat and then go away without further disturbing me. It wouldn't be necessary for me to set off a firecracker to establish order in the woods.
Soon, I would be back to work, panning the stream for gold nuggets, of which I would have found about 3 ounces of at that point, and would be ready to notify the pilot of the helicopter that I had chartered to come pick me up and fly me the 800 miles to the nearest town.
There, I would trade my gold for cash credit to be applied to the balance of my American Express card, pick up any merchandise that I might have ordered online, using a special protocol so that the HAM radio in my cabin could be used as a modem, albeit a very slow one, and then, after maybe spending a few days and nights in that dinky little town, drinking and whoring it up, I would be flown back out into the Yukon, where I would resume panning for gold, and looking for other gem stones in the area and, of course, maintaining my "Panning Daniel" blog using the HAM radio protocol that is available as an open source application through Linux...using my solar charged radio.
Living on salmon and trout, and herbs that I am able to gather....
Or, I could get a job at Favela Chic as a dishwasher, and be an apartment dweller the rest of my days....

An Even Better Song

Money Arrives

I was leaving my apartment, after having made the discovery of more change that had fallen out of my back pocket when I was sleeping on the bed.


I have not gone looking for work yet at the restaurant that Erin said paid their employees cash.

If I was really smart, and was absorbing the self-help dialogues, I would set my sights far above the mediocrity of washing dishes at some restaurant.
The self help dialogues tell me to program my other than conscious mind to work out the details in the attainment of my goals and dreams and to not worry about what "happens."

So, I was doing a good job, after having added the coins from the bed to the ones that had fallen out on the couch, which brought the total of money that I had to my name to the exact amount for a can of cat food, with a couple cents left over. I wasn't freaking out nor worrying where my next meals was coming from.

Things were working out, for the moment, I was embracing uncertainty.

 The temperature was a chilly 43 degrees, and I didn't have gloves.

By the time I was leaving, I had less than a half hour before they closed, and so I left my umbrella, even though it was lightly drizzling. It would slow me down, keeping me from putting both hands on the handle bars...

I checked my mailbox, since I have to go that way until I get a new key card.

There was a letter from my mom in the box that had a very timely gift of money in it. It had been post marked "Saturday," and here it was Tuesday...It takes a whole week just to mail something across town, but something from New England arrives in 3 days!!

I had been down to 67 cents. The weather was as described above. It's not that I couldn't handle busking in it, but that the tourists can't handle coming out in it.
It's the same thing on this Wednesday night, as I sit here.

I guess I will buy cat litter, maybe wash some clothes; or maybe make an even better song.

Will He Get The Job?!?

"Hi, my name is Daniel, and first off, your wife has very lovely eyes and favors Fiona Apple a bit...

"I know some important people..."

The reason I'm here is that I am looking for work..."

These are the proprietors of the Favela Chic establishment on Frenchmen Street.
I am dreaming big.

I go in there and prep food and then help out through the dinner rush, lending assistance to the girls, trying to pull my weight and more; not afraid to apply elbow grease and take on chores that would be the demise of a lesser man, like scooping the shit out of a toilet that has become clogged, scraping the cheese out of a baking tray that has to be used again and hasn't time to soak....and vomit, always vomit...
And then, 44 dollars goes into my hands out of the back door, and I am perhaps well fed on stuff that was on plates that I was given to wash, where it was evident that they, for example ate almost all of one burrito and didn't even touch the second one, type of thing...
Then, I grab my gear and walk 11 minutes to the Lilly Pad, where I set up in order to catch the stragglers, and add who knows how much more money to the evening's take...
Gosh, wouldn't delicious tequila just complete that picture...
"Um, sir, I have been going on three years sober... (tells humorous story of having been hit by a car on night before quitting drinking)."
"I do get a voucher to pay my rent, so I'm looking for something to make a little cash, like I do with my guitar...-scratch that; too much information, they just want a guy to show up and scrape pots....

But, this is what I am up against; these are the people who would have to hire me.

I'm going to walk up to the guy; some time this century; but I digress...
I will put on my cleanest "Make America Great" shirt and, er, scratch that, they look Nicaraguan...
I will just have to hope that if I promise to show up when needed to scrape the cheese, and maybe explain my situation to the guy, maybe not disappear for three days after the first bill at least as large as a twenty enters my hands, and explain myself to the guy, maybe have my guitar with me so he might deem that him hiring me was in some way supporting "the arts."

There is one in Paris...

But I'll be trying to get work at the one in New Orleans...

A Pretty Cuckoo Scene

A Job That Pays Cash?

"Go to Favila Chic, they pay their employees in cash..." -Erin, soon to be ex-barista at Uxi Duxi.

I have learned of at least one place that might pay me in cash in the parking lot at the end of a shift.

This should be great news to me, and I should consider it one more way that things might be falling into place.

I gave up on ever having a "job" job about ten years ago. That was right before Obama came into office to inherit the mess which manifested itself to me as my having spent a whole day, after having gotten cleaned up and not drank that day, putting in applications.

I put in 12 of them, was called back by 2 of them, interviewed by one, where I was informed, after talking to a guy for 20 minutes that, "the guy who does the hiring won't be here 'til Friday."

I got the impression that those businesses were all hiring their friends and family, but were putting up "Now Hiring" signs as a ruse, to deflect any suspicion that they might not be "equal opportunity" employers per se.

I remember walking into a Firehouse Subs place, and the employees behind the counter conspicuously ignoring me after they had seen me pluck one of the applications from the Come join our awesome team! or whatever, type of display that was set up on the counter, and then had seen me sit and fill it out.

I stood at the register with the completed application in my hand while the employees talked to each other about everything under the sun, not even glancing my way once, until about ten or fifteen minutes had elapsed and I noisily ripped the thing up and said: "I wouldn't work for you jerks if you paid me! and then walked out.

I was sort of surprised that none of them had said anything like: "Good, we don't want you!" which would have lent credence to my belief that they had been intentionally ignoring me. They might have actually been of this new generation of millenials that are so beset with attention deficit disorder that they could have forgotten that I was standing there shortly after they turned their heads in another direction, who knows.

I was seeing that as a blessing in disguise at the time, for it solidified my resolve to take care of my needs through busking and not be at the beck and call of any jerks. Standing there at the counter with the application for as long as they felt like taking to respond went against the grain of everything I had "fought" for. They were probably doing me a favor.

How much of what I have experienced in the past ten years, about a lot of which I might be able to write a book someday, would I have missed out on, had I been hired by Firehouse Subs and became a work-horse for them, putting in a lot of hours and waiting for an assistant managerial position to open up at some store, so I could become promoted to it?
Then, I supposed I would ultimately have an apartment with a large screen TV that I would vegetate in front of when I wasn't in uniform. There is something comforting in having a job and a uniform as an indication of having a place in society, but it is a recipe for a mediocre life. As opposed to being a busker where nobody can tell what you are, or what you are supposed to be, or even why you are and why you are supposed to be...

After having had a five dollar Friday night, I ran into a cauldron of generosity at the Uxi Duxi Saturday afternoon.

I didn't wind up spending any of the almost ten bucks in my pocket.
Erin, the barista who is working the last few days of her career at Uxi, had made a certain kratom concoction which she said that she had made wrong, putting in too much ginger, or something and she was going to throw it away...unless I wanted it.

Soon arrived another lady who was in the business of selling CBD dabs, and who had a sample case on her to advertise her wares. Soon she was putting dabs of CBD in a dabber and inviting one and all to try a free sample, which Jacob and I did.

Then arrived Jacob's high school English teacher whom Jacob was astounded to see "What are the odds of your high school English teacher walking into the Uxi?!?" who offered me a cigarette whenever he lit one up.

The ride home through 50 degree air into a stiff breeze at around 11 PM made me decide not to go out to play. I bought a can of cat food for Harold and a gallon of spring water to embark upon some kind of fast and cleanse with, and returned home. There I worked on the chorus of a song that I built around a sample from a Randy Newman song.

The song was "Mama Told Me Not To Come," and the sample came from the Three Dog Night hit recording of it. It was of the cuckoo clock that chimes during the interlude between verses, telling the listener that at the party described in the song, it was indeed getting late (one cuckoo) and that it was a pretty cuckoo scene.

My song is about an ex-girlfriend, the one whose house where we lived was actually haunted, (with stuff moving itself around and the requisite footsteps of a little girl in hard soled shoes traipsing across the hardwood floor). I used to hear that section of the song looping in my head when she was in the middle of one of her crazed rants. Funny, though, I hadn't drawn the cuckoo clock connection then, it was just music that played in my head when she was standing there going on about her suspicions that I was seeing another woman, one who was even living in the same house as us and doing a great job of staying out of my girlfriend's sight.
The other sound that looped in my mind at such times was from "Funky Cold Medina," by the artist Tone Loc, where among the motif sample of the guitar taken from "Hot Blooded," by Foreigner, is heard those little cowbell type instruments that, to me at least, sounded like they were saying "cu-cuckoo; cu-cuckoo."
"There's nothing wrong with my mind!" is the working title of my song, a phrase that recurred as the girl ranted about things like finding two wet towels in the bathroom. One hadn't dried me totally, so I had finished up with another one, one afternoon.
Of course that was clear evidence that I had had another woman over while she was at work and that we had taken a shower together. There was nothing wrong with her mind, mind you.

I posted a story about that time and placed it in the 2002 section of this blog. 

Red Meat And Toothaches

I decided to eat up the rest of a pot of boiled potatoes that was in my refrigerator, so they wouldn't go to waste, and also because of the phenomenon where 2 days of fasting can bring such a boon of health that the faster is tempted to make a compromise with oneself.

The feelings of lethargy and toxicity that are enough to bring me to the point of wanting to just eliminate it all and start fresh on spring water can vanish on the second or third day, and it is tempting to cancel the fast with the decision: "I'm going to eat, but only super healthy stuff" having been made.

The afternoon after I had eaten chunks of filet Mignon, mashed potatoes and steamed vegetables at Howard Westra's the night before, I woke up feeling like I just wanted to lay there until such a time as I felt a bowel movement coming on; then I would begin my "day..." That may have been because he made the mashed potatoes with soy-based margarine, if he did.
Howard acts as if he is bullet proof when it comes to his diet of Cheetoz and Pepsi and breakfast from McDonalds and fried chicken at noon from some other place, every day. His back is covered in what might be called liver spots or huge hideous freckles, and he is overweight. But he runs to doctors all the time to have tests done on him for whatever ails him. Some people just don't believe in things such as food allergies.

The toothache, which I had all but forgotten about, had begun to ache again, and it took another session of acupressure to send it back into remission.

"That's your liver, it's from eating red meat," a Buddhist lady had once told me about a toothache I had about 15 years ago.

It's cold again, in the low 50's, but I will probably bundle up and at least make the effort to ride to the Lilly Pad, where I will decide that I might as well play, once there.
There is absolutely no money coming in now, as I wait a week for a new plasma card, a new food card, and I even lost a Starbucks gift card that had money on it, something that, in a pinch, I could buy someone their coffee off of in exchange for cash...

But, I Went Out And Made Five Dollars

It was cold at 58 as I pedaled toward the Lilly Pad, the first night after losing my wallet.
I had balked at spending $6.53 on a new key card, as, half of the building are missing their key cards and rely upon facial recognition on the part of the security people sitting at the front desk to be "buzzed in."
They are a huge nuisance to these security ladies, and now, I one of them.
But, I wanted to busk at least one night in order to put the purchase of the key card into perspective.
I was playing about as well as ever. I find that I have improved drastically on the songs that I had recorded over at Jacob's.
I can remember being very conscious of the fact that whatever I played would be conspicuous in the music if it wasn't right in time with whatever else was going on.
To wit, the drum machine was keeping us in strict time, so I had to make sure that my chord changes were landing right on the beat, and if Jacob was playing a very cool chordal thing then I had to make sure that whatever I played was careful of blending in at the minimum, re-enforcing or enhancing at the most.
But, my playing had improved, with the major improvement being in the way I was attacking the strings, knowing that they were close to the breaking point, I was able to back off a bit, and in doing so, realized that all along I had been kind of over playing.
If you are a golfer who is trying to "kill the ball," then you are likely to be erratic in your placement of the ball on the course.
By playing softer, I had to admit that my voice was better equipped to sing the melodies in their proper ratio to the guitar.
Before, I was playing the guitar loudly to make up for the volume of my voice.
It is better to be balance with the guitar and let the volume of the singing be the meter by which the volume of the guitar is set.
In my case, this is by just hitting the guitar more lightly. This made it easier to play certain things with an economy that I found pleasing. At one point I wondered to myself what I would play if I had to play something for my whole life. If I was given a guitar and taught a song and I had to walk around my whole life with the thing around my neck and play the song as if I were a bird and it was mine. At a certain point, I would want to find the easiest way to do it. I would learn extreme economy of movement. But, most of all, I would figure out how to let the song play while my mind was a million miles away or engaged in something more compelling.
As the playing became automatic, I was able to feel like I was sitting there, hearing music of course but not thinking that it was "mine" and that it was "some Daniel McKenna," as in a band telling the audience "We're gonna do some Daniel McKenna, now" before breaking into one of my songs.
I wanted to avoid the tedium of trying to figure out just what that Daniel McKenna should be, so I watched the people. I tried to match the tempo of my playing to the rhythm of of the legs of a group of about 4 who had slowed their pace, as so many tourists to, as if they had been being scurried along by the sleaziness of the brightly lit blocks behind them and were slowing to the pace of the residential block.
But then along came a skeezer whom I have seen before and who likes to sit and free-style singing over whatever I'm playing. This, I was able to endure for a while. He is an average freestyle singer, and maybe if we ever rehearsed anything we wouldn't sound bad together. But, I basically had to tell him that I did best when I was sitting there by myself.
I pointed out that people were just going to think that we were some kind of team, with myself playing the guitar and him crooning (whatever came into his head that he probably thought extra clever of himself due to his being plastered and stoned).
But, life went on and we were able to shake hands and him walk off. But not before he almost stayed after I had said something additional after have a good night, or stay safe.
I might have just added some aside which caused him to remain and to continue to talk. Lesson learned: If the skeezer is leaving, remain calm and don't do or say anything that might mess it up.
It is Saturday night, getting late and has been cold enough to see your breath all night.
I am "planning" upon going out to busk, but am also aware that it will be much warmer tomorrow during the day at the Lilly Pad.

"...And I Was Actually Considering Not Going Out..."

• Lost Wallet
• Ruin Brought Upon Myself

Losing my wallet yesterday afternoon could be seen as evidence of "everything going wrong," or could be seen as a chance for a new beginning, of sorts.

I have one pair of jeans that allow the cushy seat on my Trek Calypso cruiser to work the wallet out of the back pocket as I pedal, depositing it on the road about a half mile from where I started riding. It has happened twice and both times I have doubled back and found it. Once, it was halfway between the Lilly Pad and home. How it hadn't fallen out on the way there is a mystery.
But, I knew about the jeans, and had planned upon marking them somehow or even throwing them away, but

My ID had expired a couple months ago. I never liked the picture on it, because I had been instructed to remove whatever head covering I was wearing at the time, and it wound up being a hat-head photo from hell. The address on it will be little help to any do-good-er who might want to return it, one more reason to want a new one. 

The $149 will be on the new food stamp card, when it arrives in 7 to 10 days with 7 to 10 days less in the month to spend it.

A new keypad card to access the Sacred Heart building will be 6 dollars, payable only by money order.

The American Express Serveᶜ card, I will figure out how to replace, either through a "Your call is important to us. Please stay on the line" holding session, or through the website that I will go to shortly.

The plasma card was another thing. I could not bring myself to go sell plasma for the fifteen bucks that I won't see for 7 to 10 days.

I would have had to have spent a couple of my precious dollars and would have come back facing the prospect of busking in a weakened state.

It is cold. Winter has arrived and it is a blustery 57 degrees, but feels like 53.

Last night, I got to the Lilly Pad at 11:39 PM.

I made it a point to look at the time that I was starting, because I was anticipating dividing the money I made by the time spent, because there was a part of me that wanted verification that busking is bullshit and I should turn my attention to the bars on Frenchmen Street that pay under the table.

But there was another part of me that remembered all of the times that I really dreaded going out for one reason or another, but had still dragged myself there, mechanically packing my stuff and doggedly pedaling my bike to the spot, and wound up having a great night.

A lot of my best nights ended with me placing, say, 58 bucks on my coffee table, after having met and conversed with interesting people, who perhaps friended me on social media, maybe shot a video that might go on Youtube, and me uttering something like: "...and I was actually considering not going out...wow..."

I made 8 dollars, and then checked the time. An hour had passed, though it had felt like a couple. Bobby had given me a small bud of weed out of the kindness of his heart. He is another one whom I owe money to. But part of that was for a grow light that he had foisted upon me when he was paranoid and wanted to get it out of his apartment. He gave me a great deal on it, and I have always wanted one, since my windows face northeast, not necessarily to grow pot, but to grow anything well. But I owe him for it.

I had sat on my couch, not wanting to move, after returning from not wanting to move off of Howard's couch.

I made strong coffee.

The hit of THC that I had taken that afternoon, before riding in oblivion, minus my wallet, towards Howard's had worn off.

My mission, should I choose to accept it, will be to make a drawing of Erin, as a going away present to her, as she is leaving the Uxi Duxi as soon as they stop asking her to cover shifts vacated by other employees....

It was worn off by the time I found myself comfortably dozing in front of Howard's TV. I had to wake him up after the Pittsburgh Steelers took a 14 point lead, to tell him that I was leaving. It was early enough for me to make it to the Lilly Pad by 9:30 PM, were I to make a beeline for it. But that was on the other side of the river, seemingly a world away.

But, there I was sipping coffee at 9 PM.

Common sense would indicate that if I am determined to go out, then it should be done as early as possible.

The ride back and forth is pretty much a fixed amount of tedium, which has to be weighed against the night's result, and is the same whether I play for a half hour and make cigarette money, or if I go for three hours and make enough to pay back Jacob the money I owe him, Bobby, the money I owe him, order new strings, maybe a new harmonica, etc...

It is barely busking weather right now, though. A bit of drizzle is blowing around in a breeze strong enough to blow tips out of a basket and down the street. People don't seem to want to stand and listen to a busker as much when it's windy, for some reason. Maybe the wind in their ears is distracting...

If I bundle up and go out, though, it is going to be an easy pedal on the way there, I had to lean into the wind on my way here to the Uxi Duxi, which is in the opposite direction.


Things could be worse. It seems like a good time to embark upon a 7 to 10 day fast and cleanse, with the emphasis on the latter.

If it wasn't for weed, I might have noticed that I was putting on the one pair of jeans that my wallet had fallen twice already out of. And, there is a reason why Jay Leno referred to weed as: "ambition-be-gone." This phenomenon varies between individuals.

And the kratom, while making me more productive, can make me more machine-like and more out of touch with the reason behind the productivity

I got in this mess by forsaking my everyday responsibilities in order to carouse with Jacob and his friends, who are not burdened by the same requirements to go out and produce a living every night. They can sing and dance all day and then just go the the refrigerator whenever they are hungry.

But, it always boiled down to me giving the recording of music a higher priority than anything else I might have done. I think these priorities are in order, but where I messed up was by continuing to buy cigarettes. Quitting all vices would be the appropriate sacrifice to make in order to be able to spend a whole weekend in the studio and not wind up in arrears.

Then, getting the toothache, being rained out of playing outside the Superdome, getting the rash on my plasma donating arm, losing the wallet, all occurred. But I brought it all upon myself, except for the rain.

In a little while, I will ride back to the apartment, find a few replacement strings to throw in my pack because the ones on the guitar are ready to break, be thankful that I bought a 20 pack of batteries the last time I had a good night busking, about 3 weeks ago now, and then just go out to the Lilly Pad.

87% of success in life is in just showing up.

Eating Off The Bone, Down Off Decatur Street

I used to go up one little side street off of Decatur Street, back when I was living under the wharf, and I would go into the trash barrel of a certain steak house.

I always imagined their chefs, frenzied and more aware that quick service and volume, volume, volume is the key to keeping the fifty dollar steaks flying off the plates, and in their haste, just whacking the best meat off of every side of beef that comes in off the refrigerated truck, from the butcher who also farms the special steer, feeding them a proprietary diet that is worth at least one half of the five stars that the restaurant might garner; and then just tossing the remains into a pristine, heavy plastic bag, as sterile as the whole five star kitchen.

There is no time to be picky, when you are making a hundred steaks a night, and the carcasses I would find in these trash cans, right on the side of the fancy place, out of view, as trash aspires to be, would be laden with the best damned beef in the world; just ask that restaurant, or Google it.

And, I would stand there and stuff my face with raw fillet mignon. It melted in the mouth and seemed to mix with whatever was in my stomach in such a way that evoked thoughts like: Let there be some skeezer under the wharf when I get there, sleeping on my cardboard; if he's anywhere near my size, he won't be sleeping there long...

And, I remember the one time when a person of some kind saw me and gave some kind of shriek, but then, it was almost as if she thought, well, it is guaranteed disease free beef, slaughtered that morning and some of the best cuts of it.

If she had negotiated the potholes in her heels to come over to me and implored me to stop, telling me that it was never necessary for a human soul to sink so low in station, and maybe even extending a twenty dollar bill towards me, with the order that I use it to "get something to eat," I think I would have said:
"Lady, believe me, if there was even a hint of anything wrong with this meat, I wouldn't eat it. This is absolutely delicious!," and then I would have, of course offered the rich lady a choice chunk of it...

More Soul Searching

But, it just recently occurred to me that I no longer do that, and it made me wonder if I have "lost" something, through 4 years of living in an apartment. Something that is vital to my soul...?

That is just the kind of "ego" that everyone from Jesus to EcKhart Tolle is talking about.

"Daniel, I thought you had a place, and were getting better on the harmonica, and had a stove and everything. Your clothes look clean, what gives?"

"Here, taste this..."

Now, dear reader, you might wonder why I don't just purchase a really good cut of steak at the Winn-Dixie and then just eat it; in the privacy of my place, even...

I just wouldn't trust the meat, that's why. I would want to cook it. Meat can have e-bola and whatever...

I would screw up my interview questions at the plasma place, when it came to the mad cow disease question...

No, that would be pretty nasty, buying a raw steak from a supermarket and eating it, no thanks...

As an asterisked item to the above account, I was drinking at that time, and at the hour it happened ...let's see, the steakhouse closed at 1 AM...I estimate that I would have been between twice and three times over the legal limit....
So, I wonder if, unless I can go down there and eat raw steak out of the trash perfectly sober, and having disassociated myself from my ego so that I felt no shame, no sense of sinning, then I will wind up drinking again.

By starting to drink again, I believe I would be subconsciously setting myself up to eat raw fillet Mignon right off the bone, down off of Decatur Street in the French Quarter. I know I want it...


Now there is a blues standard just waiting to happen: "Eating Off The Bone Down Off Decatur Street..."

I believe the cross street was Toulouse Street, if I'm making any one of you hungry...

Wednesday Night At The Uxi Duxi

Which one is unstable...?

The Uxi Duxi hired two new employees, to replace, on the surface, the one Erin who had quit and then had changed her mind, but then was told by the Uxi Duxi that, because of her having done that (for the second time, in Uxi's defense, according to Nathaniel, the manger) she has been deemed "unstable," by the establishment.

This is something that disurbs me, being old and set in my ways. I had gotten accustomed to Erin being at the Uxi almost every night...to oversee my blogging; while I slugged down kratom and used the wi-fi.

Yes, old and set in my ways and no longer venturing to taste of the red blood of life, perhaps. This worries me too.

I just got off the phone with my mom. I told her of the problems with my phone, and how it will, at times heat up in my pocket to the point where it is almost uncomfortable on my leg and that the battery will become depleted through that and how some mornings, after charging the phone all night it will have accumulated a charge of only 29% and used this as a way to explain why I was calling when it would be almost 9 PM there. I need to strike when the iron is hot and take advantage of a time when the thing charged up to 100% due to the way I finessed the charger into the jack...

Otherwise, I hesitate to call. This is because it seems out of sorts to not have a long conversation with someone you haven't spoken to in a long while.
That might be more offensive than not calling; to call and then cut it short as if five minutes was enough to catch you up with the other person, with you apparently not caring much more past that...

So, now when my phone comes on, I can go ahead and call mom, just to tell her I love her and that I got the most recent pictures she sent, type of stuff.

The latest picture, that I will post when I remember to bring it to Uxi, was of me when I was right around 30 and was playing a guitar at a religious service at the jail where I had been locked up. That was where I met Ben Lambie, who has fallen off of the radar of this blog, but who stayed with me briefly when he visited.

I still think of the guy occasionally, perhaps every time I use the coffee maker that he bought for me when he stayed briefly.

Ben turned out to be one of the most "unconscious" people I have ever encountered, after not seeing for years.

I don't mean that as a put down, but he spoke in catch phrases, one of those guys who has conversations like:
"Hey, man. How's it goin'?"
"Not bad; wouldn't do any good to complain, ha ha..."
"Yeah, I hear you. Same shit, different day..."
"Yeah, same shit, different day..."
"Well, I'm gonna jet; I'll catch you on the flipside,"
"Later, bro...Don't do anything I wouldn't do..."
"Ha ha; Be good or be good at it, ha ha..."
etc.

A Rash Of Setbacks

So, Jacob let me hold on to fifty bucks last week.

You make eight dollars any way you can, these days...

I then ran out of cash, but was on my way to get 45 bucks from the plasma place the next day so, no problem, I borrowed against it for cigarettes and cat food and a shot of kratom.

The money went onto the plastic plasma Mastercard, and the cash dwindled.

That's OK, I would busk Saturday night, and then would play outside the Saints game on Sunday, and then busk that night, surely, I would make enough to replace what I spent out of the fifty.

Then, the toothache came, swelling the side of my face so that playing a harmonica was difficult and painful, and then the thunderstorms came before the game kicked off.

All the while, Jacob was trying to set up another jam session at his place, but I told him that I needed to try to make some money doing the above things. I wound up doing neither. Yikes.

Last night, I played from about 11 PM until 1 AM, and made 8 dollars. Some of which came from "the final frontier."

Then, this Tuesday morning, I was up bright and early, aided by the clocks having been moved back one hour.

I thought about the 15 dollars that I would get from selling blood plasma, something I would mostly do so that I could go back Friday and get the 45 dollars from the "second donation in one week" bonus being added to the 25 bucks normally given for that second time...

Then, I considered going out to busk instead of making the plasma trip. I would have been able to be at the Lilly Pad at the unheard of hour of noontime, and could theoretically play until I had made back the money I owe Jacob, even if it took me until midnight.

This seemed to be the way to go for a person who embraces uncertainty, with the sky being the limit -who knows what my tip jar would yield- as opposed to the fixed amount of 15 dollars that I would settle for at the plasma place?
The prospect was much more compelling to a rambling, gambling come-what-may street musician like myself and I felt exhilarated.

I would have a chance to see how the other half lived, those who come out when the sun is on this side of the planet.

Perhaps Lilly would even sally forth through her gate, on her way to bring the Chihuahua to the vet (it needs to be hydrated; something to do with its kidneys, she told me on the phone) or something, and I could talk to her.

One of my best tips for a single song (43 dollars while playing "The Entertainer," by Billy Joel) came at around 2 in the afternoon, one of the few times I have played there at that hour.

I was ready to roll the dice and gamble upon myself, rather than make the plasma run; but then it started raining.

It was minutes after I had looked at my phone and saw that it was 66 degrees with a "0 percent" chance of rain that I heard the first few drops pelting my windows.

But then, I checked my mailbox on the way to get my bike.

There was a letter from my mom, who sometimes puts money in her correspondences.

It was another picture from my past that she had found while cleaning out her house, but no money. I wouldn't be saved by the bell this time. Disappointment number 3. "I feel like she is disowning me," I told Jacob. Getting rid of pictures of me and getting me used to her no longer sending money. I knew that was bound to happen; but at the tender age of 56?!?

That hope dashed, riding to the bus stop to catch the plasma bus with my umbrella over my head seemed to be the thing incumbent upon me to do.

I would sacrifice some comfort, getting wet for the fifteen bucks and then hope to stave off Jacob until Friday, when I could add to whatever I might make busking -eight bucks so far on Monday- the forty five from my next donation.

An Idea From Alex In California

In the future, I will take the ferry across the river.

I had forgotten about the ferry as a mode of transportation soon after they started charging 2 bucks for passage. But the probably not too surprising fact is that, after they started charging that, the ferry became an all Caucasian vessel. Such a low price for exclusivity in New Orleans -charge two dollars and ward off the riff-Raff kind of thing, I guess...

"And it doesn't drop you off in the ghetto," added Ken, the boyfriend of Berta, who was waiting, along with Howard and I, to hear the news from Berta's latest doctor visit, about spots on her liver.

The idea of the ferry came to me when I was pondering a comment that Alex in California, blog reader, made about avoiding annoying black people.

Since the bus is all African American with me being the only white guy on it, with maybe a couple Latinos, whose fine vehicles might be in the shop that day, it can be an ordeal taking it.

I blogged about the one small older black guy who ran his mouth aloud about none other than me the entire trip across the river, after he had pushed his way past me as I stood putting my money in the machine.

In defense of him, I admit that I did say: "Uh, that will be a dollar twenty-five," as he made his way down the aisle without having put any money of his own in the machine. That might have warranted his running his mouth the entire trip, devoting all his energy to me...

The same guy was on the bus the next time I took it; the time that I had been wondering just how I could avoid annoying black people in Gretna, and had had the epiphany of the image of the ferry floating through my mind apropos of Alex's comment.

The guy had his back turned to me and didn't notice me, but was busy ranting about some "Caucasian" that had been on the bus at some point, and was lecturing upon the thoughts and motives of that particular Caucasian, and actually had used the word "Caucasian" as much as some other blacks use "nigga."

I made a mental note to investigate the ferry schedule for future reference, should busking fail to pick up enough so that I am left to even consider the sale of my vital fluids for 60 bucks a week. (Minus the 4 dollars for the ferry rides).

I got to the plasma place and rolled up my sleeve to have my blood pressure taken and both the technician and I stared at a small rash that was in the crux of my elbow, which I hadn't been aware of until then.

It was in the area of where they stick their needle, and might have been related to that, perhaps when they stuck the needle in they introduced some iodine into my bloodstream, or maybe they changed the kind of bandage they use to wrap the site, which may have a different kind of adhesive, maybe one made from soy...

I was sent in to see a nurse, who asked me if the rash was from my last plasma donation. I didn't think it was, and said that it might have been from taking too hot a shower, which was apparently the wrong answer.

"If it's not from donating, then we can't let you donate," said the nurse.

I wasn't sure if she wouldn't have said the same thing if I had told her that it was from donating.

She told me that I couldn't come back until the rash was "all cleared up."

So, leaving there, I thought it ironic that I had been complaining about going through "all that" for just 15 dollars and was winding up leaving with 0 dollars.

I went to Howard Westra's, to ask him for a loan of ten or twenty dollars.

Berta, the lady who owns the house where Howard lives had been in "a pretty bad car wreck" a week or so ago, he told me. Then, when she was having the injury to her chest checked out, the spots were noticed on her liver, which could have been malignant -she is a breast cancer survivor.

Jacob had told me the night before that Kevin Bape, our drummer/rapper had also been in a car wreak, and I told Howard about that, pointing out the coincidence. In Kevin's case, they seemed to be pouncing upon an opportunity to rack up a hefty remittance from some insurance company, as they had sent him to all kinds of specialists and tested him in every way.

Berta was hit broadside by a young lady who was borrowing a car from a friend, one who had good insurance, and had no license when she hit Berta.
Berta has already been low-balled by some big insurance company that had no other option but to admit fault on the part of the other driver.
A telephone pole had stopped Berta's SUV from being pushed over the precipice of a steep hill, that it most likely would have rolled down, flipping over a few times.

Then Howard told me that he had lost his wallet a few days before.

I told him about how my bike seat has pushed my wallet out of my back pocket, depositing it on the road once, and on the sidewalk the next time. That only happens when I wear a certain pair of jeans, which I am thinking of marking somehow to remind me of that, or of just getting rid of.

Howard said that when he was in China, he would lose cash often due to his wearing his shirt tails out and pushing some of the shirt into his pocket with the cash, enveloping it and preparing to pull it out.

He thinks something similar happened to his wallet. He lamented about having to wait a whole week for his debit card to be replaced, and had even had to borrow money from Ken.

"Boy, I guess this is not a good time to ask to borrow ten bucks..." I said to him.

Due to his deafness, he thought that I was talking about the cost of streaming television vs. "firestick" television, which had been the topic of discussion.

He did lend me ten bucks out of the money that he himself had borrowed from Ken, to help me replace the money that I had borrowed from Jacob.

Ben "neither a lender nor borrower be" Franklin would frown upon us all.

I, in appreciation, am going to conduct a full investigation into whether an Amazon "firestick" would be a better option for Howard than "streaming" TV.

This matter, I will refer to Jacob, who, if anyone would, would have insight upon the subject.

Howard has a Firestick, but thinks that a fee must be paid to Amazon in order to use it. I tended to think that the stick is kind of like a password into the library of titles available through Amazon. Anyone can go to their website, but with the stick inserted, one can actually access stuff on it.

Streaming TV is forty bucks a month.

Howard loves "lawyer shows," with "Boston Public," and "The Good Wife" being among his favorites. He can get them on DVD at 30 cents on the dollar from China, if he wants to wait 6 months for them. "The Good Fight," a spinoff of the latter is in its 3rd season, Howard is in its second, type of thing...

I also offered to assemble a couple chairs that Howard bought Berta for Christmas (already?!?) but we both know that know-it-all Ken would not stand by idly while I did so. He will expertly assemble them; sometime before Christmas would be nice, as the expression goes.

So that is where it stands. Whatever I make on this Tuesday night will heavily factor into how things come out money-wise for me.

I told Howard that I would be by for dinner Thursday evening, as that will give the rash a couple days of busking to clear up. Then I can get the bonus perhaps on Sunday, making the trips fall on days when there is football on TV.

It is 11:10 PM, but I am beyond thinking that it will ever be too late to go out to play. A big tip at 2 AM is not out of the realm of possibility, and I would be climbing the walls at home, worrying about money and not getting much done otherwise. Tomorrow might be the day I show up in the early afternoon to start.