Just Throw My Body In The River

• 16 Dollar Saturday
• Flat Tire On Bike

Elle Fanning wanders my puzzle

It is early Sunday morning.

I have returned from a 16 dollar Saturday night, starting at 12:15 AM, and running until 2 AM on the dot, when I noticed that time after having run out of ambition, and having gotten a funny vibe from a couple young guys who had been looking in the trash at Lafitt’s before coming to hover around me.

Change For A Hundred

I may have blown a large tip by looking suspiciously at a young lady who had asked me if I had change for a hundred.

There were certainly places in the area that would break a hundred and it seemed odd that at that point of the night she wouldn't have broken one yet or had just made a purchase that rounded out to the nearest hundred exactly.

“I want to give you something, but all I have is a hundred...” she had said. She looked perhaps Brazilian.

She was soon joined by a couple young men, and something was exchanged between them.

During this brief stretch of time when I thought she might have been asking them if they had change for a hundred, my playing level dropped way off, as I struggled to find a song to play and failed at the ones that I started.

That was another exercise in being “disinterested” as a busker.

It was like the gold ring that you can never reach because the harder you try the more it slips away; it starts to come to you as soon as you give up on it, but eludes you when it comes close enough that you try to snatch it.

That was what it was like playing for a couple that was arguing over maybe whether they should throw me a hundred dollar tip, since that was the smallest bill they had, or not.

The harder I tried to play music worth a hundred bucks the more it slipped away. Maybe they almost changed their minds after I had all but given up on them and went back to playing whatever.

Soon, an Uber whisked her and a couple young guys away, and I went back to making the 16 bucks.

I have gotten an all day bus pass, and have the next 23 hours to maybe play some tonight and then get over to Wal-Mart for a tube for the bike.

Somewhere in there, I need to compose the letter to Howard Westra, telling him about the concerns of his roommates over the fact that he doesn't have any kind of burial insurance and that Berta and Ken would have to put him in a pauper's grave should he die. This seems to bother them, even though Ken said about himself: "Just throw my body in the river, I don't care..."

38 Bucks In 2 Hours

A post title such as the above always seems to get hit upon by random people around the world, who might be interested in money.

I got to the Lilly Pad at around quarter past midnight.

Since that made it Saturday already, I started with: "It's twelve eighteen on a Saturday!" and then went on with that Billy Joel song called "Piano Man."

I probably don't even need to add the "of course," but of course the guy who plays the piano in Lafitt's Blacksmith Shop Tavern and Bar has had requests to play that particular song in the key of the C harmonica.

When this happens, I like to play and sing right along with him.

It is really a neat effect upon people who wander out through the gates of the bar and hear the song behind them on the piano and sung by the most recent piano player, fading into my rendition of it.

That probably makes it sound like it doesn't take much to amuse a busker, but, it doesn't take much to amuse a busker; anything at all dropped into the basket that is not a religious tract will do, and hearing the guy on the piano breaking into "Come Sail Away," by Styx, just adds to the delight.

I was playing pretty well and had gotten a twenty dollar bill from a particular lady which gave me a total of about 23 dollars at that juncture, a half hour into a session which saw a lot of tourists walk past, most of them African American, but ones who are here concerning the Sugar Bowl, which is a football contest between two college teams.

The Texas Longhorns are here, of course because it is convenient for their alumni to come here from Austin, Texas and spend money "big" here.

The team is ranked 15th in the nation, which is probably enough to put a chip on the shoulder of anyone who thinks that Texas should be ranked with the likes of Georgia (5th) which is the other team.

I don't know how well Georgia "travels" but the pairing seems to be all about the fascination of seeing a proud team from Texas, which has been shunned, go up against one of the teams that people actually think might be able to beat Alabama.

If Texas beats them, then it might be surmised that, no, they really couldn't have beaten Alabama, which would lay that question to rest.

So, if you are hosting a bowl, which is one of the grandest bowls of all, going way back to when there were just a few, the Cotton Bowl, The Orange Bowl, etc. with the Rose Bowl being the grand daddy of them all, and before the days of The Carquest Bowl, and you can't get Alabama, then you get a team that can lay claim to people thinking that it might be able to beat Alabama, and pair them with a team with rich Alumni who would love to beat a team that some people think might be able to beat Alabama..

The students seem to be much better behaved and more civil than the ones from Grambling and Southern University.

Outside of a a couple young black students carrying a huge sign around that read: "Niggers selling books for reparation" it was pretty quiet.

There is Alabama, and there is everybody else.

Oops Doo Dee Doo, Reprint

I was just kidding yesterday, here is the real "Seeds" song, written by my friend, Ted Broughey.
I posted the one with the annoying "production" stuff left in it, like the slowing down in the intro, as if the performer is pausing to decided if he wants to do the song, or something. And then a bunch of washed out sounding stuff that had been stretched or shrunk too many times, losing precious bits through each operation.

The Lidgley's Parcel
From the land of sheep and tourism, comes a lesson on weight vs. value.
I was called by the security lady a little before 4 PM to notify my that "you have a package up front."
They do this to free themselves of liability should the package come up missing.
I had been placing my eggs in the very shaky basket of the parcel that the Lidgleys have been sending each Christmas arriving on just this day - miraculously, since one year it didn't come until February 22nd*- after having gone out and made nothing busking on a Thursday night, after it had started raining pretty hard, causing me to pack up, and then had stopped, causing me to sit down and start playing again, and then had started again, causing me to just go home.

gluten intolerant Rhianna

I resisted the temptation to buy some sugar along the way. I was craving it, but, through the grace of God, there was no cereal on sale at Walgreen's (and I'm not going to pay five bucks for a box of Raisin Bran) and there were no eggs for a dollar a dozen, as there were no eggs.

This ruled out making the gluten free cake or whatever it is that I had bought for 74 cents at The Salvage Store Discount Grocery.

One of the girls who works there, Brianna, had been studying the package before putting it back on the shelf out of the cart full of such stuff. I wonder if she is gluten intolerant. The "gluten free" designation on the package was about the only thing to separate it from all the other cake mixes in that aisle. She would be the second very pretty gluten intolerant girl that I know, if that were the case. The other one is named Rhianna.

But, I still have the cake, which has tapioca, rice flour and other interesting ingredients, but which list "sugar" first. 3 large eggs are called for in the baking process. Might I have been contemplating punishing myself for not having made anything.

Easily, the best item in the parcel that came from the Lidgley's of London was also the lightest one.

I was thinking about the parcel, as I walked towards the front desk. Mostly I was thinking about how I could have been more in touch with the Lidgleys throughout the year, and how any correspondence preceding the holiday would have made me feel as though I was reminding them of my existence.
But, had I been more conscientious, I might have noted their running concerns over meeting certain weight limits when sending stuff and told them that I still had plenty of heavy body wash in tea oil and lemon scents left from previous parcels. I alternate it with a plethera of other such soaps that people seem to love to donate to the homeless and which pile up around Sacred Heart, and I bath more than shower, so...
But the cue seems to have been picked up by The Lidgley, with Alyne apologizing for having taken "the chocolate" out of the box, replacing it perhaps, with the "sheep sheltering by the dry stone wall" which I have found to be entirely made out of wool, probably from sheep.

  
And, guitars always sound better with a fresh set of strings on them every 3 or 4 days...

It is a Friday night and the Sugar Bowl is in town.

It is time to become very motivated to go out and sacrifice the next 4 hours in order to obtain a more relaxed immediate future.
I have brand new strings on the guitar, which I put on last night, so I could record additional parts to the song above, namely a fake bass played on the guitar and then dropped down an octave in order to enact the ruse.
I was thinking about how that was my last set of new strings and that, by putting them on and then playing the hell out of them, I was curtailing their life out at the Lilly Pad, but that the Broughey recording should be worth it...
New strings, new batteries for the spotlight, a can of cat food, check.

Doop Doo Dee Doo

The wind is blowing.

It is not blowing too hard to busk and it is a blustery upper sixties, like a room with air conditioning on, rather than like being in a refrigerator.


I got the idea to record a song of my friend Ted Broughey's and send it to him for Christmas as a way to optimize the time spent recording with Jacob in his studio.

After I got it into my own studio, I kind of processed it. I wound up sending it to him for Christmas, even though I should have put the fake bass guitar on it last night. Maybe tonight...
And I can fix the part where the time slows down then speeds up in the intro, while I'm at it.
The Howard Trip
I made the trip over the river for the Christmas dinner offered at Howard's house, which is the house of Berta, who cooks every Sunday, and Ken, her boyfriend who has roots in the swamps of Louisiana, and who had met Howard when he was still sleeping in a stand of bushes across from the ferry terminal in Algiers Point, and who had taught that worthy "how to live in the woods."
The trip, for which I had grabbed a bag of Christmas themed Resse's Peanut Butter product at the Family Dollar to bring as a gift, turned into a wonderful event.
From the prayer offered by Howard at the table -I had known that Howard had been a chaplain at a prison for a long time, but had never heard him "kick it"- to the card stuffed with a twenty dollar bill given to me by Berta, it was a raucous occasion.
One which lent itself as my strongest temptation to drink in almost three years, in almost three years.
They had a pinot noir that Howard himself asked for more of after tasting the "just a little bit" and which was made in a very intriguing part of California to me, it not being Sonoma or Russian Creek or any of the more familiar...
I was told by a very merry Ken and Berta that I was always welcome there, with the times I was hungry or needed money being specially noted.
And then, I was kind of asked by them if I would try to get through to Howard the importance of him taking measures to insure that he wouldn't be buried in a pauper's grave should he be struck and killed while riding his bike because he is deaf and can't hear "them beeping," according to Ken's assessment.

Just Thought Of Busking

and the other one is by a lowlife and about living a sort of low-class, conniving, life than about any kind of music-making. -Alex in California, former(?) blog reader

Low class hangout

It just occurred to me that it is Saturday night and a tad after ten at night and the temperature is an OK mid fifties, like playing in the refrigerator.
I had reached a milestone in that I was stressing out very little indeed, upon waking up with 47 cents and no wet cat food in the house on a day that had promised to be a little warmer than yesterday, when with exactly 50 degrees showing on the smartphone, I called off the venture of busking.
I didn't think that many people would want to pause for the few minutes required to listen to a song, I told myself; adding that that wasn't just an excuse.

When I had finally shaken off the sleep, wrestled with Harold and then checked my phone there was a text from Jacob.
He would be at the Uxi Duxi and had assured me that he could cover a half shot of kratom, were I to show up. And that I should be further motivated by the fact that sound files were ready to be transferred back and forth between our laptops.
I was at peace as I left Sacred Heart Apartments.
I had been smoking off of a huge cigar that I had found on Royal Street, a low class move, that. By cutting and grinding at the thing, I was able to put together a pile of tobacco which I further ground by hand then rolled up, including putting a filter on them, and smoked.
This I would recommend to people who are serious about trying to quit smoking.
You smoke the thing, and you are getting your nicotine, but you are also getting the reality check of: "Really?"
I cut off more than an inch around the area where the probably rich and up to date on his shots person had put, probably his, mouth.
I remember the thought process I was having at the time when I saw it, riding my bike towards the Lilly Pad the last time I played, when I had made ten bucks. It was something like: "I'm not going to buy a pack of American Spirits, even if I have a sixty dollar night..."
And then, there was the cigar, label facing me proudly.
And of course there was a person around to see me and label me perhaps low class for picking the thing up.
But this was a situation where, if I submitted myself to the flow of life and didn't resist the machinations of an intelligence that had controlled my birth and would control my death, then I might pick up the cigar right when that guy sneezed...
Smoking the crushed up cigar through a cigarette filter is akin to just putting instant coffee in your mouth and letting it dissolve. You are going to get your high just the same.
There is such a thing as a sugar high. This theory, I have been putting to the test all too much lately.
I am becoming more "secure," for lack of a better word.
But, it is just a feeling. As in, instead of freaking out upon waking up with 47 cents and no wet cat food, now, by following the principles outlined in the self-help dialogues, I am not sweating the very same situation that used to have me almost "scared" in a way.

So, then I went to my mailbox and there was a letter with the familiar handwriting of my mom on it.
In it was a Christmas card with fifty bucks stuffed in it. It is a few days short of Christmas and it was weird how I was able to go from knowing I was flat broke but not being anxious over it, to suddenly having fifty bucks as if I had known through telepathy that it would be there, or something.
At the bar at the corner, I was given a couple cigarettes by a young lady whom I had offered 47 cents to for one of hers.
This was after having looked in the ashtray in front of "everyone" and having found that I had been beaten to the skeeze by some other ashtray skeezer.
I need to make a Youtube Video on ashtray picking.
In Mobile, I would pick a tray outside a tall building wherein were well dressed people.
I would always conjecture out loud about how I was using the ashtray as an economic barometer. "When people start smoking them right down to the filter, that's a sign of economic uncertainty and a bear market..." or something, I would say.
I noticed that I was ready to whip out the fifty dollars and say something like: "I have kind of a long ride to where I buy cigarettes and I ran out last night and just want a few drags off one..."

That is just the kind of ego driven behavior that makes people become slaves to houses and cars and clothing...
There is now a spotlight on the little bush where I used to pee sometimes. Luckily a cop just walked by on his way into The Beachcorner and said "Good evening, sir" to me, and that for some reason, took away the urge to urinate.

I promise to catch up on this blog by putting in some back-fill in the way of stories from the past. The venomous comment left a few days ago, instead of opening a can of worms, has reminded me of some good stories.

Most of these stories have songs that go with them.
I had all but forgotten my "Shauna Era" songs, but Jacob's studio would be a perfect place to dust some of them off.

The Price Of Stardom

I'm going to give up on guessing the source of the comment left the other day, but it is someone like Thomas Antione, ()or one of his friends, who hang out at a bar in Mobile, which is one that kicked me out after I had been released from the federal prison in Bay Minette, Alabama, with my charges having been dropped.

Sacred Heart Jam

I guess the big news is that Jacob and I did indeed jam at the apartment last night, beginning at around 11 PM and going until about 2 in the morning.
The phone did not ring only once, an indication of one of neighbors complaining, and we were able to knock out recordings of some of my songs that are becoming familiar to Jacob, who might have a phonographic memory when it comes to sounds.
Plus we did a lot of off the cuff jamming.
One cool thing was that we had two microphones recording simultaneously, so that if I were to move closer to one of them, I could add a vocal part, while Jacob would be singing a back up part close to the other microphone.
There were times when we went off on tangents and were singing about entirely different things into our respective microphones; they weren't amplified so we sounded off in the distance to each other.
Through the magic of digital audio there is a world of possibilities in that 2 hour plus recording.
We had at our disposal my Takamine acoustic guitar, which Jacob started out playing.
I grabbed either the snare drum, the vodka bottle half full of water to be hit with a piece of wood or metal, or the harmonica case half full of pop corn kernels in order to add percussion and initially sang while Jacob played the guitar.
Jacob worked on a song that he is in the process of writing, while I sang, initially about Harold the cat to which I had thrown the remainder of the catnip.."I've got some catnip, come have some catnip, Harold..."
This sort of had the effect of my having composed a melody over the chord thing that Jacob is writing that reminds me of "Wheel In The Sky," by Journey whenever he starts plucking it..
We did a "killer" version of "David Adam Murray," a song I wrote when in Jacksonville about a roommate of mine who "had to die."
That had been my first attempt at writing "death metal" and the song was originally crunched out on an electric guitar played through a "Rat" distortion pedal.

We switched to me playing the guitar with Jacob on the snare drum, chimes and background vocals, and a pretty good version of another of my songs "Elise" resulted.

Since it is raining out; this would be a good night to mix down and maybe come up with another Soundcloud offering.

Rain, Then Cold

The Shreds got me again.
At $1.29 a box at The Salvage Store they are cheap and available.

Along with a box of rice milk (chocolate) that was only a dollar, they made an irresistible meal.

I woke up feeling slightly depressed for the first time in a few days.

There is a correlation between sugar and feelings of depression.
The Disparaging Comment (cont.)
Another look at Shauna's Facebook

lead me to realize that she actually hasn't posted anything there in like 4 years...
That would explain why she didn't respond to my friend request, made the day before the comment came in...
And, it probably wasn't her father who posted it...
The kids in the photo, Britney, Shauna and Ashley (front), just 14 years before this photo was taken, were often seen at my trailer/music studio in Jacksonville.
I had planted sunflowers around my trailer and called myself "The Sunflower King of the Universe" at one point rapping "my flowers are like towers with awesome blossoms..." and stuff like that.
I would imagine that they would warmly greet me if I ever saw them somewhere and so I am glad that it probably wasn't them who sent the comment...

Jacob Calling
Jacob has messaged me about jamming tonight and so I will pack up presently and notify him that I am on my way back to the apartment.

I was looking for the chords to "Open Your Eyes," the Doobie Brothers song which I have always loved off of their "Minute By Minute" album -the one that convinced Michael McDonald that it was him that the people wanted to hear and he then went solo.

Having found out that there are at least as many songs of that title as shown left, I have downloaded versions of them all; planning upon doing some kind of medley of them.

The Ten Dollar Monday That Came Yesterday

• Ten Dollar Monday
• More Musings On The Identity Of Anonymous

It looked really deserted as I rode into the Quarter last night.
The Saints had played on Monday Night Football, but not here, so no seventy thousand fans potentially flooding the Lilly Pad.
But, I went out anyways because "you never know."
There were stretches where I was playing for nobody, but was getting some very good practice in.

Tim, My Caseworker
and more on "the comment..."

No, Tim, my caseworker didn't leave the comment, even though it might have made a parting shot at me, since he has been "layed off" by the Catholic Charities organization that he works for.

He is going to go back to Philadelphia to spend the holiday with family, and is not sure if he is going to continue to live in New Orleans.



Jeffrey From Building C

I can't say that I didn't ruminate a bit about the possible identity of the person who left the comment on yesterday's post, and nine others.
It wasn't Jeffrey from building C, whom I ran into in the hallway on my way out...
I'm convinced that it is someone who knows me but whom I haven't seen in over ten years.
Let's review the comment, shall we?

Hey Daniel, Be sure to tell your readers that you have been arrested in the past for Child Pornography. You sick fuck. Quite the collection of mugshots you have online. Mobile was it? Be sure to tell your guitar buddy about that. How much federal time have you spent in the past? You had what 20 arrests in Duval County, Florida alone...is that number correct? You have a rap sheet in other places that rival the length of the Bible (which is hilarious that consider yourself a Christian.) How many places are you wanted in? Wanted in Louisiana...Florida...anywhere else? How many times have you been convicted of Fraud? The truth is Daniel, you really are a scumbag. You put on this starving artist act and con everyone around to the effect you act as if they owe you something, when really you are too much of a piece of shit to get a job like everyone else. The stark reality is that you are a creepy, bottom feeding, disgusting old man. Go fuck yourself

Craig Nelson?

Craig Nelson has gone silent with his commenting here, since about the time that the comment appeared.

But, I think Craig, having read the blog for a while would take it with a grain of salt.

The person who wrote it was actually doing some kind of thing that politicians and advertisers do, which is to present data in such a way that an inference will inevitably be drawn by the reader.

If this guy were to have Googled my name and gotten the article about the charges being dropped in Mobile, Alabama then his determination that I was "a sick fuck" based upon that alone, is incredible.

Let's say the guy paid a small fee to one of those background checking type of websites, which spat out that arrest, as well as all the piddling stuff from St. Augustine, Jacksonville, Virginia, Washington and Massachusetts, going back thirty years..

That data should show that all the other arrests were for things like possession of marijuana, open container, trespassing and one "indecent exposure" charge in St. Augustine.

That charge, I blogged about at the time.

It was almost 2 in the morning when I stopped my bike along the side of the road, looked around to make sure I wasn't being watched, and then went behind a fence to urinate.

I hadn't even urinated before a cop, also on a bike, approached with his flashlight on me and barked: "ID. Urinating in public!!"

We were in between two fences, out of view of the public except for us.
Being a smartass, I said something like: Gee, next time could you at least give me some time to urinate before charging me?

Sensing that I was being a smartass, the cop responded with: "Oh, that's worse! If you're not urinating then you're just standing there with your genitals out; that's indecent exposure; that's a sex charge, now you're gonna have to register as a sex offender!!!"

I guess he showed me, excuse the pun.

So, that is how you acquire a rap sheet that "rivals the bible in length" and how a cop can throw a hurdle in the way of a homeless street musician by saddling him with the label of being a sex offender. Meaning that you are a bottom feeding disgusting old man, if you read between the lines...

And the person who left the comment...

Well what he basically did was tell my readers that I was once acquitted of the charge of possession of child pornography, (ignore the "acquitted" part, dear reader) and that I also have been arrested 20 times just in Duval County, Florida alone.

Ok, but he didn't say that those were for minor offenses, he only made it easy to infer that I had one arrest for child porn in Mobile, Alabama, and twenty more in Florida, as well as rap sheets in other states.

If he had gotten his hands on all this information, then why present it that way?
And then, the rhetorical question asking if I had ever done federal time.
This was another way to exaggerate things, implying that that must have been a pretty serious crime. It was the same arrest for child porn in Mobile, of course, a federal offense.

Have I ever been arrested for fraud?

Well, shucks. Sure, that's where I met John Tulip.

I had been in the middle of swapping ID's and becoming Mark Palermo at the time.

My pizza delivery job manager had informed me that my Daniel license had been flagged by the computer as having been suspended, and I was just going to activate the license of my old deceased friend Mark.

I had gotten as far as having sold my car to myself by going to the registrars office with the title to my '96 Saturn having been signed by myself on the "seller" line and the amount of "gift" having been entered on the "price" line.

This was done so that I would pay the minimum sales tax of $65 on the "purchase."

Not that I didn't think that the state shouldn't collect a tax on the sale, but, I was selling the darned car to myself.

This was another case of being arrested on another flavor of the month crime, identity theft; second only to child porn in its ability to make officials sit up and take notice. A billion dollar industry, it is the yang to the yin of Sins of the Flesh.

With the Daniel license being pretty expensive to un-suspend, I was dusting the mold off of the Mark license that I had used when I drove a cab in Phoenix. This was so I could continue working, like everyone else.

When using that particular license of that deceased friend of mine, who passed away before he was able to accrue many moving violations, and who had no criminal history, etc., I was stopped by a cop, who spent only a couple minutes in his car before coming back to me and saying: "You're 36 years old, and you've never gotten a ticket?! That's outstanding, here, I don't want to spoil your record, have a nice night, Mr. Palermo!

The "Daniel" Treatment

This was an additional incentive, the alternative to the experience that Daniel had after being pulled over when the cops would sit in the car, perhaps calling and waiting for backup. Then they would perhaps make me step out of the car and place my hands on the back of it while they asked me the "Any drugs any guns any weapons, any knives?" litany of questions.

I would be asked if I was ever arrested before and what for. If I answered that I had been arrested for pot then I would wait with my hands on the back of the car while they searched it, since they would then have probable cause to be looking for pot.

Then, after waiting until their computer confirmed that I wasn't wanted in any other states or territories, I would be issued a citation for whatever it was that they pulled me over for. All of this because Daniel has a "record."

They would have to carve their names into that tree and say: "We were here."
Just as the rich get richer, the goody two shoes become more squeaky clean.

But, after having aroused the suspicion of a cop for just sitting in my car in a parking lot at Ponte Vedra Beach, and then having that car (illegally, technically) searched and the paperwork found that indicated that I was two people, I was tossed in a cell with John Tulip, the man convicted of having paid a fourteen year old boy to make obscene videos for him.

Once again, a charge that seemed like it could have been the tip of a huge iceberg of fraud, dwindled to something on par with a college kid using his dorm mates ID to get into a club, and I was released after a grueling 4 months with Tulip as my cellmate.

Tulip, who has a computer, probably. Tulip, who might have somehow found the story about himself and read it, since things catalogued through Google using very specific terms like "John J. Tulip, Jacksonville" tend to be easier to be stumbled upon by someone like he, who would probably eventually get around to Googling himself, maybe just to see exactly what his neighbors have all read about him, or "I wonder if I show up on that damned sexual predator thing I saw on the side of that bus..." type of thing.

The thought crossed my mind that it might have been Tulip, if he read that story, trying to lash out at me. Seeing that I was doing great in New Orleans and trying to wreak it for me. Tulip, vintage Tulip... The fact that he would be being a hypocrite in doing so would just be in character.

I am leaning towards thinking that the motivator for the comment was envy.
It may have looked to someone who saw the photo and heard the Primordial Papaya song that I had risen to some sort of status, maybe from being fooled by sounds that are easy to produce with a digital studio, but that to someone naive might sound like I was in a cutting edge band, on the cusp of something big.

This would be someone who is very much in the dark about certain technologies so I'm going to say that the person is older, perhaps even Tulip's age.
Tulip would spit "Your guitar buddy," with venom. And it would fill the bill of having been said out of envy. I have little doubt that Tulip, the teenage boy aficionado, would envy me and my guitar buddy.

Anyone that knows Jacob, would know that we talk about everything, and that telling him that, well, I already have told him the story a few months ago would not sabotage our relationship.

The line about me conning "everyone around" makes it seem like it could be a local person who is referring to literally everyone around here.
But, coupled with his mentioning places far and wide, like Florida and Louisiana, he might have been talking about that; everyone around the nation...

This would be uttered by someone who had lost track of me, but who once was close enough to me to call me Daniel, but not close enough to have had a meaningful conversation with me...outside of conversations about how to change identity, maybe.  

Ten Dollar Saturday And Fake News

Response To Comments:

"I got lots of coins as well as bills and I'm not sure what that means." -Alex In California

The above came from the Silicon Valley Busker blog that Alex "keeps" out in California.

I am pretty much convinced, after 12 years of busking, that change is a good thing that means that you have garnered the appreciation of someone whom you just happened to catch with no small bills, but who wants to show appreciation and only has “this little bit of change” with which to do so.

Outside of the buffoon who throws one penny, this holds pretty much true.

  

I have also noticed on several occasions that, after having heard the clinking of change hitting the basket and having subconsciously only added around fifty cents to my imaginary running total, I later learned that the change amounted to more than the dollar that they might have thrown.

Never judge a man and look at him with a shadow under your eye with a look that say’s “thanks a lot, pal, just four more generous souls like you and I can get a cheeseburger” before you have counted the change.” Because that is one bell that you can’t un-ring.

I wonder if anyone had been tempted to say “That was more than it sounded like, by the way” to me...

So, hearing change going into the basket does not always mean you just got a small tip

5 "Susan B. Anthony" dollars that sounded like $1.25 going into the basket is another example.

Theory B: Change in the pocket can be seen as a nuisance to a person who is on his way to a club or bar where there is a possibility that that person might get down and boogie on the dance floor. They, and others who just don’t want to rattle all night, might see in the busker something akin to a Goodwill clothing drop box; get rid of your change here and it will go to a good cause, type of thing....

Otherwise, the tourist might attract a skeezer, whose hearing has become discriminant to the point where he can differentiate between the sounds of all of the metals used in modern coinage clanging together and, for instance, a set of keys.

So, I am of the mind that the change that goes into my basket is all of the change that was on the people, who are emptying their pockets of it, starting fresh, making a clean start, not sweating the details, nor carrying remnants of the past with them. They are letting go...

On Bourbon Street, there is also the possibility that it is a skeezer, wanting to be seen by his mark throwing what the mark might assume was a buck, to con the mark into thinking that the skeezer is brimming over with money, so why would he be after theirs? type of thing.

-stick to activities that you have more of a chance of dying on the way to and from... -Daniel McKenna on safety.

In Other Fake News

Comment 2:

Hey Daniel, Be sure to tell your readers that you have been arrested in the past for Child Pornography. You sick fuck. Quite the collection of mugshots you have online. Mobile was it? Be sure to tell your guitar buddy about that. How much federal time have you spent in the past? You had what 20 arrests in Duval County, Florida alone...is that number correct? You have a rap sheet in other places that rival the length of the Bible (which is hilarious that consider yourself a Christian.) How many places are you wanted in? Wanted in Louisiana...Florida...anywhere else? How many times have you been convicted of Fraud? The truth is Daniel, you really are a scumbag. You put on this starving artist act and con everyone around to the effect you act as if they owe you something, when really you are too much of a piece of shit to get a job like everyone else. The stark reality is that you are a creepy, bottom feeding, disgusting old man. Go fuck yourself -Anonymous

Dear anonymous: Do you believe that everyone who is arrested for child pornography is a sick fuck?
Do you believe that everyone arrested for murder should hang?

I actually blogged about the whole experience in Mobile, Alabama. And I think I even posted the above article to my Facebook.

I have been arrested for murder before, by the way.
It was a ploy by the Florida State Attorney, George Beteh to bring me from out by Seattle, Washington, back to Jacksonville, Florida to testify against someone I knew who had done the murder. I was supposed to give a deposition over the phone from there but, had forgotten to return one call and had called too late the next time, forgetting about the 3 hour time difference.

So, in order to avail himself to the necessary power to cross state lines and bring me in, since I wasn't apparently taking the matter seriously, Mr. Beteh named me as a "suspect" in that high profile murder, and put out a nation-wide manhunt for me, involving, the local and state police, the FBI, the secret service (I kid you not) and the IRS.

Mr. Beteh was very serious about getting his conviction, and he wanted to seek the death penalty, for which my testimony that Bobby had been contemplating the crime two weeks prior to it, was key.

He spent thousands of Florida taxpayer's dollars just to get me on the stand for ten minutes. To him it was nothing to put me through the ordeal of being hauled in the the Duval County jail, where the buzz was that they had caught the guy who murdered the husband and father of a four year old daughter, something which had outraged "the entire community" after their family photo appeared on the front page of The Florida Times. (No, Alex in California, he didn't marry his daughter, he was both a husband and the father of a four year old girl).

The IRS was most likely consulted to see if I was employed somewhere. The secret service maybe because they can wield more power if some kind of threat to the office of the president is alluded to?

The point of the story is that, since they could not find me using any of the above agencies, despite the fact that the other guy that I camped with in the woods nearby where I worked (like everyone else) said that helicopters had been flying overhead all night and that one of them had done a quick about-face and come back after he had lit a cigarette.

This elusiveness was mostly because I was using an alternate identity, which I had "stolen" from a deceased friend. That reference from anonymous' rant is accurate, I did use multiple ID's, mostly because if I had too many violations on my driving record within the prior year, then I wouldn't be able to work at my Dominos Pizza job, which was making me about four hundred bucks a week on a schedule that allowed me to be in my music studio from early morning until the sun came up. So it was easy enough (in the 1990's) to get another license.

And so, George Beteh couldn't find me.
And so, they intensified the search.
The helicopters were probably a result of them having tracked me through the library that I used to blog from; combined with a trace on the payphone -remember those?- that I had called from to apologize for having missed my deposition the day before. They probably had that set up in advance for "the next time he calls." In hindsight, George did seem to be a bit more chatty that time, and had put his secretary on the phone with me at one point.

I had made arrangements for them to fly me from Seattle to Jacksonville, put me up in a hotel with a daily expense account, where I would reside until the trial date came around. By making me a suspect, all that went out the window and they could handcuff me and bring me in like a common murderer.

The final straw came after agents were sent to my parent's house in Massachusetts. They vaguely threatened to tear their house apart looking for any clues to my whereabouts, jail them if they are found to be obstructing justice, and added that they could subpoena their mail delivery and do other things, if it came to that. This was typical FBI bullying. What average citizen would know if they really could subpoena mail? My father hung up the phone on me when I was making a routine call home.
"The state police were here and they told us that you were involved in a murder; he's pretty upset right now," my mother told me after I called again, thinking that it might have been a bad connection.

That was when I called George Beteh's office and told him where I could be found.

Back to the point.
When I returned to Federal Way, Washington after the trial had finally ended, it was as a murderer. I could see people whispering to each other out of the corner of my eye.
And, I was told by my manager that I couldn't have my job back, "because of everything that happened."

None of them seemed to be reasoning that a few weeks was an awful short time to have spent in jail for one. 

So it is in Mobile, Alabama.

After I was released, there was a sentiment of "Just because you managed to pay some lawyer to get you off doesn't mean you're not a pervert! You're not welcome here!!" from a certain segment of the population.

These were probably were the people who, after I was arrested for having pictures taken at a nude beach, downloaded off of a legal website, said: "I knew there was something fishy about that guy, and I was right!!" and then they didn't want to be wrong. They didn't factor in that the Port Authority cops, who aren't especially trained in the fine points of laws pertaining to pornographic images, were looking for anything that they could arrest me for, throw it at the wall, see if it sticks, type of thing.
And, they didn't seem to trust the "expert" opinion of the public servant who determined that I had nothing illegal, since it is not against the law to snap pictures at a nude beach, nor posses them.
"So that's how you get around the law, you get your smut from nude beaches; you're not welcome here!!" type of thing.

So, back to the anonymous comment maker, and the, I have to admit, fun little game I now have of figuring out who it is.

The smart money would be on Leslie Thompson, who, in two consecutive years when I knew him, had bi-polar type episodes in the middle of December.
We had a fist fight on December 12th, of 2013, I think was the year.
Then, after few months of cooling off, he befriended me again, and by December I was staying at his house again. Until December 12th, that was.
One year to the day after our fist-fight on Bourbon Street, he flipped out again, and started hurling a barrage of insults at me in a colloquial not unlike the "bottom feeding" and "disgusting old man" variety.

Anonymous was most likely drunk when writing the above.
Posting the comment on about a dozen individual posts, including the "most frequently read this year, ones leads me to believe that anonymous wants to tell all my readers, for me, that I have been arrested for child pornography.

Off the short list of possible identities of the poster (below) it was easy to cross off some of the names.

Leslie Thompson
Ben Lambie
Jacob Scardino
Travis Blaine
Alex In California
Sherman Jacobsen
Thomas Antione
A Mr. Goetzinger of Jacksonville, Florida
Someone in New Orleans


Leslie Thompson:
 While a strong suspect, due this his having had bipolar flareups at right around this time each year, and the fact that, during one of these episodes, he wound up texting me: "Electric Bill!!!!" by hitting send maybe a hundred times, which is similar to the way this guy posted the comment repetitively; I don't think if was Leslie. The timing of the comment is too much supportive of it being someone else.

Plus, Leslie would not have referred to me by name, as in: "The truth is, Daniel..." He would have said, "Dude" you really are a scum-bag.


Jacob Scardino:: The comment appeared at the same time that Jacob "dropped off the radar" as far has having gone silent on a day when he would usually at least text me to see if I were going the Uxi Duxi or something.

Travis Blaine: The language is not pedantic enough to be Travis Blaine, and the comment is not written in the first person tense, Travis doesn't go long before mentioning "I" or "Me" or "My"

Ben Lambie:  The language is right up Ben's alley, with cliche terms like "scumbag" and "sick fuck." His cleverness in sarcasm hovers around the "Quite a collection of mugshots.." level. But there was nothing to trigger his having posted it today, such as there was for who I think it is.

Ben Lambie?

Alex In California: The capping off of the comment with the terse: "Go fuck yourself" is reminiscent of the style of Alex in California, who ended one other comment with something like: "Seriously dude, I'm done with you."
Whomever posted the comment had just discovered me online, I'm convinced.
Maybe because of the Soundcloud song, this person Googled my name, saw the Mobile article, and then began to dig into, it seems exclusively, my criminal record.
It seems like he was able to get more detailed information about Duval County, Florida which might mean he is local to there.
But, the person also seems to be trying to show off his resourcefulness in obtaining such information. Twenty arrests in Duval County, does that sound about right? Seems to come from a person who wants me to think: Oh, my God, he knows everything!

Sherman Jacobsen: Sherman is one of the few people who uses my name a lot when talking to me. "So, Daniel, what's on the agenda today?" "I'll tell you one thing, Daniel, it sure is hot out there." "

Sherman??

The truth is, Daniel..." type of thing.
But, this is not a person who has known me a long time without ever having Googled my name, this is a person who knew me a long time ago, and who was just reminded of my existence and who investigated me.

Thomas Antione: Too much cogency in the language. Thomas would have rambled more. Plus, whomever it is is probably not from Mobile, or they would have already known what happened there. 

Mr. Goetzinger of Jacksonville
Things usually don't happen in a vacuum. Yesterday, I sent a friend request on Facebook to Shauna Goetzinger, who I quickly found, perhaps due to the unique spellings of both her first and last names.

It was because of the Debarge Song that brought me back to that time when I lived in Florida. Shauna, who was 15 at the time, became a fixture, hanging around my trailer, rapping into my microphone with her friends; and usually getting weed from me.

She was already restricted to our trailer park after having gotten into trouble at the age of 13 at the other trailer park after a group of older black kids got her smoking crack and wound up basically raping her. She was grounded to our park where I guess I was the devil that they knew.

The Debarge song and the memories that came back made me look for Shauna on facebook and send her a friend request.
There was no answer to my request, even though it looks like she checks her facebook frequently; and there was the comment...

The stuff about me playing this con game where I am assuming the ruse of the starving artist; that is a little perplexing. Am I not working my ass off, if only for a couple hours a night, and making "starvation" wages?

This makes me think it is not a someone from New Orleans who has seen me busking. They might think that my blog, along with the Soundcloud video is the sum of my "contribution" to the world of art.

I knew that posting the picture of the little girl with the "And I like it" lyric would shake out some response....either guys wanting to trade pictures of young girls with me; or something like the comment...

My biggest concern is that the person is kind of implying that my twenty arrests over ten years of living in Jacksonville, which were of the type that pile up for homeless people whom the police might think they are doing a favor by jailing on a night that is forecast to be below freezing, are all for child porn, and that I am wanted in Louisiana (trespassing on the rail yard) and Florida (failure to appear in court for some of the twenty charges) for the same thing; and is implying that I actually had child pornography of the sort where children were abused, exploited, sold and otherwise damaged through the production of.

If Alex in California stops reading/commenting then I would guess it was him. In his vodka fueled rants, he has accused me of conning people behind the guise of the starving artist. He may have dumbed down his language to disguise himself.

It's funny how one article about me having charges dropped is enough for people in Mobile to say: "There's that child raper!"
My lawyer had actually called the guy at the newspaper to make sure that that article was printed. To recant things and vindicate me and to give people like anonymous just enough to believe what they want to believe.

"Your guitar buddy," is a phrase that I will have to chew upon until I figure out who would use that exact phrase....tell your guitar buddy...hmm...

Would someone know I claim to be a Christian from just this blog?

When I was in Mobile I went to church.
Never in Jacksonville did I, though...

I deleted a lot of the comments because they were duplicates put after ten different posts; but not because I am trying to hide the comment and hope the guy goes away. I did change it so that only people with Google accounts and Blogger accounts can comment, so that he doesn't have to be gutless and cowardly with his fake news.

The 58 Dollar Friday

It was "getting on towards eleven" when I left Bobby's apartment, after he had given me some of the "berry white" weed that is the latest installment in the series of whackily named wacky weed.

Yes, I knew that the clock was ticking and that I should immediately head out, but I paused for a cup of coffee at my place when I was packing up my stuff.
Having determined that it wasn't a good idea to smoke any bud until I was at the Lilly Pad, I didn't. It was the part of my mind that seems to always be looking for excuses to not go out and do my duty that was making it seem like I wanted to smoke a bowl before leaving.
But that part of my mind actually wanted me to smoke bud and then become lost in a daydream or to start some project like throwing the Snowball microphone up to capture a catchy lyric or chord change that may have come to me. Then, there would come that pivotal point in time when I have to decide if it is worth going out, given that the night is "almost over."
This is when I might have decided that, even though it was a Friday night, a night that I had religiously played on for years, it was a 53 degrees and there was a possibility of rain in the forecast.
But, I had fifty cents in my back pocket, and maybe a few other pennies scattered throughout the apartment.
Harold had nothing but a dried out piece of salmon in his plate. It was time to shoulder my responsibility, if for no other reason than the cat, I thought.
And that was it. I said "I'm doing this for you, Harold," before I shut the door behind me.
The ride into the Quarter was not uncomfortable, as I had put on almost a dozen shirts, sweaters, pull-overs, sweatshirts and jackets.
Omens
There had been signs in the universe that it might be a fortuitous night.
It was Friday.
On the way to the Uxi Duxi, where Jacob was going to buy me a half shot of kratom, since I only had fifty cents, I found an almost whole roll of toilet paper laying on the ground by where Jackie, my neighbor from two doors down "flies" her sign -sometimes upside down but still airbourne.
This is catty corner to the bar where I had found an almost full American Spirit cigarette on the sidewalk, as if the bartender had stepped out and lit it and taken one drag, and then the phone had rung inside or something.
The toilet paper, I envisioned having been thrown out of a car at Jackie by a prankster. She is the lady who knocked on my door after she had just moved in, and was holding her stomach, due to extreme hunger pains ostensibly, and wanted to "borrow" a pan so she could cook her "patetti." I could picture someone doing a drive-by TP job on her.
When I got to the Uxi Duxi, I noticed that Chris's tip jar was pretty loaded with bills, with at least one Abe Lincoln staring at me from behind the glass.
I was still full of dread about the coming night, though.
I felt a vague foreboding, despite all the signs portending a profitable night.
But, riding down Royal Street, I saw no less than 3 abandoned milk crates at different spots.
Grabbing the third of these allowed me to turn 2 streets sooner than I usually do, allowing me to arrive probably 4 minutes sooner than I would otherwise, which is good when it is already almost midnight and I am not at the Lilly Pad yet.

I set up and started to play, and was able to attract a couple, who listened to "The Carcass Song" and then sang along with "I Feel Fine," by The Beatles, and "Like A Rolling Stone," by Bob Dylan, knowing the words to both songs.
They left a twenty dollar bill, as did another older well dressed gentleman who had stopped and done kind of a double take when I was playing the riff to "A Dream" by Debarge (my latest musical discovery and infatuation).
It might have been surreal to hear that coming from someone who looked more like a source for Bob Dylan and Neil Young.
It very well could be that the guy, who might have been my age, had had an experience similar to mine when, back in the nineties, I would flip right past all the "hip hop and R&B" stations, pausing only long enough to ascertain that it was indeed "that crap"before hitting the "seek" button.
But "A Dream" by Debarge was one thing that got put in the mix that I actually liked a lot, but not enough to have stopped to ask anyone "Who is this?" and probably thought that the infectious melody had been lifted, sampled, stolen whatever from some classical composition.
But, I had gotten curios about Debarge because the sports station I listen to plays about 3 seconds of "And I Like It," by them when going to commercial breaks, and I had been working on a drawing once, and had linked the face I was drawing, to that little snippet of the song.

The "And I Like It" drawing

It was while downloading that when I decided to grab some other Debarge music, even though I didn't recognize any of the titles.

When "A Dream" came out of my speakers, I instantly recognized it as that one hip hop song from the nineties that I did like, and was transported back in time so strongly that it was as if I was breathing the same air from Jacksonville, Florida in 1996. It was the strongest feeling of nostalgia that I have had in a long time. There was a sadness and a sense of loss of a time that will never be again. But it was also a realization that maybe the time is not lost but has only been disguised at the present...
It was easy to imagine that one of the people I knew back then was thinking about me that very moment; wondering what ever became of me...
If it is true that you don't know what you've got until it's gone, then maybe that age is, at last, gone, at least for me.
I realized that that was probably the best time of my whole life, while understanding too that we sometimes only remember the joy and "forget" the pain.
I felt like if I closed my eyes I might open them again to see that I was still there and it was still 1996 and I had just drifted off to sleep and had dreamed the past 20 years.
The sensation of walking around the trailer park where I lived at 1 AM, through air that was warm and humid but had cooled considerably from it daytime temperature, with my pet king snake around my neck, became palpable.
That song could serve as the soundtrack for a time in my life when I wouldn't realize just how happy I was for another twenty years.
That would occur upon hearing "A Dream" by Debarge.

And about the older gentleman who stopped and looked almost surprised to hear me playing that song it seemed very likely that it brought him back in time also. Maybe it was played somewhere like at a bar he owns or he was somehow exposed to it in a way where he wouldn't know who the band was, and likely that he hadn't heard it since 1996.

He threw me the second twenty dollar bill of what would amount to a 58 dollar night on about 2 hours of actual playing. The work in the studio has helped out the busking. Somehow running through a song five times trying meticulously to play it right is good practice.
 

Going To The Moon And Returning Safely

Thursday Night Off

Thursday night, I was packing up my gear, preparing to go out to play. I would have to wrap up in a bunch of shirts and sweatshirts and my heaviest jacket, so that I at least would feel no discomfort, as I headed for the Lilly Pad.
It could start raining; pouring even, as soon as I was no more than a block away from home...or the rain could hold off long enough for me to get in a set of music and make 33 dollars.
As I was shouldering my backpack, I heard the "ting ping ting" of rain hitting my window. I looked out and it was raining cats and dogs. The puddles, evidence of earlier rainfall were now jumping and sizzling like fat in a fry pan.
So, I set about "housecleaning" stuff off of my hard drive. Mostly these were versions of myself playing along and trying to invent something, to chance upon some chord progression that would stick in my head and become part of my repertoire, but maybe only after listening back to it the next day, or the next, or last night, when I condensed the things down to those things that I had forgotten that I had "written" and saved them as small audio files, maybe after making the catchy parts repeat a few times. This is turning some 1 gigabyte Audacity projects into ones that are one fortieth the size, or smaller.
It is time to separate the wheat from the chaff and release some "finished" music, rather than trying to write it all over again with each performance of it.
But, with digital technology, my next release will have vocals sung by me outdoors nearby the University Medical Center, at Jacob's house, and at my apartment.

OK, This Just In (The Primordial Papaya jam at top)

Since Jacob was sitting right across from me, as I typed the above, I asked him to give me a copy of one of the songs off of the 14 song CD that is already "in the can" and so, I give you the overture to The Papaya Song, which is not the actual papaya song that we intend to record after planning the arrangement a little more.

The lesson I learned is that I should always be trying to sing my best, even when just goofing off into the microphone, because Jacob might take that little snippet and make "a whole song" out of it.

I am dreading going out to play tonight. It is fear of someone being already on my spot, fear of not making any money at the spot, fear of not playing as well as I think I can -and all the usual fears that have often preceded my best money nights; almost as if butterflies in the stomach are a sign that I am actually ready to play, even though it feels like pedaling home five hours from now with almost a hundred bucks in my pocket would be like going to the moon and returning safely...

Wednesday Night, 57 Degrees

It's the coldest fifty seven degrees I ever felt; and I imagine the Lilly Pad to be iced over with snow drifts up to the top of her front door....
But, didn't I just decide that I was going to start going out every night, come hell or high water?
Maybe just to sit at the spot blowing on my hands and making something?

Tuesday Night, Tue?

The Uxi is closing very shortly.
It is pretty cold out.

I made it here with 44 minutes to spare.
This after having stopped at Bobby's apartment, in response to a "missed call" on my phone that was 44 minutes old at the time I saw it.
Bobby was watching a fascinating documentary about Jeff Beck.
That drew me in for about 44 minutes of rapt viewing. Jeff has been the champion of a lot of "extremely talented" female musicians; Jennifer Batten was on the bass when I saw Jeff in Phoenix in 1999.
That had been my one extravagance during about five months in that place, spent in just about equal parts between driving a cab and staying in a cave up on South Mountain, which is crowned with Dobbins Peak.
The ticket had been 27 bucks, something that I had to save for out of cab driving take home pays that were very busking-like in that they ranged from lows of the above mentioned 27 bucks, after driving the thing on a 12 hour lease that cost 57 dollars; to over 300 bucks one day.
The cool thing about the cab job was that the 12 hour shift began at whatever time you showed up at the window with 57 bucks and ready to go.
It was common for guys to take a cab in the late afternoon and then drive until almost sunup.
But, I secured the money for the ticket to Symphony Hall, and then remember the thundering bass and drums and Jeff coming out wearing jeans and a white tee shirt and my mouth dropping open and my not breathing for something like 20 minutes.

Tal Wikenfeld, too

My first thought was that the album Blow By Blow, which I have always considered a masterpiece and which I always assumed Jeff recorded in little pieces, taking guitar solos played at different times on different days and splicing together the most hellacious riffs, was probably recorded by him in one take.
The stuff he played at Symphony Hall could have replaced what he played on the album and it still would have been equally a masterpiece.

Monday Night Off

Sunday Night Off

A glance at my phone showed it to be 43 degrees outside as I stood in Bobby's apartment after having told him that that was the "cutoff" temperature that I used to decide whether to go out and busk or not to.

So, it turned into a Sunday night to record some guitar tracks and to sift through older recordings trying to pick out flawless sections to cut out and then paste into their own files so they could be repeated, have their pitches changed, etc.

I am getting the "disk almost full" message when working with huge Audacity files.
It is time for me to "refine" my collection of data on the laptop.

The Article Above
The article above started out with me Googling "People being mugged for food in Venezuela," after having had that subject come up at the Uxi Duxi, which led me to a list of "25 Places You Don't Want To Travel To Solo" with Israel being number ten and reminding me of having read that Alex in California, blog reader, is considering not only making a trip to there, but I think, settling down and becoming a busker there.
Venezuela was number one on the list.

I seem to be improving in such leaps and bounds musically that I don't really hold much of what I have done in the past in very high esteem.

It's true I have an old hard drive that contains something like 250 gigabytes of music that I recorded on Audacity, that I will hopefully be able to access some day if I succeed in using some kind of boot-repair application to recover it.

I just feel like I am playing probably ten percent better than I was a year ago, and anything I might have recorded back then, I could re-do relatively quickly using the new recording techniques I have discovered.

Back then, I would run through an eight minute song, trying to play mistake free the whole time and then spend another eight minutes playing a second part, and trying to go all eight minutes without screwing up. I could have easily spent five hours on the eight minute song, and it would inevitably have one of the half dozen voices screwing up at any given point in the song.

Now, I know enough to take one pass through the chords that was played right, and then to cause that section to repeat maybe a dozen times while I played the second part along with it with a goal of only capturing one repetition of it where the two parts sounded good together. Then it would be; delete everything except that one pass (called "trimming" the audio) then repeat that a dozen times, so I would have a dozen verses of those two voices being in sync, over which I would play or sing the third part, etc...

I cringe to hear some of my old recording where, say, myself playing the bass track was caught by surprise by the other instruments jumping to the next section and its wrong note hung there for the requisite time for my stoned self on track 4 to realize, woops, it changed there...

Monday Night, 48 Degrees, Feels Like 46

I found one of this guy's paintings marked down to around five bucks...you just have to look around, I guess...
I'm thinking that, if I buy it, I can look real closely at the brush strokes, the thickness of the paint that he dabbed on, the direction of the strokes, how he blended different shades, etc... and probably learn a lot about oil painting from it. That would be worth five bucks all by itself, in addition to me having another cool piece of art to hang in my apartment....

Ironic how some modern artist's stuff would probably be listed at thousands of dollars, while this work, which I would argue is a classic, has been thrown in the discount bin...amazing.