My balance was nineteen dollars and change, when I checked it this morning.
"A payment of 25 dollars was made on December 1st," the recording told me.
But, I had been at the place Friday, November 30th, having made a gargantuan effort to be there on that day, and not December 1st, which starts a new month and negates any "second donation of the week," or "7th donation of the month" type of promotions.
"We didn't have a bonus for last week," said the lady whom I got on the phone. They had had one for the first 4 weeks of the month, but, apparently since the last week of the month is a short one, it would be unethical of them to encourage people to give twice over just that 4 day period...as I did.
15 Skeezers Arrested
The above link, if it works, has to do with the most current "sweep" of the streets in the French Quarter.
The focus was upon not "local homeless" people, out of whom the police have already weeded the aggressive, violent or in other ways disruptive of the "quality of life" of residents and tourists, but of the "travelers" i.e. those who are on a permanent vacation, touring the nation through the generosity of others; living a life that a lot of people with jobs can only dream about...a life of steak and beer with no time clock anywhere in sight.
Photo above: Yeah, I remember these worthies. The guy on the right thinks that he is a handsome devil with a silver tongue, who tries to "charm" money out of mostly middle aged women. There is something inherently repulsive to me about a bum who is not just begging for his dinner, but, a porterhouse steak and a Heineken...if you don't mind...
The guy on the left is wearing the hospital bracelet from his heroin overdose of the night before (that was mentioned in the 2015 article that this photo is from). He survived the ordeal, to skeeze again. And, not to worry, the hospital surely has some kind of "charity" fund, so any cash he gets can keep going into his veins.
The sweep is also focused upon Decatur Street (shown) Royal Street and Frenchmen Street.
So, given the above, and the fact that I instead play on Bourbon Street, on Lilly's property, and that all the cops except for the rookies, seem to not even notice me anymore, I shouldn't have to worry.
In fact the last time they arrested a skeezer in front of me, who protested: "What about him, he's blocking the sidewalk, too!" they told him: "We know him." I guess Lilly acquainted them with me.
Left: I might as well complete the trifecta with this oddball, a guy whom I have seen a hundred times, who is always sporting, um, the "novel" he is working on (shown) and who has always walked past me without a word of acknowledgement, as if he is deep in thought about some plot twist, trying to decide what the whale in his story might do next, or something.
I'm pretty sure he is trading in his resemblance to Herman Melville, or whatever writer he is a spitting image of, maybe he just looks like the generic "writer," and waits for tourists to ask him if he is indeed a writer (or does he he sport a thick notepad everywhere he goes for some other reason) and then probably tells them about his novel, being sure to mention how nice it will be to have money if it sells, because, right now, he is pretty hungry, and could really use five or ten bucks, anything will help, type of thing.
Or, maybe it is Kurt Vonnegut Jr. whose coattails he is riding...
I guess I can attribute a lot of my tips to the fact that I haven't totally lost the "homeless" look, due in large part to my backpack not being the type that college kids wear. So, I guess we all have personages that we use to our advantage...
It is Saturday evening, and I have a chance to start early at the Lilly Pad, but only if I wrap this up and get moving. It has stopped raining and is in the low 70 's.
One good night of around fifty bucks and I can lay to rest a lot of the anxiety I might otherwise have. I have come to just expect the plasma place to stick me one way or another. I'll have to consider using the same 3 or 4 hours to busk instead. At least that way, I will have all of my blood proteins to use in producing music, and won't I feel great if I'm able to make the same 25 bucks that way...
"A payment of 25 dollars was made on December 1st," the recording told me.
But, I had been at the place Friday, November 30th, having made a gargantuan effort to be there on that day, and not December 1st, which starts a new month and negates any "second donation of the week," or "7th donation of the month" type of promotions.
"We didn't have a bonus for last week," said the lady whom I got on the phone. They had had one for the first 4 weeks of the month, but, apparently since the last week of the month is a short one, it would be unethical of them to encourage people to give twice over just that 4 day period...as I did.
15 Skeezers Arrested
 |
| There's a lot of shame and humility in that smile, |
| you just have to look closely. |
The focus was upon not "local homeless" people, out of whom the police have already weeded the aggressive, violent or in other ways disruptive of the "quality of life" of residents and tourists, but of the "travelers" i.e. those who are on a permanent vacation, touring the nation through the generosity of others; living a life that a lot of people with jobs can only dream about...a life of steak and beer with no time clock anywhere in sight.
Photo above: Yeah, I remember these worthies. The guy on the right thinks that he is a handsome devil with a silver tongue, who tries to "charm" money out of mostly middle aged women. There is something inherently repulsive to me about a bum who is not just begging for his dinner, but, a porterhouse steak and a Heineken...if you don't mind...
The guy on the left is wearing the hospital bracelet from his heroin overdose of the night before (that was mentioned in the 2015 article that this photo is from). He survived the ordeal, to skeeze again. And, not to worry, the hospital surely has some kind of "charity" fund, so any cash he gets can keep going into his veins.
 |
| A whole row of heroin addicted handsome devils. |
| Clean one up and take him home! |
The sweep is also focused upon Decatur Street (shown) Royal Street and Frenchmen Street.
So, given the above, and the fact that I instead play on Bourbon Street, on Lilly's property, and that all the cops except for the rookies, seem to not even notice me anymore, I shouldn't have to worry.
In fact the last time they arrested a skeezer in front of me, who protested: "What about him, he's blocking the sidewalk, too!" they told him: "We know him." I guess Lilly acquainted them with me.
Left: I might as well complete the trifecta with this oddball, a guy whom I have seen a hundred times, who is always sporting, um, the "novel" he is working on (shown) and who has always walked past me without a word of acknowledgement, as if he is deep in thought about some plot twist, trying to decide what the whale in his story might do next, or something.
I'm pretty sure he is trading in his resemblance to Herman Melville, or whatever writer he is a spitting image of, maybe he just looks like the generic "writer," and waits for tourists to ask him if he is indeed a writer (or does he he sport a thick notepad everywhere he goes for some other reason) and then probably tells them about his novel, being sure to mention how nice it will be to have money if it sells, because, right now, he is pretty hungry, and could really use five or ten bucks, anything will help, type of thing.
 |
| Are you a writer? You sure look like one... |
I guess I can attribute a lot of my tips to the fact that I haven't totally lost the "homeless" look, due in large part to my backpack not being the type that college kids wear. So, I guess we all have personages that we use to our advantage...
It is Saturday evening, and I have a chance to start early at the Lilly Pad, but only if I wrap this up and get moving. It has stopped raining and is in the low 70 's.
One good night of around fifty bucks and I can lay to rest a lot of the anxiety I might otherwise have. I have come to just expect the plasma place to stick me one way or another. I'll have to consider using the same 3 or 4 hours to busk instead. At least that way, I will have all of my blood proteins to use in producing music, and won't I feel great if I'm able to make the same 25 bucks that way...
It just seems like the plasma place makes you put in so many hours going to and from there, and jerks you around so much about what amounts to well less than $10/hour, that you might as well try something new. Maybe ... busking?
ReplyDeleteI'm all for cracking down on skeezers but not for the benefit of capitalist scum like Sidney Torres.
ReplyDeleteFrom the article you linked:
"The current crackdown on transient people is the latest in a series of French Quarter sweeps since the 2015 inception of the French Quarter Task Force, created and initially funded by businessman and reality television star Sidney Torres IV."
French Quarter neighbors have unholy complaints about Sidney Torres' church venuehttps://www.nola.com/politics/index.ssf/2017/08/sidney_torres_rampart_monaster.html
Sounds like this Torres character needs to have his property seized, and to the thrown in jail for 6 months or so then told to leave town and not come back, just like any obnoxious skeezer.
ReplyDeleteGetting back to own own "favorite" skeezer, you know, back when I started reading this thing, it used to be about music. What song was played and this other musician was in this or that key. And how "clean cut" musicians made more and if only the protagonist had assess to regular showers....
But now it's all about skeezing in its various forms, plasma-selling and loan-sharking (and being loan-sharked) and about how looking homeless is better, somehow.
I'm going to append to my comment and say, what you probably want to look like, if you can't manage to look clean-cut, is to look "artsy". Rahsaan Roland Kirk used to wear rings made of old clarinet keywork and all sorts of artsy stuff, and if you do stuff like have a frieze of miniature animal figures etc around your hatband, crazy jewelry you made yourself, go heavy on the tie-dye, etc., it might be fun and helpful. And obviously a homeless person wouldn't have tons of artsy stuff because it'd all be stolen.
ReplyDelete