It is Monday evening and it was raining this afternoon, but now there are very still puddles pooled in the low spots; mirror-like and reflective of the calm after the storm.
Sunday night was a goose egg as far as busking. I didn’t get to the Lilly Pad until about quarter past midnight.
I was told by one of the regular skeezers of that block that “it was crowded earlier.”
This crowd would have been comprised of the same tourists who are in town for something other than tipping buskers, apparently.
They seem to be pale-skinned, undernourished, twitchy, almost totally covered in tattoos and piercings, wearing very form fitting clothing like leg tights, tie-dyed when not in all black, and pretty f***ing weird, from my perspective.
The way the generation before me looked at "us" hippies in the late 60's is probably the way I look at these people. I need to see what the big attraction in town was to try to pin down who and where they came from. They acted similar to the homosexuals that invade the city during Southern Decadence every August, in that they seemed to be birds of the same feather in their speech and mannerisms, etc.
It seemed like throwing me a tip never crossed their minds. Maybe I need to write a tipping "app" that would put the fun into tipping for them and their ilk. "I like that song, so I just tipped the guy five bucks," one of them might say with a "how cool is that?" deportment, as he returns his phone to his pocket... A To Z
A: Apartment:
I have extended an offer to Geo and Mindy Lee to crash at my apartment for what might amount to about 10 bucks per day, times ten days.
Geo and Mindy Lee are from Cincinnati, Ohio and I met them about a year ago.
They were the ones who came to town laden with LSD in blotter form, and who wanted me to play “They Loved Each Other,” by the Grateful Dead at their wedding, which was to take place in Jackson Square.
I took this request with a grain of salt as, they were tripping on acid and I was playing a Grateful Dead song, and it was one that they had, just prior to coming upon me at the Lilly Pad, determined among themselves to be the song that they wanted to be the “first dance” song at the ceremony.
“We were just talking about what should be our first dance song and had just agreed on “They Loved Each Other;” then we were walking down Bourbon and started to hear your harmonica and then when we got closer, we were like: Is that “They Loved Each Other?”
And it was. And it is one of the more practiced-up songs that I do, and so I was nailing it.
It is no far stretch of the imagination to believe that, in that state of mind of being dosed on acid, this coincidence was magnified to biblical proportions and, hence, the offer was made to pay me “the going rate” for first dance wedding songs, which a quick skimming of “The Tipper’s Guide” revealed to be somewhere between $250 and $300 “per song.”
Perhaps a long one like "Stairway to Heaven" would fetch the latter, while “Only Love Can Break Your Heart,” by Neil Young, in all its 2 minute and 28 seconds of glory, the former.
But, I was laying my chips upon them somehow messing up while running around the quarter dosed on, and selling, acid and only gave the wedding about a 25% chance of ever taking place.
There was the commensurate recklessness about their exploits that led me to think that them pulling it all together and organizing the event would be beyond them.
The wedding was indeed postponed after certain key relatives, like the mother of the groom, informed them that they wouldn’t be able to make the trek to New Orleans to witness the union of Geo and Mindy Lee, which was unfortunate and kind of sad (I would have liked to have the $300).
I got the feeling that the relatives had become accustomed to the capriciousness of their kin and that dropping everything and heading to New Orleans to get married in Jackson Square was probably just the flavor of the week for the couple and before booking reservations in the city, the relatives would wait to see if the next dose of acid might bring a change of mind; perhaps after they come upon a busker singing a different song.
But now they are back and Mindy Lee is pregnant with twins. They have rented some place until the end of March, but after that, I might let them stay at my place for at least the 10 days that I’m allowed to have “overnight” guests per month.
Depending upon how well the arrangement works out, I could even allow them to stay longer, based upon what has regularly been inefficient record keeping by the front desk security officers.
It’s their job to keep track of the number of days a guest has accrued.
It’s also their job to stay awake and to be vigilant of bike thieves, for that matter.
B: Bike- The bike that was stolen two stolen bikes ago and which is now in the rack with a flat back tire and no lock on it; I am thinking of grabbing and pulling into my apartment; doing whatever repairs to, and then listing for sale on Craigslist New Orleans.
I bought the bike off of Ester, my Israelite friend for 40 bucks -a good deal because it is a $100 bike when in good working order- and so I feel like I own it.
The person who might see it disappear from the rack might never have to know that I took it. If I could depart on it from Sacred Heart, without being observed, and then meet with the person who wants to buy it through Craigslist, and sell it to her, then the thing would have disappeared without a trace from the thief, the same way it had for me.
One of the leading suspects in the theft of it was a guy named "White Cloud" who is reportedly in the hospital with fading health, and returning the bike might be the type of thing a dying man does to make peace with his maker, type of thing...
So, as I sit here in the computer lab it is Sunday night.
For March 24th, the weather is nice, a kind of almost foggy high 60's.
I only made a dollar last night after determining that the tourists were dominated by a huge group of non tippers and leaving after an hour.
I remembered times that I stayed out after only making a dollar the first hour and wound up coming home with a lot of cash; but, I was struggling with my emotions and revisited by the "you bunch of non tipping pieces of shit!" mentality that I thought I had seen the last of long ago.
I have gotten a couple new computer books, in AJAX and PHP and MySQL...they were 50 cents each at the Goodwill. I just saw the bike that was stolen two stolen bikes ago in the rack outside the building. It had been poorly disguised and bore certain tell-tale signs, as in things that I had done to the thing that were unique. It has a flat rear tire and no lock securing it. It is almost as if the thief is done with it and giving it back. Or, perhaps he stole it from the person he sold it to after stealing it from me.
I made 25 bucks Friday night, before making the dollar, and was able to pay Jacob some to defray the cost of the kratom that he has been leaving at my place.
I have big things planned, but find myself constantly running up against the clock when it is time to busk; like right now.
My food stamps, which had been shut off the day a letter came warning me that they would be shut off were I not to respond to itself the previous day, have finally been restored.
The lady had told me that it would take "7 to 21" days for them to turn them back on. I waited the whole 21 days before going to the office to learn that they had never been properly dealt with and would have never come back on had I not gone down there.
That exact scenario crossed my mind, but I was kind of trying to float myself off of my busking income to include food, knowing that I was ultimately just saving the food stamp money as if it were in a bank.
So, I got the 192 bucks with only half a month to go before getting another installment.
I didn't rush out to get food right away and, in fact, considered going on a long fast. I probably should have because after emerging from the Dollar General with just about as much food as I can carry on my bike, after having gone in there for "one or two things," I kind of overate last night. Peanut butter and Coco Roos cereal in coconut milk with a side order of Cliff Bars smeared in more peanut butter and....it just got worse. I lay there in the morning, along with Harold the cat, who had also overeaten, and we slept it off, until I got up around 6 PM, called my mother because I hadn't in a couple months, and then came here where it is almost 11 PM.
I have new guitar strings, courtesey of Bobby in Building C, and am ready to go...
It is almost 10:30 PM, I have had a shot of kratom and the Lilly Pad bekons me.
I only made about 12 bucks last night, but, once again there were still people walking around as I was packing up and leaving at about 1:30 AM.
The strings on the guitar are one day older. The next 8 bucks I make will have to go for a new pair; and then I will have to stop putting the cart before the horse and bump having new strings up on the priority list.
Keep new strings and harmonicas and new strings and harmonicas will keep you, I always say....
Oh,and I have not yet begun to mess with the appearance of this blog, as I keep in the back of my mind a plan to either migrate to Wordpress or to buy a domain and keep using Blogger....
Well, this blog has suffered since the service ran out on the new phone...
But, I have discovered that, when I plug the thing into the laptop via USB, then I can get at all the files stored on the phone, such as pictures (left) and music, except I have no music on it, I hadn't gotten that far in my exploits of using it.
The reason I didn't reduce my "plan" from 60 dollars down to 30 is that I wouldn't be able to use it as a hotspot, and sit in my room with an internet connection.
I have to meet life half way and reduce the amount of inhibition I feel about coming to the computer lab at Sacred Heart, so it can become at least a daily habit.
There are some who might say that this blog "suffers" even more when I post up my writing on it...
Busking
Busking has been running at an idle lately, with me winding up with just enough money in the mornings for either a pack of cigarettes, or food for myself and my cat.
There have been nights, like last night, when the ideal tourists came along and, after telling me that I wasn't really in the right spot, for what I was doing, tipped me 10 bucks, after I explained that I played at the Lilly Pad in order to cater to people who might want a more private performance, or to converse with a real live street musician, type of thing.
The movie deal that the guy named Daniel talked about (me composing/performing music for it) will probably fall through after Daniel realizes that I am not homeless. The goal of this film project or whatever it is. is to employ homeless people in the making of it. Creating a good film, well, I guess he will cross that bridge when he gets to it.
I suppose that, at the end of the movie, as the credit rolls, some project will be mentioned, and the information will be given that all of the actors and musicians etc. were literally taken off the street. He might be fishing for the type of publicity that such a thing might garner. It has "PBS segment" written all over it.
"Some of these homeless people were in despair, but seeing themselves on the big screen gave them a sense of worth, and they soon became productive members of society..." type of thing....
So, last night, I busked and made 12 bucks, 10 of which came from the one couple that hung out and listened, with the female at one point showing me scars on her wrist from a failed suicide attempt and telling me that it was just "this kind of thing (hanging out with a street musician)" that they were hoping would give her a new lease on life.
That was a 12 dollar Saturday night, otherwise, and put me in the situation of having 11 bucks -enough to get a 32.5 gram packet of kratom at the Unique Grocery.
Or a pack of American Spirit cigarettes and a Bang energy drink at Unique Grocery.
Or a can of cat food, and returning home with nothing except $10.18 still intact.
In the morning, my plan was to ride up to Rouses Market and spend $2.08 on a Bang energy drink, then ride up to near the Uxi Duxi, where I would wait until I espied a familiar face from when I hung out there almost every night, which person I would slip a five dollar bill to and ask them to go in and "buy for me," like I was an under-aged kid hiding on the side of a liquor store.
Then, I remembered that Jacob had ordered something like 3 ounces of Yellow Borneo, which he probably still had some of, and I got the idea of riding my bike over to Kenner, where he lives with Bob, his legal guardian, and just giving him the 4 dollars for a scoop of kratom.
I still have the Vuseʳ Vibeʳ nicotine vaporizer, and it has curtailed my use of cigarettes, at least the purchasing of them.
Jacob came by and brought me some kratom, apologized for not being able to hang out longer than a few minutes, promised to hang out longer on Tuesday, and then accepted the 4 dollars from me.
I know the value of me pulling my own weight as much as possible, just in the karmic sense.
Friday night, Jacob and I hung out at my place and recorded us jamming along with an obscure (but my favorite) Miles Davis album called "Filles De Killamanjaro."
It was cold outside and raining every time I looked out the window waiting for it to stop so I could go out and busk. I eventually just chalked it up to being an act of God that my busking would be cancelled.
I think Thursday night was a 13 dollar one, and Tuesday before it was about the same, I didn't play Monday, after having had the 34 dollar Sunday...
There is more money out there if I want to go out in the 50 degree air and play for the St. Patrick's Day crowd. The potential for making money is too much to resist and I will soon layer up with clothing and chug down my kratom drink and go out there with old strings on the guitar...
I got a hit of acid from my old acquaintances, Geo and Mindy Lee, from Cincinnati, Ohio. It is just sitting on the table like an insurance policy against a boring night.
Is Vaping Safe?
The link above is to the article that someone sent me who read the one I posted last week and informed me that I had posted old information.
It is from Herbonaut, incorporated...
Today's topic: Using plant lights as your only lighting in the home. Is it bad for your eyes?
I can see what looks like Elle Fanning, dressed as in one of the photos from her Vogue magazine appearance in the jigsaw puzzle that I have glued together and hanging on a wall when I illuminate it with plant light (She is in the front center) which is an interesting illusion...
I actually got a response from the article that I linked to which was about vaping and was one that I had grabbed from somewhere around the 12th result of my search on the subject of them.
My theory in crawling down the list is that I am suspicious of whatever means are being used to propel the top listed results to where they are.
Are the top few results more prone to be propaganda, at the top of the list because some internet marketing specialists were paid to enact that.
So, I went down the list, past sites which were labelled as advertisements and found the article on vaping.
I will soon embed here the article that I was directed to by a person who has more current information than what I found a dozen spots down the list of results...
The site is on my phone, but doesn't appear in my gmail box on the laptop.
Using a plant light as the sole source of indoor lighting (because the thing is so bright that I wouldn't see much of a difference if I turned on any other lights) has, besides having an effect on my webcam, which seems to render the purplish pink light as, well, I guess purplish pink.
I just dont want to damage my retina or anything...
Like shoddy wiring starting an electrical fire is the effect of using a plant light as the only source of light in a room...
I went out upon the Monday night into Tuesday morning that it was at the Lilly Pad.
I tuned up to the free tuning application that I downloaded onto the cheaper government phone.
The application came like a trojan horse bringing so many advertisements and pop ups that sometimes I have to take a quick survey before tuning the next string on the guitar, type of thing.
I played from about 11:40 PM until 1:15 AM and netted $33.50 which, divided by the 95 minutes that I "put in," comes to $21.15 an hour -a slow Monday into Tuesday morning hour, at that.
So, the idea of going to work for someone for an hourly wage seems ludicrous, unless it is going to work for someone who owns a little Irish pub or something and the job is making an ass of oneself on stage for a set, and guaranteed amount from the bar, and then the tip jar.
I need to not delude myself into thinking that any music that I do at the Lilly Pad should not be subjected to the test of being amplified mightily so that the audience can hear all the subtleties which the pounding of mule hooves might obscure at the Lilly Pad.
There might be a danger in that the standards for a guy sitting on the sidewalk are commensurately lowered to factor in his situation, and he is apt to be doing pretty good for a guy just sitting on the sidewalk.
But, put the guy onstage at an Irish pub, and all of a sudden it's: "Who's this guy supposed to be?" type of thing.
Recent explosion of spending upon energy drinks sparks concern...
I've blogged about that before.
This brings up an irony in the fact that it's the guy who just sets up somewhere and starts playing who probably deserves the "who's this guy supposed to be?" and that is what I hear the most from those 2% of the population that I talk to when I'm busking, the ones who compliment me upon my bravery, saying that they themselves couldn't just set up somewhere and start playing.
I think their fears are based in insecurity about their musical ability. They feel like they would be putting upon display a lack of skill. This, I can understand.
The next time someone say's that to me I will have to ask her: "What if you could play like Jimi Hendrix, then would you be able to just set up somewhere and start playing; uninvited?"
So, I am thinking that, at $21.15 per hour, I should, someday, really try to buckle down; pretend that I am 19 years old and back in basic training, maybe, and busk for 40 hours in a given week. That would be just about $850 take home.
$850 that is safe from the thieving hand of the tax collector (He will get his 6% whenever I purchase food and general merchandise; and his 10% whenever I buy kratom.)
And, given a 40 hour busking schedule, and adding the commuting time of about an hour each day, then the time leftover for the wonton throwing around of money is usurped away, and the rest of the time is spent sleeping. So, there is likely to be an almost full pile of $850 on the coffee table after a week spent working and sleeping.
5 Truths You Need to Know About Vaping: Smoking electronic cigarettes is often considered safer than regular smoking. Learn why vaping is still harmful, and why you should rethink taking it up.
Good Morning, blog readers.
The thing at the top is supposed to be a link.
I have been unable to figure out, so far, how to make links appear as such by being underlined or a different color without the user having to hover the mouse over it to reveal it as such.
This blog has been somewhat neglected lately.
I am thinking of starting a second blog, a "secret" one, which I could make a whole lot more interesting by including detailed gossip about the characters in my life, many of which might read this at any given time.
The other blog, I could create using the g-mail account which I got when Bobby in building C bought me the LG Aristo 3 phone, which I have already let the service go off on.
I am right now using the free "Obama phone" which I had gotten when I was homeless.
I have already blogged about how I am pretty sure that the government was using those free phones in order to assist the census taking people in counting the homeless.
All you needed to get the phone was to be on food stamps.
The phone was presented to me as being a way to help insure that my human rights were not violated; that I would be able to call 911 in an emergency, and would be able to join the human race in walking around staring at a screen all the time, etc.
But, yeah, having a cellphone is a human right, according to the "Lifeline" program that I am signed up under.
And, I can use this free thing as a hotspot, which was the major reason that I had considered paying for the LG one.
I busked last (Sunday) night, and made only 8 bucks. I was hoping that the hour that the clocks had been set ahead would make people still feel like partying an hour later than usual.
But, by 2 AM it was starting to look like a regular Monday morning.
Saturday night, I had stayed in reading a John Grisham novel all night.
Friday had been a 9 dollar outing.
The hotspot went out on the government phone, perhaps because I had run out of data on it, or because I hadn't made a call in over a month because I had the new one, but, whatever, it's back on now. Now I am sitting in my room where it feels more comfortable to write blog posts.
Bobby in building C gave me a "vape" thing, or electronic cigarette.
For Mankind, it took about 100 years between the invention of the telephone, with Alexander Graham Bell famously yelling "Watson, come here, I need you!," and the first cellular telephone. Then only another 50 years between that and the newest i-phone.
It seems feasible that some kind of chemical that will take away the urge to smoke tobacco will come along soon if it doesn't already exist.
I am hitting the vape thing (shown) but am still wanting to run up to the bar on the corner to try to buy one American Spirit cigarette off them. Something about the actual fire that speaks to something deep in my subconscious....
I was playing pretty well but definitely feeling the effects of the cold, as one point having to shift the position of the pick in my fingers to better utilize the gripping muscles that might have been compromised by the temperature in the low 40's.
I played about 80 minutes for the 45 bucks that I made on the strength of one 20 dollar bill from a person. I was fishing for the deadhead tips by playing a dead song; that might have been where that bill came from.
There is no doubt that, should I ever desire to get a "job" I need look no further than investing in equipment and then taking my place alongside the rest of the Royal Street musicians and playing, say, 28 hours a week should I be thinking more one the lines of a part time job, or 40 hours a week like Tanya Huang, if I want to consider myself employed "full time."
A key to that will be taking a suggestion from Craig Nelson, blog reader, and putting together a "set" of music, one that will include a set list of songs, to be performed in order and that will insure that I am out there for however long it takes to run through the set.
If I were to leave before doing all my songs, then that would be blatant slothfulness that I might never lower myself to. So, I might be able to achieve the 30 hour per week goal that way. I just use the opposite side of the brain from the one that stores a list of all the songs that I know how to play but haven't been able to bring to mind in the heat of battle.
So, one goal on this week after Mardi Gras has ended, is to compile that list from A to Z.
I am not sure if the auto play "feature" can be turned off when embedding Soundcloud's player in a blog. I am not always in the mood to hear The Carcass Song blasting out of my speakers whenever I go to my blog, and I might have to resort to taking the extra time to post songs on Youtube and then throw up a still picture or two to meet the requirement that they be "videos."
My next project will be to put the best possible guitar parts that I can to the songs that I posted last week and then send those and the vocal to Jacob, who can use his synthesizer to add bass and drums to them.
At some point they will migrate to the sidebar of the blog to serve as a portfolio of sorts.
A guy who had the same name as myself of Daniel, came up and asked me if I would be interested in writing music for a film production of some sort.
That's about all at 3:16 AM, Wednesday. I guess I will listen to some music. If not the Mass in B minor by Bach again, then maybe I'll check out some Edgar Vérese.
In other news: Bobby in building C is acting crazy as a loon. I suspect he has been going through intense withdrawals from Gabapentin.
So, it doesn’t get any better than sitting and listening to Bach after having made 71 bucks in an hour and a half of busking.
Except that my new smartphone now has no service and so, I guess I shouldn’t be pissed off that I have to spend half of what I made last night on the phone; I should be glad that I have the opportunity to pay off the phone and still put 35 bucks in my pocket.
I might try to get a cheap TV antennae for the TV that I have now, the medium sized one.
I threw away the big huge one that Jacob and I scooped off the side of the road in the city of Kenner, where he lives, after we saw it sitting there with a “Free. It works” sign on it.
I thought the joke on us was that the thing "worked," as in it came on, but it wouldn’t grab any stations. Maybe someone had found a very clever way of ridding themselves of an old, 100 pound TV without having to haul it to the dump (themselves).
But, then after hooking the antenna up to yet another TV that I came by and still no luck picking up any stations, a closer look at the antenna revealed that the cable had been sliced through with a razor blade, or something.
It was cut right where it goes into the jack, so repairing it would probably be easiest by just cutting the jack off, soldering the wires together and then using a piece of that rubber crimping tubing that shrinks when you blast it with a high heat source.
Trouble is, I don’t have a heat gun or a soldering iron, or solder, or wire strippers for that matter. A five dollar Goodwill Store antenna would be a nice find.
Also, the antenna was working when I first got it. It almost looks like it was sabotaged.
Could Travis Blaine, who stayed with me for almost twice the amount of days allotted to guests, ostensibly in exchange for 20 dollars a day, but who turned into a cheapskate who tried to "barter down" his rent by showering me with things like a 3 pound bag of cat food that his cat also ate off of, a pocketful of McDonald’s sugar packets -that was classic Travis Blaine, there: “I figured you’d probably like some sugar for your coffee...” he had said.
How can you ask 20 dollars a day of someone who is so considerate and doing so much to help out in other ways?
Plus, I got some things that he no longer had a use for, like his cleaning supplies, because the place he was moving into was going to have a cleaning lady come by every week.
When my TV went on the blink, Travis was almost smug when he said something like “I know a few tricks when it comes to electronics. I’ll take a look at it. I’m sure I can fix it.”
He flashed a smile that exuded confidence; or was it a smirk?
I quickly surmised though, that since the guy didn't ask me if I had any tools at all, or a volt-o-meter or oscilloscope, his “tricks” must have been of the low tech variety, like pressing the reset button on the back of the thing, or maybe taking the batteries out of the remote then putting them back in, type of stuff.
Tricks in the bag of the likes of Travis Blaine, the self styled "genius with a photographic memory," who was reading a Wallace Stegner
book while he was here plotting how he could chintz out on the most rent money.
Yes, Wallace Stegner, whose novels -at least the one I read- were illustrative of the beauty of the human spirit and the better side of human nature, the power of love and the triumph of good over evil, type of thing.
Blaine must have been recording the words in his memory so he could add the book to the list of what he is “well read” in.
So, to cut to the chase, I think Blaine might have made the almost invisible incision in my TV antenna so that he could “fix” the TV, then use it as an implicit bartering chip when it came time to chintz out on what he had promised up front.
He’s a genius with a photographic memory who graduated at the top of a small class at some exclusive academy in New York, who now sits behind a laptop smoking pot and doing piece work for Amazon, averaging about 8 bucks an hour.
Enough about Travis Blaine.
Bobby in building C suggested that I see a psychiatrist after I told him about those suspicions.
He had done the same thing after I suggested that someone at Sacred Heart Apartments was shutting the hot water off every other Friday or so, and since the thing can never be “looked at untill Monday,” perhaps cutting the monthly energy bill down and perhaps pocketing the difference.
Bobby came around on that issue after a couple more cold water weekends occurred.
Yes, Bobby could benefit from being just a little more paranoid.
71 Dollar Friday
With old strings, which are hanging on by a thread, the last of the batteries for the spotlight, and zero dollars to start out with, I managed to make the above amount in less than 2 hours of busking Friday night.
Lafitt’s Blacksmith Shop Tavern (shown in the photo now inserted over the title of the blog at the top) has been blasting loud hip-hop music out of speakers aimed at the street the past few nights, and they will likely be doing so all the way through Fat Tuesday, turning the gold that Lilly Pad during Mardi Gras might produce into straw, and forcing me to move down one block to near the Quartermaster.
It is only by the grace of knowing the people that work at that store, and having seen and waved to and chatted with the residents of the block at one time or other during the past 8 years that I am able to set up and play on the corner, which is across the street from the house of a lady who came out shortly after midnight when I was playing there about 4 years ago and said “Come on, it’s after midnight!” and ran me off.
She appeared at her door shortly after midnight, looked out and me and then retreated back inside. I guess she gave me a break. It was then that I made about 45 of the 71 dollars for the night.
Tanya Huang seems to be playing marathon sets. She was still at her spot at about 2:30 AM when I rode past. She starts at 11:30 AM.
She will grab 5 hours of sleep and then be back out for another 15 hour day.
Jacob said he saw somewhere that Tanya lives in some kind of artistic community, like a rooming house for local musicians or something.
Has losing her partnership with Dorise Blackmon meant that she sold her house?
Something that Alex in California, blog reader said makes more sense now, that Tanya might be supporting a lot of people, maybe back in China. Maybe putting relatives children through college, because they would do the same for her if she was the one stuck in a rice paddy and they were lucky enough to be able to busk in New Orleans.
The phone, I will probably hook up, provided they can reduce my charge from 52 to 30 bucks a month, and provided that I haven’t been hit with any kind of late charge for having let the phone get cut off yesterday.
I suppose I’ll find out if I go down there before sleeping, which I’m about to do.
Using the phone for a hotspot is worth the 30 bucks a month because, as Alex also pointed out, I was probably spending 80 bucks a month on kratom so I could sit at Uxi Duxi and use their wi-fi (and so I could reap the benefits of kratom).
It’s possible for me to buy kratom online at probably what Uxi Duxi pays wholesale, because it is approximately half the price of what they sell ounces for.
I think, as a guideline, businesses usually sell merchandise at double what their cost was.
A car dealer friend of mine once told me that “any” used car lot could sell you a car for half of what is frosted onto the window “and they would still make a little money.”
It is Saturday, we are in the midst of Mardi Gras.
If ever I was going to try to busk for something like 8 hours, now would be the time to do it. There are people everywhere in the Quarter around the clock now.
I’m really thinking about getting a bottle of tequila and going out to play on no sleep at all over the past 24 hours.
What am I saying, I need to get new strings somehow..and I quit drinking 1,129 days ago.
But, I bet that would have me out at the Lilly Pad jamming away.
And..
8 Dollar Sunday
The temperature dropped from the 60 degrees of late afternoon to a very chilly and windy condition which two tee shirts with a button up shirt over them was not proof against, as Jacob and I, along with his friend Patrick, stopped at a park in Metarie and smoked a blunt.
We had planned upon playing a certain marimba which is set up there kind of like a playground toy, but I had to return to the car to be out of the wind. Jacob banged out a couple notes on the thing, which I could hear from the car. He said it is tuned to some “weird chord.” It might make an interesting insert into a music video, a cameo for a playground instrument...
I had no idea that the wind chill factor accounted for so much of the discomfort out there, probably making 55 feel like 38 when the gusts hit you.
I found out that the reason that it didn’t feel so bad at all as I rode towards the Lilly Pad was that I was riding in the same direction of about a 25 mile per hour breeze.
On the way home, as I inched forward into it, all I wanted to do was to get inside the warm apartment. With 6 of the 8 dollars that I made in about an hour of busking still on me. From The Sacred Heart Cookbook
I bought a thing of string cheese which I melted into some farina, which I then added tomatoes and herbs to, aiming for a pizza-like flavor experience.
Pizza is just another food that utilizes the big three of wheat, tomato and cheese.
Lasagna, of course being basically a rearranged version as spaghetti with tomato sauce and Parmesan cheese over the top.
The difference maker is the way the wheat is prepared, since the tomato and cheese are pretty much stable.
When the wheat is made into bread is when the pizza emerges.
I think there is such a gravity towards those three ingredients that it makes people do things like putting ketchup on a cheeseburger, so they will have a pizza with a meat topping in disguise.
I used to like to dip grilled cheese sandwiches into my tomato soup. There you go again, minus the meat topping, unless it's a grilled ham and cheese sandwich, it's the same basic meal.
Since my dad was Irish, when I was growing up we would see the potato represented in about 6 suppers a week.
Boiled potatoes with ham and cabbage a lot of times.
Scalloped potatoes, baked potatoes, mashed or fried potatoes, and potatoes in shepherd’s pie, and in beef stew. It was like having something different for supper every night, though.
Wednesday or Thursday was spaghetti night. I think I recall that it was not Wednesday becauase we weren’t Italian and didn’t feel a need to adhere to their tradition.
Friday night, to give my mom a break from cooking at the end of the week, dad brought home two large pizzas. Two large pepperoni pizzas. Always from the same place, Thunderbird Pizza on River Street in Fitchburg, Massachusetts, and always flat and heavy in the box and greasy.
I grew up thinking that pizza was just OK, nothing to throw a party over -the pizza from the cafeteria at school doing nothing to change this perception- not realizing that it was only the oily, spicy pepperoni that I thought was just OK.
My first slice of pizza that had just cheese, ground beef and onions was an epiphany. Plus, it was from a place that made their dough rise a bit more than Thunderbird's did.
But, upon getting home from making 8 bucks in the cold, I mixed farina with cheese, tomatoes, basil and oregano and had a near-pizza experience for under 3 bucks...
The next two days, to include fat Tuesday will be pivotal as far as my short-term finances are concerned.
A lot of tourists will be tipping “on the way out” on fat Tuesday, if the trend continues.
Exactly four years ago I posted the uncanny "71 dollars in less than 2 hours" which is an exact quotation from yesterday's post.
