It is early Wednesday morning of, gee, the 16th already...
That means that the American Express people got their 5 dollar "monthly fee" out of me.
Well, this isn't about banking, it's about The Gatorade Lady (likeness shown) and will be presented in a short story, that I will call...
The Gatorade Lady
There is a large black lady, whom I have seen sitting upon one of two big coolers, out of which she sells; well, what she yells: "Ice cold Gatorade, one dollar!"
And, I have seen her, and one time when there weren't many people around, she yelled the Gatorade thing to me personally.
I didn't buy a Gatorade that time, because I was fasting (in the just apple juice phase of it).
Last night, there were a moderate amount of people out.
It was past 1 AM.
I had ridden into the Quarter to put money on my American Express Serve☪ card.
My mom sent money. Twice.
The first card was a test, in a way, to see if I would get a card with money in it if it were sent here.
Indeed, one time, before I cautioned my mom to explicitly put my apartment number on the envelope, so that the U.S. Postal employee will be able to drop it in my locked mailbox, rather than leaving it on the desk at the front, where a person who doesn't have such a cushy job that they would never jeopardize over something so trivial, would have to match my name to my apartment off a list that they have up there.
The problem with this is, if that lady makes a mistake, or if her "A"s really look like "B"s then some really nice birthday wishes might go to the guy in B110, who is an "older" style guy, with the very over-lean look that Stephen Tyler and Mick Jagger have.
They can still rock out, they just do it using a lot more wiry muscles.
And so Bongo, as that is what the guy in B110 likes to be called, is a cross dresser, his crotchety and hunched over a bit frame he usually adorns with women's clothing.
I have heard that Bongo sucks at playing the bongos "Can't even keep a beat," said Bobby in Building C.
And, when we had a lady coming to Sacred Heart, as a volunteer, to direct the ill fated Sacred Heart Choir, Bongo, who had brought a portable music system with him, interrupted the program by insisting that that nice lady, whose only sin was perhaps that she was hoping to bring us closer to God as she taught us, by introducing sacred music into the repertoire...
Bongo had already pressed the play button before the lady had any chance to muster a protest of any kind.
Liza Minnelli was already singing a show tune, loudly, out of Bongo's portable system, which I must say had very good bass.
Bongo gushed and almost came to tears as the daughter of Dorothy, and the band, came to the climax of, I forget which song.
But the choir practice took about a 7 minute recess, so we could all hear Liza bringing the house down, or whatever the expression is.
Bongo is the type of cross dresser who also dyes his hair, which I am assuming is all gray underneath, into some pretty vivid and flamboyant colors, I must say; if that is even a subset of cross dressers...
It could be that he has some kind of wigs that he wears. Because he changes colors pretty frequently, traversing the florescent rainbow.
But, he matches his clothing to the color of his hair, which is yellow as a banana these days.
The cross dressing makes him look like an old woman, who only drives her car to church and back on Sundays, perhaps, rather than an old man. I guess that's what he is going for.
He is a hoarder.
When I went to his apartment about 3 years ago, long before the Liza incident, there was no furniture. I had to sit on the edge of a low sitting table, that happened to be poking out of the pile of hoarded stuff.
"There you go, you can sit there," said Bongo, as if it was the first time he had ever had a guest who wanted to sit down.
But, was he the one who stole the one card my mom sent that I never got?
His apartment is awash in plant light and looks a reddish purplish green 24 hours a day, from the outside.
I would have to complement him on his plants, though. He has some huge plants with big leaves, and he is on the sunny side of the building, to add to the effect of the plant lights.
Off on a tangent....
Oh, yeah, so it was the day after I had visited Howard in Gretna to see the guy, hopefully cheer him up some. He is my old "homeless" buddy.
We traveled the globe, the part of it between Baton Rouge and Mobile, Alabama, at least, together, and I should have been at peace with myself and not harboring any ill feelings towards anyone about the fact that, as things played out, there was the incident with the cartwheel skeezer (see a few days ago) detailed here.
So, the day after that, I went to my mailbox, and before I could open my box, I saw a letter addressed to none other than Howard.
"I'll have to bring it to him," I thought. And then thought sardonically, "Yeah, if I can manage to scrounge up enough for the bus there and back."
That was when the first card came, it was sitting in my box, and contained the bus fare (and more) to go see the very Howard whose errant letter was there.
I thought that was cool.
So, then I was going out to busk, with the goal of not only not spending the 40 bucks that mom sent, I was trying to add to it.
I managed to maintain about 33 bucks when it was time for me to buy a new harmonica. One of the reeds has snapped entirely off my C harmonica.
I went online and saw that Musician's Friend had drastically reduced the price of their Hohner "Special 20" harps to....
To about 2 dollars more than I had.
Wow. It reminded me of when I thought, or felt, that I was close to God and I would see things like that happen, and it's easy to fall into the trap of blaming it on the most sinful thing that you spent money on. "Man, I grabbed that Hustler magazine because of the girl on the cover, and while I was out, I totally forgot to pay my Rent-A-Center bill...I guess I got distracted by the hookers that were hanging out not far from the Hustler store...so they hit me with a 10% late charge, or whatever, and it's $16.37, the exact cost of the Hustler magazine, to the penny.
Or I would do a similar thing and wind up feeling guilty and having buyer's remorse, maybe after spending money on weed, then lamenting over how little money is left in my pocket -just a couple bills and some change- then, I pull it out and count it, and it totals $6.66.
So, yeah, I was 2 dollars short of getting a harmonica that would make busking a joy and be a musical instrument and not a toy. There is a thread that runs through all the reviews of "economical" harmonicas, and its refrain is always: "But, if you can afford it, then by all means spend 20 bucks more and get a (Hohner) Special 20!"
And Musician's Friend was offering them as their "Stupid Deal of the Day" or whatever, at just a couple bucks more than I had left of the 40 my mom sent. Ain't life a bitch.
I sat there debating between which 20 dollar harps I would settle for.
I didn't blame it on the 5 bucks I gave Bobby for weed. The potatoes I bought are just as guilty. If I hadn't bought the darned potatoes, I would have enough for a brand new Special 20...don't blame the sack of weed, my conscience settled upon.
So that was the morning of the day that I discovered in my mailbox the second card, which had 60 whole bucks in it, and at the bottom, mom had written; I kid you not: "Get yourself something special."
OK, I'm back to believing in God, and I'm sorry for all my sins, including this blog. Amen.
So, I run into the Gatorade Lady, whom I greeted warmly: "Hello, Gatorade Lady!"
She asked: "What did you say about Gatorade?" -the poor thing, hoping to make a dollar on a Tuesday night so slow that I used it to ride down to put money on my card, but to keep out a few bucks for weed.
And I wanted something different. Different than Bobby's, which, every once in a while made me feel like I weighed 800 pounds; and don't get me wrong, it was pleasant; it felt like "Let someone come along and try to move me; I weigh 800 pounds!" And I felt grounded and rooted and at peace in the moment.
800 pound guy's, however, just sit around a lot; they don't get a whole shopping list of items done in the typical day.
And the feeling was coffee proof. I could swill it down and still just want to sit there; just to enjoy it; it was amazing; so tranquil; watching how far the stars move in a half hour; Let me try to anticipate when that star that went behind that chimney will emerge on the other side of it, and exactly where; just watching the stars, and the moon; fascinating...
But, I wanted to get me some "strange" for once.
I told her that I had said: "Hello, there, Gatorade lady!"
"Oh," she said.
Then, she noticed, with quite a bit of anxiety, that she didn't have her wallet.
She made a beeline for CVS, where she thought she left it. She went in there for a while.
She is a real ghetto street type who could probably be intimidating, when upset and looking for her wallet.
She came back out of there without it, and then began to think that, no, she had it after CVS, it was someone whom she let sit near her who must have taken it.
"That's why I hate it when anybody sits right near me!"
She was pretty mad and ornery. "My food stamp card, my house key, was in there and some weed, and like 20 dollars..."
She almost got in a fight with a couple of Hispanic guys who happened by when she was most fuming.
They may have been over-matched, if that were to have happened.
I think they were trying to tell her that they didn't say what she thought they did, and she cut them off with:
"It sounds like I'm gonna f*** you up, that's what it sounds like!"
I wondered how she had acted in CVS after they told her they didn't have her wallet. She came back saying that she only trusted one girl in there, and that the rest were thieves.
Well, I felt bad for her, and said that I would at least see if it is in the alley that I always cut through. I was just going to ride by the Lilly Pad to see what it looked like.
I did so, then went back past her on Canal Street and went to the CVS for an energy drink.
I'm not sure why I did so, but, when a very short very dark lady in a CVS shirt asked me if I was paying with cash or food stamps, I told her "food stamps," and she directed me to a certain kiosk.
I then added: "Yeah, my girlfriend lost her wallet, we have to use food stamps."
This prompted a lively discussion between her and an older black guy with a beard and a bald head, that he was shaking as he looked at me with a "no way" look on his face. The girl also looked incredulous.
It seemed like they had decided that it must have been a coincidence.
I left and rode an entirely different way than I normally do, one whole street over, just for variety.
And that is where I saw a colorful wallet laying face down on the sidewalk, which had an ID in it with a picture of the Gatorade Lady. House key,, food stamp card (I didn't want to dig through any deeper after I learned whose it was).
So, I hurried back to the corner of Canal, where, I was able to say: "Here you go," and hand it to her, who then hugged me.
It was a prolonged hug, during which she was telling me how she had actually prayed over it until her stress over it had subsided and that was just before I rode up.
"God is good, God is good," she repeated and continued to hug me tightly. I had kind of closed my eyes or stared at the ground when she was praying, but I looked up, at one point during the hug just in time to see the manager guy with the beard and the bald head walk past us, in his CVS shirt; also wearing the most incredulous look on his face...
I guess, in the 4 years that he's been seeing me in CVS, he never pegged me as a gang banger.
"Sometimes you really have to get to know a nigga before you know what a nigga is about," is a lesson that the manager guy might have thought that he learned last night. LOL
She gave me a little bit of weed before I left; and it is something totally different than Bobby's.
 |
| I Googled "mean black women" until I found |
| something close to the Gatorade lady |
That means that the American Express people got their 5 dollar "monthly fee" out of me.
Well, this isn't about banking, it's about The Gatorade Lady (likeness shown) and will be presented in a short story, that I will call...
The Gatorade Lady
There is a large black lady, whom I have seen sitting upon one of two big coolers, out of which she sells; well, what she yells: "Ice cold Gatorade, one dollar!"
And, I have seen her, and one time when there weren't many people around, she yelled the Gatorade thing to me personally.
I didn't buy a Gatorade that time, because I was fasting (in the just apple juice phase of it).
Last night, there were a moderate amount of people out.
It was past 1 AM.
I had ridden into the Quarter to put money on my American Express Serve☪ card.
My mom sent money. Twice.
The first card was a test, in a way, to see if I would get a card with money in it if it were sent here.
Indeed, one time, before I cautioned my mom to explicitly put my apartment number on the envelope, so that the U.S. Postal employee will be able to drop it in my locked mailbox, rather than leaving it on the desk at the front, where a person who doesn't have such a cushy job that they would never jeopardize over something so trivial, would have to match my name to my apartment off a list that they have up there.
The problem with this is, if that lady makes a mistake, or if her "A"s really look like "B"s then some really nice birthday wishes might go to the guy in B110, who is an "older" style guy, with the very over-lean look that Stephen Tyler and Mick Jagger have.
They can still rock out, they just do it using a lot more wiry muscles.
And so Bongo, as that is what the guy in B110 likes to be called, is a cross dresser, his crotchety and hunched over a bit frame he usually adorns with women's clothing.
I have heard that Bongo sucks at playing the bongos "Can't even keep a beat," said Bobby in Building C.
And, when we had a lady coming to Sacred Heart, as a volunteer, to direct the ill fated Sacred Heart Choir, Bongo, who had brought a portable music system with him, interrupted the program by insisting that that nice lady, whose only sin was perhaps that she was hoping to bring us closer to God as she taught us, by introducing sacred music into the repertoire...
Bongo had already pressed the play button before the lady had any chance to muster a protest of any kind.
Liza Minnelli was already singing a show tune, loudly, out of Bongo's portable system, which I must say had very good bass.
Bongo gushed and almost came to tears as the daughter of Dorothy, and the band, came to the climax of, I forget which song.
But the choir practice took about a 7 minute recess, so we could all hear Liza bringing the house down, or whatever the expression is.
Bongo is the type of cross dresser who also dyes his hair, which I am assuming is all gray underneath, into some pretty vivid and flamboyant colors, I must say; if that is even a subset of cross dressers...
It could be that he has some kind of wigs that he wears. Because he changes colors pretty frequently, traversing the florescent rainbow.
But, he matches his clothing to the color of his hair, which is yellow as a banana these days.
The cross dressing makes him look like an old woman, who only drives her car to church and back on Sundays, perhaps, rather than an old man. I guess that's what he is going for.
He is a hoarder.
When I went to his apartment about 3 years ago, long before the Liza incident, there was no furniture. I had to sit on the edge of a low sitting table, that happened to be poking out of the pile of hoarded stuff.
"There you go, you can sit there," said Bongo, as if it was the first time he had ever had a guest who wanted to sit down.
But, was he the one who stole the one card my mom sent that I never got?
His apartment is awash in plant light and looks a reddish purplish green 24 hours a day, from the outside.
I would have to complement him on his plants, though. He has some huge plants with big leaves, and he is on the sunny side of the building, to add to the effect of the plant lights.
Off on a tangent....
Oh, yeah, so it was the day after I had visited Howard in Gretna to see the guy, hopefully cheer him up some. He is my old "homeless" buddy.
We traveled the globe, the part of it between Baton Rouge and Mobile, Alabama, at least, together, and I should have been at peace with myself and not harboring any ill feelings towards anyone about the fact that, as things played out, there was the incident with the cartwheel skeezer (see a few days ago) detailed here.
So, the day after that, I went to my mailbox, and before I could open my box, I saw a letter addressed to none other than Howard.
"I'll have to bring it to him," I thought. And then thought sardonically, "Yeah, if I can manage to scrounge up enough for the bus there and back."
That was when the first card came, it was sitting in my box, and contained the bus fare (and more) to go see the very Howard whose errant letter was there.
I thought that was cool.
So, then I was going out to busk, with the goal of not only not spending the 40 bucks that mom sent, I was trying to add to it.
I managed to maintain about 33 bucks when it was time for me to buy a new harmonica. One of the reeds has snapped entirely off my C harmonica.
I went online and saw that Musician's Friend had drastically reduced the price of their Hohner "Special 20" harps to....
To about 2 dollars more than I had.
Wow. It reminded me of when I thought, or felt, that I was close to God and I would see things like that happen, and it's easy to fall into the trap of blaming it on the most sinful thing that you spent money on. "Man, I grabbed that Hustler magazine because of the girl on the cover, and while I was out, I totally forgot to pay my Rent-A-Center bill...I guess I got distracted by the hookers that were hanging out not far from the Hustler store...so they hit me with a 10% late charge, or whatever, and it's $16.37, the exact cost of the Hustler magazine, to the penny.
Or I would do a similar thing and wind up feeling guilty and having buyer's remorse, maybe after spending money on weed, then lamenting over how little money is left in my pocket -just a couple bills and some change- then, I pull it out and count it, and it totals $6.66.
So, yeah, I was 2 dollars short of getting a harmonica that would make busking a joy and be a musical instrument and not a toy. There is a thread that runs through all the reviews of "economical" harmonicas, and its refrain is always: "But, if you can afford it, then by all means spend 20 bucks more and get a (Hohner) Special 20!"
And Musician's Friend was offering them as their "Stupid Deal of the Day" or whatever, at just a couple bucks more than I had left of the 40 my mom sent. Ain't life a bitch.
I sat there debating between which 20 dollar harps I would settle for.
I didn't blame it on the 5 bucks I gave Bobby for weed. The potatoes I bought are just as guilty. If I hadn't bought the darned potatoes, I would have enough for a brand new Special 20...don't blame the sack of weed, my conscience settled upon.
So that was the morning of the day that I discovered in my mailbox the second card, which had 60 whole bucks in it, and at the bottom, mom had written; I kid you not: "Get yourself something special."
OK, I'm back to believing in God, and I'm sorry for all my sins, including this blog. Amen.
So, I run into the Gatorade Lady, whom I greeted warmly: "Hello, Gatorade Lady!"
She asked: "What did you say about Gatorade?" -the poor thing, hoping to make a dollar on a Tuesday night so slow that I used it to ride down to put money on my card, but to keep out a few bucks for weed.
And I wanted something different. Different than Bobby's, which, every once in a while made me feel like I weighed 800 pounds; and don't get me wrong, it was pleasant; it felt like "Let someone come along and try to move me; I weigh 800 pounds!" And I felt grounded and rooted and at peace in the moment.
800 pound guy's, however, just sit around a lot; they don't get a whole shopping list of items done in the typical day.
And the feeling was coffee proof. I could swill it down and still just want to sit there; just to enjoy it; it was amazing; so tranquil; watching how far the stars move in a half hour; Let me try to anticipate when that star that went behind that chimney will emerge on the other side of it, and exactly where; just watching the stars, and the moon; fascinating...
But, I wanted to get me some "strange" for once.
I told her that I had said: "Hello, there, Gatorade lady!"
"Oh," she said.
Then, she noticed, with quite a bit of anxiety, that she didn't have her wallet.
She made a beeline for CVS, where she thought she left it. She went in there for a while.
She is a real ghetto street type who could probably be intimidating, when upset and looking for her wallet.
She came back out of there without it, and then began to think that, no, she had it after CVS, it was someone whom she let sit near her who must have taken it.
"That's why I hate it when anybody sits right near me!"
She was pretty mad and ornery. "My food stamp card, my house key, was in there and some weed, and like 20 dollars..."
She almost got in a fight with a couple of Hispanic guys who happened by when she was most fuming.
They may have been over-matched, if that were to have happened.
I think they were trying to tell her that they didn't say what she thought they did, and she cut them off with:
"It sounds like I'm gonna f*** you up, that's what it sounds like!"
I wondered how she had acted in CVS after they told her they didn't have her wallet. She came back saying that she only trusted one girl in there, and that the rest were thieves.
Well, I felt bad for her, and said that I would at least see if it is in the alley that I always cut through. I was just going to ride by the Lilly Pad to see what it looked like.
I did so, then went back past her on Canal Street and went to the CVS for an energy drink.
I'm not sure why I did so, but, when a very short very dark lady in a CVS shirt asked me if I was paying with cash or food stamps, I told her "food stamps," and she directed me to a certain kiosk.
I then added: "Yeah, my girlfriend lost her wallet, we have to use food stamps."
This prompted a lively discussion between her and an older black guy with a beard and a bald head, that he was shaking as he looked at me with a "no way" look on his face. The girl also looked incredulous.
It seemed like they had decided that it must have been a coincidence.
I left and rode an entirely different way than I normally do, one whole street over, just for variety.
And that is where I saw a colorful wallet laying face down on the sidewalk, which had an ID in it with a picture of the Gatorade Lady. House key,, food stamp card (I didn't want to dig through any deeper after I learned whose it was).
So, I hurried back to the corner of Canal, where, I was able to say: "Here you go," and hand it to her, who then hugged me.
It was a prolonged hug, during which she was telling me how she had actually prayed over it until her stress over it had subsided and that was just before I rode up.
"God is good, God is good," she repeated and continued to hug me tightly. I had kind of closed my eyes or stared at the ground when she was praying, but I looked up, at one point during the hug just in time to see the manager guy with the beard and the bald head walk past us, in his CVS shirt; also wearing the most incredulous look on his face...
I guess, in the 4 years that he's been seeing me in CVS, he never pegged me as a gang banger.
"Sometimes you really have to get to know a nigga before you know what a nigga is about," is a lesson that the manager guy might have thought that he learned last night. LOL
She gave me a little bit of weed before I left; and it is something totally different than Bobby's.
You might want to consider Lee Oskar harmonicas, which cost the same as Special-20s but you can just buy replacement reed plates for something like $15, so when you bust a reed you can just change that part out.
ReplyDeleteOK I had a quick look on Amazon and replacement comb sets for Lee Oskar harmonicas are a bit over $20, but it's spawned another idea: That you set up an Amazon Wish List and put the link up there with your physical mail address.
ReplyDelete@alex:I had a Lee Oskar once, along with probably a couple Hohner "Old Standby"s and I remember thinking that the Oskar was "the stiff one" of the bunch, that the notes were harder to bend, and that it felt more utilitarian, like a K car, rather than sleek, like a camaro.
ReplyDeleteOf course the Old Standy's were Chevettes in that analogy.
there is also the fact that, though I consider the Suzuki Folkmaster to be the best under 20 dollar harp, the hairs from my mustache occasionally get caught between the plate and comb when sliding from one note to another. Imagine having to play a solo on your instrument, and just play through someone yanking out one of your short hairs with tweezers, without missing a beat...
Reviewers talk about playing Special 20s "for years," though, but having a reed blow out "within a month" on, say, a Sydell Bluesbender ($55) -the "low tuned" ones, specifically.
But, as far as my purposes of busking for a living are concerned, the K car would get me from point a to point b, and maybe spare me the torture of having mustache hairs yanked out.
I could always shave myself cleanly; I have no opinion on the mustache either way as far as my appearance or how it makes me feel or how I think people treat me with or without it, so it has become like the hair that has grown half way down my back over the past 12 years of having no opinion on how I might like it to be cut and styled.
I might want to revisit the Lee Oskar, now that I actually know a lot better how to play ANY harmonica. I'm not in a position to be finicky about subtle matters of style and ergonomics. I do remember the metal that the Lee Oskars are made of reminding me of an Erector Set, though...
It seems almost like the Chevy vs. Ford debate in NASCAR, which players swear by which brands...
There is a brand called Bushmaster, which makes a 60 dollar Bluesbender, which is supposedly recording studio quality, and it's replacement plates are also a little over 20 bucks; so why not apply that same 22 dollar refurbishment towards keeping a Ferrari running?
Because, though I have the money for a Special 20, I'm just 3 bucks short, once again, of a Bluesbender...
Plus, my mom wrote: "Do something special," not "Use it to get bent" LOL
The wish list is a great idea, and would go hand in hand with those cards that I still haven't printed with my blog address on them (plus a little picture of me playing, to remind them where they had been the previous night) and the barcode thing like Tanya has that people can hold their phones up to and download her music while they are standing there listening
Also, I do believe there are generation z people walking around who would see the barcode thing as something else they can do on their phones. I love my phone, and I can use it again right now! to do this...I bet I can have all his songs on my phone in less than 20 seconds..
ReplyDeleteThere's they are already; in my Nola Vacation folder, 11.3 seconds to download, I just click 'buy' and that's it; how cool is that, I just bought random music off the street, how cool is that?!?
It was five bucks a song, but screw it, I wanted to see if this thing worked...
The way to a man's heart is through his phone...
At some point someone is going to wonder why they call these multi media mobile devices "phones" and the answer would be obscure fact that, they actually started out as just phones; all you could do was call someone and get their voice; you wouldn't even have their profile pic in front of you with the sidebar of everywhere you have seen them in your life and the searchable database of transcripts of all your conversations...
That must have been a real creepy age to live in...
Then they would say to their friends
delete last unfinished sentence..accidentally got on there, I forget what they were then going to say to their friends...
ReplyDeleteI agree Suzuki harmonicas are beautiful. I have a Suzuki Manji which is their really nice diatonic and it's a work of art. Cost me about $60. I tried *giving* it away to this guy who plays guitar trying to make a few tips, and he doesn't take used harmonicas... Another street bum I know, who I asked if he played/wanted any musical instrument, told me he's utterly un-talented at music or art or anything. Considering begging pays better than playing music, his is a wise choice to just sit and ask for handouts. Plus, he's got a dog and a cat, and when one dies or is stolen or runs off, he replaces it (dog or cat) and they bring him lots of tips. So I'll keep my beautiful Suzuki.
ReplyDeleteThe connection between "harmonica" and "street bum" is really strong though. Last night I watched a sort of documentary on the street bums in Vancouver, and the harmonicas almost outnumbered the bums.
Another factor is, if you're going to be a serious harmonica player like that fat guy who plays for Blues Traveler, you need a case of them, plus your taxi dispatcher mic and by the time's all said and done, you could as easily carry a flute, clarinet, or cornet. A trumpet or violin are only a little bit larger.
Also there are class connotations to what instrument you play. Guitar is bottom class up to middle-class. Violin marks you as a member of the bourgeois, and since parents want their kids to practice their violins, when they see you they love to hand the kid a dollar or a $5 and have them put it in the tip box to drive the point home. Trumpet or sax are at least middle-class, with sax making you "at least not some street bum with a guitar" and trumpet having connotations of the military and high school Band, which used to be available to everyone but now is only in the middle class and up high schools so if you play it unless you're a total bum otherwise (like my town's Rabbit Trumpet Guy) you're considered the "good" sort of person who has the discipline to practice the trumpet ... Dunno about the trombone or tuba etc but I'd think a good low brass player could clean up.
ReplyDeleteI should clarify: Rabbit Trumpet Guy has been playing in my area around the environs of Sharks games (local hockey team) and by all accounts has not improved. He always looks like he slept in a gutter - actually he sleeps in his van which most of the time does not run. It's possible to be very clean-cut when living in a vehicle, but he looks the stereotypical vehicle-dweller; needing a shave, a haircut, and a thorough bath. He plays the same 5-7 songs with little sense of rhythm, too-strong vibrato, and tons of little "ornaments" which I guess he thinks the public likes. In reality they only like his rabbit, which is what gets him tips - certainly not his signs, saying snarky things like "IF I DON'T GET TIPS I'LL HAVE TO EAT THE RABBIT".
ReplyDeleteHe'd fit right in in New Orleans and the next time I see him I'll have to suggest he consider it. But then, he was talking about going back up to the Pacific Northwest somewhere and that's about as likely as you seeing Massachusetts or wherever you're from again, or my going back to Hawaii.