Wednesday, January 29, 2020

Boom Box Tricycle Woes

Last night's busking was marred by the presence of one guy who was pulling a sound system behind him in a tricycle style bike.
He was not equipped as a pedicab, and the only purposes I could see for him standing in front of Lafit's and blasting his music would be that he was somehow performing some kind of side skeeze, not limited to, perhaps he makes the boom box tricycles and sells them, and was handing out his card, or he was trying to get people to stop and dance to his music for a few seconds, and he would thereafter panhandle them, or, the most far fetched theory; the management of Lafit's is a friend of the guy who works at the Quartermaster, whom I have had disputes with, over milk crates.
It is possible that he might have co-opted the guy to invite his buddy to show up with the sound stystem, maybe on nights when the piano player hadn't shown up, such as last night.
But, the guy looked middle eastern, sort of; skin maybe one shade darker than white, black hair, eyebrows and mustache, maybe Albanian.
He stood next to his rig, dialing up one of maybe a half dozen songs that he had in rotation, by artists such as Grand Master Flash, and his genre, on his phone then trying to play DJ?
He was there, blocking my tip jar in a sonic way for at least 45 minutes altogether (he made two separate visits).
I thought about asking him what he was trying to gain by parking his rig 50 feet from me and blasting music, just to satisfy my curiosity, but I wasn't sure I could have done it without betraying a certain territorial attitude over the block.
Surly the bar should eventually complain, since his music is bleeding into the place, where it competes with the piano guy in there. And, maybe on a night when there is actually a piano guy, they wouldn't have let him camp out for almost an hour there.
I drank a whole bottle of wine throughout the evening, with another small bottle at the Lily Pad. I actually became too drunk to execute a certain musical passage (not surprisingly I can't remember which one) for the first time in over 3 years, since the last time I drank (2015).

So, that means, just make an adjustment and back off. Like, tonight, I haven't had a sip yet, but am off to the store after I hit "publish."   

Tuesday, January 21, 2020

Paring Down

I've been circulating around my apartment, trying to take note of, and give attention to, everything that is conspiring to clutter the place up.

There are books that I have bought for 50 cents out of The Goodwill Store, based upon the hope that I might read them some day.

But, how long does a copy of "The Iliad" have to sit on my shelf collecting dust and contributing to the clutter, before I remove it from the place and donate it to the bookshelf in the "all purpose" room here at Sacred Heart?

The same goes for music that I am luke-warm about, except that CDs take up so little space that it is conceivable that I could have shelves holding 5,000 of them, even though one of them would be of some string quartet doing the music of Enya. I can't really stomach Enya doing the music of Enya.

But, some furniture, and the TVs that I could never get to work using a rabbit ear antenna, are going into the dumpster.

I especially want the music studio to be more sparse, with just the guitar on its stand in the middle of an otherwise almost empty room.

It is Tuesday, and we are in a bit of a cold snap here, with the temperatures going below 40 at night. I could probably go out and busk tonight, definitely tomorrow night, as there will be a warming trend, moving towards the weekend.

But, in the meantime, I am still drinking one bottle of wine per day, and I have been cracking open as many of the 400 books that I have, and reading at least a few paragraphs in random spots, something that led me to read almost all of "Walden," after choosing to do that to Henry David Thoreau's "Walden, and other writings."

Thursday, January 16, 2020

One Half Day At A Time

The Quartermaster; a gay owned store.


So, it probably shouldn't have surprised me that the staff there would find some reason to bar me from the place, sooner or later, for one reason (I'm straight) or another (I'm not gay).


I was glad to see Robert, working in there, when I pulled up there early Wednesday morning, around sun-up.

I had been drinking all day Tuesday, consuming two whole bottles of wine, and I was going out to get a third one. Two bottles seem to have that effect on me.


But, when I saw the white haired Robert behind the counter, and emboldened by the alcohol and ready to fight the bike delivery guy who single-handed-ly got me barred from the place, should he be there, and be confrontational in any way.

Robert has always been very nice to me. Maybe he was attracted to me in some way, since I am probably 25 years younger than him, and thus probably appear youthful to him.


He has always had nice things to say to me, and has even given me an energy drink, free of charge, on a couple occasions, telling me that I was out there, working hard and playing music, and that I had sounded good to him the times he had gone by me in the back of a pedicab.


He greeted me warmly enough: "Oh, I don't usually see you at this hour!" but then went on to inform me that he had been told not to let me in the store, and that "you need to leave."

Then, the voice of Larry, another bike delivery guy, sounded, as he approached from the back of the store: "Yeah, he's not allowed here..."

This was probably meant to bolster him, as it is probably against Robert's nature to be "authoritarian."


But, the result was that I kind of had an "et tu Brute?" moment, learning that even dear old, kind and sweet, wouldn't hurt a fly, Robert was a party to me being barred.

He is the type of guy that, if Larry had been out on a delivery, would have probably told me to hurry up and get what I needed before Larry came back. He would probably be apologetic about my being barred, telling me the decision came from above him, or whatever.

It reminded me of how Leslie Thompson got barred from the same place (very inconveniently for him, since he lived about 200 paces away for the store) just for making "an anti-gay comment."


I made the comment: "I'm not gay," to Michelle after about the second time that Jacob and I went in there after busking.

Jacob dresses and acts in an ambiguous way, somewhere between masculine and feminine, but leaning enough towards the latter to be a magnet for gays. The fact that we play in between the gay section of the Quarter and the residential part, this causes a lot of them to stop to "listen" to us, or rather to focus all their attention on Jacob.


The Quartermaster people have the personality quirks that I have found to be prevalent in gays.

Larry is moody and sulky, and used to talk to me about football, but then just went totally silent one day, and began to do things like get up and disappear into the back of the store at the sight of me riding up on my bike.


At first I thought that this was because I was usually pretty manic, after having busked and then consumed an energy drink and smoked a little more weed, preparing to go back to the spot and play longer.

I would ramble a bit, but would at least catch myself doing so and stop, before I became annoying to a non stoned person who just isn't going to appreciate whatever caprice of the stoned imagination I was on.


But, one never knows what might be a peeve to a gay person. They are usually very opinionated on trivial things. I met a young brown skinned gay guy years ago, who informed me that he absolutely had to have "my Jeopardy" every morning, and that he became very upset for the rest of the day if he didn't see it, and that I wouldn't want to be around him if he didn't get his Jeopardy one morning, etc.

I remember thinking "Whatever..."

Then there was Scott, the manager of a Dominos Pizza place where I worked, who was gay, and who once hid tiny pieces of mushrooms under the cheese of a pizza sent to one particular lady, who had asked him if he would do her the favor of rinsing the pizza cutter off before cutting her pie, just in case the pizza cut with it before hers had mushrooms on it; so allergic was she to them.

Scott "I just want to see if she is full of shit" Robare, snickered snickered as he pulverized mushrooms and hid them under the cheese.


The lady called back to ask Scott if he was sure that he rinsed the blade of the cutter off, because she had gotten very ill after eating the pizza. 99% of the gays I know have some kind of similar spirit in them.

The ability to smile in a person's face and be "nicer" in response to conflict, while plotting against them was another of Scott's traits.

He would say things like, "The guy came in and was being a jerk, but I just apologized profusely, told him that we had made a mistake and were sorry, and then I gave him a coupon for a free pizza, and then asked him if there was anything else we could do for him, and I wound up giving him a second coupon. I know how to be 'nicer' in order to handle people like that; it throws them off because they are looking for a fight..."

Then Scott told me that he had planned to do something to the guy's free pizzas when he ordered them. Of course he was going to; don't let the smile fool you; maybe the guy is allergic to mushrooms, too...


I have blogged about the incident when I was accosted by the delivery guy other than Larry about taking a milk crate to sit on while I play.

He had rudely torn the crate from my grasp.

He said something that was basically bullshit, about the crates being worth something and me being a "thief" for taking (borrowing) them.

One random day, that one guy got an attitude over the thing.

I was almost ready to fight the guy, who looked surprised to see me taking my guitar and backpack off as if prepared to do so.

I guess he had me pegged as the sensitive artist type who wouldn't hurt a fly -like how many guy's has Art Garfunkel punched out in his life?.

I went and got my third bottle of wine at another store and then returned to the Quartermaster where I sat and drank it, and was seriously thinking about picking up one of the milk crates and coming down on Larry's head with it as hard as I could swing it, while he sat there staring at his phone (something that seems to occupy all of his free time). I would probably pick up the phone from where it came to rest after he dropped it, and before he ran away, if he was still conscious...

The next day I woke up very hung over and glad that I hadn't done that; and decided to quit drinking.

Today would be day one; except, as soon as I get to the end of this sentence and hit "publish," I am going to run for some brandy, I think.

"One half day at a time" is the AA saying, isn't it??

Monday, January 13, 2020

Clemson Tiger Paw Prints

The first dollar to go into the tip basket at the start of any night is worth more like 2 dollars because of the added value it has in dispelling any fear of not making anything at all.

And, I have found that there is a correlation between how long it takes the first tip to come, and the eventual total amount of them.

There have been nights when I have gotten a tip thrown in my basket before I had even tuned up and started playing. This is an indication of people wanting to support buskers in general, regardless of the musical ability of the person.

But, the first dollar to go into the hat is an icebreaker.

Skeezer Steals My Boat

  • 19 Dollar Thursday
  • 24 Dollar Friday
  • 46 Dollar Saturday
  • 96 Dollar Sunday
Or, would "LAME" have been more apropos?

Well, I guess I have picked up the busking a bit, having put in about 8 hours over the past 4 days, for a total of $175. Equal to $21.88 per hour.

Blog Posts Piling Up

There has to be a way for me to distill the entire past week into a blog post.

The main theme would have to be the fact that I have started drinking again.
Only red wine, and only to the bottom of the label of the bottle.
This is the point that I had always put the cork back in the bottle over the 20 odd years that I had that same amount of wine with my meals every night.
Any further drinking would put me over a certain threshold of being able to play music at my "highest level."

There are always trade-offs involved in being an addict.

The red wine pairs so well with the much healthier diet that I had gotten away from, that the return to eating that way is a consolation prize for being a drinker again.

Comment Commentary

First, no one reads these blogs. Secondly, Daniel's hardly The Voice Of New Orleans. Nobody cares what he thinks or writes about etc.-Alex In California


Last night, Jacob and I were visited by a guy named John, and another guy whom John said was his son, although, they both looked the same age.

They said they had found and read this blog, and seemed to know more about Jacob than Jacob seemed to be comfortable with.

They had gotten the impression that Jake was "the villain" of the blog, so to speak, and were surprised to see him busking with me.
A tongue-in-cheek self congratulation

But, then they asked him about his ukulele playing, leading us to believe that they had confused Jacob with Alex in California (who is perhaps the real villain of the blog).

It's a mystery, how Alex could "just know" that nobody reads the blog, and furthermore, that it is because "nobody" cares what I think or say...

Maybe when his "Ukes Make Me Puke" blog earns the distinction of being one of the "top 15 lifestyle blogs of Hawaii," then he will be in a position to judge...

Until then, maybe he should stick to playing his uke, picking up sea shells and doing whatever the hell he wants to do. LOL!! 

Friday, January 3, 2020

The Revese of National Politics

  • Radical Blogging Technique Thought Of
  • Out Of The Blue Parcel Arrives From Hertfordshire
  • A Busy Weekend In New Orleans

"Cabbage and Wine," done on the GIMP editor using a bunch of just filters
One of the things about the format of the Blogger blogs that I always thought worth considering is the fact that, when a visitor goes to the blog, he gets the most recently posted post in his face; kind of like that day's newspaper.

If you hadn't looked on your front porch for a whole week (because you were in your pajamas and behind your computer and only venturing to the bathroom and kitchen and your bed) then, the paperboy might have organized the unpicked up ones that he threw there the previous day, along with that day's fresh paper, into a pile, placing the most recent one at the top. And that is the headline that would be in your face when you eventually check your porch.

And so, with blogger, it is like this.

I always thought it would be better if the blog was laid out horizontally, so that, you would click an arrow on the right to go to the next page; reflecting the right-to-left reading style that most of us* are accustomed to.

*note to self: Look up whatever cultures wrote and read from right to left, and see to what degree they are all on the verge of becoming extinct.
Are there websites where everything is written from right to left, maybe hosted on some server in Israel?

Using my template, the blog would basically bring the visitor to the last page that she read, the last time she visited. The arrow on the right could be greyed out if there is nothing new.

This would eliminate the need for the visitor who hasn't looked on his porch for a whole week, to scroll downward to see older posts; which would eliminate spoilers.

I would want my readers to land on the next post that they haven't read, even if it is a month old.

I would want them to see "Thinking About Buying A Boat," and to follow along on the adventure and set sail with me in their imaginations, without already having glimpsed: "Skeezer Steals My Boat" because of where their browser landed them.

That would take some of the wind out of their sails and they would be "shaking their heads" as they read about how much I was enjoying my boat, and what peace and joy I had found out on Lake Pontchartrain, because they would have gained the omnipotent viewpoint. (I know; I could have just said "because of spoilers")

So, I think my blog design would be for the top pages of each story to be laid out from left to right, with the one in the middle being that last one that the visitor looked at, then time would scroll forward to the right, and backward to the left -the reverse of national politics, if you will...
 

Thursday, January 2, 2020

Chapter 3

Chapter 3: Americana Life Continued

After I moved into the trailer on lot #60 at Americana Mobile Home Park, in October of 1996, and started to settle in, the property began to undergo a gradual metamorphosis.

I had put a double mattress on the floor of the bedroom. This is where I had been laying, shortly after my arrival, when it kind of hit home that I had bought, basically an empty trailer.

Initially, the hidden costs of living there were eating up all but about 65 dollars a month of my income.

It was hard not to buy things like can openers, and pans to cook stuff in, when I came across them. Yard sales that I encountered on Saturday mornings took on new shades of meaning to me, as I now had a place to put anything that I might see there.

And there was the music equipment, which I accumulated one pawn shop visit at a time until I had a full-fledged 4 track cassette recording studio, that I could return to after a grueling night of pizza delivery.

John Abel, the manager of the Dominos where I worked in Mandarin, became more exacting and demanding of me, once he knew that I had a "house payment" to make each month. This is, I guess, typical of the capitalist culture that we are part of. The ink hadn't yet dried on the contract that I had signed to rent-to-own my place before John started to assert that I needed to stop showing up a few minutes late, now and then, for my shift, etc., etc....


A dresser with a mirror soon joined the mattress.

I would pull up to lot #60 sometime around 12:30 AM, after having turned my car stereo down, upon entering the park. Sitting in my driveway to listen to the last part of a song drew the ire of one of my close neighbors, who had basically come out in his pajamas to inform me that the notes that Phil Lesh was playng on his bass were coming "right through the walls" of his place.
Other than that, he said that he often could hear me playing the electric guitar, and that it had sounded good. His would be the place where the great firework debacle would take place, once the 4th of July rolled around.
This would be the neighbor to the immediate south of me, who would occasionally be seen barbecuing hot dags and hamburgers in his driveway, surrounded by a contingent of the children of Americana -the more malnourished ones, like Royce- who would be skeezing a burger or two off the guy.
In his driveway was the tell-tale pickup truck, new and shiny, and a symbol of his status as a guy who worked, and made pretty good money, but who had learned how to live slightly below his means, thus, hot dogs and hamburgers and no filet de bœuf aromas emanated from his grill.

This was business as usual in the park, where the children were quick to notice, and then pounce upon any opportunity that arose within the quarter mile oval of the park.

My neighbor was pretty secure in the fact that his wife stayed home during the day, and he had become entrenched enough in the park so that he was wired into the network of those similarly invested there.

This was a double-edged sword, the social network.


He had an alarm system installed, and had dead-bolt locks on all of his doors, and was smart enough to offer burgers off his grill to the urchins of the park, but, to not ever have let one of them inside unchaperoned, to fill a glass with water out of the sink, or something.
 

Getting out of my Corolla, I would walk to my front door, blinded by the light of the bare bulb hanging above it, and fending off moths as I fumbled to put the key in the lock.

This bright light made it so anyone who might think of prying the door open with a butter knife, would have to do so while lit up like a specimen on a microscopic slide. The back door was a different story, but that one had already had a deadbolt lock installed on it. I wondered why...

I would dig into whatever had been slow cooking in the crock pot the previous 10 hours, while I worked.
The crock pot had been a great investment of about 25 bucks.

It was usually a variant of what I called: "the stew of life" -a recipe which started out as being potatoes, carrots, corn, onions, cabbage, cauliflower, olive oil, salt, pepper., garlic, a splash of vinegar, and a rotation of guest vegetables, from radishes to turnips, endive to kohlrabi. The stew of life.

I could have brought pizza, wings and bread sticks home with me for free out of the Dominos, lathered in their special garlic sauce comprised of hydrogenated soybean oil  and artificial color, but, no, I could afford the stew of life.

Often, when I was helping myself to the stew, anticipating the opening theme of the Letterman show coming from my 5" black and white TV, there would come a knock at my back door, and it would be Shauna.

These times, she would be drunk.




Otherwise, I would smoke a joint and watch Letterman on my 5" black and white TV.

The musical guests would close out that show, often being clipped off at the end, when time had run out...
This would give me a grain of inspiration.
I always kind of had it in the back of my mind that I would measure success by one day playing on the Letterman show.
I would put on my headphones and flip a switch and be instantly transported to an auditorium, where the drum machine and the guitar and the vocals were perfectly mixed and blended and where, if you closed your eyes, you might be on stage at the Letterman show.


At around 10:30 on a typical Saturday morning, would come the tapping at my back door that I would soon come to recognize as that of 15 year old Shauna.

I would open it to see her pretty, smiling face.
The smile said: "You know what I'm here for."


I would tell myself that, given the trouble that she had gotten herself into at the other trailer park, and her subsequent restriction to Americana, it was the much lesser of evils for her to smoke a joint with me, and then return to the large screen TV with BET on it, than what might befall her if she had to sneak through the woods to the other trailer park. I was a guardian, in that sense. A guardian with weed.


I felt like I was doing my part to keep an eye on her, in that sense.
By allowing her and her cousin Angie (age 13) to hang out at my place, keep their malt liquor cold, and to smoke their weed, I was sort of babysitting them.


Even though they were out of sight of their parents, the latter could pretty much figure out where they were. A lot of times they could verify their presence by listening for the sounds of their voices, rapping through my system.


Since my first contact with them, when the jar of coins had been stolen, relationships had improved between me and the rest of the park.

Having told the blond haired stripper that I was indeed renting to own the place helped, and kind of rooted me to the park. 



This change was no doubt spearheaded by Shauna who, as the eldest Goetzinger, and de facto queen of the trailer park, was also wise enough to see the merits of my air conditioned place, where live rock music was played, and where a refrigerator could maintain the temperature of any assortment of flavored malt liquors in neon colors, and where pot could be smoked out of sight.


Soon, I would start to make sure that my refrigerator was stocked with these vital liquids, especially on the weekends.
And Shauna would gradually begin to shed the very baggy clothing that I first saw her walking around in, after I first moved in, for more form fitting things like velvet shirts with gracefully plunging necklines, and adorning herself with little pieces of jewelry around her neck and wrists.
It was as if it occasioned a change of season that was reflected in her attire, when, after I had first moved in, and had only had the slight contact with them of the jar of coins being stolen, that she would walk past my place, her face mostly hidden under a hoodie and her body draped in baggy hip hop style, and cast a wary glance at my place.


But, the wonders of a trailer with drum machines thumping and microphones set up, ready to be rapped into, where the owner of which smoked weed and drank wine, but usually had neon colored malt liquors in the refrigerator, soon worked to pique the girl's curiosity.

I didn't have enough towels nor curtains for the windows that didn't have them, after I moved in, so I bought beach towels in bright colors, and put them to the dual task of being curtains for my windows, and of being bath towels.
The psychedelic colors that had attracted me for this purpose, also happened to be depictions of certain things like cartoon characters from Disney movies that I knew nothing about.
This meant that I surely had unwittingly placed some in inexplicable locations.
Somehow Princess Jasmine, from the Aladdin movie, in my bedroom window elicited a visit from the mother of nine year old Vanessa, who had stopped at my front door one evening when I had it open, to inquire about it, and my other curtains.

These gave the trailer a very Partridge Family bus sort of vibe, especially when the lights were on inside at night.
I had already been visited by Vanessa and Britney (the coin jar heist-ess) who had let themselves in through my open front door and began to explore the place, while I was laying on my bare mattress in my room with the Jasmine curtain.

They seemed to find favorable the music equipment, the mice in the tank, but scolded me over the placement of Jasmine over the bedroom window. "He's in love with a cartoon!" exclaimed Britney.
The girls had appeared a little bit leery of me, with one of them always lingering by the open front door, as if prepared to make a dash for safety, and to get help for the other, if the need arose.

"Try not to let the mice get away," I had said, after answering the "Hello?" that they had informed me of their presence.

When I heard them encroaching upon the hallway the led to my room, having apparently been emboldened by what they had seen of my place to that point, I had to scramble to shove a few porn magazines under the mattress, before the brave and skeptical looking face of Britney (blond haired, blue eyed with the German characteristics that her last name might portend) appeared in the door.
Soon, Vanessa had joined her, though still within sight of the open front door.

"He doesn't even have a real bed!" said the former.

Vanessa was the daughter of a kind of heavy-set Latina looking woman, and her live-in boyfriend, Wayne. Wayne just might have been whomever apparently had jumped up and down on my bedroom roof, leaving the creases in the ceiling.

After I sat up and began answering their rapid-fire questions as fast as I could about every little thing in my room that, until that point, I had hardly given any thought to, and tried to explain to their satisfaction why I lived there by myself and that, no, I didn't have a girlfriend and, after being told by them that the obvious reason was that I didn't even have a TV (and so how could I vegetate with any kind of girlfriend on my couch?) and, after receiving a stern lecture about the inappropriateness of having Jasmine in that particular window, Britney was driven by some kind of innate curiosity and insight to lift up the corner of my mattress, discover, and procure one of the magazines, which caused her to draw in a breath and cast an accusing look my way; whereupon both girls made a frantic dash towards the open door.
Seeing that they hadn't been pursued, though, they soon crept their way back towards my room.
"You weren't supposed to see those!," I made sure to proclaim, given that I was pretty sure that I would be quoted as much as possible during the debriefing that these scouts would be giving to the rest of the children of Americana, as well as to the parents.
By that evening, a detailed visual of the inside of my trailer would have been drawn throughout the park, along with details about my relationship status, my pet snake, and now, I thought with some dread, my fixation with obese women.

As I stammered to 9 year old Britney and her 10 year old friend, I had gotten a whole box of such magazines, all at once, from the guy who ran the liquor store next to the Dominos that I worked out of. I had taken the whole lot of them.


The guy, who for some reason, had decided to discontinue selling porn magazines (while continuing to sell alcohol, gambling tickets, sugary candy and tobacco, along with glass pot pipes) happened to have caught me at the right time, and 25 bucks had been exchanged for the box, which had been quickly, and as covertly as possible, shoved into the trunk of my car.

About a dollar a magazine.
I would spend 15 bucks every month or so, on the latest issue of Hustler Barely Legal, and so that is probably what prompted him to offer me the thing.
If T.C. would have been manager at that time, he might have traded a couple large pies along with chicken wings for it.


It wasn't until I had gotten home and began to pull the magazines out of the box that I became aware of what a sordid variety of titles it held.

I was shocked to find gay publications. I remember blushing and looking around my trailer to make sure nobody was watching me, at the sight of magazines, such as "Adam" coming out of the closet, er, I mean box.

I suppose that was one of life's lessons presenting itself to me. Why would I blush when I was the only person there, and why would I feel like God, Whom Bette Midler informs us is "watching us, from a distance," would not only be doing that at that moment, but would be staring really hard.

I pictured all of the kids I went to high school with as suddenly having the means to Google anything, and them searching: "Where is Daniel now?" and then having their screens zoom in just as I am unpacking the previous month's edition of "Bareback" magazine.

So, I stammered my defense to Britney and Vanessa, as if the eyes and ears of the whole trailer park were tuned to me, because, in a sense they were.
"I'm throwing these ones away. I'm not gay, and I don't like obese black "Hefty Mamas" (not that I have anything against them...but...)"
And the legend grew.

Most of these, I tossed to the floor, planning upon getting rid of and, in the case of the gay ones, getting rid of far away from my own trash can. I and that is how they wound up being hastily swept under the bed at the sound of the little girls' approach.

And, then there was Britney, mouth agape as she threw an appalled expression alternately between the cover of the magazine, and my face.


I switched Jasmine to the living room (back side) and swapped

The walls were hung with my drawings and poetry, much as they are today.

Add to that an aquarium housing a live reptile, to wit an eastern chain king snake, along with a separate enclosure in which mice were bred to feed the snake, and lot #60 had suddenly become the Neverland Ranch of Americana.
Going over to Daniel's to take the mice out of the cage and play with them became a popular pass time for 9 year old Britney and her friend, Vanessa, since the early morning hours often had me opening the doors of the place to let it breath, and I might still be sleeping off the previous night's session, when, unbeknownst to me, mice were being freed from cages and made to race or do other tricks in my living room.

There was kind of an understanding in the park that trailers could be broken into and stuff stolen from, but, often it is more advantageous for that element to preserve a persons environment, rather than jeopardize having such a playground. And so, nothing came up missing (except, disconcertingly an occasional mouse) and I continued to let the kids of the park hang out on weekend days.

That was the year of the fourth of July fireworks spectacle.

And soon, the tapping at the back door at 11 AM on a typical Saturday morning commenced.
 would wonder if Shauna actually had her fingers crossed that I would "decidfe" to smoke a joint with her on such occasions.
Or if she would have rightly intuited that I would have found it nearly impossible to form the word "no" through lips that were three feet from hers.

"Come in, hurry up!"

She didn't want to be caught entering the trailer of the new guy in the park with the cartoon windows who stayed up half the night playing his guitar. It could only mean that she was up to no good.

Stirrings, Musings And The Quest For The Cure For Restless Seeking

I sit here and I type.
I have the soundtrack for the movie "Grease," on my CD player, as I do so.
This brings back memories of my 15th year, a year during which almost every other kid in my high school went and saw the movie "Grease."

I guess I already wasn't into movies at that stage of my life. I always felt that I would rather go out and try to live out my own 2 hour adventure instead of sitting in a theater and being "transported" into some other person's fantasy.

But, the music, although done by the "top" professionals of the day, falls well short of replicating the 1950's type stuff that it seeks to imitate, at least compared to such gems as Meatloaf's "Bat Out of Hell" album that turns rock and roll into an art form, with textbook rock piano, guitar, drums, vocals, and especially lyrics.

The Saturday Night Fever soundtrack is even a better listen than the Grease soundtrack. The theme song to the "Happy Days" TV show is better than almost everything on the Grease soundtrack, with the possible exception of "Hopelessly Devoted To You," sung by Olivia Newton John, and only added to the movie at the last minute, it won the only Oscar for the film....

But, a 28 year old Olivia cast as a high school girl!?


But, I snapped up the CD for one dollar at the Goodwill, while grabbing Mussorgsky's "Pictures At An Exhibition" for another buck. I wonder which disc I will still want to listen to a year from now.

It is Thursday, the 2nd day of 2020.

My drinking, which resumed with the ill-fated decision to drink beer on Halloween night (thinking that it would warm me up on that cold night, and that, perhaps absolute abstinence from alcohol might not be the penultimate diet for health) and which, 2 weeks later led to bottles of red wine being consumed with evening meals, such as I had done all through the 1990's -a time when I enjoyed vibrant health, finally reached a critical point last night.

I was coming back from the store and wound up getting to the building just as Jacob was arriving for what was planned to be a day of recording music at his house (because his guardian, Bob, was away for the holiday) and then going out to busk, on New Year's Eve.

There was a skeezer of some sort, who had a backpack containing bottles of Jim Beam bourbon, which he was selling for 10 bucks each; less than half the price charged by whatever store he most likely shoplifted them from.

Not one to be able to resist a great deal, I bought a bottle off him.

This led to Jacob and I going over to his house and recording one of our best sessions ever, but then returning to my place where, only the next day did I learn that I had annoyed him by putting on a Grateful Dead recording and "noodling" along to it, when he was chomping at the bit to go out and busk.

By the time we got out there, I was almost half way into the bottle and some comment he made made me basically kick him off the spot "I've been playing here for 8 years by myself, and I wouldn't mind going back to that arrangement now," or some other Jim Beam inspired words, I said.

Jake was mad because I sold the rest of our weed for 10 bucks to a couple of tourists who happened along and happened to mention that they were looking for some.

I knew that I could run to Canal Street and replace it using only 5 of the 10 bucks that they gave me (us) but Jacob became so upset about the prospect of playing without being high, that it made me feel like he was going to mope and drag the energy level down, and it also made me come face to face with my failure to have gotten to a point where I could go out and play using only a jug of spring water to keep me hydrated and going.

Jacob has always been a "drugs first" type of person.

I met him at a kratom bar, for starters.

The first time we ever scheduled a jam at his house (when his guardian was away another time) we wound up driving around with he and his friends while they frantically texted and skyped away on their phones, trying to find acid.
Once the acid was procured, then, it was on to the jam.

This made for some discomfort for me, as I was being introduced to new people and situations, while tripping on LSD. This is a double edged sword, as it can make great interactions greater, but it can also amplify awkwardness.

And so it came to pass that, even though I spoke with Jacob about my goal of being able to go out and busk without the crutch of a tune up joint or other drug, it seemed like the very next day, he was texting me with things like "Trying to get some weed for busking tonight..."

And, then to be sitting there with him shaking his head and basically saying that he didn't really feel like playing, since there was nothing to get high on, I guess that triggered the reaction in me to kick him off the Lilly Pad.

I knew that I could go and replace the weed, and turn a profit in the bargain, if he were to just hold down the spot for 15 minutes while I went and did so, but I guess I was offended by his anger at me, as if I had done something against him by selling the weed. So, I never proposed that, but just told him that I wanted my spot back, see you later, type of thing.

But, not a half hour after he left, and with the street still packed with tourists, the brunt of the bottle hit me and I was too drunk to play, after having made just 6 more dollars.

But, after getting a text from him the next morning that detailed the extent to which I had inconvenienced him, who had to ride through the packed Quarter, alone, on his bike, which he then was not allowed to leave in the Sacred Heart lobby, due to one particular guard who was working, I fired off an apology, being sober, and realizing that I could have defused the situation in a much better way than telling him to leave.

In a way, I thought I was practicing "tough love" by making him have to ride home by himself, unchaperoned, and hoped that it might help him over his phobia of doing so.

He is very afraid of death and had heard that a lot of people are shot in the Quarter during the New Year's Eve fireworks, because they mask the sounds of the gunfire.

I was hoping that he might run into someone who would notice the bass guitar on his back and invite him to party and play the bass (and that they might even have an awesome layout of recreational drugs to make it a truly memorable night) and that it might help him with his "social anxiety," or whatever it is...

But, not being a hypocrite and, having had a bowl of weed to tune up with, ritualistically, for probably the past 3 years at the Lilly Pad, I was in no position to throw stones.

Some people seem to hold alcohol in special contempt, probably based upon childhood experiences with alcoholic parents and such. There aren't a lot of stories bandied about about how dad would smoke a fat joint and then start beating on the wife, or wind up waking up in a gutter because of it.

So, the "Grease" soundtrack kind of sucks. Maybe it's just that grease is not the way that I'm feeling right now.

They used to put grease in their hair and then grease up their cars, and I guess that was the most grand metaphor of that movie. All I envision is my fellow high school freshmen who actually went and saw the movie at least once and who, would hit that dance floor with relish and mimic whatever dances they learned from watching the flick, and I remember my disgust over how they were like sheep in that sense, with Hollywood as the shepherd. So ephemeral; they were living in their time, doing the dance of the day; like sheep.


I'm not sure I agree that "grease" is the word. I still think "the bird" is the word, in my opinion...

Earlier this evening, I put more data on my phone so I can use the hot spot to post this.

I know I have cried wolf one too many times already, but I will once again say that, soon I will post some music here that will be better than any posted before...