Friday A Day Of Observance

• The Dilapidation Of The Busking Enterprise

I was at the Lilly Pad busking earlier.

One of the draw holes on my Marine Band harmonica doesn't sound, and so I was doing my best to play around that note (as well as the other neighboring tones that that reed can be bent to) all night, but knowing that it was hindering me and denigrating the quality of the music.

I had been looking at the damage on my guitar, also.

A damaged spot that had been there since I got the thing had started to spread, as more of the hardtop has started to separate from the body, so that I had to use some Gorilla Tape to keep it from getting worse.

Then, as I was getting ready to leave, I took note of the condition of my gig bag, which has to be zipped closed in only one direction because the zipper is starting to mess up.

Neglect, is the word.

It carries over into the dereliction of having added a couple hundred songs to my repertoire, and so I had just finished playing the same 12 that I seem to do every night.

And, into the dereliction in acquiring a little battery powered amplifier, a little trailer to pull the stuff behind me on the bike, etc.
And irresponsibility when it comes to setting aside money for contingencies like, the battery in the guitar tuner dying -oh, did I mention that?

At least I am aware of the problem, that's the first step.

With Lilly's recent absence, and the chance that it means that she moved (and would have told me of her plans, had I not been almost as absent from her stoop in the recent past) and that I no longer have a patron in the neighborhood.

I have mixed feeling about that.

It might just be time for me to become amplified, and maybe that is the lesson to be learned from everything that has been happening at the Lilly Pad.
And, then there is the idea of quitting busking; maybe trying to get a time slot in some pub where, on one Friday night, I can make a weeks worth of Lilly Pad money...
 

Seasoned Lentils During The Lental Season

• Fast For Lent
• 3 Days Sober*

* Early Monday morning when I was returning from busking and was having the chills, as if I was coming down with something, there was a half pint bottle of Crown Royal whiskey, sitting on the sidewalk near, but not in, a trash receptacle. It was half full.

I'm not sure if I had already started aspirin therapy at that point, or if fever was starting to disorient me. But, I grabbed the whiskey, and wound up slugging it down, thinking of those old Western movies where they would always give a guy plenty of whiskey before removing a bullet from him without the help of anesthesia.

I think the comparison is valid, I was fighting the cold, and, don't drinking and fighting go hand in hand?

I will say that, like one other time when I broke a 20 something day stretch of sobriety after finding an unopened bottle of Chivas Regal, the logic here was the same. I guess I just love a bargain; even more than sobriety.

It's hard to resist something that you normally can't afford; it feels like it's a rare opportunity.

But, maybe I did need the alcohol as a cough suppressant, sleep aid, and to give me bravado in my fight against the flu, because the whiskey didn't trigger any cravings for any more; it just went by like water under a bridge...

So, technically, the 14 days sober has been reset to 3...  

Lent Comes Fast

Having come down with that 24 hour flu that kind of overlapped Monday into Fat Tuesday, it seemed almost ordained that I begin a fast.

It is possible that, having laid down in my fevered state with nothing but apple juice, spring water and aspirin by my bedside, I was able to recover so quickly from the thing.

The detoxifying process went hand and hand with the flushing of mucous out of my system, of which there wasn't much and the whitening of the tongue, ditto and other symptoms of the detoxification process.

After 2 days of fasting thus, I can already feel some of the "chronic" tension going out of my neck. And it's hard to hold negative thoughts in my head; I can let them go before I "feel" any emotions pursuant to them.

For another thing, I ran out of food.

Except for lentils.

Somehow, we get plenty of lentils here, with bags of them being placed on a table in the lobby which is kind of the "help yourself" table.
I usually grab the lentils after they have sat there a couple days with no bites on them.

Those panhandlers who live here and who work the nearby corners with their "hungry, please help" signs will walk right past the lentils and rice and such which gets thrown on that table. You alms makers will have to do better than that for them. When they say "hungry" they mean at least a double bacon and cheese combo from Wendy's, not no beans and rice or Ramen noodles; they are entitled to more than that, I suppose they think.
New Orleans, where the bums are spoiled.

 
But, after making 43 bucks on Sunday night, and spending it on wi-fi data, kratom, a tube for the bike, and food for Harold the cat, I woke up Monday feeling like I was coming down with something.

The aspirin and apple juice and spring water just about wiped me out of money by the time I found myself unable to "answer the bell" to go out and play more.

But, as I spent the next couple days on that juice cleanse, I became content to busy myself with nothing more than the fast.

I, as usual, began to clean the apartment. By the third day of a fast, the sense of smell becomes acute (most likely a "survival" mechanism, to help the body smell out food, I guess).

And, maybe the person wants his outer environment to be a reflection of his inner cleanliness. Whatever the reason, I began to clean the kitchen, to include sliding the refrigerator and the range out in order to sweep and mop underneath them, before disassembling each enough to clean between the cracks, to include soaking then scrubbing the stainless steel burner plates, etc.

I also made a trip to the Sacred Heart bookshelf, where I deposited about a half dozen books that I have read.
I had been keeping them in an attempt to clutter up my place, in order to muffle some of the reverberation that is detrimental to the recording of music.

Now, I prefer putting the sensitivity of the microphone very low, so that the reverberation doesn't even cross the threshold of the noise gate, and then to put the microphone inches from the guitar amplifier or from my mouth, if I'm singing. That pushes background noise further into the background, and is probably better than trying to accomplish the same thing by cramming the place so full of sound dampening materials that I can hardly get around without tripping over things...I mean, what, am I going to start a stuffed animal collection?!

The Search For Lilly

It finally dawned upon me to ask the staff at Rouses Market in the French Quarter, if they had seen Lilly and/or her daughters.
Treva said that she hadn't seen them in a while.
This is in line with what I had feared.
It has probably been about 5 weeks since I last saw the Lilly mobile (a black Lincoln Navigator) parked anywhere around the house.

It makes me feel sick to think that she might be gone.

And, so, I will leave here to go look for Lilly using social media and the names of her daughters, etc....

Back From That

I was unable to locate either Chantilly or Angelique by entering the city and their first names in Facebook.

That brings me to a dead end.

Now, the only thing I can think of is to text her again, but to send an additional one using the "225"

The Flu, Or Something

So, I woke up this morning with kind of a chill in my bones of the type that a lot of times signals the onset of a flu, or something.

I decided to put $10 on my phone's data, giving me 2 more gigabytes to play with.

A little experimentation has shown that updating this blog will chew up about 1.2% of that. I am not sure if this varies due to the length of a post, but .

I also learned that going to the MusiciansFriend website and just browsing harmonicas used a trivial amount of data, but watching 20 minutes of a Youtube video (of Kobe Bryant's last high school game, of all things) seemed to be the nail in the coffin of the data that I had been so miserly over, up until then.

 As a man who had just put $32 on his green card, I hopped on my bike at around 9:25 PM. It was raining enough so that busking in it would have been limited.

I went to the corner and got a bottle of aspirin for $1 (Family Dollar brand) and a Monster Energy drink to wash 5 of them down with, and then proceeded to race towards The Herb Shop in the French Quarter.
I had basically 29 minutes to get there, but wasn't absolutely sure of how long it would take me to get there.
The night before, my trip had taken me 35 minutes, according to the "Jesus" clock at Royal and Orleans Streets.

But, that had included a detour down Canal Street, interrupted by stops to pick up sniped cigarettes, loose change, and bottled water and another interlope upon the alley behind the Hotel Monteleone for more tobacco, and then a full fledged stop at Rouses Market to purchase a sugar free Rock Star energy drink.

This time, I made it there before they closed.

Just before 10 PM, the rain stopped. I could have gotten on my bike when I got home and turned right back around to go out there, but, I didn't, based upon the flu-like symptoms that have me doing aspirin (and kratom, why not?) and trying to take it easy.

I hope that it is "starve" whatever the hell I have, and not "feed" it, because I am in a great position to starve any and all viruses, having shunned the purchases of such things as coconut milk, peanut butter, mixed frozen berries, and yogurt, because I had just begun sipping on the kratom and Monster concoction, which I knew was going to make me nauseous, but nauseous in a good way.

I was still reeling from how fast the 43 bucks that I had made the previous night had evaporated to where I had about 8 bucks left to spend.

I have a funny feeling that Lilly's phone number was prefixed with "225," now that I think of it, for New Jersey (I guess that's where she originally got her phone...) and not the 205 that I might have mistakenly entered after I did a factory reset on the government phone to rid it of malware...
 

So, then, I stop at Rouses Market for a gallon of water and a banana, before heading back to the apartment, thinking that I might try to go back out, still, at that point.

All I can say is that my next chance will be tomorrow afternoon, during Fat Tuesday.
 
Stroke Of Genius?

Ok, this is a long shot, but what if I start going to the pages of businesses in the Quarter that I have seen Lilly and the girls at?

Maybe they "liked" the Rouses Market on the corner of St. Peter and Royal Streets, for their ice cream once.
Or maybe one of the girls was a "friend" of a restaurant or clothing store where I had ever seen them at?

I guess I am off to do that....

Perhaps, if I search real estate listings on Bourbon Street, maybe even searching her address explicitly, then I might be led to an agent's page, where maybe the owner is the person it is listed by; then I could get her, or her ex husband's name...

I know that Lilly really liked the "krewe" of the "muses," and I once even overheard her expressing a strong desire to "see the muses" that particular year.
So, maybe she is a friend of the muses. Or the Audobon Aquarium...

So, I guess I'm off to do a little of that...it shouldn't be hard to find Lillian, Chantilly and Angelique, especially since they should all be cross referenced to each other, all part of the Facebook family...

Goose Egg

Nothing. No list of "friends" of the little store on Royal Street. No list of friends of The Muses; nothing.

The next step would be to accost anyone whom I see going in and out of the house and perhaps if they have their landlady's phone number, they would at least verify it; seeing as though I already have the last 4 digits correct...

43 Dollar Early Monday Morning

There is a steadiness to the money, at least. With the numbers, and types, of tourists walking through the 9 and 10 hundred blocks of Bourbon Street, the tips seem to have trickled in at around $13 an hour.

I just got back from making 43 bucks playing from about 12:50 AM, until about 4 AM.

But, I couldn't play at the Lilly Pad because Lafitt's Blacksmith Shop Tavern had a sound system blaring.

So, I moved down to across the street from the Quartermaster, which is blessedly more quiet. It is also residential, but my volume has not drawn any complaints, in the few times that I have played there.

At about 3 AM, I noticed no loud sound coming from the direction of the bar, and so I moved back down to the Lilly Pad where I probably made the last 13 bucks in the last hour that I played.

I noticed more than one heavyset black lady limping her way past and saying: "I just want to get back to the hotel."
It amazes me as a person who, at 57 years old, rides a bike about 6 miles each day, that there are people who tire out from walking maybe a total of a mile. That kind of puts the whole "life expectancy" figure in a different perspective; I mean, to see women in their late 20's, who are overweight and exerted from having walked the 10 blocks of Bourbon Street and then back.

What do I know, though, maybe both of the women I had seen tonight had been twerking up a storm in some club, and that is why they just wanted to get back to the hotel and take weight off their feet...

So, I put $31 on my green American Express Serve card (the one that waives the monthly fee whenever I have less than a 5 dollar balance) and now, I could buy either; an ounce of kratom ($9.09); a Suzuki Folkmaster harmonica ($20.99); or add a gigabyte of data to my plan ($10) so I can blog.

A part of me wants to just do none of the above; to let the money sit on the card and then open myself to the muse; maybe think of some thing that I can afford which would improve my experience of life the most.

OK

I have thought about it, and realized that I have no food.

Good thing I didn't just send off for a harmonica; I'm going to have to buy food. Darn.

And, Maybe A Shot Of Kratom

There are certain times when you just trudge out there and try to play. I am really not in the mood to pedal a bike 2 and a half miles right now, but, I suppose that could change with a little effort and maybe a shot of kratom.

Weasels Are Ripping At My Flesh!

It is early Thursday morning.

I had read another section of the Photoshop type book, and was excited about going to work on some artwork, using the new skills.
I struggled to produce the works shown.

Right: This one makes no sense to me.

34 Dollar Wednesday

So, after having gone with Bobby and Jacob to Sam's Club, and then to a Wal-Mart, where I had spent my last dime on a tube for the bike, I got on that bike and rode to the Lilly Pad, arriving there at about 10:40 PM.

I somehow was able to play for 2 and a half hours, netting the above amount, for an average of $13.60/hr. I got a 20 dollar bill from one guy named Duane, who is an architect from Las Vegas, and then 14 one dollar bills here and there.

Then, Terry, one of the skeezers, asked me if I could do him "a favor."
I was pretty sure that the favor was going to be to give him money, in the form of a loan that he would promise to pay back "tomorrow," but never would.

I have only lent him money maybe 5 times, and he is maybe 0 for 5, in paying me back.

Then, he seems to wait an appropriate amount of time before asking again; usually until I have succeeded in letting go of my irritation at him over not paying me back. Sometimes this has been over a year.

That's how long it took the first time, before I stopped resenting and ignoring him, after he didn't pay me back.

I was glad to have bought him off for a couple bucks, thinking that he could no longer ask me for any money because I had "You never paid me back the last time, bro" on the tip of my tongue.

But, alas, Terry the skeezer is about 6' 4'' and maybe 200 pounds and is ex-military and, in the event of my ever being physically attacked at the Lilly Pad, I am pretty sure he would offer me some kind of protection, if he happened to be around at that time.

There have been a couple times recently, when I was being pestered by a broke skeezer, who had just dropped acid or taken crystal meth, and just wanted to sit and listen (but, unfortunately prevent anyone else from wanting to do so by putting off a strange vibe) and Terry had briefly stopped to ask me how I was doing, kind of a code for: Would you like any assistance in persuading this worthy to move along? type of thing...

Unfortunately, those last couple of times, Jacob was with me, and was more interested in deriving entertainment from the doped up skeezer, and didn't want him to leave.
He wanted to shoot videos of him, record him singing, interview him, and low-key mock him, to a great degree.

This has its value, but, if a skeezer is going to say something that's going to go viral on Youtube, he's probably going to say it within the first 20 minutes of his arrival, in my opinion.

The muttering and babbling just doesn't get any better over time, because the skeezer is like the addict that Neil Young describes in "The Needle And The Damage Done" as being "like the setting sun."

The meth head, with his outrageous, Turret's Syndrome style antics are being fueled by something like a battery. A battery is going to get weaker and fade like the light from the setting sun.


But, I have already talked to Jacob about us not allowing the Lilly Pad to turn into a drop-in center for wayward skeezers.

Part of the "problem" is probably that Jacob doesn't see them as skeezers. I suspect that he sees them as human beings; perhaps even as equals in the eyes of God, and he seems to be genuinely interested in their characters.

And, this can lead to problems.

Just last week, when I was busking by myself, a skeezer walked past and muttered the pretty much standard half-greeting of the French Quarter.

Not realizing I was making a mistake, I did more than just grunt back a half-greeting; I made a comment about something; which turned into a brief conversation which was interesting enough.

But then he parked himself on the stoop, as if he could just hang out and talk all night; like maybe he had a dozen more stories about St. Louis that he was itching to tell me.

And then, when I tried to get him to leave, he wound up taking a leak about ten feet down the sidewalk from me before walking away. I could smell it the rest of the night. All because I made some comment about the weather, instead of just grunting: "Not much, man."

So, Terry wanted $1.75 because he needed to get a pint of vodka, he said.

Being right at around 10 days sober, and having had a bike tire tube bought for me earlier that day by Bobby (he insisted that I replace both front and rear) and kratom given to me by Jacob, and having just made 34 bucks, I did wind up giving Terry the 2 dollars. But not before reminding him that he "never" pays me back.

I intend to get at least a one year reprieve from him asking me for any more money using: "You never paid me back the last 2 bucks" on him as long as I can. I think it may be a flaw in his character, or something. He might just be a guy who never pays people back money that he "borrows."

Lackluster is not the word...

Needless to say, I was a bit upset after counting the money I made and realizing that I had given Terry around 6% of it. That's a lot to give to someone who is going to sit right where he was and ask the next 250 people to come along, for probably the same $1.75 that he asked me for; "so I can get me a drink."

Add to that the outrageous cost of spring water and a mango at Banks Meat Store (almost 5 bucks) and I feel like weasels are ripping at my flesh!

Then, I had a pretty lackluster study session with the GIMP editor...

10 Days Sober

It is Wednesday afternoon.

I woke up right as the radio was saying 4:20 PM was the time.
I remembered that Jacob and Bobby and I were to go to Sam's Club, so Bobby could get some eyeglass frames, while I get an item that I found myself in need of last night after I squeezed the back tire of my bike to find that the tire was quite flat, namely, a tire tube.

Shrinkin' Away From Drinkin' A Lincoln A Day

There was no busking last night; but I find my money is easier to manage now that I am not spending around 5 bucks per day on a bottle of wine.

Instead, I have a jar on my kitchen counter labelled: "Days Without Drinking," and it is there to collect one quarter per each day that I make it until 1 AM without drinking.

I figure that, if I treat sobriety as if it has value (and in fact I am charging myself a quarter per day for the privilege of it) then it is easier to maintain, while keeping this attitude towards it.

9:12 PM

Was the time that I used to get on the street car when I didn't own a bike.
I have just returned from Wal-Mart after spending all my money on a tube for the back tire on the one I have, and so, am ready to go out on a Wednesday night, a couple weeks before Fat Tuesday, and see how much I can make, playing the same 9:45 PM - 12:23 AM time slot.

The same old thing nags me, namely that I haven't sat down with a pen and written down more songs that I have forgotten that I play, nor have I taken five minutes to master a song such as "Paint It Black," by the Rolling Stones.

Or any of a number of songs that I memorized the lyrics to (mostly) back when I was focusing on singing.

The living statue (far left) appears to be taking a break from standing there motionless, in some pose, perhaps giving the finger; but, there are 2 parades taking place this evening, and there should be a few extra tourists out, because of them.

Right: Looking like a typical Wednesday night, at 9:12 PM.

To Stay In And Do Visual Art And Music

• 10 Dollar Sunday
• 9 Days Sober

And, so I didn't go out on this Tuesday night, even though the weather was unseasonably mild.

It is just that it got kind of late, and I had kind of planned upon getting something done in the music studio, which I have.
I am now getting around to putting a video together, even just a still shot type one, to go with some music that I could post here.

 

6 Days Sober

• 24 Dollar Rained Out Saturday Night
• Jacob Loses His Virginity

Jacob's mom didn't raise no virgin!

This was almost going to be a post about backsliding.

I was in the Big Easy Fresh Market, a store that just opened down the street in direct competition with the Ideal Market, with both being run by all Hispanic crews.
I was in line for the register, with a fruit salad and a couple avocados, and a small bottle of Sangria.

Jacob and I had only made 4 bucks the previous night, which sent us shivering off after only about a hour.

As the line advanced so that I was to be next, I went and put the Sangria back.

I had taken a quick inventory upon "what I have to feel good about and be thankful for" and my 5 days of sobriety seemed to top the list.

Jacob was on his way to my apartment, and had promised to bring kratom.

We were to bundle up a lot more warmly and go out to busk that night, but would be limited by rain, this time, to only playing about an hour again.

We waited about 15 minutes for the rain to stop before just hopping on our bikes and trudging through it. It was still raining when we got back to Sacred Heart, 2 and half miles away, and so I think we made the right choice in getting out of there around 1 AM.
The rain wouldn't eventually stop until around 3 AM, and by then, we would have been resuming playing for only those who hadn't called it a night because of the rain.

I predicted better things for tonight (Sunday) as it is warmer and not raining and people who had ducked inside some place to avoid the rain last night might take the opportunity to walk down as far as Lafitt's, where we play.

Jacob and I split 24 bucks last night, bolstered by one 20 dollar bill from a lady named Kelli (yes, with an "i").
She made up for the fact that a couple other guys were hanging out and, bless their hearts, probably would have tipped us if they had a dime to their names.

One of them was Alexander DeSantiago (?) the artist guy, who started the "human embracement" movement, which has something to do with embracing the humanity within ourselves, or is a club for people who use words that are not real words, like "embracement," and whose name I got wrong here at least one time (Alex in California commented: "I Googled everywhere and there is no such artist; is he another one of your imaginary blog characters?").

He was cool, but more drunk than I have ever seen him.

Another penniless guy from Mobile, Alabama was hanging around, blocking the tip jar along with Alexander, and eventually bringing rain...

Jacob No Longer A Virgin At 21

In other news, Jacob lost his virginity last night. In a motel off Old Gentilly road, with a girl named Kelli, with and "i."

More on that later, but, the girl was leaving town the next (to)day, and had insisted that Jacob ejaculate inside of her.

I told Jacob that she probably just wanted to return home to Mississippi with a baby, kind of like a souvenir, I guess.
I just hope she doesn't come back here with the results of a paternity test a year from now and inform Jacob that he is the proud father of 18 years of pending child support payments, out of his busking earnings, of course...

5 Days Sober

Jacob and I went out to busk yesterday.
We had originally wanted to play in the afternoon, when the sun was up, and the temperatures wouldn't have begun to plummet.
But, I was up until sunup working on a piece of music (that I would accidentally delete in my tired state, thinking that I had saved it already) and so I only woke up at 3 PM, the time that we had talked about starting to play at.

So, we wound up doing what we thought was the next best thing, by getting there as soon as possible, which mean around 6:30 PM.

The only problem with that is that there is a definite afternoon type of crowd that is active in the late afternoon, but which dies down a bit through the 7:30 "dinner time," that a lot of people still observe. Conventional people, whose lives are structured around business hours, and such.

So, we got out there and started playing for a sparse crowd, none of which seemed to be interested in stopping. There has been the usual influx of buskers who come into town, planning upon playing through the whole Mardi Gras. Some of them will play all day on a particular corner, and then will roll out sleeping bags in order to sleep there and hold the spot, so that they will be ready to start playing again at 11 AM.

This is OK when the money is rolling in.

I could sense from the other buskers that it hadn't been a good Saturday, as Jacob and I were on our way out after only playing about an hour.

My harmonica had a couple notes stuck, which took the fun out of playing, and I found that I had never warmed up since stepping outside in clothes that I had slept in, making them kind of clammy.

Jacob had under dressed worse, having only a light tee shirt under a light jacket.

And, we were in no position to wait until the later night crowd started to walk past.

I have reached 5 days sober, with not a lot of temptation -I had been awake a couple hours yesterday before the thought of wine even crossed my mind- until right now, I would say.

It is supposed to be warmer tonight; plus we have learned our lesson and will put on extra layers of clothes. I will don thermal underwear and maybe even a pair of nylon sweatpants under my jeans.
The harmonica; I opened and cleaned with warm, soapy water, and that seemed to have unstuck some of the notes.

3 Days Sober

All Kratomed Up And Nowhere To Go

I am on the fence about going out there.
I wouldn't play my first note until almost midnight.
Midnight on a Wednesday...leading into Thursday.
But it's the Wednesday before the Wednesday before Fat Tuesday.
The puddles in the road look too fresh in my opinion for me think that there is not a chance of rain.
But, I have little cash, and have just mixed up my last shot of kratom, out of the ounce I bought a couple days ago.
After choosing kratom over alcohol, I was immediately rewarded by the ounce ringing up at $10.85, instead of the $16.42, that I had been prepared to pay.

Nobody seems to be carrying umbrellas, or holding jackets over their heads in the picture.

I just feel like going out, even though it is a Wednesday, and I won't play my first note until midnight.

But, now I see that it is raining very lightly, with the forecast calling for it not to really be here until 3 AM.

This is a tough decision, but I think I will stay in and try to get something done at home.

Like, starting to catch up on this blog.

It might take me a while to get back to having about 35 readers who check in at least once per week.

Posting only 6 times during the entire month of January has caused the traffic to this blog to drop off.

I am more worried about turning the blog into something more interesting, than in trying to direct more traffic to it in its present state.

2 Days Sober

• 16 Dollar Sunday With Jacob
• 7 Dollar Monday Alone
• 2 Days Of Sobriety Reached
• Home On A Tuesday Night

I picked a good night to stay in and blog...(now)

Jacob and I went out to busk Sunday night, just two nights after the episode when I fired off vicious text messages at Jacob, which I blame upon alcohol and sleep deprivation, mixed with alcohol.

The experiment with drinking was a dismal failure. By the time I have published this, I will have reached the "2 Days Sober" point.

I had a pretty strong urge to drink early Monday morning, after Jacob and I had busked for almost 3 hours, and made 16 bucks.

A woman, who looked to be in her thirties, and seemed drunk, came up to us after we had packed up and homed in upon that naive lad.

Jacob apparently didn't find her to be as homely as I did.

She had a small forehead that was covered in skin pasty enough to indicate that she might not get out of the asylum very much, or that she only comes out at night.
The forehead tapered to a nondescript head of hair that seemed like it would be dry and brittle and like a horses mane, to pet. Yet, there was Jacob, being drawn in by her conversation, which became more and more sotto voce, as she attempted to exclude me. Jacob was her mark.

She had made some disparaging remark about Lilly's house, pointing out the broken slats on the front shutters and uttering: "Does anybody even live here?!?"

This was after she had first walked up and was being cordial to both of us.
I had seen the broken slats and the sight of them having remained in that state for so long was disturbing to me.
Lilly had always been on the ball about repairing things like that. Grafitti anywhere on her house had a shelf life of less than 2 hours.
But, these slats have been broken for a while. It almost looks like it was done intentionally by someone. Lilly hasn't answered my last couple texts, and I am worried.
I have seen her Navigator parked in different spots around the block, so I know that she is still alive, and is getting out just about every day.

So, with this worry in mind, I started to vocalize that I hoped that the damage wasn't a sign that Lilly was feuding with someone, when the lady blurted out something to the effect that there was "no aunt or cousin or wife" in that house, and she became pretty vicious towards me, at that point.

That made me seriously think that she might be a skeezer.

Because, she had walked up and asked Jacob: "So, how did you do tonight?" while I was unlocking the bikes, and then followed that with "Where do you play?" after which Jacob pointed to the stoop.

But, then, after frowning at Lilly's house and doubting out loud if anybody even lived there, she spun upon me and spat out "There ain't no aunt or cousin or wife in there!"

This seemed odd because I had never said that there was any cousin "in there."

But, it is something that I have told to certain other musicians; pointing out that I had the permission of the lady who lived there to play on her stoop.

I have even had to call Lilly on a few occasions, when the encroaching buskers retorted with something like: "You don't know nobody in that house!" who had been able to scatter them with just a few words out her window.

But, it was odd, being told that same thing, unbidden, by a drunken lady with a long and straight nose whose outfit could have come from the Goodwill Store.


I wanted to hop on my bike and go home.

The woman had Jacob glued to her, somehow. The cynical side of me thought that she must have been intriguing him with the promise of good drugs. I feared that Jacob might be gullible enough to fall prey to skeezers, who might lure him with a "You want magic mushrooms? Follow Me!" type of narrative.

Then, I thought about how the guy is 21 years old, and could most likely find his way to Sacred Heart Apartments from there, without a guide.

I wound up just riding off towards home, leaving Jacob a foot away from the lady, and her face, to fend for himself. If he winds up losing his virginity to her....yikes

Jacob had been with Bobby and I, when I announced that I was no longer going to drink, and so, having him a mile behind me on the route "trying to get some" made the Big Easy store on Canal Street look pretty appealing.

I could grab a 187 ml bottle of wine and chug it down, and, Jacob would be none the wiser. Hell, he'll be congratulating me on my will power...

But, I reasoned that, at the point of being 24 hours sober after having binged for a couple weeks on it, whatever withdrawal pains I was feeling were representative of the worst of them.

I figured I could live with them at that time, and that they would be even lesser the next day (today).

Jacob texted me shortly after I had gotten home, saying that he hated all women and that he was on his way. He arrived just before the Monday sunrise.

His pendulum had swung from a pretty positive angle, to the opposite pole, and he was exuding all the signs of being in a bona-fide depression, over what had transpired between him, and the homely lady with the stocky calves in the blue dress and hideous grayish colored shoes.

I won't go into detail upon that turn of events, but it involved a few skeezers, and him discovering that the lady was most likely mentally ill.

This is something that can somehow send the kid into a tailspin

Falling Out

154 Dollar Night Ushers In Mardi Gras


If it wasn't for a 50 dollar bill falling out of the hand of a couple of tourists, and landing on the street behind them as they were pulling another 50 and some singles out to throw them in our tip basket, Jacob and I might not have had a falling out of sorts, over the thing.

The Drinking

Right before halftime of the Superbowl, I left Howard's house in Gretna and jogged down to the store about a quarter mile away, where I bought two bottles of brandy.

They were 2 for $6, and so I had taken advantage of the savings, telling myself the alcoholics' lie that I would thus have one for that night and one for the next.

Watching the game and gulping down the brandy as if it were beer, I was soon in a haze, and it was a fuzzy apparition of Jacob that appeared at some point during the 4th quarter of the game. That would make it about 9:45 PM.

I remember, we were able to make it out to the Lilly Pad by 11:00 PM, and that it hadn't been a fruitful night, money-wise. A Superbowl between Kansas City and San Francisco had caused no noticeable spike in the amount of tourists.

I also remember falling over on my bike on the way to get out there. The brandy had hit me and I had veered off of the sidewalk a bit and somehow had snagged the top of my guitar case on a low hanging branch and I fell over.

Jacob told me the next day that I had said: "I think I'll just lay here," after I fell. He reminded me of a few more things that I had said over the course of that night.

My ribs were very sore when I woke up on Monday. So much so that I had to sit straight up, like doing a sit-up or the muscles on the side of me where I landed would flare up painfully. There was also like a spasm, like what happens sometimes when a person is tickled, and their rib muscles reflexively tense up.

I spent most of Monday becoming aware of the pain in my side, like someone coming off of Novocaine, who is, as the sensitivity returns to the teeth, gaining the sense of his dentist as being a clumsy nincompoop who probably hacked the tooth out, as if his career depended upon it.

I was having trouble remembering if I had said goodbye to Howard when leaving after the game. Did I shake his hand?

"You hugged him," said Jacob. "Then on the way out, you were saying how Howard wasn't a hugging kind of guy..."

And, so, when Bobby knocked on my door late Monday afternoon, a groan issued forth from me, as I sat up in my bed.

I then opened the door to see that it was him, and invited him in.

I was hunched over a bit and holding my side. Sudden movements that I made were prone to cause a flash of pain in my ribs. Those muscles seem to be involved in more body motions than I previously thought.

So, as I went about doing simple things, like bending down and reaching for Harold's dish, I uttered cries of pain intermittently.

I explained to Bobby that I had been "falling down" drunk the previous night, after the Superbowl; and that I had fallen down while riding my bike, and that the pain was like a giant, awakening from slumber.

I asked him if he had any aspirin.

"Come on, I got something for ya," said Bobby.

I know I have already told this anecdote, but repeating things is endemic of this whole situation I have been in, with the drinking and drugs.

So, it wasn't aspirin that Bobby gave me for the pain of bruised, and maybe slightly cracked, ribs, it was 60 milligrams of methadone.

First, there was a small clear, plastic cup with some orange brown stuff, dissolved, but resting on the bottom of it.

I swilled that down, and then, we hung out and played the guitar and, about 15 minutes later, he asked me how I was feeling. He had told me, after I drank the shot, that it would hit me within 15 minutes and I would be pain-free, I guess.

So, when, after 15 minutes I reported only a slight analgesic state, that may have been my downfall. He gave me another 20 milligrams. He pretty much knows that nobody could overdose on that amount.

But, they could get pretty sick.

I went back to my apartment and actually started to record some guitar parts on Audacity.

The next day, that recording, which went on for 19 hours, would reveal that, after playing guitar for about 12 minutes, I emitted some kind of moan, and said something unintelligible, but probably to the effect that I was in a fuzzy and hazy cocoon, and then, the first porcelain trumpet blast is heard, as I began what would be documented on the recording as 5 and a half hours of steady puking.


I had a full gallon of distilled water, as if by some miracle, and I kept myself from having dry heaves by steadily consuming the water.

I was nodding off every time I paused for any reason. I sat down on the bed and the next thing I knew I was unconscious on the bed, nodded off in whatever position I was in.


The barfing on the recording sounded kind of like seals or whales making their mating noises. There wasn't really a lot of agony in it because, the methadone was dulling even the discomfort of vomiting. I felt like I was rinsing out my stomach, as I chugged down distilled water, only to see it come back up momentarily, still looking clear and foamy.


This seemed to have been a very cleansing process. I certainly got a very clean stomach out of the ordeal.

When I came down the next day, to the level of just feeling like I was on some good pain pills, I mixed some Arizona Energy drink with some frozen cherries and nuked it long enough to melt the latter, and found that it was quite an elixir. I felt good enough to go out and busk that (Tuesday) night.

That was last week, and the juice diet and abstinence from alcohol lasted a couple days. Then, I had a bottle of sangria, which is fruit mixed with wine, and the rest of the week is kind of a blur, except for Friday, when things blew up between Jacob and I.

The good news is that this was where I made my stand and quit drinking once again (I have 28 hours sober right now).

Friday night, I was packing up and just about ready to go out and busk.

I had only 2 dollars and 37 cents in my pocket.

I was going to ride Jacobs bike to the Lilly Pad, because mine had a soft rear tire. I was going to spend all my money on a small bottle of wine to bring there with me.

There was a knock at the door, and it was Jacob, carrying his bass and ready (and apparently anxious) to get going.

In my half drunken state, I had not noticed that he had texted me about having gotten the OK to go out and busk with me (if it wouldn't interfere with church attendance the next morning) and that he would probably be on his way.

I was thinking that he had shown up out of the blue, and felt slightly like it was an imposition upon me.

The truth was that, with our needing to transport 2 people, and with one bike having a soft tire, we would have to take the street car. I would have to spend my wine money on transportation. How dare you come between me and my alcohol, said the alcohol demon within.

Oh, no, not the alcohol demons!

So, I actually knocked on the door of Bobby in Building C, and borrowed a dollar and some change, so I could still get my wine. Then, my buffoonery continued thus:

We got to the Lilly Pad and began playing. That much I remember.

At one point, Jacob got a text from a guy named Will, who said that he would be coming by, and would have "a care package" for us.

This means that Will was going to give us some of his weed, which, Jacob has in his mind as being stupendously good weed. And the placebo effect has free range to work to that end, I suppose.

So, Jacob became visibly ignited by this news and began to play in earnest.

In my drunken state, I was probably unaware of some substance on Lilly's step which might have caused Jacob to scoot over a little bit towards the center of the step, which was away from me. My cynical mind thought that he had separated himself from me and was content to play mostly for his own edification.

Jacob said something about being cold, during the half hour or so before Will showed up, with the promise of his care package.

Only, Will was unable to get into his apartment, which sits on the third, and top, floor of a house diagonally across the street from where we play.

Will is a violinist. He is a very good one whom Jacob has seen in videos on Youtube, playing in Europe, and such. He is usually toting that instrument in a case when he arrives home after playing gigs all day. One time he took it out and began to jam with us before, abashedly putting the thing away while apologizing profusely for being "too drunk."

But, upon one visit, after asking us if we wanted drinks from the bar, he gave us some weed, which apparently sent Jacob right to Noodle Land.*

Ever since then, I have had to accept the fact that Jacob is at least half as interested in the care package than in any other thing we might acquire through busking, and I can't criticize him on that. It is one of the things that comes our way when we busk. This time, Will threw a 20 dollar bill in our basket. That was right before he found that he could not contact his girlfriend, and feared that she had passed out.

This was a terrible situation for Will. He didn't have a jacket and it was cold outside. Neither Jacob or I had packed an extra garment.

But, most of all, he had played "3 sets" of music, and just wanted to climb into his cozy apartment.

The gabled window, which might be called a widow's peak, opens up over the steeply sloping downward roof, that kind of spills onto the balcony a floor below.

Will said that he has been opening that window and listening to me play for the past couple years.

Now that I know who he is, I remember he even approached me a few months ago and asked me about the drop off in the amount of hours that I was playing, after I went into the slump in playing which also spilled over into blog posting; as weeks would go by with nary a post...

Well, Will couldn't get into his apartment. He didn't know the numbers of anyone else in the building, who might knock on her door and tell her that her boyfriend was outside. He was yelling her name up at the opened window.

Jacob volunteered to use his stentorian voice in an attempt to wake her.

He certainly didn't want to see Will have to sleep outside, but he also wanted him to be able to get inside to retrieve the care package for us. It is something that he often throws down to us, from that height of about 40 feet.

Will's girlfriend eventually poked her head out of the window, and then poked her whole body out onto the sidewalk, where she stood next to Will, while Jacob and I tried to play our best.

In time, they went off to their apartment, with Will promising to throw the care package down. As they were leaving and we stopped playing momentarily, I felt the chill and began to put my jacket on.

I guess Jacob took that as an unconscious signal that I was preparing to pack up for the night, maybe I was satisfied with the 25 bucks or so that we would have split, plus the care package. He bagged up his bass guitar.

Seeing the guitar packed up, as if ready to go, I made the rash assumption that it was because of the weed showing up that he had decided that it was mission accomplished, and there was no reason for being out there, which I took offense to, at the time.
It was a mess.

I was probably pretty rude in the way I accused him of only being there for the weed.

Then, a drunken couple showed up, though it would be anyone's guess if they were more drunk than me.

They requested original songs, I believe, but we were able to get them to throw a 50 dollar bill, along with a few folded up singles, into the basket.

The tourists seemed to really be enjoying our music, maybe to the point of distraction with regards to one of them dropping another 50 dollar bill onto the street.

Jacob noticed it, and, at one point, went over and scooped it up.

Returning to me, he showed it to me covertly.

The tourists went off, as we wished them a blessed evening.

Jacob was beside himself with delight "That's 50 bucks for each of us!" he said.

I somehow copped the attitude that it wasn't right to literally go behind the people's backs and snatch up money that they might feel some strain over losing.

If they are tipping street musicians 50 dollar bills, then they can afford to lose one; is what we concluded.

I reason that anyone who comes here would have to have at least $10,000 of "play money," in order to have tipped a couple of buskers over 50 dollars.

That would be after putting the tip into proportion with other expenditures.

Someone who tips the elevator guy 50 bucks, is probably going to drop a couple hundred onto the chef who cooks their meal.

So, Jacob and I getting a 50 dollar tip from them is probably an indication that their hotel rooms are $275 a night, and that is an indication that their entire vacation tab is probably a minimum of $10,000 and so Jacob and I were only putting them out .5% of their vacation money.

This is based upon the fallacy that, by not calling the tourist's attention to the fact that there was a 50 dollar bill laying in the street right behind one of them, we were preserving it for ourselves.

There was probably a 60% chance that the people would tell us to keep it "for your honesty," and probably another 20% chance on top of that of them adding to it yet a third 50 bill "for your honesty."

I would rate the chance of this particular couple of exclaiming "Oh my God, we need that money badly, thanks for looking out for us" at less than 20%.

However, a bird in the hand is worth 3 in the bush.

But, as a cranky drunken guy who wasn't seeing the forest for the trees, I thought that it had been a sin against the nature of the Lilly Pad, and that it branded us as being no better than the pick pockets at the other end of Bourbon, and, after staying up the rest of that night, and then taking a half of a gabapentin in the morning, to reduce anxiety or some b.s., and then continuing to drink brandy, off of the proceeds of what turned into a $154 night (with $104 coming from actual playing) I wound up in a very shitty mood, and I doubted that I was going to make it out to busk that night, and I guess I took my frustrations out on poor Jacob.

I texted him something like "Do not come out to busk!" which is just a slap in the face to a friend who actually had done nothing wrong.

So, I made the decision to just stop drinking again (30 hours and counting).

*No use Googling it; it's an invention of Jacob's

Confidence Level: 50%

The cleansing diet continues, in a sense.

I broke the fast with mixed berries and frozen fruit.
The temperature seems to be pretty much staying around 53 degrees for the rest of the evening, according to the weather website.
I suppose I need to change the strings on my guitar and go out and try to busk up some money.
My confidence level in being able to do so, is at around 50%.

Bobby, from Building C

48 Hours

I'm trying to blog from the bed instead of the coffee table.
After the Superbowl was over (that I drank a pint of brandy watching) and I fell off my bike afterwards on the way to busking, perhaps fracturing a rib, I was still able to go out and play on Monday.
Tuesday morning it was so painful for me to get up and answer the door after Bobby from building C knocked that he wound up giving me methadone for the pain.
Busking then became a moot point as a fast-moving storm raged through.
As the storm intensified, I slipped into a foggy mental state, myself, in and out of consciousness, alternately vomiting and drinking spring water.
This has been very cleansing, at least.
Now I am only in the mood for more spring water and meditation.
The rib seems to be getting better.

Not So Super Sunday

I went across the river to Howard's to watch the Superbowl with him.
The house was rather quiet, since the Saints didn't make the big game and, hence, there was no Superbowl party going on.
Howard was having pain in one of his legs and having difficulty walking. He said he was going to Urgent Care today.
Then, Jacob came and picked me up and we went out to busk.
It was as dead as a typical Sunday, probably because the Saints didn't make it to the big game.
Jacob and I split 16 dollars after playing for very few people.

32 Dollar Saturday

After playing for an hour and making only a dollar, the next hour and a half was more fruitful.
A guy came along and shot a video, and told me that I would be able to find him by checking the "Tool" (musical group) group on Facebook, where I would be able to see that he had just posted, and get his profile that way.
I was by myself, as Jacob was still tired after we had played until about 3 AM on Friday.
After An 18 Dollar Friday
That night we wound up splitting just under 20 bucks, with the last hour being taken up by a skeezer whom I have seen before and who wanted to plop himself down right next to me and sing out of tune over everything we played.
At the point when I became determined to get rid of him, Jacob had taken an interest in filming him, interviewing him and getting the guy to sing, while he (Jacob) made sound effects and did beat boxing, etc. in a disparaging way.
Some of that video might find its way here.
At one point, another millenial looking guy started shooting video of Jacob shooting video of the guy.
The whole thing went on a little too long and cost us some money, but it was just entertaining enough that I let it go on. The guy was still sitting there when we left at about 3 AM. He said he was on crystal methamphetamine.
My idea to get rid of him was for Jacob and I to leave to take a 15 minute break or so, during which time the guy might have just left, since he would then be just sitting in the dark with nothing to sing over and no busker's nights to ruin.

Two Bucks And A Handful Of Cigarettes

This has got to be some kind of pre-Mardi Gras funk that we are in, here in the French Quarter. I will need to check the past few years of posts made around this time of year, to see if this has been the trend.

Last night, I followed the dismal 3 dollar Tuesday night with a 2 dollar (and a handful of cigarettes) Wednesday night.