Hello World

• Hello Mom
• Refried Bean Stay-Home Project
• Busking Off The Table

Will the Lilly Pad ever re-live its glory days?

I called my mother this afternoon.

So much time had gone by since I last called her that it seemed like I was going to need a reason for doing so.

But, it was just to say hello and to hear her voice, and to get the Massachusetts (read: left leaning liberal) take on the C19 (or whatever it is) virus.

She believes that the virus is real and not a hoax. "Things are really messed up in Italy and France, and Spain has totally quarantined itself..."

Some people get their news from Fox and others from CNBC or whatever, and the two can be almost diametrically slanted away from each other.

I get my news from mom.

The virus is REAL!



And I suppose it was in poor taste for me to have gone to the cashier at Winn Dixie and asked if they sold any flu remedies "Cause I've got a headache and I've been sneezing and coughing..."

"Just kidding!!"

She wasn't, though, as evidenced by her having applied a fresh coat of hand sanitizer to her latex gloves before taking my money...

I notice that a lot of African Americans take things literally and often don't see the humor in, especially things that I say.

One time, I was sitting on a little wall in front of a construction site in Jacksonville, Florida, waiting for a certain employee to come on duty at the little nearby convenience store, when I was approached by a young black lady wearing a security officer's uniform.

She asked me what I was doing there.

I told her I was waiting for a friend to come on duty at the Circle K.

"Don't worry, I'm not going to try to steal the bulldozer," I added, kind of tongue and cheek.

It wasn't long after that a police officer arrived, who questioned me along the line of: "Did you tell that security officer that you were here trying to steal the bulldozer?"

"No, I said: 'Don't worry, I'm not going to try to steal the bulldozer; I was joking!"

And so "coughing and sneezing" joke suffered a similar fate...

I'm just glad that I wasn't handcuffed by an officer and escorted to the hospital, or something.

I was able to get my pinto beans, instant coffee and cat food and get out of there safely...

Which brings me to the order of the night:
Do it yourself refried beans.
Cookie And Kate, the website where I got my recipe

There is a divine purpose in everything, if you believe that there is.

If you don't believe that there is, there still might be a divine purpose, but maybe you just won't see it.

Having had my opportunity to make money in the French Quarter dashed by the crisis with the virus, I found myself plagued by some insecurity, fear of where my next dollar was going to come from, and an urge to drink alcohol which I succumbed to on 2 of the past 3 nights.
Tonight is not one of them, though.

The Market Savvy Busker

I bought an ounce of kratom at The Herb Shop, using 4 dollars of my precious cash, leaving me something like a couple bucks (and a Lilly Pad that the webcam view shows as being so uninhabited that they may as well have just Photoshopped balls of tumbleweed blowing around in). I only need cash, these days, for laundry, bike tire inflation's, marijuana and the occasional candy bar from the machine in the lobby, in moments of weakness at 4 AM after having smoked some of item number three, perhaps.

Harmonica Economics

I put the balance on my green American Express card, leaving on it, just enough to send off for a cheap harmonica, which should be an upgrade upon the Marine Band (expensive) harmonica that is missing one of its draw notes; but only for a short period of time.

The half price harps have to be replaced 4 times as fast as the better ones; making the better ones a better value; but; these are uncertain times and I will be looking for a time and place to play somewhere, and might have to bring a big bottle of hand sanitizer in place of, or in addition to, the "tiposaurus" as the eye-catching gimmick that is part of the accoutrements of the market savvy busker.

I think I am going to take the advice of Alex In California, (former) blog reader* and buy some type of harmonica for which replacement reed plates are available for, at about half the price of the whole harp.

That way, putting 22 bucks towards the reed plate has the effect of restoring a 50 dollar instrument to its veritably pristine condition. The only caveat would be that on a harp that has a wooden comb. the wood could swell (if not wiped off immediately after every use) and this happens independently from the brand new reed plates, you might have put in.

This actually makes the thing more "air tight" as the wood swells into a literally tighter fit, which makes it play better, but the wood also swells out where the player puts his lips, and she has to be careful not to rip open the skin of her lips on the sharp edges of wood. It calls for a less pressure intensive playing style.

I always liked the fact that I could use the protruding wood to count the distance between notes, like reading braille with my lips if, say, the next note I want is 3 holes to the left of the one I was playing.

Now, I am a better enough player that I can rely more on gauging the locations of the holes using the distance between them, more like a trombone player with his slide, does, and less like a harp player who is risking putting blisters on his lips while counting holes to the left or right, using the swelled up comb wood of a Marine Band that wasn't wiped off immediately after playing it every time; or one that was in a persons mouth long enough, in one sitting, to water log the wood before he even gets a chance to wipe it off.

In the heyday of "Street Musician Daniel"

I have every bit of faith, though, that harmonicas will soon be developed out of new, synthetic materials, which will "out-perform" wood for this application. It seems like just a matter of time.

Up And At Em' With Kratom!

Ten years ago, I never would have imagined something like kratom, and here I sit, sipping it, and it is fueling a blog post, just like it used to do when part of my daily routing was to go to the Uxi Duxi before busking every night.

That helped me to post just about daily and to busk just as much.

The good ol' days...

Now the webcam image of Bourbon Street shows

Well, take a peek for yourself. Looks like ain't nobody (but one nigga on a bike) out there...

It just ain't worth packing up your gear and going out there, for one nigga on a bike...

"How 'bout some 'Bicycle Races' by Queen?!?

* Alex In California apparently took offense to a comment I made which suggested that he could "play his ukulele, pick up seashells, or do whatever the hell he wants to do."

This was apparently only an inside joke between myself and Jacob, as we both knew that this was a reference to a song that I wrote, and which I believe I posted a version of right here on this blog.

The quote came from Alex himself off of his now defunct blog. I had actually set the whole comment he made to music, pretty much verbatim.

But, it seems like Alex thought the gist of my comment was that he could do whatever the hell he wanted, as in; I don't give a s*** about him.

Any further clues as to why Alex In California seems to no longer be a reader were lost after he deleted his own blog, as well as the last comment he left here which I was only able to see the first few words of, after his deletion of it. The "body" of the comment went away.

The first few words appeared to have been voicing his annoyance over, probably the "ukulele, seashells" comment I made, or something that Jacob Scardino said in reference to one or the other, or both.

Rest in peace, Alex In California, though.

That does remind me to polish off that song. 

At least the chorus of: "I can play my uke, I can pick up seashells, I can do whatever the hell I want to do..." has the potential to be parlayed into a hit song, especially in Hawaii, where it might resonate with the hauale's (sp?).

There is a preset or two on the Casio WK-200 labelled "Hawaiian." Maybe I will begin my search there, for a righteous groove to go with it.