Gearing Up For The Busk, Or A Career In Law Enforcement

People are traveling in droves, on this Memorial Day weekend, and it reminds me that I have finally gotten around to ordering a fine, heavy duty gig bag, for the acoustic guitar, one which has ample pockets, for say, a laptop.

I will soon have a portable busking unit that I can take with me on a Greyhound, provided that they don't implement some kind of "vaccination proving" protocol. 

I don't think Amtrack would follow suit; though; there's something American about the railroads, so I don't think that would be in their DNA.

The little Yamaha amp head, with its two 3 inch speakers that will put out a clean signal at a Lilly Pad appropriate 5 watts, can also be used as a microphone preamp, so I could use the headset microphone at home to record vocals into Audacity.

The amp also "models" a lot of different sounds, so when I record my acoustic guitar through it (using a pickup that I haven't ordered yet) I will be able to make it sound like a much more expensive guitar, by using a digital setting.

The headset microphone will capture the harmonica and vocals and then send it through the head, which will be hidden in the backpack, and I'm hoping the same mic will grab enough of the acoustic guitar to boost it a small amount. Then, with a little bit of effect from the amp, the whole thing should translate into me returning to the Lilly Pad, sounding 20 percent louder, and with a little ambiance to the sound.

Then, since I ordered the wrong gig bag the first time, and got the electric guitar version, which is way too thin to squeeze an acoustic into, but which I decided to keep anyways, because my electric guitar has no case or bag for it, I will be able to go to a different part of the French Quarter, such as Canal Street not far from the hotels, with the electric guitar instead of the acoustic, and crank the Yamaha up to its full 5 watt output and do something "completely different" from a musical standpoint.

So, the possibility of me traveling this summer is looming. I just want to look into some kind of video camera so I can "vlog" as I go...

I'm not sure I want to carry an extra 4 pounds around with me, I'm sure it would be the thing I contemplate taking out of my backpack during 10 mile walks that I might find myself taking, such as last week, after the driver of the #39 bus mis-informed me of the departure spot of the very same bus for the return trip.

Now, I understand that some bus routes modify their route based upon the time of day; maybe a lot of residents leave for work out of certain neighborhoods, but then, during the business hours, the bus cruises by stop after stop with nobody waiting at them, so, maybe they cut out that part of the run and save fuel, while giving the rest of the line better service...

But, after giving me directions to Guitar Center, at a certain point that he informed me was the closest he was going to get to that place that is out of headset microphones, Yamaha amps, Suzuki harmonicas, and children's piano piece books...and he dropped me off, pointing the way, being polite, but then adding, for the private amusement of a middle aged black woman that he had been chatting with the whole way, I thought: "It's not far..."

It turned out to be approximately 3 miles.

To someone who drives around everywhere, it wouldn't seem "far," but he had to have had some idea, being on the obese side, mind you, that he sure as hell probably wouldn't want to walk it; he who sits all day and rotates a big wheel in front of him.

But, there was some kind of intelligence passed by him to the black lady, to whom he had been talking about the chicanery of people they seemed to mutually know, and about the tricks they had been playing on each other; and which girl left which guy as soon as the money ran out, type of stuff.

Then, when it came to my stop, the driver changed into his "talking to white people" tone of voice, to tell me to walk all the way up to the bridge that could be seen on the horizon and didn't, in his defense, look 3 miles away. And then he told me that, after I came out of Guitar Center, I could catch the returning bus right at a McDonald's nearby there.

It was hard to imagine a bus that came no closer than 3 miles to the Guitar Center on its outbound run, winding up passing right by it on the way back to Canal Street, but I took his word for it, thinking that it might be a different line; one that I hadn't traced the route of, when hunting for a way to get to Guitar Center for $1.25.

I guess my point is, apart from having to buy ammunition and to take the thing way out on the railroad tracks towards Slidell, LA, to just walk along shooting things for practice, there is the added concern that I really wouldn't be able to drink anymore, as soon as I got some used .22 for $350 off the dark web...

After I went into McDonald's and talked to a couple employees who said they had never seen any bus stop outside and "I think there would be, like, a bench or something.." I decided to just retrace my 3 mile walk to get to the music store.

That would have me back on the #39 route for sure; and there would be about a one-in-six chance that the same driver who had sent me off to East Bumfuk to wait for a non-existent bus, would be driving the thing.

I had stopped for beer a few times along the 3 mile walk, and then it had started to rain during the 10 minutes I waited there, reducing visibility in the area. I was only pissed at the driver about 6 on a scale of 10, not as bad as the one time a driver literally closed the door in my face and drove off one time in Gretna, after I had paused only a second to shove my laptop in my backpack before advancing towards the bus.

All I could think of was that he shared the black consciousness that is so prevalent down here in Louisiana which would have him viewing the laptop as something that I had weaponized in order to make my fellow passengers feel "less than."

This can also be accomplished by pulling a book out and reading it. You (the white man) are showing off your literacy and rubbing it in the faces of your fellow passengers from the black neighborhoods, whom the buses are intended for, more than for a white man, who could get a car if he wanted one; the color of his skin can get him a car, or a house, or anything.

So, you are suspect for even taking the bus, and then to be sitting there, pecking away on a laptop, like you just think that you're better than "them" -you know "computers," you can read...so why you taking the bus, if you're all that?- type of thing.

So, the black driver is going to use the excuse of you taking 3 seconds to fold the laptop and put it in your bag, before taking a step in the direction of the bus, that had kind of come to an abrupt halt and had opened its door rather quickly to admit one older black lady (whose business of swiping her ride-for-free card at the turnstile and then seating herself before the bus lurched forward, should have given me ample time to bag up my laptop). She hadn't even put her money in the machine when the doors slammed in my face and the thing accelerated away, with the old lady hanging on to the nearest rail, for life.

That was a time, about 5 years ago, now, that I thought seriously about waiting at that stop late some foggy night with a .22 pistol, instead of a laptop.

But, registering a gun here is going to expose me to unwanted attention, perhaps from the federal agencies that are providing me housing where firearms aren't allowed. My registering a pistol might cause a contradiction on some computer system. Most of the residents here, I'm sure cannot "carry" because they signed away that right in exchange for their "crazy checks" that come the first of every month. It's in the fine print; if you are mentally disabled so as to require the government to take care of you; then they will take care of that pistol for you, while they are at it, type of thing...

And, if the GPS and Google place me near the scene of a gun related homicide, through my "Obama phone," which I get free service from, through a government sponsored program, then, whose door gets kicked in, and, with my luck, right when I'm in the middle of watching kiddie porn...?*

*haha

I don't put it past the, F.B.I. for example, to keep tabs on such things as the phones of all people with "carry and conceal" permits, so they can have a map full of lit up orange dots, showing where all the guns are in their particular city. More than 50 all in one place; red flag, type of thing.

In fact, I have thought about starting my own business of a DNA database. I could walk around all day collecting DNA off of cups, cigarette butts, straws, etc. and then could log them all into an "unofficial" database that could be consulted (for a fee) by law enforcement agents who may have evidentiary DNA that they couldn't match against their own data.

I could hire crews to work at the trash recycling facilities and to farm the trash from an entire city in order to bolster the database. Matching the street addresses to the trash collected could be a fast way to add a whole family to the list of "collected" DNA. Eventually, I would have to hire teams like the Google Maps workers, to go nationwide and get everyone's DNA into the database.

Maybe I could have a business on the side that sells lock-tite trash cans (keep your trash free from DNA snoopers, type of thing) and those proceeds could be pumped back into the main project.

It would be illegal for law enforcement to do such a thing. But, as a private citizen with a hobby of collecting DNA samples rather than, say, butterflies, I should be allowed to grow my collection.

Then, detectives could query my database, and even though the results wouldn't be admissible in a court of law, having the exact address of a guy who's DNA matches that found on a victim, might help them obtain some more "solid" evidence.

So, that barista, snatching up the cup you just left, off the table before she wipes it down; she works for me; earning extra $$ on the side, by collecting samples, bagging them up, along with copies of credit card receipts, and then sending them off once a week, to DanieLabs, Inc.