$15.60/Hr. Friday Night

My sound has rebounded nicely, almost as good as before the pandemic after just 4 days back on the job.

8 p.m, and almost time for me to go out there...

Jacob and I started playing right around midnight, Friday, until about 2:40 Saturday morning.

There weren't a whole lot of tourists, and a little black guy who carries a bass drum around, which he plays and sings along with, was on the scene, but was just sitting in one of the chairs in front of the bar, talking to one of the bartenders instead of banging away.

I can tolerate him for about 20 minutes every now and then, and since the residents who live in the block can't tolerate him any longer themselves, we have been able to coexist.

Though he does have a tendency to move in on any group that might be gathered around me to try to drum up some money for himself, out of their pockets.

My second night back, he had showed up and tried to grab the attention of the 8 or 9 people from the wedding party that were listening to me.

I just let it go, planning upon getting back up to speed with my playing and competing with him that way. I kind of feel like an athlete returning after being sidelined with an injury, only seeing limited action. Once I get back to sounding good, then I'll say something to him if he comes around trying to skeeze.

I'm still getting used to using the little amp and the headset microphone, and re-memorizing all the songs I used to know by heart, before the 19 month lay over.

That was the main reason that I hadn't said something like: "Hey, man, you're crashing my gig!" but instead let him play his 3 songs, "Sexual Healing," "Ain't No Sunshine," and "My Girl," even joining him in the last two. The group had already thrown all their spare change in my basket; but offered to buy him a beer out of Lafitt's Blacksmith Shop Tavern. He would take a Corona, he said.

By then I had been chatting with and befriending the group of people, and I was sure that I could have enlisted their help in running him off -pulled one of them aside and said: "Man, what that guy did wasn't cool; he knows better; he just walked up and tried to block my hustle...not that I see you guys as just a hustle, but I had to hold myself back from saying: "What the hell are you doing dude, can't you see I'm playing here?" type of thing.

He actually approached me to shake my hand and to compliment my playing, telling me that he was going to bring me some sheet music of the songs in his drum/vocal repertoire, as if he thinks we are going to form a partnership, through which he will have access to the Lily Pad, and the tourists who stop to listen to me.

I hope he didn't get the wrong impression because I hadn't objected to him commandeering my tourists on that particular occasion. 

It was only my second night back and my skills were a little rusty. I didn't want to run him away and then proceed to play crappy music. He might have taken the stance that I was "wasting" the spot, and that I wasn't going to make anything playing that way; while depriving him of an opportunity to do so.

Last night, after a couple stopped to listen to Jacob and I, he walked by, vocally protesting the fact that the same couple had not stopped for him when he put his skeeze into play upon them, claiming that it was an outright case of "prejudice," that they were listening to Jacob and I.

It is easy to despise black people who play "the race card" like that. It had nothing to do with his drunken thumping and his out of tune singing, they were just racists, sure, OK....

The new normal seems to be that the people in Lafitt's have relaxed their restrictions against people like him standing in front of the bar, trying to busk. 

In the past, they would be seen as interfering with the piano player, who plays in the back of the bar, but can still be heard out front, by anyone who steps out for a smoke, and who might go back inside if the guy starts playing something they like. Unless there is a little old black guy drowning him out with a bass drum.

The residents who live near where I play are my best insurance against him trying to set up camp right by me. He might get away with 15 minutes of his act before drawing a: "Hey, I'm trying to sleep!" from one of them.

He knows that it is technically against the law for him to disturb the residents.

Last night Jacob and I made 39 bucks in what turned out to be about 2 and a half hours, with Jacob letting me keep all of it, in light of my financial situation at the time... Plus, he is owed 600 bucks from his job at the Christian radio station, where he produces the show of Bob Carvajal, who was his guardian for a few years before Jacob turned 21.