$21 Thursday (Feels Like $210) With First And Last Dances Involved

"I'll Take It From Here"

I got my sleep the old fashioned way, by falling into it, sometime in the late afternoon; and then, somehow, I was wide awake at 10:30 at night, wanting to go straight from my bed, to the Lilly Pad.

Which is interesting because a look at my computer screen reminded me that I had fallen asleep to the "self help dialogues" that are supposed to hypnotize and motivate you. I could remember listening to the one where you visualize drifting out of your body and up to the ceiling, then stare down at yourself laying there, and give yourself advice, but I couldn't remember the next one.

I had washed down some Valerian root with coffee thinking that the caffeine would go right into my bloodstream and keep me awake for the dialogues while the Valerian was dissolving and, then the two substances would meet midstream and shake hands, with the Valerian saying: "I'll take it from here..."

It was Thursday night, which can be one of the best nights, even better than Friday and Saturday, due to such factors as people who are in town for the whole week choosing that night to check off some of their minor boxes like "visit the oldest bar in America," where they would encounter me in an environment more quiet than on weekend nights.

I was down to zero cash and one tablespoon of kratom; the weather man was talking about a cold front on the way which will make Saturday night below the buskable temperature of 43 degrees that I have established as the cut-off point for winter playing (each degree below that causing an exponential increase in finger stinging).

One time in Jacksonville, there was a bank across the street from where I played and, as the temperature dropped about a degree every 45 minutes, I had to finally quit when it hit 37 degrees. I had to keep my hands wrapped around the neck of the guitar even when I wasn't playing, or it would get so cold that it would suck the warmth out of my fretting hand. Below 40 degrees, I also had to switch to songs that only used the 3 most basic chords, which took all my strength to form.

But, it was 62 degrees, according to my phone, when I left.

Going "straight from my bed to the Lilly Pad," was complicated by things like having a cup of coffee and looking around for my blue bandana. The clock became the enemy. "There's no way that was 20 minutes, all I did was sit there and reconsider going out for maybe 2 minutes at the most..." type of thing.

It was 12:07 when I finally went out the door of Sacred Heart, wearing my red bandana; I never found the blue one.

The emptiness of the streets along the way might have caused others to turn around and live to see another day, but I have found the Lafitt's Blacksmith Shop Tavern to often be the last outpost of human congregation and, after riding through the deserted Quarter, it didn't disappoint. 

There was a group of about 50 or so people, both inside and spilling out into the street with a glance down Bourbon Street revealing sporadic handfuls of stragglers headed "this way."

I had found a milk crate along Royal Street and had my second go at setting up my current gear.

I spent some time hacking through the vines that had grown over where I hang my spotlight, until I uncovered the little crutch which had actually grown around the spotlight and formed kind of a cradle for it, probably because of the warmth that the light's bulb emits; along the lines of how plants seek the warmth of the sun, type of thing.

Then, I reverted to habit, leaning the guitar against the wall, then finding the tuner in the pocket of the backpack where I had always put it, along with the harmonicas, then pulling the basket out, which had the tiposaurus and sign already in it, and centering them in the circle of light from the spotlight.

The only new territory involved putting the headset microphone on and then plugging all the cables in. I'm going to have to come up with a system, perhaps coiling the cables a certain way and taping them together so they won't get caught on each other, and so the extra lengths won't become knotted into a spaghetti like mess. I don't want the microphone cable to get yanked and damaged because it got caught on something when I was pulling it out of the backpack. Short and sweet and taped together; as concise as possible, I'm thinking.

It was about 12:20 in the morning when I started, but I soon had a group of 4 people listening.

"Golden Slumbers," hadn't gotten anyone to stop despite an extended harmonica solo which the echo on the amp made sound mournful, but the 4 guys hung around all the way through "Mary Jane's Last Dance," the Tom Petty song.

Soon there were about 8 people, with the new arrivals having uttered the "magic words:" "Do you know any Grateful Dead?"

Out of the 52 Dead songs that I've played at one time or other, I couldn't think of more than 2 of them. This is definitely why drinking and smoking weed would be "walking on thin ice" for me, at this stage of Alzheimer's Disease that I'm possibly in. Or Hippie Burnout; whatever the diagnosis..

What is happening, and has been ever since I started playing harmonica, is that I am limiting my scope of songs to whatever key the harmonica is in that I happen to be using. If I have the C major harp in the brace, then it's like I block out all the songs in other keys. The laminated list of "what I know," that I've been talking about making, since about 7 years ago, would be a likely remedy for that.

And, so I played "Shakedown Street," which fits the C major harp (even though it is in D minor; it is a "mode" of D minor that uses the C major scale) and the whole group sang along and fun was had by all and the 21 dollars went into the basket.

I then played my own song "Crazy About A Crazy Girl," which reminded me, after 19 months off, how drunk people can be blown away by a decently performed song that has lyrics that fly by just about as fast as the drunk can process that, with the effect being that I was praised profusely as being a songwriting genius and compared to Bob Dylan and Neil Young.

Then the bride showed up in a wedding dress and I learned that the group of them were in town for a wedding.

"Ripple," by the Grateful Dead was played (sounded out) by me; the couple had their first wedding dance* on the sidewalk in front of Lilly's youngest daughter's bedroom; and, as I rode home I had to smile over the thought that I had been considering getting a job stocking shelves at Winn Dixie, just a week ago -just letting go of the tumultuous busking lifestyle. "...I thought of quitting, but my heart wouldn't buy it..."

I had woken up with only one table spoon of kratom, but now I headed for the store to get a can of food for Harold and 3 more ounces of the stuff. Even though I think that over-usage of it might be what is making my ears ring lately...

*"We didn't want to have a traditional wedding," the bride told me; I guess as an explanation for why they hadn't yet had their first dance. 

Funny (but not unexpected, if you understand the Law of Attraction) my whole interaction with the group began with me playing "Mary Jane's Last Dance" and ended with me playing for the couple's first dance....*the Twilight Zone theme can play here*