Buy Me Out?

A what?! In Front of our tavern?!! You've got to be shitting us!!

A Twenty, And A One...On A Friday Night

For the second Friday night in a row, there was a heavyset black man, dressed in hip hop "fake gold" style; sitting at one of the outdoor tables at the Lafitt's bar cranking some kind of speaker to the max, alongside a black lady in a dress.

Last weekend, I assumed it had something to do with the Bayou Classic football game which floods the city with thousands of college kids of color from the two schools of Grambling and Southern University when I heard the sound of hip hop coming from the direction of the bar.

Those schools, by the way, have been designated as "historically black" colleges; in a nation where any college dubbed "historically white" would be protested in front of, as an affront to social equality; windows would be smashed and sneakers taken, if such a college were to be. But I digress...

It made sense that, on that particular weekend, foregoing just shuttering up the place and waiting for better weather, the bar might have been catering to those students of color by giving the piano man the night off, and setting some kind of ghetto blaster out front, cranked up enough to get a "Dollar Store speaker" musical quality; as if to remind them of home.

This wouldn't have tarnished the reputation of the "oldest bar in the nation" with its candle-lit environment in the eyes of it's patronage. Those are typically wealthy white's who understand and appreciate the history of the place, which was founded in 1772 by Jean Lafitt, the pirate and his brother, Pierre. None of them would have been around to see the candle flames flickering in the heavy bass.

Consecutive String of Annual Shootings Interrupted By Deadly Virus

White people leave town in droves for the Bayou Classic weekend, and no outside whites book trips here at that time which leaves more hotel space, and at discounted rates, for the collegiate crowd, with their handguns and their random acts of alcohol fueled violence. After a year off for the pandemic, the shootings resumed this year with something like 12 of them, including the murder of one of the bartenders at Pat O' Brien's bar, who had merely gotten out of his car to tell the driver of a car in front of him that had just stopped in the middle of the street to move it. Apparently the bartender tried to run over the guy as he was shooting at him; but I digress.

Last night, the same crappy music was blaring away, and, after I walked up the sidewalk to investigate, and I encountered the couple, who seemed to be all about providing free music to the public, I asked the heavyset guy with the gold front teeth if the bar was "paying him to DJ, or something."

"No," he said.

I then asked him if he was going to be there all night. "No, not all night.."

I went to the Lilly spot and decided I would amplify my voice and the harmonica as much as the Yamaha would do, and I would just play along in whatever keys his hip hop songs were in and would try to "free style" lyrics to them, and would have fun doing so. 

I had a half pint of brandy, and had gotten a free bud from Patrick, who is another ex-friend of Bobby, whom I had dropped in on before going out to play. It was kind of a test to see if the Law of Attraction still worked when the practitioner had a buzz.

The free styling devolved in me singing things like "Wow, it's some guy with a ghetto blaster drowning me out for no apparent reason; wow!" and I wasn't comfortable with the dynamic of that, so I walked up the sidewalk a second time, after what seemed like a reasonable amount of time for a guy and his girlfriend to polish off a couple drinks and then move on, taking their personal 100 watt stereo with them, to go provide entertainment over some other 2 block radius.

"I don't understand why you're doing this, you don't seem to be promoting your own music, and I guess the piano man isn't here tonight or he would be complaining; because, when people step outside for a cigarette they can normally still hear him and he could draw them back inside with a certain song he plays, or get other people to come in if they hear the piano..."

"I'm not worried about the piano man," he said.

"Well, I know the residents in the block wouldn't put up with me bringing an amp like this; this is zoned for residential."

"I'm not worried about the residents," he said.

"Well, you're still misrepresenting the bar with your music; I've seen people turn around and head back up Bourbon because they think it's a hip hop club ahead, instead of a quiet piano bar; nothing against hip hop, but they kind of cater to a different crowd in there; I'm sure the manager wouldn't be happy about the people that are discouraged from coming in because they think it's another Bourbon Heat type place..."

Just the way the Lafitt's liked to party! (photo: Bourbon Heat)

"I'm not worried about the manager," he said. He then went on to say that he knew "Joe," the owner and that Joe allowed him to sit at a table and apparently just offer free music to the public, at his own expense of time and battery power, without having a tip jar visible and just as a public service.

The lady then spoke up and asked me: "What are you doing out here?" implying that I was only doing the exact same thing as they were.

"I play low volume music, and I do a lot of talking to people, at a conversational level; telling them stories and stuff..." I yelled to them over the rumble of their system. "That's why I've been playing at this spot for the past 12 years, because it's always been a quiet enough neighborhood."

The guy said that he had been "doing this" for 20 years. If that is true then he has only been showing up sporadically and must be what I thought was the bar cranking hip hop every once in a while over the past couple years. I figured that Lafitt's perhaps trying to "modernize" the place, to go with the neon lit slurpie type machines behind the bar, that are anachronistic to the candles on every table and the dozen or so on top of the piano. 

There has always been electric light in the restrooms and the cash registers were electric, along with the coolers, but the emphasis had always been on presenting a 18th century tavern experience.

But, it hasn't been the bar attempting to modernize, it has apparently been the guy with the gold teeth taking it upon himself to, I guess, ignore the history of the bar, and try to over-ride its appeal to wealthy white people who have an appreciation of that history and to make the place more "inclusive" by pushing the white people away.

So, today it is Saturday. 

One guy did come along and give me 20 bucks after asking: "Where's your tip jar?" I had moved down 50 feet to under the "forbidden" lamp post. 

"I had kind of given up on getting any tip money because of that guy up there cranking his personal stereo for no apparent reason I can see other than him trying to impose his culture upon the place. Good answer, here's 20 bucks; was the feeling I got.

In the shotgun house directly behind the lamp post used to sleep a guy who was a lawyer, who used to ask me, very politely, if I would knock off by 10 p.m. each night. My failure to do so that on a few occasions when I was drunk and oblivious to time, was what prompted him to reluctantly ask me to not play there anymore. That was when Lilly made arrangements for me to move to where I play now. 

She even moved her family's bedrooms around, so that her ex-husband, who still lived there, would be on the other end from me, closest to the lamp post, and the room right behind me would be occupied by Angelique, who said that my sound helped her go to sleep; unlike her ex-father. Something about the constant sound of me playing assured her that nobody was about to try to enter her room by prying open the 18th Century replica windows. Something about installing locks on them would invalidate their historical authenticity, so people can just push them open and enter off the street; something that had happened in the past -one of them waking up to find a drunk skeezer in their bedrooms, looking for a place to squat. They now have heavy pieces of furniture pushed up against them.

Angelique has, in the past, opened the window, and gotten skeezers who were refusing to move off the step that I play next to ("This is a public street, I can sit anywhere I want; I was here first!" type of thing) to do so, with just a few words: "Excuse me, I'm trying to sleep and your voices are keeping me awake, could you please move?" type of thing.

That was after I had called Lilly to report them to her. "Yes ma'am, sorry ma'am were moving right now, sorry to bother you..." became their new attitude. It always amazed me, the power the residents have over skeezers; I guess it's because of the legendarily high rents charged for places right on Bourbon Street and so the skeezers think: "wealth" and immediately prostrate themselves. This is in stark contrast to how I have been received by some of them: "You don't know nobody who lives here! I've seen you picking through the trash cans outside Rouses with a flashlight before; you're not friends with any of these people; don't try to fool me!" type of thing.

I texted Lilly about the ghetto blaster guy, who claimed to know "Joe," the owner, as I am pretty sure that Lilly knows the real Joe, if that's even the owner's name. Though, I'm about to call her as soon as I said I would in my text.

Ideological Undercurrents?

Perhaps Joe and company have been shunted by ideological undercurrents, and are themselves pushing some social reform agenda. Maybe Joe has become "woke" and now seeks to dismantle his own business, and rewrite its history; seeing his "pirate bar" now as something like a flagship of White Supremacy, and maybe he now wants to foster inclusive environment (i.e. run all the rich white people with an understanding of history away). Perhaps Joe has "learned" and has woken up to the awareness of his white privilege; and realizes that he has been inflicting harm upon the marginalized members of society by running a place that white people seemed to like so much. 

Perhaps it's time for the Jolly Roger to come down, the pride flag to be hoisted, and Street Musician Daniel to be drowned out...

Lilly and I will have a lot to talk about; since she falls to the far left politically and has even made me promise her that I would never watch NewsMax and had to show her that my phone didn't even have their app on it. "All they do is lie on that channel in order to push their politics.."

And her hatred for Donald Trump goes back to the late 1970's when she lived in Manhattan and hated him locally. "Everywhere you went you saw his name; on buildings, and on the side of trucks, on billboards everywhere, and even on the golf course..it was all Trump, Trump, Trump, and I hated it; I spat on his name wherever I saw it..." type of thing. She was most upset over "the way he treated his first wife," and "the way he treated his employees," etc.

But, thank God, she still sees me as being some kind of "victim," and has been unwavering in her protection of me. 

So, after 2 hours of ghetto blaster man, I moved down to under the lamp post, and hoped to show the lawyer guy that I had improved in the last 8 years, especially on the harmonica, about which his neighbor in the other half of the "shotgun" style house once said "You need to kill that thing," as he was walking past me on the way to the store or something.

When he said that, I saw multiple meanings in my own mind even though I'm pretty sure he meant it the first way.

To kill it as in put it out of its misery; because it sounded like a wounded animal; or to really get on it; because I was playing it too gingerly. But I was also preoccupied with my throat at the time he said it.

That was the one time in my life when I had quinsy (sp?) in my throat. That is basically like a sac of puss that develops somewhere in the throat probably due, in my case, to having smoked a bad snipe off the sidewalk. 

It seemed to be an infection of the saliva glands, the ones activated by putting a Sour Tart candy in your mouth or even thinking of doing so. If you are not hydrated enough, I found, and prepared for that, it can be painful when the glands try to produce copious amounts of saliva which isn't there. Maybe you aren't the kind of person who spits on the ground all day (like Lilly walking around Manhattan and seeing Trump's name, perhaps) or one who regularly eats Sweet Tarts or Lemonheads.

A week before developing quincy, I had put a barbecued pork rib in my mouth that had some kind of sauce on it (at a party being hosted by Austin, Texas musician Brian Hudson who was staying in an apartment with his then girlfriend, Amanda Zapp, just off Frenchmen Street.

That area is the counter culture to the Bourbon Street one, and where people go to hear the most creative, inspired, avant garde and up and coming musicians, as opposed to the canned jazz played on Bourbon Street by musicians who can play the standards in their sleep and are not pushing any envelopes at all, except for maybe demonstrating the skill of being able to keep a beat going on a drum kit and text at the same time with one hand, type of thing...

Brian and Christina Friis, who was also in attendance

But, it had been at that barbecue, which was in the late morning and mid day that I had bitten into the rib which made my mouth pucker causing the saliva producing glands to strain,almost as if cramping up, like there just wasn't enough saliva in me because I never ate that kind of stuff and certainly not first thing in the morning; that left a soreness in my throat which, irritated by probably the wrong snipe off the sidewalk just off Frenchmen Street, led to the quincy (sp?) in my throat.

It was just a sensation of having something in my throat that I could feel every time I swallowed, as if my Adam's apple was rubbing against it.

Amanda Zapp

"You Need To Kill That Thing!"

Well, to bring this diversion full circle, it was after the neighbor of the lawyer had walked past and said: "You need to kill that thing," that my rebellious nature prompted me to play as loud a note as I could and to bend it as much as possible; as a response to him, sort of.

The swelling in my throat had been interfering with my playing, especially on the draw notes, by effecting the way I was able to change the embouchure of my mouth cavity.

As a response to what the guy had said, I struck a chord on the guitar and then played the extreme note, trying to "kill that thing" -the note, the song, the harmonica and...in the process, I felt a pop in my throat, after which I seemed to have the option of coughing up or swallowing what turned out, after I did the former, to be a nasty, thick white puss of some kind. I did swallow some of it, which gave me a kind of queasy stomach for a while, but it was evident that I had killed that thing; swallowing was once again easy, as was playing the harmonica. A cure for quincy was discovered for the price of a ten dollar Hohner "Old Standby" harmonica!

The lawyer's neighbor may have, in an unconscious state of mind, been trying to say that the harmonica, which was a cheap one that was going out of tune, needed to be put out of it's misery, perhaps shot or hung from a gallows, type of thing.

But, I saw in him a cosmic messenger, telling me that the abscess in my throat needed to be killed, which was something that he couldn't have known about consciously, only that my harmonica playing prompted him to say that, for whatever reason.

So, last night, I played under the lamp post, in front of the bedroom of a guy who had once asked me to stop playing at 10 p.m. It was probably about midnight. I didn't even put my tip basket out, as I was happy just to be under the light of the lamp, which was nice and bright; even brighter than it had been when I used to play there 8 years ago. Some vehicle had knocked it down about 3 years ago and it took them a full 2 years to fix it. It had to be the exact materials used in the 18th Century to construct lamp posts, due to rules established by the historical society that governs the whole French Quarter, but it's former gas flame is now a bright LED light; probably after some amendment to the rules were voted in.

First; the gas flames disappearing; and not long afterwards, a heavyset black man with a ghetto blaster appears, more signs of the Apocalypse, if you ask me. 

"The times, they are a changin..."

Attempted Buyout of Street Musician Daniel

But, the hip hop guy kept asking me if I had a "cash out," or some other app on my phone through which he could transfer money to buy me out. "I want to give you a hundred bucks, just to get you out of my area," he had said. That made me wonder if they were sitting there hacking customer's phones over Lafitt's wi-fi and were stealing so much money -all digital- that buying me out would be academic to them...

That kind of made sense out of a young brown skinned guy who had come by me, as I was struggling to play in the same key as the hip hop and to make up my own lyrics to go with the repetitions of one phrase maybe 40 times...Something like: "Hit that thang, hit that thang, hit that thang!...etc."

Became: "Yeah, hit that thang, that 'stop' button thang. Hit that thang; that 'stop' button thang, yeah hit that thang, that 'stop' button thang!..hit that stop button, hit it hit it; time to quit it!" type of stuff.

The young guy had listened for a minute and then plainly asked me if I did what I was doing "on the side," or if it was my only source of income.

After I told him that all my money came from "this," he turned and walked back towards the guy with the ghetto blaster. It crossed my mind that maybe he was going to go and try to persuade the guy to shut it down, telling him that he was putting someone out of business (just so everyone would know that he owns a loud electronic device? So he could over-ride any "white" music that might be coming from the bar or from me? So he could signal to people of color that Lafitt's has been pirated and is now being occupied by an inclusive crowd, whites need not apply?). But now I think gold teeth man had sent him to ask that; perhaps already having come up with the idea of buying me out and trying to estimate a reasonable price.

A Vaccine Apartheid

Lilly and I have a lot to talk about. 

At least she has the rectitude to not label me an "anti-vaxxer" like some ignoramuses who are probably just looking for yet another way to divide society, label people, and then hate them, like the unconscious types they are, creating a vaccine apartheid, as part of their utopian vision for the planet.

People who think that their neighbor's not getting vaxxed is a threat to them who are vaxxed themselves, are about the most selfish individuals imaginable. 

They know that they can still get Covid even though they are vaxxed; an event that might have left them feeling so shitty that they had to lie in bed for 3 days, taking flu medication the same as if they had gotten the damned virus in question. 

And yet, this tiny chance that they are going to die from the thing, after getting it from an unvaxed neighbor who wouldn't know that he was carrying it because of the added small probability that he has it, but is "asymptomatic" as grounds for these ignoramuses to literally "hate thy neighbor," is astounding. 

How long before the "anti-vaxxers" are required to wear stars on their sleeves, alongside the "Trumpers."

And, who are the supposed authoritarian fascists in our society, now? 

A Cakewalk For The CCP

I'm starting to think that the reason California people seem to complain about "spotty" Internet connections, when I can hardly recall my connection ever even being a little slow (these posts typically publish in under 5 seconds, for example) is because, I think, their data is being throttled, due to censorship. There is a difference between stupidity and ignorance. The latter is more excusable.

If you're in California, you probably aren't even allowed to see this blog, type of thing. And that would be because I'm not a gung ho, full speed ahead, everybody be forced to get the jab, Fauci lemming. So, if you're Google and in cahoots with Big Pharma; don't even allow this over the "spotty connection" out there. 

Yup, that's what I think...that's my conspiracy theory

And I think when the Communists do attack, shortly after Trump is elected again, so it can be blamed on him for posterity's sake; their first nuclear warhead will target Mountain View, California, or SunyVale, or wherever the Google's servers are.

As soon as they are confident that we are a society that will be both literally and figuratively lost without our smartphones, then...bombs away! It will be a cakewalk for the CCP; like taking candy from a baby. Then we will all be both literally and figuratively f***ed by the Chinese, with their 3 inch penises...

But, that's just my opinion; tell me what you think in the comment section below; and be sure to "like" and subscribe to my channel....