Wow, This Blog Is Still Here?

Everything, All The Time

I left on my bike Tuesday night, on my way to the Lilly Pad.

I didn't even have enough money on me to stop and get a beer at the Unique Grocery...oh, I'm sorry I just caught myself.

The Law of Attraction is based upon the fact that you attract into your life, more of what you think about....

I had been thinking that I subconsciously make myself run out of money at such points in life where addictions are out of control and the only way I'm not going to drink and smoke crack and try not to notice that, out of the corner of my eye, the things I value the most are dissipating.

So, I wasn't going to drink that night; I was going to go to the Lilly Pad totally sober and set up and play. If music wasn't enough of a source of joy for me, then they are hiring overnight stockers at Winn Dixie and starting them at 14 bucks an hour.

I rode down whatever that street is that pops out right in front of The Ideal Market, which is painted yellow and is staffed by and all Latino crew, and about which nobody complains; no black person feels slighted by the hiring policies of that store, and nobody is pushing for "diversity" there. That is funny.

I think it is because those are some hard working people. I would venture to say that they (Latinos) even work harder than me. 

I was one of the "star" employees at the labor pool that I worked out of in Jacksonville, Florida, back in 2006.

I used to show up in the morning, with bodybuilding supplements in my lunch pail. While the other guys out on the same jobs would look for the nearest Rally's or Wendy's when lunch time came, I would gulp down a bottle of a drink called XXL (something) which boasted 1,150 calories, with 40 grams of protein and a ridiculous amount of carbohydrates, plus every vitamin under the sun, and trace minerals and amino acids and, add to that, I would spike the thing with 5 grams of pure creatine monohydrate powder; which is something that the baseball player named Mark McGuire used heavily during the 1999 season, when he broke the home run record for a single season by hitting, I think it was, 77 of them.

By contrast, Babe Ruth (who ate hot dogs and hamburgers and was known to have a six pack of Budweiser stashed somewhere in the locker room, for the 7th inning "stretch" hit something like 60 home runs; and maybe Roger Marris (sp?) had 68, to break that record.

I saw Mark McGuire play that year. I was in Phoenix, and it was 113 degrees outside, but only 72 inside the Bank One Ballpark, that had a roof that would close over the place, keeping the cool air in. I would buy the cheapest ticket, which was called, quite aptly "a four dollar seat." That was just to get me inside the place as a respite from the life sucking heat outside. I would find my four dollar seat and plop myself down and be fast asleep for the duration of the Arizona Diamondback's game.

Every once in a while I would wake up when some guy did something on the field causing the crowd of, usually about 30,000 to go wild, cheering. I would wake up just long enough for it to register "Oh, yeah, I'm sleeping in Bank One Ballpark," and then, back off to dreamland.

This program actually worked out so well that I was able to catch up on my sleep, since the Diamondbacks would play these 3 or 4 game series on consecutive nights against the same team. So, I could be in my 4 dollar seat, sound asleep a good hour before the first pitch, and then continue to sleep until some guy came along with a broom about 2 hours after the game ended; affording me up to 5 hours of sleep in the air conditioned atmosphere, provided the teams cooperated by playing for more than 3 hours.

But, I saw Mark McGwire taking batting practice and, with arms that looked like tree trunks, hitting home runs so far that he was knocking light bulbs out that were above the 2nd tier restaurants and seating areas where one would never hope to catch a ball, never mind to have the light bulb above them shattered by a ball hit by someone like McGwire...

We were pretty sure he was aiming for them. The scoreboard up there became hard to read because you wouldn't know if the Diamondbacks had only 3 runs, or if they had 8; but Mark had just knocked a few bulbs out during his warm ups...

To cap off the McGwire story; Major League baseball outlawed the use of creatine monohydrate the very next season, after he edged Sammy Sosa from one of the Chicago teams out, in the "home run derby" that was going on that year. They both outdid Roger Marris (sp?) whose record had stood for something like 34 years; all in one season.

So, creatine monohydrate was banned by the league; Mark McGwire saw his muscle mass decrease. He struggled to reach 50 home runs the next year; and wound up just quitting baseball entirely. 

He blamed it upon the stress that having that much muscle mass had been putting on his bones and joints, but anyone who does creatine knows what the reason was. Barry Bonds has been discredited as a hall of fame member for "performance enhancing substances, also."

To make that relevant; it reminds me of those musicians that show up bright eyed and eager to jam. They are enthused about passing the joint around and getting started. Ready to rock and roll!

But, after the weed guy never shows up; or the guy who was supposed to bring the case of beer arrives empty handed ("They closed just as I was pulling in the parking lot, ain't that a bitch?") they decide they just don't want to play anymore; like Mark McGuire. They just quit the game...

"Oh, I need my yogurt and hummus, now!"

But, I was showing up at the labor pool in 2006, using all kinds of body building supplements, and the harder the job they gave me, the better.

"Gunslinging," was what they called working on the trash trucks. All you had to do was go through about 2 miles of residential streets, picking up all the trash barrels that people had set out for "trash day" and then lift them up and empty them into the hopper, so the truck could use its hydraulics to crush it all down, and then it was off to the next house..

This job struck fear into most of the labor pool workers. Most of them would rather not work that day than to go out on a gunslinging ticket. "You can have that..." they would say.

I was never even considered for one of those jobs. I weighed 140 pounds. They just overlooked me, but asked the 200 pounders if they wanted to gunsling.

The heaviest allowable trash container that people could set out was 100 pounds. The gunslingers had a general sense of whether or not they would empty a can if they thought it was heavier. They might leave a notice stuck to it explaining how it exceeded the weight limit, or whatever; rather than just get 2 guys to grab it on either side, and do the resident a favor.

There were times when, after a tropical storm, people might have a lot of sand to sweep up off their driveways and that might make a trash can more than 100 pounds; but there was also racism involved.

The mostly African American gunslingers, while happy to gain the spoils of half full liquor bottles thrown in the trash after parties, and other treasures in people's trash, were quick to refuse to lift a can that was too heavy.

So, it was as if the idea had only then crossed his mind when the manager, Victor, sheepishly asked me if I wanted to go on a gunslinging job.

I had heard the horror stories; but, then again I considered the tellers of those stories and how I had outworked most of them on other jobs.

I took a gunslinging job and was soon hanging on to the back of a trash truck as it meandered through upper middle class neighborhoods in Jacksonville Beach.

I grabbed the trash barrels  by myself and heaved them into the hopper. That was good news for the guy driving the truck; I didn't need a second person to help me.

I ran from one house to the next. I know the trash truck might have a maximum speed of 80 miles per hour, but it could certainly go more than walking speed. I was aware of how tedious it would have been for the guy driving the truck to do 4 miles per hour between houses, or to drive quickly and then park and wait for the gunslinger to mosey on up.

So, I ran to the next group of barrels, the truck driver soon adjusted, and we had knocked out the whole route for which 8 hours had been allotted in 3 and a half hours.

The driver was overjoyed. He was periodically leaning out of his window and telling me things like: "You don't have to take that!" as, in one case when a resident had apparently pruned his lemon tree and left a sinister pile of unruly branches that had thorns like hypodermic needles, in a pile by his trash cans. I had started to try to throw them in the hopper and it was like the tree was pissed off for having been pruned and was telegraphing messages to its estranged branches to "get him!"

"No, that's alright; that's what these gloves are for, I guess."

By the time lunch time came, we were done the entire route. That meant that he, the driver, could goof off for the rest of the day; which meant us parking by the beach, where he talked on his phone, and I consumed my lunch, in the form of a bottle of Nitro Fuel, a Twin Labs product that was later taken off the market.

So, to bring this full circle; Victor, the manager at Workforce (Quality Temporary Staffing) was astounded when I came back in, having been written in for 10 hours of work, though I was only gone for 8, and in the comment section of the work ticket was written: "Please send Daniel back!"

"Wow, Waste Services loves Daniel!" he said to the other guy.

One of the issues they had been having with sending their people out on gunslinging tickets was that a majority of them would "hurt their back" not long into their shifts; and would apply for Workman's Compensation, or whatever they call that thing.

Not 2 hours into their shift, they would strain their neck or whatever and, I guess they already had certain doctors they knew, ready to be unable to prove that the stabbing pain in their backs didn't exist; and to push the paperwork on to the Workman's Comp insurance people. The nervous system is a mysterious thing.

I returned with a few scratches from lemon tree thorns, but no strained back. (Not long afterwards, workers had to sign a paper affirming that they had never filed before for Workerman's Comp, or whatever they call it; before they would send them out on a gunslinging ticket).

So, to bring it full circle, I was sent on the most grueling jobs that the labor pool filled; all 143 pounds of me; and I generally worked circles around those that ate their breakfasts of eggs and hash browns and bacon at Famous Amos, and then their lunches out of (insert chain restaurant here).

But, I was still in awe of the "Mexicans" that I often encountered at the job site. They would be pushing wheel barrow after wheel barrow, laden with molten stuff that gets sprayed on the sides of houses, non stop, for however many hours it took to finish the job. They would start just after sunup and finish perhaps at 8 p.m. -a 15 hour workday of non stop back breaking work. Carrying 40 pound bundles of roofing tile up a wobbly ladder to a height of 45 feet; and then nailing it down under direct sunlight on a 98 degree day; and doing it for 10 hours, with only Red Bull and a Tupperware full of something their (typically beautiful) wives had prepared for their lunches, at a cost of just a few dollars worth of rice and beans and chicken.

Those were the hardest working people I've ever seen.

One time I asked a group of them if I could push one of the wheel barrows full of that Spackle stuff, along the thin path of boards laid end to end along the muddy ground, just to get an idea of how hard it was. It was hard enough just to balance the thing and keep it on the boards and out of the mud, while straining with the weight of it. I was kind of winded by the time I got the thing to the house; and I had only done one 50th of each of their day's work...

Tuesday, I rode my bike down the street that pops out by The Ideal Market; thinking about how I only had a dollar on me; and wouldn't even be able to get one beer to drink before busking. I decided that I would be happy just to get Harold a can of food.

I decided to go down the street that Patrick lives on; just in case he happened to be sitting on his porch and would smoke some weed with me and/or give me one of his beers.

In the parking lot of Ideal, I saw a quarter, and then another one and then another, next to a dime and a few pennies. It was a total of $1.22 just strewn about a parking space. Why did this not surprise me?

Having enough to feed Harold, and it being a Tuesday when I hardly saw anyone on the webcam, I had the notion to get Harold some food and go home. It would be about 10:45 before I played my first note.

I decided to go play, and to gamble upon spending Harold's food money on a large can of beer.

I played my first 4 songs without getting a tip. It was just when I might have started thinking that I was being punished for spending Harold's food money on beer that I caught myself about to have that negative thought and I made myself become grateful and happy for what I had.

Then, after playing with my head down, I looked up to see 2 one dollar bills in my basket that I had no idea where they came from. I looked up and down the street and didn't see anyone.

And then a couple guys came along and asked me if I had a Venmo account. They told me that they never carried cash but, if I had a Venmo, they would tip me.

I pulled out my new smartphone and one of them was able to install Venmo on it, and passing me the phone so I could create a password, and choose a user name; they both demonstrated how easy and beneficial it is going to be for me to have a Venmo account by each putting 50 dollars on my new account.

They told me I could get some kind of thing like Tanya Huang has a half dozen of, so that people without cash could tip me just by scanning the code, etc.

Tanya has it set up so that people can purchase her music and have it downloaded to their phones right there at the spot where she plays.

Asians are smart and hard working, also.

I left the spot having made only 4 dollars (not counting the Venmo money that I have ordered a debit card for, since I don't have a bank account. It seems like Venmo wants to get their tentacles into people's bank accounts, or that certain institutions just want everyone to have a bank account as an additional tool for controlling the population; something to freeze the assets on, should the person not be able to show proof of all 7 vaccinations, type of thing...

But, instead of going home, I became kind of nostalgic and wanted to take a slow ride through some of the old haunts. I rode through the Frenchmen Street area, noticing that there was smooth asphalt where there used to be a mine field of potholes. "This is the smoothest asphalt in the whole city," I said, to a random guy I saw.

Then, I went by Checkpoint Charlie Bar, where I had played at their open mic night, back when I saw a path forward by garnering a following in that venue and waiting for some patron or other musician to play match-maker and pair me with the McCartney to my Lennon, type of thing; "Man, your music is a lot like this guy we know in Slidell; do you have any recordings of your stuff that we can play for him? He knows Greg Kiln..." type of thing.

"Wow, they moved the stage back and added more seating," I said to a couple random ladies who didn't respond...

Then, I rode up Decatur, past the spot where I used to play, and I realized that the memories had crossed the bridge into the land of nostalgia, where it seemed like I could break out an play my guitar right then, but it wouldn't be the same. There would be no Sue, my Colombian lady friend, nor would there be that heightened instinctual sense that comes from having a fear of not surviving; of thinking that at some point, New Orleans would have chewed me up and spat me back to wherever I came from, like so many before me. That is what drove me to sleep under the wharf, rather than to have to be at the mercy of the competitive music business here, just to pay rent somewhere; or to have to compromise myself artistically (i.e. play Eagles songs for 3 hours once a week in Finnigan's Irish Pub).

I then rode by Rouses Market, where I was shocked to see that they are, once again putting their trash outside at the end of the night.

It used to be that the multitudes of homeless people would dig into their dumpster and leave a mess all around it; and would fight over "the chicken bag" which, as the name implies was what chicken was left over on the warming rack; chicken fully cooked and ready to eat after fighting over.

Now, the homeless people are few and far between. All of them have been put up in various places, ostensibly to keep them safe from the Covid (the abominable snowman, I call it) and now all the benches in Jackson Square are empty and there is hardly a doorway to a business with a cardboard fortress around it; it is a pretty empty city at night when there used to be up to 30 people vying for the chicken bag.

And so, Rouses is once again putting their trash outside. At first I though they might be doing it in the name of social justice -so that the unemployed homeless aren't being disadvantaged for lack of money- but, after 2 days, I realize that there is just nobody interested in the food. Everyone is getting an extra $150 added to their food stamps, because of the "pandemic emergency" or whatever they are calling The Abominable Snowman.

And, being curious, and only having made 4 dollars playing; I looked in the dumpster; and it was just like old times.

So much yogurt, still cold and with condensation on it; so much sushi, and hummus, lots of hummus. I knew which bags would have what in them, just from memory of 5 years ago.

I was glad I hadn't brought my amplifier because I grabbed a half dozen yogurts in my favorite flavors; especially the 3 dollar kind that is imported from Greece or whatever; and I took 4 things of hummus. I did all that without getting off my bike. I had the notion to break out my flashlight and really dig for gold (wine bottles that had their label torn and, thus, couldn't be sold) but I actually felt kind of self conscious. I didn't want anyone to worry that I wasn't being taken care of by the Biden socialist regime.

"I've got plenty; in fact I have more than enough; that's the way The Law of Attraction works...to those that have, more is given; and to those that have not; even what little they might have will be taken...I think that is even "biblical."

"I have a refrigerator full of yogurt, but I just didn't have any in this "Strawberry Shortcake" flavor, er, actually I did have some; and it's right here!" is what I was prepared to say to anyone who might have been concerned.

Then, it was off to the Unique Store to spend a couple of the 4 dollars on a beer, before going to CVS for a can of food for Harold.

As soon as I pulled up, a young black guy asked me if I had a light. I did.

"I'm just trying to light my weed," he said and then proceeded to light a blunt as thick around as a cigar, but only an inch long.

"You can have the rest of this," he said, handing it to me after he had taken a couple hits "You're only gonna need one hit, trust me, this is the fire!" he said.

I took one hit and then saved the rest to smoke 3 more times off of.

Then, I went to CVS, where I discovered that I had become something of a celebrity, with the tale of me whacking the skeezer over the head who was letting the air out of my tire having grown taller over the course of a couple days.

"That's him," I heard one of a group of guys wearing business attire say to the others. I glanced towards them to see them all smiling but not looking directly at me. I'm figuring that they frequently gather in the block at the same time; maybe they all work the night shift and take their break at the same time; maybe that exact skeezer has tried to skeeze them and then turned violent upon being repelled. I guess whacking a guy in the head with a can of cat food is just a slice of Americana or something. I wished they could have seen the shape the can was in when I took it out of the bag. I definitely caught the skeezer with the can on edge...

I got home and ate way too much yogurt and hummus. That was Wednesday morning.

Wednesday evening, I went out to busk and made 22 bucks in about 80 minutes (80 minutes being the duration after which I typically feel like I've had enough and want to go home; I would have to force myself to go longer, maybe for financial reasons; or because a group is standing around requesting songs and passing the time by tipping).

My lighter died right before I left home, but I found two (2) of them on the ground -one of them brand new (you can tell by the stiffness of the flint wheel). 

I bought a Twisted Tea for 3 bucks and then took another lazy ride through different parts of the Quarter; each one with its stories; I feel like I could give a tour of the place "...and here is where Leslie Thompson and I had a fist fight -the first one..." type of thing.

I got Harold 2 cans of food and returned home a hero. Only I did get another large can of beer, which brought the total spent on alcohol to 5 bucks, out of 22 made.

I went out to play without drinking first and it didn't bother me; so I should probably not make a habit of drinking.

I noticed the employees of CVS pointing me out to one another and smiling. 

There was a group of young black guys out front, who seemed to be skeezing.

After I grabbed the 2 cans for Harold and a beer for myself, I felt it incumbent upon myself to complaint to one of the cashiers: "You know, I'm taking care of a cat and getting one beer for myself and that's about all I can afford. I really don't appreciate it when the bums out front give me dirty looks, like they think I'm made of money but am just stingy; let them go out and play a guitar for a few hours every night, instead of just asking for free money at everyone else's expense. There's no way in hell I'm gonna go without this beer, just so I can "bless" them (making air quotes sign) with a couple bucks. They probably make more than I do just from begging everything on 2 legs they see!

I took my guitar and backpack off at my bike, so I could put the cat food in the latter. I locked the two ends of the cable together, thinking, you never know when a weapon like it can come in handy; one that I kind of discovered by accident.

After I had locked the cable together, I noticed the skeezers leaving the vicinity in kind of a hurry, and disappearing around the corner, while glancing back at me.

I can only wonder, given the way the gossip mill works, if it had gotten back to them that I randomly attacked beggars with my bike lock; and after I had put my stuff down and locked both ends of the cable together, it looked to them like I was getting ready to attack.