Every Other Way Besides Monetarily

The Lord helps those who help themselves.

So, I didn't help myself to a Digourno Bacon And Cheese Stuffed Crust pizza (gee, that sure is a mouthful) as I had a week ago, on Friday. Nor did I eat a whole box of Pop Tarts as dessert.

After losing my food card and having to wait a week for a new one I decided that it would be a good time for another "intermittent" fast; which I did mostly on juice, alternated with alkaline water.

When the new card came it had $347 on it. 

Having to rely upon busking cash alone for juice and water all week; the money that had accrued felt like it was excess. I wondered if I had gotten an extra hundred for having had to wait a week; or if there had been some kind of stimulus applied.

A few days of fasting and cleansing had me feeling so well, like I was bullet proof. I felt like I could splurge with impunity on the finest pizza pie that the Family Dollar has to offer -one that sells in that particular "dollar" store for $8.57. 

I was drinking an Andy Gator IPA. Drinking these days seems to just turn into a gateway to other destructive things. Like it rips away a layer of inhibition or maybe common sense. I had a reckless urge to eat a whole pizza. 

I like to reserve the word "incredible" for incredible things; but, after I added my own touches to the thing, a sprinkling of salt and a few drops of hot sauce, here and there, the pizza was incredible. I had also lucked out with the oven; not too hot or cold; too long or short, type of thing.

I deceived myself into thinking that my body would be so grateful for the nutrition that in the pizza that it would give me a pass on some of the other ingredients listed in the two paragraphs of them on the back of the box.

I'm returning to a subject from a couple weeks ago concerning the "addict," which is a distinct classification of personality type, or a disease, I'm not sure.

It seems like if I choose other things like kratom, occasional weed and a little therapeutic LSD every other weekend or so; then I might be able to avoid being a helpless and hopeless alcoholic.

 "You've got to serve somebody; yeah, you gotta' serve somebody. It may be the devil or it might be the Lord; but you're gonna have to serve somebody" -Bob Dylan, (from the "Slow Train Coming" album, that I had on cassette in the late 1970's.)

But, you can serve the Lord with a cigarette in your mouth. Your hands would still be free. My Hindu chiropractor back in the 1980's said that enlightened spirits can dwell in bodies that are not necessarily wholesome, saintly and pure.

Baptist preachers, not so much. I think the Baptists I knew would find fault with any sermon preached by a guy who would step outside for a cigarette when he's done preaching. All this, while knowing at a cerebral level that Jesus walked around in sandals and dressed like a hippie. And the wine at the Last Supper is well documented.

A Baptist friend of mine, who was also the choir director at Bethany Baptist church in Gardner, Ma., a city of 18,000 people at the time, where I went to community college, asked me why I couldn't just become addicted to something positive; like people can choose what to become addicted to. 

That seems to belie the notion that addictions are like thieves in the night that creep up on you, or things that gradually seduce you, type of thing. I think she was trying to get at why I didn't get high the Lord, and leave tobacco and weed and wine alone.

Like I could replace alcohol with an addiction for reading the bible; I could be up until the sun comes up for days on end; and wind up kicking myself over it and being full of self loathing; as if I was a slave to reading the bible. I would be planning to take some time off from it, but, after a couple beers, I'm back at it that same night. Now I've got two bibles open, side by side!

If I can get into jogging while tripping, I can add that addiction to my arsenal.    

When I ate dairy every day, I became sickly. I had a short sighted notion of blaming whatever I had just eaten for any chronic dermatitis that might be plaguing me. I didn't know that one must fast for a good week in order to rid the body of things like fats and oils that can kind of soak into the cells and trigger reactions to benign things. I once was itching like crazy after I had petted a cat that had oily skin and then applied some lotion to my face. The lotion seemed like an agent for transferring the cat oil under the skin making me feel like a thousand mosquitoes were stinging my face. 

But, growing up in middle class New England, I, along with just about every other kid, got a lot of milk in our diets. The 8 oz. carton at lunchtime was most certainly followed by a tall glass to go with supper; and then in the morning there might be a bowl of cereal or two in cow's milk. Even if breakfast was pancakes, milk would have been part of the recipe. It's easy to understand how convenient a source of protein, fat and calories milk was. 

It was one of "the 4 food groups."

I remember watching a video for the Navy; at a recruiter's office. This being after I had discovered my intolerance of milk. Right in the middle of the thing, while hyping the diet provided to Navy guy's the narrator added: "and plenty of milk!" as the screen showed smiling ensigns, or whatever they were, opening the tap on a large stainless steel dispenser and filling tall glasses with the white liquid.

It had been lost upon me when I went into Army Basic Training that a good portion of my fellow recruits were eating better than they ever had, and that the black leather boots they issued to us were the nicest footwear that some kids had ever put on. No wonder they got so many youths to face the cannon balls.

Society, almost in lock-step, believed in cow's milk. Maybe it actually is good for some people. It has enough growth hormone to double the weight of a calf every 2 months, I read once from some critic. But, hell, maybe growth hormone is good. You might hit more home runs in a season.

Even if I wasn't allergic to it, I would still balk at the taste of it (to stay on the baseball analogy). To me, it only had two flavors, tolerable; and sour. The latter being probably the worst thing I've ever tasted, along with what I was subjected to the one time I was given penicillin to swallow down in pill form, but bit into it, out of curiosity.

My mother said that when I was a baby, I would throw the bottle of milk that she gave me, as far as my infant arm could hurl it (pun intended) from the high chair or crib. She thought this a curiosity at the time; one that would gain more significance about 15 years later when, in the high school cafeteria, I would be reaching for the carton of milk on the lunch tray that we all got every day.

On this particular day, even before I had a chance to try to identify the kid on the back of the carton, I felt a wave of nausea hit my stomach so strongly, I jumped up and ran to the boy's room, expecting to puke. But when I got there, I felt fine.

Returning to my tray, I reached for the carton again, and could actually feel nausea traveling up my arm and towards my stomach.

"Maybe you're allergic to milk," said my mother when I told her about the incident. "You did used to scream and throw your bottle of it when you were a baby..."

There had to be some logical explanation for the eczema I was beset with, and the stomach cramps that always accompanied a trip to Kimball's Farm ice cream place, for one of their 3 pound banana splits.

On warm summer evenings, the things melted fast enough to keep you busy, spooning up the liquid from around the edges of the plastic boat shaped containers they came in -the runoff from their 3 humongous scoops of ice cream. The ice cream was heavy and rather solid, not like the soft stuff that Dairy Queen made.

This yielded a blend of molten vanilla, chocolate and strawberry, which was kind of like a metaphor for the good ol' USA, a land where cows roam freely and vanilla people coexist with chocolate people, and strawberry folks live happily on reservations...a wonderful melting pot; where beef is king, and dairy, queen.

If my memory serves me, Kimball's, was in a large building shaped like a barn, with a dozen or so screened windows, where a dozen or so lines of people might stretch all the way to the parking lot on a busy summer evening. 

The above metaphor could be extended to include the whole Family of Man, as represented by, of course, the namesake banana, the fudge, chocolate, pineapple and strawberry syrups, caramel, butterscotch, whipped cream sprinkled with walnut crumbs, all poured over the humongous scoops of ice cream, and topped with a cherry.

This is where the inspiration for my song: "The Man Who Couldn't Decide What Flavor He Wanted" came from.

The Man Who Couldn't Decide What Flavor He Wanted 

Standing there thinking with finger on chin.
His other hand clutching a crumbled up fin.
Exasperated was the look on his face
like the 50 behind him who'd moved not a pace.
The ice cream girl waited behind the screen,
condemned to be part of the whole dreadful scene.
He asked for a minute in which to decide.
She said "no problem," she lied.

(chorus)

He was the man who couldn't decide what flavor he wanted.
Yeah he was the man who couldn't decide what flavor he wanted.
The man who couldn't decide what flavor he wanted;
as the whole world grew just a little bit older.
It was mid summer of '86,
we were happy to have found this place in the sticks.
But we learned that day under mid summer's sun,
that waiting for ice cream is not always fun.
Immediately sensing that something was wrong;
for why would this one line have grown so long?
'Twas then that we all saw him standing there;
at the head of the line with the head of blond hair.
(chorus)
The line was abuzz with a querulous tone
for theirs was to suffer in quest of a cone;
somewhere a small girl was heard to say "Aw, come on!"
(chorus)
Everyone started to raise our voice;
which prompted the fellow to make a choice.
Later we saw him reclined on the grass.
We joked about shoving the cone up the ass of...
(chorus)
(outro)
"...Sir, French Vanilla is like vanilla, only it comes from France...
Rocky Road refers more to the texture than the flavor, sir...
I've never tasted Jerry Garcia, so I wouldn't know, sir....
I need to get to some of these people behind you, sir..
(repeat chorus)  

You could hear mooing coming from somewhere behind the people who manned the humongous scoops, as you waited in one of the lines.

I came to associate the 20 mile drive home with a dull ache in my stomach.

The youthful body is resilient, and for someone "allergic" to milk to eat one of those banana splits, as fast as possible, then only suffer abdominal cramps is a testament to this. But the body deals with such matters through tolerance, and some type of "chronic" ailment eventually rears its head.

Some people are true to the American way, believing certain foods to be good because the advertisements for them say so, and thinking things like cleansing fasts to be the doings of fringe lunatics. Give them their bacon cheeseburger, a large fries, and supersize that Coke. And, why not some ice cream for dessert?

Despite having lived a healthy life on baked fish, greens and red wine and having learned what I have; I occasionally get to where I feel so well, I talk myself into thinking I can get away with eating the very stuff that I thank God I learned to avoid.

I had a dermatologist that I was going to when I was about 17 years old, whom I know I have quoted here before as telling me: "Nonsense, son. You drink all the milk you want!" (the emphasis on the last two words made it sound like I naturally wanted milk; whether I realized it or not).

Now I know that the way of western medicine is to treat symptoms of diseases with chemicals; and having a lot of ill people is actually vital to the economy. Still, there was really no excuse for me to have eaten the pizza and the Pop Tarts. That was an "addict" thing to do.

It kind of sabotaged the busking, at least on my end, that Jacob and I did that Friday night when we made only 16 dollars in one dollar denominations. No wonder people who eat like that regularly have doctors and pharmacists and psychiatrists...

Things have been falling into place, musically; as long as I do my due diligence and keep practicing the Wim Hof breathing exercises, and avoid glutting myself with cheese. I find the combination of kratom and LSD to be like the Soma of The Brave New World

But, here it is the next weekend; and even though Jacob and I only made 36 bucks busking Friday night; it was a great night if measured in every other way besides monetarily.

I'm starting to get the hang of using the microphone in a way that I'm not backing off from it for fear of disturbing Lilly. She has been rather defensive of me lately, being quick to detect the sound of a different voice, the times other people have joined in, and rapping on the window, and even putting her hand through it one time about a month ago; when a young black guy was playing a drum along with us at 2 in the morning.

How Automobiles Are Like Dierrhea

 

It occurred to me, out of the blue to seek guidance in solving the procrastination problem which has beset me, to some degree, my whole life; but which seems to have become habitual the past few years.

My acquaintance, Bobby, had been telling me, beginning about 4 years ago, now, for example, that I should seek the help of a mental health professional, with regards to the long play of getting myself a "disability" check, through Social Security.

I began the process, but never followed through with making an appointment to see a shrink, whom I could have told about my apparent inability to follow through on things.

Baton Rouge Police Sweep The Streets Of Homeless, Ahead Of LSU Homecoming Events

I had a cellmate, in the Baton Rouge jail, back in August of 2011, who had just about convinced me that my homelessness was vivid proof of my own inability to manage my life, and that I was a prime candidate for receiving help from "the system."

"Why don't you have a job, a house and a car?" he asked.

"Well, because my chosen occupation of being a street musician, in faith that it will lead to 'something better,' only affords me a minimalist existence -enough to keep me fed and provide a few beers every night. 

I enjoy the freedom of that, after having been saddled with rent and car payments in the past, when I had to work from 7:30 in the morning until about 1:20 in the afternoon, five days a week, just to pay the bills and keep a roof over my head and a car on the road, to get me to work and back. 

I would get home and smoke pot and drink myself to sleep, maybe after plucking the guitar for a half hour, getting out of that exactly what I was putting into it; watching my dreams slip away; so I could be up, bright and early, spending an hour, for which I wasn't being paid, getting ready for work, so I could be there on time and keep the vicious cycle going. 

If I ever did get ahead financially, it seemed that something would come along, like a toothache or the CV joint going out on my car, and I would wind up sitting on the bare mattress in my trailer, too broke to do anything else, and dreading the sound of the clock, as its hands closed in on 6:30 a.m., yet again.

I just began subtracting things from my life, like the trailer and the car, feeling a sense of liberation and relief with the jettisoning of each, like the passing of diarrhea out of myself and the glow of revitalization.

Soon, I found myself waking up each morning in a tent pitched in the seclusion of a beautiful hardwood forest, feeling like Henry David Thoreau, with the sun rising and the birds chirping; starting a fire to heat up a delicious cup of coffee and looking forward to a day that stretched before me like the skeins of sunlight that cut like glowing shafts through the smoke and spider webs that hung in the air around me. I was burdened only with the onus of having to play a guitar for a few hours each evening in front of a convenience store, as I enjoyed every live-long day."

"You see, you're mentally ill!" exclaimed my cellmate. "Just tell the shrink all of what you just told me, and they'll fast-track a crazy check to you; I guarantee it!! That's the purpose of those checks; for people like you that, for whatever reason, are just too f***ed up to take care of themselves, so they need the government to step in! You live in the woods; you think that's normal?!"

But, after having spent 45 days in that jail (basically for looking homeless, and having admitted to a cop that I had consumed one can of Lime-a-Rita the same morning) I never followed up on my cellmate's advice. 

I was supposed to make an appointment with a psychiatrist who specialized in such things; and a lawyer who specialized also in such things (at a fee of 10% of any future disposition) as per the request of the S.S.I. people, and soon a letter arrived from them stating that, since they hadn't heard back from me, my case had been indefinitely "closed."

Bobby told me that, if it could be proven that I had been afflicted with this mental illness for a long time (verifiable through the record of my last official paycheck as having been received 15 years ago) then I would be "entitled" to a retroactive settlement which, as in the case of some people he knows, might be "something like 90 thousand dollars."

"Yeah, but the shrink would have to diagnose me with some medically recognized disease; and would put me on some drugs that would make me genuinely bat-s**t crazy, and I might then just use the money as toilet paper and flush it all away..." I offered.

"You're painting it black; at least go talk to the doctor!" said Bobby. 4 years ago. "I'm starting to think that maybe you are crazy!!"

I guess I would rather hold out hope that I could achieve something beyond my wildest dreams, if I were to dream big. Bigger than the dream of standing in line in front of some window ready to push some paperwork through to some person who would invariably be looking me over and thinking: What the hell is wrong with you? You've got two arms and two legs. Why can't you work just like the rest of us?!

My grandfather on my mother's side came over to this country on a ship from Poland, at the age of 5. During the 12 week voyage, his mother (my great grandmother) died.

He arrived as an orphan; learned the language; and began to work; walking for miles along the railroad tracks of Vermont, scooping up any coal that might have been pitched astray by the crewmen, intended for the furnace under the boiler of the steam engine. After 30 miles of walking, his burlap sack might have held enough coal so that he could contribute to the heating of the foster home where he lived.

They raised chickens and grew potatoes and all kinds of vegetables in the rocky soil. By the age of 12, he was working 12 hour shifts in the marble quarries around Proctor, Vermont. At the age of 15, he married my grandmother, who was 13 at the time. He was still too young to go off to fight in World War I.

We would make a few trips a year to visit them, where they lived in a modest 2 story house that had marble steps (there was a lot of marble around the place, go figure) and had a coal furnace in the basement (it was 22 below zero during one of our Christmas visits). Behind the house was about a quarter acre garden where everything from cabbage and potatoes, to corn and raspberries grew. Nearby was a chicken coup. 

My grandfather, who had arrived as a Polish speaking child, had mastered English to the point of being able to complete the New York Times crossword puzzle, for amusement. He saved newspapers, and during one visit when I was about 10, I found him rummaging through the large shed that sat behind the garden, and, after I gingerly entering its musky smelling confines, he showed me a couple of the papers from his collection. 

I remember the "Dewey Defeats Truman," and "Japanese Bomb Pearl Harbor" ones. Marilyn Monroe found dead? Read All About It!!

His coin collection featured pristine specimens of coins which had all been shiny and new when he had placed them in the collection folders, up to 50 years prior in the case of the oldest ones, where they continued to shine.

Whenever I asked my grandmother about what it had been like, going through The Great Depression, or if she had been scared when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor (barring that the newspapers were spreading "fake news") she would always fit into her narrative that they had always put their faith in hard work and God; had never missed a Sunday Mass, and, with a firm conviction would add: "And we never once had to ask anyone for charity; ever!"

And, so, I'm going to go apply for S.S.I. benefits because I haven't been able to get my act together enough to set some goals, make some plans, and follow through with them, due to procrastination? Give me a break.

There is a slight conflict with my inner values involved...

I just had the epiphany to Google: "Guided meditation for procrastination." And this is where I leave you...  

4 Capsules Of Valerian Root

I'm trying to restore balance after having binged on a whole pizza and a whole box of Poptarts® after finding the replacement food stamp card in my mailbox on Friday, after a whole week without it had gone by.

I had taken the opportunity to do kind of a week long fast, and felt amazingly well by the time Friday arrived. The Wim Hof breathing exercises were like out of body experiences once I had achieved the "empty stomach" upon which he recommends doing them. My breath holds (where you lay there motionless with no air in your lungs) were up to 3 minutes and 24 seconds.

But then on Friday, the new card came with $347 on it, and I grabbed an Andy Gator IPA® ale on my way to the Family Dollar, where the combination of feeling so healthy as to be bullet-proof, along with having so much extra money on my card so as to not have to sweat the cost of it, lead me to say "screw it," and I grabbed a DiGiorno Stuffed Crust® pizza from the freezer, along with the box of Poptarts, as if the world might end that night, and so I was going to stuff my face one last time before it did.

But, by the time Saturday night rolled around and it was time to go out and busk, I had a crick in my back as if the muscles around my spine were cramped up -something that vodka used to do to me; so I suspect the grain in the pizza as being the culprit- and after Jacob and I did some psychedelics and went out to play, I found that I was just having a bad night, music-wise, and the one dollar bills that were the only things that found their way into the tip jar seemed to be confirmation of that.

My strings were old, and I felt derelict for not having replaced them when I had the means to, and one of my harmonicas had a note become stuck on it; and I blamed myself for playing it while sipping on a Monster Zero® drink, which doesn't have any sugar in it to gum up the inside of a harmonica, but probably has something else in it.

I just had the impression that I had gone out there very unprepared. It became a struggle to even set up the equipment once the acid kicked in and the tourists walking past began to resemble fish swimming by, and everything we played kind of sounded like cartoon music. Out of tune cartoon music...

I suppose I learned the lesson for about the dozenth time that, even if I feel great, eating the forbidden foods on my list of them always come with consequences.

The sun is about to come up and I was going to go to Rouses and get some prune juice, along with some apple juice and alkaline water; but the 4 capsules of Valerian root that I took, trying to put my sleep cycle back in sync with the sun, are already making me drowsy.

Last night there was a total lunar eclipse; so, what better excuse for starting over, with a fast and cleanse?

The Shadow Knows

•  Shadow Ban Ends
• We Jam With "Best In World" Harp Player
  

The Shadow banning of this blog has apparently been lifted, making me wish that I had been putting more effort into the writing that has gone into it.

At one point, right before the 2020 presidential election, Google had throttled the readership down to less than a dozen "views" on a typical day. After all, I was a vaccine skeptic, a global warming skeptic, and a non death-wisher of Donald Trump.

January of 2015: "Before"

That put me in the position of having to try to write about more timeless topics; as if the blog was to be put in a time capsule, to be dug up at some point in the future. This kind of shed a different light on what I had for breakfast that morning being fodder for a blog post. Instead of writing about watching "the game" the night before, I had to be more specific and mention "the Superbowl between the Rams and the Chiefs" just to jog the memory of anyone reading the post well into the future.

Now, I feel like I have to go back and edit a lot of posts that were done when I was locked down in the apartment, swilling brandy and pissed off at the shadow banning. 

May of 2022: "After"

Rather than "disappearing" the posts (which would draw attention to the censorship that was going on, and flood the Google help forum with "what happened to my post?" inquiries) the algorithm allowed me to write whatever counter-to-the-mainstream-narrative things I wanted, but then just disappeared the whole darned blog to the search engine, so that only the people who already had the link bookmarked or were "subscribed" would ever see them. (Or people who randomly typed "daniels-new-blog.blogspot.com" in the search box of their browser -there were 0 of them, over the course of the past year).

As far as the algorithm was concerned, I would be quarantined into a special room in cyberspace, and kept with other like-minded individuals, where our thoughts would stay amongst ourselves, without there being any risk of us infecting anyone else on the worldwide web.

That way, millions of people could maintain things like: "Everyone thinks we need a new president, just look on Facebook or Youtube or Instagram or Tik Tok; it's everyone!" or would be ready to get right in the face of anyone who hadn't taken the "experimental" vaccine (close enough that they could smell their breaths) and give them hell over their selfish attitudes. And these people would have never even heard of any contrary opinions, nor read about the foibles of Street Musician Daniel...

But, now that I am back to getting about 600 views a day, I feel a bit embarrassed over what any of them might dig up, should they go back into the archives and catch me on one of my bad days.

I guess I have some self censorship to do.

Our Friend Gurvan

Last Saturday night, Jacob and I were visited by one of the members of the best blues band in the world, in the form of Gurvan Leroy, who jammed along with us on harmonica for a couple songs. One of them I will link here as soon as I upload it to Youtube or Soundcloud.

Gurvan is the guy on the far left, whose band "The Whacky Jugs" beat out 3 thousand other bands at some festival which culminated in Nashville, the night after we met him; if our understanding of his broken English was correct. I was glad to find out that he is one of the best harmonica players in the world because he definitely impressed me with his playing  

Daniel McKenna III · I Feel Fine (cover)(w Special Guest Gurvan Leray From The Wacky Jugs)

The Moth

"The Truth Shall Set You Free"

I knew it was Wednesday because the hallway floor had been recently mopped and was slightly redolent of Pine Sol© as I crossed it to get to the parking lot where there would be sunlight for another couple of hours.

I felt like a wreck; but, what had I done to myself? I had only drank one bottle of ale, indulged in one honey bun out of the machine, and had eaten a mostly starchy diet of instant potatoes and green split peas, the day before. I had gotten in 8 hours of sleep after having stayed up a full 24 hours, after Tuesday's plasma donation.

Youtube was still auto-playing, and so I had probably slept through a few hours of Trump speeches and "right wing" slanted editorials.

I had left one of the pairs of jeans that I washed in the bathtub in the oven, but thankfully had only put the temperature at about 200 degrees, so it wasn't a room full of smoke that awakened me.

I am out of coffee. I am probably going to pause here and run down to Family Dollar to at least get a one dollar pack of instant...

Then it will be the question of whether or not to busk tonight.

There was what looked like a huge piece of fabric in a triangular shape in the stairwell to the parking lot, which turned out to be a rather huge moth. It was apparently stuck beating itself against the window right by the door, trying to fly into the parking lot.

Every time I tried to guide it with one hand towards the door that I was holding open with the other it avoided me, then frantically bashed itself against the window, just one foot away from freedom. 

It was one of the biggest moths that I had ever seen, black with specks of brown and kind of looked like a chewy date and coconut confection that I used to get at Whole Foods. When it was fluttering its wings it was as big as a hockey puck. Moths don't bite, I had to tell myself.

After I picked up on a certain rhythm with which it was banging itself against the glass, I was able to time its 4th or 5th rebound in order to get my opened hand on it enough to steer it just a little bit over so that, with its next panicked foray, it found the open skies of Louisiana.

The Truth...

...is that you want to fly just a foot or so over to your left, moth...

The moth became a symbolic thing to me at some deep subconscious level and I immediately felt the urge to text Jacob to see if he was OK.

It was also a weird coincidence that Alex in California blogged about a month ago about having set a moth free, which was kind of out of character for his blog, which usually has an emphasis upon his work-a-day struggle for survival, and his derision of all those who parasitically live off the state; all while extolling the virtues of communism. 

The sun is about to go down and I guess I'll make that coffee and cat food run now.

Now that I think of it, I still have the Starbucks gift card that the Lidgley's sent for Christamas, and I might just ride down there and get a whole bag of some variety of bean and have them grind it for me, and not have to worry about coffee for a while. At least not worry about bad tasting coffee for a while.

Of course, I could do that on my way out to busk, if I were to do so before Starbucks closes at 9...

Consider The Lilly's

• 104 Dollar Friday
• 30 Dollar Saturday

The ever faster lately, it seems, clock is already a half hour into Monday.

The time to decide whether to busk or not, on this Sunday night, has come and gone. I had woken up at around 5 in the evening, which means I must have drifted off to sleep around 9 in the morning after Jacob and I had busked until about 1 am.

I called Lilly about an hour after waking up because I had seen a "missed call' from her which was logged right around the time we heard a light tapping on the window of Angelique's bedroom which was about 2 a.m. Saturday morning.

A group of a few more people had shown up, with I think one of them adding a second harmonica to our mix -my memory is foggy on that, but Lilly was once again concerned with there being a larger (than just Jacob and I) group playing in front of her house. She is wary of any other musicians trying to move in on my hustle and, even though Angelique had informed her that I was indeed part of the group, Lilly rapped a few times on the window, taking care to not put her fist through it like she did a couple weeks ago when there was a black guy banging along with us on a drum.

The phone call started with her pleasantly asking if I was going to play "tonight," which I took to mean that there were no hard feelings and that her knocking on the glass wasn't meant to run me away. But, then it devolved into about an hour and a half of Lilly lecturing me on politics after I had said that I thought a bunch of rich people were basically running the war in Ukraine just as a means of making lots of money selling the Ukrainians the weapons.

After I pointed out how interesting it was that every president, going back to probably Reagan, had gotten us into some kind of war, under the same circumstances of the military industrial complex raking in tons of tax payer's money.

But then I made the mistake of saying "Except for Trump..."

And it was off to the races, with Lilly claiming that Trump started a war "right here in this country," which, in her opinion was worse. 

Then, I had to listen to the entire history of Putin and how there hadn't been a war because Trump was "in bed with him", and wants to be "like Fidel Castro" and "own this country;" and then, she praised Hillary Clinton and Liz Cheney and I listened in disbelief as she parroted back all the propaganda that comes over CNN on half of the world's smart phones, almost word for word. 

She then said that Trump supporters were all ignorant rural people and that any person with any kind of education would be able to see through all the lies...and vote for Hillary.

She kept punctuating every other phrase with "OK?" as she prated on. "Putin has stolen billions of dollars from the Russian people, OK?! and they have no idea that it even happened, OK?! and besides her agreeing with me that we shouldn't be fighting the Russians in Ukraine but should rather just obliterate "that beautiful building" -the Kremlin- with the mother of all bombs, and take Putin out, she never seemed to recover from the "Except for Trump," comment until an hour and half had gone by, with me occasionally saying "Yeah," into my phone in between her "OK?!"s

Not Sure This Is OK

And this reminded me of the tarot card reader named Louise, whom I once let stay in my place, who would go off on her own tirades about her hatred for men, punctuating everything the same way, OK?!

Louise determined that it wasn't her fault that the government had been "stupid enough to give a voucher for an apartment to 'an alcoholic veteran,'" and that she had just as much, and probably more, of a right to the apartment; and then informed me that she was going to cook herself a good meal, take a long hot shower and then sit and watch a movie (on my laptop) while finishing a tub of ice cream she had in the freezer (notice I didn't say in my freezer). I listened to a few hours of her non-stop diatribe against, men in general, before I called the security people up front to come and get her away from me; sending her on her way, pulling a little cart behind her, laden with all her tarot card reading paraphernalia, and yelling: "He was probably going to rape me!" and other things, all the way down Canal Street -just another mentally ill person yelling to no one in particular, was what I was hoping anyone would think of her...

But, there was Lilly on the phone, ranting about politics and saying "OK?!" everywhere there would be a period on a printed page. That really threatens to change my opinion of Lilly. I've never heard her "OK" like that before. It sometimes seems like there are spirits in New Orleans that can inhabit bodies like hermit crabs do; and make groups of people think and say the exact same things; and one of them crawled into Lilly when she wasn't on guard...

2 Straight Nights Busking

But, there was the minor miracle of Jacob and I having logged 2 straight nights at the Lilly Pad (especially after having split 104 bucks the night before; which might have given the more fickle of buskers an excuse to take a night off and party it up).

We had gotten off the street car nearby Patrick's house, hoping that he would still be awake and would have some weed to sell us, since we had played the whole night without the aid of that particular euphoric. We did happen to have a tab of acid that I swallowed before I wallowed into the Quarter, to go with some "magic" mushrooms that Jacob ate a handful of.

We were kind of hoping that we would run into Trinity, who is a petite girl with tattoos all over her skinny body, who was playing a miniature guitar and singing with a heavy Arkansas accent when we had encountered her at about 2 a.m. on our way back from Lilly's after the Friday night into Saturday morning event.

We stopped at the corner diagonal to her, where I made the assessment that she was "sexy," noting the fishnet stockings and the red shoes to go with her heart shaped face.

We went over to her and put 3 bucks in her tip receptacle, which was kind of a weird, flat, tambourine shaped circle of cloth, adorned like a wreath with twisted pieces of palm leaves. It didn't look like it would hold much money.

A closer look at her revealed that some of her "tattoos" had perhaps been drawn onto her using a magic marker.

But, she was nowhere in sight as we walked Royal Street back this time. That was a slight relief to me because I had consumed the jello shots that some guy had tipped us, not realizing that Jacob had set one of them aside to give to her.

We had even set up the recording studio at my place, intending to bring her back with us to begin working on her first album. I had to caution Jacob about becoming too optimistic about the prospect of collaborating with such a skinny girl with magic marker tattoos all over her body; sometimes you can read a girl like a book and make an educated guess as to how she might have gotten so skinny. Although I might be reading too much into it, because her skill on the miniature guitar was quite impressive, and bespoke of a lot of practicing, without much time left over for doing crystal meth and not eating for days...

So, The Streak Ends At Two Days

There is generally a drop off in traffic at the Lilly Pad after about 10 p.m. on Sunday nights.

In fact I should do an error correction upon the statement that I wrote a few posts back about how much money I would potentially make, were I able to buckle down and discipline myself to put in 40 hours a week.

I said that I would make around 600 dollars a week; but I wasn't considering the fact that, in order to put in 40 hours per week, some of those hours would have to be during the slower periods of time, such as when many of the tourists are inside some place eating dinner, as per the customs of doing so at specific hours, such as 7:30 p.m.

Not every hour can be like the ones between 11 p.m. and 2 a.m. on a crowded Friday night into Saturday morning, and there just aren't 40 of those in any given week.

Tanya Huang is probably a good role model for choosing when to busk; as she starts at 11 a.m., Thursday morning and puts in at least 12 hours, with a short break to eat at, of course, the time when a lot of tourists are inside somewhere, doing the same. If she still has a crowd gathered when 11 p.m. rolls around, she will often keep going for another couple hours, adding another couple hundred bucks to her basket, but making for a 14 hour day of pretty much non stop bowing of her violin.

I think the amount she plays on Sundays are to make up 40 hours for the week, so if she does her three days of twelve hours each, she only "has to" play 4 hours on Sunday, and might do that in the evening from around 8 until midnight.

The hardest part of following that formula for me has been the part about continuing to play, if after your planned amount of time is up, there are still a lot of tourists surrounding you.

I tend to think that, after I run out of gas, the quality of whatever I go on to play will diminish, and thus, negate some of the advantage of having a bunch of people within earshot. And I also perhaps "suffer from" what might be the fallacy of seeing a higher purpose in what I do, as far as letting the incomprehensible workings of the universe involve me in connections to other people in ways that still might not be understood about art in general. This would be best illustrated by examples, such as when I was playing "Tears In Heaven," and looked to my right to see a certain young lady sitting on the stoop next to me with tears running down her cheeks, who then told me that her mother's funeral had been earlier that day and that that song had been part of the ceremony.

Or the time I was doing "Scarlet Begonias," by the Grateful Dead on a sidewalk in St. Augustine and as soon as I sang the line: "Wind in the willows playing tea for two..." another young lady stopped right in front of me and hiked up the leg of her shorts to reveal a tattoo of a willow tree, with two birds alighting in its branches, with the words: "Wind in the willows playing tea for two," done in fancy calligraphy that kind of wrapped around the drawing in a flowing manner that suggested them being blown by the wind.

This is something that Tanya seems to not acknowledge in any way as being part of her busking experience. "I'm just trying to sound good," was her response to me asking her some question along those lines. I think it was something like asking her if she was intentionally playing a lot of "triplet"s in her melody because there was a lady with 3 identical babies in a triple stroller who had stopped to listen.

"I'm just trying to sound good," she told me with a slight frown, as if she "frowned upon" the practice of attaching meaning to the music, beyond it just sounding beautiful. It could be that her Buddhist religion, along with the countless hours of practicing since she was 4 years old, has trained her to shut off a certain part of her brain, so that it won't be allowed to make any mischief, such as having her play triplet figures on the violin to entertain some triplets. It could also be a right-left brain kind of thing, where she has to marshal a lot of her brain power into reproducing melodies (out of her encyclopedic store of them) and that that doesn't leave much room for thinking about such things as triplets.

It was actually her foil, Dorise Blackmon, who was adept at choosing songs (out of their encyclopedic store of them) to go along with something that a tourist might be displaying. No matter which state a tourists shirt was advertising, they would have 50 songs at the ready and Dorise would lead them into one's like "Private Idaho," by the B-52's or of course, "Country Roads" ("West Virginia; mountain mama, take me home) at the sight of a tourist approaching, wearing the tee shirt.

She exhibited a broad musical knowledge to point that, if a tourist was representing even some city on their shirt; they were likely to have, in their repertoire, a song by an artist who was born there. Tori Amos for Baltimore, or a Sam Cooke song, if anyone came along wearing a Coahoma Community College shirt (located in Clarksdale Mississippi) (where Sam was from)...

OK, 4 hours spent blogging will have to do...

The Weather To Surprise Me

The sun is about to rise on this Tuesday morning.

I've been up almost 24 hours at this point.

I still want to do a few more things before going to sleep.

Jacob and I had about a 45 dollar Saturday night (shown) and it seemed like we got there around 10 p.m. and played until, I think it was 12:51.

We were visited by a group of people who turned into a phenomena which takes place about once a year, and can best be described as "the group of people who come along and want to sing "Hotel California." That turned into one of the musical highlights and one of the 20 dollar tips that came our way...

I'm pretty convinced that, were I to be able to work up to busking for 40 hours a week; I would be taking home somewhere close to $600 per week, tax free. I say this because we were also reminded that there are people who will just throw 20 bucks in your jar upon the sight of you there busking, whether you are playing or not. There is a certain amount that you could make just sitting there with an instrument; which is probably something close to whatever the minimum wage is.

When I was homeless and hence always walking around the Quarter somewhere, I would be stopped at least once a night by someone who would see the guitar on my back and offer 10 or 20 bucks if I would take it out of the case and play, usually Neil Young or Bob Dylan.

Time is flying; in about 40 hours from now, my food card will be charged up and I will probably do another "intermittent" fast upon juice and spring water for a few days; and then just spring water.

Wim Hof suggests that people do his breathing exercises on an empty stomach in order to get the full effect from it. When I did them after not eating for 5 or 6 days; the experience was pretty amazing. I think I was manufacturing dopamine in my brain, and maybe even some other drug like ecstasy.

I suppose I will do a few rounds of Wim now, even though I ate about 2 hours ago. It was only chick peas and rice that I ate, though.

Yesterday I went back to the plasma place, and was able to catch Harold up on his food, off of the 40 bucks they gave me for 750 ml. of my plasma, and then I drank a few good beers, counter to my decision to give up drinking and stick to kratom and LSD as my combination of choice; along with getting high on my own supply through the Wim Hof method.

I have yet to fully engage in his program by adding cold showers to my daily routine. I have managed to turn the dial on a hot shower towards the cold end of the spectrum for the last 30 seconds of a it; which is kind of the gateway to eventually being able to take ice cold ones. In the winter, some of the water in the pipes that run under the building in the crawl space can get pretty darned cold. 

Well, the sun is up, but it's behind some pretty thick clouds. I haven't paid much attention to any weather forecasts lately. I guess I just want the weather to surprise me...