Onward And Upward

Whoever stole my bike 26 days ago, I imagine to have done it because he had already spent most of his monthly check on his drug addiction, having been extended credit against the money that was going come later that night, just a few hours after the bike came up missing. Half of the building's residents were huddled in front of the place, counting down the minutes and seconds before midnight would come, and with it, the mass movement towards the nearest ATM machine, where they would line up, a dozen deep and one by one, withdraw cash from the machine. Then, one by one they would walk to where the dope dealer sat in his car, pay back their debts which had started to accrue as soon as the last month's money ran out, while buying more crack or meth off the guy. They already would have bought their alcohol and cigarettes in the store; that way they could make a beeline back to where their pipes waited for them. Every second counts once the drugs are in their hands and doing them no good until they make it back to where their pipe is. Having to then go back in the store to get their other stuff would be too nerve racking; they would be ready to smoke that second.

The reason I had not pulled my bike into the apartment when I ran in for what amounted to maybe an hour was that I thought they would all be preoccupied with the coming windfall and not filled with a desperation for the 25 dollars that the bike might net them. They were all out there, checking the time every 4 minutes, I assumed. I hadn't factored in that any of them might already owe the dope man most of what they were going to be withdrawing from the ATM in less than 3 hours.

The other thing I imagine about whomever took it was that it was someone who had seen me going off on the bike a few nights a week, with my guitar on my back, and then returning a few hours later with, he assumed; money and cigarettes and perhaps alcohol; none of which I was offering to him as I pushed the bike past him on my way to an apartment that had furniture and a TV and other accoutrements, in stark contrast to his dwelling, where there may be one chair with his pipe under the cushion, and maybe a little table to hold his ashtray and perhaps a mattress in the other room.

It would be easy for someone like that to view the bike as being one of the differences between myself and him; something that afforded me the means to go into the Quarter and make money while, he "has to" steal whatever he gets. And, it serves me right for not giving him a couple dollars, a cigarette and one of my beers each time I return to the building. On that bike.

One of the security ladies up front, Donna, said "I saw what happened to your bike." She isn't allowed to inform me of exactly what she saw through the camera right outside my door, but hinted to me that someone had told her, on his way out the front door with it, that I had allowed him to borrow it. I still have a couple days left to call for a police officer to come and view the same video; that way, the cops would at least know who the culprit is, and that might give management the grounds to evict the person. I have hesitated this long because of the slimness of the chance of me getting the bike back; plus the fact that the New Orleans Police Department is critically undermanned right now; and it seemed almost cruel to request that one of the few officers on duty take even a half hour out of their schedule to investigate a stolen bike.

But, I think I will call in a little while. One of them showed up about a day after I called the first time (the 911 response times are only a little bit better) when I wasn't here, but she wrote up a report based upon what I had told Donna at the front desk; mainly that I hadn't lent the bike to anyone that night. That will give them a few days to come and watch the video and basically charge the person with a crime so that the eviction can proceed. I would be doing a service to my fellow residents. Plus, Donna seems to be chomping at the bit to prosecute whomever it is, saying that she has seen him leaving the building with other items that matched the description of things shortly thereafter reported missing.

I suppose that if part of the satisfaction of stealing the bike would be that it would take away my ability to go into the Quarter to make money, and then ride back here to flaunt it in front of him, by having a bag full of cat food and other items on my handlebars and a cigarette in my mouth, then he must feel like he has succeeded in that regard, over the past few weeks that I just haven't been going out to play.

If I were to just make the 2 mile walk to the Lilly Pad with all my gear on my back, I would most likely make enough, even with one of the worst nights ever, to be able to take the trolley home, and then back out the next night. I might only have to make the walk one time and then be riding from that point forward.

But, I suppose it might be something else my subconscious mind is steering me towards. I haven't drank, nor smoked weed, nor had much kratom over the past couple weeks, and even my tobacco consumption is down to a few cigarettes a day. I guess the next time I go out it will be because I feel like playing music; and not because I'm dying to drink and get stoned.

Instead, I have been watching the entire 5 years of the Game of Thrones series that once premiered on HBO, back in the 2011 through 2016 era. I've been watching for 12 hours at a time, and am up to Season 5 now. I hadn't known anything about it before stumbling upon it on a free streaming site that I've also stumbled upon (through the agency of my friend Jacob having sent me a link to a Paul McCartney interview series hosted on the same site).

I imagine that, when watching G.O.T., I am having a similar experience to any black people that watched Alex Hailey's "Roots" documentary in multiple parts, back in the late 70's or whenever that aired.

Gah! This image is a spoiler! I was just looking for an image to put here, and now I know that she is going to be sitting on the Iron Throne! I only had Season 5 left to watch; and now it's all ruined!!

It kind of sheds a little light on the culture that I grew up in; at least the aspect of maintaining the integrity of "the family name," and seeing the residue of some of the "codes" of honor having trickled down through the centuries and made it to New England.

It has kind of normalized the notion of me running a blade through the back of the head and out the mouth of whomever stole my bike.

I fell asleep watching a "greatest 50 novels of all time" type of video; succumbing somewhere around #29, and then woke up finding that Youtube had auto-played to one of the same guy talking about the works of Aristotle, Homer, Virgil and one other guy. I subscribed to his channel and then backtracked to discover the synchronicity of the fact that I am presently reading what he deems the greatest American novel of all time, namely; Moby Dick.

Having the bike stolen has been perhaps just enough of a hardship to have wrecked me, in the sense that I stopped going out to busk; but perhaps there is an, as yet unclear, value in my staying home to watch Game of Thrones and beginning to read Homer and Virgil.

Feed That Kitty

Somehow I think falling asleep with Jordan Peterson lecturing on "the psychological significance of biblical stories (?)" or whatever his series is called, is a good thing.

I woke up and shut the browser down; as Youtube had finally paused Jordan after about 5 hours, in order to ask me if I still wanted to continue watching; and that screen hung there. I get unlimited data through my government phone, with the only trade off being that I am being mined for all kinds of data and, somewhere, I am most likely on several watch lists; as the algorithms aren't sophisticated enough to delineate sarcasm, and comments I have made, such as "The best thing to come out of World War II was that the U.S. got the atomic bomb; so now we can feel safe..."

I got up at 4 in the afternoon and muttered a mild oath against my slothfulness in having stayed up watching videos, culminating in the Jordan Peterson biblical one that I eventually fell asleep to; probably right around daybreak.

But, I decided not to do what I have fallen into the habit of, which would be to begin my day by checking the "news" on Youtube.

I bagged up my acoustic guitar and started walking towards the Winn Dixie, while the sun was still pretty high in the sky.

A stop at my mailbox produced a one dollar bill inside another Nielson Ratings envelope, with a note thanking me for participating in the "radio" study that I'm a part of now. I guess finding someone with an actual radio is like a needle in a haystack, unless new cars still come with them installed in the dash. I have my doubts about that; I would imagine that they come with "web enabled" units through which you could listen to the local radio stations, getting the signal through some other way than through AM or FM signals -gigabyte frequencies that don't fade when you go through tunnels or fade out if you stray more than 50 miles from town, type of thing.

So, the Nielson people have been peppering me with correspondences, all of which having either one or two crisp one dollar bills right in the envelope along with the survey; and sometimes a crisp 5 dollar bill for having completed and mailed back the thing.

So, I grabbed the one dollar bill, and continued on my way, thinking that I wouldn't have to steal a can of food for Harold, should I not be able to find someone who would pay for one in exchange of me getting them a food item off my EBT card.

I got to the lobby, where a lady in a wheelchair who lives here named Janice promptly asked me if I had a dollar "for a cold drink out of the machine.."

I see her all the time, sitting in her chair with a liter bottle of vodka in her lap, smiling in her vodka haze but never offering me a gulp of the magic elixir.

I didn't give her the only dollar I had on me; though the Lords of Karma were telling me that if I gave her all of my money -her a pathetic whatever she is- I would be rewarded ten times over.

I walked all the way to the Winn Dixie instead.

There I saw a lady when I was in the produce section who had a list on her that looked like it had been printed out that had the heading "Things We Are Out Of," on it.

I just gave a cursory glance to her and her list.

But then I saw her in the cat food aisle grabbing a 24 pack of food, and after I ran into her a third time in another aisle, I asked her if I could buy her something off my food card in exchange for a can of cat food, and she gave me 2 bucks.

Then, when I was back in the cat food aisle, trying to decide if I wanted to treat Harold to a single delicious can or get him a couple of the regular ones, the lady appeared again and handed me a 5 dollar bill, saying "Feed that kitty."

It still hadn't dawned upon me that the 5 dollars to "feed that kitty" should have been telling me to use it for a street car ride into the Quarter, so I could start making enough money to feed Harold, until I went outside the store and found a quarter on the ground, which made me think of that street car. I was then glad that I hadn't spent the whole amount on a few cans of food when I now had an easy ride to the Lilly Pad where I can make ample money to feed the critter.

It kind of went on and on, but I don't feel like writing it all out here. I went and got some alcohol, then ran into the same people at the Holy Ground whom I had been with the night that I thought my phone had been stolen

I told them the embarrassing detail that I had had my phone on me the whole time, but it had been in a pocket of my guitar case where a cassette tape had been earlier, and so, when I had patted it down looking for the phone, I had assumed that I was feeling the same cassette instead of my phone. And when someone else had dialed my number, the phone hadn't rung because I had just used the guitar tuner app, which disables incoming calls (so I guess if you are on stage tuning your instrument a phone call won't come in over your amplifier).

It turned out that they, once again requested that I play a Creedence Clearwater Revival song, which I did a little better this time, and I listened to a couple of them complaining about their houses having been invaded by government agents, the one because he had bought a couple silencers for his guns; and the other because he had bought 2 guns within a one week span of time...

"I love Donald J. Trump," I told them, pursuant to their concerns about the fascist Biden regime.

Then I went back home with enough money on me to take the trolley into the Quarter and play, in order to feed Harold, and basically to get back into the routine of it. What would the world be like without me? It would be a lot like it has been the past month, I would have to say.

I've Got A Crush On You

She has been in at least a couple of my dreams since her passing. I think she is trying to communicate to me from the after-world. Maybe it's something important. She is in my head now. I don't do nor say anything that wouldn't meet with the approval of her majesty. I won't have any qualms about serving as the king of the after-world, if that's indeed what is being portended here. No qualms at all...

I really should have written down the dreams I had, in which she played a central role. They may be of interest to historians.
In the meantime, I've been putting the doldrums of September busking to the pursuit of kicking addictions. It's just that, no sooner do I accept the fact that I have no alcohol, tobacco or weed at any given time and console myself with the myriad blessings that have been bestowed upon me, then these substances materialize out of the ether.

Above: With Margaret (Hello, Margaret)

I just got back from the Winn Dixie, where, not only did they still have a bag of stuff that I forgot there 3 days ago, and in fact had the thing propped up on a window sill, displayed the way hubcaps are stood up on the side of the road, not far from the potholes that probably dislodged them, but, there was a nicotine vaporizer laying in the parking lot in a spot inconsistent with where someone might chuck one that has just run out -this was one that had fallen out of a purse that someone was retrieving car keys from, who didn't hear it hit the pavement over the din of shopping cart wheels on pavement. 

 

The bag that I had left had a can of food for Harold in it, so I didn't have to bother with trying to find someone to buy an item for off my food stamps, in exchange for the cash for one. 

 

On the other fronts, I have been besieged with phone calls from Jr, who has advertised the fact that he had alcohol and weed, that he offered in exchange of me hanging out and jamming with him. Last night I took him up on the offer and found that it served as a pretty good practice session for me. The fact that Jr is at a somewhat basic level of mastery of the guitar gives me a chance to kind of go back to elementary school and work on my own fundamentals.

I may have been premature in abandoning the "Chuck Berry" bag of musical tricks, back when I was 15 years old and eager to "advance" to more "complex" chords and the theory behind them. I guess I thought that there wasn't much to be learned from a black man with no degree from the Berkeley College of Music. I now know that there is a lot to be said about being able to tastefully play the "3 chord Sally"'s that Jr is constantly wanting to jam over. (I've always hated the use of the name Sally in such contexts. Swap-meet Sally, Mustang Sally and the Sally that you sneak through the alley not withstanding; I've always hated those terms. What about you, Liza? [she doesn't have an appreciable opinion on the matter, she say's from the after-world]). Fair enough.

I found 2 large vats of protein powder amidst a pile of discarded items in front of a house not far from Patrick's (actually Jacob and I both found them, but he didn't seem interested). One of them is organic vegetable protein, and the other, organic whey protein isolate. They are the kind that are at least 50 bucks each at GNC, and were found after a night when Jacob and I only made about 9 bucks, busking.

They were right on time, in the sense that I had recently made up my mind to start exercising more after I had struggled to climb over a brick wall that might be about 9 feet high, in order to get into the Sacred Heart parking lot, on a night when the guard up front was asleep, and might not have buzzed me in, even if he had been awake. They have notified us residents that we all need to have key cards to let ourselves in, and there will be no more buzzing in by the security personnel at the front desk. I suppose that absolves them from liability, should they buzz in a mass murderer, that they were just guessing lived here, because he knocked on the door and held his hands out in a gesture saying: "Aren't you going to buzz me in?!" At least it's not the guard's fault if the psychopath is in possession of a key card, something that only official residents are supposed to have.

But I could recall vividly, being able to pull myself up, chin-up style, to the crest of such a wall, and get a leg over it, then just roll over and jump down on the other side, as recently as 10 years ago. I had to get one of my hands over to the opposite side and grab on, then pull myself up, scraping my skin as I did. Then I heard a cracking sound in my rib cage once all my weight had been transferred to the foot wide ledge up there. My ribs were indeed tender on one side for the next week, something I noticed while doing the Wim Hof deep breathing procedure. 

So, I made up my mind to start lifting the weights I have laying around the apartment, doing push-ups etc., and I am on the lookout for a chin-up bar of some sort.

The protein powder plus the exercising has already got me feeling more pumped up and I believe the crack dealers that hang out around the building have started to disregard me as a potential customer. Though, when I was 5 pounds lighter, and barely able to pull myself over a 9 foot high wall, they would often advertise their wares to me. 

There were also a lot of cat related items in front of the house, out of which I grabbed some rub-on-towel-off shampoo, and a bottle of "Cat Allure," spray, which is purported to "attract and delight cats;" active ingredient: catnip.

There was a scratching post, which I almost took because it was a real work of art and had a theme to it; but Harold already has every piece of furniture in the apartment to satisfy his scratching needs with.

Even the last time Jacob and I busked, and hardly made any money, there were beers and mixed drinks and a bud of some pretty good weed the size of a cranberry, handed to us.

The same thing every day...

A cynical person might think that this is part of the devil's welfare program, implemented in order to corrupt the souls of the indigent. You can go down the path to ruin free of charge in New Orleans, type of thing...

I knew that Elizabeth and I were kindred spirits when I read that she would eat "the same thing every day." She ate to live; she didn't live to eat. That's how you live to be 96.

I guess I'll go and watch, again, the queen's Christmas Address, that was televised around the time I was born; now that I have figured out that it was most likely her nascent attempt to communicate with me. It's her voice that gets me the most.

I no longer fear, nor dread, death. I am consumed with visions of rushing into Beth's arms, and of my coronation as King of the After-World, with she, my queen...

Peck Before You Pluck

 Today I woke up at the "regular" time of 1:30 PM and had to think back for a second on the miserable busking night, as far as money is concerned, that was the night before.

On the weekend after the Decadence Festival had left town, to not be back again for almost a whole year, the streets showed that the weekend after that particular huge occurrence is like a very low pressure, created by the removal of such a huge spectacular, and the air not having had time to rush in and replace it. Maybe the majority of the city's hospitality workers collectively want to take a break after the Decadence weekend and perhaps the owners tacitly indulge them by not booking any event of import the following weekend, so people can kind of have it "off" in that way..

Then I decided to start pecking away on these qwerty keys rather than having grabbed the acoustic guitar and plucked a few notes.

It is Saturday and custom would have it that I will be out there at the Lilly Pad at some point in the evening. I have to worry about making the trolley fare so I don't have to walk home. I guess I had forgotten why I left New Orleans in previous years to go busk in Mobile, or Baton Rouge.

There is a sax player named Kirk, whom I met on one such jaunt to Baton Rouge, who plays on a corner on Royal Street a lot now, and who said that Baton Rouge "isn't the same," now.

That would mean not the same as when, back in 2011, I had been living a pretty decent life there.

I had found sleeping spots that were out of sight and out of mind, like a patch of those elephant ear plants, in the courtyard of a church not far from downtown, where I would be very invisible under the leaves, and when the sun came up I would be off to blog at the library, and to cherry pick busking opportunities, such as playing about an hour an a half in front of a Barnes & Noble that I had been attracted to by the Starbucks within it; and making about 30 bucks by the time I had finished my double espresso, purchased using a gift card, sent by the Lidgley's of London.

I may or may not have spiked the thing with brandy.

I could play on a Friday night and make about 80 bucks, off of college kids who, for some reason were in town and out partying in August, which is kind of between semesters, but, I could repeat the feat on Saturday night, and that basically gave me the financial means to just go around sight seeing and blogging the remainder of the week. There would be hardly be any people at all at the same spot the rest of the week, even if I wanted to play there.

But, Kirk's news that Baton Rouge "isn't the same" any more kind of sends a shiver through my spine thinking that maybe New Orleans "isn't the same" any more...