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...