Not That The World Didn't Need A Stealth Bomber...

I have noticed a difference in the general flow of things since surrendering my will to "a higher power," as per the admonition of the Alcoholic's Anonymous 12 step program; to wit; step 2.

This is your brain

I immediately started having pangs of loneliness while out in the parking lot getting some sun. As I walked along, I felt that there were people out at my playing spot that I could meet and at least talk to.

So, I was on my bike at about 10 p.m. with the mic stand tied in an upright position to the rack, like a giant lightning rod behind me.

I got to the Lilly Pad and played.

Earlier, I had been at the Shell station with just one dollar and 5 cents on me. I had passed by a lot of people who were partying and I felt envious. I could smell weed and could see people drinking out of bottles of Patron (a $90 bottle of tequila, I kid you not).

I consoled myself by being grateful to have enough to buy Harold a can of food and as soon as I had reconciled myself to this feeling of gratitude, there was a folded up 5 dollar bill laying on the ground, beside the passenger side of an SUV. I bought a half pint of brandy and the can of cat food.

On the way out of Sacred Heart, I had encountered a couple residents who were sitting by the back lobby door, each one smoking a cigarette. I told them that I had just awoken from a 12 hour sleep, which was true.
"I took a Valium* and another kind of sleeping pill that a friend gave me, and that was at about 13 hours ago; I just woke up without any tobacco at all; could I bum a cigarette from one of you?" This was, I believe, the first time I've ever asked anyone for a cigarette since coming to New Orleans 12 years ago, by the way...

They both shrugged and told me that they each had bummed the ones they had.

At that, I went to fetch my bike, thinking I would ride by the Holy Ground bar and snipe a butt out of one of their ashtrays, and/or continue on to the D Mac's bar and do the same, or I would use the one dollar and 5 cents to buy a cigar that I could break open and smoke one bowl at a time, throughout the night; busking was also in the back of my mind.

There was no tobacco at the Holy Ground, as if the trays had been purposely picked clean, perhaps at the sight of me approaching on my bike. That was the negative thought that hit me -I have harbored the suspicion that some of the bar patrons are resentful of us Sacred Heart residents because we are all staying there for free, through one agency or another, and will do things like pick the ashtrays clean at the sight of one of us coming.

It occurred to me, as I was shaking off the grogginess, that either of the guys by the back door could have offered me at least "the last drag" off their cigarettes, as is a common practice between smokers. I wondered if they thought that I was out of tobacco, on this 4th day of the month, because I had spent all of my monthly check (that they might assume that I get) on crack, and thus thought that it was my own fault that I didn't have any tobacco so early in the month and, hence, didn't want to reward my recklessness with even "the last drag" off their cigarette. ...you should have thought about cigarettes before you started hitting that crack pipe...
I thought of digging through the dumpster at Shell to find an empty box from a carton of American Spirit cigarettes I would stuff it with paper or something to make it look full. Then I would return to Sacred Heart and go past them with it poking out of the top of a bag on my handlebars, so they would see it.

Then they would think that, not only did I not smoke up my entire "check," I even had the means to buy a $90 carton of premium smokes. 

Then they would squirm, thinking that I had a whole carton of really good cigarettes, while they would be back to trying to bum their next one. They would remember that they had refused me even the last drag off of theirs, even after I had told them that I just woke up after a 12 hour snooze to find myself out of tobacco.
Would either of them have the gall to ask me for a cigarette upon seeing "the carton?" Or ask me for a whole pack (because, after all I had "a whole carton") Part of me wanted to test the depth of their natures that way. And what snide remark could I have at the ready? "Man, I just bummed this carton, sorry..."
At least one of them, a guy I've come to regard as being pretty decent, might have phrased it as: "I don't suppose I could get a couple off you...?" as if at least acknowledging that he shouldn't suppose he could, given how selfish he/they had been..

At D Macs the scene was similar to that of Holy Ground, as if the sidewalk had recently been swept clean and the ashtrays emptied. I still tried to smile and make eye contact with the half dozen or so people who were distributed at the tables, all with bottles of alcohol, cigarettes going and with the smell of good weed redolent in the air.

That's OK, I thought, I was still grateful to have the cigar money, keeping my chin up in that regard.

Then I remembered Harold. I decided to set aside any selfishness and sacrifice the cigar in order to get him his can. I was at that point -to keep the chronological order of this intact- that I encountered the folded up five spot -just after deciding to put Harold's needs ahead of my wants.

So, then, with the half pint of brandy, I stopped in front of D Macs to gaze inside, noticing that the World Series was on the TV, and that no musicians had started playing yet, on their modest stage which has a house sound system so that musicians need not bring their own equipment; but can plug right in, with microphones already set up, etc.

There were 3 guys at the table nearest me talking about jazz and I heard the mention of "Larry Coryell and Alphonso Johnson," out of one of their mouths. It became evident that they were a 3 piece jazz combo who were waiting to go inside and play.

I didn't want to insinuate myself into their sphere so I just maintained my distance of about 8 feet from them, and no sooner had I decided to do that (and perhaps dispel any notions that they may have had that I was a skeezer who was lurking nearby, with plans of moving in for the skeeze) one of them spoke up, asking me if I was alright.

I told him/them about having just woken up after a 12 hour slumber.

"Is that cat food in there?" asked the same guy, looking at the bag on my handlebar.

After my affirmative answer we had a short discussion about the unavailability of cat food in general and how, even when a store has some, it is not necessarily in the flavors a particular cat might eat.
"I have a very finicky one," said the guy.

We found common ground on the subject of finicky cats, with me telling him that I had to canvas about a half dozen stores sometimes in order to find a suitable flavor.

It was then that I offered that "Larry Coryell's 'Live At The Village Gate' is "the reason I wanted to take up the electric guitar," alluding to my having overheard one of them mentioning him.

Then it came out that the guy who had asked me if I was alright was from South Hadley, Massachusetts -one of my old stomping grounds.

"I used to sell weed to the guy's in that band 'Phish.' They all lived in a band house not far from Hampshire College."

"Oh, yeah; Hampshire College...I loved the 'five college' area..." he said.

The "Five College" area was comprised of UMass, Hampshire, Mt. Holyoke, Amherst and Smith colleges. 

A student enrolled at any one of those institutions could take a course or two (or more, I forget the specifics) at the other four schools, through a cooperative program of some sort. 

This was great for the poor kids, whose parents might only be able to send them to the state run UMass. It allowed them to hobnob with students at the other schools, where tuition was $17,000 a year -in the case of Smith College (which boasts former first lady Barbara Bush as an alumnus) and something like $23,000 a year at Hampshire College.

This is your brain on drugs

Both Smith and Mt. Holyoke were started as women only colleges, but by 1989, when the 5 College area was my stomping ground, that designation had been removed.

The most expensive school, Hampshire, was generally attended by kids who wouldn't need a college education for any pecuniary reasons. The typical kid there was just prolonging his childhood for 4 more years before taking over as vice president of their dad's insurance company, or whatever.

The dormitories were like hippie communes, redolent of patchouli oil, with the walls airbrush painted in tie-dye colors.
One cool facet of the five college system was the ability of students to craft their own majors, outside of the tradition ones, and call them whatever they wanted. Diverse courses could be cobbled together to form whatever would ultimately be emblazoned on their earned degree.

I remember one kid in particular was majoring in "The Religions of Africa," and, as if pushing the envelope of the convention to the ridiculous, one kid was working on a degree in "Frisbee."

Before anyone hearing of this could laugh too long, it would be pointed out that the kid was concentrating on math, physics and science and studying the aerodynamics of that iconic toy and infamous college student pastime. Before even graduating, he had sold a patent or two to the Whamo Corporation for an improved Frisbee design, using novel compositions of plastic, for weight and flexibility; and, as Hampshire College lore had it, eventually he wound up with a lucrative position at Boeing, coming up with new wing designs, and such. With a degree in his cubicle recognizing him as a doctor of "Frisbee."

I used to deliver pizza to the campus often, and walking into the dorms was like entering a Grateful Dead concert, complete with the soundtrack blaring. These kids were already rich, yet many were able to parlay their educations into even taller stacks of money; as if the less one sweats over money, the more it flows. 

So, It was kind of a no-brainer that the jam band from the Burlington Vermont area would find their home in a two story Victorian style house that they all shared, about 2 miles from Hampshire College. And, as fate would have it; I wound up selling them weed, that I got from a deadhead friend.

This antidote amused the guy who had asked if I was alright and he then asked: "Do you want a hit," producing a bowl which he packed for me, after I had said something to the effect of "Hell, yeah!"

I told him that I felt as though that was a blessing and forgave me for having spent the folded up five on brandy, when I could have bought a 5 dollar bud instead.

He talked me out of putting into play the fake carton scheme. "You'll be putting energy into revenge that could be used for more positive things," said the guy who had seen the Phish house that I described before, but hadn't known it was them that lived there.

So, returning to my place aglow from brandy and weed, I loaded up my bike and backpack. This was Friday night, the 4th of November and hours before my food stamp card, which was down to $2.38, was to be loaded.

One cool thing about having surrendered my will to a higher power, or about doing that in general; is that I didn't have to use any of my own will power. Truly my steps were being directed by a higher power, and that entity was doing a better job than I could have managed myself. My desire for brandy and weed would go away, or not, through no effort of mine.

I mixed up the last of my kratom, gave Harold the last of his food, then went to the Lilly Pad.

Somehow just talking about the Five College area had rekindled some of the wide-eyed naive optimism that I lived with back in 1989 and, even though the Phish guys would ostensibly go on to have a more remarkable musical career than myself, this was something that I couldn't say for sure, as I went out with the same feeling that I had had back then, that I had something important to contribute to the art of music; and that it was something that no other person on earth could create. 

These thoughts had supplanted the negative ones that I have been backsliding into having, these past couple years; ones about arriving at the Lilly Pad to find someone else already playing there; or there being a loud speaker system blaring from someone outside the bar; or of sucking -the last one being probably the most deeply rooted fear.

When I first came to New Orleans it was in fear, after warnings of certain people, the essence of which were: "The best musicians from all over the world go to New Orleans and most of them don't survive more than a couple of weeks. You'll be playing on some corner, and there will be a guy 50 feet away playing Bach on a clarinet with his toes! People will be fresh out of some club where they just heard some world class music being played and then they'll be walking past you. You think they're gonna throw you a tip?! New Orleans will chew you up and spit you out; or turn you into an alcoholic!" type of stuff.

"Not if you're different," the guy from South Hadley had reassured me on that head, which stemmed from a routine: "So, what brought you to New Orleans?" inquiry.

I played for about an hour and a half and had about 25 bucks in the jar, with a young guy sitting on the stoop who had thrown 5 of that there, when it dawned on me that I wasn't overly drunk. And, that it hadn't really been a persistent urge to become so. The kratom tea and the joy of being different had kept me going.

Piano?!

I did take a break, going to get a can for Harold and one Andy Gator beer from Fred's Market on Elysian Fields road, leaving my bike unlocked out front.

I kept nervously glancing through the glass at it while at the register. I told the guy about what happened about 2 months ago when I had done the same thing and had gotten back to it just as a young black guy in a group of 4 of them had his hand on it, and appeared to be considering riding off on it.

"Yo, that's my bike," I had told him.

He had said: "Man, I'll take this bike and that piano on your back, if I want!" That was when I seriously considered getting a small pistol to put in my backpack. I imagined, if such a situation arose again and the young black kid in a group of 4 of them was serious, saying something like:

"Hey man, I don't want no trouble. Here, I just cashed my paycheck; you can have the money too, I just don't want any trouble," as I undid the ties on the backpack, then producing not the money but the pistol. At that point I could just point it at him and say something slick like: "Do you want all my bullets, too?" and I wouldn't have to shoot him, which would be good because the entire Quarter is under the watch of at least one camera. I wouldn't want to wind up having conversations with various cellmates for like 7 to 10 years that would go something like:

"You should have just given him the guitar and the bike, then called the police; you might have gotten it back. I've heard that the whole Quarter is under the watch of at least one camera."

"I know."

"He called it a 'piano?'" gushed the amused cashier.

"Yeah, that's happened before. I think it might be because they have early memories of going to church, where there would be a piano, and so they just formed the assumption that whatever makes music is a piano," I explained before hurrying out to where my bike was.

This is your brain on drugs with a side of bacon, a cinnamon roll and a couple wedges of persimmon.

Returning to the Lilly Pad, fortified with the knowledge that I would be arriving home with a can for Harold in a flavor that he likes, and by the Andy Gator double bock (alcohol content: 9.2%) I made the rest of what would amount to a 38 dollar outing. It was over the course of about 2 hours of playing and, hence, met my "average" earning of $18/hr., more or less.

Once again, I witnessed the phenomenon whereby, when I was playing my hardest, to the point of becoming oblivious to anything else, a 20 dollar bill found its way into the jar (that would have been the perfect time for someone to ride off on my bike).

I was glad that I had chosen music over Frisbee all those years ago; and I'm pretty sure the Phish guys are of the same mind (not that the world didn't need a Stealth bomber).

*It was Valerian Root, not Valium, but in my Valerian Root fog I had told them "Valium."