A Whacky Farce

A tumultuous Wednesday started.

I decided I was going to try to avoid meeting Lilly to get the macha cookies that one of her girls had made. And the strawberry vanilla ones, I think it was.

I hadn't slept all night, afraid I would drift off in the wee hours and oversleep my chance to go see Smokey Greenwell about a new harmonica.

I hadn't been that hungry Tuesday.

In fact, I looked at the entire chicken that I baked and only picked off of a little bit, sitting there in my fridge and thought it was going to go to waste, so not in the mood for eating I had been.

Why did I go and bake a whole bird? I thought. 

But, here, almost a day later I am salivating over the idea of a refrigerated chicken that was baked 2 days earlier. With salt, pepper, mustard, and some hot sauce; and a knife and fork...

I was  up when the sun, as previously stated, and planned on getting an all day pass, so I could make a trip to get a new harmonica and then still have a trip to the grocery store and back in my back pocket. I just hadn't factored in being up all night, in an attempt to be out and about in the late morning.

I thought of the French Market where Smokey Greenwell, who played with the band “War,” used to have a stall and who sold pretty decent harmonicas

He did play with War, although he came along after they had already had their hit song: “Low Rider,” and had most likely spent all the money, and then become fractured because of disagreements over money...

I went to Shell and got a strong bock beer, then started my walk towards Canal Street and the street car lines.

I wasn’t finished the beer when I got to the first stop, and was in fact having a hard time taking more than just small sips, so I walked along the tracks and, finding that I was half way to the quarter at the point that my bock was only half gone, decided to just walk all the way to the Louisiana Music Factory for exercise, and to see what I would find on the ground.

After the 2 mile walk (a dime and a couple blunt roaches) I was indeed rather astonished to see that the music store was dark inside. 

I realized that I was pretty early and could see that they opened at 11. 

But, it was 4 minutes after… 

Then, on the front door that sits in a ways off the road, another sign announced: “Closed Wednesdays.”  I guess I should have taken the slightly anal retentive, to me, precaution of calling the place the previous day just to make sure they hadn’t decided to pull a random day of the week out of their asses and take it off...

In their minds, people can just grab their phones and ask:

“Aliesha, what are the hours of Louisiana Music Factory, and then “closed Wednesdays” in bold red font would alert them.

Though, that wouldn’t have saved me the walk because I would have decided that I had Smokey Greenwell at the French Market as a Plan B.

“That’s alright, I’ll just go see Smokey Greenwell, who played with War, at the French Market..

Well, the rest of the story is a whacky farce. (and hasn't been proof-read)

Smokey had decided to take Wednesday off at the French Market. How can he decide to take the same day off as his huge competitor, the music store down the street, does? I wondered... I asked a young lady who had a table full of lunch boxes if she could find Smokey, perhaps on Facebook, and maybe I could still buy a harmonica from him if I could message him and it turned out that he was nearby or something. A guy formerly of War would likely have at least some kind of Facebook presence, I thought. Even if the cover photo isn’t him posing with the iconic band in 1997. But, I had the misfortune, in my sleep deprived state, to ask her to look up “Stoney” Greenwell, and then was so bemused in wonderment over how a guy who has CDs out could have absolutely no social media presence…

There wasn’t anything close to the white haired bandanna wearing harp player to be found by searching for “Stoney Greenwell.” At the first few stalls where I inquired after my friend “stoney,” I was starting to get the sense that the guy had made of himself some sort of pariah around there, judging by the way they dismissively said “No!” as if they not only hadn’t seen my friend and furthermore didn’t want anything to do with him. They thought I was looking to buy weed and was using coded language. Finally, by a guy who had a large table full of tee shirts and sweatshirts (all folded so that whatever was emblazoned on the fronts of them wasn’t visible, I remarked to myself) I was corrected upon Mr. Greenwell’s first name. I just resolved to come back the next day, which is today… Of course the music store down the street will also be open and they do carry a nice “Blues Bender,” by Hohner… Then I went into a head shop type place on Decatur. They were talking about the impending ban on the THC drinks that, to me are better than pot in the way nicotine vapes are better than cigarettes. While not taking smoke (tar, gasses to include carbon monoxide) into the lungs, but are getting the “active ingredient” in a more ergonomic way, in my opinion. After that, I just wanted to make a beeline for my bed or my couch, which I accomplished by about 2 in the afternoon. I was soon asleep and having confused dreams, but was up at 6 this morning and grateful to be on a more “normal” sleep schedule.