New Mulch Bed

Stoker, on Royal Street, making about 4 times as much as I,
on any given night....

Some new mulch
was laying upon the ground where Howard and I, and formerly Sue, sleep.
All of our stuff was still hanging in the branches of the trees, out of sight of those passing at a distance, but probably not to those laborers, whose job it is to spread mulch on city owned property. This is at least a good portent to use being able to stay there a little while longer.
Heavy Things of Value
I have a bag of "items that have monetary value, but are heavy," wedged between two saplings about 7 feet off the ground.
One such item is a really nice flashlight, made by Coleman, which I found laying in the grass in the exact spot where Howard and I were waiting for a train to hop out of  Mobile, Alabama. It flashes a bright white, red or blue. It just may be a railroad worker related tool, used by switchmen; or the different colored lights may be intended to be used by lost hikers, in lieau of a flaregun. Either way, it looks like it would be about 20 bucks at Wal-Mart. It is solid and sturdy and hence, weighs about 2 pounds. It was left it in that bag, along with a large bottle of sesame oil, which cost me 10 bucks and weighs about 2 pounds, and other heavy things of value.
Stoker's House
As I was walking about a week ago, towards a certain cell phone store, which was offering free phones to come with 250 free minutes, I passed by Stoker, who was working on his motorcycle in front of a house, which seemed to be two storied and was painted black with white trim.
The house was nesteled between two other houses, each of which were boarded up at the windows and doors, but it was on a busy street, and there was a little convenience store not far away, so, it didn't feel too "abandoned."
Stoker invited me to crash there, if I "needed" a place to.
I am investigating the distance of this house from my playing spot on Decatur Street. It is prohibitively far from the library where I am now, and from our "sign" sleeping spot. I would never want to walk that distance twice daily.
However, the sign sleeping spot is a good 15 minute walk from my playing spot on Decatur, itself.
I am going to see what the distance from the playing spot to the house is, and then consider at least stashing some of my stuff there, and getting it out of the trees. We can discuss me camping in the back yard later.

"I'm not going to have any trouble from your
roommate, am I? "

Stoker is the guy who uses his motorcycle's seat as a seat when he plugs into his amp and plays a certain style of blues slide guitar over an alternate tuning, using a harmonica and singing through a microphone which is integrated into the neck strap device which holds the harmonica in place. I think I could make over 50 bucks a night with that setup, but credit Stoker with actually having acquired it...
He is the guy whom Helen (the girl with the shaved head who plays the mandolin) referred to as her "roommate" and claimed to have beaten up, citing his being "a mysogenist racist bitch" as a motive for taking that action.
Judge Awaits Me
I actually missed my courtdate yesterday afternoon at 3 p.m., after running into some people, the clean guy, for example, and losing track of time up to the point where I decided not to try to rush up to the courthouse, arriving right before their closing time, and being told the exact same thing as I was the first time I was late: "Come back tomorrow morning, but be careful, you'll have an attachment on you, until then."
That is what I was sure that I would get in exchange for the bus fare and the sweat that I broke, dashing to get there before they stopped meting out justice for the day.
So, this morning, I went up there.
The clerk told me the above, word for word, and now I kill the time before 3 p.m. by updating this blog.

Next:

• Sue Sightings Continue
• Jasmine Fixed
• Blessings in addition to the above two, continue...
• Second Charge Dismissed

I have seen Sue twice, since she handed me back my mp3 player, after dropping her demand for the Sprint LG phone, which she had given me about 6 months ago, in exchange for it.
She acted, it seemed to me on that night on Bourbon Street, as if we had stumbled into an extremely rare and fortuitous windfall, the likes of which might only befall, especially me, "once in a blue moon.
I think now she realises that it is a more common occurance to run into wealthy, imbibing folks, who wind up bestowing gifts of money, food, drink and other things upon the lowly street musician, than she might have previously thought. She didn't frequent Bourbon Street, as far as I know.
I helped propagate this belief by telling her the little white lie of "I ran into those same Russians the next night, too, I'll have you know."
While it is true that I had, it was at the Unique Store and they were at the counter, protesting over the cost of what looked like 4 large bags of potato chip type snacks. I don't think they even noticed me.
I think the reason that I said it was to inflame Sue with torturing imaginings of yet another "we must have made about a hundred bucks off them," experience, with the "we" changed to "I." If she indeed had materialistic motives, that information must have driven her crazy. I also intended to imply that I could run into imbibing Russians and make 50 bucks, along with good wine, good tobacco and good champagne, playing a Lennon song 5 times, without her assistance (thank you very much), and could even hold my own money while doing it.

"I had no qualms about making concessions in the distribution of the 76 bucks or so, which was the actual substance of the 'at least a hundred bucks,' which I had made that night."

I realise that, in perceiving us to be partners of some kind, some people are prone to double the amount that they throw to "us," with the tacit understanding that we will wind up splitting it, ie. some of the money could be argued to have been earmarked for Sue.
However, this is not always the case, and the Russians were pretty much "all about" playing and listening to the guitar upon that particular "once in a blue moon" occasion. 
There are detrements to having a second person with the guy playing guitar, not the least of which is that it shatters the "poor, lonely trubador with only his art to give him solace," mystique, along with a few other mystiques. The drunken "let's go throw him some money and tease and flirt, and get him to sing love songs to us" college girls" account is non active in that scenario, also. 
However the argument should revolve around the fact that I care about Sue enough and would naturally bless her with some of the money, hopefully without having to even think about it, not around any sense of entitlement that she might harbour.
Courtroom 100
I showed up a day late at the courthouse, where the public defender told me that the second ticket, which I had gotten for "obstructing" a public passageway, has been dismissed.
I read a bit of "All Woman And Springtime," a novel by Brandon W. Jones, which is an "advanced reading" copy that I got from someone on Royal Street, which will not even be released until May 1st, 2012. So far; excellent!

Well

I woke up this morning,
a little warmer than I had the prior morning.

There's Lane! No, wait; is that him?
I can't tell....

I had an energy drink, which I consumed most of (knocked the can over when pulling one of my bags down from one of the limbs of the holly bush; of COURSE I knocked it over...)and the sports section of the day's Press-Register, was laying at my feet, dropped there by Howard, the 60 something year old guy, who is hard of hearing (Howard of hearing? -couldn't resist...) and who left New Orleans after the Occupy New Orleans camp was "blown up" by nice, polite police officers; the same Howard who rode the train with me, to get here.
I had promised him that he would like Mobile "better," and he seems to be adapting. He has found the McDonalds, which is right across the street from this library. I think he lives off of Ronald's cooking. He sits and reads novels for hours on here at the library.
I was feeling slightly guilty over Howard, realising that I had encouraged him to come with me, and so I bear a small responsibility in ensuring his comfort and safety, as a compasionate human being, as well as as a compasionate human being who talked him into coming along with me.
It was cold for a second night, but the chill was no match for my attire, which now is embellished by an additional sweater, which I got yesterday (Wednesday) at the Catholic Social Service place, on a "voucher" which is issued every 90 days to the homeless and unemployed. I am also wearing a new pair of jeans, which fit pretty well and which allow me to go another day or two before I will be "forced" to wash clothes, to avoid smelling like a homeless, unemployed person.
Cold Shoulders
Before going to my sleeping spot, where I thought I would be bored, I considered playing my guitar with the two missing strings. I considered playing it at Serda's Coffee, as part of their Songwriter's Open Mic Night.
It's not that I couldn't have played in the 41 degree (according to Regions Bank) temperature. I have played down to 38 degrees before; never lower, because I can't hang on to the pick below 40, but thought it might be interesting to go to Serda's, where I haven't played in months, to show off the improvement in my playing which came about through my having had to compete with New Orleans musicians. I thought they would all notice the new "polish"* in my playing. (*polish, as in shine; I wasn't going to play polkas...)
Well, I got pretty much "the cold shoulder," standing out front in the blustery 41 degree night. None of them asked me where I had been, what I'd been doing; any new songs? None asked me if I wanted to play.
They were all 20 something year olds, still being supported (in one way or another) by their parents, and dwelling high up upon what Neil Young called "Sugar Mountain." They talked about their road trips to gigs, where the YouTube videos were made, which were going to make them famous, and they talked about how they acchieved certain digital effects using audio editing software, on certain songs, which were going to make them famous etc.
I finally went and got my third beer of the night, then returned under the guise of wanting to hear some of the performers, so that I could sit in the warm room for a while before going to my sleeping spot by the railroad tracks, where I hoped my sleeping bag would still be; and would be dry.
A guy got up with a Taylor guitar.
He said "Hi, I'm Lane. I'm gonna play some music." (Probably thinking that he was being original, but unwittingly taking a cue from David Byrne, who would say things like "We're The Talking Heads, and this is our music," before starting the show)
Lane started to play some music, without even strumming a chord to make sure that the Taylor was in tune beforehand. I think that he was under the impression that a 2,000 dollar guitar never needs to be tuned. It comes tuned from the factory and stays tuned for life. Besides, it's such a fine instrument that nobody is going to notice if a couple strings are flat, right?
Lane sounded like a John Mayer impersonator. Maybe I missed a notice posted somewhere which said "John Mayer Night -100 dollar prize to the person who we judge to sound the most like John Mayer," I'm not sure. His lyrics were also John Mayer-ish, which is something that is hard to quantify, but the kid had it going on.
I spent the duration of the performance trying to determine which of his strings was out of tune, by listening carefully, and noticed that the highest note sounded like crap when he played chords that had their highest note on the "b" string.
After his first song ended, and still nobody had asked me if I wanted to play, Lane said, "Here's another song that I wrote," and actually plucked at the strings, as if checking to make sure that the Taylor was still in the same fine tune as it had been when his dad bought it for him at Guitar Center.
After he strummed an E major chord, I became convinced that his "b" string was (way) flat.
He seemed to notice the disonance...I need a better guitar than this, dad, wtf!...but, to my horror, he tuned the adjacent string (which was in tune) to the corrupt "b" string.
At that point, I spoke up. I was sitting up front and didn't have to raise my voice. I said "I think your "b" string is flat."
I guess "nobody corrects Lane," player of a 2,000 dollar guitar (soon to be a 3,500 dollar one) who has videos on YouTube, and whose friends all come out to hear him play.
"I like it that way," was Lane's "dis" of me, before he started into another song which sounded like John Mayer singing over absolute sonic garbage. Now he had 2 strings flat. Way to go, Lane.
I returned his rudeness (what do you know about Taylor guitars, street musician) with my own act of walking out the front door, before he even got through the first verse.
Familiarity Breeds Contempt
"I wonder if he's ever heard of John Mayer," I said sarcastically to those standing out front.
Their tacit message is clear. "You're a burned out, has-been street musician. You had ample opportunity, when you were our age, to make something happen but you obviously didn't. Now the ball is in our court, the future is ours, we are John Mayer Nation, stand back, homeless guy!"
They are a very musically "inbred" group. There is so much overlapping of style in all their music, it's as if they all took lessons from the same guy.
When I first arrived in Mobile in June of 2010, I was well greeted. I was so different from all of them, (like an exchange student from New Zealand,) they didn't know what to make of me. At first, they embraced my music and would actually request certain of my songs. They seemed eager to mix with a fresh and different "gene pool" of talent. Now, they seem to have changed their minds. It could be that they found out my age, which they originally thought was close to theirs, and abandoned any hope of having an older, more experienced musician in the band, who knows music theory, thinking "older, but not that much older, this guy remembers the Beatles!," perhaps.
For example, Miss Underhill, who works behind the coffee bar, and used to say things like "Good job" to me, after I had nailed an improvised song, said nothing to me.
Jimmy Lee Hanover, spoke only when I spoke to him, and then, very little, followed by awkward silence.
I guess this is another argument for moving on and finding new places. Familiarity breeds contempt.
If I ask any of them about last night, they will probably say something like they typically do: "No, you're always so tempermental, we wanted you to play but figured you were composing something in your head and didn't want to disturb you"
Future Uncertain
Then, I went to sleep.
I woke up with 65 cents, after having come to Mobile almost a week ago with 25 bucks.
I've spent a lot of time writing, and thus sacrificed opportunities to play. I have fixed the "d" string on my guitar, and I think I have a spare "e" string in my bag. I should be able to go out on this warmer Thursday night and at least make something, on a guitar with all six strings intact.
The success or lack thereof which I have this weekend will have a strong bearing upon how long I stay here.
Things are pretty bleak. I am down to about 10 bucks on my food card with 10 days to go in the month. The approaching cold weather doesn't bode well. I may wind up using the guise of trying to get "home for Christmas" in order to try to hitch-hike to somewhere warmer. I would, of course, have to attempt this right after my December 20th courtdate, over "obstructing the sidewalk."
I do have the comfort of the promise of receiving some Christmas parcels, one from a guy named Martin W., who is somewhere in the country and has read my blog, and apparently has the recording musician's dream job of "hotel front desk person." (I used to be a security guard at a huge James River machine shop. I turned the office into a recording studio nightly, then broke it all down and put it back in my trunk before the day shift came in. Some recordings from those sessions probably still exist in Massachusetts.)
Another might be on the way from London via the Lidgleys. Hopefully, I can get them, along with any other "Christmas" money that I might acquire, and get out of Dodge, at least until Mardi Gras.
In return, I will try to make this blog more interesting, which is one of the few things that I can offer at this point.

Wait until he turns his back....

Going back to New Orleans presents the problem of finding a new place to sleep, now that the Occupy New Orleans site is no longer available. It also presents the problem of doing so without the help of a bicycle, as mine was stolen about a month ago (see "They Stole My Bike," from about a month ago...)
I saw a guy riding around on it all the time in the French Quarter, when I was down there. He is a larger, black guy with a little bit of flab on him; probably in his late 30's.
My first impulse was to confront him with "Hey, that's my bike, I want it back!" But, like a chess player, I could already see his next move: "What 'chu talkin' 'bout, I paid for this bike! I bought it for 50 bucks! You need to talk to the dude that done sold it to me. I ain't no thief, don't be calling me no thief!" -easy to read a mind when it is in large print and mostly cartoons-
The suggestion of Helen, the artist formerly known as "the girl with the shaved head who plays the mandolin," was to "Wait until he turns his back on it and then steal it behind his back, like he did to you..."
She used to be a gutter punk "until I grew out of it," and said that, in their culture, if they think that you won't go to the trouble of fighting over something, they will just take it.
No wonder there are so many stabbings and shootings in the French Quarter.

Let's Go

Like, Ricky the clarinetist, I have gone "worldwide," I guess. Below and to the  (if my HTML is up to snuff ) left, are part of my "stats" showing where the "audience" came from and how many pages they viewed...

Ricky, the clarinet player. Has played with famous
musicians in big halls all over the world.
He had a 100 dollar bill in his bucket, probably
the one visible.
He has been very encouraging and supportive, despite
us having gotten "off on the wrong foot."

United States  258

United Kingdom 43

Ukraine 28

Russia 20

Canada 15

Germany 10

Bulgaria 3

Malaysia 3

Argentina 2

Spain 2

I ran into Ricky, the clarinet player Thursday night, on Royal Street. He had a hundred dollar bill prominately noticable in his bucket..."You got a hundred?"
"Of course, I've been out here for years doing this!" *resumes playing traditional jazz*
I guess Ricky's point is that perennial tourists who come here just to hear people like Ricky, and who see them just once per year maybe, will drop a hundred bucks on him, because it has to last him until "next year."
When I had only been in New Orleans for a couple days, I was playing on the exact spot where Ricky is shown. He approached me and said something to the effect that he had been planning upon playing at that spot.
I stood my ground and was actually kind of rude to the world famous clarinetist, who has been "doing this for years."
To his credit, he became a good friend, either through having garnered a respect for me for my having stood my ground, or through forgiving me for the same....
The Letter We Didn't Want To Get
I don't mind that much because I was leaving to go to Mobile anyways, but, this morning a group of police officers came to visit The Occupation and handed out the flyer partially shown. They were very nice officers. The ones who came to our particular spot were very polite.
The skinny of it is, we must leave the park by 10:30 p.m. each night, or be subject to arrest. We can not have tents, pallets,  structures or any "other items." (why didn't they just say that we couldn't have "any items?") Oh, well.
I am leaving this afternoon at about 2:30 for the railyard, with a final intended destination of Mobile, where I hope, by fortune of having arrived early enough, to do some busking on Dauphine Street.


Last night, I blew off hopping the train for one more night.
The reason was mainly that I still had the "same" 10 bucks, which I had on the previous day, and I just didn't want to try to do Mobile on 10 bucks a day.
I went to Decatur, to see that the guy who strums open chords on an acoustic guitar was at my favorite spot, strumming away.
This meant that The Great Music Spirit wanted me to play on Bourbon, which I eventually did, and made about 30 bucks in two "sets", which were broken by a brief intermission during which I replenished myself, and ran into the nice Helen (the artist formerly known as the girl with the shaved head who plays the mandolin), who let me take her picture for my blog.
She had just "beaten up" her roommate, who is a guy named "Stoker." Stoker rides a motorcycle upon which he perches on Royal Street, and plays and sings blues on guitar and harmonica. He has a couple portable amps, which he totes around on the motorcycle.
He is kind of a skinny guy; how skinny you might glean from a look at Helen "I beat the @$%#$@ out of him, because he's a mysogenist and a racist," the artist formerly known as the girl with the shaved head who plays the mandolin.

Self Explanatory

I didn't notice any abrasions on Helen's knuckles, but that might only mean that she is a clean puncher who has developed callouses.