Super Heroine*

• $20 Sunday
• Harmonica Given To Me

*Attention: Junkies who cannot spell: you will probably not find what you are looking for in this post...


Just as I was packing up at about 12:10 AM, a guy and a lady showed up.
I had the feeling that I should have remembered him and that I had probably spoken to him at length at one time and then just forgotten his face.

"I" now study drawing techniques

I have a lot of trouble with faces; a problem which definitely became exacerbated in proportion to the increased consumption of alcohol during the years 2009 through 2012.

There have been frequent instances where I have encountered people whom I didn't recognize until they made reference to something that we might have discussed after we had met and hung out.

We might have hung out for a couple of hours. That wouldn't have helped my recollection.

It is embarrassing, especially when I sense that the people feel slighted in the sense that we had bonded well enough and enjoyed each others company enough to think that I might instantly recognize the face again; but it doesn't often happen and I can be thrown by a mere change of clothing; or seeing someone out of their uniform and not recognizing them.

The man asked me if I was just setting up. There was a tinge of promise in his voice with overtones of: "It might be worth your while to break out the stuff and play for a bit longer."

I told him that I was "tearing down," and then started to comment upon the Sunday night that it had been.

He handed me a new harmonica in the key of C.

I thanked him and started to explain about the condition of the old battleax that I had been playing but then realised that he must have somehow known that I needed or would appreciate a new harmonica; and, at that point I should have explained about my facial recognition issue and asked him to remind me of when and where or if we had met.

He could have been a blog reader; or someone whom I had met recently enough that I was already complaining vocally about the harmonica going out of tune.

I played into the harmonica and the intonation reminded me of when I tune my guitar with the electronic tuner after it has drifted annoyingly out of tune. It sounded sweet.

The guy asked me if I was going to play longer. The lady he was with mildly protested as I started to unzip my guitar case. She could have been saying: "No, honey; he's at the end of his night; he's tired; don't make him take the guitar back out and play just for us..."

Or she could have been saying: "Come on, let's get to the bar; I'm just not in the mood to hear a 10 minute song..."

But, in my mind, I felt ashamed of not having recognized the guy and, as they walked off towards the bar, the guy turned and said: "Have a good night, Daniel."

I then really should have called after him, imploring to be reminded of how I knew him.
They might have been the couple that I played for in front of the bar about a month ago who were from Fort Worth, Texas. I would have recognized the conversation and it might have even brought the face back to me. There is an actual term for facial non cognizance; I think ending in "opia."

I now have the tools to create my super heroine

I need to Google "abnormally diminished capacities for memorizing faces," and see what I cull.

I even have trouble sometimes determining if two separate photos of a person are indeed the same person.

My friend Hubert Borg, who is an artist amongst other things, can say with certainty whether they are or not. As if, from viewing a face from one angle, it is possible to imagine exactly what they would look like if they turned their head sideways....

After the couple left, I played longer, being very gentle on the harmonica and making a few more of what would be 20 dollars; on a Sunday night; after having had a 12 dollar Saturday...Oh, well, it is the slow season.

When the time comes for me to busk my way up the east coast, I am not going to fret over how much money I am embarking upon my journey with.

I pretty much know that, as a fresh face in town who has the appearance of travelling and who sounds good musically that 100 dollar nights are very possible. Mobile, Montgomery, Atlanta, Charleston, Charlottesville, Baltimore, Boston....

It would be tempting to hop a freight train for the first "leg" of the journey out of here.
It is probably no accident that they make it so friggin' easy to hop a freight train and, this is the important part: get your skeezing ass the hell out of here and away from the tourists.

...and her attack bird

Yup, the freighter will be idling, light on, pulled forward out of the yard enough so that you don't even need to step on that particular federal property in order to get into one of the conveniently opened and empty boxcars about 12 or so back from the power unit; probably so the conductor can visually make sure they've hopped off alright before he jams it into gear...

The Numbers Don't Lie

Yeah, the numbers don't lie; it was a 12 dollar Saturday night, out busking; sitting 100 feet from America's oldest bar; a must see tourist attraction.
There is a class of tourist who is identifiable by the fact that they don't tip.
Last night; after playing for a while and not getting any tips, I was on the verge of changing my approach; perhaps to interact more with the swarms of people going by. There were a lot of people who were members of wedding parties. I think there were at least 3 weddings in the Quarter.
They don't always tip on the whole; they are often in New Orleans for the first time in their lives and are taking their cues from others; and I guess a tip for luck to the musician who played the plaintive Lennon song while the bride and groom posed in front of the oldest bar in America (as a symbol of the unshakeable union just validated) is not written in tradition as a thing to do after weddings.
I was able to keep playing with joy; especially after someone smoked me up and wound up getting 12 people to each throw me a dollar.
Wow; and no dishwashing jobs available....

Not Quite Broken Harp Keeps Me Not Quite Broke

$22 Friday

I went out and played last night, getting to the Lilly Pad at the nice and early time of about 9 PM.
I had thought about leaving the harmonica home, after having struggled with it and emitted some embarrassingly brash tones from it Thursday night.

But, I brought it with me and wound up learning a lot about playing on the very lowest holes.

The notes can be bend radically on these holes, and it was Dave (of Dave and Roselyn) who had once told me that "you can get some really bluesy stuff on those lowest holes" and it was his words that came to me as I attempted to play melodies on the low notes; which are still in pretty good shape on the 'ol Marine Band "1893." The notes respond the same as the middle holes, but with the added ability to bend from "way down" to the note that you want which gives it a kind of; ....bluesy (I guess would be the word) sound.

I was able to escape with about 22 dollars to go with the 10 that I had left over from the day before; giving me enough money to get a new "folkmaster" harmonica.

I also lucked out as, a young lady came along as I was playing Purple Rain, by Prince and listened to the harmonica and guitar part, seemingly half recognizing the song. I did the "professional busker" thing in cutting the solo short in order to sing out the lyric "I never meant to cause you any problems..." at which point the young lady said: "Oh, Purple Rain!" and then sat down and listened and sang along for a while and tipped me about 6 of the 22 dollars that I would wind up making in about 3 hours.

"You should have stayed on the low holes!!!"

My luck with her continued when, after she had disappeared for a while, she rematerialized and requested one of the very few songs that were feasible on the harmonica which, to use another nautical term, is listing to left; its second mast snapped off. She asked: "Do you know 'Heart of Gold,' by Neil Young?" That was one of the songs that I had done earlier, as Neil's simple harmonica work was easy to stay faithful to, given one less hole to work with.

I would love to have a new harp tonight, but I wouldn't really be able to use it because it wouldn't be broken in. I would hate to wreck the thing by playing it too hard.

I used to just chuck the little paper insert that came with the harmonicas. "Be sure to play your new harmonica very softly for the first couple weeks...Be sure to let your new harmonica warm up to body temperature before you play it. Be sure to whack out all of the moisture when you are finished playing your new harmonica so that it won't cause the wood to swell overnight..."

"Yeah, whatever..." I would think as tossed it.

I now adhere to all of those instructions, even to one advising to "always return your new harmonica to its case after playing" after a hole had become plugged by a little green bud once that had been floating around in the same backpack pocket.

Weed Free Days

Here it is 24 hours later and I am kind of in the same boat, just 20 dollars ahead of that boat. I will go out tonight and repeat, especially the not smoking weed all day but rather waiting until I am at the Lilly Pad, set up and tuned up and ready to go.

More On Art

• Moron Art
• Miserable Thursday Night Busking Prompts Change

The Howard Portrait

The biggest thorn in my side was having only one pencil and one crappy sharpener which wouldn't give it a sharp point; to work with -the eraser on its other end became crucial.

I basically could do what I do now when I was in third grade (I could also play a guitar at a level that I never improved upon until I was in my late teens) but I never developed it further.
There was a suggestion from perhaps the nun that taught 3rd grade; that I perhaps be sent to some kind of art school, but that was quashed by my dad who foresaw me using the college fund that he had already started for a degree in chemistry (the idea in 1970) or computer science (by 1980)

I understand and appreciate my dad's looking out for me that way; especially now that I am studying American History, and can see how by having acquiesced to his plan I could be on easy street now.
A "valuable" education could have ensured the preservation of  my middle class status and given me an advantage over those kids whose dads couldn't, or wouldn't afford 4 years of education at Worcester Polytechnic College..."anybody can draw or strum a guitar; do you really want to have to compete against them all?"
This was my chance to leapfrog all of the future skeezers of the world who, behind a panorama of excuses would never become degreed. I understand that now. My dad just drew the short straw in having that rare son who was destined to wind up singing "The Carcass Song" on Bourbon Street -kind of hard to see that coming in a youth of 7 years; and the aptitude tests aren't much help there, either....
America was all about "giving your kids all the advantages that you can."
Wasn't college enrollment even one of the disqualifiers for the draft (the "conscription" if you're college educated) that helped send 57,000 to their deaths in places with names that they couldn't pronounce? (I haven't gotten that far in the American History tomb; I'm up to 1947 now [and I hope none of you readers think that I am spreading communistic ideas in this blog, by the way...]).
Maybe it was a blessing in disguise that I just couldn't see the whole picture when I was young and become dead serious about life.

Why I'm Not A Portrait Artist

I could never force a person to sit for hours while I erase and redo and perform nose jobs on them; and then there are changing light situations; and -probably what the real pros practice- how to make the subject look "better' by basically becoming, also, a makeup artist -false graphite eyelashes? Sure...

I have done exactly one real oil painting. It was after I got an insurance settlement after a motorcycle accident and could buy all of the necessary materials to include an easel.

By the time I had finished it, I had learned 80% of what they probably teach in oil painting class, by trial and error. I did have a lot of people stop to look at the work in progress and most were very complimentary; though it was a small town with not much else going on.

The subject was a 1870's era Victorian house that was octagonal in shape -probably got photographed a lot- and I remember the little girl who lived there, the 8 year old daughter of my music teacher, coming out once and interrogating my on: "Why are you drawing our house?!?"

[*10 Seconds with Google Maps and voila! There is the house (left). I painted it from an aspect to the far left, where the crosswalk; which wasn't there then; leads to].

That house reminds me...

Coming soon: More of  the story of that house, which was a huge part of my life when I was 25. It looks like it is on the market and has been, at the time of this photo, long enough for the sidewalk cracks to have become overgrown with grass; and the bushes in the back yard are definitely not being held to the standards of the family that once lived there. I think they have moved into the brick mansion that was owned by the father in law of my music teacher, Diane Cushing. 

I have had the idea of setting up an art display beside me as I busk -an array of famous musicians copied from famous photos of them? -just drawings of Jerry Garcia, so I might profit from the collateral: "Do you play any dead songs...I see you like to draw Jerry?" But, I think only the originals would have any value; and I really don't have any "style," unless it would be: "photorealism."

But, if people want to give me a photo, I would be happy to basically reproduce it, at my leisure; complete with the mistakes that we all love because it makes us human LOL

Hangs by the clock

Yes, the final touch on the drawing to the left was to have her holding a magnifying glass to her right eye; to explain why it is larger than her other eye.

Thursday, I left the apartment before sundown; hoping to make it to the music store in time to buy strings. Had I not made it there in time, I would have come back home. That would have been a blessing.
I got to the Lilly Pad and put the new strings on and began to play; happy that I could still use the harmonica if I kept the melody within the range of the holes that worked; and ultimately disappointed that I couldn't play as freely and had to abort some melodies, which was embarrassing.
At one point, I didn't feel like playing at all. I couldn't think of a song that's message I wanted to put out there; "Imagine," by John Lennon even seemed a shallow meaningless parlay. I had gotten "medium" strings, which were making it harder to play and hurting my fingers on certain chords.
The weed I had smoked 5 hours earlier was just putting me to sleep.
I was ready to leave. I checked the time: 10:08 PM. You've got to be kidding me; this is the time that I often start and already I feel like leaving....
I took a short break and then forced myself to go back at it. Most of the 9 dollars that I would wind up making came from that second set.

I decided that I cannot smoke weed during the day and expect to have any useable energy by 10 PM at night.

I've also decided that, given the state of financial emergency that I am in; that I had better learn how to sit there and play anything, whether I am "feeling it" or not; just to put the time in and collect tips from people with the "I always give the musicians a couple dollars" attitude.

It is almost 7 PM on this Friday, it just rained for about 20 minutes, and then stopped. It will be getting dark outside soon; and I prepared to go out there and go through the motions at the bare minimum; and maybe have someone come along and request an original and tip me enough for a new harmonica at the most...
Insult to injury:

I ran into Jay The Really Loud Singer, who had apparently been drinking as evidenced by the almost empty Hand Grenade sitting next to him.

He had given up on making any money off of the same cheap tourists that I must have encountered and was singing out, making fun of them; strumming a blues progression and singing things like: "Oh, I'm a dork from Michigan and my wife wears ugly shoes...etc" when a guy with a Michigan sweatshirt on walked past with a wife wearing unusual shoes.

He continued on; apparently not caring if he made a tip or not and, quite frankly, getting away with stuff because he is large and mean looking, that other buskers might have had their guitar kicked in for.

I appreciated seeing someone else freestyling like I do myself and I wound up breaking my guitar out and jamming with him.

I was singing funny lyrics and he was singing whatever popped into his drunken head, and people were actually pausing to listen.

A guy gave Jay a 100 dollar bill.

I hadn't heard what the guy said to him while he was handing it to him; it could have been: "Can you break this and give your partner 50?"

Jay showed it to me, as he seems compelled to show off such things and said: "Look at what that guy just gave me!" and then quickly explained that the guy had remembered him from last year, or something. From his tone of voice it was clear that he was anticipating me trying to claim some of it. I could have ran after the tourist and said: "Excuse me, was that tip just for Jay, because he said it was; or for the both of us?"

Even if the guy had then said, "No, I told him to break it and give you half..." he might have argued that he would have gotten the money anyways.

All I know was that, he was sitting there insulting people. One guy walked up and asked him if he played any "Metallica," and then walked off with a "sorry to bother you" expression after Jay had just stared back at him without saying anything.

Then we jammed together and it turned from insulting to kind of comic; prompting Jay to say that we could make a lot of money together; and then the 102 dollars instantly materialized on a night that had been so slow as to have Jay pissed off and insulting people.

I would have given that thought a passing consideration if he had at least offered me one dollar to go with the 9 that I had made the whole night. That would have given me an even 10 dollars and, he still would have had about $135.

It would have been easy for him to have pocketed the 100 and not shown it to me.

I would have done that; rather than feel like the 10 year old kid: "Look what I got! And you can't have any!!! Ha ha!!"

It's funny now to recall that after I had first met Jay about 3 years ago, I had deemed him to be selfish and didn't really hang around him much. After having walked past him 900 times since, there had been a gradual eroding away of that opinion.

It is not such a big deal to me; especially given the fact that Jay pays rent somewhere; and has child support issues and has frequent encounters with crystal meth -the times that he will play all night until the sun comes up and then all that day until the sun goes down and then all night until the sun comes up..which puts into a different perspective his typical boasts of "...that all you made? I made 300 yesterday and 220 the day before!!"

'Twould Be A Third Consecutive Night Off...

I hope I can go out and play this Thursday night and make enough money, with just the guitar and my voice, to buy a new harmonica the very next day. I hope I can push myself out there to do it; rather than stay in and read and write and draw pictures.

All I have to show for Wednesday night...

If I am patient, I may be able to order one online and then only have to wait a few days for it to arrive.
That would be a goal of mine.
I was up at 9 AM again upon what would be my 3rd night off if I were to take it.
There are some major things that I want to get done, and I feel like I am vegetating; reading and writing and drawing.
I finished a pencil sketch of Howard, which was commissioned by Tim, my caseworker here at Sacred Heart Apartments. The 10 bucks that he gives me for it will help put new strings on the guitar. It still feels like an uphill battle. My savings have dwindled and the staffing place down the street has no work available.
I know I could make more money if I became an "all day" busker; basically being in the Quarter with a guitar on my back, or playing somewhere the whole day; just being available to that one drunk who is going to hand you 50 bucks.
It's hard to imagine doing that and not drinking at the same time.
That used to be my life; crawl out from under the wharf, drink and energy drink and then start a long, circuitous route to the Lilly Pad, which would have me starting out shortly after sundown with a big can of beer next to me; and then just going from there; sleeping "better" because of the massive amount of a depressant in my blood and resting assured that I had the means to repeat the endeavor the next day.
It seems that busking is going to be my prime source of income for the time being, and that I should try to expand into working for blog that has been commercialised and makes money for its authors and its content providers.

"Howard"  
A rush job; I needed money for strings and so turned to artwork as a means; rather than going out to play on whatever old used rusted strings I could find in the apartment.
I "cheated" insofar as I used a ruler to measure things such as exactly how far apart the eyes should be and exactly how wide and high the head should be (to be in scale with the eye width).
This technique was taught to me by a guy in Virginia who used it to draw huge portraits off of often wallet sized photos by using a protractor and a ruler and quadrupling all the distances, which he would demarcate on his blank canvas.
I don't think this is egregious cheating, as, I have seen from perusing art method books examples of "how to begin your drawing" showing lines used to mark the top and bottom of the head and X-es, used to locate eye sockets.
I "finished" the thing in about 2 hours and then spent another few, alternately starting at it and pulling it down from the wall to make a modification -until I was in danger of "overworking" it.
Howard was so light in the original photo that I drew off of that I decided to add the disastrous background, wishing now that I had put some landscaping behind him that might represent one of the places that we were homeless together. 

80% More Fun

I Eat Ground Beef

"I had some ground beef last night."

I got some ground beef from the Ideal Market last night.
I had been living on mostly liquids; a lot of juice, and had recently gotten another large jar of peanut butter; all natural; peanuts, salt.
I put the ground beef in a pan and set the temperature to be very low, not enough to boil water.
This is good because it was probably 20 minutes later that I was sitting in my room and a heard the sizzling sound coming from the kitchen.
As I ran in that direction, I was happy to not smell any burning meat. The meat in the pan was browned on the bottom and almost raw on top. I flipped it over to let the top at least get a bit of sizzling in the pool of grease. I then seasoned the thing with ketchup and mustard and pepper, added some lightly fried onions and, very gingerly at first but then more ravenously; ate it. This morning, I felt pretty good indeed, and not "depressed" for the first time in a while.

Peanut butter (left) had been keeping me full feeling and was an appetite suppressant to the point where I would eat a few tablespoons, either slathered over a banana or mixed together with all fruit jam and coconut milk and honey in a coffee mug; and would return to what I had been doing, satisfied and not constantly running to the kitchen for more to eat.
But it is hard to ignore the feeling of well being that I have gotten after eating the pork chop which was given to me that had come from Irene's Cuisine in the French Quarter; which was an expensive dish; and the wad of ground beef that I sizzled and ate last night -about a dollars worth.

I was up at about 9 AM.

I had to think about what day it was; then I remembered that I am close to being broke.

I have rusty strings on the guitar and no working harmonica.

The strings, I can replace out of the savings jars; putting them in arrears.

I will have to busk with just the guitar and my voice; like I used to do, back when I made 10 dollars per hour on average, doing it.

Tuned by a Chinese person with a laser beam

Then, I should, hopefully before the weekend comes, be able to afford one of a particular type of low priced harmonica, namely a Suzuki "folkmaster," harmonica. The guy in the French Market sells them off of his fold up table or out of his plexiglass case for $26.99.

I was able to find them for about $17 on the Musician's Friend website.

The Suzuki company apparently uses high technology in the building of their harmonicas, gimmicks perhaps, but they promise that their harmonicas will be in perfect tune, because they use laser beams to micro-tune them in China. They make some extremely expensive harmonicas; I'll bet that their $850 one just about plays itself.

They also make cheaper ones than the Folkmaster, but those aren't marketed with the designation "master" anywhere in their names, and are suggested for use by "hobbyists," whereas their most expensive harps are all touted as being the master of something i.e. "Promaster," "Bluesmaster," etc.

It is a plastic combed harp, but I see this as not being inferior to the wood combed harps. There are hard technical specifications that both materials have to meet, like being "airtight" and wood can actually expand due to moisture and become compromised in that capacity. Put in terms of the layman busker, the wood in between the holes that you play into begins to protrude so that it is less like running your lips over a flat surface and more like running it over the tire marks left by a tank.

This offers the advantage of allowing the player to use the wooden nubs to locate the holes. A melody that takes a leap of 2 holes can be found more by feeling the wooden protrusions rather than by just muscle memory.

Another drawback is that the bloated expanded wood can be rough on the lips.

The plastic combed ones sound a little bit differently, but to me the difference would be like: What if the Rolling Stones had used a Steinway piano instead of the Yamaha when they cut the song: "You Can't Always Get What You Want," would the kids just not dig it as much, or would they dig it more?
I'm not going to fret over wood vs. plastic when I have less than 30 bucks right now to replace the one that's shot so I can take a pay increase from 10 to 18 dollars per hour, and have 80% more fun playing.

I could knock out one of the more important errands that I need to get to.

See Rebuild Center about eyeglasses
Find a third phone to use to call to switch my number from my present phone to the one that Sherman gave me.

Monday Off, Tuesday Too, And A Ton Of Things To Do

It is Tuesday and I was up early in the morning; like a regular person.

My place, when I got it 16 months ago...

I am turning my attention towards getting some kind of job which is not busking.
Labor Staffers
During a brief stop at the Labor Staffers place right down the street, I was informed by a guy that he was "being honest" in telling me that they had no work.

You would think that, given the percentage of the population here that has spurned ever working again because they have discovered skeezing, that there would be some work available.

I have rusty strings on the guitar and a blown out harmonica.

I opened up the harmonica this morning, after Troy the electric blues guitarist at the corner of Iberville and Royal had told me Sunday night that "they pop right open." It popped right open. The fasteners, which looked like the kind screws that would require a jewelers screwdriver to remove, were more like thumbtacks that came right out of the wood that they were stuck (screwed) into.

I could see no physical abnormalities about the reeds that had been malfunctioning, but when I flexed one in particular which had been refusing to sound, it snapped off along a crease which became apparent as I started to bend it.

So, the Marine Band in the key of C, which I paid 50 bucks for about 2 months ago is, to use a nautical expression, on the bottom of the ocean and beyond salvage.

I have about 10 bucks in cash.

I have another 15 in the 17.5% jar which is supposed to be for the saving up for a new laptop.
And, the 1% jar, which is current back to March 12th, probably has close to $20 in it.

I had hoped to have a new laptop with a functioning battery before taking a summer trip to New England, so that I could use it to blog, take pictures, record music and generally stay in touch with society.

My friend Ben from Massachusetts has not contacted me further about coming down here to visit New Orleans and stay at my apartment.

I have to go out and stop at the Labor Staffing place to complete an application with them.

I have to go to the "Workforce Louisiana" place, maybe with another notarized letter stating that I busk "40 hours a week" so that I won't be required to go through the 60 hours of "training" that is otherwise a prerequisite to continued food stamp assistance.

Teeth

I have to go back to the dental clinic "for the homeless" and make another appointment. The last time, I had to wait 5 months to see the dentist, who had referred me to the University Hospital with the instructions to remove all of my teeth.

She (the dentist) basically told me, without telling me, that if I were wealthy, then I could have my original teeth capped and crowned and bridged and filled and restored; and that it was "always better to keep your original teeth."

I balked at showing up at the University Hospital in order to have all my teeth pulled out, at that time. I at least want to wait until I have a head of gray hair before getting dentures.

I had no tooth pain, and decided to give myself more time in order to win the lottery or otherwise come into enough money to keep my original teeth.

I want to set another appointment, which would probably be for sometime in the fall, just to give myself another opportunity to decide if I want to go ahead with the teeth pulling, or in case I develope a toothache in a month or two. That wouldn't be the time to set the appointment for 5 months in the future.

Eyes

Then, I need to stop at the Rebuild Center to see about prescription eyeglasses. The ones that I am wearing are no longer my exact prescription and are not even close in the left eye; plus, the lenses are scratched and the frame is missing an arm. I've had them since I was homeless. They are also marred by some more recently inflicted marks from Harold the cat, who got to them right after having torn the subwoofer out of my bass cabinet with his claws.

I have a ton of things to do which are suitable for a day off, yet I don't want to spend my days off running around doing stuff like that; I want to smoke a joint and mess around with the guitar missing a string; maybe re-record my voice mail greeting, which is currently a little bit of myself playing guitar and singing "I'm not home, I could be anywhere..." or something similar.

I am pretty sure that I need to quit smoking weed, to go along with not drinking. The weed makes me think that I sound better when I play; and I'm pretty sure that the music appeals to other stoners, but it seems to have the effect of making one day blend into another, and of making me opt for activities like soaking in the tub while listening to classical music, rather than taking care of business like setting appointments and showing up and getting things out of the way and off of my "I really need to..." list.

That list of items seems even more daunting and overwhelming in the fog of pot smoke and, a lot of times, for the inability to be able to decide which is the most important to do; I do none of them.

Sunday Off To Recuperate

Harold, my cat has been sleeping a lot lately; worrying me a bit...

I took Sunday night off, after having come home early that morning, after having made 22 dollars at the Lilly Pad, knocking off after the time Rouses Market closes and therefore having been unable to use my newly charged food stamp card; except at Walgreen's.
I got a bag of cashew nuts, and a green drink, and a 39 cent caramel there, before getting on the trolley.
American History
Sunday, I spent a good portion of; reading American History.
I'm up to 1944 and the going has been slow, given the number of pages devoted to this and the preceding years.

I am forced to think, when I read about battles where thousands were killed that those were unique individuals, each one capable of thinking and feeling a wide gamut of emotions, with the ability to reason, to philosophize; to communicate; having fears that we all share, such as fear of death; and having hopes and dreams and perhaps even a connection to a higher power; maybe a genius or having a great sense of humor. Their deaths were tallied after each battle. If a company of 200 win a battle and only lose one man, the historian might even use the phrase: "negligible losses." But, what if you're that one guy, who loses the whole thing, as far as he's concerned.

And, sometimes a general will screw up and send hundreds of his fellow man into a meat grinder, only to give the order to pull back after he sees his folly. Sorry about your buddies, I...well, I had the damned map upside down; war is hell!

How can a guy who has any sensitivity at all, crouch behind a log, clutching a deadly weapon, ready to charge into a hail of bullets, knowing that it is over a hill that the officers feel would make a great place for an observation post; and then seeing battles that are fought to a stalemate with each side suffering heavy casualties and then waking up the next morning with the battle lines still right where they were; and then getting ready for another "assault."

And it would probably have been an act of treason to stand up and yell: "What, are you crazy? They'll mow us down! Let's think of something better!" to the General.

 And there are some people these days who will blow themselves up in order to take other people with them; are these people way more spiritual than I am??

But, I digress. I'm just a street musician in New Orleans seeing if he can stay sober enough to make a career for himself...


153 Days Sober
I had a strong urge to drink for just about 10 seconds earlier this morning. It was right after I had walked past a couple skeezers and had heard one of them mumble; and I imagined that he had said something about the fact that I never give a skeezer "nothin'."
Drawing Pictures
I spent another good portion of Sunday drawing pictures. I will have to remember to bring them here to the computer room with me so I can photograph them and post them here.

You Gotta Hand It To Me

• New Schedule Working?
• $22 Saturday Working 2 Hours

I am blogging in the morning in my tye dyed shirt which I had handed to me by a young lady while busking about 3 weeks ago, now.

I played last night and took home 22 bucks after having waited out a heavy rainstorm and only gotten on the trolley thinking that I would, at the minimum, be in the area of Rouses Market when my food stamp card loaded up at midnight; and, at the most, running into a bit of weed and making some money busking.

The days leading up to the charging day had flown by. I had kind of been fasting on juice based drinks or very little food, with meals few and far between.

I really don't have the stomach for food when playing, plus it gums up a harmonica pretty fast, a chunk of hamburg, but there have been a couple of occasions when I came back to earth after jamming away to see that someone had put a Styrofoam container upon my guitar case. These I always put in my backpack, knowing that hunger can come with a vengeance, especially when marijuana is involved.

The last, more notable one was about a week ago. I let the Styrofoam container sit there for about my last hour of playing, and then opened it, after I had packed my stuff up.

I had probably subsisted on a diet of coffee and Arizona Energy drinks the whole 24 hours leading up to the mystery person leaving the food; and I opened it to espy one large piece of pork attached to a bone which seemed the shape of a pork "chop," but was very much larger; either from a jumbo pig, or a different cut than I am familiar with. I am not very familiar with pork because I almost never get it, as I have just never liked the taste of it, compared to something like lamb, and that is a darned shame, because it is a cheap meat; in the chicken class.

This piece of pork, however, was in a white Styrofoam and was thus most likely from Irene's Restaurant, which is famous and is probably the only white Styrofoam using restaurant within a half mile of the Lilly Pad, being just about a block away.

Pork Sleuth, I

Plus, if the person who handed it to me had left whatever restaurant she dined at with the intention of giving it to some needy looking perhaps person, then she would have given it away long before getting to me if she had been at one of the more distant establishments that use white Styrofoam containers.
If she had eaten at one of them and then had carried what turned out to be pork the whole half mile or so to the Lilly Pad without having given it away to any of the 26 needy looking people that she surely would have crossed paths with, then that would indicate that she wanted to keep it and eat it later, and in that case, she probably would have thrown me a couple dollars in lieu of the food; unless she was broke.

So, I think it came from the famous multi star restaurant. I took one bite to chew on as I made my way back to the trolley. Irene's had managed to make a food that I don't really like taste pretty good. There was a kind of sauce in the container, which was greenish brown and had a heavenly flavor with cumin being well represented in the mix.

After I got home, I ate the rest of it, which fell easily off the bone. Harold the cat even ate the bits that I gave him.

The next day, I really felt great. I felt like the tin man after he has gotten oiled.

Last night, my delinquency came back to bite me; but I bit back.

I broke a string, and realized that I had no spares. During the boom days of the Jazzfest, I was changing strings so frequently that they hadn't been breaking.

Now, in these lean times I went out with 7 day old strings without having had the foresight to pack some of my extra used ones in my pack.

I continued to play, minus the string and had minimal trouble sounding good, and got one 10 dollar tip after a particularly ripping solo.

Mohamad Ali's recent death came to mind after I had started playing "While My Guitar Gently Weeps," when I noticed that I had chosen an appropriate song for the occasion.

In my mind, I was actually intending it to be a tribute (for lack of a better word) to him; and, it helped me to play a pretty ripping harmonica solo. On the harmonica with a plugged up reed. Mohamad Ali was very headstrong in his beliefs; and I had to believe that I could sound good with a missing string and a plugged up harmonica.

I'm going to have to play with that rig at least one more time, as I don't have enough money for a new harmonica and I am not willing to dip into my 17.5% jar which is a saving fund for a new laptop.

Back To Drawing Board On Drawing Baths

The water in my apartment comes out of the bath faucet scalding hot, unless its dial is positioned about 95% of the way towards "cold." There is a sweet spot there where little more than a trickle of water of a "perfect" temperature comes out that will fill the tub in about 23 minutes.

That is a long time to be standing around watching a tub fill. So, I set my microwave timer and busy myself with other things while it is filling.

This is still not a reliable method because sometimes the hot water starts to "run out" during the filling, and the result is a bath that is too cold. [See "Goldilocks And The Three Bears," for more on that.]

So, tonight, I tried freezing a gallon jug of water, to be used as a temperature attenuator. I then filled the tub with scalding hot water in just 9 minutes by setting the dial half way between "hot" and "cold." I added the frozen jug of water, which floated.

10 minutes later, after all the ice in the jug had melted, there was hardly a perceptible difference in the temperature of the water. I couldn't figure it out.

I know that, for the ice to have melted that x amount of energy had to have been required to change its state from solid to liquid, but I had expected that such a big chunk of ice would only take a few minutes to cool the water to a point where I could get in it without screaming.

It's back to the drawing board on drawing baths. I might get a thermometer that registers in that range and use it to manually make the water 103 or 104 degrees...(fahrenheit)

One Last Thing

Blogging Before Bed
I am blogging "first thing in the morning," which is actually at the end of my day.

I had been trying to blog after sleeping and before going out to play, but this has been a failure, as the lack of recent posts might show.

I've been waking up depressed a lot lately; and devoid of any of the enthusiasm or ideas that my mind might have been teeming with, before I lied down. They don't seem as important in the morning (4 PM).

There has also been pressure to get to the Lilly Pad as early as possible, making it seem like the longer I blogged, the later I would be getting there and the less money I would wind up making, and the more the blog would become about financial woes, rather than interesting adventures.

The trolley runs 24 hours now, so I was able to hop on one around 3:45 AM, after having played at the Lilly Pad from 11 PM until 2 AM and made 38 dollars.

Finance

This just about matches my total for the previous 5 days; something which had me planning upon contacting the Labor Staffers place about a dishwashing job, or anything.

I probably will still do that.

I played around a couple missing notes on the harmonica tonight, on old strings.
I had almost left the harmonica at home, but am glad that I didn't, as I was able to practice on the very highest notes found in the top 3 holes above the hole which is blown out.

My biggest money nights lately have come through the agency of a single inebriated individual showing up and gushing over how amazing my musicianship is and how enviable the life is that I am leading. "You are the soul of this country!," said Thursday night's version, who tipped me 12 of the 17 that I would take in the whole night.

17% Jar To Be Used To Save For Laptop

I have started a "17.5% jar" based upon my estimates of how much I can reasonably expect to save out of each nights pay, in order to live comfortably and have a new laptop in about 6 weeks from now...

So, as I am writing this at 8:44 AM, I will be able to get in 8 hours of sleep and be able to go straight to the Lilly Pad on this Saturday night.

A Goal Of Human Existence

I want to travel during these slow months; busking other places and maybe lifting my spirits through the adventure of it.

The irony is that, the times when I should have been waking up depressed -like when I was sleeping under a defunct trolley car that was parked on a grassy lot in Mobile, Alabama and woke up in a puddle of frigid water in a soggy sleeping bag and couldn't even have a cigarette because they had been soaked also- I wasn't depressed at all. I might have been thinking "this will make a good story some day," or "One day I'll look back at this and laugh," but I wasn't depressed.

Now I wake up in a spacious apartment that I can have for life, and all I can think about is dying there.

Everyone is dying, and it amazes me that people are able to take their minds off of it.

Maybe that is a goal of human existence, to take one's mind off of the fact that, whatever each of us is going to end up dying from is already latent within us -the guy who, as a kid used to wheeze every spring from pollen dies 70 years later from emphysema; another, who was always susceptible to nosebleeds his whole life kicks the bucket after a massive hemorrhage; the woman who can remember having dizzy spells at a certain stage of her life but who explained them away by attributing them to something like hormones winds up going bat shit crazy and killing herself at age 58, etc. etc.

It's the "weakest link in the chain" (that is the human body) theory. It must be hard for 98 year old people to divert their thoughts from waiting for something to go wrong; like someone who is expecting company and has one ear peeled for the sound of a knock at the door -did I just hear a knock? Did my heart just palpitate?

Part of what is depressing me is the fact that all these people are dying; Prince, Mohammad Ali, etc. and today's society is just giving them an additional "15 minutes" of fame, or more like 15 seconds (a 10 second encapsulation of a life, 5 seconds of the chorus of Purple Rain; and then on to the weather.
If that is all that an artist as prolific as Prince amounts to; then it seems pretty pointless to "work and suffer and struggle for fame."

What's worse is when very old people die who are only remembered by the handful of their surviving contemporaries and who are, hence, worthy of even less attention. Lauren Bacall (whom I think is still alive in her late 90's) will probably have a 3 second audio clip of the husky voice that was her trademark saying her most famous line, and then on to the weather.

As humanity expands exponentially, there just won't be a house big enough for all the household names. Is Debbie Gibson a household name? What about Judy Rankin (she was like the first female professional golfer or something).

And, finally; I really hate songs like
"Electric Youth", by Debbie Gibson.

And, that much more recent song by the group named Fun, which has the chorus:

Tonight
We are young
Let's set the world on fire
we can burn brighter than the sun

I hate these songs because every generation thinks that they are the latest and greatest thing to come along and that the previous generation is old fashioned, boring, closed minded, irrelevant and, though they know that they were once young they cannot fathom that they could have had the same feelings or lived through similar things. Everything was in black and white back then, was what our generation thought about our predecessors. Did I mention square?

I hated Electric Youth when it came out. I was in my 20's. I thought that the young kids coming up and singing along with it were an evolutionary step backwards for mankind. Like Neil Armstrong stepping backwards from the surface of the moon onto the ladder on the landing module.

Even when I was young, I knew enough to attribute the way I felt to my youth alone. I wasn't like: Hey, everybody, look at me, I'm full of energy and I can dance all night, and I just know that I'm going to "take it higher" and set the world on fire.

To all the millennials that I see these days exuding that "Look out, world, here I come!" attitude, I would like to walk up to and say "Look out, here comes the world!"

More About Travelling
The trick will be to retain the apartment here as a place that I can crawl back to regardless of what happens in my travels.

If I get jumped and have all my stuff and money stolen somewhere, all I would need is a bus ticket back "home," -something that seems to be one of the more easily acquirable things by the downtrodden, the vagrants, the stranded, the down on their luck and the skeezers in a lot of places where I have been. Imagine that; a free Greyhound ticket. It's almost as if they are trying to get rid of such people!

The computer room opens at 6 AM.

The 2 hours since I got back have flown by.


I cooked and ate pasta with tomato sauce, brought Harold the cat in, and then tuned my little radio to the sports station and listened to them talk about the death of Mohammad Ali while reading the American history book.

I am eating pasta with tomato sauce because this is the last day of the month before my food stamp card is to be loaded with 194 bucks; it ran out about 10 days ago, which has been par for the course since I got the thing.

Sure, It Will Come Back

• $18 Friday
• $48 Saturday
• $8.50 Sunday
• $10 Monday

Do You Even Go Out Tuesday?
So,
The problem is that I can't decide if I want to take the night off and miss out on an average of $12 from busking.
That would mean, going out with all my gear and walking 100 yards to the trolley stop and plunking down $1.25 for the privilege of being dropped off at Royal and Canal Streets, catty corner to Starbucks.
If it were to be before 9 PM, then I could go in there and grab a coffee off one of my still active gift cards; that would take me to the non skeezing side of the street.
It has been a long time since I have arrived at that stop before 9 PM, as I have been...
Wallowing In The Mire
After coming out of there with my black coffee without any sugar that might gum up a harmonica, I would then try to slink past David The Water Jug Player.

I have begun to value time more, lately, even to the point of picking up my pace as I walk to the Lilly Pad, which is right around a 9 block walk; and certainly to the point of slinking past David so as to save time.
He can be cool to talk to, and has a unique perspective as his religion seems to be a blend of Rastafarian, Muslim and just enough of some religion that believes that there should be no religions to tone the two down a bit.
He is 65% percent of the time going to greet me with: "Hey, Daniel, where y' at? Please tell me that you're smoking on something..."
And I am put in a position of either lying*: "I have like this one little bud the size of a pea. Just enough to get me going at my spot."
*Statement only qualifying as a lie through the omission of: "And about 40 more like it..."
Or, of spending 15 or 20 minutes hanging out with David The Water Jug Player.

Sidebar: In the photo above the leather strap on David is indeed a water jug strap, allowing him to tote his drum around while keeping his hands free. To gesture, and stuff.

David is a friend and a positive influence. I could transfer this over to the "bio" section at some point.
He kind of believes that in order to do what we do we must live the most humble existence; sleep on a trolley stop bench, wake up broke and literally play for your breakfast. This enables The Great Music Spirit to move through you and touch a human life and it will be the best breakfast that you've ever tasted. Because you will be starving after having drank all your money the previous night, and dehydrated.
This exposes another chicken and egg quandary: Which came first, the sleeping on the trolley stop bench; or the spending all your money on alcohol. Or was it a tie.

But he is the kind of guy that, well:

You hang out with him and he asks you, at one point, for your lighter.
You are a mile down the road before you realize that he never gave it back.
You buy a new lighter and you also wonder if David had pocketed yours intentionally.
You also remember that David had given you at least 2 lighters in the past, on 2 separate occasions.
When you do run into him and the subject comes up, he explains something to the effect of:
"If you knew I needed a lighter- Let my put it this way; if I had asked you for a lighter, would you have given it to me?"
"Yeah."
"So, you gave it to me. I just didn't ask."

"I didn't have to ask. I ask Jah for everything; not people."

So, after slinking past David I would walk the 9 blocks to the Lilly Pad, set up and play for and average of $12, with the possibility of that one big fish coming along -the guy that wants to sit next to you and sing while his friends shoot a video and try not to giggle into the microphone and who puts a 50 dollar bill into the tiposaurus' mouth saying: "That was great."

He is always lurking, the big fish, after 11 PM around the last must-see tourist stop on Bourbon Street.
But how valuable is the time that I spend "recharging?."

Jimi Hendrix complained about how he had to go out and be spectacular every single show, because everybody came to be blown away by this amazing guitarist and to see what all the hype is about; and so he had to shake off all the cobwebs and tell himself: "Well, here I go again..."

It is like the jogger who is feeling lethargic and still sore from the day before when he had pushed himself and achieved his best ever time.

He is stretching out; maybe a wind is blowing against him that morning. He is likely to be thinking: "Not today. I'm going to take it easy today, just keep a steady pace, get my exercise in, but kind of rest up after yesterday. I don't even feel like jogging. I could soak in the tub and listen to classical music..."

And then he starts his jog. It is painful initially but then he starts to feel better. Maybe he comes around the lake (that he jogs around) and the wind is then at his back. He realizes at the 3 quarter mark that he is only 3 and a half seconds behind his record setting run of the day before; and the wind is at his back. "Well, here I go again," he might think as he pours out every ounce of energy, and achieves some kind of "runner's high" as he has the sensation right towards the finish line, of being an entity totally detached from his body and envisions himself sitting on a cozy couch in his own head and looking out through his own eyes at the passing scenery- probably a metabolic function of brain to block out the pain, aided by oxygen deprivation; but runner's high sounds sexier.

He breaks his records again.

"Whew, I am so glad I dragged my ass out to run today; I feel great right now!"

Then, he wakes up the next morning. "I don't even think I'm gonna run today; It looks cloudy out and, plus, I've really been pushing it the past couple days..." etc.

So, I can understand Jimi. And the drugs that he eventually found that he came to rely on for: "You know...I feel like I can go out and rip it up every night...just do my little powder, get out there; let The Great Music Spirit run the show, yeah..."

Lately, I have been wrestling with my conscious to the point where I feel guilty on a night off; and insecurities about someone else finding my spot and trying to make it theirs creep up.

And to further compare myself to the late Jimi Hendrix; I have fallen into a pattern of smoking half a joint while tuning the guitar and then going off and playing my ass off for what always seems to be twice as long as it actually was; finishing the joint and the playing for a pretty much equal second set, and then at one point feeling like I have nothing more to "say" and that further musical attempts would likely be meaningless and uninspired.

It is similar to the phenomenon whereby a carful of people on their way home from a wild party might ride along in deathly silence, broken only by sporadic exchanges:

"That sure was a nice house."

"Yeah."

And then back to the sound of the tires on the asphalt. No one had put the radio on.

They just don't feel like talking. Not out of any emotion like anger fear or guilt; rather out of lack of any palpable emotion.
That feeling can set in at the busking spot.



  
 

If You Believe In Spirits

• $49.50 Wednesday
• $21.00 Thursday
• Air Conditioner Now Working (cat no longer meowing to get out of hot apartment at night)

Wednesday night, I went out to busk.

I think that busking has become a main source of human interaction for me. I really can't count my local encounters with skeezers as "human interaction" (never mind "human embracement").

It was about 10:30 when I arrived at the Lilly Pad, and, since I didn't have a cigarette, I walked up to the bar and offered a guy 30 cents for one of his Parliaments.

I wound up taking the guitar and harmonica out and getting tipped 45 bucks from them (and a cigarette) as I played about 3 songs and chatted in between. That was before I had even sat down at the Lilly Pad, where I made only another $4.50 in the next hour. But, I had the luxury of doing whatever music I wanted, knowing that I was already almost 50 bucks ahead on a Wednesday night.

"No thanks, I don't drink!"

I had been offered drinks a couple of times and had told the story of my being about 140 days sober, which evoked a handshake and, I'm pretty sure, at least half of the tip money.

This was a more clearly cut case of someone supporting a musician who is staying sober so that he can pour more energy into his craft; as opposed to the times that money comes pouring in after I am tempted to drink but don't; coming from people who would have no way of knowing that that had happened; leading me to wonder if they are spirits, like angels or whatever Leslie Thompson is not.

Should We Not Learn From Them

I've found that the "mild depression" that I often suffer from can be assuaged by thinking about traveling up to New England, fuelled by busking, this coming summer.
Hopefully, I would see:
My Mom and sister. My brother, along with my sister-in-law, Melissa and my 3 (or is it 4, now) nieces.
My friends, Hubert Borg (about which "Hubert's Trip" is written) Dave Veautour (whom I last saw in 2009 when he visited St. Augustine, Fl)  Ted Broughey (who lives in Boston, which is potentially my last busking stop along the way) and probably Ben Lambie who would have just returned from visiting me here.
Somehow I have started to see the matter of my apartment as being one of those forks in the road in life where the choice is to either move on towards adventure or to sit around waiting to die.
I might go back to a more nomadic life, even sleeping outside a lot, yet, try to maintain the apartment -best of both worlds, kinda...
I just had the air conditioner in the place looked at by maintenance and the temperature has dropped from 80 degrees, where it had hovered the past 2 weeks, to about 68 now. Even Harold the cat had been scratching at the door to go outside the past few nights to get out of the sweltering heat.
I have taken the past couple nights off.
I am kind of tired of busking. It only takes a string of 2 or 3 lousey money nights to tire of it.
I will probably go out this (Wednesday) night, even though I haven't slept much with the air conditioner repair guy coming in, and now being up blogging about not sleeping because I am up blogging...
The American History book that I am reading is really putting a lot of things into perspective for me and helping me to see this world that we live in in some context.
Too bad that, when American History was first foisted upon me in high school, I just wasn't set up to grasp it. Then, it seemed like a bunch of data to memorize and then reproduce on tests. It seemed irrelevant, even after the teacher's opening day speech about "Why do we study history?" I just didn't think then, that we were doomed to repeat the roaring 20's should we not to learn from them...