Monday, February 27, 2017

Working Three Shifts!

I'm listening to Joe Satriani at half speed, through the Audacity sound editor.

It is almost sunrise on this Monday morning.

I have a pretty good amount of cash stuffed into my tip jar, which I haven't unfolded yet, to look for larger bills interleaved with the ones, etc.

It was a Sunday night before Fat Tuesday that started out, anything but auspiciously.

I got into the Quarter in the late afternoon, and posted the Daniel Beaudoin video at the Starbucks.

At 8 PM, Starbucks closed. At about 8:20 PM, I was finally out the door of the place.

There were so many people crowded along the parade line that there was no room to swing the Starbucks door open outward. Once enough people had been prodded into moving, mostly by the barista, who wanted more than anyone, to get us out, for the door to be opened. It was still about a 5 to 10 minute wait between individuals being able to push their way into the mob; a mob who were posted up and had their heels dug in, ready to lurch for something thrown off a float. These people had stood there for hours and established their territory in spots where they would be at an advantage in catching free stuff thrown off of floats.

So, there was a whole lot of, "excuse me; excuse me" being said by the people who left before me, and some "excuse me, sorry" from myself, adding the apology on account of my having a large backpack and a guitar on my shoulders, and pushing a bike.

Boy, was I ever glad to make it about 100 yards to Common Street and the open road, so I could hop on the bike and make my way around the whole spectacle and back into the Quarter.

Since Starbucks closed so early, I was at the Lilly Pad a little before 9 PM, to survey it. It was no dice on the busking. Lafitt's PA system sounded really nice and loud and clear. I would buy the same kind of speakers that they had, if I were to ever have a warehouse to rehearse in, where I could match the volume of a nightclub.

I went down by the Quartermaster, a bit out of my element, but, with a brand new harmonica, was able to filter out of the hundreds a little group of tippers, and made 85 bucks in probably a little over 3 hours of actual playing.

I took breaks, at two points in the night when I really couldn't see myself playing any more but then changed my mind after taking 10 minutes to drink a coffee and eat a couple Reese's Dark cups at the Quartermaster. The staff there finally got to hear me play, after seeing me in there pretty steadily the past few years, always with the guitar on my back. Michelle cheered from the doorway on one of her cigarette breaks, after I had finished a song. She is the one who doesn't charge me for my coffee.

There was a 20 dollar bill that was folded up so well that I, at first, didn't notice any of the trappings of it being larger than a one, when it was sitting in the jar in front of me as I played.

I did see a little body language from the guy who had dropped it when he turned and looked back at me after he had walked the number of paces that would have given me time to have noticed it and would have just been opening my mouth to utter "oh, thanks!" to him. He kind of gave me a thumbs up.

The bill was wadded into the size of a strawberry.

I think the guy might have been giving me the thumbs up, knowing that at the time, I didn't know that he had thrown a 20, but knowing that I would unfurl it later and say "wow, cool!" and understand what the thumbs up had been about.

Just a theory. Just trying to play busker psychologist a bit...

And there were 4 five dollar bills, and 41 one dollar bills and 4 something in change....
So, that would account for about 25 people tipping me, factoring in one guy who placed twelve one dollar bills in my jar, and a few others who threw more than a buck. This was out of about 1,500 souls who walked past during the 5 hours that I played with about 20 minutes of "break time" taken out.

I definitely owe the 85 dollar night to the fact that I had pushed myself back out to play another set twice. After I had pushed myself out there for the last hour, I made about 25 bucks.

Tonight, as I sit here and it is 8:42 PM, I suppose I prepare to go out with the new harmonica and play at the same spot by the Quartermaster. It's possible that some other musician might try to grab it. There is a lady who lives directly across from that corner who came out at a little after midnight one night and said "Come on, It's after midnight and we're trying to sleep!" to me. A couple of traveling kids with guitars whom I saw Sunday night mentioned her having run them off.
She never came out. I had tried to soften my playing after midnight a bit.

Last night's 25 tippers out of about 1,500 people seemed like a decent ratio, considering the way I was reading the crowd.

They seemed very much on guard for the most part, certainly not ready to tip someone just because they are out there and just because they are working. I can respect that, actually.

There were a couple instances of me hearing one voice out of a group of young men approaching saying, in one case: "No, sorry!"

This was said from a distance, and meant, of course, that they had spotted me and the one was perhaps voicing his sentiments at the sight of what he believed could be someone trying to get money out of them.

It is the same thing as me saying "Sorry, I don't have a dollar, and I don't have a cigarette," out loud as soon as I see a potential skeezer walking towards me, before he even skeezes me. But, I don't say it loud enough for the skeezer to hear me (I have done that before, back when I drank, and had more than one of them -especially the black ones- angrily snap back at me "I didn't ask you for no dollar or no cigarette!"

But, there is no danger in heckling a street musician.

I was happy to have gotten a few of them, some of those 41 single bills, to change their minds. It's cool to have overcome how I must have looked to the guy from a distance, looked like I wasn't going to sound good at all, and then to have sounded good enough. Anything is better than thinking that busking is just totally random...

There were a lot of people (let's say 20%) who were trying to find Bourbon Street, having walked from whatever place they had rented because it was "within walking distance of the French Quarter" and, as is typical, here in 2017, had their attentions fixed upon the screens of their smart phones, wanting to believe that the GPS application had not erred, and after ruling out the human error of their phone being upside down, vocalized loudly: "It say's that way; Bourbon is that way...I guess we should go that way..." sounding like a cry for help, and all this taking place while all kinds of perfectly good human beings are walking to and fro right in front of them, whom they could simply ask if "this is Bourbon Street," but, I'm afraid that, here in 2017, they choose not to.

This is out of fear of giving a skeezer an inroad to lay his skeeze into him. "...Some of these other guys out here would have pointed you the wrong way and then robbed you as soon as you got around that corner; but I ain't like that, I look out for other people, I help them; just like I expect others to help me out when I'm trying to get a hamburger, like right now, that's all; if you can afford it...and remember, I didn't jump you!"

The Royal Street Effect

Then there was another section (10%) that were coming from the business end of Bourbon Street, who had just run the gauntlet, and might even have been skeezed out of 20 dollars by one of the "shoe" guys ("I bet you I can tell you where you got your shoes; I'll even tell you what city and what street!") and they might have even experienced the Royal Street Effect whereby tourists, after sallying forth from their hotels to explore, come across a street performer, and are entertained and think it's really neat and feel compelled to support the artist, being aware that he is part of what New Orleans is all about, etc. and they throw him a nice ten or twenty.

Then, they walk another block and encounter a group of musicians who are even "better." Perhaps they are playing the exact kind of Bluegrass, or something, that these tourists from Tennessee, right near West Virginia really love.

And they then kind of wish that they hadn't thrown the first guy a whole ten bucks, because they really want to show these guys (and there's 11 of them, if you count the girl tap dancing) some Tennessee right near West Virginia love, and so they throw them, too, a twenty.

"Well, that's about all the money we had for tipping musicians," they are thinking, as they come across Tanya and Dorise.

This phenomenon also occurs on Bourbon Street, to the detriment of all of the middle skeezers, who are encroached upon by tourists who have by then put their guards up.

It doesn't mitigate until they get to me, and it is obvious that I'm "the last one." There, sitting outside the last stop bar. It's possible that some tip the first couple performers they see, then Tanya and Dorise, and then myself, with nobody in between.

Tanya Tucker or Loretta Lynn, I forget which, once crystallized her thoughts on success in the music business as: "Be first; be the best; or be different."

To that, I might add, "or be last."

So, yeah. Tomorrow will be the Monday before Fat Tuesday.

I fried a few eggs and ate them last night, and am about to have some more. I'm taking this Mardi Gras thing to heart, with such food orgys. Bachus would be proud.

I suppose I could start the juice fast on Wednesday, as that is the first day of lent that the Mardi Gras leads up to. It would be a very Catholic fasting schedule.

Flashback 2010: Mobile, Alabama

I have fasted during Rhamadan before, but totally by accident. I just happened to be in jail that August and had decided to fast.

To put a spiritual spin on the whole incarceration experience, fasting falls right into play. You're not going to be required to do anything more than lay on your bunk and read all day, no heavy lifting, what better time to deprive the body of material sustinance, and try to reconnect with the spiritual?

It's not like you're going to have to work a labor pool ticket shoveling rocks on an empty stomach that day.

And as far as physical strength being important for the purpose of fending off physical aggression in captivity, there is no need to worry, because, by not eating you acquire food to use as currency, thus becoming a rich man, with bodyguards and everything.

It's not uncommon to hear someone exclaim an offer of: "I've got my whole tray for a Snickers bar!" on any given night, when the dinner is something he doesn't really like and he would rather have a sugar rush.

And, so the accumulation of 3 trays for each day that you fast gives you the buying power of 3 Snickers bars per day. With that kind of money, people will work for you. They will appear with all kinds of things that you may lack. How easy to trade the next morning's breakfast for an extra sweatshirt in that chilly-ass place, when you're not going to eat it anyways. Like to read the newspaper? Give #63 your cheeseburger every Friday night, and he'll make sure you're the second person to get the paper, as soon as he's done reading it; and he doesn't do the crossword. etc.

So, I was fasting, and at one point, I was in the neighbor's cell, probably picking out of his book collection in exchange for grits and eggs in the morning, and he had a Koran.

He told me that I could certainly borrow the Koran, and that it had been given to him by a guy in the cell at the very end, who looked kind of Jamaican to me.

I skimmed through the Koran over the next week or so while I fasted, and this after actually praying to Jesus over whether or not I should. Jesus really seemed to give a resounding thumbs up, as if to say that we all needed to understand each other.

I found that there was a lot of overlapping of truth between it and the Christian bible, though I can't remember specifics now, 7 years later.

But, I remember that, only a couple days or so after I broke my fast, and my appetite was returning, I was visited by the Jamaican looking guy, who handed me his tray, and told me that "something," or something, had told him to do so. I started to ask him if he at least wanted something off of it, but he shook his head and went back to his cell.

I thought that was pretty cosmic at the time, but, now that I think of it, he could have found out I was fasting through the grapevine..

But, I have never started a fast to coincide with lent. Long ass anecdote just to restate that point, I guess.

OK, I have just returned to the keyboard after having feasted on an egg dish that I just invented:

Honey Mustard Huevos

My dish looked similar to this one I Googled

1. Fry 4 eggs, in olive oil; so that the yolk is still runny and the bottoms are golden brown, not black.
2. Set pan aside to cool before sprinkling salt and pepper on the eggs.
3. Pour honey on the eggs.
4. Put a splash of horseradish mustard on them.
5. Put paprika on them.
6. Enjoy!!

I'll tell you what; they are out of this world!

Evidently, he had begun a fast of his own.

Sunday, February 26, 2017

My Friend Daniel Beaudoin

I might as well kill two birds with one proverbial stone, by not only mentioning my friend, Daniel, but sharing a video of him that I found by Googling him. I have not heard the actual thing, because I didn't bring my headphones with me here to Starbucks, but I am sure that it is typical Daniel, because he is pretty consistent, as far as performing songs a certain way, and has a lot memorized.
He plays on Royal Street in the spot vacated by Johnny B., across from the Hotel Monteleone.
Unlike Johnny B., who does garden variety "guy playing an acoustic and singing" type of stuff (think "Take It Easy," by The Eagles). 
Daniel plays slide-guitar blues, which at least gives a bit of cultural flavor to the fact that he is playing at the same spot where, you name him (King Oliver, Louis Armstrong) stood and played.
Do the above mentioned artist roll in their graves every time Johnny B. plays "Wonderful Tonight," by Eric Clapton for intoxicated wealthy ladies? Well, they roll back over when Daniel hits them with some Howlin' Wolf...
"Can I just squeeze through with my bike and my pack and guitar, and...?"

Daniel makes pretty good money, he doesn't hesitate to throw 20 dollars into a cab ride home sometimes when he just doesn't feel like waiting a half hour for the next one. That say's something about how much he probably makes; Johnny B. used to break 100 dollars at that spot just about every night, but that's because he would stay out there until he had that amount, even if it meant 4 o' clock in the morning. "...It's late in the evening..."
He probably makes the "4 times as much" as I have been promised, should I ever get amplified.
Daniel stays out there about 3 times longer than me, though, and he is always amplified, if even by putting a microphone on a stand in front of him to capture the apparently acoustic sound in the video that I hope plays...

He said that it had been miserably slow for him this Mardi Gras.
I had my own issues to deal with that are going to conspire to make this carnival season a less lucrative one for me than the succeeding weeks.
Mainly, Lafitt's Blacksmith Shop Tavern and Bar, the oldest bar in America, established 1772 has come up to speed with the times and has been putting a blaring PA system out in front of the bar that has made it impossible for me to play until after about 1 AM, when they have been shutting it down. It isn't the typical fife and lute stuff from the 1700's, it's more like Beyonce and songs that repeat a phrase like "Bubble Butt," over and over and over...

Friday night, I made 14 bucks after 1 AM, until about 3 AM.

Last night (Saturday) I set up on Royal Street in a spot that used to be played quite frequently by John Patton (below right) the classical guitarist, at about 9:30, with ostensibly 3 and a half hours to kill before I could return to the Lilly Pad. I had tried to make it to the Louisiana Music Factory for a new harmonica, having given myself almost an hour to do so, and had not made it there, due to the difficulties with getting through parade lines

By 1 AM, I had made about another 15 dollars, playing for a swarms of people who had just come from the parades, were in a mood for catching free things thrown off of floats, rather than throwing things themselves into tip jars, apparently.

And they had the herd mentality of "If we all just barge past the guy with the guitar who is trying to get money from us at the same time, he won't be able to pick out a target to focus his skeeze upon!"

The Lilly Pad really is one of the best spots in the French Quarter to busk at; the time just has to be right.

I sit here at Starbucks, enjoying strong coffee, and only ruing the fact that their restrooms are mysteriously "out of order," on this day when hundreds of people have been interested in using it, and I have to put my laptop in my backpack and walk about 300 yards to utilize a certain little alley, one of few around the block; and one which a blind person would be able to locate by following the odor of urine coming from it.

I had a hell of a time fighting my way through the parade lines. People only seem to be willing to budge enough for a person to squeeze through, but a guy pushing a bicycle, not so willing....

Thursday, February 23, 2017

Greek Salad Day

Slight eczema; itching scalp and a slightly congested nose this morning (afternoon) after having added feta cheese to my salad yesterday, to make it, along with the rest of the requisite ingredients, a Greek salad. That was Wednesday evening.

50 Dollar Wednesday

I was "out the door" at 10:24 PM, and playing at the Lilly Pad a bit after 11 PM.

An hour after that, I had made no tip money at all off the few people who passed, a lot of whom seeming to be on skeezing missions of some kind, either following around someone who had money, or vocalizing things like their intention to to drink a couple beers out of the corner store before going in the bar, rather than pay a whole 4 dollars for each inside the place, and other bad portents for the busker along that vein.

Then, one guy came along and said: "Wow, you're still've been out here an hour, and then listened while I tried to play my best stuff, for about 15 minutes, asking for "harmonica songs" as he did, and who then stood up and stood next to the tiposaurus jar reaching into a pocket.

"Wow, I might be about the get my first dollar of the night," I said.

"Oh, is that right?" he asked, and then kind of winced, as if to say, perhaps, "I don't know how you can sit out here and jam away and not make anything, it must be harder than I realized, out here."

"Yeah, It's been like...well, you've seen the people who've walked past; nobody else (because he was then putting 2 dollars in my jar) has thrown me anything the whole time you've been here..." I knew that part of the reason for that was the very fact that he had been sitting there, leading some to think that I was engaged with taking requests from him, or at the least, that he already had my attention and they didn't want to interrupt. But, the fact was, I still hadn't made a dime at that point, and it didn't hurt to sound as "hard luck" as possible about it; to put a little skeeze into my game. I have a cat to feed.

He sat back down and I played some more, content with the only 2 dollars of cash (to go with about 20 bucks on my plastic card) that I had. It represented at least a can of cat food for Harold, which was really the only thing that I was Immediately lacking.

After I was able to play my best harmonica stuff, he handed me another 10 dollars.

"The guy who wants to play your guitar" pays off
Then, a guy came along who was perhaps Austrailian and who soon wanted to play my guitar "and you play along with the harmonica" and who did, to the tune of another 38 dollars going into my jar, between the 20 that he gave me after I had asked "Will you be able to throw something in my jar?"while he was begging me to let him play the Takamine, and the 3 fives and 3 ones that went in as he played for 3 of his friends -a guy and two young women, good-naturedly cajoling them to "put a tip in the jar, come on!" in between songs. That was probably where the 3 fives came from.

And then a group of young women came along and stood by, listening. 

I had seen them earlier, when they came out from behind the gate from the house next to Lilly's.
They hadn't tipped me then, as they had seemed very distracted and in a tizzy over their plans and hopes for the night, and animated with discussion over their best course of action, becoming focused ultimately upon the simple matter of "Which way?" before they set off.

Upon their return, and before going back through the gate, they stopped and joined us. I was playing the harmonica and the probably Australian (I never asked) guy was on guitar with his friends clapping and singing along.

"Come on, put a tip in the jar, each of you!," implored the guy on guitar.

Within a couple minutes, 3 of them emerged from the pack of about 10, and did so.

"There you go," said the guy on guitar to me, in a way to assure me that all of the money was to be mine. That was probably where the 3 ones came from.

I was kind of intrigued by the transformation in the group of girls, who hadn't even seemed to have noticed me on their way out.

After they had listened and clapped and sang along with the songs that the probably Australian guy played, which were a very good mixture of "busking material" with "Me And Bobby McGee," by Janis Joplin for the ladies, "Freebird," by Lynyrd Skynyrd for the men, and "House Of The Rising Sun," (traditional) for everyone.

The mystery of the girls sudden interest, given that the guy only played and sang about half as well as myself unraveled when, as they retired for the night, the last girl through the gate turned and said (to the Australian and his friend, I assume) "You are two very beautiful men!" before scurrying inside.

Only then did I make a closer inspection of the two. They seemed like a couple of average guys to me. The one standing up was probably about 6 foot, 4 inches and had a chiselled body, perhaps a soccer player. His hair was closely cut and trimmed and his face looked like Superman, the way he was drawn in the comics, not from any of the movies, more than anything else I could compare it to...

All told, the night had only lasted and hour and 45 minutes. During which I was making $27.85/hr.

Thursday Night (Now)
Yeah, now it is one of the biggest nights of the year; Thursday before Fat Tuesday. The only bigger nights are the next few leading up to it. There definitely might be some, on that day, who drop a 50 or a 100, saying that they had walked past me several times all week "and we never had any cash, but it never seemed to piss you off, so we wanted to give you this..."

Thus the additional importance of getting out there on the Tuesdays and Thursdays.
I really want to earn myself some free time to work on projects. I need harmonica and string money, but I want to get some method books.

I'm thinking of making a recording chamber in my apartment.

I originally investigated sound "dampening" materials which are not exactly what I need. They consist of things like layers of heavy towels. These are good for preventing sound from reverberating and leaking back into the microphone, but do little to contain the sound. I would have a nice, muffled chamber; which could still be heard out in the hallway.

The only way to sound "proof" something is by using heavy materials, due to the physical reality that sound passes through things by setting molecules into vibration. It would take a lot of towels to do the job of a half inch of steel.

I am thinking that perhaps cinder blocks could be the answer. I would use my one, very solid, wall -the one that has an elevator shaft on the other side- and the pretty solid brick wall that faces the outside, as two of the walls, and then square it off with two cinder block walls. They wouldn't have to be very tall, I could sit Indian style while recording, and then maybe cover it with plywood upon which I could lay a piece of shag rug, perhaps.

Then, maybe I could practice my Freddie Mercury style singing without being so self conscious...

Wednesday, February 22, 2017

So Is Mine

Caught Up The Creek Without A Paddle Nor Umbrella

Monday night, I had neglected to check any weather reports.
The people in the front row (except the token homeless guy in the middle) were behind the decision...

This turned out to be an oversight of the magnitude of forgetting my harmonica or guitar pick.
It started raining during about my 3rd song, and didn't let up until after I had wrapped myself and guitar as best I could in a trash bag and ridden home. I had only made a few bucks.
To add insult to injury, it had stopped raining by the time I encountered David the water jug player on Canal Street, so I hung out because I was in a generous mood and was even going to smoke a joint with him. 

Farewell To Valerie Party, 1:00 PM, Tuesday, February 21, 2017

Tuesday, I was up and in attendance for the going away party of Valerie, whose position of "building director" has come under the knife.

I had seen Valerie here and there in my travels, and found her likeable and with a sense of humor, but was never really cognizant of of her exact commission here, thinking that perhaps "director" was how they referred to the assistant building manager.

I felt a twinge of guilt over the fact that I haven't been participating in very many "community" activities.

People were tearfully getting up at the party and saying things like: "Sacred Heart isn't just an apartment building; it's a community, and Valerie is to be thanked for fostering that feeling," etc.

I suppose that, had I really put an effort into the Sacred Heart Chorus, and brought as much skill as I could to it; it could have turned into a "Sound of Music" type moment. The guy from wherever shows up to hand Valerie her severance papers, and just then he hears the strains of beautiful a Capella singing and looks to the recreation room to see myself and a bunch of drunken skeezers singing the title track to that very movie in sweet, lilting harmony, which brings him to tears and he rips up the papers and tosses them in her office waste basket. "Keep up the good work, Valerie. You've done such fabulous work with these skeezers, I'm impressed. We'll find the money in the budget somewhere; maybe keep cutting the hot water off on Friday evenings like we've been doing..."

Then, I got busy with recording some music in the afternoon, finding that during those hours, I feel much less sensitive about disturbing anyone else in the building. One of the neighbors had his stereo cranked pretty high, and so I figured that it was open season on the decibel level.

Then, having decided that I was taking that night off, was on my computer until pretty late in the evening and then recorded more music during the hours that I typically play. I must have dozed off around 2 in the morning, because...

Wednesday, February 22

I woke up and it was 10 o' clock in the morning.

Wednesday morning.

Thursday through Fat Tuesday is going to be a stretch of time where the Mardi Gras is going to hit whatever its peak is going to be for 2017, a year when there was a noticeable dropoff in tourist numbers, right after the last shooting incident.

Cosmic Connection

A couple days ago, I downloaded the album "Darkstar," by David Bowie, his last one, released in 2016. I couldn't help listening for clues in its music that the artist knew that he was nearing the end of his life, as he would be gone less than a year after the recording of it.

Then, I was looking to grab some more music off the net before leaving the computer room, and realized that my new laptop, while it had already about 30 hours of music in it, had nothing from The Grateful Dead, or Elvis Costello, a couple of my favorites.

I tried to think of one particular Elvis Costello song to grab, and the song "Doll Revolution" came to mind. 

I searched for it in and found no instances of it. But, there was a "full album" entry for an album that I hardly knew existed, entitled: "Cruel Smile." 

I downloaded that while looking it up on Wikipedia to see just what kind of gem of an album I was getting. Was it one of the ones that Elvis purposefully made into a piece of crap to get back at a record company that had screwed him in the fine print of some contract, required him to release something on their label within a certain time frame under penalty of losing a bunch of royalties? That might account for the fact that I had never heard of the release; that, and the fact that during the 40 years that Elvis has been releasing music, there were stretches of years at a time when I lost track of the guy.

I stopped running out and buying the latest Costello album "as soon as it came out" back in 1986, after the release of "Goodbye Cruel World," which was the first such "intentional piece of crap," hastily made in order to fulfill a quota, the "cruel world" being the recording industry that he was extricating himself from, and trying to snub. 

The cover is supposed to be a play upon that character in a (Kurt Vonnegut, I think) novel, ("Cat's Cradle?") who poses at the top of a cliff in the position of thumbing his nose at the world, and then drops "Ice 9" into the ocean, freezing all the water in the world and solidifying himself in the process in that pose. (One of the intentional "throwaways" on that disc, "I Want You," ironically became one of Elvis' all time classics).

Wikipedia reported that the particular album was made of "B sides, outtakes and alternate versions" of songs from the "When I Was Cruel" album sessions. That was one that I had borrowed from the library in Jacksonville, Florida and had listened to for however many weeks you could keep a disc out, back in 2004.

I remember enjoying it, despite the hardships that I faced back then, working out of the labor pool and sleeping in my car, listening to it on my car stereo. The music brought back memories.

Flashback: 2004

To clarify, I enjoyed it when not being harassed by Jacksonville police, who seemed to think that someone sleeping in a car was easy pickings for them, with a license that they could run through their computer, a tag on the car that they already ran from a distance before approaching with flashlights and guns drawn, and a car that they could search, as if the secrets of the person's soul might be under the passenger seat.

I remember one such pair of cops who came and put a spotlight on me and then started our conversation with something like: "Have you been smoking crack; because you seem nervous?"
They were licking their lips over the prospect of searching my car, which was probably like a candy store to them, as it had all my possessions in it (plus an Elvis Costello CD that I was only borrowing).

It was then that I started to get the notion that some guys are probably attracted to work in law enforcement because they are nosy by nature and have thus found a way to legally rifle through people's personal belongings, with nothing being sacred; journals, photographs, your choice of music..."Oh, look, we've got a poet here! 'Drifting Smoke,' by Daniel McKenna; let me read it aloud! I think we know what kind of smoke he's talking about, yuck, yuck yuck!"

Of course the officers found something that they could arrest me for, if they really wanted to.
"You've got this warrant up in North Carolina, we could hold you for up to 30 days while we see if they want to come pick you up. Are you sure you haven't been smoking crack because you seem even more nervous now. You might as well tell us, because we're going to search your car (based upon our suspicions over your nervousness when having a bright light shone in your face and guns pointed at you) and find it anyways..."

"Look, I'm sleeping here in my car and working out of the labor pool right up the street (what labor pool isn't in a crack infested area?). In approximately 5 hours I'm supposed to be on the job site to work all day planting trees in the hot sun for $6.75 an hour. 

If I try to stay in motels, it would eat up all the money I make.

If you want to create an arrest, then you can take me to jail.

I'll lose the job, and you can have my car towed for $105, then impounded at $30 a day at some lot where the workers will break into it and take the stereo and all my stuff while it's there.

Then, when I get out, if I can't pile up money fast enough, against trying to stay fed and clean with no car to sleep in or to get to a job with -that's if they'll even send me on another job after I don't show up in 5 hours- to outpace the accumulating impound fee, then, I'll lose the car and all my possessions.
They can auction it off to some opportunist (you might consider that before you rip all the spark plug wires out and drain the oil; to make it harder for me to do whatever it is that you're sure that I'm doing but which you can't prove). 

Then, you'll see me on foot soon, with only the bag on my back, starting from scratch at the labor pool after having lost everything that I've worked the past few years for.

Can you do that for me, officers? I mean, gee, Would you? Could you?

I'm vulnerable, you might as well take advantage.

I'm not like the undocumented immigrants that you tell to "just get out of here," after they tell you that they don't have any ID and you don't want to deal with the b.s. of getting a translator, not being able to read them their rights because they technically don't have any, and then having to call the 'I.C.E' Immigration people, who are so swamped that you don't want to add to their burden.
I'm an American Citizen (whose grandfather fought in France in 1917, and whose father in Korea in the 1950's, by the way) and I have plenty of pertinent documentation which would make it a snap to put me in jail.

In fact, I work for the $6.75 per hour, and pay taxes out of it; instead of the $14 cash that the illegal immigrants get under the table, just because I'm a citizen; and a good one who follows the rules and works with the system."

I wasn't arrested that time. They handed me my ID and walked off, after I had started to add that I was a college graduate with an English degree, and that I would surely spend my time in the jail cell articulating all the above in a letter to the editor of the local newspaper and any one else to whom it may concern, etc.

So, I listened to the "Dark Star" album by Bowie, then put on the Costello disc, which opened the floodgates for the above memories.

How soon we forget, or repress, such things.

If a Dickensian "ghost of possibilities" were to have materialized in that parking lot and asked: "How would you like to ditch all this, move into an apartment in New Orleans, have your rent paid for, and be able to play your guitar in the French Quarter for $6.75 per hour on your worst nights, and 3 times that, on average?"

I would have replied: "That would be like a dream come true."

Of the kind of thing that I would write down as part of an exercise in a self help book, when prompted to: "Take 10 minutes to imagine that you could have anything you wanted, with unlimited possibilities, and you couldn't be denied it; and write a detailed paragraph describing your ideal situation. Be very specific, include all the senses in the description. Dream big. If you were guaranteed to get it; what would you wish for?" as an exercise in "visualization."

At that point in my life, I didn't even see a path to any such thing, although I had the self help book in my car, somewhere.

I was eventually thrown in jail about a year later, after my license had been suspended but I continued to drive.

Virginia was unable to fly me up there to serve the warrant because all of the airports were busy and the flights tied up with evacuating people out of New Orleans because there was a hurricane bearing down upon them named "Katrina." They wound up releasing me.

The second song on the Costello album was "Doll Revolution," the song that I had been after in the first place.

Then, I played the Grateful Dead show that I had picked pretty much at random, because the date of it, 7-13-84, had a nice ring to it.

It featured one of only 2 performances of "Dark Star" that the band played after 1970. "We're gonna do something special tonight; one night only," said Phil Lesh the bass player into the microphone before they launched into it.

The Bowie album named "Darkstar..."

Having chanced upon the "Doll Revolution" song that I had in my head but thought that I couldn't find...

And then the dead playing "Dark Star..."

It seemed to hint at a "cosmic connection" somehow.

Coincidences can be like that.

Harold the cat got his face messed up in a fight the same night I got mine shot with a paint ball. It's close to being healed up. So is mine.

Monday, February 20, 2017

Pumpkins Turn Into Chariots

Jams Recorded

Healthier, wealthier and wiser, I was up at 1:30 PM, the time that I wake up automatically just about every day, even if I had just gone to sleep 3 hours earlier.

I thought that I wanted to have a bunch of guitar stuff recorded so if and when I take the laptop and mic out into the country -out some place where I could do Janis Joplin imitations for Pete's sake, and it wouldn't bother anyone (and that's hard enough to do when as drunk as she usually was, never mind sober and with people around).

So, I just recorded 2 jams; a 7 minute something one; and a 14 minute one.

I'll be going into the French Quarter tonight, probably around the usual time, as I am doing the usual things already today; being headed to the computer room at around 5 PM as soon as I close this being a prime example of such.

Harold the cat is inside; his schedule having been thrown a kilter, recently, by my having taken some nights off.


I made 11 bucks last (Sunday) night, arriving and being playing by 10:15 PM, and then I knocked off at 12:36 AM, thinking that I was going to be able to make it to Rouses Market before they closed, though not knowing what for because I was seriously considering extending the fruit only diet a bit further.

I drank coffee and ate a Reese's Dark Chocolate peanut butter cup, which is my only daily dose of sugar and which gives me a rush similar to what a heroin junkie feels, I'm pretty sure. The dark chocolate has no milk in it.

When I lazily ride my bike down Bourbon Street after having had coffee and the Reese's, I have the feeling that the skeezers are thinking that I must have made enough money busking to have gotten my fix.

I had also the notable condition of being pot free when I sat down. It had been a string of a few weeks that I had burned a bowl while tuning up, but not last night.

I started to play and thought that the harmonica was out of tune slightly, though really just one note in particular, and I was struggling a bit just to get sounding good.

A young guy came along and sat and listened, kind of a small guy of about early 20's who had a pretty much trimmed face as far as having a very distinctly shaped goatee and sideburns and mustache, and I think eyebrows.

It was hard to guess what kind of music I would play for the guy, I thought, as I was playing something.

I went into putting my own fake lyrics into the song, which was "While My Harmonica Gently Weeps," an adaptation of mine of a George Harrison song that's slant is obvious from the title.

Well, the guy seemed to like my song about Leslie Thompson, "Cavorting With Amy," and he introduced himself as "Wesley" which I actually asked him to repeat to make sure he hadn't said "Leslie," because the song about Thompson that I had just sung would have had his name in it (and would have been unflattering to him).

Well, he offered me a bowl, which we shared, and then I launched into a harmonica laden version of "The Unforgiven," by Metallica, and that is how the story: "The time I actually played for like 20 minutes not stoned" ends.

Forward To This Afternoon

I put my shirt on inside out, just to let any of you who might be kind of tracking my demise as kind of a hobby. Shirt on inside out, February 20, 2017.

Then, some traveling type kids came by, two young guys, one of which had a guitar on his back, and a girl. And the dog.

They turned out to be pretty decent, the guy with the guitar asking me politely if I knew of a place where he could buy a blanket. I directed them to the Veaux Carre Baptist church on 711 Dauphine Street not 4 blocks away, telling them that if they rang the doorbell there "and they come to the door," that they might get a blanket from them out of their stockroom of just such things there.
Veaux Carre Baptist Church

It is a church that ministers to the homeless as their focus.

The girl came back later and offered me a Grenade drink, in exchange for a cigarette, which I turned down, and then offered her just a few drags off of one of my American Spirit organics, at $7.30 per pack.

I did this by basically telling her that I was down to just a few cigarettes and was taking 3 or 4 puffs off each one and then putting them out.

I then explained how I felt that the way that cigarettes are packaged i.e. in cigarette form kind of implies that a cigarette is a standard unit for human consumption of it, and how I refute that as being the case, touting instead my method of taking just a few drags here and there. You might as well use as little of it as possible to satisfy the nicotine monster inside. Like weed, you actually have to wait a minute before you get the signal from the brain that you have indeed nicotine in your system.

She wound up summing up the evening before she left when she said: "You play the guitar really awesome; people should be tipping you more..."

Pumpkin Blues

The Family Dollar on Canal and Broad had cans of pumpkin on display at 2 for a dollar.

I had loaded up with 6 of them only to learn that, for some reason, the cans of pumpkin had been put on the "do not sell" list and the cashier, a 19 year old petite black girl with a cleanly shaven to the point of being shiny head told me that she could lose her job if she sold the pumpkin to me. She also has tattoos.

We looked at the expiration date. It was today's date, but it was February 20, 2018. It will be a whole year before the pumpkin turns into chariots.

Obviously, a computer is responsible for having flagged the pumpkin for being out of date, and unsalable at risk of termination; but the wrong year has been entered by one of their all African American (incidentally) staff.

Only human intervention can win me that pumpkin contract and make the deal go through.

 I need to get in touch with upper management at the Family Dollar store, and while I'm asking them why ain't no white boys be working there, appeal to their common sense over the clearly stamped expiration date on the top of all the cans of pumpkin.

I'm not going to give up.

This is a chance to get fiber, protein, vitamins A and C, calcium and even a bit of iron, at 50 cents for a can (140 calories =  less than a half cent per calorie) in rather delicious form if you sugar it up like hell, and then mix it with something that does taste good -Just kidding, it has a nice squash-like flavor and the fibrous texture of it seems to counter the dryness that meatloaf can sometimes fall prey to.

So, I left the store with a 4 pack of Monster Energy Zero drinks, a gallon of purified water, a can of cat food and a bag of dry cat food, but pumpkin-less.

A 5 dollar sack of weed from around the corner from the Banks Meat Store later, and I was back at the apartment making the recordings and finding that the change machine is out of quarters and so I won't be doing my laundry. I'll wear the Metallica shirt and the jeans again tonight, if I go play the Lilly Pad.

Play On A Monday?

The tourists who are here for the whole Mardi Gras could quite possibly be at Lafitt's Blacksmith Shop Tavern on a night such as this when there are no parades. It is on the unofficial list of must-see places in NOLA, being the oldest bar in America, and all.

And so, I will most probably be at the Lilly Pad, for if nothing else, letting those who are here for the entire carnival and who might tip me upon seeing me for the 3rd, 4th or arbitrarily 5th time, see me.

I am feeling more and more  secure there, in a way lately, especially when people stop and hang out.
The skeezers on the block are a decent sort and I have not done anything to block their skeezes and somehow the message has gotten to them that it isn't cool to block my "skeeze," if you will, by using me as a filter to see which tourists show promise as skeezees by the fact that they are tipping a musician and to enact their skeeze upon them in a way which distracts them from myself.
Today's "Homeless Place Where I Used To Sleep" comes from the grounds of the World Trade Center, a very tall building with like a turret around the top which was starkly empty at the time I slept here, right by it. Across the street was Harrah's Casino and there is a good chance that this spot was under the eye of one of their cameras, making it that much safer. Since I wasn't a recognized card counter, I drew no attention to myself.

Sunday, February 19, 2017


  • Thursday Through Saturday Off
  • Bongo
  • A Remote Recording Location
There are some "larger" issues that are bothering me, such as the meaning of life.

It's kind of like Mardi Gras.

I came into the Quarter this morning, feeling that it might very well be a dud of a Mardi Gras this year.

So many skeezers have tooled up for it. A lot of people are planning upon going around and selling beads and trinkets and paraphernalia; and there is nothing as depressing as a bunch of left over, almost worthless at face value stuff, that wasn't sold, after the party is over. They don't seem to know how to handle disappointment here, except to take it out on the white man.

I saw all of the local skeezers, standing behind the crowds, looking like a bunch of pick pockets.

Friday night, I could hear the sounds of car tires on a wet road shushing past on Canal Street, and I knew what to expect when I peeked through my blinds. I wasn't surprised to see puddles in the parking lot, dancing with ripples from raindrops pelting them.

I knew that I could still go out and make some money, even if I just sat on Lilly's stoop under the over-hang "waiting for it to stop." People drunk enough to be partying in the rain can be decent tippers, and there are always those who will tip just because they can see that you are "out of business" because of the weather.

But, I put all my eggs in the Saturday basket, and stayed in Friday night working on Perl programming, out of the book that I got from the library.

The book is 20 years newer than the other "Perl Programming" one that I have, and so I was surprised to see so many things that were familiar to me from the older books -same examples, like creating a "Cat" class with attributes like "name" and "fir color" and a meow() method that can be invoked, to teach "object-oriented" programming . A lot of it has just been reprinted because I guess it is a mouse trap that hasn't needed improving the past 20 years.

A lot of the updates have to do with making it a "higher level" language. 

Before (25 years ago) one might have constructed a table by using lines of code to specify where it is to be placed on the page; its width, how many rows, and what kind data (numbers, strings, etc.) it will contain, as well as making sure it is a separate entity from the rest of the page, with a border around it, perhaps. Now, one can just use the tables that have already been coded, by calling a put-a-table-right-here type of function from "tables" library.

It's all going to lead to "computer programming experts" who will be able to write amazing applications that will run on a mobile phone, but when if their system crashes, will have to call someone who actually understands computers (and maybe knows Fortran) to fix it.

It's similar to the way this new generation is learning to play the guitar by using paint-by-numbers tablature, or playing a video game where the strings of the guitar are represented on a screen and the correct notes come floating down them like aliens and you score points based upon how closely you "hit" them.

The video games are an amazing learning tool, though. Jerry the cook has one set up on a large screen and sits there with his electric guitar and is playing stuff after taking the guitar up less than a year ago that I couldn't play until my 2nd or 3rd year. Of course, Jerry played the clarinet in his high school band, so his results probably aren't typical.

I stayed up so late into Saturday, that I wound up skipping that night, too. That could have been a $200 night.

I had woken up at 7:30 PM, after maybe 4 hours of sleep.

I should have cracked open the Monster Energy drink in front of me, guzzled it down, and then waited about 5 minutes, to be full of "energy" and on my way to the Lilly Pad to play from about 8:30 until as long as I could stand it, if the money was good.

But, I set the alarm on my phone for 8:40 PM, and went back to sleep.

The alarm went off at 9:40 PM, even though the phone read an hour earlier. I think that has to do with daylight savings and the fact that I haven't paid to hook my free government phone up to any kind of service that would automatically change the time for it.

At that time, feeling dead tired and disoriented, I went back to sleep.

I got up at 3 this (Sunday) morning, thinking of it as being up bright and early, telling myself that I had needed the sleep, and trying not to feel too sick about how much money I had passed up on a Saturday night during Mardi Gras at the Lilly Pad. And to push the thought out of my head that some other musician came along and saw the spot empty, played and made the 200 dollars and is now going to be there ready to fight over the spot when I go back...

I'm at Starbucks now. I brought my guitar and harmonica, but didn't throw my sharks and tip bucket in the backpack with the laptop and Perl book, having learned my lesson about books pressing upon sharks and driving their noses into weak spots in screens; cracking them. I'm not ready to have a gray line running across my display that's always going to be right on top of whatever I'm trying to see.

My mood has been absolutely crappy, lately. There is really no excuse for it. True, I live in a city where the attempted theft of other people's happiness is a pastime practiced by a large segment of the population, but, ultimately "no one can steal your joy; unless you let them..."

This morning, I was so sure I was going to go out and find that my bike had been stolen that I was already cussing out the low-life derelicts who "stole" it. I had positioned it by the front gate, so I wouldn't have to wrestle it, along with all my gear, down the stairs and out the door. It stayed out there all night after I had gone back to sleep. It is the 19th of February, and the checks and the crack have run out for the month around Sacred Heart Apartments; a very risky time to leave a bike outside all night.

It was there, though, and I hopped on and headed here.

I feel disconnected with humanity, like I'm not "one of them."

I was saying "No, I don't have a dollar. No, I don't have a cigarette!" out loud to everyone whom I saw on my way here to Starbucks, though not after they were within earshot.

I think that is just a reaction to feeling that I might have missed out on a good money night, and now I want to take it out on the skeezers.


The latest idea that I have for getting some songs recorded is to invite "Bongo," who lives in building B, to bring his bongos over to my place and jam with me.

Assuming that his bongo playing is up to snuff, it would be a great way for me to knock out some of the songs that I want to put on a CD.

Since I would actually be performing the songs for his entertainment, as we played them, it would help me get past the fact that some of them are now "old hat" to me, and I might gain a fresh perspective on them vicariously through him.

It's also possible that he might infuse some life into them by coming up with interesting rhythms to give them a slightly different feel. Perhaps we could "bounce ideas off each other.

And it's also possible that he might be a lousy bongo player who doesn't keep a steady beat, who stops in the middle of a song when his mind drifts, who throws in out of tune backup vocals that can't be removed later without removing the bongos, or.....

It's worth a try.

I find myself stifled when I'm in the apartment alone. It seems like every little sound is amplified, and like, even when I'm talking to Harold the cat, I feel like my neighbor is sitting there analyzing whatever I'm saying. Sometimes I want to blast my stereo in the room next to him, so I can do my own stuff in "privacy" in the other room.

I have a feeling that smoking pot has a lot to do with that particular paranoia. Before, I would get drunk and even relish the fact that I was disturbing him, but then I would be making sloppy recordings.

It is a Catch-22.

The reason my songs come out lame is because I'm holding back, afraid of croaking them out more loudly, while the only way they are not going to sound lame is if  I belt them out like Percy Sledge.

Unless I do everything in a Leonard Cohen, Bob Dylan or Lou Reed vocal style.

Somehow having Bongo over to jam would make the environment seem less sterile and bleak. There is strength in numbers.

"Look, Mommy, An Airplane!"

The other idea is to load my laptop and microphone into my backpack, shoulder my guitar, and then ride my bike a couple miles along the levee until I find a spot along the river where I can see for a mile in each direction and can just let it fly. I'm sure the occasional plane flying over head would be less offensive than the hiss of the air conditioner/heater in my apartment. I could always go into that Pink Floyd song at that point, the one where a child is heard to say "Look, mommy, an airplane!" at the beginning of.

Thursday, February 16, 2017

Any Sound Waves, Even

I just left the library on my way here to Starbucks.

I can only take 2 books out at a time because the address associated with my library card is still the homeless shelter one which is still also on my ID. It is a mailing address, but not a residence and thus, the librarians wouldn't be able to go there and kick the door in with guns drawn, on one of their overdue book raids..

I already have the Ubuntu Linux book out, and am hesitating about putting the system on my computer, based upon the fact that I would have to back up all my data.

I've had the laptop for less than a week and already there is enough  on it to exceed the 1 gigabyte capacity of my little thumb drive. I have 3 recordings that I have made with the Audacity sound editor, a few pictures and about 26 hours of music that I spent about 3 hours downloading.

I was going to run out and buy a 4 gigabyte drive, but I'm about to spend 12 bucks on a doohickey cable to connect up the hard drive out of my old fried laptop, turning it into "external storage." I can then use some of its 45 gigabytes of free space to back up what I've managed to accumulate already. And then continue to use it as a backup device, so that I might lose no more than a week's worth of blog posts, should Google delete this blog; accidentally.

I won't be able to put Linux on the computer until the 12 dollar cable comes, but, I've got the Linux book for the next 3 weeks, with the installation disc, so there is no rush. I was without a laptop for more than a year. 

I can mess around with Perl programming (the 2nd book that I have out) on my present Windows system, and continue to download and record music and keep myself busy while waiting for the cable.

I'm pretty sure that I'm going to go through the old disc doing wholesale deletions of pieces of music that recorded back in that era. The "drunken and stoned" sessions will almost certainly come under the knife.
I used to think the "Jim Morrison" thing -bombed out of his mind; shedding his musical inhibitions; pushing the boundaries; being "genuine;"- was cool, but not any more. It sounds sloppy and obnoxious to me now, not provocative and heartfelt. It would impress me to see someone do the same thing sober, except for the exposing himself onstage part, maybe...

I've just seen to many skeezers here in New Orleans who will sit stonily with a pall cast over them staring icily at nothing in particular, until after they've skeezed a few drinks, and then... they "come to life," smiling and dancing on the sidewalk; walking right up to people, shaking their hands and introducing themselves. Will the real skeezer please stand up?

Plus, those recording I made back then were fraught with "drunken and stoned" types of glitches. The microphone wasn't plugged in that whole time?!? Really? Well, the built in mic was on...doesn't sound half as good, but it captured the performance, at least...right?

It's the stuff that I was working on (literally) when the laptop went down, when I had been alcohol free for over a month, that I hope will be a pleasant surprise to hear again. I had put about 36 straight hours into the thing and considered it about 99% complete when came the wreck of the Toshiba.

But, sometimes you have to step away from something for a long time in order to gain a fresh perspective upon returning to it. I'm either going to hear the piece and be mesmerized by it, or I'm going to stop it after a few seconds after it conjures up whatever mental anguish I was in at the time of the recording. Perhaps it would be from that nagging restraint caused by imagining my neighbor sitting on the other side of the wall with his fists and teeth clenched. That was back when I was new enough to the apartment complex to not want to cause any waves. Any sound waves, even.

 I think now, I am more patient, not expecting to finish a song, complete with all the instruments and vocals, in one session. One nice sounding guitar with a good vocal over it is plenty to accomplish in one night. It might even take a half dozen listens to it before a second vocal or a guitar line presents itself to the imagination.

It is Thursday night, and I am planning upon taking yet another night off. 

There are no parades tonight, but there is one tomorrow night. One thing that I remember about Mardi Gras is that, as busy and crazy as it can be on a parade night, it can be conversely dead on a non-parade night, as if people are resting up, or something.

It's 8 PM, and I have to figure out what to eat. Yesterday evening, I had a meal that cost me 5 dollars even. It was 2 mangoes, one can of coconut juice, 4 bananas and an orange/lemon, it tasted like, very sour. I feel better today than yesterday.

Nagging Food Issues

Which came first; the chicken or the eczema?

I have this nagging food around the apartment that I got from the food bank at St. Jude Community Center. 

Once a month we residents, by virtue of us having dwellings with stoves to cook on, are able to get a couple boxes of food that has been donated to feed the hungry, but is unfit for the likes of most homeless people. The church group could actually be liable for some skeezer who ate a tub of raw chicken livers that they might have given him, not knowing any better (of course not; that's why he is homeless) and got a stomach ache.

There were times when I was homeless that I told the white lie: "Yes, I have a stove to cook on," just so I could get the frozen fish or whatever it was that was, and then cooked it on my "stove" of cinder blocks with a refrigerator shelf grill, over a hickory, red oak, cherry and pecan wood fire.
"Yeah, what brand of stove is it?
How many burners does it have?"

But, I have a nagging box of everything that I got which contains either corn or soy. This, I was planning upon giving to Rose and Ed, before I get the munchies and eat any of it.

There is also a dozen chicken eggs in the fridge that I am planning upon giving to Arnold, a resident who, last month, traded me his two bags of dates for my dozen chicken eggs. I really need to get them out of the house, because, if I eat one, I'll eat the whole dozen; fried eggs being a lot like Lays potato chips in that regard.

Wednesday, February 15, 2017

Think Again Pad

Today is Wednesday, and I did not go out and play last night.

I'm sitting at Starbucks with my Thinkpad connected to their wi-fi.

I got here before 8 AM, having woken up at about the time that I usually knock off at the Lilly Pad, 1:30 AM, and having treated it as if I were up bright and early, and decided to do things like clean the kitchen and bathroom.

I also troubleshot the LED light that I had used for almost a year as a spotlight, which, in recent weeks has had to be whacked against my leg to illuminate, and which even after that treatment tended to flicker or dim despite fresh batteries.

I discovered that the light, which I got at the Family Dollar for $5, was actually a "scratch and dent" caliber item, bearing evidence of the latter, in the form of a dent which had not been enough to crack its outer plastic shell, but had bent one of the leads going to the batteries so that when the battery was "properly" seated, it wasn't making contact. The whacking against my leg, when successful, was actually knocking the battery slightly out of its harness, causing it to make contact. It was just another fortunate coincidence that when I lifted it every night to set it just so into the cradle of vines that grew around it at the Lilly Pad, it remained in just about the only position that would allow gravity to keep the battery in place.

The apartment being a little bit cleaner, and myself dying for a cup of coffee and a cigarette, I was out the door by 7 AM, and made a beeline for the Banks Meat store, where I was disrespected (yet again) by the middle eastern employees (one especially) who work there.

My Brief History With The Banks Meat Store

I go the Banks Meat Store, mostly at ungodly hours, as they are open around the clock.

It is usually after I knock off from playing and have worked up an appetite for some kind of meat. I used to get coconut milk there, but they no longer carry it.

The middle eastern guy who seems to be the crew leader is rude to me.

I don't know what exact nationality they are, but, one night after I had just moved into the neighborhood, I went in there wearing my hat that looks kind of like the thing that a lot of Muslims wear on their heads.

The guy at the register addressed me in some foreign tongue, in a friendly manner.

After I didn't answer him, at least not in that tongue, he spat some words out that I think were intended for another employee. And then the rudeness started.

I usually treat rude people by continuing to be nice to them, thinking that they might be judging me based upon some superficial observation that they will eventually see past after interacting with me a few times.

One time I brought some fruit to the register and, after the guy rang it up and my total seemed pretty high, I asked about the prices of the individual fruit.

Learning that bananas are 75 cents each there, and not sold by the pound, I pared my bunch down to a couple and put the other few back.

When I produced my food stamp card to pay, I thought the guy was going to hit the ceiling.
He began to cuss me out (if the tone of his voice was any indication) loudly and in his native tongue -rude enough, talking to someone in a language that you are pretty sure they don't understand, never mind cussing in it, right?

I can only guess that he somehow thought that, since I was using food stamps and getting the food "for free," it was incomprehensible that I would even care about the price.

Maybe he appreciates the way a lot of black people go on hog-wild sprees while their food stamp money lasts; which might be 5 or 6 days...

Why worry about the cost, grab bananas by the armload! if a person who gets food stamps shouldn't be frugal with them.  Did he think that I was trying to save the government (which he just may hate) money by going easy on the bananas? Could he be too ignorant to get that, if I do go ape shit with my food card money and have a little food orgy, then I'm just going to have to reach into my pocket and spend my hard earned cash the remainder of the month? Is that when I should start splitting hairs over bananas, not before?

I walked in another night, to find a group of about a half dozen black men standing and waiting for, probably the yard long sandwiches that seem to sell like hotcakes there, and I heard one of them in the middle of telling the rest: "Yeah, you hardly ever see white guys in this store..." apropos of  I can only guess what. Maybe he was talking about how the manager there can't stand white people

One night, I went in there and was thinking about getting some meat to cook at home. I was debating with myself upon the idea, though. Maybe I wanted to extend the vegetarian streak that I was on a little longer. I felt healthy and energetic if maybe a bit lacking in whatever it is that red meat gives one.

It turned out that the decision was made for me.

I stood there, at 4 in the morning, the only customer in the store, in front of the meat case. The manager disappeared into the back area, while his assistant stayed behind the counter, probably guarding the safe with a firearm within his reach.

Minutes ticked by.

Somehow, I didn't want to raise my voice; it seemed like too much of a black thing to do that.

Obviously, they had seen me walk in (unless they were sitting there alone at 4 in the morning in a store that's in a crack neighborhood, but weren't paying attention to people's comings and goings) and were obviously not wanting to help me. I had been in there before around the same time and had bought some turkey wings or even pork chops to take home. It had always been a small amount, though, just enough for one meal.

One guy, who is often behind the meat counter, seems to understand this. He probably lives by himself also. He isn't rude, normally; except for times when the manager barks something to him in Arabic (probably "make him wait") when he will stand at the grill with his back to me, stirring whatever is on it, before acknowledging me maybe 5 minutes later.

Maybe the manager's dislike of white people is piqued by that characteristic, that I at least have, by which we will politely stand and wait our turn, like civilized human beings, and not bang on the glass of the meat case, yelling for service.

Flashback 2006

I learned this at the labor pool years ago.

There would be a gaggle of men, on any given morning, crowded at the counter over which the work tickets were passed, clamoring for the attention of "the guy," haranguing him as if somehow the squeakiest wheels would get the oil.

The poor guy's, job was to delve out the work tickets in the order that the names were written on the "sign in" sheet. That would make the order first come first serve, and would render moot any haranguing.

Yet, even as Victor (as that was the guy's name) was announcing that he was doing just that, he was getting hit with a barrage of hard luck stories and desperate pleas from men who had suddenly found themselves within one day's pay of being evicted, or of their dog dying for lack of medication, or their baby...or having their cable shut off..."I REALLY gotta work today, Victor," was common.

Victor was one of those black guys who had a shaven head, and who was educated, but who seemed, along with the other black lady who worked behind the counter, there at Workforce Quality Temporary Labor on Powers Avenue in Jacksonville, Florida, to appreciate what I will call finer manners in human beings.

One morning, at his wit's end, Victor broke the order of the list.

A call had come in, looking for a worker for something that was as "cushy" as a labor pool job could be.

I'll never forget; it was a "company" of one guy who was in the business of pumping concrete into the ground under newly built houses, to fill the vacuum created, according to him by huge trees that had originally been bulldozed under when the lot was cleared and then had rotted away, leaving a void in the form of underground cavities which the brand new house was in danger of sinking into (maybe after a huge rainstorm?).

The whole business might have just been a snake oil type of remedy, but the guy, a French national who had started the business, actually had equipment that supposedly located such cavities, using one machine that stamped the ground with a heavy piston, and another that listened from various other locations for the tell-tale echoes of sinkholes waiting to happen.

Many on the work site were skeptical about the science the guy practiced, and the need to divert a few thousand of the dollars out of the construction budget to him. But they were carpenters and roofers and other tradesmen who "really couldn't say" about the existence or non existence of underground holes. It was the general contractor who was inking the Frenchman's check.

So, in order to make his company look more industrious? he would hire guys from the labor pool on days when the general contractor (i.e. the big boss) was to be on site. This laborer would don a shirt with the company name on it, and then not do much except make the guy's company look bigger (twice as) and maybe drag a hose and hook it up to the concrete pumping machine then stand there, maybe holding a clip board, making sure the dial continued to read within a certain range, etc. This, only while the big boss was watching. As soon as he left, the French guy and the laborer would sit around and talk while the concrete underground hardened.

Sure, it did.

The Yard Long Sandwich (left)

One could sit in front of the store and watch person after person after person emerge carrying one of these, shown here with the one guy who is polite to me (except when instructed in Arabic to be otherwise by the manager) in the background.

2006 cont...

This was the job that I had been sent on, after Victor had told the next guy on the list something to the effect of "You've been in my face all morning, while that guy has been patiently sitting there, reading a book, waiting his turn, and not bothering me. I'm going to reward him by sending him on this job, and maybe the rest of you will learn something from it!"
It could have been that Victor just thought that I would look better holding a clip board and watching a meter, than that guy, who seemed to be desperate for er, medication for his dog, at 5 o' clock that morning. He might have just been using the situation to make his point about them being in his face.

But, that was what I was thinking about, as I stood there patiently at the meat counter at Banks Meat, waiting for the guy to get a chance to help me.

He knew that I was in the store and waiting at the meat counter. He would get to me when he could; no use in me banging on things and yelling for service, right?
$166 taxes up to right around the
food stamp recipient's $194/mo. How thoughtful.

After about 15 minutes, during which the manager guy reemerged from the back, seemingly making a show of doing things ostensibly more important than serving me, like wiping fingerprints off the glass soda cooler, or mopping the floor around me, I just walked out.

This morning, I went there to get a pack of cigarettes. The manager was behind the counter.

I asked for the American Spirit cigarettes in the "teal" colored box (the organic ones). The kind I have gotten a half dozen times from him.

As soon as I had asked, I noticed that the rack was empty of that particular kind of American Spirits.

Discovering the same thing, he turned to me and informed me that they were all out, with a smug look on his face as if happy to have disappointed me. He stood there, as if waiting for me to turn and walk out.

"Well, can I just get the sky blue ones?"

With an audible sigh, he went back to the rack and grabbed a pack of the greenish blue ones, which are menthol.

"The sky blue ones, please," I repeated.

Seeing that there was only one other variety that was colored blue in any way (the same color as the sky, by the way) he grabbed a pack of them.

"That's it," I said.

"Light blue," he growled as he smacked them down on the counter.

"Like the sky," I said, pointing upward. I had taught him a new word in English, he should have been appreciative. He probably would rather exterminate all the English speaking people on the planet rather than have to learn new combinations of words like sky blue, I thought.

He pushed the cigarettes towards me with a couple of Arabic curse words, and pointed towards the door.

It pissed me off, and I have been weighing the risk of being barred for life from the Banks Meat store which stays open all night and which sells yard long sandwiches for like 7 bucks, against somehow "putting him in his place."

I have the ability to be nice to people who apparently don't like me for no good reason in an attempt to change their impressions of myself. But, there comes a point where I will flip in the other direction.

I wish there was something that I could go in there and say and then could walk out thinking: "There, now you aren't hating me for no good reason anymore."

Could I insult Mohammad?

Could I say, as I grab my cigarettes off the counter, "Just give me my goddam cigarettes, you ISIS piece of shit!?"

Could I wear a Trump shirt (affecting pride) the next time I go in?

I have seen other middle easterners who are in this country who seem to like black people and hate whites. Maybe they feel like they, and the blacks, are "in it together," against "white power." Maybe in whatever country they fled from, they had been marginalized by society and lived under oppressive conditions and thus, find kindred spirits in the blacks here.

I don't know what I will do, but I'm open to suggestions.

I thought about memorizing a few phrases in Arabic and then, going in there acting like I'm talking on my phone and saying something like: "I'm in the store, I'll call you back," in Arabic, and then watching their faces as the knowledge sinks in that I may have understood everything they have said behind my back when I've been in there.

I do appreciate the fact that the guy seems to work a ton of hours there; he is there almost any time of day or night that I go there. I know that kind of work schedule can change one's world view. I could see him envying the fact that I go play my guitar for a few hours each night and get food stamps, while he works 90 hours a week and probably eats no better than me.

I can also picture him sending as much of the money he makes off to support radical Islamic groups, while he looks forward to the day that their tanks will be rolling down Broad Avenue, flying ISIL flags, while he watches with his eyes welling up with tears and hugs all his Black Panther friends in the parking lot.

$6 Monday
Tuesday Off

I ate a can of mackerel last (Tuesday) night, with green peas and the juice from a jar of pickles and black pepper and cayenne added and mashed together (I didn't have mustard nor raisins to complete the recipe) at some point before falling asleep and waking up extremely depressed, with an irrational fear that I'm going to die some day, and will have amounted to nothing.

Monkeys have evolved to walk upright and pick guitars, so what?  I think, when the depression's at its worse.

I had been flirting with the idea of going on a long water-only fast, to extend through the Mardi Gras season, and had kind of been losing my appetite for anything more substantial than grape juice, lately. 

The mackerel feast, and subsequent feelings, may have been a sign that I should at least go back to an all fruit or vegetable diet. And, how else would me having problems at a meat store fit in, cosmically?

Well, I figured that having a laptop would allow me to spend more time blogging. But, I started this post at about 8 AM, and it is 3:51 PM now.

And, I'm planning upon hitting the library on the way home to look for books on Perl programming, and on Linux. If I find one with a Linux distribution on CD, I might just install it on this machine tonight. Then I can start looking for free open source video editing software. One that will allow me to basically change what shows on the screen while a song plays.