Poor and Generous

I went to the Dodger game with Jessie Sweet last night. Jessie had four tickets that his dog-walking boss gave to him at the last minute. He couldn’t find anybody else to go with, so it was just he and I. I did the driving. We drove over in my convertible. I paid for parking. We sold the other two tickets. We sold one of the tickets to an older gentleman named Dick. Dick was very nice and knowledgeable about the game. The seats were great. Twenty rows back from the first base dugout. The night was perfect, but the Dodgers lost. Jessie bought me a beer. After the game Jessie bought us burritos with the money we made from selling the tickets. Jessie Sweet is generous. Poor and generous, there’s nothing better than poor and generous. 

Cowboy Kenn

            I played two gigs this weekend, one at the cowboy bar, and one at the steady in Venice. The Venice gig started off ominously. The keyboard player went to turn on his rig, and nothing happened. There was some kind of digital confusion. There were strange looking lights, but that’s it.  We tried to bang on it to get it going, the usual stuff, but it was not cooperating.

            The keyboard player went out to the parking lot to make some phone calls, when Tree Man happened to walk in. We explained the situation to him. He left. The players in the band weren’t overly concerned about not having a keyboard player. "It could be a mixed blessing," somebody said. 

            Then out of nowhere, as if it were a dream, a confusing dream that could be interpreted in the positive or the negative, the keyboard player walked in with a keyboard stripped around his shoulder. 

            “Where’d you get that?” I asked.

            “I was standing in the parking lot when a guy with a cowboy hat walked by with it. I said hey, can I rent your keyboard?”

            “How much?”

            “Twenty-five dollars!”

            “You got it.”

            Only in Venice. And that’s how the keyboard player got his keyboard. A couple minutes later, Tree Man walked in. He had a keyboard under his arm. 

Zipper Man

            I saw Bill the smog guru. He told me all about his experience in the hospital. He was there for twenty-five days. It hardly seemed pleasant. At one point he talked to a Chaplin. He thought it was over for him. He asked the Chaplin for an evocation of some sort.

            The doctors had no idea what was wrong with him until he vomited blood. Oh, so that’s where the blood we’ve been giving you is going? They put him under the knife and butter-flied him. They patched him up after cutting three feet of bad intestine and working on his stomach. He has a zipper now. He said it took him a few days to figure out that you had to ask for pain medication. He said it was posted on a sign and written in fine print. He named off the medication that he’s on, none of which I remember. One makes him drowsy, and one thins his blood.  I don’t know if the medication is a good thing, but at least he’s still alive.  

The Snake Won

            Yesterday was rot with plumbing problems. The mainline was backed up and it wasn’t pretty. A plumber showed up, but he didn’t have any luck unclogging it. He was quick to assume that the pipes were filled with roots and that they needed to be replaced. He said it would be expensive to fix unless I did the digging to save money. He was a problem solver and I appreciated that. The plumber had another call. He took off, but he said he’d come back later in the day. He gave me the plan of attack, which I quickly forgot.

            I started digging, but after an hour of digging, I realized that I didn’t want to be the digger, so I stopped and hashed out an idea that made more sense to me. I figured before we went crazy replacing pipes we should try once more to snake the pipes from a different access point. That’s what we did and after numerous attempts at snaking the pipes, the snake won.

The Man

            I did my Saturday gig in Venice. It was pretty much the same. I got paid and the money from the gig will soon be spent on studio time to finish recording Things Have Gone and Changed. It’s a hand to mouth existence, but it beats the alternative of working for the man. Working for the man in my experience has been a disappointment. The man doesn’t care about his labor. The man has nickel and dimed me. The man seldom has money for a raise. He’ll squeeze you dry if you let him. If I’m going to be dry it might as well be on my terms, and it might well be by playing music, and writing books. After all who needs the man anyways?

Freedom

            I had to work on Independence Day, so much for freedom. I played a gig in Venice. The usual suspects were there. Tree Man and the others. I didn’t get a chance to see many fireworks. After my gig I took a stroll on the beach. It must have been about eleven o’clock. I was walking on the sand heading toward the water when I saw a flying butterfly in the sky. It exploded beautifully in the distance. I love fireworks. It’s a nice contrast to the dark sky.

I happened to have a harmonica in my pocket. It’s a long story. I’ll save you the details. I started to play it as walked toward the water. There was nobody on the beach. It was dark and empty. Perfect. I thought this would make a great movie. A man playing the harmonica on an empty beach. I started blow the harp real load. I was just playing any old thing. It didn't matter. I was alone.

            I made it to the water. The ocean was calm. I bent down and touched it with my hand. I stepped back and took a look around. Ahh, freedom.  

Incense Cedar

            I did my gig in Venice on Saturday. Tree Man sat in with us again. I love Tree Man. Oddly enough; I was on my way to dip my toes in the ocean on a break when I saw a man standing on a flatbed truck in the parking lot. He was moving what looked like infant pine trees around.

            “Are those pine trees?” I asked.

            “Incense Cedar,” he replied.

            He was a volunteer for an organization called Vietnam Vets for Trees or something like that. He was wearing a cowboy hat and had on a pair dark sunglasses. He proceeded to give me a lesson on Incense Cedar Trees. Then he gave me a seedling to take home. I was happy to have the tree. I walked the tree to my car and placed it in a cup holder for safe keeping. It looked like a little hitchhiker sitting there.

            I didn’t get a chance to dip my toes in the water, but on the way back to the bar I saw a man in leopard skin shorts dancing on the boardwalk with two sacks on his head, a sack of beans, and a sack of rice.