25 days, $1080, And a Bucket of Stories - Day 7

 25 days, $1080, And a Bucket of Stories - Day 7

Goal: Play in the Subway 5 hours a day, 5 days a week, for 25 days making at least 1080.00, which will cover all my bills for January.


Need 1080

Below Goal: 109
Above Goal:
Under Hours: 7.00
Over Hours:
Days off taken - 2

For Today
Goal: 60
Actual: 29
TIME: 3
WHERE: Monroe
CD's Sold: 0
Temp: High 16, Low 4, Current 18, feels like 6
The lake is frozen Pals. Just - Frozen.

Let it be known that on this day, the seventeenth of January, two thousand fourteen - that Lake Michigan, is Frozen.
I haven't had the pleasure of walking down to it yet - but when I woke up this morning, the lake was white - which, is not a natural color - for a lake.

WHITE. 

        It's been really awesome watching it happen. 3 nights ago was when it started, and if you looked out at night, it looked like parts were cloudy - like there was smoke, trapped on the surface. Just this tiny layer of slush, not even hard ice, was swirling around. There were no waves. I mean not even a trace of waves. It was like I was looking at a duck pond where there was no wind. The water was like glass, it was foggy enough that I couldn't see the Hancock tower from the pier by my house, and it was snowing - so it was quite. Quiet in the way only snow can make it.
       The next day waves came crashing in, shooting over the pier, slamming into the ice banks, breaking up all the ice, sloshing it around, throwing it on top of itself and then last night, it refroze, and snowed on top of it. I bet its a spectacular site. I'll have a picture of it for you later tonight.
        I came very close - this morning - to waking up on time, but when push came to shove, my body demanded 8 hours, and I relented. Which means I'll only get 4 hours in the subway today because I've got to spend some time on this British accent for Peach before I leave.

Also - NEWS~!

BOOKED A GIG FROM THE BLOG.
YES FOLKS - THAT'S RIGHT.

CITY NEWS CAFE in PORTAGE PARK has been following the blog and has asked me to come play from 12-2pm on 1/24/15 and to see if I can bring MO, the Violinist I met this week. I don't know if he'll still be in town, but, I'll give him a holler later on today.

Farewell! Off to turn this Grasshopper into an English Gentlemen.

Ryan

EDIT -

One day I'm going to play for 5 hours. 1 day out of this week - I played for 5 hours. One day. - Well - Definitely room for improvement there. It is really hard to get out the door in the morning. To get up early enough - and then actually leave when I need to. I feel like it should be less difficult? Who knows -

Either way- Some really fun stuff happened today.

I started out by walking down the beach so I could see this Magic -

5 Foot Ice banks that have built themselves about 20 feet into the lake - and then frozen snow and Ice almost as far as the eye could see. Terrifying.



Monroe was empty when I got there so I laid out my gear and went at it. It was a pretty solid 10 dollars an hour the whole way. Fairly void of anything super special happening - until THIS

This is a coin pouch that two girls left. They walked up, almost meekly right as a train was coming, and set it down in my case. They were on the train almost before I could thank them and toss them a demo. A coin purse. A COIN PURSE. and not only that but a COOL COIN PURSE. and it had like 4 bucks in change inside it!

So now - the purse is absolutely priceless and is immediately on the list of the most amazing things I've ever been given while busking, including but not limited to: An entire lunch - Sandwich, chips, apple, and a slice of cake from Mitch at the Monroe Redline last year, A warm Smirnoff Ice from a drunk woman coming out of a rock concert in Louisville, Kentucky, and the sole of a shoe - from someone so sneaky I didn't even see the drop it - In Iowa City, Iowa. 

And lastly, my roommate, Nathan Scheetz happened to come into the Monroe stop on his way home from work and recorded this snid-bit of a video of my latest song - "Giant's", which is about my Nephew, Kyler.

You see, I went to my sister's place in South Dakota with my parents for Christmas. My sister has 2 boys: Kyler - 5 and Carson - 2. And - I just love them more than I've ever loved any child - ever. I've never connected with kids - like these two boys. Its pretty wild. At any rate - Tiffany, my sister, set up my bed in Kyler's bedroom. So when he woke up the first day - POOF - there was uncle Ryan. So he jumped into my bed at about 5 am and just started being the adorable kiddo that he is - I must have convinced him to let me sleep a tiny bit more - and then at 8:47 I sent Nathan Scheetz this text,
    " Well. its 847 AM. since 720, I've been a giant. Squashed countless hedgehogs and polar bears, been in several line rating competitions, jumped over rivers of lava, killed 20 bad ninjas with poison, found a stolen refrigerator and held a Mass Conference of Planes." - It was, undoubtedly the best morning of the trip. Perhaps, ever better than Christmas morning - which, is a story in and of itself. :)

So, it took me a couple weeks to figure it out - but - I finished it in the subway 2 days ago when Smokey was filming me. Here's the 1st verse, and almost the whole chorus of that song.

That - is it.
All in, all out, all stories accounted for. Adding to the bucket - one day at a time.

Ryan