A Traveling Guitarist's Tales from the Road: Gigs, Spirituality and More

For a thousand and one nights, with a guitar case in hand, I've had to walk in and out of certain "territories" as a total stranger making my way across the urban landscapes of the world's most famous cities. The case is a license for passage, a toll paid or a liability. For instance:

I'm in London; the year is 1997. I'm hangin' out in Camden Town, back in the day when I use to smoke various recreational materials. I'm approached by a Jamaican lad who spots me carrying my guitar case--a knapsack style "gig bag" with all kinds of pockets and zippers on the outside.

"Hey dhem t'ing bring dhem party now?" he said. (trans: Hey that thing brings the party now?)

"Yeah," I said. "I just play on the street right now. . .'just got here," I said.

"Oh, ya do a lil bit o' buskin' do ya?" he asked. (trans: buskin'-playing on the street)

"Yeah, I be buskin' down in Nottinghill, West Indians for days," I said.

"So dhen, I figger you lookin' fa'dat gunja huh?"

"Word," I said.

"Wait here for ten minute'," he said, and I did.

The Jamaican returns and says: "Twenni pounds mon." ( about $45 USD) I give him a twenty pound note and he puts a little package in the zipper of my gig bag.

I catch the subway, affectionately referred to as The Tube, to Bayswater Road toward the west side of London. I walk on down to my hotel, The Columbia, enter the bar and bust out the package for a table full of friends. To our amazement, there's nothing but cut up newspaper in the sack. My friends, who are really strangers think this is some kind of magic trick I'm doing and I'll turn it into weed shortly. Nope.

Here I am, a veteran hippie who lost his innocence to Mary Jane in 1967, being "Murphied" by a youngster from Jamaica in 1998. The case attracted him. If I had had no case, I'd be "twenni pounds" ahead this very day. I never saw him again.

That never happened again either, although I tried to return a sorry package to a peddler in a neighborhood known as "The Jungle," located just below Baldwin Hills, off Crenshaw Blvd in Los Angeles.

I said: "Hey man, I want a refund. This don't taste right?"