Cold and foggy Friday

 I woke up around 11, and even around noon it's foggy and dark. 

I should mention that "dead internet theory", the theory that the internet is becoming nothing but old shit and bots, has some basis in reality. 

I used to follow a blogger named Morris Berman but he's gone over to something called "Substack" which can't be connected to. "The Archdruid Greer" has some sort of page of his own that's much more obscure and hard to find, "Bison" of "Bison Survival Blog", last I heard, has gone over to publishing an actual paper newsletter. I write this blog not because I expect anyone to read it but because I'm in the habit of writing it. 

Rabb1t just writes about the same old shit and seems to be happy being in the same "place" he was 10 years ago or more. Ran Prieur had a few rough years when he was a lot younger, waiting as most Boomers do, for his parent(s) to die and leave him a house or houses, which he's done, and now he's "shittin' in tall cotton" as the saying goes. It still doesn't keep him from cyber-begging though. 

Surprisingly, I got an email from one of my Hawaii friends, the one with 2-3 houses and tons of stuff, who's (a) worried that the big bad gov't will take it all away (which is what happens when you don't pay your taxes etc.) and yet won't allow anyone to help him. I'm surprised he's still alive, as he said he'd not be by this time. He's got gold-plated fancy engraved health insurance and like any conservative, is taking all the gov't handouts he can, so I guess that's what's keeping him going. 

Cold yet sunny Thursday

 Ken came over last night and we had the usual talk session, and I suggested I just deposit the $800 check of his I still have here and that will take care of this week and next week so he doesn't have to worry about coming over on Christmas Eve. He said that's a good plan. 

I was very tired, worked on some things to get parts to list, with only a little reward for my efforts. 

I woke up around 11 or so, had one little switch to send out to a guy, and got out of here a bit past noon, maybe closer to 1PM. I dropped the switch in the mail at the downtown post office, rode over to Whole Foods to at least use the loo. Joke was on me because the door would not unlock and would not even for an employee who was using her employee code to try to get int. 

No problem, I thought, I'll use it at the train station. I walked over there just in time for a train to have left, so I had a half hour to kill anyway. Well, their loo was closed for cleaning and then when it sounded like they were opening it, some homeless guy/bum started some kind of loud argument at the door and I stayed away. 

Instead I had a nice fun talk with this young security guy at the Amtrak side of Diridon. He has an 07 Prius and I had an 05, so I told him about the secret compartment in the center console, so secret that even though I'd bought my Prius as a "certified pre-owned" and thus really carefully checked over, there were things in there from the previous owner. We were having a fun time talking until a guy came up who needed help with something so I left to go wait for my train. 

I ended up on the platform with some people who'd come from Sacramento or somewhere between Oakland and Sacramento for ... a day exploring the train system? I told them about how easy it is to get to Fisherman's Wharf from the CalTrain terminus so maybe they did that. 

As for myself I rode up to Menlo Park and did some business, and had a couple of pastries in this little Middle-Eastern place. There was a Chinese gal there on her laptop apparently on a call or a video call, where she was trying to tell the person an address, and the problem seemed to be that she didn't understand the difference between the abbreviations "st." and "ste." So I told her the "ste." is actually short for "suite" which generally just means an office number; it's just a fancy way of saying it. The thing being, if she types it into Google, Google will always see it as "suite" not "street". She was happy to learn about this, just another pitfall in good old English. 

On the way back I got off at Palo Alto and walked over to the Patagonia store to look around. Almost nothing was in biking-friendly colors and $200 for a fleece pullover? I got on the next train which was a limited so it got back to Diridon quickly. 

I rode over to Walmart and got some things, and stopped at Nijiya on the way back for a bento. I sure didn't feel like cooking tonight. 

OK so enough boring shit. Let's say I, as a brass player, decided to retire in New Orleans after all. I guess the first thing I'd do is get with the New Orleans Busking Ministry or whatever they're called, because they actually *like* buskers and *want* them, although they want actual music not people running sidewalk karaoke shows or playing endless Grateful Dead (California) music. They want music that has veritable blues/jazz roots. 

Next if I were to have a blog, I'd fill it with the juicy details of how my daily "busk" went or even if it were not a working day, maybe my visit to this or what music store to get whatever it is I need and my interactions with other musicians and the people working there. 

This is what people would want to actually read because many, many people like to daydream about being a street musician and not having to worry about the morning/evening commute, bills, their quarterly review, etc. Not that they're about to go out and do it, but they love reading the day to day nuts and bolts account of someone actually doing it. 

For instance take "Nomadic Fanatic" on YouTube. I started following him some years ago and while there are things about him that are irritating (his high squeaky voice, his hot dogs and pop tarts diet, some questionable life choices) I've also watched him go from the kind of cheap'n'cheesy RV you see parked out on the streets all over around here that you can probably buy for a thousand bucks, to, somehow, a house in the Midwest, a big RV, a motorcycle, a drone or three, and his latest is a full size school bus. Somehow the guy just keep chugging along and he shows the nuts and bolts of his daily life. 

And it all started out with him putting out YouTube videos and selling stickers. He just went to one of those online companies that will print up stickers for you, and had some printed up. People would mail him money and he'd mail out the stickers. 

And this is just a boring guy some have nicknamed "Tater" who goes around to mildly interesting places and has adventures like stumbling on some rocks. Somehow the guy has enough money coming in to travel around, not have to work, not living on the gov't dime, and he has fun. I admire that.

Now think if you're a musician in New Orleans, on the mainland US pretty much "the" street music ground zero and birthplace of jazz. That's much more interesting. You could have followers and a fan club and have all kinds of things on Etsy or Tee Spring etc., T-shirts and little goodie bags with some stickers and imprinted guitar picks, that sort of thing. It's a lot easier way to get "known" and have a fan base than trying to "open" for this or that big act, which is just about impossible. 

Assuming this is what one would want to do. Myself being a trumpet player I'd probably want to offer things like wah-wah mutes made out of actual coconut shells which is how that was first done, and various bits and bobs for trumpets. 

And I'd sure make sure my blog shows up on Google, not one page of it from last September, but the latest post. Maybe set up a sub-Reddit on Reddit. If the goal is "fame and fortune" those are the steps. If the goal has changed to, "Sit back, collect welfare, and smokum crack pipe" than this is all moot. 

And now the funny stuff: This just in, from the Internet-O-sphere: Our new President is fElon Musk, Dirty Diaper Don is First Lady. 

Wednesday

 Last night I was able to take my bike onto the light rail and ride to the Winchester station, take the route I'd figured was best from Winchester to Lark to "Other Santa Cruz / Los Gatos" whatever the street is called, up to Blossom Hill and over to the temple. I was an hour early and to pass the time helped a Chipotle delivery driver find the person who'd ordered 5 big boxes of stuff and helped him carry the stuff inside, studied my books in the cold outside and finally, inside, when the front doors were unlocked. 

A good crowd showed up and the class went well. I made some good jokes like, "If the Hebrew word for 'meat' is 'bashar', then what is Bashar Al-Assad?" I was able to check my name off on the attendance sheet but this goes back to my college days in Hawaii. As a hated minority I have to excel and make sure people remember that I was in the class so no one can say I wasn't there at every session. (In Hawaii if you're Asian you can sit back, not say a peep, turn in your papers and mediocre work and get an A while a "haole" will have to excel and will get a B or a C.) 

The ride back was a bit eerie as it was a bit foggy. The ride back to the Winchester station went easily being downhill, though, and there was a train there waiting so that was neat. And it only took 1/2 hour to go from there to the Airport/Metro light rail station. 

I stopped in at this pizza place and got a veggie and cheese slice, more expensive then Pizza My Heart and not as good but any place that's open past 9PM has the market cornered. I then went to the casino and got a big croissant and got home and stuffed it with butter and ate that, too. 

Tuesday night class

 I woke up around 9:30 which wasn't bad. I packed things, listed 10 things, and was able to get out of here around 3 in the afternoon.

Rainy monday

 I watched about half of "Adventures Of A Mathematician" on YouTube last night, then went to bed, and woke up a few hours later and could not get back to sleep. So I got up, had some cinnamon and water, and watched the rest of it, then went back to bed. I also treated my right thumb nail with plenty of tea tree oil, as it was painful as sometimes happens due to a weird little fungus that makes it have black streaks, that I've had since I was about 11 years old. I should keep up the tea tree oil daily. 

I slept soundly, only waking up when I'd breathed in some irritating thing and it woke me up. There's all kinds of crap in the air here. It was past noon. And raining. 

Nothing much else going on. There's the daily school shooting, this time at a private Christian school. And NPR is making Jews and Israel seem like the worst thing since ISIS and also had an interview with a "Palestinian" who's a bodybuilder, that's right, bodybuilding requires at least 2X the calories of a normal person and something like 3X-4X the protein. The selfish little shit could be working on something like yoga that's useful for life and giving his extra calories to fellow "Palestinians" in need but given that "Palestinians" have the ethics of the smallpox virus, that's not gonna happen and NPR did their best to make him seem like a saint. 

This is why NPR isn't getting another thin dime from me. 

This is also why I'm very disappointed in other bloggers I've followed for years. Ran Prieur, for instance, who just took a vacation in Ireland and raved about it, Hey Ran, maybe next time you'll get to go with your Irish buddies and torch a synagogue? 

Sunday

 Sunday and at 11AM it's 51 degrees out so it's sunny but not all that warm. But tomorrow it's going to rain again so I have to do things today. 

I'm not out busking with my new cornet because, in the same way Leroy is doing things with his new Selmer sax, I feel it's too nice to take out onto the street and since the Connstellation is so heavy, the plan is to sell that, sell the Yamaha trumpet, and once I've got the cash saved up, go to Hornucopia in San Carlos and find a nice short cornet with a shepherd's crook, used, that can be my busking horn. 

Interestingly, at the music store on Friday, the ditzy guy let me hold a Bach model 37 "Stradivarius" trumpet which is considered the standard professional horn. "Wow, it's heavy" was my reaction. He then went into a little lecture about how Bach-Selmer had their brass sheet supplier lower the quality or something and they didn't check up on it, the result being these heavy horns. 

Well, heavy horns are not for me. But maybe this is why, among those who pay close attention to such things, the trumpets etc made during this period are considered not as good or "inconsistent". Meanwhile a Yamaha Xeno is going to play like every other Yamaha Xeno of that model. 

I packed two things to send FedEx and as I was taking off for there, noticed good old "Renee", a homeless "lady" who was a constant troublemaker who lived in the parking lot here and fought with everyone, even her own son and daughter. "Renee" was picking up trash in the parking lot, which was her old ploy to make herself seem like someone people would want around. It didn't work. 

I rode a couple of circuits of the parking lot here, making sure to give her a look like I'd give to an especially annoying pest animal I'm about to "retire" with a pellet gun. Then took off to take the packages to FedEx and on the way back rode around the larger area a bit to look for "Renee's" RV. She's always had this distinctive RV with the roof painted dark green. I didn't see it but I saw her walking toward an RV that's been parked on the public street in front of the complex here for a week or three. 

Then I took off for downtown. I had a bento at Nijiya and Japantown was buzzing. Hence I saw with some other people at one of the tables in front and had a nice talk about Hawaii, Japan, etc. Then I rode over to the Amazon place where  I got a ton of bubble mailers, and then down to the small Walmart for some things. 

The Walmart had been really busy it seemed because tons of stuff was wiped out. No paper towels, but I was able to get some other useful things and I even found a silver dime (along with a regular dime and a 50 centavos piece) in the Coinstar. And I actually only spent $26 or so. 

I don't think it ever warmed up above the 50s outside. Sunny but wintry. 

 

 

Saturday night

 Friday went well. I woke up in plenty of time to have breakfast and get over to the temple for the scheduled meeting with the rabbi (he wants us to meet once a month) and we talked for almost an hour. 

Leaving there, I found myself on Taylor Street and decided to, instead of turning on El Camino Real, to keep going ahead and see if the music store is open. It was not, so I had a breakfast burrito next door that was too big for me to actually finish. 

Then I went to the music store where the guy there, who said he was a trombone player, helped me out. They had the 2nd Getchell book but not the first, but he said "Hickey Music" in New York or something like that, would be good to order it from. 

I also wanted to look at their used mouthpieces and in the end I got a Bach 7C for cornet, but maybe an older one as it says "VINCENT BACH CORP." on it, for $20. The guy said $20 out the door was fine, then when I left he chased after me saying I owed another $1.88 in tax, and I said that's not how it works and that most people calculate the price so it comes out to $20 with the tax and his reaction was something like "Ohh yeah... I can do that". Really ding-y guy. 

The mouthpiece is interesting though. Looking at the Bach Loyalist web site, it seems it was made in the 1970s, earlier than 1974, and just by looking at it and feeling with my fingers, it looks really, really close to my 3C trumpet mouthpiece. So although I just wanted something cheap and generic to put with the Connstellation which I'm considering selling, I may have just bought another keeper. 

The rest of the day was doing some shopping and getting back to the shop, then taking some things to FedEx to get 'em out. I didn't go to the service because it was forecast to rain, which it did.