Paid

 Ken came by last night. I got paid. Cool. 

I'd taken my stuff to the post office and got some things at 99 Ranch then went to H Mart and loaded up with two 6-packs of beer, hamburger, a package of 4 packages of "Tangle" ramen garlic oil flavor, one of mushroom (which everyone raves over) veggies, things like that. 

I picked up packing stuff and stopped by Tom's. He was in a talking mood and told me the hot pot "kit" I'd brought by, priced at $29, had been wonderful. I said I'll pick up more when I see them being tossed out. We talked about this and that, and then I rode back here. 

I got involved putting things away and various tasks and ended up realizing I'm really hungry, so I ate the package of Borden sliced Swiss cheese I'd bought, with some Kewpie/mustard mix I made. Yum! 

I listed the final 10 of the 20 things I"d photographed, and cleaned the place up, and Ken showed up. He even brought me a burger, a "Bourbon" burger which is a cheeseburger with crumbled potato chips I think, and a sauce almost too sweet for pancakes. And a couple of slices of bacon. You can never go wrong selling something to Americans as long as you slather it in sugar. 

We talked a bit, and I got my pay check for this week and the last, but can't deposit it until tomorrow (bank rule, I can't deposit a dated check before the date). 

So I'll have to go out in the rain, I guess. 

 

A lesson on the US media

 Yesterday as usual, as one of the first things when I wake up, I turned on the radio to listen to our "left/liberal" NPR station. And they were running some piece, some reporter supposed to be over there in Iran, and she was going on and on about how the Iranis want to be bombed, how every Irani she talked to (probably in some Palahvist/expat bar) wants to be bombed, bring on the bombs! 

I was astonished, naturally, but they went onto some other piece and my day went on. Then later, in the evening, I saw some thing on Reddit about how "Mark Levin", a local far-right Zionist small-hat, had been ranting on his AM radio show about how .... the Iranis want to be bombed, every Irani he knows says so, bring on the bombs!

The Iran war grinds on, with Iran winning of course. This is another Vietnam. I know why the US fought so hard in Vietnam before getting its ass kicked too - it was about rubber. Your standard car tire probably has little to no natural rubber in it. But truck tires, industrial tires, military tires... those are a different story. 

I learned about this is an unusual way. Somehow I was reading about these sneakers made by these cool Socialist skater punk kids, I wish I could remember the brand name. It wasn't Black Ball, it was some other name. And they used natural rubber for the soles. Where'd they get it from? Easy! They explained it on their web site. They bought used dragster tires. The guys at the drag strip would go through tires like crazy, and they had to be natural rubber to perform as well as they do. Just ... like .... military ... tires.  

And what was Vietnam a French colony primarily for? Those Michelin rubber plantations. During WWII there was a saying something like, "Our military moves on a sheet of rubber". This is serious business. So serious that it's only by reading about cool skater dudes making their own hi-tops out of natural rubber, that I was able to learn about it. Serious enough that it's not talked about. The Vietnam debacle is always explained away as being for Freedom or Preventing Communist Domino Theory, or something. It was about rubber. 

Obviously Iran is about oil. And do we Americans love our oil! We have something like 2X the carbon production per capita as the next runner-up. An American is not a person, but a person + a car (or two). And I can't be too smug, because I ride a bike on rubber/petroleum tires imported from Germany, on a frame imported from China, other parts from Japan, etc. 

I was a little kid when the Vietnam war was going strong. I remember the name Pnom Penh because ... I liked pens. I remember the STOP signs having "WAR" painted on them so they said STOP WAR and thought this was normal. The adults, a lot of them, must have been freaking out. Of course there was the hippie thing, and "Canadian Geese" which meant that draft dodgers who got up to Canada were given asylum. Imagine Canada doing that now! There was Nixon's "wage and price freeze" and again, imagine any president doing that now. 

Right about that time there was a shipping strike in Hawaii, too, and since our sugar was sent to the mainland to process it into white sugar, we used something called "SugarTwin" which was awful. There was also something called "cyclamates" in food that had to be avoided. And some pretty crazy inflation, hence Nixon's wage and price freeze. 

What I'm saying I guess is the 70s were pretty crazy, and the boringness of the 80s to the mid "oughts" is probably the unusual thing.  

Ginsberg knew what she was doing

 On Reddit again someone talking about If only Ruth Bader Ginsberg hadn't refused to retire when Obama was in office. That puzzled me also, but now that I've Noticed, it's all pretty clear. She knew exactly what she was doing. 

It ties right in with my monthly scheduled talks with the rabbi, Mr. nice reform Jewish guy from L.A., whom everyone likes. We'd been talking about Trump, and he'd said with real fear in his eyes, that we'd have had a civil war if Trump didn't win, so it was good he won.... 

Keep in mind this is from the "left", popularly considered far-left, part of Judaism. Yep, MAGA as hell because Trump's their tool. And Ginsberg, being one of the Chosen, was of course going to keep Obama from installing a possibly too-Goyish supreme court judge. It's all very transparent. 

And on that civil war; I'm convinced the small-hats would have done their damnedest to start one if their prize idiot, Trump, wasn't installed. 

Yes I watched/listened to while taking things apart, the documentary "Europa The Last Battle" last night. And yes, it's quite good. It certainly deserves better treatment; to be re-done by an Oliver Stone or an Adam Curtis.  

Last night, I still can't say whether those big wooden crates were being moved in or out. The idiots with the truck and forklift may have been simply trying to get the forklift onto the truck, because eventually with the help of someone else with a forklift, that's what they did, and drove off, with 4 large boxes as well as the first forklift on the truck. 

The most interesting thing is I got a look into the interior of unit 1663, and it was bare, with just a few large wooden crates. Whether they're boxed up gambling machines, or machine shop machines, and whether those boxes are going in or out I can't say. 

I didn't wake up until 4, cooked and ate 3 eggs and had some coffee, packed a few more things, and headed out to the post office. 

Today's freebee was some bananas and a sort of Korean hotpot kit that was meant to cost someone $29. I stopped by Tom's and gave those things to him and we got to talk a bit. 

I talked about how things are around here, financially. Ken didn't pay me last week and may not be able to this week. He owes the landlord $500-odd for this NNN thing, owes the electric company $363 or so, and this in addition to the usual rent which he may or may not have paid. 

In short, it's getting scary. I said that I guess I could leave a year earlier than planned, mid-September of this year rather than the next. And our lease is up on August 30th so I might want to try to be ready to leave by then, because if things are falling apart I want to make that One Last Move while I can. 

I got into how Ken's money management is like my Dad's, frankly. One school year my father had rented a "winter rental" on Balboa Island which cost, I believe, $700 a month. It was a nice 2-story house. My younger sis and I went to the local elementary school and I did a great selling job of convincing my dad it made more sense to buy us bikes than to pay for the school bus, because on the bikes we could go other places besides the school. 

My father stopped coming around, though, and stopped paying the bills. He'd set up a bank account I could access too, write checks, etc., and I remember bugging him for money and he sent some, and I went around and paid the bills, and then the money was gone so I asked for more and he got angry because I'd paid the bills in full; I was supposed to pay them just enough to keep them from shutting things off or evicting us, not pay in full. 

Of course we were eventually evicted, and my uncle being a good American uncle and thus not wanting to help at all, could not wait to put us on a plane back to Hawaii to be my father's problem (or sink or swim, who gives a fuck, which is pretty much what happened) but this gives an insight into my father's financial style. And I'm coming to realize it's Ken's also. 

 

 

More hilarious shit

 I woke up around 3, had my coffee etc., packed All The Things(tm) kind of surprising myself because I didn't think I had the time but ... I did. 

I got ready to go and there's a pink envelope from the electric company. They mean business when they get out the pink envelopes. They need $300-odd by the 10th. Great. 

I got going and dropped off the FedEx package at FedEx and tried to raise Ken on the phone. He answered, neat. 

I told him about the notice, and it being in a pink envelope so they really mean business. Ken needs to update some payment stuff on Ebay and he said he'd do it but he's not; after some thinking I realized he's been holding off because generally when you update financial information on something, that something will withdraw some money to make sure the new information is good. And Ken's not been paid, so he's been holding off for that reason. I told Ken I understood why he's held off on that, to avoid spending money, and now there's this. $363 I think. I said it's not due until the 10th and I know he'll be over on the 8th, Wednesday, but I wanted to give him more lead time to think about it. 

He says he's "going to see what he can scrape together" and I said Look, if it's between paying me or paying the electric company, I can wait. I can't do any work when the electricity's off. 

Oh, and there's still the $500-odd we owe the landlord for that NNN thing. 

And one might wonder why I drink! At least I'm only drinking beer, and I think I've discovered something. Expensive beer like Guinness and Lagunitas seems to be a lot easier on me than cheap beer like PBR or Bud. I guess if I were eating bread, I'd feel a difference between eating Wonder Bread or eating Dr. Oetker's Health Bread imported from Germany, too. I know I feel this difference in chocolate, with the exception of Guittard pure cocoa powder, milled not far from here, I'm only eating European chocolate and not the low-end kind either. Ritter Sports and Cadbury stuff for the European market is very different from stuff made for the American market. 

But getting back to finances, I know our present lease runs out at the end of August. I don't think we can get kicked out before then. And I don't think things can collapse that quickly although all bets are off if something happens with Ken's health. 

What I'm getting at is, it might be a good plan for me to assume I'm leaving September of *this* year rather than the next. That means sell off a lot of things and prepare to hop on a plane. If things get super crazy here I can split for a hotel and I've got Tom for moral support. He flies all the time on Alaskan and that's the airline I'll take. 

I hung up the phone with Ken and ran the smaller packages up to the post office, got some things in 99 Ranch, some more things in H Mart, dropped off fruit I'd found at Tom's (he wasn't answering the door) and got back today. 

Today's freebees: 11 packages of dried squid, apples and bananas for Tom, some weird white chocolate "enrobed" Oreos I'll donate, and some interesting motorized blinds I might slap onto Craig's List. Also a bunch of make-up stuff, Estee Lauder and so on, and now I've got a whole Lulu Lemon goodie bag of make-up, little bags, all kinds of goodies, to give to Ken to give to Suzie.  

And now I'm being entertained by some guys with a forklift, then another forklift they used to un-stick the first forklift which they'd gotten stuck, running around like The Three Stooges trying to get some big wooden boxes off of a truck and apparently deliver them to the site of the illegal night club. Gambling machines maybe? 

Update: The Three Stooges fucked around for a while and then ... drove off with the boxes? So now I have no idea what's going on. The thing is, when I rode in I happened to ride in from Rogers Avenue so I went past the place, noticed the truck there which had just come in when I'd left, and got a look into #1663, which looked bare except for some big wooden boxes. 

Dinner was a big bowl of guacamole courtesy of the 4 small avocados that were also free. I used pork rinds for chips, and washed it down with a nice refreshing Jeju Pellong Ale, which is pretty good. 

 

Easter

 I got 16 things camera-ready last night, and that involved taking a big thing apart that's a "Heathkit". These are not actually Heathkits or they'd be worth more, but are electronic instruments produced in-house by one of the nuclear research labs, and have their own internal model numbers etc., but are not recognized commercial products. And no one wants the things. But the parts are worth something. 

The illegal night club was noisy as usual and I called the cops as usual and they were too busy to show up as usual, it was Saturday night and they were working on a missing person case. I don't blame 'em, they have to prioritize things. And at least the call goes on the record. 

The best answer I've come up with so far is to simply stay up, doing things that keep me occupied enough or are noisy enough on their own that I don't care. Which is why I grabbed this big thing to take apart and had a fine old time taking it to bits and tossing the bits I wanted to sell in one box and the ones I didn't, in another, as well as a small pile of case parts. The stuff I didn't want went outside the door here at about 5:30AM. 

I woke up around 3 I guess. Now I had a choice about this day. I've been wanting to try busking at my local H Mart, which is crazy busy on Sundays, and/or the 99 Ranch up the street. But I was also curious how Easter might be at Whole Foods on the Alameda. Now, lunchtime was probably great. But staying up all night, that was not going to happen. Best case I could play 4:00-5:30 leaving me a bit of time to shop. 

In real life it was 5:15 to 6, and there were tons of people going in and out but they were all in a hurry, and I made $9. Petition Guy was there and got someone/sucker to sign all his petitions but that had taken him being there all day. 

I wanted to see how it was when Whole Foods was closing and turning people away, thinking I might get a burst of tips but that didn't happen at all. People were in a hurry and that's it. But I got to get some good playing in, so it was worth it. 

I packed up and tried San Pedro Square by the Old Spaghetti Factory, trying to play over the canned music that's always playing there now, from 2-3 different sources. I didn't get a thing. I'm convinced everyone who goes there is dead broke, look like they're doing OK because you can find pretty nice clothes at Goodwill or by just cruising around trash day, and they go there hoping to meet someone who isn't broke. With little success, I surmise. 

I took a little ride around, thinking if there are people hanging around camPUS burger, I might try there, or at Leroy's place by the long-gone Johnny Rockets (famous locally for looking like the neutron bomb had gone off and everything just how it was when people put down whatever they were doing and left, with napkins, salt and pepper shakers, etc., even a Starbucks cup, just how it had been left 5 or more years ago) but there were just no people around. 

I stopped in at U-Save Liquor on 1st, where all the scumbags congregate, got a 6-pack of Guinness in bottles and a bag of pork rinds, and got out of there, to back here.  

And dinner eaten, 30 things all ready to photo, and the cops put on a show outside. It was just after 2AM, and the illegal night club looked like it would have a few people show up, mainly the people running the thing, so it really would not be a bother (although they've had some really busy nights on a Sunday-Monday overnght) and they came in just a bit after 2, and have been chasing people out, honking their horns, siren, lights, etc. They are *on* it. Probably because tonight's probably pretty quiet and so the illegal night club has floated up near the top of their to-do list. 

The best way to manage this problem from my vantage point is, to keep things "warm" for 'em with the cops, and just get used to staying up and doing things that make noise anyway etc., as I've described. I'm probably not going to get to a regular daytime schedule until I'm actually retired, not living here, and besides in Hawaii it's really warm in the middle of the day so there's a tradition of getting out and doing things early, then taking it easy, then going back out to do more things later when it cools off.

Today's interesting ICE fact, courtesy of someone on Reddit. The reason they're grabbing day laborers and agricultural workers and well, workers in general is, they're they least trouble-making, hardest-working people they can grab, and they're being put in prisons and put to work at about a dollar a day. 

That's why ICE isn't going after actual bad guys. Or bums. Actual bad guys have got some fight in them. And bums are, well, bums. 

There was a period leading up to our Civil War where people from the slave states would go up into free states and grab black people. A free black person, a worker, a cook or housemaid or farmworker or cobbler or what have you, made fairly decent wages. And they were proven, healthy, workers. So they'd grab them and if they could get them to the South, they could sell them for a pretty penny and then these new slaves might get  room, board, and probably a small "allowance" and that was it. It's a pretty close parallel to what's going on now. 

This explains why people who came here and got permission to stay, and are going through the long and difficult process to become residents and then citizens, people who work for a living, are being grabbed. I'm all for a process for deporting those who are not here legally, but there has to be just that; a process. 

And ICE isn't grabbing Germans and Danes and Finns and Russians even, who came over and overstayed their visas and have been here for years. They're white! It would raise a huge hue and cry if *they* were enslaved. But brown/black people? Pff! Who cares? 

This is a major hurdle in that it needs to be done, to get people to understand that in the eyes and ethos of those who run this place, we are all goyim. We are all cattle. We are all Palestinians. All but the Chosen are on the menu, some of us are a lot further down than others, but we're on there. 

 

Beery night, $43 next night.

 Between that can of Sculpin, the tall can of "Weekend" or whatever it was strong IPA, then a tall can of Guinness, then downing 6 regular cans of Lagunitas before bed on the theory that the illegal night club would not bother me if I was passed out, it was a beery night. 

I'd taken out $170 in two cashbacks to give me my week's pocket money, but done a lot of spending. On a bag of mac nuts, beer, cheese'n'olives, beer, beef sticks and chips and sour cream, and beer.  

I'd also put $20 on my clipper card so I'd have bus or train fare. 

I have $154 on me right now, so I really only used a bit less than $20 of my paycheck money. And I could sure do with less beer... 

I woke up around 3 I think, and realized I had time to get some large packages out of here and I'd feel horribly lazy if I didn't, so I packed the things, and got them over to FedEx. Since H Mart was out of tall cans of cheap Hawaiian beer, I got a large bottle of cheap Japanese beer, and come home and cooked up fried eggs with hot sauce, and had the beer. 

I got my stuff together and rode the short way, by way of Hedding so I got to pause and relax at the top of the hill and start chewing my sugarless gum to clean my mouth, and  once I got to Whole Foods, all I had to do was use the loo and I could start right in playing.

I played from about 8:20 to 9:30 so I'll just call it an hour, and made $43. Not bad, really. Petition Guy was there and I'd brought 4 Ritter Sports with cashews for him, but he didn't want them. I had a fine time playing, and it seemed like when I tried new songs people liked that more, so it was pretty good. It was nice and quiet so the acoustics were good. 

Petition Guy had me watch his table while he went and got his car and parked it closer, and it being 9:30 I decided I was done anyway, so I packed my stuff up and counted up the money, with a pause for a guy to come up and give me a $5 and thanked me. Just like yesterday, I got some nice compliments. 

Whole Foods is open 8-6 tomorrow so if I get going early enough, I could play the 4:30 - 6 time slot. Petition Guy says it's very slow on Easter, but then on special days there can always be that guy with a $100 bill... 

What I didn't do tonight was hang around with that collection of people; in fact I didn't even see them this time. I did see Kenny, and gave him the latest stats. My aim is to make at least $100 on a weekend, and right now I'm at $98. 

I went in and got my 12-pack of Lagunitas and a tall can of some kind of pils, and packed those away on the bike. A down and out looking Black gal came by and I offered her the bag of 4 Ritter Sports and she doesn't like chocolate. 

So I rode downtown thinking I'll find someone to give them to, since I didn't want to take them back home (I'm eating the ones with hazel nuts, slowly, on my own, trying to give away the cashew ones at least until I get around to trying one, then I might decided to keep them, and have a lot of "johgurt" ones too, which are good.) 

I rode around and eventually came to a sleeping form wrapped in in a dark blanket. I parked the bike and snuck up and put the Ritter Sports near the guy, and out of a group of Sharks fans walking by, a guy gave me a fist bump. That raises the number of fist bumps to 4 for today. 

I stopped at TAK Market for some pork rinds, and got back in here. Time to button up for the night. 

 

 

 

Biff boom bang

 Iran is fighting for all of us, and according to NPR it's 3 US planes down. Probably more, but even NPR will admit that many. 

After a year or more of trying to get myself unsubscribed to Nextdoor, I'd finally gone on there and been free with snark and salty opinions. Jesus was a Palestinian and someone's yappy little dog being almost snatched by an eagle, so we need more eagles, etc. 

Latest was posting a thing about the illegal night club, and that probably did it, because I'm finally not getting their stupid little notices. Mission accomplished. 

We're seriously in the beginning stages of a meatgrinder like Viet Nam, though. Fun times ahead. 

I did some practice last night, and also listed 20 things on Ebay so that's good.  

I woke up with time to clean up and pack one more thing, got my stuff together and took off a bit before 4, and dropped off the two small things I'd packed at the post office. Then I went to Whole Foods and locked the bike. Petition Guy wasn't there and I had some "Ritter Sport" bars I wanted to give him, so I gave them to the Gypsy woman begging there with a sign. At least she wasn't by the bike racks at all, maybe choosing to stay out of the sun, but the sun had down down enough that the space by the bike racks was shady. 

I wanted some food first, and came up with a concoction of olives, feta cheese, a dollop of this creamy dressing, a bit of tabboueh salad, and some ground-up bacon. And I took more than I really needed, too. 

I got some lime flavored fizzy water with this, and sat at a table with a guy sitting there, I dunno, looking at his phone like 99.999% of people do now, or something, I ate, and he did his thing, and somehow we ended up talking and had quite a talking session. He gave me one of the beers he was drinking, a "Sculpin" IPA with grapefruit flavoring, a beer I'd never have tried on my own, and it was really good. 

So we talked and I tried to talk while getting this gop I'd put together eaten, which took a while. I finally finished, and I had to go. He'd been waiting for a friend who coaches softball, and he'd still never shown up. So it was all good. 

I set up and started playing at  6:30, and played until 8:00. I screwed up more than usual because part of me didn't want to be out there, but most of me wanted to make the best of this paid practice session, and to work on things like tone.  I got some really good compliments too.

When I finished I counted up, and was packing things away and organizing my money (I had a lot of $1's to spend) and I'd made $51 but two different people came up and gave me $2 so the total ended up being $55. 

I went in to spend my dosh, and got a 12-pack of Lagunitas, some cheese and olives, and was going to get a pint of Guinness but they were out. Out of a lot of things, and I didn't want to just drink a tall can of Lagunitas, so I got this other stuff, some kind of "Noon Time" IPA in a tall can that was a bit stronger. 

I went to sit down and eat and there was my friend again, with his friend, some really old, ditzy, lady, and a middle-aged street type gal with a guitar, the guitar one I've seen around there, owned by various people, for at least a year. 

The word was my friend's friend wanted to buy the guitar for $40, while I thought the ditzy old lady wanted to buy the guitar. These people had been there a while and "You never noticed me caterwauling away on my trumpet?" I asked. They'd never heard me and had no idea. That's how noisy it is there and it's the quietest Whole Foods. 

So we hung out and talked and after tons of talk about Iran it eventually came around to talk about the guitar. By this time I'd finished my two Whole Foods brand beef sticks and my can of strong IPA, and it was 9:30, when the employees of Whole Foods really want people to finish their shopping because they close at 10, so they made an announcement over the P.A. saying so. 

On the ride home I wanted to pick up some pork rinds, but the place I thought might have them didn't because they were closed. Being open past 9PM even on a Friday night is being open too late in this town. TAK Market had some little hard ones, which I didn't want, and after I'd picked out a bag of Mexican cheese flavored potato chips and a little tub of sour cream, I noticed they had some other ones that might be pretty good, but I was decided. I got the chips and dip and a tall can of Guinness.