The flutes

 Yesterday I decided on a reason to go downtown: I'd give away the flutes. I had an old Bundy with a horrible heavy case; the flute itself had a really nice warm glow to it but student Bundys are nothing special. And two Hall crystal flutes with a bunch of books and stuff, and a little Yamaha fife. I'd found a bag while out on my packing supplies route that probably held some piece of technical equipment, and what had given me the idea was my finding out that all the flutes and books etc fit into the bag rather well. Two straps on the bottom even held my cheapo music stand in its bag, although it was a bit awkward. 

The plan was to take the stuff over to San Pedro Square where I'd find Ron, the homeless guy who used to play recorders and a little bippity-boppity drum and now just begs. He could learn to play the flutes, sell them, whatever he wanted to do with them. 

The thing is, Craig's List is dead these days and this stuff was nothing to shout about. 

So I did it, I got out of here around 6:45, stopped in Japantown to drop off some books at the little free library, stopped in Nijiya for some veggies and coffee and got cash back each time so I've drawn my "allowance" for this week, and stopped by the N-B store to toss this really cool wearable Obon bag, with the tag still on it, over their gate. They can sell it or use it somehow. 

Then over to San Pedro Square. And Ron was ... not there. I even locked the bike and walked around with the stuff and didn't find him or any other busker. 

My backup plan was to go into O'Flaherty's and get talking with some folks and give the flutes away in there, as the glass flutes have the same fingering as the pennywhistle so there might be some interest. But San Pedro Square looked like a Saturday night, it was jumpin' and O'Flaherty's had a bouncer out front complete with a huge chain and attitude, and I skipped that. 

I got back on the bike and rode around downtown. I could not find any buskers at all. Or any homeless that didn't look ... rabid. 

Then I remembered, Good Karma. That's a congenial kind of place where I might hang out and find someone who wants some flutes. So I went in there and got a beer so I'd have a reason to hang out at the bar, and asked the bartender and a few people and no one wanted a flute, "But we have musicians coming in at 8 and they might be interested" said the bartender. It was only  7:30. Late for San Jose but still early for jazz musicians I guess. 

So I sipped my beer and enjoyed the music they were playing on the record player, good old Led Zeppelin. 

Pretty soon the bartender put on something more modern (and blah!) and the band came in and started setting up. I asked one of the guys and he was like, "Well, sure, we'll take 'em!" so I handed the stuff over to him. 

I wanted to hear them play, so that called for another beer and I had a coffee beer this time. An older guy (I mean older than me!) sat down next to me and we got talking, He'd been a huge aficionado of Cafe Stritch, so we had something to talk about for a bit. 

The band started up and they were good. There was a stand-up bass, keyboard, drums, trumpet and trombone. Naturally I paid special attention to the trumpet. The music was OK. I think with a lot of what's called jazz these days is more of a technical exercise, and an exercise in how loud one can be. Good Karma is a tiny place, so why did everyone need to be amplified? And jazz is, or was, based on songs everyone knew, the so-called standards. That made it easy to follow, because the audience would know the standard they were working from. 

I, at least, didn't recognize any of the tunes they were playing or working from. The ultimate form of this kind of thing is some listening I tried on KPFA when they had some jazz on. It was technically brilliant and about as musical as a little kid rubbing their finger on a balloon. 

One of the Good Karma workers was wearing a black T-shirt with the white letters, "JAZZ IS DEAD". 

I finished my coffee beer and went over to Whole Foods. My stomach had been unhappy since I'd left here, and I wanted something greasy to soothe it. I'd even looked at the menu at Good Karma and considered getting some chips without the dip, if the chips were good and greasy, but the bartender said  the chips the day before had been nice and greasy, but not that night's so I passed. 

I went over to Whole Foods and got a nice big slice of pepperoni pizza, and a 4-pack of Guinness in those tall cans. The place was absolutely dead so I went upstairs figuring at least I could watch whatever's on the TV. 

It was dead up there too, and it was hockey on the TV. I didn't want to be the kind of asshole who pops open a beer from downstairs and eats pizza from downstairs too, so I got a pint of the IPA they brew there, Flood House or something. It was pretty good. 

I left there around 9,  so here I was three pints in and I don't drink. And all because of those lousy flutes but at least I don't have to waste time worrying about them any more. I got back here and started in on the Guinness. 

I went to bed around 10 or 11, woke up at about 5 in the morning, polished off the 1-1/2 beers I had left, and slept until 11AM. And here I am. Interestingly, I'm 2 lbs down, even with the beer and pizza. 

Sausage rolls

 It was Friday, I had my pay check all ready to deposit, had given myself a haircut (but not practiced!) before bed. was all spiffied up and ready to go once I woke up. 

And so, I went. I had a bunch of things to drop off at the post office, and did that, and then the bank. There's a new guy, Abdul something and he wanted my ID which I got out, muttering about how it's expired and I'd better take care of that, so here's my passport card and got that out. And I was just doing a deposit. Oh, he said, we don't need any of that, and I put the cards away. And the bank's numbers and mine agreed to the penny so everything's fine. I'm at just a bit over 13 grand these days. 

I'd been going back and forth with myself over whether to go get packing tape at Han Kook Market, and after a side trip to get a few bubble mailers from the Amazon place, I went over to Whole Foods which I had to go to anyway. I decided I'll go for it. So I got on the slow-ass #22 bus and went over to Han Kook's and got 12 rolls of tape, leaving some poor customer who comes after me with one. (There's actually another brand there that's probably fine, so I'm not leaving anyone in the lurch.) 

I got on the somewhat faster #522 bus back to the Diridon Station stop and walked back over to Whole Foods and got my usual nuts and a bottle of cold coffee. Interestingly, they're lowering prices there without having to have a Prime membership, on a lot of things. 

I hung out with the "Save The Children" people while I drank half of the coffee. They'd been there when I'd first gotten there, then when I got back from my tape run they'd been gone, and I'd noticed how nice a night it would be for playing music. But coming out with the coffee, there was the booth again. I guess when they take a break they pack everything up. Maybe they've had people mess with their booth and stuff. 

The coffee was to compensate for not having had that much sleep the night before, because now I was going to enact a plan I'd been mulling over for months, to go over to Trials Pub and have a sausage roll and a Guinness. 

I'd been seeing these things on YouTube about Greggs' sausage rolls in the UK for a while and Trials is supposed to be the most "genuine" English pub around. And one Guinness would not be a problem. 

So that's what I did; I rode over there, locked the bike at the rack in front, and went in and had a seat and ordered my Guinness and the sausage rolls, apparently it was two rolls according to the appetizer menu. 

So I ended up talking with a bunch of guys, and it came out that one of the bartenders, Dave, plays Gypsy jazz, on guitar. Everyone plays guitar. The sausage rolls came out and the way they do them, they're sliced up so they're .... sausage roll "bites"? It might be an appetizer for a table of 3 or 4, but even with an appetite it was a lot of food. And they were OK I guess. The sausage was bland, kind of a weisswurst flavor I guess, and the dipping sauce basically had no flavor. 

This is America, and these plate of food probably constitutes an appetizer for most of the crowd there, though, as it takes a fair amount of food to maintain their large body sizes. And as for the sauce, to Americans, any flavor is "too spicy" so through the miracle of Science they've come up with a sauce that even looks like it would taste like something, but doesn't. 

But it's all OK because the conversation came around to music. One of the vary large guys, working behind the bar also, also plays guitar (because everyone plays guitar) and presides over a group that plays in Menlo Park. And Dave's Gypsy jazz group is just "breaking in" a new player, a gal who's a violinist.  I told them about the Gypsy jazz I saw being played at The Pressroom a couple of months ago and it wasn't Dave's group or anyone. So here's a rare-ish music genre with at least two groups playing it that hadn't heard of each other. 

Since we're talking music, Let's have another Guinness, I said, and I told Dave he ought to check out the movies of Emir Kasturica and wrote it down for him and to check out the movie "Black Cat White Cat" especially. And we talked about Cafe Stritch and other places, and it was all a pretty good time, if noisy, and expensive. 

I spent about $40 between the two beers and food and tips, which is probably something like the average tech bro spending $200. That 2nd Guinness finished, I said "Now it's my turn to say I have to go," and went. 

It was pretty cold on the ride home, and I got back here around 10. I was very tired, full of food, and I went to bed pretty soon, right around 10. Even though there's no more smoking in bars, those places put a stink on you that's a bit much. I wonder what the guys who work there do? Do they get right in the shower and scrub themselves down when they get home? Do they have work (bar) clothes and non-work clothes? Do they just smell like a bar? 

Anyway so now I've done it and I don't have to again. 

 

Kewpie Anxiety

 It's when you're not sure if you have a backup bottle of Kewpie in the fridge so you'd better buy some Kewpie while you're at one of the stores that sell Kewpie. 

This is funny because I took packages to FedEx and visited H Mart as always, got some thing and then spent some time sitting by my bike, having some peanuts and coffee from home. I had time to think about things and that's where I started to think I was low on Kewpie. So I went back in, and it was perfect because the Kewpie was $5.99 and I had $6 on me. 

Well! The lady at the checkout tried to give me change for a $10. I knew I'd given her $6 so I was like, "Whoah whoa whoa, this is too much, I gave you $6, your drawer will come out wrong". She tried giving me back a buck, but I said the only change would be a penny and I'm not even worried about the penny. She gave me a shiny penny anyway. 

That's the first time I've been "over changed" at a store haha. 

Other than that, practice before bed last night (this morning) went well and all I can think is to be really "religious" about practice, because I should be able to play as high and as clearly when out busking as I can in practice here at home. 

 

 

Just like he said to do

 Pedonald said to "vote as if I'm on the ballot" and this is just what we did. I know 2022 was a good election, that they called the "blue wave" but this one is so far beyond that, that they're saying even "blue tsunami" isn't a strong enough term. 

Meanwhile, back in Hawaii, Ed Case, Democrat in name only and AIPAC tool, who adores killing children in Gaza and deep-sixing the living standards of Americans, got voted back in. Bastard. 

I practiced before bed and it went really well. It's interesting; the exercises in the book have their place but playing things that are musical are a huge help. 

 

The sound of cheering

 I waited far too long to go to bed and didn't practice. I woke up today in the late afternoon, turned on the radio, and there was the sound of cheering. 

OK so we won a race or two, cool. But as I kept listening it's apparent we won a TON of things. Blue tsunami indeed. It doesn't look like Prop. 40 passed, but we got pretty much everything else. 

 

Well here we are

 One day before the last major election I'll participate in, here on the mainland. 

I've gotten into watching "So you want to move to Hawaii" videos over the last day or so. I'll stop a video to check their numbers, for instance one cited "MIT's cost of living survey" and according to it, I need $38-odd to live OK here in Santa Clara County, and $30-odd in Honolulu County. 

I assume this means MIT considers the same cost of living in each place. And I also assume MIT meant their survey for Real Americans(tm) and Real Americans(tm)  need certain things or it's not considered "living". Such as a new or newish car, a temperature-controlled environment, and the standard American foods/holy sacraments such as breakfast cereals, a quart of milk a day, meat at every meal, etc. 

To follow the Standard American Diet For Real Americans(tm) one must eat foods that are imported to Hawaii. Even if you're eating fish, it must be imported fish, preferably in the form of fish sticks. If you're eating bananas, they must be bananas from South America, exported to the US mainland and then shipped to Hawaii. 

You must absolutely not eat local foods, partake of local cuisine, or differ in any way in your eating habits from a person living in the Midwest of the mainland US. The one, sole, exception is you may go to Germaine's Luau, "The Best Luau In America" where you'll get a tiny dish of poi, which you may take a tiny bit of, say "Yuck!!" have a little roasted pork which really doesn't taste like actual kalua pig, a little "lomi salmon" (salmon is not a Hawaiian/Polynesian fish, and it's basically ceviche, as found in Mexican restaurants in California) and so on. 

So, "Living in Hawaii is expensive!" and that is with these restrictions in place. And yet, even with those restrictions,  Hawaii ends up being about 20% cheaper than where I am now, according to MIT. 

What's really going to make it work is knowing how to live, and eat, like a local and being retired.  

1 hour earlier

 I went right back to the night-owl schedule last night, but I got a good practice session in before bed, and I was up an hour earlier than I'd been, at least, so that's good. 

Yesterday, while taking things apart and watching/listening to YouTube, I came across a video where a guy was explaining why Russians keep signing up to die in such large numbers in Ukraine. (The lecturer turned out to be based in Norway or some damn place, not Russia.) 

He first explained that the average income in Russia is the equivalent of $750. Well, that's not bad, I thought, I've lived on 1/2 of that, back in the early 80s, and $750 a month might be just fine considering one is living with Russian prices so rent, food, etc. will be much cheaper and no real need to own a car. Food, especially, is much cheaper outside the US and in Russia I'd be surprised if it even cost 1/4 as much. It costs less than 1/2 as much in the UK, for instance. 

OK so the military has to seem tempting to compete with this, and it is. Base military pay is 2X the average Russian pay, and there are all kinds of bonuses that are stacked on for special skills, for signing up in the first place especially signing up with special skills, etc. In the end, considering the average American pay might be twice the average Russian pay of $750 a month, so $1500 a month, if Americans were offered the Russian package at 2X the monetary amounts the Russians offer their recruits, I think American would sign up by the millions. Especially if the death rate were covered up, as it was for a long time in Vietnam. 

Our troops in Vietnam were making something like $100 a month if that. If they were as well-paid as Russians are now, we may never have had the protests, the social upheaval, etc. that we did. 

When I was in the military in the early 80s, my pay was around $500 a month, which with room and board taken care of, was a fortune. Looking it up, enlistees get about 5X that now. 

This may be a large part of why the jews' tool Dirty Diaper Don is trying to crash the US economy, to get plenty of we goyim signing up to go do "israel's" bidding in Iran. That'll be fun. As if the Muslim world isn't pretty united now, it'll be really united and maybe the Noticing will increase here in the US by leaps and bounds.