Wut protests?

 I woke up at 3 in the afternoon, completely forgetting there were big protests scheduled today. I might have tried to get up earlier and go, just to look around and say Hi to Batman and check out the booths, maybe buy a sweet keffiyah I dunno. 

Well, anyway, too much beer really. But at least I got a big thing all taken apart (I'd started on it the night before) and while the illegal night club did its thing, it wasn't too annoying I guess. 

After waking up and having coffee etc., I masked off my lines again and masked off the other concrete stopper I hadn't painted, and then happily blasted $20 worth of white striping paint on everything. The guy who's the head honcho of one of the cleaning companies, whom I've heard called "Chuey" but I don't know if I'd call him that because it feels too informal, but anyway ol' Chuey had had a few cervesas and kept calling out to me, "Lakota" which I haven't the slightest meaning of the meaning of. Google was no help. Eh, I just went about doing my thing. 

Once I was done, I packed up the horn and tip box and trash and headed out. It was now around 6. I dropped off the trash and stopped in at Nijiya for a can of coffee and a couple of boiled eggs, and got $40 cash back so I'd have some money in my pocket. I sat and had my eggs and coffee with a group of people at the one table in front, which I discovered is a really popular place for people to eat shave ice from next door, and spill the same around, so the sidewalk under the table is a sticky mess. I think from now on I'll be less social and sit somewhere else. 

I chewed gum on my way over to Whole Foods, and got there and got situated and started playing at 7:30 so I'd play until 9. Things started out well with two $5 tips, then it got sparse because of two things: An ambulance parked on the street right by me, and there were police cars with their lights on at the intersection. And this big crowd of people came through, which turned out to be fans of college basketball, who had been at the U. of Arizona / Purdue game. And none in a tipping mood. 

Petition Guy was there, and was not mad at me for the other night. In fact, he complimented my playing a few times. And with the tips not coming, I got into a kind of "fuck it" mood, and worked on things I don't normally play at least so far. 

Once the ambulance had driven off and the crowd was gone, some tips trickled in, but by now it was late and there were not very many actual customers going in and out of Whole Foods. I tried pushing myself past 9 but while it did get me one more tip which was nice, I quit at a few minutes after 9. 

I'd made $28, $3 of it in handfuls of change from a couple different people. And I had some nice interactions with people, and I'm to learn a tune called "Gabriel's Oboe" because I promised a lady I would, and I've heard the title a bunch of times; it might be a banger. 

I grabbed a cart and went in and got a 12-pack of Lagunitas because it's cheaper there than anywhere, a pint of Guinness to have with dinner, and a bag of frozen shrimp. I got to talk with Petition Guy a bit, told him I'd made $28 which sounded really good to him, but is kind of low for me these days. But considering the big crowd of tightasses from the basketball game, and the ambulance and cops, I did surprisingly well. 

Petition Guy and I got to talk a bit, about finances. As mentioned he thought $28 was good for an hour and a half. I said my main job, which gets me what works out to $57 a day, has to take precedence and so this is why I came out a bit late tonight. But that when I'm retired, I'll be able to devote more time to playing music. He didn't think $57 a day is "big money for Silicon Valley" and said engineers make much more, and I riposted with "When they have jobs, and as far as that goes, my boss makes about $200k a year and he's paycheck-to-paycheck, and clips coupons to take to Burger King". Then we got a bit of good old Judenhass in and parted happily. 

I rode home by way of Hedding, I swear that hill is good for my legs. I got back here and removed the making tape on my paint job and looks like there's still some overspray but I'm not going to worry about it. At least the lines are night and bright, the narrow places are fixed, and the stoppers are nice and white and easy to see. Time will take care of the overspray. 

I got 20 things all photographed and listed half of them, the illegal night club was raucous enough that I ended up calling the cops 3X, plus at the time they knock off for the night, 5AM, instead of just all leaving, they hung out and one bunch of them hung out right outside my door with loud music and a guy pissing on the front of this place here.

I need to get one of those air horns so I can pop out and honk it at one of these pissers, that would be fun. 

They also did burnouts in the parking lot, again, around the time they normally just relatively quietly leave. It's like trying to co-exist with Israelis. The burn-outs were the reason for the 3rd call to the police, who were apparently too busy to come by but at least the call was made, and those do get tallied into where the crime hotspots are.  

I'm going to see if I can coordinate with the landlord of *this* building about this, because it's been a problem for them, too, and I'm not the only tenant who's complained. The best outcome is we can trigger an asset seizure of the other building, which is owned by an absentee landlord in Arizona.  

Sometimes the answer is 46

 Ken came by around the usual time last night, I got my check for this pay and the one before so it's caught up, and we talked about stuff. I'm keeping the numbers good and it had been a $900+ day so the mood was pretty good. And I had a bag of flashlights to give to Ken and a couple of cute cat dishes for his wife, so all was well. 

When Ken left, he almost left without his checkbook and the flashlights and stuff and I was lucky to flag him down as he was in his truck and leaving (this is pertinent because now, at 11:30 Friday night, he's just called me from his wife's phone as he's lost his and wondered if it was around here. He's only got 3 messy labs at his work and his very messy truck so it could be anywhere....) 

The illegal night club was a bit busy which was unusual for a Thursday night, but not too bad. I got started taking a thing apart, and drank beers and eventually went to bed around 7AM. 

I had everything done like packing packages, and when I woke up at 3 in the afternoon, I only had to clean up and pack up the trash, gather up the packages, tip box, horn, etc., and get going which I did at 4. I dropped off the trash, deposited my check in the bank where my math and theirs matched to the penny, and headed over to Whole Foods. 

Now, I basically had no money with me. The usual plan is to go to Whole Foods right after the bank, and in the process of buying some things, take out $200 of my weekly $400 pay check, and that's my allowance for the week.  

Since my busking sessions are as much practice for my retirement years as anything else, I decided, having about $6 on my clipper card so enough for one day's travels on the VTA system, I'd do the day as if I'm broke. So, when I bought a couple of beef sticks and a fizzy water and got $100 cash back, the checker gave me a $100 bill and took the trouble to pick out a nice one, I put that in my wallet to go into my cash-stash. 

Being broke means no train when the bus will do, and I took the #22 bus to Sunnyvale. The two-hour rule being unbeatable, since I'd left the shop at 4, there's no way I'd be in Sunnyvale before 6, and indeed, when I'd walked to the Whole Foods and set up and played my first tune, it was 6:18. 

I set up at the front door instead of the parking lot door, as the parking lot entrance had a guy with a table with some signs with stuff about kids and drugs and so on. So I decided it's a good time to set up on the other side and see how it goes. 

It ... didn't go well. I got a $2 tip right away, then nothing. The wind was really a problem, as wind makes people not want to take money out. So at 7 I moved over to the parking lot side, the table guy being away for a piss/smoke/crack break I could kind of justify setting up by the door as always (he was off to the side, on the sidewalk). 

I got to playing and it was slow. The thing is, last Sunday night, I'd put the horn away and not touched it all week. I played along and tips trickled in, and I determined myself that I'd stay until 8, making it an hour and a half. Every time I looked over at the table guy, he gave me the ol' hairy eyeball, and eventually he packed up and left. He'd have been entirely justified in yelling at me, "Hey! How long do you plan to be here?" and I've have said, "I'm only staying until 8, and them I'm outta here!" whereby he'd know that I'm a temporary nuisance, and he'd still have two sweet hours to get the late Friday crowd. 

Finally it was 8 and I had counted up, $46 which isn't that bad. For an hour and a half, pretty good, something like $30 an hour which is huge money in Silicon Valley. 

I walked back out to the bus stop, stopping in at Baraka Market for a yogurt drink. By the time I got back to my "home" Whole Foods, it was 9:30 and since I'd left here at 4, that's 5-1/2 hours to make that $46. And in most of the area of the US, you have to be in the tippy-top elite to make more than the federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour so I have to call this good.  

So I got back to my "home" Whole Foods and offloaded some of the stuff I was carrying onto the bike and went in for some shopping. In the end I got cheese, olives, a 12-pack of Lagunitas IPA in cans, mustard, and put the remaining $7 on my clipper card. 

Petition Guy was there and called out to me. He wanted me to watch his table while he went to the bathroom. I was happy to help, but then instead of leaving to use the facilities, he then stayed here, moving things around and trying to get me to read and perhaps sign, his petitions. I said something like he'd better get going and use the bathroom, and he kind of started to, then went back to moving stacks of things around and I should read all the petitions. ... I put up with that for a few more minutes and then said, "Deal's off" and walked back to my bike, unlocked it, got on it, and rode off. While Petition Guy stood there, staring at me. Funny as hell. 

I come from years of dealing and selling at gun shows and swap meets. There's a code. If you ask someone to watch your stuff while you go pee, your end of the contract is you leave immediately, go to the loo, and come immediately back.  You don't stay there sorting through your shit and trying to get your benefactor to buy some of it. Nor do you tarry after having peed, there's no coming back 15 or 20 minutes later with a bag of groceries. If you break the code, no one will cover for you when you need to go take a whiz, nor should they. And I mean, not just the person you've burned, but word will spread and no one will cover for you other than whatever sketchy types are around whose time is worth nothing. 

Swap meets and gun shows where people all know each other are great; they're one of the closest things you can be involved in where people act as a tribe, and have codes about things like this, that aren't written out on paper anywhere but are known and followed, with consequences if one doesn't. 

And Petition Guy can just stick to having sketchy people watch his stuff for him.  

I got back here and it was something like 10:30. 

 

The US swallowed a poison pill

 I am seeing things like this: The USA swallowed a poison pill, thinking the pill would make it stronger. Essentially in its early days as a set of colonies and then a country, it decided, "We have been told that your People (Jews) are a Poison, but we think that letting you come here and flourish, will Benefit us, as it will bring more Commerce...." etc. 

Bring more Commerce the juicy ones indeed did, in the form of slavery and other grifts. But yes the US did benefit, because a growing parasite wants a healthy host. 

It was to their benefit that we got involved in WWI (we were brought in a Jew who had pull with the Brits) and then WWII, and now the US is essentially a zombie controlled by them. Hence our new forever-war in the Middle East. 

They were sucking Germany dry and the Germans fought back; then we got enlisted to punish the Germans. Now, with worldwide communication and The Great Noticing, those who are wise to, and who are learning about, their parasitical nature, are distributed worldwide. And there's a great interest in bypassing the mainstream media because guess who owns that? 

So now the US is finally in the nascent stages of developing an immune reaction against the parasite. Interesting times ahead but this time around people can't be kept in the dark so easily. On one of the juicy subreddits, some leech was saying he feared for Generation Z, who are more Naturalist or Nationalist I forget which, but he called them generation Nat-Z haha. 

I woke up around 3, maybe closer to 4, and had my breakfast and packed things and got out of here. Plenty of zombies around but no interactions with them, thank goodness. I delivered my packages and then went to Lowe's and bought Windex and Simple Green, putting them on my card and getting cash back, so I have "walking around money". 

 

Am I Right or Left?

 Goodness know, I should have taken a hard right on the bike today. 

I woke up around 3, and had a pile of mostly large things I'd packed last night to ship out, and I packed a couple more things, left here at 4 to take them to the post office and FedEx, and went right back here to pack three more large things that had to go out. I actually got them packed with time to spare, too, so that was good. 

I slogged with those up to FedEx and dropped them off, then went up to 99 Ranch and got a few different flavors of "Mama" noodles because I'd tried the green curry flavored ones and thought they were really good. I got 4 different flavors, including a shrimp one and in the fish department, they had some precooked shrimp. Essentially what they do is take fish that's not sold quickly enough and deep fry it and put it in packages so I got this big package of shrimp for $4. 

On the way back I just wanted to cook up the shrimp noodles dish I had imagined, and I wanted to get some IPA type beer to have with it. I figured I had just enough money. 

I didn't find anything in H Mart, so Sprouts it was. There's a sneaky way of going there which is to park my bike and trailer in the shopping cart area inside, which many who are in the know do, and I did this. I found a tall can of Lagunitas IPA and a smaller but still tall can of some Munich Germany stuff that looked interesting and was a dollar cheaper, I figured I had just enough for both. 

Well, I was 11c short after the checker and I counted out all this change, and the checker said she figures they have that much "around" so don't worry about it. Great. I put the cans in the bike bag on top of the shrimp and packets of noodles, and rode for home. 

Here is where I made a very large mistake. The proper way to cross Brokaw is to go opposite the direction I want to go, to go to the crosswalk at the light, wait for the signal, etc. But what the bums, scumbags, lowlifes, etc., often do is cut across where the train tracks are. I made the bad decision to do this. 

I rode around the back of the building and was coming up to Brokaw, checking out the traffic, and there was a zombess on a bike wandering across, not looking to be moving that quickly so I was paying more attention to the gap in the traffic it looked like I could time myself for. 

Well, the zombess was either moving quickly all along or sped up, somehow didn't see me (on a bike cruiser bike with blinking lights, and wearing a high-vis vest and hat) and blam! We ran into each other. The zombess sputtered, "How do you do that??" and I said, "I don't know, it takes a special talent, I guess". As we got up, I saw that her bike was OK, and I said "Can I offer you a beer?" and she said something like, "Are you drunk? Is that what's going on?" and I retorted that No, I am not drunk, although I planned to be .... and once I got my bike upright and got the handlebars turned around the right away again, I went into the bike bag and pulled out the Munich beer, icy cold, and put it into the zombess' filthy hands. I'd said, while getting out the beer, "At least it's not cars; even the smallest fender bender is thousands". The zombess seemed to be happy to have gotten a beer out of the whole thing and rode off, and I rode off in the opposite direction. 

Beer, along with cigarettes and a variety of drugs, is a universal currency among these subterraneans, and since her bike didn't seem to be harmed nor her, I'd paid my dues and shown good "street" manners. 

On my way back here, I noticed I now have a hematoma on my left arm just below the elbow. Lovely. Not painful at all, just a big bluish lump. Serves me right. Scumsuckers cross at the signals, too, of course. But train tracks are a magnet for zombies and it's kind of a free for all there. 

Being a little more panicky and twitching the bike rightward would have avoided the zombess, and I'd only have a near miss, hardly anything to remark on. The warm weather sure brings the zombies out and they're everywhere right now. Rightward... rightward... 

So am I left or right? Politically, I mean. I am 100.000% for LGBT rights, and since LGBT is a biological fact that's been with us and all the animals forever, and that's Science, and Science is "woke", some would call me Left or even far Left. But some very "Right" cultures have had no problems with LGBT people, it just varies by culture. 

I think people ought to be able to, and to some extent required to, work to support themselves. That would make me, to some, Right or far-Right. 

We don't have a clear Left and Right in the US. And the more I see of the Democratic Party's bumbling, I'm really starting to come around to the idea that they might just be an actual controlled opposition. 

But getting back to day-to-day issues, and by that I mean zombies. I've had a very good idea for a while now, which I call Happy Fun Camps. Your average zombie isn't really capable of working, since their bodies not not very fit, or their minds, or both. So work camps are not the answer. And having them out on the street, stealing and shitting and piling up trash, turns out to be very expensive as well as unsightly. 

Happy Fun Camps are a solution to this. Your average bum can collect Disability which is about $900 a month. You set up a development with little cement block huts, maybe 200 square feet with a combined toilet and shower, and anyone can enter the Happy Fun Camp to stay, voluntarily. They can also leave, voluntarily. Their Disability payment will cover electricity, water, etc., and junk food. This will get the junk food companies on board. Also, each bum gets the drug of their choice, all they want of it. 

This way they don't need to steal, rob, prostitute, etc., to get their drug of choice; they just get it. My model for this is the "Wet House" an organization runs in England. Alkies stay there and it's assumed they'll be alkies forever, so in the Wet House they can live, get their daily dose of alcohol, and they're off the street. 

This would be the same thing but for all drugs, not just alcohol. Since in the US, all the "illegal" drugs are legal at the user level, why not? There will be a doctor in the loop somewhere, and there could be adult education classes, accounting and computer skills and GED classes and so on. The classes won't be popular, but they'll be there. 

Anyone who's in there will be free to leave, but if they're real bums, they'll never want to. And non-bums will hate the place in no time because a regular person doesn't want to be a slave to drugs, wants to work some sort of job, etc. It's a brilliant plan to allow the bums to live their mode of life and those of us who work to live ours. 

There was a kerfuffle recently where some far-Right politician in Arizona said essentially what I've expressed, which is, "Let the druggies have all the drugs they want!" so does this make me far-Right? 

In any case, the shrimp soup I made was excellent. 

Now I'm in a quandary. I just called Ken and he feels better, and will come by this week but Thursday instead of Wednesday, which is tomorrow. So I guess I'll get paid then, and deposit the check on Friday. So do I hold two "no spending days" or do I do some busking, which I should probably not since I have to do work around here, or do I just take some more money out of my bank account, which I certainly can, because I have about $80 left of what I'll allow myself to spend this last pay period. I'll probably do that. 

 

73 Ham Radio

 I slept pretty late yesterday, and got up around 3 in the afternoon. Maybe a bit later like 4? I had mocha coffee etc. and loaded up the horn and tip box and headed out around 5. That means, by the 2-hour rule, I'd be in Sunnyvale at 7... 

I dropped off trash, picked up some bubble mailers, and rode over to Whole Foods. Petition Guy was there and I asked him if he was staying until closing and he said, "Probably". I said I'm heading off to Sunnyvale and should be back with plenty of time to talk. "What's going on in Sunnyvale?" he asked. I said, "Money!" 

I walked over to the train station and sure enough had just missed one train, so I had to wait around for a half-hour for the next one. At the platform, I was standing around and this Black guy came up and got in my face but in a friendly way, asking if my hair, Yeah it's short, but is it naturally that color, grey? I said yeah that's the natural color and it's grey because I'm 63. And I pointed out the grey hairs in his beard and he said Yeah he's 35 and I did something like say Well there you have it, and walked away. I'm pretty sure the guy was going to bug me for money, needed it for a ticket, blah blah yadda yadda. 

Funny thing about that; I'd tapped my Clipper card at the kiosk in the passageway, and as I took the card away it beeped and said to tap again, then I dunno, had me tap it a 3rd time and it said "TRAVEL OK" and had put all the balance back onto the card. So if they checked, on the train, that was gonna be my story but I rode for free. (And could have on the way back as no one checked tickets.) 

I got to Sunnyvale and walked over to the Whole Foods there and started playing, and sure enough, it was just a couple minutes before 7. 

So I played along, and there's plenty to work on, not only pieces but how well I"m articulating notes (needs work) evenness of tones (needs work) strong consistent air flow, good vibrato (needs work) and of course learning pieces which is probably the easiest part because I just play 'em in my head and then see if I can play 'em on the horn. 

There were a *lot* of people going in and out and some time before I got a tip, but then I got a $20 from a young boy who's walked past with his family, and then tips dribbled in, lots of $1's and a couple of $5's. 

At one point a Black lady obviously homeless, mentally ill, or por que no los dos, came along, dancing with her dirty blanket around here and making odd sounds. Yeah, that's all I need. So in the course of playing the piece I was playing, I played a couple of the higher notes very loudly and pointed at her, and she kind of gradually danced/wandered away. 

Pretty soon I'd been playing about an hour and a quarter and working out how to play "Experimental Film" by They Might Be Giants, and thought, Whew, it's about time to be outta here. At the very end of my planned hour and a half session, a lady came by and dropped in a $10. A nice way to end the day. 

I packed up and counted up. $73. There used to be a magazine called "73 Ham Radio" haha. There was also CQ, there's still QST, there was Radio-Electronics, Popular Electronics, The Monitoring Times, etc. 

That final $10 was really ratty and I wanted to spend it right away so I went into that Whole Foods and they didn't have pint bottles of Guinness, and I didn't want to spend $6+ on a Pliney because  I wanted a snack and a drink for $10 or less so I got a tall can of Lagunitas and two little packages of sliced salami for $8.50 and got rid of that $10. 

Now it was a quarter to nine and there's a train at 8:59 so I walked over to the station and got on it and pretty soon I was back at my home Whole Foods and it was a quarter after nine. And Petition Guy had packed up and left. It had cooled down and obviously he'd gotten cold and called it a day. 

I sat at a table and had my salami and beer, then rode for home. But I ended up on 1st street and decided I wanted more beer and something greasy to eat at the 7-11 which I'd not been in for ages. 

The place is still run by Indian guys who have to deal with a lot of guff. I wanted the 5 or so chicken wings they had in the hot case and one of what looked like a sausage muffin. The guy kept saying the chicken wings are no good, the muffin and the pizza slices are. I said it's find that the wings are dried out, I like to *chew* on them, so the guy got the wings out and a muffin, and I said "Wait a minute," and got a 6-pack of Lagunitas in bottles. So the guy said he's just charging me for the beer, the wings and muffin are free. They were playing Indian music and I said I liked their music and tried to explain how I like the intermediate tones that Western music doesn't have. He said it's Punjabi music, because of course they're Sikhs. 

I rode home with my goodies and once back here, had my yes, tough and dry, wings and the sausage muffin which I added Kewpie mayo to and was pretty good, and drank 5 of the beers and ended up going to bed at 1AM. So I slept through whatever antics the illegal night club was up to. 

I woke up at 10, after having some pretty entertaining dreams. In one, I was using white paint to try to make a white T-shirt out of a black one. In another part, Ken (I think?) was with me and had found that this old derelict electronics store was actually open, run by an old derelict guy, and I was getting my bike ready to go on over to check it out. 

I counted my money and I've got $72 on hand right now.  Since my stomach was not awake yet, I hopped on the bike and headed for the sign place to buy some more striping paint. On the way I passed the "Natural Foods" place and there were new boxes at the base of the traffic signal ... I checked things out and among the cookies and Kinder Joys there were ... a good $150 worth of Ritter Sports, more "Joghurt" flavor and also a lot of cashew ones. So I grabbed those. 

I went over and got my paint, hm, $10 a can is what it works out to. It seems to work well though. I went by the O'Reilley's on the corner and got a nail brush, which will be perfect for scrubbing the overspray off - since I didn't use enough/wide enough masking tape the first paint job. 

In the end it was too windy for painting today and I was too busy. I packed some things and took 'em to the post office, found useful packing stuff on the way back, and now the name of the game is to pack things until however late it takes, to ship them off as soon as I wake up in the morning? Afternoon? Whenever that happens. 

On the return trip form the post office I got at H Mart, among other things, a 6-pack of Spaten beer, imported from Munich, and since I've been to Munich, why not? It's kinda meh though. 

Anyway as soon as I got here and offloaded my buys and finds, I set up the bike trailer and loaded it up with the banana box that the first big batch of Ritter Sports, the "Joghurt" ones, had been in, that I'd put out by the trash enclosure here with a few of the more melted and funny-shaped Sports in it for someone to find. Well, according to bum logic this means ... dump more stuff! So there were blankets and stuff, a pillow, etc. so I loaded that all up and put it in the "natural foods" place dumpster because I know it had room. It's actually handy to know where the various dumpsters are on various nights of the week, that have room. So that was my good deed for the day. 

I wasn't able to check in with Tom and brag about my weekend busking, because while I think he was home (he had the A/C on, but all lights out) I think he'd either walked somewhere (since both of his trucks were there) or was sleeping heavily. But to ease my curiosity and get a firm number, if I count the $50 gift card as money, I made $199 over the three days, total time 3-1/2 hours. So what, $33 an hour? That sounds reasonable. 

 

 

 

One to sing and one to honk

 Ahh, life in an industrial area ... the illegal night club had a bangin' night again and I made my reports ... cops finally called me back around 5AM when the nightclub was closing down. The 911 op did suggest calling Zoning, though, and that's a good idea. It would be funny, but not surprising, if it was a zoning violation that got the building seized. 

So the cops never came around, no need to by the time someone was free, and that was OK except for one ho hanging onto the side of a car with the potential "john" inside, noisily negotiating something. Maybe whether a blow job is an actual job? In any case, I got the horn out and my Wick mouthpiece which is markedly louder than the Yamaha mouthpiece that came with the horn. 

A few scales, with gusto, seemed to send them off. Ruins the mood I guess. 

Then a bit later (I'd done some cleaning of the cornet, valves and 3rd slide and so on and had it all back together) and about 6 lowlifes in a work truck with one of those cabs with seats in the back, came around for some trashy romance time. The lucky(?) guys had found a couple-few of the fattest, ugliest, ho's of the night and were doing .... things ... while crammed into this truck. Then hanging out, talking, etc. So I got the horn out and the Wick again, and worked on my "Die Fahne Hoch", a fine old song. Ruined the mood again and they were off. 

The Wick 4B is a very popular mouthpiece for "brass banding" as the Brits term it, and I learned to appreciate it a bit more. Not only its loudness, but I don't sacrifice as much range as I thought I'd be. So I'm really happy that I have the Yamaha mouthpiece that came with the horn, with a couple tiny dents, a brand-new identical one, and the Wick. 

 

Amazon Jews Again

 I got going early enough to take the bus over to Mountain View to busk, and I'm giving up on the place. Castro Street being pedestrian-only except for cross streets is great, but there are more buskers there than the area can support, they all have amplification, and as I've already mentioned, people in Mountain View are broke. 

The buskers are all probably local, as in it's a short walk to Castro Street, and if they make $10 after hours of doing whatever they do, it's food money. 

I played for 20 minutes and got no tips, not even any apparent notice, and wisely gave up. I got on the train to Sunnyvale and walked down to their Whole Foods and played by the doorway that leads to the parking area. This went well. I was able to play for 45 minutes or so, before I had to get back to the train station. I made $34, and a supposed $50 supposed Amazon supposed gift card, supposedly worth that much money. The poor well-meaning Indian guy with a small kid who gave it to me sure got ripped off. And I'd expect to be ripped off, my bank information stolen, perhaps my bank account cleaned out, if I attempted to use it online. 

I called it a pretty good day, though, and went to the train station. There was a confused Black couple first talking about whether to buy beef, chicken, or beef *and* chicken, and it was amusing me and I was going to tell them about the time I went to Black Bear Diner with a friend who was buying, and it was so noisy that my request for "steak and shrimp" got interpreted as "steak and ribs" and I had to eat this huge meal... but they were confused about which side the Northbound train was on, and I told them it was on the other side and that it's easy; just think of it like cars, the right lane is always going the way you're facing etc. 

I got back to my "home" Whole Foods and got a bunch of things amounting to a bit over the $50 on the gift card, and it turns out an Amazon gift card can't be spent at Whole Foods, which Amazon owns. I'm scared to death to use it online so I'm going to have to see how I can sell the thing for any sort of real money. Maybe a pawn shop or "We Buy Gift Cards" place in an especially skeezy part of town. 

So I paid real, actual, money for the stuff I'd picked out, loaded the stuff on the bike, and checked again with customer service and yep, you can't use it in a real store for real things. 

In the end I have to consider it A Nice Gesture(tm) by the Indian guy, who obviously didn't know any better, and why a Whole Foods employee would sell him a card that can't be used there is a Jewish mystery, as in the poor goyim working there probably instructed to "Always push those Amazon cards!"

So the kind, well-meaning young Indian dad got Jewed, and I'll get maybe $20 for the card if I sell it to Ken so I guess I'm getting Jewed too, but between the guy giving me the card, he can't be faulted for falling for the one of the parasites' scams. 

This is the first, and hopefully the last, time I get given a gift card, and all in all the day worked out well because Sunnyvale was hopping. Murphy Street looked promising, and if there had been someone else at the parking structure doorway, it looked like I'd have done fine at the front, by the movie theater, entrance. $34 for 45 minutes isn't bad at all. 

What I need to do is try out different Whole Foods stores, and have 3-4 of them picked out that are good. I know the one on Hamilton is awful, and the Los Altos one is actually worse.  The Sunnyvale one is actually really nice, and by trying out others, I should end up with a set of them I can rotate them. 

And yet, upon being back here and checking, there are not that many Whole Foods stores in this area. The only one with perhaps some promise is the one out near De Anza college and it's very much a "maybe" because it's in the middle of its big parking lot and so I can't set up and say I'm playing on a space that's "public". But I have Sunnyvale and The Alameda, and that's a good two, plus I haven't tried playing at H Mart or 99 Ranch by me, both of them being super-super busy on weekends.  

When I got back, Petition Guy was talking with a female bum, talking about where there are bushes along the Guadalupe River and where there used to be, and so on.  His own personal living situation is hellish enough that the young zombess would be wise to stick to the bushes. 

So I didn't get to regale him with an account of my "day". I rode home, and, remembering I'd seen it on the way out, grabbed a box of "Ritter Sport Joghurt" bars, about 48 of them, threw the box on top of the bike seat, and walked it in. So yeah over $200 worth of the things if one is counting. And they taste pretty good too. The nearby "Natural Foods" place that's really low-key, as in no signage or anything, randomly puts out things like that.