I play for the impoverished of Mountain View

 I took some stuff apart last night, made my usual online report and phone call to the police about the illegal brothel, yadda yadda. But if I'm up anyway, listening to stuff on YouTube, the pimps and ho's and johns aren't so bothersome. 

I slept so deeply when I woke up around 3:30 in the afternoon, I first thought I have to pack things to send, then realized it's Saturday and I don't have to do that, but planned to busk in Mountain View. 

I left here at 5:30 and by the time I got to Mountain View, on the #522 bus which is supposed to be faster but isn't, it was a bit past 8. 

So I was really only able to effectively busk for about a half hour, maybe a bit more. Now, people in Mountain View are poor. But there are a lot of them, and the main street, Castro Street, has been made mostly pedestrian-only, and the city has even put up things like ping pong tables, "corn hole", etc., all sorts of neat games to play for free, and of course walking is free. 

So the result is tons of people, and it's loud so I have to play loud, but not as many tips as I'd have thought. Still, in the half-hour I had to work in, I made $24.50. 

The main problem here is, 1/2-hour of actual earning, with two hours or more on each side of it. 

I played as late as I dared, until almost 9, and got on a train back to Diridon Station to walk back to Whole Foods where my bike was. I had maybe another 20 minutes I could busk there, and did so, making another $2. 

Again, it's money a person could live on, but the hours and hours of travel make the actual hourly pay quite low. My going to Mountain View to busk is like living in Hau'ula and busking at Koko Kai Marina in Hawaii Kai. At least once I'm out of here, I'll be living somewhere that's a walk or at most a short bus ride to Waikiki, the main busking venue. 

It had been another spendy day, as I'd checked places for those chocolate Quadratini things that seem to be straightening out my insides. CVS, nope. Ada's Market, yep, one overpriced bag, which I bought anyway on principle. Easy Foods had tons of them, a dollar or two cheaper than Ada's, so I got another bag there. Plus I'd bought two meat sticks and a bottle of coffee at Whole Foods before getting on the bus, plus when I was really all done and it was 10 minutes to closing at Whole Foods, I bought a pint of Guinness for just under $4. 

One back here, I counted my total money and I'm up still, to $72 or so. This isn't counting bus and train fares though, and I think there's an optimum way to "do" Mountain View. 

The optimum way is to walk out to the light rail station and take the light rail there. That takes a bit less than an hour, and the walk + the light rail ride is at least 1/2-hour faster than any other way and the cheapest. I could stay and play later without worrying about my bike being back at Whole Foods where if it's left in the rack after they close, will be stripped down and probably utterly gone. But taking the light rail back, I can get back later than 10 and just walk in. 

 

Ayman Mohamad Ghazali RIP you poor bastard

 I woke up at 3 this afternoon. Turned on the radio and the professional victims are filling the airwaves as usual, have "no idea of motive" of the latest attack on a Reform synagogue somewhere in flyover country. 

The long and short of it is, a guy came over here from Lebanon. Became a citizen. Did all the things he was supposed to do. He was 41. Living as an average American, he was not able to afford to had children. He had a niece and a nephew back in the Middle East. They were probably his love and his hope. 

Out of the 5 of us, my brother and my sisters and myself, none of us have kids. I guess none of us saw a way to avoid subjecting a kid or kids to the kind of despair and poverty we went through and opted out. Ayman probably made the same decision. But he loved his niece and nephew, probably wanted to make sure they were safe, maybe bring them here. Give them some kind of hope in life. And Israel killed them.  

The attack was amateur, inept. He had fireworks and some jugs of gas. Aside from knocking out one security guard with his car, the only harm was to himself. 

Ayman being from the Middle East would know what it took me a fair amount of time, temple attendance, and classes to learn: Reform Jews have the purpose in the scheme of things to act as a friendly face, but they are every bit as Zionist as Itamar Ben-Gvir himself. "My" rabbi seemed actually scared that Trump would not win. He could bag on Trump with the best of them, but that was all a cover. 

And so now the professional victims put up this big show of not understanding Ayman's motives. Middle-Easterners are just "bad".  And not understanding the despair of perhaps a guy's whole genetic line killed by Israel and what the guy might do, however inept, is a sure way to ensure these things keep happening. Which is perfect for the professional victims. 

I packed all the things, and headed out to the post office. After dropping the things off I rode up to Dai Thanh Market to look for Loacker chocolate wafer things and they had them. I also checked 99 Ranch and H Mart, and they don't have them. There's a chance Wal-Mart does. 

At H Mart I got some chicken and a can of black coffee and ate sitting out front by my bike. A tattooed scumsucker came up asking me for a cigarette, and I said I don't smoke, and then the security guy noticed it and told it to leave. But not before I suggested asking people at McDonald's. I mean, people who eat shitty food also do shitty things like smoke and cover themselves in prison tattoos... 

It was getting LATE. Of course I picked up shipping stuff on my way back, then got my things together and headed out for Whole Foods to do some busking, however late it is, for the practice if nothing else. 

I played from 9:00 to 9:45 and actually did surprisingly well. This being the kind of town where most people are in bed by 10, people who are out shopping past 9 at night can be called late-night people and I'd forgotten how generous late-night people can be. I also got to talk to some neat people. I played 45 minutes and made $34 and that's wasting a fair amount of time talking. 

When I got back here I counted up my total money on hand. I'd started the day with $62 or $63. I now have $68 in my wallet. A couple bags of quadratini - almost $10. A can of coffee and chicken - about $10. A bag of pork rinds - $3.69 or something. A pint bottle of Guinness and a little tub of Irish cheese cubes - about $10. It's been a spendy day and I'm still up by at least $5. 

 

Chocolate of all things

 I'd basically had the runs for months. I even mentioned it to Ken while I was telling him that celiac disease is in fact real and not a communist disinformation plot. 

I did my things, got a surprisingly good practice in considering it was again at 6-7 in the morning. The thing is, doing notes higher than C in the staff requires a pretty coordinated set of actions, and muscle tension, and all this while the body is just plain tired and wants to just go to bed and rest. 

I practiced while watching a movie called "Area Of Interest" which was interesting. It was based on the idea that a fellow named Hoess, and his wife, in command of Auschwitz, would not only live it up, but experience some kind of deep guilt and then one of their daughters would sneak out at night to stash apples where the prisoners would find them. 

In reality no doubt the real-life Hoess and his wife lived it up, and experienced no guilt at all. It's a pretty close analogue to the experience of someone administering a concentration camp, or "reservation" the remnants of one of our "Indian" tribes are in, or the wealthy administrators/owners of one of our for-profit prisons. Hell, kill off enough people, even children and especially children, and you're a hero. Abraham Lincoln was a noticed "Indian fighter" and Andrew Jackson, who was behind the "Trail Of Tears" and such enterprises, is on our $20 bill. (Benjamin Franklin, who didn't want "Swarthy" people in our country at all, is on our $100 bill.) 

I finally went to bed and woke up at 2 in the afternoon, did things and got going at the usual time, dropped off packages at the post office and deposited my pay check and now I know last week's check was good, and everything adds up. 

Then I went to Whole Foods to lock up the bike and took the #522 bus, the "rapid" one, to the music store which got me there in an hour, the time from my door to theirs the law-of-nature 2 hours. I asked about the soft flute case Craig had shown me last time, and instead he showed me another one which would not work. And I had to wait a half-hour for him to finish a lesson. 

I took the bus back as far as Lawrence and went to the Korean market where they sell really good packing tape, of which they had 3 rolls so I got those, and some cookies that looked like they were chocolate but they were really not. 

But was it ever a day for zombies! It's the warm weather. Crazy people on the bus, at the bus stops, etc. 

I got back to Whole Foods at long last, emphasis on long. I had some chicken and broccoli and a pint of Guinness, and by now it was about 9 in the evening. Keep in mind most people in this town are in bed at 10 and almost everything shuts down at 9. So I didn't get to sit upstairs, but rather had to sit downstairs and watch the antics of ...zombies. 

I got done eating and drinking and riding home, saw a ton of police cars etc at Diridon Station. It was, as could be guessed, a zombie going nuts, yelling a ton of things no one could understand. The thing's zombie dog was taken away by Animal Control and the zombie eventually ran out of energy and ended up in the back of at police car, still yelling but a lot less loud now, and still not yelling anything coherent. 

At one point, riding back on the buses, I'd gone to sit at a seat near the back and there were a bunch of hair clippings there. Someone had given themselves a hair cut there? I said something about getting on a bus and not realizing it was a barber shop, and someone said something like "Sit here" and it was a guy from the Jewish temple. The guy who plays trumpet. We talked a bit, he's still playing trumpet, I'm still same, yadda yadda. Nice enough guy, on the surface and that's what the Reform Judaism crowd is for - to put a happy face on the genocidal cult.  

But the main thing is, the day before yesterday I'd found a bunch of "Loacker" chocolate cookies behind the gym and well, they're good so I'd eaten them all. And today was the first normal "movement" I've had in a long time. 

Now, I'm going through about $3 a day in kim chee and Yakult, which hasn't been helping. If I can eat Loacker chocolate wafers with my breakfast and they cost that much, fine. No headache at all. One big difference is Loacker stuff is made in Italy and has to conform to EU regulations. American chocolate and even Japanese chocolate does not. 

So along with my Guinness and hot-bar dinner, I got a 1/2-lb can of Guittard chocolate powder, which is a local product, made just up the peninsula in San Francisco. No additional ingredients, just ground-up chocolate. I've no problem with having Loacker wafers as part of breakfast, but I'm thinking I can use this powder to make my breakfast coffee a mocha, and that might do it. 

 

Predictably

 I got some practice in around 6-7AM this morning and as could be predicted, it didn't go very well. 

How I'm hoping for when I'll hop on a plane and decrease the number of buskers in a 50 miles radius by 50% by leaving. 

Since I'll be turning 65, I'll be eligible to "audit" classes at the University of Hawaii, and I'll have all day to just play music, practice music, pick shells, go fishing, etc. 

I woke up around 3:30 I think, maybe more like 4:30, had coffee and nuts, and had packed all but one thing last night (a large flat roll of wire was a challenge to find but I eventually found it) and just packed one more small thing, and got out of here the usual time. 

I went to 99 Ranch first for a couple of things then the post office, then dropped off the big box at FedEx and in H Mart, got a package of sliced cheese and a can of cold black coffee and sat in front, enjoying half of the cheese and the coffee, and a little package of two Walker's shortbread cookies that were in the free box. They go well with coffee. 

Ken came by, later than usual but at least he came by and I got my pay check. When I go to the bank tomorrow I'll find out if the check he gave me last week was good. I was going to try to do things where I'd check with my bank today, but I didn't have time and had that big box to  take to FedEx. 

Ken and I talked as usual,  and at one point when on this idiotic "I don't like 'gluten-free' being pushed on everyone!!" thing. I fired up Google and showed how celiac disease is real, and went on about how if I see gluten-free written next to items on a menu, I don't consider that to be pushed on me; I'm glad to see that those who need to avoid gluten have some things they can get on the menu. Furthermore, I told him how I've had the weirdest thing happen, where I have diarrhea every day. It's not that big a problem, I "go" after breakfast, have my ass explosion, clean up, then I'm good until the next day after breakfast. But it can't be healthy and while talking, looked up all this stuff about celiac disease and decided I might try avoiding gluten for a while and see if it fixes things. 

Maybe I should have told him his diabetes isn't really real, and instead of insulin he needs to pray to Jeebus or some shit. In any case, he seemed to come around to admitting diseases that are real, can be real. Fucking Boomers man. 

He also mentioned, now that I found out, and told him, that the lease here is up on August 31, that he wonders what the landlord will do in terms of how much the rent will be, how long a lease to sign, etc. I said that it's not just me leaving in about a year and half, it's also if his day job lets him go, then he'll want to operate this business full time. He agreed that's what he'll want to do. 

In any case, although I keep repeating that I'm "white-knuckling it" and holding out until September of 2027, I'm getting prepared to leave earlier if things turn to shit here. If I leave a few months early, that's only a small time window where I'd not have Medi-Cal and not yet be on Medicare. Not drinking, and maybe being off of gluten, means I could assume I'd be healthy for that small period of time. 

 

 

The ol' 198th mitzvah ....

 Look it up, I still can't link it. It's a juicy read! 

It may be time to switch to Upscrolled, "It's not Zionist controlled!" and for blogging purposes, whichever one The Archdruid Greer is using these days. Wordpress I think? 

I got to work listing the 20 things I had photo'd last night and just kind of "ran out of gas" and had a stomach ace, which totally had nothing to do with the big batch of mushrooms I dumpster-dived and cooked up, and the 3 Romaine lettuce hearts from the same source I ate like potato chips, raw. 

So I kind of "ran out of gas" and slept until 3:30 in the afternoon. 

No practice, didn't even brush my teeth.  

I had my brekkie and packed what I could, and got out of here at 10 to 6. Dropped the things off at the post office and bounced back to H Mart where I locked the bike, and took my bag of change with me to Ross, where I bought a couple of pillow cases, and Sprouts, where I bought some olives and some expensive Swiss cheese from ... Switzerland. 

I walked back to H Mart, where I wandered around for the longest time .... I dunno, I was in a "meh" mood and everything was "meh". I eventually bought a package of frozen scallops and got out of there. 

Behind the gym I found a good $15 or more worth of Loacker chocolate wafer things, there goes my diet for now I guess. At least $15 or more worth of them is still not that many.  

So today's freebee was the Loacker chocolate wafer things, and today's excitement was a horrible screaming zombess, that was staggering along through the intersection I had to go through to go from H Mart to Sprouts. The thing was screaming incoherently, as you'd expect the undead to scream, and could still be heard from an amazing distance. Zombie virus ain't no joke.  

When the planes stop flying

 Is is now? 

 I'm not allowed to paste links any more. Yes, the Internet is dying also, but right now it's about being able to fly on a plane anywhere, unless one is wealthy enough to charter one. 

How much worse will it be in a year and a half when I want to return to Hawaii? If the planes are not flying, one plan would be to take a cruise that stops in Honolulu and jump ship. Another plan is to hitch a ride with someone sailing there, or even buy a sailboat and sail there myself - this last could get complicated as I have zero ocean-crossing experience. I guess I'd have to take sailing classes and get certified, then the whole buying a boat and provisioning it and making sure it's seaworthy. All a huge bother, so here's hoping the planes will keep flying for a while. 

OK I've just looked up the Wikipedia listing for Osmium, the most dense element and the most non-political thing I can imagine, and I'm not even allowed to link that. 

I got up, due to my alarm clock, at 2 this afternoon, was out the door at 3, and got over to Grainger before 4, and got a bright yellow hat that's an exact match to my bright orange one, but yellow. And it was $15 and change, a very fair price. That place is amazing, they have every tool... 

On my way back from Grainger I dropped off the packages I had, that I'd packed last night, at the post office and then went over to 99 Ranch for a bit of shopping, then hit H Mart for some other things. 

Then the dumpster patrol, and I found some good packing stuff and some things to list on Ebay to the tune of at least $100 and maybe more than that. It's funny too because there was a bum resting with his back against the building, just sitting on the asphalt, taking a break from can-collecting by the look of things. He made some weird sounds like groans and other than that didn't even acknowledge I was there, having a look at the same dumpsters he'd just gone through, and here I found a box with $100-$200 worth of stuff and eagerly put it on top of the plastic tub on my bike trailer and headed off. Tootle-oo!

Of course Mr. Bum has no way to list things on Ebay, no storage, probably no credit card or bank account or ability to stay on top of shipping, etc. Those guys are strictly hand-to-mouth, or collected cans to recycle place to cash to drug dealer. 

I could do that once I'm back in Hawaii. No, not the routine involving a drug dealer, I mean getting going on Ebay on my own again. I'll have enough money to float on while I'd get it established, but every time I think about doing this, I realize I don't want to go back to the Ebay grind, not for Ken and not for myself. Living cheap, learning and playing music, and collecting my Social Security check will be good enough for me.  

 

Time shifted back

 I woke up at 3:30 woops no, 4:30. I wanted to be out the door at 5, Oh joy. 

By the time I was out the door it was 5:30, but I only had to be at FedEx before 6, to drop off a box containing $1000+ of capacitors going to MIT. 

I got back here and went through a ton of scenarios; I wanted to go busk in Mountain View, and I debated whether to walk to the light rail, ride the bike to the light rail and take it along, ride down to Whole Foods and take the train, or take the 500 bus .... 

I ended up riding the bike to Whole Foods by the quickest route, over the hill that overlooks Bellermine, and since I'd chewed my sugar-free gum on the way, my mouth was all clean and I was ready to go when  I got there. 

Skinny Petition Guy was there but we're friends now so no worries. 

There were lots of people going in and out shopping, but the tips were very slow. Interestingly, I got two of the larger tips, a $5 and a $10, from Muslim-looking guys, while or right after playing "Morning Has Broken" by Cat Stevens, a musician who famously converted to Islam. I'll need to learn more of his stuff because he wrote some really nice songs, and we had his albums "Tea For The Tillerman" and "Teaser And The Firecat" around the house when I was a kid. 

Petition Guy and I talked a bit, and he was especially congenial since I'd given him some pens. I seem to buy pens faster than I can use them up, so I'm happy to share. 

I put in my hour and a half and as always, it was worth it because it's such good practice and besides, I learned a new son, "Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head". I remember when I was little I bugged and bugged and bugged my mother for a guitar. So I finally got my guitar, a Sears Silvertone which most guitarists concur is one of the biggest hunks of shit ever made. It was way too big for me, or I too small for it, and those steel strings were much better suited to slicing cheese than for an 8 or 9 year old to learn chords. 

My mom, in frustration, finally took me to a teacher, a nice lady with a guitar of her own with black nylon strings, and which was only a little bit oversized for me. She wanted me to learn "Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head" which I figured was kind of a dig at my crying in frustration. Later, there was a movie about Butch Cassidy And The Sundance Kid and for some reason this song is played at the end of the movie.  Of course we had to see it because it was shown at the Mormon-owned theater in La'ie where my mom had a job, and free or cheap tickets, that job being conditional on our becoming Mormon so it didn't last, but having Mom work at the movie theater was pretty cool there for a while. 

And here it was, my fingers going in mostly the right places, and I could play it. 

Slow tips or not, after an hour and a half I'd done enough and I counted up: $43.31 making it pretty exactly $100 for the weekend. And lots of compliments on my playing. 

I went in and got meatloaf and some chicken bits and broccoli and a couple of curried shrimp, and a pint of Guinness and went upstairs to eat. I actually ate all that too. 

I went back downstairs and hung out with Petition Guy for a bit, and he told me all this stuff about his rather awful life. How he married some gal in Africa who's 30-odd years younger than him, how useless she and their daughter is, how his "life's work" a bunch of photographs and stuff, file cabinets full, are in a storage in Santa Cruz with her stuff stuffed in front so he can't get at his, how his car has a cracked head so he can only drive it short distances, how his computer's broken too, and the room he lives in is full of mold so he's dizzy all the time, yadda yadda. 

How much of this is self-imposed! He won't buy a used computer but has to have a new one with Apple Care. He won't store his stuff in the rather nice storage place Ken found where you can get a huge space for $300 a month, because Milpitas is "at sea level". How he won't live in an apartment because of all the electromagnetic fields ....  And marrying someone in Africa who's 30-odd years his junior... she was 21 or so, he says. I said in the 50s when my parents married, if you got to 21 or so without being married, it was because no one wanted you. So ..... 

By this time Whole Foods was closing up so I left for home. On Hedding Street I found a whole garage sale worth of stuff with a big sign, "FREE STUFF" and all I found I wanted was some paper bubble mailers. There were dressers, clothing, shoes, even some kind of motorized juicer thing. But in a Depression economy, no one wants that.