Americans are cars

 I've been thinking this concept over for a while, and over the long term it holds up very well. Americans are cars. 

 

A year might be stretching it

 Things are deteriorating so fast, I think that I've got a year left before it becomes very difficult or impossible to go back home, is optimistic. 

The internet is shutting down, for instance. Reddit is becoming impossible to read unless you're signed in, and you can only sign in if you're  in complete agreement with their politics. (And what people think their stance is, isn't. You have to be Zionist as hell, for starters. And you have to be a classic American liberal which means you show a facade of being Left, but in reality you're Zionist Right. To further complicate things, Zionist Right has very little to do with the actual political Right, and everything to do with being a good goy.) 

As another example of how the internet is less useful than the Pennysaver, there's no way to, using the internet, tell when downtown Sunnyvale will be monopolized by everyone's favorite band, Loud Band. I tried. So I just went there last night and it turned out to be fine. 

In fact, on my ride home last night I went through San Pedro Square and Loud Band was doing its thing there, and it was really loud. I like to ride around a bit, not least to see if any other buskers exist and I can say they're just about completely extinct here. 

I got 30 things together last night and photographed them and listed 10, and went to bed. I woke up around 4, but since I didn't have to leave until 7, it was OK. I had one thing that supposedly had to go to the Middle East and I'd tried mailing it on Friday with no luck. I tried again and it's still not possible so I just canceled the order etc. Another thing had to go to Canada and I simply could not find it. So I had to cancel that order too. That left a big order of 15 things to pack and get to FedEx. 

I had time to go to Lowe's for some Windex and since they have self-checkouts that take cash, I brought a bunch of change. I saw they had a sale on Dawn too so I got that, and found that the machine was "not processing cash at this time" so I paid using my card. At least the next stop was Sprouts where I got a bubble mailer and some cheese, that last for $5, and their self-checkout *did* take change. 

Then I dropped off the big box and got a cold coffee in H Mart and sat and enjoyed that along with some "seaweed peanuts" from 99 Ranch. I'm 2 lbs down from last week so  I'm doing something right. 

 

Last busking day of August

 I tried to get going a bit earlier today, but in the end I left at 5 anyway. But it was at 5, not some time after 5, and I got over to the bus stop pretty quickly too. But of course the 2-hour rule can't be broken under any circumstances, so this time the #522 buses didn't seem to be running at all and I rode a #22 and got to the Sunnyvale Whole Foods at 7. 

It went OK I guess, except that in an area where 8 or 9 at night is considered really late, I need to start getting there earlier, maybe leaving here at 3. 

I played until 8 and made $35. Then it started feeling really dead so I walked back to the bus stop, stopping at Baraka Market for some olives, and got back to the Sunnyvale Whole Foods at 9. My bike was knocked over but nothing was harmed. Probably some kind of drama, as the bums are thick on the ground these days and bums love drama. 

When I'd arrived there and locked the bike, there was a bum-ess sitting right in front of the bike racks, very much on Whole Foods property, with the usual piles of bum-junk, and a really cute dog. And a sign, unreadable of course, because that's some sort of a law, that beggars have to have a sign that's unreadable. So maybe she'd gotten in a fight with another bum or something. 

Anyway, I actually set up to play some more. I started at a quarter after 9 and figured I'll try it out until a quarter to 10. It was really dead though. I probably only played until a bit after 9:30, making $8, then went in and got a bag of hazelnuts and had a nice conversation with Kenny about busking.  

They deported Milo

 Haha they deported "Milo Yannoupolis" or however the guy's name is spelled. Honestly, if he was going to stay in the US he'd need to Anglicize his name, pronto. 

Anyway he's a "far right" clown who was all for deportations, and the leopard ate *his* face so it's pretty funny. Back to the UK for him. I wish they'd find an excuse to send *me* to the UK, I can even pass their little online "cultural citizenship" test without any studying. 

I practiced last night and it went really well. I'm not sure how well high notes are supposed to work with the traditional deep cup type mouthpiece I'm using. I think it's leading to a better development of my embouchure where a traditional 3C trumpet mouthpiece is more of a "cheater". My thinking is, if/when I go back to a 3C, I'll be able to run circles around where I was before. 

I left here at 5, and rode right over to Whole Foods and locked up the bike. I had $4 on me so I got one beef stick, since that's the game (I'd left the $20 bill I had at home). 

There was a guy begging, standing about where I'd stand if I were playing there. He called out to people, "Do you want to donate to a charity?". He was not wearing any kind of a vest or anything, no booth or even a chair, and I'm sure his ankles and feet, in slippers and looking like they'd not been washed in months plus the guy might have diabetes, were quite convincing to the charity-donating portion of the public. So I'd just locked the bike and got my stuff together and got out of there so the guy would know I was not going to set up and interfere with his .... charity work. 

I got to the bus stop just as the #522 bus came so that was nice.  I got to the Sunnyvale Whole Foods and started busking at 6:45. There was a hitch, though. First, it was kind of windy, but mainly, there was some kind of really loud festival or something going on nearby. 

I set up in the parking structure and that was OK. The festival sounded like it was at least partially a Dolly Parton tribute and I could not compete with that. I played for an hour and made $26. I decided to get out of there and get back to my "home" Whole Foods and it would probably be late enough for the bum to have made his money and gone. 

I walked out to the bus and didn't even get a yogurt drink because I was going to play some more. At the bus stop there was a big Black guy with one pant leg sort of hitched up or taped up or something like he was riding a bike, but with no bike in sight. He was staggering around and talking and yelling to himself, and threw a pair of pants out into the road. Then went and picked up the pants. Then  threw them again. 

A chubby Indian or probably Pakistani guy came up, to wait for the bus too, and then a couple of gals who made the mistake of walking over by the bus shelter which this bum had sort of claimed with his erratic behavior. He hassled them so much they walked back, past myself and the other guy, and I guess just away somewhere. 

The guy came up to us and started demanding to know when the bus would come, which I didn't know, how long I'd been there, which was maybe 12 or 15 minutes. Then asked the other guy and I said he got here after me. He asked where I was from and I said Sunnyvale born and raised. Then he said he was San Jose born and raised and I said "My condolences" and then he wanted to know my age; he's 58. I said 85 and when that didn't seem to fly, I said "We vampires live forever" and made the kind of smile that shows my fang-y teeth haha. 

The bus showed up and the Pakistani guy and I got on, and I tried to tell the driver, through the barrier, that this guy's causing a lot of trouble and bothering everyone, and to not let him on. Too late, though, as he'd gone in the other door. A young, fit, but small Hispanic guy said he'd threatened him, too.  

So now it was up to the bum to, of course, come up to the driver and do his best to get in her face, and I'm sure she was thankful for the barrier. He walked to the back of the bus and then came up and ranted some more, walked back again, then up to the front and got off the bus. 

So the bus went on, and in a short while I was back at my "home" Whole Foods and I wasn't sure if I'd set up and play, as it was windy, but I thought, What the heck, let's do this. 

So I set up and played, and it went fairly well, considering. It was a little bit windy, it was 8:45 when I started, and there was some kind of custom car show or something going on so there were people with vintage cars - but somehow, modern sound systems - coming through every once in a while, blasting their tunes. And presently a ton of cops came down the road, sirens going. 

I'd made $26 in the hour or so I played in Sunnyvale, and made $27 in the 45 minutes or so I'd played there in Sunnyvale. Really I'd just made $7 in $1's when the bunch of police cars went by, and a lady spent a while digging around in her purse and seeming to think over things a bit, then put in a $20. I took that as my cue to leave and I packed up. 

Also, a weird gal with some kind of speech impediment that causes her to talk about 2X as fast as needed, wanted to donate something but off of her EBT as "All I have is my name". And EBT. As well as I could understand her. I said I sure don't want to take someone's EBT money but she insisted. So I said she could buy me a bag of hazel nuts as I buy those all the time and they're only about $6. 

She then hung out by the carts for a while, then came back up to me and said she's going in to get the nuts, and I said, OK. But then school of cop cars went by and the lady dropped in a $20 and I was set to leave. So I packed up and looked around for her inside Whole Foods and didn't see her. She seemed really scatterbrained and probably forget what she was in there for or something. So I just got two beef sticks for tomorrow and got on my bike and rode off. 

I wanted to see what all the cop cars were going to, and rode up The Alameda and all I could tell was they had an area blocked off to car traffic and it seems pretty serious. 

All in all things seemed kind of crazy today and sure enough it's a full moon. 

 

Does "israel" have a right to exist?

 Yes, I say, in the sense that it existed during the Ottoman Empire. If the good guys had won WWII, the rest of the small-hats would have been sent there and they could live as "dhimmis", or hosts of Islam, allowed to practice their "religion" such as it is (it's hard to call a regime of parasitism a religion) and not allowed to prey on the human population allowing them to live. 

When I started seeing the gaping holes in the supposed logic behind modern Judaism, I thought, Well, if I were really devoted to this religion I'd not mind living as a dhimmi, paying my dhimmi tax and being allowed to live humbly, do my reading and prayers and all that, and I would feel good that I'm not harming other human beings. 

But herein lies why I could never become a Jew, even though I thought so at one time. I see humans as humans, I see the natural world as something worth treasuring and caring for, and could never internalize the parasite view of the world, where all people other than fellow parasites are things to be used, the natural world a thing to be used, etc. 

To give an example of the right way for things to be done, the Amish/Mennonites are very devoted to their religion. So they've found a way to live that doesn't step on the toes of others. One could say they pay a "dhimmi tax" in that they have to pay income tax, register their carriages etc., but they do these things and life goes on. They're not taking over anyone's banking systems or media, or medical "industry" or loan sharking, or distributing drugs, or importing immigrants who won't fit in, etc. They are not parasites. 

I photo'd 20 things last night and listed 10, found things to pack today when I got up, and when I got up I packed them and was off to FedEx and the post office. I practiced last night but I was tired and it was a short practice. 

 

Quite a day for bums

 Ken didn't come by last night. I channeled my nervous energy into putting all the things I'd listed for this month, basically, away. It was a lot of things. 

Once it was clear he wasn't coming by, I got 20 things camera-ready, which also took up some time since I had to *wash* some circuit boards. 

Then  I got to work getting 24 things together that were all one order, putting them in a box with the sheet of notebook paper I'd written down each thing on and how much shipping there was on it. 

After all this, I settled down and got a good practice session in. The high notes were working quite well, so I was pretty happy and eventually went to bed around 8AM. 

I woke up at 4PM, had breakfast and coffee, and packed the one big order and had time to find one circuit board that really ought to go out today and which I thought I'd have to do a lengthy search for. It turned out to be easy to find and I packed it up and took off for the post office etc. 

I dropped off the two big boxes (I also had packed some BIG resistors for a guy) at FedEx and went over to the post office. 

I was leaving the post office, headed for 99 Ranch and waiting for the light on Brokaw when, as the light changed for cross traffic, a car went by and someone in it yelled something incoherent at me. Normally I'd worry but this person looked like a bum, and the car looked like it had been in several accidents and then hammered back into car-shape with an actual hammer. 

I have no idea what this creature was trying to say. I've mentioned how the underclass talks in what might as well be a different language, a sort of muttered mumbled yowling that I can't make head or tail of. I've had bums holding a conversation right outside the roll-up door here, which meant I could listen from inside, only a few feet from them, and I was still not able to understand what the hell they were talking about. 

So this bum in the bum-car, being driven by another bum, was angry at me, I think, for some reason. It seems some loud expletive was uttered, something the equivalent of "FUCK YOU!" but it was not any word in any language I know of. I don't know if the bum thought I was someone else, or what. I take care to not interact with bums because they are dangerous to anyone foolish enough to get close, friend or foe. 

I sallied into the parking lot of 99 Ranch and was just pulling into where I park, where the notice board used to be which is a nice sort of niche to park my bike and trailer, when, as I was coming in,  I saw at once *another* bum, shirtless and filthy, calling out to the occupants of a bum-truck, likewise filthy, that was driving through the parking lot. The first bum kept yelling something about "WHITE MAN" and I thought they knew each other. 

The bum appeared to follow the truck on its way out, and I thought, Good, they'll go fight or do a drug deal or whatever's up, and I'll have time to go in and shop. I went in an got boiled peanuts and a couple other things, and went back out. The bum was now sitting at one of the tables outside the "Bamboo" coffee shop. Lovely. 

I made the mistake of looking over at the bum as I rode out of there and it yelled some incoherent blather at me. It was quite a day for bums. 

I went over to H Mart and got a can of coffee and settled down to enjoy my boiled peanuts. I also called Ken and he's back from vacation. I said, "I didn't see you last night" and he said, "I was probably over Canada then". I'll see him again next week.

It's good to know he's still alive and everything's OK. I figure things might get pretty dodgy as time goes on, but all I have to last out now is another year.  

First day A.P. (After Parton)

 RIP Dolly. She was the paragon of what a good, famous, entertainer can be. Not Lennon, who was more self-indulgent than anything. Not Sinatra, who turns out to have been a raging Zionist so yeah, pretty much a shining example of evil. Nope, good old Dolly. Hell I turned on KPFK after getting up, and there was Davey D. talking about her. 

My friend, maybe I should say "friend" now, in Pahoa, Hawaii, is seriously creeping me out. First he's apparently arguing that Jerry Sienfeld is not a pedophile, and I guess Cheeto Donny isn't either. Needless to say he's a Zionist. 

I said in reply that I'm beginning to understand why he chose to isolate himself in Pahoa. I'm not sure I'll communicate with him any more. He's enemies with all of his neighbors, and for someone who was in the music/entertainment scene on Oahu as much as he was, he appears to have zero friends. 

I have a feeling mentioning that I knew him, in anything but disdainful terms, will hurt me in the future.  I think he's burned every bridge he possibly can. 

The only basis for our supposed friendship is we went up the Haiku Stairs together. Looking back, big whoop. The other guy, the Chinese guy with two houses and a condo and yadda yadda, who's really far-right politically, likewise for someone who worked for so many years for Hawaii Public Radio and the Honolulu Sheriff's, seems to have zero friends also and considering his views and personality, I'd not want to say I know him either. 

Se we went on this hike, really more of a "walk" for me, having grown up "hiking" for miles on various trails, barefoot too, and the next day I showed up for work as chipper as ever, and I didn't see the other two for a couple of days because they were so out of shape. Not much of a "bonding experience" really. 

And they might have had to spend the night in the jungle there if it weren't for me. It got so dark I could not see my hand in front of my face, but I knew how to feel the trail with my hands and tell where people had gone, and led us out. 

Time to rid myself of those two anchors around my neck! 

On to new worries... I got another email from the landlord's secretary, bugging us to sign the lease agreement. I replied that Ken's been gone on vacation, that I expect to see him tonight, and will bug him to do so.