Some time to think

 I had plenty of time to think about things because I had two small orders to pack, one order of 4 things, one of 13 things, and one of 20 things. So I was up all night finding the things and packing them. Whew! 

The main thing I thought was, I was looking at flight and hotel packages involving close to a month in the hotel. But, I could look them up for 2 weeks in the hotel, about half the time, which would cut the cost down by quite a bit. In two weeks I'd have my feet on the ground, have found a storage unit if I feel I need one, and then if I haven't found a room to rent I can always do more hotel time, give the capsule place a try, or something. The Y's cheap too and actually comes up as an option. 

I wanted to get the things packed because these customers have a way of adding more and more things and in the case of the 20-item order, that took a wheel box to fit all the things. It's pretty handy having a wheel and tire place nearby with customers who order big rims.  They come in nice big boxes.

 

Rest in Piss, Barney Frank

 Yeah yeah great guy, champion of LGBT etc yadda yadda. Except like a true member of the Tribe, really only on the side of the G, not the L, and spent his last few years slagging on the B and T. AIPAC approved! So bye-bye.... 

I slept a bit better last night, and am amazing at how much money I'm not spending by not buying beer. I (over)spent $4 on some mustard today and that was it. 

I got back here, had some dinner and did other things like clean the place up, wash out the shop vac in preparation for putting in a new bag, and expected Ken to come in while I was still doing that, but nope. I called 2X and no answer. So here I am, waiting, and no pay check, no call no nothing. 

This would be less worrying if I hadn't gotten an email from the landlord saying he still hasn't paid the $1000 or so he owes them. 

Being evicted is a funny thing. In theory you've got a month, some even say longer. Some others say you can get kicked out in 3 days. The reality seems to be somewhere in between. When the economy crashed in 2007-08, I suddenly was only getting in about $1500 a month instead of the usual 6 grand. That ... was a problem. I would have been evicted and liable for what was left on my lease except (a) I arranged somewhere to go, and (b) I found someone to take over my lease. So in reality I had something like a couple of weeks. I wasn't delinquent any rent, either. 

The thing is that if Ken is really crashing out, things are going to get strange and quickly. I really want that extra year to save up money. 

I looked at the airline I want to fly on and for some reason I can't buy a one-way ticket, but one thing they have is a "package" of flight and hotel. Some of those are interesting. Like the YMCA and a capsule hotel. Some are regular conventional places. But it looks like I can get the flight and just under a month in a hotel for 4-5 grand. The trouble being I only have about 5 grand in the bank right now which might be where that capsule place comes in. 

 

 

Not fuck all.

 Last night was interesting. The illegal night club didn't set up at all. There were only a couple of cars with confused pimps and ho's that came around, and left. Maybe they nabbed someone really important to the operation last night. Just not fuck all went on and it was very quiet, like it used to be. It was really nice. 

That didn't keep me from staying up all night, finally going to sleep around 6-7AM. And was awakened by the guys next door messing around, and then starting up their pressure washer to clean up what looked like a lot of tables for a restaurant. It sounded like it was right outside my door. I took a peek out and well, they kind of were, but if I'd had to get out with my bike there was plenty of room so I couldn't fault them. It *is* an industrial area. 

I kind of went into half-sleep until 3 then got up. I turned on the radio and it was on KPFA and the Background Briefing guy was talking about how much Our Most Zionist President is fucking things up. Australia running out of jet fuel because they normally get it from Chinese refiners. Things like that. 

 

My idea of fun

 Well, the hip's just about all better. I'm glad it wasn't going to become a chronic thing, like my sore back. 

I listed 20 things on Ebay last night, and the illegal night club, despite being rousted all to hell the night before, set up for a rousing night. By 2:30 in the morning there was a group of 10 or 15 having loud arguments right near me, two guys had parked their cars right in front of my door, and the overall vibe was that this night there'd likely be a fight. 

That's their idea of fun? OK well here's my idea of fun - calling da copz. I told the operator about the big crowd and the vibe, that I'd seen it before when people are more "aggro" and there was a lot of young guys, and pretty soon here came da copz. 

Now, at any given time da copz have priorities, and there are a lot of things more serious than shutting down the local whorehouse. But, if a given location gets enough calls, I think it moves up on the priority list a bit and da copz are probably starting to get almost as tired of these idiots as I am. 

(I keep putting off calling Zoning and Vice, thinking that well, maybe things are tapering down now. But they're not and during the week I have a couple of phone calls to make.) 

All these idiots had to do was leave me the fuck alone, and I'd not care one least bit. With the gate closed now, they should be able to keep their craziness over on their side but nope, they're like Israeli settlers* and the only reasonable thing to do is push back. 

*I'm exaggerating. If they were like Israeli settlers they'd have taken over that whole building, its erstwhile occupants in a lime pit somewhere, and this building would be a flattened pile of rubble with my bones under there somewhere. 

I'm emailing back and forth with Pat on the island of Hawaii and he's so full of Fox News crap it's unbelievable. I finally said that there are only two people who believe in this rosy vision of Israel; Zionists and boomers. And we boomers are dying off at a good rate, and the world is turning against Zionism. 

I went out to do some shopping, and the End Times wind was really riotous today. It was windy the last couple of days too but today was really nuts. This same weather system has made it to Idaho by now, hence a couple of airshow planes had a spectacular mid-air collision (fortunately all 4 crew, pilot plus so-pilot for each plane) got out OK. The planes, F18 "Growlers" are not being made any more but all they have to to is mention to Pete Kegsbreath that a "growler" is a name for a large container of beer and I'm sure they'll start making them again. 

I locked up the bike at H Mart and walked over to Home Goods - they don't sell luggage. Then to Ross, which does. There are tons of nice new pieces of luggage and if I don't mind spending a hundred or so, I can get kitted out nicely. It's tempting too. Get a nice "travel backpack" and a larger case to hold the cornet in its case, the cornet gig bag, and odds and ends like clothes to fill it out, have the important stuff in the travel backpack, and sell my fancy European made backpack and fancy messenger bag and will come out even. 

I got more Kerrygold butter, some soft Kerrygold butter with avocado oil in a little tub, more chocolate powder for my morning mochas, and one tall can of IPA. I went to sleep on 3 regular cans of beer and that was plenty last night. Tonight I'll go to sleep on the one tall can of IPA and after that won't buy any more beer. 

As usual there's discussion on Reddit of how the orange diaper-filler is fucking over his own constituents. He looks like a populist, but he's really not. Hitler, when he came into power, did tons for the regular working-class German. Huey Long, "The Kingfish", appealed to the working class and he meant it. If he'd come into power the working class would have made out well and our Great Depression would not have been so hard on the average person. Charles Lindbergh, same. 

In all of these cases, of true populists, yes, you'd do better if you were white, but in the case of Zio-puppet El Dumpo, his policies are hurting the white working class the most. What was that J.C. said, something about knowing a tree by its fruit? 

I've been puzzled at myself, lately. Why was it that when the financial troubles started, and Ken wasn't able to pay me, electricity off, etc., was my response to get out there busking? And why hasn't it been the case more recently when I've been barely even practicing? 

I think in the first case it was a combination of the "false summer" we had, and also, I honestly thought we had at least a year, more like a couple more years, on the lease here. So I thought times might get tough but I'd have a place to stay for at least another year. Then one day the landlord and his secretary came around and knocked on my door by mistake; they really wanted to talk to the people next door. But I had a chance to have a nice little chat, and Oh incidentally, when's our lease run out?  A quick look on her phone and the secretary told me August 31st. 

That's what makes the difference. There's no promise I'll have a place to live past August 31st. And while I could probably make a go of things here, in the most expensive place in the country, where if one is lucky they see the ocean once every 10 years, I don't really want to.  Living here in the Bay Area has taught me a lot about scrounging, living without running water or power, living on next to nothing and having about 10 tricks up my sleeve to make money, but I'd rather practice those skills back home than here. 

 www.archive.ph/iPDTU OK I can't post a clickable link, but if you cut and paste this into your browser, it will take you to a WIRED story about how horrible it is to work in computers/on the internet now. I'd rather collect cans! 

 

Am I getting old?

 Sometime last night or more like yesterday afternoon, I twisted wrong or something and amazingly, my left hip hurts. It doesn't feel like the bone or anything, but more like one or more of the muscles/ligaments that move my leg at the hip joint. 

My evening's work consisted of digging out 15 things a guy had ordered and packing them. Between that and dinner an a later night snack because I felt pretty hungry later, that was it for the night. Then I got involved watching an interesting documentary on early cartoon animation and had 4 beers and went to bed. 

Since it was Friday night and I had the package I wanted to go out all packed and done, I'd kind of given myself permission to sleep as much as I want, as surely I'd still be up in time to get the package to FedEx. And I was, although I woke up at almost 4 in the afternoon. 

I didn't feel great, but my hip was a bit better, and I had  a couple of aspirin and some black coffee, and got out of here just a bit after 5. I dropped off my very neatly packed box at FedEx and my trash to the trash can, and parked the bike by H Mart and looked around in there for quite a while. 

If I'm to take 2 rounded tablespoons of nutritional yeast a day, well, the concept of putting it in a smoothie type thing is just gross. And putting it in soup is just kind of weird. I've sprinkled it on buttered bread and it's delicious that way, although it's really easy to make a mess with the powder. 

So, I figure, the thing to do is mix it with butter and spread it on something and what would work really well is some sort of bread because that can be used to wipe every last bit out of the bowl I'd mix it in. 

So I was looking through H Mart for some bread, dammit. I didn't find any (although I didn't look in the little bakery that's in the store but actually its own thing) and settled on a package of 5 frozen "puff parathas" which I've had before and are good. Hell I even looked at the different flours, thinking of making my own pita bread or something. But 5 nice little flat breads with green onions in, for $2.50 and I can fry up a fresh one each day, sounds like something that will work. 

A good part of why I felt like shit when I woke up was, not only did I eat that huge flour tortilla I'd gotten from the halal truck, but I'd also cooked up the teotkebokki (sp?) which are just rods of pure rice flour, and then since the sauce was so spicy, once I'd eaten the little rods, I'd boiled up some spaghetti and put that in. So it was a huge carb-fest. And the 4 beers sure didn't help. 

So if I'm going to have a paratha or a crepe or a slice of bread or a roll or something daily, I'll stop having my chocolate quatratini's with my morning mocha, because the cocoa in the mocha is probably enough. 

On my way back I found packing stuff, and at the laptop repair place a huge orange anti-static bag, bright orange, large trash bag size so I used that to carry the bubble wrap etc I gathered up. I can cut it up and use it to wrap around circuit boards later, and carrying this huge bright orange bag was kind of hilarious. 

I rode back along Rogers Avenue, and on the way back, I decided to check out these dumpsters I go by all the time. In prime bum territory. So I stopped there and as soon as I did, a nasty dirty zombess of the type that never-ever washes its hands, came out and said Hi in its raspy voice. I said little pleasantries, and looked in the dumpsters. Not worth visiting again, but one had a box of salad type stuff, lettuce etc., in it. So I told the zombess, who said she could not lift it, and I said that's why to always have a knife on you, you can cut open the box and take some of the contents out. 

As we headed back to the street, I commented that the the teapot the zombess was carrying is the same one I have, and that it's a great little tea pot to use on a butane stove, and she said the guy who gave it to her wanted her to recycle it, but she wanted to keep it to make tea. I said that's a great idea and rode off. 

Once I'd covered the distance in the time it took for the zombess to get across the street and confer with the gaggle of bums there, she called out to me. No doubt wants to sell me something, or has made up something to motivate the gaggle of bums to attack. Maybe say I'd stolen something from her, or she's seen a lot of money in my pocket, anything that would motivate a bunch of druggies to gang up and presumably share the spoils. 

So I kept riding, speeding up a little, and hoping none of the bums were able to pursue, maybe on a faster bike or one of them has a car somehow. But none did. And thanks to the closed gate on my side of this complex, I had to ride around the far end which helps to be that much more misleading about where I'm going. I got in here and put things away and This, Kids, Is Why You Avoid Zombie Infested Areas. 

Ahh, the closed gate ... it's been really helpful. And interestingly, the cops seem to be if anything more eager to shut down the illegal night club/brothel. They seem to know the two buildings are under different owners, and the gate being closed emphasizes this. As always I'm ready to call the cops if the brothel and its clients cause trouble for me, but it looked like it would be a relatively quiet night, and then about half an hour after the place started its operation, the cops swooped in and shut that shit down. As always, it was hilarious. Sirens and lights, and the brothel participants apparently staying inside the place hoping the cops would go away, then eventually doing their "rats leaving a sinking ship" routine and swarming out of there. 

 

Nakhba day

 Some good things: First, Hawaii won their case against "Citizens United" which would be better called "Zionists United". Secondly, it turns out that in Hawaii, their Medicaid, called Medi-Quest, apparently will pay the premium I have to pay for Medicare. Something called Part B. I know there's something called Medicare Advantage which is mostly bad unless one is on a ton of medications then it's good. 

Ken came by last night and I not only got my pay check but ... my ballot! It was at the last minute, him searching through his car for any other boxes etc, to leave here for me to use, and I said something about "any mail...." and there was my ballot. Beats the hell out of getting it months after the election like last time. And now I don't have to go to my polling place in person, I can sit down with my DSA voting guide and some other studying and fill it out and mail it in, well in advance of Election Day. 

I spent the night getting 20 things camera-ready which was more time consuming then I thought. That's the big change; in the past the stuff I put on Ebay didn't need a lot of fiddling with, just clean it if needed and put it on. But these days I'm taking a lot of stuff apart and just putting a lot more time into the things. 

But all this situation has to do is hold together until mid-September of 2027 and I'm outta here.  

After working on the batch of things, I relaxed and had beers. Eventually 4 of them, but overall I'd still drank less than the day/night before. I got all involved in watching these YoutTube videos about motorcycle flat-track racing. Now it's all these old guys. It's crazy; one guy even proudly races a Bultaco lol. The glory days of Gary Nixon, Dick Mann, and bad boy Bart Merkel it's not. Hell they even had Bart himself on camera, he was super old and talking about how Gary Nixon put away more alcohol than anyone. "I'm surprised he could get up to race in the morning", he said in his Canadian accent. 

Long ago, in the 80s, I had two books I'd found at the local used book store. One about Dick Mann and one about Gary Nixon, both by the author Joe Scalzo. I must have read each 100 times. Dick Mann (1934-2021) was one of the older racers, while Gary Nixon (1941-2011) a bit younger. They had their heyday in the 1950s and 60s, a time when the US was at its peak and you could go and be a motorcycle racer and do fine. Many other racers were talked about in these books, and some worked jobs when not racing and some just winged it and that was possible back then. 

That was life before the internet. Many an afternoon I'd just lay back on the bed in my mobile home in Costa Mesa, about 100 yards outside the Newport Beach border, and read one of these books, again, with the window open and the fresh breeze coming off of Newport Bay to cool me.  It was escapism, the allure of imagining a life where all one had to do was race and get to the next race. 

I got as far as having an SRX-6 I'd safety-wired myself, a set of Z leathers custom made for me, and going up to Willow Springs a time or two to spectate. And creating a certain amount of havoc and annoyance on the streets of Southern California, on a few different bikes. 

I got to bed around 6AM  I think, drank 4 beers, and somehow managed to sleep in until 3PM anyway. I was glad I had the packages I wanted to mail all packed, so all I had to do was having some breakfast and get out of here. 

I dropped off the post office packages at the post office, went to the bank and deposited my check, then dropped off the FedEx package at FedEx, then adjourned to Whole Foods. I found a can of nutritional yeast that was $30, and some iron pills for $10. I also got some chicken wings and a can of seltzer water and that meal was $10, some macadamia nuts, etc. 

After eating, I packed up the bike. It was really windy and I joked about it being a good day to fly a kite to the Save The Children booth guy, but a guy with a bike thought I was talking to him since I was nearer to him, so he joked back. 

I rode over to the Amazon place and got a nice bunch of bubble mailers, then over to Walmart for TP and paper towels and things. I always lock my bike by the Big-5 and there was a homeless guy sort of camped there by the bike racks. I talked with him a bit, asking him if there's anything he wants from Walmart since I'm going there. He said he has money and doesn't need anything, and we got talking about things. He was sure I had bought him some food some weeks back, and I was pretty sure I hadn't, but could not dissuade him so I went with it. 

Like so many of the homeless people here, he used to be an electronics tech, for DEC,  and we talked about old stuff, old computers, etc. 

I wonder how you go from being a 'tronics tech for DEC and end up on the street, homeless? I mean, I used to be a tech for a company that's still around although they don't need techs any more since it's cheaper to just swap out a circuit board or just a whole new unit. The guy gets Disability so if he's OK with living outside, he can pretty much live a life with no money worries, though. 

I went in and got my stuff and found a 1952 10 Swiss Franc coin in the Coinstar, not worth anything but cool anyway.  

I got back to my bike and the homeless guy had stayed around to watch my bike because I'd left a bag on it, that was a cloth bag holding empty Amazon bubble mailers, tied to the handlebar. I told him it was just bubble mailers and no one steals those, but thanks anyway, it was nice of him. He wanted to talk computers some more and I did a bit, but then said I had to take off and did so. 

As I passed through downtown, I saw, in front of the 7-11 that's known for the junkies nodding out in front, a decent-sized Free Palestine protest. I cheered and yelled "Victory, Victory, Iran!" and showed my support. It turns out this is Nakhba Day, a day I will not forget now. 

I rode home, only stopping at one little free library which didn't have any books I wanted, but the knob on the door (which I'd installed months ago) was getting a bit loose so I tightened it up, and there was food in there so I picked out a small bag of potato chips and an instant ramen teottebokki (sp?) bowl because I've always been kind of curious about it. 

On the way home, I thought, how am I going to take my 2 rounded tablespoons of nutritional yeast a day? It seems best to mix it with butter and spread it on something. I thought I'd stop in at the halal truck on the other side of Old Bayshore from me and get some pita bread because fresh pita bread is awesome. 

But when I got there, they said they don't have pita bread. It was $2 for one, or 2 for $3. I said I'd just get one, but they didn't have it? But, the guy said, he could heat up a tortilla for me and for free. OK, I said. While he was working on that, I took the two $1 bills I had and stuck them amongst the things on the tiny counter there. The guy handed me a very hot, aluminum-foil-wrapped thing, and I rode back here. 

I ended up putting pats of butter on the hot tortilla, and sprinkling on the yeast, and rolling it up. Yeasty butter still dripped out, but it kind of worked. 

 

 

Backsliding

 Somehow I got an unusual number of things done yesterday and then today... not so much. I drank less beer which is very good, got in bed by 6AM which is good, but then slept until 3 in the afternoon for some reason. 

I was all caught up on shipping to where all the things that had to be shipped, could wait until Monday. So I relaxed a bit, considered staying in and just getting things done like a haircut and laundry. 

Then I realized I had one thing that ought to go out today. One. Thing. So I packed it up and took it up to the post office, and didn't buy any beer because beer's on the way out, and only bought some eggs on my card. 

I got back here and had "egg ramen" which is, well, ramen with veggies and then after cooking it, I fried my last three "old" eggs and put those on top. So that took care of dinner. 

Then I did my haircut, got all shaved and cleaned up, cleaned the bathroom and office, and that was a nice feeling.