You can't fucking make this shit up

 I was up all night taking things apart, and mostly finding things that were junk and only worth putting out for the bums. Old rolls of wire no one will want to buy, stuff like that. 

I got some good parts out of it though. There's always money in the junk pile. 

I finally went to bed around 8AM because I got all involved in this documentary about how Koko The Talking Gorilla really wasn't talking at all etc. 

I surprised myself by waking up around 1:30 in the afternoon, and was all ready to go. I had some black coffee and aspirin and got out of here a bit after 2. I also had the Yamaha student clarinet I'd bought new, with me. I parked the bike at Whole Foods and went right over to the bus stop. 

It took the bus a while to come, and meanwhile, up came up No Feet, my name for the Black guy in a wheelchair who has, well, no feet. He's got a good racket going, having no feet, and begging. I said Hi and hoped he'd made a lot of money, and we made small talk, and then he started shouting to someone. I could not make out the name. He said it was Stella so I did my best Marlon Brando in A Streetcar Called Desire, "STELLA!!!!" a couple of times. 

Presently an actual Stella materialized. She was maybe 5 feet tall on a good day, pug-nosed, waddling, why, it would take a Basil Wolverton to come up with an uglier personage. So I waited, with No Feet and Stella, while they made small talk, and soon I smelled a cigarette. 

I turned around and it was No Feet who'd lit up the cig. I said how funny it is that you don't smell cigarettes any more, and then we all talked about how our moms all smoked Kools, and how we'd buy cigarettes as kids, "You needed a *note*? I just bought 'em" - Me. 

Then we talked about all the other joys of growing up when we did, like riding in the back of a pickup truck, although Stella was one-up because she did it when her father, driving the pickup truck, was drunk. Perhaps in sympathy, No Feet pulled out a bottle of vodka and had a few glugs. Good times, good times. The bus came and Stella helped wrestle No Feet onto the bus.  

I got to West Valley Music exactly the 2 hours it's required to take to get from my front door to theirs, and Craig was there. He looked over the clarinet, and went in back and wrote out a check for $362.50. Then I asked about a copy of Cichowitz's "Flow Studies" but they were out of 'em and he said it's a good book to study out of. We got to talk a bit about trumpets and mouthpieces etc., and I noticed some "Chop Saver", a kind of fancy chap stick, at the counter. He said it's far better than my $1.25 Blistex, and I felt like risking the $5 or so for some. He gave it to me for free. 

So now I have the check to deposit on Tuesday. I took the bus back as far as Mega Mart, where I wanted to see if they sold packing tape. They don't. I did, however, get some fried potstickers, pork and kim chee flavor, that hit the spot. 

I took the next bus to Han Kook which does sell tape, got some cilantro and ginger and 6 rolls of tape there. 

Then I got on the bus, again, back to Whole Foods. I got a $12 bag of frozen shrimp and $50 cash back in honor of the $62.50 part of the check. That way I won't feel pressured to busk tomorrow if I don't have the time or don't want to. 

Besides the "street comedy" of No Feet and Stella, the only other interesting thing was, in front of the Sunnyvale Tesla dealership, they have one of those flailing-arm inflatable figures, but theirs is "dressed" in all black except for the face, and has one arm tied down so all it does is Elon's salute, over and over. You can't fucking make this shit up. It'd be really funny to sneak up and install a little square mustache on the face of the figure...

Now, if you're buying a Tesla these days, you're really committed because tech-wise they're behind the other electric cars, and you can't really convince anyone these days that you know nothing of the politics. So I'd say an eternally saluting Elon figure out front is a selling point for them these days. Let's get the last bit of money out of the most convinced cucks before the last of them go broke. 

Besides, the ADL said Elon's salute is by no means a Nazi salute and the reason is, Elon's one of them. He's one of the Randlords, a pun on the word landlords, but the Randlords were a bunch of rapacious Jews who swooped in and made South Africa the wreck and ruin it is today. 

If you ever wonder what the Jews have planned for the US and its people, there are plenty of videos of contemporary life in South Africa to learn from. 

 

The new regime, I guess

 Ken *did* call last night and say the reason he didn't come by the night before was he was up doing some testing until 1AM. He'd call again and let me know if he was coming by last night. He never called. 

I did something I'd wanted to get done for a while, scrubbing the bathroom floor and then putting on a couple of coats of Mop'n'Glo. It looks a lot better now and I should just have to go over it with Mop'n'Glo every couple of weeks now. 

I also took a couple of things apart, getting some parts to list on Ebay. 

I woke up early enough, about 1:30, to go to the music store in Mountain View *IF* I did nothing else, and *IF* Craig would be there until usual time, 6PM. But I called them and he was only there until 4:30 but he'll be there "all day" tomorrow which means something like 5 or maybe even 5:30. 

The reason I called was to see if they'll buy back my clarinet for half of what I paid and since it's a student instrument I bought new, they will. That will get me about $350 and since I paid with my card, they might just zap the money right back into my account. 

Meanwhile, the name of the game is to not take money out of the account if I can avoid it. I'm glad I stopped drinking beer because I was spending a LOT. 

Before I got back into drinking beer, I was getting prepared meals and especially with busking, I was being really free with my money. I thought nothing of spending $6 or $7 on a couple of hard-boiled eggs and a can of iced coffee at Nijiya to start my day, for instance. That $4 pint of beer at Whole Foods seemed OK, because it didn't seem like that much money. 

It all adds up fast, though, especially since beer just leads to more beer. I was keeping within my budget of $200 a week, but that took really economizing on food. So now I'm not spending money on beer and loathe the idea of spending a whole $6 or $7 on a couple of hard-boiled eggs and a can of iced coffee at Nijiya. 

Since going to the music store wasn't happening today, I packed 4 small things and took off at a bit before 4. I dropped off the things at the post office downtown, then went to the Amazon place where I found ONE bubble mailer. Then went to the bank and checked my account balance and it looks like my last pay check didn't bounce, whew! 

I went over to Whole Foods and found one more bubble mailer, went in and spent $12 on my customary bag of macadamia nuts, and took off. There was a Gypsy woman with 2-3 drugged-up kids begging there, lovely. Although, it was sunny and windy and if I were to busk tonight, the gyppos would be gone by then and the wind settled down. 

But this week it's all about selling the clarinet, and I'll try to work in some busking too. 

I don't know when I'll hear from Ken or when/if I'll get paid. This is why I'm in a hurry to sell or donate the musical instruments I have. I may have to jet out of here pretty quickly and I don't want to leave any loose ends. 

I can keep going on busking and selling off some of the scrap metal I've been throwing out, I guess. But I'd have to work a bit less on the Ebay stuff which would send this business into a steeper downward spiral than it's already in. 

I just don't understand how everything could go fine as far as my being paid, the utilities paid for, the rent paid, until a few months ago. But then, Ken is a fine example of Americanus suburbiensis, and among that species it's the norm to never save and always over-extend one's finances. Instead of just going along in a sensible way, putting money into savings, building up resilience, the idea is to build things up taller and taller and steeper and steeper until it's too much to sustain and some slight wind blows the whole thing over. 

I've been really hoping that Ken will get his debt consolidation thing done and that will buy us about another year, during which he'll build up more debt of course, but things will hold together, held up by ever more debt, but my pay checks will cash and I'll have another year to save up. 

While my ideal is to leave mid-September of 2027, I could leave a few months earlier and that would work too.  

One thing that's changed since the 90s is, apparently once I buy a ticket there's a "magic number" I can print out and I will plan to bring a clip board with everything I can possibly printed out, printed out, in page protectors. But it seems that these days, they just look at your passport and that tells them everything about whether or not you have a ticket, what seat, yadda yadda. That's pretty nice.  

 

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.

Before finally going to bed around something like 7AM, I thought of something more: When I had an apartment just a block off of "the strip" in Waikiki in 2003, it cost me $600 a month which means $20 a day. Now I know that easy money to hustle up in any of a number of ways. What made me feel I was in an impossible situation was the fact that I had bought a car, thus had the expenses of the car, parking for the car ($200 a month I think it was) and the fact that having a car means only seeing the world from the vantage point of one who depends on a car. This meant passing up on a lot of places due to lack of parking, etc. 

Being here in the Bay Area has taught me how to live on very little, live without a car or running water or even without electricity if needed, and at least a dozen ways to hustle up money. 

Before leaving the place in Waikiki, I actually paid up the rest of my lease so I'd have had I dunno, several months paid free and clear. If I was going to eventually default on my credit cards anyway, I could have done it there. I'm kind of glad things went the way they did, though, as long as I can get back there. 

I woke up at 3:30 in the afternoon, actually woke up around noon but decided to try to get 8 hours' sleep so went back to sleep then got up, turned on the radio, and the latest banana republic thing going on is El Dumpo and his circle of Chosenites have rigged things where there will be zero investigation by the IRS of Donny Diaper-Filler, or any of his family or Chosenite buddies. 

Now, this should piss off we goyim. Everyone but everyone has to deal with the IRS, and a lot of us believe tax returns are public information. I know I did until a moment ago, the law was changed in 1976 to make them confidential, and 1976 is only 50 years ago, the blink of an eye, politically. So most people should be outraged and it will be interesting to see if they are. 

I took the packages to the post office and FedEx, and after getting some sliced pork belly at H Mart that I wanted to try, a bundle of cilantro, and after going around the back and getting a couple of packages of manju for free, I circled back around and searched the store and bought a "tub" of salad greens, which I've just eaten, because I found a jumping spider in the parking lot before leaving, and put it in a little jar, and want to make a nice little habitat for it. 

It's a Phidippus johnsoni,  one of the common ones around here. I don't know how long I'll keep it, but the salad tub will make a great little terrarium for it. 

I made the mistake of turning the radio to NPR, where they're telling a tear-jerker fiction about some poor, poor little Chosenite who was kept in a box for 2 years during the Hollowco$t(tm) and thus at the end his arms and legs would not work yadda yadda. 

Here's why it's horse shit: Someone kept in a box needs to poop and pee, so he was getting exercise to go out and do that multiple times a day so he *was* getting exercise, or if he were kept in a box that long and not going out to poop and pee, he'd have died from sheer despair if nothing else, and it would have been a stinky nightmare, letting everyone within a mile know they were keeping a Jew. This shit is all fiction, it's one of their many, many grifts. 

So I thought, What if, given that the US gives about $32k to every "Israeli" man, woman, and child each year, while here in the US we do without health care, public transit, decent food, etc., what if all the money taken from the US taxpayer and given to Israel were totted up, from 1948 on, how much would be the check written out to every US man, woman, and child? Might it be a million dollars? 

The Jews have money, there's no doubt. They'll cry bloody murder but they certainly have it. Chosenite Michael Bloomberg spent $500 million on his failed presidential run in 2020, which means he could have given every US man, woman, and child a check for $1 million and had a good amount left over. 

I take comfort in the fact that the dozen or more ways I know to hustle up money do not involve the internet at all. The internet is dying. It's slower than ever, my connection drops out and re-connects constantly, and regular pages are either unreadable or inaccessible. Go to any newspaper's site with the possible exception of The Guardian and it's either paywalled or covered in ads or both.

As for private pages, here are a few examples. Marvin Naylor's nice little busking blog. You have to first know to Google "Marvin Naylor Busking Blog". Then you have to know to scroll down (it's not intuitive) to click on the center "button" that says "start here". That will take you to his very first post, 10+ years ago. Which is fine but if you want his latest, the page will let you see that the first time you click on the latest in the sidebar, then ever afterward that's the latest you'll see *unless* you know to go through the procedure and then click on Marvin's name, in smaller type, above the buttons. Then you can see his latest. 

The New Orleans crackhead's blog. First you have to know how to Google for him, using specific keywords. That will get you to his page, to a post that's getting to be two years old now. You have to know to click on the "masthead" then that will take you to his latest. 

Ran Prieur: You have to know about Ran Prieur and if you don't then tough. I think he's only being publicized by word-of-mouth. He's kept his page very, very simple which is rare and refreshing. But if you don't know about him you'll never find him and if you weren't reading his stuff 20 years ago you won't know about him. 

I used to quite enjoy the Bison Survival Blog. However, Bison has realized he can do better selling printed newsletters so now he does that. 

 

 

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.