I actually woke up around noon, which is early for me. I've instituted a rule of "no working after midnight" and that's been a help.
But I actually had time to find, clean, photo, and list 15 things AND packed 11 things to take to the post office. It's 5PM as I write and I can start out an hour earlier than usual to ship the things and buy some groceries etc.
I woke up around 1 in the afternoon so that's progress. Ken came by last night and I got my pay check, and we talked about things. No more talk about trying to buy a building so that's good. He talked, among other things, about a particular type of photomultiplier tube and I found a great catalog/manual about them so I sent the link to his email. I also reminded him of my idea of his wife, to save carrying a vacuum cleaner up and down the stairs, having two vacuum cleaners, an upstairs one and a downstairs one. "Oh, I forgot." So after he left I sent an email about that, too.
If I can steer Ken toward making his house more livable for his wife and for his family in general, I can keep him off of the idea of buying a building.
Then I made matzo ball soup from the box I'd bought at Walmart weeks ago. It was meh.
On r/hawaii on Reddit, there's a wonderful discussion that really reminds me of the place. A guy walked his dog in his neighborhood, which is full of houses with "fenced yards and mean dogs". There are what they're all calling "spiky ball things" (come on people, they're kukus) growing from the patches of grass and growing so enthusiastically that the sidewalk is blocked and the burrs are sticking to the dog's coat etc.
So this person proposes trimming these weeds down, and then it comes down to, "Are you haole?" Because this determines whether the guy can get away with doing this good deed. The guy admits that he is, indeed, haole and that if he gets his ass kicked and weed trimmer stolen it will be his own fault. For haole'ing in a public place or some shit.
Then at the end the conversation gets even more interesting. A guy in New Zealand pipes up and said things have gotten *really* hostile in New Zealand - not sure if anti-white anger or just anger in general. Maybe the Westons, whom I remember as being lovely people, are outliers and not representative of the kind of people I'd be around if by some miracle I was able to make my way to NZ.
Little things like this are why I read those Reddit forums. It's little things like this that tell a lot about a place. From what I've read, I can't for the life of me imagine someone in Israel getting in trouble for trimming weeds.
A similar experience I had years ago was when I lived in a small mobil home park in Costa Mesa. The red curb was barely red any more so I asked the manager if he had any red curb paint and he did, and I painted the curb around my place and then just kind of kept going, doing my next door neighbors' place too. They, the Butlers, who were great people and became good friends, appreciated it.
I think the mainland has spoiled me. Going back to Hawaii would mean stepping down several rungs on the social ladder.
I packed 8 things that needed to go out today or tomorrow, and loaded up two bags of books for the used book store. And the 8 things of course.
I left at 3:30 instead of my usual 4, dropped off trash at one of my favorite sneaky cans, then went to the post office where I inhaled some junk from those trees we have here and had a major coughing fit, got out the Listerine and gargled and spat and sounded horrible. I went in and dropped off the packages, and came out to realize I hadn't locked the bike. Not that anyone wanted to be anywhere near there with me sounding like I was gonna cough up a lung.
Next was the bank, deposited my check and had pleasant chit-chat, and explained the mask I was now wearing (I keep an emergency mask in the bike bag at all times) and we wished each other a good weekend. The IRS hasn't cashed my check yet so it's hard to tell if the numbers are right or not. But I saved $200 of my last pay check and am on track to save $200 of this one, and even after the IRS cashes the check my account will be north of 5 grand.
Back in the 80s I always felt OK if I had $500 in my account, because that was 3 months' rent and a bit more. Now that $500 is $5000 I guess. Save, save, save your money.
The bank done with, I went over to the used book store and handed my books in, and looked in the Jewish section. I found Tenement Songs, The Popular Music Of The Jewish Immigrants by Mark Slobin for $19.95 and figured I ought to get at least that in trade. I got $17-odd, and pulled a $5 out of my wallet to cover the rest. Save save save your money... I was going to use that $5 to buy soda yesterday, but used change instead. So I was able to whip out that $5 and said to the gal, "This is why I save, save, save my money".
This book looks like a good one to take along to the Jewish Music class I've signed up for, plus it probably covers the kind of music my mother might have played as an act with her younger sister, my Aunt. They played in an "Odeon" theater and played accordions. Mom didn't want to do the act any more when she began to "develop" so I'm gonna say she probably did this act in the middle-later 1940s. I'm astonished that Mom did something that cool and never told us kids. It was my aunt, her sister, I heard about it from.
I took the books they didn't want with me to Whole Foods where I got what was probably a prototypical old-folks'-home meal. Fish, mashed potatoes, steamed broccoli, and a nice mild Stella Artois to wash it down with.
After that it was off to Walmart. I spent about $60 there. I also bought a boonie hat style hat at Big-5. All they had were either Medium-Large or Large etc. They had a looser fit than I wanted, then I found one that fits good and tight and the inner lining is flowers which I don't mind a bit as I'll be the only one who sees them.
It took some logistics to get the bike loaded and to carry the hat, I wore it. This ... was interesting. I had cars treating me with a lot less respect than normal. I think that wearing dark clothes, with a light colored hat, and on a bicycle with bags on the handlebars, they saw a "Mexican". I normally ride hatless, and at one tricky place, where Brokaw goes under the freeway, I turn my head frequently to look at the cars and they're very respectful when I do this. I've thought it's because they're seeing a human face, but now I'm thinking it's so they see that I'm white or at least one of the lighter-skinned Hispanics and thus a "good one". I took the hat off before I got very far from Walmart; who needs that crap?
I picked up a few books on the way home and some bubble mailers at the Amazon place, so the bike was really loaded when I got back here.
I got in last night, got things ready to list today, and had wine and cheese and went to bed.
I had the weirdest dream, it was something like, this whole crowd of people I was associated with had gone gun-crazy. People in general were suddenly interested in getting guns so the market had responded by coming up with all kinds of "user friendly" guns that these people had little to no idea how to operate properly.
The guns were like, the way hardware stores are filled with power tools that have fancy-designed rubber grips with fluorescent color details, but are all pretty much the same drill etc. I even said to the people in the dream that "These are about as interesting to me as a power drill - boring!" as I was trying to get people to understand the concept of clearing the chamber before you consider a gun to be unloaded etc.
If there's any meaning to it, it's that while I used to be kind of gun-crazy myself, to me, now, they're just tools. And for some reason I may have to instruct a lot of people in the handling and use of guns.
R.I.P. Cecil Williams of Glide Memorial Church has just died. He wasn't an "American Christian" he was a real one. He was helping out AIDS victims from the beginning, when they were pariahs. But even before that, when the cops were raiding gay bars, Glide was the one church/refuge they could go to. A true holy man.
It went great. I woke up around 1:30 or 2, thinking it was late like 4. It wasn't. I got some food and coffee in me, cleaned up, and was out the door at 4 because I have to be out the door at 4 because it rhymes.
I had to push against the wind going downtown, but was able to get to the downtown post office at 4:30 and then take one box that I'd meant to ship by FedEx 1-day or something like that but I'd clicked on the wrong thing and it was going by UPS. So I rode down to the UPS and dropped it off, and then rode back to Whole Foods.
I got some baked chicken and a latke (they had latkes in the hot bar) and got a little 4-pack of those little bottles of wine. I set up to eat at a table and people-watched. There was a Black guy who seemed to be waiting for the bus or something. Looked like he was almost certainly homeless but "together" he seemed very "squared away" kind of like Wendall the flute player. So when he passed by I held out a little bottle of wine to him and we got talking.
He used to live in an apartment nearby and now is indeed homeless. I said if he has any musical inclinations at all, it's a good way to make money. He told me about an app called "Rap Fame" where he comes up with music and sells his songs for $5 each. He's been doing it a few months. He'd actually been waiting for a friend with a car to pick him up, who then showed up, so we didn't get to talk further about Rap Fame, but it's interesting. I don't know much about music-on-line apps, so the only one I can think of is Band Camp, but if I were musician'ing full time, I think I'd Rap Fame a try.
After eating I killed some time by looking around in Whole Foods, then hopped on the bike and rode over to the temple. I locked the bike and got out my ol' blue and white to put on my head, and got out the two bottles of Kosher for Passover wine, and my nifty silver Kiddush cup.
I made a name tag for myself and stuck it on and took a Haggadah and wandered around finding a place to sit. I eventually went to a table and it was "Is anyone sitting here?" and I was welcomed to sit down. I made a good choice too because some of the tables were grape juice drinkers only, plus I ended up sitting by Philip the trumpet player, and the guy on my other side is interested in learning the trumpet.
I opened my two bottles of wine (I brought my opener with me) and had my little cup there. It turns out no one had huge cups but had very reasonably-sized glasses and so I hadn't needed to bring it, but what did I know? At least I got to tell the story of getting the cup, and the lady with a German accent right out of Central Casting who I bought it from, who was not Jewish because all she knew was it's "ceremonial".
We dipped our parsley in salt water and poured our glasses of wine, and sang the songs and recited verses, and in general had a good ol' time. As for the wine, it was very appreciated (except for one old guy who, I tip my hat to him, went through the whole thing on the temple-supplied Manischewitz alone) and now I know the Jeunesse stuff tastes quite good, while the Elija stuff, eh, not so much. So it'll be two bottles of Jeunesse next time.
It was great fun, especially the song about the little goat that adds things on each verse, and is sung really fast like you're rapping.
The haggadah we used was the one put together by this temple, and as funny as it sounds, there were things in there that really meant something to me. About the situation with my sisters, and whether to retreat back to Hawaii or to go ahead. About family history I'll probably never find out for sure.
Among other things we talked about shofar-blowing and it turns out Philip plays the trumpet but not the shofar, and their official shofar-blower does that but does not play trumpet. Since I want to get something that's more of a "professional" shofar well before Rosh Hashana, I told Philip when I do so, I'll give him the one I have now.
The dinner itself was OK I guess. They had baked chicken but by the time I got to it, it was almost all gone so I didn't take any, just some cooked beets, half a baked potato, and some salad. It turned out there was plenty of chicken but I'd already eaten some at Whole Foods so I didn't bother about it.
One part of the dinner was .... gefilte fish. That. Was. Horrible. It was like someone caught a tilapia out of the Ala Wai Canal, then ground it up fins guts and all, added some flour and stuff, to make a little loaf. It's comically bad. There has got to be a way to make a good-tasting gefilte fish. Traditionally, a housewife would buy a carp, live, and they'd keep it alive until it was time to kill it and cook it, and the end result was probably really delicious.
In the end I had maybe 1/5th of the Jeunesse left and at least half of the Elijah, and I took the bottles and corked 'em up and put them, and my silver cup, in the bike bags and changed my shirt for my jacket and safety vest, and rode to Whole Foods for a couple of odds and ends, then rode for home.
I passed through San Pedro Square and it seemed they were playing live fiddle music in the Irish bar there. I stopped to ask the security guard if it was live music, and he said "Yep, every Tuesday". We talked a bit and I gushed about how that bar, no matter how bad things got, has always been doing well.
We also talked about Trumpet Rabbit Guy, who the guard said certainly ate his rabbits. "He lives in his van" and thus, of course he eats his rabbits. Maybe he does, but it's an odd chain of logic. I told him about my run-in with the bums down there, and he said that "Vice doesn't operate down here any more and the police only care if it's extreme violence" and said the guy I thought was an undercover officer was not. I described how one of the Streets Team guys had stuck around, sweeping the same piece of sidewalk while I played, and maybe the not-an-undercover guy was doing something like that, being protective of me. That's not impossible at all. He agreed. "There are a lot of nice people around here". He knows a lot about the history of the Irish bar and of San Pedro Square. He had to check the IDs of a lot of people so I bugged off.
The ride home was peaceful because the wind was now going my way, and it was cool, not actually cold. I checked the little free libraries and only took a copy of The Atlantic magazine. New Yorkers are good but they seem to be weekly and it's hard to keep up. The Atlantic is better and I can keep up with them. So: a copy of The Atlantic with a red cover.
I got home and put things away and had a better look at the copy of The Atlantic. The red cover is a list of authors, each on a different subject like Journalism, Science, etc. with page numbers. What I hadn't seen when I picked it up was on the other side of the cover it says "If Trump Wins". I wonder if, in Germany in 1932, there were periodicals like this, "If Hitler Wins"?
Today's awful news is that Jews are being expelled, effectively, from Columbia University and other universities. The Nazis 2.0 are copying, exactly, the techniques of the Nazis 1.0. Like linking hands in a human chain to keep Jewish students from entering the university. One student was stabbed in the eye for carrying an American flag, at least at Columbia all classes have gone virtual, and Jewish students are being advised to leave the campus for their safety.
We're only in the 20s. In Germany this didn't happen until the early 30s.
I woke up around 1:30, and turned the radio on. I hear that the attack on Israel by Hamas was predicted by many IDF soldiers, who were women, who tried and tried to warn their commanders that Hamas was planning something big. There's a "macho" culture in the IDF apparently, and the women were ignored.
This is a case of a very bad thing, Hellenism. Hellenism is to "be like the Romans" the Romans of course being very big on the macho thing. Come on, Israel! We just celebrated Purim, which celebrates a woman saving the whole Jewish people! For shame!
If the story's getting all the way out to US radio, I'm sure they're very seriously examining themselves in Israel. Jews got attacked for, in aggregate, acting less Jewish.
I feel like I really beat myself up for $36 yesterday. Should have just gone up to the Campbell Whole Foods as per my original plan. I need a good hat for the sun though. Probably ought to get another "boonie hat" in a light color.
I've been thinking about how much the world I'm in has changed in the last 10 years. In 2014, Nazism was *not* in fashion, I felt I could go and live in any state or territory of the US and be fine. I'd be fine going to any college. There was no reason at all to even contemplate leaving the US, although I think at that time I wished I'd known to leave for Europe, France particularly, as a 20-something and "wetback it" until I'd been there lone enough to become a citizen. In my 20s I could do any work, pick grapes all day or whatever. But this was simply because of France's good health care and quality of life. Now of course France is off-limits.
Only one country, Israel, is a possibility for me if I decide to leave the US. Most of the US itself is off-limits.
I packed big things and small things alike, in order, so none of them would go "overdue". I took a load of the big things to FedEx, dashing into H Mart for some things, and also buying some more paper at FedEx. So the $75 in my pocket changed into $47.
I found some good packing stuff, and stopped by Tom's because the place next door often throws out whole bags of good packing foam sheet but this week there was nothing and Tom was out.
I got back here, did some parking lot cleanup, and settled down to eat smoked salmon, hummus with za'atar, and celery. In the case of the hummus, I added some tahini and water and lemon juice and mixed well, making it a nice light, smooth, hummus. And put a liberal amount of za'atar and olive oil on top. It came out great.
Still no word from my sisters. When I was a kid, I used to sneak into my older sister's room and borrow books. She had all the "smart" books, Huxley and Salinger and Vonnegut and so on. I am not sure she read them of her own volition or because one had to, to keep up with the elite crowd in Punahou. I read them of my own volition.
Brave New World was the most striking. Written in the early 1930s, it described a completely "scientific" society where hedonism was the highest ideal and no one cared about each other other than on a very superficial level because no one ever had to. Also, one of the world insults one could be called if not *the* worst, was "viviparous". In other words, associating you with a biological animal, that gave birth and cared about its young. And my older sister used to call us younger kids, who were certainly not going to the hallowed Punahou, "Beasts".
In Brave New World, no one had to deal with pregnancy or childbirth as children were "decanted" from big jars or something (hey, this was written in 1931) and no one was ugly, or fat, or lonely, or anything other than the ideal. Everything was superficial and hedonism the highest ideal.
It all sounds sort of good, but this is fiction. It's not at all how the real world works. But I'm beginning to wonder if my older sister fully internalized that it is a work of fiction and not a description of the proper way to be? Out of the 5 of us there are no children. If we'd been raised Jewish, I'm pretty sure that the 5 of us would have found a way to raise a few kids at least, everyone pitching in.
Somehow I think my older sister may have thought of Brave New World as a sort of manual of how to live. As for the rest, I doubt they've read it or even heard of it but I think of Brave New World as the work of a genius who saw the way American society was going. They didn't have to read it, just living in the US will assure almost anyone that the highest ideal is wealth, power, and hedonism and the best course of action to run right over anyone who stands in your way.
Such people do *not* want to hear from what they'd consider a scolding sibling who might talk about other ways to live, might not actually care that much about money, and so on. Like the character "The savage" in Brave New World.
I had trouble getting to sleep last night and around 3AM drank enough wine and ate enough cheese to get sleepy then I was out light a light as usual.
I woke up around 11:30 which was good. The original idea was to get over to the Campbell Whole Foods, but when I got out on the road I thought I'd be baking in the sun there, so why not instead, go to the Sunnyvale one? I'd have the option of the parking entrance or I could busk on Murphy St. which is also pretty sheltered.
It was by now 2. I went to Whole Foods and had a couple of chicken tenders and a samosa (those things are good!) and got a bottle of coffee. I'd planned to get a can of coffee at Nijiya but it was a mob scene so I'd gone by. I saved the coffee for the bus ride and had a little bottle of Chardonnay with my meal.
I had my chicken and samosa and then walked up to Ace Hardware as I'd remembered I wanted to get a can of Goof-Off, because I was down to a little dribble of it and I may not need it for months on end but then when I need it, I need it.
After stashing things in the bike bag and grabbing my tip box and so on, I walked up to the bus stop that the #522 stops at, and waited the 18 minutes or so for it, and zoomed and rattled my way up to El Camino and Sunnyvale Road. I'd realized on the ride that I'd be right by Baraka Market and they'd be sure to have a spice called za'atar which the mysterious stuff put on hummus to make it taste extra good. I'd already learned last night that I can mix extra tahini into store hummus and extra water, and make it more like homemade hummus. I asked the guy at Baraka Market and they're open until 9 so I said I'll get the stuff I was looking at on the way back. (I'm sure the guy thought, "suuuuure".)
I walked up to the Whole Foods and "my" spot was taken by a little table with a Police For Children or something going on, with a gal who was accosting anyone who even looked in her direction. Darn. So I walked on up to Murphy St. and played a bit and made a whole dollar.
This is fuct, I decided, I should have stayed with my home Whole Foods and/or the Old Spag. So I walked back, got a package of olives, an ice-cold yogurt drink which I assured the guy is "Like heaven!!" and a 17-oz jar of "Authentic Levant" za'atar, product of Jorden which considering how they helped Israel out recently, I'm counting as one for the team. I could not find a smaller package of za'atar. I guess it's like rice, in Hawaii when I was a kid, where if you bought rice, of course you were buying a 25-lb bag. It was weird to buy smaller amounts.
I walked back out to the bus and rattled and zoomed back to the Diridon stop, drinking the coffee a bit at each stop. I went to Whole Foods and stashed things away and set up to play to test the waters. It was earlier than I'm usual there, a quarter to 6, and although a bit windy maybe it would go well.
It did not. I made ... another dollar. That dollar came from the shirtless guy with chin-pubes that for some reason he'd dyed bright red. I went inside and got some cheese and stuff, and although I might as well have stayed, I left for ...
The Old Spag. Loud Band (or Loud Canned Music) was playing but I pointed myself the other way and thought it might go fairly well. I made a few dollars and Blueberry Hill got me a $5, but it was slow going. And a bum came up and got in my face because I'd not give him money or something and literally he made physical contact and I had to push him away and he backed off when he saw I was getting my phone out, started to come back for more, then backed off again as I fumbled around with dialing 911. Another bum, dragging a skateboard on a string, came in for some hassling too and I probably said something about calling the cops and he moved on.
I finally did get in contact with 911, gave the gal descriptions of both of the bums. and pointed out that they're not just hassling me, they're hassling everyone. The first bum came back but passed by, as I was still on the phone with 911. I said I'd be there for another hour, that I'm happy to talk with the cops but the most important thing is, the reason people are not going out and about there is the bums hassling them, even threatening violence. The artists, the musicians, etc. are afraid to go down there any more.
What happened is: Although shaken, I kept playing, not for another hour but at least another half-hour. The bums didn't come back. A guy wearing a safety vest, looking like nothing special, rode up on a bike just past me then parked himself at the curb, still stride the bike, and stayed there all the time I kept playing. The crowd thinned out, but I had some lovely interactions with people, the highlight of the evening being a family with a little kid, who they had put $1 in the box twice. It was wonderful. They had a great time. And another lady with a little kid who was dancing to Saints, and who I advised to get a one-on-one teacher, start him with a cornet which is shorter and easier for a kid, etc. Maybe I inspired the next Chris Botti...
In the end, I had $15 in bills and another $1.11 in change. But there's something else I guess I have to count. In the checkout at Whole Foods, the lady behind me had gotten into some kind of conversation with Kenny, who was the checker. She was saying Kenny must be from Hawaii (he's not) and Kenny was saying I am, so she was saying I'm a "local" and I pointed out that being the hated haole, I could never be "local" no matter how many generations there, and she (half-Japanese I surmise) said something like "Oh, yeah, that's what my haole friends used to say, always being beat up". Outside, she asked if she could tip me, and I said, "Sure, if you like". She said, a bit haughtily, "I'm a middle-aged lady who lives comfortably because I work hard". I said, "A lot of people work hard and still live uncomfortably". The tip was a $20. I said thanks or something and muttered as she turned away, "Thanks for the reparations, lady".
I will never be a local. That's the truth in Hawaii. At most you can be a "local haole" or you can be wealthy enough to be able to insulate yourself from the vast majority of the population. That's how my older sister lives. Being a "local haole" is yet another case of having to have a justification for living there, being there, existing. My older sister is a local haole, I guess, but what far overshadows that is that She Went To Punahou. She lives in an expensive neighborhood (they all are there, but some are even more so) drives everywhere, and has probably become even more insular over the last 20+ years.
So, finally done at the Old Spag, I packed up and circled by the guy who was still stock-still at the curb, mounted on his bike, and said a sotto voce "Thanks" as I circled by, then circled around and left. If the guy was an undercover, I thanked him and he gets it. If not, if just some random guy, then it's just some random thing that's no harm. B'god what a zoo down there though. There was another bum that thankfully I didn't interact with, who seemed to have lots of metal spoons and such things hanging off of him. Build the asylums already, Mr. Biden!
I rode back through Japantown which was still full of wonderful cooking smells, then went to TAK Market. It was that or a trip to Sprouts. I bought 4 bottles of "Barefoot" wine but even going there was not without complications. I got there just as a bum with a huge shopping cart load of bottles and cans (and just clap your hands) and I moved past the bum to take the lights off the bike and lock it to a post there, and as I locked the bike and kept my eye on the bum, the bum said something that could have been "Do you have a $5?" but could have been a number of other things. Zombie brain worms really fuck with intelligible speech. I just stared at the thing for a long time until it wised up and looked away. Then continued to loiter in front of the building until the bum was well up the street because it'd be easy to circle around and rummage my bike so I wanted to wait until it was down the street and looking forward to the next trash can.
I got my wine (I'd gone there because I thought I'd seen those Franzia boxes of wine but what I'd seen was merely boxes that hold bottles, no space bag wine) so fuggit hence 4 bottles of Barefoot.
I suppose I'll call the $20 a tip because I have no other way to categorize it. So it's $36.11 for maybe an hour and a half of playing. I probably should have just gone to the Campbell Whole Foods after all because I got the same amount of sun anyway. But it's nice I was able to visit the Baraka Market. There's a potluck coming up at the temple and Baraka's *does* have halva, the trouble for me is, I'm not sure if it's the "right" kind. Ideally I want to bring those oily little Joyva brand halva bars that at least to some people will bring back strong memories of childhood. Even the large Joyva block isn't the same. It has to be the little bars. That means going to Mollie Stone's again, but the next time I'll take the #522 bus there and probably busk a bit in the park then go to Mollie's for my halvah and maybe some other Jewish things, then I might take the train back.
I rode back here and the guys next door had loud Mexican music playing, having a good relaxing weekend. After putting some things away I got the trumpet out (they'd turned the music off by then because they were getting ready to go home) I played some riffs of not one particular song but what the music sounds like, improvising I guess. It was surprisingly easy and came out surprisingly well and they said, "Beautiful!".
I have not heard from either of my sisters. Since I made that phone call the strong emotions I'd felt have dissipated. I don't care to be come a right-wing Trump voting Jeezuz freakie with the younger one so she seems to be set so that any communication from me that isn't "Lawd jeebus I'se sayved!" is "hate" so the book I wanted to send to her will just go into the next batch to the used book store. And I don't think my older sister can handle the concept of someone being smart and yet not having pots of money and Not Having Gone To Punahou. They say people shift to the Right the older they get, but really they shift to the Right the richer they get. And my older sister married well in that she married into money. That's what matters: money. And money grows more money and so on. She might be a Trump voter by now too. Because older does not mean smarter and richer really does not mean smarter. Money makes one dumber because you can just throw money at any problem and never have to think much.
They are all living their Best American Lives where everyone's apart, no one helps anyone, they'll probably never know - or care - when the others die or if they die. Who cares. Fuck you, I've got mine. This savage way of life actually kind of works when you've got a continent to conquer, natives to kill off, slaves to rule, and tons of resources; animal, vegetable, mineral, for the taking to anyone who gloms onto them first.
It is the very opposite of the proper way to live in a steady-state economy, the one humans have lived in since there have been humans. Even the old empires of the Middle-East were far closer to steady-state than anything we live in now. The really old cultures, Chinese and Jewish, are big on memory, education, mutual aid, family, networks, doing what you can for the group. It's anathema to Americans, AKA Iks Who Drive Cars.
Now, why my busking income has been so bad lately, I can only theorize. It may have been unnaturally high a few weeks ago because the W-2 types have been getting their returns. But there may be enough of us now who are 1099's and have to send money out by April 15th, to make a difference.
Or I suck. I *do* sport the astronaut haircut lately, but sadly, I've not learned Eentsy-Weentsy Spider.
"And each has his plug, and each had his socket" - Stanislaw Lem, "The Steelypips". I am glad I did that phone call to my "lawyer in law" even as I'm sad he had to put up with it. All emotion is gone. And as the original deadline, that of my birthday later this year, to move back to Hawaii approached, I suddenly began thinking realistically about the place. It's the simple truth that someone with brown skin and no links to Hawaii at all, like half-German half-Filipino Andy Bumatai, can step off the plane in Honolulu and 100X more welcome than someone who is 5th generation (they exist!) in Hawaii but are pale skinned. Hawaii is very much part of the US where race is all.
Right now Jewish students at Columbia University (and pretty much all the rest of them except for a few like Brandeis) are being hassled and threatened and stopped from walking across the quad as it were. I remember being stopped by a crazy lady on the University of Hawaii Manoa campus and harangued for being white. And like the students at Columbia, there wasn't a damn thing I could do about it - to raise a peep would have gotten me expelled. In fact in what college career I had, near the end of it I said some slight thing about the unfair treatment I'd gotten for being "haole" and was put on suspension for a while. Dean's List to suspension for being the wrong color.
It goes back further. One day back when we were middle-class and lived on Portlock Road, I was walking back from the beach with my mother. One of the kids who lived next door to us had made a little bow and arrow and marched right up to us and attempted to shoot out my "good", right, eye. From a distance of a foot or two. Just like a cruel kid might shoot out the eye of a stray dog. Luckily I flinched and the arrow, a piece of hau wood, hit my cheek instead and I got a scrape instead of a destroyed eyeball. And there was nothing that could be done. If my mom had said much, she could have ended up fined or in jail.
And yet, bringing things back up to college again, a gal I befriended tried to integrate me into her circle of fellow-haole friends, and I overheard them talking about me - whether I could belong in their group - in the other room. Could I really be a haole? I was kind of dark for a haole ... (skeptically). In the end I did not gain "membership" and I probably dodged a bullet there.
I am literally too white for Hawaii and not quite white enough for actual white people.
Yet I can go to the Jewish temple and I'm accepted as a matter of course. Being not-quite-white is a sweet spot if you're Jewish. I haven't had to explain myself to anybody. I could go to Israel and not have to explain myself to anybody.
