Barely a ripple

 Up at about 3:30 because the mailman shoved a big catalog in and it made a racket. 

There's barely a ripple on Reddit about the big police standoff in Japantown and no information other than "barricaded suspect" so I guess I might ask around next time I'm over there. 

Being depressed is no fun. I got Ebay things together last night but didn't list, and only packed one that needed to be done by midnight tonight - it took me a while to find the darned thing. 

Then I "wasted" time on Andy Bumatai's Hamajang Gang on youtube today, oh well, good times and good memories. The guy's only getting maybe 50 viewers, tops, and that's across like 3 platforms somehow and I only saw one person put about $9 in the hat. Andy probably doesn't know how to not be working, though. 

At least I did my usual bit of voice exercises on the theory that like any muscle, the voice takes time to develop and again, it's working. I've found a YouTube channel called Ukulele Zen that's got a pretty nice guy teaching songs which is plays and sings and he's got tons more experience in both than I have, but I daresay I think there's more potential in my pipes than in his. 

I should think more about how lucky I am to be here with regards to voice training because I can yell all I want with no trouble, where even back in Hawaii I'll have to sneak into the UH practice rooms to do voice exercises. 

I watched more YouTube than I should and packed some Ebay things, and got hungry after my scrambled eggs with shishito peppers ran out on me, so I cooked up some gai lan I'd gotten at Nijiya Market and it was really good. I'm beginning to sense a pattern here: The veggies I'm buying from Nijiya seem to taste a lot better than ones from H-Mart or Whole Foods. And while conventional broccoli is kind of spendy these days, gai lan's still cheap. 

I packed more things and then tried out the "impossible burger" or whatever it's called. The package says "Beyond Burger'. It turns out to be very OK. It takes 4 minutes on each side to cook, and leaves a lot of oil/grease in the pan. It's OK enough with some condiments and has a burger-y texture, but overall it's just meh. At best it reminds me of the cheap lunch truck hamburgers I sometimes ate in college that were probably half "textured vegetable protein". There's a funny smell in here from cooking it now too.  

I think I'll eat the 2nd one tomorrow, but I'll kibble it and thus be able to cook it quickly. One thing's for certain and that is that eating beef is out, for me.

Impossible or Beyond

 Up at 3:30.  Last night I watched a ton of videos, did some singing exercises, and had an interesting onion and shishito pepper miso soup with oysters. Ehh .... jarred oysters are not as good as buying them live from Dai Thanh. 

I got out of here a bit after 7 and went right over to Whole Foods to lock the bike, walked up to CVS for the usual (vodka). There was a nest of bums out front that asked me for a dollar, but I just shook my head and said "Noooo..." because the smallest cash I had on me was a $5. But I got 3 little 89c cheese sticks along with my vodka and tossed them to what appeared to be the head bum saying "Share 'em around!" because it was 3 bums there. The guy said Thanks and I wished them "Stay safe!" as I walked away. 

Back over to Whole Foods where I paid $3.75 for a little half-size bottle of Worcestershire sauce, geez, wartime prices .... and found no Beyond Meat products but did find a package of two Impossible Burgers all pre-formed and ready for the grill etc, working out to something like $3.50 each.  (I just looked up the Worcestershire sauce and those little 5-oz. bottles are about $6 each online.) I also got some "salmon candy" and a beer, and got $60 cash back. 

Next stop was the Amazon hub for bubble mailers, but first I put my bike in there and said out loud how I'll just be across the street and back, and went to the 7-11 on the opposite corner. I almost didn't go in, because there was a skinny filthy female zombie dancing around and lunging at people and things out front. One of the Indian guys who run the place chased it out when it went in, then beat on the glass in an attempt to scare it off (he saw I was hesitating to cross the street to go in) and finally went out with a stick and chased it up the street. 

I went in and got two money orders, one for $20 and one for $30, to send to the temple. There's a yearly sort of money-gift thing and that's what the $20 will go to, and $30 will be my monthly dues. Normally they're $60 but they know I don't make much and Rinban Sakamoto has told me repeatedly that whatever I think is fair, is fine. They've sent me a 2021 payment book and it's time to get back on track with them. 

After getting the money orders I went back over to the Amazon hub and gathered up bubble mailers. One of the workers was there cleaning the cardboard boxes up and I gathered up the plastic bubble mailers, and ended up doing a funny sort of rap that went like, "Big Bird's running a protection racket, and Oscar The Grouch is hiding bodies, and I'm the recycling foooool.... Mr. Hooper's selling the kids cigarettes and Gordon's telling 'em smoke crack, and I'm the recycling foooool.... Ernie & Bart making fetish films, and Elmo's runnin' numbers, and I'm the recycling fooooool....." It was kind of fun. I don't want to say it was as good as Whitey's On The Moon but I guess I'm not as bad at rapping as I thought. 

I took off for home on his cold, depressing night with too damn many shopping cart zombies and slow-walker zombies and flat-out crazy zombies, and rode up 3rd. I hear police sirens and dogs barking and it seemed there was some sort of to-do a street or so over so taking the usual elaborate measures to keep from being killed by cars I got over to 5th and figured whatever was going on was over because I didn't hear the dogs any more, so it'd be a peaceful right through Japantown and then home. 

But, as I passed the familiar buildings of "my" little town, I found a major police set-up right on the intersection of 5th and Jackson street. I  turned off the bike lights and hung around and listened a bit, heard the cops say things like "HANDS UP!" and "TURN AROUND" etc. Eventually I got ready to ride out of there and stopped to ask the community service officer what was up and she said all she knew was she'd been told to keep traffic out. 

I circled around to ride through via 6th, and there were some people standing around the corner from Sushi Kazoo so I stopped and asked them and they didn't know anything. I told them about the hands up stuff, and we surmised a bit that it might be that crazy guy who stalked our new preacher who'd just come over from Japan, to our temple. The gal among the group knew about that, and has been living there, in the building above Sushi Maru it appears, for 15 years. Her name is Robin and I'll probably never meet her again.

Big shopping trip

 Up around 4 maybe. Today was to be a big shopping trip, maybe not this kind of big shopping trip: 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yokohama_Kaidashi_Kik%C5%8D

But some serious shopping at Nijiya. I was out the door at 8 after 5, got all kinds of stuff, and by 6 I was back here starting in on the "school lunch" bento I'd bought and a tall can of Asahi beer. I call this one bento "school lunch" because it's got all kinds of different things in it and seems like the balanced meal they'd serve in a Japanese high school. I'd also gotten some pork, some chicken, some tofu, veggies, even a jar of oysters that were on sale. I even got some natto for something healthy to eat for breakfast besides nuts. This all cost me $48-odd.

The thing is, if I'm not going to eat beef, it doesn't make sense to still eat cheese or eat yogurt etc. It's all supporting Big Cow. So I have to get used to having other things around. I looked it up and other ruminants like sheep and goats are also big methane-emitters so to be consistent I have to avoid those also.

So pork, fowl, and all the seafoods are OK. 

Since this is wartime or something like it, time seems shifted 3 hours forward. Coming in at 6 feels like it used to, coming in at 9. And it's in the mid-30s outside at night so it's cold and now for the next 5 months cold will be a factor and I'll run my little heater fan a lot. It's all pretty depressing. I don't know if the Orange Idiot is going to find a way to pull some kind of convoluted trick and get himself installed for another 4 years. Which basically means as many more years as he wants for him or his chosen successor. Am I living in Germany, 1938? 

At least I was smart to get that ukulele when I did because now Guitar Center's gone bankrupt. Guitar Center! In the '08 crash, they did well because tons of people were out of work and were maybe living in their cars but at least they had the time now to learn guitar. Maybe everyone's still got their guitar from the crash. Then they'd just need some new strings from Amazon.  

How many sets of guitar strings I bought from them back around that time without even owning a guitar ... No more favors to bums from me! I have a Left perspective, but I agree with the findings in this book by Theodore Dalrymple: 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_at_the_Bottom

The Left's measures in England like council houses and free night school and all that would work out great if the population was Asian, but whites are so self-destructive that you help them, at least the lower class ones, that they'll take the food basket you gave them and sell it for dope and throw rocks at you the next time they see you. And in England they pretty much did all but burn the council buildings to the ground. This is how hyper-individualistic people act. You don't see this kind of crap in Asia. China lifted a billion people out of poverty by essentially giving them stuff. Mao hung the landlords and hey presto, free housing. You wanna tractor? Here's a tractor. Here's a cow and a bull. Etc. 

In the documentary Century Of The Self it's mentioned that the Labour Party in Britain, whose very constitution called for their doing all they can to better the lives of the common man, were dismayed that "We do all these things for them and then they read a copy of The Sun (notorious tabloid) and vote against us" (a paraphrase from the documentary). And we in the US have millions upon millions who voted for a guy who, if he got a second term, would bring back debtor's prisons, child labor, lynching, etc. So never help a scum; they are your enemy. Help a homeless guy in Asia and you've got a solid friend. A homeless in this country would, if they think they could get away with it, would stab you to "own the libs". 

It's the difference between "red in tooth and claw" individualism or "we live in a society and have for thousands of years". I am only realizing now much of that Confucian "we live in a society" culture rubbed off of me, growing up in Hawaii. 

I've also been reading on Reddit, the r/hapas sub-reddit. Hapa originally meant half Hawaiian half white, but the term is sort of drifting, generally meaning half white and half something else. It's interesting to read about the various hassles some of the people on there have had, and it helps me see things that have gone on in my life. My aunt is so deeply invested in being "white" (and stays in all the time and has blue eyes vs. my mother's hazel) she's not going to discuss it much, but she interestingly mentioned to me when I visited how good-looking we kids ended up due to the mix of my mom and my dad. My dad's side have not wanted to have anything to do with me even though I moved here to California and am fairly nearby. They didn't want my dad to marry my mom, the "steerage immigrant". 

It makes sense that we'd have moved to Hawaii. Even now, in this modern time, there are all kinds of hassles happening to people in r/hapas because those of mixed race are actually pretty rare on the mainland and people are still dicks. This is really strange to me because back in Hawaii, people bragged about being mixed. I don't get the gut-level hate whites here have for blacks. Yeah there are black people I might avoid because they look dangerous like "Takes A Swing Guy" but it's not blanket, it's individual. And the people who have been picking on Asians because covid somehow... don't even get me started. The stupidity, it hurts...

Hawaii may have its problems but compared to here it's pretty sane and normal.

Blah Friday

 "Black Friday" or this year, Blah Friday. I was up at 3 and out the door at 3:30. There wasn't much traffic and the drop-offs went OK. There was a zombie just chilling on one of the benches in front of the post office but it seemed too lethargic to get up and mess with my bike and trailer or anything. As I was leaving it looked at me and gave it a look back that hopefully showed that it's only social convention and my not having a machete at the time that I'd just as soon lop its head off, and it went back to its 1000-yard zombie stare down the parking lot. 

I did the FedEx drop offs and checked out the veggie possibilities behind H Mart. There was a worker there, in an H Mart vest, apparently just getting off work and he'd nicked a large bag of mushrooms. There were green pineapples and some kind of melons, but nothing I wanted. 

On the way back, there was a zombie pushing a shopping cart so I was thankful for the light traffic so I could veer around it. It shouted at me incoherently, something about an egg ranch or a chicken ranch. 

I was back in here, safe and secure, at 5.

Real sources of stability

 Up at 3. Got things together to list last night then decided it was late/early enough and I should hit the sack. 

Good stuff on Reddit's r/collapse subreddit, mainly this: 

https://www.reddit.com/r/collapse/comments/k1laet/i_am_shaun_chamberlin_author_activist_and_dark/ 

the author seems really "akamai" as we say in Hawaii, one clever buggah!

I'm putting the link here to make sure I can find it again because there's a lot of study in there. But one thing I found was that the harder you try for "success" the more it will elude you. My studying high tech is a classic example. All the olders said to go into electronics because there was money in it, and there had been for them back in the 1940s-1960s. By the time I came along that was all gone. 

The author says instead to do exactly what you want and in that way you have the best chance of success coming along as a by-product. Although I was "intended" to become an artist, my interest was in music and I'd have gone for that. Thinking back, I didn't have the guts. I didn't need college for music necessarily, but just the guts to do as little work as possible and spend as much time as possible sneaking into the practice rooms at the University of Hawaii and sneaking in there and singing not just messing around with the pianos. 

I *was* really trying, it's just that the job I had was physically exhausting and I didn't have much energy left over for the piano lessons I signed up for that were held in a tiny hole-in-the-wall place just up the street from my job on Keeaumoku Avenue. I'd get home, get in the shower to get the dog and cat hair and piss smell etc off and then I honestly only had a couple of hours before I'd nod off. Now, those couple of hours could have been spent in practice rooms but no, I wasted all this time in things like night-time math classes. 

I was torn between what I was being told I should do, electronics, and what I'd been told I should do, art, and then what I wanted to do which was music; the only solace to the really poor. It's generally do-able to come up with a How once you have a Why, but that works when you're in one decided direction not three. 

The choice would have been much easier to make if I'd known how little high tech pays. I've come up with a theory that I, as an older, would tell the young ones which is, "Do what you like and assume you'll get paid shit, then if you get paid a bit more than shit, it's a nice surprise". I mean, I was the #1 hotshot tech at (large POS terminal company) and the guys in the warehouse all made more than me, and got to play soccer with a ball made of shrink wrap and goof off. The warehouse guys might not have been living their dream but they had solid jobs they didn't have to waste years and get 10 grand into debt to get, and paid more than I got by far. 

Hawaii, being an Asian place, has a strong culture of "keep quiet, keep your head down, work hard" etc. and making music would have been "making noise" so that was another reason for me to feel inhibited. It took a lot of guts for me to get out busking at first; it's that much harder for a Hawaii person than it is for a mainland person coming from the brash, loud, mainland culture. 

People in Hawaii who do go into music tend to come from musical families. Jake Shimabukuro's mom sang in the nightclubs and Iz came from a huge family tradition and grew up taking his ukulele everywhere with him and playing and singing, with a big clan urging him on.

I can't be too hard on myself that I didn't have this. My parents being mainland people, the culture is that everyone is an atomized individual and no one backs anyone up. Helping or encouraging anyone else, even a family member, is seen as weird. 

Getting back to the link above, the author also says that everyone's trying for safety and stability, and in modern culture it's taken as a given that the way to gain those things is by making money; the more the better. But money may be a very poor way to attain stability and he says, "just look at people in Venezuela" where I guess there's been hyperinflation. He instead cites his own ways of attaining safety and stability by living simply, growing a lot of his own food, and having a large social network. This is completely opposite to the modern convention that all you need to do is amass a large bundle of money, you don't need friends, you can just hug that big bundle of money. Oh, and if you can't make a big bundle of money, then you're a failure and it's your fault if you lose everything you own due to medical bills or something and can just go live under a bridge. 

So say I get competent on singing and the "uke", but money's largely gone. Well, I might well get by OK getting the things money buys like Oh, I need a new shirt, Here's one I never wear, Oh you're playing at our party Sure you're going to get to eat all you want and take some home... (that's standard in intact Pacific cultures).

I've been working on living on less, dropping expensive habits like taking cream in my coffee and eating restaurant food. A water filter turns out to be a lot cheaper than lugging bottles of water home. I've experimented with scrounging stuff like vegetables and that's worked out pretty well. I've learned some of the local "weeds" and the same ones are in Hawaii. I may not have the cooking facilities I have here, living in a rooming house back in Hawaii, but I can work things out. 

I have to be prepared to possibly be homeless in Hawaii because I have to prepare for being homeless wherever I end up. If something happens to Ken, things are going to fall apart fast. I've said this before, that in that case I'd probably have a few months here on the outside, and then I'll be physically outside. If I'm going to be homeless with no access to medical, dental, or eye care, iffy access to food etc., I'd rather be in that condition back home.

Further signs of decay

 Up at 2. The internet is crashing, a lot. This is why I've been collecting books that I'll want to read when the internet  finally winks out for good. 

This is why I've been big on not being dependent, ultimately, on even having access to electricity. In the old days, as a kid in Hawaii, we used to have the power go out and we'd not even noticed until it was night-time because during the day we were out doing things, and one can fish, surf, pick shells, etc. completely free of the use of electricity.  If it got dark and there was no juice, we'd just get out the kerosene lamps.

For busking purposes, a wind instrument is great in this way in that you can generally make yourself heard with no amplification. But not only is trumpet just too hard on my system, but it's a bit of a cultural mis-match for Hawaii. There's even a local saying, "No make tun-turrun" which is a direct reference to the sound of a trumpet. I'd say Hawaii, being pretty much a sort of place where the US and Asia shake hands out there in the middle of the Pacific, is the opposite of a place like New Orleans where brashness is encouraged. 

Crime-wise it's close to opposite also. I recently discovered a TV show that's on YouTube that's basically just some cameramen going around with the ambulance services in New Orleans. One night and there's enough crime and gore for an episode. Hawaii's not perfect but for all the stuff I read on r/hawaii on Reddit, the crime rate *is* lower than most of the mainland US. 

I packed a few packages, originally was going to just take FedEx ones, but decided I'd probably just ride to the post office anyway on auto-pilot so I ended up with three of each by the time I had to go, at 6 sharp. 

It was cold and windy of course, and the signals were out at the intersection the post office is on, and the next one too. I just rode halfway up the block then crossed over to the turn-in for Costco and used that to U-turn and got to the post office just fine. 

Coming back, though, I found that the FedEx had closed at 6 or so. And on Friday it will close at 5 so on Friday I'll have to get out of here by 2 or so to make sure. 

I realized I'd risked my life to deliver 3 packages to the post office. This aspect of my work, these bike trips, is not very safe. That's another thing I have to factor in when deciding when to leave. Can I go another 4 years accident-free?

The place where Brokaw Road goes under the freeway is set up sort of like what in motocross is called a "hole shot" where a bunch of riders have to crowd through a bottleneck. That one intersection is the reason why I decided to get a reflective vest. I've developed a few other strategies also, like lagging back and letting all the cars go past so they can fight each other over the bike lane and keep me out of it. Besides the bottleneck aspect of it, the car and bike lanes cross there and that, plus the fact that car drivers hate seeing a bicyclist "ahead" of them, makes for quite a scrum. Fortunately, the green light times are long there so there's actually lots of time to work things out. 

Another thing that's changed is, after 7PM traffic gets less psycho by a level or three, so in the Before Times(tm) I could take off a bit after 7 and be fine because the chute at the post office was reliable, and FedEx was open until something like 10. Now, because of the virus or zombies or something, I have to go out in the worst of the traffic. 

So the 3 FedEx packages are back here now and hopefully will go out Friday. 

At least I got a green bell pepper and two long green peppers out of the dumpster by Grill-'Em and one of the long green ones went into my scrambled eggs in the finest dumpster to table dining.

Like the Wicked Witch of the West

 Awake at 2:30, up at 3. 

The 'Rump continues to slowly melt like the Wicked Witch of the West, and adults are slowly taking over again. On the radio they said the 'Rump is "acting out" like you'd describe the behavior of a kid during the "terrible two's". 

NPR pulled a good one. They said something about how the president is reacting, then played a baby squalling and then said something like "That's totally some turkeys..." I know what turkeys sound like, and that was not turkeys.  

I was out the door at a quarter after 6 and did my drop-offs and not too many zombie problems. Although, it was funny, coming back here from going across the Foxconn parking lot then up Queen's Lane, there was a big white pickup truck with its hazard lights on, obviously one of the crappy vehicles the zombies around here that barely run. It seemed it was unable to move, but I kept a cautious distance and when I was closest to it, it appeared to try to make a lunge at me but didn't have the strength and I sped up and veered away - then it started honking its horn randomly. A zombie trick is to pretend to have car trouble to lure victims in ... you'll get your brains eaten that way. Bet they were really pissed they didn't lure me in because I have a reputation for being helpful so maybe in their zombie-addled minds they thought they had a sure victim. 

There's the most amazing interview on NPR right now on the "Impossible Burger" and now I really want to try it. The origin story is: A super-duper smart scientist goes to a big hot-shot meeting of environmentalists in Europe where they all discuss the fucked up environmental situation we're in late into the night, and what works out to feed all these hungry scientists late at night is the super-duper smart scientist's partner fries up lots of sliders. The super-duper smart scientist knows that the other scientists, being smart too, know that beef is a huge detriment to the environment, but that's all there was. So the super-duper smart scientist is trying to make something better than beef. 

The interview also goes into how much damage beef-raising does and how much of the world's agriculture is is, and the answer is: a LOT. Chickens and pigs and so on cause some damage, but beef is many, many times as harmful.

People don't light their houses with whale oil any more because there's a replacement that's better. And I think that's the idea. 

But what I think can really change things is simply changing social mores. We in the US don't eat dogs, although the First Nations people did, enthusiastically. We generally don't eat cats, turtles, parrots, whales, and suchlike things because we just don't. In a generation or two, eating beef could be seen the way smoking is now.

I'm finding singing teachers galore on YouTube, but caveat emptor I guess because I'll find one with "bel canto" exercises then in the comments people saying they're training singers saying their teaching is bad and wrong. Luckily I have my trumpet experience to fall back on. Things like using the diaphragm, not straining, don't force vibrato, don't force range ...

Helicopters and sirens oh my

 Up at 3 and out the door at 5. Since the packages I have staged are very few, I decided I'd switch it up and go downtown today instead of tomorrow. 

My first stop was Nijiya where I got a bunch of things including some raw tuna, a bento, and a beer. As I'd pulled up and locked the bike I heard a ukulele or ukuleles across the street so I also got a can of  "Snowflake" nigori sake to give to the guy. I walked over and the door was locked and it was just him, jamming away. I knocked softly but he didn't break his trance. Then I realized the shop has Hawaii-type louvered windows and there was a little shelf just inside the window, with room so I just put the little can on the shelf there. I hope he likes it; I'd told him it's good. 

Then I went over to the Issei center and had my little picnic. It was cold but there wasn't a wind, so it was fairly nice. 

Then I went over to Whole Foods and locked the bike. There was a big guy begging there with a sign and playing music on some kind of radio or something. I told he he ought to play some Motown (which is classic boomer music and perfect for begging at a Whole Foods) and suggested he find "The Day Chicago Died" and he fiddled around on his phone and played it, although he radio or whatever had almost no treble. 

I went to CVS for vodka - not much left, too - and when I got back to Whole Foods the beggar was gone, so I don't know if someone gave him a big "drop" for having played Motown, or he got told to leave by someone connected with Whole Foods. 

I got a bunch of stuff including some kale for green veggies, because I plan to stay in as much as possible this week. And I went out for groceries today because I assume it will be kinda crazy tomorrow and forget about Wednesday, the day before Thanksgiving. 

I went around to the Amazon hub and got some bubble mailers and a book I'd ordered, "Comments On The Society Of The Spectacle" by Guy Debord. Hm, I'm feeling depressed so I decide to get a book written by a pessimistic French philosopher who killed himself. 

There were more zombies out than I thought there would be, lots of helicopter action and a lot of sirens. A couple zombies yelled at me but they were well out of lunging distance - I'm very careful about that - so it wasn't too bad. 

I got back and after checking email etc the internet shut down. And stayed shut down. Eventually I got a ladder out and unplugged the internet box, waited a minute or two, then plugged it back in again. It was really filthy up there on top of the equipment rack Ken had put the internet box - just shows the kind of crap I'm breathing, living here. But  I fixed the internet so that was good. 

I had dinner (beef with broccoli) and got some packages set up and watched too much YouTube. I'm doing some kind of basic voice exercise each night, and it's working. I'd actually sung along with 'The Night Chicago Died" when that bum played it on his crappy boom box and it had sounded pretty good. Maybe that got him a big "drop" because I've seen how a really trained human voice really gets attention.

Sleepy Sunday

 Up at 4, which makes sense since I was up until 7AM. I was actually awake at 3, making it the standard 8 hours of sleep. After all that heat over the summer I thought it would feel better to be cold instead but it does not. 

Another sucky Saturday

 I woke up at 4:30 so I guess I needed sleep. I guess things have an excuse to be cold and dark and depressing with Thanksgiving next Thursday. It had stayed so warm up through October that it was like a switch was flipped and now it's winter. 

I think I've been losing some weight because I've wanted to lose weight to handle heat better. Back in Hawaii I'll have to really watch my weight because it's not just warm there but humid. Of course every time I've stepped off a plane there my body has felt the atmosphere there and reacted something like, "I'm home". So maybe having grown up in that particular climate makes it natural to me. I've even had a Cambodian co-worker say they didn't like that climate, but much preferred California here where it's a lot drier. 

I did some singing exercises last night they are indeed working. Like exercising any muscle, I guess. 

The election is still up in the air and I guess the way the 'Rump is playing things is, it's a great way to fund-raise from his brain-damaged followers and at the very end he can do a sort of Foghorn Leghorn bow and step off stage. And if, though it's a small chance, he's able to install himself as dictator then that's even better. 

Not better for we in the 99% though. And, if the latter case occurs, I've decided I need to step up my schedule to go back to Hawaii because I'd expect travel restrictions to become a thing. Things are so much worse now than they were 4 years ago, that 4 years from now there may be no plane travel for anyone but the elite, or we may be in a low-level civil war something like "The Troubles" in Ireland which would certainly complicate travel. 

I'll certainly have time to study no matter how fast I leave, so thanks to u/happybadger on Reddit posting this: 

https://hyperallergic.com/313435/an-illustrated-guide-to-guy-debords-the-society-of-the-spectacle/

I've ordered Debord's Comments On The Society Of The Spectacle which is a later book and supposedly easier for the new student of Marxism/Situationism to digest. I want to study this because I think I've got the basic gist: Capitalism makes you miserable and one of the modern ways it does so is to make you obsessed with baubles you don't really need. 

I remember in my college days being obsessed over HP calculators and had a small collection of them that I worked hours I didn't need to to obtain. And I was obsessed with having a motor scooter and then motorcycles and of course now I know that any motor vehicle is a huge money-drain. I remember also in college being miserable because I was obsessed with having one of those military watches with little radium vials in it - they'd been cheap and the price of them had started skyrocketing. A stupid watch. 

The whole idea of moving to the mainland was *supposedly* things were cheaper and I could work and have a car and a house ... all false of course. And I thought it'd be easy to finish my degree, again, wrong. And I thought I'd be able to pair up with some life-partner like used to be normal and with both of us working, all these things would be possible. All I found was a couple of gold-diggers.

My whole life was described in terms of things. A car. A house. You're a good person because you've got a car and a house. You're a success because you've got a boat and scuba-dive in the Caribbean like Ken and his family can do. 

Even when I was a kid I found Eastern/Asian ideals strange and even repugnant. An older guy, perhaps ex-British gov't service? - treated my mom and I to a sort of lecture and slide show on Eastern art ... those patterns... lattices... beautiful but no individuality, no artist's signature on that stuff. I was turned off. It seemed a prison-art, with no artist thumping their chest and saying, through their work, "I am I!"

I also read books about meditation and yoga and such things, and I'd be infuriated, thinking, "Why doesn't that guy get up off his ass and build something?" The idea of living a good life in terms of doing as little harm as possible and living lightly on the Earth is completely inimical to the Western ideal of "Progress!".

But now the idea of being a minimalist is becoming more popular, at least a perceptible underground murmur. And I understand now. I started to realize how this all worked when I still had my apartment and my Prius and my own little business, and one day ran some quick numbers through my head and saw that I was essentially working for the Toyota Motor Company and the company that owned my apartment, and several credit-card companies and Ebay, and was living, myself, on as little as I could spare. 

Progress is as dead to me as the Republican Party. About all a person can do is try to do as little damage as possible as they get through life, and I already feel like a genius for not having kids. 

2 mil

 Up at almost 4. Yikes! I still needed to finish off the packages I've prepped and be out the door not much after 6. 

It appears to be a good time for the virus. As I keep belaboring, the model I thinks it's going to follow is the 1918 flu and that calls for about 2 million deaths in the US and two more years of keeping things shut down as much as possible. As of now, the hospitals in this area are projected to be overloaded in a couple of weeks. I remember in the early days of the virus the city setting up the convention center downtown as a large field hospital. The trouble is, when the hospitals get overloaded the death rate goes from less than 1% to something like 20% and that's not even factoring in the burst gallbladders, heart attacks, etc., that don't get treated because of the overload. That's where triage begins and you're written off if you're old, fat, etc. 

I actually got the packages finished and did my post office and FedEx run. I thought about getting some take out food somewhere, but that's not the best way to save money. So once I got back I had some scrambled eggs. 

Among other things I got some Ebay listings in, 15 items, before Ebay started getting too glitchy so I'll do the last 5 or 6 tomorrow.

Out and back

 I woke up at 3. I needed to be out the door by 3:15 and I was. I dropped off some things at the two blessing boxes, and picked up a book, "Cartooning" by Roy Paul Nelson. 

I went to the bank and deposited my pay check, went to CVS for vodka then Whole Foods for odds and ends. I was helped by the World's Most Inept Cashier(tm) but we got through it. Nice guy, but must be really new or something. 

I then went by the Amazon hub for some mouth rinse for this weird "geographic tongue" thing I've got going on, and bubble mailers of which I picked up plenty. 

There wasn't much else I wanted to do so I rode for home and got back here at 5:20. The cold seems to really cut down on the number of raving zombies out on the street and I only saw a couple of really gone ones.  (And one more that was far gone that I saw when I was back here, who was screaming or more like crowing over and over while he and his zombie cart full of shit and zombie dog shuffled through the parking lot here. 

The taco truck on 10th was there - a cross from a pot dispensary - and I might have stopped if I had cash on me.

I settled down here with some salami and the beer I'd bought, and read the book on cartooning. The author covers the period from about 1900 - 1975 and it was fascinating enough that I read the whole thing - it's one to re-read with Google by my side. 

We're back in "Is this trip necessary?" territory with a curfew again - not supposed to be out from 10PM to 5AM. That only means Ken might come by a little earlier, or last time he simply got a note from his employer saying he's an essential worker. I'm never out during those hours myself - busking until midnight at The Old Spaghetti Factory seems like a memory from another life.

Good old 1930s politics

 Up at 3:30. I made the mistake of turning on the radio and heard a rundown by an expert on NPR talk about how the 'Rump and his followers may try this or that emergency power and how they're not going away. 

I think I've armed up pretty well for the budget I have, although I still want to buy a few bits for the Glock and I want to make a little jig to make the FMJ 9mm ammo I have into hollow points. Ideally none of it gets used and I sell it all off for 3X what I spent when I'm ready to go home. 

The smartest thing of course is to leave this shithole country but I'm not in my 20s any more, and the best I can hope for is to go off into some corner or pocket of it that most of the turmoil will bypass. That's why I think getting back to Hawaii is the best idea. Hopefully can ride out the coming times the way Django Reinhardt rode out WWII.

It was still raining when I went to bed at about 8AM but it's pretty dry now. 

I find I need to sign in to go on YouTube, where I'd been putting the comment "GENERAL STRIKES IF THE 'RUMP ISN'T DUMPED" here and there. So now I'm banned somehow? I can watch videos but not take part in live streams or comment, don't have access to my subscribed channels etc. I didn't think YouTube was that pro-Trump although in general the internet likes Nazis because Nazis are profitable. I've contacted them and may get back on, but I'm not holding out hopes. I can still watch my favorite videos, I just have to keep the channel names written down on an index card or just have them memorized the way we all used to have a handful of phone numbers memorized. 

This is just one more example of technology going backward. I managed to find Andy Bumatai's physical mail address and will probably write him a letter saying thanks for the good times when I could join the "Hamajang Gang" on Youtube but that those times are gone now. I've also sent emails to a few old correspondents warning them about the oncoming political chill, that they may have to watch out because if it's me, now, it may be them, soon.

I only had a few small boxes for the post office and one big one for FedEx so I took off at about 6:30 with just the big box and took it to FedEx. I only found a few shipping things on the way back. I saw this black box truck that I'm seeing all the time around here, pass by on Brokaw. That truck drives through the complex here maybe every hour or so I don't know ... maybe I'll start logging it. Lately I've left some scrap metal out which the driver of the truck picked up, fair enough. I get to get rid of the junk and they get some crack money from the recycling place. But are they so desperate now that they're trolling back and forth around the neighborhood hoping I'll throw out some stuff? I was just looking at some power tools and electrical cords someone had tossed out; how come these dumb bums can't find that stuff? 

I got back and had some scrambled eggs and vacuumed the floor and cleaned the bathroom and made ready for Ken to come by which he did, dropped off some boxes for packing and I helped him with a heavy-ass roll of coaxial cable, and we settled down to discuss the problems of the world. A couple suspicious guys (who wears shorts in this weather?) were walking around in the parking lot so once Ken assured me he'd locked his truck I closed the door and watched them on the video cameras. I think they'd come, each in their own car with one car having blacked-out windows, to wait for some 3rd party and they waited quite a while before giving up. I guess their deal didn't go down. 

Presently Ken left and I just had some Vienna sausages dipped in mustard-mayo for a quick dinner.

Rain swept through ...

 While I was asleep. It's just staying steadily wet now. Lots of leaves all over so it was windy too. I'm pretty good at sleeping through stuff like big trucks passing through and various industrial noises. I was up at a quarter to 4. 

I guess being bored is a luxury, but it's both boring and depressing. It's cold and wet and dark, and the virus is raging so I have to take pains to be extra antisocial. For instance, if the covid level was "purple" a few weeks ago, I'd not have gone into Guitar Center to buy that uke. Although I supposed if I needed to buy one now, I'd buy it online and do store pickup and pick it up at the front door. 

The thing is, I take this stuff seriously. They say on the radio to get a flu shot and I do it - now I don't have to worry about that because I did it early, just like they advised. They say the virus is raging, OK I'll wear my mask 100% when out because that's what a good citizen does. 

As people keep saying, No, this isn't the Black Plague but it is about 10X as lethal as the regular flu, and if medical systems get overwhelmed then it will get much worse - 10%-20% death rate not to mention the other patients with the ongoing toll of heart disease and burst gallbladders etc who will die from lack of care due to the systems being swamped by covid patients. This is why the Italians had to do triage. A Redditor's father was turned away from an overwhelmed ER because he "felt ill" and died three days later from a burst gallbladder. This is what the Republicans want - let the virus rage. 

On Reddit they call it the "Leopards Eating Faces Party" - people vote for it because they never  think a leopard will eat THEIR face. 

This is really prevalent among the lower classes. Trumpers on Welfare. I've talked to any number of homeless/street people who are vehemently against the very things they benefit from like food stamps and free clinics and so on. Of course anyone who's an identifiable "street person" is 99.99% sure to be nuts anyway. 

When I first moved to this area in 2012, there was an old Ford Windstar van that was always parked down the street. I watched it come and go, and eventually learned it was lived in by an old lady. After a few years I got to talk to her and the first time it was just about living situations and the various "tribes" who live in the back parking lots of some of the industrial buildings here. The second time was more ... interesting. I'd talked with her, short little conversations, about where we were moving (3/4 mile down the same street) "Oh, by the croissant place?" "Yeah, a bit further down, across from the cement plant.." and it'd gone fairly well, but one night I wanted to see if she really needed anything so I got into a long conversation. 

It turned out that she was all right, except for the Germans and the Haitians. The Germans and the Haitians, it turned out, are in a plot against here. A really bad one too, but so bad it can't be discussed in depth, or something. It got really rambly from there, but of course that's all down to the Germans and the Haitians. I bid a warm adieu and rode off and haven't found a reason to talk since. 

Or Recorder Ron. He's convinced that Trumpetman's a pedo, and I always tried to get him to take it easy saying things like that because it can get someone in some real trouble. Ron's life is one of constant drama, during which he was going to inherit a lot of money, then not ... then maybe ... who knows. He said he'd give me a car once and I said the last thing I want is a car. He's probably gone back home to Florida or wherever it was, because I've not seen him for something like a year. 

Trumpetman used to have a bio on his web page and mainly all he's done to screw up in life is, like I have, consistently take the wrong path when he came to a branch point. He's not really crazy, just takes a really dismal view of things. So he'll have signs out saying "IF THE PEOPLE OF SAN JOSE DON'T GIVE MORE I'LL HAVE TO EAT THE RABBIT" (he always has a pet rabbit with him). In a way, while he's not crazy, he has a bad mindset for someone in his situation. 

Gretch, who I used to think of as "Dirty Hands Girl" can do fairly decent artwork of flowers but mainly her thing is begging with a small dog or three. I got in an in-depth conversation with her once and well ... it seems that at least in her mind she's got about 15 children out there and at least five or six houses she can move into any time, out in the Midwest. She just prefers to live on the street, for now, here. She's nice enough but things just don't add up. 

Wendell the flute player is an exception but is he really "street"? He's got a house in New Orleans, and travels back and forth because it's better than just staying in NOLA all the time. And he's got significant roots in the Bay Area here from working and living here during various periods of his life. He'd dealing the hand Life his given him quite well I think. 

There are a lot of randoms I've talked to and they're typically at least as crazy as Windstar Van Lady. You can't really help them because say you give them money for food and it'll go for cigarettes. The pile of art materials I gave to Good Artist Guy on the Paseo de San Antonio probably got sold for crack rocks or meth. Let's say he was a METHodical artist... 

Rinban Sakamoto at the temple knows the Jodo Shinshu teachings inside and out, and can talk all about the higher and lower levels of existence like the realm of the hungry ghosts and so on, but he always emphasizes "This is all here; this is right now". Someone who can only spit hate at those who help them out from the Welfare office to the kindly person who drops them a few bucks, and is probably addicted to cigarettes if not booze and other things, and who lives from cig to cig, 6-pack to 6-pack, aren't they living in something close to the realm of the hungry ghosts? 

What about the really gone crack addicts, meth addicts, heroin addicts? Life as an endless cycle of stealing or doing whatever they have to do, then getting their substance, experiencing a brief respite from the pain (and probably having put off eating to get their hit) then on the cycle, around and around, isn't that an Earthly version of the realm of the hungry ghosts? 

Of course it doesn't take drugs to be unhappy but they sure do help .... It's more of a mind set. I never contemplated taking drugs because the long and short of it is, it would bring great shame to my family. That's the kind of Asian thinking I didn't realize I have due to having grown up in Hawaii. But someone with no feeling of shame, only personal guilt and who cares about anyone else, and after all they're feeling bad so why not try some drugs? It's their body yadda yadda. 

Maybe this comes down to two cultures. There are several videos on YouTube about how homelessness is "done" in Japan. Because they are capitalist of course they have homelessness, but because they realize their impact on society at large, homeless people there are neat, clean, orderly, and try their best to be out of the way. It's like, "I am in this unfortunate situation but I will try to make it the easiest I can on society". There are very, very, few homeless people in the US who think this way - they're probably not out on the street for long, frankly, because someone who is neat and clean and reliable even under straitened circumstances is a standout here and will get taken in by someone to be a night watchman or some sort of light work. 

But US street people are kind of caught in this "Fuck you world, you owe me!" loop. So they can get a free apartment, free food, free yadda yadda, and still be angry and miserable. It's why US beggars will pander to you with a line that goes like, "Do you have a dollar? I could really use a $5, maybe a $20..." and will follow you asking for more. For the few, educational, months I was a panhandler I took a professional pride in being cheerful and thankful whether it was a lot of money I was given or 11c. Or if none, to still be thankful because they'd heard my spiel. That's how a beggar in Japan would do it.... 

And in Japan, once they can possibly do something other than begging, even if it makes less, they do that thing. Which is what I did - handicrafts then busking. Busking being best because the payment is entirely voluntary while the music is given to all who hear it. And Japan has its share of buskers. 

But to wind this all up, I've concluded that to interact with US street people pretty much amounts to interacting with the distilled nastiness of American culture. I've pretty much lost interest.  

Maybe less than simply lost interest because it occurs to me that Windstar Van Lady was probably helped at one time by a German and a Haitian, thus earning her eternal hatred. Recorder Ron was probably given advice or help by Trumpetman, with the result now that Ron goes around trying to convince anyone who will listen that he's a pedo (he's not). That's how strange the mindset is - help one of the scumsuckers and you run a risk of being fodder for their paranoid conspiracy theories.

Wine, but not beer!

 Up at 4. It makes sense, with all I did last night. It's no problem, though. I've got plenty of time. 

This county, Santa Clara county, is back to "purple" in terms of covid. People on Reddit are observing that under "purple" regulations you can drink wine outdoors but not beer, and this is apparently because Governor Gavin Newsome owns a winery but not a brewery. You can't drink beer outdoors until things improve to "yellow". 

They (the people on Reddit) then went on to come up with what an actual explanation might be: People who drink beer typically yell at each other (that's how they converse) gather up in tight groups etc. Wine drinkers tend to be very chill and quiet and I have to agree with them that the wine bars I've been in may have been a bit bougie, but very calm atmosphere and people. 

I got going at a quarter after 6, did my drop-offs at the post office OK, and although I didn't have anything for FedEx I checked the dumpsters behind H Mart and got $40 worth of brown rice (two 15lb bags) and a bunch of other stuff. I could have pulled a ton more stuff out, too, but mainly just wanted to take stuff I wanted myself or was good to donate. I was thinking I'd donate the rice since brown rice doesn't keep that long, but realized I could put it into those high quality gallon jugs I get some Sanmina and keep it for 6 months anyway, then consider donating it. (I put it in ziploc bags of about a lb each to donate) and if "the balloon goes up" in the next 6 months, I've got the brown rice to use up first. 

I got some packing stuff and more pieces of what I'm still sure is illustration board. That stuff's not cheap but it probably compared to the circuit board material it's used to protect. 

I got back here, unloaded, and took off again for H Mart for some shopping not of the 5-finger kind. I spent about $45 on a bunch of stuff, including as a treat some of those peppery roasted peanuts with the picture on the package of the field in China they grew in, some fried noodle flavored potato chips (they really don't taste like much of anything but potato chips but I was curious) and some kamaboko, and a $2 beer to wash it all down with. 

I swung by the dumpster again just to see, and they'd put big sealed bags of veggie scraps and other junk on top, so I could not comfort myself thinking that the two bags of rice I could not reach would get snarfed by someone else who maybe needed them more, or that thankful bums would scarf up the other treasures in there. Mostly it was sugary junk but still... 

I got back here at the scandalous hour of 8:50 and started in on my beer and snacks surrounded by today's groceries and finds.  

I then put the brown rice in gallon jugs with bay leaves, and it should be good for 6 months. If I've not needed it I can donate it, give it to birds etc. It goes 7 lbs to a jug so I had 4 jugs filled to the brim with a little bit left over.

Dragging the truck

 Up at about 2. All  I did yesterday/last night was watch YouTube and drink. It at least feels like I have a day off if I do nothing for a day, even if I'm staying in here. I might feel like going out and riding around and buying stuff at places, but the virus is at its all-time peak right now and it's back to, "Is this trip necessary?" 

I stayed in while the guys next door at the cleaning place futzed around trying to tow this truck they've had parked in the parking lot for a while. The guy was having trouble backing it up and it must have been frustrating for him. He finally got it, though. 

I packed all the packages and cooked a nice broccoli-asparagus-beef dinner than listed some Ebay things, then I watched some video and decided I was just plain tired of how long my hair had gotten and figured I'd try doing a cut by feel, and not even fool around with the barber's cape. 

So I got out the tub for the hair to fall into, and started in, and the long strands really resisted the clipper. I sighed and put on the barber's cape and spread out plastic to catch the hair and went to work with the mirror but it still wasn't working so I got out a longer guard and for some reason that cut the hair easily. Then I polished it up with the shorter guards, shaved the back of my neck, etc. Then a hair-wash and a bath, and I'm neater and nicer-smelling. Tuesday's a rain day so if I'm going to go any shopping, the thing to do is grab the packages I've packed as soon as I'm up and do an early post office run like  I did on Friday, then drop off the trailer here and go back up to H Mart for some shopping. That means being around Asians so I need to smell like a proper human being. 

Thinking about this last haircut, I realized it must be much easier to keep a buzz cut looking good if it's trimmed maybe every 2 weeks. So just now I looked that up and indeed, Gentlemen's Quarterly suggests every week or two, or three on the outside. But it would be an easy process doing it that often - I'd get a good feel for it from so much practice. 

I bet those lady barbers in the Vietnamese barber shop were really annoyed by having to hack all that hair off of my head each time I came in, after letting it go so long.  As noted in GQ, a buzz is the cheapest cut, but those ladies have to charge the same cheap price to idiots like me who came in so overgrown. At least I was on the right track tipping so generously.

Grey and puddly

 I woke up at noon, because I'd gone to bed earlier than I usually do. I had the idea I'd go out and do something today but it was still grey and puddly out and didn't look inviting. 

So I stayed in bed and read "The Secret Sharer" and "The Shadow Line" by Joseph Conrad, out of a 50+ year old paperback book I'd picked up from one of the little free libraries. That guy could really write! Since his stuff is all 100 or more years old now, I wonder if most or all of it isn't online for free these days. 

Dodging rain

 It's supposed to rain today, especially after 4. I'm not sure what time I was up, but I was out the door with the packages about 10 minutes after, after checking the weather radar thing and seeing squalls all over. 

I stopped at the lunch truck that parks in front of the complex here and got two empanada type things for $4 and put them in the bike bag. 

On my ride to the post office and FedEx I only got sprinkled on lightly. I set up in front of an empty store front and ate the empanada things - it was a good meal for $4. 

I came right back here and took my organic trash to the blackberry patch, and was back in here and buttoned up just a bit after 4. By 4:30 it was completely wet outside.

Paging Dr. Worm

 I can't get the They Might Be Giants song "Dr. Worm" out of my mind. An ear-worm, if you will. It's a fun song though and more complicated than it seems. 

I was up at 2, and out the door at a quarter after 3. I rode right to the bank and deposited two paychecks to the tune of $650. (And when I went over the numbers when I got back here, everything worked out to the penny, and I'm $200 up from two weeks ago, so saving $100/week.) 

I walked up to CVS for vodka, and had checked prices of Windex there and at the hardware store. It's expensive and getting hard to find. 

I did some shopping at Whole Foods and got some "salmon candy" which is dried salmon with a sort of sweetness to it that was on sale, and a $2 beer that looks like an iced tea, and various groceries. I went over to my spot by the baggage building of Diridon Station to have my little picnic and while it was cold, it was enjoyable watching the geese fly over and the sun setting, reflected by the "gold building" downtown where the IRS and other government agencies live. 

I stopped by the Amazon hub for bubble mailers and got 5 or so. It seems they're starting to switch over to paper ones so I might have to have Ken order bubble mailers again in the future. 

I headed for home, and on 10th street across from the pot shop there was a lunch wagon so I stopped there. I had $3 cash on me and wanted to support a local business and practice rolling my R's so my $3 and rolled R's got me two beef tacos and they offered me a drink also but I said I'm OK; I've got water. 

I was finishing off the tacos back here before 6. It seems like everything's shifted by three hours so if I'm out until 7, it feels like being out until 10 used to feel.

Veterans' Day

 I ended up drinking a fair amount last night and watching tons of They Might Be Giants videos last night, with a few Gorillaz videos mixed in. I had no idea TMBG did so much music! It turns out the band goes back to 1982 so they've got to be in their 50s now. And still touring.

So I wasn't very useful last night. 

I eventually cooked up some garlic scrambled eggs, which are a real win. That "spreadable" butter I scrounged is really good for frying eggs in. Where things turned bad was when I decided to fry some slices of the Korean "Mr. Bong" fish sausage I got at H. Mart. Get that stuff hot and it gives off a smell like rubber erasers. Just awful. I ate the eggs from under the sausage slices and then put shoyu and Worcestershire sauce on them and ate them - at least one good thing about being a Boomer is being able to buckle down and eat food that doesn't taste very good but you have to eat it. 

I thought the heat over the summer was depressing but now it's cold and gets dark by 5 or so. I'll eventually get dark around 4. 

And the election is depressing as hell. It looks like Fat Orange will have to admit defeat, as even some of his loony-Christian supporters are saying Biden won. I'm just worried that the fascists will corkscrew their way to claiming the election went their way, backed, I guess, by big industrialists the way Hitler was backed. I.G. Farben which was broken up postwar, Thyssen, etc. They figured there was a ton to be made on a war. 

I got some Ebay things listed, cooked up a good beef and broccoli dinner, and got 10 things lined up to list... it may rain on Friday and I considered visiting the bank then because I could ship packages Thursday when it's dry, but I think instead I'll stick to my usual Thursday time for the bank, then if it's going to be rainy on Friday I can put the packages in plastic bags and it's a much shorter trip overall. 

For some reason Andy Bumatai's hamajang gang didn't get going on YouTube today but I found Photo Luke doing a stream so I jumped in there. We had a good old time. Amazing how, now that I'm old, I can "local out" with some Hawaii locals and it all just flows. I think it gets different when you're close to retiring and pretty much on the glide path and not so competitive about jobs etc. One interesting video Luke shared with us was of the cave out by Ka'ena point. I knew there was  a cave there but that sucker's HUGE.

Left the light on.

 Up at 3. Had coffee etc. and finished off the 20 packages I had staged, and was out the door at 5. The first drop-off was at the UPS place because I'd accidentally set up one box to go by UPS. I was flabbergasted when I saw what I'd done - all these years just work for Ken, not even counting all the time before, and I'd never shipped something UPS that I didn't mean to. But Ebay throws all these options at you and UPS won, there. The people at that UPS store are really nice though. 

Next I went over to 5 Guys and got a bacon cheeseburger lettuce wrap. For some reason they only charged me for a regular burger, $8-odd instead of $10-odd. I sat and ate it at that little walkway that goes from Chipotle etc to the street. It's a nice place to eat that's away from any foot traffic. It was a good burger too! 

It was now 6, the time I normally am just leaving the shop (I'd left earlier because the UPS place closes at 6) I went to the post office and did my drop-offs, then doubled back and took one large box to FedEx, and I was done. I picked up a few onions and a couple fennels from behind H-Mart, and found some odd packing materials. Because I now have onions and fennel and a pepper sitting here, I took my old route back, along Junction Avenue and by the FedEx hub, and checked the "Indian" dumpster. Boxes and boxes of psyllium husk, but I've got plenty of Metamucil here. What's nice is, I now have a firm idea of which one of the dumpsters it is and can check it regularly. 

Tomorrow's a holiday so I might find something fun to do.

Every time....

 Up at 4. I drank a fair amount last night and watched YouTube stuff and sang a ton of stuff like scales and that thing that's in the Mel Bay guitar book that's the first real piece of music you learn to play, that for some reason has always stuck in my memory. Then I sang a ton of songs along with videos. 

Every time I think "Well, I was meant to be an artist and I really need to stop dithering around with this music nonsense" I open my mouth and sing a bit and am reminded that my father has left me a voice. There's a Japanese saying that means "everything I am is because of you" and although he was a Typical Deadbeat White American(tm) I seem to have inherited a bit of his "pipes" and he had good "pipes" indeed. I don't know why he didn't go on the radio, really. He had a friend, Mike Eisenstadt, who got on the radio as "Uncle Mikey" and got kicked right off the radio for playing something called the "Vatican Rag". 

This is not to say my mom didn't have a decent singing voice as well. She also sang with me when I was little, too. 

From reading r/hapas on Reddit I've come around to having a theory. Up until the 60s or 70s, people in the US married within their own group. My mom's folks were Lithuanian and married Lithuanian, but more importantly, they were Lithuanian Tatar and they married within that group. My dad was a bit of an outlier, pure-bred WASP and intended to keep to pure-Aryan breeding standards but he liked exotic things and it seems Mom really bowled him over. She was careful to keep out of the sun and in a newspaper article about the marriage she was termed "Balkan royalty". Uhm, only in the way Tatars were used as elite shock troops, like the British used Gurkhas. 

The truth is, in the USA the default and the thing that will keep you from being arrest for jaywalking or for ... being ... is white. And if Mom stayed out of the sun she could just squeak in. Imagine the ensuing surprise when we kids were popped out, all 5 of us, and proceeded to walk around the block and ride tricycles around, and wrestle on the lawn, and get as brown as we did. 

I'm seeing now why Mom stayed in so much, and Dad must have caught shit for being a "squaw man" and we kids "half breeds". I remember my mom being friends with a lady up the street called Mrs. Reismuller (spelling phonetic and my own) and then breaking up - did Mrs. R. make some unconscious aside about "racial purity"? 

So we moved to Hawaii where there are less side-eyes about my Dad, pale as they come, and a bunch of brown kids clustered around him. Mom eventually exchanged my deadbeat dad for another white deadbeat, trying as her life spiraled into failure to "stay white". She could have gotten by just fine in Hawaii, being brown enough that she got by for years driving without a license or insurance or, I believe, shoes. 

But her white deadbeat boyfriend convinced her to move to Florida where they supposedly took part in the Mariel boatlift, and then she worked as a security guard. My youngest sister went to live with them and they charged her rent (in fine white style) and she worked at a fruit stand to pay said rent while finishing high school then returned to Hawaii. Mom eventually died of whiteness, going out drunk driving (that most white of hobbies) with her boyfriend and getting in a bad accident, then the nursing home and the end at approximately age 60. "Live fast, die young, don't give a fuck about anyone else" being the White motto, after all. If only she could have been happy. 

I tried to show her how to be happy. "You have to go to the beach",  I said, when we lived in Hau'ula. She stayed under the shade of the trees and I tried to convince her to frolic in the water, leading by example. Now I know why, during the many times she took us to Waimea Bay when we still had a car that ran and lived in Pupukea, she'd stay under the trees. If she got too dark her boyfriend would leave her.  

This theory makes a lot of things fall right into place. Really only two of us have had reason to even think about these things, my oldest sister and I. And my older sister has had migraines from her teens and describes herself as a "photophobe", avoiding the sun. We're the two olive-skinned, hazel-eyed ones. We look "ethnic" it just came down to me to find out what the "ethnic" is. 

I was out at the beach, picking shells or fishing or surfing the most. So I'd get really brown and I swear, during one 4-day period when the waves were really good and I was out surfing every day, my eyes even turned more brown than hazel and when I saw a reflection of myself in the little gift shop in Pat's In Punalu'u I turned around in surprise thinking a Hawaiian kid was behind me. 

So I must have pissed lots of people off, being so hapa-looking and yet, in language and body language and little ways like that that people pick up on in Hawaii, insisting I'm white. Being what Asians call a "banana" - yellow outside, white inside. Rejecting my home. The only one who didn't see right through it was me. 

I made a run up to H Mart and got a couple of the fancy corn dog type things the little restaurant in there sells. They were fairly good, and I wonder when hot dogs stopped being smoky flavor? These were smoky flavor. I ate them sitting at the bench between H Mart and the FedEx, so I wasn't in anyone's way. 

Then I did some shopping, treated myself to some salmon sashimi and fish cake, saw they had Lagunatas beer in the can the looks like it's iced tea for $2 so I got one of those, and got a 12-pack of cans of diet 7-Up so I'll have that on hand for Ken. I felt pretty smart there. 

I was back here and almost done with my sashimi and fish cake and beer meal when Ken came by. I stuck the mug of beer in the fridge, and finished off the food as quickly as I could, and he brought in a bunch of stuff to sell, then we sat and BS'd for a while. He didn't want a soda, he wanted hot tea so he had that and I treated myself to a soda.

Charles Sumner

 Charles Sumner was famous in his time, and it helps the Right that so few know about this great man these days. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Sumner

It's a great read, and a look into the way the Right wants things to go into the future. I only learned about him from hearing a brief aside about him on the radio, NPR of course, and Googled the name.  Stuff like this is pure candy. Lack of education is why there are now things like The History Channel but also organizations like www.marxists.org and www.wsws.org are becoming more popular, because they have great archives you can read for free. 

I was going to leave here at about 3, but it was really storming outside. Even some hail. The roof ventilator things had been screaming when  I got up at 2, but it looked it was going to be raining on and off as squalls passed over. I started getting kitted up to walk to the light rail, get on the "green" line to Diridon Station and walk to Whole Foods and CVS, but then I waited a bit and it looked like it was going to dry out. 

And in fact it did, cold and dry. I could see my breath. I rode to Nijiya first and got the dried mushrooms I'd forgotten yesterday, and instead of yesterday's $6 bento, I got fried fish for $4-odd but a 50c more expensive beer. And yep, right back over to the Issei center to eat, but this time sat further up on the steps where it was dry. The singing couple were out, doing their thing. It was nice and calm, if cold. Of course I got shoyu all over my hands but the wet grass was great for washing them on. And looking in the windows a bit, I saw a notice for shamisan practice on Saturdays - of course this is from the before times. But in a couple of years when things normalize, it might be fun to see that. 

I should really work on writing out some good lyrics for my "Omiyage" song that goes to the tune of "Oh My Darling Clementine". It's all about going to this place and that place, and bringing back omiyage (little souvenirs you bring back for friends, co-workers etc.) from said place, so for instance going to San Francisco and bringing back some fog - impossible gifts. I think the idea's really solid, but it takes something like real work to come up with a real song. "When you hear me talk about writing, it's almost always re-writing" - paraphrased from Hemingway. I'm sure this is why "Weird Al" Yankovic is such a huge sensation as opposed to all us other comedy gagsters out here who'll think up something and never follow through on it. 

Of course the average American would hear the "Omiyage song" and just think, Huh? Japanese in Japan would probably think it's a real hoot, once someone translates it. But Japanese-Americans, it'd be right up their alley. 

I dropped off some packages of Midol (a good amount of what I scrounge, I donate) in the blessing box on 6th and picked up a copy of "The Open Marxism of Antonio Gramsci" in hardcover. Very nice little vintage book. 

Next I went over to Whole Foods and parked the bike, and there was a guy there with a sign (with horrible kerning) and I talked with him a bit. I asked him if he wanted anything, and he said just about anything, just nothing spicy. I said I had to make a CVS run first and I'll see what I can do. 

I went up to CVS and looked for something for the guy, and chose a little Lunchable type thing. They didn't have the 4-roll packs of Scott TP but they had 12-roll packages so I got one of those and two bottles of vodka. I carried that back and put it in the bike bag and got out one of my cloth bags and the TP fit in just fine, hanging off the handlebar. I handed the Lunchable to the guy who was very grateful, and we talked a bit. We'd only talked a few minutes when some people came up and handed him a big of groceries and a gallon of water, and a little thing, maybe a USB stick? I asked him about it and he said it was money. "Doesn't make that little Lunchable I handed you see like much, does it?" I joked. He said what makes a huge difference is I'm hanging out and talking with him. 

I'm pretty sure I'd talked with him at a train station months and months ago, and told him. He said it might have been him ... it's been a lot of people. I told him of my plan to light out of here once eligible for Social Security, go back to Hawaii and make day-to-day money singing and some basic uke. He was curious about the busking and street vending scene there, and I tried to introduce him to the nuances of it. If you're white you're under a magnifying glass, and really have to mind your P's and Q's but then a Korean guy who drew excellent portraits got hauled off regularly - the ruling group being Japanese and they hate Koreans. Generally any product changing hands for money can get you in trouble, but if you're a Pacific Islander hustling little birds and fish etc folded out of coconut leaves you're A-OK. It's a complicated "ecosystem" like a coral reef. 

We discussed various ways to get by and places to go. I told him about reddit's r/vagabond sub-reddit and to look for a guy called "Call Me Tall" or something like that - based in New Orleans and seems really solid. I extolled the virtues of New Orleans for vagabonds and punks, and said it might be a good place to go, but that I'd decided not to myself because it's not home. And besides, what can you think about a city that has a whole TV show dedicated to its 911 calls? Crime is off the hook. 

He said he has trainhopper and busker friends who want him to go travel with him, and he's tempted because he's finally off probation (when I'd talked to him at the train station he'd just gotten out of jail and just started probation) and from what I was able to piece together, he's actually doing pretty well here in old San Jo. He's got a storage unit, and told me about his place, but I said I've got my own favorite storage place and the prices are about the same and it's near the light rail. He's got housed-up friends and so on, so he's staying above water OK. 

It was good to talk with someone, that activity being so frowned upon here. It was frowned upon long before covid. Coffee shops as places for discussion, like in Europe or the colonies, are not a thing here. You're to buy your coffee and either commune with your phone or get out. I also wanted to see how my voice would hold out, talking for a while. It held out OK.

Shop big or go home

 Up at 1, amazingly. Had coffee and nuts and so on, and got out of here at about 4, with the big box on the bike trailer. The box was significantly longer than the trailer so it was quite a load. 

The FedEx place is moved into their new office and it's nice. I went in and asked for a hand truck because "I have a big package" then laughed and said, "There are words I never thought I'd say today, 'I have a biiig package'" getting a laugh out of some customers. Then I went out and got it, and bringing it in said, "'Told you so!" and mentioned it's a big signal generator we'd only gotten $100 for. "That's pretty cheap for a generator" the guy said, and I corrected him "It's a signal generator." 

I came right back here but rode a route I haven't taken in a while, through the complex where the FedEx hub and Foxconn etc. I wanted to look again for the "Indian" dumpster which I call that because there's an Indian food wholesale place there and they toss out some interesting stuff. I kept getting dumpsters mixed up and I finally got it right: It's the next one after the FedEx dumpsters. 

I stopped at the FedEx dumpster first though, because once in a great while there's something I can use in there. It didn't look like there was, and to be a good citizen I picked up a small Amazon box and tried to put it in the recycle dumpster there that was full of long boxes. Because of my little good citizen move, I noticed those long boxes each contained a 2'X7'X a few inches filler of firm foam. Really useful for packing. I rode off, making plans. 

I got back here, dropped off the bike trailer and headed out again for Nijiya in Japantown. I spent about $40 on eggs, beef, broccoli, all sorts of odds and ends, plus what I think of as a "school lunch" bento that has two onigiri, chicken kara-age, tomago, a sausage, broccoli and carrots, two different toppings on the onigiri, and naturally some pickled daikon to eat last. That was only about $6 and an Asahi beer was $2-something more. 

I went over to the Issei center to eat, and it was very pleasant and brightly lit, but wow it's getting cold at night. I got really cold sitting there eating, and it took me a while to warm up again on my ride back. 

Once I was back I took some rather smelly organic trash (rotting broccoli does not smell good) to the blackberry patch, then got together my cardboard knife with a sharpener, the bike trailer, bungee cords, and took a bag of trash with me too. I dropped off the trash in the "Indian" dumpster where there was room and it'd not stand out, then went to the FedEx dumpster. 

My plan had been to cut up the boxes as a favor and I was prepared to be very methodical as I was under the eyes of (probably) a security guard; all I saw was the headlights and who else stayed parked with their lights on for long periods of time? 

But as I took each box out, I took some plastic wrap off of it and put that into the non-recycle dumpster, and stacked them neatly as I put the foam pieces on the bike trailer. It all went very smoothly and I didn't have to cut up the boxes to make a neat stack. Soon I was riding off with this big load of the things and it went fine. 

I need to put the new front tire on so it matches the rear.

 

I'll have to bite the bullet and shift my schedule around earlier because it's full-on dark at 6PM now, and it was not only cold but windy. On Old Bayshore I had to avoid a staggering zombie and due to a truck driving by on the road I wasn't able to veer around so I had to simply put a mean expression on my face and ride like I wouldn't mind knocking it down, and it at least didn't lurch at me, just muttered "arghle blarghle" etc zombie stuff. And there were other zombies out there, in the dark, although the rest were avoidable.

Oh, cheeses

 Up around 2. I'd packed all the packages last night, and figured I could make two trips today, or one today and then take this one really large box tomorrow, as FedEx is open on Saturdays again. 

I took off at a quarter to 5, did all my drop offs, and in the dumpsters behind H Mart found 3 packages of sliced provolone cheese that looked fine, a block of mozzarella that turned out to be molding (could trim off the outside if I were desperate but  I dunno) and a little half-pound tub of "spreadable" Challenge brand butter. So about $20 worth of free dairy products. 

I found some packing stuff too and pondered making the 2nd trip with the big box tonight, but I started getting rained on a bit so I just got back in here and got the place all buttoned up. 

I keep getting cravings to go to this or that restaurant but as with my recent "shrimp with shishito" meal at that place on the Alameda, all it amounts to is an expensive meal that's not any better than I could cook myself. So I got settled down here and tried a few slices of the provolone, which is pretty "ok" - it's the sort of bland cheese people stack with pepperoni and such things in sandwiches. But the price was right.  Then I used some of the spreadable butter and some garlic and make really garlicky, buttery, scrambled eggs.

Last night just before going to bed (but before doing voice exercises) I'd heard on the radio that Biden had a comfortable lead in Pennsylvania, which I didn't think would happen. It looks like the wannabe tin-pot dictator is on his way out. What's funny is he's been trying to start up court cases in various states and the judges are just dismissing the cases. 

I ended up trimming the moldy parts (on cheese it's usually penicillin) off the mozzarella cheese and it's fine.

Backed up

 Up at 2. Thought I'd have to be out the door at 4, to be sure to get to FedEx when they close at 6, but just tried something revolutionary: I called them on the phone. They're open until 8, their usual hours (in the Before Times, they were open until 10; those were the days). 

Lose or lose

 Up a bit before 4. The election is still up in the air but to me it's a case of lose vs. lose. Hopefully Biden wins, but the fact remains that roughly half the country thinks Low-Budget Orange Hitler is a good leader. 

Regardless of the drunkenness and the despair and the uselessness last night, I still did some voice exercises. It's really not hard. Just like slapping the trumpet on my face and doing some lip slurs and bugle calls, it's not hard to do scales, octaves, and make up little things. 

I'm on a 4-8 year plan. In 4 years I'll be able to get the minimum Social Security. If I can hold out for 8 more years here I'll get half again more and there are perks for being over 65. But getting good on voice and uke would be a huge game-changer.

I also have to think about the health of Ken and his wife. They're both pretty old and if anything happens to either one of them, things are going to fall apart here. Which means I'd have to come up with some other situation for myself in short order. That would mean liquidating everything I can and hopping back to Hawaii because I can be homeless here or homeless there, and I'd rather be homeless there. 

I really hope I get at least the minimum 4 years of stability here. I need to work up my voice and uke skills, and I need to work up connections in the Jodo Shinshu community here, because lots of the people here have family in Hawaii. It'll be at least 2 more years before the virus clears out, and then I need to get out among the various ukulele groups and so on, and make connections. 

As an example, one old friend, a doctor, had a cottage he rented out for $200 a month. No this wasn't back in the 80s, this was 2003. Another old friend had a room he rented out for $150 and wished he'd known I was coming by, because he'd have rented it to me. Again, this is 2003. Not terribly long ago. 

I wanted to make an early run to the post office and FedEx but didn't get out of here until a quarter after 6 which is normally fine. But the FedEx had closed at 6 because they're moving to their new office right next door. So I came back with 4 large packages for FexEd. What a drag! Also a few packing things and some cilantro. 

I got back and put things away, found all the things I need to pack which kind of amazed me, put things I'd listed away, and pretty soon Ken was here. He brought by a lot of boxes for shipping, wrote me out my check, and pretty soon we were settled down and talking about the usual techie, history, a little politics, things. He'll take the four boxes to FedEx tomorrow, which is good because I need to ship a ton of stuff. In fact, I told Ken, I'm probably not going to take my check to the bank this week, but will deposit it next week.

Election Day

 Up at 3. Feel very un-motivated. I didn't do my package run today because I just plain didn't feel like it - I can pack a few more things and take it all tomorrow. 

I went to wash my hair and my two Powerade bottles that I've drilled holes in the caps and use for hair washing and bathing are simply gone. I washed my hair using a booze bottle with the little flow limiter on the top which is where I got the idea in the first place, but it's not as good as those Powerade bottles. The thing with Powerade is, they make the bottles very easy to grip. So if you're sweaty or soapy or whatever, you can hold the bottle with confidence. 

I was worried that the post office might be a shitshow, and even FedEx and 4 years ago I told myself I'd go the same bar I watched the 2016 results in downtown, called "The Fountainhead". According to Google they're open until 9. 

So I rode downtown, parked the bike at Whole Foods, and walked up to CVS and got two bottles of Powerade and a big bottle of diet 7-Up. Walking back, I passed for the umpteenth time a place called, I think, "True Brew" and they seemed to be open but with not too many people inside and everyone spaced far apart. And election news on the telly. 

So I went in there and got "shrimp and shishito" which was sort of blackened shrimp with shishito peppers that was kind of interesting. The beer I picked out tasted kinda like dishwater so that was no treat. I watched the election news which was on CNN and it was annoying. First, the newscaster kept referring back to 2016 and switching back and forth and I thought, "Who cares about 2016, this is the 2020 election we're dealing with here". And the cameraman kept moving the camera around in a seasickness-inducing manner. 

So I figured I still had an hour to go over to The Fountainhead, finished my food and paid, got a couple of things at Whole Foods and $20 cash back because I could not remember if the drink I wanted to get at The Fountainhead, a "Maybach", was an $8 drink or a $12 drink. 

I rode over there and locked the bike up, and there was a bum with a guitar-shapes sort of thing. "Is that a guitar?" I asked. It was, and I asked him if he wanted anything from inside, and he said, "A soda, just any soda". Well, the food court where The Fountainhead is had just closed. I ended up buying the guy a Mexican coke from the Cuban place by the Blue Chip which has a little theater ticket window sort of setup. 

I brought it back and he was pretty thankful, Mexican coke being the very best coke. He started a conversation about "What's the very most valuable thing, when you're lonely etc." I said music, and that when I practiced my trumpet I felt like all the great trumpet players were there with me. He said something about angels always watching, and then I was saved by another bum coming up on a skinny-tire bike and giving the guitar guy a big grey blanket that looked kind of dirty, and the guitar guy saying "I don't need it" and I took off. 

I'd really wanted to go to The Fountainhead and now I wish I'd started out earlier and not messed with that other place. I wanted to joke around about how much things have changed and how, at the rate things are going, in 2024 we'll be sitting around a campfire built in the ruins of the building there and eating roast pigeon. 

In fact, it was pretty quiet out. No annoying Trump parades, and other than a few helicopters flying around, no sign that it was any kind of a special night. The cooler weather has the zombies moving more slowly too - like lizards, cold weather slows 'em down. 

I kind of wanted to get some other food for the sake of it, and went to this Korean place that the college students go to a lot, that serves tons of different kinds of "hoagies" but of course I got a bulgogi plate. That bulgogi plate was a mess by the time I got home with it, though. The salad was on top of the meat and it was all getting cold. It was still pretty good though. And even coming home at the scandalous hour of almost 9, the food truck was there on Commercial street - if I'd known it was there I might have tried what they had. 

The weather is depressing me, though, not just the zombies. Because October was so warm, it's like a switch has been thrown and suddenly it'd dark (especially with the time change) and cold etc. 

At least I have my vocal exercises. They really are starting to work. Trumpet playing has taught me that it takes consistent practice, over years, to get anywhere. I guess the average person doesn't talk that much, and even if they do, like phone work, they're not singing so they really don't exert their voice that much. I guess a good parallel might be paddling a surfboard, For someone who's not done it, it's really hard. It uses unusual muscles in unusual ways and if you're not used to doing it, you're going to be lucky to get about 100 feet before your arms and shoulders starting killing you. But work it up over years, like I did as a kid, and it gets more natural. This is probably why so many good singers come from a church background. There's a fair amount of singing in church. 

I'm not sure how Hawaii public schools stack up against mainland ones but we did a fair amount of singing in good old Koko Head Elementary, and of course there was my dad having me sing with him when I was little. I remember in high school we all went to sing for the old folks at the Lunalilo Old Folks' Home. So it's always been a thing.

Drank Sunday away

 Up at 3. I apparently drank Sunday away. I remember waking up around noon and thinking of all the things I had to do and deciding to drink some more so I could sleep a few more hours, and just kind of ... well here I am and it's Monday. And I've got a sore knee and one side of my ass from apparently getting up in a drunken stupor to use the bathroom and fell down. Well, at least I didn't take it on the chin or miss the toilet or something. 

Here's a listing of the ways I utterly failed when I tried moving back to Hawaii in '03. 

(1) I decided to move back based on reading the book "The Happy Isles Of Oceania" by 2nd-rate author Paul Theroux. It should take more thinking than that. 

(2) I was going to "do jewelry" like my older sister, because everyone wears jewelry, right? 

(3) Of jewelry, I was going to do scrimshaw, which I can do, certainly, but that ship sailed a long time before, the scrimshaw fad passing by the 80s. 

(4) Because I was going to "do jewelry", my older sister very helpfully took me around and got me equipped with one of those Foredom tools and a bunch of other stuff. None of which I turned out to need. Scrimshaw, or any other jewelry, can be done out of a kit no bigger than a grocery bag, sitting under a tree in the park. 

(5) Because "doing jewelry" demands such things as Foredom tools and such, I rented an apartment instead of just renting a room. The place I got was a deal, $600 for a large studio 1/2 block off "the strip" in Waikiki, but that $600 is still a large "nut" to come up with each month. A room for $300 or less would have been much more sustainable. 

(6) Then of course for some reason I "needed" to buy a car. I hate cars, but I just had to dump a few thousand into a big blue Volvo wagon, which I also had to pay for a parking space for. Yes, in Hawaii, cars even cost you when they're standing still. A smart move would have been to buy a motor scooter, which I simply could have given to my older sister when I left. After teaching her how to properly ride it of course. She bought herself one before and thought she could teach herself how to ride it. It hadn't gone well.

(7) Not being willing to just find a job to work at. Maybe I could have gotten to work for Foodland (local supermarket chain) again. 

(8) I didn't have the panhandling/hustling skills I have now. I now know how to make many different kinds of handicrafts and hustle them, plus as an ultimate back-up,, the "crack spanging" or what I call "walking panhandling" technique I actually learned from seeing a guy do it in Waikiki. Any of my techniques or just plain "panning" are good for a solid $20/hour. 

(9) I also was "up" for busking, but again, being successful at that takes years of a sort of apprenticeship. I didn't have those years under my belt at the time, and for some reason was terribly afraid of what my older sister would think of me. Looking back, that seems silly. If I did well of course she'd think well of it. It's been a couple of economic crashes since then and if something works, it works. 

(10) Another thing I thought I'd do is caricature drawing. From no experience, naturally. But again, it takes years of drawing the bad ones before the good ones start to come out. And, in Waikiki, it's often "draw a face and go to jail". The cops there don't like seeing anything physical being exchanged for money. Especially if it's by a white person. A guy who had parrots and would get tips for people having their pictures taken with them, was in and out of jail like it had a revolving door. Same went for a Korean portraitist who was quite good but ... Korean. The ruling group being Japanese, being Korean is about on a par with being white there.

So I was looking at busking, jewelry-making, scrimshaw, caricature-drawing, and keeping going with Ebay. I probably could have done OK sticking by my guns on Ebay because I had my debt worked down to about 5 grand. But I'd gone there with the idea of getting away from Ebay. I hate Ebay. And yet, if I go back Ebay may be a life line. 

The problem was that I had an idea I was going to do all these things, with no real experience to speak of in doing the things. I had some experience in scrimshaw, having done it for fun as a kid, but no real experience in hustling the stuff. Learning an instrument as I go in busking is a real recipe for a hard time. 

Just busking itself has been a long, hard apprenticeship. From sounding awful and not really being worth the $4 or $5 an hour I was making, to finally sounding kind of good and making $10 or maybe $20 an hour on a good night, to finally figuring out that the most obvious placed to play are not always the best. Our "Trumpetman" who's famous for playing at San Jose Sharks hockey games, thinks playing under the bridge is excellent and when not there, playing at The Old Spaghetti Factory. It turns out that playing under the bridge is awful and The Old Spag isn't very good either. If he played at Whole Foods (he's have to take a bath and get a haircut) he could bring in $100 a session but at his age I doubt he's going to change his ways. 

But learning that little "paddling pool" at Whole Foods was revelatory. Hell, it was Veterans' Day and there was no action at the Old Spag. I moved down to the gate by this bar called the Wagon Wheel or something, and got a few tips, but the crowd was dying out for the night. I'd figured I might as well get banned from playing at Whole Foods this night as any other, so I went over there. And I made $132 in an hour, the $100 in the form of a single bill from a guy who was Air Force and got out of me that I was Army. Making $32 in an hour was impressive enough, and that spot, playing in the last hour or two before they close, turned out to be good for $30 - $50 an hour. 

Then it was Christmas season and the spot blocked with trees, then I got sick, then the virus came ... 

The point is, though, I felt like I'd arrived. While Trumpetman was under his bridge, trying to out-loud the cars with that riff they play at horse races, I was playing neat stuff and getting compliments along with my tips. I'd pack up a few minutes before Whole Foods closed and go in and do some shopping so they knew where my money was going, too. 

So while I can do a variety of small handicrafts and am glad to have developed those skills, anything where goods and money are exchanged will be problematical in Hawaii. There's an understanding on the strip that the Pacific Island gals can peddle their little coconut-leaf fish and such things, because they're Pacific Islanders and need the money. It's Local Culture(tm). 

If you're white things get trickier. But who can say anything about playing a ukulele in freakin' Waikiki? With one sister married to one of the island's top lawyers and another one married to a Hawaiian police chief? 

I'd say the main difference between the version of me that existed in 2003 and the version of me that exists now is, I'm more used to roughing it. In 2003 I was essentially trying to go from a lifestyle that involved having a car and a large-ish apartment and needed to adapt in a hurry to a lifestyle that involved living in a room or even a garage, no car, being able to get by on the local min. wage. And I was assuming I could "wing it" with any of a number of things, none of which I had any real experience in.