Up at noon; I'd been up until 4AM getting all the packages packed because I wanted to get out of here today before the rain came in.
Honestly I should have just taken off before eating or anything, because the first trip was fine. I even noticed my favorite food truck parked out on Brokaw and stopped in. They didn't have those fried pork things but I got a plate of spaghetti for $5 that was just like really good school cafeteria spaghetti. I sat over at the fountain at Fry's to eat it. Or, wolf it down, rather.
I came straight back after making my drop-offs and went back out again for sake. And, got rained on coming back but not too bad. Chowing down on a substantial meal and then riding a bike for miles is a recipe for indigestion, though, so once back here I had some kim chee to help me digest the sphaghetti.
Now I'll be in for the next day or two, due to the rain.
But see? This is the kind of boring stuff I'm writing down each day. It'd make sense if I were out busking each day and reporting because there's almost no documentation of that. Marvin Naylor's stopped posting on his blog and there really isn't any one else running a busking blog. The most lively busking writing online I've found is over on Reddit r/busking with "Lady With A Harp" being a standout.
It would make sense if I were putting a drawing on here each day, in other words, working towards art as a retirement semi-career. But I haven't really been good about doing that, either.
Originally this page was going to have lots of bitching about what a raw deal people are getting in life these days but there's no need for that, either, because everyone knows by now. So I'm not sure there's any more real need - if there ever was one - for this blog.
I also put in some serious time thinking about why homeless/street people (some are housed but follow the "street" lifestyle) suck so much. In one of the Adam Curtis documentaries, one of the liberal politicians in England laments how they try to do all they can for the poor, who then turn around and vote for Tories (their version of Rebublicans).
In the last day or two I read on Reddit, someone who's homeless (sounds like short-term) saying they have to not talk politics or "shut off their ears" because the homeless around him are all Trumpers.
I can understand the rich voting for a creep who says they'll lower their taxes, because they don't give a crap about anyone who's beneath them. They, in fact, have an actual class consciousness, and they're looking out for their rich buddies as well as themselves. They're at least good at networking - in those circles it's all one big network from the prep school and college you went to, frats, hobbies like sailing or riding, etc.
I got to experience just a whiff of that, if not rich then at least upper middle class, life and it's pretty nice. There's a lot of trust. If you're at the stable and see a problem with someone else's horse, you probably know that person and will help. If there's something wrong with your boat at the private marina, someone who knows you - because you'll all pretty much know each other - will look out for you. Your kids play together on weekends and go to each other's parties, and no one has to count the silver afterward.
No one has to count the silver.
I was thinking today about why the underclass would vote against their own interests, and was thinking maybe it's the appeal of a strong leader or racism or good old American hyper-individualism, or probably a mix of all three. But, as a long-time observer of buskers and street people in general (been fascinated before I ever busked, myself) one thing that turned out to be opposite of what I expected was that instead of networking and working together on things, they all hated each other.
They hated each other because they feared each other and that was because street life seems to involve a continuous process of stealing and being stolen from, doing violence and being a victim of violence in return, slandering and gossiping and spitting hate at each other.
There's an old hobo who posts on Reddit on r/vagabond and he's gone though a few names, I knew him as Ka-Bar then Ka-Bar2 and these days he's encinitas with some sort of number after that might be a Marines skill code. I greatly respect him. He once did the most remarkable post I'd call "How To Hobo 101" and he emphasizes always to keep the camp clean, look out for the other guy, and how to make cookware from stuff you can always get like food cans and coat hanger wire. People who don't learn to do this depend more on money, which you want to minimize the use of, and end up borrowing or stealing. His contemptuous name for these types is "streamliners" in other words, they just want to skate though life on others' dime and others' effort - and their gear, if they can steal it.
Ka-Bar was a real hobo, doing most of his hobo'ing in the 1960s I believe, back when the real 1930s guys were still alive. To cite the old saw, "A hobo travels and works; a tramp travels but does not work, and a bum does neither". They took pride in doing work no one else wanted to do, like agricultural work but any sort of scut work - that meant the public would value hobos and the old code also called for being a paragon of honesty. A real hobo might be smelly but only until he could get a "boil up" (hot bath) in your backyard and then he'd chop wood for you and clean the gutters and you'd serve him dinner and give him some food to take with him and money besides, and ...
you'd not have to count the silver.
But these street people around now, each is an island of one and the constant Brownian motion of stealing and fighting keeps them that way. They're ... not good at being people. They were probably petty thieves when they were in grade school. Of course they're going to be pro-Trump. He's ugly, nasty, and hateful - he's one of them! The Republicans are a distinctly nasty, self-centered, group of people and thus the underclass gravitates to them. Just as, to a street person an act of kindness is seen as weakness, they literally can't comprehend why anyone, anyone at all, would want to set up a free library or a school breakfast program. Thus, it must be a scam and meanwhile let's take advantage of it as long as we can, but vote for it? Hell no!
"Being people" is more than being able to go out and earn money. It means being able to work within a network of people and care about them, and keep yourself so they care about you. The rich, with their country clubs and sporting activities and hobbies and all that, teach that to their children. But the working-class on down are not taught that at all. Others are to be feared - they might rip you off!
What's worse is, if you're taught to be distrustful and especially if you're raised so that it's OK to be untrustworthy (like it's OK to steal as long as you're not caught) you'll probably never learn to trust because no one's going to trust you. Things end up missing from their house whenever you're over so you stop being invited.
The Gypsies have a sort of loop like this going on. No one trusts them because they steal etc., and they end up being hated, and they in turn hate non-Gypsies seeing them just as marks. But at least Gypsies look out for each other. Street people don't even do that. They're the most hyper-individualistic in a hyper-individualistic society.
But what if you befriend them? Due to my curiosity about buskers and others who seem to have found an easier, unconventional, way to make a living I've talked and hung out with them more than the average person. Renee, if I'd stayed friendly, was almost certainly going to try to get me into the same drugs she and her crowd were into. Crack, I think, because none of them have "meth mouths" but they probably take any drugs they can get. One busker tried his best to convinced me another busker is a pedophile, something I've seen no evidence of and I'm glad I don't see the first guy around these days because rumors like that could get the 2nd guy killed.
Of course there are good buskers. Leroy who plays sax, Cello Joe, hell my old violin teacher, are all buskers and are really good people but the difference is, they're not "street". In fact while Leroy's working class, the other two are actually upper middle class. They just go out and busk because it's fun.
There's that overlap between a busker and "street". Red, the flute player, is a perfect example. The more I got to know him, the crazier I found him to be.
So to make it short, "street" people are not of a culture a normal person should want to have anything to do with.
