Woke up to horror

 Woke up at 9, got up around 10. I turned on the radio and it's the 2nd impeachment trial of the ex-criminal-in-chief. The past 4 years have been horrible, and this is just the steaming, stinking, pile of shit on top of the cake. 

To my knowledge, we've never actually imprisoned an impeached president, but I wonder if they'll impeach this guy. Because not only is he a traitor on several counts, but it might happen because he's crass and trashy. He's destroyed the Republican Party for which I will never vote again, and I've sat at a toney bar with a couple of older yuppie types complaining bitterly that he's "Not presidential". 

It seems they're making a good point, but then as always I'm listening to NPR. In the Rightosphere, they're probably making cogent arguments like "Arrgh blarghle deep state arrgh blacks PPPPP! Muh Freedumbs" etc. 

I woke up with a deep feeling of sadness, thinking about a drawing of fighter jets I dashed off when I was in high school and we were living in Hau'ula. Why did I draw a formation of fighter jets? Because it was fairly easy to draw and I wanted to want to draw. From my teens on I was always kicking myself for not wanting to draw and paint for hours every day which everyone knows is how you become a good artist. 

Before we lost almost everything I grew up in a house full of expensive artists' materials. High-end art books, sable brushes, wonderful soft pencils imported from England with the title "Draughting" stamped into their varnished sides. Both parents were frustrated artists. And I was to be an artist. Later when I was a teen any and all art materials were funneled to me. Bought for me. Given me by local artists. I wanted so much to want to be an artist because I was supposed to be one and I'd carry my family on my shoulders. 

This is what my mother apparently thought, too. Which is why she kept buying me art materials and an air brush (considered the ne plus ultra art tool in 1970s Hawaii) and why, as I discovered to my horror, at some art show she got me into, she was going around to people like some kind of "stage mother" bragging like hell about me. 

When I discovered Carl Sagan and Isaac Asimov and decided to get into "Science-y" stuff it was a relief. It was interesting, and I decided going into electronics like all the old guys said to do, would be a good career. The truth is there are hardly any jobs in it and it's horribly underpaid. 

But really I also chose electronics because like my dad who introduced me to it, I loved electronic music. Isao Tomita, Jean-Michele Jarre, all those guys. I thought if I got into electronics it would bring me closer to doing music. 

Which is never did because between school, working/survival, then more working/survival to pay off the loans from the (useless) school, I was a combination of too tired, or too wanting to go out and race around on my motorcycle or something, to sit down and mess around with circuits at home. 

In fact I was closer to making a real career in electronics before I left Hawaii. In my little room I had a power supply, oscilloscopes, soldering iron, you name it. No one minded. I was getting little projects from a guy at the University Of Hawaii. Leaving Hawaii was a real step down, but I had no idea at the time. 

I think I may be best at some narrow skill that I can try to do very well. That's certainly how it worked with a sport I did. Shell-collecting was like that, and in fact the reason I'm reasonably good at the electronics surplus game is, it's a lot like shell collecting. When I worked as a repair tech, I got really good, better than anyone else, at repairing the limited number of models of things I repaired. Somehow it never occurred to me to set up a work area at home and teach myself to work with surface-mount stuff even though it was obvious that would become the new standard. 

Trumpet was working out well and I was finally getting a "mature" sound and dammit, I was making some good money on it too. It's just too damn much stress on my body and indeed, Eric Miyashiro talked about lips cracking and putting Superglue on, and all these things. Satchmo used to get his lips "reconstructed" every few years by a surgeon. Ouch! 

I miss trumpet though, the spitty, stressful old thing. I miss practicing Taps and feeling that everyone who's ever played Taps was there with me in spirit. I miss playing Clarke exercises and feeling that good old, golden-hearted Herbert L. Clarke was right there with me, wishing me the best. Whatever music I played, I felt that the spirit of the people who played that music were with me; their hand on my shoulder. 

I think trumpet has been good training for me. I've learned how to form a good habit, by forcing myself to do it for a week or so then it's habit. I've learned that there's nothing more powerful than regular practice. I've learned that I can set a goal, to play to high C and above, and work toward it, and get there. I've learned to busk, and to put up with "characters", and finally learned to play with some soul, that brought in good tips from people who had no idea what I was playing but they liked the way I played it. 

But trumpets are also finicky, inherently dirty because of all the crud that builds up in there, loud, and probably the most "Lookit me!" instrument there is. Every trumpet I looked at in Hawaii always stunk like hell because of the humidity. 

And there are a lot of things you can't play on a trumpet. As expressive as a trumpet can be, when Rinban Sakamoto first handed me a PVC shakuhachi he'd made and I blew my first note, a solid Ro, the low Ro and then the higher one, I was amazed at how expressive an instrument it is. Absolutely blown away. 

The people I'm following on YouTube have been playing shakuhachi for 30-50 years. Yep that's right, 50 years for some of them. I might have another 30 years left. Can I master the shakuhachi? Probably not. But I was never going to master the trumpet either. I can at least put in what time I have left doing my best. Ganbatte!

It turns out that nasturtium curry, especially in the large quantity I made and ate it, was not a good idea, and I had the shits 2X so I had to wait for things to settle down. I left here at almost 3, with my load of packages. The drop-offs went fine, and I was riding back along Brokaw when, at the storage place, I saw a large pickup truck stopped with its hazard blinkers on, to wait for a large truck coming out of the place. I waited, and when traffic allowed, I went around, looking at the driver to maybe wave or something, and it was Ken. 

I pulled up onto the sidewalk with the bike and walked over to Ken. "What'cha doin'?" I asked, and he said he got a big load of stuff and was renting a storage there to dump it into. And he's coming by here tomorrow night, so now I can plan. "OK! See you then!" I said and rode off. 

I picked up some packing bubble wrap and stuff, and was making plans to ride downtown to pick up bubble mailers from the Amazon place, and maybe even go to Wal-Mart for cellophane tape but then it started raining and it was large-ish drops. It looked like more might be on the way, too. So I came right back here and stopped at the lunch truck out front and got a plate with 3 large chicken legs, squash, and quinoa for $5. Hell, if I'd gone downtown I'd have spent $6 on a bento and another $3 on a beer. I came back here and ate. 

While out riding today, I thought about all the time I spend on YouTube, Reddit, a few blogs, and this. Bad enough I write this, but it could be taken to be some kind of "journaling" and might be good for writing skills, as if there's any demand for those any more. But all those other things amount to a half-time job. No wonder I'm always out of time for things. 

I think the only things that I can justify paying attention to are the few blogs because they're quick; in fact besides this one probably just Morris Berman's. Reddit is good for seeing if there's anything happening downtown like fires, demonstrations, police activity etc. Spending hours on it is not justifiable though. YouTube is great as far as I've seen great movies, and there's a ton of shakuhachi stuff on there. 

In fact, I've just ordered this breathing exercise thing on the recommendation of one of the shakuhachi guys on YouTube. It's funny, that same gadget is over $20 on woodwind/brasswind and about $7 on Amazon. There are a lot of very nice, kind, helpful people on there. 

But mostly I've been using all this internet activity as a sort of escape, the very escape the shakuhachi was invented to give. The very escape a violinist gets out of their hours of practice. 

But what about singing, Alex? You were going to be a singer... I'm singing a lot more than I was, and I find it lovely that in a traditional shakuhachi lesson, the student always sings the piece first. But as much as I love Sinatra and (I think) can even sound a bit like him, it's an egotistical sort of singing that  does not jibe with how I want to retire back home. And like trumpet, it's really hard to put in hours and hours a day to get good because singing is really hard on the body esp. the vocal cords and if those go you're sunk. 

I could be outside a coffee shop in one of those walking malls like the Fort Street Mall and singing the Sinatra song about all the coffee in Brazil, which is really light-hearted and fun but still, someone's bound to get offended. Why not sing about Kona coffee? My dad hated Sinatra, etc. What makes you think you're so hot? Etc. Sing Don Ho stuff and someone's bound to get irritated because maybe I don't look "local" enough meaning I don't look Pacific Islander enough. 

Plus everyone thinks they can sing. And almost everyone can strum a uke. It may well be a coals-to-Newcastle sort of thing. And while Hawaii is thick with shakuhachi players as US states go, there still aren't that many. And most are not going to be out there busking. Poor people don't pick up this instrument. It was always the instrument of the dispossessed middle or upper-middle class. And that's far in the past. So I doubt I'll find any of the local shakuhachi aces out there as competition. 

I think the nice thing about a trumpet is you can say things without words, with something that sounds a bit like a voice. When I was finally starting to sound good, I was getting praise as well as tips, and as I'd finish up just before Whole Foods closed so I could nip and and get some groceries, I'd get to ask if they knew what song I was playing and they generally didn't. They just liked how I played it. 

So maybe this is the way to go. Not have to learn a zillion lyrics or sing with a music stand and stuff written out. 

Anyway, as of now, I've ordered this breathing thing, am on the list for a "Bell" shakuhachi made by Jon Kypros, am getting a bamboo shakuhachi in a couple of days that may be ... made of bamboo, or made of bambo and a decent flute, and have asked over at shakuhachiyuu.com if they have any of the "enhanced" yuu's which have been worked over by Monty Levinson, a noted maker. They're also $500, but might be worth it. I'll spend the money. If those are out, I might order the deal from Mejiro over in Japan for a Yuu and one of the shakuhachi books that are really hard to get here. Even after paying for the DHL shipping they use, it works out a bit cheaper than buying a Yuu alone in-country. 

The thing is, I'm getting tired of screwing around. There are any of a number of things that can put me right out into the street like something happening to Ken. I need some kind of skill that I enjoy doing that can't be taken away from me.