76th day sober. I woke up around 3, and of course practiced last night while watching yet another episode of War And Remembrance. It's amazing watching it as a non-drinker, as I was missing so much when I watched it before, where I'd be pretty drunk by the time I was halfway through an episode.
I had a few small things packed and was going to go downtown early enough to drop them off at the downtown post office, but when I got up there were several more things that had sold, and a couple of larger things one guy bought for $800 that needed to go by FedEx. So I packed it all up and took the things to the post office and FedEx that I usually go to.
By the time I was back here it was a bit after 7, and I put things away and re-configured the bike for a busking mission, and took off for downtown. A place I wanted to stop and eat in Japantown had a long line outside so that was out, and Lee's was closed. So I headed for Whole Foods and partway there, noticed the La Victoria on Santa Clara street and stopped in there and got a Super Taco.
Then I went over to Whole Foods and locked the bike, used their loo, and got set up. It was 8:10. I went about my routine, tooting away, and even worked on "Miss American Pie" by Don McLean which seemed to be received well. Not that I was playing it well, because I wasn't. But even the little phrases in it sound good. Some songs are like that.
When I was about done, a guy came up and asked if I could do "the beginning part of 'You're Still A Young Man' by Tower Of Power" and I said I was not familiar with it - wait, bring it up on your phone, I advised. He did and ... yeah... it starts with some screaming trumpet, higher than I can go I'm pretty sure. He said it's that he used to play saxophone, and I laughed and said that Tower Of Power was famous for having a horn section with the hottest players around. He put a tip (I think a $5) in and we had a good laugh.
I worked a bit more on "Miss American Pie" and then thought, what else did Don McLean do? Oh yeah, that song about Vincent Van Gogh, so I played that for a bit and got another tip or two and called it a night. I'd played until 9:20 so an hour and 10 minutes, and made $39.
I went inside Whole Foods and bought eggs, green onions, and a big bag of frozen shrimp and paid them all in $1's. As I was packing things away and unlocking the bike someone thanked me for playing and I thanked them for the compliment. I've been getting a lot of thanks, and someone today even asked if I was going to play there regularly and I said I planned to.
I wasn't nearly as windy and cold tonight as it was last night, so I didn't need to get out the sweatshirt and jacket I'd packed but I'll bring them tomorrow just in case. I worry about being an annoyance to the people in the apartment buildings around there but since I'm only playing for an hour or so and not playing after 10 at night, I think I'm OK.
I was also thinking, while out riding around today, that a little gadget I'd picked up for free out of dumpster had just sold for $75 or so, and that's a lot less work than standing on a corner for a couple of hours playing trumpet. But then, I thought, I found it because I regularly "patrol" a route of dumpsters to find packing materials, so there's the time doing that. There are Ebay expenses which are at least a third, right off the top. There's the time photographing, listing, storing, packing and shipping the thing.
It comes down to, I could live in a Gypsy wagon and making a living playing trumpet. I could not do Ebay unless I had a lot of storage, a good internet connection, thousands of dollars of "buffer" money, hours to spend on researching, photographing, listing, shipping etc., so there's just tons of overhead.
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