I play the violin

 89th day sober. I was up at 3, washed my hair and cleaned up as best I could and got going for the bank a bit after 4. I put my check in and that was all no problem, and I'd decided not to busk with all the talk about the delta variant I'm hearing on the radio. 

So I stopped at the Amazon place to pick up some zipper bags I'd ordered, and at Nijiya for some groceries and some salmon on rice sushi and an alcohol-free "beer". I also got some tonkatsu. I ate the sushi and drank the "beer" over at the Issei building and then headed for home. I decided on the way home I'd go out and busk after all. 

So I got back and put things away, got out the trumpet and tip box and headed back downtown. On my way back from the bank at about 5, San Pedro Square had been really quiet. But now, going past it again, I could see a crowd developing. That's good news for Leroy, who was probably just setting up, it being a bit after 6 now. 

I got to Whole Foods and there was a guy with a booth set up, something something children. He said he'd not mind if I played some music, and he was friendly and fine with it. I asked him if he had a quota to meet and he said he wanted one more person to sign up ... apparently it's $33 a month to sponsor a kid. I said that's pretty good and I hope the kids get help because when I was a kid in the 70s, it was a very good month when I made $33 and it always went to feed my sisters and myself. (But who am I kidding? The kids that organization are using as bait might be getting a dollar a month, if that. It's almost all profit for them. The people manning the booths are probably not even being paid - they just sucker them in and after a couple of weeks of no pay, they figure it out and the organization just gets some new suckers.... this is how charity works in the US.) 

I started in playing at about 6:30, after having a can of coffee, reading the Metro, using the loo, and all that. I'd decided that I'd play for however long until I made $40 and at about 8:30 I'd made $41 and change. I got some compliments, and one guy came up and put a tip in and said he lives in the apartment building I'm facing when I play, and they enjoy my playing and open the door and windows etc. They have a kid, and I said they should get their kid a trumpet, but they said they want to wait and see what kind of instrument the kid likes. It's really good to hear the compliments I get, because I don't think I sound that great but so far I seem to be doing pretty well with the public as well as the Whole Foods workers. 

At one point a family walked by and the little boy, maybe 8 or 9 or a small 10, said something about my playing the violin. And who am I to argue with Mother's Little Darling(tm)? But it points out how exotic music that doesn't come out of a speaker is becoming. It's only very select schools that have music programs now. 

Also, when I pulled up at Whole Foods, even before getting the coffee, there was the very short lady with her Hillary For Prison shirt (does she ever wash the thing?) and since it's not good to have enemies on the street I told her I was sorry I'd mis-read her shirt, and had actually thought it was a pro-Hillary shirt. That got us talking anyway, and she told me all about how Hillary had come up with a whole dossier of emails or something all faked up to show Trump colluding with the Russians. 

(I didn't think Hillary was needed to prove Trump was the Russian candidate; firstly Russia can't take on the US militarily and the US has been busily surrounding Russia with NATO bases. Putin's duty is to fight this however possible and if he can help the US collapse under its own weight/hate then he has to take that chance. Plus Trump owes the Russian mob a ton of money. This is all obvious stuff.) 

So I let the Trump Stump go on about how this and that politician needs to be shot, and took comfort in the fact that she almost certainly doesn't, or can't, vote. 

I'd made $41.35 at a bit past 8:30 so I packed up and left, and rode through San Pedro Square where I could hear Leroy doing his thing so I rode over. I didn't want to just hang around because I've seen how people don't want to tip if someone is just hanging around a musician, so I got the trumpet out for show, but Leroy urged me to play some parts with his backing tracks and it went terribly, as it's not only songs I haven't practiced but they seemed to be in weird keys, at least for a trumpet player. But I guess it went OK as I prepared to go and Leroy handed me a $5. So that brought my earnings up to $46.35 for the night. 

Leroy's been really working hard, because he sounds about 100X better than when I first heard him, at his usual place in front of the new-defunct Johnny Rockets. The backing tracks help a ton but I think he's been practicing (or playing) a ton too. And his sound really fills up the space, not in front of The Old Spaghetti Factory but in front of some empty store fronts next to it. The sound really echoes there. 

I headed for home now, along First Street which may have been a mistake. There was a real collection of streetwalkers, crackheads, crazies, and general zombies along there. I had to watch out a few times for zombies that might lunge at me, and dodged a guy who staggered out into the street but was probably an act to try to snag me. Then, when I got up to Brokaw, I spotted a big fat scumsucker on a bike with no lights and some kind of big bags hanging off of him. 

I went into full alert when the scumsucker turned onto Brokaw right after I did, and tried to get my attention, saying "Excuse me"...  I sped up, thinking of plans and decided I should be able to keep ahead of him until I get to the fire station on 10th, there being no police station nearby. So I decided it was a speed + endurance run and raced up Brokaw, turned in where the new buildings have gone up and past 24Hour Fitness and around onto Bayshore and I'm pretty sure I lost him long before I got that far. I continued at a brisk speed anyway until I got back here and put the bike away. 

I don't know why there were so many zombies on 1st. It *is* where people visiting San Jose go for drugs and prostitutes, but why so busy tonight? Is it because it's close to pay day? The warm weather? Would my usual route of, say, 3rd to Hedding to 10th to Bayshore have been safer? I'd had to dodge zombies on that route, making me decide 1st street was better but it looks like the damn zombies are everywhere. 

I can start playing much earlier, where I'm just plain not out after dark. Not being out after dark has been my policy since all this craziness started anyway. Leroy's got a car now which means he's not out walking around or taking the (now defunct) light rail, exposing himself to zombies. That almost might explain his improvement in playing since he might be playing a lot more to afford the car. I'll have to ask him if it's the increased danger of being out after dark lately that made him finally get a car. 

Another possibility is that I start carrying my "explainer", the 22-inch bolt I've made into a sort of billy with a wrist strap, that I carry on my post office and FedEx runs. It doesn't look like much when I've got it stashed in my bike bag, and due to its "friendly" yellow color, so far cops don't look at me twice when I'm carrying it. I guess the yellow tape it's wrapped in makes it look like it's made out of plastic or something.