Talibuddies

 122nd day sober. I did some practice last night, mainly working on tongue level stuff. The Schilke mouthpiece I got is indeed pretty much a 3C, which is fine. 

I got up at 3, coffee and vitamins and so on, and as usual am listening to the radio. Last night I learned on Reddit that we've supplied the Taliban with hundreds of thousands of rifles and thousands of machine guns, tanks, vehicles, planes, helicopters, etc. All you need as a nation-state which we seem to be considering them now. It makes sense, as the Protestant Christians who run the US have more in common with the Taliban than with modern humans. 

So they're our Talibuddies now. And now, not only is a US passport useless in most of the world (due to covid and the US being generally loathesome) but now in select parts of the world, say, new nation-states, having a US passport will get you killed. 

But why talk about far-off Afghanistan when there are things happening much closer? New Orleans is under water again, and that, if not the horrendous crime rate having done so already, would make me cross it off my list of "places to move to retire". 

There's a big fire called CONUS or CONOCO or something, that's busily burning out places like Placerville and the Lake Tahoe area. These places, like the ironically-named Paradise, will probably never be rebuilt. So much for moving inland, near some water, as a retirement plan. 

At one time I even thought of moving to Texas, someplace like Austin, or what's called the "hill country" which I believe is nearby, but now a person can be put into prison in Texas for being accused of *thinking* of encouraging someone to get an abortion. That's right up there with being thought of as being a witch, and I'm sure Texas prison makes one wish they were simply burned at the stake to get it over with. So flyover country, any and all of it, is absolutely out. 

To clarify: Abortion isn't something that normally pops up in my various conversations with various people. But if I were in Texas, and someone randomly decided to, they could accuse me of talking about it and off to prison I'd go. Maybe it would be because they want my house or land. Or because they just don't like my politics, or what I drive, or that I out shot them at the local shooting range, anything. 

So you can get slammed into prison there not for saying something, but because someone decides to accuse you of saying something, or - and it's written right into the law there - accusing you of *intending* to talk about something.

I took 18 packages with me as I headed out, dropped most of them off at the post office, went to the Filipino store for some garlic peanuts and a couple of diet Pepsi's, dropped the last packages off at FedEx and picked up a big piece of foamcore sign board with a big "40% Off!" sign on it and rode over to Tom's, with my bike trailer looking like anything in it is 40% off. 

Tom's redone his kitchen, so he says, but the place was such a horror last time I saw it I was very incurious and did not want to see. Tom was happy to get a Diet Pepsi, and we sat around and talked. I told him about my almost-$220 weekend and my finding those deals on mouthpieces. And we talked about a lot of other things too. I think he's picking up his trumpet once in a while, and wants a newer mouthpiece. He showed me his and it's really old and worn - it was probably taken out of his high school band's junk box and handed to him. 

When we were all talked out I came back here and cooked up a curry and ate it, and dug out the Yamaha 11B4 mouthpiece that came with my Yamaha trumpet. It's been dropped and dinged up a couple of times, but I soaked it in a Dawn dish soap solution and scrubbed it out. My reasoning being this: That if a 3D plays with more "edge" for me than a 3C, because a 3D is shallower, then maybe going back to the standard beginner mouthpiece, a 7C or the Yamaha equivalent, an 11B4, might work well for me. So I've scrubbed out this banged-up one and if I like it, I'll buy myself one that's not banged up and I can just give this one to Tom if he wants it. 

I also tried to convey to him that getting into something, in my case busking with a trumpet, wasn't a sudden thing that I took off with. There were *years* of diddling around, trying different instruments, going out busking for a month or two and then quitting for some reason or another, and so on. So he needn't feel bad if he doesn't take off with it right away. Just getting in the habit of regular practice, while watching a TV show or something, will help a lot. 

I'm learning about this too. When I was a kid I really kicked myself for not being as nuts over art as my parents wanted me to be, and for not working at it for hours a day.

I dream of mouthpieces

 121st day sober.  After listing Ebay things I got some practice in, and worked on higher notes as that's my weak point. It comes down to what Claude Gordon called "Tongue Level" and that's what I worked on, popping up to G above the staff then down, doing all kinds of bugle call type lip slur stuff etc. and feel I made some progress. 

I really wanted to get back over to Park Avenue Music to pick out more mouthpieces. I figured if I could find a nice Bach 3C and a 3D for cornet I'd be pretty happy, and maybe I'd find some others I wanted. So I took an extra $100 cash with me and a magnifying glass to look at those little numbers and was raring to go. 

I was pleasantly surprised to wake up a little before 2, and left here at about 20 after 2. I rode right over to Park Avenue Music and was there just a hair after 3 and they were open. I looked at all the mouthpieces and looked through them again, and there wasn't anything I wanted. I finally picked out a Schilke 15, which the guy told me is "Like a Bach 3C" and got it for $35. 

Done there, I rode to ... Whole Foods. I got what I thought were two fried chicken thighs but I think the guy picking them out got mixed up because the yuppies generally want chicken breasts, and a can of cold seltzer water. I was pretty miffed to have gotten breasts, but I'm glad I did because they were pretty filling, and two thighs, being bigger, would have cost more and been too much food at one time. 

After eating I went over to Dai Thanh for a few things and a "Chinese cruller" because I like the texture of the things, and went over to the little park nearby to eat that. There were two older overweight guys, one black and one white, talking about this'n'that. A mouse walking across the park got us talking, and the black guy said there used to be tons of pawn shops in San Jose. I said that's one of the many things I miss about Hawaii is the pawn shops. We talked about all sorts of things and they said they thought this one guy in a white Prius that drove by used to be homeless and living in this very park. 

I said it takes years to get Disability, and once it's awarded, the recipient gets it retroactively back to when they first applied, and that I used to know a really big guy who lived in a Prius. I said by joining groups like the Elks and the Odd Fellows, it's possible to have places to park overnight and shower etc., and just move around among the various Elks etc facilities. 

We then talked about buskers, and they knew Gabriel The Violinist and were somewhat familiar with Rabbit Trumpet Guy, and so on. I guess these guys just hang out in the park because there's nothing else to do, kind of like George Orwell observed about Wigan. 

I stopped at Nijiya for a few things and got back here.

Air letting up a bit

 120th day sober - that's 1/3 of a year.  I got Ebay things listed last night, set out the Hoy Hoy roach traps I'd bought yesterday because in this warm weather, I'm seeing a few cockroaches around, finished reading my Bill Mauldin biography, and then finally went to bed because I felt super tired. 

I slept really deeply too, and remember a dream where the sea level was rising in Hawaii and the waves were coming in over Shark's Cove and I was with some friends in a van and we drove up onto a little bluff across the street. Far better than the night before where I dreamed I'd caved in and decided it was OK to drink part of a beer (it's not). At least in last night's dream I was home. 

I really wanted to get out and busk today, and the AQI was around 130, maybe less, and it looked a lot less misty out there, so I headed out a bit after 5. 

I went to Nijiya market first and got a fish bento and a near-beer, and some peanuts and dried fish for later. I ate over at the Issei Building and chewed gum on my ride over to Whole Foods so when I got there I was ready to set up and go. 

I started playing at 6:30 and didn't have high hopes, it being a Sunday. But things started out all right with a $10 bill and the tips, the thank-yous, etc were pretty consistent. The 3D mouthpiece is interesting, it's a lot easier to form nice "tails" on the notes, and all in all I don't regret buying it. In fact I still want to get over to Park Avenue Music and see what else I can find on sale. 

At one point a guy seemed to make a point of talking on his cell phone not right in front of me but right in the center of the area in front of me. He seemed to be making the call as long as possible, and when his (probably exasperated) victim on the other end apparently hung up, he started dialing other people to bother. Maybe he just liked giving the impression that he hangs out with a band or something. And a gal asked if I had a Venmo and I said I'm all for it but will need to set up another bank account at a different bank, so I can set up a Paypal and a Venmo and if they decide to take off with all my money, they'll only get what's in that account. That's standard procedure with PayPal at least, you have to "launder" your money from them and keep them far away from your personal bank account. 

It was actually really free of bums, freaks, and weirdos tonight. There was one young Indian guy who tipped me "because I always wanted to play one of those" and I encouraged him to buy or rent a horn and learn, and gave a little demonstration of how with each valve combination I can get 5 or 6 different notes. 

It was 8 before I knew it, and during the last half-hour I played Ave Maria and then worked out House Of The Rising Sun which is so hilariously sad sounding it had me laughing. Got me some tips too. Actually House Of The Rising Sun is on the same scale, pretty much, as St. James Infirmary so it should be fun to come up with ways to switch from one to the other without missing a beat. 

Tonight I made $77.26, making it $217.80 for the weekend and a new record.  

So Sunday is a fine day for busking, at least outside a place like Whole Foods. And I exceeded my last best weekend by about 35 bucks. I know there's often a thing where a given busker becomes known to people who regularly pass by and are more likely to tip, and to tip more, but I'm not noticing any regular tippers other than The Kleenex Bandit, who (thank goodness) has stopped wrapping his tips in Kleenex. 

I think it can hold water that I'm sounding a *little* bit better, due to sheer hours played and getting just a bit more polished. And I'm getting out there earlier, on average. It's really got to be 6-8 in the evening and if I can't make that, at least I can generally get going at 6:30. 

What really gets me are the thank-yous. I've hung around with other street musicians, mostly of the "turn the crank and make noise" variety, and they don't get thanks. Leroy does, because he does put some feeling into his playing and he has improved over the years. Not Trumpetman AKA Rabbit Trumpet Guy, not for his playing anyway. Without having a long-suffering rabbit with him I'm not sure he would get much in the way of tips at all - his attitude was sour and it even came out in his playing. 

About the only musician I can think of I've seen get thanks the way I've been getting is my "old" (he was in his 20s) violin teacher, who I got to get out there with his viola. He was tall, handsome, and playing "classical" and playing it well. Parents loved him. 

He got lots of thanks, and I do, as if we're out there doing some sort of public service. And it's not just white people, or just Asian people, or any certain demographic that tips, it's everyone. This last point is encouraging because I've been worrying that I might get back to Hawaii and find that I'm unwelcome. But then, "Sonny Beethoven", a Punahou grad who played saxophone in Waikiki never played "Hawaiian" music on his sax, if that's even possible. And the old ukulele guys used to rave about Chet Atkins. And the last time I was in Waikiki we had a steel drum player, a guitarist or three, a violinist, and so on. I'm pretty sure I'll fit right in. 

The thing is, I'm getting close to making the kind of money I could live on.

Bad Air Day Off

 119th day sober.  The air quality's at around 160 and the 130 air last night was kicking my ass so ... I'm not gonna play. The last time the air was this bad, I wasn't out playing trumpet in it, just riding my bike which wasn't much of a problem. But playing trumpet ... wow. Make it kind of amazing that so many old-time players smoked.

I tried out the 3D mouthpiece last night and it's interesting. Enough so that I was going to take it busking today. For my $30 I've essentially "bought" being able to go to a couple of notes higher with more ease, but it also has a "sharper" tone. 

But all I could think about for today was going back over to the music store and having another look through that table of mouthpieces. I took an extra $100 cash with me, and a magnifying glass to look at the little stamped numbers on mouthpieces, and was out the door a couple of minutes before 3. I was at Park Avenue Music at 3:40 or so, and they were closed. 

Needless to say I was pretty disappointed, but on my ride back downtown I had plenty of time to think about it and I realized this was the same sort of situation as in my first few years on Ebay. There were a lot of places with hours too weird, or in a weird location, or whoever ran the place weird or even creepy, that I would get deals in most people didn't go there. 

Park Avenue Music has contracts with all the high school bands and such things, so they're not really all about walk-ins. They're right down the road from Bellermine, where drum and bugle corps' train, and across the street from a big old high school, and not hard to find in any case being diagonally across from the Rosicrucian Museum. But Joe Blow Guitar Player isn't walking in on a whim. Or Mrs. Soccer Mom whose kid thinks he might want to try the trumpet. If the place were not so walk-in-unfriendly, I'd not find killer deals like I have because the mouthpieces would have been all bought up. 

Oh, well, I thought, I'll find a way to spend some time then go see the free concert at the university. I went to Recycle Book Store for a Kurt Vonnegut book I've not read yet, then Whole Foods for some hot food and a cold can of seltzer water and a bottle of fancy coffee. Then over to Lee's for a couple of butter croissants, one for now and one to have with the coffee while at the concert. And going to the university to eat the first croissant, I'd have a chance to nose around and see the concert being set up. 

So I rode around and didn't see any signs of anything starting, and finally picked out a bench to set on by the library, after moving a book someone had left, some novel with an African-American slant. Then a skinny black guy walked up and I said, "I'm sorry, were you sitting here?" and he said he wasn't, and it turned out we were both interested in the concert, but not sure if it was this week or next. We finally found a sign put up and it's for next week. 

So that was that. He was a math major, and I said I guessed we were both bad at math, regarding dates and he had a real laugh. I offered him a croissant (that sneaky guy in Lee's had put 3 in the bag when I'd only asked for 2) but he said he didn't like them much. 

After eating one myself, I stopped by the Amazon place for bubble mailers and the guy there said I ought to come before 5, because that's when they toss out the trash. I got two, anyway. 

Then I rode on home. This awful air isn't even that great to ride in.

Ecch-y air

 118th day sober.  I listed Ebay stuff last night and practiced, mainly trying to work on my weaknesses, which are high notes. I finally realized that while doing long tones, on the lower notes the limiting factor is how much air I have in my lungs. But on the higher notes, I crap out much sooner than that. So, I need to work on long tones on the higher notes so I can do them like I do lower ones; with the only limit being the available air. 

I was up at 3, and out the door at 4 sharp. My first stop was the downtown post office with 9 packages, then I headed up Park to Park Avenue Music which, it being before 5, was open. I've been wanting to try a Bach 3D mouthpiece, and was willing to spend the $60 or so on one, but I was doubtful about the ones on Amazon. There are a lot of fakes on Amazon and there were none listed that I could pick up at the locker anyway. 

When I went in, I noticed they had a big assortment of mouthpieces out on a table, that appeared to be on sale. I found a 3D in there and it was only about $30. It turns out everything on the table is half-price. I picked out a 3C like I play now, but this one's a genuine Bach and is gold plated which is an expensive option. It was the same price, just a hair over $30. So I bought that one also. I asked the guy if they were keeping the store open until 6 like it says online, and he said they're closing at 4 these days.

I rode back to Whole Foods and got some hot food there and went upstairs to get an alcohol-free beer, and they were really pissy about it this time. I don't get it, because I'd been tipping a dollar each time, same as I used to for a regular beer. I was finally able to get a can of seltzer water from them but they were not very happy about it. With that attitude, I'm swearing off that bar upstairs at all. I later found where the cans of seltzer water are kept cold downstairs, when they're stocked, and there are plenty of other things too. 

I ate and then had coffee etc. and got out there at 6:15. I played until 8:15 and it not only felt slow but I kept having to "sniffle" my nose, sneezed at least once, and my eyes stung a bit. And, I realized after it had become dark that I'd not even seen the sun set, which is something I normally notice. (Sure enough, I was to get back here and check the air quality and it's about 130.) 

The "customers" of note tonight were a Karen who went on about my playing "Danny Boy" which she'd heard played at funerals "Yes, Irish funerals will often have it" I noted. And wanted to talk quite a bit about how many Marines had died in the latest bombing in Afghanistan. Mainly she wanted to talk, block other people from putting in tips (although a couple did) and not tip, herself. I finally played St. James Infirmary with extra dolorousness and that chased her off. 

The other "prize" was a couple of guys, one quite tall, who were pulled in by my playing Amazing Grace. The tall one said they, or at least he, was a vet and showed me an embroidered ball cap with a bunch of military ribbons and "Operation Iraqui Freedom" on it. "Operation Iraqui Liberation", I read aloud, which was the original name of the mission, the initials being O.I.L. He didn't seem to pick up on that though, and the hat still had the price tag hanging off. He asked me if I could play Reveille and I actually did a pretty good rendition of it, considering I never practice it. He stood at attention and saluted, which was one of the stupidest things I've ever seen. Then he tipped, giving me a $20 and getting $15 back, making him a better person than the Karen. 

There were other interesting incidents. A (homeless probably) guy went around with his bare butt hanging out of his pants, while I played "What A Wonderful World". What a wonderful world indeed. Some kind of thing happened right behind me, I think a normal guy was there and a normal-looking but not normal gal/person made a grab for my tip box or the money within, and the normal guy kind of barked at them. A dirty (prostitute) mumbling to herself wandered around. 

It may be a "flagship" Whole Foods but however nice the area may look superficially, there's a literal river of homeless,  along the, um, well, river, a short walk away. That's the thing about this area - it might look "gentrified" there are homeless/crazies/zombies mixed right in. Normally being mixed in with the relatively affluent would mean that many more opportunities to get started detailing cars, or handyman work, or such things but these creeps are too far gone.

After 2 hours of this I'd made $62.70. 

I took a little loop around downtown but not much was going on. There was a (loud) concert in the park, and that was finishing up - everything was closing up. The city of San Jose is closed by 9, for the most part, even on a Friday night. 

 

Unexpectedly warm Thursday

 117th day sober. I was up at 3, and did all the usual things, coffee and vitamins, shined shoes and shaved and cleaned up a bit, and was headed for downtown at 4. 

First stop was of course the bank, then I went over to TAP Plastics. I'd had a couple of the sprayers on some sprayer bottles I used every day go bad, and first was going to go to the ACE Hardware and buy some spray bottles there, then I realized TAP Plastics probably has that sort of thing. And they did. For a little over $4 I got 3 sprayers and a neat short squat plastic jar, perfect for keeping dimes in. 

Next was Whole Foods, where I got some hot food and a single non-alcohol beer and went upstairs and ate. Then I walked up to the drug store and overpaid for some paper towels and index cards, but Eh, it beats walking over to Target. 

Then it was back to Whole Foods for a can of iced coffee and to relax a bit, drink that and chew my sugar-free gum, and get started. I got started at 6:30 so I would play until 8:30. I actually went pretty well, and it didn't hurt that the day's first tip was a $20. 

I thought it would get cold when the sun went down so I'd brought a sweater and a windbreaker but instead it was warm. The highlight of the day was talking with a guy who played bagpipes, and who'd had a twin brother who played drums "Everyone knew him; no one knows me" who had died. I mentioned that bagpipes are very loud, and that when a guy had been playing them on St. Patrick's Day by O'Flaherty's I could hear them all the way over by St. James Park. I also urged him to get out and play. 

As usual the time kind of dragged and I made just about all my tips in the first hour. And next to no tips from 8-8:30. In fact when I saw it was 8:30 and time to go, I told myself, One more tip and I'll go. I played as earnestly as I could and pretty soon had a tip, played the "Goodnight" song and packed up. I'd made $77.84.

2nd storage unit

 116th day sober. I practiced last night and was not all that satisfied, although if I were to score myself on how well I was playing the exercises in the Rubank book I have to say I'm playing them better. I started off with long tones of course. 

I was up a bit past 3, had coffee etc., packed a few things, and was headed out the usual time. Out on Brokaw Road I heard what sounded like Ken's truck, turned my head and there was ... Ken's truck. Ken told me he'd gotten another storage unit, and was towing a rented trailer from Dahl's. 

I did my drop-offs and went to the falafel place for a gyro. Somehow they've gotten it into their heads that I don't like spices, and it took a 2nd go to get a gyro that approached having the amount of spice I was getting before, and still it wasn't the same. I don't know what's going on and I don't want to have to go through all that so I think I'm going to stop going there. At least they have a bathroom so if I really have to go, I can always stop in and get a yoghurt drink and use their loo. 

I stopped by the medical place and this time, it was a real haul. Tons of AED pads, medicines, etc. I loaded up the box on my trailer and then stopped by the storage unit in case Ken was there but he was not. 

So I rode back along Rogers Avenue and noted 2 cops in SUVs talking with someone in front of this skeezy business complex across from the super-skeezy scrap metal place. This will be important later. 

I got back here and put things away and spent some time sorting out the stuff I'd picked up. I don't think I'm going to need to buy hydrocortisone cream ever again, which is pretty nice considering Safeway's prices. Ditto aspirin. I got tons of band-aids too. Plus odds and ends like little spray bottles and a red dry-erase marker that smells like perfume. I ended up with 6 generous bags of packets of various pills and cough drops and such things, to donate at the little free libraries, the stuff I kept for me, and stuff for Ken also like glucose paste in tubes for diabetics (he's one) and those little individual eye drop things he uses. 

Ken came by at the usual time, wrote out my check, gave me some mail which includes my ballot, and brought by a bunch of stuff to list. When that was all done we sat and talked, and he told me the cops had Rogers Avenue all fenced off. First I thought he was talking about the accident earlier, a motorcycle or two and some trucks or something but this was different. I told him how I'd seen the cops at the sketchiest part of Rogers when I was riding in, around 8. Now, apparently, it was tons of cops and the road closed off to traffic. We decided maybe someone got stabbed and I reiterated how from my observations, homeless people fight just all the time. 

The 2nd storage unit is full of light bulbs of various types, apparently. I've got a key to it now so I'll have to take a look.

Oh, now it's the TALL-iban.

 115th day sober. I practiced last night and despite the practice before, I still had to warm up and "break in" to playing the higher notes. Maybe it's just something people have to do. 

The news about Afghanistan is constant, and what cracks me up is, after 20 years of this, now suddenly the people on the radio are pronouncing "Taliban" more properly, as opposed to the standard ignorant American Midwest pronunciation, sort of like how Americans say "EYE-ran" for Iran. 

So now the Talibs are our buddies, and there are all kinds of signals being put out that we recognize them as a nation-state. And for them and the world, the lessons are clear: Just be stubborn and make life too uncomfortable for the American invaders, and sooner or later they'll lose interest and leave. It worked for the Vietnamese, and in fact it worked against the British when this lousy country was born. There was a bit on the radio about the Afghanistan embassy in Washington, which I'm sure will be flying the Taliban flag now and no one will bat an eye.

I woke up at almost 4. I had time to pack the things I'd rounded up last night, have coffee etc., and got going a little after 6. The post office drop-offs went fine, except as I was dropping it off, I noticed I'd put the label on a package going to Australia the wrong way around. It was a tube, and the way to do it is to put the label on in such a way that the barcode goes the long way. I'd put it on out of habit, how it would be oriented for a domestic label. But I think it will be OK. 

On my way back I stopped at H Mart and got some things, and spent one of my $10 certificates. It turns out they don't give change for one "so you have to spend the whole thing". That was OK, I had cash too. 

On the way back I saw something shiny in the grass across the street from Fry's and checked it out - it was a smartphone with a cracked screen but still working. Hm, I thought, and put it in the bike bag. Once back I checked and it's not an expensive phone at all, and I was able to figure out that it's on T-Mobile so I planned on taking it to the T-Mobile place just up the street from where I found it, and maybe they could get it back to its owner. 

But a while later, the phone rang. It was some guy in Livermore, the phone's his friend's, and the guy asked if I was calling from Tracy. Nope, I said, San Jose, and the phone was found across the street from Fry's. There was a bit of hesitation while we both, I think, tried to figure out how get the phone to the guy, and he said the his friend is "kind of homeless". So I suggested I just mail it to him and got his address, and said it's a minor hobby of mine, returning stuff I find in the street. So I've got it all packed up and addressed, to go out with the next batch of packages. 

Bye-bye catalytic

 114th day sober. I practiced last night and, frustrated with my difficulty above the staff, concentrated on that and ... ended up playing up high amazingly well - better than any time in the past when I'd felt frustrated about this and worked on it. 

The other exciting thing last night was, the people next door have this Honda sedan parked in front, that's been there a while. I heard noises out front and looked at the camera view and it was comical. There were two guys in a black sedan with a Sawzall, one was being a lookout and had a hood on, the other a hoodie with the hood up and a mask. They were acting like stereotypical thieves, looking back and forth, everything about their body language showing they're up to no good. They finally got the thing, one of them dramatically left a Sawzall blade next to the car, and they took off. I'm surprised one of the security guys didn't come by but I think they had some accomplice distracting them somehow. 

I have to be surprised how well I did this last weekend considering how much covid is in the news. To follow the model of the 1918 flu, the US needs to have 2 million deaths and I think we're gonna make it - we're back to our previous worst levels and it's only growing. It's like the powers-that-be want it to spread anyway, with even The Metro, a fairly leftist paper, running full page ads urging people to go out and go to restaurants and gatherings. 

Yet, there's the booster shot thing now. So maybe it's some kind of weird morality test, where if you're smart enough to get your shoots and a booster, you're much less likely to get seriously ill or spread the virus to your circle of people, while for instance in the Southern states, bastions of stupidity, the virus is running rampant. 

I packed some things and headed to the post office at the usual time, a bit after 6. As I was getting ready to leave, one of the guys next door was out there with his truck and I tried to tell him they took the catalytic converter out of the car, but I don't think he understood me. Oh, well, they'll find out. 

I dropped off the things at the post office, then went over to 99 Ranch. I was hungry so first I went over to the dim sum area where there were a few things left, and got noodles, fried whitebait, some pork, with more noodles inbetween and noodles on top. They only charged me $4 for this and asked if I wanted to take more, but I said I was fine. I'd brought $4 in dimes but had forgotten to bring the bag in, so I just paid with regular money. 

This worked out well because there was a crazy guy going through the trash cans and ranting as a million miles an hour, about how this needs a microwave and blah blah blah just crazy talk, while I walked around back to sit at the curb and enjoy my goodies. Mr. Crazy came around and in his constant stream-of-consciousness muttered something about something to eat, and I ignored him. When I was done eating and had left the pork gristle out for the crows, I walked back to the bike and got the dimes. Then I walked down to where the crazy guy now was, further along in the line of trash cans he was going through, and handed him the dimes. "There's $4 in there" I said, and he was really happy, Gonna get some chow fun, chow fun, maybe some lettuce from Iceland and corn from Norway, or some such meanderings. 

I went into Paris Baguette figuring I'd get a croissant and once I'd decided which one I wanted, took some paper towel off of the roll of brown paper towel that was there, then picked out exactly the one I wanted without touching anything else, and went up to pay. I got hassled for not using the (sticky) trays, and the tongs (which everyone else has touched and likely didn't get cleaned any more often than the trays) and when that was done with, ate at a table outside (also likely only cleaned by the wind and the birds) and the croissant was OK. That's my assessment of that place: the pastries are OK and the cleanliness Meh at best. The croissants are better at Lee's anyway. 

I wandered around in 99 Ranch but didn't find anything to buy. Ultimately I got a 2-liter each of diet 7-Up and Coke Zero and that was my shopping trip. 

On the way back I stopped at Tom's to hang out for a bit, and told him about my $180+ weekend, and he'd not sold any wood at all, and I said he could probably hustle his little figurines just about anywhere up in the City, where it's only a big hassle to sell or busk at the very most primo spots at Fisherman's Wharf. He could sell his wares where the cable cars turn around and even if there's a musician there, he'd not interfere with them. 

Tom ought to do something he's happy doing, and while I think his selling techniques were more cynical than I'd ever do, he was happy selling his figurines. I told him about the ins and outs of picking shells in Hawaii and how it can pay but between taking the bus to the good shell beaches and all the time gathering them, cleaning and sorting and so on, it can be a lot of work. Meanwhile all I have to do is play my trumpet for a couple of hours...

Nickels and dimes

 113th day sober. Last night I listed more Ebay stuff and then went to bed, no practice as I was too tired. 

I was up around 3, packed one more large thing so I had two large things I could take to FedEx, which I did. Then I got back here and dropped off shipping stuff I'd found, and headed downtown. 

Last night I'd gotten all involved sorting out my big bag of change, so I had $5.50 in nickels, a bit over $18 in dimes, and now I have a neat tea tin with a slot in the top to drop them into, full of $40 in quarters. I took the nickels and dimes with me downtown. 

I traded the nickels for some fried noodles with pork at Lee's, and ate over at the college. Since they do 2 for 1 at Lee's when it's this late and they're about to close, I also had a package of fried rice with pork which I handed off to a bum. 

I rode around San Salvador and William streets just out of curiosity, as that seems to be where tons of places rent rooms to students, and there are also quite a few shady characters too. Sort of the "student ghetto". 

Mainly I was just curious to see what people are up to on a Sunday around here and also, if there are any other buskers around. There's a guy who plays an electric guitar on 1st who I've seen around. He plays heavy metal sounding stuff.  It makes sense that he's shown up since aside from him it's just Leroy and myself and I haven't seen Leroy out playing at all for a few weeks now. 

I still had a lot of dimes so I spent most of them at TAK Market for some near-beer and peanuts and "bar mix".

bye bye books

 112th day sober.  I'd practiced last night before bed, mostly doing the long tone routine, plus some exercises out of the Rubank book and a few songs. 

I woke up at about 20 to 4, and had some coffee and aspirin and got out the door at almost a quarter after 4. I had to ride into a pretty strong headwind all the way to the Recycle Book Store, but I got there in time, and handed over my set of "Buddha" by Osamu Tezuka. I got $26 in trade credit which sounds low but I know there's a glut of such things on the market. 

Once done there, I went over to Whole Foods and got some hot bar food and a near-beer, and ate up in the balcony area. It was pretty nice, and most of the smoke was out of the air today. There's some sort of carnival with rides set up in the parking lot of the SAP Center, I think the same one that normally sets up on Park Avenue but Park Avenue is a construction site these days. 

I had two guys who work at Whole Foods up in the balcony ask me if I'm playing today and saying they're really happy I'm doing so. And a cashier downstairs also. 

I started playing at 6:10, and only played Amazing Grace a few times tonight. I played a lot of other things. I'm noticing my tone getting better, although at the end of the 2 hours I was starting to sound tired. But I kept going the full 2 hours, thinking even a poopy day, being out there and putting in the time is the right thing to do. 

I was kind of surprised when I'd decided that one more tip and I was outta there, got a $5 from a taciturn guy (those are in a way the best, because taciturn guys really mean it), played the Lawrence Welk "Goodnight" song, and packed up and was counting up and knew I had at least $55. It turns out I'd actually made $69.06. 

I took a quick ride around downtown, got a bunch of bubble mailers at the Amazon place, and rode on home. 

So yesterday was the really poopy day. And that might have been because I was worried about that guy who paid me $10 to *not* play Amazing Grace. He was a yuppie type, and that so often means a psycho. But as far as I know he didn't come around today. And maybe he saw, yesterday, how a lady had me place Beautiful Dreamer "into" her cell phone. I guess she wanted a recording for some reason, and gave me a $5 tip. Why not just shoot video like most people do I don't know, but I really get a lot of positivity out there. 

So my total for this week is a little over $186. This busking thing is working out pretty well so far, especially for a thing that's really just training for when I'm to be a busker back home.

Out the door at 4.

 111th day sober. I was so tired last night, I went to bed by 7AM which means I got a full 8 hours' sleep because I got up at 3. 

Reflecting on something I saw on Reddit last night ... a guy complained because he got "busted" by a cop for smoking a cigarette out on the street in Santa Cruz. It's OK to smoke in your car with all the windows open, of course, just not OK to smoke a cigarette out on the street. In theory I guess this applies to anything you can smoke. 

So: If you have at least a car, you're not at the bottom of society yet. If you're middle-class or higher, you're not smoking cigarettes, which are a vice of the underclass now. You're going to a cigar or hookah lounge. Even if you're smoking pot habitually, you're not at the bottom because that stuff's still expensive, and bums just don't have money for pot - which is not addictive the way cigs are anyway. 

So, if you're smoking a cig out on the street you're almost certainly a member of the underclass and according to the mores of our class-bound society, deserve to get "busted". (The guy actually just got a warning from the cop.)

I was out the door at (a little after) 4, and dropped off a dozen packages at the downtown post office. Then I just went over to Whole Foods and made up a dish of beans and meat and mushrooms from the hot bar and went upstairs for an alcohol-free beer to drink with my meal. They had a new one, "Athletic Brewing Free Wave" that was pretty good - best near-beer I've had so far. 

It wasn't very busy for a Friday night, though. When I was done eating I walked up to the book store and asked the guy if they take full sets of manga as I have the complete set of Buddha by Osamu Tezuka and I'm never gonna work my way through that thing. They said they sure take complete manga sets and I said all I want for it is store credit anyway. 

I got a new "detail sanding" thing for "detail sanding" my fingernails and looked around in the drug store but didn't find anything I wanted. On my way back to Whole Foods a bum asked me for "any spare change" and I said, "OK, any change I have in my pocket is yours" and dug down - the result being about $2 in change, not bad. The guy was happy to get it. 

I futzed around drinking coffee and reading The Metro and listening in on weird conversations around me and when I finally started playing it was a quarter to 7. Plus, the electricity had gone out at Whole Foods momentarily and they had to reset their computers or something so that had people waiting outside to get in and lots of people walking off. The bad thing about this is, of course they're all talking about it on social media so even if it only took a few minutes to get back operational, a lot of customers simply didn't come. 

I'd just started in playing Amazing Grace when a guy came up from behind and dropped a $10 in the box and said something like, "How 'bout I give you $10 and you don't play Amazing Grace?" I shrugged and said, "OK, I can do that". So I played everything *but* Amazing Grace this night. 

I got more tips of course but it was slow, and got slower. I kept at it for the full 4 hours or close enough, and I don't think I got a tip at all during the last 1/2-hour. 

I counted up and I'd made $35.04. That actually puts me at just under $120 for the weekend and that's only with two days playing. 

I took off at just about 9, and rode around downtown a bit and it's dead everywhere. Actually, if one doesn't mind the drunks, the "Panda Wall" on 1st street looked decent for busking. There were people walking around, and a trumpet would resonate well there. That's probably about the best place to busk after Whole Foods, and no one's busked there for ages. But I used to hang out there with Recorder Ron and it was surprising how much money actually got dropped into his coffee can. 

I rode back here and got all involved figuring out where to put a bunch of little industrial computers we have, and how to list them by serial number, a thing Ken is big on. I listed half of them tonight and can do the other half tomorrow. 

I checked the mouse trap upstairs and - another darned mouse. A big one this time, and a couple of nights ago I'd caught two small ones at the same time on that trap. I'm beginning to think we've got a bit of a mouse problem. What's bad is, I think there's a fair amount of space between the floor of the loft and the ceiling of the office, that could be all mouse living space.

Best tone so far

 110th day sober. I was up at 3 which is good because I needed to be "out the door at 4" as usual for a Thursday.

I was indeed out the door at 4, after having washed up, shaved,  etc. and had my coffee. 

Last night I'd practiced starting with long tones from G in the staff down to the bottom then back up, past C, then did some exercises ... I had real trouble with anything past C in the staff and I know it's psychological because if I got absent-minded while doing exercises in the Rubank book the high notes would ring out, but then I'd think about it and could not do them. So I applied stubbornness, actually forcing the high notes which then, strangely, made them easier thereafter. By the end of my practice session I was playing the Rubank exercises as well as ever and that would have to "do". 

My first stop was the post office where I dropped off a few packages, then the bank where I deposited my check and there's a big difference in what I calculate what my balance should be and what it is - usually I'm correct to the penny. I think it's the Amazon Prime membership. I really ought to read the statements the bank sends me ... 

I got some food from Whole Foods and sat and ate, and realized I had plenty of time to go to Park Avenue Music which supposedly closes at 6, so I rode over there which took me 7 minutes but they were closed. I rode back and got a can of coffee and read The Metro and drank that and chewed gum then used the loo, my usual ritual before settling down to 2 hours of busking. 

It was about 5 before 6 when I started in. I'd been thinking of all kinds of reasons to now play, from the delta-covid numbers increasing to thinking maybe I should take a break, but as always so far, I told myself it's only practice and I can take it easy. So I started in and tonight my tone was probably its best so far. And I felt the least stressed. 

I had all kinds of interesting "customers" of course. Like the guy who stood in front, talking on his cell phone, for whom I played quietly, until he was there so long that I started playing a bit louder than usual, and in the end he finished his call and tipped me $5. 

And the crazy lady came by again. She had a whole story about how she was going to tip me these collectible "silver dollars" which were really "from the Mexican Olympics" and that someone told her were too valuable to give away so ... next time... She went on about how her grocery bags each weigh  60 pounds (she had 4 of them) and how the last time, she's collapsed and had to be picked up by an ambulance etc. She then hinted pretty heavily that I might carry her bags to her house, a hint I ignored while I played loudly to perhaps drive her off. She eventually did wander off, making her way up the sidewalk 50 feet at a time. I'd told her she ought to get one of those wheeled carts and she had a story about how Ace Hardware had these huge ones that were 50 bucks and it's all an evil plot to sell a person a bigger cart than they need. What a loon. 

And of course there were tons of nice people. I played the full 6:00 - 8:00 "shift" and in the end had made $82.61.  I'd also worked out a version of "Paper Moon" that I think sounds pretty good. "Paper Moon" is one of the very first songs I busked with, back when I had no "swing" and I guess a horrible tone compared to now. And I believe the version I was playing was lower, and this version I played today was the version I wanted to play but could not play that high. But now I can, and it sounds neat. 

I rode home, checking San Pedro Square (dead and no performers there) and got back here, rounded up things to ship that had sold, and once it was well past 11:00 in the evening, thought Ken was not going to show up and went ahead and had my dinner of two fried chicken thighs from Whole Foods. That was a bit of a mistake as, of course, Ken came by at a quarter to midnight. I finished eating as he dug around trying to find this box of stuff we've lost. 

It was never found, Ken and I hung out and finished off the bottle of diet 7-Up I had here, and then he took off. I packed the things, as I want to take off early tomorrow. I also ended the listings of the 7 different things we can't find, plus ended the listing of a cable we supposedly have two of but I could not find even the one I refunded the customer for. 

I think I am approaching this whole busking thing differently than a lot of buskers. Trumpet Rabbit Guy always talked about "making noise" as in, "I gotta make some noise" when we were talking and a gaggle of the public were approaching. Then he'd blat out one of his 5 or so songs, perhaps with gusto but not with any sort of feeling. I think a lot of buskers think this way. But in my case I'm thinking of this more like I'm taking a class. It's not about how I do now, but how I might do a few years from now. And it's not being done out of desperation, as I have an income already. But a few years from now, I will want to be sure enough of my skill that it won't bother me a bit that it will be my main job. So I'm out there to learn and improve, not just get cigarette/booze money. 

And speaking of booze, I've noticed something: I never get tips from anyone buying alcohol. It doesn't matter if it's watery beer or "the hard stuff" if they're buying alcohol, they never tip. I suspect if Whole Foods sold cigarettes, I'd never get tips from cigarette-buyers either, as in both cases it's an addiction and an addict will be tight with their money to save it for their next fix.

Trouble on the trumpet front

 109th day sober. Along with listing Ebay stuff I practiced before bed time, starting off with an exercise I used to do, where I'd start from G in the staff and do as long a tone as I could do, chromatically down to the bottom, then up again past G again and up as far as I could go. A guy calls the exercise 19/30s and has a whole essay on it - playing relaxed, etc. 

My practice did not go well, otherwise. I'm having real trouble playing anything above the staff. I can still play my busking stuff, so while I'm worried I'm not *that* worried. 

I was up at almost 4. I only had to pack one thing - a brochure - and it was only that and two other small things I took up to the post office. The air quality's about 125 so .... not great, not terrible. It was overcast looking and the sun reddish. On my way back, the sun wasn't as bright as the red traffic lights. 

I went to H Mart on the way back and got a bit over $20 in various things, and since it was so un-busy (just like the post office was really un-busy these last few days) I had them check my card and I had points built up, to the extent that the lady gave me two $10 certificates. Wow. I'd checked it a few months ago and the system wasn't working and just did it on a whim today because the store was so uncrowded and calm. I thought you just built up a certain number of points and however many above that, you just got $10. 

I came back here by way of Junction Avenue and going through the Foxconn parking lot and noticed a white box left next to an outdoor trash can. Someone had cleaned out the lunch room or something, and there were little packages of Cocoa Pebbles, some cans of Del Monte stewed tomatoes with funny black-and-white labels, and six 1-lb bags of long grain brown rice. I took those last to donate downtown. The stuff's not even expired.

A cute little kestrel

108th day sober.  I just remembered now that on my ride to the post office a bird flew low-ish across my path and then landed and I saw it was a cute little kestrel, possibly a juvenile that would have been born in the spring. I love seeing things like that even though the powers-that-be seem intent on killing off any "nature" they can find around here. Hence the destruction of blackberry patches and the neat little ecosystem around Zanker Road is gone. I'd seen one of those wasps who paralyze spiders there, dragging a spider to its hole. 

I practiced last night and kind of re-discovered a long tone exercise I used to do long ago and should start doing again.

Small Filipino market

107th day sober.  I futzed around with Ebay stuff, sorting and labeling some IC's and, of course, practiced but practice was kind of disappointing. I didn't practice at all Sunday, rationalizing that it's my day off yadda yadda, but it took me a while to get to playing above the staff. Just tired, I guess.

I was up at 3, packed small things until about a quarter to 6, left at a quarter after, and dropped them off at the post office. Then I went to a little Filipino market that's only one block up from the complex 99 Ranch is in. It didn't have that many things I wanted, but I managed to find $15 worth of stuff to buy. 

Then I locked the bike up at 99 Ranch and walked up to Paris Baguette and got a ham and Brie croissant, which was pretty good. I got some things at 99 Ranch, again spending about $15, then rode over to H Mart where I got just under $20 worth of stuff. 

On the way back I stopped by Tom's intending to have a quick visit but one never has a quick visit at Tom's. We ended up talking about all kinds of things while he drank continual cans of beer and on his 4th or 5th one and near the end of all our talking, he decided I really need an MFA. He meant a Master of Fine Arts. I said he's good at grants and such things, so all he has to do is get a grant for a half-million dollars and that ought to do. There was no getting him off of the idea so the only way out was to go along. I'd need a BA first, to be eligible to apply to MFA program, and all this would take time as well as money. "I don't think you need the BA first ...." he said, and I said, "Well, that's one thing you'll have to research, along with rounding up the grant" and we both said Bye and I rode off. There's a good chance he'll have no memory of what he was ranting about the next time I see him. 

(Just to clarify, it might be an interesting 6 years if someone else ponied up the money for me to get an MFA, but I'd never use it as an MFA is not actually necessary to be a street-busking trumpet player.) 

I needed the sleep

106th day sober. Up at a bit after 3. I didn't practice last night and went to bed a bit sooner than usual; read some more of the Bill Mauldin biography. 

I hadn't even made a cup of coffee last night to put in the fridge to have all ready to drink when I got up, so I swallowed some aspirin with some fizzy water and took off for downtown at about 4:20. 

First stop was Nijiya where I got a few things including a can of iced coffee, which I drank right away, then dropped off some various food things I'm not using in the little free library around the corner. 

Next stop was Philz coffee, which is reputed to have a type of pastry being talked about on Reddit and some of the better examples too. It sounds like something I ought to try at least once, but they were out of them. Oh, well. 

I went to Dai Thanh and picked up a few things including this sort of Chinese fried dough thing, a sort of Chinese fry bread, to see how that is. I ate it over in the little park nearby and it was pretty good - interesting anyway. 

Next I skirted around the San Jose Jazz thing, and who did I hear call my name but Leroy. I circled around and caught up with him, he was with some family members or friends or something, and I asked how he'd been, said I hadn't seen him at San Pedro Square, etc. He said he'd been involved with the jazz fest and he'll be back out there. 

I went over to Whole Foods and locked the bike there and walked up to the book store. I got a used spiral-bound copy of the Arban Method, and new copies of Parable Of The Sower by Octavia Butler and Mogambo Snuff Box by Kurt Vonnegut. That all cost me the rest of my trade credit and almost $47 besides, but I told them how I'd heard on Reddit how the crazy christian anti-maskers had hassled their store. I asked if it had been one day and they said they'd come around to hassle them for three days. I told them how one of those types bugged me while I was playing Amazing Grace in Mountain View, so I'd jazzed it up and when the guy said to "stop doing that" I jazzed it up even more and drove the guy off. They got a big kick out of that. 

I hauled my books back to Whole Foods and got some baked pork and veggies and an elderberry shot, and figured I'd get an alcohol-free beer upstairs. But they were out. I asked about getting a fizzy water and the guy came up with a can of Whole Foods fizzy water that was under a dollar - I told him I didn't know it was even a thing, and thought the fizzy water was just in a spigot there on the bar. Neat! Of course I tipped a buck because I've always tipped at least a buck a drink. 

The bartender asked if I was playing today and I said No, this is just a day off for me. But, I said, it looked pretty busy and if I played on Sundays I'd probably play a lot earlier like 3-5 or 4-6, because people go to church, then to lunch, then do some shopping. 

So I sat and read the introduction and some of the Kurt Vonnegut book. It was really nice. That took me up to 7PM, and as I went back out to my bike I saw it was *still* fairly busy. I honestly think I could buck just about every day and bring in that $50 a day that I could probably live on. 

The ride home was very peaceful. The sun was a big red disk due to the smoke, but it's also kept things cooler than otherwise, I think. Maybe this is the way the Earth tries to cool itself - by burning stuff.

A nice hazy Saturday.

 105th day sober. I slept in until a bit past 3. I guess I needed the sleep! I practiced before bed as usual and wow, a cleaner trumpet sure helps those high notes. The exercises I'm on in the Rubank book were no problem, and I was going right up to high C very easily (for me). 

As usual I didn't get going as early as I'd have liked, and left here a bit after 5. I went to Nijiya market first and picked up a few things but their bentos were wiped out. So I walked up to JT Express and got tempura shrimp  and chicken wings, which were kind of expensive (about $14) but good. 

I dropped off my final 5 boxes of falafel mix at the free pantry in front of the Peace & Justice Center on 7th, then rode over to Whole Foods. I had a can of coffee and an elderberry drink, and started playing at 7:25. 

It went pretty well, highlights being the two guys who wanted me to play the Pink Panther theme and my tries were not good enough so no tip for that one - I think they were going to tip if I'd nailed it. A tall gal who got a real kick out of my jazzed-up Amazing Grace and tipped a $10. And the guy with the cargo bike who didn't tip at all, but tried to "guilt trip" me about moving back to Hawaii - big mistake on his part. The debate did not go well for him. 

The final highlight was, about a quarter after 9, two short scruffy homeless guys right out of Central Casting walked in and nodded to me like "Good playing" and I thought no more of it. Until one came running, if you can call it that because he was not fast, with a handbasket of groceries. He was pursued by a tall older black guy in business attire, khakis etc., who was even slower and didn't even work at Whole Foods. He broke off the chase and went back to the gaggle of Whole Foods workers telling them how he's chased them etc like he was OJ and despite his lightning speed, had *just* missed a brilliant forward pass. A Larry Elder listener, spotted in the wild. 

It was all pretty funny, but as I've learned, anything like that just kills the tips so I played the "Goodnight" song and it was 9:25 anyway, so I was done for the night. I'd made $49.80.

Dmitry says no.

 104th day sober.  I packed a lot of things last night (and a few more just now) and took the trumpet apart and soaked it and cleaned it out and put the parts out to dry. 

I was finally so fatigued that I was stumbling and forgetting things so I went right to bed without putting the trumpet back together and practicing.

I was up at a bit past 3, and got a reply from Dmitry Orlov, whom I'd sent my theory that the US abandonment of Afghanistan is a tit-for-tat favor in exchange for OPEC pumping more oil. "OPEC does not care about Afghanistan" was his short reply. It's awfully convenient how things line up but I guess he knows more than I do about these things. 

I got going for the post office and FedEx at about 4:30, dropped things off, and hurried back. Then I put the trumpet back together, and got going for downtown at about a quarter to 6. 

I dropped off donations in the little free libraries and picked up an interesting book, "Hiroshima Joe", a novel about a guy who'd been through, well, the Hiroshima bombing and surrounding history. What makes it interesting to me is, it's published by Penguin and they don't publish junk, and it was written in 1985, before the current crop of WWII books came out. When you get a crop of books out about something it seems like they all crib off of the same notes.  1985 seems old now but sometimes the older stuff is "fresher". 

I went to Lee's which was pretty picked-over so I got their last two skewers, that I thought were chicken, and decided to try a small butter croissant. I went over to the college to eat. The sneaky guy had put two butter croissants in my package, and the skewers turned out to be bigger than they looked in the display case, and pork which is more filling than chicken. So for $6 I had two meals. I had a skewer and a croissant there, and saved the other two for dinner tonight - in fact as I write I've just eaten the second skewer, made into pork curry - yum! 

There was an older white guy walking laps around the "quad" where I was eating, playing some hate-radio program on a little radio - some ranting about Afghanistan - and I felt like getting his attention and asking him if he'd seen a movie called The Midnight Express, where people in a prison are walking laps, and those laps must be clockwise (this guy was walking counter-clockwise) because counter-clockwise, with all those left turns, is "evil". But of course I didn't, because just because a local Nazi is getting in shape for marching all those non-whites to a concentration camp, doesn't mean one has to strike up a conversation. 

I then rode over to Whole Foods and bought a bottle of coffee and a large bottle of Pellagrino water, both because I like it and because it makes a handy weight to keep my tip box from blowing away. I drank my coffee and chewed gum and all that, and started in at 7:05. 

If yesterday felt dragging, today was worse. The trumpet sounded better, being clean(er) inside, and I felt a bit more positive, but it felt like slow going. After an hour I'd made maybe $12 and wondered if I should go over to The Old Spaghetti Factory. But I decided to stay right where I was, even if it's really awful. 

Some Hispanic guys came up and tossed in money and asked me to play some things, like Cielito Lindo which I grew up knowing as "The Frito Bandito Song" and they wanted me to play some other things I didn't recognize but I did get one riff right, and then I played El Condor Pasa which I'm not sure they knew, but especially one of the guys was really into music and they got a real kick out of my being able to play at least some more things, and tipped some more. "You made my day" the one guy said, and I said "You made *my* night!" and meant it, as I'd felt pretty Blah about this night. 

So hang in there I did, and amazingly, I noticed two things happening. Somehow, the traffic quiets down or something, and it got quieter and calmer, and it was easier for people to hear what I was playing. Also, I got a lot of people coming out of Whole Foods and tipping. 

Pretty soon it was 5 after 9 and I played the "Goodnight" song and packed things up. I was counting up the tips when a gal came up and said, "Don't count them all yet" and dropped in a $5.  It turned out I'd made $53 even, which is pretty good for a "draggy" night. 

I have a theory: The first hour will be slow but is necessary because it gives people going in a chance to hear me and I guess some people take more time shopping than I do; I'm a real get-in-get-out kinda guy. So, that first hour is "prep" for the 2nd hour when the real tips come in. That 2nd hour is when people are filtering out and have their tips ready for the trumpet player. 

Also, I think a lot of people see one dollar as almost insulting so I get a lot of dollars in twos and threes. This is almost as good as countries that have coins for 2 or 3 or 5 of their currency. 

I get so many $1's in fact that tonight I exchanged 20 $1's from yesterday for a $20 with one of the cashiers, and then when I was done tonight. They're happy to get $1's. I'll probably just do that every night; exchange those $1's as a regular thing. 

I got one of those elderberry "shot" things and drank that, and took off for the night. I went through San Pedro Square to check things out and it looked busk-able but no one was there. I circled around downtown just to see what's up these days, and Jazz Fest was on. There's one place where people sit on stairs outside the enclosure and it's possible to see the stage pretty well, so I hung out there a while and listened. The band that was on was OK, the enjoyable part being their sax player. 

I finally took off from there, it now being a bit after 10 which is really late for San Jose. I rode back here and that was my busking night.

Conspiracy Thursday

 103rd day sober. Last night I did a load of laundry, gave myself a haircut, packed things to take to the PO today, etc. 

So ... Dear Old Biden (DOB?) has urged OPEC to pump more oil to keep prices down. I can just see it: 

Biden: OPEC, I really want you guys to pump more oil, I don't want to be the $5 gas president. 

Opec: Well, we can do that but what are you gonna do for us? 

B: What if I get our troops out of Afghanistan? I give 'em the word, they sneak off like thieves into the night, before anyone knows what's going on, they're outta there. 

O: That would work fine for us. Deal.

This stuff just writes itself. 

Anyway I was up at 3, did some practice last night and the high notes are coming back but in a weird way. Almost like I have more strength than I need but difficulty controlling it. All I can do is practice, practice, practice. The average trumpet player starts in 7th grade, right when I was supposed to start, and that makes it 5 years of, if they're to be a trumpeter, of diligent practice then they go into a college program which is 4-5 years, then into, say, one of the military bands. 

I took off for downtown just a bit after 4, dropped off packages at the downtown post office, and went over to the bank - the IRS cashed my check so I know that got to 'em OK. 

Then I went over to Lee's and got two egg rolls and a pate chaud and a bottle of water because I'd forgotten to refill the one I carry with me. I ate over at the college, sitting on one of the benches on this one walkway that's really shady and has squirrels for entertainment. 

Done eating I went over to Whole Foods and parked the bike and went over to the hardware store to get some of those things you use to fasten a mirror to the wall. The mirror in the shop bathroom is pretty large and is held up by only three of the things. 

Then I went to the drug store but didn't see anything I had a crying need for. One interesting thing, though, is that they had isopropyl alcohol and ethanol types of "rubbing alcohol" so ... in other words ... you can go to CVS and buy 140-proof white lightning if that's your thing. 

I walked back to Whole Foods and had an iced coffee and read The Metro and chewed gum and oiled the trumpet valves and set up to play - it was 6:20. 

It really dragged, too, or it felt like it to me. I was still having a real problem with a rough tone and I just figured I'll keep the volume low and try to work on a nice tone, and things just sort of went along. After an hour I'd made maybe $10, if that. As I got into the second hour, something happened. Somehow, my "old" better tone came out and the trumpet stopped making a random popping sound at times, and I could push things without my tone going to hell. 

I really liked this, and was playing along, the Black guy with the big motorcycle came by and I played Amazing Grace for him and Saints which he liked too, and a gal came up and started talking about busking and stuff ... she's seen busking violinists, she said, and I told her about my starting to learn violin and learning just how stubby my fingers are, while for trumpet they're fine, and she and I both love a YouTube channel called Two Set Violin (they're funny guys) and the long and short of it was that she's curious about playing a brass instrument. 

So I told her about renting, and about neat instruments like the French horn; how high school students tend to all start out on trumpet then some move to the French horn, and with her background in piano and classical it'd be a good match. I told her Park Avenue Music can rent her any of the brass instruments, and that she should go ahead and give it a try. I also told her my schedule so she can find me, and that we ought to have a sort of "brass family" to encourage each other. I said even having someone on French horn who can play this backing line for St James Infirmary would sound awesome, and demonstrated it (it's 2 notes) and then played a nice lugubrious version of St James which made someone turn around and drop a tip. So that was fun and who knows, maybe I'll see her again and she'll rent a trumpet or a French horn and it'll develop into something. 

I got back to playing and my bad tone was pretty much gone. I'm convinced now there was some kind of crud in the trumpet that was messing things up. 

The 2nd hour went better, with my tone better and one of the guys who works upstairs in the brewery/bar came up and said he didn't know I play and do I play any Herb Alpert stuff, and I said my dad bought all of his albums as they came out, and told him how Alpert got started and how he's the A in A&M records, and recorded Rise to rescue A&M records from bankruptcy etc. He was really impressed. Personally, I think it's weird enough that someone my age has decided Herb Alpert is cool, but this guy's probably half my age. 

I finished at 8:30, figuring I'd used up 10 minutes easily talking with the gal, and had made $51.05 so it wasn't as poopy as things felt. All in all it's a fairly effort-free $50 to have made, as I really should be practicing 2 hours a day anyway, and I get to meet people, and I think tonight I saw the fattest guy ever so far, so I crowned a champ of overweightness at least who can still walk. There might have to be a separate class for fatties who can't. And the sunset was pretty nice too. 

I passed through San Pedro Square on my way back and it was pretty dead for foot traffic. I think Leroy may have given up on it and found somewhere else, and I hope he's found a better place because with his backing tracks, he sounds really good.

Big load

 102nd day sober. I woke up at 4. Yesterday had been pretty tiring. I packed up a big thing, called a pipet puller, to go to England. That plus a bunch of other things makes for a big load. 

I got some practice in, and worked on higher notes and on tone. I'm not sure what's going on, whether it's fatigue or over-thinking things and tensing up, so I just did what I could to try to train out the problems, with a little success. 

So after coffee and vitamins etc I headed out and did my drop-offs, picked up packing stuff on the way back and hit up the blackberry patch again because it's a matter of get 'em when I can because I won't be picking any more until Saturday at least. 

Ken came by and wrote out my check and we BS'd for a while. It actually ended up more than a while because it was past midnight when Ken left.

Blackberries

 101st day sober. Last night I listed Ebay stuff, and among other things did a practice which went better than the one before but only by a little. It's almost like I over-fatigued something and that's put tension in my playing somehow. I did a lot of long tones as well as the usual practice. 

Up at 3, had my coffee etc., and packed things until about 5:30 then had some hard-boiled eggs and took off to do my post office and FedEx drop-offs. I just picked up some boxes on the way back. 

Last stop was the blackberry patch, where I picked up something like 2X as much as yesterday, and nicer ones too. Somehow, once you start picking them, the plants seem to want to put their best berries forward because the plant wants some creature to eat the berries and spread the seeds around. 

Once back here I decided to see if I could make a sort of fry-up of onions, potato slices, and shrimp, all curry-flavored. It came out great and is proof I can come up with something every bit as tasty and greasy as Popeye's Chicken. So that was dinner with chilled blackberries and coffee for dessert. 

Manic(?) Monday

 100th day sober. I woke up around 3, had coffee vitamins etc. I practiced last night/early this morning, and was feeling pretty bad because my tone didn't sound right and my higher notes were awful. I just watched stuff on YouTube and kept playing for a while, maybe putting in an hour, and things gradually improved. 

I packed as many Ebay things as I could, not getting them all but getting all the post office ones because I think if I bring those in on, say, the 9th, they don't get signed in until early on the 10th. Whereas FedEx things, I think, get signed in that day even if I'm bringing them in past 6PM. That's my theory anyway. 

I went nuts trying to find one thing - an expensive one - that had disappeared. I was packing two of them and was going to wrap them separately and put into a box, but one was just ... gone. I looked everywhere and finally looked in the already packed one's wrapping and they were both in there. Whew! 

After delivering the post office stuff, I took a ride Eastward to check out a Popeye's Chicken someone had mentioned on Reddit. I ended up getting a two piece with "Cajun fries" and a diet Sprite, and it was pretty good. It had better be for $12. The Popeye's down by Big-5 is too "ghetto" for my taste and the others I've seen look pretty sketchy too but this one is nice. 

After eating I rode back, dropped off the one FedEx package I had, and came back here. I stopped at the blackberry patch which has recovered a bit and had a fair number of berries - and ants. I think the ants are the only reason the birds don't get them all so I don't mind them too much. The berries get a good rinsing anyway.

My day off sorta

 99th day sober. I slept in until 3, and last night not only got Ebay things listed but did some practice too. 

I'm really glad I've decided to only read and not post any more to Morris Berman's blog. Here's a post by one of the regulars, a Joe M. - 

" Sure as shit, as I’m walking home a punk ( about 25 or so) on a bicycle passes me. He angrily says, “Take the goddamn mask off!” He pedaled on a bit and condescendingly shook his head. So I replied, nice and loud, “MIND YOUR OWN FUCKIN’ BUSINESS.” He pedaled a little further and I then yelled, “GO FUCK YOURSELF!” He slowed up his bike and I thought he was going to get off it. So I started walking towards him to put up the dukes. But he kept on riding. He looked as if he was close to 7 feet tall, slender build. But I didn’t care. Just for good measure I was hoping he would return so I could confront him, and if need be, fight him. And so I stayed for over two hours where the incident occurred, this time with heavy tar rocks to throw at him as hard as I could before I put up my fists. Lucky for him he never returned.
For some reason, I always seem to attract mean, nasty people in public. I don’t know if it’s the nerdy-looking glasses, the mild mannered-looking face, or the flowered shirts. But I’m fuckin’ sick of it!
I mean this in all sincerity: If I were a character in a movie, I’m to the point here in the United States I would be Michael Douglas in Falling Down."

How's that for a New Monastic Individual? Any normal person would have just let it all go, at most thought about how the punk will probably catch covid and take it home to his grandmother or something along that line, and go on with their walk. Here's a grown adult, picking up "tar rocks" and waiting around for two hours to fight some "punk" who he assumes has nothing better to do - while said punk probably rode on home, had beer and pizza with his buddies, you know, normal things. Not hanging around with rocks in hand waiting for a fight for two hours. And as far as that goes, masks aren't required outdoors. Then the guy compares himself to the Michael Douglas character in Falling Down, who is very much the bad guy. Falling Down is a huge morality play as are all popular movies, in which the bad guy is the bad guy for being the most inflexible, the other characters less bad because they're inflexible but not as much as the bad guy, and then the good guy, the detective, is the good guy because he's flexible and willing to listen to other people's viewpoints regardless of race, class, etc. Anyone who thinks of the Michael Douglas character as a hero really hasn't thought about the movie at all.  

But my mentioning that shooting is in the Olympics because the modern Olympics was founded by Baron de Coubertin, a competitive shooter, is forbidden. And all mention of me seems to be so, also, because when a regular doesn't post for a while the others tend to ask about them, and I'm not seeing that so even inquiries are being screened out. 

Eventually I rode up to H Mart for some shopping, and even got a new saucepan because the nonstick coating on mine is starting to wear out and after a while longer I'll decide it's had it and can just get out the new one. I also looked at their electric kettles because mine's acting weird and so far I've decided it's not the connection in the base so the next thing to try is to take it apart and mess around inside and see if that fixes it - if not it's time for a new one. 

On the way back I stopped to hang out with Tom, and brag a bit about my $155 weekend playing trumpet. As usual we talked about all kinds of things including the udon I'd just had. I tried the udon at the place that's inside H Mart, because Tom said he didn't like it. I really did, I told him, but it's definitely a Korean take on udon and if you're expecting it to taste like Japanese udon you're not going to like it. 

One thing I told him was how I'd come here to the Bay Area. I'd flown in to the San Francisco airport and hadn't even booked a hotel room in advance, but just followed some people onto one of the hotel buses and ended up staying at the Ramada and it was only about $50 for the night. After a night's sleep got up and walked down the street where I thought I saw a rental car place, and since there was a breakfast place there too I had breakfast first then rented a car, and drove around to the other side of the bay where an internet friend lived who was going to rent me a room but the room was tiny and his place was a horror so I told him I had other plans. I then drove down to Sunnyvale and stayed at the "Silicon Way Inn" I think it was for about a week while I found an apartment. That place was only about $40 a night and after the first night I told them it was a great room, and the guy said, "It should be - before the dot-com crash it was $160 a night!". Once I had an apartment rented it was time to buy a car, which I did over at the Saturn place, then drove the rental back up to South San Francisco where I'd rented it and one of the guys took me to the CalTrain station there and I took the train back down to Sunnyvale. In other words I just winged it and it all worked out all right. 

We talked a lot about the 08 crash and I said if I'd been a super saver and super frugal, I'd have weathered it OK. But of course I didn't. A guy Tom has doing some work for him lost it all in that crash also, and the crash also drove his family apart. We talked about the desirability of being able to save money and thus be able to say no to jobs we hate, and to be able to maneuver around in life. 

But these days it also means, I think, you've also got to be able to wing it. And that might mean risking being homeless, or living in your office, or something like that. 

Clear Again

 98th day sober. I listed some Ebay stuff last night, the usual routine, and practiced a bit too. Even after 4 hours of busking and some hours of rest, I could play high C's so that's interesting. 

I slept in until 4. I had my coffee and vitamins and so on, and got out of here. I stopped at Nijiya and got a few things including a chashu don (roast pork on rice) and a near-beer and ate over at the Issei building because it's such a nice place to sit and eat. 

There was something going on in St. James Park which turned out to be a wrestling show with a ring and announcer etc., and had a small crowd. And off to the side was my caricaturist friend. For some reason he had a vintage "Peanuts" comic strip book by his side, and I asked to look at it - it's all "reruns", a compilation that was obviously put together around the time of the Moon landing. We talked about Charles Schultz and how "dark" some of his classic strips could be. We'd both grown up reading Peanuts and "That's why I'm an artist today", my friend said. I said I had to go, to do *my* thing, and took off. 

I had chewed gum to get my mouth nice and clean on my way, so I started right in playing, as it was 20 after 6, so I was already 20 minutes "late". 

It wasn't hazy today, so I had the sun in my eyes. Great for playing with my eyes closed to look "inspired". I felt my tone getting rough pretty early on, so I tried to take it easy. At one point a guy from Brazil and I talked, and I told him about the Frank Sinatra "Coffee Song" and he pulled it up on his phone. He got a real kick out of it. I said he can tell people it's his national anthem and he said he has a couple of guests coming over who are Brazilian but raised here or something like that, and he'll play it for them. 

It was really a bit of a slog but I worked out "Danny Boy" and that's a real plus. In the end I made $35.53 making it a total of $155.24 for the week.

Hazy day.

 97th day sober. I was up at about 2:30 and wanted to be "out the door at 4" so I packed things to take the the downtown post office, had some coffee, and headed out a bit after 4.

I went to the post office first to mail the packages, then decided I'd go check out a Vietnamese place that had been mentioned on Reddit, that's supposed to be on Williams street. So I rode around that area, not finding anything that struck me as being the place, and seeing what the local "student ghetto" is like. The 7-11 had usual 7-11 things going on, by which I mean a skinny black lady with her car beached somehow on the curb next to the driveway in, yelling at a skinny white lady who may have been some kind of partner in crime. And a general sketchy-to-the-point-of-dangerous vibe. 

It looked like a good area for a cheap cell phone, some dodgy food, or a fat lip. I did my sightseeing then decided to eat somewhere a bit less "off" and then check out the First Friday thing. I ended up going to Hoagie Steak Out which serves, besides cheese steak type sandwiches, Korean stuff. I got a "gangnam bowl" which was spicy pork with rice and sides of salad and kim chee, which was good. 

Then it was over to First where the loud music was going, the booths set up, and already a healthy crowd. A caricature artist I've seen around for years now, was set up and he's improved from his already excellent work. He's working larger which is always good as many draw too small, and he's only using black and white these days, but using it very well. i gushed about his work a bit. He still works for the library, too. I told him the guys who used to come to Christmas In The Park have stopped coming around, and it's good to see a caricaturist in town. I mentioned that the same thing has happened with trumpet playing, where the Rabbit Trumpet Guy has left and now I'm the only one. 

I rode over to Whole Foods and had my Can'O Coffee and then chewed sugarless gum, got all set up and started in at 6:15. It was a pretty unremarkable session. There's a haze in the air and once the sun got low enough to be in my eyes, it was dim enough to look at directly. It was a bit of a slog, but I'm stubborn and hung in there until 8:15. I made $49.90. 

When I was done I went upstairs to get an alcohol-free beer, because I was thirsty and really wanted something fizzy and cold. Some silly Olympics stuff was on the TVs. For some reason there were only about 6 people besides myself upstairs. The haze was thick enough that it looked overcast outside, and the bartender said there had been more people earlier - maybe the haze made it seem later than it was and that's why they'd cleared out. Between the coffee, some celery, and the alcohol-free beer Whole Foods got about $10 from me but that's all right. 

I rode back over to the First Friday thing and it was really going with a big crowd and my caricaturist friend said he'd gotten a bunch of customers earlier. He seemed surprised that I'd been to Whole Foods and back and I said that Yeah, I'd had time to go over there, have some iced coffee, play for 2 hours, and now I was done, having made $50. The truth is, at $10 a head, my friend might be handling more money but after paying for his booth and all that, he might not be taking any more home, and working more hours for it. 

I rode home by way of a short detour to check out San Pedro Square, which was moderately busy and probably busk-able but with no performers. I stopped at TAK Market for some diet 7-Up and salted peanuts, and got back here.

A good windy day.

 96th day sober. I was up at 3, not bad considering a delivery guy came by with a big box I had to sign for and wrestle into here, at about 10AM and I'd gone to bed around 7:30 or 8AM. 

So I got a bit more of something like sleep, and I'd practiced last night too. After skipping what felt like a week! Practice went well, and I decided, what the heck, I'll prepare to busk after doing my errands. 

So I got going a bit after 4, dropped off some packages at the downtown post office (there was a hell of a yelling match going on in St. James park there, yay bums) and then did my bank deposit (the IRS hasn't cashed my check yet) and everything works out to the penny. 

I went over to Da Kao and got some yellow chicken curry with rice and some deep fried breaded "yam" (sweet potato) strips with shrimp and went over to the college to eat. Of course a good part of the curry sauce had escaped the container and was in the bottom of the bag, but I was able to eat it OK by just opening the top of the bag and the container and it went well. That was all about $8 and I had leftovers to leave on top of a trash container on one of the bummier parts of Santa Clara Street so it's all good. 

What's funny is, when I was paying at Da Kao, they didn't want to take one of the $5's I handed them and I gave them a different one and agreed, that $5 looked too funny. I'd not seen a fake $5 since the dark days of 2009 but I'm sure I had a fake on my hands so I left it lying in the gutter out on the street. 

I went over to Whole Foods and locked up the bike. The same guy was there with his "save the children" or "something something children" booth. "You're the trumpet playing guy" he said, and we caught up with things. I said I was going to have a coffee and relax a bit. Which I did, with a cold can of coffee and The Metro. 

I finally set up at a quarter after 6, and in between playing, talked with the guy. It was windy, enough so that I'd put some cans of food in my tip box to keep it from blowing away, and I told the guy I used to sell at swap meets a lot and windy days were always bad. I'm glad he and I get along, and I was worried my playing was keeping him from getting "customers" but he said he'd had a "solid" day earlier, and the last time we were both there, he'd gotten that one last customer he needed and that's all that matters. 

Since it was a windy day, with the sun in my eyes, I didn't have very high expectations and decided I'd just play from 6:15, when I started, to 8:15 and whatever I make, I make. So I played along, got lots of "thank you"'s and said Thanks all I could in return, and the one notable "customer" of the day was a black guy who rode up on a big blue Harley and had his radio on loud, playing some Motown song of the kind I grew up with, so I worked out the trumpet parts and played along, then when he walked up I was playing Amazing Grace and he said, "Keep going, it's my mother's song" and I played and he sang along. It was pretty cool. 

I had tips coming in fairly well right up until 8, so I considered whether to stay even later but decided that no, 8:15 would be it. So when that time came I put everything away and folded up my tip box without any counting, and rode home. I passed through San Pedro Square and it was kind of dead with no one performing. I think there was one of the regular beggars there and that was it. 

If I'd stayed any later I'd have needed my thin sweatshirt and jacket which I'd brought, but the ride home was fine. I got back here and since the trash truck comes around on Thursday nights, I took some boxes and cut them up and took a lot of junk I had in "our" trash enclosure, and got it all into the dumpster that belongs to the place a couple of doors down. I like to keep things pretty neat around here. 

I finally counted up and I'd made $69.81. It didn't "feel" like I'd made that much but there it was - I even counted three times to make sure. 

Ken came by and picked up this very heavy signal generator we'd sold for 5 grand, and there had been a bit of a hang-up with getting payment and shipping all coordinated, but it seems to be all straightened out now and I told him, Don't worry if Ebay chalks up the shipping as "overdue" because I'm keeping our shipping numbers so good that one thing being shipped late won't hurt us. Ken took off, not even wanting to hang out and have tea, so I didn't get to brag about my making $70 in a couple of hours. 

I had someone ask me today "why I do this" and I explained how it's great practice and improving my playing, and preparation for my retirement "career" as an enjoyable way to make day-to-day money. 

I think the trope is that if a person is out playing music they must be desperate somehow. But the people I see who really are desperate, never seem to hit on the idea of playing music or performing somehow. So if you get someone out playing on the street who's competent, they've probably done a lateral move from some legit occupation. Like Leroy who was an "engineer" (I think in terms of running their HVAC stuff) for the college, Gabriel The Violinist who was an accountant, or myself with an electronics background.

Headache tapering off?

 95th day sober. Up at 3:30. I'd sifted and sorted Ebay stuff and listed things last night, been up until 6AM and went out to the lunch truck and got an egg and sausage sandwich which I ate with plenty of hot sauce to help the headache a bit, then just settled down and went to bed. 

I didn't practice due to the headache. When I woke up, before getting out of bed, did a lot of deep breathing exercises which seemed to make me feel better. 

I had coffee and vitamins etc. and packed the things I had to pack and was out the door the usual time. The drop-offs were no problem and I stopped at the gyro place for a gyro, which they forgot to put spices on and wow was it bland without the spices. Well, now I know. 

I found a fair amount of packing stuff on the way back and was back here around 8. There's a very definite feel of change in the weather like summer is behind us. I looked up the summer solstice when I got back here and it was back on June 20th. I guess what I feel is a combination of the weather cooling off a little and the days getting shorter. 

I'm done with the Morris Berman blog. He'd reacted to one of the regulars posting some news article about the US shooting team being sponsored for ammunition makers (to the tune of their getting *some* for free; this is not a big-money sport) and he seemed incredulous that shooting is in the Olympics. So I did a post pointing out that the founder of the modern Olympics was a competitive shooter, and that our rifle shooters are a genteel and sportsmanlike bunch, and apparently that doesn't square with Berman's worldview. 

So, to be alright in Berman's world, you have to make yourself believe that facts, such as that Pierre de Coubertin, who did in fact found the modern Olympics, never did so. And certainly never put shooting in because it was quite a popular sport in his day. 

I'm coming around to realize that to him, if you're in the US and didn't just step off a boat last week, you're an utter bounder with no redeeming qualities, and if you can't immediately skedaddle to, say, Mexico City where you can live in air-conditioned splendor with frequent air travel, well, you're a buffoon. 

His one good idea may be that of the "new monastic individual" but as the saying goes, in this case, "what is good is not original, and what is original is not good". The problem here is "individual". I actually looked the full term up on Google and it appears Berman's ideas are most popular among conservatives. Of course they want everyone to withdraw past the hyper-individuality we already suffer under. 

Isn't that the dream of followers of Ayn Rand? Withdraw, don't do anything for anyone w/o extracting a price, that'll show 'em! It's no wonder there's so much contempt for Chris Hedges (who's actually gone out into the world and been shot at etc.), Food Not Bombs, any charity whatsoever in fact. There are also continual digs at anyone or anything that doesn't exalt the ideal of white, male, straight, lone-hero myth. 

In other words it's a thinly-disguised conservative blog. He can't go straight ahead rah-rah for the Right end of the Republican party because that would be too obvious and besides, there are plenty doing that. He'd get drowned in the noise. But pass himself off as this "cool" guy who only cheers for Trump ironically, and he might have actually snagged a few votes for Trump. 

And what's it going to cost him if his idol's January 6th coup had succeeded? His largest footprint is in conservative circles, and he's safely out of the US. He can thumb his nose at anyone here in the US who doesn't have the minimum quarter-million dollars it takes to leave, and write them off as "buffoons". 

Ken came by and brought my favorite kind of things to list on Ebay - small things. He wrote me my check and we hung out for a while, and I noted how I can really tell how the weather's changing to autumn, and he said he'd actually been cold at work the other day. 

I tried out my new coffee pourer thing and it seems to work fine, making a super-dark cup of French Market chicory coffee.  Despite drinking this mud, my headache seems to be pretty much gone.

Taking a week off?

 94th day sober. Guess I'll keep this up a year, then I might keep mentioning in passing that I'm staying away from the bug poison. Reading "crippling alcoholism" on Reddit is a pretty good antidote to "the sauce". 

I got Ebay things sorted out and listed last night, and ended up going to bed without practicing because I had a headache again. 

On the radio they're talking about the delta variant really being all over so I'm beginning to wonder about the ethics of busking again. When I started busking again a month ago, I even saw cashiers at Whole Foods not wearing masks because the feeling was that it was over with so it was more voluntary (I kept wearing mine) but now the mask mandate is back. And there's supposed to be a lambda version waiting in the wings. The real acid test is how many are being hospitalized and that's back up.

The extra money from busking is nice but I can save money pretty well anyway. 

The no-show guy who was supposed to pick up his box of drone parts yesterday came by today right at 8 when he said he would, and I handed over the parts and since I turned out to have a couple extra thrust bearings, tiny little things, more than Ebay thought I had, I gave him those too. We talked about all the things that are going away, like Fry's Electronics and other companies we thought would be around pretty much forever.

Lunch truck adventure

 93rd day sober.  I listed Ebay stuff last night, fighting a headache, and early in the morning smelled a wonderful breakfasty smell and got dressed and walked out to the lunch truck but I was actually too early. I walked further up to another lunch truck where a breakfast burrito was $8. 

I hoped eating it, with all the hot sauce I put on, might help the headache and it may have helped, a little, but once I was done I just got settled down and went to bed, no practice because of the headache. 

I'd stayed up well into daylight getting a large order of drone stuff together for a guy, who said he'd come by "after 2". I packed other things I'd gotten ready last night/this morning and finally sent the buyer a message on Ebay saying I'd be out from 6:00-7:30 to do my post office and fedex run, and went out and did so. This time slot also allowed for some shopping at H Mart, where I spent almost $32 of the $42 busking money I had on me. It's a unique feeling, spending "free money". 

Got back here and put things away blah blah and .... no messages on Ebay and the guy never showed. So something's come up or something. If it's something like a car accident or illness or something I think I'll just send the parts by FedEx, "eating" the shipping. The parts cost us nothing as I'd picked them up for free, and a $10 or $20 goodwill gesture isn't going to hurt us. 

Monetizing one's hobby

 92nd day sober. Up at 3, watched more weird movies and these movie recap things where an AI voice but not too bad of one, goes through (important) scene-by-scene of movies, which is pretty neat. It's better than the Wikipedia plots, and naturally not as expensive as seeing the actual movie. Sort of like when I was a kid and would get Mom to buy me MAD Magazine for 40c cheap, because it always had two movie spoofs, which I could read and get an idea of what recent movies were about, plus have some funny things to say about them and thus not feel so out of the loop. 

I didn't practice last night because, well, I was tired. I set up the mouse trap in the same place in case there was more than one, but there wasn't so I put it back up in the loft where there might be one who knows. 

I read a ton of Reddit (probably should stop that) and again there's the old trope about how monetizing your hobby makes it no fun any more. I can see how this might ruin something like fishing, but when I'm out playing for the public it *is* like fishing, with the tips being the fish of course. And it's really boring to just practice at home. 

So maybe, say, your hobby is sitting quietly at home painting flowers on rocks or something, and going out and setting up on the sidewalk selling the things would be a "necessary evil" at best, that you really don't like because you don't like interacting with the public. That would kill the hobby all right. 

But if your hobby actually *is* selling, or performing, that would sure not kill the hobby. I honestly think that to some "star" salesmen, for instance, it's a big game and fun for them. Things maybe only become un-fun when, as is so encouraged in American culture, they spend a ton on things they really can't afford and now they're on a financial treadmill. 

I packed up an oscilloscope I wanted to get over to FedEx today, and took it up there, found some packing stuff on the way back and saw a big stack of wooden crates with those twist-and-lock latches on them, like are used to ship big pieces of medical or scientific equipment, and thought Tom might be interested. 

So next I went over to Tom's and told him about them. He had a helper, Roy, a guy who lives in his van and works for Tom for some kind of shitty pay, and they wrapped up what they were doing and Roy drove off in the minivan he lives in, and Tom and I went over where the crates are and Tom loaded them into his truck. 

We went back over to Tom's to hang out and talk, and I gave walnuts to the crow that hangs around, which was fun to watch because once the crow had eaten some he started stashing the walnut pieces here and there for later. 

We talked about a lot of things, one of them being money, of which Tom has none saved, which surprised me. We talked about food and different restaurants, but being around Tom is good for saving money because with him not having any, I wasn't able to go and get us curry or something. Eventually the sun went down and I rode back here. 

I had some banana chips I'd bought on my way out to FedEx, and had boiled some eggs so I made an egg salad a while later.