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.