148th day sober. Just as with yesterday, I woke up at about 3:30, had coffee etc., did some shopping on my way downtown and got something to eat, and was all set up to play at 5:40.
It was already pretty cool, and once the sun went down it got closer to cold. And windy. And tips were really, really, slow. I got cold and started sounding (I thought) like shit after an hour, but I stuck it out the full 6 hours. At one point a gal came burbling up on a Yamaha Vino scooter, and what made me curious was, it had a 4-stroke engine. So I started talking with the rider, and she said she'd bought it at that Yamaha place on El Camino Real in Santa Clara, but it's closing and she doesn't know what she's going to do if she needs her scooter repaired. I told her about the scooter place on Hedding which she didn't know about so maybe I did her a good turn. I told her I'd been curious because Vinos used to have 2-stroke engines, but 4-stroke ones last a lot longer so to me it's a good development.
People were going in and out of Whole Foods pretty quickly, because of the coolth and the wind, and interestingly, today was the day I got tons of tips from black people. And yesterday I got no coins but today I got lots of quarters and even a Kennedy dollar coin.
At one point a rough looking guy came up and, for some reason, took out a $20 bill and said something about the US Marines Band and I asked him where he'd been stationed, mentioning a couple of Marine bases and ... not a lot of what the guy was saying made any sense. And as he talked, for some other unfathomable reason he folded up the $20 bill and finally walked off. I didn't even get a chance to tell him how much I liked the Marine Corps; it had been so much fun making sure one of theirs wasn't going to the Olympics in '96. What a sad life that guy must lead, though. He and his grimy $20 both smelled like the underside of a car and sweat, and I was glad when he left - probably over to CVS for a handle of some of the rot-gut liquor they sell there.
Finally it was close to 7:40 and I was playing my "one more tip and I'm done" game, and a street-ish kid came up and put in a tip and thanked me for being out busking. It turns out his name is Jasper and he plays guitar, and I guess either busks or is considering doing so. I told him about all the buskers who used to be around town, and how in the end it seemed to be just Leroy with his saxophone and myself, and now even Leroy's gone. So there's lots of room for buskers in town, I said in summing it all up, and it feels weird being the only busker in this town.
I was very happy to be done, and had made $27.35. As they say, "Not great, not terrible". I think busking may be a seasonal thing, although it could get interesting close to Christmas time when Christmas carols will be de rigueur. And I need to move my playing times even earlier, maybe aiming to start at 5 or 4:30. When I'd started at Whole Foods there I noticed the carts were all out, which meant a burst of customers had been through, maybe for the 4-5 hour right after getting off work.
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