Corresponding with the dragon.

 343rd say sober. I have a funny thing to confess in this area. A month or two ago, I'd found, among other things, a couple bottles of wine. The new, sealed, one went to Ken and the one that had been opened, maybe two glasses poured out and obviously from a party just earlier in the day, I kept and drank. The first drink, a small glass, made my face get red and it was not all that pleasant. In the evening before bed I drank the rest and it was more pleasant but not really worth the trouble and it's very easy to see where it would lead. Alcohol no longer equals "happy" to me. 

I did some practice last night, of course. High C is not as elusive as it used to be. 

I keep corresponding with the dragon, AKA my aunt. She's a dragon in the Western sense, hoarding millions while she's rather cut her hand off than give a starving person a sandwich. I keep corresponding with her because it's like being one of the jail guards in Nuremberg, getting to converse a bit with some truly evil person; it's a sick curiosity. 

But somehow the information shook loose that it was my maternal grandmother, *her* mother, who paid to get my eyes fixed. Of course she (my aunt) thought it was one of my younger sisters whose eyes had been fixed, and I had to say that it was myself who had the bad eyes, in need of an operation (or was it two?) I'd been told it was "relatives" and I'd always figured it must be Dad's side since they had more money. 

That's amazing information. This has happened to everyone in this damned country, that the Lost/Greatest Generations actually gave a damn about their kids and worked together fairly well. And somehow the Silents and, notoriously, the Boomers, have been some of the most short-sighted and selfish people to ever exist. Of course I'm not going to tell *her* that. 

But I might as well weasel out what information I can. She's old and will die soon and take all her money with her, *she* thinks. In reality, medical bills and lawyers will probably get it all, it's the American way. 

Today was a busy day. First I packed a large thing and took it, along with a bunch of smaller things, up to the post office than FedEx. I stopped at the falafel place for a yogurt drink on the way back. Other than that I didn't stop anywhere coming back, but came right back here, and packed three more large things, and took those to FedEx. 

After that, I had shrimp and zucchini at the fish place, and rode my usual route going home. The medical place had their dumpster locked up so someone forgot to unlock it, Oh well. I stopped at the storage place to pick up another one of something we keep selling for $150 each. I picked up a fair amount of packing materials too so I was pretty loaded up when I got back. 

I put all that away, and got to work packing this one huge thing I was hoping I could hand off to Ken for him to take to FedEx. I had it done and was just finished vacuuming the office when Ken showed up, in his wife's Corolla. He told me that not only had he worked on his truck and cut a hose too short and hadn't had time to fix it, but diesel's about a dollar a gallon more than gas so he's trying to not drive his truck. His wife's got a new SUV they got and corolla's now their back-up car. 

This, plus the fact that Ken's going to the dentist tomorrow means I'll have to transport the box myself. It's "only" about 65 pounds. We had an extra long time shooting the bull, and I had to keep the door open because Ken had eaten some salad and was farting a lot. He kept stepping out to let one go. The result of this was I got pretty cold by the time Ken took off so as soon as he was out of here I turned on my little heater fan and made a nice hot bowl of miso soup. 

So now I don't know if I'm going to the bank tomorrow or Friday, due to that big box.

Slouching toward doomsday

 342nd day sober.  I listed 20 things last night and did some practice. I've realized that if "video" online is now down to a few frames per second and frequent freezes - but the audio's OK - like a Ken Burns film, I might as well watch Ken Burns films. I found the excellent "The War" about WWII but sadly, only the first episode is online for free and I'd have to buy the rest. Buy "video" so lousy that it makes my head hurt to watch it closely? No, thanks. But I plan to become a regular at the Recycle Book Store, to buy shows like that on DVD when they show up. In fact, I'm about due to cash some books in. 

I worked on long, high tones a bit more but think I was a bit tired out from the night before when I worked on them a lot. That's OK because there's nothing more powerful than regular practice. I've decided I'm going to work on a new song each week so I have something new in my line-up, to keep myself interested and also to not be so hard on the folks in the apartments near Whole Foods, who have to listen to me.

I also remember how, to learn a new song, it took getting a bit obsessed with it for maybe a week and then I'd have it down pat. So this week it's going to be "Misty". 

I'm practicing using the old faithful 3C mouthpiece, but have a 5C waiting for me at the Amazon place, with the idea that instead of changing from the 3C to the Schilke 14A4A, I'd just change to the 5C when I get tired in the 2nd hour of playing. That would change the sound less. 

Why all this sudden interest in the trumpet again? Firstly, it's my primary "survival tool" in that I can make money with the thing. Also, the way things are going there's a strong chance I won't be able to get back to Hawaii. That's a whole two years away at the soonest, and a ton of things can happen. 

The flute is turning out to be a bit of a wrong detour in that I think the trumpet is honestly better for busking and a hell of a lot easier to care for. And the Western flute is different enough from the shakuhachi that I don't think it really helps my shakuhachi playing. I don't regret buying the flute, as when supply lines shut down the thing will probably increase in value, and besides, if I get back to Hawaii I can give it to my older sister. 

Trumpet might not be all that bad for Hawaii anyway. I'd probably want to work on more quiet playing like Chet Baker and Miles Davis stuff, and that's fine with me because I like that stuff. I'll have to clean my horn daily in the tropical environment but I do a pretty good job of that already. 

The shakuhachi is great training though, because it takes really deep breathing and is thus very healthy. It's enough easier to play than the Western flute that I can just concentrate on my breathing. So I need to order the "enhanced" Shakuhachi Yuu from Monty Levinson so I'll be set up with a good one that I can play into the 3rd octave and not worry about getting a bamboo one until I'm back in Hawaii if I ever am.

Stay-In day

 341st day sober. I spent some hours last night taking another instrument apart, then after some dinner I got around to doing some practice. In spite of everything, my abilities are slowly increasing. I read somewhere that Louis Armstrong added something like one whole note per year in range and of course he practiced and played a ton so maybe that's just how it goes. I worked on long tones a lot more than usual.

We got some rain last night too. Somehow that made practice more pleasant. It's always nice to be in here, snug and dry, when it's raining outside. 

I'm also getting interested in an experiment, that of making trumpet spit valve pads out of leather. That would make pads as good or better then the really good Yamaha ones. There area ton of cheapo cork ones out there and as I've noted they don't last long. It's OK if you don't mind popping in new ones every few months. But say you don't want to do that or you're a band director with a lot of brass instruments to ride herd over. You might want something you can pop in and forget about for a while. 

My push-through pull-through is working well too. Amazingly, in my searching around last night, I found an explanation on Trumpet Herald of the mystery of "red rot". It's the de-zincification of the brass caused by little electrolytic cells forming and those cells form when the player eats sugary, acidic, etc foods that provide the electrolyte, and then play their horn. So you have to have your mouth super clean before you play, and it really helps to swab out your lead pipe and tuning slide after playing. 

I mention this last because there's a place on the tuning slide of the trumpet that I can't decide is the very beginning of red rot or not. The lead pipe is fine. And, it turns out I can buy a new tuning slide and there are even companies that swear theirs are better than the stock Yamaha one. 

It's nice to take a break after all the activity yesterday. I put $100 more into savings, got some new fake-Ugg boots I have all ready for next winter, so when I'm over the warm/hot part of the year and it gets cold again, I'll pull out my new ones and put them on and they'll feel wonderful. I'm stocked up on stuff so I can hole up until Thursday when it's time to go downtown to deposit my check, and get some busking in.

Craigslist working again?

 340th day sober. At 4AM after putting actual cork corks on the trumpet, I realized I needed to get some sleep. So I went to bed and woke up around 8, then woke up again at 11 - right when the lady was supposed to show up to buy the clarinet. 

She'd not called, nor emailed. I packed my bedding away and had the clarinet out all ready to show, and checked Ebay stuff. Pretty soon I got a call from her, she was right out front. It was really easy. Her daughter had been playing a year so she knows how to assemble one and care for it, and they're realized how expensive renting was. She said between her daughter on clarinet and her son on trumpet and the dog, it was quite a noisy household. She handed over $200 and that was that. 

I put half in savings, of course. It was an amazingly easy Craigslist sale. 

I had my coffee and nuts for breakfast and headed out at almost 1. It was far too windy to consider busking so I didn't bring the trumpet. First I went to Dai Thanh for coffee, ginger, and got a lemon fizzy water. I was going to get something to eat at Da Kao and they're closed! That was such a great place. I am actually sad. How was I to know that the two chicken skewers I got there last week would be my last meal there? When the world is running down .... 

I contemplated going to Whole Foods, my perpetual hangout, because I can pick out a keto-friendly lunch there. But on the way I changed my plan and rode over to Recycle Book Store and locked the bike, and walked over to Five Guys and had a burger, not eating the bun of course. That one, on the Alameda, has the free roasted peanuts in the shell which I didn't eat any of, but it's neat that they're there. 

I went back over to the book store and looked through their wall of DVDs. I picked out The Gods Must Be Crazy I & II and Lilo & Stitch. 

Then I started riding toward central downtown, but South a bit, and wandered around some neat funky little streets and found myself at Black & Brown. They've been my go-to for Doc Marten shoes so I went in but they didn't have any my size and had hardly any at all. Hmm. 

I got back on track to Market Street and took that down to where it joins Monterey and down to the Wal-Mart Big-5 complex. One of my "Bear Paw" fake Ugg books has a big crack in the side of the sole, and this is  the time of year to buy new ones. I looked through their wall of 'em and found some exactly the same kind/color/size as the ones I have. $75, oh well, that's life, I figured. But at the checkout they were $50-odd. The old Big-5 surprise discount. I love that place. 

I'd been fighting the wind like crazy all through this trip, as I was heading largely West and South. But now it was time to go home, mostly North and a bit East. So the ride home was really nice. I stopped at Nijiya and got some beef on sale, eggs, cucumber pickles, etc. 

On my way back on 10th, just before crossing the railroad tracks, I thought I saw/heard some little white pieces of paper blowing toward me on the street. They were two teeny white terrier dogs, and they were out for blood! It was hilarious! The little guys could really fun fast, and I said, "Chase the bike! Chase the bike!" to see if I could get them to follow me really far. But they stopped at the railroad tracks. Oh, well. 

As I passed the scrap metal place, I saw a bum with a bike and trailer, digging in the dumpster there. I said to him that if he goes up the way I came, he'll get chased by little terrier dogs. He said he didn't know the scrap places was closed, lost track of what day it is (Sunday) and did I have anything "like some water"? I said in fact I did, as I'd only taken a little drink from the lemon fizzy water and I handed it over. 

I got back here put things away yadda yadda. Tomorrow's supposed to feature rain and possibly lightning so it will be a day to stay in.

Victory Gin

 339th day sober. Since I was up until 7AM (oops, I should not do that) I woke up a lot later than I intended. I'd taken that stupid big test instrument apart and listed 10 of the "best" parts, then done some practice, an hour or so. I also tried out the first version of my push-through swab and it works.

I'm really bugged about the spit valve cork situation around here. That one time I was at Park Avenue Music and the tech was there, I was able to obtain genuine Yamaha corks that came in neat little bags and I'd used them up replacing the corks on my Yamaha trumpet and cornet that I'd just sold. They were a joy to use, as they just clicked right in and fit perfectly. 

Unfortunately I can't seem to find any online that I'm sure are the right thing. I put a couple of of the black neoprene ones they sold me at Park on the Bergeron trumpet and they work OK but I had to kind of jam them in since they're a tiny bit big - probably 10mm as opposed to 9.5mm which I believe the actual Yamaha ones are. 

I've ended up ordering some corks off of Amazon which are at least pretty cheap so I can replace them pretty often. 

Since I'd gone to bed at 7AM, I woke up around noon then wanted to rest just a little more and next thing I knew I was waking up at 2:30. I had coffee and aspirin for breakfast and shaved and got out of here a bit after 3. 

I dropped off cookies and pastries at the little free libraries, and got a little vintage French lesson book and a book by Buzz Aldrin the astronaut, which at least has photos and a clear cover over the dust jacket. "Lessons From Being An Astronaut" or something. 

The books turned out to be handy to weigh down my tip box when I got to Whole Foods. I had the place all to myself, and started playing at 4:30. The tips were a lot lower than I thought they might be, but it went OK. Like the last time, I played the first hour on the Bach 3C mouthpiece and the second hour on the Schilke 14A4A. I'm actually thinking I might get two Yamaha pieces, the Bobby Shew Jazz and Lead. I've played the Jazz and it's like a 3C with just a bit more "edge". 

There's one employee at Whole Foods, a black guy with "big" hair who's told me he likes hearing my playing, that it reminds him of being in NYC. Today I got to ask him if he's from there or been there, and he's not but he "likes the music there". 

All in all the 2 hours went by pretty smoothly, and pretty soon it was time to quit; I played the Goodnight" song and packed up. I'd made $29. 

Whole Foods was jammed with hockey fans so I didn't want to eat there. I bought $50 worth of groceries including a bottle of coffee and packed up and left. The next stop was the Amazon place where I picked up my Tune-A-Day/Tuna Day Book 1, and some bubble mailers. 

Then I took a little ride around to see what's going on downtown and I didn't feel like rushing back to the shop. I parked my bike by the tables in front of Caffe Frascati (it has a different name now) and sat and people-watched while I drank my coffee. It was nice to just relax. 

Cafe Stritch is no more, and as I rode for home I passed by where "Skewers and Brew" used to be and it also appears to be gone. I guess everyone just stays in now. The only places with crowds were those where alcohol flows like water and the central theme is to get blitzed and forget about the economy, the war, one's job or lack thereof, etc. Just wash it all away with Victory Gin. 

I rode home and put things away, and my dinner was salami and cucumber slices. I hadn't eaten all day and had become somewhat hungry. I'd gotten home at almost 9, which due to the "wartime 3-hour shift" is the equivalent of getting home at midnight. 

At about 11PM I got a call from a lady who wants to buy the clarinet. I'd actually forgotten to renew the ad on Craig's List. She'd texted me first and I'd managed to text back, "Call me" and she did right away. So she's supposed to show up at 10:30 or 11 in the morning tomorrow. 

I looked in my "Music" banker's box upstairs and it turns out I still had some cheapo corks I'd ordered a while back, so I took the neoprene corks off of the trumpet and put a couple of these on. I only had to sand them down a little to get a nice "click in" fit and after installing them, I put some camellia oil on them because they're short-lived compared to the good Yamaha ones. I'm thinking the Yamaha ones are saturated with something to make them last longer. In any case, these are cheap and I have plenty of them so I can just replace as needed. And I have more coming via Amazon...

I also ordered a Blessing 5C mouthpiece with the idea that if I play on a 3C, a 5C might be a good compliment. I used to practice on a 3C and busk on a 7C. But I could busk the first hour on the old faithful 3C and then when I get tired, switch to a 5C and I don't think I'd lose as much tone as I do when I switch to the 14A4A from a 3C.

Spanish Revolution or Viet Nam?

 338th day sober. I sifted and sorted a lot of lab glass thingies last night and got them all organized so they went into the batch of 10 things I listed last night. At the end of the night I tried a bit of practice but I could not get high notes to "go" at all so quit that and went to bed. 

I woke up around noon, and still find the high noted elusive. This is what happens when I don't practice. I can always play some high and every very high notes, but without practice I can't do it day in and day out, and expect to go out busking for 2 hours and be fresh as a daisy the next day. The same would go for running, or paddling a surfboard, or any sort of exercise. 

The radio is full of war news of course. This thing has some semblance to the Spanish Revolution but may develop into something like Viet Nam, with the US in Russia's place and Russia in the US's. People don't remember, but we did all the atrocities there that the Russians are doing now, and worse. And this was glorified. There were movies about it and the war criminals who took part are still regarded as heroes by some. For killing farmers and women and children, torture, etc. 

I had time to pack everything that had to go, except one big thing going to Germany of all places. I took off a little bit earlier than the usual time, dropped off all but two of the packages at the post office and the last two at FedEx, then had planned to get something at the fish restaurant. But it was packed and Id just eaten at the falafel place yesterday, so Five Guys it was. I saved the bun for my birdie friends. 

I stopped at the dumpster enclosure I'd been working on cleaning up and found nothing worth taking for packing material but the bags of ... whatever ... from the cooler were still there in a pile. They smelled like literal shit. I used a 2X4 from nearby to shove them out near the edge of the enclosure so the rain that's coming in Sunday night will give the enclosure a good rinse. I mean to gradually get that enclosure ship-shape even if it takes a while. The good packing material that comes through at times is worth it. 

The electric lighting place had a big bag full of cookies and pastries and such things so I took the ones that were not wrapped in plastic and spread them around for the birds to have a nice Saturday breakfast, and took the wrapped ones to distribute to the little free libraries. 

I got back here and put things away yadda yadda, and eventually got around to taking this old dinosaur of a piece of equipment apart, which was a bit time consuming because it was of a brand that's notorious for building things really solidly. That gave me some things to list and many pounds of scrap metal to put out for the bums to pick up.

I'm not sure how enthusiastic I am about getting out busking tomorrow. It's supposed to rain on Sunday and Monday, to tomorrow's my one shot for this weekend.

F.A.N.

 337th day sober. Yesterday I left at about the usual time and took one large manual to the post office and then a couple of other large things to FedEx, then thought about getting something to eat. I'd realized at the post office I didn't have a mask with me and had just dashed in and put the book in the chute and went right back out, but where to get something to eat? FedEx hadn't been a big problem as, like the post office, it was almost empty and it was easy to dash in and drop off the packages. But I couldn't go mask-less into Five Guys... 

The falafel place was the best choice as they're kind of friends and pretty casual. I got my usual gyro and while it was being made, the owner and I talked a bit. I mentioned playing music as a side-gig, and how it pays better than electronics which hardly pays at all. He said he'd had some friend or family member or something advise him, maybe when he was younger, to join up and form a band that could play at weddings and so on. We both agreed music is a pretty good thing.

After eating I went by the storage unit and found some things to list and loaded those up, and then stopped by Tom's. I told him how I'd finally checked out the Sunnyvale Whole Foods since he'd told me to do so, and he was like, "I told you that?". I think a lot of the time when I'm talking with him, he's shitfaced and just doesn't show it well. Hell he might not remember talking to me the next day. In fact the reason he's always saying "Well, I think I'm gonna hit the sack", going to bed, apparently, around 8:30 or 9 in the evening, is really he wants to get back to soaking up the sauce so he can pass out. 

I got back here and put things away and put some of the stuff I'd listed away and cleaned the place up a bit, and Ken came by right on time. He was very tired, he said, because he'd driven down to Merced to pick up a safe for his daughter. "Didn't we sell a safe that would have been perfect?" I asked. Of course we had, I'd sold it to a guy who looked like a tall skinny Spike Lee. But Ken said, "That's just how things work out sometimes" because he had no idea, a few years ago, that his daughter would buy a house and want a safe. 

So Ken was very tired and just wrote out my check and handed over a box I'd been expecting, and didn't want tea or food or anything and it was all I could go to get him to take a can of club soda, which, because it's cold and fizzy, might help him stay awake a bit. And he took off. 

Now it was past 11PM and my own turn to be really tired, and I wound down, watched some stuff on YouTube, got in maybe 45 minutes on the flute headjoint, and went to bed. 

I woke up at 11:30 or so. "So much for the lunch hour" I thought. My plan was to get out there busking as early as possible, ideally to try playing for the lunch-hour crowd. I decided to rest a little bit and next thing I knew I was waking up from a bizarre dream and it was 2:30 or so. 

I cleaned up a bit, the Navy calls it F.A.N. for feet, ass, nuts. I'd round it out to include arm pits and head, but yeah clean up those areas.... I left here at 3 with my "new" trumpet in the new gig bag, both mouthpieces, etc. I'd had my usual breakfast and coffee, and my idea was to get to Whole Foods and hopefully claim the spot, and stick to it like a limpet. 

I went to the bank first, of course, then to Whole Foods there on the Alameda. If the petition guy was there, I told myself, I'd take the train up to Sunnyvale and play there. But he was not. It was sunny, and breezy enough that I put some things from my bike bag into my tip box so it would not blow away. The breeze was refreshing, though, as it was quite warm. 

It was exactly 4 as I started playing. I got a flurry of tips as if I'd just gotten the tail-end of a mid-day surge of customers. Then it was really slow for a long time. I played on the 3C mouthpiece for a bit over the first hour and then was tiring out and my tone was getting a little rough. I switched to the Schilke 14A4A and that was a real help. Tips started coming in again, as more customers started showing up. Pretty soon the sun had gone behind the building and I didn't have to squint any more, but it was also 6, so my time was up. I played the Lawrence Welk "Goodnight" song and packed up. I'd made $28.

I was worried about conflict with the petition guy. I know he's there in the evenings right up to when Whole Foods is closing. If he were to get there at noon, that'd be some super long hours. Plus, he's really pale. He might prefer the evening to being out in the sun. So I'm thinking if I can play around the middle of the day, I can avoid him, other hucksters, bums, beggars, etc. all of whom are not noted for being early risers. 

After packing up I went into Whole Foods and spent about $50 on groceries, of course. Then I rode over to Nijiya and got some things, mostly treats like a chashu don bowl, small cucumbers, some cold cooked salmon. It seemed silly to buy chashu don to only eat the stuff on top of the rice, but it was 4 slices of chashu plus a little green onion and pickled ginger and quite satisfying. I used to like pickled ginger as a kid so there's a bit of nostalgia involved too. 

I put $259 in the bank for this week, have the $28 I made busking for "mad money" and will have more "mad money" this weekend when I busk some more. It's a pretty good feeling. 

Last night I did a ton of reading about mouthpieces, and while a lot of people think the Vizzutti mouthpiece is great, a lot also think it's a bit too extreme and that most would be happier with a Bobby Shew Lead. Honestly, I could get a Shew Lead and a Shew Jazz and be pretty happy with those. The Jazz felt halfway between a Bach 3C and a 3D. The Lead might be like the Schilke 14A4A I'm coming to like now, but then, I've already got the Schilke ... 

In fact, with Park Avenue Music selling new pieces, getting some returns they can't sell as new and selling them for half or more off, it might be more fun to just see what shows up on their sale table.

An interesting fact I learned.

 326th day sober. I got busy last night taking a power supply apart and got the parts all ready to list, then realized it was 4AM and set them aside and did my usual winding-down before bed. I actually got around an hour in, practicing the octave exercise on the flute headjoint. 

How is this helping trumpet playing? I don't know, but it's good breathing practice and, well, if I master it I'll have the main problem flutists talk about, that of developing a good embouchure, off to a good start. Plus after a long day I can turn my mind off and do it while watching something on YouTube. 

I was up a bit after 11, and had time to list the things I'd gotten ready last night. 

On the radio there's more about the hearings for, hopefully, our newest supreme court judge. An interesting fact I learned is that all the supreme court judges come from different areas of New York City. This says she may not be nominated, as she's not from the central core of New York City. Corrupt empires tend to work this way. 

She's soft on child porn.

 325th day sober. I woke up around noon, which makes sense given I went to bed around 4AM. I got 15 Ebay things listed, and got things out of the warehouse that need to be packed and shipped. 

I got in *some* practice on the flute headjoint while watching YouTube, and I'm beginning to think the octaves exercise is becoming more controllable. I'm keeping in mind that James Galway's first real teacher told him to not play at all but to just do this exercise for a month. 

I switched on the radio and the hearings about Biden's new prospective Supreme Court judge are on. She sounds very impartial and skilled, but the Republicans, for some reason, are concentrating on a few cases where, according to them, she was soft on child porn offenders. This puzzles me because Republicans love child porn and love fucking kids. 

I remember the flap around the 2018 election where it came out into the open that among the white-trash Republican base, even wealthy white-trash, it's perfectly acceptable to rape your buddy's 12-year-old daughter as long as you marry her afterward. This is why there's been a history among these inbreds of 12 and 13 year old wives and why white-trash hero Jerry Lee Lewis was genuinely surprised when he went overseas and people looked askance at his wife being maybe 14 years old, and a bride at 12 or 13. 

So maybe the Republicans are just making a show, and secretly glad it's her and not some fire-and-brimstone type from their own ranks who doesn't believe in sex before the age of 40 or some damn thing, because types like that exist also. "Soft" in these cases means she applied a lesser sentence than the prosecutors wanted. In this crazy country, you can go down for life for child porn for taking pictures of your own children at the beach. 

In fact, I owe my having employment to a sex offender. A guy, some friend of a friend or something, of Ken's, who isn't too smart and was seduced by a 14-year-old girl. So he was put on the registry and could not get any work. But he could get work taking stuff apart for Ken and that's how I got into this - Ken would bring me stuff to take apart on the theory I might do it better, plus I believe the sex-offender guy got some job with more of a future, like washing dishes. That shows what tier electronics work is - if you're not fit enough to make it through a day in the dish pit, you do electronics instead. 

Of course my idea in leaving Gilroy and moving up here to live in the shop and work for Ken was that I'd be in the "big city" to do busking. The work for Ken has turned out to be a long-term lifeline and now it's just a matter of waiting out a few more years until I can retire. Plus it's taken years, it turns out, to develop some real busking skills. 

I had time to pack all 17 things I'd rounded up last night, and got those over to FedEx and the post office, and got some sashimi and gum at H Mart, at the sashimi sitting at this little bench out front that mostly the workers use, then took off up Oakland Road/13th for downtown. 

I'd not been down that way for a while so it was interesting to see all the funky old buildings and interesting hole-in-the-wall restaurants and businesses. I took it all the way to San Fernando then hooked a right and over to 3rd and went to the Amazon place where I picked up my new Protec trumpet gig bag. It came in a huge box of course, so I took it out and bundled up the plastic bag it was in and all the tags and so on, got the shoulder strap set up, and put it on my back. 

The ride back was uneventful, no books to pick up, and kind of boring. So I rode around the corner by Grill-'em to look for packing stuff and there was, at the place that builds shipping boxes. So I went back here and offloaded stuff and got the bike trailer and went back over and got the packing stuff. On the way out I rode behind one of the security guard cars which was kind of funny. 

I also cut up some huge boxes in the dumpster enclosure and put them into the dumpster, as well and throwing some stuff away in it. I'm sure the people who are paying for that dumpster know what's going on, but they're also seeing these random people who drive up and dump stuff in there, and the bums who go in there and make a mess at times. So I'm using their dumpster, but in a way I'm paying for it by keeping things neat. 

I'd wanted to go get the trumpet gig bag tonight because then tonight or tomorrow night I can move the trumpet and various things connected with it over to that bag and stash the big case upstairs. And my cornet bag has arrived at Ken's which means he should bring it tomorrow night and I can put the cornet in it with various things like valve oil. I've already gotten rid of the smelly case the cornet came in. 

Summing up.

 324th day sober. Last night I totted up my busking sessions in my busking book, even adding little tabs for the year 2021 and 2022. Between the rather disappointing session Thursday night and yesterday, I actually made $70 which is a lot of money for me. My day job pays $50 a day and that's really good money in Silicon Valley. 

The cornet really needs new springs and I found a place that sells them, Austin Custom Brass, but they're out of the size I need. But they're very responsive on email and say they'll have them in stock again soon. I'll also have to learn how to take a trumpet valve apart and put it back together right. I now know that weak springs are really easy to check for. First play a piece that's "speedy" at all, and also just moving the valves up and down there will be a "bounce" to them. 

But out there playing, I was really doing my best to "put it across" to the listeners, and that's what I think busking is really good training for. And adding a good location, Sunnyvale Whole Foods, is a big thing. I need to start scouting out other Whole Foods locations and find out which ones are good. If I end up full-time busking I'll need to rotate locations, not playing at any one more than 2X a week. 

If I'm back on a daytime schedule, I can also look at playing at various farmer's markets on the weekends.

Last night I was so tired, getting back here about 8:30 which is of course the equivalent of 11:30 due to the "wartime 3-hour shift", and all I wanted to do was relax, eat olives and prosciutto and cheese, watch YouTube and practice the octaves exercise on the flute headjoint for maybe a half-hour. 

About the flute, well, I don't know. If you ask me, it's actually harder than the trumpet. The exercises on the headjoint alone are good discipline. It's harder than the shakuhachi. I'm still glad I got the thing because when the world *really* shuts down, I'll have it. If I can make it back to Hawaii, I can at least offer to give it to my older sister, who played flute in high school. We don't know what happened to her old flute. 

YouTube is becoming less and less watchable. A frame rate of a 1-3 per second isn't really video, and while Ken Burns seems to have designed his documentaries to be watchable despite bad internet access, most film makers have not. Anything really good, like both versions of On The Beach, are films I'll have to find on DVD and keep for when the internet gets even worse.

Tour de Busk

 323rd day sober. I woke up at about 8AM then went back to sleep until a bit after 10. I did the usual eating breakfast and futzing around and left here a bit after 1 I think. 

I dropped off packages of OTC medicines and band-aids at the little free libraries, which were all cleaned out by someone. So there were no books to find. 

Next I went to Whole Foods to lock the bike up and looked at the time. I actually had plenty of time before the next train and there was no one there. No beggars, petition hustlers, anyone. So I set up and played for maybe 20-25 minutes, making $18. 

I got on the train and went up to Palo Alto, and walked over to the Whole Foods there. It's not really that busking-friendly, as the sidewalk around it is narrow, plus there was hardly anyone going in and out. There was a busker there, too. A black guy with an acoustic guitar and a microphone and amp, so he could get neat bluesy sounds out of it. I didn't want to step on his toes. 

I walked back to Lytton Park and set up where I was on the sidewalk not quite in the park, sort of next to the park, a bit back from the corner. I actually did all right, making $16 in the half hour or so I played there. I might have done better if I were out *on* the corner. I finally quit when a black street bum with the "unique" skill of making popping sounds with his mouth, decided to start hanging around. 

I walked up University Avenue to see what's changed. One of the drug stores is closed but still has a "resident" bum sitting on the bench in front of it, asking people for spare change. The other drug store is next door to the Apple Store, and out in front of the Apple Store was a place I wanted to try. So I tried. 

I got nothing there. So much for buyers of Apple stuff being generous. I thought about it and thought, Well, when I buy something expensive I want to "trim my sails" a bit afterward. So much for the Apple people. 

I walked back toward the train station and stopped at a sushi place for a sashimi salad. It tasted good, had tons of veggies, and made me non-hungry without feeling "full". 

I got on the train and my next stop was Sunnyvale. The Whole Foods there is part of the new part of downtown that seems to be scaled for giants. It's roughly where the Target, or the old Target, used to be. The sidewalk by the entryway is wide, and there's the AMC theatre next door, and the new Target on the other side. So there were people walking around. 

It worked out pretty well. Plus there were lots of little kids to play for and I like to think the parents seeing their kids utterly fascinated and refusing to leave until I quit playing or their parents pull them away, might think about getting their kids an instrument. I don't think I played much more than a half hour, but I got to talk to some nice people and made $16. 

The reason I didn't play there longer was, I wanted to play in the downtown-downtown, the old downtown on Murphy Street. But when I got there again I wandered around and there were not enough people walking around and the people there, were eating outdoors, and in busking you don't want to force people to hear you - someone sitting down eating can't just move on. So that was out. And I missed a train so I wandered around a good deal. I found some neat cutting board things in Goodwill so there was that. 

I got the next train and was back at Diridon Station in a jiff. I noticed as I walked to Whole Foods that it had become cold and windy. As I walked up to the bike racks I saw the petition guy was there, getting his ass kicked by the wind. His papers were fluttering everywhere. He was also in a heated argument with a guy, a white guy this time. Also the cargo bike guy was there and I said Hi and that I think I'd seen him a week or two ago but we determined that he was probably another guy with a similar bike. 

I mentioned in confidence that the petition guy's in *another* argument tonight, and the cargo bike guy said he doesn't even talk to him any more. Then some idiots in the parking lot started honking their horns at each other and so I got *my* horn out thinking I'd send some noise right back, but by the time I had it out and the mouthpiece in, the offending cars had left. 

But the argument was still going strong so I decided to play a bit to drown it out. I actually earned $7 fairly fast too. But then the argument ended, and I played on for a while with no tips. Eventually my hands were freezing and it was just too bloody cold so I called it quits. 

I'd actually earned $56 today, even with all the hopping around. And I now know of another good busking location, the Sunnyvale Whole Foods. 

I did all this to avoid being roped into more work by Ken, who said he'd come by this weekend but when I got back here I saw no sign that he'd been by.

Even the leftists are far-right here.

 322nd day sober. Yesterday went really well except for one thing. I was up early enough that I had time to prepare and list 10 things and not small things either, pack everything that had sold, and take it to the post office and FedEx. 

Then, when I got back, I actually believed Amazon's line about the package with the trumpet gig bag being in by 9, and rode downtown. It was not there. Now it's excepted, well, "Contact us if it's not in by Wednesday". 

There are two factors that actually make me want to go out busking this weekend though, even if it's only with the cornet which I'm having trouble with. One is, it's forecast to rain so I might dodge that but if it's anything like swap meets, people might be a lot more generous if it's almost raining. And, Ken's supposed to come by "this weekend" and rope me into more work which I want to avoid. 

Downtown on a Friday night as things are now was interesting. It was very un-busy. The few places doing well had crowds and lots of alcohol. Because of all the zombies, it seemed the only people going out where those who could get a crowd of friends together, and being drunk helped make the dystopia bearable. 

There were no people ambling around in ones and twos because of course the zombies made that too dangerous. And you don't see older people out and around these days, or people with children much. A crowd of "bros" might just take it into their heads to kick a zombie into their 2nd death and the zombies seem to realize it so that's what I saw: groups of "bros" with a few gals fit enough to run to safety while said "bros" dealt with any troubles from the undead. 

Goodness knows I had enough trouble with them, myself. I'd be on one street, and a given zombie, making garbled sounds unique to that zombie so I know it was the same one, would get too close (10 meters is about as close as I'll let one get) and I'll ride a street over and around, and come back up the next street and there's that same damn zombie again, trying in its dim way to get close enough to eat my brains. 

Or on my way home, there was a fat zombie on a bike which passed me (this is something the zombie movies get wrong in that the ones that are not too far gone can ride bikes) and I took a left at San Pedro Square and past the old post office and there was that same damn zombie again, just ahead of me. How did that even happen? That spooked me a bit and after riding slowly to let the zombie get well ahead, I went North on 1st, riding fast now, and up through Japantown (dead except for 7 Bamboo, a get drunk and sing karaoke place) and home. 

San Pedro Square had a live band noising it up and a small crowd around the band, and was dead otherwise. The other end had some kind of canned music going so it was, you might say, un-buskable. 

But before that, and after finding my package was not in, I went over to Whole Foods. The petition guy was out front, and there were hardly any customers going in and out. It was 8PM by now and amazing how dead it was. 

The petition guy was in a heated discussion with a black guy. Something about Africa. Since the petition guy thinks he's Left and is actually far-right, he'd probably said something very bigoted and the black guy was not about to let that go past him. I went in and got a few things and when I came out the discussion was still on. 

I felt bad for the black guy, who may not have been familiar with the saying about not arguing with an idiot. The point, with far-rightists, is not to be correct but to *make* their version of reality real by insisting on it, over and over again, and bludgeoning anyone who differs. 

So while it makes no sense that a pizza parlor with no basement is keeping child slaves in their basement, or that Jews, simultaneously less creative and weaker than "Aryans" and also criminal masterminds with more physical vigor, are plotting to run the world, ask any Republican or "Conservative" in this cursed country about these things and they'll not only insist they're true but also insist you believe them also. And soon to be doing so at the point of a gun. 

All I could do was repeatedly smile and nod at the black guy, behind the petition guy's back, to show I knew he was in the right. I hope he has the sense and the wherewithal to get out of here before the place goes full-on Turner Diaries and it's too late.

I got back here had some dinner, did the octaves practice for a while, and went to bed a bit after 2. 

I woke up at 11, which is fine it being a Saturday. I had my nuts and coffee and vitamins and dithered around a bit, and checked the radar map and there was rain coming in. Soon it was pouring outside and even when that squall had passed over, it kept sprinkling/raining and stayed wet and cold. Good day to stay in. 

I'm also glad to see the rain because at that trash enclosure, the one Crazy Chrissie hassled me over, there's been one of those medium sized coolers on wheels full of water and trash. No one's dared to mess with the thing, but I've got about everything else cleaned up in that enclosure and it was next on my list. I tipped the water out and it smelt like the bums have been using it as a toilet. Yuck! I managed to not get a drop on me and got it into the dumpster OK so now it's gone. Frankly I hope they have cameras on the area so they can see who's leaving the place better than they found it. 

I sorted out the latest haul of over-the-counter medicine in little packets from the medical place. First I pulled out all the ones that are this somewhat pricey decongestant Ken's wife uses. And I took out the aspirin ones for myself. Then I put the rest in three gallon zipper bags to put in the three little free libraries I always visit. 

Then I cooked up some miso soup with chashu and sliced fried tofu and seaweed and stuff, and that was good. Chashu's pretty expensive but it's awfully tasty. 

Then I sorted out my stash of lots of different bags of band-aids I've accumulated over the last couple-few years and put those into three smaller bags to donate also. I get a kick out of scrounging stuff, and then it's fun to donate it (or, as I kind of see it, exchange it for books) so it's a pretty good hobby.

Great news covid is over.

 321st day sober. After I got back last night I just relaxed, had olives and cheese, and did maybe half an hour of octave exercises on the flute headjoint. There are times it's really easy and I can play much longer notes and that's what I'm aiming for. 

On the radio they're talking about how, officially, covid is over and everyone's to get back to work. Except it's not. If we're losing 1000 a day which we are, that not the million in two years we have so far, it's a million over three years. Somehow a million over two years is catastrophic but a million over three years is perfectly OK and everyone should get back to the office. 

Since I went to bed at 2AM last night I expected to be up around 10, and I was. After coffee and nuts etc. I got a batch of things ready and listed them on Ebay. The idea is to get things done during the day, and have the evenings pretty much off. 

I also went on Amazon and ordered both biographies by James Galway, and the trumpet Rubank book again because I'd given mine to the gal who bought my old trumpets. The Galway books will come to Ken's house but I might as well have him used to getting packages for me there.

Oh Danny Boy

 320th day sober.  Last night after dropping off packages I tried the shrimp skewers at the fish grill place and they were really good - the zucchini was the only side that was really "keto" so for the 2 sides I got 2 orders of that. So for $13 I got a good amount of grilled shrimp on a bed of tasty zucchini. I found a lot of neat packing stuff on my way back here, too, so it was a good night. I even found some neat OTC medicines etc from the medical place. 

I put everything away and also did some re-arranging of some of the books and manuals here to make things make sense and make room for the bunch of books I'd recently listed. That was pretty tiring because those big folders are heavy, so I was pretty tired when Ken came by. 

I had the back of his truck full of white boxes that say Mr. Chips or Chippendale or something with "Chip" in it, that are full of misc. electronics stuff that he'd gotten for a "steal" price. Like $120 for all of it. He picked out some things for me to list, too. 

Then we talked about stuff and I got my check, and after he was gone I "entertained" myself by counting out, labeling, etc a batch of stuff to list. But I was so tired I could not imagine actually listing the stuff, so I found a documentary to watch on YouTube and did some of the octave exercise on the flute headjoint, for maybe 10 minutes and then was still so tired I went to bed, at 2AM. 

I woke up at 9:30, and after coffee and some nuts, photo'd up and listed the things. After that I took the cornet, which I'd had taken apart and soaking in a bucket with some Dawn for a couple of days, and scrubbed it out and cleaned it up as best I could. I'd thought up a plan to take it, since being a cornet I could just stick it in my messenger bag, along with me when I got to the bank and after taking care of the banking I could go play things like "Danny Boy" and "Cockles And Mussels" down by O'Flaherty's. 

So I got it all scrubbed up and greased and oiled and tuned, and took off at a few minutes after 4. It was a pleasant ride downtown but as a passed San Pedro Square I saw they already had a band playing - the same stuff that I heard a ton of when I was in Army Basic. "Urban" stuff. There was a booth with a guy selling green beads and hats and stuff, but a cheapo hat was $15. I knew that band would probably be playing until 9 or 10, so my playing down there was out. 

I did my banking at the bank and then rode over to Whole Foods. If I was going to play anywhere tonight, that would be it. So I went in and bought a big glass bottle of fizzy water not to drink right then but to act was a weight to keep my tip box from blowing away, as it was windy. 

There was a booth with one of those "save the children" scams, with a young black guy working it. He was in "my" prime place so I set up on the other side of the driveway and played a bit. I got $2 from a guy who said he liked the song Autumn Leaves and hadn't heard it for a long time. It was really slow going though and rather cold out there, with the wind. 

I moved and set up about an equal distance to the other side of the booth, and got a $5 from a lady who said, "Keep playing!" and a couple bucks from a guy who turned around and walked back to me to give it, and $2 from the "Kleenex bandit", an older guy who always gives me a tip wrapped in Kleenex. 

It was just slow, slow going. Finally I tried the other side of the driveway again and may have gotten a couple of bucks there. I was about to move again but really needed a break so I stopped a to talk with the guy at the booth, who turned out to be really interested in music. So we talked about instruments, and movies about music, and so on. That must have eaten up 20 minutes easily. 

I started up again and then noticed the guy packing up. As soon as he was packed up and leaving, getting into a car, I went right over there and set up. Now let's see things change, I thought. A Russian guy listened, leaning against his car, and came over to give me $2 and also to talk. We raved about great Russian trumpeters like Dokshitzer and Nakariakov. He said he used to play trumpet, too, and I said I'm sure he was better than I am. He said he wasn't so sure about that. 

My being in "the" spot didn't really help things though. The cart rack was full which meant the store wasn't very busy, plus it was still cold even if the wind had calmed down quite a bit. I looked at the time and I'd been playing something like 2 hours, from 5:30 to 7:30. I'd made $14. 

The cornet might look neat and be cleaner now, but I was fighting the thing all the way. The valves would get slow-moving, and I'd get gurgling due to moisture build-up, no doubt due to the cold. It's no fun when you have to add a little pause in a part to allow time for the 1st valve button to rise... 

I went in and got a few things like some olives and cheese and nuts, planning to spend what I'd made but I'd made so little I I was a couple of dollars short and just put it on my card. Still, I've got almost $20 in my wallet I'd not have otherwise.

A screamer, me?

 319th day sober. I had Ebay stuff together to list and got a couple of things on, but then Ebay kept resetting and I had to keep entering photos, only to have the page reset and have to enter them again ... repeat to infinity. So fuck 'em. 

I did 45 minutes' octave exercise on the flute headjoint, then practiced on the cornet and on the trumpet for an hour while watching the 2nd hour of the old original black and white "On The Beach" since I'd just watched the 2000 version. 

The cornet, with the Bach 3B, certainly has an interesting sound, almost an "old timey" sound. The trumpet sounds great, of course, but I tried the Schilke 14A4A I'd just bought and amazingly, I think I like it. As mentioned, it originally shipped with a Yamaha 14B4 so I guess I'd like to find one of those, and there's a Wayne Bergeron mouthpiece made by another company but it's $100. On Trumpetherald, a trumpet site, there's a lot about how the Allen Vizzutti mouthpiece really works well with this model of trumpet and I might want to try one of those. 

I never thought I'd get along with a, if not "screamer" at least a "lead" mouthpiece, but I think I came out fine on that Schilke 14A4A and the guy at Park Avenue Music is kind of "competitive" in that it seems like he feels like he has to "win" in things. So I told him delightedly that the King Master cornet wasn't actually from the 1965-75 time frame but rather from the 1950s, I have a feeling that tweaked him a bit. Generally, quality in US made horns is felt to have gone down starting in the 60s. 

Likewise, I'm sure he was thinking, "Hee hee, I get to unload this small/shallow mouthpiece for cash for what I could get online, and I bet this guy can't handle it". But I can; it's nice. A lot of that is due to having such a nice trumpet to use it with. I might not be so happy with it with my old Yamaha student horn. 

I worked on "Danny Boy" and also a song called "Cockles And Mussels" which is also Irish. I'm pretty serious about my plan to do some busking playing those songs among others for St. Pat's Day tomorrow. 

When I was done playing I did some cleaning. The cornet was rank enough I took it apart and put it in a bucket of water with lots of Dawn overnight. The trumpet will need some attention too. I tried the little pull-through system I'd bought and wow, what a hunque of junque. I got all kinds of junk out of the leadpipe on the trumpet and finally just brushed it out really good with the "snake" from the Yamaha cleaning kit and rubbing alcohol. The tuning slide too. 

The leadpipe and tuning slide are where most of the junk ends up so if those are cleaned or swabbed every time after playing, a horn can stay really clean.

Get it while you can

 318th day sober. I got back from my adventures yesterday, and after putting things away I packed three large things and took them up to FedEx at almost 7. I stopped on the way back to pick up a bag of packing material that Tom's next door neighbors toss out every Monday, and to hang out with Tom a bit. 

I told him about my change-over of equipment and reiterated that we have to go out busking together because once I get him hooked on it, he'll love doing it. 

I got back here and it was the usual futzing around. Before I knew it, it was past midnight so I didn't list anything, just had 2 oz. of macadamia nuts and a quarter stick of butter because I was hungry, and chewed gum for a while to get my mouth really clean, then did an hour of the octave exercise on the flute headjoint while watching a move and then went to bed at 2. 

I woke up at 8:30, decided to "relax" a bit then woke up again at about 10:20 so that was just right, actually. 

I have a Protec case coming in for the trumpet, and for the cornet, I looked around on Amazon for a while before ordering the cornet case I think I've been looking at for years. Cornet cases are not common! Protec makes one but they're out of stock. I'm getting a soft foam one that gets a lot of approval from parents for their cornet-playing children. If it's Mom Approved, it's gotta be good! At least good enough to carry a sturdy cornet like a King Master around. 

In fact, come to think of it, the one time I got on stage at Cafe Stritch, it was with the 1937 King Master which I had stuffed in my bike bag. The bag/case I have coming in will come to Ken's house so he'll bring it over. 

If I could learn it in a couple of days I'd bring the flute to play "Danny Boy" near O'Flaherty's on Thursday but I can't really as it's a lot of notes and I only know B-A-G right now, plus the playing position for flute is not one to do for hours when one is not used to it yet. So right now my plan is to take the cornet. 

I'm in sort of "get it while I can" mode, because I'm seeing things missing everywhere. I stumbled upon the "The Horn Guys" page last night and for a big brass dealer, they had hardly anything. Weird brands, weird horns, and very few of them. Where were the bread-and-butter Yamahas and Getzens? 

And the Yamaha 14B4 mouthpiece that, according to my research, came with my Bergeron trumpet, might as well be a unicorn. Some of the most cockamamie things are getting hard to get... 

I packed 13 small things to send out with me and took off for downtown at 2. First stop was the downtown post office where I dropped off the things. It was the usual zombie zoo in the park, of course. 

Then I rode over to Park Avenue and up to the music store. The tech wasn't in, and the guy who owns the store I guess (they're a "chain" of two stores) seemed to take it a bit personally that I still wanted the gen-u-wyne Yamaha spit valve corks. Which he couldn't find. I looked through the sale table for that 14-something mouthpiece I knew I'd held in my hand when I was there the other day. 

I mentioned wanting it because Yamaha included a 14B4 mouthpiece with the horn when it was new. I found the "14" I'd had my hands on, a 14A4A Schilke. So I got that one, what the hell. 

I considered, as I have so many times, trying the food at the Park Station Hashery next door, but it seems to be a very bro-y place and I'm not fond of those. So I rode back over to Whole Foods and got some pulled pork and broccoli and ate that upstairs. The bartender who was there the day recognized me and welcomed me with something like "It's nice to see you back". A couple came in with the exact same dog as in the "For Better Or Worse" comic in the newspapers. 

Then I just rode back here, checking the free libraries and picking up a couple of books to keep for a while and read. I put the bike away, put things away, and took some junk from "my" trash enclosure and stuck it into the dumpster, and picked up a few things. Last night, a zombie had some along, staggering and muttering and throwing things around, and had done the usual zombie things like take tons of stuff out of the dumpster and then put most of it back in.

Why not develop a skill?

 317th day sober. The guy who'd sent his daughter-in-law who sent her guy, to buy the ukulele, called last night. I thought there might be a problem but I think he was trying to see if he had a new friend. I talked about that uke (it's a good one, stays in tune etc.) and the how there are tons of uke clubs around, and he mentioned he was in fact a member of the big one around here, and I finally just had to say, "OK so there are no problems then?" and he said there are none, and that was that. Sorry I might want an old trumpet buddy, or an old flute buddy, but don't need an old uke buddy. 

I put in something between 1/2 and 3/4 of an hour on the flute headjoint doing the octave exercise, and I'm moving more toward it being easy and controllable. What I should really do is find a spectrum analyzer program and see if that helps me know when I'm really onto a pure(er) tone. At times the tone just jumps out and it's easy, and that's the goal I'm sure. 

It's that way on the trumpet too. I'm finding that the flute playing is making me more aware of how my lips are placed on the mouthpiece. It's almost like the two instruments are helpful rather than harmful to each other. At least at the level of playing I'm able to attain. 

I wonder if it's my being originally middle-class when I was little, that made me so keen on developing some skill at something. I was considered destined to be an artist but as I got older I saw how few people who called themselves artists were making an actual living and that made me choose electronics instead. I was really big on music but kept very quiet about it. I must not have kept perfectly quiet, though, because one year I was given a big book  by some relative, "A Young Person's Guide To Music" or something by Leonard Bernstein. 

My parents must have straightened them out, though, because later I got a big book by Jules Feiffer with the origins of the classic comic superheroes. The stories were neat but all I got out of it was, reading Feiffer's introduction with his own story, that here was a guy who as a little kid was drawing better than me and how would I ever catch up? 

If I'd been as pushed to learn an instrument like piano or flute or something I might have liked it. I guess you have to have a parent or parents who like playing music themselves, and not just listening to it on records but playing it. 

But it's very much a middle-class thing to develop some skill at something, growing up. Maybe it's track and field or sailing or tennis, or you're writing and contributing to the school paper, or just any old thing. But you're considered a pretty dull child if you're not good at *something*. 

And this is a problem I see with the working class/underclass who are out on the street. No special skills and no interest in developing them. And I mean even getting good at detailing cars or something really basic like that. 

I guess it gets "trained out" of the lower classes. "What're you think you are, better'n us?" and here comes a "sock" IE a punch. 

My older sister turns out to have become the artist, and I'm happy it turned out that way - she wasn't pushed at it, and she likes it. But she worked really hard to become a jeweler, and got GIA certified and everything. 

My point is, today's middle-class may well be tomorrow's homeless, living in a shanty town. A person should really find something they at least like fairly well and can get good at. Maybe the homeless and down-and-out I've observed are a group missing the go-getters and skill-developers, who have done so and gotten some "situation" for themselves, like the one I'm in now. 

Well, back to brass tacks. I ordered a ProTec Pro-Pac gig bag / case for the new horn. I can't carry the big box type case it came with around. I thought it'd be neat to have it in time to take the trumpet out and play "Danny Boy" for St. Patrick's Day this Thursday. But I won't have it until the weekend, it seems. 

At a bit after 11 I called Park Avenue Music and they were open, and although the tech was not in, they'd sell me some spit valve corks if I brought the trumpet in. I said I can't because the case is really big but all Yamaha use the same size, and the guy suggested I take the tuning slide in so he can measure off the spit valve on that, which is a genius idea. "See you soon! I said. 

I rode over there and first took care of the corks. The guy insisted on selling me some black neoprene ones "These are neoprene, they're really good!" so I got four of them. Then I looked around on their sale table of mouthpieces for a long time, but they seemed to have either very large, very small, or very shallow ones. The guy explained they sell a lot of mouthpieces on Ebay and Reverb, and when people return them, they can't sell them again as new, so they end up on the table. This tells me it's a good place to check and keep checking. 

Since the table was such a jumble, I found other things like a set of "Custom" Jupiter valve buttons and springs and caps, not anything I wanted, but interesting. And I found some interesting trumpet leadpipe swabs, essentially the swab set and 3 packs of refills for $4 each. They use swatches of chamois, just like the design I have in mind, but that was all they had in common. Still, they were cheap so hell yeah I grabbed them all. 

Then I asked about trumpet cases just in case they had the one I'd ordered on Amazon. If they had it, I'd get it and cancel the Amazon order. But they didn't, they thought they'd have some in a week or two. The guy tried to interest me in a hard case that's silver and obviously holds a trumpet and only $99 but I said I carry everything on my bike and I'm afraid that one would be uncomfortable to carry. (Also, the case I use looks like it holds something cheap like a student violin or uke and I like it fine that way). 

So I paid for my goodies and started looking at the horns on the shelf. I looked at a cornet. with elaborate engraving on the bell and said, "Hey, it's a King Master". 

A few years ago, maybe 4 or 5 now, I'd sold my whole batch of trumpet stuff to a guy who was in the Buddhism class with me at the temple, who had a sax background and wanted to take up the trumpet. The only piece in the collection I regret letting go was a 1937 King Master cornet. I believe I'd paid a guy in Sunnyvale $400 for the thing, and it was just neat, with fantastic build quality. 

Well here was a King Master, with all the lacquer there, fancy-schmancy chrome plated valves, actually a little fancier than the 1937 horn, and I thought I'd never see one again. So I play-tested it and it doesn't play *quite* as well as the Bergeron, but it plays fine. "It doesn't play *quite* as well as the Bergeron but .....!" I said to the guy.

So $436 got me the cornet, a new/newish Bach 3B mouthpiece, and the old case to keep it in, that's falling apart outside but still fine inside. I've sprayed the inside down with Febreze and have it airing out now. It wasn't too hard to carry home at all, in doubled-up Whole Foods cloth bags, hanging off the handlebar on my bike. 

I suppose there are better cornets than the King Master, but as far as I know it's first-rate, just like the Bergeron trumpet is. I checked the serial number and it was made in 1954 or 1955. 

I don't know why I wanted another King Master but I've felt awfully nostalgic about that horn. And now I can mess around with playing with a plunger mute if I feel like it.  

And although the King has metal valve guides, they don't go clickity-clack like they do in the Yamaha Eric Miyashiro trumpet so what's up with that?

After the music store I went to Whole Foods of course, and had two hard-boiled eggs with Kalamata olives, bacon crumbles, bleu cheese, in a sort of breakfasty thing. They don't have salt and pepper packets any more and interestingly, they were out of the little waxed paper boxes they used to have stacks of, for putting buffet food into. Instead they had these little plastic things with lids.  I ate upstairs where it was not busy at all. I asked the bartender if they expected to be busy on St. Pat's Day and he said, "Nah". They never are. 

I have an evil little plan to play Danny Boy somewhere, and I'm thinking down by O'Flaherty's might be the thing. Thursday's the day I usually go to the bank, so I might set up and play for an hour, then go to the bank and maybe relax a bit at Whole Foods, then go play another hour. With my "new" cornet, I guess, because I won't have the trumpet gig bag in soon enough.

Supply lines are getting very weird. This is a large factor behind my recent buying of so many instruments.

Trumpet is a win.

 316th day sober. I practiced about 45 minutes doing the octave exercise on the flute headjoint, then got out the trumpet and played around with it. 

On the flute headjoint I'm making real progress, playing longer per breath and the octave much more obtainable and controllable. 

As for the trumpet, the music store owner kept saying that it's a *really* good one and I took that with a grain of salt. But it really does seem to be. I can do these really cool dynamics from very quiet up to very loud, and it sounds great all along. 

I did some more reading and tons of people are saying online that it's a model that takes a lot of air, the it's "tiring" and "air-hungry" but I didn't notice any different feeling. I wonder if trumpeters, as they go to more "pro" instruments, are getting ones that are getting ones that take less air than a student horn, to make things easier since anything can be made to sound good on a mic. 

In fact, I've read that the reason the jazz guys, for a while at least, liked those trumpets with all kinds of bracing until they were almost a solid hunk of metal, was that they could almost be played "like a kazoo" doing any note bends you wanted. Who cares if they sounded ehhhhh, not so great. The mic and effects would take care of that. 

I even looked up the trumpet's prior owner, a hotshot guy who teaches a bunch of school bands around here including at Stanford, and has played gigs with a bunch of heavyweights. Maybe it's even a trumpet that was given to him by Yamaha, in which case it's a good one indeed. I used to be the kind of athlete who was given equipment and they don't give top athletes the junk - they get the selected good stuff. 

I just need to get over to Park Avenue Music and buy some new corks - the tuning slide one looks a little odd because it's got a bit of paper on top of the cork, in it. Jeez. The horn could use an overall cleaning too, just to be sure. I wish I hadn't let the big ultrasonic cleaner we had go. I've still got a smaller one though. 

The guy my trumpet is named after, Wayne Bergeron, appears to be quite the shining star, having played on tons of movie scores and such things. He says he had the same range when he was 12, and has only refined things since then. That makes perfect sense to me because when you're a kid you can do anything. If I'd started trumpet when I was 11 or 12 I'd have had stratospheric range, if only to annoy people and send dogs running. 

I went to bed at 1, which means I should have slept in until 9. But I was starting to wake up, then was fully awakened by a phone call. I didn't answer the first time but the guy called again. It was some old guy whose daughter-in-law is interested in the ukulele. She'd call me, he said, after I gave him the address and said $40 would be fine. 

Pretty soon I got another call from a young guy. They're coming over at 10:30 to look at it. 

So what is the "state of busking" as I see it now? I've not seen a busker in months, but a couple of weeks back I did see/hear someone with a guitar by San Pedro Square, talking with someone else in a weird drugged-up/developmentally disabled/brain injury sort of super-slow voice and I don't even know if it was the player or someone talking to him. But there was a guitar. 

In Mountain View there's been a black guy with a sax who sets up with a mic and speaker and backing track of popular tunes and sort of noodles along. And yesterday there was a young Asian guy with a guitar and amp and mic, singing and playing. He was ... OK. But loud so he dominated the area. It still looked like playing in front of the Odd Fellows' Hall would be workable. And the little Chinese bakery was apparently paying Red The Flute Player to play in front of their place. Of course he's gone but that's a possibility if one plays flute. 

Yesterday was "Second Saturday" on the Alameda so there was some band that set up at Whole Foods in the downstairs eating area on the Alameda side. Judging by their "warm up" canned music, they probably played "boomer rock". I left before they actually got going, and when I got back they were hustling their equipment out to their cars. 

Some lady asked them if they were going to set up every weekend, to which she was given a noncommittal answer. I'm pretty certain the "Second Saturday" musicians are paid by the city. 

I'd thought it'd be a great thing if I took the brand new "Shew horn" I thought I was going to buy, and did a busking session there at Whole Foods. And not a bad idea if it's a used Bergeron, either. But it was getting cold and blustery and in fact the wind had me slowed to a walking pace at times, riding home along Santa Clara street so that was out. 

I still thing the "busking season" here is going to prove to be April 1 to October 1. That means the time when the earnings are really good as they were for me last year. Of course if busking is one's lifeline then there's no "season" to it. You just get out there whenever you can. I've only busked in the evening around here so I have no idea about the lunch hour, which Gabriel The Violinist says is good. Noon yesterday was sunny and pleasant, and non-windy. 

Soon the guy was back with the $40, I banged out a few chords on the uke and the exchange was made, and that was that. 

I oiled up the bike chain and weighed out 7 1-lb bags of brown rice since it's time I started cycling that out, and headed downtown, stopping at the little free libraries to pick up a few books and drop off rice. 

I went to Whole Foods and got some "pulled" pork and green beans, and a can of fizzy water. After eating I walked up to the book store and looked through the music books. I ended up buying (back) the 2nd shakuhachi book by Koga. There's a third, which is full of philosophical musings too arcane for me, but the 2nd has some solid information in it so I should probably have it. 

On the way back I stopped at O'Reilley's to buy a chamois, and wow they've not gotten any cheaper. But for the number of trumpet cleaners I should be able to make out of one, it's not that bad. There was an extra scary zombie lurching along the sidewalk, in the form of an elderly, tall, skinny, white lady with scraggly hair flying all over the place and making noises right out of a zombie movie. It staggered into O'Reilley's too, so while I was paying for the chamois we just ignored it, but when I left the salesman had to do something so I overheard him asking her if she's OK and her replying "No". Maybe she was an escapee from the Old Zombies' Home. 

I stopped in at the hardware store for weed whacker string. I think I have this stuff but I'd have to turn everything upside down to try to find it, so I'm just getting new stuff to make trumpet cleaners with. 

Then I went back to Whole Foods to pick up a 6-pack of cans of seltzer water - their last one. That's my treat now, since near-beer has carbohydrates in it. I also got out cash for tomorrow's planned trip to Park Avenue Music where I'll not only get some spit valve corks but there might be some deals on mouthpieces and such deals are best done in cash.

On schedule

 315th day sober. I slept well on that 3 oz. of prosciutto and cucumbers, no wake-ups during the night. I mean, that's not that many calories, so what was I sleeping so well on? My body fat; it has to be. 

I went to bed at 10PM, and woke up at 8:30AM. So a good 10 hours of sleep. I'd gotten together a batch of things to list, some motors and stuff, but simply had no energy to work on them so I set them aside for later. 

Ideally I'd be going to bed at midnight and waking up at 8-9AM. 

I got an email from my aunt, and I wish I were better at debate, because I'd been trying to point out to her that her daughter, K., had actually done something for us, spending her "vacation" money feeding us like any decent human would have done, while all other relatives either did the equivalent of do-nothing "thoughts and prayers" or pretended we didn't exist. She'd said if she knew how poor and hungry we were she's have pulled K. right outta there (and left us to be hungry, not a thing for us just get her daughter out) and all I've succeeded in doing is gotten her to double down. 

She said she'd have had Mom put in jail which would have made it even worse for us. Her loyalty to her social class matters more than anything. In other words, in communicating with her, I am staring into the unblinking, cold, calculating eyes of a dire class enemy. 

She called me "broken" in the way a well-fed dowager will look at some hungry kids playing in the gutter and go "Tsk! Tisk! Why don't they they just go out and have some money?" 

I, in turn, called her a "Garfield-the-cat, fell-upward sort of person" so things are not going the greatest. 

I don't think she owes me anything, but it's been amazing to get to talk to someone who actually grew up with my Mom and to fill in some questions about that side of the family. Also, she's going to leave the pile of money and property she sits on, Smaug-like, to someone. So far I'm pretty sure it won't be me. Not at the rate things are going. 

It'll probably go to K. as her only child, and as for K. while I'm glad she looked out for us when she was a teen, there have been quite a few years of class-indoctrination between then and now. Even in the 90s when I got in contact with her, she wanted me to drop everything and come work for her, for free. That's a pre-French-Revolution level of callousness. 

I washed up and cleaned up and shaved and so on, and got out of here around 2 or 2:30. I went right over to Whole Foods to lock up the bike, and missed the train to Mountain View by a few minutes so I walked back from the station to Whole Foods and got some pulled pork and vegetables for a small meal, then walked up to CVS to buy some Febreze and wanted a diet soda or something. There was a big fat guy out front who was wearing colorful underwear *outside* his sweat pants and asking people for money. "I'll give you a dollar," I said, and he said something like "How about 2 dollars or 3?" and I said "Woops, I forgot I don't have any money on me" and went in. They were out of diet Pepsi and actually the cooler was half empty. 

I picked out two flavors of seltzer at a little over $2 a bottle, one for me and one for the guy. But when I tried to give it to him he said "I don't drink water! I don't want it!" so I just shrugged and walked away - back to Whole Foods to stash the stuff in the bike bag except the one bottle of seltzer for me to drink. It was pretty hot around the middle of the day. 

I only had to wait a few minutes for the train which was great. I got to Mountain View in plenty of time and chewed sugar free gum while walking around, looking at restaurant menus along Castro Street. Once my mouth was good and clean, I went into West Valley Music. 

I'd been thinking long and hard about how I'd spent so many years learning to play the trumpet and how long I'd been telling myself that once I could get to high C or play to a certain skill level, I'd get myself a really good trumpet. I'd settled on the Yamaha Bobby Shew model and read a ton about it vs. other horns. I knew from their web page that they had a used Wayne Bergeron model for sale, too, but for sure they'd have the Bobby Shew model, the most popular of Yamaha's pro trumpets. And I felt it would be the best fit for me, being designed to not need as much air volume as some others to play. 

So I went in and asked, and the owner was vague, I mean *really* vague, about when they'd get any in. At least with the flute I originally wanted, she had a date of "May". This time, she sounded like she wasn't sure she'd see any again at all. 

She wanted to show me the Wayne Bergeron but was having trouble finding it, but in the meantime the one horn they had that wasn't silver plated in the display case was a Yamaha Eric Miyashiro model so I asked to try that. It took tons more digging around for her to find a mouthpiece and she managed to dig up a very old Olds 3C, a Bach 5C, and some old Yamaha. I played around on that one and wasn't sure it was much better than my student horn. It *did* have some interesting features like finger rings instead of finger hooks and clicky brass valve guides. 

The owner kept digging around for the Bergeron and eventually found it. So I tried that one. I'd read that this took more air to play than the Shew, and I didn't think it would be "down my alley" but I really liked it. I could get really loud, and taper down to really quiet, and I thought it sounded really good. 

So much for which horn is supposed to fit me. According to my reading online, the Miyashiro model is supposed to be halfway between the Shew and the Bergeron, so the Shew would be really "stuffy" feeling to me, I think. I think it would be like the old King "Master" cornet I had that was a fine player; it's a well-regarded model, but not my preferred thing to play. 

So I walked out of there with the Bergeron, one of those K&M stands that are so handy, and a new Blessing 3C mouthpiece. And a cleaning kit. The horn has a few scratches but no dents, and the proper type of spit valves, although it could use new corks and I know just where to get those - Park Avenue Music when the tech is in. 

My thinking on all of this is, if I needed to get out there and earn money, I'm not ready yet on the flute or the shakuhachi. But I can with a trumpet. And I'd promised myself for years I'd get a good one once I was at a certain level, and the money I earned last summer tells me I'm at a fairly good level. 

But also, if a major seller of Yamaha instruments can't even get them in, how bad are the supply chains getting? And I do not expect them to get better. The US is getting closer to being on a "war footing" and it may become impossible to get anything not essential from Asia. 

As far as that goes, while I feel like my returning to Hawaii once I'm 62 will not be a problem, how much worse will things be in two more years? It may be difficult to travel anywhere by then. I may be here indefinitely and that will mean busking here also. 

The Bergeron came with this big 2-horn case (meant to hold a Bb and a C I believe) so it was easy to put the stand and cleaning kit in there, and no problem taking it on the train, but I had to get creative to carry it on my bike. It turned out to be carry-able using my two Whole Foods cloth bags, doubled up, and some zip ties to hang it off the handlebar. I had to ride home at a slow, measured pace but it was fairly easy. 

When I got back I saw that Ken had been by and had dropped off 10 test instruments, two of them rather nice oscilloscopes, so I have my Monday listing line-up all lined up for me.

Another all-nighter

 314th day sober. I got back from all the going to the bank and shopping and all that, yesterday, and finally just had to go to bed around 2PM. 

I woke up at a bit after 10PM with a start. It was Thursday night, the night the trash is picked up. I got out there and put stuff into the dumpster and the welding place's trash can, and pulled a lot of bubble sleeves out of the latter. Also found there was room for the electrophoresis parts so those went in too. I even stuck my personal trash in there so now a lot of stuff is gone and the place is neater. 

I had some sashimi I'd bought at Nijiya and got to work listing the books I'd found Wednesday night. Most were not worth too much, anywhere from $5 to $35 or so, but one turned out to be almost $200 on Ebay. I checked Amazon and there was one copy for $110 so I priced ours at $99. Ebay's new listing system for books is almost fun because you can put the ISBN in and if it "know" that ISBN all the information is filled in for you. 

So I stayed up through the night again. Maybe I can shift my schedule around that way, around to where at least I'm up by noon. That's how it was at Ken's house. I'd be up at noon and cooking my breakfast and having a coffee and done by the time Ken came downstairs to cook his breakfast. 

I'm getting less and less fond of going out and around at night and if I can get used to getting up earlier I can entertain ideas of going up to SF once in a while. 

I got involved watching the year 2000 version of "On The Beach" which is over 3 hours long, practicing octaves and long tones on the flute headjoint. So call it over two hours of practice. That movie is a pretty good one and since this is my first time seeing it sober, I noticed a lot of little details I didn't see before. 

I packed 14 things and was out of here at a quarter to 5. The drop-offs went fine, and  did some shopping at H Mart.

I found the trash enclosure where I pick up tons of bubble sleeves to some kind of large tablet or small laptop, and often other neat things, locked. But interestingly the medical place's dumpster was open, although it had just been cleaned out. I stopped at the tire place and pulled out some foam sheet and, amazingly, 12 or 15 AED pads that someone had apparently taken from the medical place then decided they don't need. 

 I got back here and felt hungry so I had a 3 oz. package of prosciutto and a couple small cucumbers and ... hunger gone. That's the nice thing about being seriously "keto", if you're hungry it doesn't take much to calm your stomach down and meanwhile you're burning body fat.

All-nighter

 313th day sober. After listing 10 Ebay things and all the other stuff I messed around with, I decided to just stay up and go to the bank early. I figured I could be out and back in a couple of hours as I often am, then get all the sleep I want. 

I headed out at about 9:30 in the morning, dropped off things at the little free libraries (at the Japantown one I had a nice time explaining to a nice little old lady what they are and how they work and where the books come from etc.) My first stop was the post office downtown where I dropped off 7 packages, then I went over to the bank and did my deposit and everything added up to within a few cents which is good enough for me. 

Next I went over to Dai Thanh and got some little cans of pate' and cash back, then around the corner to Da Kao where I got a couple of chicken skewers for $3.50 and frankly, that was a pretty good meal. I went over to the little complex of restaurants etc. across from Cafe Stritch and used their loo, then rode down to Wal-Mart. 

Since I always park my bike by Big-5, I went into Big-5 first just to see if there's anything interesting. The ammo's all in a locked case now, and there are less actual firearms in fact I only saw 3 long guns and I'm not sure if they're selling pistols at all now. Plenty of airguns though. There was a guy talking with one of the Big-5 guys, about machetes. "Do you think I could carry this on my bike? Are they all supposed to bend? Mine's from Harbor Freight, it bends.... " as "Harbor Freight" I guess I laughed and I was welcomed into the conversation. I said he ought to go online and see what the California laws are, but I believe a person can carry a big knife as long as it's not concealed. 

This guy was a real nut. It seemed he was chased by a guy on the bike trails down by Hellyer park. The guy chased him all over and a guy that big and that ugly, well, there was only one reason: he wanted to rape him. "A guy like that, he was out to poke my behind". I kind of drifted to the side while this guy ranted and then walked out, giving little glances to the guy and gal at the registers like, "This guy's a nut" and getting them right back like "We know". 

I went over to Wal-Mart and shopped the hell out of that place. I got a bunch of different types of canned fish, large boxes of Ziploc bags, paper towels and TP, Endust, alcohol, witch hazel, yadda yadda. It came to $77 and change. I hoped my bike wasn't looted when I walked the stuff back over to it, but the bike was fine and I loaded it up. 

It was nice to be out in the daytime like this, with the air "crisp" and the sun strong, a cool breeze and everything much different than the usual late-afternoon-into-evening rush. I stopped by Nijiya for some sashimi cucumbers and a Coke Zero and got back here. It had taken me about 4 hours.

Wednesday March 9th

 312th day sober.  Between packing things, listing things on Ebay, and practicing, I was up past 10AM.  At least I had this big oscilloscope I had to ship all packed so I knew when I got up all I had to do was "load and go"

I tried making miso ramen from a tub of miso I had around here - months old, too, but smelled OK. For noodles I took these fried tofu pouches I'd bought and sliced those up. They don't have the same texture at all but they work fine as something to put in the soup. I also put in onions, 2 kinds of seaweed, garlic, and some slices of chashu. It was pretty good. 

Before going to bed I practiced at least an hour on the flute headjoint, working on the octave exercise. It's not as easy as I originally thought. I watched a video by James Galway where he was demonstrating it to a class and said he had his first serious teacher tell him to do nothing but that for a month! And in those days, he said, if a music teacher told you to do something, you did it with no questioning and no argument. So I'm prepared to spend a lot of time doing this one. 

I woke up at about 6:45. I had to be out the door at 7 to get the big box to FedEx by 8. I probably set some kind of a personal record fixing up coffee and aspirin for breakfast, pumping up one of the bike trailer tires, checking on things on Ebay, and getting out of here. 

On my way out along Old Bayshore, wouldn't you know it, there were two zombies on the sidewalk. I tried to look as mean as possible because it was two against one, and I think because I'd surprised them, they didn't have time to decide to attack so they let me pass, bewilderedly. 

I dropped off the 'scope and picked up a couple of tomato boxes and then went over to the falafel place and ordered a gyro and got a yogurt drink since they were out of diet peach Snapple - darn! The gyro was really good this time, with lots of tomatoes in it. 

Next I headed back home, by way of the medical place. Oops! - there was en employee there, coming out and getting into his car. I talked with him a bit, asking if it's an EMT school there, and talking about some of my escapades with regard to helping out people with medical problems. He'd asked if I was looking for recycling and I said that was the least of my interest, as it was packing materials I was after. 

To cover that I was really interested in "his" dumpster, I checked the other one there that I almost never check. There were a lot of textbooks thrown out so I gathered those up. As for the medical dumpster, I got a couple of boxes of little packets of aspirin and some alcohol wipes for Ken. 

I found some other neat packing stuff at other places and was well loaded up by the time I got back here. I put the packing stuff away and stacked the tomato boxes, now full of textbooks, in the office. I got set up with my wash tub and cardboard on the floor etc and washed my head/hair, shaved, then washed the rest of me, and then cut up and threw away that cardboard, the stuff I use under my futon and that was getting kind of "tired". I cut a new piece from one of the really big boxes left out on the side of the complex. 

I quickly vacuumed the office and scrubbed the toilet and the usual things on the day Ken comes over, and Ken called and said he'd be late. So I got to work packing things to take to the post office tomorrow and was almost finished with the last one when Ken came by. 

He had more surplus auction finds, like a big argon laser and a thing with two big motors on a base which I took apart on the tailgate of Ken's truck while he fiddled around with the laser. He wants to try powering it up to make sure it works before we part it out. 

Ken didn't even want to rest and have a cup of tea, so what talking we got done was done while working. But he doesn't sound like he's having money problems, and he has been communicating with the landlord OK. And of course I got my check. 

Once Ken was gone I put the side panels and top back on the laser, and although that gyro had been a pretty good meal, I felt hungry so I got out a can of tuna and had tuna salad. With yogurt drink.

More surprises

 311th day sober. I practiced last night an hour on the flute headjoint and another half hour working on the first simple tunes in the Wye book. The notes B-A-G. 

I also pre-packed 21 things so it was a pretty busy night. I went to bed not sure if I'd get up early enough but that was no problem since the delivery man with the order of tape Ken had ordered had come. Instead of 1 box of brown and 2 of clear, he'd bought 2 of brown and 1-1/2, for some reason, of clear. But with the people on the other side of the complex throwing out mostly-used rolls of clear, I've not used tape Ken paid for for a week. 

We got another notice from the building owner too - Ken's been underpaying the rent for some reason. I don't know if he's in financial trouble or what. And here I've sold off all my trumpet stuff, stuff I can use to "fend for myself" if needed. And I'm not ready to "fend for myself" on the flute yet. 

So because of the delivery I was up at 2 in the afternoon and had plenty of time to pack 4 more things and take them to the post office and FedEx. I tried the toriyaki appetizer from "Tokyo Sushi" on my way back from the post office and it was very meh. 

After I was done at FedEx, I went around back to look for boxes and things, and being the Baja Fresh where I usually pick up a box or two, there was a bum with some boxes of stuff and who saw me coming and said, "Security?" I decided to just keep going - only the bum knows if he was asking me if I was "security" or if the car coming up behind me was. 

I stopped at the storage unit and pulled out some things to list. Then I picked up some packing stuff from Sanmina, and circled around to visit Tom. He hasn't messed with the Sony speaker thing I gave him but that's better than hearing he did, and it doesn't work for him for some reason. We talked a bit and he said he had to get to bed. He says he gets up at "5 or 6" so it makes sense he'd want to go to bed by 9 or so. It was a bit after 8 and he'd want to get his drink on, generally cheap E&J brandy I believe, washed down with some of the Budweiser 12-pack he was staying close to. 

I keep going back and forth regarding buying that Yamaha "Bobby Shew" trumpet. I've wanted one for years, ever since I heard a kid, really a high school kid, playing one with a band in San Pedro Square. I got to talk to him and I said his playing was great (it was; not only good highs but wonderful lows) and he said his trumpet was an early model, a prototype really, of the "Shew Horn".  

Last night I thought, I ought to go over to the music store and ask to *try* one. At least I'd know what it feels like to play one. My playing on a student Yamaha is recent enough that I'd have a good gauge of how different the "Shew" horn might be.

Stubborn-ness pays

 310th day sober.  Besides taking those 4 large packages to FedEx yesterday, it was a day off so after my trip to the market and dinner etc. I just watched stuff on YouTube and did some practice on the flute. 

I could not do the octave exercise and I kept trying and trying and it was really frustrating me. I finally chalked it up to a bad day and put the flute away, but after watching a bit more YouTube I got it out again and realized I'd been setting my mouth on the hole differently, further back or something. Once I went back to being very precise it was easy and I was able to do it fine. I put the flute together and worked on the first few notes in the Wye book. They sounded good - nice and "fat". This is due to the embouchure work I've been doing no doubt.

Something funny is going on with Ken. He's not paying the rent and he's stalled like crazy in getting insurance the new building owner requires. He's also said he ordered packing tape but it's not shown up and generally it's a big box or two that gets left in front and we've never had anything taken before. 

The only thing I can think of is that his daughter bought a house in North Las Vegas - a place that will soon run out of water, I might add. I know they helped her financially. I doubt they'd help her to the extent that it deep-sixes this place but there's an example I've seen in my life... 

It seems that, according to my older sister, we lost our Portlock Road home due to a conniving real estate agent. This is fairly believable because Hawaii is full of conniving real estate agents. This particular one convinced my dad that buying a 2nd car would be a good idea. So he bought this cute little car, a Datsun 240-Z. I have many fond memories of that car - Dad loved it, and it was fun getting 5 of us into it. But that car threw our finances off just enough to make us have to sell the Portlock house. The real estate agent had seen that if she could engineer this, she'd get the commission for selling our house. This is my older sister's theory anyway. But she knows everyone who matters on the island so I have to give it a fair amount of credibility. 

There's no way Dad wanted to lose the Portlock place. Not the way we did. We had to leave it and stayed a number of places - I remember a place on the beach in La'ie where the local kids, some pale Caucasians from who-knows-where, ate salted licorice and had a pet monkey. The palatial "Schofield Sands" without staying in which no Hawaii childhood is complete. Pat's In Punalu'u in one of the cottages. A house one ridge over from our new place, being built where land was cheap in Pupukea. 

I'll have to ask Ken what's going on when I see him in a couple of days. Since I seem to get copies of the emails sent to Ken by the landlord, maybe I'll have to print out the bills for the rent because Ken does much better with physical notes than with emails. I've even been in charge of collecting checks from Ken and doing the mailing before. I might suggest to Ken we go back to a system like that again. 

I'll explain to Ken that we really don't want to be "problem tenants" and I don't think he wants to be. This business has been one he's kept going in one form or another for decades. It's just that I know how quickly things can melt down. Like gasoline being poured in a Styrofoam cup! 

My Plan B is of course to get a storage unit in the place Ken and I have both used off and on since 2012, that's close to the trolley line. Get one of those neat US Army bivy bag "sleep systems" and sleep out in the Baylands and when not sleeping or doing basic maintenance on myself, play play play that music. But the closer I get to being "street" homeless, the more difficult it will be to get back home to Hawaii, since without working for and being friends with Ken's family, I'd lose my official address and the ability to look, at least on paper, middle-class. 

If I can get sounding good on the flute it will make my future look a lot better. Without going out there playing with some proficiency I'll never find out if the flute or the trumpet goes over better with the public. So I really need to get out there this busking season. (Nice to think that in Hawaii there is no "busking season" as it's warm the year around.) 

It seems so strange to me that I *was* out there busking with a flute something like 7 years ago. It was a Yamaha student model, 2000AD I believe. I paid nothing like the attention to embouchure I am now; it was just toot toot it works and off I go. I even had a Trevor Wye book because I recognize some of the illustrations in the copy I have now. I have no idea what I was playing for repertoire. Simple things, obviously. Probably the same few things I'd played on my home-made PVC side-blown flute, a shrill wonder I found I could play lots of things on with some judicious half-holing. 

I may be onto a whole new chapter in my busking and in my life, really. I'd feel like a real idiot playing trumpet in Temple Valley back home or out on the lookout at the top of Diamond Head or out in front of 99 Ranch here, but flute would be fine. Even in Waikiki, where guitars and ukes and singing are all OK, they may have a ban in place on brass instruments and drums. A lot of places do. Constitutionally, busking is protected but places will have restrictions just to keep things sane. 

As with everything in the US, there are also class implications. If you play guitar, unless you're really good and playing classical music, you're a bum. Band instruments are a level up, but if you play trumpet or sax you're almost certainly working class. Violin, as long as you're not playing "fiddle", piano as long as you're not playing something like "boogie woogie", and flute as long as you're not just some bum who happened to pick one up and learn 5 tunes by ear (like "Red" who used to be a fixture downtown) at least place you as being "fundamentally middle-class". Even "Red" probably did better than otherwise because it was the flute he played. The Starbucks allowed him to post up right near them for years, for example. 

Being actually musical is a big "tell" also. Dear old "Red" could play "Amazing Grace" and mangle it out of all recognizability. One of the first times I saw him, he was playing "Candle In The Wind" I believe, and I was sure it was "Winds Of Change" by The Scorpions. This is a busker specialty; to mess up the rhythm turning even well-known tunes into mysteries. I believe if you are actually musical it means, to the public, that you must have gone through a music program growing up, and since this is a thing that's more and more restricted to the wealthy, it means you're "OK".