Sunday, October 23, 2022

Well, that was a day off

 That was a nice day off, I guess. I actually started feeling just fine around midnight. So it was basically 24 hours of being sick and then it was over with. 

I tried the "Penang white curry mee" noodles I'd bought at 99 Ranch, and they're actually pretty good as instant noodles go. 

I guess I'm not spending very much this week, as I just don't feel like it. I was up early enough today (around noon) to consider visiting the flea market but decided there's too much chance of that tiring me out enough that other things don't get done and by "other things" I mean most importantly, flute practice. Flute practice is money in the bank for me, because if I can play some good tunes, that's going to not only make me happy but pay me better than wandering around looking at a bunch of skeezy flea market sellers' stuff, hoping to find something valuable. 

I thought a bit last night about my trumpet playing there at Whole Foods. I'd gotten burned out. It started to feel just like a job. I think it was a combination of always playing the same place, always playing the same tunes (each tune was so hard-won on trumpet) and not having an overall purpose for the money I made. 

The idea behind changing to flute is not only that it will be more welcome than trumpet in a place like Hawaii, besides the difficulty of keeping a trumpet non-stinky in a tropical climate, but a number of other factors. 

Trumpet is a high-pressure system whereas flute is an air-volume, or lower pressure system. That makes it seem like I'll be able to play it more years into the future and it'll be physically healthier. Flute has tons of reachable range. It's hard to have a trumpet sound good lower than written C below the staff, and I was never able to go much above the staff in actual busking. Flute doesn't go much below C below the staff, but going above it for an octave or two is easy - thus a ton more range. Plus there's a ton of material that sounds good on flute that would come across as just weird on trumpet. 

If I were decent on the flute, I could realistically experiment with going over to the airport and playing, as long as I played relaxing, happy stuff. Mayyyyybe someone could pull that off with a flugelhorn, but certainly not trumpet and there's a good probability the authorities there would see all that brass and say No Way. 

As I type there's a debate between Gavin Newsom and some right-winger who I guess is challenging him for Governor. The right-winger sounds somewhat convincing but is probably only so to the same crowd who thought radio talk-show kook Larry Elder had a chance a year or two ago - that little movement went down in flames. 

When the news isn't about Ukraine, it's about the upcoming election. The problem is, as I've stated, if the fascists win, then Putin wins. The  two things are tied together. All Putin has to do is hold out and if the Fascists win in the US, the US will pull out of NATO, out of the UN, and give Putin every white phosphorus shell we've got. My theory is still that Putin started his war with the assumption that his debtor, Trump, would win in 2020. When that didn't happen, with his army, composed almost completely of rabble and gangsters as it is, all hyped up on the rape and plunder they'd get to do, it was like holding the leash on a mad dog. Better to let it go before it attacks you. Now he's faced with trying to just hold on, since you can't, apparently, do a proper blitzkrieg with an army composed of rabble and gangsters. 

The upcoming election is "only" a midterm but any election is a national holiday for me, if that's what I need to get my ballot in. My understanding is that if the fascists get their way in this one, the 2024 election will be a potemkin one. I saying I saw recently - "You can vote your way into Fascism but you'll have to shoot your way out". 

I keep thinking up ways to stay here, such as renting a small office to live in and work out of, or moving up to the city to be a busker full time. But if the US is going to go Fascist, travel is going to become very restricted, possibly available to Pure Aryans(tm) of the right political leanings only. If I leave for Hawaii in 2024 it may seem too early. But I feel if I wait even a year or two later it may be too late. It would be like leaving Germany in in 1932 vs. 1933 or 1934. Plus, being back home, I'll be halfway across the Pacific and that would make it that much easier to escape to any of a number of places in the Pacific. 

Aaaaaaaand... I find myself looking at doing something I knew I'd had to do, but not for another year at least. Amazon is effectively so difficult to sign in on now because I don't have a $1000 a month connect plan and a solid-gold-cased iPhone because I'm not a Kool Kid, that I will no longer be able to buy anything from them. Because of this, I want to cancel my Amazon Prime, which ... Lo and behold, is also effectively impossible to do. I mean, I can do it, as long as I go out and bust a grand on a brand new smart phone and a new plan that's $60 a month or $720 a year. Then I can cancel my Prime that I can't use any longer, that's somewhere around $120 - $140 a year.  

Since I hate all high-tech companies with a red-hot passion, instead I'll do this: I'll go to my bank and tell them I lost my debit card, and that I want to get a new one with a new number because security and all that. I'll have to update the new card number with my cell phone carrier but that is actually do-able unlike any dealings with Amazon. That's the only continuing bill that's on my card. This is why I like to keep things very simple. 

I can just go into the bank for any cash needs I might have until the new card comes in. It's like Bezos The Bully saying, "If you wanna play on the teeter-totter, you have to give me part of your lunch money", with the assumption that I want to play on "his" teeter-totter so much that I'll do so, and my flipping the table by saying, "Nah, I'll go work on my marble-shooting skills, thanks, C-ya!" and walking away, leaving the bastard gobsmacked.

If I need a book, I can always have Recycle Book Store get it for me. As for other things I buy from time to time, there are other ways to get those things. I'm set for bike tires, and even if I ended up needing another tire before I leave, I'm sure La Dolce Velo can get me a tire at a competitive price. 

And I can still pick up bubble mailers from the Amazon Hub, as that's not dependent at all on whether I even have an Amazon account. 

There are a few flute things I'd like to get, but I can get those in other ways. I still never got my key oil from Flute World so I'm not sure what's going on there, but I have sources for things. 


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