It rained all through yesterday and last night. I did a little practice, watched a lot of YouTube, got things out that need to be shipped, yadda yadda.
I woke up around 3 in the afternoon and it was .... raining. Then it stopped, then it started ...
On the radio they're talking about the mothers of MLK, Malcolm X, and James Baldwin. Here's a zinger: MLK's mother was assassinated, shot in the back, by a young black man who'd joined the "Black Hebrew Israelites". Shot. In. The. Back. The damned MOTHER of one of the greatest Americans.
Boy oh boy. Those Black Hebrew Israelites show up once in a while; the last time I came across 'em it was a guy with a little stand, barking away on Santa Clara street. Frankly I thought he was just trying to sell something, which I guess he was. I came by a bit later and he was still there, now going back and forth with a young skinny white guy. "Hey," the white guy called out to me, "He hates you because you're white". I said something like, "He can do that, he doesn't have to like me". And something like, "Hey, I'm from Hawaii, not being liked for being white is just Tuesday afternoon to me".
The Black Hebrew Israelites are a big pain wherever they go. But now I can retort to them, "You guys killed MLK's mom". And as far as I'm concerned it's a personal grudge, because while MLK has become this sort of 2-dimensional figure, with a holiday named after him and endless sound bites of him saying "I have a dream!" if you really dig into his writing and his speeches, he was immensely intelligent and clued-in. He was really, really 'akamai as we say in Hawaii. That's why they killed him. He was starting to talk about the real issue, which is class and how the real enemy isn't Whitey, it's capitalism.
Well, with rain all day yesterday and rain all day today, obviously there was no busking going on. I guess this is just how this time of the year goes. When I lived in Gilroy, I learned that there were 6 months of the year with work and 6 without. During the 6 without, you just live cheap, draw on supplies you'd stored up during the working months, and enjoy the free time. If you're hustling crafts, it's the time to manufacture your stock of craft items for the year. I guess if you're a busker it's the time to practice and learn new tunes.
It's the time for me to work on "Nori No Miyama", brush up on my "Hinomaru" and take a look at the other tunes, because the next shakuhachi club meeting is only about 10 days away.
I waited for a large squall to drift by, then packed two things and put them in plastic bags then in Whole Foods bags and took off for FedEx. I got there a half-hour before they close at 6, then went to H Mart for a good bout of shopping. I got my now-usual makgeolli, including one new "crispy rice" flavor to try. I like the Kong flavor, with its notes of cacao, but I have to try new things. There's also an acerola flavor that I guess would taste like those chewable vitamin C tablets from the health food store that I had growing up.
It was cold going out and back but the nice thing is, it makes the bums hole up and it being Sunday the traffic wasn't as bad as it's been. Rain or not, I really had to get out because I had trash to dispose of as well as shopping to do.
By 6:30 I was back here, had put things away, and done a "burn" of a batch of sensitive material, anything showing any identity or addresses, really. I use one of those things people use to get coals going for a barbecue, and when it's full of crumpled-up sensitive papers, time to light 'em off. I call it my paper shredder.
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