After playing last night I got home and I just wanted to relax, I guess, and just watched YouTube and do nothing, which I did until some crazy time like 3 or 4 in the morning.
I woke up around noon, due to a bunch of the guys from next door hanging out in the parking lot talking in Spanish, pretty loudly. I got up and had coffee and nuts, and packed two things that have to go by FedEx. One was pretty small but one was big and took a big box and a lot of padding.
I took off around 3, maybe 3:30 and took the things to FedEx, and rode right back here. Then I got my trumpet and stuff ready and took off again around 4 or a bit after.
I rode through Japantown and there was Leroy. I could not tell what he was playing. I stopped and we talked for a while. Just good old shop talk. It turns out he was trying to play that piano piece that's probably the best known of the ones played in Peanuts movies, I think it's called Snoopy's Theme or something. He was trying to do the part under the melody, the obbligato I think it's called. Of course he was playing it a couple of octaves up, didn't have the timing right (it's probably some weird time signature when written down) so it didn't sound like ... anything really.
When we were done talking I rode away, hearing him mangling another song. I rode down to Walmart and got things there and would have gotten some magnesium supplement but they've got almost everything in locked cases now.
One thing I did at Walmart that I think was pretty smart, was I noticed some different beef sticks at the checkout and got 4 of them for $7. That's about what I'd spend on meatloaf at Whole Foods, but with the beef sticks I know they're 1 gram of carbs each, and I could eat them on the train or while waiting for the train.
I rode over to Whole Foods and locked the bike. The skinny white guy with the table is back, apparently. And standing next to him was ... Pee-Pee Lady. She gave me a sort of blank look and I gave her one back, kind of trying to look somewhat friendly but not committed. I don't want to make enemies of either one, but I no longer want to interact in any real way with either of them.
I walked over to the train station and after some waiting got on a train to Sunnyvale. The actual travel time was only 15 minutes, compared with about an hour on the bus. I spent $10 on train fare instead of $5 on bus fare, and saved a lot of walking too.
Once I got to Murphy Street, I chewed gum to clean my mouth (I'd eaten up the beef sticks while waiting for the train) and then set up in front of the theater, which appears to be closed.
It started a bit slow but pretty soon a guy put in a $20 bill and I had a feeling it would be a good session. I played all sorts of things, and at one point a guy came over and handed me $8 with the mien of someone who's bestowing a much larger amount, and such special money, because it came from him, that it should not be mingled with the ordinary, proletarian, bills in my tip box. He also wanted me to try some different songs, so once I'd plopped the money in with the rest and he'd walked off, I played Ave Maria which is kind of Christmas-y, and worked a bit on Mellow Yellow, which ... uh ... has trumpet in it.
I played a bit more and talked with a couple of guys about how Murphy Street had been my old downtown hangout when I lived nearby, and how I'd moved to Sunnyvale because of the movie WarGames, in which the computer company the kid hacks into is located in ... Sunnyvale.
Presently I became aware that a couple of guys who were using the fuck word an awful lot, were hanging out nearby and were probably not going anywhere. Eh, time for a change, I figured. I went up to the end of the street nearest the train station and that was kind of Meh, at least this night, at this time. I moved opposite the theater (one of the fuckity guys was still hanging around by the theater) and that was ... OK. I finally figured I could play about 15 minutes more and tried the other end, nearest Target. That went OK too. I got a $5 tip as I packed up when the time was up for me.
I walked back down Murphy towards the train station and noticed a guy playing guitar outside the little Thai restaurant. He also had drawings of faces laid out on the table and offered me one "They're free" but I said that's OK. But I said if I have time before the next train to come back and hang out a little, I will.
The train came right away though, and I got on at the nearest door and ended up sitting in one of the two seats that are closest to the locomotive. That was noisy, and there were all kinds of mysterious clanks and clunks, rattles and bangs. Still it was nice to be back at Diridon in 15 minutes.
I got off and some "homie" type Black guy was lost, trying to figure out how to get to "sap center" and I told him to just come with me and I'll get him there. We talked about the need for hobbies, in one's life. I said it's really hard to make friends in San Jose but hobbies, especially ones where people depend on each other, are the way to do it. We got out to The Alameda and I told him to turn right and there will be the "sap center".
Of course I had to spend about half the money I'd made, $64.02, in Whole Foods. The big expense was a bottle of magnesium supplement. And I had to update Kenny on how I did, plus he wanted to talk about shopping for clothes at the Capitol flea market. I said what made flea market and thrift store shopping interesting to me was when I got into reselling stuff "Because there are only so many clothes you can wear".
I rode home, watching out for drivers who seemed a bit more erratic tonight. It felt good to get safely back in here. It was a pretty good day. I shipped a couple of things, had a good busking session, got my magnesium supplement and some other things, and now if the next two days are to be rainy, I can deal with that.
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