I was up late last night, got some practice in, and watched it rain all night.
I woke up, finally, at about 2:30 and on the radio they're saying Ukraine bombed parts of Western Russia, hitting munitions plants and such sites. I know from Reddit they hit an electronics manufacturing plant. This is just after Russia launched the biggest attack of drones and missiles of the war.
I see this as Ukraine's Jimmy Doolittle raid (although arguably that might be the sinking of that ship, that Ukraine celebrated by issuing a postage stamp with a soldier on land flipping the bird to the ship). It's great news in any case. And Russia's got Poland on edge because they flew one of their missiles over Polish airspace and the only reason Poland didn't shoot it down was they were not able to get "a solution" to shoot it down before it left their airspace. They'll be ready for the next one.
Europe is waking up to the fact that Putin intends to invade all of Europe if he can. And the US can't be depended on to keep helping, not if Diaper Don gets back into office either by election or by coup. Europe and the UK, united, can put up a pretty good fight.
About the practice; I have to say my new idea of the "Song Method" is working out well. Grinding away at little exercises was boring as hell and I believe was tightening me up. I was not getting anywhere. The shakuhachi playing strengthened my breathing and I now realize how important that is. I have this little version of "Red River Valley" that's a good exercise for high notes, and this other thing I don't know the name of but that I'm pretty sure Harry James made popular, that goes even a bit higher. I also worked out the melody line to "Linus And Lucy" and a higher version of "What A Wonderful World" because the one I've been playing for years is too low, frankly.
I finally left here at 5:45. I dropped off a bag of trash in the usual trash can I use, which is next to a bus stop. There was a zombie at the bus stop, and the noise of my putting the trash in the can etc. got its attention. It asked in standard nondistinct underclass dialect if I knew when the bus was coming. I said I didn't know. It seemed expected that I ought to know, since I'm "using" the stop, and I said I don't catch the bus here, sorry. The zombie concluded with a "Fuck you" and I replied with "Have a nice evening - zombie." as I rode off.
I went to Nijiya for a can of coffee and to use the loo, and then all ready for my night, headed over to San Pedro Square. I started playing at 6:18 and played until 7:00, making $10. Kind of "meh". I decided to go over to Whole Foods.
So I rode over there and played for probably a good 45 minutes. The trouble was, the skinny guy with all the petitions and signs and who hassles people was there, yelling out to everyone trying to get them to sign his stupid petitions and primarily, I think, to beg money from them and see if they can be conned into one his scammy woo-woo free energy etc. scams.
So he yelled and I played and eventually a nice Chinese guy had one of his kids put a dollar in. A guy stopped, in his car, in the driveway and was looking to buy a saxophone, it turned out, to just hang on the wall. So after gushing about West Valley Music, I said just look on Craig's List. Nice guy though, who'd just moved out here for a "finance" job.
I played some more and decided I'd done enough, and decided I'd mess with the skinny guy a bit. I went up to his table and said he should be careful talking about that zero-point energy because I had a circle of friends who were all into that (true) and they'd all disappeared (also true) and I can't find them at all (not that I've looked) and made it sound all ominous and that was enough, he was off and running.
He said the free-energy people get killed but never fear, there will be plentiful energy for everyone (here I interjected that one can just Google search "Siemens neighborhood reactors") and the only hitch is if "the globalists" can prevent this.
It gets more interesting: An ambulance had parked along the curb and the EMTs got out. One of 'em saw his pro-"Palestinian" sign and said something like "Israel forever". He looked Jewish. I looked at him and said "Am Israel Chai" (which is something like "may Israel live forever" and the guy nodded and was off.
Skinny wanted to know what that was all about so I lied about it being some Arabic slang I'd thrown at him, not at all encouraging to Israel etc. And then went on about how I tend to end up with a surplus of marking pens and will save some aside for him ... etc. Idiot.
I went in for my cucumber and met the EMT at the checkout and said to him that he should watch out for the skinny guy, who's a neo-Nazi etc. He said no worries, and the most important thing is "Israel forever" to which I agreed.
So I'd made $12 so far and while I didn't need the money (and have two more "weekend" days to busk) I'm stubborn so I rode over to Christmas In The Park. And by riding on San Pedro to Park Avenue I got to see the new sidewalks etc that had been under construction - they're really nice! - and made it to the spot I'd played by the science museum with ease.
So I set up and played (my lip was pretty tired by now) and made $35 in about as many minutes. That was more like it. So I'd made $47 this busking session.
All I'd spent was a bit less than $5 for the fancy cucumber and the can of coffee, too. When I drank, there was always alcohol to buy. But since I don't drink, and don't smoke or get around using a motor vehicle, there wasn't much of anything to spend the money on. Tobacco, alcohol, and gasoline are the three huge money-sinks for almost all working-class Americans. And imagine having a "need" for weed or meth or crack or fenty or what-have-you. This is how you live as a "hungry ghost" and then become a decrepit zombie polluting a bus stop...
I swung by Cafe Stritch to see what was up, and what was up was an open mic and I was talking with a group of people outside at a table, really just this one gal in the group, when some goon who works for "Mama Kin" which is what they're called now, came up and asked if I was going in, and I said Sorry I'll move this, and got my bike out of there and rode off. Imagine the shock to the goon if he knew I was an actual street musician and not some suburban IT professional, a nice safe "beige" person who only practices music in their garage or something, and to whom going to an open mic is a huge adventure. They want the nice bland people who make San Jose what it is, who will pay (cover charge, overpriced drinks and food) to play and as for actual musicians, even in their Stritch days as far as I know they never paid 'em.
So I skedaddled and rode home. The usual zombie-dodging and pretty soon I was safely back here. I'd been out until almost 10, which is like being out until 1AM in the before times.
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