Predictably

 Well, I drank the wine last night and predictably I have an awful headache now. Sweet wine, how could that ever have happened? 

So much for my plans. Last night someone recommended I try playing at the Campbell Whole Foods and that seemed like a good idea, so the plan would have been to ride down there and try it out, and go by Walmart on the way back for my "weekly Wal" stuff. Instead I'm pinned down by this headache. 

I think it's a good idea to have a wine opener around, but I'm only going to obtain wine right before Friday night, and only one bottle or even one of those half-size bottles they sell at Whole Foods or one of those 3/4 size tetra-pak things from Sprouts. I'd like to get Kosher wine to "support the cause" but it's going to take some time to figure out a brand and which store to get it from. 

As for the weirdos last night, that was due to playing so late. 9PM being the equivalent in this town of midnight, 10PM being like 1 in the morning. At Whole Foods the crowd had *really* gone down so there was hardly anyone around - those are conditions weirdos like to operate in. If there's a good crowd, someone would have dove in to chase him off. 

In fact, a couple of years ago something like that happened. A weakness of my playing location at the downtown Whole Foods is that my back is to the sidewalk which means someone can sneak up on me. Usually it's no problem, but that one time there was a sudden flurry of motion and someone walking off and a couple others who seemed to have closed in to protect me, and then, their job done, moved away and acted like it was nothing. I think someone had been trying to pick my pocket, or was making a move to grab my tip box, or something. And the other people saw this and prevented it. 

A golden rule of busking is to have a wall or something behind you. Sans that, you have to at least have a good awareness of what's going on around you. And to still be able to concentrate on the music. That's what happened with that cello player who got whacked on the head with a metal Thermos or something but that zombess. Poor guy was doing something like paying his way through medical school by playing the cello and last I read about it, it's spooked him out of busking. 

Some people will even hire some "muscle" which makes sense if they're high earners. I saw this in Mountain View long before our present chaotic age. Before covid, before the crash of 08. It was a guy who told fortunes or something, with a little table with two candles. He had a big guy whose job was to provide security. 

Who knows how much money Mr. Fortune Teller was making, and Mountain View is not problem-free. It's infested with Christians for instance, who are a huge pain in the ass, standing in front of buskers and intercepting their tips, handing out fake $100 bills with their culty little messages on them. I'd even regaled someone with my story about how I'd chased one of them off. The Christian was attracted by my playing Amazing Grace, and had come to stand right in front of me and bother me, so I'd started "jazzing it up" making it sound raunchier and raunchier, and the Christian had said something like "Don't do that..." and actually seemed to be in pain, and left, and didn't come back. 

Like the old Chinese superstition where you put X-rated pictures in the kitchen because the Fire God is a prude, "Jazzing up" Christian songs can be a handy thing to know about. 

Excellent Reddit discussion bagging on San Jose here: https://www.reddit.com/r/SanJose/comments/1bamakn/whats_your_unpopular_opinion_that_people_seem_to/

I'm wondering if this area is simply part of the continuum that blends in with the Pacific Northwest, a notably lonely, dour, place. Something like the "Seattle Freeze" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seattle_Freeze

In any case, the overwhelming ethos here is "You're not here to make friends, you're here to work." I do *not* want to grow old, or older anyway, here. 

Yet I'm not convinced going back to Hawaii is the best plan. I'd go back and visit my old beaches and my old schools and pick some shells and fish a bit, and then I'd find myself moping in my room with a little muffin fan blowing on me to deal with the heat and humidity, and realize I'm right back in the social order I grew up in - one where I'm near the bottom. No amount of attending the Buddhist temple is going to make me Asian. I may not be white enough for the whites here on the mainland but I'm too white to ever be more than just tolerated in Hawaii. 

There, just as much as here, race. is. everything. Andy Bumatai, no part Hawaiian at all, actually white/Filipino and born in Germany, because of his brown skin was able to blend right in and be a beloved personality in Hawaii. No white entertainer/character has been able to be accepted at the level Andy was, because of the color of their skin. Perpetual outsiders. 

It's a nice place, and far more cultured than here, to be sure. And at least the weather isn't actively trying to kill a person for parts of the year. I'm just not sure it's the best I can do. 

By the time my headache was down enough for me to feel like doing anything, it was too late to go out anywhere. So I cooked a nice beef curry and after eating, listed 15 things I'd prepared yesterday.