Sluggish Sunday

 I woke up ehhh.. around 3. I kept trying to get myself motivated to shoot out of here and get to busking nice and early, but as it was, it was around 6 when I got to Whole Foods and got some baked chicken and broccoli and a "black light" beer. 

I was astonished to see they sold halvah, due to a tall Middle-Eastern looking guy ahead of me having some, and I said something like, "Wow, halvah". and we got talking. He was astonished I knew what it was and wanted to know where I'd learned about it. From my mom, I said, and the American brand is Joyvah, which is made in New York, it's Jewish halvah. I told him about the international markets like Pars which has about a dozen different kinds of halvah. 

He said that's funny because his name is Pars, and I told him about a friend I had long ago named Spas, who used to joke when we'd drive by a store selling spas, that that store was his. It was a good fun time, and I'm glad I got this guy hooked up with the knowledge that he can get stuff like good halvah in this area. 

After eating I started in playing, and after 15 minutes I hadn't gotten a single tip. Not even any encouraging words. It was both cold and very windy and people were just intent on getting in, getting out, and getting outta there. 

I went in and bought a box of wine and packed up and went to the Old Spaghetti Factory. That went a bit better, getting two $5's and then another $5 in the first 10 minutes or so. But it took forever to make $2 more, and I decided I'd done enough. I'd probably played about 45 minutes all together.

I picked up some books, and stopped at TAK Market originally for some pepitas which I was convinced they had, and they didn't. I ended up getting a jar of European import sardines, which was $6.50 which is about what those cost. I was just surprised to see them in a corner bodega like that place. Then I went back in for a tall Lagunitas beer. 

I think as a general rule, if you need to wear gloves riding home from busking, it was probably too cold to be very good for busking. Still, $17 is $17.  Plus I worked out one of the versions of "L'Cha Dodi" I know, and my high notes are doing well. (I know two L'Cha Dodi's but there are tons more, like Friday night we sang a different, short, one.) 

Plus it's kind of my duty to get out there and busk at least once a week. Eventually, someday, I will be done with my course of study and being a musician will be the only thing I'll have to worry about. 

For such a boring life I lead, there's sure been a lot of major changes. First, seeing that about half of the citizens of my present country will vehemently vote in - or stage a coup - to put into power essentially Hitler, without the grace, style, intelligence, or ethics. That's mental-furniture-rearrangement #1. 

Then, seeing how horribly my country handled Covid. I'm a Boomer and when you're a Boomer you grow up going to the school auditorium to get shots, you join the military and get shots, the gov't and medical authorities recommend getting this or that shot and you do it, because it's your health and your responsibility to your society. I never thought shots, and wearing a mask, which was certainly good enough for Hawkeye and Trapper John on M*A*S*H to hold heartfelt conversations behind, and thus I felt almost honored to do my part to wear one. Rearrangement #2. 

Then, October 7th. "What did those guys THINK was going to happen?" I asked Tom. You attack Israel, you're gonna get stomped. Smart people don't. October 7th wasn't quite enough for me, though, to get off the fence. It was that idiot Bushnell, and everyone going on and on about his being a hero. That's what really kicked off what we have going on now which is, apparently, this huge 1920s/1930s attitude about Jews that, I am shaken to say, has only been unmasked, not come into being. It's been here all along. On October 6th, if someone had asked me what would happen if that kind of attack with that number of casualties had happened, and then some months later a US soldier would self-immolate to show support for Hamas, I'd have very confidentially said that support for Jews and condemnation for anti-Semitism would have kicked into overdrive, and Bushnell would have been written off with barely a comment as ignorant and mentally ill. I'd never had predicted pro-Hamas mobs shutting down airports, Jewish students and faculty being attacked at Ivy League colleges, city governments (looking at you, Palo Alto) raising the "Palestinian" flag, and a modern-day "Judensau" statue set up at UCLA. Rearrangement #3. 

Dare  I say a #4? That would be the fact that most of the more visible Jew-hate these days is from the Left. The Left I once counted myself a member of. The Left who was rah-rah for the founding of Israel, the kibbutz communal farms, the strong egalitarianism of traditional Jewish society, the Left in which so many Jews were the very backbone of the movement. As has been mentioned on Reddit, the first "red flag" was a few years ago when there was an LGBT parade in San Francisco, and Jews who showed any sign of being Jewish, like showing an Israeli flag or even the Magan David, the "Jewish star", were banned from participating. I remember that because it was so weird. I would call myself an FDR, LBJ, War On Poverty, Great Society type Leftist. Inclusive, not looking for who to exclude. So that's rearrangement #4. 

The last rearrangement is trivial. It turns out that to do well playing the shakuhachi you need a ton of air. I started to realize that I might die of natural causes before I could develop the lung volume to play well at the modern standard, and meanwhile I'd put years into trumpet playing and giving credit where credit is due, the shakuhachi playing actually helped my tone - I now do breathing exercises to keep that progress going, however slowly. I really thought the shakuhachi would be a great thing, as it has no moving parts at all, one can be made from any suitable piece of bamboo, and it's a great instrument for a tropical climate. It has a quasi-religious role in Japanese society. I thought if I could get good at it, there'd be a place for me in Hawaii or even in Japan if I could get a handle on the language. I finally realized it's not for me, and the reason I dashed out and bought a trumpet in time to catch the Xmas season, to see how I felt about being a trumpet busker after all. It went well. It needs not be elaborated on that the trumpet has a lot of meaning in "Western" society. So I've chosen a good one or it's chosen me, and that's rearrangement #5.