Lag B'Omer 2024

 Waddafuk. I guess it's Lag B'Omer, uhh... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lag_BaOmer

I woke up at 5:30AM and thought it was 5:30PM no lie. 

I finished watching the movie I'd been watching on YouTube and went back to sleep until almost 2. Then I got a bright idea: I've not gotten even a nibble on one of my musical instruments on Craig's List, might as well pawn the thing off to Starving Musician. I never should have bought the damn thing, but right now it's money I want and I don't want to take it out of the bank. 

OK so Friday night I'd cleaned myself up and put on clean clothes because I wanted to feel good for Shabbat. I believe this is the origin of the "Saturday night bath" that Ken used to take, and that hearing Perry Mason on the TV would be his signal to do. 

I read the last 3rd of Voyage Of The Damned then read "100 Saturdays" about the memories of a lady, in her 90s, of her life in "The Juderia" on the island of Rhodes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhodes and then her journey through concentration camps, Auschwitz, Dachau, etc. 

I regret more and more that I skipped out on visiting Dachau when I had the chance, and instead took this huge walk around Munich, the English Garden, etc. Politically, I was still a young shithead and it was probably for the better. 

I did some study in my Reading Hebrew book ("Z'man Likro" == Time, Z'man, for reading, Likro) and once all the reading was done, it was time for my dinner and havdala time, and I watched the movie "Voyage Of The Damned" which of course were nowhere near as good as the book (I can imagine Cuba just fine, having been there) but still was pretty decent. 

Haha and I'm muzzled for the moment on YouTube for standing up for Israel and against the pro-Hamas ads they insert into everything. Gonna Jew even harder. 

Crutch guy is still a thing. I see him walking around here, and I think he's employed and is seriously doing his physical therapy. It's good to see, and I don't regret handing him that $20 for a hot second. It's good to see a guy working to get himself better. 

A thing that was mentioned in the "Voyage Of The Damned" book - that the worst thing was feeling unwanted by anyone. THIS IS HUGE. Imagine being raised in the "Iks Who Drive Cars" American culture, where if you are poor you are the scum of the Earth, lower than something someone might scrape off of their shoe. We have an unspoken caste system in this country, er, "country". 

It turns out to be essential to being a human being rather than an animal, to help others. Now imagine all efforts to help are refused because they come from YOU. A poor. A haole. Whatever. In an Ik culture, helping another is  incomprehensible. 

I only broke free of this when I moved to that place in Gilroy, owned by a fellow Lithuanian, although not a Litvak. His understanding of "radical giving" isn't complete, but it was at least present. 

I headed out for this day's adventure around 2. First I dumped some trash, then rode to Nijiya. I had about $5.50 in change and I got some cold grilled mackerel for $4.50. I sat at a table with a bunch of people eating fancy shave ice / ice cream creations. I'm sure the smell of mackerel really enhanced their experiences haha! 

I had a musical instrument with me, and my next stop was all the way over to Starving Musician, where I told them I had about $400 sunk into this, would be happy to get $100, and they can probably get at least $250 for it. I wandered around the store while the guy did his research, and I got my $100, but in the form of a check. That's OK though, because it meant I could give myself permission to take $100 more of the bank. 

I rode over to Mitsuwa Marketplace next and got a bottle of green tea and salmon/tuna sushi. But first I'd gone into Kinokuniya to see if they had calligraphy pens. It turns out they do, but pretty expensive fountain pen ones. I wanted something simple and cheap so  I said maybe later, but not now. 

Right outside the door, was a lady who had a Brompton bike all folded up. So that got us talking. She was pretty tall, "What are you, 5-7, 5-8?" I asked, "Five-nine" she replied. I told her about my looking at Bromptons and my finding what's essentially a Brompton knockoff for $100. She told me about being in China and buying a bike for $300 and it had bags and everything and she was able to offload everything she was carrying onto the bike. I said, China? I've never been, been to Japan and Korea a couple of times each, but never got that far. I invited her to come eat with me, but she had to go. She was visiting the area from Berkeley. .It was a nice talk. 

I rode back along Stevens Creek, and figured I'd go to the little Japanese store that sells tons of pens in Santana Row. So I rode to Big-5 there, locked the bike, bought some paracord for $10 for a project, and walked over to "Satan's Row". Only to meet with, in effect, Satan Himself. It was a guy with a big Trump flag he had stretched between his hands, and I swear to God a Goddamned Trump mask, the kind that covers your whole head. 

So of course I got all up in his business, saying lovely things like "There won't be a warning shot" and "1000s of hours of practice for when it's time" etc. The trumptard responded with "All the same I love you" standard Christian horseshit. 

So I walked into Santa Row and checked out the stores. There's a jacket I like in Arcteryx but it's $400. And one a kind of like in Fjallraven for $300. I got to my little Japanese pen store and had to ask for help finding the calligraphy pens because I turn stupid when I go into a store, and for $13 I got a Pilot calligraphy pen of sorts, that uses those little plastic cartridges of ink. Or they had the same, more expensive, fountain pen set they had in Kinokuniya. The $13 one's fine for now. 

Now, walking back, I rehearsed, out loud because no one there gives a flying fuck and half of them are foreigners with no idea of American norms anyway, things to sing to Mr. Trump. "There's nobody here but us snipers" in the same melody as "There's nobody here but is chickens" and some other well-known tunes with lyrics about shooting, bombing, and otherwise unaliving Nazis and stacking the bodies up. I thought I had a pretty good schtick, but when I got to the intersection, Mr. Trumpanzee was gone. 

Gone! Now, there were some pretty tough looking Black folks around, so maybe they gave him a talking-to. But, I thought, I wonder if it was me? I've got a pretty good 1000-meter stare, plus my bad eye makes my gaze pretty scary anyway. And I don't say I'll do a thing unless I am 100%  prepared to do it. The idiot may have sensed that. 

I walked back to my bike, put all my change in the itty-bitty paper bag the stationary place had given me, gave it to the homeless guy living, apparently, on the sidewalk on the corner, and rode on outta there. 

I could afford to spend another $50 so I got eggs and two boxes of wine at Whole Foods. It was 7, and entering that magic time when the wind stops howling and things get a bit more quiet, and people are inclined to tip. But while I'd considered taking the trumpet with me I'd decided not to because I'm very lazy. But there were no petition-hustlers or beggars or Gypsies or anything. 

I rode back through San Pedro Square and of course it's destroyed. It's like this big corporate machine that doesn't really understand humans is trying to "encourage culture" but has no fucking idea how to do that. Imagine some huge alien beast, deciding something like, "I want to encourage art, so when I see an artist on the street, I'll have a City employee come up and throw a bucket of grey paint on them and their work, because throwing paint is creating art". 

In this case, they have the whole street blocked off and people can only sneak on these little ant-trail sidewalks on either side. It's hard for anyone able-bodied to cope with, and forget about if you're disabled. The street itself is coated with some kind of shitty grey paint, and the whole thing looks apocalalyptic and is a huge pain in the ass. 

I got, literally, a bag of books on the way back. So I'll be able to do some book trading this next week. 

And all day today,  I was overjoyed because I was walking normally. Dr. Google somehow knew what was going on with me, than I walked with an forward tilt, and led me to exercises and stretches, and I've been doing them (I'm old and need regular P.T. now) and I was walking normally. I could not wipe the smile off of my face. 

And on my way home, on 10th street, a car went by and a guy yelled "UH!!" at me so I went "UH!!" back and put on a big goofy grin so they'd know it was all in fun.