I ended up staying up all night pretty much, until 4AM at least. I also drank 1 bottle of cheap wine and got into my good Friday night wine to the tune of about 1/3 of that.
I could not get myself motivated to get out and busk for the lunch crowd, considering it was almost noon when I woke up.
I could not get myself motivated to even go out, until I remembered that Whole Foods has a habit of closing at 6 on holidays. So I left here at a quarter after 5 with my trumpet and tip box.
I got there at 5:45, got two bottles of cheap wine and a bottle of milk thistle capsules because if I'm gonna drink I'm going to take one of those morning and evening as part of the regime. That came to about $29 which I put on my card. I also asked when they were closing. "6, yep, 6".
I stashed my things in the bike bags and took off for the Old Spaghetti. I played for half an hour and it was awful - I got a dollar. I took off and did a little ride around downtown and it was like the neutron bomb had been used - hardly any people. There was *one* person at Discovery Park.
I decided I have my trumpet in-hand and if I go back home I'll get distracted and not practice, so I'll go back to the Old Spag and treat it as a practice.
It was very slow going. One guy came up "This is all I have!" tossed $2 in quarters in. Very welcome. A large Hispanic family seemed to hold an impromptu knesset in the middle of the painted walkway and it ended in one of the young ones being sent over to put in ... a dollar. An old Christian couple put in $2 wrapped in one of those horrid leaflets - I made sure they saw me toss the leaflet in the trash.
Some young guys came by and one made like he was putting something in but didn't, and they laughed hysterically over it. I got the impression they'll be laughing over that one dumb joke for the rest of the night.
At one point, after a song, I heard clapping from a table in front of the Old Spag. I picked up my tip box and went over, and they gave me a $5, not bad. The guy who'd clapped wanted me to try "'My Favorite Things' by John Coltrane".
So I went back to playing and put it in my rotation and played it several times. A short, very fat, man came out of the Japanese grill I was actually in front of and said he couldn't hear me but enjoyed watching me. I said he could just imagine I was playing the theme to "Keeping Up Appearances" which is a very complicated cornet piece. (He was a Brit.) We had a nice conversation about being able to read music vs. playing by ear. He plays piano and can't play without music in front of him, and I said I can make myself read music, using F-A-C-E and Every Good Boy Does Fine etc., but I find it much easier to play by ear. Both systems are good, we decided.
It was just very, very slow and eventually, after 8, I packed up. I went over to the nice family again and asked if they'd hear me playing "My Favorite Things" and they had and appreciated it. They wanted to know where I was from and I said, "California, but spent most of my time growing up in Hawaii". We had a little talk about that place, and one of the ladies passed me another $5 so that was nice.
My impression is there's a lunch crowd, perhaps a very good, "tippy" one, then it dies 'way down, then there's a dinner crowd. Probably 7:30 to 9:00 in the evening is a good slot. Once it gets dark the bums come out.
I rode home, hearing tons of bangs and booms and sirens. Riding up Commercial to 10th, I acquired a couple of "friends", a guy on a cheapo mountain bike and his ol' lady on a folding bike. I said "Neat folding bike! I just got one myself". We got to the intersection and Mr. Bum tried riding on through, which you really can't do there. As he escaped a casual death I called out something like "Too many cars! There always are here". As the light changed I said "Now!" and now I had the bum following me. Maybe he thought I was trying to "charm" his skanky friend by talking to her. He was saying things but I'm not sure if to her or to me, or how friendly they were. So I applied the Eddy Merckx method (with a nice stiff headwind to help) and simply pedaled harder and faster and got out ahead.
I took a couple of twists and turns coming back in here just in case, but I'd lost the bums. I fixed a big bowl of tuna salad and having a big tall can of PBR from TAK Market.
So I'd busked about 2 hours. As mentioned, it was very slow. One thing was my endurance was better, I've become better at noticing when I get tired my vibrato would go away but this time I gave myself more breaks and worked on a "beautiful sound" all through. So I'll have to say it was a good practice session.
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