On r/busking someone said something like, "You'd better not mention income because the IRS has eyes everywhere" and it reminded me that I'd just gotten a letter from the IRS. I need to fill out out a form to find out if I'm eligible for an up to $600 refund. If I'm eligible and I get half of that, that's the cornet.
Or cornet-shaped object. I put it, in its box with the teeny screw bouncing around in the accessory compartment, up in the loft and the new Bach mouthpiece is here in its box, still sealed in the little bag, on my desk.
I want to get a block of time I can work on the cornet, cleaning it and putting some new corks in the water keys. The horn's got some miles on it. In fact leaky water keys could go a lot towards making it seem like the valves don't have good compression.
But the $300 I spent on it kind of got my urge to have a cornet again out of my system. Maybe I should keep a little list on an index card keeping track of how much I earn busking with it so I can see how long it takes to pay for it by playing it.
The two $700 alternatives, the Yamaha at Starving Musician and the Schagerl "Academika" would be just plain ol' student level cornets, although either one would be short enough to stuff into a bike bag (the Connstellation isn't, sad to say) and the Schagerl is a beautiful little thing.
It's just that after reading up on the Connstellation cornet it seems like it's an outlier having a very large bore. And there's another reason. Years and years ago when I lived in Newport Beach, I'd bought, from a music store in the city of Orange, a Connstellation trumpet. I joked about it, calling it a Connstipation, but that's only because I sounded like shit back then. I should never have given it up. In fact I should become much more of a "hoarder" with respect to musical instruments. I'd not mind a bit still having the King Master cornet I had, which was indeed short enough to stuff into a bike bag, and which I got onto the stage with, for a brief bit, at Cafe Stritch.
I had a pretty good collection of mouthpieces too. The most interesting was, when I read that Chet Baker played a Bach 6A, I was not able to get one but got a 5A which you can still get and it gave me a "Chet Baker" sound. I had a 3D, which was too shallow for me really, and I didn't like the sound. But I also had a Yamaha Bobby Shew Jazz, and that's a good one. It's just a little more shallow than a 3C. A Bobby Shew Lead I have no interest in because it's going to be on the other side of a 3D which I'd already found I don't like.
Ebay sales are awful right now and Tom and I think it's because everyone's attention is on the "Kamala and Donnie show". Ken's on the hook for a couple more years on the lease anyway and he can keep going on, but I'm not going to consider things to be guaranteed past that and that's assuming Ken will keep soldiering on health-wise. And that I will.
I assume I may have to spend a final year here in San Jose, renting a room or a small office in a building in Japantown and sleeping in there on the sly which is allowed in that building as long as you're neat. Maybe Stylish Black Guy who told me about it is still in there. This is why I take part in as much as I can in the temple, though. It's my long-term survival plan. It could be someone will have an attic or garage my Social Security will pay for, while I go through the "it's not a sprint, its a marathon" conversion and application for moving to Israel process.
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