Walmart Wine

 I've got to say, Walmart's Oak Leaf wine is pretty good. And it's about $8 cheaper per box than Black Box. That Chilean stuff was a disaster and I left the box out, with about a liter in it, for the bums. Eventually a bum of the type that considers having tires on a bike effete and snobbish, picked it up and went into the alley (between the two buildings here, that's a nest of bums in there) I bet he, or they, had quite the headache in the morning. 

The name of the Walmart wine turned me off at first as Oak Leaf is close to a brand called Turning Leaf that was advertised heavily about 20 years ago. They should have named it Turning Stomach I concluded at the time. 

The stream of bad news is nearly continuous. We've got 4 months to go until the election, and even then the "fun" may only be starting. Between Donnie's little fake-assassination stunt and his choosing as VP a guy who hated him and is a blatant opportunist, is not going over well with everyone. 

Good discussion  https://www.reddit.com/r/homeless/comments/1e5fb8e/what_kind_of_jobs_are_good_for_homeless_people/ on r/homeless about what kind of jobs you can actually do when you're smelly, tired, sunburned, etc. Some of the ideas are good, and the best, I feel, are the ones about being an artist or an entertainer. Not only are the best occupations the ones that were good occupations 100s or 1000s of years ago, but it's also good to choose one that's not dependent on having a strong back as that's often off the table once you turn 40. 

Once you factor in wacky shelter or day center hours, and how much "stuff" you need to ply your trade, music comes out well as long as you're playing an instrument that predates the use of electricity, or of art, the simplest types of art like sketches/portraits/caricatures with easy to obtain materials like china markers. You have to ask yourself, Can you do this while living in a pup tent? 

Even playing guitar can be a challenge. Acoustic guitars don't deal well with weather extremes, electric guitars have finicky necks and need amplification, and they all eat strings. Plus there are a ton of  merely OK guitarists out there. So to make a living with a guitar you need to be really good, or a good singer with OK guitar skills. 

The trumpet, or the cornet rather, was a very popular instrument about 150 years ago. The saxophone hadn't caught on yet, the clarinet was too fussy, and here was a simple, durable, instrument that you could play a lot on and it would be played loud enough to be heard all across the town square. So in old books you see references to playing the cornet for fun such as in one of the Little House On The Prairie books a guy who's kind of "wild" and had served in the Civil War took out his "bugle" and played all sorts of popular songs. Or something  I read, Twain maybe? About being on a train and a guy pulls out a cornet with the same effect as a guy pulling out a guitar these days. Music and jollity. 

So I think I made a good choice, or I'm lucky that it chose me. How could Mr. Peyton in Band have known this? To declare "You're gonna play trumpet" and for it to be true something like 50 years later? 

Although its a constant stream of bad news on the radio, good old NPR has to lighten things up a bit so they ran a heartwarming piece about a "Palestnian" Lutheran, who's preaching in English and Arabic. I'm sure he's eager to share the good philosophy of Martin Luther, who was a foaming-at-the-mouth anti-Semite. The guy probably has copies of Luther's "On The Jews And Their Lies" for his followers.