Last night I took a couple of things apart to have stuff ready to list today. I woke up at 12:30 and I guess I needed the sleep. I turned on the radio and good old NPR was talking about the coal miners in Appalachia.
The central question being, why had this area, so solidly Democratic, so heavily fallen for Rotten Donnie? All I'd ever heard about coal miners was how miserable the jobs were, being paid in "scrip", the pitched shooting battles between miners and "Pinkertons", if you were short of rent on your company-owned shack the property manager to to screw your wife, black lung, etc. If you mention coal mining/miners this is the picture that's going to come to mind.
The guy on the radio said that due to heavy Union agitation and solidarity, coupled with the oil crisis of the early 70's, plus the introduction of machines to do the hard work, miners became wealthy. He described a helicopter delivering a kid to a public school, and helicopters hovering over a football field because it needed drying out so the team could play better.
This prosperity went on into the 80s and a bit into the 90s. So this is not a case of beaten-down and ignorant peasants longing for their days of toil with an "idiot's spoon" (shovel) and a reliable bowl of gruel, this is the living memory of coal jobs being very good jobs.
This reminds me of pineapple jobs when I was a kid, jobs that I, due to my race, could never aspire to get. If you were the right race, a job in pineapple meant you could buy a house, start a business when you retired, send your kid to any college they wanted.
So these halcyon days, days of relating to the upper-middle-class family in The Brady Bunch, have largely gone. And along comes Dumpo, who's old enough to have been familiar with John L. Lewis, the famous union organizer, and probably has taken on some of his mannerisms or style in his rants. (I'm convinced my mother, who would have heard the odd Hitler rant in newsreels or on the radio, took on a bit of his style when she ranted at us.)
I looked up a Lewis lecture on YouTube and sure enough, there are some similarities. Lewis had a bit of a goldfish mouth, while Donny does not but seems to have taken on the mannerism of making a goldfish mouth even if it's not natural to his mouth shape. Lewis had rather epic hair, and I wonder if that was the inspiration for Donny's rug-like coif. Lewis was short and stout, hence his suits would have to be a big baggy to work, and Donny likes his baggy suits - he always reminds me of a kid who wears his older brother's clothes to see more grown-up.
It was a charismatic populist leader, Lewis, that the miners, by following him, created the good living of the early-70s to early-90s. Therefore, by following another populist blusterer, even if as evil as Lewis was good, they'll get that good life back again.
It's the same kind of stupid calculus that I did, deciding that studying electronics would lead to a good life for myself. It's a hard pill to swallow to realize the best you can do is manage poverty as well as you can. Do not aspire above your position.
I had a package that should have been at UPS about 5 minutes after they opened and the customer was (understandably) antsy so I told him I'd get it right out and did so leaving at 2. I took it over there and they have a system where you scan the package at a little kiosk then put it in the area with the other packages that have been scanned. So that's nice.
Then I went over to H Mart for things like hamburger, mackerel, veggies. Around back I picked up a bunch of thawing frozen fruit bars and 7 bottles of "vinegary chili paste sauce". I hurried over to Tom's and handed him the bag of frozen stuff, saying "Put this in the freezer right away" which he did. And gave him 4 bottles of the sauce because he likes to cook with Korean sauces.
Tom's getting over his covid but now has bronchitis he says, and I said the frozen fruit bars might help. A bit of small talk and then I said I have to get my groceries into the fridge, and rode back here.
A wholesome thread on r/homeless: https://www.reddit.com/r/homeless/comments/1fcpe9m/what_are_your_homeless_hobbies/ I see these folks as the few people who might have a chance to change from zombies back to humans. Like them, if I have to go to my Plan B, which is get a storage unit and sleep "wherever", maybe ultimately getting a car and living in the parking lot here, or renting a small office on 1st street, I'll have a lot of free time and honestly don't know if I'd spend it all on music or end up doing music and also some art.
The emotional block against art is strong with me, but I also have a lot more skill and appreciation of art than the average person.
Mainly I'm just trying to keep Ken's business alive, keep my skills improving even if slowly on the horn, and doing the Jewish things.
Some comments on my busking last night: That screaming guy is right, I should play some happier stuff too. And I think I may have busked the entire time with my damn fly open. Nothing to see but my sky-blue undies but it's not a good look. I believe Benny Goodman had one of his band tasked with making sure his fly wasn't down, so I guess I share something with the clarinet genius.
Also, the nice lady who'd been "tabling" for Harris and whom I talked with a bit, I'm pretty sure had dropped a $10. That's why I talked a fair bit with her. But when I looked, later, there was no $10 nor a $1 that was folded like the $10 had been.
Now, one of my "visitors" was a young Hispanic guy who was in love with my playing. First he asked what my instrument was called. That's the level of musical knowledge these days. He loved the sound, and I said he could go to any music shop and rent a horn, and learn off of YouTube. He was up here from L.A., and had to go back down there to get some papers in order or something, and was killing time until his Greyhound left. He went away and them came back and more adulation, but I wonder if, when he came back, he started by dipping into my tip box and snagging that $10. I like to think either I only thought there was a $10, or if there had been and the kid snagged it, it's probably the only reason he was able to eat that night. His love for the trumpet sure seemed genuine, and he tossed change both visits, the 2nd time more, maybe it was the change from the $10. I hope he gets a horn and gives it a go.
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