The water bottle rule

 Over the last few days I've done quite a bit of thinking about how I got kicked out of playing at the Campbell Whole Foods. I'm pretty certain the male Karen asked if I wanted water or anything as a test. And that the female Karen was lying through her yellowed teeth about not having him come to her and complain about me. 

So the rule from here on out is, if offered that classic charity move, a bottle of water, to accept. That gives the Karen offering nothing to bitch about and they get to be a hero and turn your entire life around by buying you a 78c bottle of water. At least that's how they'll see themself as they drive off in their $100k douchemobile. 

In all fairness, the sidewalk in front of the Campbell Whole Foods is a bit narrow and I always felt a bit odd busking there. That I got no complaints with Whole Foods personnel as well as everyone else parading back and forth in front of me made me think I was no problem. 

But this is Campbell. If you look at the demographics of this area, there are actually a lot of white people. So where are they? Because they're sure not downtown or in my usual haunts. The answer is, they're in places like Campbell. And white culture is big on backstabbing. It's almost a cornerstone of white culture. So there's no simply saying "Hey, we have rules against busking or petitioning here" they sent the male Karen to probe my defenses by offering something I really didn't need, like a bottle of water (as we say in busking land, a mild case of dehydration is your friend) and I, like an idiot, told the guy I actually eat and drink and brush my teeth etc., and am set to play without really needing anything, it's mainly just money I'm playing for. 

That's an Israeli level of directness. American white culture can't stand directness. It's always done in the backstabbing way. I remember a sergeant in the Army buddying up to me and offering to sell me a pair of boots he had (which I turned down for being too big) and behind my back he was complaining about me. Or my paternal grandmother, telling me to let her know when I'm ready to go to college and I could move to her place, live in a trailer in her yard, and go to college. But when the time came it was Sorry, fuck you, I've got mine etc. 

A classic example is when I left for the army in the first place. My WASP father said he'd drive me to the airport. My older sister, the Punahou snob, said she'd drive me to the airport. When I had to leave for the airport, neither of them showed up. We all lived in the same house and they were both off ... somewhere. Due to working at the local gas station I had some money and I called a cab and got myself to the airport. I never even got an apology from either of them either. 

A couple of days ago there was an interesting show on the radio where a lady was talking about how to deal with narcissists and it helped me understand some things. Like, as a kid I learned not to ask for anything because it would only give whoever  I was asking the pleasure of telling me, "Fuck you, I've got mine". In a narcissist society, I was actually standing up for myself in this way which is good but as the lady said, it's also bad because it keeps one from communicating and asking and finding people who will actually help. 

I think it's good to try to understand these things. For instance, I remember my mother as someone who could not keep friends, but she may have been stuck between a rock and a hard place. By her generation there may not have been much of the "old culture" to go back to, and the feeling that the old culture is old-fashioned and "square" and uncool and all that may have been very strong. Yet, getting along especially in Hawaii means being very Christian. Hawaii's like the South in that way. 

I think my mother was trying to reach back a bit to the old culture before we moved to Hawaii though. Hence my memory of her entertaining the older lady from Austria and talking about Israel. Hell that could be a reason Dad moved us to Hawaii - we'd be near his WASP aunt, our "Aunt Mary" who had this ghastly crucifix on her wall, right over her bed. And that much harder for Mom to take us kids and be off somewhere. 

Oh, the intrigues that happen in families! Father moving us to the middle of the Pacific to try to keep us together with him. Plus there's the theory my older sister holds that a friend of my father's, a Mr. B-, somehow defrauded my father of "all of his money" as if he had much of it. Programming computers is not a job that will get you anywhere, money-wise. 

So here's my Mom trying to befriend some neighbor, and pretty soon it's a literal "Come to Jesus" talk. We were recruited hard. One of my younger sisters went to Sunset Beach Christian School for a while on some kind of a scholarship (the was the "whitest" looking of all of us, taking after my father with big blue eyes, freckles, and brown hair with just a bit of curl) and the youngest got taken in by the extreme "born-again" type Christians, and these days, well, if there's ever a pogrom in Hawaii, I expect her to be as involved in it as she can be. 

Mom always thought Christianity was weird, and I still think it is. I remember when we were still living in Hawaii Kai, a Jewish lady started a deli in the nearby shopping center and mom used to hang out with her and talk. The deli had big Kosher dill pickles for 5c, and I remember standing on the street corner waiting for the light to change, just savoring one. So my mom sure seemed to gravitate toward Jewish folks. 

Trumpism. It's "Trumpism" on the radio, in the same way the Brits talked about "Hitlerism". We're in the nail-biting time. I was never this nervous about Y2K. I sold my guns to Ken with the idea that if it comes to where I need guns I should have been out of here by then. But now I just don't know. 

Today I decided I'd busk in the evening like I used to, when the wind's died down and it's a lot quieter, and cooler. I ended up feeling like I had tons of time, which I used to put more capacitors away, put things away, just general things around here. 

I decided I'd play the 7-9PM time slot, but actually got to Whole Foods at 7:30 and since I was all prepared, set up and started right in. It went slowly, but some interesting things happened. The first thing is, a big older SUV pulled up and its occupant took a ton of time to crawl out, barely being able to move apparently and using one of those walker things. I realized he was the skinny white guy who used to set up a table and big signs and hassle people with his begging and his extreme-right conspiracy theories. 

The guy hobbled into the store and a short while later hobbled out with some groceries. But he didn't leave. When a lady dropped a tip and we started talking about Harris, and then she left, he yelled out the window, "Did you hear about Harris?" I called back, "Yeah! She's running for President!" Then he yelled, over and over, "Harris! Hit and run!" I had no idea what he was talking, or more like shouting about, but was sure it was some kooky theory, so I started playing again, loudly .That shut him up. 

The thing is, he didn't drive off because he was probably planning to set up his Table 'O' Hate and was waiting for me to leave. Fine, I thought, I just won't leave. 

Next came the tweakers, a black/white couple, skinny and twitchy, with the (white) guy with his pants literally half off of his naked ass cheeks. They came around to bother me and I got my pepper spray out and held it in my hand. I said I didn't have any money, then the guy got offended and just wanted me to know I should play more Dylan. I did the old ignore-them-while-watching-them-carefully routine and since tweakers are short on patience, they eventually wandered off. 

And eventually, Grandpa Hate drove off too. Haha I hope I made his night. I had only maybe a half hour left at most, and I'm not sure I got a tip at all in the 2nd hour. Now I play some sad stuff, generally so sad it's sweet, or so sad it's funny like St. James Infirmary. A guy charging his SUV down at the other side of the parking lot didn't agree and screamed something like "DON'T PLAY THAT SAD MUSIC! I CAN'T HAVE IT IN MY LIFE!" so from there on I played happier things. I eventually had had enough at 9:45 and packed up. 

I'd made $19.74. And spent about $24 in Whole Foods so basically I'd gone out and gotten some practice in, bought some groceries, and my wallet was only about $5 lighter. 

And I found a bunch of books on the way home. Book run on Tuesday I think. 

I checked out this "Harris hit and run" thing and it's a hoax. Someone put some effort into it, setting up a Wordpress site that purports to be a California TV station but there's no such station, used some random photos, a fictional reporter, etc., and put this story on line then the fictitious TV station ceased to exist a few days later. This is the kind of shit the MAGA crowd falls for. I could try to tell him the story's not true when/if I see him again but I don't know if I will. I remember checking out something else bizarre he told me a while back and it was utter BS also. What a world that guy must live in.