Rally 'round the flag.

 Well, that "Da Vinci" wine as more like "Da Almost Undrinkable" but drink it I did. Not only not a good taste but not really all that dry. If I choose to drink a Chianti, I'll stick with the stuff they sell at Sprouts. 

I really needed the sleep, I think. I went to bed at about 1AM, I think I woke up around 9, then went back to sleep a bit until around 1. I got up when I heard a car being parked right in front of the door here so that got me up. I told one of the guys next door that the car's gotta get outta here. And it was moved so that's good. 

I'm tired of having to tell the neighbors to move cars, though and I'm sure they're tired of my telling them so, so tomorrow I'm going to go over to one of the places that sell such things and get a stencil set and one of those cans of paint that can spray pointed straight down, and paint NO PARKING on those two spaces and that should help. 

I turned on the radio and there was some interview with some band I've never heard of before, "Bon Iver"? They were talking about performing at a Harris-Walz rally, and how the guy "had hardly touched a guitar in a year" and they played some of their "old Bon Iver songs" and their sound was thin, they "didn't have the biggest PA" and the guy felt bad for all those people who'd been waiting hours in the sun to see them, so then the guy started playing "an old Ry Cooder song" actually an old song from the Civil War, "Rally 'Round The Flag" and the whole mood changed. The crowd was "electrified" everyone knew the old tune, and things got "Real". 

Because the present day is very much like the time in which that song was written. Hell there are times I'm thinking I should go out and buy an AR and some ammo in case I have to fight. 

I've just listened to several versions of the song on YouTube and I like the version by The Weavers the best. Who doesn't love The Weavers? Since it's one of those old tunes that I probably heard as a little kid and onward, it's pretty familiar but I always like to listen to a tune to make sure I've got all the details right before adding it to my busking repertoire. 

Since I woke up so late, I'll be playing for the early evening crowd today. This is actually kind of good because if I went out for the noon crowd, like as not The Pieman would be there or one of those booths, which means I'd want to go to Sunnyvale and I might do really well there or not. 

Ope, gotta do my Harris donation for this week .... OK done it. 

In other news, I'm another 2 lbs down. Tapering down on wine and the keto diet have me feeling kinda lousy, but not too lousy to put in a good 3 hours or more on the bike yesterday and perhaps out-blow the ace hired gun ba'al tekiah at the service. Stuffed myself full of lox and drank a bottle of wine and I'm still 2 lbs down on my weekly weigh-in. People don't think so, but I've got a lot of lard on my carcass that's got to go. I just carry it well so I even fooled myself. 

The gift that keeps on giving dept.: Well, the number of incompetent hopeful assassins of Donnie is three now. This latest one, a "Sovereign Citizen", a believer in the same philosophy as the owner of the place I lived at in Gilroy. Being a good "SovCit" the guy had fake license plates on his very cluttered SUV (yep the Gilroy guy's a hoarder and this includes his car as well as house) and had several fake passports and of course, plenty 'o' guns. 

The guy's saying he's an "artist" and "the last person who would harm Trump" but knowing SovCits, the guy's been drooling since he heard Trump wants to set up concentration camps, and the guy's mad at him for not setting them up already and letting him be a guard. Crazy attracts crazy. 

I got going a little bit later than planned but not too bad. I set up at Whole Foods at 5:45 and started in. Unfortunately, however many times I'd listened to "Rally 'round the flag" I didn't have it fixed in my mind, so I just played other stuff. It went OK, lots of compliments for my playing, played Ave Maria twice without mistakes (Yehudi Menuhin just about made his career on this piece) and played the full 2 hours, or at least an hour and 45 minutes as the last 15 minutes were used up talking with a guy and then playing my sign-off, which is the old sign-off from the Lawrence Welk show. It always makes me smile because while the words went, "Good night, sleep tight, and may your dreams come true" we kids had it saying "Good night, sleep tight, and may your dreams come true, Have a fight, every night, until your black and blue" and so on. 

I'd made $53.75. I went into Whole Foods to shop and my groceries cost $32 and change so I handed the guy $33 in $1's and he was glad to get them, "I need singles". 

The ride home was nice, it was cool not cold. I got home, put things away, took a microwave the neighbors had left out, determined it doesn't work due to janky door switch(s) and took it apart so I have some stuff to list tomorrow. 

Finally time to relax with some cheese and olives and cucumber. Reddit is dying. I can read the titles but I can't read any of the actual discussions. And now I can't read anything of it at all. Is it because they can tell I've been reading Ha'aretz articles? That would be very petty but it does not surprise me these days.

It only makes me more firm in my line of thinking, that this high-tech stuff is going to go away eventually, and if you do something that depends on it, you're really going to hurt. My trumpet doesn't depend on the internet or even electricity. Being a sign painter or "Your Name In Hebrew" huckster or something doesn't depend on the internet or even on electricity. (I have seriously considered this last one because Tel Aviv is in dire need of a competent sign painter and doing signage in Hebrew would be good for my language skills. I just like music more, so far.) 

We'll have dial phones on copper lines again, and you'll often get in contact with friends by stopping by their place and seeing if they're home. We'll be back to considering a 30-hour work week or even a 20-hour one, like we were in the 70s, because less tech means less non-productive work to keep the whole thing going.