Gonna complain about a rabbi here

 OK so, last night I stayed up all night, took stuff apart and put the scrap out for the collectors, who in short order came by and got it. Listed 20 things on Ebay so I made my quota of 50 for the week. 

The cops actually came by and had a car camped out at each end of the parking lot and the illegal night club had no chance. I wonder if they gave the cops some lip the other night? I thought about this a bit and ... I think it's pretty evident to all concerned, the night club operators, the Tacos Chencho guy they sent over to me as messenger, the cops, that I've been here the longest by far, that I'm just here minding my own business, *not* going over there and bothering them, but they're coming over here and bothering me. 

I stayed up until 9AM doing my Ebay stuff and getting cleaned up, then took off with a bunch of packages, trash, the usual. Dropped off trash, dropped off donations, dropped off packages at the post office. Went to the bank to put my pay check in and the numbers all agree, so there's nothing funny going on with my bank account. I'm close to 13 grand, which I'm calling 10 grand because 3 of it is the IRS's money not mine haha. 

(Taxes are funny; and I'll even have to pay taxes on my Social Security income, the difference once I'm 65 being that I'll get a 2nd personal deduction which will make them much lower than otherwise.) 

I went over to Whole Foods after the bank, looking forward to getting one of their luscious bacon and egg croissants. And ... they didn't have them. They had a variety of wraps, essentially breakfast burritos, all wrapped up and in paper wrapping also. Yeah... the thing with the breakfast croissants was, people would mess with them. Take things out, put the bacon from two into one, etc. This is why we can't have nice things. 

So I just got things and went on my way. I rode for home and stopped at Nijiya and got what I call a "school lunch" bento and some kaki fry which is fried oysters. And a big "8 mate" bag of senbei because who cares about weight loss right now when I've got a bigger problem to try to get over first. 

I ate my bento and oysters and went to bed around ... noon? I woke up at 9PM and here I am. OK so one of the things I got at Whole Foods is a bottle of milk thistle capsules, which are the thing for liver damage and people who are heavy drinkers will often take these, as I used to. 

Well I don't touch alcohol any more, having learned my lesson. But I've been getting clear signs my liver is not happy. When I hurt my back, in one of my monthly consultations with the rabbi under whom I was endeavoring to convert to Judaism, he mentioned taking cinnamon. He puts a spoonful on his oatmeal every morning, he said. 

OK game on, I'd decided, and was having a teaspoon, probably more, of cinnamon with my morning coffee, the idea being to ease my aches and pains. Others will recommend it for "regulating blood sugar". But you can fuck up your liver on a teaspoon a day  https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6395486/

Dammit,  I don't care if Mr. Rabbi fucks up his own liver, but I don't want to damage mine! It's been through enough. 

The whole conversion-to-Judaism thing has been a harmful farce. It cost me money, time especially my Friday night busking times, and even my health as Judaism even has holidays where you get drunk, plus the wine each Friday so I'd given myself permission to be a drinker far longer than I'd have, otherwise. The stupid class I took was a major part of my life for months. 

And in the end I do *not* believe in the Torah, or in their idea of a "god" and especially not in their buddying-up with the right-wing side of US and world politics, yes, even their, Reform, most liberal strain of Judaism. 

Before I learned some of the truths about the place, I was going to retire in Israel which I thought was this lovely liberal paradise with free health care and public transit and beaches, and as the rabbi raved, "all the food is organic!". 

I was going to keep playing trumpet because trumpet is kind of the national instrument of Israel, the way the shakuhachi is the national instrument of Japan and flutes in general are big in Asian cultures. 

The whole thing's cost me money, time, and now, due to the cinnamon idiocy, my health?? The liver's an amazing organ, capable of great feats of regeneration, and I'll just have to take my milk thistle and try to eat healthy and hope for the best.  

And back home in Hawaii there's even a saying, "No make tanturan" which means, essentially, don't play the trumpet or don't make a big deal about yourself. Hell the only reason I got given a trumpet to play in Band was no one else wanted the thing. The cool kids played clarinet or flute. Or at least drums. 

Well, at least I can say I got a good look into Judaism and can speak with some authority when I say I am Not Interested. Not in it or in the politics that seem to go with it, right-wing politics. Or the brashness, the self-centered-ness, the wheedling, whining, the breaking of rules. In this sense, our present president might be considered to be not so much a wanna-be mob boss, but someone who has borrowed his tactics from the way a lot of powerful Jewish people do things. Hell his advisors are largely Jewish. 

 

Finally a practice

 OK so yesterday/last night I, after dealing with the scam phone call, decided I needed to get out, get some vigorous bike riding in, and some nice food. So I did my vigorous ride over to Nijiya where I spent almost $50 on a good meal - unagi bento plus salmon and tuna sashimi, a big carton of "Kinokuniya" cold black coffee, and even my favorite seaweed flavored peanuts. And a couple of expensive but good Japanese cucumbers. 

Then I got back to work on taking the components I wanted out of modules, and ended up with a couple boxes of aluminum and circuit boards and wire for the scroungers. The illegal night club set up but no where near the usual crowd, and the cops drove through but didn't stick around. 

By 6 in the morning or so my mind turned to practice, and I got a decent practice in. I'm still happy I treated myself to a brand new flute. It's really the way to go. There are tons of clanky old flutes out there, great if you want to learn to do flute repairs, but if you're a beginner, get a new Yamaha student flute and then you know if there are problems, they're you and not the flute. 

I say flute may be "life or death" and not only can competent playing give me a reliable source of money but also, I'm really not sure a life without being able to do something, is worth living. 

I surprised myself by waking up at 2:30 in the afternoon, earlier than I thought I might wake up. I packed two large things and took them to FedEx, got some fried chicken in H Mart and ate that sitting on the curb on the side of the building by the bike racks in time-honored tradition, then went back in for two interestingly-flavored types of potato chips. 

I gathered packing stuff (might as well get it now as the rain will ruin it tomorrow) and found a couple little things we'll get at least $200-$300 for so that's nice. 

I got back here and tried the potato chips which didn't taste a thing like what they were supposed to taste like, but the "Salty butter" ones, while being neither particularly salty nor tasting like butter, remind me a lot of "One Ton" won ton pi chips they sell back home.  

 

Is flute a matter of life or death?

 The kind of shit that goes on around here.... so last night I was prepared to, since I was functioning on 4 hours of sleep, get to bed early (for me) like at midnight and since I was having trouble making it to midnight, had just made a nice cup of coffee and was going to read an interesting book I'd gotten from one of the little free libraries. 

There was a knock on the door and since the guys next door were just leaving (cleaning business) and since the guy would only say, through the closed door, that he's "my neighbor" I thought it was one of them. Since I wouldn't go away I opened it. 

I didn't recognize the guy but there's a fair amount of turnover next door, and even the owner, bless him, doesn't speak English well enough to hold any kind of a conversation. So this guy was asking if their music bothered me and I kept saying No, they're great neighbors and they always are done playing music by 10 or so, so it's no problem. (And it isn't. Best is when they actually have a live band come in. They like their music.) 

With the talking  back and forth, it eventually became evident that this was not about the guys next door but about the illegal night club. While the guy told me they just want to be a good neighbor, I told them they're awful neighbors, there's noise, people pissing all over the place, fights, etc. And I only call the cops when something *really* goes on like guys banging on my door, a fight, etc. 

What's got me pissed off at them is, the guy - who's either a worker or the owners of Tacos Chencho and again, an actual good neighbor - is that "they saw on the video camera that I was talking to the cops and they don't want me talking to the cops". 

I told the guy I'm a citizen (he said he is too, been living in the area 25 years) and for that matter, a 3rd or 4th generation Californian and I'll call the cops whenever I feel like it, that that's how thing work here. And since that building (that the illegal night club is in) is of a different owner than this one, why are they sending people over here to bother me? Here I was going to have a nice quiet evening, etc. 

Then the guy said they were offering to pay me off. In other words, a bribe. I told him what they could do with that. The whole talk went on and on, and I finally said we've talked enough, Bye. And shut the door and went in. My coffee was actually still warm, so I sat and relaxed a bit with that. And then called the cops. 

When they came around I told them about the whole incident, and they're thankful that I got the information on who the building belongs to and I said I'm only calling them when there's something really going on like guys going around pounding on doors, a fight, etc. I told them about their telling me not to call the cops, and their trying to bribe me. So more goes into the file... 

When that was done I was far too angry to sleep or sit down with a book, so I went in back and dug out some things to take apart (mainframes with a bunch of modules in them) and took the mainframes apart plus also found some other stuff that we really don't need around here, and put the metal out for the scroungers to pick up. 

Meanwhile, the night club set up but somehow they kept the clientele out of this building's side of the parking lot, and Lo and behold the cops came around an hour or two later and shut them down. 

The reason for this is, with these illegal clubs, is sooner or later someone had a disagreement with someone else and someone gets shot. I told them about the little club set up in the backroom of this little hamburger place up the street. It was a Vietnamese gambling club and a guy killed another guy and it shut down and has been closed ever since. (And this was a place with a food and drink license!) 

So they are interested in, and will check up on, places like this to prevent criminal activity. 

By the time I was at a stopping point in tearing the things down, it was indeed about time to get to bed, anyway. Almost 6AM. I went to bed and slept until almost 6PM.  

The kind of shit that goes on around here does not make my life easy. Yes, I'm getting paid decently ($400 a week, good for Silicon Valley) and am trying to save half of it. Yes I'm not paying rent. Yes I'm working  for a friend with whom I'm closer to being a member of his family than a mere worker. 

But my plan is to leave here in a year, with enough skill developed on the flute and at least some headway on the shakuhachi, that I can busk with the flute, and at least convince the few shakuhachi players/teachers back home in Hawaii that I'm serious.

Yes, Hawaii actually has a few shakuhachi plyers/teachers with ranks conferred on them by Japanese masters. That makes Hawaii the US state with the highest number of shakuhachi masters by far. 

I went to hold off as long as possible, collecting Social Security, but I have to take into consideration things like my health, how much longer I can stand the electronics surplus/Ebay game, and the health of Ken, my employer, who since I just turned 63, makes him at 14 years older 76 or 77. 

So the plan is to leave for home right when I'm turning 64. A wrinkle in this is that Medicaid in California isn't means-tested but it is in Hawaii but to secure even a room for rent I'll have to show I have plenty of money in the bank so leaving in a year means being a year without health insurance or chancing losing all my savings, or if I wait *another* year I'll have Medicare. 

But waiting a year is bad enough. In two years, will the US be in another world war or somehow have travel shut down? 

So it's a complicated equation. 

When I say flute might be a matter of life and death, I kind of mean it. I read Reddit, well, too much, with regular subreddits being r/homeless, r/almosthomeless, r/vagabond, etc. I see tons of people with basically *no* skills.  They're very unhappy people. 

Maybe it's a middle-class thing as I actually grew up middle-class until things really started falling apart when I was 11 or 12. The big house, the books, Oh tons of books. I guess those are to be expected when your father was an English major at an Ivy. There were expectations that you were going to do things; like this sibling was going to be a writer and I was going to be an artist and so on. 

(In James Galway's earlier, better, autobiography he mentions in his just-above-starvation Northern Ireland childhood, kids tended to home in on "their thing" that they did. His was flute; another kid he mentions had chosen boxing, and so on.)  

I'm convinced it can be life-saving to be able to show that one has some skill, preferably one that those of the middle-class and upward hold in high regard, when one is, like 90% of the population here, in real danger of being out on the street and having little more than the clothes on one's back. 

I got done writing this and then got a phone call. From Chase Bank they said. I don't bank with Chase,  I said, and hung up. They called right back. According to the caller, whose voice had an annoying way of fading in and out, an account had been set up in my name at Chase, with $4300 in it, sent to it by a lady with the last name Valenzuela. The money had been sent by Zelle, oh yes, I have a Zelle account now too. According to him. 

Finally this helpful(?) gentleman wanted me to, since I don't have a smart phone, download some program called Desk something and I said "Ohhh no! I'm not downloading anything!" and the phone went to those weird beeps and the line was dead. 

The voice fading in and out thing is probably a pretty good indication that it's a scam call, probably from overseas. Somehow they had my phone number and claimed someone had to have my social security number to set up this supposed account. The guy had even asked if I went on public networks (no) and I said also that I burn any papers with those numbers on them. 

Now, I can't prove it's anything more than a coincidence that I got this call. But the Colombians running the illegal nightclub had tried to bribe me.  It's a hell of a coincidence. So I'm going to check with my bank as soon as I can on Monday, when I deposit my check. Really, all I need to do is check that my calculation of my balance matches their calculation of my balance. If it's down by $4300 then I know I've got a real problem and it's time to pull out the rest of the money and go un-banked or something. But I have a funny feeling things will be OK. 

 

A 2-Karen day

 Last night (really, early this morning) I got myself all cleaned up so when I woke up all I'd have to do is the minimum before heading out the door. I wanted to wake up at 1 in the afternoon but it was more like noon because the people on one side of me had big trucks out there, taking away from oil drums. 

I had also, last night, met with a police officer who had told me it would be real help if I could figure out who owns the building, one of two here that share the parking lot, that houses an illegal night club that's annoying as hell because it operates 2-5AM and the clientele make noise, piss everywhere,  get in parking lot fights, etc. 

So it was a busy night, and when I woke up I had not had enough sleep but that's the way it goes sometimes. I took off at 1:20 or so, dropped off trash, dropped off donations at the Japantown little free library, picked up a can of coffee and some food at Nijiya, mailed a couple packages at the post office, stopped at the bank.... 

Well, the pay check Ken had written me was post dated the 27th which means I could actually not deposit it. I was cheerful about the whole thing and will see them on Monday. 

This was all OK because I was headed to Menlo Park to sell something which is how I'm planning to live for most of the next year, putting my pay checks in the bank. I ate my food and drank my coffee on the train, got over to the place, sold the thing, and that was that. 

On the way back I got off the train in Sunnyvale and checked out the Goodwill there, and found a nice jacket for $13 that will come in handy this winter. I had a big orange one last winter, which got kind of dirty looking and I got tired of it and donated it. 

On my way back, when I got on the train headed for home from Menlo Park, I noticed a gal with a neat older bike, a Bridgestone. I thought nothing of it (not even why she wasn't in the bike car) and sat down, and then realized she was having a "discussion" with this train conductor guy. She insisted he'd been "condescending" to her and was doing to write "a complaint!" and when she got off I called out, "'Bye Karen!" I mean, geez, if I do something dumb on the train, like for instance, am unable to figure out that there's a bike car, I'd expect the train personnel to be a little sarcastic. They put up with a lot, and hey, they run the train, they know what they're doing. Maybe it's because I've been in the Army and "Karen" hasn't. 

After buying the jacket in Sunnyvale and getting back to Whole Foods on The Alameda where my bike was locked up, I bought some stuff, swung by the Amazon place for bubble mailers, and was tootling on home when I had to get around an SUV that pulled into the bike lane in front of this high end health club sort of place, and had to squeeze by. "Excuse me, Karen!" I said sarcastically and that pissed off the blonde, middle-aged lady driving the thing so, good.  

I got back here and now I'm in for the night, whew. The whole ethos of this place is, "You're not here to make friends, you're here to work!". 

I did notice, though, that at Whole Foods there on The Alameda, at straight-up 6PM, there were no petition-hustlers, child-charity scammers, or any of the usual assortment of grifters so if I were practiced up enough to busk, I'd have been able to get in an hour or two. In fact once I'm skilled enough to start busking, it will not be that difficult to take the flute with me and play at various places. 

 

New flute plays like a whiz!

 I finally got time to play the new flute and wow, it plays great! It's easier to do harmonics or what in trumpet we call "lip slurs" and I dunno what the flutists call it yet. 

Now I have to wonder what to do with the old one ... I'll probably stick it on Craig's List. I have a feeling it has enough problems that it's not worth fixing. 

The trouble these days is finding the time to practice every day. But I have to be ready to busk all I can this Xmas season... 

I just have one trumpet left out of the 2 trumpets and 2 cornets I had for sale, and the trumpet is bound to go soonish because it's by a noted maker. In fact if I could figure out why it buzzes, I'd consider just keeping it for a while. If the buzz is due to a loose brace, I'd be tempted to just fix it since I've got a torch and some silver solder around here. 

 

 

Maybe I'll play it today

 After getting back here I did Ebay stuff and watched the antics of the illegal night club that's set up in this complex, in the other one of the two buildings. In the past I'd submitted a ton of complaints to every place, the police, Crimestoppers, etc. Even called the cops when something I could call them on, like a parking lot fight, happened. 

I'd finally given up but now they seem to be on the cops' radar and they come by each night. Like last night. It was only a Thursday night, the slowest of their Thu-Sun evening schedule, but about an hour into their operation which is normally 2-5AM, the cops showed up in force and ran 'em out. 

I'd feel bad about ruining someone's fun but there's drinking, they piss everywhere including in front of my shop, and I'm pretty sure the young girls being taken in there are not being taken willingly in all cases. So I just sit back these days and watch the fun. I keep forgetting to get one of those air horns, though, to blow when one of the guys pisses outside my door. 

Such is life in Silicon Valley and I'm doing better than most people. 

In the end, by the time it was about 5AM I was too tired to think of anything but sleep so I went to bed. 

So I woke up at 2 in the afternoon which is early for me given that the stupid illegal night club has me on a night-owl schedule, and thus has time to pack a bunch of Ebay things and arrange an appointment on Monday evening with a guy who saw my Craig's List ad and wants to buy my trumpet. 

Trumpet's out, flute is in! 

It's going to take me years to get competent enough on the shakuhachi to play in public, so in the interest of playing something that requires the same sort of breathing, I'm learning the concert flute because I feel I can be ready to play Xmas carols this Xmas season and from then on, be off and running as far as busking goes. 

I also have the plan of saving all of my pay checks and living on the proceeds of selling things off and busking for the next year. At the end of the year I plan to move back to Hawaii where I grew up and just live off of Social Security and busking. 

Hawaii may not be ideal but it's where I grew up, I know where everything is, I can fish and gather shells at the beaches where I grew up doing these things, and it's cheaper than here. 

It's also my rebellion against The American Way which is summed up in the saying, "He who dies with the most toys, wins". The idea that a person could be happier if they had less, had as few "toys" as they could dispense with, and could do some traditional art be it sumi-e painting or playing a flute that's just a hunk of bamboo with some holes in it, is more opposite to The American Way Of Life than anything else I can conceive of.  

 

A flute is played?

 I got back here and of course I had to do all sorts of things. I've been putting flute practice off until before bed but I may have to re-think this plan. 

Yesterday being Wednesday Ken, my boss, came by as he does. Normally I get my weekly pay check but he'd taken a literal truckload or two of old fluorescent light bulbs, mercury bulbs, etc. to the dump and had to pay $500 (!!) to do so. So that was a hit and the $850 or so he'd has to pay to his storage place was another hit so when he came over it was "I didn't bring my check book because I'll pay you next week". 

The guy lives paycheck to paycheck. I call it having the financial acumen of an 11 year old, but not to his face, naturally. He's actually a great guy and a close friend, as much as anyone has one these days. This area's motto could be, "You're not here to make friends, you're here to work!". 

In any case Ken and I shot the bull for an hour or two, as we do each week, and that's how I learned that disposing of the light bulbs had cost so much. So I felt safe in relating to him how I'd gone through the warehouse and except for a few I know we can get some money out of, taken all the light bulbs here and put them out for free on Craig's List and what was left, made to go away. 

I'd also taken the last things out of one of the storage units and swept it out and had it all ready for the storage place to rent to someone else. The units cost $200 a month each so that's some money saved. 

I did other stuff too like add up all the things someone Ken knows had placed with us on consignment and totted up how much we're asking for the things, so Ken has some numbers in hand to offer the guy a flat sum so he'll stop being antsy for money. I scolded Ken (again) about how taking things on consignment is asking for trouble and financial loss. 

The guy's hardly a boss because half the time I'm telling *him* what to do. We're more like two friends who work on a project, this business such as it is, together. It works out pretty well, as well as any electronics surplus business can work these days. I'm reminded of a James Michenerl historical novel, Centennial I think? There's a description of the killing off of the buffalo, and in the end there's one character, named "Calendar", who goes around collecting buffalo bones to grind up for fertilizer. That's us; living on the bones of what used to be a lively electronics industry many decades ago. 

After Ken left I had plenty more things to go like photograph a bunch of thing and put half of them on Ebay before Ebay's system started fucking up and it was my cue to call it quits. And by that time it was 4AM and I was too tired to even look at my new flute. 

 

A flute is born

 Today is my 63rd birthday and today a flute is born. Now, really, this new flute was made in a factory far away but one could say a flute is really born when someone makes it their own by buying and playing the thing.

I'd checked with the music store last week and they were out of Yamaha student flutes. "We're getting some in next week, or maybe the week after". I called on Monday and they were still not in yet, so I called today, Wednesday, and "We just got them in yesterday". I said it was my birthday and I could not think of a better day to buy a new flute. 

I had to ride my bike over to the post office and FedEx first, to drop off some packages. And I'd forgotten to put my lock in the bike back so after that I had to touch bases here at the shop anyway to pick it up. 

So I left here at 5, and rode over to Whole Foods where I picked up a bottle of black coffee, a bottle of yogurt drink, and one of those little packages of salami and cheese. I locked the bike up there and got on the good old #22 bus and during the hour's ride to the music store, I had my food and drink. 

It was about 6:40 when I got to the music store, and they had a nice new Yamaha model 222 there for me. The gal opened the box and yep it's a flute all right. 

I have an older model, a 221 I overpaid for from a guy on Craig's List and it's a bit clanky. In fact, the exercises in the Trevor Wye book 1 sounded suspiciously sad until I figured out that one screw needed adjusting so a certain pad would come down when it should, and making the exercises sound in a major key, as they should. There's other stuff wrong too, but nothing else that I can tell affects the playing. 

I'd thought though: I really ought to treat myself to a brand-new flute, even though they're north of $1200 by the time you factor in the tax. That was the price on every web page, including theirs. So I was really surprised when, when they were out of them, the gal at the music store had told me they sell them for $700 or so. 

I thought, Yeah, sure, well, I'll make sure to bring enough money and if the $700 or so is for a lightly used rental, I might consider that. (I know that West Valley Music recently bought out a failed music store, including a newish fleet of rental instruments that music store had just bought.) 

But hope, it was a hair under $740 and I peeled off $740 and got a bit of change, and in no time was walking back to the bus stop with my new flute, in its case, which is in a box, under my arm. 

I got back to Whole Foods, got a few things and some meat loaf and potatoes from the hot bar and ate, and rode back here.