Sunday, July 12, 2026

Slow, muggy, Sunday

 I took another large thing apart last night, and left the parts out front. Since busking counts for practice, I didn't have practice to worry about, and went to bed. 

When  I woke up, the parts I'd left were all gone, and the ones from the thing before that. So the crackhead(s) is back on the prowl for scrap metal, which saves me some work. 

The plan was to play in Sunnyvale today, and I left here around 5. By the time I got to Sunnyvale and I'd started, it was 7. And I'd taken the train, too. So no matter how I do it, it's 2 hours between Sunnyvale and here. (It's 3 hours each way between here and Santa Cruz.) 

The first hour went OK, and I made $35. The plan was to play from 7:00 to 8:30 but at 8 things just ... died. The weather was warm and muggy and felt like there was a big lid over everything. My final tip came from an old couple; He said he used to play cornet, and has a bunch of mouthpieces still, and She put $2 in the box and we talked a bunch about how "underground" jazz has become these days. They'd have happily talked all night too. I ended up blowing some low notes than a pedal tone or two and it was, She: We'd better get going!

I called it quits at a few minutes after 8 and got onto the 8:30 train back to San Jose and once back at the Whole Foods there I set up to busk some more. The late-night people are generous, I reasoned to myself. 

I got to do more work on new songs but in the 45 minutes or so, I only made another $2, it was that dead. At least I worked more on "Summertime" and "My Favorite Things" and since I read the Wikipedia on the movie "Blue Velvet" I'm starting to work on that one too. 

The ride home was very peaceful, and I noted that in the houses, almost all had no lights on because in San Jose, 10 at night is the equivalent of 1 in the morning anywhere else. Most people will have gone to bed at 9. 

All in all, my busking income amounted to $96 for the weekend, and that was only playing two days. And even after putting $20 on my clipper card and buying a bag of macadamia nuts at Whole Foods, I've got $66 in my pocket. 

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