ot--busking tip

[Nanohedron]

Sorry about your hand, Jim! I hope you heal up fast.

Thanks for the tip. Your story illustrates why I've been reluctant to busk. I wouldn't mind doing it for no money, but I figure that there will always be someone who wants to give it anyway. It would be ungracious to refuse, I think. The last time I busked was at a public park, and my immediate audiences were four: a couple of fascinated squirrels, a couple in love who lounged nearby with some white wine and the appropriate wineglasses for it (illegal, but I won't turn them in ), a party of homeless men who insisted on talking to me and asking for cigarettes and money (!) while I played, and a poor fellow with apparent mental problems who sat at a picnic table one remove from me and ranted at me about what I can't recall (UFOs or something), but suffice it to say that the last two were very unpleasant for me.

When I'm out walking, I'm on my own, and I don't mind that. I can handle myself. However, performing handicaps one in a way, and there lies my misgivings. Maybe the answer is to have a busking partner or two. I still would like to go about busking.

(Edited to correct for a tautology. Whatever.)

[allezlesbleus]

I'm sure there are many who just want to run around in costumes and shoot guns.

I think you just may be on to something there, Rando... :roll:

The anti-thief busking system could be as simple as using a Village Smithy from Serpent, anyone tries to make off with your breads all you have to do is crack them upside the head!

[Nanohedron]

It just occurred to me that another measure might be to hire a goon to mind the jar and glower menacingly at my adoring public.

Can't afford that. What an image, though!

[Flyingcursor]

when they shot them at each other,
and here at last was the
real thing and it was obscene.

As an ex-EMT guy I have seen my share of the results of such violence. When I lived in Dallas as a kid we lived in an apartment building where there were weekly stabbings, fights, shootings etc. It's anything but "glorious".

[jim stone]

I'm fine now. I make money busking.

The street is weird, of course. Usually I'm
with at least one other person, Charles,
who is the world's best street performer
because he can project his personality
through a concrete wall. Sometimes I'm
alone. It can be odd and discouraging
and often pretty exhilirating; virtually
always exhausting--we don't stop for
heat or cold. Also we have another banjo player,
sometimes. Maybe a fiddler, but
rarely. Most of our clients are
children; we invite them to play the banjo,
we have a pick for them. Charles plays
the chords, the child strums, and we
sing Jessie James or Mama Don't Allow
No Banjo Playing Round Here. Usually
the parents put a dollar in the jar.
Other kids dance. They're lovely.
I'm afraid this puts the kabosh on the
German Shepherd.

The way to avoid rip offs is to have
very little in the jar.

Busking on the street is nitty gritty real--it's good
for me spiritually. Kindof my church.
All kinds of things happen and I'm in the
middle of them. Just another grain of sand on
the beach. I'm nobody, playing for tips.
At our usual venue, the
farmers market, lots of folks from Africa, the middle
east, flowing robes, you name it.
Reminds me of what life was like in
India. I often slept on the street.
Also people really like us--though there has been
occasonal abuse from weirdo vegetable vendors.

In Rudyard Kipling's Kim, the best book ever
writeen about India, Kim comes out of a railway
station into a crowded city and is struck by the
fact that he is one of millions. 'Who is Kim?'
he asks himself and begins to lose his identity.
When he opens his eyes there is a wandering
holyman standing in front of him looking
at him. 'Yes, I used to do that, too' the holyman
says, 'but that way is closed to me now.'

Well, it's there if you busk.

[brad maloney]

I haven't busked in a while, but I used to. The water tip sounds great, if only for the fact that a thief wouldn't take wet money.

The "leave nothing but one dollar in your hat" is utter BS & should be avoided. If you have to little money some people will take pity, but kind souls are rarer than bandwagon souls who will give you money cause everyone else is doing it. This could be a regional thing though, but it seems to go with human nature. Funny enough the only people I've heard say that are people who haven't busked often. Plus if they see you pulling money out of your hat & hiding it in your back pocket they'll know what your up to anyway.

The best tip I can give is get a high traffic location during some kind of event. Get a license if you need one, remember some people do this to put food in their bellies & a roof over their heads.

Also remember that even though your glorifying it by calling it busking it's still a form of panhandling. Mind yourself; keep notice of police, other buskers, panhandlers, vendors. Any lowlife folks that might try to take your jar. Don't get in trouble! you're bordering on the shady side when you busk.

[DazedinLA]

Sorry you ran into trouble and I'm glad you're feeling better.

This year I will try to go to the annual Civil War reenactment of the Brooksville Raid here in southwest Florida. I've heard that each year hundreds upon hundreds of Confederate reenactors in full regalia with banners flying mass against a much smaller (i.e. pathetic) clump of bluecoats...lots of impressive troop formation movements and gunfire and charges and stuff, and many enactors, blue and grey, apparently simulate their dramatic but glorious demise on the field of battle.

All this is in stark contract to the actual raid...several hundred Union troops landed, ransacked some local farms, and left. The local confederate forces tried unsuccessfully to band together and organize some resistance, but the only shots fired, and the only casualty suffered, was Confederate friendly fire when one confederate volunteer accidentally shot and lightly wounded his own son.

Reenactment organizers acknowledge the historical inaccuracies of the current reenactment, but have said its all in good fun and that it is more important to give people an opportunity to see historical reenactments and to have a tangible way to celebrate their heritage.

Yeah. Well, if they dont mind bending the rules a wee bit that way, then I guess they wont mind me bringing my trombone to play a few tunes around the campfire....

[Jerry Freeman]

Busking on the street is nitty gritty real--it's good
for me spiritually. Kindof my church.
All kinds of things happen and I'm in the
middle of them. Just another grain of sand on
the beach. I'm nobody, playing for tips.

I can relate to this, Jim, but through a different activity.

I spend my days buying, renovating and selling used mobile homes. Not a glamorous occupation by any means, but it's what the market in this economically depressed rural area will support, and I have to put food on the table.

I routinely find myself doing dirty, physically demanding work in uncomfortable circumstances. There's something about that kind of work, done by necessity and not by choice, that is inwardly cleansing. It takes me back to the basic fact that I'm just a human being like all other human beings.

On the other hand, here and there are gems of humanity that can be found in the dust if one has one's eyes open to notice them.

Lorenzo commented in an email that Confucius "tried to be a little of everything so he could identify with everyone."

My favorite passage from the Upanishads (Brihadaranyika, I think) tells of two flamingos (they have names in the text, but I don't remember them) who were flying over a kingdom.

One flamingo says, "Ho, short sighted one! Did you know that in this kingdom, there is a cart bearer named Raikva, and he is a knower of Brahman. Whatever meritorius act is done in the kingdom, the merit accruing from the act, accrues to the doer of the act, and it also accrues to Raikva, because he is a knower of Brahman."

The king, who was clairvoyant, overheard this and assembled his ministers, telling them, "Go, and find Raikva."

They scoured the kingdom and returned, telling the king, "He is not to be found."

The king replied, "Search for him where knowers of Brahman are to be found."

They went out again and this time they found Raikva, lying in the dust under his cart, "scratching an itch" (some translations say "skin disease").

I think the point is, great souls don't necessarily seek out impressive surroundings, and may in fact, disappear into the humdrum of life, only to be noticed by a very few, alert watchers.

When I was in high school, we read The Razor's Edge, by W. Sommeret Maugham. If I remember correctly, the protagonist went to the Orient in search of insight. The narrator of the story looses track of him and wonders what has become of him when, at the end of the book, he happens unexpectedly to find the protagonist, driving a taxi in the city, wearing a look of sublime peace.

Best wishes,
Jerry

[Ridseard]

Jerry's post reminds me of a story about Jesus in Matthew 18. Jesus' disciples ask him who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. Jesus calls a little child to come over, and says, "Whoever humbles himself like this child, he is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven."

Hermann Hesse's novel _The Journey to the East_ is also about this seeming paradox.

[madguy]

Ridseard, if I had met a person with your philosophical outlook when I lived in Wilmington, NC, I may never have left the Tarheel state!

~Larry

[Ridseard]

Reenactment organizers acknowledge the historical inaccuracies of the current reenactment, but have said its all in good fun and that it is more important to give people an opportunity to see historical reenactments and to have a tangible way to celebrate their heritage.

I guess I didn't fully realize the horror of that war until I visited Vicksburg National Cemetary, where 17,000 Union soldiers lie buried. Now Civil War reenactments aren't "good fun" for me anymore.

[Ridseard]

Ridseard, if I had met a person with your philosophical outlook when I lived in Wilmington, NC, I may never have left the Tarheel state!

Thanks. I came back after being away for about 20 years. Come on back and try Raleigh or Asheville, where there are more things to do than in Wilmington.

[madguy]

Our ninth grade class trip, an annual event at our junior high school, was to Gettysburgh. We were "treated" to the day by day battles of that horrific battle, but it never hit home to me how absolutely terrifying and awful it actually was untill I saw Ken Burns documentary of The Civil War.

What's always struck me the most about that horrible period of this country's history, was the one battle where families actually watched the fighting while having a picnic lunch. Was it Antietam (Bull's Run)?

~Larry

[DazedinLA]

Our ninth grade class trip, an annual event at our junior high school, was to Gettysburgh. We were "treated" to the day by day battles of that horrific battle, but it never hit home to me how absolutely terrifying and awful it actually was untill I saw Ken Burns documentary of The Civil War.

What's always struck me the most about that horrible period of this country's history, was the one battle where families actually watched the fighting while having a picnic lunch. Was it Antietam (Bull's Run)?

~Larry

I think this is alternately known as "First Manassas" or "Bull Run". If memory of subliminal learing with the History channel on while asleep on the couch, many Nortnern civilian spectators congregated on a hill overlooking the battle site, expecting to see the rebels get crushed...they were caught in the confusion when the Union troops were routed. Few pictures remain because the photographers had to flee and leave all of their equipment behind.

[madguy]

Thanks, Dazed, for the correction to my memory!

~Larry