sI sit at Starbucks with less than a half hour to post; adhering to me regular schedule of late.
Yesterday, Sunday, I went out late in the evening.
It was almost midnight when I started to play at the Lilly Pad.
It was the typical Sunday night traffic.
The Royal Street musicians had been shutting down and packing up as I passed them along my way to the spot.
I had decided that I was just going to put in a few hours; come what may.
Stoker was surprised to hear that I "specialized" in Grateful Dead music; when the topic of music came up in our brief conversation, as he was packing up and complaining about the brief life that his Traynor amplifier had enjoyed; as it is crapping out already after 3 months of use. "Garbage from China that you buy and then have to send back 3 months later..." he said of it.
He expressed a desire to jam, based ostensibly upon our mutual love of Grateful Dead music; but possibly because the rumor of my having been tipped 145 dollars by one couple alone had reached his ears.
My purpose in relating that story was at least three fold.
I wanted the reassurance from all that what I had done was not skeezy, when I feigned to need to use a restroom and then disappeared out of the back door of Lafitts with the money.
Another was to put my local friends on alert to the danger that I may have subjected myself to, which was palpable that night, but a source of amusement in the light of the next day.
But, along with the reassurances and advice and opinions of my fellow buskers on the matter, was the placing of the seed in their minds: "145 bucks from just one couple, eh, where exactly did you say your spot was?" in the minds of some of them; possibly to include Stoker.
I played for just a bit over an hour for about 10 bucks; but was happy with it.
I had forgotten the tip jar and so had placed my seed money underneath the tiposaurus which sat atop it, next to its sign which assures people that it "rarely bites," and it was good to see people actually endure the exertion of bending down to lift the plastic figure and place the money underneath it.
The fact that some placed the money under a foot, others under the tail, and of course the one who stuffed a bill in its mouth (as one always seems to do) assured me that the concept of the tiposaurus had been grasped; and that I was being tipped in good nature. And made it feel like the nightmare of the past few days was over. Maybe only Americans "get" the tiposaurs.
Yesterday, Sunday, I went out late in the evening.
It was almost midnight when I started to play at the Lilly Pad.
It was the typical Sunday night traffic.
The Royal Street musicians had been shutting down and packing up as I passed them along my way to the spot.
I had decided that I was just going to put in a few hours; come what may.
Stoker was surprised to hear that I "specialized" in Grateful Dead music; when the topic of music came up in our brief conversation, as he was packing up and complaining about the brief life that his Traynor amplifier had enjoyed; as it is crapping out already after 3 months of use. "Garbage from China that you buy and then have to send back 3 months later..." he said of it.
He expressed a desire to jam, based ostensibly upon our mutual love of Grateful Dead music; but possibly because the rumor of my having been tipped 145 dollars by one couple alone had reached his ears.
My purpose in relating that story was at least three fold.
I wanted the reassurance from all that what I had done was not skeezy, when I feigned to need to use a restroom and then disappeared out of the back door of Lafitts with the money.
Another was to put my local friends on alert to the danger that I may have subjected myself to, which was palpable that night, but a source of amusement in the light of the next day.
But, along with the reassurances and advice and opinions of my fellow buskers on the matter, was the placing of the seed in their minds: "145 bucks from just one couple, eh, where exactly did you say your spot was?" in the minds of some of them; possibly to include Stoker.
I played for just a bit over an hour for about 10 bucks; but was happy with it.
I had forgotten the tip jar and so had placed my seed money underneath the tiposaurus which sat atop it, next to its sign which assures people that it "rarely bites," and it was good to see people actually endure the exertion of bending down to lift the plastic figure and place the money underneath it.
The fact that some placed the money under a foot, others under the tail, and of course the one who stuffed a bill in its mouth (as one always seems to do) assured me that the concept of the tiposaurus had been grasped; and that I was being tipped in good nature. And made it feel like the nightmare of the past few days was over. Maybe only Americans "get" the tiposaurs.
I kind of liked the little Sharks circling you tip jar too, where I am the local hockey team is called the Sharks, so that would go over well here.
ReplyDeleteWhat you might do, is in keeping with my recommendation of using bicycle light technology, is put one of those blinking red led lights inside the tiposaurus so there's blinking red light coming from its mouth...
Yeah, if and when I move to daytime playing on Royal Street (and then the Lilly Pad after 9 PM) I would like to have a huge Rolodex; the size of an artist's easel; which would have about 40 songs that I could flip through, with "now playing" at the top, like jukeboxes do, and a photo and brief description of the artist and maybe how high the song made it on the charts, etc. maybe one line from the song quoted, like "Take your protein pills and put your helmet on."
ReplyDelete