STAGE VERSUS STREET: BANDS SUCK -- BUSKERS RULE

MY BANFF SELFIE

In my last blog post I referred to my having a minor surgery on my left shoulder; today I had another surgery for the same shoulder.  The first surgery was a biopsy, the second one to remove my basal cell carcinoma, the most frequently occurring form of skin cancer (not to worry, the operation was a success).  Initially the pearly reddish patch on my left shoulder was finally brought to my real attention on a bike ride with my friend, Chris.  

“You’d better get that checked out,” she said, “it is likely skin cancer and it goes really, really deep under the surface.”  Chris was smiling and joking when she said this.

Hmmm … Feeling a bit unnerved with her comment I got my spot checked out the very next week.  It was diagnosed as cancer and caught early enough that I can now refer to myself as a cancer survivor.    

When I was 13 years of age while riding a horse across Notekeu Creek I was shot in the right shoulder with a 22 rifle by some boys shooting frogs along the creek bank (see my blog posting, BOY 13 SHOT IN SHOULDER: AN ESSAY ON A REAL BUSKEROO, Saturday, March 24^th, 2012).  I still have the scar from when the doctor cut out the bullet.  With this latest surgery I now have a similar looking scar on my left shoulder, and so here is my new tagline: 

I TOOK A BULLET IN MY RIGHT SHOULDER AND DODGED A BULLET IN MY LEFT!

Enough of this pity and proud introduction -- today my essay is that of being a band member contrasted to that of being a busker.  I’ll start with a couple of stereotypes:  Band members are those shiny people on stage with baditude issues and Buskers are those lonely unpolished bards who are in search of a band.

Band members are those shiny people on stage with baditude issues:

And this stereotype is not-so-strangely sort of true.  It takes a lot of jam to strum and play on a bar stage and because most, if not all of the audience members, are drinking booze resulting in some of the bar patrons looking at the band members through their seductive liquor goggles. Hmmm … and more the confident a performer gets strumming and strutting on stage, the more cocky and cavalier one becomes.  (And if you don’t believe me -- just ask me.)

Buskers are those lonely unpolished bards who are in search of a band:

I’ve been in bands and I am a busker and I cannot count the number of times someone has suggested I team up with so-and-so because so-and-so is also a busker and together we’d make a great band. And why would a busker prefer the street to a stage, prefer to be perceived among dregs rather than a shiny chick magnets?  Here are the reasons why:

• PICKING THE BAND

Finding suitable band mates is a chore.  Friends are usually the first pool of players to choose from when forming a band.  The second pool comes from the music community of which you are most familiar.  Once the players are picked then each of the individual personalities has to be reckoned with on a continuing basis.  Most bands I’ve been involved with seem to thrive on egotistical drama and is incumbent upon all of the members to keep band-centered rather than ego-centered.  This is the main cause of bands breaking up.

ZEROTH.  This is the number of band mates you need to be a busker.  With zero band mates there is never an issue of collective social drama.  Buskers can be egocentric and not miss a street beat. 

With busking you just pick yourself for a solitary and totalitarian enterprise, no screening or auditions necessary.

• PICKING THE EQUIPMENT

YIKES.  Bands need lots – buskers need little.  Bands that perform live need equipment, microphones, amplifiers, monitors, and the technical list is actually endless.  Guitar buskers need only a guitar and a singing voice, though the singing is optional.

Bands need to be with-it -- buskers need to be without.  This need is in terms of every regard from equipment to marketing.

• PERFECT PRACTICE MAKES PERFECT PERFORMANCE

Bands have to practice to get their songs tight.  Most bands that offer solid performances practice at least once a week; whereas, buskers play loose and, in fact, get paid to practice.  For buskers, every busking occasion is a paid practice.

For a band to practice at least once a week demands quite a commitment of its members.  The more members a band has, the more frustrating it is the keep the collective committed to the practice schedules.  For a band, perfect practice means near perfect performance.  For bands, the rehearsals are like the real thing.

• DECISIONS DECISIONS

Most bands play covers to appeal to their audiences, but once in a while an original song is squawked out during a set.  There are several sublimated singer-songwriters on any given band stage. 

Buskers, on the other hand, play and sing whatever they want whenever moment they want.  Bands play according to script – buskers play according to heart.

• THE LOOK

Every band needs a certain look.  Some bands are in costume, and for others, their look is being out-of-costume.  I remember being in the band, Sharie and the Shades.  In that band we all wore black shirts with blue jeans.  Strangely, I carried on that practice for years later.  Whenever I was on a stage strumming and singing I always wore blue jeans and a black shirt.  Now I always wear jeans and usually a white shirt.  Over the past couple decades it has seemed always to me to be, literally, either black or white. 

Factoid:  My buddy Devon and self are playing at the COPPER KETTLE tomorrow night.  We’ll both be wearing jeans (this is not planned but in any duo performance previous with Devon he has always wore jeans) and both us will be in a long-sleeved shirt.  (Mine will be white and knowing Devon from previous gigs, his will be darker.)  Whatever garb Devon is donning, we will present as crisp looking when we perform.

Buskers can look crisp or sloppy – As long as they’re clean, nobody cares.

• MEMBER RESPONSIBILITIES

Who ought to be doing what is always a concern for a band.  The band manager, who is usually an active band member, should assign specific duties to each of the other band members.  Typically the band manager does the bookings; whereas the duties of set-ups and sound-checks should be assigned to others.  All individual equipment should be lugged by the members who use it.  I’ve been in several bands and it seems that other than show and shoulder their own equipment, most band members roll along with a not-my-job attitude.   

Band members, for the most part, do not appreciate their manager’s labour and stress involved in booking gigs.  Unfortunately this minimum- effort- for- maximum -gain attitude seems prevalent in band and most other communities.  (I, myself, seem to suffer this same malady line.)

Band members tend to be like house cats prowling out-of-door for the evenings.  Bands haunt the same hunting grounds time and again, playing in familiar bars in familiar cities and towns.

Buskers, on the other hand, tend to be wildcatters, showing off their wares in the most obscure and experimental settings.

Both bands and buskers are driven by mercenary adventure and endeavor, and this is just one of many comparisons (even though this essay in on their contrasts). 

Bands are fragile – buskers are forever (or at least as long as the shelf life for any particular busker).

Admittedly the camaraderie among band mates cannot be replicated being a busker on the street.  The camaraderie of being in a band is most certainly endearing.  I love all my band-mates, those that were and those that still are.  But saying thus, camaraderie can most certainly be attained in other areas of anyone’s life, other hobbies for example.  I must mention that for me THERE IS NO BETTER CAMARADERIE than being a band member in this regard.

As a busker, between consumers I am allowed a hundred Walter Mitty moments within my self-initialized time frame. 

Factoid:  On occasion I have daydreamed through my whole busking time.

Any such Walter Mitty moments on a stage can only drift into performance disaster.  Every band member during every song has to stay focused, because each player is reliant upon the other members to play their instruments according to their practiced scripts.  A song on a stage shared among band mates is truly a trapeze act; whereas safety nets and member supports are never necessary for buskers.

BANDS ARE LIKE THE TRAPEZE -- 
BUSKERS ARE LIKE THE TIGHT ROPE.   

My CHAUCERIAN PARADE members marching today:

A MURDER OF CROWS AT THE START OF MY HILL EARLY THIS MORNING

 

A COUPLE BUSY BEAVERS AT THE END OF MY HILL RUN

THE HOCKEY TEAM I CAPTURED IN MY SELFIE (AT THE TOP) ... MY GHOST IS IN THE CLOUD

ON THE ROAD TO HAPPINESS: A BUSKER'S OCTONARY TALE OF ADVENTURE

WASCANA LAKE READER

I had a slight surgery on my left shoulder and therefore have not been able to sling my guitar all this week!  Next week I should be good to go.  I’m packing for my hiking to British Columbia, Canada.  It’s a two day drive to my first trail head at Kamloops and my shoulder should be healed enough by then.

Today my rant is an ARGY PARGY generally examining eight significant areas in anyone’s life (education, locale, work, friends, partners, exercise, recreation, and health) that supposedly lead down the road to HAPPINESS.  I am employing the road metaphor because of its sense of adventure, and the stranger-comes-to-town theme.  And being a busker I fancy myself as that stranger-comes-to-town.

• EDUCATION

After graduating Grade 12 I really did not have enough (actually not any) money to go to university, but after more than a few years of working pipelines, I knew I needed an academic ticket in something and I knew I’d have to get the money from somewhere.  Hip-hip hurrah for Canada Student Loans!

As an undergraduate I was an English major, taking 13 classes in English Literature.  As a graduate student I was a Psychology major, completing my Masters in Educational Psychology.  English Literature, for the most part, purports to be fiction; whereas, Psychology purports to be non-fiction.   

And here is what I’ve garnered from the two disciplines:  Both subjects have the same themes, that of the human condition.  And furthermore, oftentimes I cannot distinguish between fiction and non-fiction and saying thus, it doesn’t really make any difference in my life not to be able to do so.  I mean really … I am a Hypnotherapist who takes clients from reality to imaginary and then back to reality in every single session.

The learned know the rules – the wise know the exceptions. Education really does bring one from the darkness into the light.  Up until about a year ago my barber was a lady named Janice.  During my last haircut Janice mentioned that she sure would be glad when “Obama was gone.”  Not paying too much attention I asked her why.  “Because he’s a Muslim,” she said.  Hmmm … I was thinking … “Do I get up in the middle of my haircut and leave?  Or do I endure this chit-chat until my cut is complete?”  I did stay until she finished my haircut, paid her kindly, and have never been back.   I could have not been so cowardly and prompted some sort of discourse on the topic but being I was in a barbershop I decided not to press the issue.  I played nice and simply walked away.

Factoid:  Most students go to school on a regular basis and most pass their classes and this behavior carries on through post-secondary institutes as well.  However, just because students graduate from high schools and universities does not mean that they believe in equality.  It does not necessarily mean they are not ridiculously racist or prejudiced just because they have a diploma or a degree.  Saying thus, Education is the movement from darkness to light (Allan Bloom).  Education, though slow, is still a key to unlocking the door to happiness.

Back to busking:  A busker need not have a formal education to be successful.  I mean, really, how much academic training is necessary to stand on a city sidewalk and strum without prejudice.  Typically, I believe buskers represent that romantic notion of traveling from place to place, totally accepting people from all walks, totally accepting coin and conversation from anyone.

• LOCALE

Where you are is where it’s at.  I remember reading this line from a 70’s ski poster.  I love downhill skiing but live on the Canadian Prairies.  Twice a year I’ve ski the Rockies, and the rest of the winter I’m skiing at Mission Ridge, a local hill with swoosh runs just outside my city in the Qu’Appelle Valley.  I used to resent this not being able to ski the mountains until I read this poster.  The message in this poster motivated me for a shift in focus, the common sense that I should enjoy the local ski run and appreciate what skills I can gain from skiing there.

Moving locales seems a feat of derring-do, especially if the only reason is to ski. Moving is a major stress and, in fact, listed as third, following Death (#1) and Divorce (#2) as the worst stresses in life.

Factoid:  Most people die within one hundred miles of where they were born.  This strange but true factoid is because of routine and familiarity and opportunity.

Being a busker means to follow the sun.  Following the sun is a mercenary endeavor.  Consumers are more munificent in sunshine and warm wind than in cold climes and chilly wind.  The planetary busker will not likely die within one hundred miles of home.  (Where the planetary busker is buried is another matter.)

• WORK

A job isn’t just a job.  A job is who you are.  This is from a behavior perspective. Yes, yes, I know I know, the conventional wisdom has suggested that humans are independent of their behaviors; he’s a good person just doing bad things for example.  But flip the coin; he’s a bad person doing good things?  None of this works for me.  I believe we are completely defined by our behavior, a job being catalogued as a behavior. To me such a descriptor is simple, simple: When you do good things you’re a good person; when you do bad things you’re a bad person. 

Most people moil at work because most people’s jobs become rather perfunctory and boring, boring, and boring.  There’s an easy cure for boring.  Don’t maunder.  Discover your niche go from there.  Don’t count the days – make the days count (Muhammed Ali).

Factoid:  Busking is seldom boring.  Though for the most part predictable, whenever I am busking I never really know who I am going to meet or what is really going to happen.  This could be said about anyone in a workplace, but the likelihood of unpredictable adventure will be more prevalent on the roads to everywhere rather than being stationary in a business office or at a job site.

• FRIENDS

A good friend will help you move, but a true friend will help you move a body (Steven J. Daniels).  True friends will do anything for one another.
If you can, avoid having nudniks for friends.  Friends should enhance one, not reduce one.  Druggies hang out with druggies, racists hang out with racists, and sexists hang out with sexists.  Even if you’re not one, hanging around with one will socially bracket you as being one.

Factoid:  I’ve only a few friends, some from the guitar community which includes buskers, some from my workplace who I’ve known for a long time, and some who are like family who join me for Thanksgiving and Christmas.  Friendships and sociability are important in anyone’s general well-being.  We (humans) are featherless and gregarious creatures (so said Sam Keen) who love the aspect of community.  Very few of us thrive as scriveners in the back rooms of libraries, or guiding ships from a perch high atop the waves in light houses.

Global buskers must have a community of planetary friends.  A busker meeting such friends can only do so while in the act of busking in a foreign land. 

• PARTNERS

One madcap decision can lead to a life of misery.  Fortunately we tend to follow the Western model of courtship before making major choices for our life partners.  Any pop Psychology mag will point out ways to pick a potential mate.  Are they valuable?  Hmmm … maybe they are.  However, with the old vis-à-vis meeting people in the bar routine and now the internet, qualitative people skills are not to be undervalued when choosing a mate.  Most people do not quantify such a task adhering to a prescribed psychological check-list.

Committing to a partnership is a really big deal. Use your head and trust your heart.  Buskers need mates who are willing to let them strum around as free spirits

• EXERCISE

Take care of your body.  It is the only place you have to live (Jim Rohn).
Most people do not exercise, and being in shape, I know, is relative.  When I’m in the weight room (Gold’s Gym) the people alongside me are generally in really good shape, fit as a fiddle for sure!  At least they seem so from an observational stand point.  In fact, most of the members who frequent the Gold’s Gym where I exercise appear to be muscle magazine-ready physical specimens.  When I was a member of the university gym it was the same.  Most people there, too, were emergent adult hunks.

But one has to put these samples into an overall and general perspective.  Compared to one hundred people my age on the street, I am a physical specimen.  This is because most people my age (or any age for that matter) are NOT gym members.  Now take a one hundred sample people who frequent the gym.  Of those, I would be bracketed somewhere in the middle.  Comparatively, in the gym I am not so shiny a specimen as I am on the street.  On the street I am likely in the 90^th or above percentile; whereas, in the gym I’m likely in the 50^th.

Saying thus, I’m a martinet when it comes to physical work-outs.  I run on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Sundays; I lift weight Tuesdays, Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays.  I am pretty rigid sticking to this routine.

Factoid:  I need to be in decent physical shape when I busk.  Ideally I stand for between 60 and 90 minutes at a time and certainly have the stamina and strength to do this.  If I were not in the 90^th percentile of being physically fit amongst the masses, I doubt I could do this without considerable effort.

(Factoid:  I need to be in shape when I hike.  Hiking has been a lifelong recreation of mine.  Hiking is right along there with Hockey and Busking.)

• RECREATION

Recreation is relaxation.   Recreation could be synonymous with EXERCISE but not in my case.  For recreation I ride my bike, shoot nine-ball, and play gigs.  Also for recreation I play pond hockey in winter, hike in spring, summer, and fall, and go busking in summer.  Recreational activities should not be scribbled in marginalia; one’s recreational activites really ought to be a life theme.

• HEALTH

It is health that is real wealth and not pieces of gold and silver (Mahatma Ghandi).

There is no Annie Oakley ticket to GOOD HEALTH.  Most people seemingly stay in reasonable health until middle age.  Getting to middle age is easy, getting through middle age in good health is difficult.  In fact, the middle-aged are the most unhappiest and anxious of all the age groups.   (People 65 and over are the happiest.) 

Factoid:  the longer you live the more likely you are going to be afflicted with something. 

Another factoid:  The Past is your lesson.  The Present is your gift.  The Future is your motivation.  It’s never too late to improve your health. 

ALL OF THE ABOVE WHEN BEING FULFILLED LEAD TO HAPPINESS.

To get to Happiness there are always challenges and therefore decisions.  Abe Lincoln said “Most folks are usually about as happy as they make their minds up to be.”  I think he was right.

I know people that seem to be always happy and I know people that seem to be always grumpy.  The more I read and the older I get, I do believe that happiness is truly a state of mind and that’s that.  When we can control our perspective on life events, we can create our own happiness.

Factoid:  Oftentimes it’s the negative experiences that help us grow and learn which is vital for being happy (Sonja Lyubomirsky, Psychology Professor University of California).

HAPPINESS … NOTHING WORTH HAVING COMES EASY.  Take my hiking habit for example.  Mountain hiking is a potentially dangerous activity that can result in injury or death.  Mountain hikers should always take emergency equipment (a map and bear spray) and should never take a trail beyond their physical and mental abilities.  These lines (or similar to) are published in every brochure on every mountain hiking map. 

My busking, on the other hand, is a temporary physically and mentally removal from my everyday work-time reality, a removal from the same people, same stories, and the same ol’ middle-class lifestyle.  Busking is safe, safe, safe, compared to mountain hiking.

Keep in mind that even though this is the case, the busker road of adventure is still no short cut to happiness.  Be it Education, Locale, Work, Friends, Partners, Exercise, Recreation, or Health …  

NOTHING WORTH HAVING COMES EASY.  

My CHAUCERIAN PARADE for this week:

EASY RIDER, NATALIE

TOTEM POLE AT BUTCHART GARDENS (SENT FROM EASY RIDER, NATALIE)

GOOD EARTH COFFEE (REGINA)

WASCANA PADDLEBOARDERS AT SUNSET

LIVING LONGER AND STRONGER: A PENTAGONAL PLAN

It is what it is.  

Though it is summer the weather seems not yet to be in my busking favor.  This morning I’ve been for a run in the mud in the rain on the hill and now I’m woolgathering (again) and writing my blog.

Fitness is one of my usual introspective themes.  This is one of the reasons why I run the hills, to keep fit.  But why do I want to keep fit?  I want to keep fit because I love to busk.  Being fit is all about me being a busker.

It is what it is.

But being a busker is not the be-all-end-all.  My fitness regimen is just part of a bigger picture … that of me living my whole life in productive fashion.  I’ve only one body and I decided long ago to take care of it. 

Every morning I rise at 5:00 A.M., make myself an Americano, sip and read in the following order:  THE HUFFINGTON POST, AL JAZEERA NEWS, and the latest blogs from PSYCHOLOGY TODAY.  (The frame for this particular blog entry about taking care my body is from 5 LESSONS WE CAN LEARN FROM THOSE LIVING IN THE BLUE ZONES (JENNA WOOTTON, 2016), is from PSYCHOLOGY TODAY.)

• FIND PURPOSE

Purportedly, people who have a greater sense of purpose and direction in their lives than that of their peers are more likely to outlive their peers.  Hmmm … I rather doubt the purpose in my life should be to outlive my peers, but saying thus, I’m convinced that my greater sense of purpose must be somewhere to the right of center on the selfish-to-selfless linear continuum.

Hmmm … finding purpose for a busker … I could rant that I am supplying song for the world but that seems corny.  I could rant that when I busk in Regina, Canada I do so for the SCHIZOPHRENIA SOCIETY OF SASKATCHEWAN (SSS), and seems quite altruistic.  The truth about busking on behalf of the SSS is that its win-win (sort of).  Really I am busking to pay myself for pro-bono services that I offer to clients referred by the SSS.

However, saying thus, I am a busking aficionado – I do, after all, fancy myself as being an international buskologist. 

• TAKE A NAP

Midday naps are associated with reduced blood pressure levels.  Snooze and you win, rather than snooze and you lose.  I never nap.  I know I should nap but I don’t.  Factoid:  If ever I took a noon nap, it would turn into an REM afternoon sleep.  It’s just the way I (my eyes) roll.  Factoid:  In my 65 years so far on this planet I’ve had two naps, two being a generous count.

Hmmm … when would a busker take a nap?  Without much thought, I could easily nap between peak busking hours.  My best hours are at noon, at suppertime, and early evening.  These are times the when the crowd comes out to shop. And where would I nap?  I live downtown and I busk downtown.  If I were so inclined napping would be easy peasy; I’d just walk home.  Factoid:  Whenever I’m on buskation I always stay at downtown hotels because I only busk in downtown areas.  Napping would be simple on any buskation.  Methinks that a nap could serve as a catharsis far from the madding crowds.   

• STAY ACTIVE

Hit the gym, hoe the garden, huff and puff more than a few times a week.  Exercise is the best!  I’m addicted to running, lifting weights, hiking, and bike riding.  (I used to be addicted to swimming until James Fixx came along!)  Even if you decide just to have evening strolls for your exercise, try it for thirty-one days and I can promise it will become your favorite evening routine (or at least your second favorite routine … wink, wink, nudge, nudge).

Hmmm … Being a busker means continually walking up and down city sidewalks.  Being a busker means carrying your gear, at least one guitar and sometimes a back pack.  Being a busker means standing for long periods; at least it does for me because I’m a stand-up busker.  Standing for 90 minutes at a time takes endurance.  I guess for the sake of practical argument, this walking and standing is exercise enough for ordinary mortals; however, for me my running and lifting simply prepare me for the long stands of busking.  Plucking each busking day in carpe diem fashion is much easier if one is fit. 

WE DO NOT STOP EXERCISING BECAUSE WE GROW OLD – WE GROW OLD BECAUSE WE STOP EXERCISING (Dr. Kenneth Cooper).

• EAT YOU FRUITS AND VEGGIES

It’s 2016!  Greens are in -- Cows are out.

The Mediterranean diet is the mother of all healthy diets.  A meat and potatoes diet is for those middle-age middle-class misadventurers with the big mid-sections.  One of my biggest fears is to be battened with a pot belly.  My delusional self still insists that though I am 65, I am still a rock solid specimen.

Hmmm … as my age increases I’m less of a carnivore.  I love to barbeque ITALIAN STAR sirloin burgers and that’s pretty much the meat I eat, save for the odd chicken and every couple weeks or so, a medium rare steak.  I’m with the Mediterranean program … I eat tons of vegetables.  I’m not a real fruit lover but I do eat an apple a day (to keep the doctor away).

• KEEP STRONG SOCIAL TIES

Don’t let work and wealth trump friendship.  Good friends are hard to come by.  Bestest friends are even harder to come by, maybe only once or twice or thrice in a lifetime (the first time being in early grade school and then next times being whenever you were falling in love).  I repeat:  Don’t let work and wealth trump friendship.  A life without friends is just a corporate American Augean stable.  Know this and you will prosper.

Hmmm … it’s always nice visiting with friends who stop and chat while I’m busking, but I must admit it is awkward at times.  Should friends be tossing coins into my guitar case?  I think not, and I even tell them so.  However, there are familiar strangers that are particular to my specific buskspots, who always stop and chat and toss coins my way.  I’ve no problem accepting money from familiar strangers.

And there you have it … my pentagonal plan for my productive well-being.

TAKE CARE OF YOUR BODY.   

IT’S THE ONLY PLACE YOU HAVE TO LIVE (Jim Rohn).   

Marching in my CHAUCERIAN PARADE this week:

DON DAWSON (HARD TO BELIEVE HE'S 76 YEARS OLD!) ... VICTORIA PLACE MANAGER

DOCTOR CONNOR, AT HIS GRAD, WITH GIRLFRIEND, KENDALL

NHL SCOUT, BRAD HORNUNG, AT CANADA DAY!

MY FRIEND, HEIDI, AT CANADA DAY

 

$150,000 METAL HEADDRESS (SENT FROM NATALIE ON HER MOTORBIKE TRIP)