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| A PROMO FOR MY LATEST BOOK (TO ORDER: CLICK ON MARGIN TO THE RIGHT) |
From my guitar-slinger perspective, nobody looked better on stage with a guitar than Kris Kristofferson, especially when he strummed along with Johnny and Waylon and Willie of The Highwaymen. Kris exuded cool.
Factoid: My busking style is fashioned after
the Kristofferson attire of a t-shirt, jeans, and work boots. Kris had the look and that look was cool. Whenever I go busking, I model my look after
Kris. But to look as cool as Kris takes considerable
labour. To look cool ain’t easy!
First, to
start I kinda look the part. My 6’1”
body type is somewhere between ectomorph and mesomorph. But to keep this look
takes a strict adherence to diet and exercise.
Early every morning I weigh myself.
Saying this is not to brag -- this is psychological issue with which I
am seemingly cursed. But I digress. When I hit the scale and it shows above 167
pounds, I freak out. Over course of the
day (pun intended), I eat nothing. And I
continue to eat nothing until my weight is at 167 or less. This is a fool's effort, but it works. It works to keep me as an ectomorph.
Moving
purposely toward mesomorphism, I adhere to weight training on my daily regimen. In the summertime busking
season, for me it has got to be “sun’s out, guns out.” Ever narcissistic, my physical look is very,
very necessary for looking good. This
may sound shallow, but I base my obsession on a debatable fact of the human
condition.
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| KRIS IN CONCERT |
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| MY KRIS-COPY SELF IN CONCERT |
Being an existentialist, I believe that our only purpose for being is to procreate and continue the species. And being narcissistic, I blame my thinking on evolutionary psychology. To continue the species, we biologically need to mate, and to attract a mate, it helps to look good. I go to the gym five times a week and lift weights not necessarily for improvement of my physical health. I go to the gym five times a week and lift weights not necessarily because I believe I need to be fit. I go to the gym fives times a week and lift weights for the principal purpose of looking good. Even though I know this sounds socially shallow, this is selfishly true. (I must stress to anyone reading this that I do not apply any form of inductive reasoning to assume my reasons for going to the gym are for those same reasons as others’. My reason belongs only to me, me, me, and I attribute this reason to no one other than me, me, me.)
Second, I
choose my costume according to what I believe are the accoutrements to my
looking good. Cap-a-pie I am usually
hatless, but wear the shades and a long-sleeved white shirt with a collar if
the sky is without clouds and the sun is shiny, shiny, and hot and if it is
noonish between eleven o’clock and one o’clock.
(Since my
bout with skin cancer a decade ago, I never overexpose my skin to the sun – I
have become the shadow man over the noon hour.
When I was younger, I always worked on road crews or pipelines and in
summer was always shirtless. As a young
adult I taught swimming for close to 20 years, most of the time at outdoor
pools. Teaching swimming, I was both shirtless
and trouserless, garbed in just swimming trunks and having a beach towel for a
body wrap.)
Before and
after those noon hours, early mornings, or early evenings, I doff the long
sleeve and don a tight white T-shirt. For pants I prefer Levi 501 jeans
(size 32-32), and for footwear, black or brown leather work boots.
Third, I
need the skill sets for playing and presenting. I need the technical skill set to play my
guitar with enough proficiency to busk, and I need social skill set to present
to potential consumers that I am a chatty and sociable kind of guy.
Strumming
and singing with a guitar on a downtown public sidewalk or on a speaker’s
corner in a public park takes practice, practice, practice. And to thrum those guitar strings whilst
blowing a blues harp takes even more practice.
Fortunately,
I am a wordsmith and I have had the good fortune, too, of sharing many a stage
with a huge assortment of fellow singer-songwriters. Having a resume of over a hundred bar gigs, I
can self-reflect upon my performance ability.
I know that my cowboy-chord guitar skills fall somewhere between that of
a virtuoso and a tyro, but more towards tyro to be truthful. And as an
extrovert, I know that my modus operandi has always been the ability to engage
in phatic chat with anyone at anytime, extemporaneous verbal exchanges especially
with those within my buskspot proximity.
Factoid: Thus, my finger
and mouth motor skills are a gift for my busker guitar strumming and gabbing.
Busking with
my twelve-string throughout redbrick communities in western Canada continues to
be the nidus for my love of busking. And over the years I have also plied my
art of busking outside of Canada, namely at The Dam in Amsterdam (The
Netherlands), on the streets of Limerick (Ireland), in the Temple Bar in Dublin
(Ireland), and also on the Jemaa el-Fna Square in Marrakech (Morocco). Proclaiming these faraway busking adventures
with éclat, I fancy myself as really being a planetary busker!
Marching in
my CHAUCERIAN PARADE this week are my memories of fellow buskers, Devon and Christian,
and my favorite bag lady, Angelina, all of whom being familiar strangers back in my busking days
one summer on the streets of Victoria, British Columbia, Canada.
Here is the
song that I wrote about my memories of these folk during that wonderful, wonderful summer! ENJOY!
SONG A BUSKER’S RHAPSODY
[INSTRUMENTAL CHORUS C Am F G … (X3) C
VERSE 1 C Em F G C
Up the street
is Devon
Who
thinks he’s Bobby Dylan
Noodling on his guitar
While blowing out his blues harp
[INSTRUMENTAL CHORUS]
VERSE 2 C Em F G C
Down the street is Christian
Who thinks he’s Ravi Shankar
Chain-smoking on the corner
Plucking on his sitar
Um hummm
[INSTRUMENTAL CHORUS]
VERSE 3 C Em F G C
Here comes Angelina
Who thinks she’s Ginger Rogers
Dancing ‘round her Safeway cart
Her beer breath on my folk art
Um hummm
[INSTRUMENTAL CHORUS]
VERSE 4 C Em F G C
Devon and Christian and Angelina
These folks are to me … my busker’s
rhapsody (X2)
Um hummm
